Tummyrumble

Hunan Restaurant (SW1W) - unpretentious, glorious food

Dragon Well green tea (Yauatcha)
Originally uploaded by Manne.

The photo above isn't at all from Hunan Restaurant. Stoopid iPhone ran out of battery again. It's from Yauatcha. But like Yauatcha, Hunan has a great selection of teas.

That's where the similarities end. For the better. With that I don't mean that the food in Yauatcha isn't good, it is, but the feeling you get when walking into Hunan is the polar opposite.

Hunan is a smallish restaurant on Pimlico Road in Belgravia, a short walk from Sloane Square. Run by the Peng family (dad in the kitchen cooking, son runs front of house in the most amiable manner) you can tell that there is a lot of love for food and hospitality.

Honestly don't think I have seen that many genuine smiles in a restaurant for a very long time. Actually that's a lie. I have, but that was in New York at Danny Meyer's more than excellent Gramercy Tavern.

Hunan is most well known for not having a menu. Sorry, that's another lie. They do have a menu, but all it says is basically "sit down, relax, tell us if you are allergic to anything and then let us serve you the best food we can offer". It basically amounts to a multi course (I lost count) tasting menu, leaving you very satisfied by the end of the lipsmacking, finger licking good journey.

They do have a tome of a wine list. Browsing through it before my dinner company arrived I again reflected over how boring most wine lists are, and how uninspiring and lacking in guidance for the novice (like me). Not this one. The book is clearly divided in sections, each with a near poetic sounding heading and a really interesting description making you thirst for a glass from all of them. You would be proper sloshed by the end of it (and have a massive hole in your wallet) but oh what fun.

While eagerly grazing our way through a uniquely spiced feast as rich in flavours as in textures we discussed the lack of an Eater.com equivalent in the London dining scene. Or a Blackboard Eats. And why Fire & Knives, this treasure trove of food lover essays saw the light of day as a paper product and not a blog project.

So many questions. Answers on a postcard. Or why not in the comments below?

Anyway. Oh, the food? Absolutely brilliant. I would even use the worn phrase "a must try if you haven't been already". Don't take my word for it, take @Gastrogeek's. She has expressed the glory of Hunan Restaurant in much better prose than I would ever be able to produce.

And do try the Taiwanese 20 year Pu Er tea. Delicious.

 

Drapers Arms (N1) for the inaugural Foodie Files dinner

Bar (Drapers Arms)
Originally uploaded by Manne.

Went to Drapers Arms (@DrapersArms) near Angel in North London with a bunch of tweeps, peeps and dweebs (that would be Clare) as organized by our lovely @RenSip.

Beautiful place with a lovely beer garden in the back, incredibly friendly staff and excellent food. Lots of it too!

When I read the short but appetizing menu I was first annoyed that I had to choose between the options for starter, mains and dessert.

My woes were soon dispelled as I realised we were being served huge sharing plates of every dish. Apparently this is the modus operandi when serving large parties at the Drapers Arms. Worked incredibly well, I love sharing food with friends as it usually means more for me...

Smoked ham hock and watercress salad with a mustard dressing was a fantastic starter, served in huge bowls for everyone to dig into.

The pot roast guinea fowl was without a doubt the dish of the night. Succulent, flavoursome, crispy skin, served with carrots and lardons that had cooked for hours making them fall apart on your tongue.

Roast pork belly wasn't far behind, but had to take second place to the fowl.

We were then treated to a duo of trifles, of which rhubarb clearly was my favourite.

Too bad the room was just that little bit too dark to take any decent pictures... Full set is available at Flickr, and in the below slideshow.

Tweet of the night goes to @BennGlazier: "Oh my God. We are learning about the sin of Gluttony tonight. Amazing food guys."

 

Lunch moments of Zen, Anchor & Hope on The Cut, Waterloo

Expected more people (Anchor & Hope)
Originally uploaded by Manne.

Went to the nearby Anchor & Hope for lunch a few days ago.

Lovely here. Nice and calm, reggae playing, bread with beer and waitress kindly asking if I want tap water with my asparagus soup and smoked mackerel.

These guys really get it. Warm, welcoming, smiling, a small number of dishes made from great ingredients on the menu.

Coming here in the evening it is always rammed and nigh on impossible to get a table, so this was an unexpected treat.

Fridays on The Cut rock.

Had asparagus soup with buttered almonds and smoked mackerel with horseradish sauce. Served with a side of green lentils cooked just right.

Then on to the nearby church park for a coffee while letting the glorious sun generate some vital Vitamin D in my body.

I love Waterloo.

Bonus-URL: http://www.fiddme.com

Fiddme is a location based social networking site (like Foursquare) centered around food experiences (like Foodspotting), but in my opinion much more promising than the sum of those two other networks (fiddme also integrates with Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, so a great meta app for sharing food experiences).

Check out this infectious video presentation about fiddme by one of the founders. Got to love it.

Not a lot of users in London yet, but I really like the experience they have built so far. Here's hoping they attract lots of people.

 

Baked egg and ham in spicy tomato sauce

Baked egg and ham in tomato sauce
Originally uploaded by Manne.

With Wendy away in Oz, visiting family and friends in Sydney, I decided to cook our favourite breakfast as I miss her madly.

Baked egg and ham in tomato sauce is ridiculously satisfying not just to eat but also to cook. 

Taking the time to get the freshest of ingredients, preparing them carefully and then enjoy the aromas of onion, garlic and tomato spreading throughout the kitchen works up the best appetite.

It certainly worked. For an hour I hardly missed Wendy at all. ;)

Healthwise, while there is onion and lots of tomatoes in the recipe I would still say this is a great low carb recipe.

To get my blogging joy back I have decided to experiment with a slightly different format, as I find myself not sitting down to write if I have to spend an inordinate amount of time on fixing images and coding HTML to embed photos that already are neatly presented over at my account in Flickr.

Rather than writing up the recipe here and insert photos throughout I will post the recipe in the photo set page at Flickr, and then simply link there from here. So for the recipe to the delicious dish of baked egg and ham in spicy Italian tomato sauce, along with step by step cooking photos, see the Flickr photo set page!

It will also be an experiment in increasing web traffic. Not that it matters, but it is fun to watch the statistics trend upwards every so often. To do that I have joined a few food and cooking related groups to where I submit photos along with links to the recipe. I am certain the traffic to photos will increase, question is if it will spill over to the blog.

Had confirmed to me yet again that there really is a photo group for anything and everything on Flickr. Or how about this one for people who like to cook in the nude and... ...post photos of their (pride and) joy online? Why not, if it makes you happy. Click with caution on that link, clearly NSFW.

And yes, I did stumble over that while looking for groups related to food, cooking and recipes. No fear, there will be no nude cooking photos posted here!