Lazeez, Duke Street

In the run up to Christmas shopping becomes an inevitability for all, and for those of us braving the Oxford Street rush after work, it’s imperative to have a contingency plan for dinner. Somewhere to relax and drop the bags, somewhere warm and friendly, somewhere with damn good food. Enter Lazeez on Duke Street. This recently opened Labanese restaurant is right behind Selfridges, so it’s bound to be popular. Meaning tasty, Lazeez focusses on small middle eastern sharing plates, which I thought were meze, but Lazeez is calling tapas.

Despite this word foible the food was very good, the ingredients fresh and according to the owner are sourced from Lebanon. We ordered a mixed meze (sorry, tapas) of shawawrma chicken and lamb, creamy humous, herby tabbouleh, excellent sarma vine leaves and well-seasoned, crispy falafel. To accompany this we chose a brimming, smokey mutabel dip – the star of the show.

After scoffing it all down, and wiping up the last remaining smears of delicious aubergine with fresh-baked breads, we went in for some baklava, the crispy, nutty mini pastries served usually with mint tea. If you can brave the winter chill there is shisha available under the heated lamps outside,  but we opted to try some Lebanese wine instead, which we were assured by our waiter was the only wine in the world which wouldn’t result in a hangover. Whether it was the fact that we’d only had one glass of the rich, velvety red, or that his claims were true, a hangover did not come the following morning. Instead I was left with a craving for more of Lazeez’s on-the-button meze, I mean tapas.

Hub Box, Exeter

It’s my birthday! Well it was, this weekend just passed, and how did I celebrate? With food of course!

I went home for the weekend to a very wet Exeter and delved into a brand new foody venture recommended to me by the lovely Chris from Eating Exeter. Hub Box is owned by a few guys who hail from Cornwall and as well as two Hubs past the Devon border there is now the Exeter location, the biggest of the three. The basic premise is American diner, but with a British design twist, think open red-brick walls painted with cartoon food murals, seating and tables made out of clap board and replica vintage signage fashioned from clap board remnants, stencils and back-lighting. The hub for which I assume the place is named is a large shipping container-turned kitchen in the centre of the dining area. It’s small in here, seating for about 25 at a push, and as a result there is no bookings system, just first come first served attitude, which rather befits the place. The menu too is small, but for good reason; Hub Box specialises in diner fare done big and done well, if you don’t leave with BBQ sauce slathered on your chops I can imagine the guys here would be disappointed.

We had the Big Kahoona burger, a double helping of juicy beef patty loaded with dribbling pulled pork and a cloud-like brioche bun. The Mack Daddy mackerel burger was equally impressive and came not coated with breadcrumbs (a relief for me) but with a huge dollop of tart horseradish may, sweet beets and a pickled cucumber. We shared three sides of skin-on fries, slaw and a genius dish called Burnt Beans, consisting of paprika-smoked refried beans rolling with strips of butter-soft slow-cooked pork ends – I could have eaten a whole meal of that side dish alone.

I can’t fault the food at this place, the meat was local and not an ounce of fat or sinew could be found in teeth. The sides were split between us in separate dishes, perfect for my Joey-doesn’t-share-food companion, the staff are also welcoming lovely chaps who clearly adore their jobs and care a lot about food and their venture. Next on the cards is a move to Bristol they tell me, thought they are wary of taking the Hub to the big smoke just yet. For me the independent ventures are always the best, and Exeter residents could all do well to avoid the chains and make a beeline for Hub Box instead.

Cedar, Merton High Street

We had planned a romantic dinner, a long-awaited trip to acclaimed Bombay restaurant Dishoom. Joe (who was visiting for the weekend) and I had planned to brave the gale force winds and tumbling rain on Saturday night to feast on fine Indian fare. In the end a trip to our favourite Lebanese just down the road won over.

Food writers generally eschew reviews of their favourite local dining room for fear, I suppose, that it will no longer be just theirs, but everyone else’s as well. Me? I’ve never been much good at keeping secrets, so I’ll share mine with you.

