This month’s pick is a flavourful number! Available from Berry Bros & Rudd for £15.50 per single bottle, 2009 Juliénas, Les Paquelets Vieilles Vignes, Domain Eve & Michel Rey is a feisty Beaujolais demanding of taste bud attention. Dark and fruity with some punch to it, the 2009 Juliénas silkily coats the tongue and hangs about awhile for the palate to enjoy it fully.
Perfectly downable on its own but could be a carnivores best friend in liquid form, I’m thinking this slightly peppered, mildly oak-y Pouilly Fuissé red would be a fine companion for a robust Cuban smoke. Now where’s that cigar I’ve been saving for a special occasion?
For product details and more, visit Berry Bros & Rudd online at www.bbr.com or stop by their shop at 3 St James’s Street, SW1A 1EG.
Bringing street food to an upscale(ish) takeaway counter at Liverpool Street, NOW offers quick and easy (and rather inexpensive) food “inspired by the food stalls and street stands of Southern China”. Londonist commuted over for a sample of their fare and were pleased with what we tried. Vegetable and black bean rice pot (£3.89), classic dim sum basket (£3.99) and salmon and noodle salad (£4.69) all seemed generously portioned and well priced. A side dish of seafood sticky rice (two for £.2.99) was delish!
Dishoom‘s morning menu pleased us immensely as well: best cuppa chai you’re apt to find in town (or around Leicester Square anyway), awesome but not overwhelmingly lengthy list of items, friendly service, comfy booths … and lots of delectable etcs! Indeed, we now reckon a reasonable facsimile of happiness is a sausage naan roll with chilli jam and coriander (£3.50). And a delicious breakfast lassi (£3.20) is filling enough to last most people until lunch.
A quid and 20 pence affords you a more than ample fistful of takeaway chips from this Clerkenwell mainstay. There’s a large portion available for £1.80 as well. The chips are chunky, thick and golden – firm on the outside, kinda fluffy on the inside. Although, any bag o’ these tuber-iffic babies will invariably include an assortment of crisp little fried up shards and bits.
Newly opened in Farringdon where the Frenchily swish St Germain brasserie used to be, Redhook is a seafood and steak resto owned by the Rushmore group (Milk & Honey, Giant Robot and The East Room). With its cushy seats and divine lighting, this surf-n-turfer’s eclectic dining area is a pleasant enough space to find yourself settling in for a nice meal. We just wish our meal there last night had been a lot nicer.
This weekend, Tom Aikens will be on hand cooking at the Cloudy Bay Shack (a kitted out airstream pop-up thingy). Parked at Parsons Green for Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 8pm, the “shack” will no doubt be the source for a queue of folks seeking quality seafood paired with crisp New Zealand wines … at decent prices too (£4.50-£6.50 or £8.50 per dish when paired with wine). During our recent visit with Tom at his Chelsea kitchen, Londonist sampled his dishes for this event (we’re still raving about his crayfish tails and watermelon salad). Based on what we tasted, we reckon that should the weather hold queueing up for Tom’s summery fare would be well worth considering. Here are some highlights from our chat with Tom.
I’ve gotta get my act together and figure out my holidays to America for the next year or so. I’ve been going on and on about New York and San Francisco – a little about Canada too – but what I’ve really gotta do is book a flight to Atlanta, Georgia to spend time with my mom in December. I skipped Christmas in Dixie last year and don’t want to miss out on that down home family vibe again. And I really can’t afford to wait so long that I end up paying some extortionist fee to fly down there from London!
This year has flown by. I can’t get my head around the fact that it’s already July. And can you believe Selfridges in Oxford Street is going to start its Christmas trading as early as the 2nd of August? And as I’m writing this post, an email about London’s “Taste fo Christmas” just appeared in my inbox. It really does start earlier and earlier each year. Ugh.
But, yeah, I’m looking forward to a week or so back in Georgia: eating Mom’s cooking, catching up with old friends, stuff like that. I’m perfectly content with the notion that I’ll most likely never live there again, but it’s sure nice to visit and take a walk along the train tracks, remembering all the hi jinx and antics I got up to in my youth. But first – I must book that flight!
