Chick'n'sours - Reclux

There’s not many places I’m excited enough to write about twice – the ever wonderful Hawksmoor and Maltby Street Market/Bermondsey Beer Mile being notable exceptions – but when Carl Clarke announced that a second branch of his Kingsland Road fried chicken shop, Chick'n'Sours, was coming to Covent Garden and they would be bringing their famous whole Fry Sundays, I knew what I had to do.

As I pontificated at length after my first visit to the original branch, their Original Fry – served sprinkled with seaweed ‘crack’, as if it wasn’t moreish enough – is still amongst the best fried chicken I have eaten; and I know my crispy poultry. Not to mention the sticky Szechuan aubergine, so good we ordered it twice, and their Thai-inspired pickled watermelon salad that I’ve never been able to quite recreate at home.

I also like to think of myself as a bit of connoisseur when it comes to a sour cocktail  - the conceit making up the second part of their name – after drinking a few in my time. The Ewing, who shakes up the most awesome Sidecars, has even more experience in this niche field and judged the Rye'n'Black sour with red and pear as good – although missing that acerbic killer punch - while the original Chick'n'Club, with apple freeze dried berries, was even better.

Both made great appetite sharpeners, especially when imbibed along to fantastic soundtrack of New Order, Deacon Blue and the Communards.

While a starter seemed entirely superfluous, knowing how much food was already on its way, I couldn’t pass up one of the newest additions to the menu; Mexi-nese nachos – a hybrid dish of Chengdu chicken and bacon (an intensely spiced, meaty ragu), green chillies and kimchi cheese sauce, A glorious combination of salty, crunchy and cheesy, peppered with bursts of bright chilli heat.

While my experiences with home deep fat frying are limited after I got rid of our fryer -  to the unbridled delight of the Ewing, who was happy to sample the finished goods but was less enamoured with the grease and dust and trails of stale oil from another abandoned experiment – I know the difficulties of getting that crisp carapace while heating the insides right through. A lesson bitterly learnt after a batch of arancini with a black crust and a stubbornly solid cheesy centre.

So quite how the chefs manage to batter and fry a whole chicken so the coating is crisp and golden, the breast is still tender and those tricky little crevices where the legs and wings meet the body are fully cooked through is quite the mystery. 

But manage it they do, and the result is this (quickly demolished) burnished beauty, ordered K Pop style with the addition of extra squiggles of gochujang mayo and chilli vinegar zig-zagged in a Jackson Pollock-esque way across the top. Even in giant form, I maintain this is as fine as fried chicken gets; poultry perfection that rivals even the classic roast for the best Sunday dinner.

The hot and sour Korean sauces served with the chook were perfectly tempered by our choice soothing sides. The dripping fries, ordered with an awesome St Agur creamy blue cheese dip, were rated by the Ewing as McDonald's scale good (a ringing endorsement). 

While a dish of crisp green slaw, made with shredded sugar snaps in a tangy dressing and topped with black sesame seeds, was exceptionally good. In fact, with the nachos and chicken that had come before it, it’s a testament to its deliciousness that this was still possibly the best thing I ate all afternoon.

As Einstein (probably didn’t) say ‘insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results’. In this case I’m quite happy to confirm I’m completely lucid and the chicken (and everything else) is just as good at the Seven Dials branch – possibly even better as it’s far easier to get to for those on the west side. Although I’ve already persuaded the Ewing there’s no harm in returning to properly test the hypothesis.

The End of the Endless Summer

I remember being given a menu when in a Fuller’s pub a couple of years ago emblazoned with ‘summers were longer when we were younger’ across the front. Despite this only being the late spring Bank Holiday, I already felt the wistful nostalgia that it may as well be November already and time for lost scarves and log fires and chipping frost off the car window.

Of course, our perception does change as we get older. Birthdays seemed aeons away when I was growing up, and for good reason; the gap between my fifth and sixth year, for example, being 20% of my life lived up to that point. As a kid that's a mighty long time.

This summer - contrary to the feeling that sees us all hurtling toward old age with the belief that nine out of ten days are overcast with a hint of drizzle (no matter what the time of year) while the remaining few veer from blistering hot to drifts of snow – was perfect, and not just because of the weather.

Of course by perfect, I mean flawed in the way that life is. There were high days and holidays and all-nighters and early bedtime; there were new friends and old friends and fantastic family gatherings; lots of laughter, a few cross words and a big loss. Stealth and I learnt how to rock a party while the Ewing’s allotment blossomed with scotch bonnets, artichokes and more marrows than seemed humanly possible.

