CALLOOH CALLAY: ONE FOR THE SKINNY JEANED SLITHY TOADS OF SHOREDITCH

The bars of Shoreditch and Hoxton, it would appear, are growing up. You still get the grim new openings, places like Road Trip where over chilled, over priced lager is handed to people who neither know, nor care what they are drinking by people who neither know nor care what they are serving and places like the Hoxton Pony and Hoxton Hotel where semi decent mixing is lost in a barrage of shrieking music and appalling service.

However, with Hawksmoor still in its pomp and Lounge Bohemia providing understated excellence, there is a sign that both outlets and punters in London's hippest nabe are after something a little more challenging than just somewhere to stand around in skinny jeans.

Now, there is Callooh Callay, taking its rather silly name from Jabberwocky and its design style direct from the Lower East Side. The music is still too loud for someone in their fifth decade, but there are signs from the menu and the mixing, overseen by bar manager, Sean Wear that this is a bar with serious intentions when it comes to drinks.

A perfect Manhattan was spot on with the house bourbon, Woodford Reserve supported by the right amounts of sweet and dry vermouth and a daiquiri had the correct balance of rum and lime. My companion for the evening, Chelsea had just joined the long line of people who have been made redundant recently and needed cheering up. Something girly, boozy and pink seemed to work better than my suggestion that she “consider hooking or allowing people to eat off you”

There is still work to be done. The back bar looked interesting but small and the staff are still finding their feet. But Callooh Callay looks like it could be an interesting addition to a neighbourhood whose expectations seem to be getting higher all the time.

NORDIC BAR: A COLD DAY FOR A BAD DOG

Believe it or not, the best Hot Dog I ate on my trip was not in the USA. not at Hot Doug's, not at The Weiner's Circle and not even more recently at Marty's in Los Angeles. It was a spectacular example of a sausage in a bun at a small harbour side stand in Reykjavik where, in the sheeting snow, I indulged in not one, but two dogs so good I could understand why Mr William Jefferson Clinton was a regular every time he came to town.

It was fantastic. Perfect bun, sausages that needed some bite to find a way through the casing, remoulade sauce and topped with crispy onions. I have been craving one ever since.

The Nordic Bar on Newman St offers up a menu of Scandanavian Hot Dogs including that oh so weird Swedish one topped with a dollop of mashed potato. So, when my craving could be controlled no more, I made my way through the crowds of Christmas shoppers and office workers to their little underground restaurant in search of memories of encased meat sandwiches past. Like my companion, I went for the Danish Polz, the closest to the Icelandic version on the menu and we added a side of a bacon sandwich, well just because we could.

What arrived was a disappointment to say the least. First of all, they had cut it in half. Who the hell says you should do that? Any right minded person knows that, if you cut a dog, you let all the flavour escape. Next, the bread. Just too damn much of it, so the sausage was hidden. The crunchy onions weren't, crunchy that is and the remoulade lacked the pre-requiste mustard kick. Add this to a portion of chips of the oven variety and our bill of £14 + tip seemed rather on the steep side. Serving only to remind me how really good those in Iceland were, as the bottom picture goes to show.

I guess we just have to mark down hot dogs as yet another thing we just can't do in this country. Ho Hum

YET ANOTHER DOS HERMANOS SUNDAY: BELLY’S GONNA GET YA

Dos Hermanos (that’s us) never need much incitement to eat large pieces of Pork and HS’s pronouncement on Sunday that he wanted belly and he wanted it now meant a quick trip to the small Longwood Farm stall in Spitafields Market. Despite the presence of oh-so-dreary chains gradually edging out the independents Longwood Farm has been pluckily plying its trade for as long as I can remember. Let’s hope it stays that way for many years to come.

Anyway. Soon after, I arrived home with my precious booty - five pounds of organic belly pork – and whilst I anointed it with salt, olive oil and a little dried thyme and stuffed it with Sage, HS opened up a bottle of Thornbridge Brewery’s Kipling beer. It’s described as a South Pacific Pale Ale which means absolutely zip to me but it tasted great – crisp and bitter. A perfect preprandial drink.

