CHOOKS - EALING BROADWAY

Review

This will a tad different from previous reviews.

Eat here. Don't think about it or rationalise how wonderful your stroganoff is going to be tonight - I mean, you know you make a mean stroganoff, right? No. Eat here instead.

I could go through the motions and throw superfluous superlatives at you - the perfect texture this, the well balanced that, the whole shabang about comfort food and root beer being good for the soul. I won't waste your time as this is not a comparative piece - it was all perfect. We plumped for popcorn shrimp and mac 'n' cheese pops to start. (I can't help but to be a five year old and get excited about food with the word "pop" in it). Then the High Noon Chicken Tacos and the Hog 'n' Chook Combo for mains - substituting some sweet potato fries.

[ Imagine your own description of the perfect, comforting versions of these dishes and insert into this space - that is what you will be getting ... ]

I have only experienced comforting bbq food of this ilk once before.

Eat here.

Please eat here.

Steak au Poivre

Lan Zhou Noodle Bar - Soho

Review

I have been away from the blogosphere for a while and to hold out an olive branch, here is my closest held secret – 33 Cranbourn Street. 5 seconds from Leicester Square station is this extraordinary hole-in-the-wall that serves up what can only be described as a truly ridiculous experience. You will be ushered beyond the sweet and sour somethings that adorn the front of the shop, presented cafeteria-style, no doubt for the hoards of tourists in this part of town that don’t know better. You’ll be seated at a bench, most likely opposite or next to a stranger and gruffly given your menu and then feel a tiny bit uncomfortable at how cramped the joint is. Don’t worry, it gets better. You will hopefully plump for the stewed beef la mian and wonder why it is so cheap; I mean, you must have made a poor choice choosing this place, it’s cheap for a reason.

Then sit back, relax and take in the drama. Like a refined dancer, one of the chefs in the tiny open kitchen will start pulling and twisting your noodled by hand until they are ready for cooking – he will move with grace and precision and entirely effortlessly. When he tops your noodles with sumptuous, soft, mind-numbingly tender beef and pak choi, coriander and a rich, savoury, deep broth … brace yourself, as your time has almost arrived.

Then you will tuck into a £6.50 bowl of absolute perfection. Here you have an unbelievably balanced band of flavours. The moreish broth is wonderfully tempered by beef that with hours of stewing has become sweet. The buttery pak choi and bunches of fresh coriander will give you a fresh vibrant kick. This place is rare gem - packed full of drama, honest in its objective, uncomplicated and uncompromising food. There is no faff here but immeasurable charm and simply amazing comfort food.

Kerbisher & Malt - Ealing Broadway

Review

Price: 2 people, £20-£30

With a few weeks away from the blogosphere and completely under my work, I decided that I would share my next meal out with you. Kerbisher & Malt is a “modern, British fish and chip shop” with 4 locations in London and they have some great draws. Fresh fish, choice of battered or grilled, no frozen chips, cooking in rapeseed oil. All plusses in my book. We walked in – the smell of the Friday afternoons of my youth, simple timeless decor, happy warming service and a brilliantly comforting menu. But an army marches on its stomach and we were famished. Between the two of us, we chose grilled haddock with the crushed potato salad and a battered cod with their twice-cooked chips. Mushy peas, coleslaw and a couple of sauces made sure our table was covered.

Despite all the brilliant reviews I read and made me want to eat there, I found my meal disappointing. The food looked brilliant and our fish tasted incredibly fresh and was cooked to a delicate softness, but the cod was quite badly under seasoned and greasy; half the batter was crisp, half like soggy paper. The haddock arrived moderately warm. This was a problem as the crushed potato salad served with it was very cold (straight out of the fridge), a little stodgy and made for an overall cool mouthful when coupled with the fish. I want a potato salad to be a packed-full-of-herbs, rich, filling comfort food, at room temperature. I would hope most people are the same and we only eat cold potato salads that come out of the snack section fridges in the supermarket. The chips that came with the cod, despite the assurances, tasted a lot like those fat school-dinners frozen chips. Luckily I managed to couple my cod with lots of extra salt and pepper and the coleslaw that was super finely shredded and with a big citrus zing which was a positive that I took from the meal. 

While not a very bad portion of fish and chips, there is a nostalgia attached to the meal that restaurants can't ignore; so many expectations can be uprooted by little things that aren't quite how we all remember them. Memories are very hard to live up to and perhaps I shouldn't try to judge a restaurant against my wistfulness, but I found that my disappointment in the meal was less down to skill or poor ingredients, and more down to lack of attention to detail. And that really is a kick in the teeth as I could have easily been enjoying a wonderful meal.

This is the first review I have posted that isn't positive and that annoys me a little. However, I experienced an absolute revelation at Casa Roberta recently and will soon post about the wonderful wonderful food they have on offer there! 

As a recommendation for west Londoners, The Golden Chip on Boston Road, W7, is pretty much an unbeatable portion of fish and chips.

