BOND AND BROOK: STRANGE BREW

Bond & Brook – the name fair put a smile on my face, it really did. Shame it was wiped off an hour later after a couple of the more depressing plates of food I’ve eaten recently.

To be honest I shouldn't have been surprised, this new concession in the suburban housewife's favourite, Fenwick's on Bond Street is run by Rhubarb which despite its name and rhubarb-hued website (hey we're fun, we’re friendly) is just a smaller and seemingly less cynical version of the dreaded Compass group which is responsible for disseminating extreme blahness wherever and whenever they’re involved. Fine for dreary corporate events where people are more interested in getting lashed and trying to get into the pants of their co-workers but for a decent sit-down meal, not so good.

But hang on a second, it seems Rhubarb aren’t completely complicit in the creation of this place. Evening Standard restaurant reviewer Fay Maschler and her consultancy actually appear to be the brains behind this project. Which seems ok until one realises that the consultancy aspect suggests that existing places can use the services of the divine Ms M if they’re not doing so well or have received a less than glowing review (not from the ES of course). Hmmmm.

The menu at Brook Bond, sorry, Bond and Brook is a simple one of international dishes that are probably aimed at “ladies who lunch” although in truth I’ve never met anyone from this tribe and most of the women I know are more at home devouring kilos of steak and big pork chops and would laugh in the face of someone serving such puny portions.

On a warm day light and tasty was my aim which meant no Steak (boo). I may have been a bit Mr Effete for the day but I have to say my heart sank when my first course was placed before me. Crab Cakes were two kyliesque patties of what seemed to be mostly crab meat. For no apparent reason there was also a spoonful of cold black-eyed peas and a blob of salad cream.

Now I don’t mind simplicity, I’m even ok with small portions (although this was pushing it). The caveat is that the food has to be very well prepared and very tasty. The cooking – what there was of it – was ok but the taste, well, there wasn’t one really. The crab cakes didn’t taste of crab and cried out for something to lift them: the zing of some lemon zest, a little kick of chilli, a grind of the pepper mill. The flavour may just have been masked by the saltiness of the dish.

Similarly I was so underwhelmed by a bowl of Linguine alle Vongole that I prayed no Italian would ever get to taste the B&B version. It’s a deceptively simple dish that should be a combination of plenty of sweet, fresh clams and great pasta. If a kitchen had the recipe but had never actually tasted the real thing then they would come up with the one I had.

The clams were fine although there weren’t that many of them – certainly not enough to add their distinctive taste. Like my starter it needed better seasoning and not just loads of salt. The pasta wasn’t al dente – maybe their target demographic can’t chew – and there was just far too much broth in the bowl. A little drizzle of good olive oil might even have rescued things.

In a busy dining room I could conceivably put this down to an overstretched kitchen, in one with just a few tables occupied I can only think that the kitchen wasn’t up to the job or didn’t give a fig. To be honest I didn’t either so I never found out if they could serve me £6.50 worth of Ice Cream without screwing things up.

What Fay Maschler’s employers at the ES think of such an obvious conflict of interest (remember she could be reviewing potential competitors) I don’t really know and to be honest I could care less – all I ever want is a decent meal and on this showing Bond & Brook, in the parlance of the young folk, was a big Fail.

PINCHITO & BARRICA: TAPAS TWO TIMES IN THE WEST END

The next couple of weeks are shaping up to be some of the best of the year and unsurprisingly they involve eating copious amounts of Jamon Iberico.

On Monday, I join my good chums at Brindisa for the launch of the new Dehesa, the latest release of Jamon Iberico de Bellota from the incomparable Joselito. A few days later, I fly to Seville and from there make my way to Badajoz, one of the spiritual homes of Jamon to spend some time with a producer discovering the secrets of creating the world’s single greatest item of food. By way of preparation and inspired by HP’s recent trips to Spain, I decided to make my own mini tapas crawl with visits to the two most recent additions to London’s seemingly endless production line of Spanish restaurants and tapas bars.

The new branch of Pinchito is located on the corner of Bedford Square, just off Tottenham Court Road. It’s décor and approach will be instantly familiar to anyone who has visited their first branch near Old Street or the now defunct PinXto People in Brighton. The offering is as much about the impressive cocktails created by co-owner Toby Garcia, as it is about the food and Pinchito shies away from the traditional approach to tapas bars in favour the nuevo take of Cal Pep in Barcelona from which it draws its inspiration.

