Sonny’s Kitchen is hidden away in Barnes and has been a favourite of West Londoners for many years. If you don’t live around here, you probably would not even know of this place. Let me introduce you.

This local Barnes eatery has been owned by restauranter Rebecca Mascarenhas for a long time and she has recently partnered with Phil Howard, a long time local resident.

Sonny’s Kitchen has recently been refurbished and a new team is in place, headed by the super talented Head Chef Tommy Boland. Tommy previously worked at two star The Square with Phil for 3 years. You can see the fine dining influence on the new menu at Sonny’s.

Chef Tommy Boland, Bagpipe Champion

Sonny’s is made up of a an upmarket deli, a stylish cocktail bar and a charming informal dining room with cosy blazing fires. The night we were there, the restaurant was full and the atmosphere was buzzing with conversations reverberating around the hard surfaces.

Our menu for the evening seemed simple on paper but was far from ordinary. We began with a grilled mackerel with fine potato salad, smoked eel and golden beetroot served with a light Montarels Viognier 2011.

Original Article: Sonny’s Kitchen Barnes Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

This has been one of our favourite dim sum places in London for the longest time. It was one of the first Chinese restaurants that started serving dim sum in a nicer environment and with better service than the brusque approach in most Chinatown places.

Royal China in Queensway has a very big dining room, with space for many family sized round tables, each with their own lazy susans. The walls are lined with black lacquer screens which is their signature look that is replicated across the chain.

I was there with my friend Fiona to review their dim sum menu which they serve daily. For those who are not too familiar with dim sum and how to order, they have pictures on their menus that help. Fiona asked me to order and this is what we had.

Dim sum being a Cantonese tradition, we had to have a soup as they do make really good soups- a nourishing Seafood coriander soup. As customary, we also ordered a pot of Oolong tea to go with our lunch.

Seafood Coriander Soup

Followed by an appetiser portion of crispy soft shell crab.

Crispy soft shell crab

We had an array of dim sum, most were done well but I found that the cheung fun was not fine enough nor was the skin of the Shanghai dumplings. It does take a very skilled dim sum chef to execute these dumplings perfectly and unfortunately in London we don’t seem to have many that are trained. Besides this, everything else was delightful.

I did like their variation on crispy duck with their crispy duck rolls.

Prawn Cheung Fun, Crispy duck rolls, spicy dumplings, roast pork puffs, Shanghai Xiao Long Bao

Our other assortment of steamed and fried dim sum dishes arrived including my favourite, the prawn and chive dumplings. Fiona rather gamely tried the chicken’s feet which a lot of other English friends have balked at. It really is an acquired taste as Chinese people like to chew on the bones which is more flavourful, rather than opting for a large chunk of meat.

Prawn and chives dumpling, chicken’s feet, Vietnamese spring rolls

We had lovely dim sum even though we probably ordered too much for two people. Since it was her first dim sum meal in a long time, it would have been wrong not to have a breadth of dishes. One of the comments was that everything came in multiple of 3 and that made it difficult for 2 people dining.

Dim sum always works better in a bigger crowd as you can order more varieties.  On the weekends, they serve a few more special dishes than the menu we had. Dishes like crispy suckling pig is available as a dim sum dish and if you see it on the menu when you visit, you should try it. Don’t forget to get there early on the weekends to beat the crowds.

Royal China Queensway
13 Queensway
London
W2 4QJ
020 7221 2535

Eat Cook Explore was a guest of Royal China

Original Article: Dim Sum at Royal China Queensway Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

The 4 Hour Chef is a really catchy title, which immediately makes you think that you can learn to be a chef in 4 hours, but the books is not about that. More on this later.

It’s Tim Ferriss’ latest best selling book. It has 14 carefully chosen meals each using only 4 ingedients and they all take just 5-20 minutes to prepare.  If that has not grabbed you yet, each of those meals are compliant with a Slow Carb diet or even a Paleo diet.

Some people who have been following this way of eating have lost 20 lbs in a month from just following these recipes and not even thinking about a diet. Well I don’t have 20 lbs to lose but maybe 10 lbs, then I can fit into those model sample dresses.

