Archive
Classic Vegetarian Cookery: Arto der Haroutanian
Bean there, done that
Like many people my flirtation with vegetarianism ended with the waft of a bacon roll. Working in advertising I was frequently on film sets at ‘sparrow fart’, as times before dawn were called, and when you’re hungry, cold and hungover a bacon butty is irresistible.
There was also the dawning realisation that the girlfriend, who was the real veggie, was frying everything in order to make it tasty and I was ballooning in weight. This was the 1980s you understand, we knew more about Rick Astley than we did about eating a wholesome diet.
It was clear though even then that the tastiest vegetarian meals came from the East or Middle East. Those cultures had long traditions of eating vegetables as something more than a boring side dish and could do things to them that made them stars in their own right.
Classic Vegetarian Cookery has been unavailable for almost 20 years, the author Arto der Haroutanian can now be seen to have been ahead of his time. An Armenian by birth he was brought up from the age of 12 in the North West of England and was a painter of international distinction, as well as the owner of a chain of hotels and restaurants where Armenian cookery featured. Read more…
Brasserie Joel, London
First Floor, Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, City of London SE1 7UT www.brasseriejoel.co.uk
Rather moody
The Park Plaza hotel is south of the river, but only just. Run full tilt out of the foyer and you’ll be in the Thames seconds later and soon bobbing past the London Eye.
South of the river but not of The South, the hotel resolutely turns its back on the area and instead looks toward Parliament across Westminster Bridge. In fact approach as we did from the rear and you find yourself forced to detour around endless pelican crossings before making your final assault on the front door.
Even then it’s not over, the escalators packed with happy tourists take you up to a modernistic foyer (i.e. it looks nothing like one) with no sign of, or signs to, the restaurant. It is in fact a sharp left and left again down a long moodily lit corridor toward a tall reception desk where a guardian coolly appraises your approach while you will yourself not to do a Miranda pratfall.
And yet in the restaurant it’s friendly and family, guests from many nations are eating and there are even small children too. Yes the mood is Hotel, but the food is something else. Back in the 1990s Joel Antunes was chef/patron at Les Saveurs, now sadly gone to the great griddle in the sky, and back then we flocked to eat there. Now he’s back in London and thanks to him this is no ‘hotel restaurant’. Read more…
The Drift, Heron Tower, London
Heron Tower, 110 Bishopsgate, EC2N 4AY. www. thedriftbar.co.uk
The entrance to Drift is around the side of the Heron Tower, but it’s worth going into the main reception to ‘ask directions’ just to get a whiff of that new building smell and stare in awe at the fish tank.
In fact it’s not so much a tank as Europe’s largest privately owned aquarium. It’s so massive you expect a heavily tied up James Bond to suddenly drop into it , and then a shark to appear looking peckish.
After security has firmly set you on the right path you find The Drift itself. A new London restaurant, triple-heighted, with a bar on the ground floor and the restaurant on the first, it’s clangy and modern but not unpleasant. The mix of seating, with tables of various heights plus large refectory ones that seat eight, means it caters for all pay grades in a pleasingly egalitarian manner Read more…
Meat the experts at A La Cruz
What’s a Greek urn? About 3 Euros an hour. What’s an Asador? Ah now you’re asking. Think a controlled bonfire, not the one your dad used to make from collected leaves and a squirt of petrol, the one that always made a satisfying ‘whump!’ as it set your eyebrows on fire. No this is very different.
Out on the Argentine plains, explains John Rattagan, his bald head shining with perspiration in the fierce heat of the kitchen, an asador is a big wood fire where freshly killed and prepped lambs and other meats are mounted on ‘crosses’ and cooked over its flames. John and his partners have brought this concept to EC1 with restaurant A La Cruz where an asador made of polished steel sits proudly in customers’ view behind thick plate glass. Read more…
Big Burger at Bistro du Vin, Soho
36 Dean Street, W1D 4PS www.bistroduvinandbar.com
If I were designing the perfect burger then before looking for the best meat or best bun supplier, I’d get a tape measure.
Gathering together a random sample of punters I’d ask them to open their mouths as wide as possible. My trained assistant would then measure the ‘gape’ from top teeth to bottom set. A simple calculation would give the average opening and the measurement would be passed on to the kitchen.
The fact is that any burger that requires the jaw dislocation skills of an anaconda is going to be a bit of a bugger to eat. You either push the top and bottom in with the spare hand that you don’t have, or accept that it’s going to get very messy. Using a knife and fork is, of course, just silly.
You can try compressing the burger before attempting eating, but then you have the problem of maintaining a constant hold. If you try and put the burger down, the whole thing springs apart like a broken watch. Read more…
Everybody needs good neighbours
And it was all yellow.
Its glut time. The neighbours know it and hide behind the curtains when they see me trudging up their path with a heavy carrier bag. ‘Oh no, it’s Nick with more veg!’
I don’t want to suggest my neighbours are burger eaters, the sort of people who think anything green is going to be bad for them, it’s just that you can have too much of a good thing. Or at least they can.
At first the neighbours are genuinely pleased to get a bag of organic veg. They peer in with obvious delight and make encouraging noises. Than as the allotment gets up steam the cries of pleasure seem a bit tinged with exasperation. Read more…
Assaggini
71 Haymarket London SW1Y 4RW assaggini.co.uk
Haymarket is a not a road that I stroll down very often but then who does? It’s more like a motorway with its one-way traffic hurtling down and the buses bellowing that jet engine noise that all old Volvo buses seem to make. Yes I am such a nerd I have actually made a point of noting the manufacturer.
Crossing the road is life threatening, so it’s as well that Haymarket is lined with restaurants on both sides. And what a lot of restaurants there are. Well-known chains, all catering to the Croydon crowd come up West for the night. I can slander Croydon like this because I was born and lived there until I was 16, so I know of what I slag. Read more…
Here we go round the mulberry bush
Sam Harrison is walking around a sun blasted garden in ‘leafy’ Chiswick looking like Macbeth after a particularly heavy night with the in-laws. His hands are running blood red; juice drips down his arms and gorily spatters onto the grass. He is a very happy man.
We’ve been up the Mulberry Bush, not around it, to gather the massive harvest of berries from a tree that’s at least 150 years old. Its limbs languidly sprawl all over the place, like an Old Etonian on a sofa, and under the canopy of leaves the berries are fruiting heavily. Read more…
Nick Harman 