BUSH HALL DINING ROOMS

Last year while we had our house refurbed we stayed with friends just off Uxbridge Road and I found what is now one of my favourite pubs for food. However there was another place on Uxbridge Road that I walked past quite often that looked really good, and that was Bush Hall Dining Rooms which had only opened a couple of months before, and is part of the iconic music venue, Bush Hall, next door. Fast forward nearly a year and I finally got round to going there. Now I've discovered it I've actually booked it for my birthday meal next month as that's how much we liked it.

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A BOWL OF CHICKEN WINGS

I've posted a recipe here before (many years ago) for sticky, spicy chicken wings, but I wanted to put a slightly different, even easier, recipe, as the ones I cooked last night were devoured in minutes - even though there were so many of them!

I love easy dinners that can be whipped up when I get home from work and this is one of them. A little forward planning in the morning and they're even better.

Serves as many as you can share them with

800g free-range, organic chicken wings (I always buy free range anyway but when buying chicken wings, organic is essential - non-organic chickens get injected with drugs and hormones throughout their miserable lives. These drugs and hormones are injected into the wing, where they mostly stay. So if you're eating non-organic wings, then they're full of nasties - just don't!)
3 tbsp runny honey
1 tbsp grainy mustard
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
Juice of 1 lemon
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

In the morning, before you got to work, mix the honey, mustard, Worcester sauce, lemon juice, a splash of olive oil and salt and pepper together in a bowl. Add the chicken wings, mix well so they're all coated, cover the bowl and put in the fridge.

When you're ready to eat, preheat the oven to 200C. Once it's reached this heat spread the wings out on a foil covered baking tray, pour the remaining marinade over them, and put the tray in the oven. After 20 minutes of so take them out and pour off 80% of the liquid. Put them back in the oven for another 20 minutes so they have 40 minutes in total.

We ate ours with olive oil mash, and a watercress and avocado salad, but serve them with whatever takes your fancy, or hide in a corner and eat them all to yourself!

 

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MY TOP 10 RESTAURANTS

Over the past 3 and a half years or so of writing my blog I've been to tens if not hundreds of restaurants - some of which end up on here, others that don't. I tend to only write up a review of a restaurant here if it's one that I want to recommend to my readers, as my blog's about that, not ripping into places I haven't enjoyed. However there are also places that I've eaten at that I absolutely love, that for one reason or another haven't ended up on my blog. So as a quick and easy reference I wanted to put this post up to summarise my favourites. Most of these restaurants are in London, a few further afield (although all south of the M4 - I can only write about what I know!), and hopefully they're a good variety of food styles, prices and ideas. I'm going to continue the top 10 series (keep an eye on the new "top 10" button under my blog title), with more specific lists, but this one's my top 10 of all time (so far!)

The list is not in any order of preference - I can't do that as I just couldn't choose between them to pick my favourites in any order!

1. BARRAFINA - my absolute favourite London restaurant
    54 Frith Street, Soho, London, W1D 4SL

I love Barrafina for many reasons. I lived in Spain for a while and got a taste for great tapas. Barrafina bring this to London with each and every dish they produce. Top quality ingredients and excellent cooking mean the food here is second to none. The original restaurant (they've recently opened a 2nd site in Covent Garden) is small and set around a curved bar with 23 seats where you sit to drink and eat. There's no booking here, so although it's my favourite, it's not necessarily reliable for large parties or events where you want to eat at a particular time, but they do now do a private event space in Covent Garden that can be reserved for up to 60 people. Don't let the no booking put you off though, the queue moves pretty fast and the lovely staff keep you topped up with drinks and nibbles until you do get a seat. And a little tip for colder days - there are three or four tables outside the restaurant that don't get snapped up that fast - take one of these and watch the world go by under the powerful heat lamps that will keep you just as warm as if you were inside!

Top dishes - octopus with capers / courgette flower.

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A LITTLE LONDON LUSCIOUSNESS - 20th SEP

When I started doing pop up restaurants in November last year, I never once imagined that by August this year I would've done over 18 events already! Although I've stuck to my plan of 1 public pop up a month, I've had so many requests for private catering gigs that I've been cooking most weekends for the last 6 weeks! I absolutely love it - but also have a full time job, so have been exhausting myself a bit recently!! I decided to have a break from public pop ups in August, although ended up catering a hen do and a baby shower last weekend anyway.

