Istanbul

Ah, thank goodness for hot elma cay - or apple tea. Just looking at this golden goblet brings back fond memories of my childhood and holidays in Turkey. It's worth noting the Turks don't actually drink the stuff very much and instead opt for a strong black tea - it's more of a hit with the tourists - but that didn't stop me last weekend in Istanbul. I'm a hardened espresso drinker after meals but this made an equally nice digestif and was a good pick-me-up after traipsing round the Aya Sofya and Blue Mosque.

Rachel and I arrived into Sultanahmet, the heart of the Old City, feeling rather weary. We had underestimated the journey from the Sabiha Gokcen airport and the Friday night traffic bottlenecks. So we dumped our bags, briefly admired the view on our roof terrace and headed out for a bite to eat.

My main was rather disappointing so I'll fast forward to firin sutlac, a Turkish rice pudding which was a bit better. This was served chilled which was unexpected but the spiced honeyed flavour was comforting all the same - the ice-cream garnish wasn't necessary and had a hint of caramel which detracted from the rest of the dish.

Day two was spent cramming in the sights and boy, were there a lot of them. Fortunately, Istanbul has plenty of Turkish delights to provide sustenance. I had to take a quick snap of the sesame covered simits (bread rings) which were reminiscent of New York bagels with similar vendors which could be found on pretty much every street corner.

Like Marrakech, Istanbul is famed for its sweet treats - when in Rome...

This impressive airbag was lavas bread which was served with lashings of hayari (yoghurt with roasted aubergine and garlic) at my favourite Anatolian restaurant in the City - Hamdi et Lokantasi. This eatery overlooks Galata and the Golden Horn waters and while perhaps a little institutional (you take a lift up from the baklava shop entrance), the food is too good to argue with. And the hungry locals seemed to agree.

Hamdi's speciality was definitely rustic Meze- or Turkish tapas. This odd looking specimen was so delicious I ordered two - it was icli kofte- meatball rolled in bulgur wheat and deep fried.

The restaurant was a stone's throw from the intoxicating Spice Bazaar - my must see of the trip even for the non-foodies out there.

I headed to no. 14 - Pinar for my lokum (Turkish delight). There, the jewelled jellies come in every shape and size imaginable - sausages of cranberry, squares filled with walnuts, pistachio and rosewater. Be clear about what you want as my 'helper' packed almost 15 quids' worth into a box for my mother - though she hasn't complained - and I'm not surprised, they really are very good.

I'm not a big fan of Turkish delight as it conjures up Cadbury's soapy pink goo but I took in a small box of rose lokum to work for my friend Elinor and ended up scoffing most of it myself!

Another stall well worth checking out is no. 2 - Erzincanlilar. This deli is jam-packed with plump olives, Beyaz peynir (white goat's cheese) and the biggest cabinet of honeycomb I've ever laid eyes on. I bought a slab home to mix in with some Greek yoghurt and I must say it's been a bit disappointing so I'm trying to find a a nice recipe to make it work - answers on a postcard please...

I bought some apple tea leaves to try and replicate the drink at home as well as some of the dissolvable granules for ease at work. Though it's quicker, the instant stuff is verging on hot apple juice so I must boil up a real pot this weekend.

For those who haven't been already, I hope these snapshots will encourage you to visit Istanbul. The mosques are hauntingly beautiful, the atmosphere, electric and the food, refreshingly honest. And if nothing else, they serve up a darn good brew.

Innocent "5-for-5" cafe; Shoreditch

By good fortune my friend Hugh got hold of two tickets for a meal at innocent's 5-for-5 pop-up cafe last week in the heart of Shoreditch.

Diners pay £5 to get their 5-a-day of fruit and veg in one sitting, courtesy of celebrity chef Gizzi Erskine. I'd been invited to the launch but wasn't able to make it so was excited to see whether the food was any good or whether it was just another PR stunt.

I arrived to find a queue winding round the corner of The Tramshed, an old electricity generating station for the Shoreditch Tram system - always a good sign. I waited for Hugh to arrive and made friends with my neigbour in the queue - we'd both heard portion sizes were small - less good- though not surprising really given it was a fiver for two courses so I kept an open mind.

Inside, the venue was spectacular with an almost never-ending ceiling, fairly lights spiralling round runner bean vines and mini herb gardens lining the sides. It was BOYB for a £1.50 corkage paid upfront which was very reasonable and we set about choosing our courses with a glass of pinot noir in hand and the swing band tinkering in the background.


