Italians do it better

There's lots of good things about having good friends, but you know you've got a keeper when they're in the last throes of a painful and difficult break up - devastated and off their food - and you arrange to meet them so you can go and eat ramen; followed by a burger. Of course there was wine involved, and beer, and turkish delight, and possibly even some good advice. Who knows. We're still friends now. so it can't have been all bad.

Not only are we still friends, but Stealth often appears in the blog - at least behind the scenes, to spare any readers from losing their appetites. We're also still enjoying a beverage with our food, so much so that, although we've eaten at Mercado Metropolitano several times before - Stealth's flat being staggering distance away - the only picture of the food I seem to have is this box of cold leftover pizza.

No matter, I knew I could persuade her out for another afternoon visit, lured by promises of cocktails and spleen-venting and melted cheese. It also worked well for me, the weather was far nicer than on our fledgling winter visits - meaning we could sit outside in the sunshine (or in the shade, while moaning about how hot it was). The food and drink stalls have also expanded since then, giving us more options to feed the previous night's hangover, while stoking the one to come tomorrow.

While I'm sure you can get a Peroni, or certainly a Four Pure Pils, there's also plenty of craft here, courtesy of the Italian Job 'the UK's first Italian craft beer bar'. I went for a Neck Oil; not terribly Italianate, but always a delicious, low ABV, drop and a gentle way to ease myself into the afternoon's revelry. 

Stealth went with her favourite cured meat and Italian cheese combo - something blue, something hard and something oozy. A little like our Saturday night... .The oozy one was particularly good; full on and sticky, matching up well with the spoon of spiced chutney, balanced artfully on a prosecco cork.

For me, the pizza here is some of the best in London. The crust is chewy and puffy and blistered, with that lovely sour tang that compliments the sweet milky mozzarella. And, while resolutely being a Neapolitan pie, it retains enough structural integrity to pick up and eat with your hands, not dissolving into tomato soup in the middle like some, often lauded, examples.

The Pasquelina - a white pizza with sausage and wild broccoli -  is wonderfully balanced between bland cheese, bitter greens and spiced meat. Similar is the Ripieno- a pizza bianca with ricotta, cherry tomatoes, salami and parmesan. On this visit I went classic with a napoletana - tomato sauce, mozzarella and anchovies; the hairy little divisive fish giving a salty piquancy to each mouthful.

There was also more drinks, obvs, starting with a negroni (that Stealth had already drunk while waiting for her cheese) before moving on to Aperol spritzes and then London spritzes, which I'm a bit hazy on now. Possibly elderflower and apple? maybe some mint. Definitely, thanks to the photo evidence, some cucumber. 

The Jim and Tonic mobile drinks van was closed when we arrived, much to the disappointment of Stealth. But her beady eye - for possibly the very first time - spied they had opened as we were finishing our lunch. Because I'm a good friend - and even though it went against the very core of my being - I asked, on Stealth's behalf, for 'the one that tastes most like Hendricks'. Not because I dislike Hendricks, but because, having seen Stealth pull this kind of stunt every time we go anywhere, I knew it would cause that awkward umming and ahhing. Which it did, but in a very polite way. 

Still not sure what we actually got, but it was full of cucumber, hence tasted pretty much like Hendricks. Although by that point I'm not sure either us would have known. We then followed it up with another double, this time made with Death's Door gin, because it was the option that came adorned with the marshmallows, that Stealth was by this point eating straight from the jar on the counter.

It wouldn't be Sunday without a sundae, or a gelato at the very least. The gelato here is not any old gelato being from Badiani, one of Florence’s oldest gelaterias, who have launched a new store in the English capital.

So we swung (definitely swaying by this point) past for a double scoop in a cone; one of bright and sharp raspberry sorbet and another of, even better, sweet and nutty black sesame. An Instagrammers dream, and just as dreamy to eat.

Despite our best efforts I still haven't tried the pasta, or the arepas, or the grilled Argentinian rib eye with chips, or the lurid green cassata cakes, or freshly filled cannoli with chocolate chips..... But, no matter; I've got a feeling they'll be plenty more happy news and heartbreak to break bread (and heal sore heads) over.

