Kerb Saturday

I managed to make it down for the last - and best - Kerb Saturday of the Summer, showcasing the best of london street food. The sun was shining and it turned out to be a glorious day with a wonderful atmosphere for everyone to enjoy. There was a blues band, tons of traders, kids were playing in the fountains, Skate at Kings Cross - the popup skating rink - had finished a day previously however they were offering free skating that day!

It was loaded with so many people from families, people who knew about Kerb, people who didn't, students and elderly couples.

We went, knowing previously what food we were going to make a beeline for, and started with the Grilling Greek's halloumi pita wrap with onions, tomatoes and homemade tzatziki and their triple cooked chips with feta and oregano.

Obligatory bite-through pic...

The wrap was delicious, the halloumi wasn't rubbery at all and had melted slightly oozing out with the delicious tzatziki and all dusted in paprika. A win all round.

The chips. Ohmygod, those chips. They were the surprise of the day for me. Probably the best chips I've ever had if I'm honest! The oregano was fresh and delicious and a welcome change from all the (equally delicious) rosemary salting around at the moment. Thin-cut like fries, they were perfectly crispy and fluffy at the same time. They had just the right amount of salt and mixed with the feta beautifully. Bring me more of those please!!

Then we went on to have the biggest burrito in the world from Luardos, King of Mexican street food. A 12 inch tortilla is packed full with rice, black beans, cheese, tomato salsa, sour cream, lettuce and fresh coriander and your choice of varying degrees of hot sauce. The veggie version also come with lashings of free guacamole.

It was ginormous and only £5!!

Then we moved on to Donostia Social Club, one I've been wanting to try for a while. It was difficult to choose which dish I wanted since they all sounded incredible - scallops, prawns with a salsa, pork cheek and celeriac puree, which to choose which to choose!!

In the end I had the confit duck slider with basque cider. Again only £5 with an incredible amount of duck on the plate. The duck was tender and tasty, however I couldn't taste much of the cider and there were parts of the duck that were a little greasy - I'm not sure if this was oil drizzled over, or perhaps the cider, or just the duck juices in itself, but not knowing and not being the biggest fan of greasiness it put me off ever so slightly. I loved the addition of apple for an extra texture and the bread was lovely, but I was expecting more of a bun for a slider! It was good, but not as good as I was hoping.

The truffled mushrooms with quail's egg and balsamic vinegar however was the absolute star of the day. The mushroom smelled incredible, truffle hitting me immediately and it packed a real punch, definitely not scrimping on the amount of truffle they put in! The bread it sat on was delicious and the egg was a brilliant addition, along with the acidity that balsamic gives the whole dish was truly fantastic!!

I cannot wait to try the rest of their menu and I will be waxing lyrical about those truffled mushroom for months to come.

Dessert time. We had doughnuts in cinnamon sugar with salted caramel sauce and mini oreo pieces from You Doughnut - delicious. Light fluffy little doughnuts, that are freshly prepared and melt in the mouth bites.

And I can't go to one of these things without getting something from Kooky Bakes if he's around. I absolutely adore his bakes and have now nearly had most of what he has to offer! Unfortunately already all his cronuts were gone by the time we got there so we picked the cookies and creme supreme cupcake, an oreo flavoured cupcake, with a chocolate and vanilla sponge, oreo buttercream, a hidden chocolate sauce centre and an oreo on top. Unlike most other oreo flavoured goods, this is not bland in the slightest. Instead of only tasting of the vanilla centre of the oreo it also includes plenty of the flavour of the chocolate biscuit and again unlike most other oreo flavoured things, it is also not sickly in the slightest.

 Absolutely beautiful!! We sat by the canal, enjoyed the music, the food and had some great times and clearly, so did a lot of other people.

We then decided to make fools of ourselves and go rollerskating, which may have been the most stupid thing we have ever done but it was free so why not?!

First of all, I have never laughed so hard in my life. She had not yet travelled two feet and she fell slap bang on her arse! I couldn't breathe I was laughing so much. I'd forgotten how much fun rollerskating is, hardly something I do often now! We should really get back on it and start going again.

