Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan

Patrick Asian, New York, Restaurants

We took our family out for dinner onto the main part of Flushing, arriving at the glamourous sounding Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan after reading about it in the paper. 7:30pm is peak dinner hour and it really showed – even though we had a reservation, we still had to wait for our table to be freed from the previous set of diners. Even then, when we sat down, we found out they ran out of small bowls (in a Chinese restaurant!) just because they had been so busy.

We ordered a lot of food, many of them on recommendation from other reviewers and just those that we wanted to eat, such as the green pea shoots with the typical accompaniment of garlic.

As well as a whole fish roasted with vegetables, an earthy, but very oily dish with lots of subtle flavour. I think it would have been much better with a lot of more kick.

The star of the evening was definitely the cumin lamb, the typically strong lamb flavour disappearing into the soft, melting bits of meat.

We had a number of other dishes that the photos (iPhone quality) didn’t really turn out so good but I would order again such as the aubergine and the vinegared wood-ear mushrooms. I wouldn’t order the Mao pork again – it was just a bit too fatty for me, but overall pretty tasty. Like any Chinese place, turnover is fast and prompt. At least they let us pay by credit card (though wanted the tips in cash).

Name: Hunan Kitchen of Grand Sichuan (Flushing branch)
Found at: 42-47 Main St. Flushing, New York
Website: http://www.thegrandsichuan.com

Culture Espresso New York

Patrick Cafe, Coffee, New York

I’m always on the look out for decent places that do great coffee. One place that I found was Culture Espresso. The store is pretty big for a coffee place in Manhattan, with huge glass windows allowing lots of natural light into the store.

The bar is simple, though welcoming with a cold drinks station as you walk in, and a very tempting bakery selection on the right where the queue forms. I found this place because it was one of the places that actually did a flat white (US$3.75) and it was beautifully made.

Perfect latte art to enjoy. Deliciously well made to boot.

Name: Culture Espresso
Found at: 72W 38th Street, New York, New York
Website: http://cultureespresso.com/

Greenleaf London

Patrick Asian, Restaurants

Greenleaf is the latest surprise to be sprung around the insides of Holborn. The interior is bright and inviting – quite different from your very traditional Chinese restaurant. Clean white marble table tops replace white tablecloth typically quickly stained with tea. We went on an opening offer for 50% off and were one of three tables for the night.

They brought us spicy prawn crackers to nibble on whilst we perused the menu, though decided on a very large feast to follow.

You can see a very different, non-typical Chinese restaurant – easily mistaken for a different one.

We started with the ribs as a starter, soft enough to pull off the bone, though a bit worryingly fried.

The scallops were much better. Smoky and generous in their serving with beautiful scallop shells.

I’ll generally order aubergine in most restaurants – the meaty flesh offering deliciousness and Chinese style with minced pork and a bit of salty fish brings a strong umami element to the entire dish. Fortunately this one wasn’t as oily as I originally expected.

The fujian fried rice (egg fried rice, topped with a saucy seafood/duck combination) was exceptionally well done.

And finally a whole fish served with sesame oil, spring onions and soy. A classic and very well done dish.

I have to say that I was quite impressed by the meal, and made even better by the 50% off deal they have currently going. I’m not sure whether I’d pay the full price but the at least the quality of the food was worth it. One thing that I can say is the awkwardness of the attendants who seemed to hang around much more than they really needed to, whisking away bowls whenever we were done, topping up water at the slightest drink but awkward in that we would have enjoyed more privacy without them being so obvious.

Name: Greenleaf Restaurant
Found at: 48 Red Lion Street, WC1R 4PF
Website: None found

The Good (and not so Good) at Goodman’s

Patrick American, Restaurants, Steak

I’d heard a lot of great things about Goodman’s. It’s one of the two steak groups in that competes for the “best steak” places in London, at least according to a number of foodies. Last year, we had our Christmas gathering at Hawksmoor last year and opted to try Goodman’s this year instead.

We had a reservation for 8:30pm but decided to meet up for a drink at Aqua first. To call that place heaving would have been an understatement with the bar full of very beautiful people, and many others simply preening themselves. It passed 8pm and we decided to try for a drink at the bar at Goodman’s rather than another one at Aqua. We arrived early. Just after 8pm and, as expected, were told that our table wasn’t yet ready. We didn’t really mind this, as we figured we were a bit early, but looking back, we really should have simply had another drink at Aqua because the bar area isn’t particularly suited for waiting, filled with other guests dining at the counter.

Time passed and at 8:30pm, one of our party decided to ask if our table was ready. The maitre de assured us that the party occupying our table was simply paying and that we would have our table after five more minutes. Five minutes passed and nothing. So we waited five minutes more before deciding to ask again. One of my dining companions asked the maitre de again who repeated back exactly the same statement, “five more minutes.” We were seated at 8:50pm. He was not impressed.