Cedar on Merton High Street is the kind of place you go when you don’t want to go out. It’s cosy, there are cushions and the staff are on first name terms with their customers. So the décor may be a little Laurence of Arabia and there are palm trees in the middle of the room but the food and the service really is worth it.

We order smoky moutabel, a char-grilled aubergine dip served with fresh-baked Lebanese bread (a kind of thinner, lighter pitta cut into strips), lemony vine leaves, kallaj bread which came stuffed with halloumi and mint and cooked on the char-grill. Makanek sausages were also brought over, rolled lamb and pine kernel bites lolling in a juice of garlic and lemon. We shared a recurring favourite of farrouj mussahab, a spatchcock chicken char-grilled  in a marinade so simple and delicious it could be reason we return here time after time. On the menu the marinade description is disappointingly basic,  but perhaps like a food writer, the chefs at Cedar prefer to keep some things sacred.

The Rusty Bike, Exeter

When I told my brother last week that I was going to ask a meat-obsessed restaurant to cater for my vegetarian Mum’s palate he wished me good luck and hung up on me. I’d offered to book somewhere for dinner on Saturday night to celebrate Mum’s birthday, and I’d be damned if she had to settle for a dull and unimaginative plate of of stuffed peppers or butternut squash risotto for the zillionth time. Having been meat-free for over 10 years she’s suffered myriad boring vegetarian options in Exeter because, with the exception of Herbies on North Street, there really isn’t much choice when it comes to the smaller independent places, even the ones that do exist often rely on the same half-hearted offerings usually involving a lot of pasta, rice, sauce or all of the above.

So when I contacted the Rusty Bike last week to request the unrequestable, I was shocked to receive an email reply saying that the chef would be happy to prepare an entire bespoke menu especially for the birthday girl. Even more incredulous was I to learn that not only does the Rusty Bike specialise in the cooking of meat, but has its very own hunting team to go out and get it.

“We think doing it this way is actually much more humane than ordering-in bulk buy meat,” general manager Paul told me on our arrival. “Most bulk-bought meat has had a terrible life and has been frozen or travelled the length and breadth of the country before we see it. Here we go out to hunt for food  the week ahead and as a result our menus are planned around what we’ve managed to catch.”

I’m not surprised this trend for catching what you cook has surfaced of late, after a summer celebrating hedgerow finds at restaurants like Noma in Copenhagen and Michael Smith’s Pothminster Beach Café in St Ives, menus and epicureans all over the world are getting more involved in the process of sourcing their produce, and for the locavores among us this is great news.

The Rusty Bike interior is no bad thing either. In a former life the converted townhouse near Exeter’s Prison was occupied by the Eagle Tavern, a place popular in my Mum’s college days and avoided in mine. There remains no trace of the Eagle, save for a name- toting light box which now hangs on the exposed-brick wall above our table. The Rusty Bike is both the spirit-lovers pub of choice and the foodie’s haven, with seating for around 30 in the main dining area, a collection of tables for drinking and a separate room for functions on the other side of the bar (when we dined it was burns night and the place was awash with tartan and unshaven legs.) The furniture is deliberately mismatched and everything from the wall art to the flowers on the tables and the vintage crockery adorning the shelves has a hunted-down feel, just like the menu.

What’s left of the old Eagle

Pheasant, before the chop

After an education in the varying degrees of botanicals in different gins we ordered nibbles and starters to share. Deep fried sharpham brie with homemade tomato swish, fennel seeded granary loaf with peppery butter and a canvas of beetroot, blue cheese and pickled walnuts, which satisfied both vegetarian and carnivores.

The menu is separated into two sections; ‘classic’ and ‘modern’, classic being ruby red ribeye steak, mash and wild (foraged) mushrooms, roasted pork loin, parsnips and prune sauce or fish and chips. Modern being salmon, brown crab and prawn (in two acts), Boudin of Langford lamb belly, goats cheese, kale and white anchovies and local pheasant, truffle oil mayo, partridge ham and pheasant sausages.

