London: Yum Cha Silks & Spice

Six days to go! Yippee!

One of my favourite things to eat is dim sum. Seriously, one of the first things I did once I got myself properly sorted in London was to inquire about the state of dim sum and bubble tea. For the record, bubble tea in London is a lost cause. Hulu Cat and Momo Tea are miles ahead of anything in London. 

Yum Cha Silks & Spice

27-28 Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8A (Closest tube: Chalk Farm or Camden Town)

So in my efforts to find the best dim sum around in London, I googled around and asked people for advice. My brother, I think, recommended this place to me as well. I trekked over to Chalk Farm with three other lovely ladies and I think they were rather suspect about the fact that I was taking them to the middle of nowhere. Okay it wasn't exactly the middle of nowhere, but dim sum outside of Chinatown or Queensway? Kinda funny. They even told me that they had doubted me in the beginning at the end of our meal! (For the record, I'm rarely wrong. Sure you might not be wowed by a place like I am, but you definitely won't dislike it). Let me tell you, I went to a few other dim sum places throughout my twelve month journey and I still deem this place to be the best of the dim sum restaurants I went to. I don't want to make the generalization that it's the best in London, even though it wouldn't surprise if it was. Speaking of this matter, it has become my own personal mission to convince my partner about the brilliance of eating dim sum....even after one failed attempt at Ping Pong (sigh, I refuse to review that place...just don't go). He'll like it eventually, I just know he will!!

Anyway, the way that the ordering process goes is a bit different to what they do in New Zealand. Usually here in Auckland, dishes are usually carted around and go around to all the tables with all the different dishes they have, where you can pick and choose what dishes you want to take and how many of them you want. At Yum Cha, you're given a "menu/order form" and if you want a particular dish, you indicate how many of that dish you want on the order form and return it to the waiters. In hindsight, I never realised how much we ordered...

In no particular order, we ordered the minced pork shanghai dumplings (also known as xiao long bao, £2.80). In English, they're also known as soup dumplings and are usually served alongside a black vinegar with ginger-type dipping sauce. Yum yum. These kind of dumplings have become one of my favourite dishes to eat, thanks to my awesome friend who introduced them to me a few years back for his birthday! You get the flavours of the broth inside, the black vinegar, and the meat inside the steamed dumpling. I was itching to eat one (I guess one of my friends was too) so I totally forgot to take a photo at the beginning, hence why there's only two left in the photo on the right :-)

We also ordered the baked mini egg tarts (£2.60), fried taro croquettes with chicken, roast pork, and prawn (£2.60), and crispy prawn rolls (£3.20). Is it sacrilege to not be a huge fan of egg tarts? I usually don't like egg tarts – ironically I find them too eggy, but these ones are the exception to the rule. They're also seriously cute looking too, dontcha think? The crispy prawn rolls stayed true to its name, and the taro croquettes were delightful to eat. One of my friends (Birthday Girl from the previous post) tried the taro croquettes for the first time and wasn't a fan of the taste. I must admit that they take some time getting used to...I used to think they tasted odd once upon a time...The crispy exterior complements the texture of the soft filling of taro and the mix of proteins.

Birthday Girl is a major fan of gyoza (this, which I realised after countless of times of hanging out with her), so we ordered the pan fried vegetarian gyoza (£2.60) which were really good. I like both the pan fried and regular steamed versions of gyoza, but the pan fried ones are always nicer (though unhealthier obviously) for a bit of texture.

Another dish I'm actually not a huge fan of is char siu bao (otherwise termed as a honey roast pork bun, £2.60). Usually if someone orders it for the table, I tend to rip off and eat the steamed bun/dough only. I usually find the filling to be rather sweet, but the roast pork filling inside here had the right amount of sweetness. If all char siu bao was like Yum Cha Silks & Spice's, I would actually be a fan!! It was a major hit at our table. 

I can usually tell how decent a yum cha restaurant is by its its pork and prawn shu mai dumpling (£2.60) and its har gow (crystal bamboo shoot prawn dumpling, £2.60) respectively. Those two dumplings are my standard measure. These did not disappoint. The pork and prawn filling for the shu mai and the prawn filling for the har gow were both succulent and the har gow dumpling skin was translucent and appropriately not too thick nor too thin.

