Simple yet tasty

Tapas used to be free. A small plate would be balanced on a drink from a bar, holding a few nibbles to prevent too-speedy intoxication.

Now you’ll pay a few pounds a pop for bar nibbles and tapas is a meal type in its own right. I love most things in miniature and Spanish is no exception.

So I was pretty pleased when my partner and I were bought a night of tapas at La Cucina Caldesi as a gift. It was a fun evening for foodies with one caveat: there wasn’t a huge amount of cooking per person.

La Cucina Caldesi is a restaurant and cookery school. The restaurant part is five minutes north of Bond Street and the cookery school is tucked just behind it.

Behind stable-type doors, the teaching kitchen had two large wooden tables with bowls of partly-prepped ingredients. Around 20 people were booked in for a night of tapas, and although it was a little cosy, there was space for everybody. There was an extra station at the front with ovens and a hob.

Yes, that man is watching me...

Having never been to a cookery course before, I had no real idea of what to expect. First, everyone was given a disposable apron and a name tag. Everybody was a little awkward at this point, not really sure where to be at but intent on being polite to all other participants.

The ingredients for around six meals were distributed around the kitchen. Around each of them were several knives and chopping boards. I wondered how this would work: would we rotate around each board? Would there be time to cook each dish?

It turned out to be more ‘everyone muck in’ than each cook a set of dishes. The course leader went round each dish and demonstrated what to do before leaving us to pick a station and get stuck in. There was chorizo in cider, roasted pepper and aubergine bruschetta, meatballs, garlic mushrooms, patatas bravas and mussels.

There was a bit of swapping and changing, but generally a few people took on each dish. I chose mussels, since I’ve never prepared them before, and got busy scraping and cleaning. Whenever a dish got to the cooking stage, the chef gathered everyone round the cooking station to demonstrate how to cook it, hauling in volunteers to take on tasks.

Once everything was complete, we laid everything out on the wooden benches (four helpers had helpfully been cleaning up as we destroyed the kitchen, so no tidying to do). Everyone grabbed a plate and a glass of wine and tucked in.

I really enjoyed a night of tapas. Although the cooking was quite basic (so suitable for beginners!), the chef passed on some helpful tips, including:

• the best way to peel garlic is to smash it with the flat edge of a knife
• rinsing your fingers without rubbing them together will help get rid of the garlic smell
• leaving the knot of an onion intact when slicing it keeps it together and easier to cut
• if a mussel is slightly open, gently tap it on the counter – if it closes, it’s good to use, otherwise discard.

It was at 6:30pm on a Friday, so no need to miss work, and La Cucina Caldesi does weekend courses too. The only thing I would say is there isn’t masses of cooking for each person – you don’t get your own hob, just a board and a knife – but there was a nice communal feel with everyone contributing and having a go.

A great gift and recommended for seasoned foodies for a fun evening, or novice foodies for trying out the basics in an open, relaxed and tasty way.

Thankfully, I have found the solution. Reds Bar and Grill, Wimbledon, has all the best bits of American food without the grease, sugar and cheese – literal and metaphorical.

Right in Wimbledon town centre, Reds has two areas: the bar/restaurant section at the front and, towards the back, a more restauranty space. This is where I dined, and the atmosphere is much more cosy down the back, with a quirky combo of cushioned benches and weird artwork. Don’t be put off by the ‘bar’ bit, though, as it’s only a few stools propped up against a bar rather than a full on boozer.

The menu is a bit of a mess. A near A3 sheet crammed full of meal options, it lists everything from seafood options to steaks and burgers. Trying to be good, I didn’t have a starter, and when the mains arrived I was glad that I didn’t.

I opted for the chicken alambres. Usually associated with tacos, these were on skewers and served with spiced chips. Both were delicious and cooked just right. It came with a pepper sauce, which was delicious but hella spicy – thank goodness they put it in a pot on the side.

My companion went for the ribs, opting for the whole rack rather than half, and they were soft, sticky and scrumptious. We ordered onion rings as a side, and these were the only bit I wasn’t a fan of – although ‘real’ rings, they were just a tad greasy for my liking.

