Worst Meal EVER - Restaurant Marcos Barcelona

So the Hussyband and I have just gotten back from his annual birthday trip, we had lots of amazing meals, a few too many jamon baguettes, and one meal that was so bad we actually left as it made us ill just looking at it.

Friday night we were wandering around the University area of Barcelona, and came across a little restaurant with some nice looking outside tables. It was still early, only 9pm (that is early for dinner in Spain!) Now here we ignored one of what is normally our cardinal rules, we were going to eat in a restaurant that advertised it had an English menu. 

But we hadn't had much for lunch at the beach that day so were famished. We elected to eat inside as there were a few smokers outside....and this is where our trouble starts.

Inside we order a nice bottle of Albariño, Hussy went for a start of beef carpacio, and I went for the calamari. They placed starter plates out for us to share...they were dirty. They we noticed strange red floaters in our white wine. OK.

His beef was covered in so much Parmesan you could not tell what the meat looked like, the condiments container have a couple of millimetres of dust bunnies in the bottom of it so we ignored using them. My calamari came out about 10 mins later - swimming. No, it wasn't still alive, it was swimming in oil as they had obviously not gotten the fryer hot enough before cooking the dish, so it had absorbed the equivalent of the Mediterranean Sea that was leaking out through the paper doilies conveniently hiding another dirty plate.

By this stage we were getting worried, and queasy. Five minutes later our mains came out....Hussybands' was first - hake in a basque specialty sauce. The fish was grey. The sauce was grey. The potatoes were grey. The white asparagus that is not even in season was grey. The clams were grey and more withered than a nuns clitoris. Winter days in London are less grey than this dish was...and Hussybands' face was quickly turning puce to match.

Then out came my lobster and monkfish. The lobster should have been thrown back it was so small - i have seen prawns bigger. The monkfish had been battered and deep fried. It was all swimming in an oily, luminous yellow, gelatinous sauce. I took one look and gagged. How could you do that to monkfish?!?!?!?! IT IS INHUMANE!

We sculled our wine. Called over the waiter, advised him we were not staying as we felt ill (well we did! and we would have been if we had eaten that lot!), paid the complete bill (I am a softie) and left. Quickly.

The thought of food by then was making us ill, so we did the only thing we could do at this stage....we went and consumed our calories for the night via alcohol.

Where not to eat in Barcelona:
Restaurant Marcos
Carrer Disputacio 172, E-08011 Barcelona

Seared Tuna with Wasabi Mash and Salsa Verde

This is a super easy recipe, inspired by a dish I had at Asia de Cuba in London earlier this week with my gorgeous cousin LeeLee and the Hussyband.

Ingredients:

Tuna: Tuna steak and freshly cracked black pepper

Mash: Maris Piper Tatties (or whatever tatties you like to mash), Butter, Milk and Wasabi Powder

Salsa Verde

2-3 cloves of garlic (peeled and roughly chopped)

1 small handful of capers (roughly chopped)

1 small handful of gherkins pickled in sweet vinegar (roughly chopped)

6 anchovy fillets

2 large handfuls of flat-leaf parsley (leaved picked off - you dont want the stems!)

1 bunch of fresh basil (leaved picked off - see above)

1 handful of fresh mint (leaved picked off - see above)

1.5 tablespoons Dijon mustard

4 tablespoons red wine vinegar

About 6 good glugs of really good extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

(1) Boil and mash your tatties as your normally would, then gradually add the wasabi powder until you get the strength that you like. For 5 large tatties you would be looking at about 1 tablespoon of powder - this will feed about 4 people.

(2) Once the tatties are going, put all the salsa ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and blitz until you get a nice fine slightly runny sauce, add extra olive oil if needed.

(3) Once the salsa is made and resting, season the tuna steaks liberally with the pepper and sear in a hot pan or bbq that has been very lightly oiled - about 45seconds each side for medium rare depending on thickness.

To plate, put a dollop of the mash in the centre of a warmed plate, top with the tuna steak and drizzle the edges of the plate with the salsa verde, and add a dollop to the top of the steak. For a bit of textural crunch, sprinkle a few wasabi peas around and you will be in a very happy place!

Scallopalooza (aka Xmas in London)

Happy new year dear readers, I am sorry for my lack of posting but work and life got a little insane the last few weeks.