A quick sampling of two staples shows that there is still work to be done in the kitchen. Rabas, that Cantabrian weekend favourite of squid, sliced thinly to look like tails (hence the name) and deep-fried was greasy, chewy and burdened with too fierce hit of paprika. Croquettes of “mixed meat” were better, well fried and with a dense filling, which would have gone perfectly with a glass of fino or a cocktail. The restaurant takes reservations and offers a wider menu of daily specials, but as with the branch in Old Street, I still think of Pinchito as an excellent bar that serves food rather than a restaurant, which does decent drinks. As the former, it is definitely worth a visit, as the latter it will need to up its game if it is to persuade people to linger.

Barrica, on the other hand has set its stall out to compete full on with the West End’s other Spanish restaurants. Located on Goodge St. a few doors down from Salt Yard, and in the space once inhabited by ill fated and appallingly names, Ooze, Barrica is an independent operation (not as reported owned by Spanish group Vino Tinto) and traditional in its approach down to the three jamons swinging from the ceiling.

There is an extensive wine list and a wide selection of pretty standard tapas. I chose two more dishes by which the intentions and abilities of any Spanish restaurant can be discerned. More croquetta of Jamon were tiny and had been cooked for too long on the outside turning from the pre-requisite golden to the point where they were just at the point of being burnt. The insides, however, were good, creamy and flecked with decent amounts of jamon, but far below what HP dubbed "The Croquetta D'oro" to be found at the three branches of Brindisa.

Which brings us to the Jamon Iberico Bellota. The ham at Barrica had been cut by machine. Although the fat began to melt to a lovely sheen, as it should, it was not enough to disguise the fact that the meat had begun to dry out and lose the delicate flavour of acorns for which it is so famous. At £12 a plate, one probably could not have expected much more of a serving of this perniciously expensive product. However, one could and should expect better quality of storage and preparation for what is the benchmark of any Spanish restaurant with serious ambition.

Some places to their credit (Vinoteca for example) have taken Jamon Iberico off the menu because they cannot sell enough at the price they need to charge to keep the product in peak condition. I suspect Barrica may come to the same conclusion not too far into their existence. It would be a good decision given the poor quality of the plate with which I was presented.

Both Pinchito and Barrica have opened recently. However, both were charging full whack, so must feel that they were offering full value for money. I only sampled two dishes in each place, as much as I could manage and the very nature of a tapas crawl. I will probably head back to both to try more, but on this showing, Pinchito is looking the more likely prospect of the two, if mainly for the fact that Toby Garcia makes some of the best drinks in town.

What both places really achieve however, is just making me long to be back in Spain. Soon come.

BAOZI INN

Jive Miguel
He's in from Bogota

What’s the deal with all this China related craziness ? Nearly every bookshop I went into the other day had dump bins full of books about the country. The countdown to the Olympics is in full swing (does anyone actually give a toss ? ) and every other newspaper article seems to be about how quickly the Chinese economy is growing.

Shame it’s all based upon one of the most repressive regimes going, who are also one of the World’s top polluters. One World, One Dream indeed. So long as that world and dream are China’s, presumably.

Lunch today (coincidentally, more or less 100 years after the firt Chinese restaurant was opened in London) was with HS at new Chinese joint Baozi Inn. Specialising in street food from Beijing and Chengdu it’s the latest offering from the people behind Bar Shu. It’s a tiny place but as we were there at midday there was no problem in getting a table. It’s a quick in and out sort of place - service is pretty brisk – which would be perfect for anyone on their lunch break.

Prices look reasonable but can mount up if you start ordering extras although this is to be expected though anywhere in London’s famous West End.

Noodle dishes arrived first. My Peace and Happiness noodles looked nothing like their picture in the menu, with its big slices of Chicken, Duck and Sausage and I couldn’t locate any of the advertised sweet pickled garlic. It tasted ok but the soup lacked depth and complexity. The whole dish became a bit of a chore to eat – too much dull stock - so I swapped with HS half-way through.