So what this book is really about is Meta Learning where you learn to mimic the world’s fastest learner and in his own words,  “a choose your own adventure book”. He says that he has crammed in 6 months worth of culinary school learning into 48 hours. A total of 4 hours is needed to cook all the 14 dishes and with the skill and knowledge gained, this gives you the basis to tackle thousands of other recipes. All of the recipes are designed so that you don’t need a lot of fancy kitchen equipment and can be done on a low budget.

This book is not about cooking, it’s about mastering life. So armed with the skills learnt using cooking as the skill to learn, I can apply that to meta learn anything like how to speak fluent Spanish in 8 weeks.

I was just so intrigued to try out the recipes so I picked this one : The Osso “Buko” a play on the famous Italian Osso Bucco made with veal shanks. In his recipe which you can see here, he uses lamb shanks.

I like recipes like this, minimal fuss, easy to prepare and quite tasty too. I’ll be trying a few of this other recipes soon.

You can get The 4 Hour Chef book from Amazon.

Original Article: Tim Ferriss’ Osso “Buko” from the 4 Hour Chef Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

It’s not often that you find a topic that doesn’t have Wikipedia entry and Suspended Coffee is one of those terms. It’s called Caffe Sospeso in Italian and is a movement that supposedly started in Naples, Italy.

The description in Wikipedia says:

 A tradition in the cafés of Naples is to order a caffè sospeso – literally, a coffee “in suspense” (aka. caffè pagato, or “paid coffee”) – as a sign of your good fortune. When a sospeso is ordered, the customer pays for two coffees, but only receives one. That way, when a person who is homeless or otherwise down on their luck walks into the café, the person can ask if there are any coffees held in suspense, and can have one as a courtesy of the first customer. Though the custom has been a part of Neapolitan society for many years, it is somewhat less common today.

 

A recent story on Raw Story said that this trend has really taken hold in Bulgaria, one of the poorest countries in Europe. Over 150 coffee shops have signed up to do this and they have a very active Facebook page posting pictures of coffee receipts and updates about new shops and retailers joining the movement.

By: Mike_fleming

Bulgaria has suffered from a lot of poverty driven unrest recently and they have had weeks of street protests.  Several fast food places and grocery shops have joined this initiative too.

Since the story has been doing the rounds on Facebook and elsewhere, the cynics have been out in force saying that this will just encourage scroungers to take advantage of the kindness of strangers. I think the main point is that one person makes a small contribution, it may help someone and in turn, this might have a ripple effect in society. The butterfly effect in action.

I feel a sense of helplessness when read see stories like this and I guess all I can my bit by paying it forward.

If you think it’s a good idea to get some coffee shops and cafes in London to practice this too, please tweet and share this story.

Original Article: Suspended Coffee (Cafe Sospeso) Movement Spreading Rapidly Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

Balham is a part of London that I have not been to before. It is one of those London neighbourhoods where you would benefit from some local knowledge.

I am now deeply envious of the locals in Balham since my recent visit to Harrison’s. They have recently undergone a  refurbishment and the new layout has an open kitchen in the middle of the dining area.

On the night we were there, the bar was busy with some local after work crowd and the dining area was filled with early diners. The bistro style menu is not extensive, but has a lot of seasonal choices.It might look like a bar and you would probably expect the usual offerings of burgers and fish and chips but look beyond your usual choices and you won’t be disappointed here.

We sat at one of the banquette seats facing the open kitchen where we could see the chefs assembling the dishes. The central open kitchen separated the dining area from the bar area and all the activity created a lively buzz in the room.

Moving swiftly on to our delicious meal, we started with a very generous plate of lamb belly fritters, not something that you see on menus very often. Nice crispy pieces of meat, well seasoned and a joy to eat. The other starter we had was a very sizeable the crab trifle.

For mains, my friend had the Goan fish curry with rice which was again quite substantial. There was a mix of fish in the curry cooked in a light coconut curry sauce and this was served with rice, raita and some side salad.

Goan Fish Curry

I had the day’s fish special which was a very nicely pan fried piece of fish on top of some shellfish and a lovely sauce. It was delightful.

