Eat Like Ushi

A little town called Malton is known as the foodie town in Yorkshire. I've been to some of these so called towns before and often wondered how special a little place can be, especially when there are large towns/cities to compare with. And in this little foodie town there is one square called Talbot Yard which hosts an excellent patisserie (for macarons), an ice cream I didn't get to try (too early in the day I think...) and a bakery/coffee place.

The bakery only had limited items by 12pm so I went to visit this odd sounding butcher called Food 2 Remember. It isn't a memorable name at all but they had a decent reputation for pies with only a limited number of reviews. The lovely staff showed me their delightful selection of pastry behind the counter.

The scotch egg was phenomenal. Simply better than any I've tried before. An egg coated in chunky pork sausage roll-filling and a super crisp and seasoned fried coat. It was perfect. The sausage roll had obviously equally excellent filling, but the crust was only ok, flaky but could have been thicker. I have a soft spot for pies although much prefer the hot variety. A cold pork pie had chunky pork, gravy and a nice jelly filling - an excellent version too. 

I actually considered driving all the way back to Malton just to get more scotch eggs. I actually looked at the closing time to see if I could pick some up on the way back from Whitby. Sadly neither of those options were feasible, but maybe one day I'll be back here...

Nice arepa with chunks of pulled beef brisket. Hot vegetable empanadas, with a very mild filling. We ordered sweet fried plantains but they didn't have any, and so gave us plantain chips (crisp and salty, no sweetness at all) and a replacement of chilli mango chicken wings instead (some mango but no chilli).

I'm unclear if this reformed old Ambulance is called Ice Cream Rescue or Ryeburn of Helmsley, but the flag saying UK Champion Diary ice cream drew me in. The menu showing which were the award winning flavours was very helpful too.

I tried mint choc chip (gold medal) and balanced it with some wild blackberry sorbet. I think they were good without being outstanding. To be fair they aren't flavours I normally choose so maybe that was part of it.

It was a little while ago and not so memorable in my mind. Would probably go for the chocolate and strawberry next time.

After getting a galette from Krep and with a plan to eat outside in the Museum Gardens, I couldn't resist also picking up a souvlaki from the well rated Greek food stall that reviews seem to mention lots of queues. On this bright sunny day there were only a few people in front but a lot of people sitting on the tables in front eating already.

They don't do lamb which I'm used to from Melbourne or pork that I'm used to from Greece. But chicken is always available at these places too and is the star of the show here, with the layers of meat cooked to a lovely char colour on the spit.

Chicken gyros wrap - gyros, pitta bread, tzatziki, tomato, onions, chips, signature sauce £6 is a bargain for such a large serve. The chicken was very tender and flavoursome. Wrapped in were lots of fries with paprika. Served piping hot. Absolutely delicious.

The Shambles market in York didn't really have much that interested us in the way of crafts and odds, but a well rated crepe/galette place certainly got a bit of attention. I wasn't sure if we wanted to spend one of our few meals on it as I often find crepes underwhelming and galettes to be average outside of a proper sit-down place in Brittany/France. However this place seemed to have a handle on things and had some nice smells wafting too.

We tried Truffe - mushroom & truffle duxelles, cheddar, local free range egg, black pepper, dijon mustard £7.5. I wouldn't call it necessarily a traditional galette that you would find in Brittany. t's cooked with a heap of delicious cheddar that crisps up reinforcing the buckwheat shell, smeared on top with butter, with a mild mushroom and truffle flavour, and some mustard on top.

Whereas the Briton galettes are crisp and simple to allow the buckwheat nutty flavour to come through, this one has bursts of flavour throughout by the cheese. It's exceptionally tasty and maybe better... (at least to our non-French tastes).

After being put up at this hotel for a course, their attached restaurant for breakfast and I ended up going for lunch too (due to time and convenience) was the Verve Grill.

English breakfast was simple and substantial, with all the necessary bits although clearly not the highest in terms of quality. But it was included in the room so I won't complain.

Lunch was mainly a burger or wings menu. I opted for the more substantial Go Spicy burger which was a thick beef patty, Hot Pepper Jack cheese, jalapenos, salsa, guacamole. Overall it was very tasty and the thick patty better than I expected given the breakfast. Best of all was the lattice fries (it came with both lattice and normal fries too, but I asked not to have the normal ones) which were like crunchy hash browns in every fried bite.

Even more to my pleasant surprise was that they still had Eat Out To Help Out and so my £14 meal became £7.

I wouldn't go back there specifically, but if staying there again I'll eat those fries again.

Although probably not quite in Liverpool (I'm not sure where Liverpool technically ends), I found myself staying close to Whiston. After a sunset walk through Stadt Moers park, the little shopping area of Whiston with its Tesco local became my dinner haunt. The praising reviews of Spice Village were matched by the constant flow of people picking up takeaway.

There were so many things I wanted to try, but for just one person with no refrigerator, I settled on jale jule. I asked if the naga heat for this dish was as potent as the naga I had in India (https://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/rosang-delhi-01-2015), and he reassured me not.

Their description is "A popular dish of sylhet for hot lovers. Fresh chicken tikka or lamb, mixed with onion, naga chilli, garlic, ginger, peppers, dhanya and cooked in medium dry sauce with cumin, mustard and a touch of mace. Garnished with naga and chillies." My lamb option was a tomato base with a fiery heat that started slowly then built up and left a long burn. A few times I had to stop eating to wipe my tears and let my tongue settle down, but it was delicious along with the small amount of yoghurt that I had to ask them for. Peshwari rice £2.1 had a bit of sweet flavour to it with some coconut flavour although I expected to see some dried fruit or nuts and there weren't any.