Needless to say, there was no room for dessert.

The staff were initially very good, being very friendly and offering advice on the meals. The waiter even accommodated my obscure request to have a burger topping with my non-burger meal after experiencing an intense craving for halloumi. After the meal, though, no one offered us a dessert or coffees menu and we had to chase someone down to get the bill, despite it not being hugely busy.

On price, it was fairly decent, especially considering the size of the meals. Mains ranged from around £10 for a basic meal to £18 for a steak and I felt it was great value. There was a decent range of drinks at a reasonable price, too, which always helps.

Overall, I’d recommend it. I’ll be heading back soon to try the epic-looking Reds burger.

Reds Bar and Grill, Wimbledon | 020 8540 8308

Image from mrsdkrebs‘s Flickr photostream.

What a lovely sentiment, I thought. Here we are, in an age where we will go to great lengths to avoid eye contact with anybody, and somebody has thought to encourage us to do our neighbours a favour.

It doesn’t take much to flip this view on its head, though. Why don’t we talk to our neighbours anymore? Why does nobody pop round for a cup of tea? Why don’t we make the effort to develop a sense of community? Should we need asking to help out less agile people in the winter?

It’s sad but true, and I’ve noticed it ever more since moving to London. I’ve lived in several flats in my time, and communications with others in the building were either 1) a brief mumbled ‘hello’ when bumping in to one of them as we both try to shuffle through the front door, or 2) banging on their door to tell them to shut the hell up with their music at three in the morning, hair like a bird’s nest and wearing inside-out pyjamas.

We will, however, communicate online quite freely. Pretty much every day I ‘speak’ to somebody who I have never made contact with before, and on the most varied of subjects – pensions, fruit tea, poor customer service.

It’s far easier behind a computer screen than face to face, and less ‘weird’ factor – imagine how you’d react if you were walking along the street with a friend, chatting about fruit tea, and somebody you happened to walk by chimed in with, “Personally, I think they all taste like cardboard.”

There are some tiny grains of hope, though. A few weeks ago, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I love your handbag.” A simple thing, but in a world of anonymity, it showed a human factor so rarely seen. The other day, my partner bumped into the next door neighbour at our shared gate and, instead of nodding and shuffling on by, they introduced themselves.

It shouldn’t take a snow shovel for us to care about our neighbours, our community, or just plain old other people. But it’s a little prompt, and I for one will be shoveling snow off the pavements this winter.

Image from Sabrina Tang‘s Flickr photostream.

Newspaper: hot property

Returning from a recent trip to north Wales, I was very, very bored. Sitting as the train rattled its way through the 15 stations between Euston and Tooting Bec, I thought: what would make this journey less boring? A newspaper.

I could sit and do the crosswords (back and internal – more chance of completing at least one of them), maybe catch up with the day’s news. Help pass the time a little.

I glanced around the nearly-empty train. Left: no chance of a newspaper. Clean as a whistle. Right: same deal. Straight ahead, however, lay my chance. A woman sat, reading a book, but with a paper on the seat next to her. Tucked close up to her leg and a pile of territorial leaflets on top, the paper was clearly hers – the question was, would she take it when she left the train, or could I make a quick dive and claim it before any other bored tube dweller?

I was scoping out the competition, hoping that book-reader would get off at the next station (minus her paper), when a women hopped onto the train, collapsed into a seat, whipped the newspaper from beneath the pile of leaflets and buried herself in it before I could bat an eyelid. Book-reader looked up, incredulous; eyebrows raised, she caught my eye. Was that paper yours, I asked wordlessly? Yes, it damn well was, she silently replied.

Clearly seething but unsure what to do, book-reader returned to her book. What could she do? Had the thief misunderstood, or was she just so brazen that she believed that, if she stayed hidden behind that newspaper, no one would question her right to read it?

The thief stood to exit at the next stop and as she rose, folding the newspaper with a clear intention to take it with her, book-reader stopped her with a touch on her arm.

