Ickworth House

Landcroft House is just back from a long weekend away to celebrate my 'special' birthday.

Ickworth House is one of those family friendly hotels and it really lived up to its promise. It's the East wing of a stately home so the building itself is fabulous as are the grounds. There are bikes, games, trampolines, a spa, an amazing swimming pool in a stable, early tea for kids and listening service and smart dinner for grown ups.

We could have spent the week in Portugal for the same sum and Scrap's manners let us down at the breakfast table once he'd got his hands on the 'bowful of fun' that are Cocoa Pops but what a lovely weekend!

The Best Restaurant in London

According to Gary Rhodes, for Indian food it's The Painted Heron. In fact he likes it so much, he takes his wife and kids there every other Saturday night! 

Anyone been?

Franco Manca

Despite the fact that there's a packet of Waitrose Four Cheese Ravioli in the fridge with today's date on, I thought perhaps it might be a good idea for me and Ben 10 to visit the pizza place in Brixton Market that's been getting spectacular reviews. I texted my dad-friend Michael and he and his daughter were on his bike and outside The Ritzy within half an hour. And it was properly bloody brilliant: a small selection of wood-fired, sourdough pizzas; zingy, organic, home-made lemonade at £1 a bottle; no pudding but Monmouth coffee.
Open 12 - 4pm, Mon - Sat.

Petersham Nurseries

I've heard a lot about Petersham Nurseries and Skye Gyngell's restaurant. So, we looked out of the window this morning and thought we'd give it ago. We got there at 11am, just as the gates were opening, and headed straight for the Tea House where we had a choice of a least eight different home-made cakes, of which we chose two and one of the egg mayonnaise and rocket sandwiches (£3.95). We spent ages sat round one of the many gorgeous, rickety old tables in the green house eating our cake before looking in the restaurant and deciding unanimously to ask whether maybe there was a spare table for lunch. It was the tower of Champagne flutes and the sign for Apricot Prosecco that did it for me. But sadly, no room and currently booking four weeks ahead. Having looked at the prices, Roasted Wild Sea Bass with Borlotti, Chard & Salmariglio, £26.00, probably just as well. Scrap had a quiet snooze on a bench then we took a little walk along the river, back through the woods and finally headed home for our own seasonal British lunch of globe artichokes with lemon butter.

Best Chips Ever

While I was in Spain this week, I had some really great chips (that's them there).
Truth is, I will eat pretty well any chip, as long as it's hot and has got salt on. I like the ones they do in Ken's on Half Moon Lane a lot (and so, clearly, does he). TimeOut say Comptoir Gascon make the best in London, which may be true but my most favourite ever come from The Hinds Head pub where Heston Blumethal has spent years perfecting them. This is how he does his:

With the right variety of potato, these chips are crisp on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. The beauty of this method is that the potatoes can be cooked twice and kept in the fridge until required.
Ingredients
1.2kg/2lb 8oz potatoes, such as Charlotte or Belle de Fontenay
1 litre/1¾ pints groundnut oil
salt

1. With a sharp knife, square the potatoes into rectangles and then cut them into chips about 1cm/½inch thick. The length of the chips is not so important, but try to keep them the same thickness so that they will cook at the same rate.
2. As soon as the chips are cut, put them into a bowl under cold running water for 10 minutes or so to rinse off some of the starch, then drain them.
3. Next, bring a casserole of unsalted water to the boil and plunge in the drained potatoes. Bring back to the boil and simmer very gently until the point of a knife will penetrate the chips easily.
4. Very carefully lift the potatoes out of the water, using a slotted spoon, and place them on a tray. Allow them to steam until they are cool, then place them in the fridge. The chips will harden when cold.
5. Heat the groundnut oil to a temperature of 130C/250F (CAUTION: Hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended) and carefully plunge in the chips as they may splutter. After a while, they will take on a drier appearance (do not let them brown at all). When this happens, they have finished their second cooking process; drain them, let them cool to room temperature, and put them into the fridge. When cold, they are ready for their final cooking.
6. Heat the groundnut oil to a temperature of 180C/350F (CAUTION: Hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended). Carefully plunge in the chips and cook until golden brown. This may take 8-10 minutes.
7. Drain and season with salt only; they will take quite a lot. Serve.

