Christmas In Camden Passage

To my mind, for most of the year, the confusingly-named Camden Passage - in the heart of Islington - is the sort of place that gives Islington a bad name. And when I say a bad name, I mean the popular perception that Islington is entirely populated with middle-class champagne socialists, lazily repeated in the media as recently as The Independent's review of John Salt.  While there is no denying that Islington has its fair share of yuppies and Guardian-readers, reflected in several of the borough's more ghastly foodie landmarks such as Ottolenghi and La Fromagerie, anyone who lives in Islington for a reasonable stretch of time will find it to be a diverse and multicultural borough, with large areas highly resistant to gentrification. I spend most of the year avoiding both shops of any kind, apart from food shops of course, and the more smug enclaves of Islington such as Amwell Street, with it's matching ye-olde shop-fronts.

But at Christmas time, Camden Passage becomes more attractive. It really does come into its own. Mid-winter is a good time to treat yourself to a bit of luxury and pretend you're posh, at least for a week or so. Drink champagne, eat from white tablecloths, walk into shops selling pointless luxuries at absurd prices and act like you belong there. At this time of year I suddenly feel the need to look in wooden furniture shops and leaf through Japanese prints in a desperate search for gifts which will appear to be thoughtful and appropriate. Many of Camden Passage's restaurants and cafes seem more fitting at this time of year as well. The Austrian cafe Kipferl feels a very comforting place to stop for coffee and cake, and a respite from shopping. The wooden panelling decor makes it feel like a ski-lodge where you can, for a short time, metaphorically remove your uncomfortable boots. There are interesting lunch options too. The Elk In The Woods is a popular brunch spot, and the inclusion of frikadeller (Danish meatballs), served with a hearty shot of some kind of spirit, is perfect for a winter lunch. Having a strong Scandinavian connection in my family, frikadeller are inextricably associated with Christmas for me. Islington-stalwart Frederick's may not be highly rated for its food, but it does have that white tablecloth comfort thing going on in a good way.

This year Camden Passage has been improved a great deal, partly by the excellent Coffee Works Project (although I'm not wild about the whole coffee in a glass thing), but mainly by the new Passage Sundays market stalls. There are several markets in Islington that are doing their best to make life better for us, but this one really does bring some quality producers and makes for a very pleasant foodie stroll on a Sunday. Firstly, the brilliant Hansen & Lydersen smoked salmon stall. This stuff is not cheap, but it is Christmas. And it is the best smoked salmon you can buy, juicy, moist and smoky, available either in whole sides, 100g packs, or handy Scandinavian-style open sandwiches to munch right away. Hansen & Lydersen do their smoking in a little hut off Stoke Newington Church St but were previously around in market-stall form only down in Maltby Street. A great addition. Then there is the bakery stall run by Elliots Cafe (the most excellent place just by Borough Market). If there is any better bread available in Islington than the white sourdough from this stall I have yet to try it. Really good bread is one of those things that really does improve a person's quality of life. I feel sorry for people who don't eat bread. There is a very nice stall run by the Wild Game Co selling, err, game, and a high-quality pie stall that also does scotch eggs and the like. I've never understood the mania for cupcakes that some adults have, but if you are one of those people then there are cupcakes too. If you need a pint after all that shopping then the pubs at either end of Camden Passage are fine, but you might feel a bit cannier if you ducked down a side street to the Charles Lamb or the Earl of Essex. It is Christmas after all.  



Passage Sundays
Camden Passage
London N1







The Elk In The Woods
37-39 Camden Passage
London N1 8EA
http://www.the-elk-in-the-woods.co.uk






Kipferl
20 Camden Passage
London N1 8ED
http://www.kipferl.co.uk

Aand Another Vowel Please – Naamyaa, Isarn, and Thai Food in Islington

Thai food: the best of things, the worst of things. At its best, Thai food is a match for the best food in the world, and has an all-life-is-here quality. Certainly an all-flavours-are-here quality. On the flipside, nothing is more frustrating than the bland, overly sweet Thai food available all over town, in supermarkets, pubs, market stalls, and chain restaurants. I feel like thrusting David Thompson's brilliant 'Thai Food' book, with its oft-repeated phrases like "it should taste hot, sweet, sour, and salty" into the hands of those responsible. With Islington having been chosen as the first location in a new Thai "all day modern Bangkok cafe" chain, Naamyaa, from Alan Yau – he of Busaba Eathai, Hakkasan, Yauatcha, Wagamamma, etc. – it seemed like as good a time as any to do a blog about Thai food and what is available in the borough.

Thai food is responsible for many great food moments in my life. The first time I ever ate Thai food, in a restaurant called the Chiang Mai in Frith Street in the 1980s. A revelation, as it was to many at that time, new experience after new experience. Then the first time I ate real Thai food in Thailand, expectations low, in a non-descript caff in Phukhet called 'Mai Porn' (I have always assumed that means something different in Thai to the English meaning), with red Formica tables. I was absolutely blown away, and got high on the food. The first time I attempted Thai food myself, from a recipe in Keith Floyd's 'Far Flung Floyd' book .. well, the result may not have been great to an expert, but I was very pleased, amazed in fact, that I could make something that tasted that good so easily. Since then I have discovered David Thompson's bible and never looked back.