“Give. It. To me.”

“Oh! Was that yours? I’m…ah….sorry,” the thief stammered, releasing the paper and retreating to the doors before they prevented her escape. Book-reader sighed, folding the regained newspaper and tucking it underneath her novel.

The train trundled along and, as I rose to alight at Tooting Bec, book-reader rose behind me and waited to get off. As the tube pulled away, I glanced back just in time to see the newspaper sitting on book-reader’s seat.

Image from garryknight‘s Flickr photostream.

Any way the wind blows...

I spent most of my high school years believing that Poland was located somewhere above France. Despite sitting through numerous history lessons about the world wars and German invasions, I still harboured the belief that Poland was an island somewhere north of the UK.

Thankfully, I have now learnt where it is (south-east Russia, right?). Perhaps my main error was looking to my history lessons rather than my geography ones to teach me the ways of the world.

I’ve never had a good sense of direction, but since living in London I have been forced into discovering an internal compass. Whenever I leave the house, I know (or have to find out pretty sharpish) which way I’m pointing.

The first rule is that everything is either north or south of the river. Diehard Londoners will fight to the death about which is the more superior (south wins every time – not that I care), but the main point is knowing which half of the capital you’re in in relation to the Thames.

You then have to figure out which way you’re looking. This is particularly important because of the tubes. If you descend into the underground without knowing which way you’re headed, you will find yourself staring at two signs: eastbound or westbound platform? North or south? To not know is to your peril, since you will be obliged to pause and look at a tube map whilst hoards of angry commuters shove past you and assume that a) you’re a tourist and b) you’re incredibly dim for trying to stand still in a tube station.

Just to make life even more fun, on some lines you will at some stations be asked whether you want to go north or south, and further down the line you must choose between east and west. A quick internal scan of where you are in relation to your destination is then required to assess which way is correct.

I still have a way to go – I still find myself entirely disorientated if I exit a tube station from one door when there are twelve others to choose from. Google maps usually places a tube station on a street, but it doesn’t warn you that you might actually emerge from the station half a mile down the road.

Despite my general revulsion towards geography, I have benefited from this new-found spatial wisdom and it has encouraged me to think in a wider context – hence my finding out (finally) where Poland is. Now everyone, after three: ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’.

Image from AntTree‘s photostream at Flickr.

You can't fault the original Masterchef

When I read that Celebrity Masterchef 2011 was starting, I was so excited. Despite having a few niggles with the last Masterchef, I remain attached – perhaps unhealthily so – to the wonders of Greg Wallace and John Torode’s expressive critiques.

Every evening, I flicked onto BBC1 in the expectation that celebrities and their initially poor yet somehow endearing cookery attempts would soon be gracing my screen.

It never came. At first, I was not worried – I must have just missed it when it first aired, I believed. But then I googled ‘Celebrity Masterchef 2011′ and found, to my dismay, that it was being broadcast in the daytime.

How could they do this to me? How could they do this to any Masterchef fan? Okay, so the last series was kind of annoying – we all know that I was not a fan of the large, shiny kitchens, contestants cooking their little hearts out in branded aprons while their families sobbed in the wings. That aside, I still would have watched the celeb version in the evenings. It is, in my view, still prime time television. It is not, as the Beeb seems to have decided, suitable to be defined as the same level of daytime mulch as Antiques Roadshow and Loose Women.

When I finally watched the programme – four episodes in an iPlayer catchup marathon – I sank into the delicious, warm happiness of retro Masterchef.

Big, shiny kitchens – gone. Dramatic family scenes – gone. Long, drawn out eliminations – gone. The small, intimate kitchens have returned and, best of all, John and Greg are back to their usual selves, making chirpy comments and big, overblown statements of marvellousness. All the best bits of original Masterchef have returned and the worst bits of the reinvented version chopped. Unhappy though I am that it is now classed as student television, it’s so worth it for the better format to have returned. And, since I have Sky+, I can record it every day and watch it at my leisure. Bliss.