His Sichuanese fragrant and hot pork noodles were much better. Excellent noodles came with a stir-fry of pork with just enough heat. It came on a bit like Spaghetti with a Pork Ragu made by a chilli-lover which is not necessarily a bad thing. There was also some decent Spinach with Soya beans on the side.

The Baozi (buns) and dumplings arrived a short while after the noodles. I liked the filling of the Pork Bun but the Egg one was pretty unmemorable. I found the dough a bit er…doughy for my tastes although HS tells me that they were pretty echt. Nicer were the Chengdu crescent dumplings that had a silky covering and good heat from the pool of chilli oil they sat in.

All in all pleasant enough if not exactly revelatory although this food is supposed to be ‘street’ so I wouldn’t expect it to be. What was good was that I didn’t have a dry mouth for the rest of the day like I got after Cha Cha Moon.

Also, as HS reminded me during the meal, I can at least post the above without any fear of censorship. Those in China are not so lucky. Mind you, they probably don’t attract the attention of internet crazies so I guess we’re even.

KOBE JONES

LAND OF CAL FUSION

Let me get this first line out of the way because it sounds, and is, impossibly wanky.

I just had lunch with my publishers. Told you. But, there you go, the good people of John Murray have taken a gamble that not one of the people I meet along the way on the rest of the EAT MY GLOBE trip will want to beat me to a lifeless pulp after spending elongated amounts of time in my company.

They have also decided that EAT MY GLOBE may just make a fun story that one or two of you saps, suckers and ne’er do wells may want to read at some point. Go figure.

Publication May 2009 and, don’t you fret, I shall be imbedding the ISBN as a subliminal message for the next year or so.

So, anyway, there I was having to think of a lunch location with the delightful Eleanor and Nikki. A place to ponder matters of literary import

“ of course, I think it is important that I retain my true voice, Eleanor. But, the real question is, will this book make me more likely to pull any decent sorts?”

That kind of stuff.

Kobe Jones seemed to meet the necessary criteria. Dark inside (no point scaring them at this early stage) Light food of the California ruins Japanese type and not far from their office.

If you weren’t looking for it, you would walk past it without a second glance. Hardly a good start for a new-ish place. If I am not mistaken, when I was a sales rep way back when, their entrance used to be the entrance to the car park under the YMCA which reeked with a piss & vomit perfume that stays in my mind to this day. Again, not a good start for a new place. A La Recherche Du Vom Perdu.

Still, once inside, the room is quite pleasing in a sub Hakkasan kind of way and the sweet front of house showed me to a booth while I waited for my new chums. Odd thing, the booths. The table did not seem to have been fitted an equal distance from the two seats so, while I was a good arms length away from the edge of the table my companions, would have to suck up huge gulps of air to squeeze into their space on the countering side.

So far, a bit of a hodge podge as my good mother used to say. So too, was the food.

You can’t ruin edamame beans. Buy ‘em frozen, steam ‘em, put too much salt on ‘em and whack them out for a £5. They got that bit bang on the money. Same with a bowl of miso which was suitably restorative for me as I tried to talk without hacking my guts up following a chest infection.

The rest was a mish mash of tired ingredients, poor execution and sloppy presentation.

An order of mixed vegetable and seafood tempura had far to thick a covering of batter which tasted more like a chip shop bag of scraps than the light bubbly magnificence of good Japanese frying.

Dragon Rolls and Spider Rolls were all a bit messy and fell apart between hand to mouth which I think, in Cal fusion Japanese leads to calls to “do a Mishima” The ingredients within were equally limp and we left most of them, even when Nikki joined us.

Nigri Sushi was better, with the fish being fresher and Hamachi and Uni both hitting the taste spot even if the plate was sloppily presented. The Unagi though was as mushy as a Catherine Cookson mini series.

Kobe Jones is an Australian enterprise, I think and has branches in Melbourne, Sydney and Bangkok as well as London. I am not sure if this level of sushi would pass muster there, but even here in relatively sushi rube London, it is a good few levels below what has become acceptable and it is little surprise that there were few other people in the place.

The service was lovely, which counts for a lot but not enough to make me rush back.

I was being treated to lunch, so don’t know what the final bill would have been. I am guessing too much.

A place as hard to find as Narnia with food of middling standard at top prices. It is not a heady mix for long term success.