Finally getting seated (after having a reservation!), we were starting to get a bit hungry. I’m pleased that bread was placed on the table, shortly after all the menus made their way down. Soft, creamy salted butter and slightly warm rolls made good partners to tame the building hunger. Our waitress, a friendly lady, told us about the various cuts on offer and took our orders of the steak, sides and wine. A pleasant and efficient experience that would prove not to last the rest of the night.

Being with a group of Italians, we all ended up ordering the Burrata. I’d never had this rich dish before (mozzarella mixed with cream). Served with crispy chorizo, small tomatoes and a small bit of crispy sourdough (£12), I was very impressed with this dish. Unfortunately my dining partners (and I) were less impressed that we had to ask for our wine after the round of appetizers sat at our table for a while.

We finished our decadent, delicious starter with the plates sitting there for a good twenty minutes before they were taken away. Fair enough they were busy but for 12.5% service, I expect much better.

Like other, well regarded restaurants, Goodman’s have their won steak knives.

Our waitress came up to us, just before all the food arrived, apologising she hadn’t asked if we wanted any sauces. We ordered some (stilton, pepper, and bernaise) but by then all of our food arrived. It was an impressive collection of food. The four of us split a 1kg steak (Scottish grass fed only!) (£120), and unlike last year’s Hawksmoor experience, this one had been cooked perfectly. Pink and juicy, charred on the outside. Given all the sides we’d ordered, it was a good thing we didn’t order bigger steaks.

The downside was when the maitre de arrived ten minutes later, asking us how everything was going and still those sauces had not yet arrived.

Fortunately the side dishes were pretty good, worth tucking into while we waited. Above is the creamed spinach with blue cheese (£4.50).

And a delicious truffle mac and cheese (£4), though being italians and disliked pasta being treated this way, only one of my companions was tempted to try it. I found it delicious though. Eventually our sauces arrived and everything was rather complete. The steak was excellent – juicy and smoky, and did just the job.

Our dessert menu arrived, and though full, convinced ourselves rather quickly that it was worth trying some of the dessert menu. Well, we would have if someone came to took our order. It was a good half hour before our waitress returned to take our order. On top of that, our water bottle had been taken away, and not refilled during this time.

I went for the calorie dense, Brownie sundae (£6.50) (minus the whipped cream). Chunky and delicious.

A couple of of the creme brulees (£6.50) were ordered. Pretty good reports on this.

And finally a cheesecake (£6.50), also apparently very well made.

Overall I have to say that the food was definitely very good, but our experience of the evening was tainted by far too many incidents. When the bill arrived, we informed our waitress that we weren’t going to pay the service. Interestingly, her reaction was first to ask what was wrong, and then after explaining the events of the evening, said that she had to go to the manager to get her to “take the amount off the bill”. This was fascinating, because for us, the bill already showed the amount that needed paying without service. We waited, another ten minutes for the manager to return.

At the point of the evening (almost midnight and after some very nice wine and dessert wine), I can’t really remember if we had to re-explain our circumstances. She came back and said that she took off a round of drinks apologising for the service. We explained back that it wasn’t necessary, and all we really wanted to do was to not pay the service, but she insisted.

Would I come back? Given the quality of the food I think I would. Service is a funny thing, variable on lots of different factors. They did a good job to redeem themselves, and just hope that they actually took the feedback on board, rather than simply not pass it on to our waitress.

Name: Goodman Steak Restaurant
Website: http://www.goodmanrestaurants.com/
Found at: 24-26 Maddox Street, W1S 1QH

Night markets at Jemaa el Fna

Patrick Marrakech

One of the most astonishing sights and places that needs to be experienced by the tourist is the night market that sits in Place Jamaa El Fna. During the day, snake charmers, musicians and vendors hawk their wares. At dusk, the assembly line of tables, chairs and stalls being raised makes way for a food festive market.

In one area, the juice bars that serve freshly squeezed orange juice for MAD4 (50p) still stand, but they’re accompanied by a new row of tea vendors selling a spicy red tea made with, what tastes to me, like ginger and cardamom. It’s just as sweet as all other things you’ll find in Morocco and accompanied by a heavily spiced cake mix, something that reminds me of a crumbly Christmas pudding.

Another row of vendors serve the local soup with escargot, perhaps due the influence of the french. It’s something that I didn’t actually try.

I ate here almost every night though only got to a try a number of the stalls. I was told by someone I met that stall number 31 did the best beef sausages in town.

Looking at the people seating, it seemed like a combination of locals and tourists, though with the large number of locals, seemed like a good place to go. Like almost all the places, you’re served immediately with a tomato puree (spiced of course) and a piece of bread. Having practiced in India, eating it with only my right hand was no problem.

