Eat Like Ushi

After enjoying the fries and chicken at Temple of Hackney, it was pleasing to see the other branch nearby between KX and Camden. When you walk along the river promenade, it is impossible not to smell the fried deliciousness wafting out of the building.

The "chicken" strips were expertly fried with a crisp coating. It doesn't have the texture or flavour of chicken, but it has fried tastiness in it. The burgers were also good, with my preference definitely going to the "beef" with some kind of deep tomato flavour.

Next time I'd go the double, with beef burger and chicken strips. And fries if I could fit it all in.

A good breakfast in Cambridge doesn't really seem to be a thing. Other than the hotels, the early morning options are limited to English breakfasts, of which I should probably try Fitzbillies one day. Espresso Library is a little further out of the way, but on this morning with a good amount of spare time, I made the journey to see what it was all about.

It's a very cute cafe, with walls adorned by art and bicycles. It filled up quite a bit within the first 30mins of opening on this weekday.

The have smoothies to kick things off, and the one with banana and chia seeds was a healthy boost to the morning.

Avocado toast (sourdough toast with mashed avo, spring onions & herbs) £5.9 was a good tangy base for the 2 poached eggs £2.5 and fried smoky chickpeas £2.5 to layer on top. The chickpeas weren't as strongly flavoured as I expected, with a bit of smoky paprika but not the heavy cumin or zatar I would personally use. Nonetheless it was satisfying and relaxing.

I'd come back.

London's highest rated restaurant The Clove Club has opened a new place in Shoreditch. Two Lights (not sure where the name came from) doesn't look like anything too unusual from the outside, but the food inside tells another story. I was lucky enough to book the soft opening and get 50% off. It was the most decadent lunch I've eaten in a long time.

- Crab on beef fat chips £4.25 - I expected a bowl of chips topped with crab, similar to a type of chilli fries. Instead it was a chip of layers fried potato topped with crab and shredded elderflower. The potato, beef fat, crab and sour topping was an excellent combination. I could eat a whole bowl of those;
- Roast artichoke & sunflower seed miso £11.5 - it reminds me of the burnt cauliflower at Shawarma Bar (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/shawarma-bar-london-08-2018), and instead is a kind of collection of artichoke chips that you can peel and dip into the (surprisingly mild, maybe a little too mild) dip and chew off the soft end. Then inside is the soft roasted root of the vegetable to eat in chunks. A slow and relaxing way to eat;
- Roasted ray wing with dill pickle butter £20.5 - I haven't eaten stringray since Malaysia years ago so this was a good surprise. The ray was so soft and expertly cooked to slide off the thin finger bones. The butter sauce was quite classic and married well;
- Grilled shortribs, beetroots & pickled walnuts £22.5 - soft ribs sliced easily and required minimal chewing. The dehydrated then rehydrated beetroots provided a bit of sweetness. I couldn't really detect any walnuts;
- Custard tart & smoked caramel £8 - perhaps a little disappointing, the custard was quite thick and firm. The caramel had a smokiness and was topped with salt crystals.

Overall an excellent meal with quality cooking. We sat at the window counter watching the strange strangers of Shoreditch pass by.

On a lovely end-of-summer's bank holiday Monday, it was surprisingly difficult to find open restaurants to visit for lunch. Luckily a walk to the Barbican centre meant a route past Exmouth Market and both Morito and Shawarma Bar were open. I'm a big fan of souvlaki, shawarma, döner and all the like. My partner less so - but with a "gourmet" and middle eastern spin, it was easy to convince.

Unlike the nights of queues, there was space on this glorious day probably because the majority of London was sleeping off the alcohol and festivals.

- Iraqi hummus with fried aubergine, amba, boiled egg £7.5 - the hummus plate was beautifully set in colours with the clear highlights being the crisp fried salty aubergine slices (sadly I wanted more than just 2) and the smooth intense chickpea flavour bursting through the hummus. The added extras were nice for balance but I suppose there so the dish could be standalone;
- Lamb shawarma plate with harissa, sumac, onion, pickles £17.5 - I have to admit the amount of lamb for the price was a bit underwhelming. But it was tender and mildly flavoured, certainly not intense as I had hoped. The salad bits and chunky thick very spicy harissa were the bases for an excellent pita sandwich;
- Cauliflower shawarma side with tahini, rose, pomegranate £5.5 - the blackened surface gave a little apprehension but even though it did have a slightly char flavour to begin with, it blended nicely with the overall roasted flavour and the tahini, parsley and sweet rose and pomegranate.