This was my first Xmas living away from Oz. Instead of being surrounded by my family drinking and eating ridiculous amounts of seafood in my parents backyard - surrounded by flies, rainbow lorikeets and magpies, we were holed up in Woolwich Arsenal with our growing London Family - literally growing, as Ruth and Chris announced their impending parenthood to us over Veuve on arrival at the house (confirming my suspicions that Ruth's aversion to alcohol was not antibiotic related as she had been claiming for a month!)

The plan for this first Xmas, was a staggered sharing of cooking duties. I had prepared he canapés, starters and deserts, whilst Chris had prepared the main (which will be his/Ruth's story to tell!)

I had pre-ordered my seafood in early November for delivery on Xmas Eve from the team at Fish For Thought in Cornwall - it was delivered on time, well packed in a thermal box with enough ice to sink the Titanic! I had a combination of comestibles - live oysters and scallops, fresh fish in the form of filleted salmon and a couple of sea bass, frozen prawns and tuna, and a slab of smoked salmon.

Waiting on the table when our loved ones arrived was a platter of fresh blinis topped with sour cream, smoked salmon and lemon juice and a cracking of fresh pepper, and champagne (of course).

Now in true Antipodean style, Xmas isnt Xmas without lots of seafood....so our starter was actually a series of three. Scallopalooza was a progression of fresh Cornish handdived scallops.

First up, we had the grill pan fired on the stove, into which I tossed some thinly sliced spanish chorizo that I had picked up from Borough Market, once the lovely oils had started to leach into the pan, I added the scallop and basted it with the juices while the quickly seared them off on both sides. I then returned it to the shell and drizzled over the oil, and tossed a few sliced spring onions for Xmas Color.

Round Two, and I felt the need to leave the European shores and trip on over to Asia. Xmas eve saw me doing lots of last minute foodie shopping, and one of me favorite places in London is SeeWoo in Greenwich - a HUGE Chinese supermarket that caters to the restaurant community but welcomes casual shoppers with open arms and empty bellies.

Back to the food....round two saw the scallops being braised briefly in Chinese XO sauce. My Wiki-fu explains XO as the following "The name XO sauce comes from fine XO (extra-old) cognac, which is a popular Western liquor in Hong Kong and considered by many to be a chic product there. In addition the term XO is often used in the popular culture of Hong Kong to denote high quality, prestige, and luxury. In fact, XO sauce has been marketed in the same manner as the French liquor, using packaging of similar colour schemes......Developed in the 1980s in Hong Kong for Cantonese cuisine, it is made of roughly chopped dried seafoods including scallops, dried fish, and shrimp and cooked with chili peppers, onions, garlic, and oil."  I served these back in the shell top with thinly sliced radish for crunch and a few coriander leaves for fragrance.

The final round was supposed to have been grilled, but by this stage, Chris' mains were in the oven so I had to improvise. I decided to stay on Asian shores and grabbed down my wok and bamboo steamer. While the water came to the boil, I grated some ginger and garlic directly onto the scallops, drizzled on a bit of sake and mirin then whacked everything into the steamer and promptly forgot about them for a bit. A glass of bubbles later, I wandered back over and they were perfectly cooked. To serve, I lifted them onto a plate carefully to avoid loosing any juices, and added a couple of drops of sesame oil and a sprinkling of spring onions.

Personally - whilst they all tasted brilliant, I liked number three the best!

After this we moved onto Chris' main - totally delicious and juicy guinea fowl which was glorious. The pomegranates burst in my mouth like little happy bombs, and the gravy was lush!

We served this with duck fat roasted potatoes - crunchy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, and so naughty they were perfect.

Leftovers the next day made for an awesome hash fryup by the way!!

Somehow we made room for desert. Again, I went overboard and made two! Part one was the Boozy Xmas Pudding with Brandy Sauce, and the second, by request from the Hussyband, was another of Nan's recipes, a Rum Pie. The brandy sauce and rum pie recipes will have to wait for another rainy day though - but I can assure you dear reader, they are worth the wait!

Great Rivington Lobster Massacre

Let me tell you a story of 4 maidens, cast adrift on a harsh unknown sea. There were two Australians, a South African and a Swede. They had found themselves on a desolated shore – no bars, no restaurants, no shoe stores....and then like a mirage on the horizon, they spied their salvation. Glittering in the distance, a purveyor of fine food and beverage...The Rivington Grill in Greenwich.

OK, so I am being a tad melodramatic, but living in South East London, there is a distinct lack of awesome dining options for hungry TwEaters. More so in Woolwich Arsenal where KangaRue and I make our home, slightly better across the river where CookSister resides, and Cathy257? Well Gotenberg is home to some of the best restaurants in Sweden, but she was staying in Holland Park in West London – so it was a double trek for her to catch up with us.

