Holiday at home

We're all going on a summer holiday....to N17. Who wants two weeks in Benidorm, when you can have an afternoon at the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium, watching them lose on penalties to Inter Milan in the International Champions Cup (what would have once been called a pre-season friendly).

Luckily, not my wife, who was far more excited about a visit to Chick King, followed by the footy, a few beers and a kebab on the Seven Sisters road and night in the glamorous Finsbury Park Travelodge. 

I decided to extend the enjoyment by planning a day in town as tourists. Starting with a walk around the corner (a good thing as, bearing in mind this was London in August, it was chucking it down when we woke up) to the Happening Bagel Bakery. Notice I was wearing my Spurs colours in enemy lines, we are firmly in A*senal territory here (Cuckoos in the nest in my opinion, back to Woolwich with ya! - TE), and there are multiple flags and banners in the bakers.

I would happily put up with their allegiance to the Woolwich for their poppy seed bagels, a plethora of poppy seeds firmly adhering to both sides, stuffed with smoked salmon and a generous schmear of soft cheese.

We also shared a huge hunk of 'baked cheese', a wobbly, claggy (in the right way), creamy cheesecake, which reminded me of my Nan's recipe from the Hellmann's Mayonnaise cookbook. The very highest praise. It took a bit longer, but I also enjoyed a hulking wedge of sticky coffee cake, adorned with slivered nuts, that we bought home and then promptly forgot about until later in the week.

The next stop of the day (the sun had kindly decided to make an appearance by this point) was the London outpost of Mikeller, in Shoreditch. I particularly wanted to bring the Ewing here as the bar was opened in conjunction with Rick Astley, one of her childhood favourites. 

She doesn't sing often (she doesn't get a chance with me around) but she does give a cracking rendition of Never Gonna Give You Up, especially after a few beers. So this seemed like the perfect place to get her in the mood.

Our first beers were Rick's Berliner, a berliner weisse with passion fruit, and an organic cherry sour. I enjoyed the Berliner, finding it an easy-going summer sipper, but the Ewing found the promised cherry and expected lip-puckering punch in her choice slightly underwhelming, especially at £5.80 for a half. 

These were followed quickly by half of Hazesan Allihops, a hazy NEIPA, and a glass of hop-infused Riesling, which went particularly well with their honey roasted cashews. Even better were the Marmite hazelnuts that accompanied my half of their classic Beer Geek Breakfast stout. A bar par excellence.

While we were sat there enjoying our drinks, the Ewing was trying to follow England's day five collapse in the first Ashes test. So she was pretty happy I was camouflaged (I was wearing my best summer shirt, obviously) behind the cheese plants. Unfortunately she could still hear me talking....(but if you weren't talking, you wouldn't be there and life would be so boring, so keep talking x - TE)

With England all out before tea, we decided to head across town for an early dinner. Some of my best holidays (certainly some of the hottest and most drunkenly) have been in Italy; not to mention that pizza is still, on balance, my favourite food. So, to bring back some of those summer vibes I chose 50 Kalo Di Ciro Salvo as our next stop.

Owner Ciro Salvo is a third generation piazzola of a family-run pizzeria near Naples. The first branch of 50 Kalo opened in Naples in 2014, and this is their first UK outpost; located on a rather uninspiring stretch at the top of Northumberland Avenue. 

Inside is all faux Italian marble columns and high ceilings, with the back of the restaurant dominated by a huge red-tiled, wood-burning pizza oven. A vibe, along with a cold bottle of their house lager, that obviously made the Ewing feel peckish. To  be fair, most vibes make the Ewing feel peckish.

We started by sharing a frittatina di buccatini. Described, rather oddly, on the menu as an 'eggless pasta omelette', this was essentially a deep fried macaroni and cheese ball with smoked provalone and chunks of ham. However it was described, it was absolutely delicious. Cheesy, crispy, salty, and the perfect aperitivo while waiting for the main event.

Our first choice was the carciofi e capocollo, a pizza bianca with artichokes and pork neck. This looked the part when it arrived at the table. A puffy crust with a leopard-spotted cornicione, and generously topped.

The Ewing's main criticism of the Neapolitan pizza is it's tendency into a central soupiness, but this avoided any soggy bits. If I had a criticism, it would be that I found it a bit heavy going towards the end; the richness of the toppings calling for a foil of chilli heat or a touch of acidic tomato.

We also ordered a red pizza - this time a classic margarita, despite the Ewing's meek protestations that we should add anchovies or olives or anything other than just cheese and tomato. Maybe it is a sign of my old age, but I've really started to appreciate the simplicity of a margarita over the last few years (although I'm still partial to a good good slug of chilli oil).

This version was even better than the artichoke and pork neck; the blistered spots on the base bringing a bitterness than set off the sweet tomato and milky mozzarella. Perfect simplicity and a very good pizza.

All holidays have to include an ice cream and our last stop was a scenic walk across Trafalgar Square, to Grom, another Italian export, this time from Turin in the north. Committed to making gelati and sorbetti free from artificial additives, stabilisers, or thickeners, they use fruit from their own farms and milk and cream for all their gelati sold across 40 locations worldwide still comes from Piemontese dairies. But will it match up to a Mr Whippy?

