ANATOLIA: COME TO ME MY LOVE AT LAST I'VE FOUND YOU

Well, it’s been two long years, but finally DH have found somewhere to at least partly fill the void left by the demise of our favourite Ockabasi de choix, the blessed Angel Mangal.

In that two years we have subject ourselves to plates of charred meat, limp salads and more desiccated testicles than you would find in the archives of The Science Museum. It is fair to say that we were beginning to despair of ever finding anywhere to come close to the superlative platters of flesh offered up by our old chum, Mustapha.

After returning to London from leafy Rotherham in the early morning, unpacking, repacking for L.A and hitting the gym for a much needed workout, I was not in the mood for leftovers and certainly not in the mood to cook.

So, with HP, who needed little persuading, in tow, we headed out to Hackney, Mare St to be more precise and a small place that had been on our list for some time, Anatolia.

But first, of course, a pre-supper pint or two, in this case served up with considerable charm at The Pembury Tavern, a cavernous pub on Amhurst St that serves some of the very best real ale in London and definitely the best pork scratchings. What the pub lacks in ambience, it makes up for in the quality of its beer and two assorted pints each from Milton Brewery in Cambridgeshire, fortified us against the cold night air and for the short walk back to Anatolia.

It’s pleasingly canteen like and the grill was in full flame with someone else’s supper as we took a table and looked at the short menu. There is never much to be discussed for DH when it comes to Turkish grilling and, alongside a few starters, our mixed grill with a side order of quail was soon sizzling away atop the hot coals.

Starters were sizable and better than most with Ispanak, Tarama and Patlican, scooped up with warm flat bread, distracting us until our equally sizable platter of grilled goodies was placed before us with a side plate of salad and bowls of garlic and chilli sauce.

The grilling was spot on, with the juices still bubbling happily on our first bites of lamb chop and, like all good purveyors of grilled meats, they were not backward with the salt without which all the flavour stays locked inside its fleshy prison. Adana were suitably spicy and the lamb ribs benefited from a long strip of fat to keep the meat moist.

It wasn’t quite Angel Mangal, the addition of dry slices from the revolving doner in the take-away section added little and the single sweetbread and lambs testicle, while very tasty indeed, merely left us both wishing we had placed an order for a side dish of them. But, these are minor complaints for one of the best flesh fests you will find without googling “collegeamateurs.com” and at £40 including service and a charge of £3.50 for corkage on a bottle of Spanish something or other, very good value indeed.

We still haven’t forgotten Mustapha, but we’ll definitely be going back to Anatolia and very probably to The Pembury Tavern beforehand.

BOMPAS & PARR: JELLYMONGERS EXTRAORDINAIRE

Although people find it hard to believe, there are some downsides to my new life as a food writer. The number of bad meals I have to eat is dispiriting, particularly when I look back on how much cold hard cash from my own pocket I have spent doing so.

However, there are of course, many upsides and not least is the fact that most people I encounter in the business are usually even passionate than I am and far more generous both with their product and their time. They are also an eccentric lot, from the bickering Hartland clan squabbling their way through the week as they make a thousand pork pies to my new chum, Henrietta Lovell who sells some of the best tea imaginable out of her flat in Camden.

Few people I encounter, I suspect will be more eccentric than Sam Bompas and Harry Parr, two engaging 25yr olds who I was lucky enough to meet with last week. I first encountered the name during a supper at Hawksmoor where, at the end of the meal, we were presented with quivering jellies in the shape of the Temple of Mausollus, which with a few gallons of ice cream proved the perfect end to a perfect meal.
I was so taken with the jellies, that when I found out about Sam & Harry who made the moulds, I arranged to meet them at their office just South of Southwark Bridge.

The Hawksmoor inspired jelly, it transpires was just the tip of the iceberg (more of icebergs later) and the two young men, previously in PR and architecture respectively struck me as being more like performance artists and mad scientists than foodies and it is little wonder that they will be featured in Heston Blumenthal’s next TV series.

So far, they have persuaded the great architectural firms of the world to enter a competition to design the most extraordinary moulds possible, a competition, which ended with a jelly-wrestling contest in the quad of University College London. They were invited to create a jelly for Lord Richard Roger’s birthday party, which they did in the shape of his new Barajas airport in Madrid and, more altruistically, they recently cheered up the staff and patients of The Royal London Hospital by wheeling around a stupendous dessert trolley, dishing out plates of pudding to those tired of hospital food.