I had met CookSister at Food Blogger Connect a few months ago, and we have stayed in touch on Twitter, this was our first chance to catch up in person since, and her first meeting with KangaRue and all of us were meeting Cathy257 for the first time. And look that, I am rambling already!

We started the evening with a drink on the outdoor terrace...ok it was the second drink for Kanga and I, but she is a bad influence at all times and I accept no responsibility.

Moving inside, we settled in to view the room, and the menu. A wonderfully crusty hot loaf of bread with salty butter was deposited on our table. The smell of freshly baked bread is only surpassed by the smell of rain on hot asphalt and freshly mown grass for me, and I was in a very happy place.

3 of the 4 of us decided to be unoriginal and go for the Heritage Tomato Salad with Lovage and Wensleydale. KangaRue bucked natural order and went for the Chilled Beetroot and Horseradish Soup.


My salad was gorgeous – about 6 or 7 different types of heritage tomatoes that tasted like they had just come off the vine, served at room temperature so the full flavour was apparent with creamy shards on Wensleydale cheese. Kanga’s soup was gorgeous to look at (hey I like pink bits!) and tasted of the earth with a nice kick in the back of the nasal passage from the horseradish as it went down.

I also am on a quest – to try as many different oysters in the UK as I can get my tongue around. So, on seeing oysters on the specials board, and there being no minimum, I ordered one for myself. Now, as luck would have it, the kitchen stuffed up – so we got 3...poor Kanga missed out as these little suckers were lush.

When the waitress had been talking us through the specials of the day, it had been a unanimous decision that we were all going for the Lobster Special. A whole lobster served with chips, and a rich luscious unctuous mayonnaise. Now, I know you are thinking “She has just quit her job and is ordering LOBSTER?” But, as we had booked an online special, we were getting 50% off the food...so really was very affordable.

The lobsters arrived, and they were, well, they were huge. With a large separate dish of crispy fluffy perfectly salted chips that on their own I would have been happy with....but I had a whole lobster before me. And so, after thanking the crustacean gods for their sacrifice, I dived in. There were juices flying, shells cracking and flesh sucking....all accompanied by the sounds of 4 women in a happy food place.

As the piles in front of us grew small, our bellies and the plate of discarded shell grew significantly larger. 1 lobster makes for a lot of shell....4 makes for a mountain!

By this stage our asses were getting numb, as the chairs were not the most comfortable for a long leisurely session, so we moved to the couches to digest and contemplate....could we fit in dessert? Why yes...I believe we can! Just.

CookSister and I had been eyeing off the Honeycomb Ice Cream with Hot Toffee Sauce since we arrived at the restaurant...and were heartbroken to be informed it was sold out. We took them up on the offer of good old fashioned vanilla, with the toffee sauce and were very happy. Thick oozey toffee goodness was a perfect accompaniment to the icecream which cut it nicely.

Kanga went for the chocolate mousse, which she was disappointed in (I tried it – and have to agree that I got the better pud!) Cathy went for the Eton Mess – her first ever!

Of course, booze was consumed....but like the bad blogger I am, I was too happy by the end of the night to remember what it was. All I can say, was it was really good, and there was a lot of it.

In summary: lovely company, great food on the most part, lots of booze, laughter and silliness. Bad points: chairs not so comfie, tables to close together, choccie mousse needs work.

All in all a great night, and cant wait to do it again. South East London Foodies Must Unite!

For other versions of this dinner please see Cathy and Kanga's blogs!

Oyster Shucking and Dinner at Le Cafe Anglais

Last week, my trusty foodie sidekick Kanga_Rue and I headed to Le Cafe Anglais in sunny West London just near Bayswater tube for an instructional afternoon as to how to shuck our own oysters. I got to the restaurant just as the boys from Wright Bros Oyster and Porter House at Borough Market were setting up for the impending hoard of hungry mollusk lovers.

Finding us a seat at one of the few tables I waited patiently for Kanga, damned the London Tube and its ability to slow our scoffing down! The crowd was building and I caved to mental peer group pressure and went to have a sneaky sample.

There were four types of oysters on the menu today - Scottish, Irish, English and French. The offerings for topping them were simple and classic - wedges of lemon, red wine vinegar with shallots and also red and/or green Tabasco.

