Tastes of 2013

Happy New Year everyone, I'm still here! The blog has gone down the pan for the last couple of months for one reason, and one reason only. Here she is:

I'll resist the temptation to start writing blog posts about my baby, this is a food blog after all, and she's a bit rubbish at eating (milk>vomit>milk>repeat being the general scheme of things), so I'll just say that I'm a very proud Dad and leave it at that.

I was going to write a review of last year in the same vein as the previous two years, but there were too few contenders in half of the categories to make it worthwhile bothering. So instead here are twenty things I ate in 2013, from January through to December.

1. Falafel wrap from Cafe Moor in Leeds market. Nice guys, breathing life into the market, and most importantly serving exemplary middle eastern snack food, the best I've eaten outside that region.

2. The cheeseburger toastie at Home Sweet Home in Manchester. Twee place, gimmicky food was what I suspected. I couldn't have been more wrong. Great place, very good coffee, and that toastie is a work of genius (it's the gherkins that make it).

3. The Iskender kebab at Zeugma in Sheffield. A divine mix of tender, charred lamb, spicy tomato sauce, buttery bread and thick, sharp super-creamy yoghurt. Everything else is excellent too at this proper Turkish grill house.

4. The perfect pint, at the Stag's Head in Sheffield. More unusual and exciting styles have their place but for ultimate beery satisfaction I keep returning to a pint of cask bitter (or did months ago the last time I spent any time in the pub). Maybe I'm getting old or maybe this sort of beer is criminally underrated by beery trendsetters. My favourite examples: Ilkley Brewery Best, Marble Pint, Thornbridge Lord Marples.

5. The Crich Square, from the Loaf Bakery (branches in Crich and Matlock). Like a denser, yeastier toasted teacake. Toasted buttery heaven.

6. 2013 brought two Red Chill feasts, both at the Leeds branch. Excellent food and excellent value as always. The highlight: the shallow fried pork dumplings. The aftermath of one of those feasts is pictured.

7. A Sunday roast with a difference, rather than serve up the usual dessicated topside in gravy or whatever, the Wig and Pen in Sheffield came up with this beef cheek offering. Dense moist strands of cowface, cooked for an eternity, reformed into a cricket ball sized lump of joy and served with the darkest most marmitey gravy known to man. Ace.

8. Our tapas crawl in Malaga back in April wasn't a gourmet affair, but these pintxos were simple perfection.

9. The only curry of any real interest that I ate all year was this chicken chettinad at a South Indian caff in Reading. Dark, roasted spice rich and very more-ish.

10. I can't think of a city that conforms to stereotype more than Munich. The locals really do love the whole giant beers, sausages and singing thing. Skip the overtouristed Hofbrauhaus and head to the Augustiner Keller where the beer is better and whopping great plates of bratwurst and sauerkraut mit senf go down a treat.

11. The flat white at Bold Street Coffee in Liverpool. Faultless.

12. Fools, lovely fools. Cold, smooth whipped cream and tart English fruit. Easy peasy puddings for a genuinely warm summer (at least the first half of it). Gooseberry was my favourite, closely followed by rhubarb.

13. Another summer addiction, bread salad. I'd never realised how good panzanella and the like could be. They know what they're doing those Italians.

14. The final of my home made summer successes: watermelon, mint and feta salad. Served chilled on the hottest day of the year.

15. Iberico presa at Bar 44 in South Wales. The high point of an excellent tapas dinner. Pig of dreams.

16. Roast belly pork in soup noodles at Noodle Inn in Sheffield. Decent broth and bouncy noodles in support of beautiful roast meat; tender flesh, rendered melting fat, snappy crackling.

17. Rillettes, cornichons, bread, a glass of local plonk. I loved it in France.

18. Sticky toffee baked apples. A successful alternative to mincemeat, I stuffed these apples with dates and a quick butter and demerara sugar caramel. They were lovely.

19. The most memorable thing I ate in Amsterdam? The Flemish style chips. Best eaten from a cone bigger than your head, after a few ales, with a ridiculous combination of sauces (cheese and chilli pictured).

