Street Food in Istanbul

Istanbul is a great place to find find cheap, fun food on the street. Kebab shops are two a penny. Street vendors selling barbecued sweet corn and roasted chestnuts are just as prevalent as are shops selling amazing pastries that look so bad for you they must be delicious. Bagel machines and mussel sellers were equally hard to avoid!











Not wanting to return back from the epicentre of the kebab world without having eaten a genuine donner Cowie relented and allowed me to have a kebab on the last day. We did plenty of research and decided that we would eat directly opposite our apartment... just in case. We found a store which had a constant stream of locals walking away stuffing their faces and thought that they must be popular for a reason. The more trade they get the fresher their kebab must be... hopefully!

Here are the action shots... worthy of a chapter in Lonely Planet!











And here's the video, worthy of the Discovery Channel



For a great article about Istanbul street food click here. It's amazing!

Really keen to visit Haozhan

Cowie and I were pottering around China Town the other day getting goodies for Anna and Edwin's dinner party when we stumbled across a Chinese restaurant that we actually wanted to go to in China Town... shock horror!

We had walked from Cowie's office on Hanover Square past the fashionable shops of Carnaby Street and down amongst the cool bars and restaurants around Barrafina, the Ivy and L'Atelier before meandering through the sex shops of Soho and popping out on Gerrard Street. It's amazing what diversity London has to offer. Too often we get taxis or take the tube which means we miss out on all the fun going on!

I've always found China Town a bit strange. Mysterious. Dangerous. Maybe it's from watching Jack Nicholson in Chinatown too often. Or it could be because of last week's Silent Witness where the Triads were smuggling ilegal immagrants into the country and dismembering the ones who couldn't pay in the back rooms of Gerrard Street's restaurants! You certainly can't say the area is dull...

All of the restaurants look the same and none of them are at all appealing. None have really caught up with the times and made themselves desirbale. No doubt they are all fronts for all sorts of dodgy businesses. The one that stands out from this questionable crowd is the very stylish exterior of Haozhan. We then read up about it when we got home to find out that it has had some very decent reviews. Jay Rayner from the Observer said:
"But then there's Haozhan, whose chef, Chee Loong Cheong, used to work at Hakkasan, and where the menu doesn't just tour the predictable Cantonese staples but flirts with the occasional Japanese or Thai flavour. It even looks different: instead of going for decor reminiscent of your auntie's in Penge, like all the others on the strip, this one is modern with lots of clean lines, the walls fitted with mirrors and jade-green panels. And, whisper it, the waiters smile.

The kitchen has a particular talent for deep frying, to produce items that are crisp but greaseless. A starter of crispy quail with chilli and salt, a dish familiar to me from Hakkasan's sister restaurant Yautatcha but available here at two-thirds of the price, brought two whole birds in a light, crisp batter sprinkled with aromatics which managed not to overwhelm the gaminess of the birds. Curry soft-shell crab sounded distinctly worrying (which was why we ordered it) but happily wasn't, the delicate creatures gently battered and sprinkled with shards of a fiery spice mix. My companion and I were divided over the spare ribs with a coffee sauce, which is to say he thought them odd in a bad way and I thought them odd in a good way. Yes, there was a bitterness to the sweet glaze on the thick meaty ribs, but also a certain fragrance which reminded me of rosemary. My friend's uncertainty didn't trouble me. It meant I got to finish them.

We agreed about the star dish, the silver cod with a dry XO sauce of minced prawns and chillies. The generous slabs of fish had first been sealed off, but so sensitively that as you cut through the outer skin, the huge flakes of pearly fish fell apart. The XO part of this plateful simply cut through the richness. I would come here for this dish alone."

So inspired by this Cowie and I are going to pay them a visit soon. I'm dying to try their silver cod in XO sauce and their curry soft shell crab.

Flight to Istanbul

For Cowie's 25th birthday we decided to go to Istanbul. To be honest we only went there because of someone's recommendation on Tripadvisor when we were researching our Croatian adventure earlier in the year.