I found the Scottish to be gorgeously meaty, but very salty. The Irish just slid down my throat with barely a quiver of complaint at their fate. The English had quite a brittle shell which I had to pick away from on occasion. And the French (which I had been warned were the saltiest) were actually quite delicate and creamy. Now, to ensure quality control, we did sample them a number of times each, and were certain by the end of the session that they were all fantabulous.

After about 45mins of sliding the delicious bivalves down our gullets, we decided that it was time to have dinner. Kanga had been raring me up all week for one of the restaurant signature dishes - the Parmesan Custard and Anchovy Toast. It was like a little savory creme brulee, cut by the slightly fishy and crunchy toast soldiers. To wash this down we had a tea infused Bayswater Martini by the gorgeous barmen, Robert Voller. Oh.My.God. This was perfect - on the nose you could smell a tea infusion and oranges, and it tasted like the best martini I have possibly ever had (Hussyband would be so jealous as he loves a good martini!)

Now, being that we had kind of scoffed ourselves senseless on the oysters, we decided against our original plan of having mussels for mains. Instead we took chef/proprietor Rowley Leigh's suggestion of the Pike Boudin with Fines Herbes for our starter (we were good girls and shared our courses so we would not get banned from future escapades by our suffering spouses...and we were kinda stuffed as well). This was the most divine little sausage of seafood - almost mousse like in texture, but with a crunchy top where it had been finished, swimming in a sea of happiness...we used our fingers and bread to soak up every drop of sauce (hey we can be classy when we want to but this was too good to waste!)

Our main for the evening was to be the Wood Pigeon with Braised Peas (and a side of Gratin Dauphinois). You can tell when you are eating proper game, when you bits down into a piece of moist tender breast, only to be met with the crunch of shot. I had never tasted pigeon before, and I found it to be quite tasty, Kanga demonstrated the fine art of how to get the meat from every inch of bone...cant wait to see her on frogs legs! The braised peas and jus were perfect foil for the rich meat, and the dauphinois...well, everything is better with potatoes baked in cream don't you think? We washed all of this down with a carafe of Ponte Pietra 2009 Corvina Del Veneto...hic.

Finally the pudding. Kanga was hoping that they would still have the chocolate gooey concoction she had when last there, but alas this was not the case. So we settled on the Queen of Puddings, with a glass each of the Monbazillac 2006 Domaine de l’Ancienne Cure. Now, we could have come to blows here, as just maybe we should have gotten two desserts. This was good. Nay, better than good. It was a layered clouds of lusciousness. It starts at the bottom with a lemon curd and sponge, then an oh-so-delicate layer of raspberry, and topped with peaks of sweet just stiff meringue. It was...well, the picture shows how much we enjoyed it I think!

Then we took our adieus and stumbled back for the slog to SE18....thankfully in a booze laced sphere of happiness that not even stinking hot overcrowded Tubes could erase. Another happy food excursion.

PS: I never did manage to shuck an oyster, it was too crowded. Kanga on the otherhand, was more persistent and managed to shuck her first - what a proud little shucker she was too!

Riddles & Finns

So this weekend saw Hussyband off to the beach at Brighton to enjoy a summer long weekend. As is typical of Bank Holiday here in the Old Dart, it was crap weather. There was wind and there was rain. At one point we did get enough glorious sunshine for me to get my cleavage and arms burnt which was fantastic (on a side note: I am obviously drinking too much if I get my elbows burnt right?)

We had some marvelous feasts along the shore during our stay, and decided to finish off our visit to a little place in the Lanes that came highly recommended by the owner of our hotel.

Armed with a map, our first attempt at finding R&F on Saturday had been unsuccessful, but miracle of miracles we stumbled across it just in time for lunch on Sunday (and with enough time to cancel our booking at its sister restaurant down by the water Due South).

Now, having moved into our own place last weekend, the belt strings have had to be tightened, but thankfully I was hugely hungry as I could have run rampant on their menu.

Once seated we were presented with a bread basket complete with salted butter on a scallop shell, mackerel pate, aioli and fresh horseradish cream, and two types of bread both with gorgeous crusts.

We settled in for a starter shot - yes, a Bloody Mary Oyster Shot. It had just the right amount of oomph to clear the nostrils and the mind from the previous nights shenanigans. The oyster was perfect - meaty, sweet and salty. And while it was shuffling it's way down my happy gullet, all I could think of was our best man the day after the wedding, come tearing out onto the deck of our beach house after consuming the kick-start I kindly left by his bed, tears streaming from his eyes, begging that next time I "use a little less Tabasco please!". WIMP!