After skating we were, incredibly, feeling peckish again, so we went to the Ice Kitchen and got ourselves a mango lolly and a blackberry, yoghurt and honey ice lolly. Look at the colours! Thick frozen lollies packed with real fruit pulp and flavour, they were delicious.

By the evening Granary Square looked beautiful. The place had the most incredible feeling that day. This one isn't technically even over yet but I can't wait for next Summer and the next lot of Kerb Saturdays.

Salon Brixton

Above the cheese and charcuterie shop, Cannon and Cannon, in Brixton Market is a little space filled with a tiny restaurant. It only opens Thursday through Saturday but creates a weekly changing set menu, filled with seasonal produce, delivering a true taste of the season. 

Best to reserve before you go, there is only space for around 16-20 covers and it was full the entire time we were there. The space also only has outdoor-type heaters, so if like me you feel the cold, wrap up before you go. I kept my coat on the whole time and the staff brought over blankets too. Or if you fancy heading, save it for a Summer trip.

Unless you email them before you go, or cleverly can pick out clues from their twitter (I guessed we'd be having pickled beetroot and partridge) the menu will be a surprise until it is placed in front of you.

Advertised on Salon's website is a 4-course menu for £29, which changes weekly. However, when we went, we found that we were having a 5-course menu for £35. Fine, unless you are unable to pay more.

To drink I went for the unusual rosehip sour, made with their homemade rosehip syrup. Off to a great start.

We started with a partridge liver paté, which was divine. Really tasty served with thin slivers of toast, along with complementary salted butter and the most incredible sourdough. I hate it when bread tastes that good.

Then came cured trout, apple, buttermilk and rye.

Really unusual, extremely pretty and a lovely combination of textures.

Next up, festival squash, radicchio, walnuts and lardo.

Again, lovely. The squash was full of flavour and the textures made every mouthful interesting to eat and taste.

Then, after about 40 mins of waiting and with no apology when it finally came, our main meal: partridge, carrot, beetroot, smoked pig's cheek. Minus the pig cheek. No mention from the staff either about the missing pig cheek, however we think they compensated by adding more partridge, which was upsetting! I love a bit of pig's cheek.

Came with claws and all.

This was a little disappointing. I was excited for my first taste of partridge, however the bird I was served was a little…a lot…under done. I'm all for rare. I love my meat rare. But there is a difference between rare and raw flesh. I had to send mine back. And it pretty much put me off the rest of my meal. Every time I saw a bit of pink, I was double checking that it was cooked. 

Saying that, my sister didn't have this problem! Hers was on the right side of raw.

The dessert was, thankfully, bliss. A really good ending to the meal. Had this been bad, the memory of the bad would have overrided the good.

An usual dessert, something I've never had before. Chestnut panna cotta with mulled hawthorns. Very festive! It was my favourite dish out of the whole meal, the hawthorns were delicious and tasted like winter alcoholic drinks, the chestnuts on the side gave a much-needed crunch and the panna cotta, although not technically perfect, tasted divine. An absolutely wonderful Winter dessert.

So, a mixed bag from Salon. Lovely atmosphere and rustic feel of the place, a hipster's paradise. However there was 12.5% service on the bill, which we paid, although didn't think it was fully deserved considering the wait with no explanations or apologies. The meal wasn't exactly cheap and we felt it was a little cheeky from them. 

I would consider trying Salon again in a different season to get a new experience from the produce, and hopefully so I can also leave feeling completely satisfied. I would also go again to try their snacks as a tapas meal, which looked and sound delicious!!

Remember, if you decide to go in Winter, wrap up!!

Barrafina, Soho

I love tapas. I love the concept of sharing when dining, mostly because I'm a greedy so and so who wants to try everything on a menu and that is why tapas is perfect for me.

Emma and I headed to Barrafina, a little place on Frith Street I love so much. We arrived at around 6.45 and had to queue for about an hour.

If you're arriving after around 6.00 on any day of the week you are most likely going to have to queue. There is only space for around 30 diners, all sat around a bar-like seating area where you can watch chefs prepare the food. A mouth-watering marketing technique, that's for sure. I find myself constantly asking them "What's that? Which one is that for?"and it usually concludes with me saying "I'll have 3, please."