We also ordered the steamed lotus leaf rice with chicken, pork and shrimp (£3.60), honey roast pork cheong fun (rice noodle roll with roast pork, £3.20), and the turnip cake with wind dried meat and shrimp (£2.60). I actually didn't eat the turnip cake since I was incredibly full by the time it arrived (I was assured by my friends that it was good), but in terms of the lotus leaf rice dish, it had been one of my least liked dishes of the day as it lacked a bit of flavour (or oomph as my brother would say). Lastly, the cheong fun did not disappoint! It was good since the rice noodle wasn't too overly thick. Sometimes I find that the rice noodle is too thick at some dim sum restaurants and you're only eating rice noodles, but here, you get the right amount of both noodles and filling.

I went back for Round #2 with another friend of mine 7-8 months later and it was just as good, if not better than the first time. The second time I went there, my friend and I ordered a pot of chrysanthemum flower tea and it was incredibly soothing. My friend even asked the waitress where we could get it because the tea was pretty darn good, but she couldn't tell us since only the manager/owner/can't-remember-who-she-was-referring-to knew (apparently).

Don't be fooled by the exterior of this restaurant. While it's not exactly in a prime location, it probably works best that way. The food is good, the service is efficient, and the prices are on par with other dim sum restaurants in London.

Bonus: On Monday to Wednesdays after 5pm, they offer 50% off on their dim sum menu, although my friends tell me that it is more limited compared to the lunch menu... no egg tarts for example! Hate to quote Charlie Sheen here, but dare I say it.....winning?!

Next post: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal (otherwise known as the only time I really splurged while I was in London)

London: The Providores and Tapa Room

Two updates in two days? Am I mad? Er, well maybe but not for that reason :)

The current countdown is 13 days to go and I'm still excited! I've been doing a bit of NY foodie reading. For example, I just looked at Village Voice's 10 Best Sandwiches in New York...and to be honest, I'm not even a huge fan of sandwiches. But I've recently grown fond of them thanks to student living in London, therefore looking at all of the different sandwiches – Katz's anyone? – are making me drool and even more excited! (To all my friends living in NY, you know it's in your best interest to show me around the area for the best (affordable) eats!) Also, my partner doesn't know it yet (well he will once he reads this..) but we will be making a mandatory stop at Magnolia Bakery once I arrive. Yep.

Following from Caravan, I'm going to talk about the Providores and Tapa Room, which is in a very nice location of Marylebone. Both owners are kiwis, one of which is none other than Peter Gordon (who also set up Dine by Peter Gordon and Bellota in Auckland). He's also involved with a bunch of other places around the world as well. He's one of the biggest culinary names in NZ, so I had been itching to go with someone from the very beginning.

The Providores and Tapa Room
109 Marylebone High Street, W1U 4RX (Closest tube station: Baker St)

It actually took me 10 months to get my butt over to The Providores and Tapa Room. It happened to be my friend's 24th birthday, so I decided to take her out for a special birthday brunch – which ended up being the start of very long, fun, and productive birthday for her! I was  rather lazy in terms of booking a table for The Providores, so we went to the Tapa Room (since they do not accept reservations). I wasn't sure what to expect on a 11.30am on a Sunday, but I guess I was rather naive in my thinking that it wouldn't be packed. It was. There was a queue. The restaurant consists of two floors: the ground floor is the Tapa Room (not named after Spanish Tapas, sorry) which has a diverse all-day menu and breakfast & brunch menu; and the first floor is The Providores, which happens to be a "more formal affair" (as quoted directly by the website, heh) than the Tapa Room. Gordon's known for his eclectic take on fusion cuisine, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

After a bit of waiting in line, we managed to get a table of sorts. Service was pretty quick, but not in a way where they were trying to rush you outta there. While the birthday girl ordered a cappuccino (£2.80), I decided to start my day with a simple banana smoothie (£4.70) – tasty but not as cold as I expected it to be.

For brunch, I was at a loss of choosing between the hot-smoked salmon with two poached organic eggs and spinach on walnut toast with yuzu hollandaise (£12); or the french toast stuffed with banana and pecans with grilled smoked streaky bacon and vanilla verjus syrup (£8.80). Birthday girl happened to make my decision a lot easier since she decided to go for the salmon and eggs. (If possible, I prefer to order something different than what my fellow eating partners order....unless I have no choice in the matter).

