Category: American

A Sketch Gallery Experience

Although I have drunk a number of times at the very ritzy, interesting Sketch bar, I’m yet to eat there. The gallery restaurant sits in between the main foyer and the egg-shaped cocktail room (you need to visit the toilets for an interesting alien-like experience) and this is where we ate. There’s is a good reason I haven’t eaten at Sketch as well – because all of the art-themed decore and beautiful surroundings, the unique and its in-the-heart-of-Mayfair location definitely reflects in the prices you pay for the food and drink.

I believe the Sketch Gallery restaurant is the more casual of the two dining locations. The other being a more upmarket restaurant that holds a Michelin star although I don’t really know if it is more formal or fancy. I’m just guessing.

What’s fascinating about the Gallery restaurant is how everything is totally unique – and it’s the interesting attention to detail to ensure that nothing is repeated. The theme goes right all the way through, and I can appreciate the effort. Cutlery, drinking vessels, tables, chairs, all of them completely different. Even the salt and pepper shakers at each table are different.

You could argue this makes replacing broken or missing items much easier, but each item is still pretty high quality. Anyway, on to the food. Bread and butter doesn’t come for free, but at least it was pretty good quality. It really should at £4.

We started with two different dishes. I tried the Chantilly Lace: black rice, basmati rice, lobster bisque, red pepper, horseradish cream (£13). The allure of a good lobster bisque is something I can’t really resist and it was very well executed as well. I did find the double rice combination a bit strange, and would have preferred more bisque and less rice. Still very good.

The other starter was the Foie gras terrine, girolles in vinegar, cranberry chutney, quince paste and pistachio (£24).

The Poached, roasted and lacquered pork belly, crunchy red cabbage, salad was actually reasonable at £20, although I only had a small taste. The pork belly was tender, not too fatty and still full of flavour.

I had ordered the Roast wild venison saddle, and lemon purée, quince paste, shoulder of venison stew, Jerusalem artichokes (£30) and boy was it good. The venison stew was probably the best part of the entire dish although the venison saddle was cooked extremely well (rare!) and still very tender. I just love anything that is so soft, full of flavour and the stew was the perfect vehicle to carry all the other flavours.

We opted to try a couple of sides as well. The strangely sounding (and just as strangely tasting) gnocchi with green curry sauce (£5) and a stack of onion rings (£4) very well executed. Each ring perfectly crisp and a decent sized onion strip inside.

Although none of the desserts really jumped out at me, I figured I wouldn’t be back for a very long time, so it was worth trying something. Just like the main menu, it took me a while deliberating over the crazy choices. They all sounded so complicated and the result sounded quite confusing. In the end we asked for a couple of recommendations and ordered them. The one that I didn’t order, the Sketch Chocolat – Salted butter caramel, sacher sponge cake, guanaja chocolate mousse, orange ice cream. (£10) was probably the best. The orange ice cream by itself was one of the best parts.

I didn’t really want to order the same although that one appealed the most. Instead, I had the Cheese cake – Elderflower sponge cake, cheesecake cream, ‘bono’ shortbread, candied lemon, pear sorbet (£8.5), a lighter and more delicate dessert that was completely the opposite of what you think of when you are ordering a real cheesecake. It was still a very pleasing dessert, though not the best I’ve ever had.

Sketch Gallery is definitely best reserved for one of those special occasions. The price definitely adds up for the meal and that’s not even including the drinks that would add significantly more if you want to try all their amazing cocktails. Still, it was a great experience and I think that’s what they are all about.

Name: Sketch Gallery Restaurant
Found at: 9 conduit street, London W1S 2XG
Website: http://sketch.uk.com/

Pancakes

This last Tuesday gone was Shrove Tuesday or sometimes called Pancake Tuesday. We sort of cheated on the day – instead of making them, we simply went to The Delaunay for breakfast where they have some great pancakes at reasonable prices.

I’m a big fan of the American style fluffy cakes. German Pfannkuchen is quite often just as fluffy – often used in a regional food called Kaiserschmarrn. I like French crepes less as a pancake. Crepes are good – just not what I feel pancakes should be.