20. Christmas dinner sandwich. Christmas dinner itself was really the memorable occasion, eaten at home with my new family, just the three of us.

Food-wise I'll opt for the leftovers sarnie though, as I really cracked that this year. Use crusty white bread (I used ciabatta), butttered, then heat up your fillings and add them in this order: Sliced turkey, crispy bacon, bubble and squeak made from all the leftover veg (ideally roast spuds, cabbage, sprouts and carrots), bread sauce and gravy.

Sandwich Quest [volume 2]

Sandwich Quest wasn't really supposed to be about mass produced motorway service station fodder. That wasn't the plan. The intention was to seek out and report upon the finest filled breads the North (and maybe the Midlands) has to offer. Well that's still the plan, but I quite enjoy whinging on about the rubbish stuff too, so here's a bit of both.

Rest assured I have some better sandwiches stored up for next time. I really do, honest.

Salmon, cucumber and watercress on oatmeal bread, Marks and Sparks, everywhere

I'm lucky enough to have begun my life on the open road (i.e. job that involves loads of travel) after the arrival of Marks and Spencer's Simply Food at motorway services. They are a lifesaver, in occasionally genuinely quite good but often crushingly mediocre form. Before they arrived it must have been nigh on impossible to avoid scurvy if you didn't remember to fetch a pack up, given that the non-M and S options consisted solely of the major fast food players and those utterly shite hot food counters.

That was a very roundabout way of saying that I eat M and S sandwiches far too often. I quite like this poached salmon one, the filling is decent enough, but two things grate. One; the bread is pappy rubbish, and two; they harp on about their exclusive to M & S Lochmuir salmon. Of course it's exclusive to M and S, they invented it. It's their own bloody trademark. It's like Mars showing off about their exclusive to Mars Mars bars. Twats.

Bread 4/10

Core filling 7/10

Secondary filling 2/5

Sauces/condiments 3/5

Value 2/5

Service 2/5

S-Factor 5/10

Total 25/50

Strange burger thing, Subway, everywhere

Ok, ok, I know I'm really scraping the barrel with this one. I admit it, sometimes I eat at Subway. I know it has a weird smell and all the meats will probably give you colon disease in later life, but surely there's some nutritional value in all that salad. It has to be a better garage option than a Ginster's pasty doesn't it?

I'd normally keep it simple with a turkey and ham, but this time I was lured into a special, the name escapes me but it was essentially an elongated burger. Imagine a microwaved Danepak beef grill on a salad roll. Yummy. Extra jalapenos were vital.

Bread 3/10

Core filling 2/10

Secondary filling 3/5

Sauces/condiments 3/5

Value 2/5

Service 3/5

S-Factor 3/10

Total 19/50

Tuna and rocket pesto on granary roll, Pickles and Potter, Leeds

Back on track with something a little higher in quality. I'm trying to find the best sandwich places in central Leeds and thus far it's proving tricky to find anywhere that's consistently first rate. I don't think Pickles and Potter is that place, sadly. 

Their tuna and pesto sandwich was just a but run of the mill for the £3.70 price tag. The bread was very good but other than that it barely stood out from a £2 tuna mayo.

Bread 7/10

Core filling 5/10

Secondary filling 2/5

Sauces/condiments 3/5

Value 2/5

Service 3/5

S-Factor 6/10

Total 28/50

Filet-o-Fish, McDonald's, everywhere

Behold this and believe me when I tell you it is actually food. Not a toy rendered in plastic for a child's play kitchen, but actual food. Shiny.

For some reason you only get half a cheese slice in one of these. Seems a bit cheap. There's not a great deal of fish in the filet either, and god knows what it actually is? Pollock? Cod? Coley? Vietnamese river fish? Not a clue. The bread needs burger grease to make it viable.

Bread 2/10

Core filling 4/10

Secondary filling 1/5

Sauces/condiments 2/5

Value 2/5

Service 3/5

S-Factor 5/10

Total 19/50

Sandwich Quest

Bacon Sandwich Quest is proving a hard act to follow. I probably ought to leave well alone, write a few reviews and the odd recipe, keep the blog plain, simple and challenge free. But I just can't help myself.

