Casa Morita

I think that it’s probably harder to find decent Mexican food in this country than it will be for punters to buy chips on their own at the Olympics. If you live in London, you can brave the queues to eat good street food at Wahaca, but aside from a few other mini-chains doing great burritos, such as Benito’s Hat or Chilangos, most Mexican fare on offer in the UK is of the damp cardboard Tex Mex cheese ‘n nachos variety. How ecstatic was I when Casa Morita opened up in Brixton Market touting its Oaxacan-inspired menu– the food here is so exciting that I will willingly brave the uncomfortable-ness of the chairs to eat here while trying to balance a baby on my knee, it’s that good*.  It’s light, fresh, and tastes really really different – smoky chipotle, fresh lime, crispy tacos, authentic corn tortillas all popping with clean flavours. Double yum. Go, go!

The cheerful interior:

Huevos rancheros – a light, fruity chile/tomato sauce and black beans covering fried eggs and a corn tortilla, totally delicious and a lot lighter and fresher than what you might expect:

Vegetable tostada – guacamole, spicy vegetables, salad and feta cheese sitting atop a crispy corn taco. Vibrant and refreshing:

Casa Morita’s simple cheese quesadilla:

A delicious filling of melted cheddar, feta, guacamole, coriander – really fantastic, I could eaten 10 of these.

Excuse the bad pic – this is Sopa Azteca, a smoky tomato broth containing fresh avocado, feta, strips of tortilla and dried chillies. So good I had to eat half of it before I remembered to take a photo.

A cup of Mexican hot chocolate, aromatic with cinnamon and cloves. Perfect treat for anyone needing a spicy pick-me-up.

The waitress is a little, uh, ‘mellow’ when it comes to speedy service, but the cafe is friendly and relaxed. Nobody batted an eyelid as my baby daughter proceeded to throw most of her lunch all over their floor, furniture and walls. You can buy Mexican produce, such as Ibarra chocolate and tinned black beans, and choose from a vibrant display of Day of the Dead tin wall ornaments to kitsch up your home. I can’t wait to come back when I can drink lots beer, fall over and make a real evening of it.

Casa Morita
Unit 9
Market Row
Brixton Market
SW9 8LB

*To be honest, I find the most exciting places to eat never have high chairs. Just cause I have a baby doesn’t mean I want to be constricted to bland kid-friendly places like Giraffe! 

Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner

Once upon a time, we went to eat at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray. The legendary tasting menu blew our heads off – we were so overwhelmed by the meal on every level (speeded along by the addition of matching each psychedelic course to a wine, yikes) that we had to go and lie down on Bray village green afterwards, groaning. Passers-by stared. The meal was an unforgettable experience, and neither me nor my husband have ever quite been the same since. It was like being dragged into the strange world of Alice in Wonderland and having your head turned inside out along with all your preconceptions of food and flavour.

So – now to Dinner, Heston’s new-ish restaurant tucked away in the Mandarin Oriental hotel in London. It’s very different to the Fat Duck – much less of the chilled country vibe, it simply oozes urban adult sophistication from every pore. Think dark woods, leather and glass, gleaming temptingly underneath tasteful lighting. It doesn’t suffer at all from that fustiness which befalls some restaurants located in hotels. A meal here was just what we needed as an antidote to becoming parents last year. We wanted somewhere that was so adult that we wouldn’t remember what a child was by the end of the meal. Ha! (only slightly joking)

Admittedly the meal we had here was several months ago, but it is still most definitely worth mentioning and showing you. Heston has chosen to get inspiration from ancient cookbooks – some as old as 14th century – so your meal is like a journey through history, taking in some truly otherworldly flavours. You can shut your eyes and try to imagine yourself in some ancient royal court, feasting on the unusual flavours in front of you. There are some very weirdly delicious flavour combinations that make you scratch your head and think for a bit, and others that are comforting and familiar. Dinner doesn’t do a tasting menu in the style of the Fat Duck, but no matter – you leave full, content and happy, with historical flavours dancing on your tongue. No need for a lie-down in Hyde Park, either.