Five Guys

Five Guys definitely isn't in need of any more brilliant reviews of their famous burgers. Enough people have written about the advantages of their thin, pressed patties and the quality of simple ingredients hasn't been lost on other reviewers. And they definitely give due reverence to my comfort food of choice. So no unnecessary review of their cheese-filled pockets of joy. Instead, here is a shameless display of food porn from our last visit to my favourite apple pie-eating, yanky-doodle-dandy, son of uncle Sam burger joint - Five Guys, Westfield London.

Photos courtesy of my wonderful Holly Promise.

Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato, Coconut and Chilli Soup

This is a great, warming soup that we are making now the weather is taking a chilly turn. The sweetness of the vegetables is tempered by the heat from the chilli and the sharpness added to the prawns. Serve with lots of bread.

The soup will keep in the fridge for 3 days and 2 weeks if frozen.

Ingredients

feeds 4

750 grams butternut squash cut into 3-4cm cubes

500 grams sweet potato

1 large white onion

1.5 pints chicken or vegetable stock

1 tablespoon paprika

0.5 teaspoon chopped medium-hot red chilli

0.25 teaspoon very hot chilli powder

150 millilitres coconut milk

salt and pepper

sunflower oil

24 peeled uncooked king prawns 

2 large garlic cloves, crushed

juice of half a lime

1,     Preheat oven and oven dish to 200°c and prick sweet potatoes a few times. Peel the onion and chop roughly. Put a large non-stick saucepan on a medium heat. 

2,     When the oven is hot, put sweet potatoes in oven dish and cook - they will take about 40 minutes, but start to check them after 30 - you want the flesh very soft. Add a tablespoon of sunflower oil to the pan and start to fry the onions. Keep them moving, look for a little colour but they shouldn't brown. After about 3 minutes, add the paprika and cook for another minute to remove the bitter edge. 

3,     Add the cubed butternut squash to the pan and continue to fry together for another 3-4 minutes, keeping it moving all the time. Now add the stock and turn the heat down a little so that it's on a gentle simmer. After 5 minutes, add the chopped red chilli. Leave on the heat for a further 20 minutes.

4,     When the butternut squash is tender, use a masher to break it down slightly. Remove the sweet potatoes from the oven, slice open and scoop out the flesh. Add this to the butternut squash along with the chilli powder. Use a hand blender to blitz the soup. Alternatively, use a kitchen top blender and return to pan.

5,     Add the coconut milk to the soup and season with salt and pepper to taste. Leave the soup on the lowest possible heat.

6,     Put a wok (or large heavy frying pan) on a high heat and add 1 tablespoon of sunflower oil. When the oil is hot, add the prawns and fry for 10 seconds before adding the crushed garlic and then toss the prawns. Cook the prawns on this high heat for 2-3 minutes until they are light pink all over. Now add the lime juice and take off heat.

Serve in bowls or mugs and drop 5 or 6 prawns on top for a main dish or 3 for a starter.

Turtle Bay Ealing Broadway

Review

Price: 2 people, £40-45

A new restaurant had popped up in Ealing and we had twice passed and seen happy people delving into comforting Caribbean fare. Keen to be in on what everyone else had been enjoying over the past few weeks, we decided that some hearty homely Caribbean food would probably hit the spot on the first bitter night of the autumn.

Rather pleased at 2for1 cocktails during happy hour, we got started with a few and got some sweet corn fritters and dumplings to start. The dumplings seemed like the same batter as used in the fritters, just fried on their own. But they were very light and non-oily. The sweet corn fritters had a bit of a kick and sharpness to them. A big bowl of them with a pint of something at the bar would probably be the perfect late afternoon snack.

Working through our cocktails, we went for curry goat and jerk ribs for our mains. The goat was well cooked, well seasoned and very soft. The coconut shavings on the top were a great touch and accentuated the rich, nutty, goat flavour. The curry didn’t seem a terribly authentic version; we didn’t think the spice mix was particularly traditional, but this didn’t bother us too much. One thing though - with a rich meaty sauce like that, we would have liked more than two small pieces of pitta alongside. The dumplings came in useful here. The jerk ribs come with coleslaw and your choice of rice’n’peas, sweet potato mash or sweet potato fries. I went for the fries. The ribs were absolutely superb. They were smokey, with a nice bark, but unbelievably tender close to the bone. They are served with a sour orange chutney that does the same job as a good BBQ sauce - the sharpness helps boost the meat flavours and marry meat with veg. The coleslaw was crisp and refreshing, the coriander running through it was very pleasant. Fries will always be fries, but these were cooked well will a crisp, ruffled skin.

With cocktails during happy hour (12:00-19:00 and 22:00-close) and food, expect to pay around £45 for a starter and main for 2 people. For hearty, warming food that’s comforting and full of flavour, this represents brilliant value and I would wholeheartedly recommend Turtle Bay to anyone passing through this part of West London.