Blacklock City, Foxlow Soho and Bellanger

Blacklock City pre-chop bites

I'm not deliberately moving the blog towards more reviews, it's just been working out that way. This past week I have eaten out an unprecedented three times. Well, it may not actually be unprecedented but I can't remember the last time I did (while not actually being away from home). And now I am coming to think about the three meals, I think they are quite representative of the way I prefer to eat out in London. Independents or small chains. Not stuffy or fussy, not enormously expensive but good ingredients and generous hospitality.

All in. Why not?

On Monday I had lunch with Mimi and her lovely baby son at Blacklock City. We originally planned to meet because Mimi was embroiled in an imbroglio, as Wodehouse would have it, over the appropriation of Burmese culture and I'd offered to be moral support in her meeting with the unrepentant appropriator. But then Mimi decided that he wasn't worth the time, so we just had lunch. I'd been to Blacklock Soho for their (exceptionally good) Sunday lunch, but this was the first time I'd been to the new City venue. While the Soho branch on a Sunday is pretty mixed, a chophouse in the City on a weekday might as well have "NO GIRLS" on the door: some of the suited and booted diners looked slightly horrified to see women with a pram.

We went "all in" - pre-chop bites, chops piled on grilled flatbread and a couple of sides, for a very reasonable £20 a head. The pre-chop bites, int the same vein as the anchovies I had at Foxlow recently, were Peter's Yard (probably) rye crispbreads topped with salty, delicious toppings. The nicest of the three was topped with egg and anchovy - so good we ordered another round of those in lieu of pudding. The chops (beef sirloin, pork belly and lamb t-bones) were delicious, the chips perfect and the salad just what was needed. A couple of £5 cocktails and extremely friendly staff going above and beyond to accommodate the baby made it just about perfect.  

Lenny Henry as a Depression-era gangster

On Wednesday I had a quick, early dinner back at Foxlow before seeing the excellent Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar. We had a table towards the front of the restaurant, which was a reasonable height so my feet were able to touch the floor comfortably.

I almost never order chicken burgers, because the chicken is so often woolly and bland, but with the memory of their delicious fried chicken fresh in my mind I felt confident to have the chicken burger, with an optional kimchi topping. Messy. Very messy. But absolutely delicious. The service was a bit scatty - my friend had specifically asked if there was mayonnaise on the Foxlow burger, had been told no, and then it arrived with a massive load of mayo on it. She complained, and the staff member complained to went to get the staff member who'd taken the original order, who said it wasn't mayonnaise it was KEWPIE MAYONNAISE. And it then took much longer than it should have to bring a replacement, mayo-less bun.

Chicken burger with kim chi, fries and cherry tarragon sorbet

I decided that I couldn't forego ice cream on a very hot day, so I ordered a scoop of salted caramel ripple and a scoop of cherry and tarragon sorbet, both of which were gorgeous. Then we strolled off to the theatre.

Rose weather at Bellanger

And finally on Friday I had dinner at Bellanger before a dance show. Turned out to be a slightly less good idea because the show wasn't at the venue we thought it was at, so we ended up having to hustle to get there in time. But Bellanger is a Corbin and King restaurant, and I love what they do so, so much, so it's never going to be a terrible idea, even if it results in a more expensive Uber. The Delaunay, Brasserie Zedel, Fischers - all good food, professional service, some of the nicest loos in London and reasonable prices. You know you are in safe hands.

It was a really hot day, and I couldn't quite bear the idea of choucroute garnie, or even one of their huge, delicious schnitzels. The salad section of the menu appealed but it was a bit tricky to fathom what size the salads were. The waitress advised us that the crab and smoked salmon salad, at £13.95 was a starter size, and the beef, endive and roquefort salad at £14.50 was a main course size. Which was slightly confusing. We took her advice and ordered the salads, with a tarte flambee to share. The portion size was perfectly judged to leave space for dessert. The last time I had a knickerbocker glory it was a tragically disappointing waste of calories. This one restored my faith in them, with strawberry and vanilla ice creams, not-too-jammy berries and whipped cream.

Crab salad, tarte flambee and knickerbocker glory

Foxlow Soho

Anchovy and goats butter on rye crisps

Hawksmoor - either Air St or Seven Dials - is one of my happy places. The food is always good, the staff are always friendly and competent and the atmosphere inviting. You step through the door and take a deep breath because, for a couple of hours, nothing bad can happen. Unfortunately, Hawksmoor is priced to make that particular happy place quite a rare treat. Once a year, if I am lucky. A few years ago, presumably recognising that people want good food, nice staff and a welcoming atmosphere more often than that, the people behind Hawksmoor opened Foxlow, pitched as a "neighbourhood restaurant". The neighbourhoods they started in were Stoke Newington, Clerkenwell and Balham though, none of which are convenient for me to drop in on or particularly enticing as a destination in themselves. The new Soho branch, however, is very convenient for getting home from.

