A LITTLE LUSCIOSNESS POP UP - 25th OCT

After a little break over August I can't wait to get stuck in to doing pop up restaurants again! My next date, 20th September, has already sold out, but there's good news - I've got another date now booked in for Saturday 25th October. But if you want to come you'll have to be quick, as half of the tickets for the October have already gone (I really can't believe it - thank you SO much to everyone who's booked this and all my other dates).

As normal the event will take place on Saturday evening at our home in Acton Town, where I will feed you 4 courses of homemade, seasonal food. I'm really excited by the menu I've chosen for October's pop up, and for starters I'm serving an old favourite - steak tartare with my secret mix - that has received rave reviews from past pop ups. Main course is a truly decadent game pie, full of meat that's in its prime season. And pudding is a crunchy, nutty crumble made with fruits straight from Somerset hedgerows, and served with my now almost-famous salted caramel crème fraiche. Here's the full menu in all its glory:

Blackberry cocktail, made with bubbles and something stronger

 

Steak tartare, quail's egg yolk, cauliflower puree & pickled cauliflower,

served with homemade bread

 

Rich game pie, creamy potato & celeriac truffle mash, buttered greens,

wild mushroom and shallot game gravy

 

Apple and blackberry nutty crumble with salted caramel crème fraiche

 

Montgomery cheeseboard, apple and quince chutney, seeded crackers

 

Coffee and herbal teas served with homemade chocolates

It’s bring your own booze on the evening so do feel free to bring a bottle (or two!). I provide soft drinks for anyone that prefers them. And you can put any drinks that need chilling in the fridge when you arrive.

And if you want to come along but you're veggie/GF/don't like something on the menu, then you can still come - if you book a ticket and mention in the comments section of the booking what it is you don't like/can't eat, then I can make something that you do like instead!

Tickets for 25th October are available here and cost £30, but do get in quick as they're selling really fast.

At my last pop up in July the food critic from the Chiswick Herald came for the evening and has amazingly given me 10/10 for the evening!! You can read the full review here.

One last thing to mention, if you're interested in all things pop up, is that Grub Club, the wonderful people who not only deal with all the admin and tickets sales for mine and many others' pop ups, but who encouraged me to start doing pop ups in the first place and have guided me all the way, are crowd funding. So if you want to be part of this huge food movement, and own your very own piece of Grub Club then follow this link and read all about what they're doing, where they're going and how your investment can help. So far, over 20,000 people have eaten at a Grub Club pop up and by investing a tiny amount you can help Grub Club grow and spread all over the world - !!

 

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THE BOLLO HOUSE REVISITED

I've blogged about The Bollo before - it was one of the first reviews I ever wrote on my blog. Since then we've been more times than I can remember, for food, drinks, Sunday lunches, last minute dinners, meetings, cocktails.... It's our regular so we end up there for many reasons or no reason at all. Then you can imagine my horror when I called to book earlier this Summer only for the phone to ring and ring with no answer. They'd closed! During Summer!! But a bit of further investigation led me to find out that it was only temporary as they were undergoing a full front and back of house refurb, and they'd be open again soon. So the night after they reopened we were there like a shot to try out their new range of drinks and updated food menu.

The Bollo changed hands pre-refurb and is now run the by the same group who own The City Barge in Chiswick, which is another new favourite of ours, so I was excited to see what they'd done to improve this place we call our second home! A lot is the answer!! I'm so happy that all has changed for the better. The inside of the pub has been given a lick of paint, the slightly odd seating arrangements are gone (it used to be a bit of higgledy mix of bench seating, large tables, sofas and various types of chair) replaced with more tables, creating a restaurant feel in the main dining area, but without having lost any of the pub feel in the bar area. And talking of the bar area, their drinks selection is awesome now. There's about 10 different craft beers, a lot of which are brewed in London, on tap - one of which is a new favourite - 3 Weiss Monkeys - a wheat beer brewed in London Fields which is light and refreshing with a delicious lemony taste to it. We sunk 5 of these between us before we'd even ordered  food - oops! If you like wheat beer or are interested in trying it, go for this, it's the best wheat beer I've ever tried.

But the main event for me was the food - we loved the old, seasonally changing menu that had our favourite dishes on it which we ate over and over again. I was nervous about the change, but I needn't have been - it is SO good! The menu has been spruced up - bread to nibble that used to be served with oil and balsamic has been upgraded to delicious slices of a seeded loaf, now served with oil and dukkah. Salt and pepper squid is now calamari with merguez sausage - traditional has been replaced by modern with a twist.

