London: The 'everything else' post (Part II)

Happy Sunday everyone!  It's been a good week for me – hope it has been good for you too! I went out with a couple of friends last Friday and  had my first glass of wine in three months. I don't know why I do these bans to myself because after one glass I looked like a pink banshee. Sheesh.

It's been a little over two months since I've been back and I cannot believe how incredible the weather has been. I think it's only rained like twice? Very unlike Auckland! And I say this as it starts raining. Oops. Hope this weather continues until the end of April :)

This is Part II of the everything else post - but really focuses on the Polish and Turkish food I ate in London. I think today's update might be one of my favourites. I had never tried either cuisine before coming to London – and no, the kebab on rice that I would buy for lunch as a university student doesn't quite count. Polish cuisine is something special for me seeing as my fiancé is Polish, so now I have a much better insight to Polish cuisine compared to when I first tried it London. Seriously, I had no clue before!

Mamuska

Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, London, SE1 6TE (Closest tube station: Elephant and Castle)

This is not a case of me finding Mamuska, rather being that Mamuska found me. I first found Mamuska on the way to having lunch at La Bodeguita. I remember walking past the restaurant and seeing the phrase "affordable polish meals for everyone" at the front, taking a photo of the restaurant, and then showing the photo to my fiancé, M, in one of our seminars. I had read a few reviews which were surprisingly very positive, so us as well as F, were willing and ready to try the restaurant out in a location which Timeout humorously described once-upon-a-time in their Mamuska review as a "culinary wasteland". Even in spite of the shoddy decor of the shopping centre that Mamuska was in, we were going to put our faith in the world wide web and hopefully have a good Sunday lunch! M did threaten me though that if the food wasn't any good, then I was not allowed to blog about it as a matter of protecting the reputation of Poland and Polish food. I'm not scared of him!!

Mamuska is based on the Polish milk bar, where the meals are filling and very affordable. When I mean affordable, I mean £5 for a main meal type of affordable. So very unlike London. The canteen-style of the restaurant means that you order and pay at the front, sit down at an empty table and wait for your order number to be called to retrieve your meal. Once you finish, you would then bring your empty used tray to the rack and leave.

I really had no clue about what to order. I mean I didn't even know anything about what Polish cuisine consisted of and was pretty much going by what M was telling me ("We don't really put spices in our food" etc). For lunch, I decided to order the potato pancakes/"placki ziemniaczane" (£5) and chose the mushroom sauce to accompany it (you can choose either  the mushroom sauce, pork goulash, or beef stroganoff). I love mushroom sauce and I love anything involving a potato, and while I did like the dish, the thing that disappointed me the most was that the pancakes were completely drowned in the mushroom sauce. Drowned to the point that the crispiness of the potato was lost. Soggy potato pancakes are sad pancakes. For £5 you'll definitely get a filling and hearty meal, so if you decide to try it out...come hungry! I also ordered their homemade lemonade (£1) which tasted fine too but could have done with some ice!

M ordered the pork meatball/"kotlet mielony"(£5). He contends that it's not really a meatball but that's the "translation" or description that they used, so I'm using it too. I tried the meatball which had good flavour, but it was dying for a sauce (I feel like Manu on My Kitchen Rules right about now). The meatball was served with mashed potatoes and pickles, the latter which I was never going to touch ...nope.

When F showed up, she had no idea what Polish food was either and because it was so foreign to her, she was flip-flopping between dishes. She then saw a photo with sausages on the back of the menu and pretty much said to M – who used his Polish charm and ordered for us – that she'll order that....whatever it was. I couldn't find it on the menu and I'm not quite sure they still do it anymore, but it was pretty much sausages with onions, tomato, and bread & butter (£3). The sausages actually looked a bit oily and you could tell with the remnants of oil on the plate, but for £3 you can't complain too much right?

In the left column: potato pancakes, pork meatball, and sausages from Mamuska; in the right column: pierogies and potato pancakes from Bar Polski

Bar Polski
11 Little Turnstile, Holborn, WC1V 7DX (Closest tube station: Holborn)

In the midst of M & I's blooming friendship...relationship...whatever you want to call it, London was experiencing something that was rather surprising to the both of us.

Good weather.

Surprised? See, I told you. Three hour lunches under the sun in the park was probably a bit of an overindulgence, but you just simply needed to make good use of those days! No use staying in the library – how productive are you going to be if the sunshiny weather is staring right back at you in the face? After many lunches in the park, he suggested that we should try out the Polish place close to our university campus. It's hidden in a backstreet and would have never known about this bar had he not taken me here.

As he had been here before, he kindly recommended the potato pancakes to me but only because he had never ordered anything else. I didn't want potato pancakes again and wanted to try something else so he then advised me to order pierogies. At Bar Polski, you can either order them boiled or deep-fried, but he told me to order them boiled (I probably would have ordered deep-fried knowing me and my lack of diet). I ordered the potato and cheese filling with bacon and onion on top (two things which he despises sadly) and now after eating probably what seems like hundreds of pierogies in the US, pan-fried pierogies defeat boiled ones (and most likely deep-fried) any day of the week. They were good though not as good as the ones that M's dad's wife makes. Pan-fried is much better in terms of texture. Bar Polski has an extensive vodka menu and even though I don't like vodka,  I would recommend a shot of coconut flavoured vodka. The plum one made me nauseous.