Somehow we snaffled some cheap flights from BA which subsequently became extortinately expensive and set off for a thrilling weekend of surprises. Cowie was mainly excited about the plane food. Having had to fly with EasyJet recently, who I hate because they stole my camera and refused to compensate me for it, we were really lookig forward to seeing what they fed us. Cowie was insistent it would be chicken. I was just happy to see Cowie's face when it turned out to be a tomatoey beef stew which was delicious, some smoked salmon and a gooey chocolate thing for pudding. Because we were sitting on the right side of the plane we were bathed in beautiful sunshine for the entire journey which made taking these photos rather fun! It gave me a chance to play around with all the new modes on Cowie's mini camera. The macro function is amazing as is the ability to play around with the ISO settings to avoid having to use the flash.









It turns out there is an entire website devoted to aeroplane food called Airline Meals. So I'm now planning to share these pictures with them to see what they think! It documents the evolution of airline food over the decades and looks like a great distraction from work for a few hours.

From the look of the photos I don't think we did too badly! The start of a great trip.

Our food on the way back was less exciting as you can tell from the images below. It was also quite dark and Harry Potter was on the telly so we weren't quite so artistic with the shots! On the plus side Cowie got the chicken she was hoping for.

Countdown to Hugh's Mushroom Foraging

Cowie and I practiced our mushroom foraging technique a couple of weeks ago in Somerset in preaparation for our trip to see John Wright at River Cottage HQ tomorrow!
Next to Cowie's stable (for her horses not her) was a beautiful patch of what I think are Shaggy Ink Caps. Cowie's Mum says they pop up every year. What a sight. I wish I was brave enough to pick a few and see what they taste like.







Inspired by finding a whole family of mushrooms on Cowie's doorstep we trekked off to Alfred's Tower to search through the woods. We had done the same thing the previous year and had come back with a carrier bag stuffed full of different types of funghi - far too many to even contemplate identifying. There seemed to be more mushrooms than grass! This time, however, we only just managed to cover the bottom of our Morrison's carrier bag! A few armour plated puffballs and woody fughi clinging to logs were all that we could find. I guess it has been pretty dry recently and harly conducive to mushroom blooms. Let's hope that tomorrow we will be overwhelmed by mushroom fever and find tonnes!













If anyone can help to identify any of the above please add your thoughts in the comments section... Thanks!

Food Photography

I've found a great site called Daily Olive who specialise in all things to do with food artistry and design. The post below is very informative about how to take better food photos... enjoy.

"Over the past few months, I've been experimenting with taking more food photographs and learning the secrets of what it takes to capture a great food photo. My first source of inspiration is Heidi Swanson's photography featured on her blog, 101 Cookbooks. Her photographs are minimally composed and beautifully colored, and I couldn't help but be inspired to learn more about photographing food. After studying online and going out to take pictures, here's 5 important tips I've learned that's given me the best results.



1. Shoot macro - Use the macro setting on your camera to get the shallowest depth of field you can. It's the one great secret to cool looking food photographs.

2. Don't use a flash - Turn your flash off. Period. Use whatever natural lighting you have to shoot your pictures.

3. Minimize clutter in the background - the caveat to this is to find a way to include the ambience of the setting you are in, whether in a restaurant or a friend's kitchen.

4. Expect to adjust your color balance after shooting - use Photoshop or even something simple like Picasa's editing tools to take out the orange or blue color cast you may get from shooting indoors with incandescent or flourescent lighting.

5. Burn film - an seasoned photographer once told me the only way to become a better photographer was to take more pictures. Before digital photography, this meant to "burn film". Go out and shoot, shoot, and shoot some more.

My reading sources for food photo tips came from Heidi's Food Photography Tips, chef Benjamin Christie's Creating Edible Food Photos, and Digital Photography's "How to Make Mouth Watering Food Photographs".