Which is why I didn’t have that usual pang of autumnal regret thoughts of dark nights and gloom descending – I was summered out. The thought of digging out a scarf and eating soup and sausages and baked potatoes and putting my socks on the radiator in the morning, just like my mum used to do before I got dressed for school, suddenly seemed very appealing. And also, what better time to slip in a nice summery photo montage.

As she had accompanied me through most the fun parts of the summer, and most the bad bits too, it was only fitting I should spend the last of the dying light with Stealth, who was suffering from yet another romance-induced malady.

Despite my attempted efforts to plan an adventure further afield, I knew that after we had woken up eaten all the Chocolate Orange and prawn crackers (due to lack of any other food) washed down with black coffee (due to lack of milk) we would end up in the Old Red Lion in Kennington, a five minute stagger from Stealth’s doorstep.

To be honest, I’ve got rather a soft spot for the ORL and there are certainly far worst places to find yourself on a Sunday afternoon.  For a start the beer selection is very good, with plenty of hand pulled ales and stouts and a good choice of canned and bottled beers, especially American brewers such as Rouge and Flying Dog. On my last visit, in the sweaty height of summer, I enjoyed a few Modus Hoperandis in the beer garden.

This time we started with pints of Twickenham Brewery's Naked Ladies, as if they knew and were ready to taunt the love lorn Stealth, followed by a couple more pints of whatever porter and stout were on tap. Remissly, I have know idea of what they actually were, but all were well kept and went down rather too easily.

I also started with a bloody mary, which was one of the best I have had for a long while. The tomato juice was nicely spiced with a good slug of horseradish and pepper and was pepped up even further with pickled cherry tomatoes, lemon and celery. Sadly there wasn't much vodka kick and it was served in a glass little bigger than a thimble and so necessitated several beer chasers.

Obviously Sunday equals a roast dinner (luckily as there isn't much else on the menu on the seventh day of the week) I have to be fair and say I didn't have high hopes for the food; roasts eaten anywhere but home (or someone else's home) are notoriously difficult to nail and are are often wanting. At least the food is well priced, pitching in between the sub tenner (danger, Bisto gravy you can stand a spoon in and beef like sawdust) and over fifteen quid (the meat's probably going to be rare but the veg still crunchy and served with 'jus' instead of gravy) offerings that make choosing a pub roast such a minefield.

Hands up, this was a admirably commendable effort with very little to criticize. I had gone for the chicken, needing something soothing after the previous late night and feeling that gnawing on a nice juicy drumstick may just sort things out. A decision that I soon regretted when I saw the hulking great supreme of meat that was placed in front of me.

Thankfully, I was proved wrong. I'm not sure if the breast had been brined or not but the chicken was fantastic; lots of flavour (they use free range birds) and with the perfect amount of lubrication. The bed of roasties the meat perched on were fair, if not really very crispy, but as a bonus there were roast carrot and parsnips buried at the bottom of the heap.

Alongside the chciken star prize had to go to the yorkie. Normally I'm a bit of a traditionalist and wouldn't choose a batter puddings to accompanying anything but beef (or sausages), but they come alongside all roasts here, and I'm very glad they do. While I appreciate that the squidgy yorkshire pudding wouldn't suit all tastes, to me they are far better than the airy domes that shatter as you put a fork in them, and these were just perfect.

With her eating irons poised, Stealth attempted to take on her roast topside with all the trimmings. Another good effort with meat that, while not being particularly pink, was big in flavour and nicely cooked. Lots of decent gravy, too; and often overlooked but essential part of any good roast. A mention for the carrots and broccoli, too, which were on the right side of al dente.

A roast dinner isn't a roast dinner without cauli cheese in my house and a side order of the aforementioned had an admirably un-waterlogged veg with a decent, if probably not quite fromage-filled enough, beachamel sauce.

Pudding came in the form of chocolate mousse served with lashings of cream and another pint of stout. The mousse itself was the squidgy, sweet almost chewy type rich with egg whites and sugar that you could imagine being served in a dingy backstreet Paris bistro, rather than the light fluffy rich kind that is more familiar. I enjoyed it, even if the texture was a little bit gluey in texture; for three quid however, it would be churlish to complain.

In fact it would be churlish to complain about much (except perhaps the company). A very decent drinking spot and no with a good roast upits sleeve. They also sometime have an awseome homemade Guinness cake on the bar to boot. Surely a perfect trilogy in pub terms.