French toast + syrup + bacon = already a match made in heaven. Easy maths. But the Tapa Room's spin on the classic french toast made it even better. Rather than the banana being placed on the side, it was sandwiched within the eggy bread itself. Before I started eating it, I was thinking....where's the friggen banana? Whoops. Look and chew first, Jess. The pecans provided further crunch which was needed, and the verjus syrup was delicious, with the french toast appropriately not being overly drenched in syrup. The saltiness of the bacon was needed, however I would have loved the bacon to be crispier (I love my textures).

As for birthday girl's dish, she was not only intrigued by her eggs and salmon dish (a spin on eggs benedict really) but she really enjoyed it too. I did try a bit of the salmon and it was really good!

As mentioned previously, the service was excellent and well attentive. Dishes arrived pretty quickly, which was pretty good in light of the busy atmosphere on the ground floor. We had such a good experience, that we decided to come back again for dinner to try out the all-day menu.

And so we did. My indecisive meter (from 1 to 10) was at 11, and birthday girl (well it wasn't her birthday anymore) was feeling the same way too. So we asked our lovely waitress for some recommendations and how many dishes we should share. She first asked as to whether we had any allergies (birthday girl has an allergy to most seafood bar salmon), and then asked birthday girl whether she could eat food that was prepared or cooked alongside seafood. For example, the chorizo croquettes were fried in the same oil that was used to deep-fry a squid dish. Birthday girl said nope. After giving us her recommendations and then taking our order, birthday girl was pleasantly surprised by how careful and accommodating they were in terms of her allergies, because most places normally don't ask such questions.

The first dish we shared was the chargrilled lamb on Greek pita with chermoula, edamame salsa, tomato, rocket, and tahini yoghurt (£13, see above). The lamb was actually cooked differently (so not chargrilled) due to birthday's allergies, but regardless of that fact, it was tasty, fresh, and full of flavours. A bit hard to share considering the amount of rocket overflowing from the top, but a lovely dish nonetheless.

I did actually order the chorizo croquettes with goats cheese pesto (£6) for myself, because I really wanted to try it (and was being my hungry self). Even birthday girl wanted to try it!! Heh. (Long story). Not only did it sound delicious, it tasted delicious! I was really skeptical about the notion of goats cheese pesto, but it really worked. The creaminess of the goats cheese came through and complemented the croquettes well. 

The last dish we shared was one of the waitress' recommendations: sweet potato, cheddar, feta and sweetcorn tortilla with urfa chilli yoghurt, cherry tomatoes, salsa rossa, and coriander salad (£9.40). The cherry tomatoes are missing on the plate, because they're all on my plate!

Birthday girl was a huge fan of dish. It takes a lot for birthday girl to be impressed. The tortilla with all the bits and bobs had so much flavour, with the salad providing the needed freshness to round the whole dish up. One big problem though, much to our dismay...birthday girl found a stone once she took another bite. This was alarming. We alerted to another waiter about this stone, and then the waitress that had served us previously came over to us after a bit of time and told us that it came from the coriander that they grow themselves. They usually sift out and clean the coriander before it's used in the kitchen, and yet somehow this stone managed to stay put. While I completely believed them that such a thing had been a rare occurrence (she was very much embarrassed), at the same time, it's hard to forgive a no-no like that since birthday girl could have choked on it, you know? Birthday girl was so disappointed because she, like myself, really enjoyed the food that we ordered. The waitress took the dish off our bill with our bill barely amounting to anything; and after all of the faint dramatics, we left.

It's a hard one to assess when something like that ruins your experience. So I'll leave it at that. But actually in all honesty, despite this blunder, I did try to convince my partner to come with me to the Tapa Room again...but we didn't have the time.

Next blog: Yum Cha Silks & Spice! Come on board for the dim sum train. It sure is a treat!

London: Caravan Restaurant, Bar & Roastery

Lately, it seems like I always start my posts with..."NO! I haven't forgottten about my blog!!" I haven't. At all. If anything, if you asked my friends, they would tell you that I'm always taking photos of things that I've eaten and whatnot. Never fear, I will still be talking about my London food adventures.

