UK Life – Page 24 – thekua.com@rest

The week in (notable) food

February 17, 2008 Patrick Food, UK Life

It’s been yet another busy week with lots of events during the week and probably a little bit too much eating out. It started off with a dinner at Chelsea’s Big Easy on Monday when they have an all you can eat BBQ meat fest. It’s only £14.99 and that gets you as many BBQ ribs, chicken as you can eat with BBQ beans, coleslaw and a beer or soft drink. Of course, it’s pretty good value already for just a single serving. They also offer half a lobster for the same amount if you’re inclined though it just feels wrong to order it in a place well known for its decent BBQ (okay, it is also known as a crabshack though why waste the opportunity for some decent BBQ fare in London’s zone one?)

Tuesday lunch we went out to Kastner and Ovens, a boutique cafe offering freshly made foods and unsurprisingly busy given the quality and prices. Three mixed salads and a quiche costing only £5.50. I had amazingly flavourful salads and will be back here again soon. The staff are extremely friendly and helpful, pointing out what dishes had meat after I’d asked for some vegetarian dishes. They also offered appetising looking cakes, pastries and slices though I didn’t get a chance to try them. Highly recommended.

Coming back from a late lunch after presenting to a potential client, I ducked into one of Timeout’s Top 50 restaurants, Food For Thought. It’s all vegetarian and offer a few different selections including soup, salads, and a couple of hot dishes. Choose to eat in, or take away as I did. I had a slice of the freshly cooked broccoli quiche with some salads to take back to the office setting me back £7.50. The evening I spent with some after work drinks and dinner at Cubana. Their happy hour finishing at about 6:30pm includes two-for-one cocktails including the ever divine mojitos. My meal for the night was Congri Santiago (a pork, chorizo, tomato based stew served over rice) that went down a treat with the flavourful jalapeno sauce. A great meal with great company.

Thursday sees me end up near Reading for work and I return home for a very, very late lunch. I decided to make a return visit to Piada, home of Italian slow cooking and the ever delicious Piadina, an flatbread from the north east of Italy. It’s definitely a good sign when you walk in and all the signs are there. People pack the place, a number of Italians ahead of me order in their own language they make Illy coffee and they the wonderful Chinotto drink. An Otto (vegetarian) Piadina sets me back £4. The evening ahead of me, sees my flat mate and myself head out to Exmouth market’s The Ambassador. Serving small twists on continental dishes, we have a lovely evening. My evening starts with a flavourful spinach and fresh ricotta risotto bursting with flavour, john dory cod fillets with capers, salad and mash (a little bit on the salty side) and a sticky date pudding, butterscotch sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Oh, and apparently they’re hiring if you’re looking for a job as front of house.

Friday lunch I take some people to okonomiyaki specialist Abeno. I’d been here before so I opt for the Om-Soba (soba noodles encased in a very thin omelette). Nice and authentic though I think I’d go for the Japanese pancake next time.

Sunday starts with a breakfast meal I haven’t had for a very long time at one of my favourite haunts in Notting Hill, Nicole Farhi’s 202. The maître de recognises me and asks how I’ve been doing. I’m very pleasantly surprised and quite honoured since I don’t think I’ve been there since I moved to the east side of London. I’m very humbled that in this place, apparently known to be one of those fashionable places I’d normally avoid or take no notice of, I’m still recognised. I’ve always found the staff helpful and friendly and this just reminds me of all my previous visits. I take my sister who’s never been and who’s heard me rant about how great their French Toast dish is. Like always, the bread, dipped in one of the yellowest eggs you’ll ever see, beautifully crusted and served with a (very salty) bacon and perfectly complemented by real maple syrup and only £5.95. They also do great coffee.

THE DETAILS

Big Easy BBQ and Crabshack is found on 332-334 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UR. Contact them on 020 7352 4071 or enquiries@bigeasy.uk.com.

Kastner and Ovens is found on 52 Floral Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DA or call them on 020 7836 2700.

Find Food For Thought on 31 Neal Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9PR or ring them on 020 7836 9072.

Cubana is located very near Waterloo Station on 48 Lower Marsh, London SE1 7RG. Contact them on 020 7928 8778 or info@cubana.co.uk.

Piada has two locations one in Farringdon (12-14 St John Street, London, EC1M 4AY and phone number – 020 7253 0472) or Soho (50 Frith Street, London, W1D 4SQ and phone number – 020 7287 6263).

The Ambassador is found 55 Exmouth Market, London, EC1R 4QL or call them to book ahead on 020 7837 0009.

