Gastronom Nom Nom

Mmm, that tastes rice.

2009-11-27T22:59:00.003Z

I have to admit that as soon as the cold weather starts to set in, and the nights are longer I don't start thinking about buying winter coats and buying Christmas presents.

I start thinking about all the wonderfully warming food I can cook. Stews, pies, puddings. All those winter warmers full of flavour and wonderful carbs.

My housemates recently came back from Mexico, and as a thank you for looking after their frankly, huge, collection of reptiles, they brought me back a vast amount of Mexican vanilla pods.

I love vanilla, but the drawback is its expense, and as such, it tends to get left for special occasions only.

So I decided to combine the two and put together a vanilla rice pud. The pictures don't really do it justice, but those bubbles of creamy vanilla deliciousness breaking through the skin (I'm afraid I'm a skin off person - it kind of makes me feel a bit ill thinking about it) were just too much to resist. The pudding didn't last very long in the fridge anyway.

I also knocked up a nectarine coulis with some sad-looking fruits that were about to go in the bin. It made a lip-smacking accompaniment.

Now...for some more vanilla inspiration.

The Cake Isn't A Lie

2009-11-14T22:00:00.007Z

When I first moved here, I was broke (this still hasn't changed), and needed presents for both of my housemates, as their birthdays inconveniently and expensively fall on exactly the same day.

So I did what I do best, and put my baking head on. I decided I would bake them a batch of cupcakes each.

Kate likes cherries and pink things, so the logical decision was to make her cherry cakes. This was fairly easy.

Now onto Andy. Andy likes meat. He could live his life on steak and nothing else. He runs his own meat forum, that's how much he likes meat...but how to incorporate meat and cakes?

Simples!

Yes. I made him some burgers entirely out of cake. The buns are regular cupcakes cut in half, with the top of a chocolate cupcake as the burger. The rest is filled in with royal icing cheese, lettuce and tomato, and all together held by raspberry jam. A sprinkle of sesame seeds finished the burger cakes nicely.

...so much tastier than McDonalds too.

Dim Sum (Don't) Like It Hot

2009-11-07T23:43:00.006Z

A friend of mine was down from Manchester over the week, as she was taking her staff to some sort of conference where men who've made a lot of money give morale-boosting speeches to eccentrics in mismatched suits.

This is largely irrelevant anyway, but what was relevant is that she offered to take me out for dinner on the firm's expenses. Which was nice.

One of our group had heard about a dim sum place, so off we headed to Ping Pong, on the South Bank.

The place looked rammed, and we were lucky to get a table for 7 at 9pm, even though it was a weeknight, but they kindly managed to fit us in.

None of us had ever been before, and our friendly waiter Steve told us how to order. It's something of a DIY thing, and he recommended 4-5 dishes each (though this should come with a caveat to only order this many if you're SUPER hungry, or you really just like eating). You mark off how many of which dish you would like on a list.

Unfortunately there were no soups. Or dishes in clay pots. Or some of the seafood dishes. Our waiter spent a good minute crossing off dishes from our ordering paper before we could even start. Not so great.

Ordering when in a group of 7 is somewhat of a task. People shouting over various dish names and numbers makes for an arduous task of trying to get them all down, but I guess that's part of the fun.

The food comes quickly, and you soon realise the mammoth amounts of scran that you've actually ordered. When you're in such a large group, there's really no point in attempting to claim the dishes you ordered for yourself. It's more of a 'shove it on the table and let everyone get stuck in' type of thing.

The first I tried was a pork puff, which disappointingly, looked and tasted just like a miniature pasty from Greggs (from what I can remember...I may be a Northerner, but Greggs food makes me want to chuck), so not the best start.

I then tried a piece of smoked duck with a piquant oriental dressing, and while I love duck, it was just pretty vile, but perhaps it's just my tastes. It was the only thing left on the table at the end of the evening though, which says something.

Seafood dumpling was next, which is prawns and scallops in a pastry made of carrots. However that works. But work it does. It was really delicious and light too, though no carroty hints in the slightest.

Then it was time for the black prawn dumpling, which was king prawn, mushrooms and garlic butter wrapped in black pastry. A friend and I tried these at the same time, and it was mostly a gelatinous mush, which was difficult to swallow due to the intense amounts of (clearly) raw garlic that was in there. But no matter, I then tried a rabbit dumpling, which seemed odd on the menu, and the taste of rabbit just isn't cut out for Chinese. Though I guess we already knew that when we ordered it. It also packed a mighty spicy kick that none of us were prepared for.

There were also some pretty bog-standard duck spring rolls, crab spring rolls, prawn toasts and ribs. The star of the night goes to the char sui bun (pictured above). The pork was just delicious, and the fluffy white bun was unbelievably moreish. These were definitely the favourites of most of the table, but to be fair, there wasn't actually that much competition.

