Village East - Bermondsey

 

Sometimes there is nothing better than an incredibly lazy Sunday lie in followed by a hearty meal, all really chilled out because I cannot handle another drop of alcohol before the weekend is out. A quick Google search zooms me on to Village East, with its better than good reviews and the possibility of gorging myself silly on delicious brunch goodies – big fry ups, smoked salmon and wobbly eggs, golden French toast …. buttermilk pancakes!!!!

Orange and Ginger Presse

Short of a skip and a hop (or jumping into the car for the drive to Bermondsey), we arrive in good time but spend another 20  minutes driving around in circles because there’s no bloody parking. I get terribly savage when I’m not fed on time and doesn’t SM know it! SM suggests I’m dropped off to get a table to which I bark it’s bloody pointless since we’re having a fun day out or are supposed to be having one anyway.  Bless SM’s little heart for putting up with me all these years :) We do finally get parking, make it to Village East, are seated at a front facing corner table and then informed by the bemused waitress that the kitchen stopped serving brunch about an hour ago as it was past 3PM. No amount of pleading would get Chef to change his mind, she added. Damnit, it’s bloody Sunday! It should be mandatory that brunch be served all day on a Sunday!

Grudgingly, I settled for Grilled Chicken Sandwich with smoked bacon, flat mushroom and Gruyère cheese (£7.40) and double grudgingly I admitted I was pretty damn happy with it. It was hearty, tasty and just what I needed to take the edge of my Sunday growl.

My side chips (£3.60) were hot, crisp and most importantly skinny. I’m willing to turn a blind eye to the extra calories.

I never thought I’d have such good memories about a salad but there was something so yummy about this one. Thin slices of baby radish, little carrot matchsticks, fine cliced salad onions, small chuncks of tomato, sliced skinless and seedless cucumber on the diagonal tossed with the usual suspects of the green leaf salad bag - baby spinach, chard and rocket. Lightly dressed in a vinegrette. So simple but yet utterly refreshing not just fed green leaves straight out a ready washed bag of leaves.

 

SM was in the mood for a roast and went for the beef Lyonnaise potatoes, veg and gravy.It was rather good despite it looking slightly too pink (for SM) with too thick a border of fatty wobble (for me).

For a sweet treat I manage to convince SM to share a Hot Fudge Sundae with me - really just a ploy to take the edge off my guilt for eating ice cream. And to eat those pesky little marshmellows - chewy little disrruptions to an otherwise perfectly good ice cream dish.

 

I've never been to New York (ok ... so shoot me) but I'm told that places like Village East are in abundance over there (East Village - geddit?). It's cool, it's chilled out. I'm a bit of a fan.

Village East

71-173 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3UW

Dessert Time - Yauatcha, Soho

Following our somewhat disastrous lunch at Spuntino, RB and I were in total agreement we had to make up our day with dessert. And preferably something that oozed chocolate. A leisurely stroll around Soho (to allow for a lengthy digestion of the truffled egg toast), we ended up at Yauatcha. A brilliant dessert choice. Years of staring longingly at their cake offerings at the window was no more ...

 

    

 Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Delice with vanilla ice cream (£7.75)

 

 
Milk Chocolate Praline Cake with kalamansi sorbet (£7.75) - this was so freakin' delicious I still think about it. Chocolate mouse on a crunchy praline base, encased in silky dark chocolate. What hit this on the head was the  kalamansi sorbet .. so mouth puckeringly yummy.

Cucumber and Lime Ice Tea (£4.90)

I have to note that whilst the desserts were pretty darn good, the service really needed a kick up the backside. It may have been graveyard hour (we were probably there at about 16:30 on a warm Sunday afternoon) but it was no excuse to fall behind on service - 10 minutes to bring the bill, no attempts to take our order without arms flailing in the air trying to procure some sort of attention from the staff - all this with a fully staffed restaurant. Shameful!

Yauatcha

15-17 Broadwick Street. Soho, London, W1F 0DL

Sunday Dinner - Canteen, Royal Festival Hall

A blustry Sunday (where has the lovely warm sunshine dissapeared to?) most definitely calls for a hearty Sunday dinner with all the trimmings, of course.