Future plans are just as varied, including the idea of pulling an iceberg up the Thames (you knew there was a point in there somewhere) and even making something fun for the next Dine With Dos Hermanos supper.

Before I left this whirlwind of creativity, Sam & Harry insisted that they make me some ice cream. Being Bompas & Parr, this was no ordinary ice cream and consisted of a cone of cooked pineapple and double cream taken to the correct consistency with the addition of dry ice. What else? My mouth was still tingling a few hours later.

Jelly has a long and noble part to play in British history and I am definitely going to add it to my list for EATING FOR BRITAIN. Bompas & Parr have invited me to join them at some of their many events during the next year.

For some reason, that scares me as much as it excites me. In any event, keep an eye out for them, it’s lovable nutjobs like this that makes Britain what it is

EATING FOR BRITAIN: FIFTY DISHES TO FIND MYSELF

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I am off on the road again once the New Year hits us.

This time, my search is for the fifty dishes that I have chosen to help define what being British means through the food we eat. It could be everything from fish & chips (from up North, of course) to Cornish pasties, from chopped liver to chicken tikka masala.

As with EAT MY GLOBE, I am hoping to meet some amazing people on my travels and have already received some incredible invitations for everything from making seaside rock in Blackpool to shrimping in Morcambe Bay, from spending a day in the kitchens of Tayyabs to beating on The Glorious Twelfth.

Here is my list so far

BAKING
Cream Tea (Devon)
Afternoon Tea (London)
Victoria Sponge
Bakewell Tart (Derbyshire)
Parkin (Yorkshire)
Apple Pie (Herefordshire)
Eccles Cake/Chorley Cake (Lancashire)

SOUPS & STEWS
Cullen Skink (Scotland)
Irish Stew (Northern Ireland)
Lobscouse (Merseyside)
Cawl (Wales)

MEAT
Ulster Fry (Northern Ireland)
Haggis (Scotland)
Faggots (Wales)
Lancashire Hot Pot (Lancashire)
Rabbit Pie (Suffolk)
Gammon/Ham
Black Pudding (Lancashire)
Shepherd’s Pie (Lincolnshire)
Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding (Yorkshire)
Bangers & Mash/Cumberland sausage (Northumbria)
Steak & Kidney pudding
Clanger (Bedfordshire)
Grouse (Scotland)
Pan Haggerty (Tyneside)

FISH
Jellied Eels (Essex/London)
Potted Shrimp (Northumbria)
Manx Kippers (Isle of Man)
Cromer Crab (Norfolk)
Stargazey Pie (Cornwall)
Fish & Chips (North Yorkshire)
Smoked Salmon (Scotland)

PUDDINGS
Spotted Dick
Sherry Trifle
Pond Pudding (Sussex)
Cranachan (Scotland)


NEW ARRIVALS
Chopped Liver (London)
Curry Goat/Jerk Chicken (Birmingham)
Curry/Balti/Chicken Tikka Masala ( West Yorkshire)

SNACKS
Dules (Northern Ireland)
Welsh Rarebit (Wales)
Piccalilli (London)
Pork Scratchings (West Midlands)
Pork Pie (Nottinghamshire)
Cornish Pasty (Cornwall)
Cheddar Cheese/ Ploughman’s Lunch (Somerset)
Bacon Butty (London)

JUST PLAIN WEIRD
Deep Fried Mars bars/Pizza/Anything (Scotland)
Laver Bread (Wales)
Blackpool Rock (Lancashire)

DRINKS
Scrumpy Cider (Somerset)
Beer (Derbyshire)
Gin & Tonic (London)
Guinness (Ireland)

It’s not definitive and there are more than 50 dishes here as some will no doubt fall by the wayside. However, if anyone has any great suggestions, wants to invite me to share in something they make or produce or simply wants to join part of the journey, please do contact me via the Facebook group I have created for the trip

The book will be published by John Murray in 2010 and of course I shall be posting about my experiences here on Dos Hermanos.

