Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Return to Siam Inter Thai

We returned to this London Road restaurant as the prospect of macaroni cheese from a box was unappealing to Steve, I’d have been quite happy to have this but as we were already in Steers Beers and in such close proximity it seemed almost rude not to. I was literally beaming with happiness when we entered; I’d had a pretty stressful day and was thoroughly chuffed about being treated to a meal, courtesy of my thoughtful and caring bf. I’d noticed as we walked up the ramp that the external signage has slightly changed and it now read Thai Cuisine rather than Siam Inter, inside too had been changed dramatically, gone was the fishy smell, instead the place had new décor and it looked great. We ordered curries this time, I had gaeng ge-ree gai, a delicate yellow curry with chicken and potaoes, he had red curry with chicken. We both ordered a portion of steamed rice and I ate the thai crackers as we waited.

As I looked around I noticed that every diner’s meal looked absolutely massive and when I was presented with by decidedly smaller meal I was very disappointed. This feeling did not last long though after I’d tasted my first mouthful, oooweee, it was delicious. A perfect thai curry, just the right amount of heat, sweetness and tang. I tasted the curry opposite and that was great too, a little too hot for me, after too much I wouldn’t have enjoyed it but it was great to taste. The portions were perfect too, just the right amount of each, as usual my eyes were bigger than my stomach.

This was a totally different dining experience from our first where we'd ordered a set menu, we had less choice but chose more for our own tastes and this served us well. The meal itself cost about £20 which I think was a great price for the quality of the food, surrounding and service, we both left extremely satisfied and slightly annoyed that we didn’t have enough change for a tip – not to worry we’ll make it up to them next time as we’re sure to return.

Cubana

We have a new dining out regime that I’m sure you’re all mad to hear about, basically instead of eating out all of the time we’re limiting ourselves to one meal out per month in a bid to save money. So on the first of every month we’ll be choosing a place to dine, and it better be good as we have to wait another thirty days till the next opportunity.

In another effort to not spend too much we ensured we got to Cubana during happy hour where you can order two tapas dishes for £5.95, which is practically half price depending on what choices you make. We ordered our food and drank San Miguel as we waited; the waiter commented that we must have been hungry as we’d ordered quite a lot. When the food arrived we had to manoeuvre plates around the table as there clearly wasn’t enough room for everything. The pollo y chorizo dish was delicious, heavily flavoured with the accompanying peppers, the chorizo looked more like pepperoni pizza slices than the massive chunks I’ve had there previously. The Cordero en vino tinto, was sublime, the lamb chunks were tender, the thick sauce was a savoury delight, so much so I was barely put off by its oily consistency.
Esparragos trigueros, the asparagus was lightly grilled, tasted fresh and well suited to the light and tangy cheese it was served with. Champinones con queso de cabra, button mushrooms served in a creamy white wine and goats cheese sauce, this was amazing too, the sauce specifically was excellent and once the mushrooms had been extracted served as dip for everything else. Mmmm. Jamon y queso de cabra was the next dish, the goats cheese wrapped in Serrano ham was devine, I love goats, especially when it’s been baked and it’s all gooey. We also had Pez espada con espinacas, this was from the cold tapas menu, the thinly sliced swordfish was pinky and almost transclucent, served on a bed of lemony spinach, which worked so well together, though this too was too oily. Also from the cold tapas menu we had Mozzarella y jamon, mozzarella sticks wrapped in parma ham, this was fine. Boquerones was the dish we were both looking forward to but were left slightly disappointed as the anchovy fillets marinated in vinegar just weren’t strong enough. We much prefer the version you can buy from the deli counter in Waitrose, we never buy enough of these and have usually devoured them by the time we get home! On top of all that we also ate the delicious Patatas bravas, the Spanish style potatos I always get, they were goooood! The food was great, if not overly greasy, the price was good too because of the deal. I’d recommend taking advantage of this as you can get twice as much food.

