PICKLED FORK POP UP

Friday saw us venture into the deepest darkest depths Wandsworth in search of the Barmouth Kitchen, home of the Pickled Fork.  As some of you may or may not know our first encounter with the Pickled Fork was at the Brixton Diner which was utterly incredible.  At the time Pickled Fork were a duo however Chris and Alex have now gone their separate ways in terms of cooking but they are still great friends and share an allotment.

We arrived bang on time for once, and were greeted by Alex.  He showed us to our table after explaining that he would start serving once everybody had arrived.  With our bottle of red breathing we sat and admired our surroundings.  Its funny how London differs so widely from area to area, street to street even.  Take for example the stark difference between Peckham's kind of grunginess to this area of Wandsworth with its tree lined streets, big houses (that are actually still houses and not split into 4 tiny flats) and quaint little cafes.  The reason I am blabbing on so much about this is it is the first time we have ever been to a pop up in a place that has as many high chairs as adult chairs and pots of crayons everywhere (not that this is a complaint).

Anyway enough about that.....

So the menu is a set 4 course menu, this menu changes every month with different produce coming into and going out of season and Alex also told us that he gets bored if he cooks the same things over and over (who wouldn't to be fair).

 Our first course was served around 8pm and from the second the plate was put in front of us we knew we were in for a real treat. 1st up was a crumpet topped with cheesy cauliflower goodness,crispy pig ear paired with fermented sultanas and charred endive (something we have never had before). Every single element on this plate worked so well together, the saltiness of the pig ear with the bitter char and mature cheddar was just fantastic...so good we actually asked for seconds and may have cleaned the plate for Alex!

Up next was a beautiful dish of vegetables from the allotment served with cows curd. The pickled red cabbage puree is something neither of us have ever had before and made a lovely change to the usual 

cabbage we have around Christmas time. The vegetables were cooked to perfection and this made for a really tasty dish.

After a short interlude Alex delivered our main which was a taste sensation - venison wellington with leek lasagna and liquorice gravy. Sounds strange we know but again top credit to the chef for his fantastic pairing and seasoning. The venison was cooked perfectly and wrapped in lovely flaky pastry, it appears venison is becoming one of our favourite meats and this dish helped show how versatile a meat it is. For the third time of the evening we became members of the clean plate club.

Reading the menu prior to arriving desert was the course Sarah was least looking forward to as she doesn't like rhubarb however, she left the pickled fork pop up being a huge fan. The dish was arranged in such a way that the whole milk pudding (which was delicious) was to be used as a palate cleanser for the other elements of the dish including the doughnut and fudge which were both very sweet but totally awesome.  

Overall we had an absolutely superb evening with banging food which was definitely restaurant standard if not better. We really cannot put into words how good Alex's cooking is and if you live in London and haven't been to one of his pop ups your really should! Below is next months menu and you can book through edible experienced...oh we failed to mention it is BYOB also!!

Rugby @ London Beer Factory

After winning a competition on twitter for 2 tickets to one of the 6 nations games with burger and beer we decided to take the puncture free (see bunsmith blog) fixed bikes off on an adventure and adventure it was! 3/4 of the way into the journey we both rode over a broken bottle and unfortunately Sarah's bike couldn't take it and boom another punctured tyre to add to the list! However she only noticed the flat as we arrived at The London Beer Factory which meant we could sample more of their beers than had we of been cycling back!

We were greeted by Ed at the door and he guided us straight to the bar where there were 3 beers on offer at £3 a pint - absolute bargain!

Sarah chose the Paxton Pale Ale (5.0%) and Soph the Chelsea Blonde (4.3%) and from the first sip we knew we were going to enjoy our afternoon immensely! The brewery was on a smaller scale to Camden but they are still producing really good tasting beer which we truly believe will be a big hit on a bigger scale. Ed and his brother Sim started the company with their wine and brewing backgrounds last year and decided to brew 3 very different beers to cater to all tastes and they also brew for Franco Manca. The set up of the Brewery was fantastic and makes a great venue for sporting events or actually any event due to the large screen and wooden benches. They also have table football, a darts board and apparently a few beer pong tables which excites us immensely. We settled in for the first half of the Wales V Scotland game and our glasses were soon empty so onto our second pint. 