Flavours are very much old school with classics such as as the famous Torino gianduja (chocolate and hazelnut), Italian nougat, Sicilian pistachio and Crema come una volta, translated as 'the way it used to be', a simple cream base with a hint of lemon.

I chose the signature Crema di Grom, a plain cream base mixed with Ecuadorian chocolate chips and Grom's own polenta cookies and a scoop of Piedmont hazelnut, while the Ewing plumped for the coffee and the salted caramel.

Who said beige food was boring? While the crema di Grom was a little too sweet, and the biscuity chunks were a little less chunky than I'd have liked, the rest were superb. A special shout out must go to the incredible coffee that was both intense and creamy and the hazelnut, made without any cream to let the flavour of the nuts shine through.

And the great thing about having a holiday in your home town? You don't have to pack up your suitcase and go home.

Sugar and Smoke

What’s a bank holiday without a fractious trip on the M25 to see relatives - punctuated by a stopping off for a ‘relaxing’ meal and a few drinks, all while getting suitably lost en route. I mean is it even a bank holiday without an argument about what music to play in the car and which way you should have gone at the last roundabout, before lunchtime?

Our venue for a late summer bank holiday squabble (the last opportunity until Christmas) was the Maldon Smokehouse. A traditional smokehouse - tucked down a quiet little lane - that offers a succinct menu of cured fish, meat and cheeses, plus a few hot dishes, in a secluded spot overlooking the river Chelmer. Real Robinson Crusoe stuff, if you can ignore the fact you're actually still in an estuary town somewhere in East Essex.

It’s an utterly idyllic location, conveniently ignoring the tiled roof of Tesco’s peering out from the foliage across the water and the gentle hum of the A414 in the distance . Auspiciously, on our visit at the fag-end of August, the English weather was clement enough to sit out in shirt sleeves and enjoy the last warming rays of summer sun.

It’s unlicensed, but they let you BYO - with no charge, and our arrival was swiftly heralded by a cheery greeting - a special shout must go to the service, which throughout was as sweet as the seafood - and the appearance of an ice bucket, filled with ice, and glasses for our bottle of verdicchio. A very civilised start to proceedings.

I went classic with the crevette, prawn and smoked salmon combo; three slices of hand carved salmon, a pile of plump Crustacea and a dish of marie rose sauce - not far away from being my perfect desert island starter (I’d add some wobbly aioli, for extra dipping; and maybe some barbecued squid and scallops, cos why not).

It was all utterly lovely; the thick-cut fish had a pleasingly robust texture and firmness and a delicate smokiness, while the sweet prawns were very pleasing when dunked in the retro sauce. Best of all were the crevettes (a word with a seemingly interchangeable definition, taken here to mean ‘larger prawn’), which were like the prawns on steroids and accordingly exceptional.

The Ewing’s Seafood Overboard platter included salmon, prawns (peeled and unpeeled), mackerel, crayfish and a choice of crevettes or half a Norfolk crab. Again, it was all great, although a special shout out to the mackerel, which was buttery and delicate in comparison to the more familiar thwack of smoke from industrially produced fish (although my jaded taste buds do have a soft spot for a liberally-peppered mackerel fillet with a good squeeze of lemon). 

The crayfish was also surprisingly perky and delightful (does anyone really like crayfish), managing to not taste disappointingly like fishy cotton wool. And of course the Ewing had hours of fun (literally), dissecting her prawns in the manner of Dr Lecter.

To finish we shared the only pud on their menu (although, they do have Rossis ice cream and smoked cheeses) , a honeycomb cheesecake studded with chunks of chocolate and shards of cinder toffee and served with lashings of chocolate sauce and an entirely superfluous – although very welcome – ball of vanilla ice cream. 

The texture was more airy, like a frozen parfait, than the dense and claggy cheesecake I normally prefer (Waitose New York style, eaten on the sofa, normally in a state of semi-undress) but this version made the perfect palette cleanser after all the salt and smoke.

Ping pong and prawns may not be a classic combination, but adjacent to the cosy indoor restaurant area you can also find a games room, complete with table tennis tables that can be hired for a fiver an hour - the Ewing fancied a burl, but I needed more time for lunch to go down before attempting any Forest Gump style acrobatics. There’s also fussball, if you fancy something a little more sedentary (tbf, I normally find watching Spurs on the TV exhausting enough).

It's a strictly cash only enterprise, and luckily we manage to scrape together enough moolah to pay the bill and have some pocket change left for a couple of goodies from their takeaway counter, deciding, after much deliberation, on smoked duck breast and smoked Stilton - although the honey coloured wedges of brie and silvery whole mackerel were very tempting. Perfect for a ploughman’s lunch when we were back home, contemplating the sudden onslaught of autumn.

The fact the Ewing was driving meant I got the lion’s share of the wine, something she bore with exceedingly good grace after enduring a drunken trip to the supermarket, with me stumbling up and down the aisles, picking up improbably flavoured crisps after our meal. 