Shaky Pete's Ginger Brew - the head is deliberate

The soft launch was this week, with a very appealing 50% off food, and I managed to be quick enough on the booking button to get a table for last night. I started with one of Hawksmoor's most famous drinks, Shaky Pete's ginger brew - a fabulous take on a shandy and the best possible use for London Pride. Paul had a beer, but he was very impressed when I gave him a sip of my drink.

Five pepper squid

I knew I wanted fried chicken as a main course - I've been having a craving lately - so chose the lightest possible option for my starter. It was 3 little (almost certainly Peter's Yard) rye crispbreads, topped with whipped goats butter, plump curled anchovies and rings of crunchy red onion. Perfect appetite-whetting mouthfuls, with enough salt to make the ginger brew sing. Paul had five pepper squid. Which was nicely crisp but slightly underpowered for something claiming five peppers. The devilled mayo could have had a little more tang as well. But it's always nice to see tentacles on the plate as well as calamari rings.

We'd ordered a bottle of pinot noir (the wine list is very reasonably priced) to go with our mains. They didn't have it, and in what may be a world first for wine waiters, they suggested an alternative that was actually cheaper than our original selection. I was a little surprised by the assertion that the flavours in the suggested Chilean carmenere were similar, because the carmeneres I have had in the past were pretty big, fruity wines with a bit of smoke, whereas the pinot noir we were anticipating was a lighter, more refined affair. As it happened, the recommendation was absolutely on the money: a much lighter bodied and very drinkable wine.

Rib eye with green salad

Ever since he first had a kimchi burger at Hawksmoor Seven Dials, years and years ago, Paul's been devoted to them, so I was slightly surprised that he pulled himself away from the Foxlow burger, with an optional kimchi topping, opting for a rib eye steak with peppercorn sauce and a green salad. The steak was excellent. Perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned and a very nice piece of meat (as you'd expect from them, really). Also, as you'd expect from the team that brought you the best salad in the world, the green salad wasn't just a garnish, but a properly dressed assembly of leaves. The boy a couple of tables down wasn't having such a positive experience, holding forth loudly about how the flat iron he'd ordered wasn't a flat iron. Not that he said anything to the waitress when she checked on him.

Fried chicken

My longed-for fried chicken absolutely nailed the craving. I had a slight language barrier with the waitress though - they offer 2 or 4 piece portions, and I'd asked if a piece was a joint like a drumstick or if it was divided into smaller pieces. She said "Oh no, smaller!" and indicated a size with her hands that led me to believe I wanted the 4 piece. Fortunately Paul helped me with the last piece. But it was SO good - really crisp, well-seasoned and the flesh had that melting quality that certain famous chicken chains achieve with a pressure cooker. The accompanying habanero vinegar, apple and fennel slaw was just the right tangy, acid counterpoint to the richness. Although I couldn't actually detect any habanero heat in it.

For dessert Paul had whiskey and I had gorgeous pococello. And a couple of scoops of lime and mascarpone icecream from Poco Gelato. The icecream had almost the chewy texture you get with Middle Eastern mastic-based icecreams, which I like, but not quite enough lime. So I poured half my pococello over it and that was absolutely perfect.

It was the soft launch, of course, so you don't expect everything to be absolutely right and there was very little wrong. Except the seats. I'm not the tallest woman you are likely to meet, but at 5'6" I'm not really short enough to have my feet swinging 3" off the ground. And I noticed that most of the other diners on the similar seats were swapping places half way through the meal. If I sat right forward at the edge of the seat my toes touched the ground and took some of the pressure off. But they really might like to offer footstools.

Temper, London

Temper. Fuck yes. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

Forty Dean Street

Prosecco

Very much to my surprise my ninth blogoversary has come and gone without acknowledgment. And two months have slipped by since I last posted. I just haven't been feeling it. I have spent much of the last couple of months raging over the Brexit referendum and ensuing economic uncertainty and rise of racial and religious-based hate crimes and, well, none of that has added up to me wanting to cook much or write about food. Food is joy and love and caring and inclusion, which all feels a bit pre-Brexit.

Prawns with cherry tomatoes and crostini, and antipasto platter

Which means that this meal, at Forty Dean Street has felt like a wondrous time gone by. It was utterly joy-filled as well as being completely unexpected.

