food you know as you've never known it
The slideshow above contains images of three burgers each ordered medium-rare at Bukowski, an ambitious burger grill squeezed into a shipping container on the upper level of Boxpark in London’s Shoreditch. [Read more...]
Come mid-August I welcome a glass of pink wine or pink lemonade for cool refreshment. But oddly I’m no happy camper when my Provence rosé tastes like old-fashioned lemonade, or when my freshly squeezed lemonade is no sweeter or pulpier than a dry rosé. I’m funny that way.
Same with burgers and meatloaf sandwiches: At their best I love them both. But give me a burger patty with the mealy, mushy consistency of moulded meatloaf and I’m transformed from young&foodish to young&moodish. How fortunate that no one saw this side of me when I, seated solo with no one to the left or right, tried the squashy Aberdeen Angus beef shin burger with foie gras and white truffle mayonnaise (£10.95) at the handsome Princess of Shoreditch pub in London. [Read more...]
If you want to see a Londoner famous for his temperature control get a little hot and bothered, just tell James Hoffmann in the most noncommittal tone you can muster you thought one of his featured brews from Square Mile Coffee Roasters was “fine” or “okay”. Better still, tell the 2007 World Barista Champion that, upon reflection, you suppose his coffee shop in London’s Shoreditch, Penny University, “fills a hole”.
“Ambivalence,” says Hoffmann, “is a terrible thing”.
Conversely, saying you positively hate his prized Blackburn Estate coffee from Tanzania is likelier than not to make him smile and get his attention. A puritanical shrine to brewed coffee that deprives its would-be disciples of espresso, milk and sugar, Penny University is meant to provoke. And so Hoffmann will take a “definitely hate” over a “sort of like” any day, even if devotion and love are the rightful responses to this groundbreaking, unplugged, pop-up coffee shop. [Read more...]
The image I chose for the twitter profile of @burgermonday is a photograph of a burger that is both remarkable and British.
Why remarkable? Why British? [Read more...]
Two dear colleagues would be visiting from LA and I had to plan the meals and coffee breaks for their London stopover. The pressure I felt was considerable: Were these demanding food obsessives coming directly from California and not via Italy my task would have been difficult enough. But knowing they would be arriving with the incomparable flavours of Sicily and Piedmont fresh in their minds made my challenge all the more daunting. [Read more...]
Taking an “f” out of the caffè in his sister Priscilla and brother-in-law Antonio’s Carluccio’s chain, Sir Terence Conran announced plans to open a string of British cafes based on his successful Albion formula: “Typical British caff food, nothing challenging or complicated, just straightforward hearty ingredients and recipes.” In a word, contrived.
Rather than violate the civil liberties of a law-abiding British citizen I would prefer that Gwilym Davies voluntarily strap a GPS tracking bracelet to his ankle. But if the 2009 World Barista Champion refuses to help us trace his movements via GPS or constant twitter updates I may soon have to ask my man at MI5 to slip a microscopic satellite-tracking particle into Gwilym’s morning coffee. When we discriminating cafenatics are on the loose in London we have a right to know where and when the champ is pulling espressos. [Read more...]
