STEAK

I crouch on the carpet
Not breathing just being

A good Steak is like a Dry Martini. A deceptively simple thing to prepare but devilishly hard to get right. I make a decent enough Martini (shaken not stirred - prefer them that way chez moi) because I have complete control over the preparation which basically comes down to making sure everything is sufficiently chilled. I can do an ok steak as well, but something was always lacking. I suspected it was my griddle pan which couldn’t possibly be as good as a commercial device.

I decided to have another go a few weekends ago. I tried a new (for me) butcher, Jack O’Shea, who supplies The Fat Duck. A very friendly chap, he started off with a place in Brussels and now has a shop near Harrods. He can do all manner of cuts for you including quite a few South American ones I hadn’t heard of before like Picana. His website features a video of him butchering a Leg of Lamb to produce several different cuts which made me wonder why we don’t get this sort of stuff on TV instead of the usual celebrity-driven guff.

Anyway, he suggested a 40 day aged Forerib. The beef had come from Aberdeen Angus stock raised in West Cork. The rib was a bit large side with the bone in the middle but he split it for me. He’d got some marrow bones on display so I scored a couple of them too.

About an hour or so before cooking I let the steak come to room temperature and got the griddle pan heating up. Jack suggested that I give the steak a good sprinkling of sea salt a few hours before to help to give it a good char.

When I was ready to cook there was a bit of surface moisture on the steaks which I removed then I cooked the steak for 4 minutes per side. I seasoned it and put it straight in a low oven for about ten minutes to let it rest and warm through. I served the steak with the previously roasted the marrow bones and some lightly dressed watercress.

I have to say this was the best steak I’ve ever cooked and the flavour was up there with the best steaks I’d ever had. Damn, it even looked professional. I knew it was good because I’d made a little horseradish sauce and put out some Dijon mustard and I preferred the taste au naturel.

Sometimes I have difficulty finishing large steaks but had no problems this time. The taste was so clean it made very easy eating and I finished the lot. A glass or two of Finca Valpiedra 97 accompanied it very nicely.

Buoyed by my success, I went back a week later and bought a Rib of Beef to have for Sunday lunch chez Dos Hermanos padre. Served with all the trimmings it was rated a great success. A lot of the cuts on display in the shop looked a bit too well trimmed of their fat which is probably how the good bhurgers of Knightsbridge like it. If you want something with more fat, age etc. they seem happy enough to see what they have in stock and butcher for you. I look forward to returning and seeing what their other meats are like – I’ve already tried their Oxtail pie (mmm...pie) which was excellent.

INDIA: SON OF A BEACH (GOAN EDITION)

If you have been reading along for the last few months, you will know that occasionally on the EAT MY GLOBE trip, I have veered away from my foodie quest and headed off somewhere for a bit of a break.

The last time was in early November where a week in Salvador, Brazil provided a respite from my travels even if I did feel like I was about to be mugged at any given moment.

This time around, a week in Goa offered up a chance rest up from the grind of airports and cheap guesthouses and to stay in one place for long enough that I could actually unpack my unfeasibly large rucksack.

After a bit of net research, I chose the area of Cavelossim in South Goa which, compared to the northern resorts of Calungate and Baga with their large hotels, clubs and hordes of young revellers, is relatively unspoiled.

The small, family run hotel I chose provided a secluded location to recharge my batteries and prepare for the last three months of the trip and the other guests, nearly all from the North of the UK, seem to have been both to the hotel and the area on numerous occasions before and made sure I did not dine alone on any night during my stay.

It hardly feels like being in India, which is no surprise as it wasn’t until its independence from Portugal in 1961 and the influence of its former masters still runs deep in many aspects of the state. In the deep loyalty to the Catholic faith, in the names of the people and, of course in the food with its use of chillies, tomatoes, garlic and vinegar.

Given that it is a tourist resort, the food does tend to be tailored towards the visiting Brits and would probably be best described as “tasty” rather than “authentic”. With the restaurants and many shacks on the beautiful beaches offering up as much western and standard curry house food as they did Goan dishes.

That being said, even though I was taking a break, I still managed to get myself invited to a debate on responsible tourism (where the main problems discussed by locals were “Drugs, Child Abuse, Garbage Disposal and The Influx Of Russian Tourists”) after which we were presented with a thali made by a local guesthouse owner which included such local dishes as Chicken Xacuti, Shark Abotik and pomfret cooked in semolina batter.