Oh well. I'll eat here again if stationed near Whiston again.

After attending a course, it was time to take the train back to London. I wanted to get takeaway from YourThai but I didn't have time to stop there before departure. My other option was Mowgli street food but they wouldn't take a phone order, only if I downloaded their app which I definitely couldn't be bothered doing. Looking around the station on Google maps, I found this place and thought Kurdish is something I haven't really tried before.

The restaurant doesn't look like much from the outside - with construction poles outside and a name like Real Taste, if the reviews hadn't been so good (4.6 on Google maps) I would never have been here.

Lamb qouzi £8 came as simply flavoured lamb on the bone which was delicious, salted nicely and so very tender. It sat on top of an ample amount of ghee-flavoured rice (biryani) as well as a soft folded naan bread, salad and a large container of okra soup rich in savoury tomato broth.

Even more impressive was that the place is cash only and I only had £6.60 on me. I asked to downgrade my order but the server said not to worry and placed my full order anyway. What incredible and unexpected service in these difficult times. I will look forward to coming back here if ever in Liverpool again.

I've had Brigadiers on my list to try for a long time now and I nearly went with my parents at the start of this year, however they looked at the menu and thought it was too expensive. I have to admit, it is on the more expensive side for London, meaning it's on the very expensive side compared to Melbourne. That opportunity passed and it wasn't until the recent Eat Out To Help Out extension into September with a good 30% food that I finally had no more excuses and booked and went.

I was hoping for the sports bar area, but I think that needs to be specially booked, so ended up in a dining hall. A nice setting although nothing overly special or unique.

After a perusal of the menu and wanting to try everything, we settled for a few things which like most Indian meals ended up being more filling than expected. But it was delicious...

- Smoked aubergine missi rotis, burnt corn kachumber £6 - delicious little disks topped with chutney, spiced salad, yoghurt and herbs;
- Original BBQ butter chicken wings £10 - easily the most delicious wings I've eaten in my life. The chicken itself was pretty good but the wickedly flavoursome thick chilli, creamy sauce covering it turned it into something out of this world;
- Bhuna ghee masala kid goat chops £22 - a thick flavoursome curry coating incredibly tender goat and actually a good amount of meat rather than just lots of bone. Not cheap, but very good. A close contender for Needoo dry meat curry;
- Bread basket £7 - chilli cheese naan, onion & coriander kulcha, pudina lacha paratha. All breads were soft and nice, the favourite probably being the onion & coriander kulcha (for flavour at the expense of a bit thinner and denser).

There are so many more items on the menu I want to try, such as the mixed grill or biryani. I was so impressed with the food and flavours and can't wait to go back.

I've relatively recently discovered African food (other than Ethiopian which I've known for a little while now) and am doing my best to try it more. There's been Nigerian, Ghanaian, and Eritrean (similar to Ethiopian). Some of the latest London places have the or more generic West African, and Ikoyi has been on my very expensive list for a while now but not sure if I'll ever get there. Otherwise Chuku's, Chishuru, Sweet Hands and African Kitchen Gallery are all still waiting too.

Akoko was a new arrival, opening up in the shoulder period between lockdowns. The soft opening offered 50% off the full set menu price of £59, a bargain definitely. It did however come with several service mishaps - but I suppose you have to expect that. Our dining colleagues wanted the meal to start at 8pm instead of 7pm (which the restaurant was happy to change), and they turned up around 8.15pm. It gave limited time for the mandatory 10pm shutdown, but the restaurant thought it would be ok.

However in starting later, they suggested we order the normal or vegetarian menu so it could be commenced for their arrival. Unfortunately communication between the staff was non-existent and whereas one suggested that, another we told and look confused, then another came and asked, and another then came after our colleagues arrived to officially take the menu. Drinks (cocktails were not yet served which was disappointing but acceptable) were then asked about 8 times by 4 different people (without exaggeration) in 10 minutes. Of these requests, about 4 of them came AFTER the drinks were already ordered within a 2 minute period. And despite all that, they didn't bring out my friend's drink until being reminded later. Hmmm.

The food:

- Isu, truffles - yam topped with truffles cream and shavings. Nice;
- Boli & epa - plantain crisp with peanuts. Not that sweet for plantains (more starchy than sweet) and heavy peanut coating overpowered any other flavours;
- Veal cheeks bofrot - veal cheek meat in a fried casing. They said there were vegetables inside too but couldn't really tell. It was served on top of some kind of inedible black pulse;
- Miyan taushe, crab - pumpkin soup with little crab bits at the bottom was quite good. Guinness bread was very spongy with a rind crust and really excellent. Butter very soft could have used a little seasoning. The shoehorn device to spread the butter was fun too; 
- Smoked jollof rice & goat - I was very much looking forward to this dish and the very nicely seasoned goat was tender and slightly spicy. Jollof looked good but not seasoned and overall a bit disappointing. Garlic flowers and leaves topped the dish and were full of flavour. I suppose maybe the rice blandness was to balance the other ingredients, but I hoped for more.
- BBQ quail yassa - a tender half quail and ridiculously tasty and flavoursome. Possibly the best I've had (my only comparison being Chinese or Vietnamese restaurants). My only gripe was the quails were different sizes for each serve (and I got the smallest one!);
- Burnt uda cream, Ghanaian cocoa butter, goat milk icecream - mild goat milk icecream was very nice. It sat in a sweet boat of cream. I expected some tartness (not entirely sure why) but there was none.

If I assume that the service improves to standard professional level, I don't think I would go back for the full priced menu. I did like some of the dishes, but others seemed to lack. Maybe I need to try the others first to compare. Or alternatively if they offered a la carte, then I could pick the dishes that worked for me.