Georgia on my mind

The interwebs not having penetrated as far as my mother and father's house I am typing and scheduling the post before setting off to Wales.

By now we will know the result of last night's Georgia v Wales World Cup qualifier in Tbilisi.

Celebrating (Feast Like a Georgian: A Food Guide to the Caucasus) or drowning our sorrows (Zero Compromise: A (Georgian) Natural Wine Story)?

Honey & Co

Clients took us out to lunch yesterday, which made a pleasant change. They took us to Honey & Co. Reading Grace Dent's glowing review before we went it, I noted it serves up "Israeli food sprinkled with the homespun kitchen wisdom of its Algerian, Moroccan and Iraqi Jewish cooks."

As if by magic, Eat Your Way Around the World in London, is rebooted with Israel finally ticked off the list.

Stamppot Boerenkool

I have only got potatoes and kale left over from this week's veg box, and next week's arrives tomorrow.

If I combine them with smoked sausage in a Dutch fashion I can make Stamppot Boerenkool. The same ingredients in a Portuguese stylee will give me Caldo Verde.

Now that the country is teeming with Poles I can select from a wide variety of charcuterie at the Sri Lankan shop at the bottom of the road. It is practically a Polski sklep these days.

Spuds, sausage and greens may be peasant food, but seasoned with my cosmopolitan, culinary suavity it combines a stroll through European history and culture with a treat for the taste buds.

What happened to borshch?

Prodnose: What happens to the food that defines a world when that world vanishes? What happened, in particular, to the dish that was once the common denominator of the Soviet kitchen, the dish that tied together the peasant and the cosmonaut, the high table of the Kremlin and the meanest canteen in the boondocks of the Urals? What happened to the beetroot soup that pumped like a main artery through the kitchens of the east Slav lands? What happened to borshch?

Myself: I had some last night actually.

Prodnose: Any quest for the origin of a quintessentially Russian dish such as borshch must begin with Pokhlebkin's culinary masterwork, The Cuisine Of Our Peoples ("Our" meaning "Soviet"). Pokhlebkin immediately acquaints you with a crucial detail: borshch isn't Russian. It's Ukrainian. "One could understand and forgive foreigners for calling borshch a Russian national dish," Pokhlebkin writes, "but when it turns out that they gleaned the information from Soviet cookbooks or from restaurant menus, one is embarrassed."

Myself: There was beetroot I needed to use up in the veg box, sirloin was half price at Tesco, and Discovery brand soured cream topping is rarely absent from my larder. Fate played the straight man,  pots and pans were rattled, and hey presto! din dins. Thanks for the tip about it being Ukrainian though. That'll come in handy next time I need to make small talk with one of the Klitschko brothers, you friggin' halfwit..

Prodnose: Pokhlebkin and the Soviet Union are dead, yet Borshchland lives on. Recipes, like birds, ignore political boundaries. Just as the British empire still has a culinary pulse, beating in a curry in Scotland or in the mug of builder's tea with sugar and milk you are handed in some roadhouse on the Karakorum Highway; just as the Ottoman empire breathes phantom breaths in little cups of muddy coffee from Thessaloniki to Basra; so the faint outline of the Tsarist-Soviet imperium still glimmers in the collective steam off bowls of beetroot and cabbage in meat stock, and the soft sound of dollops of sour cream slipping into soup, from the Black Sea to the Sea of Japan and, in emigration, from Brooklyn to Berlin.

Myself: .... from Brooklyn to Berlin .... to Browne's. The SW19 branch to be precise.

Lambs' Testicle Kebab

As I've been scooting up and back to Balham over the last month, I've noticed an Afghan restaurant called Diana in Tooting.

The Burglar and I made it stop 48 of Eat Your Way Around the World in London last night.

We rejected the house specialty lambs' testicle kebab in favour of palao, the national dish, meat and stock added, topped with fried raisins, slivered carrots, pistachios; along with non-testicular kebabs, salad and naan. Very fine it was too.

There are pictures of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, on the wall so I suspect the venue is not a hot bed of the Taliban.

It doesn't seem to have a website, but I found this video from the opening.

Not only Britain has talent.

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(I've also realized that I have mothballed the server that used to host the maps that have graced these food posts since 2005. I must resurrect the data.)

500 years of democracy and peace

Eat your way around the world in London was back on the road last night for the first time since 2008.