NS had the Roast Chicken and Chips with garlic moyonnaise - the chips were quite lovely - hot and crisp with lots of ultra crunchy bits, which NS totally ruined with a liberal sprinkling of malt vinegar. ARGH! The chicken was, well .. dry. My roast of the day beef was fine. Served medium rare with buttered rosemary scrented greens, non-crunchy spuds, an over done Yorkshire pudding and mediocre gravy.

I gleefully laddled on the horseradish (it came in a cute little Kilner jar) only to realise that Canteen's freshly made horseradish sauce was more horseradish scented crème fraiche. There were a few high notes when the heat kicked in but it mostly fell flat. Think roast beef with a cream sauce.

The Chocolate Brownie Caramel Sundae was probably the highlight of the meal (except when NS kept digging out the peanuts that littered the brownie. I, on the other hand, adore peanuts). The vanilla bean ice cream was lovely - more milky than creamy, which is a particular preference of mine.

The bread pudding was really nice - nicely spiced and lots of little nuggets of raisins. The caramel ice cream though was really not my cuppa tea. Jaw achingly sweet. Yes, I know ... it was caramel ice cream! Like my mother says, it's no point eating caramel if it isn't sweet. Ok, fine.

I really want to like Canteen. I've been there a few times over the years but I just haven't clicked with it. There's always something niggling. Chicken too dry, the hit and miss service, the kitchen's heavy hand with sea salt .... my list is pretty long but almost not substantial enough to completely wipe it off my list of potential places to eat if I so happen to be in the vicinity and fancied myself hungry.

Canteen
Royal Festival Hall, Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX

Bounce Bounce Bouncing Bubbles - Boba Jam, Shaftesbury

Bubble tea - love or hate 'em? Chewy deliciousness or little bouncy health hazards?

I'm totally on the fence on this one. It's always a case of:

• Suck the bubbles up too weakly through the mega bubble tea straw and they simply get stuck halfway up.
• Suck too hard (which trust me will happen when a line of bubbles get stuck) and without fail at least one bloody ball will go shooting to the back of the throat blocking the airway.
  
  
  

It's such a no win situation but yet people love them. Hey, even I got excited when I heard that there was a new bubble tea place in town - Boba Jam on Shaftesbury Avenue. For all my sitting on the fence I've been back twice in the space of a week and bought a total of 3 drinks -heck starting from about 4 quid each (depending on the "extras" you might decide to go for) they don't even have the decency to be cheap! Truthfully, I only went for the bubble that first time in ice blended lemon green tea with an extra serve of aloe vera. Next time it was ice blended peach green tea with nata de coco and a ice blended honey lemon green tea with nata de coco. Yes, I know ... my theme is the ice blended bit. The bubbles I'll happily flick away.

Boba Jam
102 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D5EJ

Malaysia Eats

I thought I should finally sort out my photos tonight, starting with those of Istanbul taken all those months ago back in April. But ... there's always a but ... bloody Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Live Photo Gallery keep crashing my computer so I've given up. I'm too tired to faff around trying to troubleshoot something I haven't a clue about. So I've turned my attention to some of the stuff that never made it to my posts about my last trip home. Just a few photos from various meals. Oh hush my grumbling tummy .........! Enjoy :)

Marco Polo Restaurant
1st Floor, Wisma Lim Foo Yong, Jalan Raja Chulan, 50200 Kuala Lumpur

This used to be one of the places to hold a Chinese wedding banquet when I was a kid. I haven't been back in years. The dim sum is decent - think a step up from your local coffee shop on a Sunday morning and not quite as fancy as the Chinese restaurant at your favourite downtown 5* hotel.

