New Tom's

Commencing countdown. Engines... On.

Notting Hill - 6 September 2014

Looking for somewhere new to go for a Saturday night (while we waited and waited for Peckham Bazaar to reopen), Mr Hyde's email appeared offering half price food at a re-vamped Notting Hill bistro. In for a penny, in for £0.50, and away we go.

New Tom's (formerly a deli called Tom's. I guess the restaurant is the newness) is tucked away towards the end of Westbourne Grove, just around the corner from bastions of expensive West London life, the Ledbury and 'Made In Chelsea' featured Beach Blanket Babylon, a fancified pub that charged me 12.5% service for opening and passing me a bottle of wine at the bar. A screw cap, at that. I'm still angry. New Tom's isn't quite in that bracket, thankfully, and I recall this dining experience with far more fondness...

The restaurant is split-level, with the top level comprising of diner-style leather booths, which look comfy and cool. However we're sat downstairs, a mood-lit (i.e. not conducive to good photo taking) basement area you could describe as 'cozy' (or cramped), which apparently gets "quite raucous". It's decorated with cool street art posters, with the buzz of the kitchen to be heard over the music.

The menu offers every dish as a starter or main course option, so we elect to go tapas-style and order four starter-portions, so we can try as much as possible and fit in dessert as well.

From the garden section, we had a creamy celeriac risotto topped with a blue cheese crumb, the cheese adding delightful pockets of savoury saltiness mixed with panko crumbs for crunch. There was little or no need for the apple puree dolloped on top. Maybe intended to add a sweet dimension, it was just - as the gf pointed out - reminiscent of baby food, and entirely unnecessary here.

We had two 'Sea' dishes. The first was a crab and avocado salad. The pickled cucumber in the foliage added a tangy counterpoint to the quenelles of sweet crab with lemon mayonnaise, and there's a warmth brought by a dose of cayenne pepper that doesn’t overpower everything. More panko crumbs again (wholesale order perhaps?) for crunch. This is a great dish.

The scallop was also strong. Normally I’d be peeved at the presentation of one lonely scallop. But this is no ordinary scallop. It’s been working out. It’s got hench. It’s the biggest scallop ever seen. And it’s well cooked – a nice sear to the outside and still soft and creamy inside. There’s some crispy ginger atop for spice and all the colours of the cauliflower rainbow on the side (well…three…it’s a small rainbow) – pureed, charred and cubed.

We finish up the savoury sections by coming ashore to ‘Land’, and some Dingly Dell pork belly. This is served up with artichokes and pommes puree. It’s cooked well enough, if slightly under seasoned, but isn’t really much more than it sounds on the menu. I’m getting bored with pork belly – it’s too light on the meat:fat ratio, and there isn’t too much to get excited about here.

But desserts are memorable. We’ve been on a strong run of form with desserts recently, and these don’t break the streak. We order up a lemon curd with flamed meringue, and chocolate crack.

Subsequent research has shown that chocolate crack is an actual baked treat, and not so-called because it’s addictively moreish. That said, it is moreish, though perhaps not enough for one taste to have Phil Mitchell trashing his house in search of one more hit. This crack includes a creamy chocolate mousse sitting on top of silky salted caramel and a biscuit crumb, with tangy raspberries (classic combination right there). There’s also a little apricot jam on the side too. 

Which doesn’t add anything to the pudding, but more unnecessary baby food dollops.

Their slant on 'eton mess' was killer. Scorched, creamy, Italian meringue, with sweet strawberries, mint leaves and sharp lemon curd, topped with refreshing lemon granita. It looks the business, and tastes it too.

We rounded it all off with a cheese course, which was alright, but not quite “the best cheese ever” as our waiter described it. The menu says it’s milky and gentle. Which it is, on boring - I prefer my cheese to be a bit rougher with me. Plus, it suffered from a total imbalance in the number of crackers (squid ink here) and damson jelly to cheese – I’ve never figured out why this is so hard for restaurants...

All in all, New Tom’s wasn’t flawless, but was enjoyable. The dishes showed good skill and imagination, even if there was the occasional mis-step. The atmosphere was good (I'd struggle to describe it as "raucous", though), and the staff friendly. If this was a neighbourhood restaurant where I lived, I’d be very happy for it to become a regular hangout. 

New Tom's
226 Westbourne Grove
London
W11 2RH
http://www.newtoms.co.uk/

Boom Burger

I came here tonight to hear the crowd go...