An uncommonly tedious obsession with lists combined with a healthy appetite and a job that sees me ranging all over the North (and the Midlands nowadays, recently swapped with Scotland) is all pointing in one direction:

Bacon Sandwich Quest.

I eat a lot of sandwiches. I already rate them mentally against an assortment of sandwich criteria. I eat them all over the place. Let's do this.

Before we begin I should acknowledge that this is a wholly unoriginal idea. Others do it better, and have been doing so for ages. Better written, better sandwiches, far better photography. There's the Serious Eats sandwich a day strand, there's Burger specialist Burgerac, there's the Londonist's (possibly defunct) Sandwichist, there's the inspired Scanwiches and probably finest of all, given that its author, Helen, has just written an entire book about sandwiches, is the London Review of Sandwiches.

I'm not sure anyone is really chronicling the finest sandwiches of northern England (and maybe the Midlands if they get lucky) though, so that's what I'd like to do. If I'm wrong about this, and someone already is working on this thankless task for the good of humanity, then do let me know.

I'd like to know where to find the finest sarnies the North has to offer. I'm casting the net far and wide, with the barest minimum of restrictions. The rules are simple: is it a filling between or somehow within any variety of bread? Yes? Then it's a sandwich.

From the humble triangle pack, through the sourdough deli-made special to the wrap to the burger to the inevitable bacon butty, all are fair game for sandwich quest.

Without any further ado let's get the ball rolling. Here are a few sandwiches I've eaten recently: a photo, a quick description, and a score out of fifty comprising a rating for the bread, the core filling, the accompanying fillings, any sauces or condiments, value, service and something I've decided to call the S-Factor.

Sometimes, for reasons difficult to define, a sandwich is far greater than the sum of its parts. The bacon sandwich often displays this phenomenon. Budget sliced white, cheapo bacon and Daddies are not a winning formula taken in isolation, put them together and the magic happens. This is the S-Factor.

The sangers I write about might appear only here on Sandwich Quest, but you might see them popping up in other posts too if they're part of a whole meal that's worth writing about.

It's going to be an open ended quest, with round-ups appearing from time to time. I'm not promising to write them monthly, as I lost the will to live doing that for Bacon Sandwich Quest.

Bring on the butties....

Chicken pesto on granary, Philpott's, Leeds

I'd never been to Philpott's before. I was under the mistaken impression that it might be good. It's not. Bread of the 'pappy crap disguised to look like proper bread' variety. See Asda speciality bread if you don't know what I mean. Manky, shredded chicken in an inexplicable shade of orange. Limp mixed leaves. Bleurgh. £2.95.

Bread 4/10
Core filling 3/10
Secondary filling 2/5
Sauces/condiments 2/5
Value 2/5
Service 2/5
S-Factor 3/10

Total 18/50


Fishfinger butty, The Midnight Bell, Leeds

As with all of the Leeds brewery offerings, reliable but unspectacular. Decent slices of bloomer hide fingers hewn from an ogre, thick and gnarled, putting Captain Birdseye to shame. The batter is crisp, the fish moist, the tartare sauce a little bland. £5.95, including chips.

Bread 6/10
Core filling 7/10
Secondary filling 3/5
Sauces/condiments 3/5
Value 3/5
Service 3/5
S-Factor 6/10

Total 31/50


Smoked beef brisket hoagy, Red's True BBQ, Leeds

An early contender, and a place that deserves a post of its own (which it will be getting, tomorrow with any luck). Thickly sliced meat with an intense smokey flavour permeating right through each wedge, sweet onions and pickles in abundance. All in a roll of unexpected quality, somehow both dense and light, and chewy like a sub roll ought to be. House made BBQ sauces on the side are also a revelation in that they taste of something other than sugar. Excellent. £8.95 including two sides.

