DOS HERMANOS: GO EVERYWHERE, EAT EVERYTHING

MISSION NAAN: BREADS OF THE KEEMA & GARLIC VARIETY

2012-01-22T22:23:00.001Z

There are certain ways that you can tell a good curry house from a bad one and top of the list, of course, is the quality of their breads.

To look at me, it is pretty easy to see that I have a fondness for Indian breads. I adore mopping up thin dahl with flaky paratha, scooping up lamb bhuna with a chapati made of wheat or just simply tearing into a hot roti with no other accompaniment than a spoonful of raita. Best of all is the pillowy naan bread, eaten piping hot from the tandoor and dripping in heart clogging amounts of ghee.

Naan breads come in many shapes and forms and with many fillings, but perhaps my two favourites are the keema naan, filled with a spicy combination of ground lamb and peas and the simple garlic naan, flecked out a mixture of minced garlic and torn coriander leaf.

Continuing the “Year of Baking Dangerously” I decided to have a shot at making them at home. Now, obviously, I am not in the possession of a tandoor, but I found that cooking them on a hot flat griddle pan or even under a hot grill worked rather well. They are not quite as fluffy as those you might find in the traditional way, but they were not bad at all and are definitely on the list to make again.

If you give the recipe below a try, do report back and let me know how you got on.

INGREDIENTS (Makes Around 10 Naan)

For The Naan
2 Cups Strong Bread Flour
1 Cup Plain (All Purpose)Flour
1 7gm Packet of Dried Active Yeast (mixed with ½ Cup warm water)
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt.
2 Cups Warm Water

METHOD
Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl.

Mix the yeast and sugar with the ½ cup of warm water and allow to stand for 10 minutes until the yeast has begun to bubble.

Combine the yeast/water with the flour and begin to combine slowly with the other 2 cups of water. I used a stand mixer on a slow setting for around 8 minutes. Add more water if the dough becomes too stiff and a little more flour if it becomes too loose.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead gently on a floured surface for 4 minutes.

Place in an oiled bowl, cover in cling film and keep in a warm place until it has doubled in size (around 90 minutes)

After this time, knock the dough back, knead again gently for 3 minutes and separate the dough into 10 balls.

Place on a plate, cover with cling film and leave in a warm place for another 30 Minutes.

If you want to make plain naan, you can simply roll these balls out to the desired size, brush with melted butter or ghee and cook under the grill or on a hit griddle until golden brown on both sides.

For The Keema
2 lbs Ground Lamb Shoulder
1 Onion (chopped)
2 Green Chillies (deseeded and minced)
2 Tbsp Ginger/Garlic Paste (made by blending garlic cloves with peeled fresh ginger and a little salt & water)
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Ground Turmeric
2 Tsp Garam Masala (I made my own, but you can use a good store bought version)
1 Pint Chicken Stock
1 Cup Frozen Peas

METHOD
Brown the meat in a frying pan, remove and drain off the excess fat.

Add 2 Tbsp oil to the hot pan and add the chopped onion.

Cook the onion until golden brown and then add the ginger/garlic paste.

Cook for 3 minutes and add the minced green chilli.

Cook for 3 minutes and add the ground spices, the salt and the sugar.

Cook for 3 minutes and return the meat to the pan combining well.

Add the chicken stock and cook the meat on a gentle heat until the liquid has almost disappeared leaving a dry curry.

Add the peas, combine well and cook until the dish is totally dry.

Decant to a bowl and allow to cool thoroughly.

To Make The Keema Naan

Take a piece of dough and roll it out until it is to the desired size.

Take 2 Tbspn of the keema filling and spread it out over half the area of the naan bread.

Fold over the remaining dough and roll out again gently until it is the same size.

Brush each side with melted butter or ghee and cook on a hot griddle or under the grill for about two minutes each side.

For garlic naan, simply replace the keema filling with a filling of finely minced garlic and chopped coriander leaf.

Serve with your favourite Indian curry and ENJOY

MISSION BIALY:2012 THE YEAR OF BAKING DANGEROUSLY

2012-01-05T20:50:00.002Z

A little over four years ago, I was on the second leg of the around the world trip that became, EAT MY GLOBE. The first part of the journey had taken me to Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Mongolia, Russia and Finland. It was a life changing start to journey that confirmed that I had been absolutely correct to quit my job and head off in search of a new life.

The second leg of the journey was just as exciting and challenging and, over four months of hard travel, took in many cities in the USA, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. It began, however in one of my favourite cities on the planet, New York.

Even then, I knew New York better than just about any city on earth other than London and, at the time of writing my book, I had been there well over one hundred times. You can add another fifty times to that now, but even so, it still has capacity to surprise and most visits there find me discovering something new about the city and something new and delicious to eat.

In 2007 my “discovery” was the Bialy. It came courtesy of my still good chum, Sandra Levine who took me to a shop called Kossar’s Bialy’s (full name, for the record, Kossar’s Bialystoker Kuchen Bakery) on Grand St to introduce me to this cousin of the bagel, a bread roll that draws its name from the Polish town of Bialystock.

in the late 19th Century, Poland was occupied by Russia and the onion and poppy seed topped rolls were made by Russian bakers who later brought the Bialy to New York City. Nowadays, although Bialys can be found throughout the USA, they are particularly associated with New York and particularly with the lower East Side institution that is Kossar’s.

I had never encountered them before and, although Sandy bemoaned the fact that the bialys were not as good as they had been under the previous owners, who retired in 1998, they still tasted pretty damn fine to me and certainly a good deal better than the slightly pillowy bagels that seem to be all the rage these days.

Move on to 2012 and one of my many goals for the year is to work hard to improve my baking skills. Believe it or not, I used to bake a lot and back in the mists of time, I even went through a phase where I made all my own bread, keeping it in the chest freezer belonging to my next door neighbour in return for handing over a few sunflower seed loaves every now and again.

I have no idea why I began to crave bialys again last week, but I did and started to research the best recipes for making them at home. They actually turned out to be rather straightforward and, just before New Year I spent a very happy day mixing, kneading and waiting patiently for dough to rise, while I got on with my real life.

I was quietly pleased with the final results and they are definitely something I shall be making again very soon.

I thought I would share my recipe. Do let me know if you give them a try.

INGREDIENTS (Makes around 16-20 Bialy)

For The Dough

3 Cups Bread Flour
2 Cups Warm Water
1 Packet Active Yeast
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt

For The Topping
1 Large White Onion (Chopped)
½ Tsp Poppy Seeds
½ Tsp Salt

METHOD
Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl.

Add the salt.

In a cup, combine ½ cup of warm water with the yeast and the sugar.

Allow the yeast mixture to sit for 10 minutes until it begins to froth up, showing that the yeast is active.

Add the yeast mixture to the flour and gradually mix with the remaining water until it forms a sticky dough. (I used my Kitchen Aid with the dough hook attachment for this, mixing on a slow setting for about 8 mins)

Add more flour or water if it the dough mixture looks too dry or too loose.

Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and cover with cling film.

Place the bowl in a warm place and leave to prove until the dough has doubled in size. This may take around 90 minutes.

After 90 minutes remove the cling film and knock back the dough.

Remove from the bowl and place on a floured surface.

Knead the dough gently for about 4 minutes and return to the bowl.

Cover once more and leave to sit for a further 45 minutes.

While your dough is proving for a second time, you can prepare the topping. Simply fry the pieces of chopped onion in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until they are golden brown (and even have a few bits of char). Add the salt and poppy seeds, combine well and allow the mixture to cool.

After 45 minutes, remove the dough from the bowl, place on a floured surface and form into a log shape.

Cut the dough with a sharp knife into 16-20 equal sized portions.

Roll these into balls.

Take a ball of dough and with thumbs and forefingers press it into a circle of around 3in in diameter making a depression in the centre with your thumb for the toppings.

Lay the bialy on a baking tray lined with a layer of parchment paper.

Lay another piece of parchment paper on top and place another baking tray on top of that. This helps the bialys keep their flat shape.

Pre-heat the oven to 425oF and cook the bialys on the middle rack for around 6 minutes.

After 6 minutes remove from the oven and remove the top baking tray and the top layer of parchment paper.

Brush the top of each bialy with water. This helps give the outer shell the chewy texture I am told is the hallmark of a great bialy.

Return to the oven and cook for a further 6 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

Remove from the oven and transfer the bialy to a wire rack to cool.

These are great eaten hot, but are good cold too and can be stored in Ziploc bags in the freezer.

I had mine with smoked salmon, scrambled eggs and cream cheese.
ENJOY

MISSION MURGH MAKHANI (BUTTER CHICKEN)

2011-12-31T00:51:00.000Z

Murgh Makhani or Butter Chicken is a dish whose origins can be traced back to the middle of the 20th Century and a restaurant in Delhi named, The Moti Mahal.

The restaurant was, apparently, famous for its Tandoori chicken and the recipe developed as a way of using left over scraps of chicken which were cooked in a sauce made of cream, spices, tomatoes and, butter.

It is a cousin of the Chicken Tikka Masala, which some claim was an attempt by Bangladeshi cooks in British curry houses to recreate the Murgh Makhani.

Whatever the origins, the dish is one of the most delicious I have ever cooked and is definitely now a staple on menus for any Indian dinner parties I might throw.

Recipes vary, but I hope this one (and the accompanying pictures) might prove interesting enough for some of you try it and report back if you do.

INGREDIENTS

8 Chicken Thighs (Boned, skinned and cut into 1in chunks)
2 tbsp Thick Yoghurt
1 Large White Onion (sliced)
Green Chili (deseeded & finely minced)
Ginger/Garlic Paste (Made by blending 2 in fresh ginger & 4 cloves
1 12oz Can Tomatoes
½ Cup Fresh Coriander Leaves
½ Cup Dried Fenugreek Leaves (Optional)
2 Cups of Chicken Stock
3 Tbsp Butter
¼ Cup Double (Heavy) Cream
1 Tsp Coriander Seeds
3 Whole Cloves
3 Green Cardamom
1 Tsp Ground Cumin
1 Tsp Chili Powder
1 Tsp GroundTurmeric
1 Tsp Ground Corriander
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Ground Ginger
1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon

METHOD

Place the chicken pieces in a large bowl and add the yoghurt, half the ground spices, 2 tablespoons of the ginger/garlic paste, and half the minced chili.

Mix well, cover the bowl in cling film and allow to marinate for at least 2 hours. You can leave overnight, but don’t add the yoghurt until two hours before you need it as it can make the chicken mushy.

While the chicken is marinating, add 2 tbspn of vegetable oil to a pan and toss in the whole spices.

When the spices begin to pop, add in the onion and cook until soft and golden.

Add in the remaining ginger/garlic paste and cook until it loses its raw smell.

Add in the remaining minced green chili and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add in the remaining ground spices and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add in the tomatoes, the chicken stock, half the fresh coriander leaves and the dried fenugreek leaves (if you are using them)

Simmer the sauce gently for 30 minutes and then blend with a hand blender (I also like to pass my sauce through a sieve at this point. This is optional, but gives a much smoother finished sauce)

While the sauce is reducing, place the marinated chicken pieces on a wire rack on a baking sheet.

Grill them under a hot grill for 5 minutes each side (if you have a BBQ, they are even better cooked that way).

They should begin to develop a little char on the outside, which adds to the final flavor of the dish, although do be careful that they don’t burn.

Reserve the chicken pieces, making sure to capture all their juices.

Add 3 tbsp of butter to a hot pan and allow to melt.

Return the sauce to the pan and add the heavy cream (reserving a little bit for garnish)
Cook the sauce until reduced by half.

Add the chicken pieces to the pan along with any juices they have released.

Cook the sauce gently until the chicken pieces are warmed through and the sauce has reduced to a thick gravy.

When ready to serve, garnish with the remaining fresh coriander leaf, drizzle with the remaining cream and serve with boiled rice and Indian breads to sop up the sauce.

ENJOY!

MISSION KOFTA CURRY

2011-12-28T00:53:00.000Z

Dos Hermanos may not be exactly dead yet, but it’s certainly been coughing up blood lately.

HP seems to be eating all his meals in Chiswick these days, which is great for him, but wouldn’t make for fantastic reading. I, on the other hand, am all over the place and rarely get time to sit down to do the writing I am paid for let alone keeping you saps, suckers and ne’er do wells entertained with my Shavian musings.

So, here’s the deal. I shall continue to post when I can and, if you remain even vaguely interested, you can tune in every now and again to see what we are up too.

There won’t be many restaurant reviews anymore. As I said, HP will probably soon own a debenture at Hedone, and I don’t care enough about the Los Angeles dining scene to post a series of consistently expensive and mediocre meals just to keep the blog current.

What I can do is post about my trips (when time allows) and about the increasing amount of time I am spending in our little kitchen trying to improve my skills and test recipes for some book and TV ideas.

I can’t promise the recipes will be life changing, but hopefully they will be worth trying and worth eating. That is about all I gotsta put on the table at the moment. I hope it sounds fair enough?

Starting as I mean to go on in 2012, here’s a terrific recipe for that Northern Indian favourite, Kofta Curry. It’s a stunning dish of lamb meatballs cooked in a sauce of pureed onions, yoghurt and fresh ground spices.

It has already become a “must cook again” for my Mrs, which is high praise indeed. Let me know if you try it and if you feel the same way as she does if you do.

LAMB KOFTA CURRY (Serves 4)

INGREDIENTS

For the Kofta

1 ½ lb Ground Lamb Shoulder (I mince my own)
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Chili Powder
1 Tsp Coriander Powder
1 Tsp Turmeric
1 Whole Egg
1 Cup Fresh Breadcrumbs

To make the kofta, combine all the ingredients well. Cover the bowl with cling film and chill for at least an hour. After they have chilled, form the meat into the size and shape of meatballs you prefer, cover again in cling film and place back in the fridge.

For The Sauce

1/2 Cup Cashew Nut Paste (made from soaking raw cashews in milk for 30mins and then blending with a little of the liquid to a fine paste)
1 Large White Onion (Pureed to a Paste)
Ginger/Garlic Paste (made from blending 2in fresh ginger with 4 big garlic cloves + a little water and salt)
2 Green Chilies (de seeded and finely minced)
1 12oz Can Tomatoes
2 Tbs Thick Yoghurt (whipped)
2 Tsp Garam Masala (I made mine from freshly toasted spices including bayleaf, fennel seed, cinnamon bark, black cardamom and clove)
½ Tsp each of Ground Turmeric, Cinnamon, Coriander, Cumin, Chili Powder and Salt

To make the sauce, heat up two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a deep sided frying pan.

Add all the ground spices (except the garam masala) and cook for three minutes making sure it does not burn.

Add the ginger/garlic paste and cook for a further three minutes.

Add the minced green chili and cook for a further three minutes.

Add the cashew nut paste, combine well and cook for a further three minutes.

Add the pureed onion and cook for five minutes.

Add the whipped yoghurt and the garam masala spices and cook for a further five minutes.

At this point, I like to blend my sauce with a hand blender and pass it through a sieve. This is optional, but I think it gives a much better end result.

While the sauce is cooking, remove the Kofta from the fridge and allow to come to room temperature.

If you blend the sauce, return it to the pan and add the Kofta. Cover the pan and cook on a gentle heat for fifteen minutes.

Uncover the pan, turn over the kofta and cook for a further fifteen minutes.

Reduce the sauce over a gentle heat until it reaches the desired consistency. I like mine to be a thick, dark, rich gravy. Be sure to turn the kofta every few minutes so they do not dry out.

Serve with plain boiled rice (or Indian breads) and more whipped yoghurt.

Enjoy.

