Dusty Knuckle and SK London Fields, 30/31st August

Two days off mid-week meant getting lunch from places I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to get to. First up – Street Kitchen. I’ve tried all their different places I think – the airstream, the sandwich place in Broadgate Circle, plus when they’ve popped up in other places. Of course I had to try their hatch in London Fields.

They were predictably good. The special was lamb with crushed potatoes and roasted veg with pesto. They offer 'slow food fast' and this was as good as I have come to expect. Slow cooked lamb that broke away easily when nudged with my fork. Plenty of potatoes and roasted carrot and courgette providing sweetness. Not exactly the most summer-centric meal to have on what was a lovely sunny day but plenty tasty nonetheless.

On day two, I went over to Dusty Knuckle in Dalston and had porchetta in brioche. While it tasted nice, the experience of eating it wasn’t that pleasant. It was absolutely stuffed with different things, which made the bread horribly soggy and all just seemed to fall out all over the place. There was fennel, kohlrabi, red cabbage, plus the tomatoes the pork was cooked in and some ogleshield cheese. The bread didn't really stand a chance against all of this, and as a result it was hard to get a mouthful that contained most of the ingredients. I was mainly picking individual bits out, or scooping them up where they fell. Which isn't the ethos of a sandwich. 

Rawduck, 23rd January

I’m kind of a fan of masturdating – once I’ve decided I want to get something to eat, and where, I can’t really be bothered to find someone to accompany me. So I’m often a solo diner. Up at the counter is best I find – I feel a bit less like everyone else thinks I’m some oddball loser.

So when I woke up at a half decent time on a Saturday I decided to brunch at Raw Duck, where I have been wanting to brunch for some time. The atmosphere was perfect for a neighborhood joint. There were a lot of people there but it wasn’t so full that people couldn’t just drop in and be assured a seat. I was seated immediately where I had to face the eternal condundrum – do I fancy eggs or something sweet?

I hardly ever have pancakes, often erring towards eggs when I’m out so this time sweet won out and I ordered the buckwheat pancakces with smoked bacon. I balanced it by having a bloody mary, which certainly had some poke! It wasn’t particularly fancy, no odd flavours or elaborate garnishes, but it was probably the strongest bloody mary I’ve ever had.

I busied myself with the loner’s best friend – social media while I waited for my flapjacks. By this time I had forgotten the smoked element of the dish and when I bit into it the flavour hit me like a sledgehammer. This is no regular smoked bacon, like that Danepak crap you get in the supermarket. It is powerful. The smokiness clings to it. It is like sitting next to a wood fire and getting the smoke in your throat. It would have been too overpowering but for the sweetness of the maple syrup. Meanwhile the buckwheat pancakes were crispy and a reasurringly stodgy texture, while not being overly heavy. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

And thus I was reminded of the downsides of solo dining – no other dishes to try.

The Advisory, 25th May

I like to get to know the places in my neighbourhood so you may have noticed my blog has quite an East London focus. When a new burger place opened in London Fields a few years ago, I immediately wanted to check it out just cos it was local. At one point renowned for causing ire - people thought they'd chucked out the previous residents - a charity giving advice (hence the name) to Asian Women but in fact this was far from true, it's now a not-exactly-must-visit place for burgers. But I wanted to give it a go for completeness.

I had a chicken burger which came with avocado and we also had some mac and cauliflower cheese to share. The mac and cheese was too creamy and liquidy for my taste – I like mine with a bit more stodge but I ended up too full from my chicken burger to want to eat much of it anyway.

My burger was fine. It was certainly big. It was even maybe better than fine. But not great. It did not reach the giddy heights of Spit and Roast or supersede Rita's version. Also, one thing annoyed me - instead of slicing the avocado, they put great big chunks of it on the top making it really hard to eat! Just - why? 

Stephen had the bacon burger with onions which was ridiculously stacked and all the onions were really bitty and kept falling out. But he was fairly satisfied with it. And he really liked the caulimac and cheese so I guess that's subjective.

I'd eat here again, but, unlike this time, wouldn't make a special effort to do so.

Lardo, 22nd March

Lardo is just lovely. It has perfectly positioned itself as a neighbourhood restaurant and was exactly the kind of place we fancied for a Sunday evening meal out, that was full of fresh and tasty, good food without us going overboard. It’s the kind of restaurant you can just pop to on a whim – no special occasion needed. Except for the fact that if you do that on a Saturday night you will probably find the place full.

And there is good reason for this. As I said, we kept things fairly simple and the food is relatively simple. The menu is quite short but long on Italian specialities. Lardo is a type of cured meat and while they didn’t have just this on the menu they do cure all their meats in house (and it made an appearance on my pizza). We orderered the burrata and lomo (I think) to start, and also asked for some bread. The burrata was so creamy without being soggy, with a good dose of salt and oil (basil flavoured, I can't remember) and the meat was silkily fatty.