On a small aside, any Masterchef fan who hasn’t seen the video below needs to watch it immediately

Image from yelp.com‘s photostream at Flickr.

Which takeaway would you choose?

A hop, skip and a jump around Crystal Palace triangle will show one thing: there’s no shortage of takeaways. My local area is stuffed full to the brim with curry houses, Chinese restaurants, pizza places, sushi bars and late-night providers for that deep fried chicken craving.

There are so many delicious looking gems – so why do I order from the same place every time I have a takeaway?

It’s a curious phenomenon. When I go out to a restaurant, I make a point of going somewhere new. Of course, I have favourites that I will visit time and again, but generally the idea is to try somewhere different. Not doing so feels like a bit of a cop out.

Takeaways are an entirely different kettle of fish. Every time I want a Chinese, I go to Chi Oriental. When I want a ‘healthy’ takeaway, Edo sushi wins every time. For a curry that tastes deceptively healthy (thereby reducing guilt levels) Gurkha Cottage ticks the tastebud box. Ashamedly, despite many apparently interesting pizza places, I revert to a Domino’s whenever the need for pizza surfaces.

This is something I have always accepted as natural. When I arrived in London, I tried a couple of Indian places and only tried others because I wasn’t entirely happy with the first attempts. Once I found one I liked, I stuck with it.

I attribute this to a couple of things. Firstly, pure laziness. Ordering a takeaway is about ease, convenience and reliability. You want to know what you’re getting; you want to indulge in your favourite; you want to know that you’ll get prawn crackers thrown in for free rather than having to order them.

Trying somewhere new takes effort, and effort is not something that goes along with all of these things. Going to a restaurant is an event, there’s a reason to seek out somewhere interesting. Yes, you’re taking a risk, but that’s part of the fun. Not so with takeaways. You want something you like and you want to know what’s coming.

Or it could just be that your favourite takeaway menu is still stuck down the side of the sofa from last time.

Image from su-lin‘s photostream at Flickr.

Chocolate fondant - Masterchef archnemesis

The road to Masterchef glory is paved with failed chocolate fondants. But is the road to continued Masterchef success being hampered by a strange new format filled with shiny kitchenware, meaningful bequests of aprons and – urgh – emotions?

I have always loved Masterchef. It balances perfectly my need to watch a cookery show and the (secret, every so slightly shameful) desire to watch a game show with some quirky element of realism. I love the passion, I love that Billy the Builder from up the road can turn out Michelin standard delicacies, I love that even the best chefs on there make the stupid kind of cock-ups that I do. I love(d) the simplicity of the show.

So when the new series started with a huge room full of contestants set to a background of teary-eyed family members, I was not all that pleased. I was suddenly whisked back to one dreadful day – the day I discovered Masterchef Australia on my excessively large television package, the excitement that even more Masterchef would ensue, the disappointment of finding that the Australian version was a load of hyped up rubbish and numerous people who’d be more suited to battering KFC chicken than designing fine dining. The new Masterchef seemed contrived, pandering to the masses, too big for its own baking tin.

Several episodes down the line, however, I have to admit I’m a little happier. Most of the contestants have been sifted out. The dramatic presentations of aprons to the lucky 20 have concluded. We’re back to smaller numbers cooking in (slightly) smaller kitchens (although there is still the occasional vacuous room, contestants forced to walk down the centre observed by their peers as they meet their fate). Some of the tasks are looking pretty good – cooking for a load of burley Scots my favourite so far – and they really are getting thrown in at the deep end pretty quick.

What’s this about, though – I’m starting to care. Polly, the cake-baking housewife, unaccountably gets on my wick; Tim amuses and impresses me with his bizarre combos that I’d just love to try; Jackie is so up and down that I worry she might not make it to the end of each episode without bursting into tears. Do I want reality TV levels of intimacy with these people? Do I want to be able to predict what they’ll cook next? Do I want to be devastated when they’re asked to hang their apron up for the final time?

