Is this the World’s best PANETTONE?

16 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in Food on Film, Pop-Ups, Product Review

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Melograno Alimentari, 4 Clarendon Road, W11 (http://www.melograno.co.uk/)

What makes something the best? How do you define ‘best’? Is it even possible to separate empirical evidence from opinion? Or does ‘best’ simply mean an acknowledgment of status by the greatest amount of people?

When asked to name the best film of all time, invariably people say, The Shawshank Redemption. Why? Well if you’ve been fed a steady diet of Sweet Home Alabama and 27 Dresses then yes, Shawshank is probably the best movie… you’ve ever seen. Not that it’s not a great film but that’s like deciding the best flavour of ice cream is strawberry, having only ever tried strawberry and vanilla.

Best also does not mean favourite. Your favourite movie is like a security blanket – personal and comforting. Like the great loves of your life, you love your favourite movie because of its imperfections, not in spite of them. The Guardian are running a terrific column of their writers’ favourite films (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/series/my-favourite-film) , hardly any of which would have an argument to be the best film of all time, but all of which impart such a strong sense of connection with their audience, that they can be returned to time and again without ever getting old.

According to IMDb, Gran Torino is the 104th best film of all time, putting it ahead of Jaws, Network and The Graduate. Gran Torino wasn’t even the 104th best film made that year. So clearly being held up arbitrarily as ‘better’ by virtue of statistical superiority is not as accurate as we might hope. Good news for democracy then…  So how can we hope to define ‘the best’ in something as opinion driven as taste?

At Daniel Young’s (http://youngandfoodish.com/) Coffee Saturday pop-up at Melograno Alimentari Deli, we were treated to a Panettone imported from Turin, purported to be the world’s best.

Having been born in Italy and had Panettone every Christmas since I’ve been vertical, (and on other occasions when I’m being a sell-out) I’ve tried many different versions of this classic cake in varying degrees of quality and style. Is this the best Panettone I’ve ever tasted? Well first off… it was an absolute joy. Made from over a century old Mother yeast, it was an unctuously rich egg-yolk yellow, with soft amaretto-soaked raisins on the inside and an extremely generous, crumbly melt-in-the-mouth sugary coating on the outside. The elastic texture was so light; it was like biting into a butter cloud, which I consider a bonus.

And at £24 a pop, it better be that good. The one thing it didn’t have was candied orange peel. I’m a fan of peel – friend to the peel – a peel aficionado. I adore that sweet/sour bite of quality candied fruit that cuts the rich buttery yolk of the dough. And without it, the Panettone felt like the England batting order without Ian Bell – world-beating but sans stardust.

However, those elements were still wonderful enough to make it the most expertly-crafted, best Panettone I have ever tasted. It just might not be my favourite. So even when you hit the heights, you still can’t please everybody. And now I’ve confused myself between best and favourite. My bad.

Alas seldom are there ever absolutes in food and culture – whether that be something as trivial as ‘best’ or as personal as favourite.

N.B. Except in the case of Annie Hall, which is clearly the best movie ever made…

Apparently IMDb users think rather differently and voted it 140th…

WHAT?! How is Forest Gump 28th? (Okay breathe) Everyone is entitled to their opinion I suppose…

No scrap that, they’re idiots.

What’s happened to THE PLAYER?

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Bar Review

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THE PLAYER, 8 Broadwick Street, W1 (http://www.thplyr.com/)

Life is full of disappointments. Like meeting up with your leftie anti-establishment friend from university only to discover he’s now a Daily Mail reading Recruitment Consultant. I first went to The Player seven years ago, when it was still a members bar and one of the premier watering holes in Soho. It was immediately clear that it was a bar for serious drinkers – and I a mere novice at the time (I am currently doing my Grade 8 drinking), couldn’t wait to feel like I belonged in such a place. The cocktails were imaginative, delicious and pristinely presented even down to the fold of mint. In what would begin a life’s work, I had an Old Fashioned.

This was the moment I realised the difference between a Bartender and someone who works in a bar; finesse, subtlety and skill. As with chefs, the measure of a bartender is how they balance flavours when there are few ingredients and nowhere to hide. Their Old Fashioned was a perfectly balanced sip of bourbon, sugar and bitters, enveloped with the citrus aroma of zesty orange peel. The reputation of this single drink continues to enhance with time, even if I have had better since – like at The Coburg Bar two weeks ago. (http://www.the-connaught.co.uk/the_coburg_bar.aspx) In many ways it was a watershed moment; from a boy who drinks explicitly to get drunk, to a man who drinks for the pleasure of drinking.