After our meat mound at Blacklock the previous night neither of us wanted to go down that route again. Stephen had the grilled mackerel and I had the spinach, egg and lardo pizza. This was such a good pizza - so much flavour. The egg was the right side of over for me, not running all over the place, and no uncooked white. The lardo was placed in thin sheets across the pizza like gossamer, almost hiding among the spinach until you put it in your mouth and it surprised you with its meaty bloom. I thought it might be too doughy and that I would miss the tomato but that wasn't the case at all. You could really taste the depth of the cheese - I enjoyed every mouthful, but there was a lot there so I gave a good fraction of it to Stephen to enjoy as well. 

I was treating us and so dessert had to happen. We had a chocolate tart which came with crème fraiche (bleugh) and was indulgent without being sickly - it was more cake than tart. I'd go back to eat here in a heartbeat. 

Hackney Bureau, 5th May

Many’s the time I have walked past Hackney Bureau after a trip to Broadway Market and have been struck by its popularity. On a weekend, you’d have to be quick off the mark to get in there and get a space for brunch.

My friend and decided to meet there for a late lunch on the last bank holiday afternoon to check it out. Lunch specials are written on the blackboard inside and we were both attracted to the two dishes featuring avocado. In the end, Alison got the smashed avocado with feta and poached eggs on sourdough, and I had the harissa chicken and avocado sandwich. Other options included truffled mushrooms on toast, butternut squash, and a variety of cooked breakfasts.

We also had a cheeky spritz to go with it – Campari for her, Aperol for me.

The food arrived and we were both more than happy with our choices, although I admit, after having a forkful of Alison’s combination, I felt I'd chosen the slightly inferior dish. Her poached eggs were perfect – oozing thick yolk over the creamy avocado, and the feta gave it all a salty tang to it that was very agreeable.

I did enjoy my sandwich as well though. Delicious sourdough held together the strips of chicken and avocado, of which there was a generous amount. The chicken was soft and the harissa was more than just a token description.

Our spritzes were a little on the small side but were a perfect choice if I do say so myself for a spring day.

With appetites sated, we enjoyed a wander around Spitalfields with a glass of prosecco (for only £3.50!) from Bedales before dropping into the Hawksmoor bar for their Cinco de Mayo festivities, courtesy of the many-years-closed Green and Red Bar where Brewdog sits now. They had five different tequila based cocktails, all for £5, or you could have a tequila sangrita or verdita. This was a double shot of tequila to be followed by a concoction of coriander, pineapple and chilli. This was so good we decided to sip them instead of shooting them.

Finally, our wanderings took us up Hackney Road, where popping into Sager and Wilde for ‘one’ turned into a whole bottle plus a couple of their new small plates. We had a generous plate of manchego cheese (with a rather mean portion of quince) plus some gorgeous bread with oil, and a plate of speck with piquillo pepper. It confirmed how right I was to fall in love with the bar the first time, and Mr and Mrs Sager and Wilde were excellent hosts as before.

The Cock Tavern and Rita's (permanent place), 4th April

The Cock Tavern

Now that you've finished laughing at its silly name, I shall tell you that this is a rather good little pub, at the top of Mare Street, attracting the overflow of hipsters from Broadway Market. Actually, there was a mixed crowd – sure, there was a lot of the younger generation, but also some older, more traditional pub-going folk – you know, people with dogs and beards before they were cool.

We only had time for one but I'm sure when I'm in the area I'll be back. They serve the usual suspects of Kernel, Camden Hells etc, but they also apparently have an in-house brewery called Howling Hops, which we didn't try. And they served my large wine in a carafe which I always like. 

Rita's

I'd already been to Rita's when it was just a little residency at Birthdays, serving fantastic 'down-home' southern cooking, so I have had their permanent place on my List ever since seeing they had finally got new premises.

The permanent place has given them a chance to flex their muscles and really show us the kind of sophisticated, 'all growed up' cooking they can do.

There was definitely an element of asian fusion in the dishes on the menu, but they haven't completely turned their backs on the southern influences that made them so successful during their pop-up. The green chili mac n cheese is still on the menu, and while the chicken burger wasn't, they have instead a half chicken with warm honey and gravy. As delicious as that sounded, we balked at paying £25 for half a chicken, no matter how good it might be. 

We had a couple of cocktails, which were nice enough, though next time I'd probably just go for wine as an accompaniment to my meal, noticing that they sold it in 500ml carafes as well as bottles and by the glass. 

I had really wanted to try the goat tacos, another nod to their 'dirtier' roots but by the time we got there (our reservation was for 8:15) they were already sold out!