So good that we had to try the same brewery’s Jaipur Pale Ale, a hoppy beer that I liked even more than the Kipling. HS also opened up a pack of Mehmet Murat’s wonderful Olives. With Walter Becker on the stereo the World sort of made sense again – if only for a few hours.

To go with the Pork the usual suspects of Apple Sauce and some Purple Sprouting but also some Red Cabbage which I’d cooked for an hour or so combined with softened slices of onion, chunks of Apple, crushed juniper berries, bay leaves, cider vinegar and cider. An excellent accompaniment for Pork or indeed any fatty meats.

The nice thing about cooking Pork Belly is that it’s very hard to overcook so once you’ve got the crackling going you can turn the heat down a bit and basically forget about it. The rest of the cider I’d used with the cabbage went into the roasting tin to make a gravy.

A simple fuss-free lunch and HS got his belly. I think he may even have it now…

DINE WITH DOS HERMANOS: EARLY EDITION 2009

Well, believe it or not, by the time February 2009 wheels around, the beloved catologue of middle aged dining that is DOS HERMANOS will be three years old. There have been laughs, there have been tears and there has been projectile vomiting (and that was just at El Gordo's places)

So, as ever, it is time to invite one and all to join us as we celebrate with some fine food, astonishing wines and good company at one of those all too rare eateries that get the DH "two thumbs up" This time, our mind has turned towards Vinoteca, the splendid little joint at the bottom of St John St and, although they don't know it yet, we plan to take over their private dining room for an evening.

Last time, for our meal at Tayyabs we were over subscribed, but I hope that the twenty people who came along had as much fun as we did. This time, we have space for thirty. So, if you want to come along, please drop me an e-mail to the blog mail address (see "contact us" sidebar ) and I'll add you to the list.

We are looking at a date towards the end of Ferbruary and, as ever, there will be a few surprises and maybe if you are really good, some more of those much coveted Dos Hermanos T-shirts.

THE GOLDEN FISH BAR: TIP TOP IN FARRINGDON

We all collect things.

It may be buttons, bottle tops, train numbers or even (and I deny completely that its me) back issues of Razzle.

I collect over heard sayings of middle class angst.

To date my favourite came from my chum, food writer William Leigh who exclaimed in misery one day “I am in a really bad mood, I just had such a row with my butcher”

However, his place atop the list of well-to-do lamentations was knocked off its perch today as I sat in The Golden Fish Bar on Farringdon Road and listened as two Guardian employees tearfully considered the imminent move of the old girl to a new location in King’s Cross.

“ I can’t believe we are moving to King’s Cross, I’ll have to get a bus every time I want to go to Moro”

Bless them.

I wasn’t pondering on fish & chips and had originally thought I would try one of the many stalls on Exmouth Market. As I trudged along thinking to myself “there just aren’t enough burrito stands in London right now” I caught a whiff of the unmistakeable scent of vinegar and good frying from The Golden Fish Bar, nestled between the risible $$ and The Quality Chop House.

In our search for the best fish & chips in London I had neglected this old stalwart, so popped in to the small dining room already filled with an assorted mix of locals, workers and wailing Guardian-ites and squeezed myself into a table for one in the corner.

Fish & chips should be cooked to order, so is not the fast food one would expect. Here, at the Golden Fish Bar, you place your order and wait your turn, spending the time admiring the perfectly correct display of condiments including, I was delighted to see, bottles of ‘non brewed condiment” and tomato sauce loosened with the same to last longer.

When my plate of haddock, chips & peas arrived with the pre-requisite mug of tea, they were as good as you are going to get anywhere in London. The fish was perfectly protected in a bubbly, super crisp batter and the chips were hot, giving off fumes when doused with vinegar (sorry “non brewed condiment”) even the mushy peas, wobbling worryingly close to the edge of the plate, were perfect with enough lumps of green to give evidence to their original form.

