Chile: El Vergel

What a lovely lunch!

Extensive search of the internet only turned up one possible eating establishment for Chile in London, El Vergel, but luckily reviews were very much on the positive side. The only downside, it's only open at lunch time.

El Vergel is in a quiet Southwark back street, between Southwark and Borough tubes, so it wasn't too difficult to find a day when we could escape the office, and take the trip west from Docklands. James and I arranged to meet our friend Deeg for a Tuesday lunch date. It's a short stroll from Borough tube and interestingly situated on the ground floor of a fairly new block of flats. The chefs must benefit from being close to Borough Market.

The décor was minimalist, having that Wagamamas feel with long wooden tables, bare concrete pillars that kids had obviously been encouraged to scribble on with felt tips. But an impressively large space with room for a deli at one end. And very busy for a Tuesday in January. They did stick us in a corner table, so I felt we were a bit out of the main café action.

We were under time pressure, so opted for a snacky two course lunch.









For starters, James and I shared an empanada de carne. Delicious crumbly pastry case with a minced beef filling. I would certainly recommend them and guess that they probably sell them in the attached deli (didn't even have time to browse!)

For the main course, all three of us chose churrasco queso - a steak sandwich with cheese on Chilean village bread. The bread was amazing and contained a huge slab of tender medium to medium rare steak with mozzarella style cheese.

I washed my sandwich down with a tropical juice, only because we needed to get back to work, otherwise it would have been a cold beer or a glass of Chilean wine.

Nice place, a little gem if you live or work in that part of town. It's looking like we may end up back in the London Bridge area at the end of this year, this will make a great place for lunch once in a while.

Now for the scores! Haven't done this in a while, what categories did I have?

Food: ****
Value for money: *****
Atmosphere: ***

Chad: lourobbo's kitchen

Chad is a country with an unsettled past and consequently the cuisine has developed under a variety of influences, the dominant being French.

But also, we see the return of Peanut Butter, which does appear to be prevalent amongst African nations!

I chose two dishes from Chad, Moo Sate and a broiled fish dish, Tilapia au four. Moo Sate is exactly what you would think - beef satay. Here are a couple of pictures of the preparation - the marinating skewers of meat and the smooth creamy peanut buttery sauce.

 

It's a very easy dish to make, and the meat doesn't even really need much time to soak up the flavours. I used some nice frying steak from Morrison's, cut into thin slices. The satay is given it's luscious texture with the use of a packet of coconut cream and smooth peanut butter and has a bit of a kick with the use of curry power and some very finely chopped chillies.

 

The second dish was a broiled fish recipe, that I found on several sites. It seems to use tilapia in the main, although I have seen it on sale in UK supermarkets, I couldn't find any yesterday, so substituted with some cod steaks.
 

 

The fish only needed 30 minutes to bake in the oven and the kebabs literally a few minutes on the hot plate/griddle, turning occasionally (particularly if you like your steak medium rare). The peanut sauce was warmed up in a saucepan and both dishes to be served with rice.



I liked the Moo Sate, it had a good level of heat and the sauce was velvety. The fish was a little bland I thought, but maybe a touch more seasoning and you have a fairly healthy dish there. Overall, a tasty way to get back into the A to Z eating challenge.  And all washed down with a particularly lovely bottle of cabernet/shiraz from Some Young Punks, a birthday present from a friend!

 

 

 

Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic: lourobbo's kitchen

Ahem. It's been a while. A long while. In fact almost precisely a year since I last updated the Eating the A to Z of London blog.

But a new year's resolution has prompted me to get back to it and finally type up the few countries that we did actually sample at the start of 2012 and continue with the tour!

The main reason for the delay in the project, I admit, is actually the typing up of the entries in the blog. I had actually cooked from the next few C countries, but hadn't got round to updating the site, a vicious circle ensued where I didn't want to get any further ahead without recording these, yet I never seemed to have the time to sit down and finish the entries.

So, procrastinate no more, lourobbo! To help me back into the swing of things, I've combined the 3 countries we did "visit" at the start of last year into 1 post. Mainly, because I can barely remember what I cooked anyway, there won't be much to say!

Cape Verde

Let's start with Cape Verde. Once Portuguese owned islands off the coast of West Africa, the country's cuisine has a definite African core with Portuguese influences. There was no restaurant I could find in London that claimed to be Cape Verdean, so it was into the kitchen.

This recipe is known as Canja de Gahlinha, and is essentially a chicken and rice stew.

 

I can't claim to remember exactly what it tasted like, but I certainly don't remember it being revolting. Guess there's not much that can go wrong with chicken and rice!