How does your garden grow - The Botanist, Marlow

While my existence may appear chaotic, underneath I’m one of life’s planners; give me half a chance and I’ve probably already made a spreadsheet plotting it’s probability in great detail. While I try to bow to random spontaneity when the occasion demands it (rubbish, she hates surprises - TE), I like to read menus, I like to see dishes online, I like to plan what I’m going to have for dinner three weeks hence (and then change my mind at the restaurant, to try and feel as if I’m really living on the edge) which is what made a last-minute lunch booking at the Botanist, with only a cursory glance at the website, so out of character.

Still, I’d had a discussion with an enthusiastic work colleague who was also planning a visit, plus found out they were knocking 50% off the bill in January as well as offering a special Ginuary menu for those who were still prioritising enjoyment above hepatic function after the excess of Christmas, so what could go wrong…

By the evening I was already having a small sense of foreboding when, after looking at social media, I noticed there were very few pictures of food, but lots of glitzy cocktails, dazzling teeth and tans of a Trumpian hue. Now, I like a flaming fishbowl along with the rest of them, but I doubted its suitability as an accompaniment to my quiet Sunday repast. 

It got worse when I did find pictures of the food and realised the conceit derived from their name meant that mayo was served in watering cans, garlic mushrooms and chocolate mousse came in a trowel (mercifully as separate dishes) and chicken liver pate arrived in a mini flower pot, complete with its own chutney-filled wheelbarrow.

Now, I’ve eaten a roast on a breadboard (with a lap-full of gravy), fritters from old spam tins and even barbecue ribs from a galvanised bin, but I started to feel a bit We Want Plates, especially as we were going for lunch with Stealth - someone who manages to be both far more spontaneous (believe me, she's not either - TE) but far more curmudgeonly (yes, I think both things are related).

Still, I was attempting to practice my edgy New Year New You abandonment and Stealth was trying to be more accommodating - read hungover and happy to leave the organising to someone else – while the long suffering Ewing was just hoping that our Millennial indignation was kept in check and we didn’t get too carried away with Ginuary, being as she was the designated driver.

On enquiring about Ginuary our waitress told us that, while available all through the month, it isn’t advertised on weekends ‘as they don’t want people to know about it’ (cunning -TE). Which perhaps explains why two of our G&Ts (we doubled up to make full use of the offer) initially arrived with no gin. Still, it would be churlish to complain too much at less than a fiver for a double and Fevertree tonic in this neck of the woods. It was also good to try a few hitherto unknown English gins, from Hunters, Langleys and Poetic Licence respectively. Stealth didn’t even complain about the basil leaves and cardamom pods floating in her glass.

After steeling myself for a starter that looked like it had been assembled in the shed, I actually found myself disappointed they had run out of the chicken liver pate. No matter, the calamari was crisp and well-seasoned and I still got a novelty watering can full of mayo for dipping.

The Ewing and Stealth made classic opening choices with a bacon-crumbed baked camembert and a scotch egg – both served on disappointingly prosaic wooden boards – respectively. The gooey cheese, served with apple slices and wholemeal toast for dunking, was particularly good. I can’t comment on Stealth’s pick, being an avowed oeuf-avoider, but if anyone’s in the market for a hot sauce hand model, get in touch.

Our mains bought a full compliment of proper plates, and very nice ones at that, with mine playing host to the classic roast beef dinner. Even my cauliflower cheese came in an eminently sensible enamel side dish. Pink meat, plenty of parsnips, crispy yorkie, well-cooked veg, glossy gravy and the aforementioned cauli; this was a properly first class roast in every respect. Even the horseradish had that sinus-clearing oomph that bought a little tear to my eye.

The Ewing and Stealth also kept up the bovine theme. My wife went for broke with a - well-judged - rare rib eye, chips and peppercorn sauce and Stealth picking steak and ale pie with peas and sweet potato fries. A pie which also gets bonus points for being a pastry product with four walls; no Casserole with a Lid here. Again, it was comfortingly rib-sticking stuff served in ample portions - clearly the Instagrammers hanging out here on a Friday night stick to a liquid diet.