One of the things I love about Thai food tradition (apart from the awesome food) is eating with a spoon. It makes you feel like a baby, in a good way, i.e. in a the-world-is-taking-care-of-my-needs sort of way rather than a frustrated-and-powerless sort of way. My one strict policy with Thai food in London is never to order green curry. Although I consider it one of the ten best dishes ever invented, ordering it in London is bound to be disappointing, as it always seems to taste bland with neither a sufficient chilli kick, depth, or much flavour of chicken. Far better to make your own following David Thompson's recipe with good quality chicken (yeah I know, I’ll shut up about that book now) - easy to do, and always superior to anything you get in the street or restaurants in Britain.

On to Naamyaa then, and while I am not a huge fan of the Alan Yau model of founding a good restaurant or chain then selling it on (with the inevitable decline in quality that follows), it must be said that the guy is free to do what he likes and it's really none of my business. It should also be said that overall his activities have made a huge contribution to increasing the quality of food available in London and the UK.

Anyway, Naamyaa. I have to say I was attracted by the 'concept' (horrible word) of a Thai all-day cafe - I love anything that stays open all day, except Starbucks – which would be based around Khanom Jin noodle dishes and include a breakfast menu. First impressions of the interior were disappointing in that it didn't seem to match this idea at all, in fact it clashes with it quite strikingly – its all a bit pazzazzy and feels much more like the lobby of a snazzy New York hotel than a Thai cafe. It smells of money. Some people will like it I'm sure.

I did like the food though. The beef curry Khanom Jin noodle set was very tasty indeed, and I liked the accompaniments and the soup it came with. As soon as I put it in my mouth it tasted like proper Thai food. You know, like, Thai Thai food. I'll leave it up to any Thai London food bloggers out there to tell me whether this was actually an authentic experience or not. All I can tell you is that it didn't disappoint me in the way that Thai food normally does. I did not get as stuck into the menu as I would have liked, which is partly why this post is more about first-impressions and comparisons than a full 'review', but the food was definitely good enough, and good enough value, to make me want to return with a larger party and pig out. The menu also has a Laksa section, which is intruiging (I generally associate Laksa with Malaysia and Singapore), and even burgers, which I doubt I would ever get round to trying.

The beer selection is pretty boring for a new opening, and poorly matched with the food, but they are hardly alone in that. The one concession to proper beer is a very bland Meantime pale ale, while the food is crying out for a sharp bitter hoppy ale, or a good quality wheat beer. Places like this need to get with the programme when it comes to beer. London is changing. As Bob Dylan might say, something is happening here but you don't know what it is.

A little stroll up Upper Street from Naamyaa, Isarn has been around for a good few years now, and has always had its fans. My one previous visit, shortly after it opened, was a disappointment, particularly given the slightly overdone hype when it opened. I seem to remember there was some much-mentioned connection to Alan Yau at the time. On my return recently I sampled the £6.95 bento-style lunch sets, and I have to say it was incredible value. Tender chicken satay, delicious and hot duck red curry, again with tender meat (duck curry is so often tough) and some fruit. My return to Isarn was so impressive that I felt foolish to have ignored it all this time. As with Naamyaa I intend to revisit for a full a la carte meal soon.

We'll skip past the profoundly mediocre chain Thai Square, which gives me horrific acid-flashbacks of a time when I used to have to attend stilted work lunches in the City, on the occasion of somebody leaving or a dull executive type from overseas visiting. Hardly Thai Square's fault perhaps, but its not going to make me big them up any. And they don't need my help anyway. Mediocrity sells.

Nid Ting at the Archway end of Holloway Road is definitely worth a mention. It is a very nice local Thai, run by a charming family, and benefits from its location in Archway which, while not exactly a desert, is not overly blessed with good restaurants. It is too brightly lit and has daft Thai pop music piped into the restaurant, but that kind of adds to the authenticity for me. So, nice to have if you live nearby, but perhaps unlikely to inspire foodie pilgrimages. The Thai Corner Cafe on St Pauls Road is pleasant enough for a relaxed meal with friends, but it is definitely not going to win any awards. The Thai stall on Chapel Market is in the same vein as similar stalls around London – nice enough for a quick lunch in the park, but somewhat bland and a million miles away from street food as it would be in Thailand. I'd rather that such stalls were there than not there, I just wish they were a lot better than they are.

Naamyaa on first evidence then, has to be considered a good addition to the area and definitely worth checking out. Isarn is hanging in there too - highly recommended for a nice, good value lunch. Thai food in general remains yet another useful foodie metaphor for life – moments of joy punctuated with moments of disappoinment, but hopefully improving imperceptibly along the way.

