week 24 - My Lisbon - Nuno Mendes

While the world is a very different place to the one we knew six months ago in many ways, for the  the Ewing and I at least, life has rolled on by without too much upheaval. We're lucky to both be working - albeit from home - and to both be busy at work (although it's sometimes hard to feel fortunate about that...). And while many plans have been cancelled, or postponed, and we haven't seen any of our family and friends for the last three months - save for two recent, socially distanced meet ups with one of my oldest mates, and the Ewing leaving supplies on her parent's gate post - this week things really hit home.

This week we were supposed to be going to the Algarve for a few days with my Dad - who was due to visit from Australia, where he now lives - and then take a trip over the border to Seville for some R&R with my wife (WHO is she? - TE). Of course, far more tragic losses and upheaval have been experienced over the past weeks than the fact we couldn't have a few days eating custard tarts and drinking vinho verde, but realising that we weren't going to make it to Iberia in June, and we weren't going to see my Dad at all this year, did feel like a bit of a blow.

Of course, the one thing we could do was try to create that holiday vibe from the comfort of home. (while managing to pick the week were the weather broke and it actually rained for the first time in forever...). And so I ordered Nuno Mendes - chef of Chiltern Firehouse fame - 'My Lisbon'. His celebration of the traditional Portuguese dishes he grew up eating - and, after taking holidays in the Algarve every year as a child, I remember well, too - while the Ewing scoured the supermarket for Portuguese wine.

As well as drowning our sorrows, I also made Carne de porco à alentejana, or pork with clams. Despite being faintly weirded out by the idea of the live clams being in the fridge overnight (and even getting up just to check they hadn't drowned - (They live in water the whole time!!! - TE)) this was pretty simple to chuck together. Although I did use a hefty glug of piri piri sauce at the end just to jazz it up a little bit. Or possibly that's just my jaded palette after annihilating it with chilli over the years.

There was also a batch of warm custard tarts with cinnamon caramel that tested our marriage and were almost worth it, if not a patch on the ones you can buy from the Pingo Doce supermarket that is just down the road from the apartment we were supposed to stay at in the Algarve. Although we did discover a little Portuguese supermarket just off the Headington Roundabout in Oxford during our few days off work that sold excellent bica and bola arroz.

The pièce de résistance of my week of Iberian cooking was Polvo à lagareiro com batata a murro, or octopus with 'punched' potatoes. The octopus, which thankfully came ready boiled, was pretty good, but the potatoes, covered in the coriander (I also learnt that Portugal is the only country in Europe that uses coriander in its cuisine) pesto, were even better.

Octopus with smashed potatoes, olive oil and piso

Polvo à lagareiro com batata a murro

Serves 4

600g boiled octopus tentacles, cut into large chunks

For the piso

a bunch coriander

1/2 garlic clove

1 lemon, finely zested and juiced

3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

For the potatoes

8-12 floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or similar, skin on

olive oil

2 bay leaves

4 garlic cloves, smashed

To make the piso — Mix together the coriander, garlic, lemon juice and lemon zest with a generous pinch of salt and pepper until you have a paste. Nuno recommends a pestle and mortar, but I used the Nutribullet. Stir in the olive oil. It will keep in the fridge for a few days with an extra glug of olive oil on top.

To make the smashed potatoes — Preheat the oven to 210°C. Cook the potatoes in plenty of salted boiling water until just tender but not breaking up. Remove from the pan, drain well and leave until cool enough to handle. 

Murro means ‘punch’ in Portuguese, so press each one gently with the palm of your hand. Toss them in a bowl with the olive oil, bay leaves and garlic and season with salt and pepper. 

Put them in a large baking dish (big enough to hold the octopus too) and bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown and crispy.

Drizzle the octopus with extra-virgin olive oil and put the pieces on top of the potatoes. Increase the oven temperature to 220°C and cook for about 20 minutes, or until the octopus has lovely crispy edges. (The bbq would work well here, too)

Drizzle with the piso, and serve in the baking dish for everyone to help themselves.

Breakfast at Browns

I've eaten a fair few fry-ups recently, which is slightly unfortunate as I'm going to California in a couple of weeks and far from being beach body ready, I'm more in danger of being harpooned if I get too close to the shoreline.

Still, where's the fun in porridge? Especially if you're in the City of Dreaming Spires for the weekend and you've got the opportunity to go to Brown's Cafe for a proper breakfast.

Inside is old old school fomica and closely packed wooden tables and chairs, pretty much how it's always been; in fact a recent episode of Endeavour - the pre-Morse Morse, set in the 60s - featured scenes that were shot here and pretty much the only thing they had to change were the menu boards.

Speaking of the menu, of course it had to be the May Day breakfast - named for the annual Oxonian celebrations that start on nearby Magdalen Bridge - twice, once with beans and fried bread for me and once with grilled tomato and toast for the Ewing.

Tea is still made in an urn, with loose tea leaves and is the colour of Frank Butcher when attempted to woo Pat in his rotating bow tie (and little else) and strong enough to stand your spoon up in. Proper stuff.

One handy thing about being an ouef-avoider is there’s always scope for swapsies, in this case half a grilled tomato for my egg, a deal I was more than happy with, although I also got hit up for a spoonful of my beans. The other constituent parts were all present and correct – comfortingly paste-like sausage, two rashers of thick unsmoked back bacon, a scattering of token mushrooms and a couple of discs of black pudding that weren’t quite as crisp as I would have liked, but I like them to be fried until they are black on black.

Toast, slightly irritatingly, comes perched on top of your breakfast, which saves on washing up but makes it much harder to construct a cheeky bacon sarnie on the side. Again, in the spirit of sharing, we went 50/50 on our sliced carbs – half toast and half fried slice.