I realise I haven’t posted a pancake recipe on here, so to make amends. Ingredients for 2 people for a hearty breakfast:

  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Pancakes baking

Method::

  • Take three bowls. Mix the dry ingredients in one of them.
  • Separate the eggs into the other two bowls. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, add a bit of the sugar and keep beating until it’s stiff. This extra step ensures the pancakes remain light and fluffy.
  • Combine the rest of the wet ingredients with the egg yolks. Beat, and then gently fold into the dry. Fold the beaten egg whites in until just combined. You don’t want to overbeat the batter as this develops gluten and moves the pancake away from being a cake to more of a bread/dough consistency.
  • Melt some butter in a pan, pour batter on. Cook until bubbles appear, and then flip
  • Serve how you like. I prefer it the Canadian stack way – crispy bacon and maple syrup.

Pancakes cooking

Pancakes are certainly a good treat. They are definitely not your everyday food but they are good in so many different ways. Try putting nutella on as a topping. Lemon juice, with some dusting of sugar works very well as well. Blueberries, greek yogurt and honey add another dimension.

Canadian Stack

Enjoy!

Chipotle Pulled Pork

I’ve made only a handful of dishes in my slow cooker, and mostly that’s because I don’t want to leave it turned on at home whilst I’m at work. Inspired by the Heston recipe my flatmates brought home, I thought I’d make a pulled pork dish with some chipotle paste I had in the cupboard.

Ingredients

  • 1 chopped red onion
  • 2 pork loins (you can use pretty much anything but I wanted it to be a little bit leaner)
  • 1 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/2 tsp smoked salt
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 small bottle of chipotle paste
  • 1 bottle of tomato passata
  • 1/4 cup cider vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 10 ml Worcestershire sauce
  • 25g golden syrup

Method

  • Cut the loin into small rounds, and coat with the dry ingredients and the chipotle paste. Add the chopped garlic. Brown the pork off to caramelise some of the flavours
  • Brown the onion and add the onion to the slow cooker.
  • Add the pork and the rest of the wet ingredients.
  • Cook the pork in the slow cooker (I did it for about 4 hours)
  • Shred the pork and add it back in

One thing I realised that slow cookers aren’t good for is caramelising and thickening the sauce. The temperature never gets hot enough, so I think next time I would finish the dish off in a saucepan on the pan to really bring the sweetness and thickness to the BBQ sauce at the end.

Still turned out pretty good. I served this in a toasted ciabatta with freshly chopped coriander, salsa and a squeeze of lime juice. This is one dish I’ll definitely be making again.

Breakfast at Christopher’s

I’ve heard a lot of Christopher’s and although I had heard about it, didn’t realise where it was in Covent Garden, lot alone what sort of food it served. I met my Italian friends their for a Sunday brunch to catch up to see how they were.

Being Sunday, we decided to live a little and whilst others stood with the classic Bloody Mary, I took the opportunity to be efficient in the caffeine and the alcohol hit and go for the espresso martini. Well presented and with a double whammy of effect.

A “starter” of pancakes were ordered. They were pretty small after all and were pretty light and fluffy.

And then being quite gluttonous, going for a “main” of eggs benedict served with a hash brown. Both eggs perfectly poached, wonderfully citrusy hollandaise as it should and a bit more carb loading with a hash brown.

The atmosphere is very nice, and I have to admit I felt a little under dressed in the white-table clothed environments with just a jumper, t-shirt and jeans. Fortunately the service was just as wonderful and nothing really noted or observed.

Name: Christopher’s
Location: 18 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, London. WC2E 7DD
Website: http://www.christophersgrill.com/

Cafe Gratitude

Our cousin and her partner told us to go and try Cafe Gratitude for the proper west coast experience. It’s a vegan restaurant that offers all the dishes that make you feel powerful and homely. Their names are cleverly named to try to give you a boost to your esteem through positive reinforcement such as “I am Dazzling” or “I am Fulfilled”. It continues with pretty much any positive saying you could talk about. Beverages continue the theme with “I am Renewed”, “I am Healthy” and “I am Luscious” (one of their richer drinks).

The restaurant offers dining on communal tables and offer plenty of shelf ingredients to buy including a vegan cookbook to help you get started.

There’s also a bar area where you can sit at.