Bucking the practical trend, my rice pudding with amarena cherries and honeycomb came in an old fashioned glass jelly mould. Which may have looked pretty, but meant I lost most of my cherry sauce to the indentations at the bottom of the glass, despite the valiant attempts of my probing spoon (this is why you have fingers - TE).

Freshly baked cookie dough, served in its own cast iron pan and topped with caramel ice cream was both as tooth-janglingly sweet and delicious as it sounds, but the strawberry on the cake, literally, went to Stealth’s skewer. After all the sensible tableware, I think it gave us both more joy than we’d care to admit to have desert served dangling vertically.

While they offer a range of various savoury skewers, ranging from lamb koftas to salt and pepper pork to jerk salmon – the sweet version impales berries with marshmallows and chunks of chocolate brownie (and a random piece of apple, which did cause some customary grumpy consternation), to be doused tableside in toffee sauce. 

As they were out of vanilla ice cream, she chose a scoop of eton mess, swirled with meringue, fruit coulis and popping candy - ensuring our meal went out with a wiz bang, or an enthusiastic fizzle at the very least. Rather like our New Year efforts to embrace the new.

Boat Drinks

How We Got Here: it’s three o’clock in the morning; one figure is slumped, fully clothed, on the sofa. A second slumps, fully clothed, on the bed - head hanging off the end and feet resting on the pillow. Another has passed out after eating an entire tuna pizza while watching the X Factor results show on catch up, while the fourth listens to the cacophony of snoring and wonders how on earth to piece the night’s events together to capture the joy of a Sunday session while retaining some shreds of dignity for those involved.

Yes, that forlorn fourth figure – with the beginnings of a hangover and an industrial case of heartburn – was me. So here goes…

It had all started twelve hours earlier, at the Boathouse in Christchurch which, as the name suggests, affords views out across The river Stour. We were there for a leisurely lunch and perhaps a drink or two, owing to the fact we all had the unusual prescience to book the following day off work.

It wouldn’t be Sunday without a bloody mary, although the ones served here had horseradish and Tabasco in such sinus-clearing doses my eyes tear up a little when I think about it. Better were the double Hendricks, served in Spanish-style balloon glasses with Fevertree tonic, cucumber and juniper berries.

Wood smoked mackerel with pickled cucumber and horseradish mayo was a simple and unassuming plate of tried and tested flavours that reminded me how much I still love what was a lunchtime staple growing up - although my mum would have chosen the peppered kind and served it with a few carrot sticks, a handful of crisps and maybe a squirt of salad cream.

In contrast, the salmon tartare and smoked trout with sesame and cucumber was a real looker, but what it gained in finesse it seemed to lose in flavour and would have benefited from the same judicious hand with the seasoning that had been let loose on the tomato juice for the bloody marys. 

Scallops were spot on (and should be for nine quid); classically grilled with garlic and parsley and served in the half shell, needing nothing more than a crust or two of bread to dip in their buttery juices.

Sunday afternoon calls for roast beef and their meat while not very pink, was commendably tender and came bathed in generous amounts of good gravy. Cabbage, with bacon and cream, was good, as were the spuds and yorkie. Nothing to worry Mum, but a solid effort. Roast beef also calls for red wine and, after sampling three bottles of it, I can recommend the pinot noir.

The towering Boathouse burger with texas sauce and jalepeno slaw was also more than serviceable; while not up there with the best it was a valiant effort with the well-seasoned meat topped with properly melted cheese and crisp bacon that the photo does scant justice to. They also let me swap normal spuds for fluffy sweet potato fries, which made me very happy.

The lowlight of the afternoon was finding out my favourite, the summer pudding, was off the menu. But they made up some ground by offering sticky toffee pudding instead, and gained another bonus point by letting us swap vanilla ice cream for blackcurrant and clotted cream flavour, The Ewing was close to the 'single wafer-thin mint moment', but still manged to scoff two scoops of passion fruit sorbet to herself.

