Eating Out: Taste v. Environment

By golly, do I have a lot to write about. I apologize for the lag (as usual). I’ve been busy with papers and exams for the past couple of weeks and although I tend to procrastinate work by blogging, I was trying to be a good girl and focus. Luckily, my classes are over! I have a couple of papers to complete this week, but I’m not too worried. Let the food blogging begin (or rather continue)!

Needoo Grill is an Indian joint recommended by eat.shop london that’s nearby Queen Mary (where I currently am studying) so I thought I should pop in. I had the lamb korma and needo peshwari naan (which was recommended by the book). Both where pretty good. I’d say the lamb dish is a bit oily, but the meat was tender. As for the naan, I didn’t expect it to be sweet! It wasn’t a great accompaniment with the lamb, but a nice kind of dessert with its golden raisins, yellow sweet paste, and nuts on the top. Sometime I crave that naan. Ooh, and the mango lassi was awesome. A jug of the mango lassi was around £10, which was enough for five of us.

Rotunda is a restaurant that USC paid for after we visited The Guardian’s office. Nice environment next to a canal (great view), but I can’t say the food was fantastic. The set menu was clearly overpriced. I mean look at the mussel appetizer. Disappointing amount of mussels. As for my main braised beef on mash—it was dry. There wasn’t enough beef stock for the dish and the potatoes tasted a bit like the “mash” you buy at Sainsbury Express. All in all, a good place for a date if he/she cares about presentation but not taste.

After that sad review, here’s a happy one for Mother Mash! I hadn’t had bangers and mash in London yet so I had to have this staple and Yelp helped me find Mother Mash. It’s located off of Oxford Street in a little hidden area that has plenty of other restaurants, bars, and shops (like Fornata, which will be talked about later). The price is relatively cheap and the food is excellent. You can choose from two sausages (they have a long list of different kinds), a type of mashed potatoes (again, a long list to choose from), and gravy (another list!). I got lamb & mint and pork & leek sausages with Champ Mash (traditional Irish mash with milk, butter, cheddar cheese and spring onions) and Farmer’s Gravy (red wine, onion, smoked bacon and mushrooms). The menu is fantastic. The mashed potatoes are silky smooth (you can also get a lumpy option) and the gravy was lovely with it. The lamb sausage wasn’t my favorite just because I’m not a huge fan of the gamy taste of lamb, but both sausages were yummy. The whole meal was filling, but Samantha wanted to get something sweet so we shared a ginger bread pudding with vanilla ice cream on the side. Although I couldn’t taste much ginger in the pudding, it didn’t matter because it was so good and gooey.

Fleet River Bakery is a great place to spend an afternoon working and sipping on homemade chai. It’ s just so cute! There’s also free wifi and plugs everywhere, so that’s a plus. Luckily my friend and I got there before a crowd rushed in, but it’s pretty packed. I got a slice of the hummingbird cake, which was lovely—banana and pineapple cake with a light lemon butter cream and she got a gingerbread cupcake.

 

Oh boy… the Borough Market… my favorite market in London. So much food! I’ve already gone there three times (these are pictures from my first visit when I did a food crawl) since I made this collage. The market is huge and it’s great to wander around and try samples of everything before settling on buying dishes. Although I’ve had plenty to eat there, I’d like to highlight the raclette and apple-pear-elderflower cider. In case you didn’t know, raclette is basically a dish with potatoes and melted cheese on top. However simple it sounds, it’s not simple to make. You need one of these special cheese melters that has a base for the cheese to sit on and a top iron bit with fire just flickering at the top. It melts the cheese and makes it bubble and crisp as well. Then the cheese (after melting a bit) is scraped off of the cheese wheel and onto boiled potatoes. So good and filling. As for the cider, it’s the best I’ve had in my whole life. Sadly I can’t find the cider stand the last couple of times I’ve been, but nevertheless I will talk about how delicious it was. So whenever I have cider, it turns out to be just heated up apple juice or too sour. What I loved about this cider was that it was perfectly sweetened and there was apple and pear’s pulp (I know oranges have pulp, but what do you call other fruits’ body?) that reminded you that you were drinking real fruit juice. The combination of pear and apple with elderflower was great because it elevated the usually simple drink. It made it more sophisticated and I wanted to savor it as long as I could. There’s plenty of other food at the market that I didn’t mention (I had fresh oyster the last time I went) and it’s a good thing I don’t live nearby the Borough Market because I would be much heavier than I am today.