The legendary ‘Meat Fruit’ (c.13th – 15th century). It’s a fruit, right?

Not so fast. ‘Tis an orange in appearance but contains the most delicious meat pate, and the citrus ‘peel’ is a tangy fruit jelly, contrasting brilliantly with the richness of the filling. Clever, huh?

Salamagundy (1720 The Cook’s and Confectioner’s Dictionary by John Nott) – chicken oysters, salsify, marrow bone and horseradish cream. Super tender chicken, some very interesting smoky flavours.

Some excellent breads:

Powdered Duck Breast  with smoked confit fennel and umbles (c.1670 The Queene-like Closet or Rich Cabinet by Hannah Wolley): the meat was almost a tad too rare, but delicious nonetheless, and all the flavours on the plate just swam together effortlessly.

Spiced pigeon with ale and artichokes (c.1780 The Ladies’ Assistant and Complete System of Cookery by Charlotte Mason) – super tender pigeon with smoky spices, marrying cleverly with artichoke – who would have thought?

Fries: Heston’s famous triple-cooked ones, delicious!

Buttered carrots with caraway: INSANELY good

Brown bread ice cream (c.1830 – A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Eliza Rundell) – the ice cream was strangely unsweetened and wasn’t quite the bombshell dessert we were expecting. But still pretty good.

Tipsy cake with spit roast pineapple (1810 The English cookery book by J.H. Walsh). Quite literally one of the most delicious things I have ever put in my mouth – the hot, buttery, sugar-encrusted brioche was simply heavenly, and went magically with the caramelly pineapple. Oof!

A lovely free addition – a chocolate pot with a caraway biscuit. Not that we needed it, but clearly the waiter thought we needed to kill a bit more time before we returned to the land of babycare!

Dinner by Heston Blumenthal
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Hyde Park
66 Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7LA

Give me mezze!

There’s something very reassuring and heartwarming about Greek Cypriot food, particularly the mezze - the tasty sharing plates usually eaten as starters. Eating these seems to transform me into a better dining companion – all my usual gripes about not enjoying sharing small plates of food seem to evaporate when I’m ensconced in a down-to-earth taverna, fluorescent striplights humming away over my head, the tv blaring out some cheesy variety show in the corner and stray kittens skidding about my feet begging for scraps. I just love it all, especially the action of everybody tearing off hunks of bread to dunk into a delicious taramasalata or tzatziki dip. I feel laid back, fat and happy – and really don’t mind sharing. Yes, really.

On a recent brief visit to the southern Greek coast of Cyprus for a friend’s wedding, I felt contentment drench into me during two particularly memorable (and enormous) mezze sessions – we found two restaurants that base their entire menus on mezze alone, so you can graze on starter dishes to your heart’s content. Sometimes, don't you think that starters are the best part of the meal?

Agios Georgios Alamanou, Limassol

The first was at a beachside ‘fish tavern’ called Agios Georgios Alamanou on the beach near Limassol where you ordered a selection of fish mezze from a set menu and let the waitress do the rest. We just sat back in amazement as she dunked down plate after plate in front of us – all for a very reasonable 20 euros per head, which included free salad, bread, dips and desserts!

 

Cheap and cheerful decor – the best food on holiday, in my opinion, comes from down-to-earth places such as this:

 

 

 

First up: tomato, cucumber and olive salad and amazing crisp toasts flavoured with garlic, oregano and salt, liberally seasoned with olive oil, so very delicious and impossible to put down:

 

 

 

Deliciously lemony taramasalata dip:

 

 

 

Gorgeous wodges of grilled creamy halloumi cheese – crisp and salty on the outside, creamy and satisfyingly chewy on the inside. I could eat this cheese every day and never get bored (note the addition of a healthy side chip!):

 

 

And now for the big daddy – the ‘Beachside’ fish platter – this amount served three people more than handsomely. We wolfed down lightly battered calamari rings and octopus, fresh bream, battered meaty white fish, grilled langoustines sprinkled in parsley, and a healthy double-carb offering of both chips AND rice – properly amazing. Everything was super-fresh. Note the hugeness of the platter compared to the size of my friend K’s hand:

