Polish It Off

Manbacon and I spent the first few days of October in Poland, ostensibly for his cousin's wedding, but in reality we were getting fed until we were fit to burst. Not that I'm complaining. 

We drank lots of kompot, which is basically fruit (in this case, apples) boiled in plenty of water, and sweetened with sugar. 

Lots of cured meat products, including sausages, bacon and plenty of ham - for breakfast, lunch, dinner and in-between snacks. 

Manbacon caught a cold which he then thoughtfully transferred to me. His parents made us this rather interesting concoction of milk, butter, garlic and honey to drink before bedtime. I know it sounds disgusting, but it was honestly rather pleasant. 

Delicious homemade golabki (go-womp-kee), served with a sort of cabbage and meat stew in the second picture. 

These two pictures above are just a couple of dishes we were served at the wedding. However, after all that delicious homecooked food, the food here paled in comparison. The pork was dry and chewy, and most of the other dishes were just uninspiring. 

More photos to come in the next few posts!

New World, (not so) New Year!

Well, this little post is rather late, isn't it? I had meant to write it up just after the New Year, but we are now nearly a quarter of the way into 2012 which means I have failed rather miserably. 

I know that I've claimed quite a few times in the past that Dragon Castle was my favourite dim sum place in London, but I'm afraid that is a lie. It's actually only my second favourite, having been pushed out by a new contender. That interloper happens to be New World in Chinatown - an old stalwart which I've recently sort of 'rediscovered'. 

Rice noodle rolls with prawns

Deepfried savoury dumplings with a minced pork filling

Tripe with...stuff

Prawn dumplings - har gow

Deepfried prawn and pork spring rolls

Crispy roast pork belly

Roast suckling pig

The dim sum served here is more or less similar to the prawn and pork mince-based items served in most dim sum places, along with a few other specials including roast suckling pig. I was particularly excited to try the suckling pig. It proved, however, to be slightly disappointing - while the meat itself was tender and succulent, the skin (which I had looked forward to) was hardly crisp and crackly, probably a result of having sat too long in the cart. 

Oh yes, the carts! Probably the main reason why New World is now top of my list - the waitstaff here trundle around with little carts stacked full of dainty dishes. The carts are brought round to your table, where you can point at the dishes that take your fancy. It makes for a much more entertaining meal, as well as negates the need for the guessing game that sometimes occurs when faced with a long list of dishes. 

Other carts are filled with boiling stock and topped with nests of noodles, much like street food carts in some Asian countries. You can ask for freshly cooked noodles in soup, made right in front of you. I resisted the temptation to go for a bowl of noodles this time, but that's not to say I won't be so wise in future.

Deepfried prawn springrolls wrapped in beancurd skin

Dessert soup thing of mango juice with grapefruit and mango bits 

This little bowl of soupy dessert has now become my new favourite dim sum dessert. The first time I went to New World, I asked for my usual dessert option of mango pudding - the delicious but boring choice - but was offered this because the pudding was out of stock. The cold, sweet and slightly citrusy 'soup' is light and just refreshing enough after a heavy dim sum meal, and definitely much more interesting than a mango pudding. But I still love you too, mango pudding...

New World

1 Gerrard Street

W1D 5PA

Christmas!

It's taken a while, but I'm finally getting round to posting photos of my Christmas feast. We decided to have it at home this time, and celebrated it on Christmas Eve with the delightful Miss Kitty Valentine, my cushion-making partner in crime Aldona and her family.

In true over-the-top Polish tradition, our dinner consisted of at least 12 dishes (since I'm not actually Polish, I don't know if it is true that a Polish Christmas dinner has to include 12 dishes, it's just what I've been told.) 

The coffee table had an array of sweets - (from top), homemade panforte, a quince, ginger and walnut cake based on this recipe, and some untraditionally shaped gingerbread biscuits (gingerbread T-rex, anyone?). Aldona also brought along some makowiec (poppyseed cake) and more biscuits.

The star of the night, a perfectly roasted goose! Manbacon (who can be partially seen behind the bird) cooked the goose himself, following a great recipe by the Hairy Bikers. He also managed to rustle up succulent salt beef, as well as plenty of delicious apple and pork stuffing. 

£10 notes to wipe our greasy hands and lips on, because we're hedonists and filthy rich. You can't see it, but we also had a stack of £20 and £50 note-napkins. 

Wild mushroom dumplings in beetroot soup (above), as well as some bigos, plenty of cured pork products, some marinated herrings, and possibly some other stuff as well. 

The aftermath - empty vodka bottles, half-finished bowls of soups and stews, burnt-out candles, crumpled napkins and wrapping paper, plenty of half-eaten food, and one stained tablecloth. Our guests were sent away with boxes stuffed full of food. 