Of course I had my whole extra hour to kill, so after waving farewell to Stealth (not mentioning how she dumped me by the E&C roundabout instead of gallantly walking me to the station) I decided to make the most of the newly dark early evenings by taking a stroll around the bright lights of the West End, which is how I ended up at Shake Shack in the bowels of Hell Covent Garden.

It was worth braving the crowds, though for a chance to try a couple of their seasonal specials. Firstly the bacon wrapped chhpped chilli and cheese doused Smoke Dog which was accompanied by one of their famed concrete ice creams, this time with the addition of a slice of London bakery Cocomaya's pumpkin pie for good measure. Refreshment came in the form of an Arnold Palmer, sadly so seldom seen on these shores.

Despite the fact I was still digesting the last remnants of Yorkshire pudding and choccy mousse I had no problem devouring both of these. The combo of cherry peppers, their legendary cheese sauce and bacon could hardly fail, and the pumpkin pie concrete was both spicy and sweet without being cloying, the chunks of pie crust adding buttery crunch.

Taking a postprandial stroll to nowhere, soaking up the atmosphere while enjoying the twinkling lights of the Big City and breathing in the top notes of roasting chestnuts and diesel fumes, I thought that, not for the first time, John Lennon was right; time you enjoy wasting is time not wasted. Amen to that (and roll on 29th March...).

Bond and Burgers

Every so often the stars collide in a rather beautiful way, and last weekend’s adventures proved the perfect example; allowing me to indulge in not one but two of my favourite things alongside two of my favourite people. And that rare beast, the English spring sun, made a welcome appearance proving that it’s not just bad luck that comes in threes.

First up was a Sunday afternoon trip to visit one of the Southbank’s latest residents, and newly crowned Burger Bash champions, Bleecker St Burger. A lovely walk over the Hungerford Bridge to the south side of the river made even better by watching the last of the weary London Marathon runners pounding toward the finish, followed by watching the sun begin to set over the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament.  A view that, no matter how clichéd, invokes Samuel Johnson’s famous quote every time.

Dodging the surging Sunday crowds we propelled ourselves down to the Undercroft skate park, where the Bleecker van can be found.  A spot had just opened up on one of their trio of of wooden picnic benches, and so we had time to bask in the last of the sun’s rays as we drank a cold Brooklyn Brewery EIPA (me) and a Flying Dog Atlantic Lager (the Ewing). Watch out if you’re thinking of making an afternoon of it on the EIPA, a very nice drop at a very potent 7.9%. Although, I'm pretty sure Bond would have been a fan.

The menu when we visited was a simple affair; cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, cheese and bacon burgers and fries (they have been known to sling the odd Black Burger, their award winning entry created for the London Burger Bash and the grease-spattered trophy can also be seen taking pride of place on the counter.)

The burgers are cooked on a flat top and are served medium rare, unless requested otherwise. Cooking them in this way keeps them ultra-juicy while still getting a good char, and although it may lead to a burger that’s little to sloppy for some, it’s probably my favourite way to cook a patty. Just make sure you’re armed with plenty of napkins for the inevitable drips.

Cheese, needless to say, is the imperious plastic American type and is properly melted so it glazes the top of each disc of meat, the buns are springy, crunchy onion and lettuce present and correct; a self-applied squirt of ketchup and mustard finish the masterpiece or add crispy bacon to really guild the lily. If the burgers are god the fries may be even better, crisp and squidgy in equal measure they shouldn’t be overlooked. A superlative spot, all round.

After our alternative Sunday beef feast we staggered over to Stealth’s, and past another classic Big Smoke sunset, for a few cold Vietnamese beers and a (not very) early night in preparedness for our Monday trip to indulge the second great love of my life, Agent 007.

A few Christmases back my sister and her friends commented, pretty accurately, that my tastes pretty much mirrored that of an adolescent male. That year my presents had included a He-Man DVD, several books on baseball and a set of Bond playing cards. My long suffering ex, PaveMatt, even had to endure the film stills of Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Daniel Craig (in his trunks) that I hung in the hallway.

Fast forward and nothing’s really changed; I still stay up late to watch baseball, I still have my figures of Skeletor and Battlecat sitting on the back of the bookcase and I still love Bond. So when Stealth arrived at my house with a gift of a framed print of the Japanese promotional poster for Moonraker – a much maligned classic - and announced that the National Film Museum was hosting a Bond in Motion exhibition, I was as happy as James when the bar opens.

The National Film Museum, on Covent Garden’s Wellington Street, is a smallish and mostly subterranean space in which they have managed to carefully contain and display the largest collection of Bond vehicles, alongside a few props, storyboards and some previously unseen memorabilia.

