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.

Fregola sarda

I finally tracked down a pack of fregola sarda- the Sardinian pasta that looks like couscous which I was raving on about in an earlier post! I didn't have to venture far as they were selling it cheaply at £1.50 a bag at a Borough saucisson stand- about time too!

I oven roasted some cerise orange tomatoes and red onion with garlic and chopped basil and threw it all together with the cooked fregola, asparagus and a bit of parmesan for a light dinner at the weekend.

The fregola is a bit deceptive as it swells up like big lentils once you’ve boiled it up so is a little hard to judge serving size. It’s semolina-based and tasted a bit like the hard dried spaghetti when it was not quite cooked. It took a good 12 mins to cook through, next time I’ll be adding some oil as some of the grains stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Now I’m on the scout out for some exciting recipes to try out with the remainder of the bag. This one from the Chocolate and Zucchini blog looks like a possible contender:

http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2009/10/fregola_sarda_with_zucchini_and_parmesan.php

L'Entrecote, Marylebone, W1

I've been a bit slack on the posts of late but there's been plenty of eating out since the weather heated up so I will try and make amends this month.

Last week I finally got round to trying Le Relais de Venise in Marylebone with my brother. Steak-frites is the only thing on the menu -apart from vegetarian options (they obviously don't count)- with a special peppery sauce which apparently remains a guarded secret. The place has built up a bit of a cult following so expect queues if you're going for dinner as they don't take bookings.

We only waited for 20mins for a table which was pretty good for a balmy summer Thursday evening though had to tolerate an obnoxious crowd of fifty-somethings who were cracking jokes about a scraggy female beggar who had asked for spare change- pretty disgusting behaviour.

Soon we got inside and were seated. They certainly pack the banquette tables in but it gives the place a Parisian buzz.

Twenty quid gets you a salad starter and steak-frites in "two servings"- either blue, rare, medium or well done. Rare was perfectly cooked, the two servings basically meant seconds of both steak and chips which was like Christmas come early.

Puds were predictable but tasty- I had a praline liegois (icecream with cream-coronary style) which was almost as good as Dad's brown bread icream, not quite though. Matt had a Grand Marnier semi-freddo which was a bit too alcofrolic for my liking.

Service-wise it is probably a bit too efficient for some as they like to turn tables quickly to ease the queueing outside but at least it's authentically French!

The Garrison, 99 Bermondsey St, SE1

Beautiful Jen

I’ve been going to The Garrison on Bermondsey Street for a few years now and the gastro fayre never disappoints. After buying some foodstuffs in Borough with my mum on Saturday we headed there for a spot of lunch and a glass of Pimms before jumping aboard a Thames Clipper for Greenwich.

The best steak sarnie and chips in London

I was craving their bloody steak sandwich but she was far more abstemious and ordered a summer salad of prosciutto, peaches, boccini mozzarella with a light vinaigrette and a side of hand cut chips. This seasonal dish is so simple but always delicious when the ham is good and the peaches are ripe.

We were eyeing up the pudding blackboard before we had finished the mains and were taken by the salted caramel ice-cream. Sadly they were out of this so we shared three scoops of pistachio and walnut which were still very good.

I had a birthday meal here a few years ago after being charmed by the shabby chic decor while out on a work lunch. As it’s just along from our flat I often go for breakfasts or an evening drink if it’s not too packed in there.

Petits mots left in the secret drawer

My favourite thing about it is a secret drawer I discovered on a night out. I had to get a snap of it (above) on Saturday as we were seated on the next table along- it is filled with amusing little notes left by Garrison regulars/scrawls from bored diners fed up with dates who have nipped to the loo- go for lunch and add to the pile!

All aboard to Greenwich!