Heidi's photography is also featured in her book: Cook 1.0: A Fresh Approach to the Vegetarian Kitchen."

Mushroom Fever

Cowie and I went mushroom hunting this weekend down in Somerset. We found a few mushrooms including what we think were some Shaggy Ink Caps near Cowie's horse lorry and a whole bunch of small puffballs in the forset.

We are in practice for our trip to Hugh Fernley Wittingstall's River Cottage down in Dorset. His chief Mycologist, John Wright, is taking us on a mushroom hunting trip in the woods where we get to eat what we find on our return to the cottage. I've been looking forward to this for months and have begun to bore Cowie senseless. I've even bought several mushroom books in advance including John's book, The River Cottage Handbook.



You can tell it's mushroom season when even the London Metro starts writing articles about tasty fungus.



Here are the details for the event downa the River Cottage HQ:

"This course is all about gathering and cooking wild mushrooms. We will be targeting the abundant and delicious varieties offered up, for free, in the forests and fields during October.

The day begins with a forage in the beautiful West Dorset/East Devon countryside. You will be accompanied by members of the River Cottage team, led by John Wright, our wild food and mushroom expert. John has steered Hugh to many an exciting mushroom find in the River Cottage series. John will teach you how to safely identify, pick and prepare these funghi with pleasure and confidence.

We will then return to our converted barn at RCHQ, for a cookery demonstration from our resident River cottage cooks. Following a talk from John about the varieties gathered that morning both edible and poisonous, you will then be served a four course meal - based around the edible mushrooms, of course - but also the best local and seasonal produce Dorset and Devon has to offer. To accompany this course, when you book you will be given free access to our online Mushroom course designed by John Wright, which normally costs £20."

Cowie and I will tell you all about it and take as many pictures as possible once we return on the 24th October.

Elizabeth in London

A few weeks ago I went to a fascinating trends day at the Wapping Project in East London run by the ever brilliant Future Laboratory.



Over a delicous lunch of butter nut squash risotto and roast chicken I was lucky to meet a charming lady called Elizabeth Sayner from the Rockwell Group design agency.



Elizabeth was over in London having a long hard week of looking around London's restaurants so we got on very well! Claudia and I suggested a few places to visit and I was delighted to hear back from Elizabeth with an update of what she thought of her experiences...

"St Alban's: told you about over lunch, good, but pretty much like any other "expense account" type of restaurant I've eaten at

Hakkasan/Yauatcha: still good after all these years. AWESOME cocktails probably the most memorable of the experience

La Fromagerie: TWICE, first for lunch the day after you told us about it, and then the breakfast before we left. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Couldn't get enough of it. It's really the perfect place and the whole experience, from the design, the atmosphere, the food, etc. is so amazing.

Acorn House: Excellent meal, probably among our top three. Had an amazing tagliatelle with Scottish mushrooms that was unreal. The desserts were yummy too, and the price was amazing value for money in London. Loved the service and atmosphere - unpretentious and intimate.

Napket Snob Food: Totally silly, ridiculously over the top design grab and go gourmet that just opened in Chelsea. Totally makes a mockery of the food as fashion trend and the high maintenance fashionista demographic in the neighborhood. The food is pretty good though.

In Cheltenham - unfortunately Le Champignon Sauvage was booked (for 6 weeks in advance!) so we ended up eating at the bistro in the Hotel du Vin - which was really, really lovely, along with the hotel itself which is so fabulously horse and hound chic.

Daylesford Organic Farm in Gloucestershire: Basically, I want to live here. Makes me a total convert to "farm lifestyle" if I wasn't already. The food at the restaurant was absolutely superb - not surprising as I understand the menu itself was developed by Tom Aikens. We went on Sunday afternoon and they had a set menu for £19 which was a great value and lasted us the whole day."

I can't tell you how jealous I am of Elizaeth's experience. It sound like the most extravagant work trip ever. I can't wait to pop over to New York on the return leg! I'm particularly keen to go to Acorn House and Le Champignon Sauvage.

