Lockdown activities: making a pizza from scratch

I decided to make the most of being stuck inside during the lockdown to try my hand at some cookery experimentation. This was what the result was:

It was delicious! A good thing about making a pizza from scratch is that you can pile on all the things you like, and none of the stuff you don't! 

Restaurant review: THE PICKLED HEN (Marble Arch)

Such is my fondness for exploring London restaurants using deals I’ve pre-bought on the internet, that I bought a Sunday brunch for two deal from BuyAGift at The Pickled Hen of London Marriott Hotel Marble Arch. The deal entitled us to unlimited Presecco for two hours and a Sunday brunch for £39.

You definitely get bang for your buck with this deal. Apart from the main, where you order a la carte, everything else from the brunch was buffet-style. Normally, when I think of buffets, I'm reminded of copious amounts of food on display, all of questionable quality. That wasn’t the case here at all: there was choice, but it was all refined and prepared, like cute little quiches, a generous cheeseboard and cold cuts including small slices of salami.

Two photos of just some of the awesome foods you could have:

Restaurant review: DAWAT (Tooting)

I could have South Asian cuisine for dinner most evenings, and Tooting boasts two great Pakistani restaurants, situated across the road from each other, to ensure that you never get tired of going to the same place.

My comments about Lahore Karahi pretty much all apply to Dawat, with regards to affordability, portion sizes and the no-frills dining experience. However, of the two, I think Dawat just edges it, because, from my two visits to Dawat, I felt their ingredients were fresher. See the photo below:

Restaurant review: BARRAFINA (Covent Garden)

On my birthday (18^th April), I ventured out of my cheap and cheerful and/or Groupon-bought dining comfort zone and celebrated in style with an altogether more upmarket dinner at Barrafina.

The restaurant specialises in Spanish tapas, and after the nightmare that was Salvador and Amanda with all their short-cut taking, I was naturally, a little hesitant.

I needn't have worried; Barrafina has restored my faith in Spanish tapas in London.

Here are some pictures:

Review: RICH AND SWEET TOMATO CHUTNEY (Asda)

Restaurant review: CHAI THALI (Camden)

A few weeks ago, me and my friends from my old work had a much-needed catch-up at Chai Thali. One of my friends, Sarah, had said it was a restaurant that specialized in Indian tapas, at which I was pretty much sold.

Restaurant review: MY OLD PLACE (Liverpool Street)

A few weeks ago, me and two of my friends had dinner at My Old Street, a Chinese restaurant that, judging from the online reviews offers great value food, with no frills when it comes to the service.

Restaurant review: BYRON (Covent Garden)

I’ve had mixed fortunes when it comes to burger joints in London. Places like Tommi’s Burger Joint and Prime Burger were so awful I wouldn’t recommend them to my worst enemy, and other venues which don’t specialise in burgers, seem to treat them as an afterthought (Maxwell’s Bar and Grill, be ashamed. Be very ashamed). Still, due to the sheer majesty of the burgers I’ve had such as Bird, I still haven’t up hope in the capital’s ability to produce delicious burgers just yet.

Byron definitely delivered on the burger front. I had the Smoky burger, with the meat cooked medium rare, and that, along with all the ingredients (mature cheddar, streaky bacon, crispy onions, shredded iceberg, pickles and smoked chilli) rendered this a verifiable feast for the taste buds. You know it was tasty because normally I would object to paying £10 for a burger and no sides, but in this case, I feel the money was well spent. The way all the ingredients complemented each other and bought out the succulence of the steak… heaven.

Review: PRIME BURGER (Kings Cross)

My best friend Anna and I were absolutely famished after drinking some wine today, so unfortunately we weren't in a strong bargaining position in terms of discerning for decent places to eat. As we'd met at St Pancras train station and didn't want to travel too far, we settled for Prime Burger, thinking you couldn't go too wrong with a burger. I was wrong; this place runs Tommi's Burger Joint close for one of the worst of its kind in London.