Cut to present day. Although strictly speaking a Members bar, you can normally waltz in before eleven, which is great, as on principle I’ve never been a fan of the elitist concept of Members only. The great Pericles once said, “All things good should flow into the boulevard.” And I’m pretty sure ol’ Peri was talking about drinking.

It wasn’t overly busy for eight on a Saturday night yet the basement bar had a nice hum of imbibing traffic. However, something had changed. This was not a crowd of drinkers. A drinker is precise in what they want. A non-drinker consumes, willy-nilly.

Approaching the bar, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the staff were not bartenders, but simply guys who worked in a bar… an unearned aloofness perhaps. I ask with some trepidation for an Old Fashioned. The gap year student measures a double Woodford Reserve and in the blink of an eye, glugs it full of sugar syrup and angostura bitters – nonchalantly dumps three cubes of melting ice into the glass and doesn’t even bother to stir.

“What’s that?” “An Old Fashioned.” No it’s not. That’s two shots of violated bourbon. Since we’re defiling classics, why don’t we rewrite The Brothers Karamazov as a text message? I ask politely if I could have the cocktail made with a sugar cube and an orange peel. Y’know… like an Old Fashioned. The kid glazes over, “We do them like this when it’s busy on the weekend because a sugar cube takes too long to dissolve and we can’t regulate the sweetness.” Regulate. The kind of word not normally heard outside of an All Bar One. I half expected his next words to be, its company policy.

The little chap continued to pontificate once more with even less feeling, though I ceased listening long ago. The patter was so rehearsed and empty I started feeling sorry for him, like when the homeless make announcements on the tube, “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, I’m just trying to get enough money to get a bed for the night.”

In the time it took to patronise me, he could have made two Old Fashioneds. Suffice to say my bourbon soup was a thick syrupy mess; at once too sweet and too bitter and a thorough waste of money.

Whether this drastic decline is down to a change in management, smug complacency and laziness of new staff or just garden variety contempt for non-members is debatable, but one thing’s for sure. This wasn’t just an off-night. You don’t have a rehearsed spiel to justify mediocrity if it isn’t business as usual.

The Player used to be the go-to drinking hole for drinkers. Now it’s just a bar.

THE GOLDEN HIND, 73 Marylebone Lane, W1

21 Monday Nov 2011

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For some reason, British food gets a hard time. The French, so contemptuous of everything we do, other than stilton, dismiss our efforts with a simple phrase, “Le Roast Beef.” So in the age of the celebrity chef and culinary bourgeoisie there is a tendency in Britain to overlook time-honoured classics as if they were something we should be embarrassed about.

Fish & Chips, is just such an example. The only thing embarrassing about fish & chips is how often you can walk into a British pub and get a bad one. Greasy fish batter that reeks of old fryer oil, pastey dry chips that echo school dinners in the eighties and garden peas squashed with a fork, masquerading as beloved mushy peas. Worse still is when fish & chips get a nouveau makeover in an ostentatious restaurant as fish and chip: one perfect rectangle of battered cod accompanied with a thrice cooked single chip. Have we no national pride?

Fish & Chips should be hearty, thrifty and of course delicious. By adhering to this three-step specification or food ‘trident’, The Golden Hind must surely be viewed as a capital treasure. Marylebone ‘Village’, the moniker adopted by locals, has an abundance of good restaurants, pubs and eateries but none as charming and life-affirming as this one. Food like this isn’t supposed to take your breath away; it’s supposed to invoke cosy feelings of familiarity and contentment – the warm bath of eating experiences.

There’s a simple menu of the usual fishy suspects: Haddock (most popular), Cod, Skate, Rock Salmon (Dogfish), Scampi, Plaice and some classic British deserts like Spotted Dick, Apple Crumble and Jam Roly-polies if you have the room. There’s no alcohol served so have a cup of tea or BYOB for a tiny corkage fee.

I could wax lyrical about every bite – ooh the batter was so this and the chips were so that – a mushy peas flavoured carousel yada yada yada – but that would feel inappropriate for a straightforward, honest place like this. Simple answer: it’s good. Really good. Go there. And do get the mushy peas.

It’s packed every night but you won’t wait longer than ten minutes for a table. It feels very neighbourhoody but despite the affluent location there’s not a sniff of the sovereign ring brigade eating ironically, “Oh look at us slumming it – fish & bloody chips with cups of tea like a couple of ruddy builders!” Which is nice. The Greek owners and staff are old school friendly and what could be more fitting of modern Britain than a Greek family serving a British classic to a grateful public?

