GOODMAN REDUX: CRISP, WHITE & OUTTA SIGHT

There were only two of us tinkling away in the bathroom of Goodman when I visited last night. Me, doing what comes naturally to a man of my age and the late lamented Bing crooning out a yuletide whimsy through the slightly tinny speakers. However, It had obviously seen plenty of other typically masculine use recently, as the floors were splashed with drunken and ill aimed attempts to hit the urinal and were also littered with enough loo roll to paper a small suburban flat.

It speaks to the fact that the dining room was so busy no one had a second to make a regular check that all was shipshape toilet wise and also to the fact that a lot had changed in the year since DH first visited Goodman in their week of opening.

On that occasion, there had only been a handful of other diners and the large room with its dark panels and bare tables had looked a little forlorn. There was however, real promise in the food and service along with serious intent to offer a challenge to London’s (still) only other steak provider of worth, Hawksmoor.

I have visited Goodman a number of times during the last year, putting it firmly at number one in my list of places to head to when only a slab of meat will do. Hawksmoor still provides some of the very best steaks in town, but now seems to attract a crowd of males who are closer to the day when their testicles descended than Goodman, which attracts a crowd of men closer to the day they have a few kind words spoken over their bodies before being covered in cold earth. I feel a lot more comfortable with the latter and often find myself dipping in for a steak and a glass of wine at the bar when in Central London. When HP asked me where I might like to head for a pre-Christmas supper on him, I had no hesitation in suggesting this Russian owned restaurant on Maddox Street and, HP being, as people have pointed out, a man who likes to order steak, was happy to go along with the suggestion.

Goodman is blessed with one of the best GM’s in town in the shape of David Strauss. Part American, part Brit, David used to head up FOH at Morton’s in New York City (I think), so as HP puts it “He knows from steakhouses” and it was noticeable to HP, who had only visited once since our initial meal how things had changed, not least in the fact that every seat in the place, including those at the bar had a posterior on it, usually ample and predominantly male.

Some things have not changed. The bar still needs work. The staff are great and the list of wines by the glass decent, but if they could knock out a cocktail as well as Hawksmoor, I might ask them to put a bed in there for me. Likewise, as HP looked around, he sighed as he saw plates of fat chips being placed on the wood of bare tables. We all know how HP adores his crisp, white napery and hates big, fat chips.

David was off work on a rare day of illness but had planned a couple of surprises to make our meal a little unusual. First, we were led towards our table. HP began to beam, gone were the shiny surfaces of polished wood to be covered by a freshly laundered and starched white linen tablecloth. HP began to stroke its surface and purr approvingly as we were handed the menus.

Tonight was going to be all about the steak and as HP had already indulged in a dozen oysters at Corrigan’s we skipped starters and chose two steaks from a selection shown to us by our lovely server, Sarah. A kilogram of USDA Bone in rib-eye had a glorious network of marbling and cried out to be cooked medium-rare to allow the fat to melt into the meat. A slightly smaller piece of grass fed Scottish beef lacked the marbling, but showed the benefits of 30+ days of dry ageing and we asked for that to be prepared rare.

When they were brought to our table, both had been cooked perfectly to order. The Scottish beef could have received a bit more of a char on one of the restaurant’s two Josper grills, but the age provided an intense flavour. The star, however, as we expected was the bone in rib eye. The crust added to the slightly mineral taste you get with corn fed beef and as we expected, the marbling of fat had melted down into beefy juices which leaked onto the plate.

As we began to spear slices of steak with our forks, the second surprise arrived. Remembering the disgust with which HP views chips of the fat variety, David had arranged for two bowls of crisp, thin chips to be brought to the table along with our salad and bowls of dipping sauces. HP beamed again, these were proper chips with a crunchy outside and a floury inside and he began to dip them in the sauces, giving particular approval to béarnaise made sharp with vinegar.

It was not long before we polished off the lot and HP gnawed happily at the last scraps of flesh on the bone before turning his mind to dessert. Like their starters, these too are more perfunctory at Goodman. They are not bad, but serve only to warm up and cool down the stomach before and after a huge steak, just as they should. Undue attention to these usually means less attention is being paid to the main event. Oh and yes, while I ate cheesecake HP ordered ice cream and anyone who has anything to say about it can call me up so I can tell them personally to go fuck themselves.