On the side, we had the most delicious crispy kale with pickled chilli and this is possibly my favourite vegetable side dishes ever. The kale was still crunchy, slightly sweet with a spicy kick. Seriously sensational. (Not often you can say that about a plate of leafy greens).

With hardly any room left, we shared a lemon tart for pudding. The thin pastry was well executed with a super tangy lemon topping. Superb.

The cooking at Harrison’s is very good. It’s not surprising as the menu has creative input from the others in the family like Sam’s Brasserie, The Square and The Ledbury.

What was most impressive is their effervescent General Manager, Jenny,  who was super friendly and enthusiastic but has now taken off on a world tour. What a great asset to this restaurant. All the other staff we encountered were very knowledgable and friendly too.

If the fabulous food does not grab you, check out their cocktail bar in the basement. You get there by an almost medieval looking spiral stone staircase. At the bottom, you get a very intimate cosy cocktail bar with dark wood panelling, subdued lighting and  a large cocktail menu.

It is obviously a real local favourite as it was packed the night we were there. The bar is open until 1am and there is a special deal where you get a free cocktail with your dinner receipt.

If you live anywhere near Balham, do check it out. It is a cut above.
Harrison’s
15-19 Bedford Hill, London SW12 9EX
Tel: 020 3589 2743

Eat Cook Explore was a guest of Harrisons

Original Article: Harrisons – A terrific local eatery in Balham Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

Wine pairing is quite a tricky thing, especially when it is with non European food.

So many wines are overpowered by food with strong or spicy flavours. When trying to match wine and specifically Chablis in this case with takeaway food, the brain cells had to be awakened and taste buds had to be tingled.

The challenge was to match 2 wines, a Petit Chablis Domaine Sainte Claire and a Samuel Billaud Chablis.  In my area, the takaway choices are limited to nasty pizzas, spicy Indian or Chinese.

Firstly some tasting notes for the Petit Chablis: a light lemony colour, smells very fresh and tastes very light, slightly citrusy but not overly complex. This wine would be overpowered by anything spicy or overly sweet. I am a very enthusiastic student of wine tasting and am still acquiring the vocabulary and training my palate to discern those aromas and flavours that are sometimes used to describe wine like “leather”, “gooseberries”,  etc. I have to say that I have don’t have a memory of smelling anything distinctive from gooseberries but what do I know.

To  match with this Petit Chablis, I would pick a dish with light flavours to complement this wine. The ideal dish from my local Chinese would be the Sesame Prawn Toast which is slightly savoury and with no overwhelming flavours.

For the second bottle we tasted and matched the Chablis by Samuel Billaud 2011. Samuel is the nephew of a famous Chablis winemaker and used to work with his uncle at their family’s Billaud-Simon vineyard. Now he has branched out on his own buying in local grapes to make his wines. The bottles I got were 2011 vintages which was supposed to have been a great year for Chablis.

On tasting, this has a more golden yellow colour compared to the first bottle. It smells fresh, citrussy again but fruity too. On tasting, there is light acidity, a bit minerally which is characteristic of Chablis and quite rich.

This wine would go really well with  a main course of braised fish with tofu which is a slow braised fish dish with hints of oyster sauce and light soya sauce with a sprinkling of carrots, mange tout and spring onions. Served with plain white rice this would be a terrific take out meal. Anything like sweet and sour anything or spicy anything would totally render the flavours of this wine obsolete. It would go well with some lightly steamed seafood very well. Of course, the best and most natural accompaniment would be a plate of fresh oysters, preferably at a pavement cafe in Paris in the springtime.

EatCookExplore was sent the wine to review and match for this post.

Original Article: A glass of Chablis with your Chow Mein? Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

It’s St Patrick’s Day!

In celebrating all things Irish, the lovely people of Keogh’s are offering a fun prize – a hamper of their new range of crisps.

Get some of that Irish Luck with Shamrock Crisps

Shamrock Crisps – What on earth are these? Never knew that shamrock was edible? Now you know, it is.