Goodness in a glass.

Here’s the “BLT” or the “I am Extraordinary” dish. The waitress puts it down stating, “You are extraordinary” and making sure that we have everything we need before leaving. Of course there is no bacon or mayonnaise in a dish like this. I’m not even sure if they used a tofu or mushroom substitute as I didn’t have that.

I opted for a warming chipotle squash soup. Our waitress gave us a bit to try and the kick in it made me want a full bowl. It was a very generous serving. Almost too much because I ordered the side of garlic bread for some texture.

A nice cafe and a restaurant and quite the West Coast experience. Probably not somewhere you want to take someone craving a steak.

Name: Cafe Gratitude
Found at: 2400 Harrison Street (@20th Street), San Francisco, CA 94110, United States
Website: http://cafegratitude.com/

Tartine San Francisco

Tartine is a well known institution in San Francisco where you need to queue and you need to come early. It’s well known for being a great bakery and with only a number of tables inside, you need to queue and watch like a hawk to get one on a first come first serve basis.

Just like the good citizens of the city, we queued just like everyone else. Things seemed to be move pretty fast although I’d recommend they had pictures of what they sold as well as their names so you got an idea about what you wanted before you got to ordering. Once at the counter where you can see into their case of decadent cakes and baked goods, the pressure is on for you to hurry up and order by the big number of people behind you.

I tried one of their morning buns in the hope for trying to get some cinnamon roll goodness before leaving. Although not filled with cinnamon sugar delights, their bun lightly coated with caster sugar also came with pleasant hints of orange infusions. The bun instead made of reasonably good bread and not pastry.

On the other hand, I looked at all the croissants. The one below is an almond croissant and the pattern seemed to be the same across the entire range. Impressively large, but way over cooked. Almost no croissant appeared unharmed by their overzealous baking and the result, bitter aftertaste in the pastry. The pastry was indeed very flaky and buttery, but devastated that a “good” bakery can’t quite perfect the honest croissant.

Here’s one before the eating.

Tartine definitely has its fans. Is it worth lining up for? Maybe if you were buying quite a lot. And then again, be prepared to pay a premium for all their goods. I’m sure you cold probably find better elsewhere in the city but for a whole bunch of people this is probably an easy option.

Name: Tartine Bakery and Cafe
Found at: 600 Guerrero Street San Francisco, CA 94110, United States
Website: http://www.tartinebakery.com/

Ferry Building Farmer’s Markets

My last memory of the Ferry Building Farmer’s Marketers was a good one. So much so that I wanted to make sure I came back to see how it’d been developing. I remember lots of people and raw goods and the building itself not so significant. I was pleasantly surprised to find the entire Ferry Building turned into one giant complex filled with artisan producers and stores. They seemed mostly independent though I cannot be sure. We headed here first thing in the morning, but it was just heading into lunchtime by the time that we got there.

I needed a necessary pitstop for coffee. Although well known Blue Bottle Coffee had a physical store and a market stall, I first stumbled across the Frog Hollow Farm store and was drawn in by their offerings. The attendants warned me that service was going to be slow with a few people queueing but the result was good. A nice latte with lots of interesting produce like jam, biscuits and teas to look at whilst waiting.

Our cousin’s partner told us about the wonder of the Roli Roti Porchetta Sandwich, a freshly carved pork roll served with a bit of crackling, plenty of rocket lettuce and some good stuff. The queue already formed and it wasn’t even noon. We thought we’d split one of these baby’s and it turned out to be a great thing too. I’m pretty sure they had some other great looking rotisserie meats, but the main event was definitely the porchetta sandwich.

A few other stalls lined the marketplace front including a home made pizza company who somehow brought along their own wood fired pizza oven, a korean food stall and a mexican stall that I had to try. The special was three tacos for $9 and so ordered a handful of then including the chicken mole verde, the beef short rib and the traditional carnitas.

Look at those beauties below. My favourite was probably the carnitas and a bit disappointed the mole didn’t have the richness and complex flavours I expected.

My sister tried the deep fried mac and cheese from the korean joint. We have no idea about how they formed it, but as you can see, they somehow managed to fry a block of it. I didn’t really try this kind of full from the rest of the food we tried.