It's no secret I'm a pudding girl through and through but neither the baked rice pudding with spiced fruit compote or poached pear and quince ice cream were being served that day so we went for starters and mains.

I chose well with the beetroot and horseradish pierogi with soured cream, paprika, and pickled red cabbage. No, I had no idea what pierogi were either - despite scoffing some a week or so back at Bermondsey Street market- but they were delicious. They're a traditionally Polish dish - boiled/baked/fried dumplings of dough, almost like tortellini. Hugh's black bean hummus on sourdough toast with avocado, tomato, and seeds was very flavoursome but a little tough.

Mains were more difficult to choose between so we agreed to pick differently. I had root vegetable bhaji with grilled paneer and sag dahl and Hugh had tikka marinated halloumi with sweet potato gobi curry. Paneer is an odd thing, like cottage-cheese, a bit nothingy but it countered the spicy dahl really nicely. The recipe looks pretty straightforward so I may try my hand at it for a winter warmer over the coming months. Halloumi is one of my favourite cheeses, I love the squeak when you chew it but I wasn't expecting Hugh's to be deep fried and the dish looked a little sad.


With its short shelf-life, quirky venue choice and innocent'sbrand success, it's unsuprising this event was a hit. But while the piggyback on the "pop-up" craze may be an effective piece of marketing, with food this good who cares?!

Breads Etcetera, Clapham, SW4

Me and Nicki headed to Breads etcetera. on Sunday morning to quell our hangovers. I’ve always wanted to go here- it’s on Clapham High Street but invariably has a big queue outside so I’ve never managed it, despite living in and around the area a few years back.

I can see why it’s so popular though the outdoor basket offering could flaunt the dishes a bit more. The friendly Antipodean who greeted us was very efficient and we were seated quickly though I overheard a fellow breakfaster saying waiting time was a lot shorter than usual.

The menu’s pretty extensive ranging from full breakfasts to other eggy-variants, pancakes and fruit salads for the more virtuous. We weren’t – I went for baked eggs with sausages, tomatoes and grated gruyere. This came with ‘+DIY’, like many of the other dishes, allowing you to help yourself to different nutty and soughdough loaves on offer and accompanying jams and spreads.

The place has a New Yoik charm but they pack the tables in and we were (passively) fighting over the Dualit toaster with our neighbouring diners. That aside, the dreamy food and Monmouth coffee makes it, I think, one of the best brekkie joints in Clapham.

Gelupo, Soho, W1D

Summer may be over but my romance with Gelupo is still going strong.

Jacob Kenedy, the owner behind Italian institution Bocca Di Lupo opened up this duck egg blue hued gelataria/deli opposite the restaurant on Archer Street last month, offering what he claims is the finest artisan gelato experience this side of the Alps. And he's not wrong.

With fresh gelati, sorbet and granita flavours ranging from pistachio, rice and pinenut & fennel to zingy blood orange and fragolina grape- all with a try before you buy attitude and loyalty card, I can't help but return for more.

Try mixing it up with a granita and sorbet in a glass- on my first trip I had a scoop of burnt almond granita and chocolate sorbet on top -the sorbet is dairy free so the choco-hit was intense and the granita akin to being smacked in the face with a bottle of Amaretto. In a good way.

Prices are reasonable at £3.50 for two sizeable scoops but one of the best things about the place is its opening hours - 1am Thurs to Sat and 11pm on school nights. London is lacking in cafes and eateries that stay open late and provide a social space for people who don't want to booze/cruise so this is a welcome addition to the Soho scene.

Pintxos, San Sebastian

Casa Bartolo

July has been a bit overwhelming - turning the wrong side of 25, getting a new job (finally writing about food!) and spending a week's holiday in the Basque Country - inevitably something had to give and that was my blogging efforts.. but I'm back on the case this month.

Generally speaking, my holidays/trips away revolve around food (when I chose my placement year in France I went to Lyon for 'la gastronomie', lived above a boulangerie and..gained a stone), so for my summer holiday this year I was desperate to visit San Sebastian- apparently the place has more Michelin stars than any other city.

Mediocre bar, uninspiring tapas

Unfortunately me and my buddy Nicki didn't get to those starry establishments but certainly got the pintxos grazing/bar hopping down to a tee by the end of the week - not that either have ever really been a problem for me!