We eased our way back in over a fondue at the St Moritz, and navigated there via my phone's GPS. Times change.

Established in 1974 the St.Moritz is London's oldest Swiss restaurant. Genuine traditional Swiss cuisine prepared and served under the auspices of the renowned proprietor and chef Armin Loetscher.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations.

No Drugs, No Guns, No Slippers

I went to Manila once. It was like something out of the Wild West, everyone was packing heat. The Philippines is (are?) overwhelmingly Catholic and I have a vivid memory of an open air Mass in a park where most of the congregation appeared to be armed to the hilt.

I also treasure a sign outside a nightclub explaining its admittance policy: "no drugs, no guns, no slippers". Though we have drugs and guns in London we seem largely to have escaped the slipper menace, not that that is any reason for complacency.

All of which is a round about way of leading up to the fact that we went to Josephine's Filipino restaurant this week for pork, chicken, rice, noodles and vegetables.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Legends

"Eat Your Way Around the World in London" got back on the road last night. We tried to go Ukrainian, but the restaurant was closed for a private function, so we wandered about looking for an alternative (a tricky exercise as we've already done 44 cuisines) until we found the Taiwanese Leong's Legends.

We had landed on our feet according to Time Out:

There’s something conspiratorial about the whole thing. Just when you thought the Chinatown dining scene was torpid, two outstanding restaurants – first Baozi Inn, and now Leong’s Legends, both boasting relatively unknown regional cooking – burst on to the scene with the stealth and cunning of bandits. Which, if you think about it, is a fitting metaphor for the title of this Taiwanese newcomer.

The name refers to the popular classical Chinese novel ‘The Water Margin’, which revolves around the rebel Song Jiang and his 107 comrades (sometimes referred to as ‘Liang’s legends’) who rise up against a corrupt government during the Song dynasty, while taking refuge on Mount Liang (aka Leong).

Good food, but I drank and didn't take any notes. Here is the skinny from Wikipedia (authenticity is implied by the fact that we certainly had the beef noodle soup from paragraph one).

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Jom Makan

I spotted the newly opened Jom Makan a fortnight ago, when we went to the Texas Embassy Cantina, so we toddled along last night to test the cuisine of Malaysia against our palates, and shared:

Popiah Sayur: Deep fried mixed vegetables in thin spring roll skin served with a sweet chilli sauce
Cucur Udang: Deep fried prawn in batter with mixed vegetables served with sweet chilli sauce
Nasi Goreng: Spicy pan-fried rice with prawn, squid, chicken and mixed vegetables
Bee Hun Goreng: Fried, fine rice noodles with chicken, seafood, beansprouts and mixed vegetables

Great food, and a fusion of many Asian influences, but a truly terrible website. Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Remember the Alamo

That was inedible muck and there wasn't enough of it.

I've been to a buffet at the Texas Embassy Cantina before, but never made an official eat your way around the world in London stop.

That was remedied last night. I had Ribs and Flautas, then Southern Fried Steak.

Southern fried steak is "hand battered and fried steak with homemade cream gravy, corn served with fries or mashed potatoes". It is an authentic recipe it would seem, but I thought it was disgusting.

Can't win 'em all I suppose.

Rooster Cogburn: If ever I meet one of you Texas waddies who ain't drunk water from a hoofprint, I think I'll... I'll shake their hand or buy 'em a Daniel Webster cigar. How long you boys down there been mounted on sheep?

Onwards! And follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations.

Gurkhas

Did you know that there is a fine Nepalese restaurant about half way between Tooting Bec and Balham tube stations? Just stop for a minute and think about it. Isn't that great?

I don't know what I was expecting at Gurkhas Diner particularly, but I was surprised and delighted.

The light and spacious room has a parquet floor, This is a restaurant where your napkins comes in a stylish napkin ring. There are also oversized wine glasses and great effort has been made with the presentation of the dishes on the plate.

We had Dayalu, Takeko Farshi, Tarai Chicken, Sunsari Pork, Lukla Simi, and Bhat. You can look at the menu for yourself to see what it all means.

HIghly recommended: Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Perusing

A tardy "Eat Your Way Around the World in London" moved its slow thighs across the desert sands to Borough Market on Wednesday night, and thence to Tito's Peruvian Restaurant, 4-6 London Bridge Street SE1 9SG.

