London: The Jamie Oliver Edition

Hi everyone! Sorry (once again) that I haven't updated in so long. I've spent the last three months in the US and am now back in sunny, warm, NZ! Gosh, it feels like forever since I've had a proper summer. Summer wasn't really summer when I was living in London and it was pretty cold in the US :( I still have a few more places from London that I still have to blog about - but I will also have a few from the US as well. It was my first time visiting the US and I absolutely loved it! Minus the extremely large food portions...oh my god.  

This blog is the Jamie Oliver edition. I went to two of his restaurants while I lived in London: Jamie's Italian in Covent Garden and Union Jacks in Holborn (in partnership, so not fully on his own). Jamie Oliver is everywhere. His mug is on ready made meals in the supermarket. I'm pretty sure I bought my brother one his cookbooks a long time ago. Also, ever since I've been back home, I can't get away from him on TV. It's too much. I've actually tried a couple of recipes (his roast chicken and gravy recipes are on the money), but nevertheless, I still wanted to see if this guy's food was the real deal. While he is not obviously there cooking the food, he's putting his name on the line.

Union Jacks
4 Central Street Giles Piazza, London WC2H 8A (Closest tube station: Tottenham Court Rd)

Studying in London made me sure about never wanting to study ever again. No more degrees. No PhD to please my parents. Time to find a real job. The thing that stressed me about in particular was studying for exams. It was way too intense and way too stressful. Studying for exams in Auckland couldn't hold a candle to this experience. I had about a month in between my first and second exam (ridiculous) and one day I just had enough. Also coincidently, it was the final of the Champions League (ugh, football) and I wanted to avoid watching it. Unfortunately that did not happen. [However, hilarity ensued when I did manage to watch some of it]. So along with my friend, who annoying finished all her exams by then (a clear moment of jealously here), we went to grab dinner to get away from the stress of either exams or dissertation planning temporarily.

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Somehow I found out about the place but knew very little about it. All I knew was that they specialised in wood-fired flatbreads (ahem, really, it's just pizza) with British flavours, though I still haven't quite registered what British flavours are supposed to taste like. Same with NZ flavours. People ask me that all the time and it's hard for me to say something 100% logical heh without sounding like a complete idiot. I am only human.

I'm one of those people that likes to look at menus beforehand and decide what to order. And then once I get to the place, I end up taking so many minutes to order and order something completely different that what I planned. That happened here. We decided to share a couple of small plates, a flatbread, and I went ahead for some icecream since they had some pretty interesting flavours on the board! I'm a sucker for dessert unfortunately. When we arrived it wasn't full, but service was pretty quick and attentive to us from the get go. I really liked the interior of the place - felt kind of retro yet modern at the same time.

For the small plates, we ordered the wood-grilled sausage & bacon with sage mustard (£4.75) and the garlic mushrooms with mayonnaise (£4.75). If you didn't already know, I'm a massive mushroom fan so this was my favourite dish out of the two. It wasn't oily and I did taste garlic! My friend actually preferred the sausage with the mustard which was decent too, as the mustard had a some heat that complemented the sausage well. Both dishes were good and simple, I don't think we were exactly wowwwwwwed.

For the wood-fired flatbread, we were really indecisive about ordering the pork one or the one that we eventually ordered, which was the 'Red Ox' - Oxtail & brisket slow-braised in Worcestershire sauce, Red Leicester cheese, watercress, and fresh horseradish (£12.50). I asked the waiter what he recommended - he said that the pork one was the most popular but he personally liked the Red Ox the best. So we went with that! Most of the time recommendations from the waiters/waitresses are spot on. The oxtail and brisket was incredibly tender and liked the watercress, but I couldn't taste the horseradish which I actually appreciated (because I don't like horseradish...whoops). Despite being a bit hard to eat, it was surprisingly delicious.

We were pretty full after the flatbread, but a lot of the time my separate dessert stomach comes out to play. It's not good. I wish she would just hide. The list of flavours are a bit quirky (I remember they had flavours like Snickers and Earl Grey) so I wanted to try one. I ordered a scoop of Eton Mess ice cream (£1.50 per scoop), and it came with a biscuity thing of sorts. I wish I could call it it a biscuit but it was so hard, I was worried that I would break a tooth. Yikes. I wish the texture of the meringue portion of an 'eton mess' was more prominent in the icecream, but biscuit aside, the ice cream was good. I can't stop thinking about that damn biscuit thing though. Ahh.

All in all, it was a surprisingly good experience. The concept is interesting. Sure it's a bit more gourmet than your typical pizza, but I feel like they're trying to fancy up something that does not necessarily need to be. Sometimes you should just let the food speak for itself.


Jamie's Italian

11 Upper St Martin's Lane, London WC2H 9FB (Closest tube stations: Leicester Square/Covent Garden)

This one was never on my list actually. It was date night and my boyfriend took the initiative to book tickets to a play at St Martins Theatre and to book a reservation here before the play started (five points for him -- okay, ten points for him). I was optimistic as a result of my experience at Union Jacks. I wasn't expecting fine dining obviously, but I was hoping for dishes full of flavour since that is what he preaches everywhere I see his mug.

The first thing I noticed was that it was busy. Very busy. I did expect that considering that it surrounds itself next to theatre warehouses and whatnot. The decor of the restaurant was very nice as well. I noticed immediately that service was a bit inconsistent. While extremely polite, sometimes they were attentive and sometimes they weren't - which was slightly annoying especially when we wanted to leave to catch our play.

We first started off with sharing a small plate of their famous polenta chips with rosemary and parmesan (£3.45 - so famous that it states that on the menu!). I've had some ordinary polenta chips and these were not. In fact they were probably the highlight of our meal. However while this may seem nitpicky, ideally it would have been great to have some smaller plates to eat them with.

For our mains, we both decided to get pasta. I ordered the spaghetti vongole – cockles, garlic chilli, white wine, parsley, butter and lemon (£8.20 for the smaller portion, £13.35 for a main). Thanks to a fantastic vongole in New Jersey, it's now my favourite pasta dish. This one pales in comparison. I ordered the smaller portion, and while it was tasty, I wasn't exactly wowed. My boyfriend had similar sentiments with his dish. He ordered the black angel spaghetti – scallops, garlic chilli, anchovies, wine, parsley, capers and squid ink pasta (£8.20/£13.90). We tried each others dishes and both agreed that they were good but not great and more flavour was needed. I think for his portion, he could have done with a few more scallops since there weren't many at all.

We were left feeling underwhelmed. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't bad. It was good. It's just that we wanted to be wowed and we weren't.

Next blog: My numerous trips to Wahaca! I miss that place.