A splendid evening with a couple of excellent surprises. Goodman is now proving itself to be a consistent source of a decent meal in London, all too rare in a year when most of my best dining has taken place outside the capital. However, David may have opened a Pandora’s box as other diners stared longingly at our excellent chips and wondered what the tablecloth was all about. At the very least, if he tries to serve me fat chips again, I will have a screaming hissy fit.

Oh, one final request, me and Bing both ask nicely, can you send someone downstairs to have a look at the bogs? Thanks.

ANOTHER PHEASANT DOS HERMANOS SUNDAY LUNCH

I received a few e-mails following my last post about our trip to Madrid. Apparently I set rather a sad tone for the whole piece as I discussed the end of an era. Well, I am sorry to drag you down the same path, but I feel I am about to do the same with a discussion of yesterday’s Sunday lunch prepared lovingly by Hermano Primero.

You can’t really blame me. 2010 marks the tenth anniversary of our joint move into Casa Dos Hermanos. A few months before our arrival, we were leading very different lives, HP ensconced in a bachelor pad in Putney and me in the small but comfortable garden flat I had purchased in Harrow on The Hill during my first marriage.

We were both ready for a move and began separately looking for flats closer to Central London. I had already seen a couple near to The British Museum that I considered suitable when HP telephoned one night with the suggestion that we combine our resources and look for a larger place in fast becoming fashionable Hoxton and Shoreditch. I didn’t take much persuading. The places I had looked at were tiny, but together we were able to afford the palatial duplex, which is Casa DH and we moved in a few short weeks after the dawn of The Millennium.

The last ten years which followed saw us living an existence somewhere in the middle ground between Niles/Frasier and Oscar/Felix (I will leave you to comment on which one of us is which) but despite encountering most of the typical sibling moments, usually caused by less than equal sharing of a piece of meat, it has never been less than fun and I have taken advantage of HP’s knowledge and generosity to support my own desire to find out more about the food I have been shovelling in my mouth.

The next decade will inevitably bring with it a change. Although I am hugely excited about my new life across the pond, I will, of course, miss so many of the things I have enjoyed about the last years. Most of all I will miss the meals we have shared together. We have eaten hundreds of them as we have sat opposite each other in restaurants. Huge plates of fish & chips, stupidly large steaks, meals at new and exciting fine dining restaurant and meals at tiny holes in the wall. We have eaten the lot, but, above any of them, the meals I shall miss the most are the leisurely Sunday lunches we have prepared at home on the all too rare occasions when we have both been in the same place at the same time.

We have taken it in turns to prepare them and used the opportunity to go in search of the very best ingredients we could buy to make certain we do not let the other hermano down and give them opportunity to criticise (something Bengali males can do at a professional level). They have nearly always involved a slab of meat (“Fish” as HP puts it “is a starter, not a meal”) which is supported by all the traditional trimmings and more than a bottle or two of good wine. There has often been a martini or two involved as well.

There are more than a few accounts of these meals posted on here and as we hurtle towards Christmas we both decided that it was time to have one last Sunday blow out before the end of the “00’s. This time it was joint effort involving two plump pheasant purchased by me at O’Shea’s Butcher in Knightsbridge and all the accompaniments provided by HP. I left the cooking to him and while I flopped on the sofa and watched the football, the smells of roasting game birds wrapped in bacon began to fill the flat, so that by the time lunch was served I was ready to rip them apart with my hands.

It was as good a Sunday lunch as we had enjoyed in the previous ten years and as we speared meaty pork sausages, spooned up creamy bread sauce and fought over the last bits of bacon, we both raised a glass (soft drink in my case, I am on the wagon) to the pleasures of the last ten years and the excitement of what is to come for both of us in the next.

I have so much to look forward to and I can’t wait to get started on the next stage of the journey. But, I also can’t wait until the next time HP and I manage to sculpt time from our hectic schedules to share a meal. Particularly if it is in Casa DH and it is on a Sunday.

SEASONAL SPANISH FOOD by JOSE PIZARRO: A REAL SPANISH COOKBOOK FROM A REAL SPANISH CHEF

As regular readers of the blog will know, DH are often fairly disparaging about the state of Spanish restaurants in London. The road to bad tapas is littered with good intentions, dry plates of badly carved, over priced jamon and glasses of poorly chilled Manzanilla.