Even in the restaurants, there was decent food to be had, with fresh fish and seafood being delivered daily by the local fishermen who hauled their catch along the beach every morning. Most restaurants, including the one in my hotel, offered terrifically made tandoori meats, fish and paneer rolled in freshly made breads and, of course, one of the most famous dishes of Goa, the Vindaloo was much in evidence.

Unlike it’s UK counterpart, where the name of the game is to make it as close to eating hydrochloric acid as possible, in Goa, it shows its Portuguese roots with pork meat being marinated in local palm vinegar, cloves, garlic and chilli (a mix of hot red chilli and milder Kashmiri chilli to give colour) before being cooked slowly to a rich, sharp consistency.

After a much needed diversion of the Sun & Sea variety, I am now very firmly back in the harness and about to eat my way around Bangalore for a few days. But, I am not ashamed to say that I rather fell for South Goa and am already planning a return.

The last picture is to show that it is not just in the race to be an economic superpower that India is in a fierce contest with China.

THE SPORTSMAN REDUX

The future looks bright
On that train all graphite and glitter

Just under a year ago I visited and subsequently raved about The Sportsman a restaurant in Seasalter near Whitstable. As they had recently received their first Michelin Star a return visit seemed like a good idea and since I could visit during the week I could try out their tasting menu which is not available at weekends. In a very relaxed and enjoyable environment I had a meal that it will be difficult to better until I return here. Chef Stephen Harris really does know his cooking chops.

What impresses me most about the food at The Sportsman is that everything tastes of itself. There is no obfuscation that you might get at lesser places, no gussying up or overworking of ingredients. So even in the little starters the Breast of Lamb St Ménéhoulde with a little mint sauce was intensely lamby and the little pork scratchings with apple sauce intensely…well you get the idea. This food really presses, sorry, pounds all my buttons.

Tasting menus can be deadly dull: a succession of dishes that you don’t feel much effort or passion has gone into. They begin to pall after three or four courses and you just want to get the whole thing over with. Here, you’re always eager for the next course.

After the little amuses there’s a cup of chowder – perfect for when there’s a bit of a chill in the air – thick with bacon and mussels and sprinkled with chives and a powder made from dried scallop roe.

A conversation with Emma and Philip, who handle FOH with friendliness and professionalism, was interrupted by an interesting smell. Now I’m partial to aged hams (think Spanish Jamón Ibérico de Bellota or Meryl Streep) but the depth of taste, complexity and sheer hamminess (sorry) of this 18 month Salt Cured Ham was amazing. A little goes a very long way.

There’s technique on show too. A spankingly fresh fillet of Brill was cooked just to the point where the flesh becomes opaque, in other words perfectly. So many restaurants fail to get this right. Two large hunks of Sirloin came evenly rare in the middle with a good char on the outside. The small seams of fat in the beef making it a lot tastier than this cut usually is. Excellent greens and well-judged sauces (the smoked herring roe sauce with the fish being particularly good) made these into dishes that would stand alone as main courses from the alc at other restaurants. There’s even a little Tatar of Brill which comes with a soya foam on top for those people who like that sort of thing. I’m not fussed particularly, but it was delicious.

Amongst all the serious stuff there’s a fun element too. A blood-orange lolly came in what was billed as cake milk, the latter component taking me back to when I was small and my mother let me lick the mixing bowl.

If we hadn’t had an Industrial Revolution there would probably be a lot more places like The Sportsman in the UK. But we did and there aren’t. There’s nothing to stop any other budding chef/restaurateurs though trying to emulate what Stephen Harris is doing here which would a very good idea indeed.

And if all the great food, booze and conversation wasn't enough they even arranged for one of the nice women who served me to ferry this ageing flâneur back to Faversham train station. Now how's that for service.

TWO BROTHERS

Don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard
I just read the Daily News and swear by every word

I’m not a happy man. I’m not a happy man especially when I have to go to the burbs. I don’t mind the countryside. I don’t mind small market towns but the burbs just don’t do it for me. They’re neither one thing o the other. They’re just so dull, with their neat little rows of houses with neat little gardens and neat little lives, it’s truly death by a thousand trouser presses.

My definition of the burbs is any area where the Tube runs overground. So you can imagine my shock yesterday when my misery line train to visit Two Brothers Fish Restaurant suddenly went from under to over. Two Brothers is near Finchley Central Station on Regent’s Park Road and it seemed a reasonable assumption that this was just north of Regent’s Park. In fact it’s north of Brent Cross which is the furthest I’ve ever been in thirty years of living in London. Still, a long journey can be worth it if there’s something nice and tasty at the end.