Naamyaa Cafe
407 St John Street
London EC1V 4AB
http://www.naamyaa.com/

Nid Ting

533 Holloway Road

London N19 4BT

020 7263 0506

Isarn
119 Upper Street
London N1 1QP
http://www.isarn.co.uk/

Bricking It - Ben Spalding at John Salt

As you may have noticed, Foodie Islington is not really a finger-on-the-pulse, get-in-there-first type of blog, coming at you live from the opening of the latest gourmet pizza pop-up or the David Chang guest slot at the St John Hotel. But when I discovered that one of the most exciting and talked-about chefs in London, Ben Spalding (ex of Roganic, and the highly-regarded Hackney summer pop-up Stripped Back) was to be in residence for six months at John Salt, a new bar/restaurant smack in the middle of Upper Street, Islington, AND that an intrepid foodie friend was prepared to brave the reservations system and make a booking for a party which included little old me, well ... it would have been positively rude not to accept. So here we are, coming at you live from, well, not quite the opening of the place (it has has been open a week or so) but pretty close.

The site, just opposite St Mary’s Church, although a terrific space, does not have a particularly illustrious history. The previous trendy-bar incarnation, Keston Lodge, had its fans, but I was not sorry to see it go. Before that it was briefly an All Bar One, in the days when every other pub was an All Bar One. (Confession: Bless me Father for I have sinned. I ... I ... may have ... um ... liked All Bar One at the Angel when it first opened.) Going further back, this was once the notorious Murray’s Bar, which back in the days of being thrown unceremoniously out of pubs at 11:05 (by staff treating you as a despised enemy) was known as a place where you could pay a quid or so to get in and carry on drinking. You had to really want that last drink pretty badly to brave the charming young thugs who filled the place. It later changed its name to Xanadus and became more of a meat-market nightclub. I once saw a young woman punch another woman in the face for "looking at her" in here. Ah, those were the days ..

Sorry, drifted off into nostalgic reverie there. So, Ben Spalding is now at John Salt. The bar area has been nicely done out in not-too-pretentious fashion, and a range of interesting sounding cocktails are on offer along with a very decent selection of craft beer, including the likes of Kernel on tap, and nice imports from Bear Republic, Flying Dog, and Brooklyn Brewery in bottle. The bar menu is different and tempting, with all dishes under £10. Not many bar menus have sandwiches using crispy chicken skin instead of bread, or blowtorched lettuce. For the sake of thoroughness (in other words, for your sake, not mine) I plan to investigate the bar dishes fully in the very near future.

For now though, there were just the 12 courses on the weekend set menu to keep us going. I need to say right now that the food is incredible – surprising, playful, interesting, and most importantly, delicious. I should also say that the welcome provided by all of the staff is superb - warm, relaxed and professional. The chefs make a point of coming out to say hello to diners, but not in the wanky do-you-want-my-autograph way you get in some restaurants. They all seem like genuinely nice people who are happy to come out and meet people and exchange a bit of banter.

OK that's (most of) the fawning out of the way. We should get on to the food. Absolutely every course had something interesting and memorable about it. Firstly, the pre-menu nibbles are amazing, the short-rib 'bite' my favourite, but there are also crisps and a kind of miso soup. Then breads, with a variety of butters which are all different and all wonderful to eat. At the risk of sounding like someone on LSD, you find yourself actually thinking about butter, what it is, and how it is made. Then the 30-ingredient salad (there are plans afoot for a 50-ingredient upgrade, in case that's not enough for you), which is provided with it's own menu of flavours for you to identify, which is actually very good fun. Every mouthful has something different, a box of tricks. Then a superb mushroom course, Hen of the Woods, with lettuce and accompaniments, and a scallop 'sandwich' involving kiwi fruit, some kind of ham, truffle, and 'cider butter'.

The gimmicky dish which is getting a lot of attention, Chicken on a Brick, is very tasty indeed. Why is it served on a brick? I have no idea. It's a bit of fun. Perhaps, dare I say it, something of a piss-take. I can easily imagine a chef chuckling at the sight of a roomful of uber-foodies licking bricks. Whatever. The food is so good and so innovative I'm not sure I can be bothered with a pretension vs genius debate.

So there I was. I had come full circle from the Xanadus days, from being the chicken bricking it at the sight of aggro to being a trendy and with-it diner eating chicken from a brick. And then licking a brick. (At school they used to ask if you were "chewing a brick". They never used to ask about licking bricks.)

The brick is followed by a rainbow trout course involving 'rotten mango juice' (tasted fine to me), then a Vacherin risotto enhanced by a grilled cucumber dressing which made me resolve there and then to start grilling cucumbers more often. Heel of beef cooked in wine and kimchi was as delicious as it sounds, the kimchi element very subtle.