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OLD EL PASO STAND n STUFF

There's not much we like more for a slap up dinner than a fajita or taco night, especially when we've got friends coming round. It's such a fun way to eat, with everyone grabbing their own ingredients and creating a unique plate made up of their favourite components from everything on the table - it allows the boy to steer clear of spice, but me to load up my plate with jalapenos and hot salsa, so everyone gets what they want. So when I was invited up to the Old El Paso HQ in West London to try their new range I was intrigued to find out more.

Old El Paso have launched their newest product (after 8 years in the making) - the Stand N Stuff soft taco. Think soft flour tortilla made into a flat-bottomed boat shape that you can fill with whatever you fancy without having to worry about it all spilling out. My bug bear with normal tortillas is that lump of folded flour wrap you get at the bottom that's stodgy and excessive, and the messy leakage of delicious juices that normally spill out of the tortilla when you eat it. There's none of this with the Stand n Stuff - just an open sided pouch that I find much easier to fill and eat that the standard tortilla.

We were given a little talk about Old El Paso, who've been trading for nearly 80 years and started life as a tinned tomato distributor before becoming the Old El Paso we all know today. After tasting the new range and then cooking up our own versions in their test kitchens we were sent on our way with goody bags stuffed full of the new products - we got one of each of their Stand n Stuff kits, in each of the 3 flavours - Smokey BBQ, chipotle and honey, and extra mild, which come with the tortilla boats, a spice mix and a salsa pack, as well as some of the tortillas on their own, and a nice big jar of jalapenos.

I was super keen to get in the kitchen at home and rustle up my own version of the tortilla, and so made these really delicious spicy tuna tortilla boats - which you can easily make too.

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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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MIRANDA GORE BROWNE'S BLACKBERRY CRUMBLE BISCUITS

One of the best things about my visit to the London Produce Show last month was getting the chance to watch some live cooking demos and sample the delights that were being made. The first of these that I watched was Miranda Gore Browne, of Great British Bake Off fame, who whipped up some seriously yummy blackberry crumble biscuits, that were then passed round for us to try. They were excellent, and I'm not normally a biscuit fan! They had the perfect balance of crunchy and soft with the freshness of blackberries and the sweet blackberry flower they were served with. I've already made a batch at home and they were nearly as good as Miranda's! If you want to try them for yourselves, then here's the recipe so that you too can make them.

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CARNABY STREET EAT, SUN 20th JULY

This Sunday, 20th July, Carnaby Street is going to be transformed for a free, one-day food festival. From 11am - 6pm the street will be packed with outdoor stalls run by local restaurants who'll be serving up street food versions of their best dishes. There'll be live music, free workshops, face painting and live cooking demos by Hardeep Singh Kohli throughout the day.

Over 40 of the top restaurants in the area will be out on the streets giving you the opportunity to sample their dishes from only £5 per dish. Restaurants that will be present on the day are Antidote, Camellia’s Tea House, Carnaby Burger Co., Cha Cha Moon, Choccywoccydoodah, Comptoir Libanais, Dehesa, FlatPlanet, Johnny Cupcakes & Crumbs and Doilies, Joho Soho by Cinnamon Soho, Kua ‘Aina, Leon, Liberty, Masala Zone, Moosh, Mozzino & Katia Kitchen, Pizza Pilgrims, Rosa’s Thai Café, SACRED Café, Shampers, Shoryu Carnaby, Speakeasy Espresso and Brew Bar, Retreat, Stax, The Detox Kitchen, The Diner, The Life Goddess, The Rum Kitchen Carnaby, Urban Tea Rooms, Whyte & Brown, Wright Brothers Soho and Zebrano.

We had a sneak peak preview of some of the establishments who will be involved on Sunday's extravaganza, and you're in for a real treat.

Oysters from Wright Brothers' very own oyster farm in Cornwall.

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THE SHED, NOTTING HILL

Every so often I come across a new restaurant that surprises and delights me. It surprises as I always assume that because I've only just found it, it must be brand new (rarely is) and it delights me as I have a new place to go for amazing food in London. The Shed in Notting Hill is one of these.

I only found out about The Shed last week whilst googling potential spots for a mid week girly dinner, and called and booked the only table they had left, which was at 6pm. It didn't matter that it was so early though - I work not far from Notting Hill so knew I could get there in time and I'd been saving myself for food all day... if only my dinner date had got there on time too! By the time she arrived it was quarter to seven and I was already 2 drinks down. I don't want to moan though, it was strangely nice to sit there on my own whilst waiters and waitresses in checked shirts buzzed around me getting the place ready for what was to be a full house on a Tuesday night. I'm working with a food festival later this year, so while I waited I made some notes for that, as it's rare I've got any time to myself at the moment.

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