A big thank you to Elizabeth for sharing her experience.

Wahaca - Mexican Street Food

The moment this place opened Browny and I have been dying to go. Having eagerly followed Tommy's (Thomasina Myer - Masterchef winner) progression through Masterchef in 2005, where she become the eventual champion we felt we almost knew her like a friend!

From there she has clearly gone from strength to strength. Two books, a TV series but more importantly she has opened a cracking restaurant, producing food that is close to her heart... no nonsense, basic Mexican street food. During the Masterchef series there were numerous references to the time she had spent in Mexico and her love of all things Latino really shone through.

When we arrived I was immediately struck by the fantastic bay window, subtle lighting and boxes of fresh goodies piled high in the window. We then descended into the restaurant to meet the ever increasing queue.... we knew this place was popular when we arrived at 7pm, wanting a table for two had to go for a drink for 30 mins! But when we returned we were swiftly taken to our seat.



The atmosphere was cool, funky, lively and buzzing; Think Wagamamas but more so. My bum had barely touched the seat when our waiter, Jim, bounced up to the table, and in a very enthusasactic fashion started to reel through the menu, giving recommendations left right and centre... all in all.. I was impressed! However.. this didn't last long... I will explain later.



The menu is varied and exciting. We picked a small selection of street food.

1) Tortilla chips and guacamole.... homemade, crunchy chips and very tasty dip - v. good

2) Chicken, steak and pork tacos..... the differing fillings were interesting, unusual and tasty however we were slightly disappointing tacos - bit greasy

3) A fish taco in lettuce.... umm, not a classic. Rather dubious nameless 'sustainable fish'.

4) Chorizto quesadilla.... These were really super dooper! Spicy sausage and smooth stringy cheese with the odd black bean thrown in for good measure - highly recommended!

5) Black bean and spicy slaw open taco... A typical Mexican dish that served its purpose but rather uninspiring.


We were stuffed at the end and despite wanting to order some more goodies were restrained ourselves therefore not letting the law of diminishing returns kick in. Our mouthes were just the right side of blasted thanks to some delicious chilli sauce from Devon.

They have got a great range of tequila which are served to be sipped in hand blown glasses. Get stuck into these at the bar and you'll never dream of having a dicey shot of Jose Cuervo with salt and lemon again! Would like to see some Sauza on the menu thought!



This restaurant is proving already to be very popular and it has a great vibe. It was reviewed in Olive magazine last month and in the Times over the weekend by Giles Coren as well. The food says what it does on the tin... but really is far better than your average Mexican restaurant. Ideal for a fun night out with a group of friends or equally good for a couple to enjoy. Are only major gripe was how annoying our waiter called Jim was. We think he must have got confused with the TGI Friday just over the road. He couldn't help himself from explaining everything. I felt like explaining to him what his job was!

Great fun place - not necessarily for food that grabs you by the bollocks but perfect for an entertaining, cheap evening with some mates. Looking forward to seeing these pop up like Nandos and Pizza Expresses across the country.

Ubiquitous Chip in Glasgow

Last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited up to the Scotland vs. All Blacks up at Murrayfield in Edinburgh with work. The rugby itself was a non event. The mighty All Blacks destroyed the Scotts by about 40 points or so... The food on the other hand was brilliant.

Normally we all think of Scotish food as being atroious. Certainly, Scotland is leagues behind London when it comes to the hospitality and service industries... AA Gill's comments in his article about Dinings in this weekend's Sunday Times capture the mood well:

"Scottish food is even worse. It has become a self-perpetuating stand-up joke, a game of disgusting combinations and one-upmanship. I was offered a sausage and asked, in a get-you-if-you’re-so-clever sort of way, to guess the mystery ingredient. I failed. If I’d gone through the Larousse Gastronomique from A to Z, I’d have failed. It was Irn-Bru. Someone is making sausages with too much rusk and Irn-Bru. Why? Do you think we’re falling short of our E numbers?