There can be a certain predictability about blogger dinners. They are on a Tuesday, of the 15-20 people there I maybe know a couple and PRs are scattered through to keep everyone happy. Everyone's on their best behaviour, determined to enjoy themselves and the networking-inclined hand out business cards. Very pleasant they tend to be, if not always memorable.

Linguine with seafood, spaghetti with fresh lobster

Dinner at Forty Dean Street was on a Thursday. There were only six of us - three PRs, three bloggers. And it ended up being less a dinner than a dance party with food. The description of the restaurant - affordable, family-run, seventeen years in business - had me anticipating something a bit staid, while "favourite with our regulars, the media crowd and tourists alike" didn't make me feel particularly confident. So maybe my utter pleasure in the food and atmosphere was born of low expectations, but I do think it was genuinely good.

Lamb chops

Mention had been made of the owner coming to tell us about the restaurant and talk us through the food, but he was far too busy joyously DJing an impeccably selected soundtrack for a 40th birthday in the corner, and dancing with anyone who would stand up with him.  The food didn't need any introduction though. More than two months later I am thinking about how richly flavoured the spaghetti with lobster was and how perfectly tender the lamb chops with mustard crushed potatoes were. Beautifully prepared and utterly delicious.

The selection of desserts wasn't quite as good as the savoury dishes - the tiramisu was almost as good as mine, the pannacotta wobbled delectably and the cheesecake was a fair example but... I dunno. I think I'd just eaten enough and was enjoying dancing at the table because none of it wowed me particularly.

The bottom line is that it isn't somewhere I would take a first date, or have a work lunch where I was discussing redundancies, but for very nice food at an extremely reasonable price with a jolly party atmosphere... it's just what you want. And god knows the more support we give the independents in Soho the better, otherwise soon it'll be acceptable but dull franchises as far as the eye can see. Which would be such a shame.

Quo Vadis

We've been eating out a lot recently: it's the first time in years that we've had the disposable income to do it, and we've been embracing the opportunity. During the time we've been restricted on eating out, we've compiled a pretty extensive list of places we want to try, and the food scene in London being what it is, we could eat somewhere new twice a week for years at a time.

But the meal we had in summer at Quo Vadis was so good that when we needed to find somewhere to go with friends as an end of year treat, it was the clear choice. We'd tried to send the same friends there earlier in the year, but that had fallen through, so this way we figured they had no option but to go along with our plans. We were pretty confident that once they got through the door they'd fall in love with it too.

We'd started with a drink at the House of St Barnabas, and had a little preliminary look at the menu then. It was so perfect for the tastes of the four of us that it could have been bespoke. I laid bets with myself on what each person would order and got it entirely correct. Without having to bully anybody about their choices.

I started with the QV Eduardini - vodka, Campari, lemon and soda. Really delicious - and even the non-Campari drinking person at the table agreed that it was nice. It's given me ideas, so I will be buying a bottle of Campari to play with.

One of the reasons for going to dinner was an early birthday celebration for Paul, so he decided that he deserved a grand gesture with the wine. A magnum (1.5l) of something. White seemed the most likely to go well with everything we ordered, so he chose a Soave Classico ‘Calvarino’. Possibly not the most perfect match for his main course, but brilliant with everything else.

   Crab soup, rouille and croutons was a gorgeous, intensely flavoured but almost consomme-textured broth. The perfect crabby essence with beautifully crunchy croutons (are they still croutons if they are that big? When does a crouton become a croute?) and perfect rouille.

Penny's main course, the warm salad of duck, apple and quince, was the best duck she'd ever had. It definitely demonstrated that taking the salad option doesn't necessarily mean meagre or ungenerous.

The only little bit of menu bullying we did was insisting that Norm have the smoked eel sandwich. After he tried it he accepted that we were right to do so. He thought he didn't like eel but I don't actually think he'd ever had it before. He's going to talk to his fish man about getting some smoked eel to have at home.

Norm's nearly always going to have the pork option for his main course, so the rare breed pork belly (can't remember if it was Middlewhite or Gloucester Old Spot) with burnt onions and garlic was a pretty easy guess. There was enough garlic that we all got to snaffle a clove, but the whole dish was deeply flavoured without being too garlicky.

Paul's interest in game meats was well catered for - rabbit terrine en croute followed by slow-cooked hare.

I had porchetta tonnata, a piggy take on the classic vitello tonnato. Meat with tuna mayonnaise sounds so unlikely but it is a delicious combination.

I knew that was going to be quite a rich starter, so I chose a lighter main course: hake with mussels, chickpeas and spinach. It was light, but again really intensely flavoured, with the tiniest chickpeas I have ever seen. Seriously. They were tiny. There was a little hit of spicy heat in the spinach broth which I wasn't expecting but worked beautifully.