 

  

 

As if that wasn’t enough, behold the free dessert mezze platter, containing ice cool fresh wedges of watermelon, crystallised citrus fruits and mini warm honey doughnuts (so addictive like little bombs of sweet floral crack cocaine):

 

 

 

We waddled out of there, listing like the Marie Celeste, delighted with our meal…

Agios Georgios Alamanou
Limassol
Cyprus

 

Seven St George’s Taverna, Paphos

 

 

  

My second incredible mezze meal occurred in Paphos, at Seven St George’s Taverna, whose mellow outdoor courtyard (see above) was dripping in grape vines and bright pink bougainvillea. All of the produce and wines served are organic, and you could really taste the quality in every dish. Tiny kittens skittered about the place, hoping you would let them have a scrap from your plate. I was far too greedy to let them have anything!

A sexy-voiced waiter with eyes of the clearest blue told us that we would pay a fixed fee and that he would bring plate after plate of mezze until we begged him to stop. Yeah right, I thought, good luck getting me to stop. But, four rounds of savoury platefuls later, encompassing a veritable odyssey through wonderful vegetable mezze right through to considerable variations of carnivorous ones, I actually found myself asking him to hold back bringing any more savoury dishes, as we wanted to save space for pudding. (I have an entirely separate stomach for desserts – a useful tool for any gourmand).

In this shot you can see pickled celery, carrots in yoghurt sauce, cauliflower dip, garlicky walnut dip, tzatziki, warm potato salad. Just out of the picture, we also had platefuls of miniature fried black olives, beetroot salad and slices of local cheese, plus a warm raisin wholemeal loaf fresh from the oven:


 

 

A beautifully fresh tomato and lettuce salad, spiked with fresh dill:

 

 

 

A happy plateful of the above:

 

 

 

Now to the warm mezze – scrambled eggs with courgette, lentil stew, meatballs and stewed lamb:

 

 

 

Roast lamb, braised taro root in tomato sauce, chicken and mushrooms in creamy tarragon sauce, stewed aubergines, more mushrooms…

 

 

 

By this point I was thinking ‘schtop, schtop, I can’t eat any more!’ But the dishes kept on coming – aromatic beef stew with rice, rosemary-infused carrots, green beans with tomato and cinnamon sauce, more rice…

 

 

 

And lo: my separate pudding stomach kicked into action for the pudding mezze (I have never experienced a mezze spread consisting of puddings, it is a BRILLIANT idea). Apple crumble, warm gooey chocolate pudding, hot lemon pudding, vanilla flan and sticky banana toffee pudding with fudge sauce. Heart be still!

 

 

Mezze restaurants of Cyprus, I salute you – ‘tis a wonderful and sociable way to eat. Obviously helped enormously by the fact that the portion sizes are massive and that there is always enough for everybody…or am I just mellowing?

Seven St George’s Tavern
George and Lara
Yeroskepos
Paphos

I only wanted some sauce…

 

The Three Cornered Cross, a pub in Wimbourne, Dorset, has the boldness to serve lunch throughout the afternoon on a weekend, unlike the more ‘traditional’ pubs nearby which stop serving lunch at 2pm (I know! I have barely got my appetite by 2pm – it seems very old fashioned). Anyway, The Three Cornered Cross turns out fairly decent fare, but much to my consternation, my lunch there was marred by a total overbearing slavishness to ‘Health and Safety’. Every time I hear this phrase, my eyes start to roll into the back of my head, as it usually signifies some way in which to curtail enjoyment or spontaneity.

My friends and I sat outside in the garden to enjoy the good weather and all ordered fish and chips. Always, when I order this dish, part of my enjoyment ritual is to slather everything in masses of vinegar, over several intervals, plus a liberal serving of ketchup on the side, and tons of salt. The reapplication of vinegar throughout is crucial, as I believe that its power wears off after a few minutes. I know other people that enjoy the same ritual, as weird as it sounds. Anyway, the pub served up a very handsome looking plate of fish and chips, but I could see no sauces on the table, so I requested them. We waited a few minutes, during which time I tried to contemplate eating my food without cutlery or salt and pepper, as we were still waiting for these too.