Cayman Islands

Onto Cayman Islands, and another stint in lourobbo's kitchen. What I do recall about the Cayman's was that I couldn't really find any savoury recipes that either seemed that representative of the country or that was that easy to cook, so I settled for pudding only. Pudding in the shape of Cayman Island's Rum Cake.

Suzanne is a big rum fan, so we nearly always have some in he house, and usually the golden variety. I think I made this with Mountgay which is a particular favourite. The cake was pretty nice although a little dry.

But hey...it's cake.

Central African Republic

Now this is where I really begin to struggle as I hadn't actually uploaded any photos from the Central African Republic to my flickr site. Looking through recipe websites that I have used quite a lot for African dishes, I THINK it was a mince beef meatball dish by the name of Kanda ti Nyma. I remember it certainly had peanut butter in it, seems to be a staple in that part of the world and I'm fairly sure it was meatballs.

Trouble is, I can't find any pictures. James confirms that he remembers a meatball peanut butter recipe, so let's call it Kanda ti Nyma and if I ever come across the photographic evidence, I'll come back and post it on the blog. Or I may well cook it again as apparently he also remembers it being quite tasty!


Hooray! I'm back on the wagon of Eating the A to Z of London. Next up, Chad, a cook at home country, and I fully intend to be doing that this weekend.

Canada: Maple Leaf

We have actually been slowly progressing through "C", but I have been particularly slack at writing up the blog. We actually visited Canada back in November....

Ahhh, The Maple Leaf, a blast from the past. Again, seemingly the only place in London badged as Canadian, I can't say this place is new to me, it was frequent haunt during the mid 90s when I used to work out of our Embankment office. But it's a memory I associate more with the beer than the food.

Because of the strong links with days gone by, I decided to invite along a few of my pals from work. Ian also brought along his fiancee, Erin, who just so happens to be Canadian! I wanted her view on whether it was anything like authentic cuisine

Let's start with the beer. I went expecting it to be a Molson and Labatts shop, but Sleeman's was actually the main beer on tap. Here is a shot of 3 lovely pints of the stuff.

And the happy drinkers tucking into the first round. The first of several...

But before we get carried away with the pints, what about the food? Overall, it seemed like standard North American fare - burgers, ribs etc. But the one thing we did have to try - the famous Quebecian dish of Poutine! A plate of chips smothered in gravy and melted cheese. Looks revolting, tastes devine.

Not to be confused with/pronouced as Poutain. Which means something else entirely.

The ribs were also pretty good (if a bit fatty). Here's Brendan tucking in to a plate of BBQ'd meat.



After many more beers, we still had room to squeeze in dessert, and dessert in Canada usually means something swimming in maple syrup. We opted for a couple of these whoppers:

Choclate sauce, ice cream, nuts, cream, chocolate brownie, marshmallows and of course maple syrup. Tasted good. But after 6 pints of Sleemans, most things probably would.

It's fair to say, an excellent Friday night out was had by all. Erin thought the poutine wasn't bad, not the best ever, but fine for a Covent Garden tourist trap. And although the food wasn't quite michelin standard, it was quite cheap. Atmosphere-wise, The Maple Leaf was as rammed as ever, thankfully I'd booked a table. It still had that air of a Friday night cattle market, ice hockey on the many screens and a wide ranging mix of music loud enough so that it was difficult to hold a conversation. After the second round, that didn't seem to matter.

Food: ***
Value for money: ****
Atmosphere: ****

Cameroon: Maestro Bar and Restaurant

I freely admit, we'd been putting Cameroon off - slightly unfairly, merely a reluctance to spend an evening in Deptford. But given that we had Canada already in the diary, it meant squeezing this one in on a chilly November Wednesday evening. Straight from work, James and I trained it to Deptford, I'd managed to misread the map and we ended up at the wrong station, we should have actually headed for the DLR Deptford Bridge, but no matter, it wasn't more than a 5 minute scuttle along Deptford High Street to Maestro Bar and Restaurant.

We found it easy enough, although on first glance it looked shut. It might as well have been, really quite a sizeable place, but no sign of any other diners. Still, we'd made it here without incident, so headed inside. There were a couple of people propping up the bar, the waitress and a friend, chattering away in French. They turned and gave us some very puzzled looks but after asking for a table for two, were allowed to choose our seats. We sat where we would have a prime view of MTV Base, blaring out in poorly dubbed French.





No Cameroonian beer on the menu, unfortunately, so we settle for a couple of Kronenbourg 1664 and perused the menu.