ALBION: NO PERFIDY IN THE 'DITCH

In truth December is not a great time for visiting restaurants. The presence of big parties of loud-mouthed diners wearing funny hats palls somewhat and when it’s not French tourists then one has to contend with the British Office Party Outing. Why, in heaven’s name, would anyone spend an evening in the company of people they've spent a whole year avoiding in any sort of social setting ? Beats me.

Luckily, before our visit to new gaff Albion, HS had the wizard idea of popping in to Lounge Bohemia, an oasis of sanity in our nabe and bereft of any bad behaviour (shouting, being an arse, putting feet on the table - that sort of thing). After some inventive and pleasingly strong cocktails we pimp-walked our way up to Redchurch Street - currently the hippest street in London (and hence the known World).

I’m not sure how much Tel, sorry Sir Terence Conran, still owns of the D&D group to which he sold his restaurant portfolio, but the manager at Albion was very keen to emphasise that this was wholly a Conran operation. It’s an ambitious mix of restaurants, deli and hotel of which only the ground floor canteen and shop are up and running.

Of course all this matters naught to Dos Hemanos (that’s us) who are just looking for a good meal and despite mixed experiences at Conran joints in the past we were pretty impressed with our meal.

Albion has an uncomplicated menu of what is essentially British short-order cooking but what initially stood out for us were the reasonable prices – there’s nothing over a tenner. This could have translated into cost cutting in the quality of the ingredients, poor cooking or miniscule portions. It could have but didn’t.

Bread was homemade and good and yeasty. Over a bottle of Meantime Pale Ale we munched on a plate of excellent Pork Crackling. So excellent in fact that we had to have another.

Welsh Rabbit was probably the weakest dish. It needed a bit more Cheese and perhaps some extra mustard to give it some oomph. However, a salad of Beets and Goats Curd was perfectly judged: nicely dressed, tasty beets and a superior mix of interesting leaves.

Devilled Kidneys was a decent pile of the organ which had that slight whiff of the farmyard, ma non troppo. They were nice and pink inside and came in a good gravy that had us engaged in an unseemly scrap to mop up the juices (it was ever thus).

I was even more impressed with my Skirt Steak and Chips. The portion was a little petit for avowed carnivores like ourselves but the taste was great: Offaly and requiring a little extra effort to chew - a much underrated virtue and a good contrast when much food seems to be designed for people without teeth.

Chips were proper.

The fact that the cooking was pretty clean and non-greasy meant we could indulge in a couple of puds (ok – we would have had them anyway). HS’s crumble was the winner here. A bowl of Apple and Blackberry crumble was textbook stuff and came with a big spoon of clotted cream. Homemade Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream was not the best I’d ever had but did the job (of fulfilling my daily ice cream quota). Coffee was (like everything else) sensibly priced and much better than the tepid, brown, swill that’s usually dished up.

With friendly and efficient service and bottles of HP Sauce on the table we couldn’t really find anything to quibble about and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I really can’t say any more so I’ll just shut up now and let you enjoy the pics.

THE ENGINEER: PASSABLE PUB GRUB IN PRIMROSE HILL

I hate fat chips. I just bleedin’ hate them. I hate them with a passion normally only reserved for Jamie Oliver and Martin Amis.

There is nothing positive to be said about fat chips. They usually still have their skins on, which is just lazy on the part of the cooks, they don’t get crisp enough on the outside and the insides are often undercooked too. They are one of the great horrors of British food and yet, many restaurants proclaim them with pride on their menus as if being unable to make a decent chips is a badge of honour.

At The Engineer in Primrose Hill, they call them “Baker Fries” which means nothing to me except that the Bakers must not have been very nice people as these were some of the nastiest chips I can recall eating in a very long time indeed. A great shame, because the rest of my simple and quick lunch proved to be perfectly passable, if hardly memorable.

My original choice of a pre-meeting lunch was going to be Sardo Canale until I realised that, like 90% of the other restaurants in Primrose Hill, it was closed on Monday lunchtime. So, spotting empty spaces in the dining room of The Engineer across the road, I ducked in and took a table in the corner where I could play with my new Blackberry Storm in peace and quiet.

A starter of Caesar Salad was well priced at £4 and, while no chefs were harmed in its making, I have had a lot worse versions.