Eventually, a young member of staff appeared at our table wearing a starched white apron and holding aloft a narrow, horizontal tray with 10 china pots. He asked what sauces everyone would like. We requested vinegar and ketchup, expecting to be given two pots for the table. But oh no. We were solemnly presented with the pots and tiny spoons, which we had to pass round the table dosing our food with little dabs, before having to give them back to our waiter. Oh no, this would never work, I thought.

I asked: “Could we keep the vinegar on the table please?”

He replied, “Sorry, I need it back I’m afraid.” He looked a little sheepish.

I said: “But what if I want more vinegar in a minute? I need lots of vinegar…and will possibly want more ketchup too…”

“Sorry, it’s for health and safety reasons, we can’t leave the sauces on the table.”

“I beg your pardon? Health and safety?”

By now, this young man looked tired, and possibly a little afraid of me. I wasn’t giving up – this was ludicrous.

“We need to keep the sauces refrigerated. Which is why I can’t leave them here.” By now, he was edging away. Don’t hurt me, crazy lady…

“But vinegar never goes off! And ketchup is also very vinegary, it would take ages to go off…” (Vinegar is a preservative, FFS…)

By now my husband was kicking me under the table. Leave the poor guy alone, his eyes were saying. I took a deep breath and smiled. “Never mind. We are finished with the sauces,” I said, even though I was ready to scream. Our friends looked down at their plates and their small dabs of ketchup.

I watched our waiter scurry off with his platter of sauces, whereby he retreated to a small wooden shed at the side of the pub garden. I saw him crouch down and open a fridge, no doubt refilling his little jugs with more fridge-cold condiments, ideal for making your food go chilly the moment you sprinkled them on. It looked like an immense palaver. I bet he questioned his job and got asked this question about the sauce situation over and over again.

I wasn’t finished with my ranting, especially as the acquisition of cutlery had also been a mission (but I’m not going to go into this now). As I shovelled rapidly cooling chips into my mouth (their heat loss hastened by the chilly vinegar), I exclaimed: “What a RIDICULOUS system! It’s totally mad not leaving the sauces here…” and so on for the remainder of our meal. In my mind a scenario of surreal and inescapable proportions was unfolding itself, a bit like Russian dolls, where you open one to find another lurking inside. 

“What if a table of eight people sat down and all wanted different amounts of sauces and took ages serving themselves, and then another table of six sat down moments later, and also wanted sauces at the same time? There is only one sauce waiter…” I was in full flow. “…and then, one table wanted more ketchup because someone had forgotten to request it at the time, but the sauce waiter was occupied with the newly arrived table? And then, another table wanted mustard, but the sauce waiter was busy refilling his tiny pots in the shed?”

Dear God. This had really got my goat – it was ‘Health and Safety’ gone completely up its own arsehole!

Anyway, rather than calming down, I continued to scrutinise the poor sauce waiter as he made his dismal trajectory around the pub garden, his pots of sauce clinking ominously on his wobbling tray. It seemed like a laborious waste of time.

And this, dear readers, is where The Three Cornered Cross lost all my respect as a diner – humiliating their waiter into this bizarre ritual of sauce Nazi-ism, and frustrating their vinegar/mustard/ketchup hungry public. Just give us a selection of bottles of sauce that we can help ourselves to, or at least a basket of sauces per table like any normal pub, and don’t fob us off with silly rationing, as it makes you look incredibly tight-arsed.

And don’t get me started on our epic wait for cutlery, and the salt and pepper pots that were delivered in an ornamental tin watering can, I’ll bore you to death! Harrumph…

The Three Legged Cross
Wimbourne
Dorset BH21 6RE

The Pear Tree

 

  

 

Tucked away down a quiet side-street in Fulham is a hidden gem of a pub called The Pear Tree serving wonderful food – but it wasn’t ever thus. The management (cheery bar staff wearing cute vintage attire, a fresh-faced chef) took over running things not so long ago. Before the change of guard, this was a gloomy rough boozer where (according to one local) you were likely to ‘get stabbed’. So dodgy was its reputation that my mother-in-law, a Fulham local, had never dared set foot in the place in all the 10 years she had lived here, and looked aghast when we said where we’d been! We will have to take her for a visit…