Steamed black pepper chicken balls

Lor mai kai (steamed sticky glutinous rice with chicken, mushrooms and various other bits)

Din Tai Fung
Lot LG-207, Lower Ground Floor, The Gardens, Mid Valley City

Famous for their xiao long bau (Shanghainese soup dumplings) and very popular with my family. The food is pretty good and seems pretty consistent from the two occasions that I've been here. The one thing that grates on me is their insistence of the waiting staff to only speak Mandarin to their customers. Correct me if I'm wrong but Cantonese is the accepted Chinese dialect spoken in KL, so why insist on Mandarin? The waitress is only giving herself more work since she'll have to repeat everything she just said to me in English anyway. Yes, I sound like a spoilt brat and I refuse to apologise for it ..... making me sound even more brattish :)

Xiao long bau ... yum yum yum! Good splurt of hot broth but eat too many and you'll start to notice how fatty each little dumpling is.

Thin slithers of ginger in black vinegar, the traditional accompaniment to xiao long bau.

Deep fried beans with mince. I always thought of this as a Sichuanese dish but apparently it's Shanghainese too.

Braised seaweed topped tofu with Chinese mushrooms

Beard Papa
Lot LG007, Lower Ground Floor, Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur

I haven't had a Beard Papa custard puff in years and it seems like my mum had never had one ever so I bought us one to share. It's still good. And I still not a huge fan of choux pastry.

Ampang Yong Tau Foo (shop next to Foong Foong)
Jalan Besar Ampang, 68000 Ampang

Foong Foong is the family stall of choice when we want Ampang yong tau foo (like so many other families I suspect) but mum broke some rather sad news when I insisted we cross town in mid day traffic to eat here ... Foong Foong is closed. Seriously? Surely not ... it's been there since.... well, since I remember eating yong tau foo. We went anyway and sure enough the shutters were down and the gates firmly padlocked. I hope we went on a day they decided to close for the day or I shall be very upset. So we went to the stall next door. Usually sad and so in need of custom, they were doing a good trade with Foong Foong closed (I don't even know its name ... dearie me). To be fair the yong tau foo tastes (dare I say it .... ) almost the same as Foong Foong but years ago they cocked out and started selling other dishes to entice customers. Imagine ... assam fish with yong tau foo ... impossible!

Our miserly looking 15 piece yong tau foo plate for 4 people ... it just can't compare to my dad's order of 40 pieces for 4 people when I last ate at Foong Foong's in January 2009. This order was definitely enough considering our 4 this time included my 90 year old grandmother who now eats like a bird.


Deep fried sui kow (like wontons but better!)


This is really what I come for ... the soup sui kow. This has got to be one of my all time favourite foods.

Restoran SS2 Murni
Jalan SS2/75, Petaling Jaya

Murni has got to be one of the coolest mamaks around. Run by a Chinese owner (*eyebrow raised .... "really?"), it's frequented by a truely muhibah crowd ... we sat next to a large Indian family finishing their dinner, a Malay couple eating roti and sipping teh ais whilst talking quietly to each other, a young Chinese couple sharing an extra large juice and a maggie goreng as they busily texted friends and practically ignoring each other, a large group of friends who were very possibly in college together. And there was me and my sister busy stuffing our faces, nudging each other and cackling out loud as we watched out our neighbours. I've been coming here for years and it's still as busy as it was when I was in college. The food is insane ... the menu combination is like no other mamak - there's your traditional rotis and rotis with a new twist - roti hawaii, roti seafood, roti salad. There's also the steak and chips, loh shu fun, spaghetti marinara. Brilliant!

The juices are also another reason to drop by Murni. We both got the medium watermelon juice special. Fresh watermelon juice blended with lots of ice, topped with lychee, chopped watermelon and nata de coco. So damn good on a muggy evening.


Candice had a hankering for fried chicken so we got fried chicken. The waiter gave us a choice which was - batter or not batter? Errr .... no batter please. Batterless fried chicken .. almost pointless. It was quite nice though. A whole chicken leg marinated in soy and served with chili sauce.


My must have dish when I'm back in KL - Maggie goreng. Probably not as good as other mamak stalls but it'll do.


Roti Jepun - we're still not entirely sure what was in this but we think it was egg, cheese and condensed milk (or the Malaysian version of dairy free condensed milk anyway). Not sure how this is in anyway Japanese and it wasn't particularly great.