Reader, I can tell you it was a revelation. Whilst a good fried slice remains a god amongst mere men as part of a breakfast, anyone who has ever eaten a whole slice, or heaven forfend, two, at breakfast time will probably tell you there day all went downhill from there. The first, crisp triangle, anointed with a few sweet beans and a slash of spicy brown sauce, slips down easily enough, but soon it becomes an greasy trudge to the finish line followed by a packet of Rennies for lunch.

If chops, chips and cups of creosote coloured tea aren't your thing, then the Portuguese heritage of the owners mean you can also get a bolo de arroz- a kind of Portuguese muffin made of rice flour and wrapped in a distinctive skirt of lettered paper - or the perennial favourite, the pasteis de nata, or custard tart.

After just half a fried slice even the Ewing couldn't manage one of these crisp and flaky beauties, with their wobbly centres and burnished tops, but they were still fine a couple of days later, accompanied by a pot of strong coffee.

While I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of In-N-Out burgers, Dodger Dogs, french dip sandwiches and avocado on everything nothing beats a good British fried breakfast; I just hope I can still get in my shorts.

Bang Bang - zone 4 style

If you were to ask me for a breakdown of my time over the last couple of months the answer would be thirty percent work, twenty percent asleep, ten per cent watching the winter Olympics and fifty percent in IKEA.

Now, I like IKEA and all (I really do) but even I can reach my limit of processed meat products. Hard to believe, I know, but when you start craving your meatballs with spaghetti and not with mash and jam, it’s probably time to look for a different dinner option. 

Fortuitously Bang Bang Oriental has just (re)opened on the old site of the much missed Oriental City in Colindale; a cavernous food court that saw much gnashing and wailing of teeth when it closed in 2008. While it’s impossible to read a review/blog post bemoaning how far Barnet is from civilisation (read zones 1 and 2), for our intents and purposes it was only another quarter of an hour around the North Circular. 

Normally this would be a sentence that would strike fear into the coldest heart, but in this case a viable option compared to eating yet another slice of Daim cake (which shows you just how many slices of Daim cake I have actually eaten recently).

Of course the very thing that makes a food court so exciting - especially to the perennially peckish, like the Ewing and I - is also what threatens to overwhelm; the choice. So many options, from so many different cuisines, yet the fear of picking the wrong dish and ending up with the unenviable food envy looms large over every decision. 

Being fully aware of the high chance of a hangry melt down from either of us at any given time, I had already trawled Instagram for the best looking bowls of food, figuring that it would be a much easier choice from the comfort of my own armchair, but we also made time for a schlep about, just to make sure we weren’t missing out on anything. (imperative - TE).

Having done my research I headed straight to the back for a bowl of roast duck noodle soup from Four Seasons, the Queensway. stalwart. While my parent's often used to take us for lunch in Bayswater - at the, now sadly closed, branch of Mr Wu, where I used to demolish unholy piles of sticky ribs, salt and pepper wings and and seaweed with a voraciousness that only a teenager can - I've never eaten at FS. Something I was looking to remedy.

Now, I'm pretty sure that, without eating there for comparison, this outpost probably pales insignificantly compared to the original, but for eight quid I was very happy with my generous portion of burnished duck and springy noodles, topped with chinese leaf and chopped spring onion. As a bonus, the duck was also boneless, making it a slightly more attractive proposition as I was chowing down.

While not the biggest noodle soup fan - no matter how good the broth, the noodles never seem to end up tasting of anything; plus all the splash back, if you're as messy an eater as I am  - nevertheless I enjoyed the restorative charms of this, though I did upend a saucer of chill oil, negating its soothing qualities somewhat.

Following my advice, the Ewing went with the laksa from Coconut Tree. A bounteous bowl of prawns, tofu puffs and noodles in a rich and spicy coconut curry broth. Apart from the fact her choice of lunch stall and mine were at opposite ends of the cavernous space - necessitating someone (me) having to navigate a kamikaze run clutching a tray of boiling liquid so we could be reunited for lunch -  this proved a strong choice. (oh Roscoe I fear you exaggerate somewhat - TE).

We also picked a selection of tarts from Wonder Bake including custard, pandan and coconut,. My love of custard tarts has diminished somewhat after over enthusiastic incidents in both Hong Kong and Lisbon, but the later pair were particularly excellent for breakfast the next day.

In the rush to negotiate timings and transport two bowls of soup to an agreed location in tandem (which sounds more like the plot of a bad Cold War spy thriller rather than trying to ensure our food arrived at roughly the same time) we didn’t have time to pick up drinks before eating . Due to some, long forgotten, misdemeanour, I owed the Ewing a favour, so agreed to schlep about after to pick up refreshments.

I had the classic milk bubble tea with black tapioca pearls; still a firm favourite and very enjoyable here, save for the fact they had run out of large cups and someone else wanted to share, despite having their own drink…. While strawberry juice with salted cheesecake might sound pretty odd, it somehow worked; the sweet sharp fruit contrasting with the smooth philly-style topping.

As several people have pointed out before me, why come to Colindale when you could go to Chinatown? Of course you could replace Chinatown with pretty much anything and still have a valid point…. In all seriousness though, if I lived near here I’d be having the last laugh.  

Yeah, it’s not perfect; it lacks a little roughness around the edges; the pricing on some dishes seem a little steep (and the portions a little small); and, like anywhere, I’m sure there are few duff dishes to be had. But for variety and convenience Bang Bang would be a welcome addition to most neighbourhoods.

Even after such a fine lunch, my self-imposed pork moratorium could only last so long. So after several long hours (literally) touring the cavernous bowels of hell, cramming many mdf products in a wonky-wheeled trolley, it seemed only right that a hot dog, crowned with fairground sweet onions and crinkle-cut pickles, should be my reward. Viva IKEA.