A minor gripe that was addressed was the lack of dipping sauces that don't contain chilli. I'm not a massive chilli fan, nor was another member of our party, and she asked for some sauces that weren't chilli-based, as the ones that came as standard are chilli sauce and chilli oil. They kindly brought some tamarind, sweet and sour and soy-based sauces to us aswell.

One major gripe, however, was a horrific stench of egg that wafted our way every so often. It became a source of amusement as we tried to guess whether it was a particular waiter, a member of bar staff (as we were sat right next to the bar), the dishwasher, or a leaky drain. We never found out what it was, but it wasn't particularly pleasant to have to sniff every now and again.

The final bill came to £194, for 7 of us, with 3 bottles of wine. I'm just glad I didn't pay. The food and the smell had left us with rather bad tastes in our mouths.

We all want some figgy pudding

2009-11-04T21:22:00.005Z

Autumn is a great time for veg. Everyone always bangs on about the joy of butternut squash, aubergines and parsnips (including me), but I can't help think that most people are missing out on one of the most amazing Autumn fruits ever.

Just the mere mention of a fig is likely to have your friend running for the hills, because most peoples' experience of them are in their dried, mushed-to-hell, and frankly, disgusting, format.

I wish I could hold some sort of fig rally to get people to taste just how delicious, and 'un-figgy' a delicious, purple, plump, fresh fig actually is.

But that's probably taking it a little bit too far.

Figs are great just on their own, or in a green salad with a squeeze of balsamic glaze. And yes, they are notoriously good for the, ahem, digestive system. They'll certainly make you regular if you eat enough of them.

ALL HAIL THE FIG! (First person to mention fig rolls gets a punch in the chops)

Chocolate Balls

2009-11-02T22:41:00.003Z

If you're anything like me, you'll hate the October Christmas hype, whether they're trying to flog us sofas or party frocks, it just does my bonce in.

This year, the tinsel-laden-jumbo-tins-of-Roses-aisle in Tesco has done itself justice with the return of the Terry's Snowball for sale to those who haven't got the time to go out on various recon missions to the Outer Realms of Space and Time in search of one.

In years gone by, the hallowed white chocolate orange has only been available around Christmas, and was only ever for sale in Woolies, until they decided to go into administration.

After numerous Google searches came up with nothing, I'd resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to see the white chocolate orange again. Until this year.

And BOGOF too.

Not very good for diets, but who cares?

Good Greek!

2009-11-02T00:21:00.000Z

As any new Londoner soon discovers, your mother will want to visit pretty sharpish.

I had this to look forward to over the weekend, and with it comes the motherly duties of taking me out to dinner, which frankly, I'm not going to complain about.

I'd found out about Vrisaki via the Urbanspoon app for the iPhone. It lives in the fairly unassuming and innocuous Bounds Green area of London (which is handy, as that's where I also happen to live).

We turned up at 7 on a Friday night, which was our first mistake, as we hadn't made a reservation. Bellies rumbling, we were unfortunately turned away, but not without a booking for Sunday.

As almost every review will tell you, Vrisaki is located in a fairly suburban row of shops - the entrance of which is a kebab shop, but nestled in the back is a wonderful (and surprisingly roomy) Greek-Cypriot taverna.

We walked past full tables of Greek-looking families, and it soon became apparent that menus were not going to be needed. Vrisaki is noted for its magnificent meze, and it certainly seemed to be the order of the evening.

The meze, which is £18 per head, is simply astonishing. We were very quickly served with the cold starters, which involved plates of prawn, octupus, salad, lentils, beans, deliciously minty tzatziki, garlic potatoes, fat radishes and the most heavenly houmous, amongst others.

As soon as you're done, the next course is laid out in front of you, which included a selection of smoked fish, and plump coldwater prawns

The food just keeps coming. Salty grilled halloumi and mushrooms. A whole sea bream and fat garlic chargrilled prawns. Deliciously light calamari and tartare sauce.

By the time the final meat course appeared, we were grateful that there was an end in sight, but there was still room for the pork kebab and half a quail, accompanied by the most perfectly dressed Greek salad (with obligatory feta) you will ever eat.

Although we had both lustily dribbled slightly at the dessert trolley when entering the restaurant, there was just no way either of us could manage one, despite the mouth-watering profiteroles, tiramisu or pistachio ice-cream.

We left with a decidedly bargainacious £50 bill, full bellies and a feeling that we never wanted to see food ever again.

The staff were friendly, helpful and keen to see that we enjoyed ourselves, and we certainly did, surrounded by a buzzing atmosphere and great food.

Go with an empty stomach, expandable trousers and some indigestion remedies.