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS @ JOSE PIZARRO

2011-12-11T23:28:00.000Z

I am sure that everyone in London is now aware that Jose Pizarro’s new gaff in Bermondsey will stake a strong claim to be the best Spanish restaurant in London. Two weeks ago, however, it looked a little unlikely that he would even be open on time to host what proved to be the most popular DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS to date.

It was David Strauss, the GM of the terrific Goodman steakhouses who actually first suggested the idea. I was musing on Twitter about where and when to have the next event and London’s favourite restaurant munchkin replied “If you combined a #DWDH event with the opening of Jose Pizarro’s new restaurants, you would break all records”.

It was a fabulous idea and, as soon as I read it, I shot off a mail to Jose asking him if he would be game to host the latest in our ever popular dining evenings. He was up for the task and, no sooner had I posted about it on the blog/Facebook and Twitter did the requests for places begin to flood in. In all, we had nearly a thousand requests for the coveted fifty seats and after making sure there were spaces for a few family and friends, I did what I have been forced to do for the last few occasions and drew names from of a hat.

A couple of days before the event, I was back in London with my missus, after a fun trip to Croatia and Hungary. After a quick visit to Maltby Street Market, I suggested to her that we visit Pizarro just to make sure that everything was set for the big day. It wasn’t. There was no sign outside the restaurant and the inside looked like the East End after a particularly nasty visit from Jerry during the blitz. Pizarro was there amongst all the dust and mayhem and, when he saw us walk through the door, his eyes widened like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. “It will be ready on time, Amigo, I promise you” he wailed as I trod carefully around the working builders shaking my head in dismay.

In all the years I have known him, Jose has never let me down and after much reassuranceI took him at his word that all would be shipshape for the Monday evening. Mind you, as I walked towards the place about 45 minutes before everyone else was due to turn up, the fact that there was still builder’s paper covering the windows, did give me cause for concern. Inside, however, it was a different story. It was certainly not finished, but it looked lovely and all the chefs and serving staff were busy preparing for what would be their very first time cooking for and serving customers.

It was not long before the guests arrived and, as soon as they handed over their precious tickets, each was handed a glass of Cava Gramona Brut imperial and given the chance to mingle with the other lucky punters. It was fantastic stuff and set the tone for one of the best DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS events yet. Once we were seated, the courses began to arrive in earnest and, just as he had done at a similar event some three years ago at Casa Brindisa, Jose had gone far beyond what he had promised in terms of both food and drink.

We began, of course, with large plates of Jamon, served this time with a glass of an uber rare “Dos Palmas” Sherry, from Gonzalez Byass. This was followed by a salad of Cod, a breathtakingly good dish of duck livers and croquetas. Fort he record, I have always believed that Jose makes the best croquetas in town and this offering did nothing to make me change my opinión.

The next two courses divided people’s opinions. Not because they were not both spot on, but because they were arguing which was the best. My vote went to some meltingly soft Hake cheeks while others at my table held out that braised Iberico pork cheeks were the winner. Let’s just put it this way, if I was on a dessert island, I would alternate which I dreamt about. I would also hope that they would be served with a glass of the crisp Rosado de Silos that Jose had managed to obtain for us.

Desserts of cheese and rich chocolate cake were supported by two more sherries; Amomtillado and Pedro Ximinez both from Fernando de Castilla and the tables were soon filled with empty glasses. Plates however, were whisked away with incredible efficiency by the staff in training, which included coincidentally, my American niece in law who now calls London home.

Even if this event had not been the first time the ovens of Pizarro had been fired up or the first time the staff had worked the tables, it still would have been a memorable event. The fact that it was means that it holds a particularly special place in the hearts of Dos Hermanos. I want to give my own personal thanks to Jose, his team of superb chefs and excellent front of house and, of course, all those who provided food and wine to make this a DWDH event to cherish.

By 11pm, some four hours after we arrived, just about everyone agreed on two things. The first was that Pizarro’s was soon going to become a hot ticket in London for those seeking the genuine Spanish article. The second was that we would have to come up with something special if the next DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS was to top this one.

All I can say is, watch this space. We got something special brewing.

PS: For those wondering why some of the pictures on this post are of a much higher quality than normal, there is a very good reason. They are the work of one Thomas Bowles who does such things for a living and whose work can be found at www.thomasbowles.com

ROAD TRIP USA 2011: PORK CHOP JOHN'S TO MOUNT RUSHMORE

2011-11-03T23:44:00.002Z

A crack of dawn alarm the next morning, gave us the chance to catch a cracking view of the sun rising over the fields of Idaho.

I had persuaded Neal to make such an early start as one of the few food destinations I had marked out in these “flyover states” Pork Chop John's announced on its website that it closed at 3pm. As it turned out, it didn’t, but we were not aware of this as we set off from Cottonwood a little after 6.30am and pointed our rental car towards our next stopover at Butte, Montana.

Butte is a city whose fortunes rose and fell along with the fortunes of copper mining and, as we pulled into the parking lot of our lunchtime destination, the deserted downtown spoke to the fact that it is probably now on the lower end of the curve. Interestingly enough, one of the local food staples is a Cornish style pasty, brought over in the late 1800’s by Cornish miners looking for work after the decline of the tin mining industry back in the UK.

We were not there for this taste of home, however. John Burklund first started to serve his famous sandwiches in 1924 from a street cart before opening his first shop a few years later. They became an instant hit and are obviously still just as popular. As we walked up to the entrance, a long line of kids from the local high school was forming at the take out window and more of their classmates were already occupying all of the stools at the counter inside the small restaurant area.

We forced our way through the gaggle of squealing youngsters and waited until they began to drift back to their classroom about twenty minutes later, before squeezing ourselves into two available seats and placing our order. The menu is small and we had overheard most of the throng ordering “Double Loaded” so, without knowing what it was, we did the same. What arrived was a gargantuan sandwich prominently featuring two pounded pork sirloins that had been battered and deep fried, served in a hamburger bun with onions, pickles and cheese.

It was hot and freshly prepared. It was also pretty delicious and made the ridiculously early start worthwhile. As we ate, we chatted with the Eddie, the current owner, who had started making the sandwiches as a small child when his grandfather and then father were in charge of the business. As chains continue to proliferate, it is really rather special to enjoy a local “delicacy” at a place that has been doing what it does for the best part of a century. Long may they prosper.

There is not much else to report about Butte, Montana. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the slightly bleak downtown area and, after an unmemorable supper at a local bar, we retired to our hotel to prepare for another early start the next morning.

On Neal’s list of things to see & do in between meals driving through Yellowstone Park and, of course, stopping off to see one of the most famous natural wonders in the United States, Old Faithful. The famous old geyser received its name in the late 1800’s and was often used by travellers as a laundry. Apparently, they would stuff their clothes down the hole and wait until it erupted, during which time, the stench from their clothes would be removed by the heat and sulphur.

We were, unsurprisingly, not the only ones to have the idea of watching one of the country’s most famous landmarks do its thing. We took our seat on some small hard benches surrounding the geyser, along with lots and lots of other people from around the globe, like us, holding cameras and video recorders in quivering anticipation. Then we waited and waited and waited some more. The Sun had risen high in the sky by now and I was beginning to regret that I had chosen to wear a sweatshirt as rivulets of sweat began to stream down my bonce and my back. Thankfully after an hour, Old Faithful did what it has been doing for thousands of years, for all of three minutes and we could leave. I could easily have lived without the experience, but Neal seemed pretty pleased, so that’s all right then.

We spent the next few hours driving around the national park, getting out of the car every now and again to gaze into the sulphurous pools and allow Neal time to fall on his arse for my amusement. However, by late afternoon we were done and turned the car towards one of the main exits to the park and our overnight destination of Gardiner, Montana.

I had marked out a well recommended steak restaurant for our evening’s dining pleasure, so was particularly depressed to be told, by the owner of our smart little guesthouse, that it had actually been closed for some years. Seeing the crestfallen look on my face, he told us that the best steak in town was at the unlikely location of the Best Western Hotel on the edge of town. He warned us that “everything else on the menu is not very good, but the steaks are great”.

Despite my reservations, it turned out that he knew his stuff. The rest of the meal at the restaurant may have been a bit crappy, but the steaks were really very good indeed. Neal’s rib eye was good enough to keep him quiet for a blissful few moments, while my slab of medium rare prime rib was good enough to make me wonder why I don’t indulge in this most primal of cuts more often. It is, at its best a glorious thing, at least an inch thick, pink and juicy and perfect when served with a dollop of horseradish and a silly amount of mashed potatoes with which to soak up its natural juices. British steak restaurants take note.

Our next port of call was the infamous town of Deadwood, Montana, made notorious by the likes of Calamity Jane, Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickok and made famous more recently by the TV show of the same name. It’s actually a fairly ghastly little place filled with tourist casinos and bad bars and restaurants (one of which, Diamond Lil’s is owned by Kevin Costner) but it proved harmless enough for one night and did give us the chance to boast that we had downed a few shots of sippin’ whiskey in one of the wild west’s most famous locations.

We booked ended the night’s stay in Deadwood with four of the most interesting tourist sights of the whole trip. En route there, we stopped to pay our respects at the site of the Battle of Little Big Horn, where we were pleased to see that modern sensitivities had won out over traditional prejudices allowing a monument to be erected to the members of Native American tribes who had also fallen in the bloody skirmish. And, just before we arrived in Deadwood, we stopped for half an hour to walk around the base of the Devil’s Tower, a 900ft high rock formation that will be instantly recognizable to anyone who is a fan of the films of Richard Dreyfuss.

After we left Deadwood, suffering somewhat from the effects of the whiskey the night before, we visited two more monuments, this time across the border in South Dakota. One of them is already amongst the most famous in the United States, while the other will be once it is finished in a little matter of some 200 more years. The Crazy Horse Memorial is a testimony to the stubbornness of one man called Korczak Ziolkowski, who decided in 1948 to build a monument to the Native Americans that would over shadow Mount Rushmore which he had helped create.

With the help of Native American leaders, Crazy Horse was chosen as the subject and since then, the image of the legendary leader has begun to emerge from the rock little by little through the efforts of the Ziolkowski family and a handful of helpers. They accept no Federal money and see this as a gift for future generations that will be completed when it is completed. I may not be around to see the finished result, but what has been achieved so far is mighty impressive.

By comparison, Mount Rushmore itself is a little underwhelming. It is still an interesting diversion, but much smaller than you anticipate, particularly if you have seen Hitchcock's classic North by Northwest. It kept our attention for, oh all of twenty minutes before we looked at each other and said, “are we done then?” and headed back to our SUV.

Next stop North Dakota.

ROAD TRIP USA 2011: ONE NIGHT IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

2011-10-21T21:55:00.001+01:00

I am going to warn you right at the beginning of this post that there is not going to be a lot of food discussion or many photographs of amazing meals to make you jealous and hungry in equal measure. The reason is, quite simply, that there was precious little good eating going of the next stage of the road trip, as we made our way from Portland, Oregon to Cottonwood, Idaho.

There was, however, lots of interesting stuff to see and I placed myself firmly in the hands of my travelling companion, Neal whose research had pinpointed plenty of potentially enticing stop offs on the long drive ahead.

First stop, after Portland, was at the lake side resort of Coeur D’Alene. We ate a meal in a brewpub that did not kill us and spent the night in a small motel that was situated at the unlikely location of Sunup and Sunshine. It didn’t kill us either. Before we arrived in Coeur D’Alene, however, we made a brief stop in Spokane, where we encountered one of our favourite people of the whole trip.

Marvin Carr had a long career as a switcher on the railroads. He saved his money and invested it in the stock market. He obviously did quite well and, at the age of seventy, he was able to cash in and fulfill his dream of opening a museum. He called it the “One Of A Kind In The World” Museum and began filling it with one of the oddest assortment of exhibits you are ever likely to come across. Fourteen years later and at the age of eighty four, he is still there every day giving tours to the occasional visitor who finds their way to this quirky little place houses in a small warehouse in industrial estate on the outskirts of the city.

After Coeur D’Alene, we made our way out of the state of Washington towards the vast expanses of Montana and Idaho. We were at an intersection between three states at this point which meant that we were able to dip out of Washington and make our first stop in the small and slightly decrepit town of Wallace.

There is no real reason to make a detour there, unless you are interested in seeing The Oasis Bordello Museum. The building was purchased in the early 1980’s by a man who found out afterwards that it was an abandoned brothel, with just about everything left as it had been just before the working girls fled from a police raid. He decided to keep it open as a museum and the insides are as dated and depressing as you might imagine.

Far more interesting was our next stop, The Miracle of America Museum in Polson, Montana. We reached it after a very long drive, by the end of which time we were both becoming a little cranky. The sheer lunacy of this huge vast museum, however, pirked us up a great deal. Like Marvin Carr’s effort back in Spokane, this was the work of a single man, Gil Mangles. Along with his wife, Joanne, he has dedicated much of his life since 1981, and over five acres of land to celebrating everything American.

There are over thirty buildings filled with a genuinely astounding collection of treasures and junk. I cannot think of any other place that might proudly display an entire school building from the 1870’s next to the nosecone of a rocket, next to a collection of 100 chainsaws, next to a collection of 1960’s arcade games, next to a collection of antique motorcycles, next to….well you get the picture.

It really is an astonishing place and had the potential to fill the entire day. We were, however on a schedule and set off a couple of hours later slightly shell shocked, but in much better spirits than when we arrived.

We spent the night in the pleasing University town of Missoula, Montana. Again, there is little to report, but we grabbed a couple of pints and a decent night’s sleep before the next long drive of the journey. It was pouring with rain the next morning, but fortunately it cleared before we reached our first stop of the day, the deserted ghost town of Garnet, Montana. In its heyday, it had a population of well over a thousand people consisting predominantly of miners and their families. By the 1920’s however, it was on the decline and by the 1930’s it was all but deserted. It made a fascinating stop, particularly as many of the buildings still contained the remnants of the former occupant’s belongings.

We did stop for lunch. Just in case anyone was wondering if there was going to be any food in this post at all. The drive from Garnet to Cottonwood, Idaho, was over four hours long, through some of the most astonishingly beautiful scenery of the entire trip.

Highway 12 is banked on one side by the Blackfoot River and, on the other side by the Lolo and Clearwater National Forests. It twists and turns its way for well over one hundred miles offering fantastic views, but precious little in the way of refreshments. We finally found an unassuming motel & diner which offered up a surprisingly tasty (and huge) meal in the form of a double chili burger and a roast beef sandwich (which to Neal’s surprise and my amusement came drowned in a sea of dark brown gravy)

It was enough to see us to our final destination for this post and the main (in fact only) reason we had added Idaho to our itinerary. Anyone who has read Dave Gorman’s book “America Unchained” will be well aware of The Dog Bark Park Inn, a one bedroom B&B housed in a giant wooden beagle. We were fortunate enough that the owners of said beagle, Dennis & Frances were able to accommodate us for one night.

We arrived around 3pm and spent a good couple of hours chatting to them before they showed us to our rooms. I called “shotgun” and exiled Neal to the small sleeping area in the nose, while I took advantage of all the amenities in the main bedroom. It really is, as its lovely owners declare it, “A Noble and Absurd Undertaking”, but it was also provided one of the most comfortable and enjoyable nights I have spent anywhere in the US.

We walked down to the local town to pick up a six pack and sat drinking them on a small deck overlooking the local highway just as the sun began to set over the vast and flat Idaho landscape. We still had over four thousand miles to drive before Road Trip USA 2012 was finished. We had plenty of meals planned and lots of other quirky places to visit.

They would, however, have to work mighty hard, we both agreed, to beat our one night in the belly of the beast.

ROAD TRIP USA 2011: ARE WE NOT MIDDLE AGED MEN?

