Cocina Española

Yesterday I met my friend Beccy for breakfast at Nama raw vegan foods restaurant in Notting Hill, to try something different. I had the ‘porridge,’ a mix of fresh mature coconut, dates, almonds, apples, vanilla and spices, topped with cocoa nibs, hemp seeds and blueberries, and served with coconut milk. Beccy had the savoury crepe, filled with marinated mushrooms, tomato relish, greens, caramelised onions, fennel and cashew cheese. The food was beautifully presented and tasted delicious and super healthy.

After a mooch around the London West Bank Gallery and local shops, we started to feel hungry again and were tempted into El Pirata Detapas, by their lunch deal of two tapas, bread and wine for a tenner each. I was concerned at first, thinking the restaurant was another branch of El Pirata of Mayfair, where I had an awful dining experience. We were there for a work Christmas party, so the tapas were bog standard and mass catered, and my salad starter came with some extra protein in the form of a bug. Luckily, this restaurant is not related, but is one of Gordon Ramsay’s favourite Spanish restaurants in the country. We shared mushroom croquettes, fried aubergine with honey, mackerel with a cheese sauce and roasted figs with cheese foam. The food was great but far too rich for my tastes now.

I cooked my own Spanish food earlier in the week, a seafood paella. I make this dish quite a lot using the simple recipe on the back of the paella rice packet. I vary the ingredients, almost always adding seafood and vegetables, often chicken and occasionally chorizo.

On the same night, my brother moved home from Madrid, where he had been living for the past 18 months. Before he lived there I had only visited Spain for cheap beach holidays and didn’t have a great opinion of the country, but since he’s been there I have been to Madrid three times, as well as Barcelona and Granada. I now have a much greater appreciation of Spain and would really like to see more of the country, particularly Valencia and Seville. The below photo is of my family in Granada, taken at Las Tomasas restaurant overlooking The Alhambra, which provided better views than food.

I don’t eat Spanish food a lot back home, but occasionally ate at average chain restaurant La Tasca or my preferred choice of Pix, a pintxos bar. I prefer to eat full meals than pick at food, so I don’t favour tapas, but visiting Spain opened my eyes to more authentic Spanish eating. On my first visit to Madrid I discovered that in most bars drinks are served with a tapa, a snack to enjoy with the drink. Larger portions of tapas are known as racions.

My favourites are tortilla, chorizo and garlic mushrooms. My main problem in Spain is that everything is served with bread, often even a tortilla is wedged inside a roll. There is also usually a lack of vegetables with main dishes or on tapas menus, though one traditional restaurant in Madrid, La Sanabresa, offered a wide range of vegetable dishes, though most were extremely garlicky, another key Spanish ingredient. That restaurant offered a ‘menu del dia’ which can often be found in restaurants in Spanish cities. These menus offer great value meals, usually three courses with bread and wine for less than €10. I do enjoy Spanish desserts, particularly crema Catalana and flan, but I never enjoy churros as much as expected and almost break my teeth when I try turron!

A special experience in Madrid was our visit to Botin, the oldest restaurant in the world (according to the Guinness World Records). The kitchen has rows of suckling pigs lined up on show, which are then roasted and served, head and all. This follows a starter of garlic soup and ice cream is served to finish. The restaurant has a great atmosphere and you can have a look around the old wine cellars too.

Following my enjoyment of Madrid, I went on a girls’ holiday to Barcelona. I discovered more types of Spanish culinary delights. As well as trying more common tapas style restaurants, we had two meals at Bilbao Berria, which offered pintxos style eating. A range of individual tapas are laid out on the counter and you can choose as many as you want, then pay per item at the end. One drawback is that again bread is a common theme, however it stops you having to decide what to share between the group if there are fussy eaters. The first Bilbao Berria branch outside of Spain has now been opened in London (Lower Regent Street) by Masterchef The Professionals winner Ash Mair. My favourite meal in Barcelona was at traditional restaurant Cal Boter, which served delicious Catalan food, juicy meats and creamy desserts, in a lovely local setting away form the hustle and bustle of the city centre. We also enjoyed our fair share of sangria. Although I’m not a fan of red wine, I am partial to sangria or a glass of tinto de verrano (essentially a red wine spritzer).