I don’t know. I think that’s what the Beeb wants – make ‘em care, then they’ll watch. I’m not sure if it’s for me, but I know I’ll be watching every episode. I can’t not – it’s Masterchef.

Image from avlxyz‘s photostream at Flickr.

Warung Tujuh, Brighton

Cosy and cool with food packing a punch, Warung Tujuh is the place to go to give your tastebuds a treat.

In a small back street just off the front by Brighton pier, this narrow Indonesian restaurant spans two floors to seat a decent number of people.

Having not tried Indonesian before, this restaurant was an excellent introduction. Deep, strong flavours complemented by an edge of refinement meant exceptionally delicious dishes and excellent presentation.

To start, my companion and I shared the spring roles. The service was incredibly fast, with the freshly cooked and crunchy starter flying from the kitchen within minutes of ordering. Served with a tangy dipping sauce, the spring roles could not be faulted.

The mains practically chased the starter out of the kitchen, appearing soon after we finished the spring rolls. I chose the Ayam Goreng Lengkaus – chicken marinated in galangal then deep-fried. Crisp on the outside and juicy on the inside, the flavours of this dish were beautifully balanced and aromatic. My partner chose the Rendang Daging, beef cooked slowly with coconut milk and spices. Soft, creamy and with the intense flavour of nutmeg permeating the whole dish, the beef was another excellent choice.

Spring rolls, Warung Tujuh

We chose plain rice to go with both, a wise decision considering the dominant flavours of the mains. One word of warning: although the menu does try to describe the dishes, in some cases it was difficult to determine what the dish would actually be like – wet, dry, spicy, mild. The waitress was, however, helpful and able to describe the dishes in more detail.

The portions were not large, but more than adequate, so much so that I (disappointingly) could not attempt a dessert. The quirky little pictures of ingredients on the menu and the knowledgeable staff contributed to an authentic atmosphere while maintaining a very high standard of food and service. I would happily visit again and try one of the other delicious sounding dishes on the menu.

Cuisine rating: 7.5

Warung Tujuh, 7 Pool Valley, Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1NJ | 01273 720784 | warungtujuh.com

The Meadow restaurant, Brighton/Hove

Light and airy with food to die for, The Meadow in Brighton is a culinary gem that should not be missed.

In a large, open building, light coloured furniture and quirky artwork sets the relaxed tone of the restaurant. It feels more like a cafe than a restaurant, reflected in the casual attire of all its patrons.

However chilled the atmosphere, the food is of an impeccable standard. With carefully crafted portion sizes just enough to make you want one more course, an entire meal feels like just the right amount – and it’s certainly worth trying all courses.

I opted for the beef Carpaccio. Melt-in-the-mouth and peppery, the meaty flavour was beautifully set off by rocket and parmesan. My partner opted for the sprat, numerous white bait deep-fried and invitingly propped tail-up in a bowl. Also very tasty.

For the main course, I chose the pork belly. Utterly delicious, the soft meat was topped by a thick, crispy layer of salty skin. Served with apple sauce and crushed potatoes, the combination of flavours was exquisite. My partner chose the lamb, served on mashed potato, and was equally impressed with the simple yet perfectly balanced flavours.

For dessert, we chose the sharer dessert. Although usually a set three from the main dessert menu, the chef met our request to alter one of them. This resulted in trying the rice pudding with apricot preserve, the lemon meringue posset and the chocolate mousse with honeycomb ice-cream. All three delicious desserts were served with basil salt, an interesting addition taking the sweet offering to a higher level.

All of the food was excellent, and The Meadow thoroughly deserves its positive reviews and its receipt of a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2009. The only tiny issue was that the service, although exceptionally friendly and polite, was a little slow given how quiet the restaurant was. But as the food all seemed freshly cooked and was so good, it really didn’t impact on an excellent experience at The Meadow.

Cuisine rating: 9/10

The Meadow, 64 Western Road, Hove, East Sussex, BN3 2JQ | 01273 721182 | themeadowrestaurant.co.uk