Brick Lane Market is also a great place to get a variety of food. I’d say Borough Market is great for quality of food while Brick Lane is good for different ethnic foods. Brick Lane still has quality food… but it’s not quite up to par with Borough (I found out that people have to intensely audition for Borough to get a stall). I enjoyed Ethiopian food to Chinese to “Mexican” (let’s be real: there’s not going to be legit Mexican food in London).

Moving away from market food and to Notting Hill, there’s Ottolenghi. My friend Vera brought me here and I’m glad she did. It’s basically the Lemonade (a restaurant in LA) of London. That means it’s fresh quality food, but expensive. I had seared sesame crusted tuna with pineapple, sesame, ginger and chili sauce with roasted squash with date molasses and lemon sour cream with red onion, ginger, coriander, and sesame, and… braised fennel with buttered pine nuts, chili, ricotta, lemon, fennel sees and rocket. How do you like that for description? We also shared a fruitcake, which was nice. It’s a great place for health nuts that have fat wallets, so I don’t think I’ll be going back anytime soon, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.

I also got to go to the Chocolate Festival in London a week ago. It’s relatively small, but there’s still a lot to see and taste. What was also nice was that there were classes for only £20. Sadly I had papers and exams to prepare for, but I’m glad I just got to visit. The highlight of my visit had to be the sea salt caramel chocolate crepe with chocolate whip. Need I say more?

And if you’re looking for a fun place for a birthday party, I’d recommend Barrio East (apparently it’s a chain because I saw another “Barrio” near Oxford Street). I went for my friend’s 21^st birthday and the environment is fantastic. I love the quirky designs with bright pops of colors. The food was nothing special though. I think I actually got food poisoning from the ceviche (which is disappointing because it was the tastiest thing I had that night), so that was disappointing.

Yumchaa, which is also a chain, is a cute café with organic loose leaf teas. To be honest, I didn’t have anything here. My friend had chai (in that cool pitcher that filters out the leaves when you press its bottom against a cup), but I just had a boba so I wasn’t in the mood for another drink. I did have a whiff of their various teas though and I’m sure they are all fantastic. I just love the quaint environment (and I love how people were playing chess in the corner). It’s a bit stuffy and small, but if you can get a seat you should sit there awhile and have a nice cuppa.

And lastly, Fornata! I’ve been wanting to go to this Italian restaurant ever since I laid eyes on it. It’s ADORABLE. It has this rustic Italian vibe with a bit of a diner spin off and I love its choice in colors (punchy cherry reds upstairs and warm yellows and grays downstairs). The food was nice and light as well. I had the Pizza Quattro Stagioni: mozzarella, proscuitto, artichokes, mushrooms, and olives. It’s not a typical pizza I would order, but it had nice flavors and it was the only pizza that I wanted to dig into on the menu. I’m glad I went and got to just soak in the quaint warm atmosphere.

That’s the one thing about restaurants. Food quality and taste is vital, but so is the environment. I mean can you imagine yourself fully enjoying a pizza in a toilet? Not so much. I found that a lot of times restaurants focus on one or the other and it’s quite a shame. Also, those who have both good food and environments tend to charge a ridiculous amount, which also puts a damper on the experience, don’t you think? If one day I am so lucky to have my own café or restaurant, be assured it’ll be a full experience—good food, good environment, for a good price and most importantly... with good company.