The first eatery that I will be talking about is Caravan. It's kind of fitting that the first place I start talking about is connected to my home country. That, and the fact that I'm momentarily back in New Zealand. [In two weeks time, I will be trekking to the US for the first time and the excitement I have is unexplainable! It's always been a future destination of mine and funnily enough, the first thing I think about when I think of New York for example is not the Statue of Liberty or whatever, it's Momofuku!! Ha.]

Caravan Restaurant, Bar & Roastery (Exmouth Market)*
11-13 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QD (Closest tube station: Farringdon)

In terms of a good feed and a good drink, Exmouth Market is the place to go. I must admit that I only travelled to Exmouth Market twice, but I wish I had gone a bit more than I had. Caravan had been on my list of places to go for a few months, knowing that the head chef/owner was a kiwi (and previous head chef at the Providores, which I will be reviewing sometime soon too!). But it wasn't until my lovely flatmate recommended the place to me that finally made me move my butt! So my partner-in-crime and I decided to go for a nice lunch at Caravan on a Monday. The deal with Caravan in terms of its all-day menu is small plates. They have a few large plates on offer, but I'm a big fan of small plates as a matter of wanting to try more than one plate of food.

For drinks, I ordered the Caravan old-fashioned lemonade (£4.50). A sour buzz gets me going for the day! Loved it. My partner ordered the elderflower spritzer (£4.50) which actually tasted better than the drink I ordered. Now that I'm away from London, I realise that those prices are rather excessive for something as non-alcoholic as those drinks, but are actually rather standard prices for London. If you know me, you'll also know that I can be very indecisive when it comes to food (thus the small plates are a blessing in disguise). Seriously, sometimes if I know where I'm going to eat in advance, I'll check out the menu online and pick a dish to save time, but never end up choosing it once I get there because I seem to find something else on the menu (...that I may or may had not seen earlier). If I am feeling really indecisive, I'll ask my waiter/waitress for a recommendation. This is what I did in terms of the snack dish that we shared. The waitress, like me, was indecisive – weighing up between whether she liked the cornbread or the wontons better. For the record, she decided that she couldn't choose since both were pretty good.

For our snack, we ordered the blue cheese and peanut wontons (£4). I had done a bit of reading and heard about the crazy combination and how it actually worked, so I thought why not?

I was pleasantly surprised actually by how the blue cheese was not that overpowering. I'm pretty neutral against blue cheese – which is strange considering the majority either love it or hate it  – but it surprisingly worked, especially with the crunchiness of the wontons and sweetness from the sauce. Following the wontons, we shared three small plates: the oozy arancini (£5), the cured salmon with wasabi dressing (£7.50), and the salt and sichuan pepper squid with chilli mayo (£7.50).

All the dishes were fantastic and full of flavour. My favourite dish was the arancini. The oozniess of the cheese once you cut into it was delightful and made my tummy warm. My partner's fave was the cured salmon. He couldn't stop raving about it once we left. Fresh, clean flavours, and the wasabi dressing was subtle rather than overpowering. Don't forget about the squid though. Contrary to what my parents think (they think I can't handle chili),  I like the use of chili when it doesn't completely overpower the dish. In this case, the squid had the right amount of heat and the mayo that accompanied the squid worked well with it. Yum.

We were actually pretty full but I was still thinking about cornbread in the menu. So we (okay, I on behalf of us, heh) ordered it. The cornbread with the chipotle butter (£3.50) was amazing. I really appreciated seeing actual corn in the cornbread, but the butter with the cornbread really makes it melt-in-your-mouth stuff! Yummmm. My partner really liked it too (maybe not as much as me) but thought it was rather heavy.

Food arrived to our table relatively quick as it was not so busy when we arrived. Service wasn't too shabby. The bill below shows that lunch wasn't exactly cheap, but is it a good treat to have once and a while? Definitely. It was my partner's favourite place to eat during his time in London, and it was one of mine too.

Next update: Providores & Tapas Room! Woo!

* Another Caravan just opened up in Kings Cross/Granary Square (in Granary Building). Wish I had the time to visit that one before I left as well.