Colombia: La Bodeguita

On a cold and snowy Saturday afternoon, we set off for the Elephant & Castle to find ourselves a taste of Colombia. There are a few places dotted around London selling Colombian fare, but La Bodeguita appeared on several blogs and websites, and looked like a good bet to experience that authentic taste.

 

Finding the restaurant was a minor challenge. La Bodeguita is actually right in the middle of the Elephant & Castle shopping centre. We were temporarily confused by the delicatessen and café belonging to the restaurant, but then spotted the restaurant proper in the corner of the shopping mall. And it's certainly the most lively joint there. There doesn't really seem to be much shopping on offer at the Elephant these days.

 

It was pleasantly busy for the middle of the afternoon on a day that was so bitterly cold, I'm surprised anyone had ventured out. We were seated by a very jovial host who quickly got us some drinks. We opted for a jug of Refajo, a beer and irn bru mix. Yum! Not unlike a Belgian fruit beer (duh...that might be the fruity taste of the irn bru).

We shared various starters including empanadas that had a lovely crispy pastry. Croquettas de pollo that were moist and delicious and also a plate of Chorizo y Arepa - or chorizo sausage and cornbread to you and I. The tapas were very well cooked, hot and spicy. A perfect start to the meal.

 

We then moved onto the main event. Suzanne had Arroz Especial a La Bodeguita, a Colombian version of Paella served with some fried plantain. A huge plate of tasty seasoned rice with king prawns. I had Chuleta de Cerdo, or pork escalope. With more fried plantain. This was a beautifully thin pork steak with crispy breadcrumb coating. And James had an enormous plate of food, pretty much every ingredient they had on the menu - Bandeja Paisa. The central piece was a large succulent cut of pork belly, with more chorizo sausage, more plantain and the deal sealer for James, a fried egg on top.

 

You can't come to a Colombian restaurant and not have a coffee, so while James indulged his caffeine habit, Suzanne and I sampled one of the few home made desserts on the menu. This was literally a huge slab of cheese (tasted like a sheep's milk cheese, crumbly in texture and very mild) with a huge dollop of dulce de leche (condensed milk caramel, if you have never tried it, it's totally delicious but must have about 2000 calories in a teaspoon full, ridiculously sweet). Looks revolting, but it worked very well, although definitely a sharing dish.

 

 

By the time we'd lingered over our late lunch, the blizzard was easing outside, so we waddled back to the Northern Line and home. I have to say, I really enjoyed La Bodeguita. I think it would be a great place to come in the evening with a large group of people, as they take their live music seriously, it's open very late of a weekend. Excellent food and friendly service...I'd visit again.

 

Scoring time...

 

Food ****

Atmosphere ****

Value for money ****

 

 





China: Min Jiang

This is without doubt the poshest Chinese I've been to.  With a splendid view over Kensington Gardens and the London skyline, Min Jiang is situated on the 10th floor of the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington. No doubt it would have been even better if we'd been there in daylight.

We had originally booked to go with a large crowd a couple of Fridays ago, but alas, a freak snowstorm in London meant the transport system was unreliable for getting home afterwards, so we postponed. Unfortunately, it proved difficult to co-ordinate the diaries of 8 people and now we are back on this journey, I was keen not to delay any longer and finally, I secured an early table on a Tuesday evening. You do need to book Min Jiang, it was very busy, full of business diners at the immaculate white-clothed tables.

It was always going to be tricky to pick a Chinese restaurant in London with all that choice, but I relied on my good friend Soo Lim to do the recommending. I always had in mind that with some of these more bountiful cuisines, that we would try and sample something at the top end, a restaurant widely regarded as the best of the bunch. Min Jiang certainly fit that description in my opinion.

 

We were shown to our table next to the panoramic window, unfortunately you can't see the view behind Faith and Suzanne because of the reflection. But it was stunning, uninterrupted London skyline with clear views of the Post Office tower, to the Shard and the towers of Canary Wharf in the distance. James studies the menu - no set menus here!

 

Let's talk about the food, as that was definitely the main attraction of Min Jiang. Suzanne tucks into the delightful appetisers. We had a dim sum selection, the obligatory spring rolls (well, obligatory if I'm at the party) and the most delicious soft shell crab I've ever tasted. It was a sizeable plate of shell fish and served with moreish deep fried chillies and red cabbage. The spring rolls were top notch, great crispy pastry with piping hot filling. And a mixed plate of dim sum with vegetable and sea food fillings. All in all, a superb start to the meal.








Min Jiang is apparently famous for it's duck course, and given that has to be one of my favourite things about Chinese cuisine (even if it's not altogether authentic), I awaited the middle course with eager anticipation. It did not disappoint.

A key difference in the way they present this course to you at Min Jiang is how they split the half or whole duck you order into 3 separate dishes. First off, a taster of the skin of the duck - you can see it in the small dish above with a couple of tomato halves on the plate. The waiter encouraged us to dip the small pieces of crispy duck skin in sugar. Odd. But surprisingly tasty, the only way I could describe it is liking eating doughnuts (which I guess isn't a huge leap of the imagination as that is exactly what doughnuts are - fat and sugar!). This was followed by some slices of duck meat, served in the more recognisable way with plum sauce, spring onions and cucumber, wrapped in the finest pancakes. All good. But to top of this part of the duck extravaganza, they also provided an alternative set of ingredients to add to the pancakes, duck and plum sauce - white radish, ginger strips and a garlic puree. Absolutely delicious. That and the soft shell crab alone would tempt me back here.

The final part of the duck courses was actually saved for delivery with the other main course dishes. We had a choice of 4 ways as to how we wanted it served, and opted for fried up with noodles, shown in the picture below.

The quality of the mains were most certainly on a par with the previous courses. The sweet and sour chicken was certainly the best I have ever tasted, and we all liked the egg fried rice chock full with beautiful fresh edamame beans. The final two dishes included a fine pork belly and also some prawns in a perhaps slightly too sweet sauce. I would have liked to have tried the lobster dishes on the menu, but the price was a little prohibitive having already opted for the duck course. Dinner was all washed down with a Tiger beer and some jasmine tea to finish.

Overall, this was a fabulous meal. Where I would "mark" them down - the service is just too quick. We were in and out of the restaurant in just over an hour, and you get the distinct impression they are trying to get as many sittings into the evening as possible. It would have been nice to linger between courses. That way, I may have been tempted to have a dessert too. I'd highly recommend Min Jiang.





Hotel restaurants can sometimes be impersonal and often not that busy or full of lone resident diners. This was certainly not true of Min Jiang. Here's a couple of snaps of us leaving the restaurant, in the lift back down to the lobby!.

And now to the scores:

Food: *****
Value for Money:***
Atmosphere:****




UPDATE 6th April 2013

With Soo back from her travels, we decided to give Min Jiang a second go (nobody was complaining, this was great food). We chose a late Saturday lunch sitting, so we could see the view in daylight and also squeeze in a trip to Kensington Palace in the morning (well worth a visit).

I wanted to update the blog as we had a few new dishes second time round. Being lunchtime, Soo ordered a stack of dim sum for mains, including this very tasty char siu:

 

 

We also had time and inclination for pudding on this trip. Here are the very cute steamed custard puddings and a dish of pear and snow ears with chestnut buns:

 

 

Interesting texture, those snow ears. A cross between seaweed and lychees? Certainly not something I'd be rushing to have again, although Soo said she'd get her mum to cook them if we ever end up in the same place ;-). The custard buns were a delight though.

Another successful trip to Min Jiang, I'm sticking with the same star ratings.

Almost forgot, the view!



 



 

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: *