Great flavours, textures, colours and combinations. I really enjoyed this meal and hope to visit Berber & Q (and get the cookbook) soon.

The new Gunpowder restaurant in Tower Bridge is a welcome addition considering the Shoreditch original has been on my list for a while. The setting is beautiful given the tall buildings, offstreet alley with majestic walls rising on both sides, and the view of tower bridge at the end for a nice walk after dinner.

During this 50% soft opening period, the service was a bit haphazard. The waitress didn't really know the food well - the thought the pork ribs was for only 1 rib, didn't know what a shrikhand was, and didn't know much about the drinks available. It took a little while to get attention (which is what soft openings are for) but once ordered, the food came out very very quickly.

- Porzhi okra fries £6 - better than Dishoom by a distance. Thin, reasonably crisp but coated in a great flavour of spices;
- Gunpowder aloo chaat £6 - potatoes with yoghurt and dressing. Not bad but could have used more spices on the potatoes;
- Spicy venison & vermicelli doughnut with fennel & chilli chutney £5 - delicious fried ball with crisp batter and warming mince meat inside;
- Chettinad pulled duck served with homemade oothappam £5 per piece - a disappointing dish with strange dry bread that cracked and broke when trying to handle (and so the duck fell out) with meat that didn't have any special flavour;
- Maa's kashmiri lamb chops £7.5 per piece - silly expensive (if full price) but a wonderfully soft and most ridiculously tender lamb chop coated in a spiced seasoning that didn't have/need much salt. Better than Dishoom and Tayyabs;
- Nagaland house crispy pork ribs with tamarind kachumber £9 - I thought Nagaland may mean naga spicy but it wasn't. The sauce was a little sour and a bit sweet and was cooked reasonably, but overall just didn't do much for me. Maybe it was because the lamb chops were eaten right beforehand;
- Karwari soft shell crab £9 - excellent texture and flavour with the lime cutting through the fry nicely;
- Saag with tandoori paneer £12 - expensive for 3 pieces of cheese in mild spinach sauce;
- Steamed rice with Gunpowder butter £3.5 - the waitress recommended Aunty Sulu's rabbit pulao but then told us unfortunately they had run out of serves. This inferior alternative was a large serve for 2-3, although one had a decent amount of butter and the other too little. I didn't feel the butter added much to the dish since it was eaten with strong curry;
- Old monk rum pudding £7 - there wasn't much rum to taste in the dense base and the icecream was vanilla. The extra shot of rum £2 would have been good;
- Dark chocolate & cinnamon with passionfruit shrikhand £7 - dense smooth heavy chocolate slab with some kind of nougat on top.

I really enjoyed the meal, with the caveats above. I'd really want to get those lamb chops again but full price just seems a bit too much. I'll have to seek out the cookbook now to make it myself. But overall would match Dishoom in my eyes.

£10 for breakfast doesn't sound too bad - you can spend that much easily at any cafe with a cooked breakfast and a drink. I can't comment so much on the drink choices as I had some (quite ordinary bottled orange juice although soy milk was a nice availability), but the range and volume of choices makes up for it.

Clearly the most memorable for me was the incredibly tasty and crisp cracker bacon they had, which I definitely overate and had my fill of sodium for the day.

Hopefully next time I will have more than just 15mins to finish it all off and have a relaxing filling start to the day.

A middle eastern meal awaited at Sarona. They had a 50% special which was lucky because otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. But I'm glad I went because the food was overall delicious and I'd even go back and pay full price. There were a couple of misses but choosing selectively now would be much easier.

- Heritage tomato salad, creme fraiche, fresh oregano £8;
- Fried cauliflower, tahini, sumak £8;
- Hummus masabacha £7 - chickpeas topped with chickpeas;
- Burnt aubergine, tahini & date syrup £8 - very nice too;
- Labneh with zaatar £4 - probably not needed with the other assorted mayo and dips. But cheap;
- Lamb arayes, tahini & harissa £8 - easily my favourite dish. Warm delicious earthy lamb in a (slightly too) crisp pastry shell;
- Prawn kebab, organic lettuce, harissa mayo £14 - a little disappointing with the prawns overcooked and tough;
- Chicken pargit, labneh, tomato seeds £12 - also disappointing with the chicken flat and dry;
- Tahini icecream £8 - I like black sesame icecream and now I also like white sesame icecream;
- Panna cotta, pistachios, date syrup £7 - good flavour but the panna cotta was too solid and had a gel layer on top as though left in the fridge for too long uncovered.