Notting Hill - 10 July 2014

In case you haven't noticed, I ruddy love burgers. I am also a massive fan of jerk chicken and Caribbean food in general. And tucked away under the Westway off Portobello Road, these collide to great effect.

It's a ramshackle restaurant that's definitely more Notting Hill carnival than Notting Hill the movie. Which I quite like - it's got a lively, friendly neighbourhood vibe, with a few tables spilling out onto the pavement.

Resisting the urge for a Jerk Boom (I feel that kind of thing is best left in the privacy of your own home), we go for the signature bacon jam & cheese Boom Burger with fries and a side of sticky jerk wings.

On arrival the burger itself looks a bit anaemic with very little char on the outside of the patty, but there is a huge dollop of bacon jam falling out of the side and the patty is smothered in well melted american cheese, so it's still an appealing looking meal. Biting in reveals a perfectly pink patty, coarse grind, not too dense, with burgery juice spilling out. The jam is the most bacon-heavy I've ever had, which demands commendation even if it lacks a bit of the sweetness that makes Burger Bear's so amazing. And I like the addition of a little jerk seasoning through the mayonnaise to provide the requisite Caribbean twist, although I would say it could handle more heat, or on reflection I should have asked if they had hot sauce. Some Encona HPS would have made it. But nit-picking aside, this is a well-made burger that delivers on taste and texture.

The wings are a special, being either extra spicy or extra sticky depending on which of the serving kids you asked. I'm going with the latter, because they're certainly very sticky and not super spicy. The jerk flavouring is strong here (as you might hope from jerk wings), and the fresh chillies add freshness and a little heat. However they are very wee, more like beefed up budgies - the same size as half a lime (see photo). If they'd been bigger, then we're talking winning wings. As it is, yeah they're tasty, but nothing to write home about. Sounds a bit churlish, but it's true.

They can cook a fry, which is always good, but that's all there is to say about it. Disappointingly, we'd heard good tings about their signature plantain fries, only to be discover they were sold out upon our visit. So no news there.

Overall, this a cool little place that is doing an interesting twist on the standard burger imprint and doing it well. So if you're in the area, it's worth checking out.

Boom Burger
272 Portobello Road
London
W10 5TZ
http://www.boomburger.co.uk/

Lima Floral

Deepest Peru

Covent Garden - 21 July 2014

Nine years ago, I spent a few weeks in Peru while backpacking around Latin America, and I left with the impression that the food was pretty unexciting. Yet it is Peruvian cuisine that is the latest London food-trend with restaurants popping up left, right and centre. And given the reviews and awards these places have been receiving, it seems I must have been too hasty in my judgement. Maybe travelling on a shoestring doesn't always allow you to experience the best of a country’s cuisine (mainly meat and potatoes, with a one-time-only meal of spatch-cocked and deep-fried guinea pig served on a bed of chips). Who knew?

One of the restaurants at the vanguard of this Andean invasion is the Michelin-starred Lima Fitzrovia. And clearly business is good, as they've just expanded; opening a branch near Covent Garden and one of the best parts of new openings are those the magical words ‘soft launch’. One of the things I love about a half-off launch is the equalising element of it – it allows you the opportunity to experience places that would otherwise be saved for a special occasion on a regular Monday night instead, whilst leaving enough change in your wallet for something other than gruel for the rest of the week… And in this case let me reappraise Peruvian cuisine. It turns out it is good.

First up, the restaurant itself is a lovely space set in an attractive building at the end of Floral Street (hence the Lima Floral moniker), which once housed a workshop for a stained-glass window manufacturer. The large floor-to-ceiling gothic windows lend the dining room (there’s a basement tapas bar too) a light airy feel. The service was of a good standard – our waitress was friendly and knowledgeable about the food.

And that food is tasty. The menu is packed with exotic and unknown ingredients. Our stand-out starter was Sea Bream ceviche, with Tiger’s Milk. Which as it turns out, doesn't involve a brave kitchen-hand risking life and limb to source (even though cats do have nipples and therefore can be milked). It is the name given to the citrus juice, made cloudy by curing the fish. This dish was wonderful – light and fresh, with smooth avocado cream and the tiger’s milk giving it a sharp bite.

The best main was a similar dish – monkfish in green & red Tiger's Milk. Meaty fish hidden under ribbons of crunchy courgettes, and a smattering of micro herbs – amongst a warm yellow sauce (the yellow chill pepper I assume) although we were unsure what made it green and red tiger milk?

