A long, long time ago when this blog wasn’t yet born, I had the best lunch of my life at Viajante. Here’s a bunch of picture from a truly amazing restaurant:

Soy milk “pannacotta” with dashi and smoked aubergine jelly. This was more weird than good actually. With this we also had a crostini with romesco, olives, almond and Jerez which was awesome.

 

Bread with chicken skin and pancetta butter + purple potato dust. Heaven!

 

Salad with three kinds of beetroot (roasted, jellied, pickled), apple sauce, chilli crab and goat’s cheese creme. The picture is really crap – sorry – this was sooooooooooooooo good.

 

Here’s a photo of my half eaten lemon sole with brioche, yeast and cauliflower foam. Again, the photo really doesn’t do this dish justice – it blew my mind. We drank wine matched to the courses and the champagne we were served with this dish was SO perfect.

 

Thai basil and lemon sorbet before the dessert. Simple, delicious.

 

For dessert: “chocolate & water”.

 

Lunch finished with crema catalana, lemon & vanilla jelly cubes and mushroom truffle. I still dream of that mushroom truffle.

All in all, an amazing restaurant. I would love to go back for a full on dinner one day, I can’t imagine how amazing that must be. Just have to become rich first.

Trust me, you want to make this tart. Three whole heads of garlic, sweet sweet balsamic reduction, two different types of goat’s cheese (I currently have four different goat’s cheeses in the fridge so it was great for using up some of it, oh my I’m becoming so round from working with cheese), fresh herbs, cream, mmmmmmm what’s not to like about this?

The recipe is from Ottolenghi’s cookbook Plenty, which is the most awesome cookbook in my possession. I’ve developed a slight obsession with cooking everything in it so I’ve basically made a dish or two every day since I got it two weeks ago - every single one has been great. This is definitely one of the best so far, though. I ate this for lunch today and then I couldn’t focus on studying for the rest of the day because I knew I had two more slices of this in the fridge.

Caramelized garlic tart (photo from bahighlife.com because I was too excited about the smell of this to actually take a photo.)

Caramelized garlic tart (adapted from Plenty)
375g all-butter puff pastry 
3 medium heads of garlic, cloves separated and peeled 
1 tbsp olive oil 
1 tsp balsamic vinegar 
220ml water 
¾ tbsp caster sugar 
1 tsp chopped rosemary 
1 tsp chopped thyme, plus a few whole sprigs to finish 
120g soft, creamy goat’s cheese (such as Rosary) 
120g hard, mature goat’s cheese (such as one from Woolsery Cheese) 
2 free-range eggs 
100ml double cream 
100ml crème fraîche 
salt and black pepper 

While the pastry is in the oven, make the caramelized garlic. Put garlic cloves in a small saucepan and cover with plenty of water, simmer for 3 minutes, then rinse and drain. Return cloves to the saucepan, add olive oil and fry on high heat for 2 minutes. Add balsamic vinegar and water and simmer for 10 minutes. Add sugar, rosemary, thyme and salt and continue simmering for another 10 minutes. By this time, most of the liquid will have evaporated and you will have yummy garlic cloves coated in dark caramely syrup (I could stop here and just eat the garlic and be very, very happy. But I won’t, because this is a recipe for a tart).


Assemble the tart: break both goat’s cheeses into pieces and scatter in the pastry case. Spoon over garlic and syrup. Whisk together eggs, creme fraiche, cream, salt and pepper and pour over the tart filling (don’t use too much – you want to be able to see the garlic and cheese). Bake the tart in a 160C oven, remove and let cool a little. Top with a few sprigs of thyme and ENJOY this amazing tart while thinking of all the running you’re going to have to do tomorrow morning. 

I’ve been on the mailing list for the Rebel Dining Society for ages. And while I obsessively check my email several times a day, it was not until I got a super cool and advanced phone which instantly lit up every time I received an email that I managed to be quick enough to get tickets for Rebel Dining in mid-September. At 15 quid including three course dinner, drink and entertainment, tickets go as soon as they’re released. And for good reason! Here’s the night in a few photos:

“French Kiss” – pre dinner drink of Absinth, passion fruit and lime

The day before the dinner, I received an email with directions of how to find the “hidden” location; elling us to head to the Water Poet, a pub just off Bishopgate, look for “the man enjoying Absinth the traditional way”. Excitement!!! At least for me, because I love this kind of sillyness. After picking up our Absinth spoons at the pub, we were given the address to the dinner venue. Arriving in a massive, white gallery-type place, we sat down for pre dinner Absinth cocktails.

Charlotte, turning a rather flattering shade of green from the Absinth-themed lightening.