This journey wasn’t worth it. I have to say my meal at Two Brothers was not one of the better ones in London to date. As the name suggests this outfit does more than F&C, so as I was pretty famished I thought I’d try one of their specials as a starter.
Slightly chewy chunks of Baby Squid came floating in a small pond which tasted like an amalgam of butter, lemon and a lot of garlic. The Squid would have been improved by having a little colour, the sauce was not unpleasant, just odd. The whole was overpriced at six quid something.

I’d fancied trying some Plaice on the bone cooked in Matzo. My late, sometime dining companion Tony Finch used to rave about how good it was when well done. Me, I’m more of a batter man. Plaice wasn’t in season but they had fillets. I sussed that this meant frozen fish and decided to go for the Haddock in batter. Now, I’m going to take some of the responsibility for what happened next (because I’m quite thick, innit) but looking at the picture of my F&C it’s evidently NOT Haddock in batter but instead the dead spit of Plaice in Matzo. All I saw was a plate of Fish and Chips with an odd looking batter covering the fish. I started tucking in. It only dawned on me that they’d served the me wrong dish after I’d wolfed down a fair bit. Doh.

It was terrible anyway – the fish was completely mushy inside and I thought the Matzo coating overcooked (or maybe this is how Matzo comes) – but I really didn’t want to get into the sort of argument where they ask you why you’ve already eaten half of it. I did mention it to the waitress but all she did was blame the kitchen and charge me the Haddock price, which was cheaper…I hope. Another couple had the same problem, but they were a bit more clued up and sent their dishes back straight away.

When meals go wrong (could I sell this title to Cable TV, I wonder) I just want to get the hell out of Dodge. Unfortunately, this was a cue for the service to grind to a halt when my distracted waitress decided to have a serious chinwag with her mates. Eventually, I managed to escape and get a train back to civilisation.

I would have to say that Two Brothers is the perfect suburban restaurant. People of Finchley - knock yourselves out.

EL GATO NEGRO AND THE NORTH

In a faded yellow green
Made alive a worldly wonder
Often told but never seen

A brief but very pleasant visit to the North last weekend to visit my friends Bapi and Rosie and their son in the town of Sowerby Bridge. The town lies to the West of Leeds on the way to Manchester. It’s all dark satanic mills in this part of the country, already or soon to be, converted into flats, restaurants etc. but by the time you’ve left Halifax you start seeing more of the rugged countryside of the Calder Valley. And very attractive it is too.

I had the luxury of being picked up from the station and whisked to El Gato Negro in Ripponden. A tapas restaurant in a small village in West Yorkshire ? Well why not especially if it’s as good as this one – a great place for relaxing, eating and drinking.

Service from Chris Williams and his FOH team was relaxed but very professional – the timing of everything was spot on. What I enjoyed most about the food was the freshness of the ingredients and the sympathetic and light hand in their preparation by Chef Simon Shaw. As a result everything is very clean tasting – none of the combinations jar. There’s a real generosity of spirit and love of food here.

I had to start with Jamon, it’s the First Law of Dos Hermanos. Silky slices of Jamon Iberico, the most expensive item on the men, were correctly cut wafer thin. They were also served a quantity that makes the amount you receive in London look very silly indeed. Similarly, the Pimientos de Padron, blistered and with a generous sprinkling of rock salt, were not crazily overpriced.

And there was more. Little croquettas of mushroom and spinach were greaseless with creamy insides. Nicely seared chunks of Foie Gras were cleverly paired with little French Toasts and some caramelised slivers of Mango to contrast in taste and texture with the richness of the liver. Accurately cooked Monkfish came with sweet-tasting Clams and some Asturian Beans creating a mini-fabada..

I nicked some of the bairn’s tortilla (that’s right I took a child’s food to satisfy my own greediness – shameful I know) which had a little spice mixture added to give a taste of North Africa that reminded me of Moro when they were good (that’ll be about ten years ago then). Rabo de Toro was as good as I had in Cordoba a few months ago. The most ‘cheffy’ of the dishes but no less enjoyable were Scallops which sat on a little risotto and which were topped with a paprika foam.

The chef is obviously looking to develop the menu and is not afraid of trying different combinations. We were comped a new dish to try: Onglet with Patatas a lo Pobre. So we had what is essentially a popular French cut of Beef, grilled, rested then sliced and strewn with a little mess of potatoes and peppers. Onglet has a really deep beefy flavour and the combination worked very well.

At the end of the meal I was full but not bloated so I was a little disappointed that I didn’t order the Ice Cream made from Tim Taylors. Maybe next time.