I had the Classic chicken burger, which, just like the one I'd had at TBJ, was horrendously undercooked; the meat was a suspicious shade of pinkish white. Oh dear. The menu promised 'onions', but I don't count one infinitesimal sliver of onion, clearly stuck in as an afterthought 'onions', and the lettuce was haphazardly applied and an inspiring addition.

Small mercies came in the form of the chips, which I wolfed down, because at the front of the counter (where you collect your order), there was malt vinegar, which I doused on my chips like a pyromaniac ought to douse kerosene on  Wolf of Fleet Street certain Guardian football writers' Audis. I absolutely adore malt vinegar with my chips, and don't understand why there wasn't a container of them on every table, rather than just one at the front.

Then again, I don't know how they could have charged £11.05 for that ensemble above, when the burger was paltry, unedifying and poorly presented.

For five pounds less, you can have an actual chicken burger from KFC (you know, one with flavour). Do it. Your stomach - and bank balance - will thank you.

Grade: D-

A compendium of my restaurant reviews can be found here. If you would like me to review your restaurant, drop me an email at lemon_and_lime7@hotmail.com and I'll see what I can do.

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As mentioned in the introduction, I had an ace meet up with my girl Annabung today. Here we are (quick OOTD!): -

Earrings: Accessorize

T-shirt: Hollister

Cardigan: H&M

Glasses: Twiggy for Aurora

Restaurant review: FIRE & STONE (Covent Garden)

(I'm making my way through the backlog of pizza places I've visited in the last few months, but not yet made the time to review!)

Restaurant review: FRANCO MANCA (Bromley)

Living out in the suburbs of south east London can be a bit of a drag sometimes, given the Tube connections revolve around north London, and all the coolest events are generally in central. Yet Franco Manca illustrates the flipside of living in the ’burbs, and how in terms of dining in a chain, being in a less busy part of the city can work to your advantage.

Cooking Stuff that Looks Bad But Tastes Delicious #1: The Nemo.

I've been making the most of my mum being in China and having the kitchen to myself recently (I don't like cooking when surrounded by people, haha). 

My concoctions don't look too appetising, but as I bung in ingredients I like and ingredients I like only, I'm usually very pleased with the end product!

So in this haphazard invention, which I will call 'The Nemo' (because there's fish fingers in it), I put:
- 4 baby potatoes
- one red onion
- one tomato
- cheddar cheese
- oil
- 4 fish fingers

And after it was all cooked, I dipped the fish fingers in tomato ketchup.

Next time I cook it, I would increase the number of baby potatoes to about 6 or 7, as they reduce in size when fried due to it being on the pan for the longest period of time. But apart from that, I really liked The Nemo!

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In other, completely unrelated-to-cooking news, I saw that Damien Chazelle's upcoming La La Land, hotly tipped to rack up multiple Oscar nominations, got a PG in Ireland despite getting a 12A over here.

I find this very interesting because I think it illustrates the Irish are a bit more flexible about single uses of the f-word depending on context, whereas for the BBFC (and the MPAA), it leads to an automatic 12A/PG-13.

A subtle point, but illustrates the nuances in different countries' attitudes towards swearing!

I wonder who hollers the solitary f-bomb in the movie, Emma or Ryan? (Or maybe, given his character's colourful language in Whiplash, J.K. Simmons gets that honour...)

Restaurant review: THE CUBAN (Camden Town)

I went to The Cuban with my friend Joy a few weeks ago using a Groupon deal that cost £22, and it illustrated precisely why I’m hesitant to buy Too Good to Be True food deals from Groupon. This one definitely was.