It’s pure Bond heaven, a maze of unashamed geekery that starts when you first glimpse the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud from A View to A Kill as you descend the stairs and finishes with the Mustang Mach 1 that Bond drives sideways through a Las Vegas alley in Diamonds are Forever, that you pass on your way to the gift shop. 

Almost every vehicle of note is here, from the iconic Aston Martin DB5;  Goldfinger’s majestic Rolls-Royce Phantom III to the wondrous Lotus Esprit S1 submersible that emerged from the sea in The Spy Who Loved Me. 

There are also less predictable 007 modes of transport such as one of the Parahawks that attacked Bond and Electra King in The World is Not Enough; the Citroën 2CV that Bond drove through the olive groves in For Your Eyes Only; the Glastron GT-150 jump boat that set a world distance record when jumping over a Louisiana levy in Live and Let Die; and the auto rickshaw, the Bede Acrostar Jet, with folding wings that was hidden in a horsebox, and the Crocodile Submarine that all featured in the the Ewing’s favourite, Octopussy . (Octopussy Octopuss in your face! - TE)

Little Nellie, the memorable autogyro from You Only Live Twice (the only film bond doesn’t drive in), is here; as is the Parisian Renualt 11 Taxi, sans roof from A View to a Kill; the BMW R1200 motorbike that James Bond and Wai Lin are handcuffed together to whist riding through the street of Ho Chi Minh City in Tomorrow Never Dies; and The 1969 Mercury Cougar XR7 428 convertible that Contessa Teresa de Vicenzo drove in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, helping Bond escape Blofeld's henchmen. 

There are also some of the later cars cars in the form of the remote controlled BMW 750 from Tomorrow Never Dies; an Aston Martin DBS used in the chase at the beginning of the Quantum of Solace, complete with missing door; and the ‘adaptive camouflaged” Jaguar XKR from Die Another Day.

There's even my favourite Bond mobile, the Aston Martin V8 Vantage Volante complete with extending side outriggers, spike-producing tires, missiles, lasers signal-intercepting smart radio, head-up display and rocket propulsion. It could also self-destruct when primed. James and Kara use it to outwit the Bratislavian police, before ditching it to ride through the snow to the Austrian border on Kara's cello case. The case is here too, just in the left corner of the picture.

While there were no surprises that I was in my element here, Stealth and the Ewing were also pretty enamoured by the exhibition, too. In fact, as is usual when visiting a museum or gallery, the Ewing had to be forcibly found and coerced to leave with promises of  looking around shop on the way out.

After the requisite tat had been bought all the morning's excitement called for some sustenance, and we made the short walk across the piazza to Peter Gordon's all day cafe, Kopapa, in Seven Dials. A stylish all day spot with outdoor tables that are perfect for a bit of people watching and a charming interior complete with wonderfully hypnotic Turkish floor tiles.

The Evening Standard describes the cooking as 'a bungee jump of flavours and textures', and the Kiwi/fusion menu, rather like Clerkenwell's Modern Pantry, features a variety of weird and wonderful combinations.  These include the famed Turkish  breakfast eggs, from Changa restaurant in Istanbul, served with whipped yoghurt and hot chilli butter, offered alongside New Zealand venison with ponzu, crispy shimeji mushrooms; deep-fried urfa chilli & sesame salted squid, sumac aïoli; and lime-cured salmon, hijiki, and braised endive.

There's also wide range of drinks and bar snacks, including a large smoothie and shake menu from which I sampled a mixed berry, yoghurt and banana number. We also had  a wicked salted caramel and vanilla milkshake, and the Monteiths crushed apple cider, an almost crystal clear drop that lacked the tart edge to raise it above alcoholic apple juice. Very easy afternoon drinking, though.

Although they have a the standard West Country beef burger, with Emmenthal and crispy bacon, we all plumped for the piscine version in the form of a whole crispy soft shell crab with spicy peanut mayo, Asian salad and avocado.

Perfectly portioned for a light, late lunch, the springy, seeded buns contained a cargo of greaseless, crisp crustacean that swam very nicely alongside the poky sauce and zingy pickled carrot shards.

Extra vitamins came in the form of the smoothies, and very tasty side dish of grilled broccolini with a tamarind glaze and crispy shallots. We also shared some decent enough fries, sprinkled with rosemary and garlic salt.

We finished with another round of drinks; a chocolate milkshake to help with my late afternoon sugar slump and bottles of Monteith's Original Ale all round. As Bond said in Thunderball - and who am I to argue - 'it's just that I'd rather die of drink than of thirst'