Palate cleansers were served in pre-Thatcher school milk bottles, then came desserts. It's not often you see desserts with names like 'Cucumber & Peanut Butter', and 'Fennel'. The first of these was an a-la-recherche-du-temps-perdu recapturing of a Ben Spalding childhood experience, the addition of muscat grape jam transforming it to a real dessert. I was reminded of a moment from my own childhood, perhaps not recalled since, eating peanut butter from the inside of a metal toy crocodile. (I'm not sure how it got in there. I suppose I must have put it there.)

The meal was rounded off with superb coffee, into which the same care and attention had gone as every other course. The smoothness and flavours were amazing. My only tiny gripe with the evening would be the volume of the music from the bar downstairs, but presumably this is a Friday and Saturday night thing. Lunch might be a better bet for a quieter meal.

I'm very glad that fine food such as this doesn't have quite the same you-can-never-go-back qualities as fine wine or (the cheaper alternative) high-quality craft beers. Otherwise I might find myself losing friends and possibly even family members by insisting on rotten mango juice with my fish, or only eating chicken from a brick. No, going back to marmite on toast is fine, and from what I hear that’s the kind of thing chefs eat when they get home as well.

We might not be eating here every day, but it really is pretty exciting to have a chef as ambitious, adventurous, and plain talented as Ben Spalding working and developing on our doorstep. I can only hope this thing lasts longer than the stated six months. I will be strolling back down Upper Street at the earliest opportunity for more adventures. If I can get another reservation. If not, there's always the bar.




Ben Spalding at John Salt
131 Upper Street
London N1 1QP
http://john-salt.com

Hix Oyster & Chop House (or, In Defence Of Hix)

Being relatively new to this food-blogging lark, I may well have missed a memo on this, but it seems to have become fashionable to slag off Mark Hix and his restaurants. The latest venture, The Tramshed, in an area I used to call Old Street but is now called Shoreditch or Hoxton or whatever, has taken a particular battering, including what I thought – without having visited myself - was a harsh review by the normally excellent John Lanchester in The Guardian criticising the place for having only chicken and steak on the menu. (Chicken and steak ... what's not to like? I can’t wait to go.) I love places with short menus. I like places where the waiters or waitresses tell you what to order. I like places that focus on doing one thing well, be it Pho, steak, doughnuts, or whatever. I would think the advice on The Tramshed would be: if you don't want chicken or steak, don’t go there. Lanchester's replacement at the Guardian, Marina O'Loughlin, of whom I am also a fan, was equally scathing in her review for the Metro, even suggesting that Hix's reputation was based on having friends in the right places. Various food bloggers have also weighed in to add to the sense that it is quite the thing to disapprove of Hix. I don't know Mark Hix, or anyone that knows him, but I will forgive him if he has friends, including friends in the same business as him. Likewise I hope his detractors have friends that would do them a favour if they could.

A notable exception to this is Time Out, who recently awarded The Tramshed their Best New Meat Restaurant award and generally seem inordinately enamoured of all things Hix. Perhaps their over-enthusiasm has helped spur the mini backlash. While I must admit I am not a huge fan of the Hix restaurant in Soho, despite having met food hero Bruno Loubet in there (he was at the next table so I shook his hand and played the fan boy), there is no doubt for me that Mark Hix is on the side of the angels, fighting the good fight, and has done good things for food in London and the UK in general. Foodies who deride the likes of Hix, or Jamie Oliver for that matter, remind me of Arsenal fans who complain about Arsene Wenger. Don’t they remember what it was like twenty years ago?

Anyway, who cares, right? We are only having lunch. And when it comes to lunch, I do very much like the Clerkenwell branch of the Hix empire, Hix Oyster & Chop House, which, as luck would have it for the purposes of this blog, is in Islington. It is a place I have been back to several times, with classy but relaxed decor and atmosphere, and good simple food. It ain't cheap, but then, I don't go there every day. The trick is to go when the city suit types are at a minimum - weekend lunchtimes are good, or maybe the quiet spell just after Christmas (which is a great time to go to restaurants in general). I enjoyed a lovely quiet lunch in good company one Easter weekend, in a half-deserted restaurant.

I should probably say something about the food. Anywhere that serves crackling as a pre-appetiser nibble has already scored several points on this blog and is half way to ten out of ten. Beer is served in ye-oldey pewter tankards, of which there are mini versions for children's drinks such as blood-orange juice. A starter might be some festive oysters, or a crab and samphire salad. When choosing mains, I generally find it hard to resist a Porterhouse steak for two, with Bernaise sauce. (Mmm Bernaise.) There are other tempting options like high-quality pork chops as well, they are just not as tempting as Porterhouse steak. Although generally a beer enthusiast, I do respect the fact that there are rules on some things for good reasons, and order red wine with the Porterhouse. On my last visit a doggy bag was requested for the steak bone, and a classy long black bag which looked like it should be holding champagne or perfume was provided.