An excellent example of the fryer’s craft and at a mere £6 for the lot, a bargain lunch to boot. All of which goes to place The Golden Fish Bar right up there with The Golden Hind and Masters Superfish in the pantheon of London chippies.

I don’t know about Moro, but if I was moving to King’s Cross it’s this place I would be missing, not Moro.

CHEEKY PETE'S: BURGERED IN BISHOPSGATE

According to their website, there are over 8,000 possible combinations of burger available at Cheeky Pete’s in Bishopsgate. I can only hope that the other 7,999 are better than mine.

The search for a decent burger in London continues. There’s Hache of course, easily the best of the bunch, but after that, I would rather pick up some wild beef from Borough market and craft my own at home than risk some of the garbage on offer even from those places predicated almost entirely on selling “gourmet” discs of dead cow between bread.

To be fair, those at Cheeky Pete’s are no worse than many, the beef, from Wales I was told, is decent quality and the service was prompt and friendly. Although to be fair, I was the only one in the place as I ate my early lunch so it should have been. But there are enough things wide of the mark to make it unworthy of a revisit.

Let’s start with the bun. As I have said before, a burger bun needs to fulfil little to be a good delivery system for the meat and while I don’t want the wispy, sugar-filled softness of a McD, it should be soft and slightly spongy to soak up the juices. At Cheeky Pete’s the intimidating seeded bun dwarfed the contents and had been toasted so it was too crunchy. It was decent bread, just not the right bread for a hamburger.

The toppings too caused consternation. On entering, you collect a clipboard onto which is attached a chart for you to tick your choice of meat, toppings, sauces and sides. Although I suspect this could be quite fun, the truth is the “build your own burger” concept might play well in the US, but here in the U.K, I think we should concentrate on getting the basics right before we try to take the advanced steps of topping selection. My own choice of tomatoes, bacon and onions was harmless enough but the possibility that someone might order a cheeseburger with pineapple, anchovies and radish is too horrible to contemplate.

Instead of offering huge choice, they should concentrate on the simple matter of good quality. Instead of offering a sorry handful of small onion rings seemingly from a catering pack, try making them fresh. It aint rocket science and it aint that hard. I didn’t try the fries, but the feeling of my considerable gut is that they would be little better.

The uncomfortable chairs and counter seating do not make Cheeky Pete’s a place you would ever want to linger, which makes their offering of a selection of wines and cocktails seem bizarrely misguided and, while they have the good sense to offer free soft drink refills, my bill of £7.50 seemed a lot to pay for a meal that had me in and out quicker than a teenage Liverpudlian on the rob.

As I said, Cheeky Pete’s is no worse than many in London, which isn't saying much at all. But, the final image, taken at Marty’s on my recent trip to L.A. shows you just how far we still have to go.

GARUFA: MEAT ME AT THE CORNER

My mother always taught me to be polite.

I hold doors open for people, I always say “please” and “Thank you” and I have been known to help people cross a busy road even if they didn’t want to. “Manners maketh Man” she would say and she was right, polite is a good thing.

Well…….. not always. There is a politeness about a certain levels of restaurants in London that is beginning to get right on my wick, particularly places representing the cooking of nations known for their appreciation of life and their vibrant cuisine.

Too many places now are almost apologetic in the way they present food and neuter menus to avoid offending customers, removing some of the best dishes and ingredients because they think that the fraidy cats of good old London town will run squealing into the streets at the sight of a tripe taco or a brain curry.

DH were discussing this at some length as we stared down our mixed Parillada at Garufa, a relatively new Argentinean steakhouse in Highbury. It’s not that the steaks were bad, they weren’t. The meat had decent flavour and they had been cooked rare as requested. It was all just a bit, well, here’s that word again. Apologetic.