On the Groupon page, it promised the holder to £88.45 worth of food. This is what you could get if you’d been given normal-sized dishes of the food (of which I was able to see on the tables of other diners around me). But this wasn’t what me and Joy (nor, having a peruse of Tripadvisor, anyone who went there using a Groupon voucher got). Instead, you get infinitesimal portions of the food. Blink and it’s gone! So it definitely wasn’t £88.45 worth of food, and if they were going to advertise such a deal, they should have scaled down the original price to represent the quantity of food you’d be getting, so that the buyer of the deal would have some indication of how much the food would really be worth.

I’m a fast eater at the best of times (pig.gif), but most of these portions photographed above wouldn’t even constitute half a bite. I was nowhere near full at the end of the ‘meal’.

On top of this, the restaurant was extremely understaffed. When we first arrived, there was one waitress manning the doors. She told us to sit down and she’d come to us, which we thought a little odd, as she didn’t ask where we were planning on sitting. Would she forget about us?

You bet your ass she did.

Yet, when I went up to her some 15 minutes later (we waited very patiently, deciding to give her the benefit of the doubt) to tell her where we were sat, she curtly gave me the brush off, telling me that she’d be with me. No smile, and faint flickers of an eyeroll, suggesting that if I tried to voice my discontent, she would bite my head off. An unhelpful dragon of a woman.

The cocktails were also uninspiring, both in flavour and presentation:

So yeah, pretty rotten food and service at this place, but I will shoulder some of the blame. I’d tried to get a delicious tapas experience on the cheap from Groupon and in the majority of the cases, they just don’t exist.

The Escapologist was an exception, rather than the rule, of when a Groupon deal actually delivers what it promises, but this relies on the vendor being honest and above board. The people who advertised The Cuban deal definitely weren’t that. I left feeling very short-changed.

In short, they lied.

Grade: F

Two Omelettes I Cooked This Week.

When I was on holiday in Amsterdam in June, I had the sickest omelette. It tasted great, but I took slight umbrage at having to shell out an extra Euro for every extra ingredient. I knew it would be much more financially viable to cook my own omelette; the only problem is that I don't usually have time and I'm not the most culinarily gifted. 

Well, circumstance would have it that this week, I made time. On Thursday, I visited my friend Rebecca's new flat for the first time, and we cooked together, and on Sunday, I made Tom a meal by way of reciprocation for all the times he's cooked me a delicious hangover cure. In producing two omelettes in such short succession, it allowed me to hone my skills at making them whilst the production process was still fresh in my mind.

Omelette 1 (Thursday omelette)

Step 1: Cut potatoes and fry them with oil

Step 2: Cut onions and fry them with oil too (I used three onions)

Step 3: when the onions and the potatoes are about equal time from being cooked, put the onions in the same frying pan as the potatoes

Step 4: whisk eggs in a cup. Pour the eggs (6 were used here) into the frying pan and distribute evenly around the pan to bind the ingredients together

End product, viola!

Omelette 2 (Sunday omelette)

The main difference between this one and the first one was the inclusion of cheese, which worked with the eggs to bind the onions and the potatoes together. I also included parsley (which Rebecca told me added to the flavour of omelettes), and, because I am absolutely obsessed with onions, I use red onions as well as white ones.

Step 1: Cut potatoes and fry them with oil. I cut these pieces much smaller than Thursday's, so that they'd cook faster

Step 2: cut red and white onions into small pieces

Step 3: (slightly different because I could only find one frying pan, ha). I had fried the onions for about 15 minutes in this frying pan before I put the onions in with them to cook. Parsley was also added (and a cheeky bit of salt)

Step 4: whisk eggs and pour them into the frying pan to bind all the ingredients together. Add cheese to omelette after eggs have begun to set. We used more ingredients this time, so used 9 eggs for the omelette.

I didn't take a final photo because it wasn't very aesthetically pleasing, haha. But me and Tom polished off everything that was in the photo above in one sitting, so who cares how it looked? XD

Overall, had a really fun time making these two omelettes. When Tom comes back from Uni in a few weeks, I reckon I'll chop a few pieces of salami and embed them into the omelette. Maybe add tomato too. I could go on and on and on. Who knew, cooking can be enjoyable?!