A couple of weeks ago I was blathering on about doing the Disney Florida Holidays thing as a kid and how salient the memories from that trip still are in my mind. Since writing that post, I’ve been a little more aware of how all pervasive and lasting Walt Disney’s vision has proven. Such ubiquity was particularly noted when I helped host a screening of the Disney/Pixar flick Toy Story 3 at Apollo Cinema last week. The screening brought out 160 people to see the movie – all of whom were adults save for a very few kids. It’s great (and, I suppose, important) to connect with that “inner child” and helping us do that is what Disney does best.
Connecting with my inner young’un and reminiscing about visiting Florida when I was little has brought about a recollection of a bizarre character I encounter on that trip: the Florida Orange Bird. Created by Disney as a marketing tool for the Florida Citrus Growers, Florida Orange Bird was a small bird with an orange for a head and leaves for wings and a tail, which may sound like some sort of mutant monster but I assure you it was ultra cute and adorably dinky.
Having seen TV commercials featuring the bird before the trip and a slew of Orange Bird billboards on the family drive down to Orlando when I was four years old, I half expected to see him fluttering about when my family stopped at an orange grove for a glass of fresh of OJ. I asked my mom where the Orange Bird could be and was crushed when she broke the news to me that this feathery fruity dude was just a cartoon. I really wanted there to be a bird with a fruit head. Oh well, luckily back then (1976), there was a Sunshine Tree Terrace concession at Disney World where someone dressed up in a Florida Orange Bird costume shook my hand and offered my a drink of orange juice in a container shaped like a giant orange. It didn’t make up for the fact that hybrid bird/plant creatures did not exist but it made me a happy boy anyway.
Perfect for a romantic date for two, a family outing or gathering of friends and colleagues, the Doubletree’s Punting and Picnic Packages are available to both guests and non-residents, with each punt accommodating between two and 12 passengers.
Did our recent Chefspective interview with Alfred Prasad, Executive Chef of Tamarind, leave you hankering for quality Indian cuisine but fretful about splashing out at his Michelin starred Mayfair restaurant? A more affordable option might be Tamarind’s sister restaurant, Imli. Located in Soho, Imli offers “tapas style” Indian dishes at a fraction of the price of Tamarind. Trained at Tamarind, Imli’s Executive Chef Samir Sadekar gives us the low down about what to expect at his Wardour Street restaurant.
Bánh mì are Franco-Vietnamese baguette sandwiches made with thinly sliced pickled carrots and daikon, cucumbers, coriander, chilli peppers, pâté, mayonnaise and an assortment of meats or tofu. A number of eateries selling these Saigon sarnies have sprouted up in London as of late. A few of my faves are Panda Panda, Banh Mi Bay and Banh Mi 11. Here’s the lowdown on these three cheap-n-cheerful baguette busters.
Open to the public today, Dishoom is an idealized version of a traditional Irani Cafe (see Dishoom’s rather thoughtful blog post for more about that). Decidedly stuck in mid century India without any pesky cobwebs and doing a fine job at staying just this side of kitsch, it’s a themed restaurant that Londonist can imagine visiting time and time again. But not just for the distilled Bombay ambience.
Londonist popped round for last night’s opening party of the second location of Benito’s Hat. Near Covent Garden, this shiny new joint offers a comfy spot to grab a quick bite of Mexican inspired food and to have a refreshing drink.
A recent London visit from Colum Egan, Master Distiller at Bushmills Whiskey in Northern Ireland, presented an excellent opportunity for a quick Q&A about what sets his whiskey apart and how Colum came to hold such a tasty role ensuring the quality of this 400 year spirit.
Obviously, Bastille Day is a big deal in France with lots of festivities throughout the country, but if you can’t catch the Eurostar to be there on the 14th yet still are keen for a scrumptious excuse to ponder the wonders of Franco freedom, the two London branches of Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote are offering a week’s worth of specials that should have your taste buds cheering “VIVA LA FRANCE!” or at least “viva la French food”.