Water House

After two very nice parties last night we decided to take a trip over to Arthur Potts Dawson's new restaurant, Water House for brunch - brunch! Aren't we cosmopolitan? What you will read in all the reviews is the following: it's in a almost surreally run-down road in Hackney, the carbon-neutral restaurant looks great, the canal gives it a touch of Venice (if you have a dangerously over-active imagination).
The place opens at 10 and we were first in at 10:20 and we had excellent service - friendly, relaxed, observant - but the breakfast - click on menu for details - was a real disappointment. Bearing in mind ours was the first food they served all day, why were the sausages (cocktail, not even chipolata) already fairly dried out? Why was the portion of bacon, literally, two wafer thin slices of streaky? Why was my fried egg so solid? Why weren't the rosemary potatoes crisper and hotter?
On the plus side: the coffee was very good, the mushrooms were delicious and the scrambled egg was fantastic. The room is beautiful and, in summer, sat outside watching the shopping trolleys float down the canal while you tip some olives and almonds and white wine down your neck will be a real delight. But this was a pretty expensive let-down situated a long way from home (he says, sounding like the world's most jaded man)...

I Literally Love The Quality Chop House

I went to The Quality Chop House for my lunch and it was, quite probably, the best lunch I have ever eaten (that wasn't cooked by The Wife). Excellent bread and olive oil, pea and mint soup to start and an incredible chicken, ham and mushroom pie with a a great hay-cock sized bowl of double-crunchy chips. Amazing.

THAT LUNCH IN FULL

SOUP!


A WHOLE PIE!


2/3s OF A PIE!


NO PIE WHATSOEVER :(

Chopsticks: Worst Restaurant In London?

Coming in at Number 1 we have Chopsticks, 71 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich.
We are not friendly, we do not like any Scraps, especially yours, and especially if he/she talks above a whisper or touches things (yelling 'yuk' when your rice arrives doesn't help). Oh, and our food is a fair bit below average too.

Lazy Steak & Pickled Onion Pie

I met a friend for lunch at surely London's best pub, The Anchor & Hope, on Friday. It all went a bit wrong as she was an hour late and I drank the two glasses of Prosecco I'd allowed myself in the first half an hour. And I was really hungry which didn't help. Anyway, we ended up drinking way too much including some excellent dessert wine with our excellent Damson Bakewell Tart. But best of all was the steak pie for two which had cooked-for-hours, fall-apart-meat with a few little pieces of kidney, a dark gravy and a proper 'pork-pie-style' hot-water crust. My current favourite blog Old Foodie says it's pie week this week and so here's my favourite cheat's recipe - it can't compare to the A&H pie but it's quick and easy and uses jars and packets so I am sure Delia would approve.

Serves 4
1 tbsp olive oil
4 rashers smoked streaky bacon
750g cubed casserole or braising steak
4 tbsp plain flour
75cl bottle red wine
1x 450g jar silverskin pickled onions drained and rinsed (250g drained
weight)
3 tbsp redcurrant jelly
2 fresh thyme sprigs
375g pack ready-rolled puff pastry
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 Heat the oil in a large casserole pan cut the bacon into 1 cm wide strips, and add to the pan.

2 Season the flour with salt and pepper then toss the steak in the mixture. Shake off any excess flour then add to the pan and cook for 7-8 minutes, turning from time to time until nicely browned.

3 Add the wine, pickled onions, recurrent jelly and thyme. Bring to the boil, partially cover and simmer for 1 hour.

4 Preheat the oven to 200c / gas 6. Open out the pastry and cut to about
2cm larger than the pan, rolling out slightly thinner if necessary. Place on top of the steak, tucking in the edges to enclose the filling. Brush with milk then bake for 20 minutes until golden and puffed.

Rice To Meet You, To Meet You, Rice

I was in my favourite Peckham restaurant Ganapati last night when who should walk in with a gang of media mates but Rob's old pal Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall. We had a fantastic meal, I chose the Andhra Spicy Lamb with Paratha which was thrillingly hot and spicy. Hugh and his lot were making a bit of a racket and seemed to be having a jolly time though they drank Champagne with their curries which I thought was a bit wrong. What was he doing so far from home, do you think?

Wood-fired Sparrows

At the very far end of Torre Del Lago, just across the square from Lake Massaciuccoli, sits a fantastic restaurant called Da Cecco. My family used to holiday in the region through the 60s, 70s and 80s and a selection of us, plus some friends, gathered there this weekend for my cousin Joanna's 30th birthday. After a hairy journey with my 74 year-old Dad insisting on driving our enormous hire-car (my sister in the back seat quaking while I shouted 'too close!' and 'change gear!' and 'bike!!'), we arrived at dusk just as the mist was gathering over the lake and the first glasses of Prosecco were getting lined up on the bar.