Eating in Krakow

Last month we travelled to Poland, touching down in Krakow. The guy from our hotel recommended a couple of places, one of which was two doors down from the hotel we stayed at, so this was our first point of call. We were handed menus in polish and perused them for way too long despite our inability to actually read them. Once this situation had been corrected we ordered Pierogi, mine stuffed with cheese, his stuffed with pork and beef. When they arrived they look identical to the Chinese dumplings we’ve been noshing of late. They looked like huge ravioli except without a sauce, though mine had a little melted butter to soak up with the dough. When I bit into my ‘cheese’ Pierogi I found the strangest combination of flavours, sweet and savoury at the same time. At first I thought the butter was a kind of syrup, but after further inspection of the contents of the dumpling I worked out that the cheese was in fact the sweet ingredient, and tasted like soft cheese mixed with icing sugar. I think I ate a couple of them while I was making up my mind and then eventually gave up and tried the pork and beef variety, mercifully savoury. The texture of the contents reminded me of really flaky tuna or beef spread and tasted like a mixture of the two.

Krakow has a lot of fast food available to purchase on the street, practically on the corner of every street are pretzel vendors selling all sizes and shapes of lovely soft bread for about 40p. We also sampled the equally rife kebabs, in toasted pitta with hot sauce and oodles of cabbage. That was delish, though I managed to drip the yoghurty dressing all down myself leaving some worrying marks around my crotch.

In the evening we walked to a place near the Jewish Quarter that Steve had been to before, he was looking forward to the huge quantities of meat he’d been served last time. Once we were sat down one of the diners next to us told us we wouldn’t need two courses, only order one. Steve ordered the Officer’s Platter, which was a mixed grill and I ordered lamb sausages. His food was delivered on a wooden board with potatoes, all the meat was nice and there was quite pile a lot of it. Mine was also nice, with chips, we shared it and exchanged different meats and styles of potatoes romantically across the table. Accompanying the meal, accompanying most meals in Poland was the traditional polish salad of cabbage and beetroot in various guises, usually I’m not a massive cabbage fan, certainly not the traditional Yorkshire way of cooking it, where it’s boiled within an inch of it’s life and slopped onto the plate unseasoned as part of a Sunday roast, but I can usually manage pickled cabbage as I’m a huge fan of pickled everything (apart from eggs – that’s so wrong) but there was an undertone of something unfamiliar and unpleasant, I think it was mint. Not a fan of mint at all. All in all the meal was great and I was ravenous any way due to the epic fail of the meal earlier. All this was served up with large amounts of Polish beer, live polish music with an energetic atmosphere. Last time Steve was here for his cousins wedding the bride, a local, said it was the best place to eat in Krakow. We drank and ate too much and truly had a good night, I’ve just found their card in my wallet it was called Pod Wawelem on Gertrudy and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Krakow, just don’t order two courses, one course is more than enough.

On the last night we literally walked around for an hour trying to choose somewhere to eat, somewhere that served both borsch, a polish beetroot soup and bigos a rustic kind of stew, as Steve wanted to try them both before we left. Nowhere served bigos and our wanderings had made me hungry so we settled for somewhere else the hotel guy had recommended again, Miod i Vino, translated as Honey and Wine, he said it was lovely food just a little more expensive. Steve wanted to order a Dukes Taster Menu where you try a little bit of loads of different dishes, but unfortunately that was off the menu. Massive shame as we love our platter style food. We ordered starters, Steve had the borsch, served in a big mug and I ordered Krakow herring, served with sour cream and onions. I didn’t particularly like mine, the texture of the herring wasn’t nice, though I did like the sour cream and onion mixture on the top and spooned that onto the dark, dense bread we’d been given. Steve loved the herring so we swapped over and he hungrily shovelled my starter into his mouth while I hesitantly tasted the borsch. It was okay, but I didn’t want much of it, again there was a sweetness to it that I couldn’t come to terms with, I’d expected it to taste salty and acetous, so most of that was left untouched on the table. My main was pleat of pork tenderloin in a creamy sauce, and when it arrived on the table I realised that pleat meant plait and the meat had literally been plaited. There’s something either troubling or charming at the thought of a chef, hunched over the work surface, tongue out in concentration with slivers of meat between his fingers as he plaits my dinner for me. That, my friend is workmanship. It was great. Loved this meal, we got rice and polish style potatoes as well. Steve had stuffed pork with sheep cheese, this also was loverly, just not as good mine. Again the atmosphere in here was lively, the traditional band playing roused the diners.

We returned home with our favourite part of Poland, backpacks crammed with as much Zubrovka as we could afford/carry. This Polish Vodka, flavoured with bison grass, tastes great chilled or my favourite with apple juice. You can’t buy it in the UK and this is pretty much why we went to Poland.