Last time I went home, just before leaving, my mum slipped two mini ‘capresi al limoncello’ into my baggage. We had them in the airplane and I can say it was like having a lemon explosion in the mouth!
Caprese is a traditional Napolitan (from Capri Island to be exact) gluten free delicious cake based on almond flour. Generally is made with dark chocolate but these have a lemon twist! Here its secrets…
Mission is the new East London dependance from Michael Sager and Charlotte Wilde, but this time with a larger kitchen, a good team of chefs, and an amazing Californian wine cellar. Javier invited me to a surprise spot last thursday, and I must say this was a really pleasant one.
Mission is located in Paradise Row, below the railway arches, and gets its name from the popular rainbow neighbourhood in San Francisco; a large palm sitting in the middle of the dining room, reminds you about the Frisco atmosphere. Its elegant dark wood interior, the bottles collection above the bar and its arched ceiling recall an old and well established cellar. However the young and elegant waitresses, the platform shoes, the oversized coats and bearded man remind you that we still are in the Hip East London.
We booked our dinner at the Social Eating House long time in advance. This was not our first experience in a Jason Atherton’s Restaurant. We had the pleasure of enjoying the Lee Wescott’s menu at The Typing room a few months ago. In fact, in that moment it still wasn’t public that it was going to be awarded with one Michelin Star. Especially in London, hearing nice things about a restaurant or being awarded with a prestigious prize is not guarantee for outstanding food. Therefore, we were very curious about the actual quality of the menu. In this case the chef didn’t offer any pre-set menu, but “a la carte”. While we were going through the menu, the attentive staff honoured us with slightly warm and spongy sour bread and a bit of tasty fresh butter which we finished before complete reading the long wine list.
Having our friends Manu and Luca over for the weekend challenged us to introduce them to one of the most amazing traditional British culinary traditions: SUNDAY ROAST. And it worked.
We had tried many around town, but as we keep looking for new places we decided to ask our friends for new surprising venues. Our under-cover-foodie agent Nick M suggested us three, among which we decided to pick ‘Well and Bucket’. The other two will be for the next time.
Coming in we found ourselves into a beautiful wide open traditional pub space, with beautiful original Victorian tiles but with a modern design touch.
The impressive bar in the middle of the room presents a vaste choice of beers (lager or fewer ales). The nice barman helped us in the difficult choice of our ale, and introduced us to one dedicated to ‘the Specials’ Rudy song by the Cronx brewery, how could we be indifferent to that?
The menu presented little choice: Sunday roast, a selection of Oysters, fish meals or small Sliders which you could combine. We all decided to go for the Roast, and we will never regret this choice.
We just recently got intrigued by a time-out offer in our neighbourhood for the newest pop-up event at Palm 2. This is a informal and cozy space with kitchen and tables for any sort of culinary event. The venue is located on top of Palm 2, the best organic groceries store in the area. This happened to be fortunate as we had to BYO Drink, so we could buy downstairs a good bottle of Hacienda Lopez de Haro (Rioja) Crianza 2011, recommended.
Once inside, we were invited to choose our table, we decided to sit together with Michelle and Sophie, a very lovely couple who have been living in Hackney before it was the hipsters nest, as it is now. They made our evening!
We decided our first Restaurant review will be about ‘Hoi Polloi’ in Shoreditch High Street. Javier found a quite cinical review on ‘The Guardian‘ by Jay Rayner, so curious about it we decided to give it a try. We left our beanies at home.
We started with very good cocktails: Dilly boy: myers rum, apple, pommegranade, spiced syrup and lime Tea room trade: earl grey infused london gin, orange blossom and lime Starter: Stone bass with baby coriander, avocado, pommegranade, lime. We loved the coriander touch and were really surprised by the delicacy of the Stone bass, very briefly marinated. Delicious! 5/5 Mains: Grilled onglet steak, celery root, bone marrow, shallot sauce. Really well medium-rare cooked steak, well married with the shallot sauce and a surprising bone marrow texture. 4,5/5
London 2014.
Since April I moved to London. Shame on me, I stopped blogging, but I have definitely being active exploring the amazing culinary offer in London. Which is infinite, and has no boundaries. I am seriously thinking about opening a new London restaurants review sections. But this is another story.
So, yesterday evening I was having a lazy evening with my friend Linda and Javier, and found myself reading this really interesting recipe on ‘the Guardian food’; we couldn’t resist and we made it. And it was an absolute success. I decided: is time to get rid of the spider webs in my blog, and go back to action!
Maqluba is a Libanese delight, with aubergines, rice and nuts, a pleasure for the mouth, with a little personal twist: note it down. Continua a leggere
Questa settimana insieme ai Laureati abbiamo oganizzato un catering a base di panini. Per la prima volta abbiamo testato la focaccia barese (ricetta gentilmente passatami da Anna) ed è stata una scoperta assolutamente formidabile!!
Ecco qui le dosi e la lavorazione per una leccarda. (12 pezzi)
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E’ arrivato l’autunno e come da tradizione si ricominciano le grandi cene indoor tra amici. Questa volta abbiamo testato insieme ad Anna e Vincenzo una nuovo primo che fosse senza glutine per Anna e a base di zucca: gli gnocchi. Noi abbiamo forse esagerato con il grano saraceno per cui metterò nelle dosi meno farina, dovrebbero rimanere piu morbidi. Ecco la ricetta (per 5/6 persone).
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Giunta al mio settimo anno di vita olandese, ho davvero iniziato a soffrire della mancanza di pane buono, consistente, e con crosta croccante dunque ho capito che era il momento di farmelo da me. Sul mio blog preferito dedicato all’arte bianca (vivalafocaccia.com) ho trovato questa ricetta davvero semplice da realizzare, e caratterizzata dalla lievitazione in frigorifero per un giorno. Buttate un occhio al sito, è fenomenale!
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radicchiorosso 