It’s also an absolute bargain. Perfect for a week-night feed after work. Or if you’re heading for a night on the town, don’t worry; the venue is well maintained so your dress won’t acquire the scent of chip fat before you throw shapes in Mahiki or whatever the devil it is that you kids are doing these days…

These are the businesses we want to succeed because these are the establishments that make London the city it is. It’s not the swank restaurants with the celebrity Chef’s name on the door but presence not in the kitchen. It’s the small, simple places, the places we long for on a cold winter’s night; where you get a kind word and a smile, a good meal and change.

Dinner for two £25.

ALCOHOLISM: Hollywood’s Cool Disease

14 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by in Things that Bother Me

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Monday has come too fast. Saturday was good. So good you wrote off Sunday. You spent it telling yourself you were never going to drink again. And you meant it. The problem is you have a history of lying to yourself. And now it’s Monday, you basically only had a one day weekend and it’s the fault of whoever just gave you that thing you don’t want to do. And now you’re thinking about that friend you haven’t seen in a while. Maybe you should give them a call and see if they fancy catching up tonight. Maybe for a drink…

You are the British drinker. Tireless in self-delusion and robust in constitution. What you are not, is an alcoholic.

Sunday. It’s late, you can’t sleep. You turn on the TV looking for something you can ignore – what’s that? It’s a moustache. Not just any moustache… it’s Tom Selleck’s moustache – the Michelangelo’s David of moustaches. Selleck is Jesse Stone, a cynical local Chief of Police on the trail of a killer.

Stone is an alcoholic. Now, this is the depiction of Stone’s ‘horrifying’ alcoholism. He’s sullen and stoic in a melancholically attractive fashion and every night goes home to his Golden Retriever and opens a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label. He sips gently and falls asleep in front of the television with his clothes on… doesn’t even brush his teeth. The swine! He wakes, just as handsome and with his clothes barely ruffled. The dog stares judgmentally, “Can’t hide the truth behind the ‘tache Selleck, you alchy,” it seems to anthropomorphically say with its big brown eyes.

Stone doesn’t get hangovers; his ‘problem’ doesn’t affect his job performance, social relationships and in no way impacts his ability to consummate first dates with feisty Headmistresses. Although he does confess to secretly fancying a drink at two in the afternoon… though doesn’t actually have one.

Alcoholism is not a charming flaw; it is a disease that destroys the lives of the drinker and those around them.

A ridiculous criticism about the absence of drugs in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing springs to mind. Apparently stories about black communities in New York can’t possibly be authentic unless gangbangers are slinging crack rock on every corner. Lee’s film also depicts black people eating in a Pizzeria and not a fried chicken shack. Why not complain about not perpetuating that stereotype and throw in the entire idiot kitchen sink?

Lee was measured and correct in his response, commenting that you shouldn’t throw a topic like Drugs into a film simply because you can. Drugs are a topic that require greater exploration, as Lee later did in Clockers, which reiterates the point. If you want to explore alcoholism – explore it. If every person who fancied a drink at two in the afternoon considered themselves an alcoholic, AA meetings would have a bigger turnout than X Factor. Who doesn’t watch Mad Men, as they pour a Scotch at 11am and think, “Ah, they were the good old days.”

Stone’s faux alcohol problem is not a disease, it’s a fashion accessory; a clean, appealing version, designed to appeal to eighteen year old boys who have just discovered Hemmingway. The only real indication that Stone may have a problem is that he drinks Johnnie Walker Red. Red Label is for mixing or drinking on holiday when it’s the only Scotch available. Either Stone has taste issues or he polishes off a bottle with such regularity that this is the only whisky this Chief of Police can afford.

Compare this to the character of Darlene in True Blood recalling how her alcoholic Mother once threw up after drinking heavily, only to lap up her own vomit like a dog so as not to lose the alcohol. There is a difference between an alcoholic and someone who either likes a drink or has the funds and the time to drink regularly. Just like there’s a difference between somebody who is clinically depressed and somebody who’s a little blue because they don’t have a boyfriend.

Of course there are degrees of alcoholism and depictions don’t always have to err on the side of oh God, somebody please think of the children. But romanticising the hard-drinking culture of Hemmingway and romanticising alcoholism are not the same thing. And every time we see alcoholism masquerading as cool character depth in popular culture, it goes some way to tell society that this is merely a habit people can walk away from; not a disease but a decision. Like lactose intolerance.