However if you are starving, like we were, you can have a glass of sherry and some little nibbles to tide you over while you wait.

We got ourselves started on some sherry, ham croquettas and some chorizo wrapped potato crisps.

For a "nibble", the perfect croquettas were definitely a taste of what was to come. They were packed full with oozing cheese and ham.

Once we were seated it took us all of 3 minutes to decide what we wanted. I love the charm of their hand-written specials blackboard that is passed around to all the guests.

As is with tapas, dishes come when they are ready. We started with a courgette flower filled with goat's cheese.

We then had gorgeously tender gambas al aijillo.

Then the scallop came, maybe the best scallop I've ever had, it was cooked perfectly and completely melted in my mouth.

Then from the specials board, we had the epic-looking sobrasada on toast, which consisted of goat's cheese spead on toast, along with a spreadable chorizo, topped with a duck egg. 

Ohhhh it was my favourite dish of the night. Damn delicious.

Then came the morcilla iberica (spanish black pudding) topped with quail's egg.

I really loved the heavy flavours in this, however E wasn't too keen.

Nearly done…..

Then finally came our grilled quail with al-i-oli.

Juicy tender quail, with a lovely garlic dip. However this is now the 3rd time I've had quail and I think that is a sufficient amount of times to decide that quail just isn't for me. It's not to do with the taste, I find it perfectly appealing. But it is such a small bird that it is basically bone. It is so fiddly to eat, and I am a lazy eater. I will get stuck in and dirty, but it's so difficult to get teeth around all those bones, unlike say a rib joint. I won't eat a fish with too many bones, getting bored of the boning process, so the same obviously applies to meat. Sorry quail! 

I did notice that from my angle the quail looked rather pornographic…

All limbs.

After all that, feeling thoroughly satisfied and stuffed, we obviously then went for two desserts. We chose a crema catalana, a spanish creme brûlée and a chocolate tart.

This was beautiful. A glazed, crunchy top layer which lent a gorgeous caramel flavour throughout and a lovely orangey, spiced centre. The Spanish definitely do it better than the French.

And the purely decadent and rich chocolate tart. A perfect end to a perfect evening.

Tonkotsu, London

Ramen has been on my to-do list for a while - Bone Daddies and Tonkotsu, I'm not fussy - so when my sister and I had a date night a few weeks ago and she suggested ramen I jumped on it!

I've never had ramen and didn't know what to expect. I assumed it would be some kind of soup broth, which in essence it was, however it was so much better than what I was expecting.

We went to Tonkotsu - purely because we found it first. Yes, yes I am fabulous at directions. Even with Google Maps.

As always, to try a bit of everything, we ordered two we fancied and swapped half way through.

First the Tonkotsu. A sea-salt based pork stock with home-made noodles, pork belly, half a boiled egg, menma, bean sprouts and spring onions.

WOW it was porky with a thich, rich and delicious broth. This was not light at all, I would have found it tough to finish a whole one on my own. But incredible flavours nonetheless and something so interesting to taste. The noodles are something special too. Really light and tender, they soak up the flavour of the broth and it was just a joy to eat. This was serious, hearty, comfort food.

Then the Soho Ramen. A salt-based pork and chicken stock with those gorgeous noodles, topped with smoked haddock, pak choi, half an egg, menma and spring onion.

The broth here is much lighter, making for a lighter meal. A lovely smoked, salty taste encompassed this dish. I loved the freshness and again it was packed with flavour. I'm shocked at just how much flavour is in ramen. A very pleasant surprise.

Now to try Bone Daddies and compare….

The Providores, Marylebone

Ahhh brunch. My favourite meal of the day.

We went to a little place recently called The Providores, a tapas bar in Marylebone that also does a pretty incredible brunch. We did have to queue for about 20 minutes (at 1pm on a Saturday, not too unreasonable I didn't think) but it was so worth the wait. 