Starter

Next, mains! First, a soft polenta with forest mushroom. This was DIVINE. The best polenta I’ve ever had (not that I’ve had that many… but still)! After the polenta dish we had a red mullet with Palette d’Ail Doux. A complete rip off of a Thomas Keller dish, I thought this was a bit cheeky, and the fish wasn’t great. I still ate it all, though.

Red mullet with Palette d’Ail Doux and garlic chips

OK, OK, a bit ridiculous: following up the Keller dish with ANOTHER one: cream of walnut soup! I’ve made this soup (from French Laundry cookbook) before, and thought it was quite amusing to eat it somewhere else than my kitchen.

Note the card in the background; this was my message to OUTER SPACE – we were supplied with black cards and a “space pencil” with which to write and draw our message to all those aliens out there… I’m obviously lame and my card reflects that quite well.

Cream of walnut soup

Next: the last dessert. I didn’t realise this when I was eating, but now, writing up this post, I decided to google “peanut butter truffles with yuzu” and guess what I got? Another French Laundry recipe! Someone clearly needs to find some new inspiration and stop stealing Keller’s dishes without acknowledging it.

Peanut butter truffles with yuzu and concord grape jellies

OK, OK, I’m being a bit negative – I had an amazing evening with lots of nice people, great entertainment (awesome band – Katy Prado & the Mamboleros) and I liked most of the food too! I would definitely go again – can’t wait! Let’s hope the chefs have bought a new cookbook by then, though.

A couple weeks ago I visited Gilak. I’ve never had Iranian food – it’s not the type of restaurant I would think of going to if it wasn’t for Time Out’s recent five star review of the place. When a restaurant within my budget gets a glowing review, I tend to want to try it out if I haven’t already been there. This is exactly the reason I went to Gilak.

The first night I tried booking a table, they were full. The next night I tried, I was informed that they could squeeze us in at 18.15 but had no later tables. Allright, allright. Nothing wrong with an early dinner.

When we arrived, the restaurant was completely empty. This normally freaks me out a bit, but I was determined to like Gilak. To start, we ordered Boorani-e-Aubergine (a smoked aubergine dish with garlic and yoghurt), some olives marinated in walnuts, garlic, herbs and pomegranate juice, and a bunch of flatbreads. The starters were great – I especially liked the aubergine dish, but then I’m pretty much addicted to anything auberginey.

Smoked aubergine with yoghurt and garlic

Olives with walnuts, garlic, herbs and pomegranate juice

For mains, we ordered a stew and a grill, to mix things up a bit and make life more exciting. Unfortunately, I found neither of them too exciting. While tasty, the Gilak Special (lamb kabab with rice, smoked fish, walnuts, and soaked broad beans) and the stew of barberries, sliced pistachios, sliced almonds, braised chicken and saffron rice just didn’t hit the spot for me. There was nothing wrong with the main courses – I enjoyed both – but I wouldn’t come back for them.

Gilak Special

With our mains, we got some pickled garlic – this had a nice crunch and interesting taste.

Sir Torshi – pickled garlic

Finishing our mains, we reached for the dessert menu and decided to try the saffron and pistachio ice cream. This was AMAZING. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this. If I would revisit Gilak, it would be because of this dessert. Just thinking about it makes me drool. Go get it!

Saffron and pistachio ice cream – heaven!

Arriving at 500 in Archway, we are met by a sign on the door basically saying ‘forget about it unless you have a booking’. Fortunately, we had one. 500 is as cosy as it gets; small, candlelit, with a beautiful brick wall (I’m really into brick walls), every table full. It was love at first sight, the kind of place I would love to have as my neighbourhood restaurant – unfortunately Archway is far, far away from where I live. Definitely worth a bit of journey though! Here’s what we ate:

Polpa di granchio con cetrioli – White crab meat on cucumber with brown crab dressing

Mmmmmm. I loved this starter so much – so simple and fresh.

Tagliatelle al ragu di dentice – Tagliatelle with red snapper and cherry tomatoes

The other starter, a small serving of pasta, was lovely too.

Ravioli with roast duck, mascarpone and cinnamon & sage butter

This rubbish photo really doesn’t do this pasta dish justice – it was PERFECTION. One of the better pastas I’ve ever had in my long, long life.

Pan fried veal chop with parmesan and sauteed potatoes

Heavenly tiramisu

500 has managed to turn me into a tiramisu lover, will you believe it.

Lemon and tangerine sorbet

These two sorbets were very, very good. The tangerine sorbet really tasted like, well, tangerine. I used to ignore the different varieties of ‘orange citrus fruits’ (oranges, tangerines, clementines, etc) believing that they all have the same taste, just in different sizes. How wrong was I! From now on, every time I eat a tangerine, I know that I will think of this sorbet. Perfection. Please order it.