You finish reading this and you call your friend up. All this talk of Mad Men has got you hankering after a dry martini. Three olives or a Gibson…

GABY’S vs. CORPORATE LONDON: The Battle for Charing Cross Road

10 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in Things that Bother Me

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This blog was named after Big Night (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115678/) a charming Stanley Tucci film about two brothers running an authentic Italian restaurant in the fifties. Despite their passion and incredible food, ‘Paradise’ is failing while the rival ‘Italian’ restaurant across the street, makes a killing pandering to American tastes. It’s a bittersweet pearl of a movie; two men refusing to compromise the principles and integrity of their food, even when it could save their business.

Perhaps it’s touching because we all wish we had that integrity, or perhaps we just love a tale of the little guy against the establishment. There are battles like this going on every day, in every borough, on every street, all across the capital. London is under attack – from corporate tick all the boxes chains, serving unseasoned plates of no imagination.

Take Gaby’s. A lovely old-school deli café on Charing Cross Road, that’s been doing cracking pastrami and salt beef on rye sandwiches since 1965; now set to be replaced by, “a tenant similar to the calibre of a Strada.” Because that’s what London needs… another Strada.

Apparently Gaby’s does not fit in with the desired aesthetic of freeholders Gascoyne Holdings’ vision for Charing Cross Road. Which presumably is a Dilbert cartoon. I have a confession… I am a London snob. Venturing out of London to another British town is like watching evolution in reverse. Not from a Darwinian standpoint, but culturally (except Didcot. Hairy knuckles). And it isn’t the people’s fault, they don’t prefer it this way. They’ve been busy living their lives and raising their kids while their theatres, butchers, libraries and restaurants vanish. Then suddenly they look up and it’s too late. Their high-street is: Strada, Pizza Express, Wetherspoons, Starbucks, Costa and the Conservative Party Office for the Removal of Libraries (N.B. may not be a real place.)

Is that what we want for Charing Cross Road’s aesthetic? Uniform red and green, butternut squash lying around willy-nilly and huge bowls of chillies on every shelf? And why the chillies? It’s the restaurant equivalent of moving in with a girl and a vase of pebbles suddenly appearing in your bathroom.

There is an online petition to save Gaby’s with nearly 3500 names. When signing the petition, you can leave a comment to the petitionee. Here’s mine:

“Places like GABY’S with individuality and character make London the city it is. It has a community feel, one of the few places left on Charing Cross Road that still does. The loss of Gaby’s would contribute to the homogenisation of the area, which will ultimately devalue the capital in years to come. Why would we want London to go the way of every other town in Britain, where every high street looks the same? Feel free to get rid of a Garfunkels.”

People may scoff at a petition, shrugging it off as a futile gesture. And it is. 20,000 people signed a petition to stop Borough Market being sliced in half by an extra train line. Did the powers that be reconsider? Of course not. But people underestimate the futile gesture. Sometimes, fighting even when you know you’re going to lose, is worthy in itself.

This may seem like naïve post-modern hippie-speak, but it isn’t. Although it probably is to the woman I overheard on the tube regarding the St. Paul’s protesters, “Who do they think they are, Chairman Miaow?” Brilliant. The red army are coming and they want our Whiskas!

Supposedly Gaby’s only has till May 2012, just in time for the Olympics… If that proves to be the final curtain for this London institution, then do make sure you try it before it closes. Order a salt beef or pastrami on rye, and take a mental photograph. So in twenty years you can tell your kids about Charing Cross Road; how it was once a thriving, talked about street with a quaint Jewish deli and a dozen wonderful old book shops. And then they’ll turn to you and say… “What’s a book?”

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-gaby-s-deli-charing-cross-road-london.html

JOSÉ, 104 Bermondsey Street, SE1

08 Tuesday Nov 2011

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There is no problem that cannot be solved with cured meat. Here endeth the lesson.

On grey London days, when the cold has hijacked another fictional Indian summer, I need colour, heat, vibrancy and now, I need José.That’s the tapas bar, not some dude named José… Not that there’s anything wrong with that. (New rule: everyone must watch Seinfeld.)

Tucked away on trendy Bermondsey Street, (and not a sovereign ring in sight!) despite the no-bookings policy and a packed bar, we were ‘sat’ within ten minutes. Walking in, you’re hit in the face by the incredible aroma of chicken livers sautéing in sherry and shallots. Perfect for those who love the theatre of a close kitchen, it’s also great to have a tapas/sherry bar with an emphasis on standing. This is a proper tapas bar not a restaurant. Sure they provide chairs, but resist the urge, have a glass of cold manzanilla and perch on an old sherry barrel instead. It keeps the energy up and feels a little more authentic.

