sherry and ham...by invitation

  

I am a regular reader of The London Foodie and have written a few guest update reviews for the site. As a result, I was invited to join Luiz at the press opening of Capote y Toros, a new sherry and ham bar by Abel Lusa, the owner of Cambio de Tercios and Tendido Cero.

I found Capote y Toros easily. It is located in South Kensington, a short walk from Earls Court Tube Station. I arrived just as Mr. London Foodie himself and we entered as the very first guests of the evening. The place was small but well decorated to go with the name. Capote y Toros translates to Cape and Bulls and the walls were covered with images of bullfighting. We were immediately served a Fino, a very dry sherry, that was complemented by salted almonds and olives. We were seated in the bar stools just under the impressive display of over 100 types of sherry that the bar has on offer. It is the largest sherry bar in London and possibly the world; even Spain doesn’t have one as impressive!  Soon after we tasted the delicious high quality Iberico ham. It was very thinly sliced and full of flavour. That was the beginning of an endless flow of Andalucían tapas that included anchovies, albondigas and a selection of ham.

The resident sherry expert, Emanuele, gave us an informative lesson on sherry. Luiz was already quite knowledgeable but it was all new to me. Our sherry glasses were always full with samples of Finos, Manzanillas and Pedro Ximénez. We even tried a mix of Manzanilla and Pedro Ximénez. The combination was delicious; not too sweet and not too dry.

Capote y Toros is a lovely new place to stop for a quick drink or for an educational sherry experience. The menu offers a sherry flight that provides the opportunity to sample a selection of different sherries with matched tapas. I think this would be an excellent option for a novice sherry drinker. If you really don't want sherry, don't worry, they have an extensive wine list as well.

I have not had the opportunity to try the sister restaurant (Cambio de Tercios) or tapas bar (Tendido Cero) located on the same street. However, based on my experience at Capote y Toros, I plan to try each of them in the near future.

Breakfast by Tiffany; Arizona-style

The beautiful sunshine that London has been so lucky to have this weekend reminds me of home and inspired me to make one of my favourite breakfasts...breakfast burritos! This is a great Southwestern-American breakfast that includes a lot of the same ingredients as a typical cooked breakfast but all wrapped up in a nice tidy tortilla package. This is one of the only southwestern/mexican style breakfasts that is easy to make in the UK as it is made from flour tortillas and not corn tortillas. Corn tortillas are difficult to track down in the UK... Cool Chile co has a booth at the Borough Market and will sell you a dozen for a steep £2. Every time I get them there I vow to make my own...and really I should more often. Flour tortillas, however, are sold at every major supermarket for less than a pound for a packet of 6. Just get the store brand plain tortillas...they are softer and cheaper than the El Paso or Mission brand. They aren't like the fresh ones in AZ, but they do the job ;)

The most important ingredients are the potato and the egg. These two items put the "breakfast" in the burrito. A lot of times (like at McDonalds) you'll get just eggs and cheese. The potato adds another texture that works really well. To make it great it would also have machaca beef or mexican chorizo. If you happen to find yourself in Tucson, AZ and keen to try a breakfast burrito at its best, then track down a Nico's Tacos. It is a 24-hour fast food restaurant local to Tucson and soooo good. It is the only drive-through I recommend. It is family run, but they now have 8 locations. I order the machaca beef breakfast burrito. Machaca beef is delicious slow cooked, spicy, shredded beef -with the potato and egg it is a perfect combination. Since machaca beef or mexican chorizo aren't available in the UK (without some significant effort) I go for spanish chorizo or sans carne (no meat). Here I am going to try bacon...as I thought that might be a popular British choice.


To make 4-6 burritos:
250kg potatoes (diced)
4 slices of chopped bacon
1 chopped green bell pepper
1 clove of minced garlic (optional)
2 spring onions (chopped)
4 eggs
200g shredded cheese

2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
1 ripe avocado, halved, pitted, peeled, sliced
handful chopped coriander

hot sauce or salsa

Cook potato in a pot of salted boiling water until just tender (about 5 minutes). Drain and set aside.

Heat 1T oil in a heavy skillet. Cook bacon over medium heat for 2-3 minutes; add green bell pepper and stir frequently until the bacon is beginning to brown and the pepper softens. Add the potato and cook over medium heat stirring occasionally until tender and browned. Add the spring onion and garlic, cook a minute more and remove potato mixture from pan and set aside.

Whisk together eggs and season with salt and pepper. Heat remaining 1T oil in the same pan, add egg mixture and cook, stirring to scramble until just heated through. Remove from heat. If cheese is used add it to the egg here so that it melts nicely.

In another dry skillet, heat a tortilla for approximately 1 minute each side to soften. Spoon into horizontal rows in the low centre of the tortilla some of the potato mixture, egg, chopped coriander and sliced avocado. I prefer to also add the hot sauce at this stage, but for guests it is best to let them add it themselves. Fold outer edges of tortilla in about two inches, hold in place and roll up from the bottom to securely enclose the burrito.

Breakfast burritos are great served with Horchata. A mexican rice milk drink flavoured with sugar, cinnamon and vanilla. Cool Chile co sells a Horchata Syrup that just needs to be mixed with water. Otherwise just a cup of coffee is nice too.