Roti Hawaii - a new twist on the traditional murtabak. Filled with mince beef, sliced frankfurters, tinned pineapple and cheese. Topped with a generous squeeze of the mayonnaise bottle. Served with a blob of red sauce (chili or ketchup?), dhal and curry. What a combination. I oddly liked this. Give me frankfurters and ketchup and I can be very forgiving.

Penang Teochew Cendul
Lebuh Keng Kwee, Off Penang Road, Penang

Part of our search for good Penang char kway teow included a cendul stop (see post here). There was apparently a very good stall that we just had to try. Personally I wasn't too bothered to get to this stall. It was a horridly hot day, I was stuffed from too much lunch and it was too comfortable in the air conditioned car to tempt me out. But hey I was on holiday and it would be mighty unsociable to continue snoozing in the car, which would get baking hot the moment the engine was stopped. So we trudged along Penang Road, not quite sure where we were going until we found it. A dingy little stall down a side street with a crowd of people holding plastic bowls. The sign proudly proclaimed it as the famous Penang Road Teochew cendol. So how is Teochew cendol different from ... let's say the Indian guy who sells it? No idea. This stall does however add red beans to their concoctions. Ergh! Hate red beans.

I just had to be difficult - my special order of no red beans. Good cendol? It was ok cendol.Less sweet than many other I have tried. My mother who has a particularly sweet tooth would have complained they were too light on the gula melaka. Ahhh each to his own I suppose :)

It's A Long Ride Home

I hate travelling. Oh I don't dislike going on holiday, quite the contrary in fact, but I hate the journey. The waiting around, the boredom, the stress ... especially long journeys with transits when you're travelling alone. After awhile all airport transit lounges roll into one. This time it was Dubai International, the last it was Schiphol. Funny how I've been through these airports but have never visited the cities of Dubai and Amsterdam.

Long trips away mean cleaning out the fridge of any immediate perishables. There have been numerous occasions when I have been away only to return to find rotting veg - nice, eww! This time I smartened up (finally!) and cooked myself a big wokful of vegetable fried rice, dumping in all those bits and pieces that seemed to have built up in the fridge. Overnight rice, beansprouts (which I had always turned my nose up at in fried rice but it's actually quite nice if the crunch is maintained), broccoli, tomatoes, sliced ham, tinned tuna in oil - all mixed together with a good dash of fish sauce, oyster sauce and white pepper. This is my Everything Rice. Ingredients are, of course, seasonal :)

I guess it's not entirely true to say that if you've seen one airport you have seen them all. They are remarkably similar but some are a whole load nicer than others. I'll probably say the same thing about Starbucks. I'm sure I've said this before - whilst I'm all for the independent coffee shop I do love my Starbucks. There's something quite comforting in getting the same thing that tastes the same anywhere you are in the world. At Dubai International my Iced Mocha tasted good, the same, the usual .... but oh dear god ... that is not a muffin! It looked normal enough. You know muffin like. It smelt like what it said on the label - banana and choc chip. But I could have given someone a serious concussion if I had lobbed it at their head (not that I had reason nor occasion to). It was that solid. Hard and dry. Let's just say it gave for some interesting eating.

Back on the plane I was pleasantly surprised to find myself with three whole seats to myself. Since Emirates separated the KL and Jakarta legs, the KL flight has been a bit quieter. From the refreshments cart I got myself an orange juice and a glass of water. Got to keep those hydration levels up. Next up food - yay! I only managed to chip through a quarter of that muffin.

Sweet and sour chicken on fried noodles. Sounded promising, tasted disgusting. To be fair the meat was fairly tasty and moist. The sauce and and noodles, on the other hand, were so gloopy they just melded together and formed a large pool of mush.

The strangest Niçoise salad I have ever encountered. I thought the version I had in Paris last summer that was served with rice was a bit odd but this didn't even look like a Niçoise. If I hadn't checked the menu, I would have just brushed it off as a very untasty potato salad.

The saving grace of the meal was dessert. Tiramisu, halal style (minus the alcohol) with chocolate sauce. It wasn't traditional but more like a nice creamy dessert.

All that food and I still managed a good 4-5 hour sleep. Next stop - KL International. I'm going home!