2011-10-14T21:14:00.000+01:00

Our original plan had been to spend no more than one night in each city. However, one morning, about three weeks before Road Trip 2011 was due to begin, I received a slightly giddy e-mail from Neal asking (actually begging) that we spend one more night in Portland, Oregon so he could go and see one of his favourite bands, DEVO.

You remember them, right? They were a group of rather odd looking Americans in paper suits and funny hats. They had a couple of harmless minor hits in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and then, as far as I was aware had disappeared. Not so, Neal informed me with considerable enthusiasm. They were still going strong and were, in his words “influential”. Who knew? Well, apparently Neal for one.

I was pretty certain that my life would have been reasonably complete without ever crossing the words “See DEVO” off my bucket list, but Neal was very keen indeed and, as you all surely know by now I am a constant delight of a man who always goes out of his way to support a chum. So, I agreed to extend our stay in Portland. First of all, of course, we had to get there. We grabbed a quick breakfast at our hotel in Newport and hit the road for Portland before too much other traffic was stirring.

Neal, in his official position of “finder of weird stuff to keep us amused” had planned one stop along the way, at The Evergreen Aviation & Spacecraft Museum in the otherwise inconsequential town of McMinnville. The displays of planes and aeronautical ephemera were interesting enough, but Neal had marked it out to visit for one particular reason.

In the late 1980’s the owner of the museum had put in an unlikely bid for the “Spruce Goose” the gargantuan sea plane that Howard Hughes had spent millions of dollars creating merely to prove that such a beast could fly. Fly it did, for all of ten seconds, after which Hughes never boarded it again.

It had languished in Long Beach for decades, but was now up for grabs. Despite counter bids from The Smithsonian and others, The Evergreen museum won out, primarily because they promised to restore the plane and to build a special building so it could be displayed in its entirety. It took nearly fifteen years to move and restore the beast, but now it stands in all its glory, dwarfing all the other planes in the collection.

It was a fun stop, but after an hour or so of taking pictures of the thing from various angles, we were both “goosed out” and ready to head to our final destination of the day.

Portland, Oregon had been on my list of US cities to visit for as long as I can remember and, after checking in to our downtown hotel, we set out to see what delights it had to offer. Quite a lot as it happens. Portland may be a small city, but it has a tangible sense of civic pride and enough places of interest for me not to begrudge having to spend an extra day within its city limits.

One of those attractions was obviously the fact that Portland is renowned as one of the best eating cities in the whole of the United States. Just as Neal had done with the quirky stop offs on route, so to had I done my research on places to decent meals. I had made a reservation to have our first meal in the city at a well regarded restaurant called Beaker & Flask.

After spending a few hours rooting around in the wonderful Powell’s “City of Books” and enjoying a couple of pints in one of the city’s many brew pubs, we freshened up back at the hotel and hopped into a cab to head across river to Portland’s industrial district.
There is a rant coming up in a moment folks. Be warned.

Beaker & Flask is, as you can see from the menu, a restaurant that celebrates the pig (here comes the rant)

RANT BEGINS: Now, I love the pig as much as the next man. In fact, I probably love the pig and its porky products more than the next man, and the man next to him and so on. I love Pork Pies, roast pork, sausages and I have even started to make my own bacon for heaven’s sake. All that being said, the ‘we worship the pig” trope on display in so many restaurants these days is becoming rather tiresome. If I see one more menu emblazoned with an outline of a pig, arrows pointing to its various cuts, or one more twenty something chef with assorted pork based tattoos up and down his arm, I am going to do someone a serious mischief: RANT ENDS

All the above being said, Beaker & Flask was not half bad. The pre-dinner cocktails were terrific, a snackette of deep fried strips of pigs ear was just as it should be, crunchy, salty and delicious and, while the main courses were better on the page than they were on the plate, they were still good enough for us to declare the meal excellent value and a good start to our time in the city.

Better was to come the next morning, however. We had, to use the old expression “tied one on good and proper” during our first night in the city and, although I had woken up at about 6am, it was closer to 8am before I was able to open my eyes and face the inevitable consequences of the over indulgence of the previous night.

Neal was in pretty much the same state, although much less stoic about it and we both agreed that what was in order was a heaping helping of breakfast. Fortunately, my research had also thrown up (bad choice of words given our condition) a perfect location near to our hotel. Mother’s was a pleasingly buzzing little bistro that was already filling up as we were shown to our table. Service was pleasant and efficient and it was only a matter of minutes before Neal was sighing with relief at his first cup of coffee and I was guzzling down a huge glass of restorative fresh orange juice.

The food was, quite frankly, pretty fantastic. Neal’s eggs Benedict were as good as you are likely to see anywhere while my own plate contained two perfectly cooked eggs “over medium” alongside the same number of piping hot crumbly biscuits, submerged in a thick southern style sausage gravy. It may have been too much food for either of us to finish, but it was just what we needed and set us up properly for a day’s walking around the city.

Neal’s research had led him to believe that I might enjoy spending some time at the legendary (ahem) Stark’s Vacuum Cleaner Museum. Quite why he thought this might be the case, I have no idea. However, in need of a walk after such a huge meal, I tagged along and spent, oh a good thirty seconds being enthralled by a collection of decaying old carpet cleaners in the corner of a large vacuum cleaner shop.

My slightly snarky lack of enthusiasm was enough to convince us both that we had perhaps better spend some time apart. We went our separate ways to promising to meet up in time for supper before the concert that evening. I Have no idea what Neal got up to, but as I walked back to the hotel determined to catch up with some work, I was distracted by the girlish yelping of some young women in skimpy costumes.

It appears they were something called cheerleaders and hailed from one of the local colleges. They were doing things with their lithe young bodies which would, I am certain, ensure they all would have no trouble finding a husband. I spent a very enjoyable half an hour admiring their athleticism (and not letching like a middle aged pervert, I deny that completely) before heading back to the hotel.

By 6pm, Neal had returned and we were both fully restored to our previous good humour and ready to rock out as much as it might be suitable for any middle aged man to do.

Supper, our last meal in the city, was at another highly recommended restaurant. The name PING may suck, but the food did not. Chef Andy Ricker obviously knows his South East Asian food and recreates many of the region’s best drinking foods without too much neutering or apology for ingredients that some might consider unusual.

All this led us to our real reason for spending one more day in Portland. DEVO were due to play in The Crystal Ballroom, a famous venue that boasted one of the few remaining floating dance floors still in use. The crowd was an interesting mix of both young and old, with a lot of parents obviously bringing their teenaged kids along so they could hear what music used to be like when it was any good.

By the time DEVO finally arrived on stage, I was yawning frequently enough to make me realize why I rarely venture out after 10pm these days. They on the other hand, despite being well into their late 50’s and early 60’s showed no such lack of energy, entertaining the packed crowd for long enough for us not to get back to the hotel until long after midnight.

I am not going to claim that seeing DEVO changed my life, but Neal seemed pleased enough and it had also given us a reason to spend another day in this splendid city. Trust me I plan to spend more days there as soon as I get the chance.

However, we had the next stage of Road Trip USA 2011 ahead of us. Next stop, Montana.

ROAD TRIP USA 2011: THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

2011-10-12T23:28:00.003+01:00

It has been a long while since I posted here on DH. There is, however, a very good reason.

For the best part of the last month, I have been on the road as part of my journey to visit every corner of The United States.

For the record, I have now visited 45 states, leaving just a bare handful for a complete set.

If you look back to around this time in 2010, you will find a number of posts that relate to a similar road trip that I undertook with one of my oldest chums, Neal, through the South of the country. It concluded in my favourite eating city in the US, New Orleans, and so much did we enjoy that excursion that we (and by “we” I mean “Neal”) spent the last twelve months planning our next great adventure.

This time, we decided that we wanted to explore “the road less travelled”, those states, cities and sites that few people, even most Americans, ever think to visit. Places that have much to offer, but get overlooked in favour of cities like New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco and even my own newly adopted home of Los Angeles.

States like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota and Nebraska might get dismissed as “the flyover states” by many of the coastal elite, but to me, they are the very spirit of this amazing country and need to be visited if I am to continue on my quest to find out what it means to become an American.

Neal agreed and, being the sort of obsessive planner that it appears to be my lot in life to hang out with (take a bow HP), he mailed me regularly updated spreadsheets outlining possible routes and sites to see along the way. My task was to make sure that we would be well fed as we undertook what we figured would be close to a 5,000 mile journey.

We decided to begin our adventure in Seattle and to end it in Kansas City, so I could make my annual pilgrimage to The American Royal BBQ Competition. And, as Neal was going to arrive a day later than me, I was able fit in a couple of meetings and spend a few hours pottering around gettng my first taste of the “Manchester of The West Coast”.

By the time Neal arrived from the UK on Monday evening, I had already decided that I rather liked Seattle and had scoped out a couple of places for us to indulge in a few catch up drinks and a slab of protein to set us up for the miles ahead of us. It is fair to say that we were both a bit over excited at the thought of our road trip and hit the ground running hard enough to ensure that we woke up the next morning cursing our middle age and swearing to the alcohol gods that we would be more restrained if they promised to take away our headaches and quell our raging stomachs.

We spent the morning gingerly strolling around Seattle, through Pike Street Market, the stunning Seattle Public Library and around the neighbourhood near the ageing Space Needle. It was enough to set us to rights and persuade us that we could face solid food once again.

I had read that Seattle played host to one of the best hamburger joints in the country in the shape of Red Mill Burgers. It was a claim that had to be tested and I persuaded Neal to join me on a three mile hike to the nearest location to find out. I had my doubts when we arrived. Red Mill Burgers appears to be staffed almost exclusively by hyper attractive young blonde women of college age. That normally would be a very, very good thing, but I had my doubts, from looking at their sylph like figures that they knew much about feeding two hungry, hung over middle aged men. There was quite a line however, which made me think they must have been doing something right. So, after placing our order, I went to secure a booth.

Shows you what I know. These young women were not only hot as Hades, but also knew exactly how to cook up a mean burger. Such a good burger, in fact that I am inclined to declare it as the best I have ever tried.

The “Double Deluxe with Cheese” was a whacking great beast of a burger. It was juicy and patently made of excellent beef. The toppings all worked well and added to rather than hid the flavour of the beef and the bun had just the right amount of sweetness that is required of a burger delivery system. The sides were more ordinary, but served piping hot enough to make Neal pull a face that made me think he had touched cloth during a secret wind breaking session or was channelling John Shuttleworth.

It was the first food highlight of our trip and, although we enjoyed a pleasant enough supper that evening at a trendy small plates Italian place called Tavolata, it was the “Double Deluxe With Cheese” that stayed in my memory as we hit the hay early enough for our early start the next morning.

By 8am, we had collected our ludicrously large rental car and hit the road for our next destination. We had decided that we wanted a break between major cities before we arrived in Portland and headed towards our selected stopping off point of Newport, Oregon. The drive took us the best part of the day, with a few stops to go “ooh” and “aah” over the stunning scenery and a slightly pointless stop to visit the Tillamook Cheese Factory, where they make some of the nastiest cheese I have tasted in, well ever.

By the time we had deposited our cases in a brand spanking new Holiday Inn, that evening, our thoughts turned once more to filling our bellies. By sheer coincidence, it turned out that one of my favourite American craft breweries, Rogue Brewery, was situated a short walk from our hotel. They had, we were told, a small dining area and, less than five minutes after discovering this pertinent fact, we were propping up their bar taking long sips on the first of what would turn out to be several pints.

RANT BEGINS: I am not the biggest fan of American Craft beers, if I am honest. Much of the energy and obvious skill that goes into creating them seems to be dissipated by the determination to serve them in as cold and gassy a state as possible. The benefit of this is that you become self limiting, pushing the second or third pint away uncompleted as you begin to burp on an international level. The downside is that any taste the brewer may have carefully planned for their beer is lost in the chilling process as the beer becomes little more than coloured neutral liquid:RANT ENDS.

Anyway, Rogue Brewery was better than most and the food was not half bad either, a combination that set us up perfectly for a good night’s kip and our next morning’s short drive to our next destination.
Next stop, Portland, Oregon

MORE PIG THAN POSSIBLE WITH MY FILIPINO RELATIVES

2011-09-08T20:45:00.001+01:00

Can I just say, for the record that I love being married? Not just because the blessed and very patient Sybil puts up with my many Bengali quirks, but also because it means I have inherited a huge number of Filipino in laws.

When I say huge number I really mean it. I have discovered that Sybil has a seemingly endless stream of cousins, aunties, uncles and assorted relatives and also seems to be discovering new ones all the time. They are all, to put it quite frankly, mad as a box of ferrets but, at the same time they are also funny, hospitable and so obsessed with food that I can forgive them their eccentricities as easily as Sybil forgives mine.

This last weekend was a long weekend here in the Good Ol’ US of Stateside. Something called Labor Day, which quite apart from proving that Americans cannot spell is also ironic given just how under fire the working man is in this country built on hard labour (that’s better) and enterprise.

It was also a weekend that marked the end of an era, as Sybil’s mum had chosen the date to move permanently back to the Philippines from the US.It’s a long old journey from NYC to Manila and she wisely chose to break her journey in the City of Angels, giving her the chance to visit with her daughter and favourite (and for favourite read only) son in law.

We met her in the morning at LAX and immediately headed towards West Covina, an area of LA county some 15 miles East of Downtown. It has a large Filipino community and Sybil’s Auntie Minda has lived there for many years. It was the perfect opportunity for Syb’s Mum and sister to catch up after a few years and what better way for Filipinos to do that than over lunch?

As we pulled into the parking lot of local Filipino restaurant, Salo Salo, Sybil’s relatives were already jabbering away to each other in Ilocano, the language of their original region of the Philippines. Sybil warned them and me that we should not over do things as this was only one of two lunches we had planned that day.

That useful fact did not seem to matter to anyone, least of all Sybil herself. As soon as we got sight of the menu, she was ordering enough dishes to make even sitting at a table meant for six a tight squeeze. The food began to arrive soon afterwards and it was as good as I had been anticipating. Man it was good.

I have become quite a fan of Filipino cooking in the last few years and the EAT MY GLOBE visit to Manila only served to confirm that it is about so much more than pork, deep frying and deep frying pork. That being said, when it comes to God’s good swine, there are few people on this planet who know how to prepare it better than your Filipino. First up was the “Crispy Meat Platter”. I normally wince when I hear the word “crispy” but I can forgive it if it refers to dishes like the ones placed on our table.

The platter was the size of a small dinghy and contained huge chunks of crispy pata (pork shank that has been braised and then, yep, deep fried) Lechon Kawali, pork ribs and, just in case we thought they had only pigs on their mind, some sensational fried chicken. In fact I thought it was all sensational and my elderly in laws seemed to be in definite agreement.

Sybil’s mum is in her mid 70’s and her aunt in her early 80’s. Their advanced age does not seem to have impeded their appetite any and, more than once, I was beaten to the prime piece of crackled skin by one of them suddenly rediscovering lightning speed in Battle Pig.

Despite her warnings, Sybil was not disgracing herself either. As well as attacking the meat platter with the sort of gusto I had not seen from her since we were last in a jewelry store, she had also ordered more dishes in the form of Fresh Lumpia Ubod (stuffed with hearts of palm) Seafood Pancit and my own favourite Filipino dish of all, Sizzling Sisig.

For those of you who are not in the know, Sisig originates from the city of Angeles in the Pampanga region of the Philippines. On my visit there, I was taken to the small roadside restaurant where the dish was created as the perfect “Pulutan” or food to be eaten when drinking. It was originally made with the discarded bits of the pig, which were fried up with chili and lots of kalamansi lime juice before being served on a sizzling cast iron platter.
The version at Salo Salo was not, I am sure made out of the hooves, lips and assholes of Brer Pig, but still reminded me of why it is was one of the favourite tastes of my whole trip.