I tried the sausages, and whilst they were good, I’m not sure they were the best I’ve ever had. It looks like a number of locals also asked for the juices of the sausages to dip along with, which the vendors were more than happy to provide.

With so much smoke rising from this stall, I decided to try the chicken kebab (shish style of course). For I think about MAD20 (£2.5) you get five skewers of juicy spiced meat. Mmm.

Other ones worth checking out that I enjoyed eating at included stall number 32 (which competes for the name of best sausages) though their beef kebab was very moist and juicy. Perhaps it was the hunk of fat that sat right in the middle that I didn’t quite eat. I also tried eating at stall number 1, a huge display on offer.

Although I probably should have tried more of the regional delicacies, I didn’t such as the sheep’s head or other such thing. Perhaps you’ll be braver than I was.

Cooking Marrakech style

Patrick Marrakech

One of the things I really enjoyed during my stay in Marrakech was the cooking school at La Maison Arabe We were a group of around 10 people, starting at 10am in the morning and going on until about half past four.

For MAD600 (£47) we got to experience quite a lot of things including making our own lunch. We were first given a sit down, welcomed with water and other things before being given a run down of the history of Moroccan cuisine. I had no idea that the food was a fusion between Burba, Arab, Moorish and Jewish restaurants cuisines. I noticed though that the French didn’t seem to influence the traditional cooking so much although you’ll find many french restaurants dotted around town.

We moved onto the kitchen where we were introduced to our workstations – admittedly with some of the preparation already done out of the way – spices measured out and some of our starting ingredients ready to go.

We were then walked over to the high table where the traditional bread found everywhere was prepared for us. We all had a go at kneading the dough as well that we would later consume as part of our meal. Unlike many of the French style breads, Moroccan bread is a lot denser, without so much of the crunchy crust you might find on a toasted sourdough, or the crispness of the baguette. Nevertheless it’s an important part of the meal.

We then took a walk out to see a local bakery, that was, literally right around the corner. I was surprised by how low temperature the oven was. I was expecting something a lot more intense but even walking in, the bakery didn’t seem like it was particularly hot.

After the visit to the bakery, and told a little bit about the background and why bread is so important, we made our way to a spices store. Although I felt it was a bit more of a sales pitch (we have this spice and that spice and this is good for that), we did get to experience some of the local specialities such as the aragon oil and the difference between the strong smelling saffron from the local area, and the Iranian saffron that seemed to have less impact.

After this visit, we returned to our workstations where we would get to prepare our lunch – made up of two traditional Moroccan salads and a preserved lemon chicken tangine. It was fun preparing everything according to how they expected things and trying some of the spice varieties such as the cumin and paprika mixes. I did learn a few new things, like how they preserve lemons and that you should never add salt to things where you’re using perserved lemons because there’s already so much in there.

I also was reminded of a much simpler technique fo removing the charred skin from a pepper with the back of the knife. There’s less of the black char that sticks to your hands and it’s often much easier to get off. We also had a chance to make some of the classic Moroccan mint tea, though fortunately managed to make it without the ton of sugar they put into everything. I didn’t realise that they used green tea as the basis and then added tons of mint – rather simple but very tasty nevertheless.

I’d definitely recommend this school again to people – I would probably try a different one next time just because I did it already. An extra bonus was they gave us all a little bag to take away including some of the spice mixes they talked about and even our very own small tangine to bring home – something I’m proud to say survived the bag hold in my suitcase.

Gelato in Marrkech?

Patrick Dessert, Marrakech

One of the last places I’d think to look for a gelateria was in Marrakech. Nevertheless, when it’s hot (and it wasn’t really that hot when I was there), it’s a good thing to have. How happy I was to find Dino on the main stretch leading to the French district.

This very generous three scoop sundae came in at about MAD60, a little pricier than you’ll pay for ice cream at other places but was very good. Delicious.

You can find Dino Gelato on Avenue Mohamed V in the French-built new side of town, Guiliez.

Return to Spicylicious

Patrick Asian, Copenhagen, Restaurants, Thai

I recently spent another weekend in Copenhagen, just after presenting at Øredev in Malmö. One of the restaurants I wanted to eat at on my return to Copenhagen was Spicylicious. Although it’s in a very dodgy part of town, on a street that is the complete opposite of the clean, well behaved citizens of the city, Spicylicious is worth the short trip away from the main train station.

Even though we’d booked a table for 9:15pm, the restaurant was heaving with locals. It’s the sort of place for dinner, especially on weekends you really want to book unless you aim for a very early meal. They specialise in pan-Asian cuisine although it’s probably a bit more accurate that it’s a combination between Vietnamese and Thai food. We tried two different appetisers, the Satay Gai (DKK70) and Kung Mapraow Tod (DKK70). Unfortunately both dishes were a little disappointing – the chicken a tad dry and the prawns not as crisp as they really should have been.