Abeno is found on 47 Museum Street, Bloomsbury, London, WC1A 1LY and can be contacted on 0871 075 3973.

Find 202 (unsurprisingly) on 202 Westbourne Grove.

Super busy

February 13, 2008 Patrick Food, UK Life

The last week and a bit have literally flown by with lots of stuff going on. Last week I spent a couple of days up near Coventry and stayed in a wonderful little boutique hotel in Kenilworth unimaginatively called The Kenilworth. Recommended to us by our client, it was the soft jazz music and the long list of cocktails and wine on offer that hinted this was no ordinary place. It was only walking into the room did the throw on the bed, the Molton Brown toiletries and the three cocktail books in the corner confirm my suspicions. Who has a book of cocktails in their bedroom, let alone three of them?

Returning almost exhausted to London, the weekend kicked off with a visit to Borough Market on Saturday to prepare a couple of desserts for a traditional steamboat or shabu shabu (in Japanese) dinner at Mike’s place. It kicked off with six of us around a table that ended up in some dice and card and us leaving sometime in the cold early hours of the morning trying to get everyone to where they needed to go. We had plenty of mojitos, lots of food and lots of wine (including some dessert wine to finish off).

Sunday slowly started with some dim sum planned in Chinatown. Straying away from Laureate and managing to organise a table at Golden Dragon I was amazed that we managed to get a table amongst the crazy crowds that circled the entire area given Chinese New Year celebrations. We got our table almost as soon as the majority of the ten people arrived. As always, the bite sized portions and the few dishes ordered on top went down like a treat and so cheap (for how much we had) at only £14. We also headed to the Cabinet War Rooms afterwards – an amazingly non de script entrance leading to the underground maze attached to so much recent history.

Magma’s Store

February 5, 2008 Patrick London To Do, UK Life

I’ve always been a fan of alternative design and art book store, Magma and now they’ve extended their offerings with a full on general fun product store. I went in on the weekend and it was very difficult to move around with all of the people there. They place a heavy emphasis on clever uses of recycled material with the complete shelving in their store made out of corrugated cardboard.

With other funky plush and vinyl toys (like the Ghibli Totoro’s above) and plenty of other gizmos and gadgets, I think anyone will find they can lose themselves pretty quickly in here. Find the Magma Concept Store in Convent Garden at 16 Earlham Street, London, WC2H 9HL.

Paramore at Brixton

February 5, 2008 Patrick Entertainment, Music, UK Life

It’s been… how about… never since I’ve been to a concert and felt so old. That much probably tells you quite a lot about the audience at Brixton Academy on Sunday night. American punk rockers Paramore, headed by the itsy bitsy Hayley played an energising set for their Riot tour and Saturday was their last in London. They certainly attracted many young people, many of them accompanied by chaperoning parents. The age difference really made no difference to me as we watched the upbeat sets of supporting act New Found Glory and Paramore’s main act.

Admittedly I hadn’t listened to their album as many time as I’m sure everyone around me had. Most of them seemed to know all of the words to all of their songs or, if not, made up for it by jumping around in quite a frenzy – something quite a feat on Brixton’s slanting floor. A lot of their music is just plain fun although the tiny punk rocker girl lead, the super fast beats and the atmosphere just kept leading me back to an image of a younger and more modern Avril Lavigne-like band, that I have to admit, is a little unfair on Paramore.

They do put on a pretty good show, and the energy of the entire band continued to feed the frenzied jumps of the people way up front. So many people got dragged out for crowd surfing and we even saw one guy literally pushed from way up front all the way out of the back by a couple of security guards, I guess for excessively disorderly conduct. Paramore played a decent set, performed two encore songs and it felt like everyone went away pretty happy.

A prediction for 2008…

February 4, 2008 Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

2008 is the year of the Mexicans. Walking around town this weekend (still no Apple Air in store!), all I seemed to stumble across was plenty of new places all serving mexican (or at least a tex-mex mix) of food.

Just down from Flat White I saw Mexi Cali, apparently replacing a less popular Mexican place. It’s apparently already located in Notting Hill and Chelsea (how did I not hear of this?). Also, I noticed something like four or five places all along Upper Street in Angel. On Thursday, after a recommendation from JK, I checked out Wahaca for lunch (very modern, nice and conveniently located near our office!)

Training First Class

January 31, 2008 Patrick Travel, UK Life

On my way up to Lancaster, I was fortunate enough that the person who booked my ticket had booked first class all the way. I’ve been on plenty of Virgin trains whilst I was working with a client at Milton Keynes though forty minutes on a train doesn’t really justify the price. Three hours on a train apparently does.