This was the only Cameroonian restaurant I could find in London and admittedly, the menu was true to that claim. James chose pepper soup to start and I had a plate of Ntaba (grilled goat). Mine was a generous plate of chunks of meat, heavily spiced with little dishes of more spice to dip them in. James's soup.....hmm, well it definitely had pepper in it. But it also had a mountain of TONGUE. No mention of that on the menu. Although, he did say that it was perfectly edible, and better than the tongue we had tried back in Bulgaria.

For main course, I chose a traditional dish of Ndole (little bit like a spinach curry) with some very tasty alloko (fried plantain) and James had Soukouya de mouton (a very similar looking dish  of goat chunks as my starter).

After the mountain of meat and a couple more beers, there was no room for pudding (I can't actually remember being offered any). We settled up and scuttled back up the High Street to get a train back to James's.

Overall, it was a very odd evening. I think we completely confused the waitress as to why we were even there, almost felt we were a nuisance. It wasn't a particularly cheap meal either, for what were some very scraggy cuts of meat. Maybe on a weekend, the place is buzzing, but this isn't one we'll be hurrying back to.

Food: **
Value for money: **
Atmosphere: *

Cambodia: Lemongrass

It's taken an age to get here, but at last we are onto a new letter "C". First up, Cambodia, and luckily we found a restaurant that had pretty good write ups on several sites and blogs. It's called Lemongrass (not to be confused with our favourite lunchtime haunt in Docklands of the same name). This one is in Camden Town.

After quite horrendous journeys on London Transport, we met up in Camden early on a Thursday evening, to try out some Cambodian tucker. The restaurant is a 5 minute walk from Camden tube, on Royal College Street, situated in a parade of slightly run down Georgian style townhouses.

                      

Although empty when we arrived, we were there early and Lemongrass, being a bijou place, the tables soon filled up. The decor is plain but it did have a few strings of fairy lights to give a little atmosphere. What did stand out was the open access to the kitchen, with a "noodle of woks" on display (couldn't find a collective noun for woks!)

Lemongrass does suffer from being understaffed. One very busy chef appeared to be doing all the prep and all the cooking, one very busy waitress doubling up as table clearer and washer-upper. Although our beers and starters appeared in reasonable time, when we got to the main course, the restaurant was full and the staff were obviously struggling to cope.

There were a few dishes on the menu labelled specifically as Cambodian, so of course we had to try those. Mixed starters, including golden triangles, and some Cambodian Prawn Soup for first course.

This was by no means the best platter of Asian starters I've ever eaten. I felt they were somewhat bland and being a self confessed connoisseur of spring rolls, the pastry was a touch soggy and stingy on the filling. However, the soup was good, and enough for us all to have a couple of ladles full.

The mains were a step up, we had Phnom Penh chicken, Lok Luk steak, with some rice, noodles and the intriguingly named "Buddhist Cabbage". The steak was particularly tender, the chicken a bit too sweet for my taste buds.

I may stir up some alternative opinions from my friends and family with this post....I hate to admit it but I was slightly disappointed with Lemongrass. It wasn't bad....but it wasn't excellent either. Given the favourable reviews I'd read, my expectations were high, and Lemongrass just didn't cut it. Perhaps it's blasphemous to compare, but I have had significantly better meals at the tiny Thai restaurant at the end of my road. And given this purports to be the only Cambodian restaurant in the UK, I'm going to have to visit Cambodia to make an informed decision as to whether I like this cuisine or not. What a chore.......now, where are those travel brochures?

To the scores. Middle of the road:

Food: ***
Value for money: ***
Atmosphere: ***

What a lot of "B"s

18 in all. 6 restaurants and 12 home cooked meals. It took us a while, but we're now at the end of B and raring to get onto C. Now for a look back over the B highlights and lowlights.

First the restaurants. We have a tie for first place with Brouge (Belgium) and Arda 2 (Bulgaria) both scoring 12 out of 15 points. Brouge scored consistently across all 3 categories. Another worthy mention for Reema Balti House (Bangladesh) just off Brick Lane, certainly the best value for money of our B venues. No real disasters for eating out in B countries.

Of the kitchen experiments, I particularly liked some of the early B fare - one pot chicken dish from Bahrain and a mushroom pork cutlet recipe for Belarus.

And the worst dish, one I won't be repeating - boring rice and beans from Belize.

I'm very much looking forward to the first of the C restaurants, we've picked out a restaurant in Camden called Lemongrass, representing Cambodia that gets some good write-ups. Might well take a trip up there Saturday evening if anyone fancies joining us.