Last week Ping Pong invited me to take a dim sum masterclass at their Westfield Stratford restaurant. The restaurant only opened there last month, and I’m glad to have one close to home as I love their food. So I was excited to go and learn how to make their tasty dumplings myself… Armed with…
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Recipe: Quinoa, avocado and roasted pepper salad
I’ve been trying to cut down on wheat lately: I don’t think gluten agrees with me very well, especially in the quantities I tended to eat it. As a veggie, it’s all too easy to make it the staple of every meal: toast for breakfast, pitta for lunch, pasta for dinner… which led to me…
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Foxlow, EC1
It was my birthday this week, and rarely for me I was paralysed by indecision on where to go have dinner on the day. I’d nearly resorted to an old favourite (Polpo, Dishoom or Yautacha) before booking Foxlow, the newish place in Clerkenwell from the guys behind Hawksmoor. Yes, the meaty, steak-y Hawksmoor that I…
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Recipe: Kale, tomato and egg tart
Would you believe this week is the first time I’ve ever bought kale? And I call myself a vegetarian, tsk. Anyway I’m pleased I picked it up on my last visit to the greengrocer as the big bag happily lasted a week in the fridge and made its way into three meals. My favourite way…
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Makin’ cider
Ugh, autumn is truly here isn’t it? I swear it got dark at 3pm yesterday, so miserable. In my mind the only good things about the gloomy seasons are of the edible and quaffable varieties: a few months of soups, stews and mulled things make it all bearable. So I was happy to get an…
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Kings County Distillery
One of the more unusual things we did in Brooklyn was a visit to New York’s first new whiskey distillery since the Prohibition era, Kings County. Tucked away in the paymasters’ building at DUMBO’s Navy Yard, the distillery has only been open since 2010. It’s starting to get a reputation for small-batch quality and the…
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Brooklyn & NYC Eats & drinks
This was always going to be an indulgent foody holiday. I’d saved about 200 places to my Foursquare list and Google map and was determined to plough through as many as possible, waistline be damned. I think we did pretty well! I don’t know if it was the exchange rate or being in Brooklyn rather…
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Mushroom Bao
I got the idea to make these watching Jamie Oliver’s new series on TV. I was amazed to see him make bao – pillowy steamed Chinese buns with a spicy filling tucked inside – with a dough of just flour and milk, and had to give it a go with a veggie filling. I had…
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Street Feast, Dalston Yard
I’m pretty late to the blogging party with this one, because Street Fast is now nicely settled into its newest temporary home in Dalston Yard – just up the road from the last incarnation in Merchants Yard. In all honesty I’ve visited three times already in as many weeks, but like a bad blogger I…
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Brewbacca beer labels
Here’s a fun little project I did recently – my old employer Sidekick Studios brewed an in-house beer, and I designed the label for it. We called it Brewbacca because he’s a famous sidekick, and kind of nerdy…. geddit? It’s a light, hoppy IPA, perfect for summer drinking. I hand sketched the design then finished…
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When life gives you green tomatoes…
… make salsa verde! Our garden tomatoes are being a little slow to ripen: damn the sun for disappearing at a crucial time. We’re trying to ripen some on the vine and some on the windowsill, but impatient me wondered if they could be used while still green. I remembered the Mexicans use sharp green…
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Grain Store, Kings Cross
It’s great to see all the redevelopment in the Kings Cross area recently: it’s quickly becoming a really cool hub for food (see also Caravan, The Gilbert Scott and Kerb), arts (the new St Martins college campus is there) and fun (pop-up skate rink!). The beautiful new station concourse and renovation of the canalside area…
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Recipe: South Indian mattar paneer
This recipe is a mish-mash of a few influences, adapted to a suit my tastes and usual cupboard/freezer contents. It’s a very quick and easy curry that doesn’t require a whole arsenal of spices, and the result is a clean and creamy flavour with just a hint of mustard seed and chilli. The ideal curry…