Thankfully bickering was averted on the rest of our journey, mainly as I was occupied by serenading her with a tuneless version of Saturday Love as we drove through Thetford Forest (where I took the part of both Alex, and Cherelle). I would say it was special treat for high days and holidays – but it’s pretty much every Saturday, in our house… sugar.

Now My Heart is Full

When I first met my wife she announced, just after telling me her favourite drinks were Black Russians or sweet pear cider, that she only really ate fish. As a confirmed beer-drinking carnivore, who had been living with a vegetarian for five years, I would have been less distraught to hear she was a Gooner who liked pulling the wings off butterflies in her spare time. Thankfully, pretty much five minutes later, she was drinking pints of ale while gnawing racks of ribs with her bare hands. Something I like to frequently remind her about, although she tells the story somewhat differently….

Anyway, as much as she loves most sources of protein, including a manic new ‘hummus in the Nutribullet’ phase she’s going through, fish and seafood remains a firm favourite. So it was an easy decision when it came to choosing what to eat on our recent jaunt down to Brighton.

Our Sunday night fish supper was at Bankers a popular takeaway and restaurant on the Western Road that are the only company in the UK to be awarded the Icelandic Responsible Fisheries Management Award, another ethical cause close to the Ewing's heart.

Inside is clean and bright, if a little utilitarian, while the fascinating range of clientele, with their quirky social mores, made me feel like I had stepped into a modern day Orwell novel full of day-trippers and secret trysts by the sea.

Keeping it classy, as always, we started with a bottle of the muscadet and a couple of wallies. No, not us, but the gherkins that were served as a kind of aperitivo, East Sussex style. If you’re feeling really fancy then a bottle of Monopole Blue Top is yours for £28. Not far off supermarket prices.

We shared the cold platter of stone cold classics to start – smoked salmon, mackerel pate and prawn cocktail - which, at £6.50, also proved great value. There are few things I like better than a prawn cocktail (I recently made the Ewing a giant version in a trifle bowl, for Valentine’s Day) and this one was no exception. The pate and salmon were also decent and served in generous portions, unlike the triangles of brown bread, which we squabbled over as we tried to scoop up every last bit of the smoked fish.

Grilled dover sole, while a touch over-cooked, was nevertheless a marvellous treat. It’s a sweet, buttery fish that needed nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and had the advantage of coming with both a generous side salad – including some outré beetroot chunks, not seen since the 80s - and a great bowl of perfect ‘chippy’ chips.

Large cod -  traditionally battered and deep fried, skin left on in the southern style - was also pretty good, but not up to the heady heights of the accompanying pile of chipped potatoes; especially when they were dunked into the complimentary tartare sauce. Boiled peas, however, were disappointingly watery and bland. Even the Ewing sadly forwent them after trying a spoonful.

After breakfasting on kippers at our hotel, followed by a stroll around the lanes to pick up mid-morning (fish-free) pastries, we headed to the Regency, a Brighton institution on the King's Road, for lunch. Another seaside classic that's been preserved in aspic, offering everything from fried breakfasts to Sunday lunch, it specialises in fish and seafood dishes with an Italian twist.

A ‘side’ of three scallops – although a couple of bivalves had been squeezed into two of the shells – served grilled and doused in garlic butter, were joyous. At £6.95, these were one of the priciest options on the menu, but a treat that was worth every penny. A pile of these, alongside a heap of fat Atlantic prawns, are very strong contenders for the starter in my death row meal menu - don’t worry, no crime has been committed; yet….)

If the scallops were good value then my main, seafood risotto, was a steal. Tomatoey rice, packed with plump prawns, sweet clams, mussels and squid and drizzled with the remnants of garlic butter from our scallops, this is about the best fun you can have in Brighton for under a tenner (and without breaking any indecency laws).

The Ewing chose the last of the seasonal sardines, before they rush off to spawn in the springtime, served simply with garlic, lemon and virginal boiled potatoes, sullied only with a sprinkling of fresh parsley. A dish that made me think of long hot summers in the south of Portugal, eating barbecued fish while watching the waves of the Atlantic crashing on the rocky shore. Not too dissimilar from our view at the Regency. Give or take twenty degrees.

We had chosen starters the day before, but now it was pudding time And what a time to be alive, with steamed syrup pudding, banoffee pie and profiteroles, three of my all-time faves all on the menu. As much as I was tempted, who could resist the lure spotted dick, or Richard, as it’s been coyly renamed here. Steamed sultana-studded, spiced sponge drowned in thick Bird's custard, what ever it's called, is always going to hit the spot.

The Ewing finished with one of her favourites, a deep-fried banana fritter served topped with ice cream and sugar wafers. A speciality her Dad spent much time perfecting when she was young, (served with toffee cream made by mixing double cream with a can of condensed milk that had been boiled for 3 hours - TE) this was a syrup covered trip down memory lane.

In an age of bland homogenisation, both restaurants are proper seaside gems that are well worth a visit - offering forgotten classics with old-fashioned prices to match. Whether you're after a takeaway tray of cod chips or a slap up lobster thermidor, despite the Ewing's very best efforts there's still plenty more fish in the sea.