Hussyband went for the Pan fried tiger prawns cooked in garlic butter
with shallots, paprika & lime, which came with a gorgeous salad. He washed it all down with a taste fo home - Little Creatures Pale Ale.

I went for 6 oysters 3 ways...natural (dressed with lemon of course), a cold dressing of tomato, coriander, red onion and chilli, and a hot dressing of champagne foam. I washed my selection down with a glass of 2007 Muscadet de Sevre et Maine sur Lie, Brebionnier France which had a lovely citrus finish.

Natural - delicious, fresh, the aroma and taste of the sea filled my mouth and mind with memories.
Tomato Salsa - good, couldn't taste the chilli (which was remedied by me adding Tabasco to my second one which made a world of difference.)
Champagne Foam - WHOOOHOOO I now have a second favorite topping for oysters (refer PS below). It was rich, creamy and lush. I soaked up every visible dreg with the last of the brown bread and would have happily demolished another 6 just for the sauce (hell give me a mug of sauce and I probably would have been content!)

We really have been blessed with some awesome seafood in the last week. Now I just have to find a fishmonger close to home so I can start to try and duplicate some of these recipes!

PS: If you are wondering what my favorite oyster topping is, I would have to say Motoyaki, which are oysters topped with white onions finely sliced mushrooms and Japanese 'Kewpie' mayonnaise mixed with miso, then baked, and served topped with finely sliced green onions.

101 Pimlico Road

Ruth H-B and I were spending a lovely afternoon perusing the beauty that is the Chelsea FlowerShow. We met up for pre-show drinks at 101 Pimlico Road (to get us in the mood and whet our appetites for our later dinner booking). We started off with a huge glass of rose, then decided to move outside and sit in the sun while we chatted with the owner and head chef, while downing a bottle of prosecco.

Then we stumbled down the 2 blocks and spent 3 hours traverssing the gardens and sobering up (a little bit).

Come 8pm, the show was closing and we wandered back for our reservation and to meet up with Hussyband and BoyWonder.

Drinks were high on our agenda (just for something different) and we ordered a bottle of La Flor Sauvignon Blanc (De Pulenta Wines, Argentina)Famished, we demolished the first basket of bread, which was quickly replaced with a fresh basket overflowing with baked goodness. While this was going on Hussyband showed up, and settled in with a bottle of Mean Time Amber Lager from Greenwich, which he describes as "a very flavourful lager, almost like an Amber Ale". It was to be the first of many.

BoyWonder was running a bit behind time, and we were ready to eat the crutch out of a low flying duck, so we ordered a starter of potted shrimp with melba toast and lemon to share. This was so damned good. And when we ran out of melba toast, they happily gave us yet more bread to spread the shrimp on. Nom Nom.

Upon arrival of Ruth's hard working other half, we ordered mains. I wasnt very hungry by this stage, so ordered the starter size of he home cured organic salmon with lime creme fraiche and quail's egg. Due to a slight mix up downstairs, when our meals were delivered they had sent me the pan fried sea bass, puy lentils, caramalised fennel and orange sauce....not to be rude, and at the insistance on the kitchen, I shared the bass with the rest of the table.

Oh.My.Gawd. This was the most gorgeous piece of fish I have ever had. Never having been a huge fan of puy lentils or fennel I am now won over to their cause. The orange sauce cut everything perfectly, and every bite was met with little moans of pleasure around the table.

After we all but licked the plate clean, they bought up my previously ordered salmon. It looked beuatiful, with dainty cubes of beetroot scattered around the plate. And whilst it looked beautiful, it tasted even better. Yes, a paragraph ago I claimed the sea bass to be the best fish ever. I take it back. This home cured salmon was perfect. Each sliver across my tongue was like heaven.

Being that this was a special nite out, and I had been saving space for dessert, I could not go past the desserts menu. Being a creme brulee addict, it was a hard call skipping the tonka bean version that I had seen whisking its way past me throughout the night. Instead, I settled on strawberry and champagne jelly with chantilly cream.

Washed down with a glass of muscato, the jelly left me all quivery and happy in places that are normally reserved for the marital bed. Oh who am I kidding? I like to get quivery anywhere and this was no exception! This jelly puts to shame my old favorite (Strawberry Aeroplane jelly for meeee....) It was full of the flavours of a full blown english summer (you know the sort we havnt experienced yet, but I am ever hopeful.)

All in all, a fantasic night, with awesome company, and fantastic staff!