Twenty eight of us in all, sat round a long table and ate nine courses over a five hour period. After the first hour it all got a bit hazy but I can remember that there was antipasti, crostini (the restaurant's signature dish and secret recipe), two pasta courses, two meat courses and that it was one the best meals I've probably ever had (hic).
On the long table next to ours, a group of real Italians were celebrating a birthday too, but one of their thirty nine courses was being spit-roast over the log fire at the end of the room. The chef marinated baby sparrows in seasoned oil and threaded them onto a very long spike with some bay leaves, lardo and the odd little chunk of Tuscan bread. Uncle Gino says baby sparrows like that are usually eaten whole as the bones are so soft. Mmmmm.

Whitstable and Margate

The Kent seaside is a lovely place to visit, especially on a cold but bright winter’s day. Yesterday we made a snap decision to enjoy the sunshine and head for the sea. I think it’s watching that new drama-soap Moving Wallpaper / Echo Beach that’s making us yearn for some sea air but anyway, off we went, making a bee-line for the Royal Native Oyster Stores. As usual it was excellent, we had 1/2 dozen Whitstable natives and potted shrimps, then I had a crab, Scrap the squid with chips and Rob a beautiful seabass. Sadly, the service was slow and it all took too long when, really, we wanted to be outside. With a £100 bill - £3 for 75cl of San Pellegrino - we could have gone to The Wolseley and got real linen and silver.

Anyway, we realised that we were fairly close to Margate where Rob’s brother has just bought a house and 25 minutes later we were there and Scrap got a chance to race his bike along the brilliant sandy beach just before the sun set. Margate is the new Brighton according to Simon and you know, I think he’s right. And I think we’ll be spending a lot of our future summer weekends in his spare room.

Saturday Night Feeder

We had our work's Christmas do last night. There's only three of us so we always just go for drinks and dinner somewhere new. As the years pass we've dropped the nightclub part of the evening and started to dress more for the weather than the season and last night the silver shoes and skirts were replaced by trousers and boots which considering we started with a walk over a bitterly cold bridge to my favourite London building, the Royal Festival Hall was no bad thing.
Skylon is a stunning bar and restaurant with an amazing view over a twinkling Thames. The service is good, the cocktails are fabulous (I had a Marcus Way and a NZpolitan) but something is not quite right. It's a tiny bit flat, a little bit cold maybe. Years ago we'd been before when it was The People's Palace and it wasn't quite right then either. Some places just never are.
The exact opposite can be said about Great Queen Street where we had our dinner reservation. From the moment we opened the door and stepped from the cold into the cosy hustle and bustle, the wafts of roasting meat surrounding us, there was an unmistakable feeling that you're somewhere a bit special. We take seats at the bar, study the menu and sip a glass of Prosecco as we wait for our table. We ask the barman what he recommends and as he talks about his favourite dishes, we all fall quiet. "There's something about that bar man isn't there" one of us whispers. "Mmm" we other two reply, unable to look up in case we catch his eye and fall off our stools.
Tom Norrington-Davies is the chef/owner and he's a Peckham lad. I only know him a bit, his books line up next to ours in the window of the local Review book shop and he writes often for delicious magazine of which one of us, Angela, is the food editor so she knows him well. He sends Maldon oysters to our table which is a great start. Most of the things on the menu are for sharing, rib steak, bearnaise and chips for two, a leg of lamb for four and even a 'goose feast' for eight! It's tricky for three but we share a steak pie for two (which would have served four) and a confit of belly pork followed by pear sorbet with a cheese biscuit, a yummy muscat creme caramel and St James cheese. Anyway, the food is fabulous, it's very reasonably priced and the service is excellent but there is something more than all of that here - I think it might be passion. Anyway, you should go there - it's not posh, it is very dark and rather romantic so take your loved one and share a pie.

Anyway, Saturday Night Fever was 30 years old yesterday, so we're going to have a dance to this before we set off for the Frost Fair this morning...

Peckham Rye Cafe

I reckon - as usual - that I'm the last to know about the new cafe on Peckham Rye Park. And my, it is lovely! The menu is a bit limited with mostly just soup and sandwiches but it's so well done out and everyone's friendly and the waiters are handsome and my chickpea soup (£2.95) was delicious (and home made and came with organic bread) and Scrap's sandwich had very good ham in it.