Bread 8/10
Core filling 8/10
Secondary filling 4/5
Sauces/condiments 4/5
Value 4/5
Service 4/5
S-Factor 9/10

Total 41/50

Review of the year 2012

Here we are at the start of another year. The last two have passed with frightening speed so it's time for my second annual end of year list-o-rama. Or the Northern Food Awards 2012 if you will.

I'm not going to call it that though, as it's a very important sounding title, as if there were judges and voters and such like, whereas in practice it's an entirely subjective round-up of the best things one person has eaten over the course of a year.

Still, there's a lot to like on this list. As with last year many of my winners are small independent businesses doing great things, and they deserve your support. Go forth, eating and drinking, into 2013.

I've kept the categories broadly the same as for 2011, give or take a couple of minor tweaks and additions. The only real difference is that I just don't have the time to write about them in such great detail this year.


The winners (and loser)

Best meal of the year: Wedgwood, Edinburgh

I dined in more upmarket restaurants in 2012 than the year before, some of which were almost in the fayn dayning category! Most of these were good, but none really that great apart from a meal at Wedgwood back in June.

Wonderful hospitality, excellent cooking and probably the single best thing I consumed in 2012, that raspberry and elderflower palate cleanser.


Coffee shop of the year: Tamper Coffee, Sheffield

Sheffield's best coffee shop, run by a lovely chap from New Zealand, proved to be a great introduction to the city. Carefully made, bold tasting coffee, lovely sandwiches and cakes, and delicious pies.

My rediscovery of the world of coffee continued apace throughout the year (in tandem with my new found tolerance for caffeine) so honourable mentions also go to Pink Lane Coffee in Newcastle, North Tea Power in Manchester, Mrs Atha's and of course last year's winner Laynes Espresso in Leeds.


Lunch spot of the year: Café Mozaic, Ashton-under-Lyne

A veritable orgy of kebabs and salads and tagines can be yours for under a fiver at Ashton-under-Lyne's marvellous Cafe Mozaic. Just look at it! Crucially the quality is also very high, making ploughing through the lot a delight and not a chore.

Also in the running were the Whitworth Gallery Cafe in Manchester for their fine soups and salads, Sesame in Leeds for dreamy fishfinger sarnies and Bragazzi's in Sheffield for first rate Italian deli sandwiches.

Best Fish and chips eaten in 2012: Murgatroyd's, Yeadon, Leeds

There's no wonder Harry Ramsden's went bust with Murgatroyd's round the corner. It has everything you could want in a fish and chip shop. Which means fat fillets of haddock in crisp, light batter, chips with creamy insides, crunchy outers and just a hint of grease, and a side of sloppy peas or curry sauce. All for not much money, washed down with a can of pop, sat at a picnic table in the dark, ravenous after a game of football. Splendid.

The best of the rest included seaside chippy visits to Sullivan's in Hornsea and Ernie Beckett's in Cleethorpes.

Indian meal of the year: Akbar's, Leeds

A difficult one this. The thing is, I didn't eat any truly fantastic Indian food in 2012, certainly nothing to match up to the best from last year. All the really interesting Indian restaurants in the North remain firmly stuck on my 'to do' list, so the prize goes to Akbar's. 

The food is nothing spectacular, but always satisfying, reliable and tasty. They also deserve a round of applause for coping admirably, service never missing a beat, despite having an enormous restaurant full of drunks every Friday night (yes Greek Street, I'm looking at you). Oh, and I don't care what anyone says, I still like the naan trees.

Chinese meal of the year: Silk Road, Camberwell, London

No contest. The best Chinese meal I ate in 2012 by a country mile. Silk Road how I love thee. You can read my review to get an idea of the food they serve, but only a visit will do it justice. Go to Camberwell.

Lamb skewers. Salivating.

Home style cabbage. Salivating more.

Other Asian meal of the year: Thai Aroy Dee, Leeds

The only repeat winner from last time around. What can I say? As with Silk Road, Thai Aroy Dee was best in class by a country mile and it just wouldn't have been fair to look elsewhere.