It doesn’t really matter because I wanted to come back here for the main event – the curries. We went for a fairly moderately spiced Panaeng Curry with chicken (DKK120) and a much spicier Green curry with guinea fowl (DKK130). We were both far too full from the food to try any of the desserts and very satisfied with the curries.

Name: Restaurant Spicylicious
Website: http://restaurantspicylicious.dk/
Found at: Istedgade 27, Copenhagen, Denmark

Horvath’s Round 2

Patrick Berlin, German, Restaurants

I’d eaten at the much acclaimed Horvath’s at the beginning of the year. It’s an unusual find in Kreuzburg, focusing much more on the higher end of the market offering modern twists to Bayerish cuisine.

It’s more of the place you’d take your parents to meet your partner for the first time, rather than as a casual night out. Fortunately Berlin is as happy serving a bunch of geeks (seven of us to be exact) as they are entertaining German families.

We opted for a mix of the the tasting course menu – me, of course, hoping to try as much as we could given the time. The courses end up much more than the six expected courses.

They first brough a bread basket to the table, a mix of wonderfully different styles including one that had notable chunks of black pudding throughout. My favourite, of course, a lighter bread surrounded by a crisp crust lightly dusted in flour.

Just as unusually, their “butter” proved to be a combination of cream cheese, some butter and some toasted pumpkin seed oil. The oil proved less popular at the table as it was surprisingly bitter, not the smooth subtle flavours one would normally expect of a more classical olive oil at the table.

It’s a while since I wrote this up, so the details of each dish are less forthcoming, however I hope you enjoy seeing some of the pictures anyway. Here I think we had a pureed celeric with some fresh celery and apple. As the first dish, it proved refreshing to the pallette.

Round two, a chunk of duck liver with a majoram glaze and a caramellised corn pudding accompanied by some other pureed vegetable stuff (I think). If you look closely you can see there was a very thin sugar crust layering on top that provided both the element of crunch and sweetness to an otherwise very rich dish.

Next followed a really delicate dish confit fish filet with dark berry sauce, and mushrooms. The dish had been finished off dotted with lots of capers and two chunks of a very small sour cream cream. Mmmm. Delicious.

Next up was a softly cooked venison strip. I honestly can’t remember what it sat upon but I do remember it being amazingly tender and very well cooked.

Our next course would make vegetarians envious with generous chunks of aubergine with a generous selection of fresh chanterelles sitting on some more pureed turnip.

Being Bayerish food, one doesn’t expect too many vegetables and predictably changed with the next round, a duck breast accompanied by a selection of pototo and red cabbage.

Some of us then had the additional cheese course, a strong blue cheese that went really well with the small sultanas dotting the plate.

Dessert finished off our meal with an amazingly fresh red carrot sorbet, a soft cake, and a couple of other puddings. Everyone was so impressed by the strong flavours of the red carrot sorbet, someone even asked for the recipe.

With tea arrived a small selection of biscuits and soft caramels but I literally coudln’t eat anymore.

An enjoyable evening and a place I would definitely return to again.

Name: Horvath’s
Website: http://www.restaurant-horvath.de/
Found at: Paul Lincke Ufer 44a, Kreuzberg, 10999 Berlin

Berlin’s Burgermeister

Patrick Berlin, Fast Food

Found literally underneath the railway tracks on the east side of Kreuzberg, Burgermeister is just as well known for the awesomeness of their burgers as it is for being built in a former toilet block.

The queues are inevitable being so popular with locals and visitors, even as I aimed for a very late lunch on a Saturday afternoon (3pm). There’s probably about five or six different type of burgers to order from and you’re warned upon ordering that it can be up to a half hour wait as they’re made fresh to order.

Even standing in the cold, I thought it’d be worth it. I’m sure people have done much worse.

The other thing advised by people to order is the chilli cheese fries – a serving of fries topped with strange melty yellow American style cheese, a generous serving of jalapenos and a chilli sauce. Pretty good.

I ordered the BBQ burger, a beef patty topped with some bacon (the best I’ve had in Berlin so far – smoky, salty, and slightly crisp but not too crisp like in the US) including lettuce, pickle and tomato and BBQ sauce. For a burger stand joint, it’s one of the best ones I think I’ve had.

The experience itself is quite interesting as it literally stands opposite the UBahn stop and you get to watch the business of the area going by. I have no idea if they’re open 24 hours, but they do pretty amazing business as it was constantly busy when I was there and I’m sure would be busier at other times of the day.

Name: Burgermeister
Found at: Am Schlesischen Tor
Website: http://www.burger-meister.de/