What is the point? No, really, what is the point? Presumably, it’s the same one that inspired haggis lasagne, or a Scottish restaurant to advertise itself on television with the world’s largest deep-fried Mars bar. It’s a wilful and childish Glasgow kiss to all that poncified, southern, snobby, fine-dining, green-eating gastronomy. Scots are now racing Zimbabweans to an early grave – cutting off their lives to spite their faces.

The Scottish diet might be mitigated if, in its relentlessly fried, sugary, saturated minced-meatiness, it were also dribblingly delicious, utterly McMoreish. But it isn’t. It’s repellent, fouled with imbecilic flavours and mud textures, a thuggish poison with all the variation and nuance of a conversation between drunks on a bench.

And the staggeringly miserable truth is that it’s despite Scotland having the greatest variety of raw ingredients in the world: cold-water fish that trounce the Mediterranean’s; vegetables that are incomparably tastier than Tuscany’s; beef that’s finer than any in France; lamb that’s sweeter than in Scandinavia; game more varied and delicious than in Germany; and more varieties of fruit than Spain. It also has an unprecedented heritage of recipes, ingenuity and skill. Scottish cooks used to be in demand around the world, particularly for their baking and preserves. But all this has been infantilely discarded to make some collective, chippy, ironic joke. The death of Scots cuisine is the most inexplicable suicide in all of civilisation."

After a full day of drinking and a decent hospitality lunch of fillet mignon and salmon terrine we were looking forward to escaping Edinburgh and finishing the weekend off with a slap up meal in Glasgow. My boss Patrick had booked us into a restaurant dubiously titled the Ubiquitous Chip which he had visited 20 years previously.

It's an oasis in what is otherwise a culinary desert. The menu was rich with delicious scottish food. I chose an oxtail sausage followed by roasted pigeon on a pearl barley risotto.

The oxtail sausage was amazing... deeply flavoured and flakily textured with a dark, smooth sauce that caught the light. Only one was more than enough. Oli loved his smoked salmon cured in Laphroaig, whilst Patrick and Andy thought their mini venison haggis was top notch.

My pigeon came with loads of tiny mushrooms, a creamy sauce on one side of the plate and a damsony fruity sauce on the other. The pigeon flesh was so, so, so pink. Bouncy, firm and perfectly cooked. The rich sticky sauce worked perfectly. I savoured every moment hoping that it would last all night. Stunning. Some of the best food I've ever had.

If only the rest of Scotalnd's restaurants were as good as this!

Raviolo in Balham

Having promised to visit Raviolo about a month or so ago we finally got stuck in a few weeks ago.

It was a chilly September evening. A broken oaking slab splashed water up at me as I crossed the road from Balham Station to Raviolo. Undettered by having wet trouser legs and by being unusually early I settled into my pew in the hard edged dining room and ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio and some olives whilst trying to work out how the menu worked.

Cowie and her sister arrived a bit late for once and immediately started snooping around the restaurant trying to work out what the best things on the menu were. This is one of Cowie's specialities... sussing out what everyone else is having in minute detail and then getting really involved in quizzing the hapless waiter about what goes with what. Their advice is sought and then dismissed! Not that Cowie quite sees it like this!

On this occassion Cowie's inquiries came up trumps. We had a range of pasta shapes with delicious sauces. The pasta was all al dente and served with rich, flavoursome sauces and oil concoctions. Our favourite was the mushroom ravioli which was spot on.

The atmosphere is relaxed and lively. It's not too formal and you are made to feel very welcome... unlike their website which is awful! It's trying very hard but doesn't work. God knows why you are forced to download PDFs of the menu which in turn are corrupted. Not ideal. If it worked properly I'd be able to tell you about all the wonderful sauces and pasta combinations... alas... I've forgotten most of them.

We had a super evening and at 60 quid for dinner for 3 people including wine it was pretty good value too. We'll be back...