Eat Like Ushi

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.

For the final lunch meal before going to the airport, we visited the lovely area of Santa Eulalia and a multi-cuisine al fresco place called Caos. It has very good Google reviews (4.7) and seemed as good a choice as any. Despite others ordering pizza for the 5 meal that trip, I opted for the local version of bouillabaisse.

It was served with some sliced bread rather than the crisp coutons with rouille, but the flavour of the dish was lovely and strong with the garlic seafood broth coming through. One large prawn nestled on top - I could easily have done with a few more, but sadly not.

As with all other places eaten in Ibiza, I would eat there again but wouldn't go out of my way to get there again.

There's two Blue Marlin restaurants - one in the marina and one far south along the beach. Obviously the beach one is the choice provided you are happy to transport yourselves out there.

Once there you are met with lots of tables of high-society guests squeezed together, reflective prices of food and drinks, a couple of models doing catwalks down up and down past the tables, a dancefloor/music area with dj and canopy, and a lovely rock beach area where others lie and drink. Not a bad place if you have the $.

The special whole fish was €90/kg - so 1.2kg semi-reasonably fed 5 of us. But really it was only because there was extra plates of squid (dishes were about €20-40 each even for a starter), nibbles, and because I asked for the fish head, fins and skin because otherwise they would waste it.

I'm happy to have experienced it once (similar to Nikki Beach) but my bank balance doesn't fit in there. If you do go, make sure it is for more than just a meal. Enjoy the beach and music paradise.

Although situated across a lovely little beach, there was a surprisingly low number of tourists in this place probably due to the town being quite up far north-east of the island. We actually wanted to go back to Restaurante Del Mar (http://eatlikeushi.posthaven.com/restaurante-del-mar-ibiza-08-2018) but unfortunately it is closed on Mondays.

For the 6 of us hungry males, 3 portions of the mixed seafood grill and 3 portions of the mixed paella was too much, and in fact fed another 3 of us for dinner that evening.

The fish was a little disappointing with most of it being cooked too much and having a dry texture. However the rest of the items were fine. The rice was very strongly salted and didn't have a crisp base unfortunately. But overall alright.

Not a bad option in the area if you don't mind being away from the beach itself.

Apparently the paella at this place is well known - if nothing else, they can serve it large. This enormous pan was to serve 8 at a cost of about €142. It fed 9 people reasonably well, although being the 9th person I didn't get a prawn which was quite disappointing. It was very strongly flavoured but didn't have a crisp base at all which I hoped for.

Overall decent but not worth travelling all the way north-east of the island just for this.

I wanted to try their base seafood dishes but unfortunately they were closed on the Monday of the next visit.

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.