Once a bottle of Tacano, from a vineyard established in 1540 (see http://www.peruvinos.com/) had been opened and poured, a revelation was at hand.

I started on cod ceviche with sliced sweet potato and fried corn. I first fell in love with ceviche at the Gaucho Grill two years ago.

Wikipedia says:

Ceviche (also spelled as cebiche, seviche or cevice) is a form of citrus marinated seafood salad, popular in many Latin American countries, originating in the Viceroyalty of Peru. One theory suggests that it got its name from the Quechua "siwichi". However, it is likely to be a cognate of another Spanish word, "escabeche" (marinade), derived from the Arabic term "sikbaj". Another theory suggests that its name comes from the word Cebo, name given to the Corvina fish by black Peruvians.

I'm delighted to claim it for Peru.

The main course was Pato en Aji (duck leg in chilli sauce with yellow beans and rice) which is a dish from Huaral, a town in central Peru.

Mmmmm. Beans and rice. From the hoppin' John of the Carolinas, to the feijoada of Brazil. From the vibrantly unPC monicker of Cuba's Moros y Christianos to our very own Garfield's Rice'n Peas. What a story there is to tell.

For your homework (before you follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations) I am setting "Rice and Beans: The Itinerary of a Dish", page 278 to 322 of John and Matt Lewis Thorne's Serious Pig: An American Cook in Search of His Roots

Banglatown

There are about eight thousand Indian restaurants in Britain and the great majority of these are run by Bangladeshis. Most of these come from the Seaman's Zone at the centre of the small district Syhlet.

So begins chapter 9 of Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors whence I refer you to the intriguing tale of how lascars conquered British tastebuds.

The Profit Burglar and I decided to celebrate this (and tick Bangladesh off our "eat our way around the world in London" project) with a visit to Brick Lane this week.

Brick Lane teems with curry houses, hustlers, and hawkers who try and entice you into their establishments with promises of discounts and free rounds of drinks. We picked out a place called Sonargoan at random and got outside a mountain of familiar fayre in the form of bhajis, curries, pulaos, naans and relishes.

Cheer thrice for the good people of Syhlet, and follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations.

The Gay Hussar

Greek Street, the home of 'Private Eye' and the 'Coach and Horses' seemed a legendary place to me when I was growing up, and so the same street's 'Gay Hussar' was a natural choice for our Hungarian dining destination last night.

I had Beef Goulash Soup followed by Kacsa Sült (Crispy Roast Duck with Red Cabbage, Hungarian Potatoes and Apple Sauce). The Profit Burglar started with Fried Cheese Salad before getting outside Borjú Pörkölt (Veal Goulash Stew with Galuska). We shared a bottle of house red.

Here's Nick Cohen on the place's colourful past and present, including:

"stories of the energetically homosexual Labour MP Tom Driberg organising a lunch in the late 1960s during which WH Auden leaned across to Marianne Faithfull to ask if she hid her drugs 'up her arse'

A class act indeed. Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Snazz Sichaun

"Eat our way around the world in London", added another of the "Eight Great Traditions" of Chinese cuisine to our bag this week when Sichaun joined Hunan and Canton.

The menu at Snazz Sichaun is certainly a wonder to behold (strange-flavour rabbit" or "fire-exploded kidney flowers" anyone?), and intimidating enough to send us to the set meals.

Sichaun food is very hot and it watching the profit burglar squirm and dab his eyes and nose as he got outside his steamed chicken in Chongqing special sauce (cold) starter was worth the price of admission on its own. This is a style of cooking and eating that demands further investigation; I noticed on some other tables that guests seemed to be cooking their own food by simmering it in a broth rather like the sukiyaki that we had on the Japanese leg of our journey.

The proprietor came over for a chat towards the end of our meal and I was genuinely flattered when he seemed sincerely interested in our little project.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations since 2005. Alternatively, if you've got Google Earth (http://earth.google.com/), click here and fly to the restaurant.

The Last Hurrah of The Golden Horde

Eat Your Way Around the World in London is back on the road for the first time - what with one thing and another - since June, so The Profit Burglar and I bowled up at Covent Garden's Mongolian Barbecue on Wednesday night.