The sharpness of these dishes did slightly overshadow our other orders – a marinated raw beef escabeche salad for starters, and lamb rump with eco dry potato and other pureed stuff for mains. Both of which were very pretty to look at, and cooked well enough (actually, cooked medium rare), but just a bit bland and washed out next to the fish dishes. Plus, there was chewy sinew running through the lamb, that even the knife struggled to cut through let alone our molars.

The desserts saw a return to form, that would stand up to a full-on assault from a whole streak (or, ambush, collective noun fans) of tigers.

The photos don’t do the chocolate dessert justice. The Peruvian Palo Blanco Cacao was smoother than silk and richer than El Dorado, with the oat and wood sorrel topping adding tang and texture – this is next level chocolate pudding.

The Café Peruano also deserves credit, not least for adding purple potato to the list of dessert ingredients. Freeze dried and powdered, it added an unusual, and not unpleasant feel to the sweetness of the coffee ice cream. The red kiwicha added crunch and an exotic element, but little in terms of taste. Overall, not as delicious as the chocolate, but worth trying.

One word of warning: the cherimoya is an acquired taste at best. I would have thought that something variously described as ‘custard apple’ or ‘ice cream fruit’ should be the most delicious thing ever – and in fact Mark Twain described it as such. However, it turns out, Mark Twain was mental. A neighbouring table ordered the Cherimoya Mousse dessert, and promptly stopped after just one mouthful. They offered us a taste, and one spoonful later, we were in complete agreement. It tasted like gone-off milk. I’d rather try guinea pig again.

But that aside, I would visit Lima Floral again. It was a lovely meal, and it’s completely sold me on Peruvian food. Next time  I want to check out the bar downstairs and it’s piqueos menu. The ceviches are on there, so I can get more tiger’s milk coursing through my body. Winning.

Lima Floral

14 Garrick St.

WC2E 9BJ

http://www.limafloral.com

National Burger Day

Oh Happy Day!

Battersea Power Station - 27 August 2014

Record shops. Hugging.  Libraries. Talking like a pirate. Bacon. Gin. Pancakes. Dogs. Every thing has its day. And thanks to the good people of Mr Hyde, burgers have finally been elevated into such illustrious company, with a day of their own. A celebration of all things ground beef and bunned, National Burger Day sees restaurants all over the country offering a 20% discount on burgers (natch). And most importantly for the purposes of this post, it sees Mr Hyde teaming up with Tweat Up to throw a patty party.

This year it took place at the Street Feast's Riverside Feast site right in the shadow of the iconic Battersea Power Station. This has been my favourite Street Feast location yet, and it’s been an awesome summer of street foods down there. It'll be missed, with the power station about to become another beacon to over-priced London property. Impressively shiny, no doubt. But I doubt it'll have a fraction of the vibes.

Anyway, back to the burgers: 12 of London's finest were in attendance, cooking up one-off specials. Most of these being smaller than your average burger, as with all the best will in the world you'd never to be able to try more than a couple...

We managed 5, of which the first was the stand out – Slider Bar’s short rib slider: an aged beef patty (anything else just won’t cut it these days), 10-hour roast chipotle short rib, bone marrow & habanero salsa, American cheese and chipotle ketchup. The patty was excellently cooked, the short rib was rich and tender, and the whole thing had a real chilli kick to it, with the gf feeling the burn. I didn't think it was that spicy, but would happily have gone back for a second if there wasn't so much more to try.

Second was Club Gascon's foie gras burger. I would struggle to call it a burger, however – it was a slab of fried foie gras on truffle cream and crispy gem lettuce, in a brioche roll. A sweet, rich and delicious sandwich. But not a burger…

Similarly, Le Bun's ‘Le Royale with Cheese’ slider wasn't a burger, but was similarly satisfying – a thick chunk of is-the-night-tender short rib, doused in smokey, meaty hickory jus, topped off with fried goats cheese (which wasn't quite cooked enough in our opinion – not really gooey), and crunchy salad. Tres bien.

The next two efforts came from two of the biggest queues – HotBox & Mother Flipper. HotBox's looked beautiful on paper: short rib (a recurring theme), Monterey Jack cheese, chipotle slaw, bbq dripping and chimichurri. Lush. And when cooked it still made for an attractive burger, but sadly, beyond a beautifully cooked course-ground patty, it lacked a little flavour. Pickled chillis added punch (and gave me a dose of hiccups - how the tables turned), but the short-rib wasn't as good as the previous two examples.

