Ohh Vienna - Cremeria Vienna

I'd better post this one quickly, but I think .. I think .. it has stopped raining. Summer is here. Let’s celebrate. Ice-cream, anyone? As any fool knows there’s only one place in Islington to head for quality ice-cream. Blackstock Road. Yeah, you heard me.

Now firstly, I don’t really get why an Italian ice-cream place is called Cremeria Vienna. But who cares? Blackstock Road has been trying it’s best to become more interesting for the foodie for many years, and this is a more than welcome addition to the stretch. Being on the junction with Brownswood Road I make it just inside the Islington border. When you have a blog called ‘Foodie Islington’, you start to get pedantic about these things. You could very easily miss this place due to an oddly placed cashpoint right on the corner of the shop. In fact I did, several times.

This place is the actual real deal – they make their own ice cream and sell it fresh within 24 hours. The ice cream is very good – a sweet and refreshing quality, with flavours very prominent. Portions are generous and reasonably priced, certainly for the quality. They are possibly less heart-stoppingly creamy than the poshest posh ice-cream, but for a sunny day or a stop-off with the kids after school this is bang on.

I have no idea what a business like this does for the 350 days of the year that the weather is cold or rainy. But for those 15 days when the sun does come out, it’s nice to know they are there.



Cremeria Vienna
145 Blackstock Road
London N4 2JS

The Shop That Only Sells Naan Breads

I wouldn’t claim to be any kind of expert, but I really don’t understand the business model of this place. That’s the first thing I love about it. This little shop is the eastern side of Blackstock Road, which, as my pedantic friends at Hungry Hackney have pointed out, is actually in Hackney (but I’m not having it ... you’re not telling me that Blackstock Road is not Islington, even if it isn't). The shop sells one thing – naan breads. It sells them dirt cheap too – four plain naan for a pound. I’m struggling to think of anything of any value which is available for 25p these days. They also do garlic naan and something called a cheese naan.

I started trying to figure out how many naan breads they would have to sell in a day to turn any kind of profit, then I remembered that I had left my tedious city job to become a food blogger precisely so that I didn’t have to worry about such things. Whatever the economics, budget foodism is to be celebrated wherever we find it. A good, fresh naan bread will transform a meal of, say dhal, or potato curry, into something more than satisfying.

Some chef in a Sunday supplement also pointed out that these kind of breads make handy impromptu pizza bases. I have been known to spread leftover Amatriciana sauce onto one of these 25p babies, whack some cheapo mozzarella on top and shove it in the oven for a pizza that will rival any you can buy or even have delivered in these parts. (I might even have stuck a basil leaf on top.)

Despite calling these breads 'naan' the place is actually run by Turkish people. Not sure of the correct nomenclature but for me this blurs the flatbread lines further. I have used them as flatbreads with middle-eastern mezze-type food, with no one noticing the difference. So if like me you love places that don’t seem to make sense, and places that concentrate on doing one thing well, drop in for a bargain next time you are patrolling dangerously along this stretch of the Islington/Hackney border.

Bakhtiar’s Naan

51A Blackstock Road
London N4 2JW