We waddled back to our car after lunch, all having ignored the advice not to fill our boots. It made the drive south to Chula Vista a little uncomfortable, all the more so because the volume of cars had slowed the freeway traffic to a crawl. A journey that should take little over an hour took well over three. It did however give everybody the chance to catch up and discuss a topic of great import. For the record, this was about the best way to slaughter a goat or pig. Apparently, in the Philippines, this is done by getting the poor animal pissed and then slitting its throat. Lovely.

Sybil has even more relatives in Chula Vista and they had taken the opportunity to invite all of her mother’s cousins, nieces and nephews over for a party. By the time we arrived, Sybil’s uncle had a house filled with people and a table filled with food. This being a celebration, there was, of course a whole Lechon Baboy (or roasted pig to you and me), which had already been pillaged of most of its crisp skin by the awaiting crowd.

There were more dishes to sample than just the lechon, however. There were stuffed Bangus fish, Caldereta, Garlic Rice and Kilawin, (a dish of raw goat marinated in vinegar, ginger and garlic) as well as big bowls of vegetables, tripe soup and trays of bibingka. It was all a bit much for me and while the others tore into the feast ( managing to do this and to talk at the tops of their voices at the same time) I pulled my fetching new hat down over my head and began to snore contentedly on a nearby sofa.

Sybil woke me up a short while later as I was having a lovely dream about Zantac. It was time for us to move on to our third meal of the day with friends in Chula Vista. We left her mum and aunty where they were to catch up with the hordes of relatives, while we headed off to freshen up at our hotel and run out to supper.

When I knew we would be staying overnight in Chula Vista, I asked my new chum, Chef Marcella Vallodolid (host of The Food Network’s popular Mexican Made Easy show) for some recommendations. She sent me a mail with a handful of choices and when I saw that one of them “Aqui Es Texcoco” specialized in Barbacoa de Barrego (mutton BBQ) I thought it might make a change from all the pork we had consumed.

It certainly did and, despite thinking half an hour before that I would never need to eat food ever again, the smells of grilling meat in the restaurant had me devouring more than my fair share as our order arrived at the table. Of particular note were the quesadilla filled with huitlacoche (corn smut) and the lamb brain tacos, which came to life when doused with lime juice. It was good enough for us all to think that we might need to return soon to explore more of the Mexican cuisine on offer.

This visit however had been all about the Filipinos rather than the Mexicans. It had been all about my newly acquired, barking mad but really rather wonderful family, and of course, it had been all about the pig an animal that deserves our unwavering respect and that can never find itself in better hands after death than those of a Pinoy.

Did I mention that I love being married?

CUT: THE MUSTARD?

2011-09-07T23:11:00.001+01:00

Cut to the chase: It's a Steakhouse. It's expensive. Rich people and Americans will love it. (Cheque to the usual place please).

Oh. Ok.

Much as I'd like to believe Wolfgang Puck has always wanted to open a restaurant in London and isn't it just wunnerful with your history and I'm actually thinking of buying a house and sending my kids to school here and the weather, just love your weather etc.etc. Much as I'd like to believe it I just can't. Let's face it: not only is the weather crap here but CUT is really just another branch of an ever-expanding franchise in yet another tony location

This one is located in a narrow space on the ground floor of some sort of boutique-like annex of the Dorchester Hotel. It’s all (presumably) hideously expensive with hard, reflective surfaces and heavy furniture. Surroundings designed to confound simple folk like myself but one in which people like hedge fund managers – there’s alot around these parts - will feel right at home.

There's a definite Siberia in this restaurant, situatedt right at the back, to which I was inevitably led and seated so that the other sad-sack single diner had a nice view of my back. I had a view of the wall. Avoid.

On a sort of mezzanine floor overlooking the dining room there’s a bar where I could only imagine the fun people were having but could certainly enjoy the sound system blasting out hits of the 70’s. David segueing into Al segueing into Marvin.

Although it’s ostensibly a steakhouse the menu has pleanty choice with even a few options for vegetarians - although if you are one of those so-blessed you may ponder upon on your choice of dining venue when you see mushrooms coming in at £19. They are Masala Wild Mushrooms though. In the end, though, it’s still a steakhouse and it seemed perverse and not a little bit dumb to order anything but a piece of beef.

Before that though there were some nibbles: nice, crumbly cheese straws, warm cheesy gougères and some toughish bread.

A starter of Crab and Lobster “Louis” was an assemblage of lumps of lobster, white crab meat, toms and microgreens – like a sort of refined seafood cocktail. I couldn’t detect any of the advertised horseradish and it was a little underseasoned for my taste but it was a light and pleasant enough dish and the shellfish tasted nice.

There’s a decent selection of steaks available and there was the now obligatory show ‘n’ tell of the primo cuts. Foolishly, as it turned out, I spurned my usual “Stupidly Big Steak on Bone” MO and went for 6oz of Australian Wagyu. Yours for an arm AND a leg – I suspect it hadn’t travelled cattle class from down under. Super-sizing it with £10 of Foie Gras was just showing off.

Whoever’s manning the grill here knows exactly what they’re doing as the smallish lump of beef – it was a shock to see what 6oz of steak actually looks like – was perfectly cooked and
looked bloody great (mate).

Unfortunately, it had about as much taste as your average Ocker. Whether I should requested it cooked less rare; whether the odd seasoning covering the outside of the meat was killing the flavour; whether I’ve developed a tin mouth, I’ll never know. What I do know is that it was one of the more disappointing steaks I’ve eaten in a restaurant. So much so I hardly noticed that the FG had been overcooked.

The sides were more enjoyable though. A large tower of Tempura Onion Rings were light and crisp although its height had been enhanced by judiciously filling the bottom of the cup with the onion ring equivalent of 'bits'.

Fries were light and crisp although they’d been cut from unpeeled spuds (quite common in the US) – just made for dipping in an anaemic-looking but fine tasting béarnaise.

An off-menu Ice Cream selection was a metaphorical shrug of a desert but I liked the accompanying gooey chocolate cookie as well as the ones which came with my coffee.

Wines were just as eye-gougingly expensive as the food which is to be expected – there are very few reasonably priced wines to be found in London restaurants. Service was ultra-smooth and never missed a beat. As a whole though the experience left me underwhelmed. To be fair I feel this way about the majority of new places and find myself returning instead to my old favourite haunts.

To be honest if all you’re after is a good steak and are not fussed about dining at bling factor 50 then one of the established London Steakhouses – Goodman is but a 15 minute stroll away - would be a better choice. If you do not partake of the cow and have plenty of dosh CUT may just suit the bill.

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS: THE BEST OF SPANISH COOKING WITH JOSE PIZARRO

2011-09-01T16:38:00.001+01:00

Those of you who have been following DH for a long time will know that Jose Pizarro has long been our "go to" chef in London when it comes to matters of Spanish cuisine. Quite frankly, no one in the capital manages to translate the unique Spanish combination of great ingredients, stellar technique and generosity of spirit as well as Senor P.

A little under three years ago, we held one of our earlier DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS events at Casa Brindisa in Knightsbridge. Then, forty people were lucky enough to experience a night filled with enough sherry and Jamon Iberico to fill the Bernabeu.

Unless you have spent the last six months underground, you will know that JP has moved on from Brindisa and has opened his own eponymous tiny sherry bar in Bermondsey to considerable critical acclaim.

He is soon to open a more formal dining spot, named Pizarro nearby and it is to that destination that I thought we should turn for the latest DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS. JP will, I am certain show us why he is held in such high regard all over the globe.

The details are

DATE: MONDAY 28th NOVEMBER 2011
LOCATION: PIZARRO, BERMONDSEY (exact address TBC)
COST: £50 per person (All inclusive of food/wine/service - although as always, we will pass the hat around at the end of the meal to recognise what I know will be amazing service)

Tickets will be paid for in advance through EventBrite and will include a non returnable booking fee (to cover their fees) Money is fully refundable up to 48 hours before the event. If you cancel after that point, we will only refund your money if we can sell your ticket.

We have only 50 places available. Given that we had over 750 requests for the last DWDH event at Goodman, I shall be drawing names out of the hat and informing the lucky few by mail soon after.

If you are keen to come along, please mail me at doshermanos@doshermanos.co.uk and title your mail DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS/JOSE PIZARRO

I look forward to seeing some of you there

LAMB BIRYANI: A SEALED POT OF PURE PLEASURE

2011-08-27T19:26:00.000+01:00

My quest to catalogue some of the most popular dishes in Indian restaurants around the world continued this week with an attempt to create the perfect Biryani.

It’s no easy matter as this glorious dish, another gift of the Moghuls to Indian cuisine, is the subject of fierce debate throughout India. The arguments rage not only about how it is made, but also about what ingredients it should contain.
The only thing that people can all seem to agree on is that it is a combination of rice, spices and meat or vegetables, but that’s about as far as the consensus goes.

There are dozens of different versions of Biryani, but perhaps the three most famous are those found in Hyderabad, Lucknow and Kolkata. The Hyderabadi version is made using raw meat (usually goat) marinated in yoghurt & spices and raw rice. These are cooked in a pot with a tight fitting lid, sealed with a wheat flour rim, until the juices from the meat cook the rice. It is, I believe, also known as a “Dum” or steamed Biryani. I wonder if the word “Dum” has the same root as the French word “Daube” a stew that is cooked in a similar fashion, with a sealed pot. Anyone?

The Lucknow Biryani is made using meat and rice that have been cooked already and are then combined to make the final dish, while the Kolkata version was traditionally a poor man’s dish that replaced the meat with chunks of potato.

They are all terrific, so I looked to all of them for the inspiration for my "perfect" recipe. Goat is not that easy to find in LA LA Land, so I used lamb instead. You could also use chicken. I chose cut up lamb shanks and also added some extra lamb bones, to add extra flavour and to give me some marrow sucking action in the final dish.

The key to a perfect Biryani is to have the meat cooked until tender without over cooking the rice. I have found that par boiling the rice (some with whole spices and some with the same spices and a little saffron) and partially pre-cooking the meat, is not only a fool proof way of achieving this this, but pre-cooking the lamb and its marinade also produces a lot of cooking liquid that you can also use for the sauce as you are layering rice, meat and fried onions in your Biryani pan.

Anyway, do give it a go. It is laborious rather than difficult, but the end result is 100% worth the effort involved.

Oh, and don't forget to suck on those lamb bones, or there will be Hell to pay.

LAMB SHANK BIRYANI
INGREDIENTS
2 Cups Basmati Rice
2 lbs Lamb (Lamb shanks cut into chunks and some extra lamb bones)
2 large White Onions (sliced thinly)
4 Green Chiles (Deseeded)
2 Inches Fresh Ginger (Peeled and chopped)
5 Cloves Fresh Garlic (Peeled)
½ Cup Yoghurt
1 Cinnamon Stick
6 Cloves
6 Green Cardamom Pods
2 Bay Leaves
1 Pinch Saffron
1Tsp Ground Coriander
1Tsp Ground Cumin
1Tsp Ground Turmeric
1Tsp Red Chili Powder
1Tsp Salt
1Tsp Sugar

METHOD
Blend the green chili, ginger and garlic to a paste with a little salt and water.

Place the lamb in a bowl and add the ground spices, the salt & sugar, the ginger/chili/garlic paste and the yoghurt.

Massage these well into the meat. Cover with cling film and allow to sit in the marinade for at least three hours.

Slice the onions as thinly as possible and fry in oil until golden and crisp.

Drain the onions on kitchen paper and allow to cool.

Take two thirds of the rice and place in a pan with 3 cloves, 1 bay leaf, ½ the cinnamon stick and 3 cardamom pods.

Add twice the volume of water and par boil for 15 minutes on a low heat. The rice should still have a crunch when you bite into a grain.

Do the same with the remaining rice, adding the remaining spices and also the pinch of saffron. This will give the rice a pink/orange colour.

Drain the two rices and allow to cool.

Combine them to give you two tone rice.

After three or more hours, place the lamb and its marinade in a large covered pan and cook on a gentle heat for 45mins.

Remove the lamb from the pan and reduce the cooking liquid it has produced by half.

Take a deep oven proof casserole dish or saucepan and place a layer or rice on the bottom.

Place a handful of onions on top of that and then a ladle full of the lamb cooking liquid.

Place a layer of meat on top of this and cover completely with rice.
Repeat this process until you reach within an inch or so of the top of the pan, finishing with a layer of rice and sauce.

Traditionally a “Dum” Biryani pot would have been sealed with a pastry rim to stop steam escaping. If you have a tight fitting lid, you will not need to do this. I did it anyway.

Preheat your oven to 350F/175C and bake the Biryani for 45mins to 1 hour.
Serve with your favourite Indian bread and a raita or plain yoghurt.

CHICKEN KORMA: THE PRINCELY DISH OF PERSIA

2011-08-06T20:01:00.000+01:00

Foreign influences on Indian cuisine are legion.

In the Southern state of Goa, you will see the influence of their former Portuguese overlords in the use of chilli, garlic and vinegar in dishes such as the Vindaloo. While, in the North, you will find many dishes display the influence of the Moghul invasion of the 16th Century.

Most famous of these dishes is, of course, the Chicken Korma, that rich and mild combination of cream, nuts, spices and chicken that has become one of the most ordered dishes from Indian restaurant menus all over the UK.

There are literally hundreds of recipes available, which reflect the changes made as the popularity of the dish spread South throughout India. In the South, you may find it called a Kurma. It will be more spicey and contain coconut and tomato. It may well even be a “Navratan” Korma which uses paneer rather than meat. In the North, however, it is normally made with mutton or chicken and the sauce is the one that will be immediately familiar to restaurant goers everywhere.

In my search for authentic versions of those dishes that have become curry house staples, I have been trying a few different Korma recipes over the years and the one below trumps any that I have tried so far. Give it a go and tell me if you agree.

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4)
6 Chicken Thighs
1 White Onion (sliced)
5 Garlic Cloves (peeled & chopped)
1 Inch Fresh Ginger (peeled & chopped)
3 Green Chillies (1 whole, 2 deseeded and chopped)
1 Cinnamon Stick
3 Green Cardamom
3 Cloves
1 Tsp Ground Cumin
1 Tsp Ground Corriander
1 Tsp Ground Turmeric
½ Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Chilli Powder
1 Cup Ground Almonds
1 Pint Whipping (Heavy) Cream
¼ Cup Boiling Water
¼ Cup Chopped Coriander Leaf
2 Limes
Vegetable oil for cooking

METHOD
Skin and bone the chicken thighs and cut the flesh into 1in chunks
Mix the almond flour, cream and boiling water and allow to sit to allow the oils from the nuts to come out. This thickens the final sauce.
Heat three tablespoons of vegetable oil in a saucepan and add the cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamom pods and the whole green chilli. Cook for two or three minutes to flavour the oil.
Add the sliced onion and cook for five minutes on a gentle heat until soft and golden brown.
Add the chopped ginger, chilli and garlic and cook for a further five minutes.
Add the ground spices and cook for a further five minutes. Add a little water if it begins to stick.
Remove the whole spices and the whole chilli and then transfer the remaining to a blender.
Blend to a fine paste.
Heat two more tablespoons of oil and return the paste to the same pan.
Add the chicken and stir over a gentle heat until the chicken is fully cooked.
Add the cream/almond mixture and stir well with the chicken.
Cook for five to ten minutes until it the sauce begins to thicken.
Spoon on to a serving dish and sprinkle with the juice of one lime.
Top with a handful of coriander leaves and serve with more limes, some white rice and your favourite Indian bread.