And our final savoury burger - Mother Flipper's ‘Smoked BBQ Belly Flipper’ - was our pre-event favourite, a black angus patty topped with cherry BBQ glazed, smoked pork belly, gouda and crispy shallots. But sadly, it didn’t really deliver – our burger seemed a bit too densely packed, and was over-cooked with no pink left. The flavours were there, but the execution was a little off. A shame, because usually I love a Mother-Flipping burger…

After that, I did weigh up one more, having been smitten by the gravy life promised by Dip & Flip on our last trip to the power park. But by 7:30, the queues were off the meat-rack, so we took a call on mains and had a dessert burger instead…

Yep. Dessert burger. The cake dealers at Crumbs & Doilies had got to slinging burger cupcakes. Here is the Elvis, in all its salted caramel, banana mallow, candied bacon, peanut buttery wonder (I avoided the peanut butter. Ewwww).

The side order of cookie fries and sweet sweet sauces were a very clever touch. Expensive for a cupcake, but as a work of craft and imagination, I was very impressed.

All in all, that was a great way to say goodbye to Battersea – burgers, chillibacks, vibes and beats. Burger-y big ups to everyone involved. A fitting send-off to fine times spent down the Power Park.

Porky's

Truly, thou art damned like an ill roasted wing

Bankside - 25 June 2014.

The desirability of originality in art is a relatively new construct. Back in Elizabethan times, borrowing from other works throughout history was seen as the norm. So much so that England's most celebrated literary icon William Shakespeare has been accused of never writing a fully original plot in his life, and 'avoiding any unnecessary invention'.

So it's quite fitting that our latest stop on the barbeque tour of London is on Bankside, next to the Globe Theatre. For at Porky's new restaurant you will definitely not find any wheels being re-invented.

Pig logo? Check. Menu in courier font? Check. Exposed brickwork? Check. Americana on the walls? Check (in this case photos of blues and soul musicians. Plus Morgan Freeman). Rock n Roll soundtrack? Chickity-check.

That's not to say it's always a bad thing. When we visit - at about 6pm on a Wednesday - the place is open and bright, without being crammed in like you are at some BBQ restaurants. It's busy without being overly noisy or boisterous, and the service is friendly - if unspectacular - which makes for a pleasant dining experience.

However, the food never rises above pleasant. For starters we go with wings and pulled pork croquettes. The croquettes suffer badly from being far too much croquette and not nearly enough pulled pork. There's a good crunch to the coating, the potato is creamy and smooth and there's a hint of smokyness throughout. But you could easily be forgiven for not noticing any meat in there. Slathering them in the chunky chilli sauce on the table (the best of three - others being a vinegary 'Sop Mop' and an uninspiring watery barbeque sauce) makes them better. But more meat definitely would not go amiss.

The wings are... not good. Baked rather than fried, they lack the crisp outer coating I prefer on my wings. And they are over-cooked to the point of being tough and dry. I'm struggling to remember being served wings in BBQ restaurant that have been such a let down. While the Blues Kitchen ones were too salty, they were at least cooked well. The only positive here is the sauce they are covered in, which hits all the right barbeque notes - molasses thick, sweet, smoky and with a bit of spice. It's good, but not good enough to save these wings of disappointment.

Our mains fare slightly better. First up the key point to make is on size - their ribs & tips dinner is huge. I've banged on about value before, and my first reaction is that this right here is value - £9.95 for a bumper portion of meat, accompanied by pickles (including some pickled beetroot, which I find to be a pleasant variation from the well worn themes.) - sides are extra. The barbeque sauce makes a welcome return, there appears to be a good char on the meat, and the aroma is heavy on the smoke. So at first glance, it all suggests we're in for a treat.

Only we aren't really. My assumption is that rather than slow-and-low these are cooked average paced-and-high. The smoky aroma does not equal the flavour permeating the meat - there's no deep red smoke ring, and the meat isn't the fall-apart-tender I want from my BBQ. It comes off the bone eventually, but only after some coaxing. The pork tastes porky - and a touch on the fatty-side, again making me question the cooking times. But once liberally coated in sauce, it's not quite the cardinal sin the wings were. And there's loads of them, so by the end I'm stuffed.

So to sum up: It looks like BBQ, it tastes mostly like BBQ, it's served in a place that screams BBQ at you and it's good value. In a corner of London lacking in BBQ options but with a overload of hungry tourists, it should do well. Yet like Shakespeare, it's not original, and I just didn't find it that interesting.