This time Sarah tried the London Session and Soph stuck to the Blonde as she liked it so much. The Londoner has a lower ABV (3.8%) than the other two beers but is still packed full of flavour - a little too much for Sarah though having had the pale ale as her starting beer but none the less the pint was finished and enjoyed just not as much as the Pale Ale. The brewery also has a really nice little outside space where Josh was making burgers and we got to demloish these just before half time. We both had bacon and cheese with all the salad and really enjoyed them...although being burger snobs they were a little bit overdone for us but the char of the bun and the crispy bacon added a crunch to the burger.

During half time Ed took me on a tour of the brewery where I got to see the UK grown malt which was really insightful and a priveledge to learn more about the company and brand. Being quite a new company they are just starting to get bottles out of their beer and I got to see the newly designed labels which are really cool and eye catching - I look forward to seeing them on the shelves! We ended our afternoon with another pint of Blonde and a happy Soph as Wales won but due to the prospect of a walk not ride with one punctured bike we decided to head off for West Norwood Station back to Peckham. 

The London Beer Factory is situated between Gipsy Hill, West Norwood and Crystal Palace and easily accessed by train, car or unpunctured bikes. We really recommend watching the rest of the 6 nations here as the screen is huge and your beer is being brewed right infront of your eyes for 3 quid a pint - bargain for London prices! Check out their website as they have a deal on at the moment for burger, beer and the games for £10 which really cannot be faulted! We really hope the boys decide to do more events at their brewery and will be looking forward to heading back ourselves in the near future.

Camden Town Brewery Tour

The day we truly became hell raisers was the first day we tried Camden Hells lager.  These days were different for both of us.  I remember my first bottle of hells like it was yesterday...sat in a small boozer in Camden during Camden crawl feeling a little bit delicate.  From my first sip I was hooked, it almost instantly perked me up (until my next wave of nausea anyway).  It has been my beer of choice ever since (wherever I could find it).  So when I opened a little very light parcel on my birthday it was like something out of Charlie and the chocolate factory, Sarah had only manage to bag us tickets on the Camden Town Brewery tour.


We rocked up early as always so decided to have a cheeky pint before the tour started.  My choice was hells whilst Sarah chose a pint of the pale ale.  The bar area in the brewery is really nice and, in winter especially as it has a bit of an apres ski feel about it.

Our tour commenced at 6:30pm and due to a computer error there were a lot more than 10 people (the max they norm do) on the tour with us however this did not dampen any of the tour. We had a brief history lesson of the company while outside stood by the outside mounted tanks and were in ore of how far and quick the brewery has grown since 2006 when Jasper was brewing in the basement of his pub. We were each given a can of hells (our fav at the beginning of the tour) to accompany us on the first part of the tour, so we donned our safety glasses and headed into willy wonkas inventing room!

It was here we learnt how beer is made, got to try some malt (tasty) and  hops (not advisable) and got to look into the tanks where they were currently brewing beer for Byron burgers - something that we did not know they did and will now defs try Byrons beer when we next go!

After a can of pale ale we hit the room which houses a lot more tanks and got to try some beer straight out of the tank - it was delicious and we also go to see more of the master brewers at work. Whilst here we also got a can of IHL which is 6.1% and quickly became our favourite Camden beer! The last stop on our wonderful tour was to the bottling room where we got to see the end product and by god were they churning it out!

We had an absolute blast on the tour; learnt a lot, ate rank hops, drunk wonderful beer and got to meet and interact with the lovely staff at the brewery! Shout out also to our guide who was fantastic despite being a Patriots fan!



After our pre pint and tour cans we stopped at the bar for a few more where Soph stuck to hells and Sarah tried the stout to round off the evening! We couldn't ignore our rumbling bellies so made sure we got some of Butchies chicken before it ran out and WOW it was delicious and went really nicely with our beers! The chicken was moist with a really crispy punchy casing and the dips were perfect to accompany the chicken.