Revisiting Silk Road Restaurant

Well, business certainly seemed to have picked up at Silk Road Restaurant since the last time I wrote about it. Back then, we pretty much had the place to ourselves, even if it was a weekend. On our last two visits (twice within a week, both on Sunday nights), the place was packed with a mixture of students and family groups. Lucky for us though, there was a long, empty table left so we didn't have to endure an awkward table-sharing situation until halfway through our meal - and we were so engrossed in our meal by then that we hardly noticed the newcomers. 

Kelp in spicy sauce

Manbacon and I started with kelp in garlicky, spicy sauce - it's the one dish we always order on our visits there. I love it so much I'm pretty sure I could eat it every day if I had to (not really sure what situation would come up in which I would HAVE to eat it all the time though).

Egg, leek and shrimp dumplings

I wasn't feeling particularly meaty that day, so we got the egg, leek and shrimp dumplings instead. As usual, not particularly shrimpy, but still tasty and filling. I like dipping them into vinegar (provided on the side of every table) - the acidity really helps cut through the rather thick skin and gives it a bit of a kick.

Beef and potato

This was Manbacon's choice and it was...just okay. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in a restaurant that has so many outstanding dishes, this just didn't stand out. It's slow-cooked beef with chunks of potatoes, in a soy sauce based gravy. The beef was tender and the sauce went well with white rice (we ordered a bowl to share) but it was just a little...meh.

Spinach with chilli

I'm not sure what kind of spinach they used here, but it was definitely a more robust cousin to the soggy, easily-wilted kind other restaurants use. The hardy greens were great for soaking up the garlic and chilli sauce, and for injecting some much-needed vitamins into my relatively poor diet. 

They may have become busier, but I'm glad to report that standards haven't slipped one bit, and prices are still as low as ever. But it would be great if you didn't all come at once - I still like not having to wait for an empty table there. 

Silk Road Restaurant
49 Camberwell Church Street
SE5 8TR

Eating Europe Part 4 - Poland

Ate soooo much in Poland - this is just from the first couple of days. 

Manbacon's mother presented us with this wonderful meal as soon as we arrived home in Stalowa Wola - freshly made breaded pork and warm, buttered new potatoes with dill, as well as the obligatory plate of pickles. The perfect meal for two tired travelers on a rainy afternoon.

I got hungry during a walk around the neighbourhood, so we headed in to Ekspres Bistro for a pick-me-up meal of pierogi, served with a garnish of crispy fried lard.

Delicious homebaked goodies (again, made by Manbacon's mum) - raspberry cake with a jelly layer on top, as well as Polish-style apple cake-pie.

Oh, and bread from a street stall in Krakow - it was so deliciously chewy I forgot to document it until very nearly the last bite. You'll see little old ladies selling these behind blue metal and glass carts all over Krakow. Did I mention I went to Krakow too? Well, I did.

More to come soon...

Been Cooking...

Pierogi - with my op-shopped dumpling press for perfect pleats everytime. My stumpy fingers are just not dexterous enough to form pleasant-looking, evenly-spaced pleats.

Orange, candied ginger and dark chocolate loaf, with a toasted coconut topping. We had visitors over for dinner about 2 weeks ago, and this was a last-minute, throw-everything-together experiment that worked. 

Scrambled eggs with mushrooms. 

Mac and cheese with cauliflower and bit of salami thrown in. Can you believe the Manbeast has never had mac and cheese before this? Sacre bleu!

Tea eggs - Hard boil some eggs, lightly crack the shells all over, then pop them into a pot, add a tea bag, star anise, cinnamon, ginger and a couple of teaspoons of soy sauce (or salt).

Simmer on low heat for half an hour to an hour, then let it soak in the mixture. It keeps for a few days, and always tastes better if you let it sit for at least a day before peeling and eating. 

Peel them and marvel at the pretty patterns, then enjoy.

Lime meltaways, from Not So Humble Pie's recipe. I left out the salt and green colouring, and I didn't dust them with icing sugar either. Because I'm a badarse in the kitchen.

Dragon Castle Dim Sum

Plain rice noodle rolls (left) and fried turnip cake (centre)

Two-in-one celebrations require twice the amount of food, right? Since Valentine's Day and the Lunar New Year both fell on the same day this year, I felt it was my duty to eat for two (no, I'm not pregnant, I'm just fat!).

If you've read any of my other paltry attempts at 'restaurant reviews', you're probably aware that I tend to order  waaaayyyy too much food; I wonder if my being born in the Year of the Pig has anything to do with it?