 

Don’t be put off by the eyesore temporary scaffolding that covers the front of the building – once inside you will be charmed by a magical space that has a little flavour of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ to it. Quirky lampshades, mis-matched furniture and yummy vintage crockery – all serve to create a lived-in and characterful atmosphere. It feels like an artistic aunt’s living room where you want to hang out for a few hours with a good book and some plonk. An interesting mix of people were in attendance on our Sunday afternoon visit – old geezers enjoying their pints, young families tucking into roasts, friends meeting up for a gossip.

The food is absolutely delicious. First of all, before you even make your menu choices, an enamel tub of rosemary-sprinkled foccaccia bread is placed before you, with dipping oil and vinegar. Light dough, fruity oil and herby rosemary - like crack cocaine for a bread-head like me:

 

 

Then to the main courses:

A tasty roast pork loin stuffed with leeks and apricots, served with perfectly cooked carrots, asparagus and green beans (well-cooked veg is so rare in a pub!):

 

A very tender duck breast, with similar exemplary veg:

 

 

Outstanding steak with pepper sauce and chips - holy moly:

Our puds were a bit less successful – a lemon ricotta tart didn’t actually taste of anything, and had stodgy pastry, but no matter – some good coffees cheered us up. My husband was wowed by the quality and immense generosity of the cheese plate – a great variety of British cheeses, and so plentiful that we had to take some home with us in a napkin…

We shall return! Perhaps for one of their knockout brunches...

The Pear Tree
17 Margravine Road
Fulham
London W6 8HJ

Saltie, New York

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is quite similar in many ways to London’s Hackney where the hipsters hang out. It’s urban, scruffy and full of media types working on ad campaigns and edgy photo shoots. Whereas in Hackney, lots of young women dress as ‘land girls’ (all smocks and 1940s makeup, or their grandmothers’ clothes) and the men dress like Victorian urchins or impecunious chimney sweeps with comedy glasses, it’s a little bit the same thing here – plenty of handlebar moustaches and beards on the blokes, wide framed NHS-style glasses and ramshackle fashions for the ladies. It can be hard work watching and laughing at the hipsters, so when your stomach starts to growl, and you want something that isn’t a bagel or a burger, Saltie is a snack-stop that offers the hungry diner a different sort of sandwich.

This tiny little shop is nothing more than a counter with a small prep area behind it. The menu is short and to the point, with nautical names for the sandwiches such as ‘The Captain’s Daughter’ and ‘Scuttlebutt’. There is nothing much else to buy apart from sandwiches, except for a few cakes, coffee and sometimes ice cream. It’s not a comfortable place – the point is that you get your sandwich and then you go somewhere else to eat it. And don’t ask for your sandwich to be divided in two for sharing – one of the stern counter ladies looked right at me with her laserbeam eyes and said ‘We don’t cut our sandwiches here – they are designed to be eaten as once piece.’ That showed me…

 

The counter area – beware, stern ladies dwell behind here:

 

 

Ahoy - the menu:

 

 

Don’t get me wrong when I say that, at first glance, the sandwich fillings sound a tad offputting. I mean, who would be drawn straight away to fillings such as pickled egg, sardine and beetroot? Urgh! My friend S actually went pale when he read the list of ingredients and said ‘I don’t think I can eat here, I don’t think I can do this’. But the clever thing here is that all the fillings are very well judged in terms of ingredient combinations and really work well together. Just like the name ‘Saltie’ suggests, the sandwich fillings are full of ‘umami’ combinations: fish, eggs and capers adorned with punchy garlicky aioli, or pickles and ham, or Spanish omelette and garlic mayo. Super yum.  The bread is a lovely chewy, crusty foccaccia which tastes homemade, and all the ingredients squidge nicely into the bread to create a very satisfying mouthful. These are messy sandwiches – the aioli will run down your chin and you might want to eat it on your own in the privacy of your home. But my God, these are good – and pretty much worth the $10 price tag.