The M.O. at the Mongolian Barbecue is that you select sliced meat and veg along with spices and sauces and hand it over to the staff to be stir fried on a large flat steel and then served up. For all that the website contends that "transcripts of Marco Polo's writings mention Mongolian warriors cooking on upturned shields", this doesn't seem to be very authentic at all. I couldn't find anything else even vaguely Mongolian in London however, so any port in a storm. (I also remember when there were branches of the franchise all over London's suburbs, though now the central London establishment seems to be the only one left.)

Wikipedia has an entry on Mongolian Cuisine which - rather wonderfully relates that:

BD's Mongolian Barbeque, has opened even in Ulaanbaatar (ironically the first American chain to open in Mongolia), neither the ingredients nor the cooking method has anything in common with Mongolian cuisine.

(Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations since 2005.)

Enak Enak

Nancy Lam lives in Colliers Wood. A circumstance that, when I discovered it, made Enak Enak - the Indonesian restaurant that she runs in Clapham - a natural choice for the last Eat Your Way Around the World in London before we shut up shop for the summer and AbbeyFest.


The Profit Burglar and I shared mixed satay and picked vegetables. I followed this with beef rendang and rice, while Paul had a prawn sambal. We drank house white.


Enak enak; yummy yummy.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

(P.S. I cannot tick Indonesian food off our list without also giving a shout out to the stall that serves it up in Merton Abbey Mills. Their spicy lamb with fried rice is my fuel of choice if I ever have to work over the weekend.)

La Bodeguita

We went to a Colombian restaurant in Elephant and Castle last night. Just like last week, I picked it out to put a marker on a sparsely populated part our map. The profit burglar and I decided what we were going to eat before setting out after comparing the Wikipedia entry on Colombian food with the menu.

I had Aborrajados then Bandeja Paisa.

Aborrajados were plantain with cheese and sweet guava deep fried together in a batter. Bandejas Paisa - practically the national dish - was rice, pork belly, red kidney beans, minced beef, sausage, fried egg, fried plantain, avocado and garnish. Lost for words, I photographed it in all its glory when it arrived on a dish the size of a tray. This cholesterol fest was washed down with the Chilean house red.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

Red Red

We were joined by old friend - and trained chef - Jason last night for Ghanaian food at the Accra-Nima restaurant in SW8. I picked out a West African establishment as it seemed to plug a gap in the world map that I am maintaining to organise the record of our adventures in food.

I had "Red Red" a mashed bean stew served with fried plantains, simply because I fell in love with its name when Jason sent me this Wikipedia link. He had a meat stew which he gamely ate by hand, rolling starchy rice into balls that he dipped into his bowl as they do in Ghana. The profit burglar dined on talapai, largely I think so that he could tell me several times during the course of the evening that it is sometimes called St. Peter's fish from the account in the Bible (Matthew 17:24−27) about the apostle catching a fish that carried a shekel coin in its mouth, with the dark spots on the sides of the fish being the fingermarks of the saint.

Jaw lubricated by red wine and African beer, I had a chat with the proprietor about the boxing photo on the wall and learned that he was a retired cruiser weight prizefighter. The picture was a souvenir of his last bout, so we decided to pay after all. Only joking; it was great food and great value. You should go there as well.

Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations as we eat our way around the world in London.

(I also found the excellent Wikipedia list of cuisines via Jason's link. Nice one mate, if you're reading this.)

Pschorr 'Nuff

Not being exactly spoiled for choice - as far as I can tell - when it comes to German restaurants, the profit burglar and I rolled up at The Bavarian Beerhouse last night, for the latest installment of our campaign to eat our way around the world in London.

Subtlety is not the watchword at this Teutonic Hooters, but we raised steins of Hacker Pschorr, toasted the Bavarian Pope, and set to work.

I had the Special Bavarian Beerhouse "Wurstplatte" - Sausage Platter: Spiral sausage (Bratwurst Schnecke), Merguez(!) spicy sausage, Cheese cracker Sausage (Kaeseknacker) served with mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and mustard.

Paul had Jäger Schnitzel: ‘Hunter Style’ Pork Escalope topped with a creamy mushroom sauce served with french fries and a mixed salad.

Desserts were demurred in favour of more ale, choice inspired by Maturin's recommendation of wheat beer to me when we were putting the final touches to our triathlon preparations in Holt's Tollgate Inn earlier this month.