It was served with puffy warm flatbread to soak up and combine the dishes.

Overall very good indeed.

I don't normally eat up that way since it's sort of middle area between Soho and the places more north-west. But The King & I was showing nearby and I was lucky enough to snag some last minute tickets. With time of the essence, something quick and tasty and nearby was essential.

It's a dim sum restaurant that makes those dishes available in the evening to satisfy the odd-timed craving.

- Seaweed salad (seaweed with rocket, kikurage mushroom, crunchy radish and a little red chilli, garnished with sesame seeds) £2.75;
- Firecracker chicken rolls (chicken marinated in lantern chilli peppers, asparagus and coriander in a spring roll pastry with smoky orange sauce) £5.35 - not that impressive and didn't have much heat. Expensive too compared to other dishes;
- Golden dumplings (crisp stir fry vegetables in a turmeric pastry) £3.55 - it looks fluorescent although the taste and filling was quite simple vegetables;
- Black prawn dumpling (king prawn & garlic butter in squid ink pastry) £4.55 - also impressive looking with a bit of discernible prawn in there;
- Beijing quinoa gyoza (griddled quinoa, mushroom and cabbage, wrapped in a wheat pastry with garlic and vinegar dressing) £3.25 - a little more unusual and had a more gritty texture from the quinoa;
- Prawn & scallop sticky rice (prawns, scallop, carrot, bamboo shoots and glutinous rice, steamed in lotus leaf) £5.95 - not too bad;
- Smoked chilli chicken wings (cherrywood smoked chicken wings with a tangy tomato chilli sauce) £6.45 - small little wings with a little bit of heat but not much smoke.

Overall the food was ok and a little different from standard yum cha. The prices were overall reasonable also particularly for that part of town. I'd go back.

It's been a very long time since my last visit (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/duck-waffle-london-11-2012). Despite meaning to, I hadn't the opportunity or occasion to visit for the past 18 months. 1 visit to Sushisamba (which is plenty given the prices...) meant I was only a few metres away but this time and special occasion came to fruition. Since that time, the prices have gone up by 20-50%.

I had requested a window table for the view over a month beforehand. The restaurant told me on the phone that had received this. It was strange that the designated table was in the middle of the room, moreso because after enquiring we were given a table a few moments after. Who knows.

Once again there was the view of the gherkin. A little pivot meant a view of Tower Bridge. Despite the 31C day, the sunlight wasn't directly on us and so it could not have been more pleasant.

The cocktail theme of the month was vegetables. A pina-kale-ada was a twist on the classic with a vibrant green colour and a light kale flavour mixing with the coconut rum and pineapple. I was unexpectedly impressed.

- BBQ-spiced crispy pig ears £6 - I like these more now than I did back then. The mixed crisp and chewy texture and the strong BBQ/paprika are great as snacks;
- Smoked eel (creme fraiche, horseradish, samphire) £10 - small morsels that seemed a bit less interesting than the individual ingredients suggesting smoke, fish, salty and heat should;
- Spiced duck doughnut (charred pineapple jam, paprika sugar) £12 - ok so I thought this was a bit too strange. Others on the table liked it. Most of all I thought the doughnut dough was quite dry and firm lacking the soft spongey doughy-ness. The flavours mixed savoury and sweet but not in a way I liked;
- 'Nduja seared octopus (whipped yellow lentils, fennel, green sauce) £12 - an outstanding dish of sublime soft octopus in a potent and slightly spicy sauce;
- Duck & waffle (crispy leg confit, fried duck egg, mustard maple syrup) £18 - the namesake dish still remains excellent (although less flavoursome than the octopus). The crisp duck skin housing soft meat and coated with duck yolk and syrup on a piece of waffle. Anytime dishes don't get better.

The view is great, the service was decent and the food remains generally very good. It will stay high up in the order of occasional places for me.

Strangely enough there are no gelaterias near Spitalfields. You'd think there would be something given the clientele. Spitalfields market used to have a dessert stall next to the dumplings but it's fair to say their business unfortunately paled in comparison.

The nearest and closest is the proclaimed homemade icecream from Valerie with the outside corner exposing it to the courtyard with Tour de France playing on a big screen. On a 31C humid day, this was a much needed break.

The flavours are somewhat limited and not overly exciting. Hazelnut had a very mild flavour. Black Forest tasted like mild chocolate with some dried berry within it. There were some ice crystals in it too. Acceptable within the conditions albeit far from the best.