Boceto, 29th July

With Boceto, the guys behind Three Eight Four and Seven at Brixton have made the schlep North of the river to Mare Street, an ideal location for their kind of thing. Having been to Three Eight Four and quite liking it, I expected to like Boceto too. It has more of a food focus then 384 but some interesting drinks too.

And I did like it, in general. Unfortunately it was rather marred by having the worst tortilla my little mouth has ever endured. It was so so dry, clearly had been sitting out all day. Not one little ounce of moisture in it and very little flavour. Seasoning was AWOL. 

On the other hand, the lamb that I had was pink and tender and the steak my date had was the same, with a yummy chimichurri sauce that was just the right amount of in your face with its heat (though too much for my companion - what a wuss!).

The pan con tomate was absolutely loaded with 'tomate' and was a pretty filling accompaniment.

With a slight twisting of my arm I decided to have dessert and of course had to try the churros as they were in keeping with the Spanish theme. I’m no churros expert but these were… alright I guess. Didn’t have me professing any great love for them.

As I was with someone who doesn’t drink, I limited myself to just the one cocktail – Mother’s Ruin, which had been imported from their Seven branch. Quite fun to pour yourself and a light and summery drink.

The place has a really casual vibe and I’d be happy to pop in for a drink again but probably wouldn’t bother too much with the food. 

Barrafina, 8th October

I am not going to write anything bad about Barrafina. There is nothing bad to say about Barrafina. General consensus is that the food at Barrafina is good and general consensus is right. But how good? Well, for me, just pleasantly good, not knock-your-socks-off good. I enjoyed everything I ate and the meal itself was a very pleasurable experience. Even the hour’s wait for a table passed by quite quickly as we started on a bottle of red and got some padron peppers and bread to keep us company. For the first time ever I think I actually found a spicy one!

The meal was on Stephen and he was feeling lavish so we ordered quite a lot. It was very hard to choose between the ‘classics’ that are on the menu all the time and the specials of the night so we did a bit of both. We couldn’t miss out on the ham croquetas or one of the tortillas – prawn and piquillo pepper. I thought the tortilla was spot on – just the right squishy consistency in the middle but not too undercooked for my liking. The croquetas were good but I have to say I prefer the ones Stephen has made at home himself!

Milk-fed lamb belly was a no-brainer and of course if you’re going to eat in a Spanish place, you have to have chorizo (served with potatoes and watercress). Stephen had fried red mullet all to himself and I shared the arroz negro with monkfish with him, and first to come out was the meat platter we ordered. This was very nice but we immediately had food envy when we saw someone else’s choice of, I think, thin slices of lomo. Perhaps going for one specific type of cured meat is the way forward.

I can’t comment on the red mullet, although the saffron sauce it came with was a delight. The arroz negro was an incredibly deep-flavoured dish – too deeply flavoured for the monkfish in fact I think – it rather got lost amongst all that squid ink. A little more of it wouldn't have gone amiss either. 

The lamb – tender and one of those dishes you wish you hadn’t shared. Although by this time I was pretty stuffed so didn’t mind so much. While I enjoyed the chorizo, I was a little underwhelmed by this dish and the way it was presented - it was a tad boring and not the most enjoyable chorizo I've ever had. 

We still, for some reason, decided to get a dessert (shared of course) which was a chocolate tart with an sort of dry, but intensely chocolatey texture. Completely unnecessary but very good. 

It was a really enjoyable meal. And the food was all very decent – more than decent but I just don’t know if I can get that excited about classic Spanish tapas.

Morito, 1st December

Stephen has been to Morito so often that I almost felt like I'd been myself. He always speaks highly of it and I have been pestering him to go with me for a while. That day finally came when we decided to celebrate our anniversary with a lunch there.

Morito does little plates with a Moorish feel to them. Prices range from 2.50 for an assortment of breads up to about 8.50 for some lamb chops. The place is very fond of cumin.

Because Stephen has been there so often and done the hard work for me, by trying most of the dishes on the menu, I turned to him to lead on the choices and I was pretty much guaranteed that each one was going to be a winner. And they were all good.

I had a carafe of full bodied, syrupy syrah with my meal, although Stephen had a few glasses of this as well as his medium beer. We ordered the bread basket to start - a dense, chewy roll each, a large cumin dusted flatbread to share and some breadstick nibs. The breadstick nibs seemed a bit pointless, not really having anything to dip them in, although I did discover you could roll them in some oil and then roll them in the spices you get on the table, which made them quite nice. The other two breads were delicious and I should have saved more of mine to soak up the extraneous oils, juices and aioli from our little dishes.

You can order as many as you like at a time and they all sort of come out haphazardly. The first to come was the scallop dish with sherry vinegar and butter sauce. One plump scallop which had been sliced neatly in three. 

We then had the jamon croquetas - perfectly crispy on the outside while being soft and creamy inside. And no scrimping on the jamon either.

The lamb chops with cumin and paprika were tasty and once again had me bemoaning that you get so little meat on them. They weren't quite as good as the ones I had in The Painted Heron, and were maybe a tad underdone near the bone. Which was funny in a way, as Stephen had said that the last time he had them, they'd been a little overdone. So I guess consistency on the lamb chops isn't their strong point.

The butifarra sausae with white beans and alioli was a lovely salty, meaty, and slightly stodgy dish. Both the sausage and the lamb chops provided plenty of extra oil, and a bit of alioli to get that bread out and make sure none of it went to waste.

 I think I spot some cumin!

We knew we wanted to end with the grilled tetilla cheese with walnuts and membrillo but we also splurged and ordered one other dish as well with that - the chicharrones. I am so glad we got these - I think they were my favourite dish. Cubes of pork belly in cumin (again!) and lemon. The pork was crispy around the edges but soft and tender in the middle, and I loved the lemony tang.

As we were finishing off with the cheese - the sweet quince bringing out the slightly sweet flavour in the cheese, we had a couple of 'digestifs' to end the meal with. I ordered an amontillado sherry, my first ever sherry, and Stephen had a negroni. That slightly melted tetilla cheese was wonderful, another highlight. I loved the sort of crust on the edge where it had been grilled and then the oozy middle to scoop out and sprinkle with walnuts.

Squidgy, cheesy goodness

I enjoyed my sherry more than I had actually expected. It was much more like a strong wine, quite dry - I think I might now be a sherry drinker! But then I knew that Morito/Moro was a good place to start.

Cheers!

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