Hix Oyster & Chop House is a place I have come to associate it with quiet, relaxed celebrations, and would heartily recommend it to anyone for that purpose. The emphasis is on quality British ingredients rather than anything fancy or ground-breaking. It may not be the latest thing with the foodierati, and there are no bubblegum-flavoured fois-gras sliders being served, but pick the right time to go and you will have a meal that is memorable for all the right reasons.



Hix Oyster & Chop House
36-37 Greenhill Rents
Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6BN
http://www.hixoysterandchophouse.co.uk

Because It's Worth It - Bistrot Bruno Loubet

The first time I walked into Bistrot Bruno Loubet, it was a Tuesday lunchtime, around noon. The man himself was in the kitchen, in his whites. A good sign. I had offered to "research" venues for a work Christmas lunch, and was nobly pounding the streets looking for a suitable place, perhaps sampling here and there as I went. They didn't have room for us for our lunch, but I decided to sit at the bar and order a little cheeky lunch of my own, while I was there. I am not the kind of person to whom solo dining comes naturally, but from the start I could not have felt more comfortable. Second good sign. Anyway I love sitting at the bar. Service always seems to be better because you can always attract someone's attention. Not wanting to overdo the whole treating-myself-for-no-reason thing, I skipped the tempting starters and stuck to a main course, with a glass of wine as a condiment. Choosing from the menu was agonising, but I plumped for a seafood cannelloni, and resolved to return many times. They brought me the bread, which is up there with the best restaurant bread I have ever eaten, the onion bread in particular. The good signs were piling up. Being a solo diner I got a whole basket of it to myself. The cannelloni was delicious, a great dish perfectly cooked, as they might say on Masterchef. Afterwards I had a coffee, which came with a little chocolate, and the bill came to less than £30, for what had felt like an utterly luxurious and stolen lunch.

Since then I have been back, both solo and accompanied, to sample the Hare Royale and other things I had missed on that first visit, and have never left disappointed. Recently the menu was overhauled, which gave me the excuse I needed to write a blog post about it. A dinner for four was arranged, and as expected, every dish was delicious, with the possible exception of an ever-so-slightly dry flourless chocolate cake. Wonderful bread as usual, incredible guinea-fowl Boudin Blanc in a small Garbure soup, braised oxtail, saddle of hare. (Sounds good, right? It is.) Mashed potato that is done in that proper way I never seem to manage at home. Tonka bean crème brûlée. I had been slightly nervous going in as I had raved about the place so much to my companions, who had never been before, but I shouldn’t have worried. The place is a banker. The good kind of banker.

I have no idea whether Bistrot Bruno Loubet has a Michelin star or not, and I don't care. I get the impression that the owners care much more about customers having an enjoyable time than they do about any Michelinigans. What I do know is that the value is outstanding. It is not a cheap restaurant, but for the quality of cooking, atmosphere, and service, I struggle to think of where you can get better value for money for this kind of meal. It is fancy and luxurious, but not at all stuffy, quite relaxed in atmosphere. It feels like the owners have really tried to make it the kind of place they would like to go to themselves. When you want a really nice, table-clothy kind of meal, without having to pay through the nose for it, and you don’t want to travel too far, this is the place. Or if you are just passing by yourself at lunchtime, you could always pop in and treat yourself. I won’t say "because you’re worth it". That would be cheesy. I’ll just say that Bistrot Bruno Loubet is.

Bistrot Bruno Loubet

St John’s Square

86-88 Clerkenwell Road

London EC1M 5RJ
http://www.bistrotbrunoloubet.com

Old School - M. Manze

If you go to restaurants and eating places a lot, their appearance and menus can start to look a bit samey. M Manze, one of the few remaining traditional pie & mash shops in London, will take you on a proper little mini-break back in time, and feels more like stepping into another world than many places that consciously strive for that effect. Plus, a visit here is considerably cheaper than a visit to Bob Bob Ricard. And its not just the natural, time-worn, un-designed, old-fashioned appearance of the place that I like.

M Manze is full of older people, and they are welcome and at-home here. London spends a lot of time patting itself on the back about how far it has come as a city over the past twenty years, how culturally diverse it is, and how great the food is these days (and of course, I am as guilty of this as the next foodie), but it has some way to go when it comes to being properly inclusive of the old and the young in the way that seems so natural in, for instance, Asia or Southern Europe. One of the best things about New York is that you actually see people in their 80s eating alone or in couples in buzzy restaurants, in areas like the West Village. Restaurants should have grannies in them, and they should have children in them. Anyone who doesn’t like it can bugger off and found a Logan's Run-style community somewhere and live trendily ever after.

OK sorry, rant over. As I was saying, I like this place. The food? Well, the pies are the thing. Mmm pie. (Jellied eels, not so much.) Delicious and appetising pastry is the essential feature of a pie, and these babies have it in spades. You can forgive a bit with the filling if the pastry is done right. The mash, scraped onto the side of the plate in the traditional way, is proper mashed potato, the right thick texture for shepherd's pie or .. er .. pie & mash. Its not buttery and its not creamy, but it is potatoey, fresh and genuine (i.e. made of potatoes, unlike whatever it was I used to get served at school). Being a pie & mash shop, the food here is, as Michel Roux Jr might say, "not refined", but it is good wholesome comfort food, and just the thing if you are struck by hunger while browsing iPhone covers in the market. If you are really hungry you can have double pie & mash, or double pie & double mash, until you’re ready to quit. The liquor, yes, it is very bland, but inoffensive to my taste buds ... a bit like school dinner food.