That wasn't my only visit. I went a couple more times after that and did eventually try the potato pancakes (more than once actually). They put their mushroom sauce and sour cream into little ramekins which I really liked since I like to keep my potato pancakes crispy and not soggy. A soggy pancake is a sad pancake. I know I'm repeating myself here. I'm pretty sure that they add grated onion to their pancake, which after successfully mastering the potato pancake myself while I was in the US, gives the potato pancake more flavour. Yummy. They have mostly served crispy potato pancakes, with the exception of one time where they were a bit greasy. Their dishes may be a bit more expensive compared to Mamuska by a few more pounds, but based on potato pancakes alone, Bar Polski's ones are better in taste and you still get a plentiful, generous plate full of food. I like the fact that they accompany it with salad too. 

You must think that the only Polish food I seem to eat is potato pancakes and pierogies. This is not true.  Also, Polish desserts are awesome (karpatka anyone?!)...with the exception of the cheesecake I ate at Rich Mix in London. Sorry to whoever made it. I wish I could explain my love for Polish desserts further, but maybe another time.

Antalya

103-105 Southampton Row, London WC1B 4HH (Closest tube station: Holborn or Russell Square)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this update, I haven't really eaten much Turkish food. If I have, then I don't remember it at all. In the midst of exam season, a Brazilian, a Mexican, a Turk, and a Thai-NZer (me) were pretty much anticipating climbing a mountain. That mountain being our final VAT exam. My mum said to me the other day that she would have assumed that such a course would be so easy to take. I laughed quite manically when she said that to my face. We tried to prepare ourselves for the worse by preparing summaries, answering past exam questions, organising study groups. After we completed our last study group, we went to Antalya for a quick reprieve. With a Turk in the midst of our table, I was definitely going to heed his advice on what to order. Antalya had a lunch special – 2 courses for £8.95, so I went with the sigara boregi (filo pastry rolls with feta, normally £3.95) for the starter and et sote (sauteed lamb cooked with tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic served with bulgur rice, normally £10.95) for the main.

While I had no complaints with my starter, the main of sauteed lamb that was recommended by my friend was definitely the standout. I thoroughly enjoyed the flavours of the stew and the bulgur rice too as it was something a bit different than the rice I'm normally used to eating at home. The portion sizes were great as I wasn't feeling too full (which is better than eating until your tummy has had enough). Service was good too, though it was interesting to observe the not-so-Turkish waiter having a brief Turkish language lesson from my dear Turkish friend.

Olives and Figs

14 Artillery Lane, London E1 7LJ (Closest tube station: Liverpool Street)

I'm not quite sure how we ended up at Olives and Figs, except that it was very close to where M & I were living and that was most likely the reason as to why we decided to try it out. Compared to Antalya, this restaurant was pretty average actually and not that memorable. We had a halloumi phase for a few months – we were obsessed with the idea of grilling pieces of cheese on my George Foreman grill – so along with our complimentary bread basket and sauces, we decided to share a starter of hellim (£3.95) which is pretty much the same thing as halloumi. In hindsight, I wonder why we ordered something we could have easily done ourselves, but I guess we wanted to know how different hellim was to halloumi. As I pointed out above, it's pretty much the same thing. 

For the main course, I ordered the mixed grill (small £9.50, large £13.50) which consisted of different pieces of grilled meat from their menu (mostly chicken and lamb),  served with rice and salad. While most of the grilled meat was good except for one which was a bit dry – wish I remembered which one it was – the salad was boring and quite bland. If you are a bit of a carnivore, this place isn't too bad for a meaty meal. It's a lot of meat and even I couldn't eat it all! If you are a vegetarian, well this place isn't too vegetarian friendly. None of the main dishes are meat-free, so you'd only be able to order from the meze portion of the menu. Whoops. 

Something extra: This neither Polish nor Turkish but I just wanted to give a quick mention to the Walkabout, which is a chain of  Kiwi/Oz sports bars all over the UK. They've been around for awhile, even around the time when my brothers went to university in the UK...which was long agooooo. Going to the Walkabout felt like home to me even though it was more of a Australian sports bar, but that technicality didn't faze me in the slightest. (I mean, I am in possession of an Australian passport. Don't tell anyone though). Watching the State of Origin matches on the big screen made me feel like I was back at home on the couch watching the league! If you're missing a bit of league and you're also keen to try some kangaroo, then go ahead and visit the Walkabout. I have tried the Kangaroo 'Sarnie' (sandwich) and the Kangaroo Burger, which were both pretty good considering that it was pub food. 

This is most likely the last update of my London eating adventures, unless I have more photos hiding away somewhere in a folder on my laptop. My next update will either be about some of the brief trips that I made while I was living in London (such as Florence and Copenhagen) or I'll move on to my US foodie adventures. I have a lot of fatty US adventures to talk about! I haven't quite made up my mind! x