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!