HEDONE: MY PLEASURE

2011-07-27T17:19:00.001+01:00

To call Mikael Jonsson an ingredient obsessive is to do him a disservice - it’s a bit like saying that footballer Lionel Messi can play a bit.

I’d already crossed paths with him (Mikael not Lionel, stupid) several years ago on a group trip to Anthony’s in Leeds and once my friend Scott - you remember: more Michelin three-stars than I’ve had hot dinners - told me that he was looking to open a restaurant in Chiswick my interest was very, as they say, piqued.

Although I was told he was already a gifted amateur cook, an allergy had prevented him from working in commercial kitchens. The allergy has cleared up so he’s followed his dream and is now cooking in his first place, Hedone. And he seems to be having a hell of a time doing so. Happily, that enthusiasm is catching and the restaurant is already gaining an excellent, wholly warranted, reputation. Not bad for a first-timer, eh?

So how to describe the food? Well the cliché of the best ingredients, cooked simply wouldn’t be far off the mark although that doesn’t tell the whole story. There’s a whole load of technique going here but without the bombast and overwrought style that fine dining restaurants are often prone to.

There’s also little twists that constantly take one by surprise and lift dishes above the norm. Take for instance the small Sablés that I had as an amuse to start one of my meals. Made with Berkswell Cheese they were beautifully crumbly but were lifted by a sprinkling of powdered, oven-dried blackcurrants that tingled on the tongue like space rocks. Or how about a Gazpacho of amazing intensity dotted with specks of dill oil and served with a chilled dill flower cream? or small tiny potatoes that have been smoked over juniper berries.

A meal here often starts with an Umami flan (as in the Iberian custard type) which has typically been made with a duck stock or dashi and topped with various purees: English pea, seaweed or red pepper. Served tiede these are a such a great way to start a meal – luscious mouthfeel and the umami element gets the juices going (oo-err missus). I’m just surprised nowhere else in London does them.

If you're a big fan of over-reduced sauces sluicing around on the plate then the minimal intervention policy here might disappoint. Although there are sauces here they’re correct, to the point, occasionally inventive: a small thick rivulet was made from the guts of a squab pigeon; a sauce with the beef that was light yet intense and deep in flavour; a lustrous Lobster sauce served with Duck or one made from mustard lightly napped over the spuds served with some Turbot collar.

That cut of Turbot – ‘cut’ seems an apt word - looked like some beautiful sub-species of fish and was remarkable for its tasty dense white flesh and gelatinous exterior which made eating the bones akin to demolishing the carcass of a roast chicken (gentle reader, I sucked those bones clean).

Other fish is equally great and handled with care like a fillet of Mackerel – the freshest I’ve had outside of Cornwall – which was just flashed under the grill. Scallops, hand-dived from the South Coast came in a dashi broth and as Sashimi. Or my favourite, just served raw and wriggling, bound in nori.

Superb Beef from Darragh O’Shea was cooked in plenty of Beef fat and served rare. There was the aforementioned Pigeon and the Duck in Lobster sauce. Don’t be disappointed if you visit and some of these are not on the menu – only the best stuff at the time makes the cut and there’ll always be something else which is just as good. It’s that sort of place.

Puddings are equally adept: beautiful Almond Blac-Manger served with (proper) Apricots; Raspberries served with Cinnamon ice cream and a Horseradish cream; a light Peach Tart with lovely pastry and Tonka Bean Ice Cream.

Chocolate soufflé was more mousse-like in texture but was lifted by the quality of the chocolate used and the accompanying Vanilla Ice cream made with one of several varieties of vanilla the chef has found (well of course he has) was a revelation.

Coffee was still a work in progress but has improved with each visit.

There’s just such a clarity and purity to the cooking that even after nine courses with plenty of excellent homemade sourdough bread you can leave without feeling bloated.

All this would count for naught of course without the terrific supporting acts that are the friendly, professional staff. And just in case you thought that this might be some stuffy temple of gastronomy on a recent visit the chef/patron had to rush out to get baby seats for some younger punters who were visiting. Yes, news of Hedone and that Umami dish
has even reached the nurseries of West London.

I have to fess up and say I’m already a little bit in love with Hedone to the extent that I almost considered cancelling a recent trip as it would mean not visiting for a couple of weeks. By comparison most other places seem, well, a bit rubbish. Now if only I could find some magic portal that would whisk me from East London to West I would be happy and my life complete.

HOME COOKING: OI! TWO MORE LAMB BHUNAS HERE

2011-07-17T20:22:00.002+01:00

In the last few weeks, as much for my own enjoyment as any other reason, I have been undertaking research into the all too familiar cast of dishes that appear on British curry houses.

While some of these dishes, like the splendid Chicken Tikka Masala, may be truly British inventions, others, like the Vindaloo, the Korma, the Dopiaza and the Phaal do have roots in dishes that can be found on the Indian subcontinent, even if the curry house versions may be entirely unrecognisable to anyone from India.

Although, the versions of these dishes that can found in the Taj Mahal's and Standard Tandoori's of Blighty can be delicious, if well made, there is usually a “one sauce fits all” appearance to them that pays testament to the pre-preparation required in any restaurant and the lack of authenticity of curry house versions.

So, in an attempt to rectify this and get to the source of the sauce, I am going to spend the next few weeks in my kitchen attempting to find authentic recipes for those dishes we love so much and to present them on DH with a little cultural background to give added spice.

To begin, the Bhuna. It’s a rich, dark, spicy and thick dish that has become one of the most popular of Indian restaurant staples. It has its origins in North East India and the areas of Bengal and what is now Bangladesh to thank for its popularity in UK curry houses.

In the early 1950’s, large numbers of immigrants from Pakistan, East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and India began to flow into the United Kingdom. Initially they came to fill roles in the ship building, textile and steel industries and graduated towards areas like West Yorkshire, Scotland and Lancashire. Soon, however, a number of these new immigrants began opening restaurants. At first these modest places were aimed at feeding their fellow immigrants, yearning for a taste of the homeland. However, they soon became popular with the local community and, as their popularity spread, so too the dishes became modified to widen their appeal.

The word Bhuna, I am told, literally means to fry and refers to a process where spices or spice pastes were fried to release their oils before meat (usually goat) was added and then allowed to cook in its own juices and the spices.

Recipes vary, but my own version involves the laborious, but entirely worth the effort, approach of marinating cubes of lamb in spices, onion paste, ginger, garlic, chilli, methi (fenugreek) leaf and a little yoghurt for a couple of hours before then cooking them down in their own juices, with sliced onions and tomato until they are covered in a rich, dark, spicy coating.

The recipe below certainly takes a bit of effort, as so many good recipes do, but it is definitely worth trying if you want to experience an authentic version of a curry house classic.

INGREDIENTS
3lbs Lamb (I used cubed lamb leg)
1 Large White Onion
4 Fresh Green Chillies
2 Inches Fresh Ginger (Peeled)
5 Cloves Garlic (Peeled)
1 12oz Can Plum Tomatoes (Drained and chopped)
3 Tbsp Whole Milk Yoghurt
1 Tsp Coriander Powder
1 Tsp Hot Chilli Powder
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Cumin Powder
1 Tsp Turmeric
1 Tsp White Pepper
½ Cup Fenugreek Leaf (Fresh if you can find them, but dried worked well for me)
1 Stick Cinnamon
4 Green Cardamom Pods
4 Cloves
4 Dried Red Chillies (try and use Kasmiri Chillies if you can find them. They add a great red colour without adding to the heat too much)
¼ Cup Vegetable Oil
Water

METHOD
Blend half the onion into a fine paste.
Make a fine paste of the fresh green chillies, ginger and garlic.
Drain and chop the tomatoes.
Dry fry the whole spices (cinnamon, cardamom pods, cloves, dry red chillies) and grind to a fine powder and combine with the pre-ground spices.
Combine the lamb with yoghurt, spices, fenugreek leaf, onion paste and half the ginger/garlic/chilli paste in a large bowl. Cover with cling film and marinade for at least two hours.
Heat the ¼ cup of oil in a deep sides pan. It may seem like a lot of oil, but it really adds to the flavour and you can skim off excess as it is cooking.
Finely slice the remaining half of the onion and fry in the oil until it is golden brown.
Add the remaining half of the ginger/garlic/chilli paste and fry on a low heat for five minutes.
Add the tomatoes and cook for five minutes until they begin to break down.
Add the lamb and all its marinade. Cover the pan and cook for thirty minutes.
After this time it will have created a lot of its own liquid.
Cook for a further thirty minutes on a low heat until the liquid has reduced by half.
At this point, I add ½ pint of water and continue the reducing process. I find this results in really succulent lamb and a rich sauce with a lovely sheen.
Continue cooking until the sauce reduces to little more than a coating.
Serve with rice and rotis.

ROCKSALT:VOYEZ/CES OISEAUX BLANCS/ET CES MAISONS ROUILLÉES

2011-07-04T21:12:00.020+01:00

My favourite time of all to visit the seaside is when the promenades are quiet, the skies are grey and rain-flecked and the kiss-me-quick hat shops are shuttered. An English seaside town in the low season has an elegiac quality which appeals so much that I sometimes think I must have some Finnish in my lineage.

Why is it I got the impression that Folkestone is always in an off-season? Maybe it was the seafront – reached using the water-powered Leas Lift - sparsely populated with a few kite flyers, the pebble beach bereft of bathers save for a man looking like he was about to swim the Channel and a few families braving the breeze on a small sandy beach (windbreakers for goalposts).

They’re making an effort here though. The Folkestone Triennial runs until September and there is a little artistic barrio with coffee shops and the like in the centre. As in many of these Kent coastal towns though much of the centre is a bit chavtastic – people worship regularly at the temple of St.Primark – and the good townsfolk have not so much been touched with the ugly stick as beaten firmly around the bonce with it. I fitted in perfectly, of course.

Luckily, they’d picked some of the younger, better-looking and more clued-up examples from the populace to staff chef Mark Sargeant’s first restaurant, Rocksalt and although I had heard about early problems with the service I couldn't quibble: they were terrific and pretty much on the ball during my visit.

Rocksalt itself does look a tad incongruous alongside the small wooden shacks selling whelks and crabsticks and with the newly opened Fish and Chip café Smokehouse a lobster net’s cast away from the mothership this is beginning to look like a sort of proto-Padstein. Sarge-ville if you will.

That said once you’re in the restaurant you could actually be anywhere - probably London. There’s a big floor-to-ceiling window that runs the length of the dining room so you can see the sea and everything but the décor is more along smart/urban lines, corporate even.

I had (wrongly) assumed that Rocksalt was all about fish, especially given its location but there seemed to be plenty of meat dishes on the menu and a board of different steaks was duly paraded around the room for diners to admire. To be honest I would have been more interested in seeing the fish.

Shame, too, that apart from Early Bird they couldn't have used some Kent breweries for their selection of beers, nice though the Meantime ones are. I probably would have stuck to them too as the wine list was a bit snooze-inducing.

Some small snacks to go with my beer were ok but a bit inconsequential. A decent tarama, some radishes which lacked pepperiness came with an anchovy dip, some mealy broad beans with salt. Best of the lot were a bowl of slightly gritty cockles served with a little jug of vinegar which whisked me straight back to seaside holidays of yore when all edibles had to come with a fine layer of sand (some weird by-law I think).

Red Herring was a Smoked Mackerel dyed with Beetroot. Served warm it was good: moist and meaty and not too smoky but a poached or soft-boiled egg may have made it more of a dish; much as I admired the Iberian-like simplicity.

My main course was a special of Dover Sole at £20 (the other was Monkfish) which was simply grilled and simply great, as Dover Sole often is although a bit more inventiveness with the sides wouldn't have gone amiss. I wasn’t looking for an El Bulli experience but serving it with Asparagus and boiled spuds was a sign of a rather unambitious kitchen.

For pudding Kentish Gypsy Tart was very good indeed with a light mousse-like caramel filling and crumbly pastry - even the waitress was surprised at how quickly I demolished it (others less so).

Decent coffee was served with some fudge and some Rocksalt Rock. Which was nice.

So the service was excellent and the food good, so why was I less moved by this place than say Eddie Gilbert’s up the coast in Ramsgate or even The Sportsman on the North Kent Coast?

Well, those places have a sense of location and context which adds to the experience. When you visit them you're certainly not in London whereas at Rocksalt I kept having to look out of the window to remind myself where I was. They also feel like one-offs where Rocksalt feels like a nascent chain.

Then I realised that Rocksalt doesn't just exist for the benefit of whiny Londoners made weary of Burgers, Bahn Mi and Burritos (that’ll be me) but also for local people who want a decent place to eat. As if to emphasise that point as I was leaving I overheard a local couple outside who were looking at the menu.

“Looks good doesn’t it?”

“It does - shall we go in?”

“Why not”.

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS: A GOODMAN/ O'SHEA/HERDERMAN/WRIGHT BROS JOINT

2011-06-27T00:33:00.006+01:00

It all started out as a vague thought in my head as I spent a lazy afternoon in Los Angeles wistfully pondering on all the things I missed most about living in London. There were enough things on the list to fill a sizeable pamphlet including a decent pint and a pork pie. However, very near the top of the pile were the words

“A proper Sunday lunch”

As they do for so many in the UK, a traditional Sunday lunch takes on an almost mythical status when it comes to the favourite dining experiences of Dos Hermanos. When I called London home, few weekends passed without one of DH slamming a large joint of meat in the oven to be accompanied when ready, with heaving plates of vegetables and serenaded by the music of plopping corks.

Lord how I missed a proper Sunday lunch.

My mind also turned to thoughts of “Dine With Dos Hermanos”, our now legendary series of dining events created for no other purpose than to bring large groups of people together to have a damn good time at damn good restaurants. In the five years since they were no more than a twinkle in our eye, they have grown from occasions involving a handful of people to ones that now attract hundreds of requests for tickets.

I knew I was due back in London for a week or so in June and decided, in an all too rare bout of genius, to combine one with the other. However, if we were going to put the DWDH moniker on the Sunday lunch, it could not just be any Sunday lunch, it had to be THE BEST SUNDAY LUNCH EVER.

It was a bold attempt and I knew it would take a special kind of restaurant to make it happen. I shot off an e-mail to the one person I knew would be up to the task, David Strauss of Goodman Steakhouse, without doubt the best GM in the capital. He responded immediately and positively, his only caveat being that if he was going to open the restaurant on a Sunday we would have to promise to fill it.

We were talking about 75+ places here folks and, although the previous events have been a success, this was a huge leap up both in ambition and numbers. But, faint heart never won a fair meal, so I set about using my limited social media skills and the latest DWDH was soon announced on Facebook, Twitter and the blog. I expected a strong response but, nowhere near the deluge of e-mails that began to flood in minutes after the event was announced.

In all we received nearly 750 requests for tickets. Easily the largest response we have ever experienced. There was only one thing for it and that was to write all the names down and pick them from a hat. It seemed the most fair way and I can only apologies to those whose names were not selected.

Between the announcement and the big day, David Strauss and John Cadieux of Goodman went to work talking to their suppliers. If you are going to have the best Sunday lunch, ever, you are going to need the best ingredients and they did not let me or the lucky attendees down.

When I arrived shortly before the event was due to start, the director of Wright Brothers was busy shucking fresh and meaty Maldon Oysters to welcome people as they arrived. Not a bad way to start the meal and even better with an accompanying glass of Prosecco or a strong Bloody Mary.

Next up, as we took our seats, the fantastic staff of Goodman, who had come in on a day when the restaurant is normally closed, began to place large plates of smoked salmon and smoked eel on each of the table. One glimpse at the picture of thick strips of densely coloured salmon will tell you that this is no ordinary fish and indeed as it was described to us by its producer, the incomparable Frank Herderman, the rich, creamy flesh with its light salt cure and subtle smoky flavour was even more appreciated.