Bunsmiths

What do you do when you both get punctures on your way home from work??
Go for food and beer of course.  Luckily we were both relatively near Southwark/London bridge when our punctures happened, this meant only one thing.. Bunsmiths soft launch!!
For 3 days Bunsmiths were having their soft launch at The Millers Pub (near Guy's hospital).  After negotiating / arguing about whether to remove the said punctured wheels we strolled into the pub, detached wheel in hand (yes just the one wheel, my bike stayed intact).  We wondered round the fairly packed pub looking for a table and finally spotted a couple leaving.  Sarah was straight in with her ninja like movement.  We ordered the buttermilk chicken bun, BBQ bun and a side of chilli fries.  Our drinks were Brick Brewery American IPA and a Belleville Thames Surfer.  Both of these are some of our favourites.
The food came within about 10 / 15 mins of ordering it, we were delighted about this as we were pretty ravenous.  The chicken had a really good flavour and consistency.  It was crispy yet moist and seasoned really well.  The BBQ bun was also a very enjoyable experience; juicy and packed with flavour.  There was one minor gripe from Sarah and this was a lack of crunchy burnt ends.  The fries were actually some of the best we have ever tasted,  and topped with slow cooked pork and beef this only made them better.  To be honest I wish we had tried the whole menu, although this gives us another chance to go back and carry on ticking the beers off too.
Massively sorry about the sideways pictures...for some reason I cannot rotate them.

dip and flip

Dip and flip has been on our list for a while, so today we decided to go (cycling there and back as it is January).  After a little hairy cycle we made it a little windswept and cold but very excited.  We were prepared for a wait after peering in through the window alas to our delight we got a table straight away.  As per usual we had basically pre decided what we were eating before we had arrived.  I plumbed for the beef dip and flip burger whilst Sarah chose the chilli cheeseburger, and because it is January we shared a cheese and gravy fries.  We felt after our journey we deserved a beer, it was a really nice surprise to see a wide variety of craft beers.  Sarah picked Sam Brooks pump house pale ale and I chose The Flying Dog Brewery  Easy IPA.

The drinks came quickly and were both really refreshing with a great fruity burst.  Our burgers arrived shortly after and I was so glad that they hadn't scrimped on the gravy (this was my biggest concern).  The minute we cut into these burgers we knew we were onto a winner, the meat was soft, good quality and cooked how we were told it would be cooked (a rarity).  After taking a couple of snaps (as quick as possible) we tucked in, and oh my gosh.  I have not had the feeling of joy that I had today for a very long time, and in fact I have only ever had about 4 times in my life. This feeling can only be described as burger love.  My first honest, my first patty and bun, my first bleecker and now this.  I am pretty sure that Sarah agrees.  I had food everywhere but I literally could not stop eating.  The roast beef dipped in gravy was cooked to absolute perfection (nice and pink) and melted in my mouth.  These guys have also had the great idea of adding white cabbage to this piece of heaven which added a great bit of texture.  Sara's chilli cheeseburger was the perfect match of green chillis and a soft patty.  The fries didn't really get a look in until the burgers were finished, for me this only helps as the fries soak up the 3 day gravy (yes it really does take 3 days to make) and allow the cheese to melt.  Everything was seasoned to perfection in fact the whole thing was pretty damn perfect.  Our meal came to around £29 and was 100% worth it.

I really urge everybody to visit these guys even though they are hidden away in Clapham Junction...the trip is definitely worth it.

chilli cheeseburger

chilli cheeseburger cut

Free pHO (house of ho)