I have heard people talk about other pie & mash shops that are supposed to be better than this one, but they always seem to be located in the middle of nowhere (i.e. South London somewhere), and frankly, I’m not prepared to travel that far for pie & mash, however good and however cheap. But if you offer me a nice hot pie in a proper old-school gaff, conveniently situated Up Chap (that is, for the benefit of any non-Islingtonians, in Chapel Market), I might just pop in once in a while.

 




 

M. Manze

74 Chapel Market
London N1 9ER

Yipin China, and Chinese Food in Islington

For a long time, if anyone had asked me to recommend where to go in Islington for good Chinese food, I would have said "sure, no problem, go to a tube station, get on the Picadilly line, and go to Chinatown or Queensway". And while I do my best with this blog to big-up worthy local Islington businesses, sometimes you just have to say that's not something we do that well around here.

Whilst I admired Youngs on Upper Street for it's staying power, that was roughly the extent of my admiration. Although I must admit to enjoying my meal on the few occasions I ate there, that was a reflection of my own low standards (i.e. I inevitably enjoy more or less any Chinese meal however cheesy or low-quality, and enjoy a greasy inauthentic takeaway as much as the next man) rather than anything of interest on offer there. Youngs has now finally gone the way of all restaurants, to be replaced by a branch of another long-standing stalwart of Upper Street mediocrity, Le Mercury. (I feel no guilt writing this since the place seems to be permanently packed regardless of anyone's opinion, so they don't need any help from me.)

There is the underrated and under-promoted Ye’s on St Paul’s Road, which does deserve at least a mention in a survey of Chinese food around these parts. The owners of Ye’s are from Dong Bei in North Eastern China, which from what I can make out is part of Guangzhou (correct me if this is wrong). They have that most maddening of things, a Chinese menu, which is given to Chinese customers but not Western-looking customers unless they specifically ask for it. The English menu is full of the standard Cantonese/British takeaway stuff with pineapples in it and whatnot. The Chinese menu has Dong Bei dishes and Szechuan dishes. So if you know what you are doing and probe the owners you can have stuff like whelks & cucumber, tofu skin salad, twice-cooked pork, morning glory with fermented tofu, and so on, but they don’t make it easy for you. There are often groups of young Chinese eating those steamboat things, but the place is not nearly as full as it could be. Foodies walk by on the street outside, on their way to Trullo a couple of doors down. If this place was promoted as what it really is, rather than what they seem to think people want, it would surely be packed out.

Anyway. The Hunanese restaurant Yipin China has turned up on Liverpool Road and is not nearly so shy about promoting its specialities. It really is a good restaurant, with an interesting menu unashamedly announcing and illustrating the duck’s tongue and pig’s intestine dishes in English and with pictures, alongside more standard offerings involving pork (Chairman Mao’s red-braised pork), chicken, fish and so on. I really like the slightly bizarre touches as well, like the TV screen facing the street advertising the dishes on offer.

Peanuts and pickled radish are brought as soon as you sit down. I may have said this before but I love places that give you something to eat right away, while you read the menu, to reduce risk of starvation. The menu has Hunanese, Szechuan, and Cantonese sections, and it is mainly the Hunanese selections which distinguish it from other menus. Cold dishes such as smacked cucumbers, ‘man and wife’ offal slices and spiced snails make a nice start to a meal for me. Cold meats always seem healthier somehow, even if they are swimming in chilli oil. Everything I have eaten here has been nice, and interesting – pork spare ribs on glutionous rice, preserved sea bass in liquor, which has a very concentrated fishy taste. I also like the Chinese approach to vegetable dishes, which is to put pork in them. Sometimes they seem more like pork dishes with vegetable additions. The best dish I have eaten here is dry-wok tofu, which naturally includes pork and is served in one of those things with a flame which keeps it hot, possibly to mask a certain fatty quality. Absolutely delicious.

Yipin China is by far the best Chinese restaurant in Islington that I know of, and the authentic Hunanese menu gives it a distinctive quality that would, finally, make me point people away from the tube station and down the street. May it stay as long as Young’s.

 

 

 

Yipin China
70-72 Liverpool Road
London N1 OQD
http://www.yipinchina.co.uk

 

 

Mmmm Doughnuts - St John

Ahh, St John. Is there a better restaurant in Islington? (No.) Is there a better restaurant in London? (Debateable.) Nothing much has changed at St John since it opened in the mid 1990s, apart from the menu, which changes every day in content if not in style. This is testament to the confidence and quality that was already there, intact, when it opened, and of the way in which it sits outside (above) temporary fads and fashions. When nothing changes, it doesn’t make it easy for the food blogger to find an excuse to write about the place. I know St John is not smoking hot foodie news that no one knows about, but I dare say it will be there long after the latest "flash hob" pop-up event is forgotten.