There is, however, one place (or should that be three places?) on which we cast a favourable eye, and those are the three restaurants which come under the banner of Britain's finest importer of Spanish food, Brindisa. We have yet to be delivered a bad meal in the Borough Market, South Ken or Soho branches and have returned to them for many repeat visits, which when the blog demands we are always looking for new and interesting places, speaks for itself.

There are a few reasons why the Brindisa offering is above the others in the city. One would obviously be the use of exemplary ingredients, which are from the range imported from the mother company. The second would be the ambiance, which is as close as we have found in the capital to our experiences in Spain without it becoming a theme park.

The main reason, obviously is the food, which is overseen by DH's favourite Spanish chef in London, Jose Pizarro. Those of you who were lucky enough to attend the DINE WITH DH at Casa Brindisa will have sampled some of JP's best dishes. Over many lunches I have had as many enjoyable conversations with him about his past as a child in Extremadura (Jamon Iberico country) his time as a head chef at the Michelin starred El Mesón de Doña Filo and now his role as Executive Chef for the three branches in the mini chain of Brindisa restaurants.

I am delighted to then, quite shamelessly, shill his splendid new book SEASONAL SPANISH FOOD, published a few weeks ago by Kyle Cathie. It is full of the sort of recipes that you might actually want to eat and although self effacing Jose Pizarro may not yet be receiving the plaudits of some of London's other would be Iberian experts (think Sam & Sam and Sam & Eddie) the fact that the Spanish Ambassador offered him the Embassy in which to hold his launch party tells you all you need to know about the regard in which he is held by his countrymen.

SEASONAL SPANISH FOOD contains many excellent recipes, but For DH, there is only one test of a Spanish chef's chops and that is by the quality of his croquetas. The outside should be crisp and break to reveal a soft bechamel studded with jamon or flakes of salt cod. Brindisa's are the best in London and I am pleased that JP has agreed to share his recipe with us.

It is well worth a try, as indeed is the book worth seeking out.


HAM CROQUETAS
Croquetas are one of the most popular dishes in Tapas Brindisa; we make around one hundred and fifty every day. I spent ages perfecting this recipe. Usually the roux is made with butter, but I use olive oil because I think it gives a better flavour.
In Spanish delis you can often buy cubed Ibérico ham (left over from carving the legs), which is ideal for this recipe – meat from close to the bone has the best flavour. If you cannot get hold of Ibérico ham, use Serrano ham instead, or indeed other cured hams such as speck or Parma ham.

Croquetas are a bit of a fiddle to make, but they can be frozen and make
great party food, so have a go.
Makes 15 to 20 croquetas

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ small leek, diced as small as possible – 3mm pieces
70g Ibérico or other air-dried ham, diced very small
60g plain flour
75ml ham or vegetable stock
325ml whole milk
freshly grated nutmeg
sea salt and freshly ground
black pepper
75g plain flour
2 large eggs, beaten
75g breadcrumbs
oil, for frying
Heat the olive oil in a pan until it starts to shimmer, then add the leek and sauté until soft but not coloured. Stir in the ham, fry for another minute, then stir in the flour and fry over a medium heat until the mixture is golden but not burnt. This will take about 5 minutes. It is important that the flour is cooked properly otherwise the croquetas will taste of flour.

Combine the stock and milk in a small pan and heat until hot but not boiling. Season the liquid with a few scrapes of nutmeg. Gradually add the liquid to the roux, a few tablespoons at a time, stirring the mixture all the time. Once you have incorporated all the milk, continue to cook the sauce for about 5 minutes until it thickens and leaves the sides of the pan when you stir it. At this stage, add a couple of turns of the pepper mill, taste the roux and adjust the salt if necessary – the ham can be very salty to start with. The sauce is now done: it’s got to be really thick because you don’t want the croquetas to turn into pancakes! Smooth the sauce on to a baking tray (30cm x 20cm is fine) then cover with clingfilm to stop the mixture drying out. Leave it to cool before putting it in the fridge for an hour.