We also had coffee - in the form of espresso martinis. Three rounds of them. And while they weren't quite a match for my friend Emily J's, a caffeinated cocktail maestro, these were commendable - even if every round came adorned with a confusingly different configuration of straws/coffee beans/cocoa powder decoration. 

At some point, after the Ewing went to visit the loos, a dog - Max the terrier - appeared at our table. Which proved an entertaining distraction, even if he was just as intelligible as we were by that point.  And our waitress, with the patience (and personality) befitting a saint, later turned up in several selfies - after she had kindly cadged a roll up for us from one of the bar staff.

And, as by now it was already well past dinner time, we ordered our first pizza of the evening; a hawaiian for the benefit of the Ewing and the Monkey, washed down with a round of pornstar martinis, complete with champagne shot.

Which lead to calling for the (not unsizable) bill jumping in a taxi (almost accompanied by our new buddy Max) to Walkabout, followed by Jaegerbombs, vodka, Grindr and an abortive attempt to break in to a roof-top party through someone’s kitchen, the Ewing falling asleep, a kebab, a pizza, a group hug with the Ewing’s new friends and a cab back to watch the X Factor on catch-up. Which is right back where our story begins…

Many thanks for the Monkey and Uni for making this story happen. Don't ever change.

Bump Caves and Bocadillos

With a recent long, late summer's weekend stretching out in front of us it seemed the perfect chance to completely the final piece of the beer puzzle on the Bermondsey Mile - as well as the chance to pop in to some old haunts alongside trying some trendy new cocktails in what has become one of my favourite corners of town.

Before the last IPA was imbibed at Brew by Numbers, we stopped at St John’s new Bakery Room (on the other side of the arches that churn out their famed bread and pastries) for some cop-like breakfast fortification in the form of coffee and their famed doughnuts.

Alongside the fabulous raspberry jam filled number we also sampled a butterscotch custard (I had first eaten one of these a couple of weeks before, but buying it on a very hot day, followed by a couple of nights in Stealth's fridge, rendered the outside tough and the insides curdled - needless to say, I still ate it, though). Thankfully this one was creamy, crispy, gooey perfection and paired nicely with a coffee.

Those prefering to start the day with the strong stuff can take advantage of the short French wine list, or enjoy seed cake and Maderia for elevenses. They also serve a selection of St John greatest hits - think pig's ears, tripe and cod's roe - for lunch.

Beers successfully drunk in the arches and we were back on Maltby Street again, this time to Bar Tozino, another gem of a place I first discovered a couple of winters ago on my first visit to the Ropewalk. It’s still as fab as ever; the velvet draped heavy oak doors leading into a long thin dark cave (as Iberian as anywhere I have been to outside Spain) lined with glistening hams and bottles of wine and sherry.

Here we lunched very well, as always, on a selection of green olives, Los Pedroches Bellota jamon, padron peppers, manchego flavoured with rosemary and pan con tomate; all washed down with a half bottle of icy cold, slightly salty, Manzanilla sherry. If you can get a seat near the front, you’ll also be treated to a ham show as the fat-flecked pink slices are artfully carved to order.

After stopping for a couple of sweet treats, a salted caramel Bad Brownie for the Ewing and a choc chip cookie for me, we made our way across London Bridge to see the new installation at the Tower of London - passing these cuddly fellas on the way, who look like they had already imbibed one too many shandies.

Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red - an installation marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War and created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins - will see 888,246 ceramic poppies, the first laid on the centenary of the Great War and the last due to be planted on 11th November this year, that will progressively fill the Tower’s famous moat.

It's a pretty a pretty sobering sight, as well as a moving piece of art in its own right, and is well worth making time to go and see; you can even volunteer to help 'plant' the poppies. Every evening, the Last Post will be played at sunset and the public are asked to nominate a member of the Commonwealth forces who was killed in the First World War to have their name read out in the nightly ceremony. The ceramic poppies are also available to buy after the installation ends for £25, with proceeds going to a range of service charities in the UK.