My most recent visit to Spain was a family holiday, collecting my brother from Madrid and going on to Granada, a beautiful city. Our first meal, at Seis Peniques, was probably my worst restaurant experience ever, with bland soup, gristly paella, tough meat and limp chips served by an extremely rude waiter. The fresh seafood at Noray and authentic racions at Ocana were much more enjoyable. However, the highlight was our exquisite meal at Carmen de San Miguel. A delightful walk through the back streets brought us to the restaurant with beautiful views over the city and Sierra Nevada. The tapas sounded amazing and lived up to our expectations. There was the surprising pairing of rabbit with lemon sorbet, fresh thinly sliced octopus carpaccio, creamy goats cheese with sweet marmalade and a modern twist on the traditional eggs, potato and chorizo dish.

Back in Madrid I had my first try of Senegalese food, a huge plate of tender lamb and vegetables, with sauce and rice for only €6 for two. Of course, there was more than just Spanish food on offer in all the cities, with great Italian food at A Gianni in Barcelona, Arabic meze packed with flavour at Shukran Casa Arabe and awesome burgers at Mad Café, both in Madrid. There were also delightful cakes on offer at cafes Mar de Cava in Barcelona and Los Porfiados in Madrid. I hope to do a road trip around Spain one day and take in more of the culture, sceneries and food that the country has to offer.

The brilliance of brunch

Today I was planning to have brunch at the Waffle House in St Albans, one of my favourite restaurants growing up and it still is to this day. A unique experience, sitting in an old water mill, or outside by the stream, with a menu full of waffles. Regulars include savoury ham, mushroom and cheese sauce, or sweet banoffi. There are daily specials too and they do gorgeous milkshakes. Unfortunately, due to bad time planning, brunch ended up being an incredibly bad bacon bap eaten whilst running across the park trying to spot my dad walking the St Albans half marathon.

Usually, brunch is the perfect meal, as it encompasses two other meals and therefore you are entitled to eat twice as much, which is usually necessary as I inevitably have the sweet vs savoury dilemma and they both win. Such as at Kopapa (Soho), shown below, where I wanted to try the avocado and goats cheese on toast for something a bit different, but I just couldn’t resist my beloved porridge, especially as it was made with chocolate and topped with figs and hazelnuts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The problem with brunch is that I can get a bit bored with the typical options. Don’t get me wrong I love eggs and a decent fry up, but I can make them at home very easily, so when I’m out I like to see something unusual on the menu. That’s why I adore the brunch at Dishoom (Covent Garden). A soft bacon naan roll, complete with cream cheese and chilli jam, with a thick breakfast lassi of banana, mango, yoghurt and oats, finished off with the perfect Indian cuppa – a cup of comforting sweet spicy Chai.

Another favourite brunch of mine is the chorizo hash topped with poached eggs, which I’ve had varieties of at The Riding House Café (near Oxford Street) and Giant Robot (Clerkenwell, shown below). Riding House is one of my favourite brunch spots, I like the atmosphere and décor, plus they do an awesome PB&J smoothie (if a restaurant serves anything with peanut butter it gets extra brownie points from me). I didn’t actually have the Giant Robot hash for brunch as it was part of an all day menu but it did deserve an honourable mention in this category. They also do a cracking burger apparently.

An old favourite, that has unfortunately gone downhill recently in the service stakes, is The Modern Pantry (Clerkenwell). The restaurant has a nice modern setting and good range of savoury and sweet brunches. My favourite combination would be eggs with mushrooms and halloumi, followed by ricotta pancakes (not too much, contrary to the waitress’s beliefs). If you’re still not satisfied after those two courses, there’s a Tinseltown, aka Tinselghetto, diner just across the street where you can get nachos and a huge variety of exciting flavoured milkshakes (cherry bakewell was my personal choice). Yes we actually ate that much once.

For twists on classic breakfast dishes, I have enjoyed NOPI (Soho, pictured above) and M1LK (Balham, pictured below). NOPI is a lovely laid back communal dining area complete with open larder and bizarrely blinged up toilets. I sampled some pastries before enjoying a good old sausage sarnie but with fresh tomato relish and a fried egg with perfectly runny yolk. M1LK had more of a quick turnaround but served up the superbly named ‘Convict’, essentially a fry up served inside an English muffin. Perfection.

Next up…I would love to go for brunch (and everything else) at Duck and Waffle, but I don’t know where I would even begin to decide between the dishes: duck egg en cocette with mushrooms, gruyere, truffle and soldiers; Colombian eggs with grilled chorizo; or ox cheek benedict to name a few. That would definitely have to be a two courser, ‘Full Elvis’ Belgian waffle with PBJ, bananas brulee, Chantilly cream and all the trimmings anyone?!