However, a reason to write about St John in the guise of reporting new developments has arrived, in the form of doughnuts. ("Doughnuts", Homer Simpson once asked, "is there anything they can’t do?") These are not just any doughnuts either, but generally acknowledged to be the Platonic ideal of doughnuts, which makes them really rather desirable things in anyone’s book. The doughnuts in question have, until recently, enjoyed a large cult following mainly from the bakery outpost in the Maltby St area in Bermondsey (actually in Druid St). A doughnut has to be one charming motherfucking doughnut to make me want to schlep to Bermondsey early-ish on a Saturday morning. Luckily, they actually are that good. But even more luckily, Islingtonians can now say goodbye to that schlepping-to-Bermondsey misery, because the famous dougnuts are available in the original Farringdon restaurant (nowadays referred to as 'HQ', 'Smithfield' or 'The Mothership') on Thursday and Friday mornings, if you get there early enough. I recommend the ones with custard fillings, or there are jam versions if you custardically-challenged, as my children, bafflingly, are.

You could even have some 'elevenses' while you are there. One of the many things I love about St John is the way that they revive forgotten or abandoned foods, meals, and traditions, and present them with a completely straight face, as though they never went away. Of course one takes a bit of seed cake with Madeira at 11am – what could be more natural than that? Unless, of course, you are having Eccles Cake with Lancashire cheese for your elevenses. (Just like you eat 'savouries' such as Welsh Rarebit, after you have finished your dinner of grouse.) I asked a staff member what you are supposed to drink with elevenses. He looked slightly bemused by the question as he answered "anything you like".

I have enjoyed wedding celebrations, birthday celebrations, and many memorable meals in this restaurant. Some of the very best meals I have ever eaten have been here. I have had many "what have they done to this?" moments with apparently simple ingredients such as venison or guinea fowl. I still have dreams about a walnut and date steamed pudding I ate here circa 1996. I was cured of my Pavlova-scepticism here. I have even had the odd bad dish, which is to be expected when the menu changes every single day for nearly twenty years. Unlike many restaurants, St John seem to enjoy serving large parties or celebrations, as it gives them a chance to do things which they can’t do when serving individual dishes. Suckling pigs, huge nursery-rhyme sized pies, or Grand Aioli. A pleasure here can be as large or as small as you like, whatever takes your fancy. You can hire a private room for a feast. Or you can have a solo lunch in the bar, usually around £15 for something delicious with something nice to drink, one of the best bargains in town in my book. Or you could just have a doughnut. But you might as well get two, while you’re there.

St John
26 St John Street
London EC1M 4AY
https://www.stjohngroup.uk.com/smithfield/

Pub Time - The North Pole

Is it OK to do another pub yet? We did the sushi thing, the supper club thing, the foraging thing ... it’s pub time, right? Cool. Thanks.

If you are pressed for time or can't be bothered to read the whole of this review of the refurbished North Pole pub on New North Road, I will be nice and shorten it for you. I bloody love this place - great beer, great food, nice decor, charming staff, good value. That's the short version. And I've done the conclusion already. If you want more detail and some mild beer-erotica, read on.

OK, first things first, the most important thing in a pub, the beer. This isn't just one of those places that has one or two slightly dull choices of country ale and a couple of Kernels in the fridge for the 'discerning' (i.e. people who don't like homogenous mass-produced alcoholic cold fizz that is often not even cold or fizzy, or very alcoholic). This place has a stone-cold proper range of cask and keg beers on a par with meccas like Craft in Leather Lane and The Jolly Butchers in Stoke Newington. Six cask ales at a very reasonable £3.20 a pint, four cask ciders for apple heads, and I counted eleven keg beers including the great American classics Flying Dog ‘Doggie-Style’ Pale Ale (a desert-island beer for me) and Brooklyn Lager, as well as the eye-watering, too-strong-for-this-guy ‘Human Canonball’ from the magnificent Huddersfield brewery Magic Rock. (Magic Rock are apparently so-named because they used to sell crystals and what-not to the New Age community. I'm glad they quit the rat race and took up brewing.)

I sampled a suitably sour and farmyard-y Dark Star Saison (Saisons are definitely not for everyone but I was trying to show the bar staff I was serious) and a very nice ‘Sleepless’ American Amber Ale, from Redwillow Brewery in Macclesfield, while perusing the lunch menu. Halves, mind.

It is one of those menus where you want everything on offer. This is exquisite torture for the gastro-gnome. It's good and it's bad. But mainly good. A burger is always tempting in these situations. It certainly looks good in the picture on their website. Then there is the mac & cheese which has been tweeted about enthusiastically by a trusted American source. There are tempting 'snacks' like pints of prawns and chicken wings. Ribs though. Y'know, ribs. For grown-ups. The lady behind the bar recommends jerk chicken. Ribs it is. They have pork (baby back) and beef. I am warned off the beef ribs as difficult to eat, so I order the beef ribs.