Final stop was for cocktails at Bump Caves, the new bar in the basement of a favourite old haunt, the Draft House on Tower Bridge road. We couldn't go down stairs without enjoying at least one beer in the sunshine, alongside some of their famed foot-long pork scratchings  - the 'deliciousest' around, and who am I to argue - and a must order whenever I visit.

Accessed by a door to the left of the Draft House, or down their stairs by the, shared, loos, Bump Caves is a Sixties inspired underground bar that, in the words of owner, Charlie McVeigh, is 'inspired by the late-Sixties psychedelic movement, Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, light shows, freedom, the destruction of phoney Fifties morality, ear-melting music and hallucinogenic drugs.'

It sounds, frankly, a tiny bit rubbish. Thankfully in real life Bump Caves is far more understated and laid-back than its raison d'être would suggest. While touches of neon give it a kinda groovy vibe there’s also plenty of modern tiling and shiny leather rather than tie dyes and sheepskin. Sadly there are no hallucinogenic drugs, but luckily – for those of a rapidly advancing age such as ourselves - there’s no ear-melting music either.

Max Chater, barman or “Chemist, Distiller and Rectifier” was there to greet us on our visit and remains sweetly enthusiastic despite the appearance of a bedraggled Stealth - who has arrived to join us for a quick G’n’T and remains a hard nut to crack at the best of times (these are not the best of times).

As the Ewing is on their mailing list, the first round of drinks, a house ‘bumped’ Gin and Tonic - with hop infused gin and house made tonic - is provided gratis in return for some emailed feedback later. It’s served in a flute, something which Stealth is immediately dubious about, but I rather like it. The flavours are mellow – there’s no rasp of juniper of throat tickle from the quinine, but it’s fragrant and the gentle carbonation means it slips down easily as a salve from the hot fuggy streets of the city above us.

Stealth downs hers pretty quickly and without (much) complaint, but after Max comes to talk to us about what we thought, she remains resolutely stubborn in her request for something ‘fizzy and with lime’; Heathen. Luckily he hits the jackpot with a large measure of the strong stuff, plenty of citrus fruit and a bottle of Fever tree. Job’s a good ‘un.

My next drink is the signature Electric Kool Aid Acid Test, described on the menu as Bump malt, Campari, C&PP, sparkling Piquepoul, 9V and acid - which, while looking rather naughty with its bag of white powder clipped to the side, is essentially a large glass of rose, served with a battery alongside.

The whole thing is pretty fun though; the powder (citric acid) gives the drink a little welcome fizz, and while I may have given up battery licking years ago (since the good old days of my Tomy Lights Alive) there is something childishly addictive about the fizz you get from putting it on your tongue. Not a drink for everyone perhaps, but strangely addictive.

I'll be honest, the name of the Ewing's second drink has been lost to the excitement of the evening. I do know that it was served with a 'bump' of white chocolate, and both beverage and confectionery were dispatched before I could taste them. The surest sign of success.

Her night was rounded off with a Schiz-A-Colada, a mixture of white rum, pineapple and creme anglaise (custard for plebs like me), served with a coconut vapour filled e-cigarette. A pina colada gone mad, as the tile suggests, and good fun if you miss a crafty puff indoors.

My final drink was a beer and a 'bump' pairing of a To Øl Blossom wheat beer from Denmark - flavoured with three hops and six dried flowers -served with a bump of any icy cold distillate infused with a dill and some other magical (aka, I can't remember) things. A pleasingly Scandi combination and surprisingly both refreshing and fortifying.

While I think I still prefer the beers and pork products served above ground at the Draft House, Bump Caves is a great subterranean spot with charming service. Perfect for an interesting drink, or even a sniff, a lick or a dab outside the long arm of the law.

The evening ended with the perfect drunken train sandwich, a remarkably well preserved ham and tomato bocadillo from Bar Tozino, a salty, crunchy, juicy masterpiece and proving, after a evening of fancy new experiences, that often the simplest things are still the best.