It had started well enough. It’s a pleasant room, although we were pleased to be near a radiator when a chill blast swept through every time the door was open. Our server was friendly if a bit hapless not even knowing which cut of steak was which on our mixed grill. Our starters of empanada were even good enough for us to immediately order another portion after our first bite.

But, these places are about the steak and at Garufa they were just, well just too polite. I can forgive the fact that they were not up to the levels I experienced in Buenos Aires it would be silly to expect them to attain such heights. But a great Argentinean grill should conjour up some level of excitement for the meat being served, the burning embers under the grill spitting up flames, the full on seasoning of the flesh by the grill master and the presence of fat without which as HP says “it just becomes dead protein”

It’s culinary theatre and the presentation of the mixed grill with its challenging cuts of steak, plump morcilla, spicy chorizo, crisp entrails and melting provoletta is, at its very best, worthy of a round of applause. Our last supper at Santa Maria in Hackney received just that. At Garufa, we just gave a bit of a weary shrug as we surveyed the tiny cuts of rump, fillet, rib eye and loin and shared out the undistinguished black pudding and chorizo. Their small electric griddle was hidden in the kitchen as if they were ashamed of it and, of course there were no chitterlings that would be far too scary. Even some decent patatas bravas did nothing add to an experience that did little to justify a place in the memory banks.

It’s not cheap with a cheap bottle of Pinot Noir and a shared dessert of ice cream nudging the bill over £90 for the two of us. Too much for a neighbourhood joint and particularly for one that only confirmed our opinion of so many of London’s restaurants

SHANGHAI: STALE DUMPLINGS IN DALSTON

There are certain words you will never hear either of DH say.

“Make mine a half”

“Well done, please”

“I’m catching up with my Jane Austen”

Most unlikely of all, however are those three special little words every one likes to hear across the dining table

“You have it”

It just doesn’t happen. In fact so determined are we to make sure that all things are fair and square when it comes to divvying up food, that I am pondering on buying HP a micrometer for Christmas to be used when portioning out the rashers of bacon atop the turkey.

So, when I heard these unlikely little words coming out of his mouth on Sunday’s excursion to Shanghai, a well-regarded Chinese restaurant in Dalston, I knew that all was not right with HP Dim Sum wise.

We had been before, a number of times, but not for some years. Our first visit saw us enjoying remarkably good, fresh and imaginative Dumplings which confirmed the reviews we had read claiming this was where many of London’s off duty Chinese chefs came to eat on their days off. A second visit was pretty dreadful and we never bothered again. Until yesterday, that is, when after reading some half decent recent reviews we made another trek up for an early pre-football lunch.

Little has changed. The room, a former pie & mash shop still looks great with all the old fittings and the same manager is still greeting people. Unfortunately, the food was more like our last visit than our first with little to distinguish the dishes we were served from the bog standard bought in versions of Chinatown.

There should be a prompt but definite progression to eating Dim Sum. First the baked, then the fried, then the steamed with the pre-requisite plates of roast duck and belly pork coming out whenever they damn well like. About five minutes after we ordered, our table was covered with nine of the thirteen dishes we has chosen, with the others following soon afterwards. Bamboo bowls stacked up and plates of cheung fun sat congealing nicely as we worked our way round to them. The treasury pork pies, always our first port of call, were stone cold, a bad sign when there is no one else in the place and the roast meats slid around in a slick of grease.

It was all pretty depressing stuff and the almost rank air of stale food and shoddy cooking confirmed our view that their low turnover meant we were experiencing the previous day’s leftovers brought back to life. Only the har gow and a plate of crab meat fried in noodles escaped the withering opinion of HP and when he uttered those three little words “you have it” about the last pork pie, I knew it was time to get the bill.

At £42 including service, it was cheap enough to last less in the memory than the nausea caused, for the remainder of the day, by the food in the stomach, but was still as big a robbery as The Arsenal’s snatch and grab we saw later on T.V.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, yes I did eat the last pork pie. Mainly because I am greedy, but also because I have no doubt it will be a cold day in Hell before I hear those words issue from the mouth of HP again.