WEEEEEEEE'RRRRREEEEE BBBBAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKK!!! After a couple of months out of action (eating and blogging) we are now back on the band wagon.
Earlier this week I was sat trawling twitter deciding where we were going to eat first this year, when I came across a tweet from @thehouseofho.  It stated that between the 12th and 17th of jan they are giving away free pho as part of their new lunch menu.  I really love pho so got straight on the phone to book our table.
We turned up a little early (not as early as usual) and were seated straight away. The choices of pho were simple; chicken, beef, seafood or veggie. We both went for beef and chose a starter of duck rolls from the main menu.  The service was fairly slow to begin with, it took quite a while for someone to see to us at first.  Once our drinks order was placed (water and lemongrass lemonade) things moved pretty quickly.   Shortly after the drinks arrived the crisp confit duck rolls arrived.  The duck is served with perilla leaves, gizzards and sliced grapes all wrapped in rice noodle rolls.  This dish had 5 bite size pieces and was accompanied by a dish of sriracha.  All together we were very pleasantly suprised (we weren't entirely sure what we were going to get).  The duck was cooked to perfection , very soft and flavoursome.
The pho's arrived very promptly after the starters.  Served up in the way they should be with the herbs, beansprouts and chilli on the side.  The difference with this pho was that the us cooked  beef also appeared on the side plate.  We thought this was a great idea as you could add the beef (which cooked in the broth) as you went along therefore stopping it from overcooking.  The broth had a really rich, deep beefy flavour.  We have had so many very bland pho soups so it was really nice to have one with a real depth of flavour.  Add perfectly cooked noodles, the melt in the mouth beef and the crunchy spring onions, and you have an absolute winner.
House of ho are only 1 year old and I don't believe it has taken us so long to get there.  We would recommend here to anybody and can't wait to get back.

Flesh & Buns Sunday Brunch

Last Sunday we finally hit up Flesh and Buns to try their brunch menu with unlimited red wine, white wine and prosecco. We decided to go last Sunday as we had tickets to the 3rd international series of NFL at Wembley where the Jaguars took on the Cowboys (and lost!) so decided we needed to fill our stomachs...and that we did!!

On arrival we were treated to a bloody Mary or Bellini, endamame beans and rice crackers with guacamole and tomato salsa.

There were 2 brunch options and we went for the £39 menu - below you will see everything we ate! Starters could be ordered as many times as you wanted and then you got to pick a flesh each and then an option of either a donut or black seseme creme brulee. Even thought the menu was a bit fish top heavy for Soph's liking we had an absolutely flawless lunch. The staff were attentive, friendly and forthcoming with the prosseco which was a joy to see as the restaurant was very busy but the staff made us feel like we were the only ones there! 

It's hard to pick our favourite starter although if we had to pick it would probs be the salmon sashimi which was so fresh and beautifully dressed. The signature buns were very tasty although we a little rich after all the light dishes we ate and the bellies were beginning to get full! Our only grip was that we were only given one donut to share between the two of us and the donut was just so delicious we definitely wanted more!

We recommend everyone to go check out Flesh and buns - such great value for money and service! 

Thanks for a great Sunday afternoon! 

Salmon sashimi and California rolls

Chicken Yakitori

Miso Soup

Enjoying the prosecco

Salmon avocado rolls

Korean fried wings

Mixed seafood ceviche

Ariel shot

Fried squid

Crispy duck leg

Crispy piglet belly

Buns

Kinako donut & black sesame creme brulee

Peckham Market

Saturday saw the first EVER Peckham Market.  From the minute we read that Peckham was finally getting a decent food market we have been very excited and subsequently woke up super early in anticipation. Time seemed to stand still which we mooched round the house waiting for the time to don our cycling gear and head down.  The market is held at the Harris Academy car park on Highshore Road, Peckham.  We speedily headed down, locked the bikes up and headed for the stalls. The car park is actually a really good size so great for people who are driving down and there are numerous seating areas so you don't have to spill food all down your front (but all over the tables instead).  With the sun beating down we wondered round the market unable to decide what we wanted to eat/drink first.

First stop was South East Cakery, where we picked up some salted caramel and oreo brownies for later on (knowing how popular they are).  Their brownies are damn good, soft, not stodgy with a nice crisp outside.

Our favourite juice bar Ali Baba had a stand where they had a limited selection of the juices they have on offer at their usual spot - we think they underestimated how busy they were going to be as they had already sold out of the AKB (apple, kale and basil) by the time we arrived at about 11:30. This was actually a pretty good thing for us as we would have had yet another AKB, instead we had spiced pumpkin, carrot and maple juice.  We finished this very quickly and quite surprisingly really enjoyed it (neither of us especially like pumpkin). We can only imagine how much juicing Chris and Sienna did in preparation for the market - even more will be needed next week guys!