So with no more pop ups this month, my next date is Saturday 20th September. I'm teaming up with Urban Food Fortnight to put on a pop up using locally sourced produce. If you follow my pop ups you'll know that they are all about using sustainably produced, seasonal produce, sourced mostly from the West Country, where I grew up. However there's a different challenge with my September date, as all the ingredients I will be using will have been grown in and around London! Now this might not sound so appealing, but what I'm doing is teaming up with various allotment holders to use their lovely home grown fruit and vegetables, all of which are seasonal, and I am souring all of my meat and dairy from farms in Essex and Kent. It's an exciting challenge and one that's made me come up with a menu that I can't wait to cook...

The menu for 20th September is:

Fig and elderflower cocktail - made to order on arrival (non-alcoholic version if requested)

 

Grilled figs with chicory, apple, candied walnut and gorgonzola salad

 

Slow roast pork belly, fennel gratin, mustard creamy mash potato, buttered cabbage & rosemary and crab apple sauce, served with cider gravy

 

Raspberry mousse with shortbread biscuits

 

Cheeseboard with homemade chutney and rosemary and sea salt biscuits

 

Coffee or herbal tea with homemade chocolates

 

As always, dietary requirements can be catered for, so if you'd like to come but there's something  you can't eat or don't like on the menu, then just mention in the comments section when booking and I can email you alternatives to choose from.

 

Tickets for the pop up are £30 and include a welcome drink. It's bring your own booze on the evening so you can bring your preferred drinks with you. I provide soft drinks for those who want them. Tickets are available here - and have already started selling!

The pop up takes place at our lovely house in Acton - which is easily accessible on the Piccadilly line, or via the overground stations South Acton or Kew Bridge, which link to East and South London respectively.

If you're not quite convinced and want to see what other guests have said, you can read all my reviews here. And here's a couple of photos from my last events....

Walnut and cranberry bread for the starter:
 

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THE APPLE TREE - PATISSERIE IN ACTON!

I live in Acton. It's not the most happening place in the world, and the little strip of shops near where I live used to be made up of a few grotty corner shops, an electrics shop, a funeral parlour (!) and not much else. In the last year however we've had a mini Sainsburys open, as well as a really good fish and chip shop, and most recently a great pizza place that does small pizzas for a very reasonable £4 each. And then a few weeks ago I noticed something else had appeared - a tiny café called The Apple Tree. We popped in for a chat with the owners and to see what they were selling, and I was thrilled to find out that they sell fresh juices and patisserie cakes! I would've never thought we could get such nice cakes right at the top of our road, but now we can. I must've been in nearly 10 times since they opened as they are now my go to for cakes to take to parties, or just for a lazy pudding to have at home on the rare occasions I really crave something sweet.

The Apple Tree is run by a lovely husband and wife team, and the wife's mother makes most of the cakes at her local bakery. They sell a wide range of biscuits, tarts, cream cakes and slices, and also do sandwiches during the week. They've got good, proper coffee, fresh juices, and my favourite, a frozen lemonade which is like a fresh lemon slushy - perfect for the hot weather.

I picked up a few cakes for a friend's baby shower yesterday and they all got eaten, so that can only be a good sign! I snapped a few photos of some of what's on offer, but just with my iPhone so excuse the quality.

Crunchy buttery biscuits - think delicious homemade jammy dodgers:

 

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WOMAD FESTIVAL 2014

Last weekend I spent 3 fun-filled, sunny days in a field in the Cotswolds at WOMAD 2014 festival. I wasn't planning on blogging about it, so didn't pay too much attention to taking nice photos, but I loved it so much I just had to write about it here. I've collected photos off as many of my friends as possible so these are from all of our cameras and phones.

Normally I stick to one camping festival a year - the one I've totally fallen for - Boomtown. But this year it's the boy's mum's 70th that weekend meaning that I can only go for the Sunday. So to make up for it we had a look at other options and Womad seemed really appealing. Womad is a family festival for 40,000 people spread across beautiful Gloucestershire countryside, sprawling either side of the most amazing arboretum, which provided much needed shade over the weekend. We got the boy's brother and his lady to sign up, and my best friend and another friend and her 9 year old came too, as well as the boy's mum, who went with her friends.

We arrived on Thursday night and walked straight in with no queue. We picked a spot close enough to the main arena to camp, set up our canvas homes and cracked open the first of many weekend drinks before a quick wander round site to see what was happening (not much on Thursday night) so headed back to the tents for some rest before it really kicked off on Friday.

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