It’s a great place to visit and I’d count myself lucky if we worked in the area. Be prepared to come early or queue. By the time it was noon, all the office workers descended and huge queues formed. Make sure to get a porchetta sandwich at least once!

Name: Ferry Building Marketplace
Found at: 1 Ferry building, San Francisco, California 94105, United States
Website: www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com

DeLise Dessert Cafe

This cute little ice cream and cake store sits quite close to the tourist-central Fisherman’s Wharf. They offer an eclectic range of foods including sandwiches and salads involving truffle (mmm!) and other interesting flavour combinations.

Choose to have a coffee and a small cake from their broad range of offerings like banana, carrot, green tea, red velvet or perhaps you want something a bit lighter light a brown butter cookie or a chocolate macaroon. A small, beautifully displayed assortment of what’s available shows you what is on offer.

The store looks very inviting being extremely bright from the large windows but unfortunately they only have one table and a counter for you to sit out. Not really a problem if you’re taking things to go. Here’s the picture of the brown butter shortbread cookie and bacon maple scone that we tried. Both fairly small portions and reasonably priced at 85c and USD1.50. I’ll admit it’s a bit of a premium for the size and bear in mind you’re paying for some quality stuff.

Of course we had to try the ice cream flavours of which they cycle through plenty of different offerings. In the end I settled on a pear yuzu involving plenty of tart bite, as well as the sweeter honey lavender yogurt. A good combination that left me refreshed.

Beware their opening hours as we tried to visit on the Monday and found them shut. Check out their website for a more up to date account.

Name: DeLise Dessert Cafe
Found at: 327 Bay St, San Francisco, CA 94133, United States
Website: http://www.delisesf.com/

Brenda’s French Soul Food in San Francisco

When hunting for breakfast places, Brenda’s French Soul Food constantly came up as a breakfast place with a twist. This restaurant focused on offering foods from the deep south of the US.

Apparently they extended their premises recently and it shows from two very distinct styles in each section. The first is a thin corridor holding only a smattering of tables. A huge painted mural sits on an exposed concrete wall. The section next door opens up into a brightly lit dining room fitted with nicely lacquered woodwork and more space between tables than the first section.

Influences from the deep south permeate the entire place with the cutlery served out of emptied steel cans from the “famous” New Orleans’ French Market. A cute twist to it all. Bottles of hot sauce and tomato sauce also readily available on the tabletops.

The menu offerings for a brunch seemed a bit confused including heartier meals like gumbo, shrimp and grits, a croque monsieur as well as classics including omelettes, french toast and eggs benedict. My sister ordered oyster omelette that incorrectly came with grits. As you can see from the picture below, the appearance of grits swimming in a pool of melted butter wasn’t exactly appetising.

I went for a classic brioche french toast with associated bacon. It strangely arrived with even more butter that I set aside. The toast was perfect. Crisp on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Yes, it was dusted with powdered sugar and I probably had a sugar overload when added with the maple syrup but it went perfectly with the bacon.

Reviews also recommended trying some of the beignets. Brenda’s offer interesting combinations including a crawfish variation, granny smith apple filled, and a chocolate with molten chocolate one. We asked for an order of some plain that arrived, also dusted in icing sugar. As you can see a serve includes one plate. Although nice and light and airy, I think the oil was too hot with a crust verging on the edge of being burnt and the insides of the two of them still clearly doughy and undercooked.

I liked Brenda’s but not sure it’s the sort of place I’d come back to all the time for brunch. Great for something unusual and probably a great place to try dinner as well.

Name: Brenda’s French Soul Food
Found at:
Website: http://frenchsoulfood.com/

Humphry Slocombe Ice Creams

San Francisco seems to have an abundance of artisan ice creameries. My kind of town. One of the ones we tracked down was Humphry Slocombe’s. Even as we licked down our refreshing ice treats, a continuous stream of people entered and left with more goodies.

Although they had a number of classic flavours like vanilla and coffee, they had a few more different spins like my favourite black sesame, and an amazing tasting cinnamon brittle ice cream. Of course I wanted to try all the flavours but only settled on the two.

Name:
Found at:
Website: http://www.humphryslocombe.com/