Three delicious meals I had in Amsterdam.

As you know, when in London, I'm constantly on the search for the best breakfast it has to offer, the last cooked breakfast of which I had was utterly uninspiring. The breakfasts in Amsterdam, on the other hand, were superb. The basic omelette (and toast) was just €3.95, but each additional ingredient was an extra Euro. I asked for cheese, onions and tomato. I wasn't entirely convinced the amount of onions they included (or lack thereof) merited €1, but the cheese really gave the omelette fantastic flavour and the tomatoes were a welcome, healthy addition too.

Another thing I dig about Dutch breakfasts is how generous they are with the butter. In this picture, there are two mini-sachets of butter, but if you wanted more, they would casually give you about five. Delicious (and enough to give oneself a heart attack!)

I ate this pizza at an Amsterdam restaurant called Casa di David, and the taste evoked memories of my favourite pizza place in London, Icco's. It had a thin base, which I love, and focused the taste of the pizza in the ingredients used in the toppings. I had a tuna and red onion pizza, which complemented the cheese and tomato perfectly. As it was an Italian restaurant, they had bottles of balsamic vinegar and olive oil at the ready, which I used to make a nice dip to dunk my pizza crusts in. Nom!

Again, orange juice is my drink of choice with my breakfasts! What I liked about this meal was that they allowed you to swap ingredients. I don't like mushrooms, so instead of them, I asked for onions (the more perceptive readers might have realised I have a penchant for onions). Due to being burned by that godawful Bella Italia breakfast, I was wary of how the sausages here would taste, but graciously, they were both moreish and healthy. The yellow egg yolk was also a nice addition to the meal; gave me something to dip my crusts into!

Review: TOMMI'S BURGER JOINT (Marylebone)

Oh dear Lord. I just have to alert the world to one of the worst burger joints I've ever had the misfortune of visiting.

The second I walked into Tommi's Burger Joint, I knew something was amiss. The floors and tables looked dirty. The sales staff there barely acknowledged me, and those who did, on seeing I was alone, didn't give me the usual polite waiter smile, as they probably thought they wouldn't swindle that much out of me.

I, however do think they swindled a fair bit out of me. I had the chicken burger, which, priced at £8.90, was certainly not cheap, particularly as you can get something much more delicious at McDonalds for a quarter of the price.

It was one of the most vile, rancid, burgers I've ever had in my entire life. There was a thick slab of chicken in the burger, but on one bite, I saw it was pink inside. Pink!!! It was textbook undercooked, flavourless meat that someone trying to cook for the first time whips up.

The other fillings in the burger were also absolutely horrendous. The onions (one of my favourite ingredients and thus, quite hard to get wrong) that accompanied the meat were uncooked. Who puts uncooked onions into a burger!? The tomatoes were unevenly distributed and soggy, leading me to believe I had the bastard leftovers.

Also, there was guacamole in the filling. Now, I don't know what kind of weird hipsters dine here, but what's wrong with, gee, I don't know, traditional sauces, such as BBQ or tomato ketchup? BBQ sauce would at least have given the burger some flavour.

I love burgers, and am generally quite easily pleased (I could gladly dine at Burger King for the rest of my life). But I wouldn't wish a trip to Tommi's Burger Joint on my worst enemy. The service was bad, the food was atrocious, and it was overpriced for what it was. Nah, mate.

Grade: F

Cumberland sausage, mashed potato, onions and gravy.

Work canteen, £3.30.

9/10. Yet another fantastic dish from work! Loving it.

Restaurant review: GBK (Covent Garden)

A colleague at work raved to be about Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and as I love a good burger (I’ve eaten three McDonald’s this week), I couldn’t wait to try the place out. However, the experience turned out to be a massive disappointment, although the quality of the burgers are the least of GBK’s problems.