There's plenty on offer in the old town without breaking the bank. I have to say, we picked badly on occasions and ate and boozed at some pretty mediocre bars during the holiday but there were some gems along the way. For something cheap and cheerful Casa Bartolo is a good bet- there was always a good atmosphere in there, the discarded tissues that line the floor are a testament to that, the pintxos didn't centre solely around bread as others did and they serve up a mean sangria.

It's a blur - but Bar Zeruko?- wherever it was, it was on the other end of the spectrum (Calle Pescaderia- just down from bar Txepetxa which the guidebooks raved on about but was pretty uninspiring and the barman a little complacent). Its pintxos were more contemporary, original and the clientele older, with plumper wallets and waistlines - it was a classy place but price-wise wasn't markedly different to Bartolo's so is well worth a visit.

This was one of my pintxos highlights there- so simple- griddled, caramelised banana, jabugo ham and fig speared with a few leaves. Much of the rest of what we ate was unidentifiable but all beautifully constructed both aesthetically and more importantly in the taste department. I'll definitely be returning- either with someone who can speak more Spanish than I can- Hadders?!- or once I've brushed up on vocab as though half the fun of the trip was eating pintxos blindly, I'm sure there was a lot more on the menu here and at the other bars that we would have liked to have tucked into.

Leek cones

This, I think, was a quails egg on black pudding and a splash of Tabasco.

We left San Sebastian a little burnt, a lot more tired and heavier and somewhat blue to be returning to Bilbao for our flight home but stumbled across a lovely food festival/competition along the riverside which perked us right up. The locals above were rustling up stacks of my favourite padron peppers which filled the air with a lovely smoky smell and people were milling between the stalls, dipping in and out to check out the different pintxos on offer- it seemed to be a bit of a free-for-all - why don't they do more of this in England?!

I couldn't resist snapping the couple below in their turquoise boiler suits washing down squid under the fountain - I think they look like Wonka's little Oompa Loompas!

"Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-da, if you're not greedy you will go far.." - pffff?!

Roasted rhubarb

A week or so back, Dad gave me some rhubarb stalks from the new garden and I finally got round to cooking them last night.

I had thought about making a traditional rhubarb and custard tart or a crumble but it was a hot day and reflecting on the thought of me bikini-clad in a fortnight’s time, I decided to roast it and pair with some low-fat crème fraiche!

Roasting is a great way to cook rhubarb as it doesn’t reduce down to that unappetising green pulp synonymous with the vegetable (yes, apparently it’s a vegetable!) and it keeps its vibrant colour. Being greedy when Dad offered it up I chose the fattest stalks I could find but I have learnt since that the finer stems are less eye-wincing and generally sweeter.

I chopped the rhubarb into 2 inch pieces in a bowl, grated half an orange zest ontop and doused the pieces with the juice of a whole orange. I added three heaped table spoons of Demerara sugar a generous swiz of vanilla extract and a few pinches of cinnamon and poured the mix evenly into a baking tin. Then left in the fan oven at full whack for 20 minutes.

The results were pretty and smelled good. The caramelised zest tasted like the banana tarte tatin I posted on here a while back. I served with crème fraiche but I think Greek yoghurt or custard would work equally well. My four stalks made about four portions worth so I stirred some into my pukkola breakfast this morning.

Prufrock Coffee, 140 Shoreditch High

Matthew introduced me to a cool new jaunt for caffeine junkies. It’s pretty inconspicuous as it’s housed in a men’s clothing shop called Present on Shoreditch High Street.

The shop itself confusingly has a sign which reads Golden Horn Cigarette Company to lead you off course but the coffee machine at the till front is a bit of a give away when you manage to track the place down.

The coffee is very good but then it would be, it’s served by the highly regarded mega-barista Gwilym Davies who won the World Barista Championships in 2009.

There is a small board which details the offerings: flat white, latte, cappuccino, cortado, espresso, macchiato, long black and coffee beans. Me and Matt both ordered flat whites- I like the texturised milk. It was on a par with the coffee they serve at flat white in Soho and Monmouth.

The clothes in the shop look like the sort of European utilitarian attire that you would expect from Shoreditch and the sort of rags I’d hope to own if I was a guy. The décor was fun with white machine gun mobiles floating above your head and colourful shoes resting on what looked like railway sleepers.

There’s no seating bar a small bench outside to perch, it’s really all about the coffee.