We shared some perfect fat chips and excellent purple sprouting broccoli,  and finished our wine. Then had a pause to consider the dessert menu.

I really love when restaurants offer just a tiny bite of something sweet on the dessert menu. I don't usually want a whole dessert, and Paul often isn't interested in even a bite of a shared one, so a little sweet morsel is just what is called for. I had a single chocolate and almond prune (delicious, but not for the marzipan haters) while the others shared a very good cheese plate. A half bottle of sauternes rounded things out perfectly.

Date Night Friday: Hawksmoor Seven Dials

Paul occasionally gets bees in his bonnet. He will desperately crave a food and eat versions of it at every opportunity until finally he has one that meets his mental image of it and then he can move on to something else. He's been ordering big portions of fish in restaurants for over a year because nothing is quite what he had in mind. For the last couple of months he's been wanting "A really big steak", so I've been buying him various steaks, none of which have quite satisfied. So on Friday he took matters into his own hands and announced that Date Night was going to be at Hawksmoor Seven Dials.

We had a wander about the less-crowded bits of Covent Garden - which is looking much more attractive these days, with some really up-market shopping - and then sat at the bar for a drink. Paul's co-workers had all buggered off at 4pm, so he'd had a chance to do some uninterrupted work and scrutinise the drinks menu. It's unusual for him to choose a cocktail, but something about the vaulted ceilings, exposed brickwork and brass lamps give the bar a speakeasy vibe, which cries out for a mixed drink. He had the Hawksmoor Collins - Beefeater 24 gin, Campari, orange bitters and lemon, lengthened with soda.  I had a Shipwreck sour - Shipwreck cider brandy, cognac, ginger wine and lemon. Neither drink put up a fight, and I think I could have quite happily propped up the bar and had several more drinks and some snacks, but our table beckoned.

I toyed with the idea of having a couple of starters, but as the aim was for Paul to get the big steak of his dreams, we shared a 1kg prime rib, with side orders of beef dripping fries, salad and roasted mushrooms.

The steak was absolute perfection. Beautifully cooked, beautifully rested, and carved into nice big chunks. I think Paul's eyes actually rolled back in his head as the really big steak itch was scratched. The fries were perfectly fine, but an error of judgement: we were caught by the lure of beef dripping and didn't notice on the menu that these were going to be fries, not chips. Next time we'll have to remember to order the triple cooked chips instead. The salad was, of course, the salad of English lettuce and herbs which I maintain is the best green salad in the world.

We both ordered glasses of whiskey to finish on - Paul had bourbon, I had rye. Which led to the only glitch in (the charming, accomplished, attentive) service for the evening, as Paul's drink was delivered to the next table. We were able to retrieve it with no harm done. The smooth, caramelly whiskies were just the thing with the justifiably-famous salted caramel rolos. And actually, I wonder if whiskey isn't under-appreciated as a drink match for chocolate?

Edited to add: Paul was very disappointed that I didn't mention the wine. It was lovely. In my old age I am developing more of a taste for the French wines, and I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Stax Diner brunch

Another dance rehearsal, another excuse for a bite to eat in central London. This time we thought a quick brunchy bite was in order (as theoretically I was on my way to a workshop, however a combination of lateness and eggs made me miss it).

My initial thought had been The Diner - I haven't heard much about it but I know they do all-day breakfast - but the queue out the door was off-putting. Getting out of the very crowded main bit of Carnaby Street seemed desirable, so we ducked into Kingly Court and up to Stax Diner.

Of course, I'd been to Stax during the soft launch, but I'd either forgotten or never knew that they have a weekend brunch menu.

I ordered poached eggs with hollandaise, and a side of the house cured beef bacon. Sharon had Half and Half - a short stack of buttermilk pancakes and a poached egg with hollandaise. As she realised after she'd ordered that she was going to Milli's afternoon tea supper club later on, that was possibly a bigger meal than she really wanted...

My eggs were lovely - beautifully runny yolks and no stinting on the well-seasoned hollandaise. The muffin was a bit on the heavy and chewy side so the lavish application of the sauce was very welcome. There were both the classic and jalapeno Tabasco sauces on the table, too, which was a nice touch. The beef bacon was sweet, sticky and beefy, but not quite as crisp as I like bacon to be. Didn't stop me from eating it all though!

The time I absolutely needed to leave Oxford Circus station in order to get to the workshop on time came and went as I finished my orange juice. A queue was forming outside Stax, so we paid up (£12ish each) and vacated the table.