 

S gets counselling from C in order to get to grips with the menu:

 

 

The Captain’s Daughter: sardines, pickled egg, salsa verde, leaves:

 

 

Scuttlebutt: egg, cauliflower, pickles, beets, pickles, feta, black olives, capers, aioli: so good that my friend D bought two, so that he had one to scoff in private when he got home.

 

 

Other sandwich fillings include ‘Ship’s Biscuit’ – soft scrambled egg and ricotta – and ‘Little Chef’: mortadella, pecorino, green olives and parsley. Certainly not your usual run-of-the-mill tuna mayo or cheese and pickle.

We finished off with some Grown Up Chocolate Chip Cookies that were buttery and delicious, with chunks of bitter chocolate. We ate them too fast for me to take a photograph of them.

Saltie
378 Metropolitan
Williamsburg, Brooklyn NYC

Momofuku Noodle Bar, New York

Well I never - I managed to find a truly wonderful restaurant in New York that serves magical and exceptional food and is…(are you sitting down)…cheap!  The food here is literally amazing. If, after several days of scoffing burgers and heavy American fare, your palate is in need of a recharge, this is the place to come. David Chang’s menu is a mixture of Korean and fusion, and boasts combinations of ingredients that that I have never put in my mouth before.

Chang is one of New York’s most super-hyped chefs – he has several restaurants all serving complex and original  Asian food, and it’s about as far away from the bland Wagamama concept as you could imagine. One of his restaurants is called the Momofuku Milk Bar which serves only puddings – sadly we didn’t have time to make it here, but people do rave about it with a far-away look in their eyes.

If you had only one night to eat out in New York, I would say to come to his Noodle Bar without hesitation, even if it meant crawling across broken glass on your bleeding stumps. You can’t reserve, but it’s worth the wait. Or take a tip from my book – turn up at 10pm on a Sunday night and you’ll be seated within a mere 10 minutes…

 

The menu changes daily and uses seasonal ingredients:

 

 

Striped raw sea bass in a cucumber broth – literally the freshest tasting thing, zingy and light. The cucumber broth tastes of the colour green!

 

 

Chargrilled octopus – aromatic five spice flavours on the outside, tender on the inside. Comes with tangy pieces of grapefruit, spring onions and  a yoghurt sauce. My favourite dish of the lot, absolutely outstanding:

 

 

Smoky chicken wings: sticky, smoky, salty, sweet:

 

 

The famous pork buns (this is what EVERYBODY talks about when they mention this restaurant) filled with pork belly infused with star anise. I got a bit freaked out by the inch of gungy fat clinging to the meat, so I removed it. A bit hardcore for me, but delicious once removed. My companions had no such qualms and gulped the whole lot down:

 

 

Roast potatoes with ‘ramps’ (seasonal wild spring onions) sprinkled with bonito flakes that moved and shimmered around from the heat of the food. A delicious mayo-style sauce underneath tasted smoky. Yum:

 

 

Momofuku ramen: delicious smoky broth with silky egg noodles, a barely poached egg (isn’t it a perfectly beautiful oval?), shredded pork, pork belly and scallions. Really comforting:

 

 

Chilled spicy Schezuan noodles: crisp nuggets of red-hot and mouth-tingling sausage sat atop noodles and baby leaf spinach, sprinkled generously with honey and chilli-roasted cashew nuts. Amazing – and made our lips tingle then go numb with heat:

 

 

Passion fruit soft serve, which was tangy, zingy and the perfectly refreshing end to the meal:

 

 

Oooh look: naughty chocolate crumbs hiding underneath:

 

 

Now these were seriously delicious: coconut and tangerine truffle cake balls. Soft cake on the inside, chewy coconut on the outer shell:

 

 

In terms of cost, the bill for four greedy people came to $150. We didn’t skimp on ordering, and this works out at roughly £25 per head including beers – an absolute bargain. We had eaten a dire meal out the previous night that cost us almost triple that amount per head, and with less food on table!

 

 

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 First Avenue NYC 10003
Tel: 00 1 212 777 7773
momofuku.com