It’s still snowing gently outside, as it was yesterday whilst I sipped hot chocolate for the Academy of Chocolate Awards at Kingsway College near Victoria. Perfect weather for it. Today felt strange without at least one hot chocolate. I made two.
There were so many contenders for a top 5 this week! Here are the most interesting/delicious:
WEEK ending Sunday 18th March 2018
- Artichoke crisps with spiced pear and goat’s cheese. A canapé by The Fodder Pop Up. They’re coming back this Wednesday for a three month residency at newish and beautiful Southwark pub Great Guns Social. These guys are so talented and meld flavours and textures brilliantly. They also forage to get many of their unusual ingredients. It’s truly some of the most interesting cooking I’ve tried in the last year. Don’t miss it.
- Pogacha at Popina. I was invited to this new cafe in Mayfair by Popina who have been on the food market scene for twenty years! Pogacha is on their breakfast and lunch menu – it’s supposed to be similar to focaccia but was slightly more scone-like in its density. Tasty though!
- 4-Hour Cabbage at Bala Baya. Between four of us we tried more than half the menu and this strange-sounding dish was so far from the boiled cabbage I was served as a child you’d never know it was the same vegetable, along with the roasted cauliflower with pomegranate, tahini and yoghurt, these were my favourites of an all-round excellent set of dishes. The fish was wonderful, too.
- Homemade beans and cheesy chilli cornbread shared with my friend along with delicious vegan dahl for lunch at WildFlower in Peckham Levels – a parking garage near Peckham Rye station that’s converted into several spaces to eat. WildFlower Canteen is vegetarian with plenty of vegan options. Both of these dishes were perfectly-made, comforting and well-priced.
- Well-made pasta drowning in delicious butter at Flour & Grape in Bermondsey. It’s a little walk from any station, but the space is pretty, the staff are sweet and the pasta is excellent and made fresh on site. It’s also very well-priced compared to some of the other pasta restaurants in London. I can’t believe I went and didn’t order dessert though… #fail
From a chocolate perspective, as well as judging another anonymous hot chocolate and spreads round of the Academy of Chocolate Awards, I also met with Susana and sampled her impressive limited edition Cardenas Chocolate and went to the opening of Matt’s Taste Cacao shop in East London and tasted at least ten wonderful bars of chocolate, of which a highlight was new-to-me Ajala Chocolate from the Czech Republic. Their single origin Tanzanian and Dominican Republic bars were .
Sorry I kind of cheated and included more than five via that chocolate paragraph. I’ll try harder next week!