I have tasted them and they look like normal hand cooked crisps with little specks of green. Of the different flavours, I like the Roast Beef & Irish Stout flavour.  The Shamrock and Sour Cream is quite unusual and slightly tangy from the sour cream. The shamrock itself is grown by Livingshamrock who have been producing fresh Shamrock for the American President on St Patrick’s Day since 1952.

Keoghs is a 200 year old family run potato farm in Ireland and are the only producer in Ireland to grow and hand-cook their crisps on the farm itself.

All these flavours are available from Selfridges.

How to enter:

For a chance to win this prize, see all the multiple ways you can win below. Don’t forget to leave a working  email address so that we can contact you with the prize.

Disclosure: The prize for this contest is being supplied free of charge by Keoghs and is only open to UK residents.

1. Complete the Rafflecopter widget below to verify your entries
2. Entries are by blog comment, Twitter, Facebook etc
3. Closing Date is Sunday 24th March 2013.
(For more information on how to enter blog giveaways using Rafflecopter please see this short video.)
There are LOTS of opportunities to win with LOTS of points to earn – the MORE points you earn , the more entries you have! You can win more bonus entries by tweeting on a daily basis.

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Original Article: Giveaway! – Win a hamper of Irish Shamrock Crisps from Keogh’s Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

London never ceases to surprise me. Every now and then I still find parts of London that are a complete revelation to me. Recently I discovered this stretch of the river just down the hill from St Pauls and in the shadow of  the Millenium Bridge. Unless you had business in any of those ugly commercial buildings in the part of the City, you would never know that there are a few very nice eateries and bars along here.

One of these restaurants is Zorita’s Kitchen. It is not so much a restaurant as a wine bar, deli, organic farm shop and a casual dining room hybrid. Zorita’s is part of The Hacienda’s Company who own vineyards and organic farms in the Duero Valley in Spain.

What makes me instantly like this  place is that the Hacienda Zorita organic farm is committed to the preservation of rare and endangered species like rare breed like the sheep like curly haired Mangalita pigs. The meat from these animals costs 10 times that of the iberico pig and are used to make lomo but not the ones we were tasting that day.

Zorita’s occupy a stunning location overlooking the Thames and across the bridge from the Tate Modern and of course with spectacular river views. (Tip- a great place for lunch if you are off to see a show at the Tate Modern).

The “restaurant” is dominated by a semi circular table in the middle of the room which is where they do wine tastings. One wall is lined with a selection of their own organic wines, other Spanish wines and organic produce from their farm like this organic olive oil and cheese.

Sheeps milk cheese aged 6 months in Syrah

Dotted around the room in a casual fashion are rustic zinc topped tables in keeping with the rustic style of the food and what they term “farm cooking”.

Zorita’s Kitchen has a menu that is a showcase of the all the best produce from the region. There are a lot of choices of their special cheeses and cured meats. In addition to that there are a few hot dishes and a menu for Tostas, hot toasted bread with a variety of toppings.

We kicked off with 2 platters, one of cured meat and one of cheese. My favourite was the delicate lomo followed by the meltingly soft and piquant chorizo.

Chorizo, jamon, salchichon and lomo from free range Iberico pigs

Artisan raw milk cheeses : From the top, Payoyo, Torta de Dehesa, Queso Curado, Syrah and Tomillo served with some quince jelly.

Then followed a bowl of warming beans and chorizo.

The most delicious dish was this combination of ingredients which came in the form of a ripe figs, jamon and goats cheese, dressed with a balsamic vinegar glaze. Fresh flavours, perfectly balanced.

Just to make sure we had a sample of every section of the menu, we also had a Tosta Hacienda Zorita which is toasted bread topped with tomato, garlic, olive oil, torta de dehesa soft ewe’s cheese and jamon.

For pudding, we had the specially flown in Torta de Santiago, an almond cake which is a specialty of the region and difficult to reproduce with the required authenticity outside of the region. We also had a crema catalan ice cream and a glass of Pedro Ximinez to finish off the meal with a flourish. The chef Pedro had a little chat with us on the menu and it was clear that all the staff were passionate about the produce that they were working with. It reminds me of In Parma that I review recently.