Anyway, The Mancreature and I trooped down the hill to Dragon Castle, just behind the Elephant and Castle. It's hard to miss, housed in a Soviet-style blue square building with huge red doors and the obligatory pair of stone lions standing guard in front. We got there just after they opened, which proved to be a good decision, as the place started filling up pretty soon after that, and there was a fairly long queue by the time we left.

On to the food; I'm not exaggerating when I said we ordered too much. The thing about dim sum is that everything seems so deceptively tiny, so you keep ticking off the dishes until, before you know it, you've got 11 dishes on the list, and someone (it wasn't me, I swear!) says "Let's make it an even 12." Infamous last words, indeed.

(A note on ordering: this isn't one of those places where you have the ladies pushing trolleys of food around, so you can't point at what you fancy. There is little dim sum menu with numbered pictures of the dishes, and the names of the dishes are in both English and Chinese. You'll have to tick off the dishes you want on a piece of paper provided - its got names in Chinese, so if you can't read Chinese, just match the numbers up. There's also a separate a la carte menu you can order from.)

Minced prawns wrapped in fried bean curd skin.

I didn't take photos of everything we ordered (because I was too busy chowing down) and I can't remember everything that I ordered, so I'll just describe what I remember.

Fried turnip cake (first photo): sooo good! It was soft and smooth on the inside, with little bits of Chinese sausage scattered around, and the crisp, fried bits on the edges were just right. Best of all, it wasn't too greasy, so I didn't feel like I was just sucking down oil, even when it got cold.

Minced prawns in fried bean curd skin (second photo): Possibly my favourite item. Juicy pink prawns with a really 'bouncy' tender, wrapped in crispy layers of golden fried bean curd skin. Bean curd skin is really underrated, it's awesome!

Plain rice noodle rolls (left, first photo): These are called 'cheeong fun' in Cantonese, I think. We ordered the plain, steamed ones, and they came in a little layer of soy sauce and sesame oil, which kept them from getting dry. They also gave us a little dipping bowl filled with hoisin sauce and peanut sauce (like a really smooth, more liquid version of peanut butter). I've never had them with that peanut sauce before, and I'm definitely a convert! I reckon I could eat it for breakfast for a whole week (not more than that though, I'd probably get bored with it).

Steamed turnip dumplings

Steam turnip dumplings (both photos above): I think these were the Mancreature's favourite. They have some minced pork and bits of peanuts in them, and they were surprisingly most inside, unlike the...

Shanghai Xiaolongbao: Ok, maybe it's just me being stupid, but I always thought that a 'Shanghai xiaolongbao' had broth inside them? They were described as 'Shanghai minced pork dumplings' in English, and the Chinese characters seemed to say they were 'xiaolongbao'. My Chinese is fairly rudimentary though, so it could have been my fault. Anyway, these ones didn't have any broth in them, just a lot of very dry pork. I had one and could barely finish it. 

Har Gow (steamed prawn dumplings)

Har Gow (photo above): I order har gow as a yardstick to test how good a dim sum place is. There's no good reason for that, now that I think of it. I just like these dumplings, and they're fairly simple, so I tend to think a place is no good if they can't even pass the 'har gow test'. Dragon Castle's were awesome - pale pink balls of prawn wrapped in soft, yet firm and translucent skin. I didn't even dip them into any sauce because I just wanted to enjoy the unadulterated taste of them. (Oh, by the way, they actually come in fours, I ate one before I got around to taking a photo.)

Steamed beef balls in bean curd skin: Bleuurgghh! The bean curd skin couldn't even save these from being crap. They just tasted weird - a little too vinegary, and bland too. I've never ordered them here before, so I don't know if it was just an off-day, or if that's how they are. 

Siu Mai (more steamed prawn dumplings)

Siu Mai (photo above): More steamed prawns - not horrible, but not especially memorable either. They come in fours too, one of us ate one before this photo was taken. 

Mango pudding

Mango pudding (photo above): Another of my inexplicable 'dim sum yardsticks'. This was sitting in a pool of condensed milk, giving it just the right touch of sweetness (the pudding itself isn't very sweet). The pudding was very creamy, unlike the more jelly-like ones you get at some places. I love it - not so sure about that glace cherry on top though.

Steamed bun with lotus paste filling

Steamed buns with lotus paste filling (photo above): I love you, my little bunny-wunny. There was also half a salted egg yolk instead, which was a pleasant surprise. It was like eating a light, fluffy version of a mooncake. I find most mooncakes too dense, but I could have eaten at least 4 of these on my own, if I wasn't so close to exploding. 

Dragon Castle

100 Walworth Road

SE17 1LJ