When you are ready for the next stage, line up three bowls: one with flour, the other with beaten egg, and the third with the breadcrumbs. Dust your hands with flour, take a ball and roll it between your palms. The size of the croquettes is up to you, but the easiest is a walnut-sized ball. Next, dunk the croqueta into the flour – you want more of dusting than a coat – followed by the egg and then the breadcrumbs. Put the croquetas on a tray and when you’ve used up all the mixture, put them all back in the fridge for 30 minutes.

If you have a deep fat fryer, heat the oil to 175°C/325°F and fry the croquetas for a couple of minutes. If not, heat the oil in a frying pan until it starts to shimmer, then add 3 or 4 croquetas at a time and fry until they are golden all over. You don’t want them to cook too quickly otherwise the centre won’t be hot enough.

101 PIMLICO ROAD: ROOM FOR ONE MORE ?

To paraphrase one of the unelected parasites that laud it over us and for whom life seems to be one long holiday (Mustique, Klosters, Balmoral):

2009 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure – [as far as London restaurant openings have been concerned] it has turned out to be an Annus Horribilis.

For Dos Hermanos the best eating experiences this year have been outside London. Decent meals in the capital have, for the most part, been thin on the ground and when we did eat something that passed muster it was usually in a place that opened before 2009.

Why ? Well, maybe having to fulfil contractual obligations before the S hit the F has meant that establishments have had to economise. Perhaps the increase in business rents has resulted in margins that have been squeezed until the pips squeak.

My theory is that it’s probably all of the above plus the fact that we get the restaurants we deserve. We’ve become so in love with the scene, the décor and the novelty instead of the substance of a restaurant i.e. the food, the cooking and the service that restaurateurs have just given us want we wanted.

It’s as if the owners have sussed that the food has to be just good enough for the punters they expect to visit. There’s been no sense of generosity or of any care in the preparation or of trying to think long term and build something. It’s all about short termism, it’s all rather grasping and it’s very depressing.

Typical of my experiences this year was a recent meal at 101 Pimlico Road. Situated on the less chavvy side of SW1 it’s more of a little nabe joint than a destination restaurant and was populated on my visit by an older well-heeled crowd. Thankfully David Collins hasn’t been hired to gussy the place up so its sharp, functional décor at least promised food of the same ilk. The ALC menu looked a bit more interesting than the quotidian although in reality any regular restaurant-goer could have a good stab at doing one. It’s the execution that counts.

Those first tentative tastes of a starter dish are all-important in the DH Bumper Book of Eating Out but in the case of my Goat’s Cheese dish it was the visual shock of an unadvertised deep-fried puck of cheese that caught my attention. It was competently done but, you know, I didn’t actually want deep fried anything for a starter.

I’d had a fair wait to get this dish - the kitchen were presumably thrown by somebody not lunching from the fixed price menu as others were - so I ploughed on. The cheesy fritter sat on top of a disc of beetroot that was the consistency of something you might line your shoe with and didn’t taste like it had been pickled (like what it said on the menu). Underneath was a thin, desiccated sliver of Black Pudding. Wow, I thought, this was going to be a long meal.

But total disaster was averted by a decently done Veal Burger. It was a bit dense, but tasted fine, and came with some light and crisp Shoestring fries, although in the canon of fried potato works these are probably the least interesting. There was a properly fried egg on top of the burger and a slice of Foie Gras on top of that. The latter was so thin though that I suspect that the very latest in micro-laser technology had been employed in fashioning the thing. Studding the Veal Burger with little nuggets of the engorged liver would have been a better idea.

A sort of pattern was emerging here: the kitchen seemed like they were up to the job, when they could be arsed. This was obvious from my dessert. Some Peanut Butter Ice Cream was good, as was a scoop of Star Anise that had a surprisingly subtle taste, but a cold, solid lump of poor quality chocolate and some terrible pastry do not a Chocolate Tart make. Not in my universe at least. You could tell it was rubbish because I left most of it after a couple of bites and I usually eat everything. If they could chivvy (not chavvy) the kitchen into being a bit more consistent and actually taste some of the stuff that is sent out it might be possible to have a decent meal here.

All this comes though, at frankly ridiculous prices which can’t even begin to be justified by the restaurant’s location (a short hop away from Sloane Square). They’re already making a pretty mark-up on the very ordinary wines I drank so I have to conclude they’re charging what the local market will bear, which is what I was moaning about at the start of the post.