Then it was on to the main event and John and his team of willing chefs carried up colossal joints of beef, legs of lamb and shoulders of pork to be received with awe by the crowd before being sliced up into huge chunks to be served family style. I have always loved the beef from O’Shea, but DH have long been telling people just how astonishingly good his piggy flesh is too, Well, those who were with us today will need no further convincing. The lamb too was described to me more than once as a “revelation” and all of the joints had been cooked to perfection in Goodman’s Josper Grills.

As large plates carrying slabs of meat were placed on each table, so too were bowls of creamy cauliflower cheese, roasted carrots, roast potatoes and of course, teetering mounds of glistening Yorkshire puddings. From the noises coming from each table it appeared as if the DH attempt to make this the best Sunday lunch ever might just be accomplished, particularly as the staff made sure that every glass was topped off every time it looked like someone had taken a sip.

After the main course, of course, comes pudding and special praise must go to whoever was in charge of the Sherry trifle making duties. There were no mere trifles, filled as they were with sharp, fresh berries and topped off with cream and toasted almonds. I heard more than one person (including, I believe Hermano Primero) utter the words “I don’t usually like trifle” before plunging the serving spoon deep into the bowls for yet one more helping.

Add this to a final gut busting plate of cheese and a snifter of Marsala wine and all I can say is that if this wasn’t the best Sunday lunch of all times, I bloody hope to be invited to the one that is.

Huge thanks must be shouted out from Dos Hermanos to everyone who made this remarkable event possible.

To David Strauss and John Cadieux for their efforts and good humour in the execution of this Herculean task.

To Dino Joannidies for suggesting I use Eventbrite to collect payment.

To all the team at Goodman, front and back of house, who confirmed why I believe these restaurants offers the best service in London.

To Wright Bros, Frank Herderman and Darragh O’Shea for proving on a daily basis that we have some of the best ingredients on the planet and should shout about them to foreigners whenever possible.

To James Day for most of the decent images in today's post.

And, last of all to everyone who came along to help me fulfill my one simple aim of enjoying “THE BEST SUNDAY LUNCH EVER”. Even if you think we didn’t quite get there, I hope the list below of what 75 of us managed to consume will at least support our claim to have got pretty damn close.

7 Bottles of Vodka
18 Bottles of Prosecco,
24 Bottles of Chardonnay
60 Bottles of Malbec
6 Bottles of Marsala
400 Maldon Oysters
30Kgs Smoked Salmon & Eel
90kgs Pork/Lamb & Beef
20kg Sherry Trifle
10kg of British Cheese

Roll on the next Dine With Dos Hermanos

JOSÉ: UNA ESQUINA ESPAÑOLA

2011-06-14T22:37:00.000+01:00

When people realise you’re a bit more interested in food and restaurants than would be considered normal in polite company the first thing they do is ask you what your favourite restaurant is. To be honest I haven’t really got a favourite restaurant. Honest.

What I do like though, what really floats my boat and pulls my chain is propping up a Spanish bar. It’s probably in Madrid, on a cold day with that incandescent sunlight that you get in one of Europe’s highest capital cities. The barman would be of the grumpy tendency but the caña of Mahou he had just poured would be cold and have a thick, creamy head.

I would wait for my free tapa - a piece of tortilla or maybe a handful of cortezas de cerdo - before ordering un ración de jamón ibérico de bellota. He would cut the ham quickly and expertly, laying the slices in an outwardly radiating spiral, finally dropping some picos into the centre. I would take a sip of the cold, slightly bitter beer then pick up a slice of the jamón, oily from the melting fat, between thumb and forefinger. I would hold it up and briefly examine it against the light before shoving it down my gob.

At this point my interrogator would already be walking away, staring at the floor and shaking their head.

José in Bermondsey street is billed as a Sherry Bar but actually that description undersells it. For starters the wine list, whilst it has a good range of sherries has a lot of other good stuff on it (the list was put together by a couple of Masters of Wine). Also I can't think of many sherry bars that have open kitchens with several top chefs beavering away in them.

Decor is clean and functional and as in most places in Spain you have to find yourself a space at the bar or an upturned barrel to eat at - the idea of sitting at tables to eat any other than a proper is unknown in Spain (although that is changing).

Of course, all this would count for nada if the food wasn’t any good. Happily it is. José is an exemplar of the cliché of the best ingredients cooked simply. This is the stuff that all those Spanish Michelin chefs really want to eat on their day off. There will be a new restaurant opening later in the year where I suspect we may see more evolved dishes but for now José more than fits the bill.

A blackboard shows the daily market specials which is supplemented by a longer list on the menu. They're actually more akin to the Spanish media ración in size than tapas but whatever you want to call them the quality of the ingredients used is the key here.

Croquetas de jamón are sometimes a bit oily and over-fried which usually makes me a bit queasy but these were perfect: light, studded with jewel-like bits of ham, I could have eaten several more plates of these. The most fantastic Prawns cooked with a little chilli and garlic and were so good I did order another plate.

Jamón Ibérico is from Manuel Maldonado who is based not far from Jose’s hometown of Cáceres. With jamón it’s all about the cutting – you should be able to the read the maker’s name on the blade through the meat - and while it may sound xenophobic when you have the good stuff you don’t want a guiri wielding the knife. As well as being of exemplary quality this is the best cut jamón you’re going to get in London.

Razor Clams (from Scotland) come simply cooked on the plancha with a bit of chorizo and mint. Almejas are huge and meaty and you'll definitely want some bread to mop up the sherry broth.

Wonderfully fresh Sardines possibly could have done with a bit more char - they can take it - but were wonderfully fresh. Ditto some Mackerel in an escabeche which can be a bit iffy if the fish isn't up to snuff.

Pluma Ibérica (so named because of its resemblance to a feather) is one of those cuts of Pork like secreto and presa that the Spanish go nuts about but which are seldom seen over here. Well-marbled and with a lovely layer of fat it's cooked quickly so still rare inside and served with piquillo peppers. Combine some of the sweet pepper with the rich, rare pork to see what the fuss is about.

Puds are not really a Spanish forte and in lieu of helado mixta a glass of Victoria Ordoñez Malaga No. 2 and some Strawberries and Cherries more than passed muster.

Service is friendly and clued-up and really adds to the great atmosphere of the place – blimey, even a hard-hearted, old curmudgeon like me had a smile on my face (although that may have been the wine).

Three hours of a Saturday lunchtime had never passed more quickly and in a drunken, post-meal tweet I posited the fact that this was currently the best Spanish cooking in London. In the sober light of day I see no reason to retract that statement.

MASSIMO: WHERE'S THE SPIRIT?

2011-06-06T22:10:00.000+01:00

What is it about hotel restaurants that make them suck all the joy out of the dining experience? Mostly cavernous spaces with decor that tries to be tasteful but ends up being tasteless; the circuitous trek to the toilets, usually with a young female FOH (which makes you feel like you’re about 90) and where you end up at the pissoir next to a load of oiks from XYZ Widget Co having their ‘off-site’,whatever the hell that means. And don’t even get me started about finding one’s way back...especially after a few sherbets.

But there must be some advantages I hear you protest? Well, if a restaurant is backed by a big hotel group you would hope that there would be no expense spared in making your meal fabulous. In my experience though this extends only so far as having a lot of staff - at least three young lovelies at the front desk seems to be the industry norm - but you'll still pay through the nose for the food. But still I keep returning - more in hope rather than expectation.

This time it was a visit to the recently opened Massimo, an Italian Seafood restaurant in the recently opened Corinthia Hotel on Northumberland Avenue. The advance blurb promised nose-to-tail seafood and lip-to-fin cooking utilising all the fish’s funny bits but there’s many a slip twixt PR blurb and reality which in the case of Massimo meant a menu so dull I drifted off whilst reading it - narcoleptics be warned - although the prices did wake me with a start. I wasn’t expecting much but I did get a few nice surprises.

A starter of Octopus was rather good. Olly had come all the way from Spain (perhaps he was called Olé before his appointment with a speargun) and was as good as I’ve had: soft, creamy and with a slight char from the grilling. I don’t know if it’s a classic combo in Italy but the avocado seemed a bit pointless, the chilli might have been better as small dice. The aioli was unobtrusive. Still, a good (but expensive) dish.

I really enjoyed the pasta course as well. Paccheri, cooked al dente, came with chopped-up razor clams, although there probably wasn't even one in there and some slightly overcooked broad beans with a light shaving of bottarga over the dish. It was very good but I’d probably want a lobster or something in there for £17.

Unfortunately, things went a bit Pete Tong when it came to my main course. Red Mullet is one of my favourite fish but the two fillets here lacked sparkle and they'd been cooked on a plancha that hadn't been cleaned properly so there was a lingering taste of old oil. The little salad should have been a zingy addition but the oranges weren't sweet and the fennel pretty tasteless.

To be fair to them one of the more senior staff saw me struggling with the dish - it must have been my grimaces - and swapped it without any fuss for the Turbot. This was much better but the combination still lacked that certain brio that get's you licking your lips and going ever so slightly bonkers with delight.

I always order Zabaione if I see it on the menu. That combination of the warm, the smooth and the boozy tastes like the most cosseting thing ever. Massimo's version was poor - no discernible Marsala and without that luxurious mouthfeel that a good example has. The savoiardo biscuits were stale as well. Not good.

So nothing particularly interesting to see here and although I suppose it’s a valid approach to stick to the central tenet of Italian cooking and keep things simple it would have been nice to have had something a bit different.

We already have a number of tony Italian establishments in London doing the exactly the same thing, whilst at the other end there’s a growing number of places where the cooking is enthusiastic and the pricing keen. It all makes me wonder who exactly Massimo is for...apart from restaurant reviewers, well-heeled bloggers and maybe David Collins completists.

GILBERT SCOTT: BY GEORGE?

2011-05-31T22:20:00.000+01:00

Much as I’d like to believe that the slew of restaurant openings in London will raise the bar by providing more competition à la New York I fear it has instead diluted a dining scene that is, despite what excitable pundits may tell you, not as wonderful as it likes to think it is. The result has been that sorting the wheat from the chaff has become increasingly difficult and very dispiriting, especially when one's own ackers are involved.

We’ve done a couple of posts in the past about St Pancras and its other restaurant and I assume this is the final piece in the refurb jigsaw: the opening of the hotel, the Renaissance run by Marriott and the Gilbert Scott restaurant run by Marcus Warering.

Dos Hermanos have a bit of a soft spot for St Pancras – it has played a recurring role in our lives, so we’re always interested in anything associated with what is undoubtedly one of the most interesting buildings in London.

First impressions were promising. Despite some uncertain service in the bar I managed to get a Dry Martini that wasn't a complete disaster although when it comes to stemware I'm so over the funny glasses shtick - give me the classic Martini glass every time and historical precedent be damned.

Eventually the smiley servers managed to locate us and guide us to our table. The room has a nice wow factor to it despite being yet another space by David Collins – surely the Paul Ross of restaurant design - maybe because it appeared more tasteful than the usual luxury hotel norm which always brings to mind Miles Kington’s phrase “The best taste that money can buy”. They've jammed in 120 covers though so expect a bit of buffeting if you have a table in the centre.

So great room and good service, both of which are the result of no little effort I assume. Shame then, that things went downhill when it came to the food.

The dishes have a nod towards their origin in their name but it’s all a bit forced and comes over as Heston-lite although mercifully there wasn’t all the tedious historical footnotes that you get with Mr B.

My Asparagus with poached egg, almonds and tarragon was a good idea in search of more accurate cooking. The asparagus tasted fine but were mockingly floppy (oh how they mocked) and the whole was rather greasy. A sprinkling of some sea salt might have perked things up as well. The egg was properly cooked though.

Soles in coffins was aptly named – dismal, if not funereal. Whether it was the freshness or this preparation of a delicate fish that was to blame the result was flesh that was too soft and broke up too easily. The vermouth sauce was gloopy; the taste of the shrimp and mace didn’t come through. Chips were fat and could have done with some colour but at least they were cooked through.

I did note there were a lot of choices on the menu so I just wonder whether those dishes that require better timing may suffer compared to those which are mostly about the pre-prep.

Of the puddings the best was a slightly chewy but tasty Eccles Cake with Ice Cream. Not up to St John standards but still pretty good. Mrs Beeton’s Snow eggs with Everton toffee, peanuts, burnt honey custard sounded more interesting than it tasted, which wasn’t of anything much really.

A Bakewell tart was declared "Exceedingly Good" but I think that was in an deeply ironic sense. Then again it's a dish from Derbyshire so what would someone from the wrong side of the Pennines know about it anyway. Bloody Lancastrians.

Now it could be I was just unlucky with my choices. Certainly, my dining companions (Fish Cake/ Jugged Steak, Mulligatawny/Pigeon in a Pot) seemed happy enough with their dishes. But as I get disappointed on a regular basis I do wonder if there are enough good chefs to go around especially as for a lot of them the slightest whiff of greasepaint and they're off before you can say "Red Tomatoes, Green Peppers". That’s fair enough - people have bills to pay - but what does that leave for Joe Diner?

A KENTUCKY HOT BROWN IN LOUISVILLE TOWN

2011-05-25T00:44:00.004+01:00

In 2009, I was lucky enough to be invited to meet Ali Ahmed Aslam at his restaurant, The Sheesh Mahal, in Glasgow. You may not have heard of him, or indeed his restaurant, but he is arguably responsible for creating one of the most famous dishes in the world, the Chicken Tikka Masala.

Our meeting was part of research for my book, EATING FOR BRITAIN and, after spending time with Ali Aslam and his family, he took me into the small kitchen of the restaurant to show me how the dish was prepared. The food was delicious and I polished off the dish, cleaning my plate with pieces I tore from a stupidly large naan. It was a memorable experience and made, I hope, for an enjoyable chapter in the book. At the very least, to eat the sauce at the source was an memory that I shall not rapidly forget.

There is something quite special about eating at dish in the place where it was created and, over the last few years, I have been fortunate enough to do just that, sampling everything from Bakewell Puddings to Tabasco Sauce in the places where they were created and continue to thrive.

A short while ago, I received a mail from the good people at The Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY, where the "G.O.A.T" once lived and has a suite still bearing his name. The e-mail was an invitation to come and help celebrate the 85th Anniversary of the hotel’s culinary gift to the world, The Kentucky “Hot Brown”

I had heard of the Hot Brown before, but knew little about it other than having once heard it described as “a Welsh rarebit on steroids” That description alone was enough to make me want to take the hotel up on their offer, so Sybil and I combined the journey with the opportunity to meet up with one of her best friends who has relocated to the city and, on Saturday morning we arrived in the lobby of the hotel, hungry and in need of an unfeasibly large breakfast.

The Brown Hotel was not going to disappoint and, soon after we had been shown to our table in J.Graham’s, the hotel’s café, Chef Joseph Madzia appeared to escort us both to the kitchen. While I discussed the dish with the chef, Sybil commandeered the camera. So, if the pictures look better than usual, you know why.

The Kentucky Hot Brown was created, in 1926, by then Head Chef, Fred K. Schmidt. Although the official line is that it was created as a late night supper for the revellers in the Brown’s famous ballroom, there is also a theory that it was thrown together on the fly by the chef for hotel workers after they returned from a night on the tiles. Whatever the truth of its origins, there is little doubt that it soon became the most requested dish at The Brown Hotel, ordered by over 95% of its customers, and that its popularity spread until it became the unofficial signature dish of its home state. It is now available all over Kentucky and many restaurants in Louisville offer up their own version. The Hot Brown at The Brown Hotel, however, is the original and, according to most people I spoke to, still the best.