So yes, the lovely park now has a lovely cafe. Like you didn't know already :)

Sharks, Spaghetti and The Captain of The Starship

We went to The Aquarium this morning and had a lovely time. The highlight for Scrap was when a very big shark swam right in front of us and then did a poo. Why do little boys have such an obsession with poo and burps?
After that we walked along the southbank and met Heidi and her boys for lunch in Strada. I liked it very much actually. They were extremely friendly, the boys shared a pizza, I had a respectable, if not quite hot enough, seafood linguine and the pink Prosecco was on special at £3.50 for a full-to-the-brim flute. The highlight for me was when the lady-friend of Captain Jean-Luc Picard (who was eating a big pudding on the next table) came over to say what lovely, well-behaved children she and The Captain thought our pizza-smeared mob were. I've seen him before you know, buying a very large pan in John Lewis using a very loud actors' voice. And I once saw Andrew Ridgeley (when Wham had just split up) reading a copy of Motorcycle News in a Soho paper shop.

Hang On, This Record Is Good Too...

The Autumn Defense: Feel You Now (Broken Horse, 2007)
I know you don't spell "defence" like that, but these people are from Chicago and they don't know how to spell there. Anyway, this record is fantastic, lushly produced and full of hugely lovable pieces of what is best described as melodic soft rock. To be honest, it makes me wish I had some Bread albums. There are - at least - another five tracks as good (or, if you prefer, bad) as this on the album. I think it's great, but you probably worked that out for yourself already.

Bonus Chicago Fact: Silvana and I went to Chicago once. We had a Chicago "pizza pie" in what was recommended as the best "pizza pie" place in the city. It was revolting.

Best Restaurant In London

Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall: Piggy-raising, chicken-loving, fish-catching, corkscrew haired pin-up chap for the back-to-nature generation in a Landcroft House exclusive!

"My favourite place to eat in London is definitely St John. I’m not in London that often, so when I am I tend to want to go for a definite hit rather than risk something new. That doesn't make me sound terribly exciting or adventurous does it? But it’s true. I like Scott’s too – Mark Hix has a reverence for seafood that I really relate to. But I’m a great admirer of Fergus Henderson and his idea of nose-to-tail eating. St John has been – and continues to be – an inspiration to me..."

© our lawyer is watching (telly)

My Favourite Pub

Is definitely, definitely The Montpelier on Choumert Road. Like most of the pubs in SE London, it's been taken over and done up recently. But it hasn't quite turned into a standard gastropub - there's still a waft of the old pub it used to be that hasn't quite been bleached out and I like that.

Anyway, I had a little mid-week birthday bash in there the other night and they were so good, it was quite heart-warming. We went in the week before and Scrap had a very good fishcake and chips while I made a plan with the manager: whatever food I wanted, whatever booze I wanted, no minimum spend, no set price per head, we agreed a figure and that was that. On the night, our area was set aside, the candles were lit, the glasses were lined up on the bar-top, we had hand-cut chips, dips, chorzio and ciabatta, big salads and a fabulous chocolate tart made by the chef. And they let Robert bring in a surprise cake from my favourite baker and the house Prosecco was top drawer. It was just lovely and I give The Montpelier full marks for customer care. The fact it is directly across the road from my studio is an added bonus.

Fino

I love going out to lunch. So when it was my birthday on Friday, Robert and I both took the afternoon off and met for a date at Fino on Charlotte Street. It's hard to find and it turned out to be in a basement but from the second we stepped through the door, I knew I was going to love it. It was packed and lively, the service was friendly and speedy and the food was exactly what I was hoping for.
We had a selection of eight, all delicious, tapa (including Crisp belly pork, Pulpo a la Gallega, Piementos de Padron, Fino chips with Brava sauce, Donuts with Pedro Ximénez ice cream) and a couple of sherries and Cavas and it came to £101. It's not cheap but it's very very good.

The New Piccadilly

I've recently, finally joined Facebook and become a member of my first group,
Go And Have Lunch At The New Piccadilly.
It's going to be a fairly short lived membership though. The group's named in honour of a classic London cafe that's due to close down this very weekend. Sadly, we're not going to make it for lunch but Rob and I have worked out a good plan so we can have a last breakfast!

The New Piccadilly, one of Soho's oldest and grooviest caffs, will be closing it's doors for good on September 22. It's too late to save it, but at the very least go and have a spag bol and a frothy coffee there and soak up a bit of Soho history before it's gone for good!

I couldn't agree more. Go before it's too late!