Finally, it’s also unfortunate that the rather dumb name that the owners have chosen for their gaff contains the number of the room where very bad things happen in the novel 1984. Well, let me tell you, Georgie-boy, things aren’t so hot in 2009.

DOS HERMANOS DO MADRID: A LAST HURRAH?

Dos Hermanos have never apologised for our love of Spain and in particular Madrid and, over the period of the last four years, we have catalogued nearly a dozen visits between us. There was, however, a certain air of “ the end of an era” about our visit of December 2009.

In part, I am guessing it was linked to the rapidly approaching end of the first decade of the Millennium. It is a little under ten years since DH took our first joint trip to Madrid and came to the collective decision that it is our favourite city on earth, a view that has not changed despite thousands of air miles clocked up between us since then.

In part, I am sure, it is because of the approaching changes in our personal lives. My impending wedding and move to LA LA Land will inevitably mean that such hugely enjoyable journeys may be fewer and further apart in future.

Add to these the fact that, although we will continue to give it our best shot, we wont be able to attack the unbeatable food of Madrid with such gusto in years to come as middle age wearies our bones and reduces our appetites. With my doctor already suggesting that I should replace booze with blood pressure medication and look to lower my cholesterol levels to numbers, which did not suggest I was “73% pork fat” there was always going to be an element of “last hurrah” about the final DH assault on Madrid of the ‘00’s.

Madrid itself has seen considerable changes in the last decade. Not just the central areas around Plaza Sol, Meyor and Santa Ana, which always attracted tourists, but have now been scrubbed and polished to make them even more visitor friendly. It is also noticeable in the changing demographic of the city’s population, seemingly a function of increased immigration and fuelled by the arrival of workers from Spain’s own commonwealth of former colonies.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in Madrid’s thousands of bars and restaurants, where a generation of grumpy barmen and waiters in their ill fitting white jackets appear to be slowly retiring in favour of younger men and women from South America, presumably more willing than their home grown equivalents to work the long hours demanded by Spanish consumers.

What has not changed however is the ease with which DH slot into the Madrileño rhythm after years of practice and when I arrived on a flight a few hours after HP, I found that he was already six or so bars to the good and had photographs of tempting tapas to prove it. It did not take me long to get into the swing, however, and what followed was as fun and colon challenging as any visit had been in the previous ten years.

People often e-mail and ask us for our recommendations when they are visiting Madrid and, although we always toss out a few suggestions of places they might like, our usual response is to say that such a request is really missing the point about what makes this such a special city. The DH MO is not to visit specific bars, although we do, of course, have a few favourites after all these years, but to select neighbourhoods both central and outlying and then spend time dipping in and out of the seemingly endless selection of bars at random, ordering a caña and seeing what tapa is placed in front of us.

It is an approach that has paid dividends and, thanks mainly to HP’s impeccable research, has introduced us to bars in barrios as far apart as Charmatin to the North East and Villauerde in the South. It has taken us to streets like Calle Ponzano, which houses bars like Fide, specialising in tapas of seafood from tins, to Calle Cava Baja, where Nuevo tapas are served up to bright young things at bars like Casa Lucas. It has taken us Bar Bona De Leon, close to Plaza España, where your €1 beer comes with a plate of chicken wings large enough to make supper unnecessary to Los Torezznos, in ritzy Salamanca, where the waiter chops up large slabs of salty pork belly and oily chorizo for you to form improbable sandwiches with crusty white rolls.

Along the way, of course, we fit in a meal or two, never any more, as it simply isn’t necessary. This time, we celebrated Spain’s Asador, or restaurants specialising in the cooking of meat on charcoal grills or in wood fired ovens. Asador De Aranda, as the name suggests prepares food from the region near Burgos, particularly Lechal Lamb, basted as it roasts to a succulent tenderness and served with no more than a simple green salad and a bottle of Ribera del Duero. Asador Los Arcos, on the other hand brings in little piggies from Avila, in Castilla De Leon to do something similar, producing soft flesh, crackling skin and creamy layers of fat. Two great meals, and like the bars, served with such efficiency and such little fuss that it served to remind us why we always feel deflated when we return to the fashionable options of London’s tepid dining scene.