I jumped on a freshly made smoothie. They have the usual fare - bananas and mixed berry - but they have caught up with the super healthy crew here, serving a spirulina smoothie, and a baobab smoothie. Although ridiculously expensive at £6, I went for the baobab, soy and blueberry smoothie. I've tried baobab once before at the Eden Project of all places. It's a tree native to Africa and the fruit has some incredible properties. Loads of vitamin C, iron and alkalising minerals. The only problem is that the soy milk probably undid any good that the blueberries and baobab did, since soy is not that great for you. Oh well it all tasted good!

We then ordered two dishes we both loved the sound of and shared, because that's the way greedy people like me get to try as many things as possible.

First up, grilled chorizo with sweet potato and miso hash, a soft boiled egg, garlic labne and star anise and cashew nut praline. Sounds like a dish and a half right?! It was.

Absolutely beautiful. Never had anything quite like it, let alone for brunch. Simply a creative, delicious and rather light brunch.

If you're looking for something a bit (a lot) more hearty, then this next bad boy is for you.

Bruschetta with haggis, smoked tomato relish, rocket, two poached eggs and chorizo hollandaise. No need to eat anything else for the rest of the day!!

This was my first ever taste of haggis and it was pretty damn excellent. I couldn't really taste the chorizo in the hollandaise with so many other powerful flavour, but it wasn't missed as everything else was so delicious and worked so well together. The tomato relish was the perfect addition that took this dish up to another level!

Both incredible, but I think I have to go for the haggis dish as my favourite, for a very boring reason - I love hollandaise way too much.

Coal Vaults

This night happened a little while ago so it's a little hazy...not least from the very strong drinks!

I'd been hearing a lot about a new underground bar in Soho called Coal Vaults that happens to also do fantastic food as well as great drinks.

After walking all the way up Wardour Street, wondering if we'd missed it, we saw a little entrance welcoming us with a skeleton on a throne. Cue posing. 

Then it was time to get looking at the menu. Seated in a little candle lit cave we needed all the table space we could get for this was going to be a feast!

Starting with drinks, I had the Mercuary, a little gin number infused with sage, homemade greengage sorbet, lemon and prosecco. E took a Coxone, golden rum with Carpano Antica and spiced green apple. Very Autumnal don't you think?! All drinks are £9 or under, so it won't break the bank if you order a couple.

Yes, there are three drinks here. The lovely waiter brought us over another drink, which had been incorrectly made from a previous order. 

Then on to food. Very difficult to decide!

We chose the charred quail with pan fried chicken livers and quail. All delightful, especially the chicken livers with the warming lentils, however I always forget that quail is such a tricky bugger to eat. Luckily there were no boys around to impress! We got down and dirty.

Then, my favourite, the sherry braised beef cheek with onion, jam, sage and bread. Deliciously moist, hearty, juicy and tender, it was packed full of flavour, the sherry really coming through.

Next was the pulled rabbit with smoked black beans, sweetcorn and pineapple relish, avocado sour cream and flatbread. A gorgeous, fruity dish. The pineapple only served to complement, not compete, which I was afraid of!

Two desserts had to be ordered because they all sounded too good. The first had to be a salted flourless chocolate cake with a mint creme fraiche and toasted almond brittle. The cake was delicious, but for me the mint in the creme fraiche was a little too sharp and overpowering. The almond brittle was sweet and delicious, but there wasn't enough of it!

I am a crazy chocolate lover, so it is very rare and obviously a fine dessert that beats out the cake....but this little beauty of a crumble here, a blackberry, greengage and cobnut crumble with the most incredible calvados custard blew the cake out of the water. Mouth watering delicious, steaming hot and incredibly fruity, but not too sweet. Usually I don't like hot custard (I'm a weirdo I know, nothing like cold vanilla custard in my opinion) but I smothered this baby with that calvados gold. It was heaven.

We were absolutely stuffed after this, we couldn't even finish the cake and I am not one to waste. The food is inexpensive and the sharing dishes of a good size, more sizable than, say, a tapas bar. We could have done with one less dish and still be extremely full.

I have already told all my friends it's a fantastic little haunt that we all need to go to. Best to book though, for even on a Monday night it was busy. As with all places in London, the secret underground haunt doesn't stay secret for long!