The end is near...get your burger now

There has been a lot of hype about #Meateasy, the burger joint in New Cross hidden upstairs near the Goldsmith’s tavern. Having lived in the UK for 6 years, I have never found a burger that comes close to burgers you can find in the USA. I expected this place would be decent, but nothing special. It's only open until April 16th so with such a limited opportunity I took the opportunity when I saw a tweet from paul_wf, London food photographer, asking if anyone wanted to join him.

New Cross is on my way home…I had to leave work a bit early to get there by 6. #Meateasy doesn’t take bookings. You walk in, take a number, and when your number is called you place your order. I arrived early to find most tables empty and waited for Paul to arrive to get my number so that my food wouldn’t arrive early. I went to order a drink and chose a margarita, which the bartender served in a jam jar and topped off with a bit of wheat beer for a different flavor. Paul arrived with another photographer, Alex. It was about 10 minutes and our numbers were called. I ordered the bacon cheeseburger and an order of onion rings…this was a test…I love onion rings but have stopped ordering them in the UK as they always disappoint.

Paul and Alex received their food…and took their time cutting everything in half for the two of them to share. They had ordered the chili cheese dog, the dead hippie (a burger with a secret sauce?), chili cheese fries and an order of onion rings. I started to worry about my food and stole a few chili cheese fries as I waited. Finally it arrived and it was a sight to behold. The bun had a nice glisten as described by noreservations and the tower of onion rings looked very crispy. My pics are terrible as the lighting was low and all I had was an Iphone…(how could I go to dinner with photographers and only have an Iphone??)

I began with an onion ring… They were excellent, a very crispy light batter exactly how I like them. On to the burger…the best I have ever had…I am not exaggerating. It was so juicy, and the flavor was perfect. The bacon was crispy…like all the lovely bits you have to scrape out of the pan…really, really good. Alex gave me a bite of their chili cheese dog; it looked great, heaped with onions and cheese and lots of chili. It was great too…the chili had a really nice kick. The food surpassed all expectations!

After the food, we just sat and enjoyed the atmosphere while sipping our way through 4 delicious (but pricey) mai tais…minty, fruity, sweet, sour and delicious. They had more alcohol than you could taste and we were all a bit tipsy by number 3… The atmosphere was great! Just what I like, quirky and cozy with a bit of fun and crazy added in. It was a perfect fusion of American food and loudness (the speaker calling numbers for people to order), british pub coziness (the furniture, lamps) and fun quirkiness (music, menu on the wall). All in all it was a great experience…made even better by my companions. I am really starting to love this dining with strangers thing.

So my conclusion: get yourself to #Meateasy by April 16…you will be glad you did. I thought it would be a one off. Go once and be able to say been there, done that. But I was wrong. I will be there again.

…and I was…I went back to try the philly cheese steak and the mac and cheese. This time I went on a Tuesday and it was packed. I think everyone realises closing time is coming soon. I enjoyed the cheese steak but I preferred the burger. The mac and cheese was nice but it needed a bit of crunch from a nice bread crumb topping. I preferred the onion rings. This trip was particularly memorable because of a chair incident, but we’ll leave it at that.

For really great photos of #meateasy (from both of my visits) have a look at Paul's great photos here.

a charm-ing breakfast

Breakfast is in fact, my favourite meal of the day. There are several reasons for this… I prefer morning workouts so a nice breakfast is a great post-workout treat; I love coffee; fresh juice is great; and EGGS…eggs are amazing!! Plus, there is just something lovely about beginning the day with a hearty and delicious breakfast before you head out to tackle the world.

Fortunately, one of my favourite people, Charmian, is also a breakfast lover. She introduced me to the The London Review of Breakfasts, which is a fun read. Charm and I have started to have occasional pre-work breakfast dates (this was #2). I love these because it is very rare that I bother to have a real breakfast on a work day. Plus, it allows me to explore some of the breakfast outlets that central London has to offer. Of course, my favourite part is catching up with Charm herself. She is a tough one to hold down, but I have found that she rarely has any other bookings at 8am on a Tuesday. ;) We meet in South East London, where we both reside, and cycle in together. This means that by the time we reach central London we both feel we deserve a nice breakfast!

This time we chose Fernandez and Wells. I was immediately disappointed to discover they don’t do hot breakfast. They had a table full of lovely cakes, but I wasn’t really in the mood for something sweet. I went for pancetta on ciabatta with egg mayonnaise. I wasn’t too excited about this choice and wondered while waiting for it to be prepared if I should change and just get something sweet. Here is a pic of our lattes and Charm’s croissant as we waited for my brekkie to arrive.

The ciabatta was actually very good. I enjoyed it and the coffee was delicious. Charmian made the intelligent observation that it was very strong, but me being typically greedy got a second cup and spent the rest of the day resisting the urge to run circles around my desk!!

In sum, this probably isn’t what I normally look for in a breakfast. I would rather have something cooked and table service. However, If you fancy a quick coffee/cake break from an afternoon of Soho shopping I reckon this would be just the ticket. If you are on your own the seats by the window are great for people watching. It is on the expensive side, but the quality of the coffee is worth it.