Honourable mentions also go to Saengarun Thai in Leeds, Little Hanoi in Sheffield and to I Am Pho in Manchester for their banh mi.

Breakfast of the year: The Breakfast Club, London

Another tricky category this. Up until last week the full English at Booth's was coming out on top. It was certainly accomplished, but didn't seem worthy of 'best of the year' status. I've obviously foregone a few proper breakfasts in favour of bacon sandwiches.

And then up popped the Breakfast Club, handily located just around the corner from our budget hotel, with a rather confusing offer of a shit bacon sandwich and an absolutely bloody lush plate of French toast with roasted apples, cinnamon and syrup. So good we had it twice in two days if truth be told.

Pub meal of the year: Town Hall Tavern, Leeds and Wig and Pen, Sheffield

The Town Hall Tavern is definitely a pub, the Wig and Pen? I'm not so sure. Either way it's a dead heat between these two. 

The THT served up very competent pub grub of a style and substance you'd expect to pay a lot more money for (including the splendiferous pig cheek scotch egg), whereas the Wig was a tad more upmarket, definitely more in restaurant territory with highly accomplished food that represented great value.

European meal of the year: Franco Manca, Stratford, London

Last year this was my Spanish only category. In recognition of the fact that I didn't eat as many Spanish meals out in 2012 (despite actually going to Spain), and did eat the odd French and Italian meal, I've expanded the category.

All of Europe may have been under consideration, but pizza still won. Pizza as good as any you're ever likely to eat, now available in a shopping centre. Please tell me they're opening at Trinity Leeds. Pretty please. Or even Meadowhell.

Also deserving of a mention: takeaway from Italian Express in Sheffield, tapas at Lunya in Liverpool, and Art's Cafe in Leeds.

Pub (or bar) of the year: North Bar, Leeds 

This was the most difficult category to pick. I didn't spend a great deal of time in the pub in 2012, and have yet to really fall in love with a Sheffield boozer since I moved here in the summer (I'm sure some potential favourites are out there, further exploration is necessary). 

Over in Leeds there were old stalwarts and new openings that failed to set my world on fire, a reminder that running a great pub or bar is no mean feat, so to do so consistently for over 15 years is an achievement in itself. Well done to North Bar, always reliably good, and somewhere I did at least visit regularly in the first few months of 2012 (as well as on and off for fourteen of its fifteen years, having first darkened the door back in '98).

Holiday meal of the year: Crab in Cornwall

From ferocious, struggling beast of the deep to my plate in an under an hour. It had to be the fresh spider crab we ate in Cornwall back in June.

The sweet, succulent flesh was a revelation, unadorned save for a few lettuce leaves and some buttered bread.

Daily feasts on the terrace in Spain also took some beating. Did I ever mention that I really like ham? Now I'm thinking of all things pig, pork scratching and lard butties in Brno weren't half bad either.

Worst meal of the year: Cote, Ealing, London 

I'm always envious of the London-dweller when it comes to food. The seemingly unending procession of exciting new eating opportunities never ceases to amaze, and it's no surprise that some of my 'best of the year' prizes always head South. 

Having said that London also boasts an even greater number of chain restaurants where the staff really do not give the slightest toss. Breakfast at Cote in Ealing was a case in point. 

Also atrocious in 2012 were Frankie and Benny's in Rochester and Trafalgar Fisheries in Sheffield.

Best thing I've cooked this year: I finally cooked the perfect steak.

..or at least as close to perfect as I'm going to get. In brief, here is how to do it: buy quality and thick, dry age in fridge, salt early, very hot pan, flip often, watch temperature, butter at the end, long rest. 

I was also pretty chuffed with the lamb and aubergine curry I cooked in September, but other than that it was a fairly poor year for my culinary skills. Must try harder in 2013.

Good things to eat [Volume 14]: in praise of weekend breakfast

Is there a finer meal than a weekend breakfast?

Eating on a working morning is a perfunctory matter, little more than essential fuel intake for the day ahead. For me, in winter, that means microwaved porridge or occasionally toast, and in summer muesli or granola with a blob of yoghurt. These are not unpleasant things, but taken in haste, at a desk or on the hoof, eating them will never be a pleasurable experience.