Intrigued by a double act of seafood I went for the salmoncrabprawns which arrived as promised, on two plates. On top the salmon was roasted to pink perfection and arrived lounging on a bed of finely chopped, salty leeks. The crab stood stage right, nestled in the soft embrace of a Chinese-style dumpling. On top of both was a halo of crispy seaweed straws and paprika dust. Plate two was a modern take on shrimp aspic, the dish spread out rather than moulded and dotted with watercress sprouts. Of the two I favoured plate one, but I’ve never been a great fan of gelatine and undoubtedly this dish would suit some more than others.

Mum, being utterly in awe of a menu made just for her, was indecisive, but eventually selected the green olive cake with honey and goats cheese, which split and melted gloriously into itself on the plate.

Throughout the meal miniature bottles of homemade pink raspberry gin were brought to the table, expected to be shot back between mouthfulls. Regular-sized gins were matched to their best accompanying mixer; Pink Sicilian lemonade with Botanicals gin, elderflower presse with Millers and tonic with cucumber for the Hendricks.

We left a good three hours after sitting down, having devoured two cheese boards between us for desert. I’d clearly recommend dinner here to anyone be you locavore, carnivore or herbivore, but do remember to ask ahead of time if you’d like to steer clear of the meaty menu, because turning up unannounced with a taste only for veg here be tantamount to blasphemy here.

Mum’s menu

oozy bree

starters

vegetarian option

shrimp aspic

double-plate surprise

trio of lamb belly

dinner

Thali Cafe, Bristol

Thali Cafe frontage

A lot of my posts of late have concerned food, so apologies if you’re in this for the travel stories because here comes another. I really couldn’t resist writing about this place Joe and I discovered whilst in Bristol lately, so although Indian restaurant Thali Cafe may be a household name to Bristolians (it’s a Bristol chain, apparently) the masses may still have been kept in the dark.
Thali Cafe started 15 years ago serving up its signature dish, the Northern Thali, on the festival circuit. The word Thali is actually the type of street food found in India involving several small, healthy dishes served on sections of a specially designed metal dish. After tasting success at the festivals, the owners decided to open the first of three restaurants in Bristol.

The Thali Cafe we visited was in Clifton, a tiny two-floored affair clinging to the corner where the road falls away to parkland on Regents Street.
The decor is a mix of kitsch art from the days of the raj and reworked school chairs and tables, leather arm chairs and open-brick walls. There are three floors; the top two for dining, with three tables each, and the bottom floor sofa-clad, perfect for meeting friends over a mango lassie. The most intriguing artwork is a large photograph of an aloof but smiling Indian gentleman whom the staff believe was incredibly rich, due to the size of the picture.

Upstairs-downstairs; the interior

For starters we shared bhel puri, a puffed rice dish served with chutney and (satisfactorily) a free kingfisher beer. For mains I chose the southern thali, a perfectly flaky, mild white fish curry served with spiced dhal, a divine roasted tomato relishy thing and a crunchy salad of cauliflower, white cabbage and cashews. Joe had the northern, which cane with the same accompaniments alongside a thick, red tandoori-baked lamb.

crunchy bhel puri with chutney, raita and a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds

Attention to detail here is key

The Thali Cafe have a series of cookery tutorials to drool over on Youtube, but if this post is making you hungry I’d recommend lovers of Indian cuisine to flock to the Thali Cafe and try this gem for themselves, because you can bet your bhel puri it won’t be staying a Bristolian secret for long.

Dartmouth Food Festival

As the rest of the UK braced itself for the almighty forces of the St. Jude’s day storm Dartmouth Food Festival said no to battening down its hatches, the foodies simply kept calm and carried on cooking. We visited Dartmouth on Sunday and the sun was still shining all the way up until 2pm when the rain threatened (unsuccessfully) to damped spirits. Perched on the cusp of the River Dart, at the mouth of the estuary, this chocolate-box town with its sail boats, traditional Tudor pubs and cobbled market streets is the perfect place for this kind of festival. Before we even entered the festival tents it became clear that seafood is the main export as well as favoured pastime of the locals. Lining the harbour were a group of boys crabbing, their buckets full with squirming crustaceans.