But, enough of the moaning, this was as good a trip to Madrid as DH have ever experienced and if things have changed for both us and this city in the last ten years and will no doubt change even more in the next, it was as perfect a last hurrah as you could have asked for. It may have marked the end of an era, but it certainly does not mark the end of our love affair with this remarkable and magical city.

LAVERSTOKE PARK FARM: QUALITY AT A PRICE

There can’t be too many people, I imagine, who have spent time in an SUV being driven around a farm by a former Formula One world champion while having an in depth chat about the taste merits of various breeds of chicken. But, last Thursday saw me indulging in just such a conversation as I spent two hours in the company of the whirlwind that is, former South African motor racer, turned businessman turned organic farmer, Jody Scheckter.

I had been invited down to meet him after tweeting about a desire to observe the method of hand pulling curds to make Mozzarella and was contacted by the farm’s P.R, Victoria with an invitation to visit. After a journey of less than an hour from Waterloo to Overton in Hampshire, I found myself arriving at the Headquarters of Laverstoke Park Farm, in the middle of over 2500 acres of beautiful prime grazing land.

Scheckter set up the farm, originally 500 acres, with the sole intention of providing the best food possible for his growing family by producing slow reared animals for meat and fruit and vegetables grown on organically managed land. As one might imagine with an Alpha male who had previously been involved in one of the world’s most testosterone er, driven sports, there are no half measures with Jody Scheckter and he has spent the last eight or so years building up Laverstoke, from what was initially a hobby into one of the most fascinating food producers in the country.

We began the day with a rapid tour of the farm. First to his extensive library of farming textbook, from which he had gleaned the recipe for the traditional blend of thirty-six grasses and herbs which cover his grazing land. Then on to his sizeable research department, which not only provides him with detailed analysis of the different soils at Laverstoke, but also offers the same facility for other farmers around the country. Finally, before lunch, to the abattoir, which had been designed with the aid of the very latest research in stress avoidance for animals on their way to slaughter.

It is all very impressive, but as I dared to suggest over lunch, if the end results are no good, it wouldn’t matter to me if the crops are planted at midnight by naked virgins and the animals are played Schubert before getting a bolt through the noggin. Fortunately, from what I sampled, all of this considerable effort does not seem to have been made in vain. We sat at a large dining table in the Scheckter family home to be presented with a tasting of sausages, vegetables, ice cream and beer, all bearing the Laverstoke Park Farm brand. It was all excellent stuff, but I was particularly taken with the wild boar sausages and the bitter ale , which uses fresh hops grown on the estate.

After lunch, we made our way to the dairy to see the mozzarella being made. Scheckter had applied his usual attention to detail to the whole affair and had not only spent considerable time in Italy visiting producers, but had also employed experts from Italy to make the cheese for him in the UK. Unfortunately for me, the maker had taken time off to deal with a family bereavement. His assistant, Simon, did his best to deputise and show me how hand pulling the curds was done, but fortunately, I was just as impressed with the Italian made machine which replicated the pulling action before shaping the balls of cheese and dropping them into a brine bath to “settle” before being packed. Jody pulled a ball of cheese from the brine bath passing it to me to sample. It was easily the freshest example I had tried, soft and creamy, a million miles away from the stuff available in our supermarkets, just screaming to be eaten with a few tomatoes and some bread.

Scheckter had to leave us now and I had to head for my train back to London, which only gave me time for a quick stop at the Laverstoke Park farm shop to buy a few things for Sunday lunch before I was driven back to the station. Food from Laverstoke does not come cheap and the prices can come as a bit of a shock to the system. A slab of superb gammon for example set me back nearly £30. Nobody’s notion of a

However the quality is unquestionable and as if to prove it, my next few meals were made up of not only the gammon, which HP served up roasted with a classic Cumberland Sauce, but also of a salad using that achingly fresh mozzarella and some grilled sausages along with meaty “beef Bacon”.

They showed that there is little doubt that Scheckter’s approach produces food of exceptional quality. His next task will be to persuade people that it is worth the price he needs to charge. Given the amount of energy he displayed during my short visit and the level of success he has in his life to date, it is hard to believe he wont achieve it.