On arrival, an attendant greets you as you board the train, welcoming you to your seat complete with a dinner setting (napkin and metal cutlery) and plenty of space around you. You’re soon offered a newspaper and a choice of a hot meal (at least for breakfast I was). They offer that first refresher drink before meal and plenty of tea and coffee during and after.

My favourite bit about first class though is that each table is outfitted with a power socket that you can connect any electrical appliances to. This meant that you could have a bite to eat, work in leisure all with only minor interruptions. The only improvement I can really ask for is wireless Internet (they had a couple of wireless networks though I couldn’t get Internet from them).

Yauatcha

January 30, 2008 Patrick Food, Restaurants, UK Life

After eating at Alan Yau’s Michelin starred Hakkasan, I was yet to eat at his other Michelin starred restaurant, Yauatcha that also recently got purchased by the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. That changed this Sunday. Located in the heart of Soho, it’s easy to mistake the iridescent blue corner striping the outside as some sort of club. Certainly the downstairs dining room, a dark room fitted with lights best described as starry, and a fishtank fronting the entire length of the bar certainly make it feel like one. Upstairs is the brighter and more casual feeling dining room that also serves as a tiny store offerings fanciful macaroons, divine chocolates and the unique varieties of tea on offer in the restaurant.

Unlike his other restaurant, the focus of dim sum makes this place slightly more casual and before the crowd rush hit at 1pm, it was easy enough to take pictures with my, rather not obvious, camera. As we entered the restaurant, three people immediately greeted us, one of them politely guiding us to our table downstairs. I’m sure that it’s probably best to book ahead yet Sunday seemed very quiet and arriving early meant we were seated with a wait and without fuss.

We sat directly in front of the bar where three or four men continuously pumped out the exotic drinks offered on the menu. Their comprehensive list of teas form the base for a number of even more unique and further tea-mixers both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. I ordered a lime and passion iced tea that proved refreshingly tart and a great complement to the food ahead (although aptly priced in a place like this at £4).

Most of the food seemed fairly reasonable and not as crazily priced as I thought it would have been, with each plate being about a pound more than you’d pay at other decent Chinese dim sum places in London. We tried a number of new dishes as well seeing as they offered a large number of things you wouldn’t normally have at other places such as an Ostrich dumpling – a gamey ball of meat surrounded by a steamed pastry and enough liquid to rival a well made Xiao Long Bao. Standard dishes such as Siu Mai and Har Gau arrived in cute tiny little baskets both freshly made and extremely tasty. I was slightly disappointed by my favourite BBQ Pork Bun (Cha Xiu Bao) as the bread wasn’t as fluffy and white as other places make it, and the meat mixture inside a little bit too fatty and with an unnaturally overpowering pork taste (my sister was convinced it was the sherry flavour). It still wasn’t too bad although I probably wouldn’t order it there again.

The service throughout the meal was just right, and so it should be for the automatic 12.5% they add to the bill. One waitress in particular had a very enthusiastic, almost over the top, happy approach to serving her customers that it made me chuckle just a little bit. They exchanged our plates once during the meal (though I think it was a bit of a waste) and they presented each dish with its name, whisking away empty baskets and plates shortly after the last piece had been taken. See the rest of the pictures here.

Details: Yauatcha
Found at: 15-17 Broadwick Street, Soho, London, W1F 0DL
Contactable on: +44 20 7494 8888
Highlights: Modern contemporary quality dim sum, lots of tea mixers and a very untraditional dining setting
Room for improvement: Not all of the dim sum had descriptions, making it difficult to choose some more of the exotic dishes as you wouldn’t really know what you’re getting.
The Kua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Happy Australia Day

January 29, 2008 Patrick UK Life

Unlike the many other Aussies celebrating this event in all the Walkabouts around London, I went along to Gerrod and Ben‘s traditional Australia Day party out in Chiswick. Part of the tradition is listening to the JJJ’s Hotest 100 countdown, something I’m glad we could still do thanks to the streaming two hour blocks from JJJ’s website. I think I arrived somewhere around #75 and hung around way past the #1 song that, surprisingly ended up as Muse’s Knights of Cydonia.

The party also meant a great opportunity to catch up with many of the people who I hadn’t seen well before leaving for India and a few other people I’d never met before yet I’d seen on their respective blogs. We ducked out for a late lunch at Ground and disappointingly we ended up having to eat outside where many people froze to death. The burgers here were decently sized yet I still think that GBK’s shakes and fries are much better (we didn’t even dare go since they said it’d be another two hour wait).

See more pictures here.