There were three main sections to the festival; the demonstrations zone, the tasting tents and the market square for serious chow-down potential. We wandered around in the tasting tents as you do, sampling a bit of Devon farm cheddar here, some potted crab from the Potted Fish Company there before settling on a bargain skewer of juicy king prawns cooked on a wood-fired barbecue for just £1.50.

We later headed to the demonstration tent and found pizzas being made in the stone oven by a group of local children who were taking their instruction from the head chef at the stall.

By far my favourite part of the fair was the strip of converted vintage vans that lined the harbour. Mostly selling burgers, a couple offering barista-style coffee and one a pancake vendor. Each one was kitted out in kitsch and the vendors were all dressed to match with their polka dots and pin curls.

We came away with a pack of five pies from the Wessex Pantry, a family-run pie producer based here in Devon. Tonight we tried the pheasant for tea which was slow roasted and cooked in a deliciously rich gravy – exactly what was ordered after a day of working up an almighty appetite.

Bukowski Grill, Brixton Village

credit: Yelp

Friday night in Herne Hill, I was staying with my friends the New Zealanders this weekend, who by some incredibly jammy connection had ended up renting an enormous house for next to nothing from a friend’s mother. I’ve never been to Herne Hill before, but on stepping off the overground it was clear this wasn’t anything like the London I’d become accustomed to. For a start I was greeted by classical music tumbling around the corner of the station. On closer inspection I found a girl of no more than 11 tinkling the ivories at the community piano. Around her yummy mummies strolled with well-quaffed children and young couples sipped coffee in artisan bakeries and flower shops. I regretted not being able to video the girl, as she really was very good, but my friends and dinner were waiting on me.

To feel a bit more at home we made our way to Brixton Village, and after picking up a Sol from the corner shop, strolled through the covered market checking out the menus of the pop-up restaurants which on Fridays spill out from their mini dining rooms into the marketplace.

Credit: wholesomeeducation.com

After finding an unsavoury queue at the Village’s famous pizza joint we decided on the Bukowski Grill, which offered drool-worthy pulled pork burgers, purist beef patties and all manner of sauces and marinades. Also on the menu were chips fried in beef dripping, which personally I’m a bit disenchanted with. The idea of the least savoury parts of the animal being melted into slop and used to fry my potatoes isn’t something that especially appeals, but perhaps that’s just the old vegetarian in me.We sat inside on a lime green booth table which in hindsight was not central enough, as we sat for almost 15 minutes before our drinks order was taken. When we were finally served we asked if my friend, who is still very much a vegetarian, could have his chips minus beef dripping, which it turned out was fine, because due to a shortage of schmaltz, tonight everyone’s chips were fried the regular way. Sidestepping the purist burgers I chose the smoked pulled shoulder burger, described as oak smoked and accompanied by BBQ mustard mayo, pickled gherkins, apple sauce and coleslaw in a toasted brioche bun. The vegetarian ordered the summer burger; butterbeans, garlic and chilli sautéed spinach, sunflower and pumpkin seeds with applewood smoked brie.

When our food arrived (after a lengthy wait and some reminding) our burgers were disappointingly  lacking any sauce or condiments at all, and despite the pork being really, really juicy and well flavoured it was hard to reconcile why our Waldorf coleslaw and BBQ mustard mayo wasn’t slapped on top (the apple sauce didn’t turn up even after prompting). We drank a bottle of Ottavio Rube red wine, farmed biodynamically by a totally self-sufficient Italian commune, which sounds terribly contrived but tasted smoky and sweet and perfectly complimented the pork. Also on the menu are a collection of bottled beers from the Hopdaemon brewery in Kent and some very American sounding dessert drinks including a spiked smoothie of peanut butter, banana and bourbon.

I really wanted to like Bukowski more, the food is extremely good value and the décor (bright tables and booths against exposed brick walls and florescent tube lighting) felt right for the simple and well-achieved American-English menu. Little extras like shredded and fried onions came with the pleasure of knowing that the meat and veg came locally sourced, with the exception of the ketchup (made from sweet Italian tomatoes), although much like the service, it was hard to be too bothered because it really was the best pulled pork and ketchup I’ve tasted.