It is so easy to always go to the same favorite restaurants again and again for weekend lunches (like Busaba, Byron etc).. but New Year.. time to explore new places!
So, for lunch on Saturday we went to "Flat Iron" in Soho which is a restaurant that only has one dish on the menu: Flat Iron Steak for £10 and a few different sides and sauces.
On arrival you get a mug of popcorn and a carafe of tap water whilst you check out the (very short) menu.
We both had the steak (doh :-)) and 2 sides of chips, 2 bearnaise sauces and a Sophies salad (salad with blue cheese, walnuts and lemon dressing). The steak also comes with a small salad in a glass with a house dressing.
We ordered the 2 steaks Medium but when they arrived they had gotten the order wrong and had one medium and one medium rare - too hungry to wait for them to rectify i had the medium rare which was actually great and more of a medium to me anyway.
The steak was good - for that kind of cut..but the chips and the bearnaise were the stars of the show..wonderful.
I'd definately go back again at one point .. well, when i have exhausted all the new places that is.. ;-)
So, Sunday came along and we were going to go to Burger & Lobster in Soho for lunch (i have been before but hubby has not - the lobster roll is FAB) but the queue was too long so we decided to go to another Soho newbie called "Bone Daddies". It is not fancy with communal tables, loud music and quite small. The chef used to work at Nobu and Zuma and i guess he knows a thing or 2 about asian food!!
We both had a variation each of Tantanmen which is a noodle soup with sesame and chili oil. It was lovely and full of flavour but a bit on the spicy side for my sensitive husband.
The place was packed when we were there - again, the seating is communal on long tables with bar stools. Great place for a quick lunch.. as long as you are careful when eating.. i of course slurped my noodles a bit too much and made a mess of my top.. oh well..
New Year, more macarons to be baked on Sundays afternoons :-)
I now follow Adriano Zumbo's recipe for the shells and i find that it works the best. It is the Italian version with hot sugar syrup which is a bit more time consuming than the French version - but it makes the shells crack free, shiny and with good feet!
I will post the recipe shortly.
For yesterday's baking session i did a raspberry macaron filling:
White chocolate & Raspberry ganache
- 100 gr white chocolate - broken into pieces
- 1 dl of double cream
- 3 teaspoons of powdered freeze dried raspberries
- tiny bit of pink gel colour
- 25 grams of unsalted butter
Heat up the cream and when boiling - pour over the white chocolate pieces and stir until melted. Add the powdered raspberries and the colour and stir. Add the butter and stir to combine. Pour into a disposable piping bag, seal and put in the fridge to set.
Here are the little finished macaroons. They turned out pretty nice if i may say so myself.
Wow, Time has flown by and it is 2013 already.. i just realised that i have not written anything for almost 1,5 years! My new year's resolution (apart from dieting, excercise etc etc is now officially to continue to update my tastebuds from now on! So, a lot has happend during the missing 1,5 years.. many restaurants have been visited and many macaron experiments have taken place together with cake pops, cupcakes and numerous banana cakes.. oh well, you just have to take my word for it!
For NYE i made a lovely 3 course meal starting with a lobster salad with textures of vegetables, some i pickled some i steamed and some where raw. Served with a truffle mayonnaise - yummy and very light. This was folloed by a loin of lamb with a cauliflower puree and beans with a light porcini and lamb jus.. and the dessert.. well, all of my favorite flavours = vanilla, pistachio and raspberry! I made a moist pistachio cake and a white chocolate pannacotta which i "quenelled" over a slice of the cake. I also made raspberry jelly which i cut into lovely wobbly cubes and "pistachio crumble" made from caramellising sugar adding pistachio nuts, stir and pour on baking sheet to cool.. then crush up with a pestle & mortar.. Very yummy.:-)