So, instead we had quite a mature meal that ranged across the different styles on offer. There were several vegetable dishes that we were torn between, which is unusual for us; the asparagus special with duck egg yolk (cooked in a water bath) and miso butter, the tokyo turnips with soy butter, or, the one we did go for - poached calcots with szechuan minced pork.

The calcots were like mini leeks and came with dry-fried crumbled pork all over it, sitting on a delicious and subtly fiery red sauce. This was my favourite plate of the night!

Stephen then overcame his aversion to ordering a vegetarian dish to get the mushrooms with burnt onions, a ragout of grains, and parmesan cream. This dish would not have been out of place in a high-end restaurant – a fabulous blend of earthy flavours and rich, creamy cheese. I'm not a mushrom person but this dish came close to winning me over. Stephen was almost stunned by how good it was.

'My' dish was the rare tuna with radish, blood orange and pickled cucumber. It was the polar opposite of the mushroom dish - light and delicate, crisp and fresh. Another exquisite plate. 

And finally, lest we start taking ourselves too seriously with all these 'adult' plates, we had a side of the mac n cheese we'd loved so much the first time, and happily, it was just as good.

We rounded off dinner by sharing some 'beignets' without the fois gras. I was very tempted to try it, just to try the combination. I know they're famed for them. But I'm not even sure I would have liked it so much, adn it would have been a shame to not enjoy the dessert as much as I had the rest of the meal. The beignets came with a large puddle of dulce de leche, and it was all really tasty, although maybe just a tad too fried-tasting for me. The doughnuts had a lovely, almost gooey, doughy middle though, and the outside was crispy, almost caramelised in some places. And look at the size of them! Definitely a sharing dessert.

Stephen and I both came away in awe a little bit with what they are doing here. The restaurant is unassuming from the outside, but has a clean, yet warm interior - it might look like a typical new hipster joint but what Rita's doing here is that little bit extra special.

Regent's Canal, 26th May

I believe the word to describe the weather this weekend is ‘glorious’. And I, like the rest of London, wanted to make the most of it. We decided to walk Regent’s Canal, both because it is on my List, and because Stephen and I live opposite it and wondered if it would make a feasible cycle route for getting to work in Angel and King’s Cross respectively, knowing that it takes you all the way there.

In actual fact, it doesn’t exactly take you all the way there, as you get booted off at Angel and would have to go via real roads for a bit to get to King’s Cross. Not viable for me as I have sworn to myself never to risk life and limb on London’s roads, but potential for Stephen, especially during the Olympics.

But I digress. We joined Regent’s Canal from Victoria Park and walked along it until we could literally walk no more. I didn’t really know the route it took other than it ended up at King’s Cross somehow and of course went past Regent’s Park. The most popular stretch according to Time Out is the bit between Camden and Little Venice, which we strolled along at the end of the day at around 5:30. 

Random Chinese looking building at the start or the Camden leg

It was very serene, with hardly any people going in our direction or coming the other way. It was actually the quietest part of the canal for the part that is supposed to be the most popular but the time of day probably had something to do with that. This stretch takes you along Regent’s Park and past London Zoo, which is pretty cool. You go past the bird enclosure on one side and, I think, the giraffe pen on the other. We didn’t see any giraffes but there was a stork(?)-like bird close to us on our near side.

This section also takes you past some formidably grand houses. We came up to the first one and wondered what the special-looking building was. When we passed it and realised they were all like this, we knew we were in rich person territory and that these were actual houses, the likes of which I wouldn’t even bother dreaming about owning, knowing how unrealistic that dream would be. We weren’t the only ones awestruck enough to take pictures. 

The walk to Little Venice is about 2 miles from where we rejoined the path at Regent’s Park. I thought that once we got to Little Venice there would be ... I don’t know... More, to warrant having a name for the area. Regent’s Canal ends here and turns into Paddington Branch so there is more than one canal, and that must be the only (slightly poor) reason behind the moniker. There was a little park and an area with Zizzi’s and Starbucks etc but that was all.I had no idea where Little Venice was in the grand scheme of things, so Paddington being the nearest tube was a bit of a surprise. I felt quite proud to have walked from East London to West and to be able to compare practically the entire path. I personally preferred the earlier part of our walk through East London. There were varying degrees of busyness and you could get a feel for where you were by the buildings and people that populated the path. For instance, when being deluged by one speed bikes and all manner of bicycle ‘bells’ (including people saying ‘ring ring’) you knew you were in hipsterville. It was busier here, as you veered through areas such as London Fields and Hackney. We passed a couple of food outlets that opened up onto the canal and looked very tempting though we didn’t stop. We saw some fish swimming in the canal and enjoyed the plethora of houseboats lining the canal, some of which were toting their wares.

I love walking around London and have walked so much of it I sometimes feel I’ve run out of areas to explore. It was nice to find a different way to walk through London, and on such a hot day, it was a good way to spend some time outdoors. Definitely recommend East for people watching, West for romance and calm.