Next stop was Club Mexicana who serve vegetarian burritos and tacos.  On Saturday jackfruit burritos and black bean burritos were on offer and we (well Sarah) chose the bbq pulled jackfruit option which was accompanied with rice, lettuce, guacamole and sour cream. Jackfruit is not something we have ever tried before and something we think we would again! Staggering how filling something can be without being stuff full of meat!

We swiftly moved from Mexican to British cuisine where we queued with the masses to try the Original Fry Up Materials breakie muffins and burger. Despite wanting to try the burger we decided we would leave that for another week and go for the breakfast option as it was before 12 and we weren't disappointed! The muffins were large and soft and managed to hold the enormous filling of sausage patty, bacon and egg very well. The sausage patty was really flavoursome and the whole thing was cooked really well but one thing was missing with our muffin and that was coffee...

So we jumped straight in the Mouse Tail queue and sampled by far the best hazelnut mocha we have ever drunk! Each cup was lovingly made by the team and our drink even a heart on the top made out of the milk (great touch!) We were really blown away with the quality of the coffee considering it was brewed out of a VW van and even went to their regular spot by the library on Sunday for seconds!

Having demolished the muffin in a matter of seconds we decided to do another lap of the market with our coffee to see who else was there/who we were going to try next week. Sarah got very excited to see that some borough market stalls were there including the one where she gets her chorizo from and a lovely looking cheese stall. There was a fish mongers, fresh fruit and veg and even a stall selling flowers - Peckham market really had everything going on!

On our list for next week/when we can next go is Bunny Chow,Mamas jerk and Peel and Chimney and we are even tempted by a pasta class with Pastificio Mansi.

The market was a huge success and credit to the band (Eden Billy) who were playing some classics and also to the wonderful one feeds two initiative where every time the market was mentioned on twitter they would donate a meal to a child in poverty #tweetasyoueat

Ooooh also - for bike fans which we are fast becoming Pauls Custom Cycles will be there next week doing free cycle safety checks so what you waiting for - get down to Peckham Market!

Shoryu Ramen

One of our friends was visiting from Manchester on Thursday, and being the very polite people we are we gave her the task of deciding where to eat.  She chose Japanese as there are no decent restaurants in Manchester.... we knew EXACTLY where to take her.  Neither of us had ever eaten at Shoryu Ramen before but we had both heard very very good things about it.  We aimed to eat around 7pm so the 6 of us arranged to meet at the restaurant on Denman St at around 6:30pm.  As always Sarah and I were early so stood for a bit watching scores of people wonder in and out of this place.
When everybody finally arrived we were actually seated very quickly, however it was cosy.  The table was the size you would expect for a table for four so six of us crammed round it eating ramen...well you can only imagine.  We sat and browsed the quite extensive menu for a while, and it was nice not to feel rushed as we were chatting at the same time. 
Sarah and I shared a 2 piece BBQ pork buns and 3 meat gyozas.  The buns were soft, barbecuey and full of flavour.  The gyoza's were cooked perfectly the soft filling worked really well with the slight crunch to the skin.

I then  had the Karaka Tantan Tonkotsu which consists of tonkotsu with a twist, rich and spicy fried minced pork in white miso & garlic with added garlic and chiu chow chilli oil (no BBQ pork, no sesame)

Sarah chose the Dracula (how very apt) this contained deep roasted tones from caramelised black garlic mayu, balsamic vinegar and garlic chips.






The rest of the party each chose the Dracula or the karaka tantan and gyozas.  One of the girls also ordered some tempura sprouts.  I was very excited about this as I LOVE sprouts and think they are so underrated however my excitement was not shared by everybody.  Some of us although we don't hate sprouts will only eat them at Christmas (ahem... Sarah).
Overall the food came out pretty quickly considering the amount we ordered in one go and it was absolutely delicious.   My tonkotsu was a little on the spicy side for some however I thought it was perfect.  It didn't take me long to work out why they named Sarahs' choice Dracula as it was so so so so garlicky.   For some I could imagine it would be too garlicky however for both of us it was pretty dam spot on.  I got to try one of the sprouts and they were really really good, the crunchy outside worked nicely with the well cooked sprout.  I am soon learning that you can near enough tempura anything.  We both left the restaurant really pleased if not alittle stinky (Sarah), and we would 100% go back.