The ribs are indeed hardcore and some kind of magic has been done on them; they easily rival those at nearby Dukes Brew & Que, which is a dedicated barbecue joint, and an excellent one at that. The inner parts especially are deliciously moist and beefy, as beefy and satisfying as a good steak to my mind. Not for the faint-hearted though ... put it this way: if you like the St John bone-marrow dish, or if you like bone-marrow in general, you'll love it; if you have any meat-related food fads, you won't. The kind of dish you just cannot eat without alcohol to cut it. Which is OK. This is a pub.

The place itself has some nice nooks and crannies, a garden area, and a games room. I must come back when it is buzzing and full of happy young things. Or maybe not. The older I get, the more I see pubs as a daytime thing. Of all the great stolen pleasures to be had in life, going into an empty pub before midday has to be up there.

The North Pole is a pub that has modernised and cranked up the quality on all fronts without being too, how can I put this ... middle-class about it. It does not feel exclusive in any way. It is not a Gastro-pub, but it does have great food. The food is pub food, which tries to be as good as pub food can be, and largely succeeds. The word 'rocket' does appear on the menu, but only as part of a pulled pork sandwich. So it remains very much a pub in both emphasis and atmosphere. I might have said this before, but my only gripe with this place is that it's not nearer to my house. Or maybe that’s a good thing.




The North Pole
188-190 New North Road
London N1 7BJ
http://thenorthpolepub.co.uk

Yes It's True - Sushi Tetsu

Whisper it ... the best sushi in London is now to be found in a little alleyway in Clerkenwell, Islington. No wait, hang on, there’s not much point whispering it, given the volume of food blogging traffic that has already been devoted to Sushi Tetsu, and the fact that every day sees a new critic from a national newspaper visit. Jay Rayner’s gushing review in the Observer may be the final nail in the coffin for anyone wanting a reservation, for the moment at least. But if you live or work locally, you can probably afford to wait for the phone traffic to die down a bit.

Every now and then, maybe once a year or so, I come across a food experience that is genuinely new. The cocktail that evaporates in your mouth at the Fat Duck, or the first time eating a real Thai curry in Thailand. Going back a bit further, the first time I ate the signature St John dish, roast bone marrow with parsley salad. Maybe I’m betraying a little inexperience of a proper no-nonsense, high-quality sushi joint, but I’ve never eaten anywhere quite like this, and had the same combination of excellent food and relaxed, otherworldly atmosphere.

It's not that I haven't eaten the foods I was given in Sushi Tetsu before. Just not this good, and not in this way. Many hardcore foodies have already blogged or reviewed Sushi Testu and are better qualified than me to comment on whether it is "the best sushi in London", in the words of the 'scary' Masterchef critic Andy Hayler, who was sitting in one of the seven seats on our visit (and who turned out to be a very nice man, who didn't tap his watch once). All I can say is, it’s the best sashimi and sushi I’ve ever eaten.

So it’s very hard to do anything other than add to the chorus of praise that has been heaped on Sushi Tetsu. It certainly ain’t cheap, but if you can afford it, then believe the hype. (Expect to pay at least £50 a head, more like £100 if you get stuck into the sake.) Sushi Tetsu is one of those places that is both expensive and good value. You will need a whole afternoon, or a whole evening, and my advice is to ask for ‘omakase’ or chef’s choice, forget the bill, relax and enjoy.

While the cooking and the food have many things in common with haute cuisine - very high quality ingredients, perfectionism in preparation, technique and execution, beautiful presentation, the sense of someone wanting to do something as well as it can be done, for it's own sake – the warm welcome and the relaxed atmosphere created by chef Toru Takahashi and his wife and front-of-house make this something altogether more comfortable and convivial. We ended up chatting animatedly with the chef and the other diners in the seven seats around the bar.

I can only hope that the charming and humble owners do not get cheesed off with all the attention and hype. Chef Toru is an alumni of Nobu amongst other places, and is aiming for an authentic back-to-basics approach with his new venture. (There is only sushi and sashimi served, with the emphasis on ingredients, the main modern touch being created by a trusty blowtorch which is occasionally used to lend a smoky flavour to a raw prawn or scallop.) He seems bemused and slightly alarmed by the level of attention he is getting. If they stay, I can see Sushi Tetsu taking a place alongside St John and Moro in the Pantheon of great London restaurants based in the Clerkenwell area. Like those places, it’s the passion for what they are doing, rather than commercial considerations, that comes across most strongly. Whatever happens, Sushi Tetsu is a wonderful addition to the area, and to London.

Sushi Tetsu
12 Jerusalem Passage
London EC1V 4JP
020 3217 0090
http://sushitetsu.co.uk