Besides the wine tasting and dining room on the ground floor, the 1st floor houses their new member’s lounge for their Wine Club, tasting rooms and also the offices for their parent company’s wine business.

Zorita’s Kitchen are about to revamp their menu with a little help from Michelin starred chef Victor Guttierrez who will bring the soul of the Duero Valley to London.

Zorita’s Kitchen
Broken Wharf House,
2 Broken Wharf,
London EC4V 3DT
Tel: 020 7429 3253

Thanks to Zorita’s Kitchen for hosting our delicious lunch.

Original Article: Taste of Spanish Sunshine at Zorita’s Kitchen Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

Cooking Japanese food has always been a mystery to me. I have been eating Japanese food for years but have only attempted to cook a few dishes like sushi and oyako don. It is one thing that I want to learn more about, especially the unfamiliar ingredients.

A new Japanese Cooking school was launched in London recently. It is the brainchild of Hama san of So Restaurant and Akitoshi Handa of ASTA.

My friend Akemi who is going to be one of the instructors there invited me along to the launch party. Akemi is a very accomplished cook and she used to be the personal chef to Tina Turner. She will be teaching a variety of classes there including Vegetarian Japanese Cooking.

At the launch event, they had Shamisen music, lots of sushi and Japanese canapes, a non stop flow of sake.

Then 2 celebrity chefs battled it out making sushi with some very unusual fillings like stilton, strawberries and parma ham. They were both taking it really seriously too.

Anton Edelman making sushi

Nuno Mendez making sushi

A cooking demonstration.

You can book Japanese cooking lessons online at http://www.sozai.co.uk/

SOZAI, 5 Middlesex Street, London E1 7AA

Original Article: Sozai Cooking School Launch Party Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling

I love to learn about different cultures and their cuisine. One that is quite alien to me is Syrian food until recently. I was invited along to a supperclub hosted by a newcomer to the supperclub scene, Yasmine.

This evening was held at her elegant family home in Holland Park. Yasmine Syrian heritage comes from her mum and the food we had is what they would cook at home.

In their beautifully decorated dining room hung with a lot of original art, she had laid out all the dishes she had spend the whole day cooking. Unlike other supperclubs I have been to, this one was done buffet style and more like a dinner party at a friends. It was very casual and very friendly as we all sat around the living room, chatting like old friends.

On the dining table was a colourful array of dishes, from swordfish, prawns, stuffed vine leaves (with the secret ingredient -dill), a very unusual orange, beetroot and pomegranate salad, a delicious smokey aubergine dip (baba ghanoush), lots of stuffed baby vegetables.

The flavours were very fresh and even though there was so much food (everyone had seconds) it wasn’t heavy. Nice contrast of sharp flavours in the salads, with the contrast of the creamy and smokey aubergine dip (my favourite dish of the night).

For pudding we had a very sweet pumpkin cake with ice cream.

We learnt that Syrian food takes a lot of influence from Turkish food being once part of the Ottoman empire. Over the years, Syrian cuisine has taken a lot of influence from the cultures that settled in Syria. The food is not dissimilar to that of Lebanon and other Mediterranean neighbours.

My friends and I felt like we had been invited to a family dinner with friends, it was so casual and the food was plentiful and delicious. Yasmine had even made some fabulous florentines with specks of lavender and hidden bites of crystallised ginger to go with little glasses of mint tea.

For her first attempt at hosting a supperclub, I think Yasmine did a grand job. The food was fabulous, the other guests were all very friendly, chatty foodies and she was a very gracious host. A total success and if she does some more, this is a supperclub not to miss.

Eat Cook Explore was a guest Yasmine’s supperclub courtesy of Melba, a new website that brings together new culinary talent to host foodie events at supperclubs and pop ups around London. It’s only a few months old and has already attracted a very impressive group of cooks and hosts. You can find more supperclubs like Yasmine’s on their platform.

Original Article: Yasmine’s debut with her Syrian Supperclub Copyright Year. Eat Cook Explore. All Rights Reserved Eat Cook Explore - A London Foodie Who Loves Eating Out and Travelling