Displaying items by tag: Abroad

I couldn't stay in Cromer last night without trying out No 1 Fish and Chip Restaurant and takeaway, recently opened by Galton Blackiston ( you know; Morston Hall, Michelin Star, Celebrity Chef...) The restaurant is quite big and the takeaway shop is next door. 

When you arrive you stand behind a sign which says "please wait to be seated" so I did. The waitress came over and said that she was not allowed to seat me - I thought she was joking, but she wasn't.  So I had to wait for the lady in charge to finish taking an order before she showed me to a table.

I was hoping to try the house special - crab cakes - but they had sold out so I ordered plaice and chips and a portion of mushy pea fritters.The printed menu gives more space to the wines on offer than the savoury food but I was driving so had a ginger beer, there are some nice choices of soft drinks. The fish was very fresh - had lovely batter, light and crisp - and very good chips with a portion of homemade tartare sauce on the side. The pea fritters were also tasty and so hot I burnt my mouth eating them. They were served with a mint dip.

The service was a bit shaky from that wait at the start. A few things were forgotton and there were some interesting descriptions of the menu - olives in the tartare sauce.... I don't think so!

• posh condiments
• 
• cromer
• mushy pea fritter
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Imagine our surprise when we went for lunch yesterday at Tom's new restaurant 'Picture' because Tracey reviewed it in the paper on Saturday and I remembered I hadn't been there to see what he is doing after Arbutus (and of course because he was in BSE at the Angel before that) and Giles Coren was there having lunch too! What a buzz! Does this mean that here at simple old suffolkfoodie we are going to places WITH the critics?

Anyhoo, enough about us, look at the food! £15 for a three course lunch with two choices, with free bread and the kind of service we should be expecting everywhere. Our water was replaced three times - as we drank it - without any fuss or hovering, and it was tap water which wasn't charged for either. We had a carafe of house white which was a lovely fruity Chardonnay. I had the plum tomatoes with goats curd salad dressed with merlot vinegar as a starter, the other choice being potato and fennel soup with smoked bacon and parsley. Followed by courgette and oregano risotto with grilled artichoke while the others had Elwy Valley lamb breast, with coco beans and cavalo nero, and for dessert I had marscapone and vanilla yoghurt with redcurrants glistening like rubies on the top, or there was chocolate mousse with scottish raspberries and honeycomb. Yum Yum Yum.

Nice sunny place, wonderful food, great hosts, not very busy on Saturdays (at the moment...) and only 90 minutes from Suffolk - take note - people-who-charge-£15-for-crap-burgers. And Giles Coren is much younger in real life than he looks in the paper - you will have to take my word for it, he left before we could get a picture of what he was eating.

I've just had a Fab Colchester Adventure!

After throwing myself on the train with one minute to spare (without the luxury of a coffee to enjoy; which while we're on the subject is called a Palamino at Liverpool Street station, ie, what used to be my Bloody Awkward - espresso with a bit of hot milk) I sat feeling pleased with myself for making it, until I realised I was on the wrong train. So in order to avoid a hefty surcharge I had to get off at Colchester and wait for the right train. Luckily it was nearly lunch-time so although I wasn't optimistic I decided to try harder than the baked potato shop and found, to my delight, a kiosk selling hot salt-beef sandwiches (on really nice bread stuffed with pickles and mustard) and fresh watermelon and ginger juice, for under a tenner! Highly recommended. Don't know if he has a website but it's called Culver St Baristas. If I didn't live near Brick Lane where we get salt beef 24/7 I would deliberately get the wrong train just for this.

Do we like this idea? Are things moving in foodie-world or am I just distracted by that really fit waiter with no shirt on...?

Here is charming Martin Morales - the Ceviche Peruvian Kitchen founder, proprietor and chef - on his pop-.up tour of three countries, with Aldeburgh fisherman Dean Fryer. We went to the event; we can make Ceviche now!

INGREDIENTS (serves 4)
1 large red onion, very thinly sliced
600g sea bass fillet (or other white fish), skinned and trimmed
A few coriander sprigs, leaves finely chopped
1 limo chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
1 sweet potato, boiled and cut into small cubes
Fine sea salt

For the tiger’s milk
5mm piece fresh root ginger, halved
1 small garlic clove, halved
4 coriander sprigs, roughly chopped
Juice of 8 limes
½ tsp salt
½ tsp medium red chilli, chopped, deseeded and deveined

METHOD
Step 1: To make the tiger’s milk, put the ginger, garlic, coriander sprigs and lime juice in a bowl and stir, then leave to infuse for 3min. Strain the mixture through a sieve into another bowl. Add salt and red chilli, then put aside.

Step 2: Wash the sliced red onion, then leave to soak in iced water for 5min. Drain thoroughly and spread out on kitchen paper or a clean tea towel to remove excess water, then place in the fridge.

Step 3: Cut the fish into uniform strips of 3cm x 2cm. Place in a large bowl, add a good pinch of salt and mix together gently with a metal spoon. The salt will help open the fish’s pores. Leave for 2min, then pour over the tiger’s milk and combine gently with the spoon. Leave the fish to ‘cook’ in the marinade for 2min.

Step 4: Add the onions, coriander, limo chilli and sweet potato to the fish. Mix together gently with the spoon and taste to check the balance of salt, sour and chilli is to your liking. Divide between serving bowls and serve immediately.

This recipe is from Ceviche: Peruvian Kitchen by Martin Morales (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £25), out on July 4.

• ready at the bar
• the different types of rum
• how to make a rum punch
• which is better?
• the judging...
• the winner!
•  

The perfect thing to do on a hot Saturday afternoon - book a rum tasting at Cottons in Camden. We went for a birthday treat and tasted six rums and two cocktails from all over the Caribbean. With their Global Rum Ambassador Ian Burrell away in Cuba we had the session with Andre, his nephew, who soon had us behind the bar mixing the cocktails. It was one of the best £25 I've ever spent, we left in a VERY good mood!

... we were predicting ceviche as one of the latest things (See the Beach - our featured post) along with all things Peruvian and food made with eggs. And it looks like we were right.

Jim Messina was Obama's campaign manager in 2008 and says in a recent article in the Independent..."I miss how bad a campaign office smells at midnight." He once ate twenty-seven consecutive meals at McDonald's.

According to Forbes magazine, Rachael is the top earning celebrity chef in a top ten chart that features Gordon Ramsey at number three. She is worth $18 million and leapt from small-time cable stardom to Oprah-esque success. She began winning audiences with catchphrases like "Yum-o" on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too! You've probably never heard of her - but here is one of her recipes - in American.

   

Granma Evelyn's Christmas Hermits

Ingredients

1 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs, well beaten

1 cup raisins

1 cup dates, chopped

1/2 cup jarred maraschino cherries, chopped

1/3 walnuts, chopped

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons boiling water

2 1/4-2 1/2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation

Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.  In a large bowl, cream the shortening, adding the sugar gradually. Add the eggs, fruit and nuts. In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water; then add this mixture to the shortening mixture. In a medium size bowl, sift together the flour, allspice, cinnamon and salt. Add the flour mixture to the main bowl and stir.

Drop the batter in rounded teaspoons, about 1 inch apart, on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet and place on a wire rack to cool. Serve and enjoy! Makes 30 - 40 cookies.