Friday, 27 November 2009

The Shepherdess

At the risk of making this blog sound like I'm a total calorie-fiend, I'm going to describe a true gem of a greasy spoon where I had lunch today.
The Shepherdess Cafe on City Road/Shepherdess Walk is the real deal, an authentically retro caff that made me feel all warm and smiley. It's got a slightly chalet feel to it, and I really loved the painted-on curtains in the windows. I mean, how often do you actually see painted-on furnishings? 

Inside, the cafe has a really lively, cheerful, busy vibe. As you go in the door (which ain't that easy if there's a queue at the sweetie counter), you realise this is the genuine article: the faded-looking photos in the frames, the red table tops, the amazing green roofing decorating the servery area... It's a proper caff, with old-school, slightly mad decor and real character because of it.
Ok, so what about the food? I asked for mugs of tea as we sat down, and they arrived before I'd even got my coat off. I hadn't had any breakfast so went for a full-on fry up - even though it included chips, which I've always thought is a slightly strange and unnecessary addition to a fried breakfast - while my not-so-hungry companion had an avocado and bacon bap. He used to come to the Shepherdess all the time for lunch and this sarnie was his favourite thing to order. When it arrived, I could see why: the wholemeal bun was huge, for a start; the bacon was freshly cooked, and the sliced avocado ripe and generous, like it had literally just been scooped out of its shell and plonked in. The plate was garnished with three chips.

My breakfast was epic, a crammed plateful of the kind that keeps you full all day. I like baked beans to be soft and slightly mushy, a consistency that can only really be got from excessive cooking. Tick. Surprisingly good quality bacon, not too salty either. Tick. Crunchy, light, gorgeous chips. Tick. (So maybe they are a good addition after all.)

The Shepherdess - I say yes. I can't wait to go back.

Sunday, 22 November 2009

Chinatown

My favourite restaurants in Chinatown are, without doubt, Chuen Cheng Ku (CCK) and HK Diner. The former, because I love its dim sum trolleys, and the latter, because it's open late and it's the best place for a post-club pile of noodles with friends. This week I've been to both, although only eaten in one (the queue at HK was just too long for us after a night out in Soho). 
CCK didn't disappoint. It was quiet - I guess that's Tuesday lunchtime for you - which meant we had a pretty much continuous stream of waitresses asking if we'd like any of the dishes on their trolleys. 
I hit the dumplings hard, as I always do, plus there were yam rolls, exceptionally sweet char siu buns and a very salty bowl of duck and noodle broth. The big dining hall with its chandeliers was as Chinatown-glam as ever, and this time we had a table right next to the dragon with the red light-bulb eyes.

King's Cross Road

I eat out a lot - probably more than I should – so it seems about time I put some restaurant-talk on this blog. My freelance job as a restaurant reviewer has given me lots of opportunities to sample fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) food around London, but sometimes the best, and most atmospheric, restaurants are ones friends suggest, or places I stumble upon randomly.
King’s Cross Road is the last place I thought I’d find a hidden gem of a restaurant, but so it was when, sopping wet on a rainy Thursday night, my boyfriend and I stumbled into the Paolina Thai Café to meet a friend of ours.
It was said friend’s suggestion to meet there, and unless I’d been looking for it, I probably would have missed Paolina’s altogether. Inside, the café has the frankly amazing décor of a Seventies sauna, with wood-panelled walls and retro furniture. There are a few two-seater tables and the open kitchen in the front of the restaurant when you walk in, and watching the women frying noodles in a huge wok got our stomachs rumbling as we waited for our table.
Paolina is a bargain for several reasons. Firstly, most of the dishes cost less than £6, and secondly, you can bring your own bottle of whatever, thus only having to pay a very small corkage fee. Our favourites were prawn Pad Thai, a simple take on the dish with a good number of butterflied, juicy tail-on prawns and sweetly spicy fried rice noodles, and the red chicken curry was lovely too: rather runny, but creamy, hot and fragrant.
The fact that all the tables were occupied, and immediately re-filled by waiting punters, shows that Paolina’s must have a pretty good following. Its dark, warm back room with its formica tabletops and electric heaters was full throughout the evening, and we arrived pretty late. I loved its old-school look and its smallness, and the fact that three of us ate to fullness for under £20. I didn’t think you could eat out properly in London that cheaply nowadays: time warp indeed.

Hot stuff

I was given a big bagful of hot green and orange chillies last week, and the excess quantity got me thinking: how best to preserve them?
I turned to the interweb for help and found a surprising number of sites dedicated entirely to the love of chillies (personal favourite: www.chillies-down-under.com). The options for dealing with surplus peppers seemed endless: pickling, preserving in brine or oil, air drying, freezing, turning them into various sauces, chutneys and preserves… 
In the end I decided to try a simple chutney recipe. It was my first go at pickling and most recipes recommended using pickling vinegar to avoid discolouration.

Once the chillies were deseeded, chopped, washed and ready (there were about 15-20 of them), they went into my biggest pan along with three chopped onions, seven tablespoons of dark brown sugar, a teaspoon of garam masala, and a litre of water. With the lid on, I boiled them for about 30 minutes, then chucked in 200ml of pickling vinegar, and simmered with the lid off for another 30 minutes until the mixture had reduced by about two thirds.


The end result was a seriously fragrant front room – it still smells of gherkins, as do I – and a large bottle of hot, spicy, sweet chilli chutney. Sterilising the bottle was the most annoying part of the process (boiling and baking it, while trying not to burn yourself, is no easy task) but there’s something quite satisfying about having made something edible on my first go. Women’s Institute, here I come.