I wish it wasn't so, but that's part of what makes breakfast on rest days so wonderful. They are special, the exception not the norm. I'm not talking about dining out for breakfast here, that's an entirely (although almost as fantastic) different thing, I mean breakfast at home, prepared in your own kitchen, ideally with the radio on and a pot of tea brewing. The opportunity to take time, to give it some thought, to make something lovely at leisure and then eat it on the sofa, in the garden, or best of all, in bed.

What are your favourite weekend breakfasts? I was aiming to write a top ten of mine, but I was struggling to keep the numbers down so here are twenty.

1. Stewed butterbeans with tomatoes and chives. Served with fried eggs and pitta for scooping.

2. You won't get one of these in Maccy D's. Black pudding and egg muffin. Cook your egg in a biscuit cutter for that authentic 'processed fast food joint' look!

3. Fried chorizo with tomatoes on sourdough toast with fried eggs. Make sure you get lots of crispy edges on your chorizo, then fry the eggs in the red fat that's leached from the sausage.

4. I'm not averse to a sugary breakfast for a change to all the porkiness. How about pancakes stuffed with greek yoghurt, banana, honey and toasted walnuts?

5. Anything shakshuka style always goes down a treat. A big pan fry of tomatoes, eggs and whatever tickles your fancy. In this case beans, chilli and coriander.

6. Staffordshire oatcakes are excellent breakfast fodder. Nuttier, earthier pancakes filled with bacon (or spam), mushrooms and cheese. Just the job to set you up for a twelve hour shift firing pots... or a long walk... or a day in the pub.

7. Reckon you need to squeeze all the liquid and starch out of potatoes before making rosti? Not necessary, just grate the potato directly into a good glug of very hot oil in a frying pan, then press it into a cake with a metal spatula. It will splutter and hiss, but the heat will quickly drive off the excess moisture and you can fry away happily. Good with any savoury breakfast things, in this case egg and pudding.

8. Holiday breakfast, or hot British summer breakfast (ha ha). Croissants, fresh fruit, sunshine.

9. This one is here to represent anything with Nutella in it. I don't care if it's basically chocolate flavoured vegetable oil, it's utterly delicious. Eat on pancakes or croissants or crusty bread or soft bread or crumpets or muffins or toast or porridge or yoghurt or anything at all.

10. Bacon sandwich. Have I mentioned bacon sandwiches before? They are quite nice.

11. A middle eastern themed plate of scrambled eggs, tomatoes, yoghurt, pickled chillies and parsley. Needs flat bread for scooping. Fresh, lively and surprisingly good for a hangover.

12. The communal Daddy-fry. Lots of people and a massive pan and all the pork products = a very good idea.

13. Holidays or warm weather again. This time with added jam, yoghurt, juice and coffee. Bliss.

14. Early autumn fruits lend a different taste to the pancake and yoghurt combo. Fried apples and plums.

15. Bubble and squeak with the works. Leftover mash with pretty much any green vegetable (except lettuce, don't try it with lettuce) makes a good bubble. Always finish with a knob of butter for that burnished crust.

16. An acquired taste, but once you've acquired it you'll never lose it. Soft boiled eggs with anchovy toast. Mash a couple of anchovies into a large knob of butter then spread it on hot granary toast. Dip into your eggs. Heaven.

17. A dirty great sausage muffin with ketchup. I like to split the sausages just as they're served so the juices run into the muffin.

18. Plums often undergo a magical transformation when you cook them. Boring, mealy-fleshed eaters can be turned into tart, crimson-juiced wonders with a little heat and sugar. Serve simply with thick yoghurt.

19. The carbo-licious hangover cure. Sometimes bread alone is not enough. Which is when a cheesy scrambled egg, potato waffle, bacon, mushroom and tomato sandwich comes into play.

20. Plain old eggy bread with ketchup. Sometimes the simplest breakfasts are the best.