Much of the menu is an odd confusion of ingredients “Salmon with Chorizo and Carrot Raita” anyone? No, I thought not and (irony alert) much as the idea of a baked Dolcelatte Cheesecake appealed, I put aside the thought of how much beef I had been eating recently and ordered an organic hamburger as it was the one dish that did not come with a mismatched and ill judged ingredient.

It did however come with those fat chips, which after trying one or two in the name of research, I pushed to the side of my plate to sit looking on like a fat kids on sports day. The burger itself was not bad. Very, very good beef served rare and with a lovely char, just enough toppings and the perfect bread bun toasted to just the right level. A side of coleslaw too was well made, but my eyes kept being drawn back to those damn chips.

It’s not cheap and with a well kept and poured pint of St Peter’s Golden Ale at £3.40 a pop, the bill came to £23, which included a charge for service that could not have been more charming if it walked around with a book balanced on its head.

The Engineer is hardly a destination restaurant but, if you are in the area, particularly on a Monday when every other bugger is closed, it’s worth dipping into. Just don’t order the chips.

SUNDAY LUNCH: IN THE PUDDING CLUB

In honour of my new book project, to be announced next week, Sunday lunch this week was that most classic of British dishes, the steak & kidney pudding.

Taking the advice of the good people at McKenna's Butchers on Theobald's Road, I used lamb kidneys rather than the more pungent Ox kidneys and, taking a tip that HP had gleaned from Martin Blunos, I also added a quarter teaspoon of turmeric to the pastry mix to add colour to the suet crust.

To the beef, I added a pouch of beef stock, some fresh thyme and for extra unctuousness, some of Fergus Henderson's Trotter Gear I had lingering in the freezer before layering the meat with sliced onions in the suet lined pudding basin.

It is a perfect dish for days like these and well worth the five (yep five) hours of steaming it took in a large pan sitting on an upturned bowl. We passed the time with the Sunday papers and a bottle of Young's Christmas Pudding beer.

The end result was very tasty indeed and we polished it off in short order. Although, despite looking like it would remain upright, the fact that the pudding began to decline gloriously like the sinking Graf Spee soon after being turned out, suggested that I may well have rolled the pastry out a tad on the thin side.

Still, with some mashed swede and sweet potato to mop up the juices that flooded out once the pudding was pierced, and some buttered greens it is a dish I may well be returning to before Winter is done.

THE LAUGHING HALIBUT: FIRST FISH & CHIPS FOR LEX

No apologies for another post about Fish & Chips, indeed, when has there ever been any apologies from DH for posting about Fish & Chips?

In this instance, however, my reasons were born not just of greed and desire for deep-fried goodness but because I had been given the task of introducing my young friend, Lex to the wonderful world of Britain’s favourite food.

Those of you who have been reading along for a while will recognise Lex as the irrepressible student I encountered on my trip to Kuala Lumpur. Now, she is in London and as well as putting her in touch with someone to give her a job and a roof over her head, she demanded I take her for her first fried fish experience.

The Laughing Halibut in Strutton Ground, Victoria has been on the radar for a while, and when we bundled in at Midday from the sheeting rain outside, the place was just getting ready for business.

Being informed that our order of cod & chips, haddock & chips and mushy peas would take at least ten minutes to prepare was a good sign of fresh cooking and I took the opportunity to drag Lex up to the fryer to see the fillets being battered and dipped into the hot oil.

The end result was not bad at all. Not the best in London by some stretch, that honour still remains with Masters Superfish in Waterloo, but not bad. The chips were fresh and crunchy and I instructed Lex in the fine art of vinegar dousing. The peas were suitably sludgy and the fish was cooked properly. Only the batter disappointed. It was crisp, but the mix was too thick so it had not bubbled to an airy crunch and had a soft under layer.

It didn’t seem to put Lex off and she declared her first experience of fish & chips to be a positive thing, including her introduction to pickled onions and eggs. Me? I would put this a notch below the very best in town, below Masters, The Golden Hind and my recent visit to The Golden chip Bar but mark it down as worthy of a revisit. In DH terms, that’s not faint praise and not a bad way for Lex to begin her own noble quest for the perfect Fish & Chips.