The next few hours were an enjoyable blur as we had a little break then tried out a couple of pubs in the area. There was more food – of course there was – but this time cooked by Bapi and Rosie. A Lamb curry with spiced Potatoes after we got back from the pub, Devilled Kidneys with Fried Duck Egg (from the book of St Hugh of Whittingstall) for breakfast.

Afterwards, I managed a bracing walk which involved a hill (booo) but which ended at another pub (hurrah). In this neck of the woods that usually means a roaring fire, a glorious view and most importantly of all a well kept pint of the aforementioned Tim Taylors. It’s definitely not Grim Up North any more – blimey, I might even be persuaded to buy a place up here.

INDIA: MUMBAI, THE UNSTOPPABLE.

There is, of course, much to deplore about India’s cities.

The gut-wrenching poverty, the decay of the crumbling buildings and roads and the stench that fills the air from the filth strewn streets.

It is a challenge to every Western value and an assault to every sense.

Despite that, India, like no other country I have visited, including even China, feels unstoppable. It is a place that, despite itself, is going to burst through the ceiling imposed on all developing nations by a worried West and take on the world.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Mumbai.

What New York is to Washington D.C. Mumbai is to Delhi.

Where one may be the capital, it is to the other that everyone looks to lead the way.

Where one is bureaucratic and staid, the other is cutting edge and pulsating with raw energy.

Where one makes a harmless stopover on the way to somewhere else, the other is that somewhere else and a visit there is like sitting on the world’s fastest rollercoaster without a safety belt.

At once exciting, vibrant, challenging and appalling, Mumbai is one of the world’s great cities and it doesn’t really care if you approve or not. Mess with Mumbai and it will kick your ass.

The frenetic energy seeps out of every open sewer and explodes with every parping horn from the black & yellow taxis, which swarm around the city churning out enough pollution to make your eyes weep the moment you set foot out into the decaying streets.

After the relative calm of Delhi, Mumbai has provided two days, so far, of extraordinary sights, sounds, smells and, of course, tastes. After all, this is almost universally considered as the best city to eat in the whole of India and, arguably, holds that title for the whole of Asia.

The variety of food on offer in Mumbai is endless and represents a city that was built on the influx of people from all over the sub-continent, so Muslim sits next to Parsi next to Jain next to Bengali next to Mumbai native Mahahashtran and all seem to be eating all the time.

So, you can feast on Byriani, gorge on Pav Bhaji or Bhel Puri, slurp down Dhansak or chomp your way through Sheesh Kebab rolls washing it down with fresh sugar cane juice or a cold beer as your tastes and religion demands.

In two days, I seem to have done much of the above, even in my limited forays from my hotel in the vicinity of the fantastically eccentric Victoria Terminal (or Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus as it is now known) to the areas around Fort, Colaba, Churchgate, Chowpatty and Chor Bazaar.

Vithal Bhel Puri served up a plate of “Special Dry Bhel” one of twenty five types of the local favourite made with puffed rice, mixed with chilli, coriander, tomato and tamarind amongst other things. It is incredibly addictive and I can see myself having more than one plate of these in my few days here.

Konkan Cuisine, specialising in seafood dishes from the South West coast of India, is well represented in Mumbai and a number of people guided me to Appoorva for the best on offer comparing it favourably in quality and price to the more famous Konkan Café. I have not tried both so can’t make the comparison, but I can say that the Prawn Gassi at Appoorva is one of the best things I have eaten on this leg of the trip with the fresh seafood cooked in coconut milk and soured with Kokum before being served with a piping hot Appam (rice flour cake) and helped on its way by an unfeasibly large bottle of Kingfisher.

Add to that, Dhansak at Ideal Corner, Paper Dosa with thin, spicy Dahl at Ghurkul’s and creamy, rich Mutton Kurma at a no name place in Churchgate and you’ll begin to understand why Mumbai’s reputation for food is so well deserved.

Best of all, so far, however has been a visit to Bademiya, a hugely popular stall on Tulloch Street, just behind the impressive Taj Palace Hotel. For years, it has been serving crowds of hungry Mumbaikars with freshly prepared Kebabs of fish, chicken or mutton wrapped in hot roti. I was there early, but already cars from the upscale neighbourhoods like Malabar Hills were lining up to collect orders, crowds were forming and the young posse of order takers were working flat out.

After I bought my first one, I walked away thinking it was a snack before supper. My first bite changed my mind and I turned around and spent the next thirty minutes working my way through four different rolls until I could not fit another one in however much I wanted to and believe me, I wanted to very much indeed.

I am six weeks into this stage of the journey and need a bit of a break. So, next stop, Goa