In the kitchen, Chef Madzia had laid out all the ingredients for the perfect Hot Brown. It is a simple dish, created with less ingredients than you could count on the fingers of two healthy hands; Texas Toast (a double slice thick brioche like bread), roast turkey breast, beefsteak tomato, mornay sauce (a béchamel sauce thickened with Parmesan cheese), grated Parmesan cheese, paprika and strips of bacon.

While Sybil proved her ability to snap away at an international level, the chef began to prepare the Hot Brown, cutting the crusts of two slices of Texas toast and layering them in the bottom of the enamel dish in which it would finally be served. He cut a beefsteak tomato into wedges and placed them at either side of the dish and then topped the bread with at least 7oz of turkey breast that he sliced off a turkey crown already roasted and allowed to cool that morning.

The bowl was then placed in a 450o oven for five or so minutes. While it began to take on a little colour, Chef Madzia added great fistfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese to a béchamel sauce he had prepared with cream, flour and a good crack of black pepper. As the cheese melted into the sauce, it was time to retrieve the dish from the oven and ladle over a glistening, thick coating of sauce making sure that everything in the bowl was drenched. Finally, the chef sprinkled a little paprika over the dish and topped it with two slices of crisp pre-cooked bacon, before returning it to the oven for one last blast to turn the surface of the sauce.

After taking some final shots of the finished dish, we returned to our table so Chef Madzia could prepare a couple for us to sample. While we waited, I took the opportunity to look up the nutritional information about The Kentucky Hot Brown on my iPhone. For the record, one serving provides around 900 calories, 53gms of fat, 45gms of carbohydrates and 57gsm of protein. Bloody Hell. Although, judging by those numbers, eating more than one a year would mean you will die an early death, you would also die with a whopping great big smile on your face as they carried you on a stretcher to the morgue.

The Hot Brown may be lethal, but it is also bloody delicious. Just as when I visited The Sheesh Mahal, I left solid evidence of my enjoyment of the dish with the instantly recognisable calling card of The Clean Plate Club. Sybil looked slightly aghast at my accomplishment, but it was enough to earn me a nod of approval and a murmur of “good job” from our server as he cleared away our plates and deposited our bill on the table.

To celebrate the 85th anniversary of the birth of The Kentucky Hot Brown, the hotel is trying to create 85 different versions of the dish. In an odd fit of enthusiasm, I promised them that I would make a Turkey Tikka Masala Hot Brown for them to include on their list.

I think Ali Ahmed Aslam would approve.

DOS HERMANOS GO EAST COAST USA: A CHANG AND CARMELLINI JOINT

2011-05-23T21:05:00.001+01:00

Someone once said if you have a bad meal go and have another. So the next day following a less than sparkling dinner I took a stroll down to Ground Zero to see how the construction of the Freedom Tower is coming along (final height: 1,776 feet) then wandered back up to the LES for lunch at Momofuku Ko.

I was told it's a notoriously difficult res having only a dozen seats at a bar and only two sittings a day available solely via the website. I got lucky and had got a booking the first time I went on the site a couple of weeks earlier.

They don't allow photographs so there's not much to report apart from the fact that I spent an enjoyable three hours or so for lunch and that David Chang had obviously hidden all his Dan Brown tomes and carefully selected cookbooks by all his chef chums to decorate the toilet (come on, we all do it).

During the meal there were one or two wow moments and there was a good arc to the whole meal although it climaxed with chicken which was a bit prosaic, nice though the chicken was. It was good to have visited but I wouldn't be in a hurry to return.

I would return like a shot to Andrew Carmellini's The Dutch though. Situated in SoHo this American restaurant had only recently opened and when I popped by for an early supper the place was rocking. The friendly FOH directed me to the bar where I knocked back one of those American beers that taste as if a three-year old (remember, the one with the gun?) was now in possession of strong alcohol and a DIY beer flavor kit (No: 3 Porter).

I needed it mind you, on a Saturday night the sound levels were, er, quite challenging. Eventually the nice lady came and retrieved me and sat me down at the Oyster Bar which is not a bad place to be – there’s a quieter back room for those with reservations.

To be honest I wasn't expecting much from the food so when I started eating I was surprised at how good it all was. After a platter of Oysters (well I was exhorted to Eat Bivalves) tender Asian White Boy Ribs finished with a sort of soy glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds were excellent but even better was the little Oyster Sandwich.

A riff on the slider/po’ boy, the oysters were fried in cornmeal and served in a toasted sesame seed bun with some sort of mayo-based relish. Possibly one of the best things I’ve put in my mouth all year and believe me there’s a lot of stuff that’s been in there. I quickly ordered another one. In case they ran out.

When I said it was one of the best things I’d eaten so far that was only because I hadn’t had the Fried Chicken yet. I don’t eat a lot of Fried Chicken – finding the good stuff in London is a bit tricky – but I’m willing to wager that I’ll never eat any as good as the Dutch’s version.

It had obviously just been cooked because it was very hot and a big waft of steam escaped as I broke into its coating, exposing the moist meat underneath. Normally I indulge in a certain amount of analysis (too much?) when eating a meal but this was one of those occasions when the response was purely visceral.

The chicken came with some warm, crumbly biscuits which were slathered in a honey butter and a tray of trad accompaniments, (almost condiments): coleslaw, collard greens and mashed potatoes and gravy.

Oh yes, and the fries were the best I had on the whole trip.

Sure, it’s just fried chicken and trimmings but to get them this good requires no little effort and a big heapin' helpin' of skill on the part of the kitchen.

Desert was a bit of a flop - the flavours of the Ice Cream and Sorbet selection I had ordered to fill in any small gaps in my stomach were too diffuse – although the little cookies were nice. Dear reader, I forgave them.

DOS HERMANOS GO EAST COAST USA: JOHN DORY, OTTO & AL FIORI

2011-05-20T23:35:00.002+01:00

I had hoped that by being in the United States on the big day I would escape the brouhaha surrounding the Royal Wedding but I was quickly disabused of that notion when I switched on the big screen TV in my hotel room. Most Americans seemed only vaguely aware of what was going on in London but the media sure was having a whale of a time. I rang my uncle who lives on the UWS to confirm he was showing due respect by genuflecting towards the screen.

Ensconced as I was near the West Village it was inevitable I would have to endure Little Britain and even more bombast and bunting but at least I could walk past The Village Vanguard and make-believe it was November ’61 and I was waiting to see Trane and his Quartet play their seminal set.

After a pleasant jaunt along the High Line - the second section extending it to West 30th Street is due to open in June - and a large hand-pressed OJ from a random 10th Avenue deli I dodged past the ne’er-do-wells around Penn Station, collected my Amtrak tickets and couriered a super-secret package to HS in LA. Chores done I wandered along to John Dory.

Part of Brit chef April Bloomfield’s burgeoning portfolio (The Spotted Pig and The Breslin being the others) John Dory is a sort of fishy brasserie situated on Broadway. Like a lot of places in the City it comes over as a casual sort of place with friendly tattoed staff and an interesting rock/reggae soundtrack.

No surprise that I was immediately drawn to the Oyster Bar which was piled high with ice and bivalves. As a snack a bowl of peanuts came roasted with cloves of garlic and rosemary and were good messy fun and yes, I did eat the garlic thus ensuring my continued success with the ladeez ("Helloooooooo....").

Oysters while not up there with the best of British Natives were nevertheless very enjoyable especially the West Coast Prince William (is there no escaping these people???). So enjoyable in fact that I had another dozen. I usually prefer my oyster au naturel but little relishes of cilantro and chilli, and a mixture of freshly grated horseradish and Champagne vinegar were good enough to eat on their own.

Chorizo stuffed squid with smoked tomato at $16 sounds like a lot for a single, small cephalopod but what a cephalopod! It was all soft and savoury and stuffed with a delicious rice cooked with chorizo and saffron and no doubt lots of other lovely things. It was sat on a ladleful of small, soft white beans and was topped with smoked tomatoes. Terrific stuff and I almost ordered another but instead got the check and headed onwards and, er, downtown-wards to Mario Batali’s Otto Enoteca and Pizzeria, my go-to place for gelato in NYC. Specifically the Olive Oil one created by ace gelato maker Meredith Kurtzman. Coffee, Grappa and a small mooch around after and I needed a little lie-down in a darkened room to prepare for dinner.

Al Fiori is a swanky joint in the swanky Hotel Setai. I had hoped for an atmosphere of understated elegance but it was as calm as a Pitcher and Piano on a Friday night in The City and the lighting was set veeeeeeeery low (if you value the appearance of your food it's worth visiting NY restaurants during the hours of daylight).

Food, when I could make it out, was the usual overworked small pieces of protein. Pasta a speciality of Executive Chef Michael White was a bit chewy and Desserts so unmemorable I didn't even take a photograph of them. Service was poor and we seemed to get a different person at each course, most whom didn't know who was having what or even what was on the plate. There wasn't even the recompense of good conversation as the noise levels meant I couldn't heard a word of what my guest (my uncle was saying).

The one highlight was discovering an Italian Saison ale that was really rather good but overall a pretty grim experience and one which just goes to show that NYC is quite capable of matching London for blah fine dining experiences.

YOUNTVILLE: THREE DAYS, FIVE RESTAURANTS, LOTS OF WINE AND A BAKERY

2011-05-19T22:45:00.006+01:00

It has taken me nearly three weeks to get around to writing this post. But then, it has taken me nearly as long to digest all the food I consumed on our three day binge in Yountville. So, I guess that’s fair enough.

The moment we decided to spend a long celebratory weekend away from LA, there was only one restaurant reservation that Sybil would accept, The French Laundry in Yountville. We were able to secure a coveted table at this legendary Napa Valley restaurant with the help of our good friends, Liz & John Haskell. They have eaten at the place dozens of times and offered to pull a few strings. The moment we knew it was in the bag, Sybil set to work organising our weekend with her usual prowess and, before I had had chance to say “all Napa wine tastes like melted cough sweets”, we had a fistful of reservations and somewhere to stay.

After an early morning start, with only a necessary stop off at In N Out for a Double Double to sustain us, we pulled up at our chosen guesthouse, The Bordeaux Inn and immediately dumped our bags so we could head out for a drink. We found ourselves propping up the bar at the rather swish Bardessono Hotel, slurping on some excellent martinis and eating warm almonds and olives.

It was just enough to keep us going before the first meal proper of our trip at Redd. The ingredients used were terrific and the execution of all the dishes we tried, excellent, I did have a problem with the composition of some of the dishes. A shared “crispy” (ugh) chicken thigh appetiser benefited little from the companionship of rings of squid, even if they had been cooked perfectly. But, it is a minor quibble and Sybil is still raving three weeks later, about the trio of light foie gras meatballs that came with her main dish of duck confit. All in all a very enjoyable way to begin our weekend and enough to send us back to our guesthouse both happy and full.

After a quick visit to the city of Napa the next morning, we rushed back to Yountville just in time to claim our table on the outside terrace of Bistro Jeanty, the casual French inspired dining space of Philippe Jeanty. If I announce that our meal here was my favourite memory of the whole trip, even though the weekend also included dinner at one of the world’s most famous restaurants, it should tell you all you need to know. This was as close to a perfect meal as I can recall.

The atmosphere on the sunlight dappled terrace was lively, but still perfect for two people on a celebratory trip. The service was spot on, friendly and efficient. The wine on a short list were well priced and well chosen and, of course, the food hit all the appropriate bistro buttons.

All too often, dishes at self styled bistros feel ersatz and apologetic, reeking of cut corners and second rate ingredients. There was not a trace of that here. Thick and meaty snails, served in their shells, came with garlic enriched butter flowing freely into the bowl and foie gras pate was flecked with a crack of black pepper and managed to be rich and light in the same bite. Steak frites proved to be a perfect exemplar of the genre and came served with the best bearnaise sauce I can recall eating for a very long time. Pride of place, however, has to go to an exemplary Coq Au Vin, the sauce smoky from the presence of lardons and the chicken still juicy even though it had been cooked long and slow.

While a dessert of ice cream, almost inevitably, did not live up to the standards rest of the meal, we still felt that a bill of $180 including tip, a bottle of Sancerre and a large Poire William represented great value for one of my most enjoyable meals of the year so far.

Unfortunately, our meal at Étoile, the restaurant of the winery Domain Chandon, that evening brought us down to earth with a solid thump. After a much needed post lunch nap and a stroll, we drove across the highway to the winery and threaded our way through dimly lit stone paths to the hugely impressive restaurant building. The front of house was painfully slow, which gave us a chance to take in the rather identikit “fine dining” room while we waited to be seated.

The menu, prepared by chef Perry Hoffman, was also painfully identikit and while the cooking was competent enough, we both used the word “dreary” more times than should ever be uttered when you are spending such a large amount on a meal. A dish of sweetbreads and calves liver was the perfect example. It sounded promising, but the reality was pieces of slightly overcooked liver and gland served in an over reduced sauce.
Oh, and for the benefit of any chef who might be judged by me in the future, on any television cookery show, if I ever hear you mention the words “roasted grape” you will be on the first bus home.

Other dishes may not have not killed us, but were little better and, while this sort of cooking might pass muster for visitors from Boise, it left us stifling a series of yawns and calling for the bill from our harried server before he could even ask us if we wanted dessert.

Thankfully, breakfast the next morning restored our good humour back to its normal levels. Sunday brunch at Keller run Ad Hoc is a set meal affair. As I found out during a wretched meal at Chez Panisse in 2008, this can be a double edged sword. If you are going to decide what your customers will eat while they are with you, you had better make sure that both ingredients and preparation are spot on. You have nowhere to hide. At CP, they failed miserably and produced one of the worst meals of the whole Eat My Globe trip.

I am delighted to say that, at Ad Hoc, they did not. Our morning meal, taken on their small terrace, was simple and made with few ingredients, of excellent provenance (many from the FL gardens) all prepared to show off their natural flavours to stunning effect. If any breakfast can ever claim to be a triumph, the Sunday Brunch at Ad Hoc deserves a shout out. A light chicken salad served on butter lettuce was followed by a huge family style plate of steak & eggs, potatoes, peas and toast made from brioche made at the nearby Bouchon Bakery. Five ingredients, well sourced, perfectly prepared and served in a straightforward manner. I loved it.

Which takes us on to The Big One. We spent our afternoon wine tasting and, while I still hold firm to my view that most Californian wine tastes like micro waved jam, we did manage to spend $300 on bottles that will sit in our cooler until a day when I have no Spanish wine to turn to. After smartening (who said sobering?) up back at the ranch, we walked the fifty paces from our guesthouse to the entrance of The French Laundry making sure to take in the glorious views of their gardens, glowing in the rays of the declining Sun.

In 2005 (I think) I was lucky enough to be invited by Jay Rayner, who was writing a piece about Thomas Keller, to join him for a meal at Per Se. When asked the next day by a friend, to describe my meal, I replied with six words, “Not bad, some brilliance, lousy cheese”. It is amusing that, more than half a decade later, those are almost exactly the words I would use to sum up our meal at the Keller mother ship.

I am not going to give you a weighty blow by blow of the whole affair. There are hundreds of blogs out there that have already done that. If you really want the opinion of someone you can trust, I point you towards a post on “Refined Palate” the blog of my chum, Liz Haskell.

Instead, let me tell you about some my own particular highs, like Royal Osetra Caviar served with Dungeness crab and candied Meyer Lemons, a beautiful Tartare of Earshell clam served with compressed cucumber and a memorable dessert of “Ile Flottante”. All of which would have been worth the trek to sample in Yountville if we were eating nowhere and nothing else.