Sharon headed off to her afternoon tea; I wandered about Soho before meeting a friend at the National Portrait Gallery. It's not often that I feel like I've really made the most of London, so this was a really successful day out.

Ember Yard - a set menu done right

Just the words "set menu" are enough to send chills up my spine. Too many meals where normally good restaurants send out lukewarm tomato soup or over-chilled pâté followed by woolly salmon or woody chicken, I suppose. But on Saturday we celebrated a friend's Big Birthday with a dinner at Ember Yard, which was so good I may have to change my mind about set menus. Or whinge twice as loud the next time I have one that doesn't match up...

I was having a lovely time, so I didn't get pictures of everything and the pictures I did get are not my finest work. And I didn't manage to taste everything; there was just so much!

I didn't get any pictures of the starters, I was too busy eating them. The grilled flatbread with honey, thyme and smoked butter was so warm and comfortingly pillowy I was tempted to curl up on it for a nap. Our lovely waitress informed me that the bread is baked daily for them, and then they grill and top it for each order. My lovely husband informed me that I need to up my flatbread game to compete.

The seafood and vegetable tapas came out next. As a person who sees little point in kohlrabi I was impressed by how delicious it was in the tomato salad.

Smoke flavours were quite prominent through the meal - so it's a good thing I like smoked food. The apple-smoked bream carpaccio had a lovely, delicate sweet-smoked flavour and slightly chewy texture. I can see shavings of bottarga in the picture, but I couldn't identify it as a flavour at the time.

 The arancini were apparently made of smoked ricotta, but the main flavour was the sweet piquillo pepper. They had the perfect soft but not mushy texture in the middle, surrounded by the crisp shell. My palate may have been dulled by too much (very good, no idea what it was) white wine, because I also couldn't taste any fennel in the aioli on top.

I adore a stuffed and fried courgette flower, and these were particularly good. Paul was less delighted with them because of the drizzle of honey, which he thinks doesn't go with cheese. He is wrong, it does, so remind me not to waste any of my precious jar of truffle honey on him.

This buttermilk fried squid with squid ink alioli was the best fried squid I have had in ages. Years probably. It set Paul reminiscing about the deeply crisp fried squid legs we used to get at Toriciya in Sydney, which have always been our benchmark. I don't know what the difference between aioli, as served with the arancini, and alioli, as here, is, but this was a beautifully black, salty, garlicky sauce.

The next wave of dishes were the meaty ones. Quite clever really; there was enough of the starters and cheaper bits for everyone to fill up on, and then slightly smaller portions of the more expensive meat dishes. At the same time it never felt remotely mean or stingy: there was plenty to go around, particularly since the birthday girl doesn't eat pork. I loved the ibérico pork fat chips - I didn't notice any chorizo ketchup (which sounds like an amazing idea and I must figure out how to make some) but they were topped with what amounted to crushed pork scratchings. Divine.

It's pretty common for some cuts of Ibérico pork to be served a bit pink, and it was the perfect treatment for the grilled presa (a cut from the shoulder at the head of the loin). The whipped jamón butter was divine with it - I couldn't help thinking how good it would be on toast, but better not think about how calorific it is.

Chargrilled beef underblade with cauliflower purée was similarly pink, delicious, and calorific. I can see dollops of jamón vinaigrette across the dish, but I don't remember tasting them. I think I'll have to go back and try it again.

The desserts came out in yet smaller portions, but again there was plenty to go around. If you were one of those people who likes their own plate of food you might have been a bit thrown, but generally it worked well with people passing the dishes around for a taste.

The strawberry sorbet that came with the lemon and buttermilk cake was absolutely sublime, but I didn't taste the cake itself. I had definitely passed the point where I could manage cake.

I loved the white chocolate mousse with pickled nectarines, but completely failed to get a picture of it, while somehow managing to record 16 minutes of video of the inside of my handbag. The chocolate and turrón cake was also a bit cake-y for me at that stage of the evening. Very chocolatey, with a texture similar to a good brownie.

My favourite dessert of the evening was the muscovado panna cotta with thyme shortbread and milk sorbet. A thinnish layer of the caramelly, brown sugar panna cotta, topped with just the right amount of crumbled shortbread and a beautifully light sorbet. The perfect way to end an extremely good meal, and definitely one to try to replicate myself.

There was, apparently, birthday cake to follow, but we had to scuttle for the last train home. And with the best will in the world I don't think I could have fit in another bite.

ETA I found out today that the head chef at Ember Yard is called Jacques Fourie. He is no relation, unto the third generation, so this is honestly as unbiased as a lot of lovely alcohol can make me.