Jamon and Chorizo Iberico, both courtesy of Manuel Maldonado (www.ibericosmaldonado.com/en/pureiberian.php) are everything I hoped for. Rich and unctuous, like buttery acorns in a cured meat delivery system, they dissolve on the tongue like rice paper. The chorizo also arrives with a layer of grissini on top. Now, it all looks very lovely and may even be customary in some parts of Spain, but with a product this moreish, save the money on breadsticks and throw me another slice of meat.

It is usually a given that Iberico meats will be the highlight of my meal – any meal – so you can either chalk it up to low expectations or shock, but the Boquerones in Cava Vinegar… now, I don’t dabble in text speak and generally consider it more or less okay to offer a healthy slap to the face of a grown man who does, (back of the hand optional) but… OMG! Sometimes you eat something so delicious that the act of chewing seems painfully slow and you have an all-consuming urge to mainline. Is there such a thing as a Boquerones drip? There is no rational reason why anchovies should be this delicious! It was only polite society’s oppressive customs that prevented me eyeballing the vinegar.

The deep fried Hake with Allioli was slightly greasy but easily tasty enough to lament the criminal underuse in the UK of this wonderful flaky fish. Pisto, a ratatouille like dish, I had never had before, but it confirmed the old adage that there is nothing that cannot be made more delicious with the application of a fried duck egg.

Then the aforementioned chicken livers on toast – cooked in an instant and to perfection. The edge of sherry cutting through the creamy livers, and all the juices soaked up by a slice of sour dough. Maybe the best chicken livers I’ve ever eaten. Really. The perils of cooking with such simplicity are obvious to anyone who has ever torn out their hair over why many an Italian restaurant cannot muster a basic Tomato sauce.

Eating here also makes you realise how underrated a wine Sherry is. For many, sherry is still the sweet, syrupy tipple of choice for Grannies at Christmas. Far from it. It’s diverse in style and flavour, easily pairable with food and for now, an absolute bargain. I don’t wish to do it a disservice, but from here on out, sherry will be known as recession wine. Take advantage before the Made in Chelsea set pretend they’ve actually been drinking it for years.

The owner, José Pizarro will be familiar to those who enjoyed his excellent cooking at Brindisa in Borough Market. His solo venture José, is even better. Less waiting time, better atmosphere and incredibly, for this level of ingredients and cooking, remarkably thrifty. My new favourite tapas bar.

Dinner for two inc. eight glasses of sherry – £70 http://joserestaurant.co.uk/

If Woody Allen did London

06 Sunday Nov 2011

Posted by in Food on Film

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London is a great city. Stop. Take a big whiff. Smell that? That’s… well sewage probably. But that’s good, cities are supposed to smell. A city that has no musk has no soul. If you can’t smell anything, you’re probably in Chelsea, in which case leave immediately and head straight for Chinatown where nostril alopecia awaits.

I’ve always felt London to be underrated. I can get salt & pepper squid and an espresso martini at 3AM, what’s not to like? Being raised in a small Cotswold village with only one restaurant, one cash machine and four buses a day to the nearest town (Swindon… yep), I was always likely to romanticise the city somewhat. At fifteen, I remember wishing that one day I’d feel about London, the way Woody Allen felt about New York in the opening of MANHATTAN. Maybe something like…

Chapter One: “He adored London. He idolised it all out of proportion.” Make that “He romanticised it all out of proportion… No matter what the season was, to him this was still a town that existed in drizzly grey and throbbed to the tunes of Jagger and Richards.”

No. Let me start over.  Chapter one. “He was too romantic about London as he was about everything else. He thrived on the hustle, bustle of the crowds and the traffic. To him, London meant beautiful women serving Gibsons in speakeasies and Cockney cabbies who seemed to know all the pop-up restaurants.”

Corny. Too corny for a man of my taste. Let me… try and make it more profound.

Chapter one. “He adored London. To him, it was a metaphor for the dangers of corporate cuisine. The same lack of integrity to cause so many people to cut a hole in their pizza and stick salad in it was rapidly turning the town of his dreams…”

No, it’s gonna be too preachy. I mean, face it, I wanna get some readers here.

Chapter one. “He adored London, although to him it was a metaphor for the dangers of corporate cuisine. How hard it was to eat in a society homogenised by Pizza Express, Strada, Costa coffee and All Bar Ones…

Too angry. I don’t wanna be angry.

Chapter one. “He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his stylish yet affordable glasses was the coiled sexual power of a London street cat with a half-bitten ear.” I love this.

“London was his town and it always would be. “

Cue: Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones…

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