There were low points, of course. Almost inevitably the case with restaurants of this level, these came with the meat dishes. They featured fabulous quality lamb and squab, but somehow the preparation lacked the verve of the earlier courses and seemed, quite frankly, a little more workaday.

The highs, however, and there were plenty of them, proved that Sybil had been correct to make this the cornerstone of our weekend and worth the $750 expenditure. That included a delicious bottle of Vina Todonia from R. Lopez De Heredia in Rioja and an extra gratuity for top quality service on top of the charge already added to the bill.

It was an memorable if expensive way to round off a significant milestone in the Sybil/Simon story. However, if we are going to top this next year, Sybil had better get planning already and I better start filling my piggy bank with quarters.

DOS HERMANOS GO EAST COAST USA: MWELLS MMMMM.....

2011-05-14T16:11:00.017+01:00

I like New Yorkers: endlessly surprising; friendly; enthusiastic. But they do need plenty of hugs. Dis something they're proud of and you risk a strop of massive proportions. They're a bit like a precocious three-year old...with a gun. That said the positivity in NY can be a refreshing change to the naturally cynical, eyebrow constantly arched pose of us Brits.

It's been over five years since my last visit to New York and things have certainly come on apace food-wise. Their raw ingredients may not always be up there with the stuff we can get here in the UK but the creativity, energy and plethora of ideas can be breathtaking. Certainly, London, often touted as a competitor in the restaurant stakes comes over as moribund and, well, a bit hick by comparison.

M.Wells is typical of that dining chutzpah. Located only a couple of subway stops from Grand Central Station (in Long Island City) and created by an alumni of Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal and his American partner it's actually quite hard to describe what they do here - bourgeois diner maybe?

Dinner, a relatively new addition - lunch/brunch was the only option before - began with an impeccable Gibson but with the added twist of blobs of chive oil languidly floating Monet-like (pronounced Moan-A) on the surface. A lava lamp for Flatlanders.

As always menu options these days are confusing for the older diner (that’s me). Small Dishes are more like mains and Big Dishes are like sharing plates for two or more. Still, the friendly staff are more than happy to help granddad navigate the options and were pretty on the ball all evening.

My first plate came on like something you might fashion when you got home after an evening on the beer. Let's see what I've got in the fridge, some whelks, some black pudding, a few crackers, some potatoes. But bound together with a dill sauce there was a curious logic to the whole dish – it just worked.

The whelks didn’t seem to be the dark chewy specimens we know and love in this country but had a more conch-like provenance and a taste which worked well with the homemade black pudding. Only criticism was I could have done with more of the protein component. Lucky then that I had accessorised the dish with slices of Foie Gras - possibly de trop but I did it anyway and I saw and tasted that it was good.

Veal Brains were classically cooked with a crisp exterior and served with a Grenobloise sauce i.e. croutons, capers, brown butter, lemon juice. The insides were all creamy and marshmallow-like in texture and had me wondering how such a fine dish could be the product of such a diner setting. Certainly watching the chefs hard at work it looks like short-order cooking but there’s a deftness to the dishes which surprises.

A Steak Tartare, served with a poached egg and a herb-driven salad, had a great texture and the taste wasn’t bad either although there was one odd ingredient in there I couldn’t identify which kept popping up.

While trying to digest that little lot I watched other dishes go out: huge trays of Porterhouse of Pork (how great does that sound?) served with Pineapple and Cherry Sauce, giant Hamburgers and Shanks of Lamb which had been cooked in a special ovenproof wrap fashioned into a rudimentary Tagine – all clever stuff and incentive to come here mob-handed.

In retrospect Lemon Posset probably wasn’t the wisest choice for pud but was rather good being rich and tangy. The accompanying madeleines were a bit solid but provided excellent dunking material for my morning coffee the following day.

As with most popular places in NY there was a hubbub – they do like to yack out here; the music was loud but the track selection great – The Smiths were on heavy rotation on my visit; and it all seemed pretty hectic, but I loved every moment of it.

NEWPORT SEAFOOD: HOW LONG WILL YOU WAIT IN LINE FOR LOBSTER?

2011-05-09T22:34:00.001+01:00

So, here is a question for the house.

How long would you wait in line to get a meal?

Until I moved to Los Angeles, my answer would have been a loud and clear NEVER. I would have screamed my negative response in your face and probably would have added a slap for good measure just for you having the temerity to ask such a stupid question.

In my nigh on thirty years living in London, I can count the times I have queued to get my dinner on less digits than Dave Allen’s right hand (and may your God go with you).

Each of those occasions occurred when someone else was paying and at one, a non event of a meal with Jay Rayner at Barrafina, we left in dismay after an hour of waiting, with dinner still no more than a hazy promise from the ruddy faced Brothers Hart and my hatred of "No Reservations" places cemented in my psyche.

Moving to Los Angeles, however, with its delight in concepts and love of style over substance, I have found myself forced to stand in line more times in a year than I had previously done in a lifetime to date.

In part, it is down to Sybil’s fearsome powers of persuasion

SYBIL: “Honey, I want you to stand in line for ninety minutes so we can buy a mediocre grilled cheese sandwich from a truck”

ME: “Er, OK”

In part it is because Los Angeles seems to be the spiritual home of the “No Reservations” restaurant, where milling about on the pavement for an hour before the host deigns to call you in for your meal appears to be considered an enjoyable part of the process. I tend to avoid these places like the plague, having discovered that the food delivered at the end of the endurance test will rarely, if ever be worth the time spent in line.

Where I can’t avoid it however is when I want to avail myself of LA’s excellent ethnic dining scene. Many of the Korean, Chinese, Japanese etc places simply don’t take reservations and, while this still sticks in my craw, I am prepared to put up with it for the simple fact that the resulting meals are always decent and often memorable.

I do have my limits however and a recent wait of nearly one hour at Shanghai Dumpling restaurant, Din Tai Fung pushed me to my very limit and my friends were only rescued from the resulting hissy fit by the fact that I had been before and knew that the baskets of steaming soup dumplings would be worth the wait.

There is a point to this, just in case you were wondering. Yesterday, as Sybil and I returned from a friend’s wedding in Palm Springs, she suggested we stop for “Linner” (a word she appears to have created to insert an extra meal into her day between lunch and dinner) at Newport Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel. It had been a while since my morning muffin (ahem) so I agreed and we plugged the directions into our GPS system.

As we pulled up to the lot, I could see that it was already full and that there were about two dozen assorted Chinese folk milling about in front of the restaurant. My heart sank, it was, I recalled, Mothers Day here in the US and being a Sunday, the restaurant was operating its standard policy of not taking bookings.

I was ready to turn tail and head for home. But, as you know by now, Sybil is made of much sterner stuff and insisted that we find street parking and go and check how long the wait might be. She emerged from the restaurant clutching a ticket with the number 86 on it and told me it would be a thirty minute wait. I made a loud dramatic audible sigh and tried to persuade her that we should just pop across to the Carl’s Jr. burger joint over the road and get the hell out of there.

She was having none of it. Newport Seafood is, apparently, famous for its preparation of shellfish and one glimpse of an enormous place of lobster being transported head high by a waiter, from kitchen to table, meant I had less chance of getting her out of there than I did of being commissioned to produce my own kids show using belly buttons as puppets.

While I sat and sulked, Sybil put the waiting time to a better use. She grabbed a menu and, by the time we were finally called to our table, she had placed our order and we were told it was already on its way. They were not lying and, within the space of about five minutes our large table almost disappeared under the plates that the waiters dropped on it with a clatter, in rapid succession.

Courses of Salt & Pepper Squid, Seafood Noodles and Crispy Pork Chop were all excellent, but standard enough for me to think that we could have got them without so much fuss and certainly without making me wait in line. It was not until a huge plate of lobster arrived, red and steaming, that I suddenly had to admit that waiting for thirty minutes might be a very, very good thing indeed.

The 5lb beast had been boiled then cracked open and stir fried in a mixture of ginger, chilli, garlic, spring onions and soy sauce. The lobster flesh was still juicy and we sucked it from the carcass using the remaining shells to build an impressive pile of waste on our side plates. Best of all, it appeared that our lobster had been filled with roe and huge pink blobs of it had been used to thicken the sauce allowing us to play “hunt the egg” as duelled for the choicest bits of lobster with our chopsticks.

At $15 a lb, the lobster was not a cheap option and, in fact cost more than the rest of our meal combined. However, it was one of the best dishes I have eaten in 2011 so far and filled us up so much that supper became an impossibility and dinner the next day would be supplemented by boxes of leftover noodles, squid and pork chop.

Was it worth the wait? Well, for the lobster alone, I have to say a resounding yes indeedy. Sybil asked the obvious question as we staggered back to our car. “Would it have been worth an hour wait for the same meal?” I am not sure it would and I am pretty certain that I would not be fun to be around while we found out.

However, I am certain of one thing, the lobster at Newport Seafood in San Gabriel is worth thirty minutes of anybody’s time.

THE NEXT IRON CHEF: THE SUPERSTAR CHEFS COLLIDE

2011-04-21T22:14:00.001+01:00

I am delighted to announce that I will be rejoining the team for Season Four of the hit Food Network Show, THE NEXT IRON CHEF.

If last season was great, Season Four promises to be outstanding. This time The Food Network have brought together some of the very biggest names in the United States to compete for that coveted title of Iron Chef.

There are some incredible names on the list

Anne Burrell – Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, Worst Cooks in America (Food Network)

Michael Chiarello – Bottega Restaurant (Napa Valley), Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello (Cooking Channel)

Elizabeth Falkner – Citizen Cake, Orson (San Francisco), Iron Chef America – challenger (Food Network)

Alex Guarnaschelli – Butter, The Darby (New York), Alex’s Day Off, Chopped (Food Network)

Chuck Hughes – Garde Manger (Montreal), Chuck’s Day Off (Cooking Channel), Iron Chef America – challenger (Food Network)

Robert Irvine – Robert Irvine’s eat! (Hilton Head Island), Dinner: Impossible, Restaurant: Impossible, Worst Cooks in America (Food Network)

Beau MacMillan – Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain (Phoenix), Challenge, Iron Chef America – challenger (Food Network)

Spike Mendelsohn – Good Stuff Eatery (Washington D.C.), Kelsey & Spike Cook (Food2.com)

Marcus Samuelsson –Red Rooster Harlem (New York), 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, Chopped (Food Network)

Geoffrey Zakarian – The National, The Lambs Club (New York), 24 Hour Restaurant Battle, Chopped (Food Network)

I will be joining my chum, Iron Chef Michael Symon and new judge, UK Iron Chef Judy Joo at the judging table and, as ever, the mercurial Alton Brown will be keeping the chefs in check.

The series will air in Fall (Autumn to us Brits)2011 and I will confirm the exact dates as soon as I have them.

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS: THE BEST SUNDAY LUNCH EVER. A "DOS HERMANOS/DINO/O'SHEA/GOODMAN JOINT"

2011-04-17T21:24:00.010+01:00

It has been too long since we (and by "we" I mean "me") have organised one of the glorious feasts we like to call "Dine With Dos Hermanos"

With me being 6,000 miles away from civilisation, er I mean enjoying my new life in Los Angeles, and Hermano Primero being too busy eating, it has been over six months since we last sat down with a group of our dear readers and enjoyed the sort of meal that makes us all so happy.

I am back in Blighty for an all too short time at the end of June and thought that this might make the ideal time to revive the tradition of a consuming a vast amount of food and wine at a place where the people running the place give a rat's ass about our pleasure and don't present the bill while wearing a mask and carrying a gun.

The one meal I have been craving more than any other is a traditional British Sunday lunch. The good Lord knows how I miss those regular weekend blow outs with HP. A suitably powerful cocktail with some snacks to begin, huge joints of roasted animal flesh, the pre-requisite accompanying vegetables, an unhealthy dessert and enough wine to float a battleship.

So, I turned to the people I knew best and asked them if they could help. Of course they could and I am pleased to announce that the next DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS will be hosted by Goodman Steakhouse on Sunday 26th June.

Our aim is to create what everyone who attends will acknowledge as the finest Sunday lunch ever created.

We will enjoy pre lunch drinks and lunch will begin with the incomparable smoked salmon from Frank Hederman in Ireland.

The main courses will be huge, perfectly cooked joints of meat from the legendary O'Shea's butchers in Knightsbridge and will include Shoulder of Lamb, Shoulder of Pork and, of course, the Roast beef that made Henry FIelding write

When mighty Roast Beef was the Englishman's food,
It ennobled our brains and enriched our blood.
Our soldiers were brave and our courtiers were good
Oh! the Roast Beef of old England,
And old English Roast Beef!

There will be plenty of accompaniments and desserts, if you can manage them, will will include a few slabs of fine British cheeses.

There will be booze a plenty (with the help of Dino Joannides who is soon to launch the Melograno , Alimentari in Holland park ) and the whole lot will set you back a mere £60 a head from the moment you walk in to the moment you waddle out into the sunlight on Maddox St a few hours later.

The people at Goodman are turning over the whole place to us for the event, which means we can invite up to 75 people to be part of the experience.

Please see below for the details

THE BEST SUNDAY LUNCH EVER: A "DOS HERMANOS/DINO/O'SHEA/GOODMAN JOINT"

DATE: SUNDAY 26th JUNE 2011

PLACE: GOODMAN STEAKHOUSE (MADDOX STREET)

TIME: TBC (Probably around 12.30 for 1pm)

COST: £60 Per Person (All Inclusive - although, as ever we ask that people reach into their pockets if they feel that the service deserves extra recognition> It usually does)

As there have been some no shows at previous events, we will be taking deposits for this event. If you cancel 48 hours or more before the event, you will receive a full refund. After that, you will only receive a refund if we are able to resell your ticket.

I will respond to all requests for places before the end of April. Please bear with me as I am busy with work here in LA right now. I appreciate your patience.

As always, I should make it clear that DH do not make a penny out of these events. our only aim is to promote places and suppliers we adore and to restore the tradition of communal feasting to an otherwise jaded and cynical dining scene.

If you would like to come, please e-mail us at doshermanos@doshermanos.co.uk or mail us via the DOS HERMANOS FACEBOOK Page.

I hope a few of our readers will want to come along and we both look forward to hearing from you.

SILENT AUCTION FOR JAPAN: POPPING A MAGNUM FOR A GOOD CAUSE

2011-04-13T23:30:00.001+01:00

Regular readers of the blog will know that we rarely post anything about upcoming events on DH. This is, as we often remind people, the eating adventures of the Brothers Majumdar and not a public service.

However, there are few things I would not do for my good chums, the Haskell Family. So, when David Haskell, LA's finest sommelier, asked me if I would mention a silent auction he is organising to benefit Japan, I was more than happy to oblige.

The auction coincides with the latest pop up event to be organised by David and Joseph Mahon, erstwhile Executive Chef of Bastide, and will take place at Royal-T in Culver City between the 17th and 19th of April.

The Magnum pop ups are always fun, with excellent food and great wine & beer pairings. With a percentage of the proceeds also going to benefit Japan, there is even now more reason to book a place.

There are some spectacular prizes on offer in the silent auction, including meals, wine, beer and ice cream tastings. Best of all, one generous soul will receive a five course feast prepared by Michael Voltaggio, Walter Manzke, Joseph Mahon, Craig Thornton & Waylynn Lucas complimented with wines selected by David himself.

I hope those new readers of DH in LA will take the time to click on the link below and see what the event is all about and make a bid for what is definitely a very worthy cause.

MAGNUM SILENT AUCTION FOR JAPAN

Thanks. Normal service is now resumed. Back to talking about us and our bellies.

P.S I found the images of David and Joseph on the Internet and am happy to credit the owners if they let me know who they are. I am sure they don't mind me using them for a great cause.