Northern Food on tour: Munchin' in München

Firstly an apology: I know the title of this post is atrocious, but I couldn't resist it. Sorry.

Munich, in common with every other German city I've had the pleasure of visiting, is great. Sausages, beer, attractive parks and squares, a super-efficient transport system with a kiosk selling Jägermeister in every station, friendly locals, and generally pleasant weather. What more could you want from a weekend break?

I was lying about one of the above. The weather. Rarely have I seen so much rain. It chucked it down almost constantly from our arrival on Thursday afternoon to our departure on Sunday night. I'm not talking drizzle here, but genuine soaked through in minutes pissing rain. So a stag weekend of loafing around in biergarten swiftly became a stag weekend loafing around in bierhallen. Not a great deal of difference really, and the news pictures of major flooding in cities less than an hour away made us realise that the persistent damp was little more than a minor inconvenience to our weekend of boozing.

This was my fifth visit to Germany, and let's just say it wasn't the first to have a rather beery focus. As a consequence I haven't got the slightest clue about more refined dining in the country, but I can tell you a thing or two about cheap eats, booze and fast food. Before I waffle on about Munich for a bit, here are my top five tips for cheap eats in Germany:

1) Eat in pubs (or beer gardens, halls or cellars). Entirely stereotypical I know, but you can't beat a good sausage and sauerkraut-fest. The quality is generally high and the prices low.

2) Go Turkish. There are at least 2.5 million people of Turkish origin in Germany, meaning that Turkish is by far the most prevalent non-native cuisine. Turkish food is everywhere, and usually good.

3) If you've risen too late our your lodgings don't provide one, look out for bars or cafes specialising in breakfast. Many of them serve set breakfasts of some generosity. If you go for the works you could be looking at juice, coffee and a colossal basket full of ham, salami, cheeses, bread rolls, pastries, jam, fruit, honey, yoghurt, smoked salmon, rye bread and whatever the hell else they can shoehorn in there.

4) Drink beer on the go. There's no stigma attached to drinking beer anywhere and everywhere in Germany. On the tube, in the streets, at the swimming baths (I kid ye not). May as well get a round in then. Just remember there's probably no stigma attached to it as people tend to behave themselves. High spirits and good cheer are fine. Fighting and puking are not.

5) Of other foreign foodstuffs commonly found, south-east Asian is worth a look (I've had decent Thai and Vietnamese) as is African (Ethiopian seems quite popular). As for Indian, if my sole experience is anything to go by, don't do it. Wait until you get home.

So what of Munich? It generally holds true to the five tips above, though there are clearly some local differences. Beer and sausages are even more popular here than in northern Germany.

The whole Bavarian oompah bands, litres of beer and lederhosen thing isn't just tourist schtick, the locals really seem to love this stuff too. On the weekend that Bayern sealed the treble the city's traditional boozers were heaving, so we kicked things off in true style with bratwurst, sauerkraut (around 7 euros) and a few litres of finest. 

As an aside, don't expect Munich to be full of currywurst, that's more of a Berlin thing, and is certainly more popular in other northern cities than down south. This very closed stall in the Olympic park was the only evidence I saw of the infamous dish.

With your sausages, you'll be needing beer, served here by the half or full litre (6-8 euros for the full, known as ein mass). A litre seems like far too much at first, but you soon get into the swing of things. These were snapped in the Hofbrauhaus, tourist central for all things Bavarian, and home to probably my least favourite of the local beers we tried. My vote goes to Augustiner, whose classic pale lager (Helles) is a thing of crisp, clean beauty.

Munich sells itself as the beer capital of the world (amongst other claimants including Prague and Huddersfield), which may be fair if we're talking in terms of volumes of the stuff drunk, but is rubbish if you're into variety and innovation. There are six breweries in the city, all of whom have been brewing the same four beers (in accordance with the purity laws, the Reinheitsgebot) for the last thousand years, and who between them control the entire drinking market in the city. 

I may have some of the detail wrong there, but you get the gist of it. The ethos is very much 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', so don't come here expecting to drink third pints of super-hopped black IPA. Order up a litre of top quality lager and go with the flow. 

Beer snacks of a non-sausage variety are also available; I'd go for a platter of meats, cheeses and a few giant dough pretzels (around 9 euros a platter, 90 cents a pretzel). If you're lucky the meat platter will include something I can only describe as black pudding haslet. The pretzels are possibly the saltiest thing you'll ever eat, but don't worry you'll have a litre of beer at hand to refresh the palate.

On Friday night we dined at the also touristy but surprisingly good Ratskeller, a huge warren of a place under the Town Hall. This being the full blown traditional German meal of the trip, it had to be Schweinshaxe, or pork knuckle, an enormous great hunk of slow roasted pig, replete with tender meat and crackling (around 18 euros). 

Meat and gravy were splendid, separately served kraut cut the fat a little, but the potato dumplings were the most pointless food stuff ever. Why you'd take some nice mash-able potatoes and work them into something more suited to a round of golf I have no idea.

Fast food time! The döner kebabs in Germany are really quite nice. Honest! Usually served on thicker Turkish bread rather than pitta, and with actual shreds of meat rather than foot long strands of processed elephant leg, you could almost eat one sober. Almost. 3 or 4 euros a pop in Munich.

A pizza and pasta place fifty yards from our hotel proved to be a lifesaver, being near enough to obtain sustenance without getting wet again if you legged it. The quality was genuinely high for the ridiculously low prices. This mushroom stuffed calzone, with a proper chew and char to the dough, cost a mere 3 euros.

Sunday afternoon, almost time for home and the excess is starting to bite. Is there a cuisine better suited to soothing sore heads than Vietnamese? Salty broths, herbs, chilli heat; it's all pure tonic. This little place down the road from the Hauptbahnhof did us proud. Pots of jasmine tea all round.

Vietnamese spring rolls and a couple of salads to start. This shrimp salad was the pick of the bunch, bright and balanced.

Noodle soups to follow. Bun bo was absolutely unbeatable hangover fodder. Savoury broth with some depth, springy noodles, herbal notes. A platter of herbs wouldn't have gone amiss, but at less than 15 euros each for tea, noodles and a bunch of shared starters this was great.

That was Munich, a successful send off for Mr Farrar who weds in July. In summary, the historic beer places are well worth a visit. Go to the Hofbrauhaus once for the experience then head elsewhere. I liked the Augustiner places best. The pubs close early, after which time it's clubs and bars (mostly quite dodgy sports bars on the face of it). The area around Hauptbahnhof (central station) is where most of the cheap hotels are, and is where you'll find good fast food and ethnic eats. I've heard that the parks, squares and beer gardens are delightful, but can't verify this as it never stopped raining. If you suffer the same fate and all else fails you can always go drink Jägermeister on the tube. Prost!

Host, Liverpool

Pan-Asian, a restaurant genre to strike fear into the heart of the purist. I'm not really one of those, but I understand their criticisms. Asia is a big place. The two most populous nations on earth have cuisines more varied than some continents, and that's just within their own respective borders. And it's not as if the vast span of Asia outside China and India eats food that's lacking in distinction either.

So can a Pan-Asian restaurant like Host really do justice to such myriad variety, or is it destined to disappoint? The classic jack of all trades but master of none.

A duck and watermelon salad with cashew nuts and thai basil was pleasing to eat on account of its textural contrasts. Fibrous meat, yielding, juice heavy melon and the snap and crunch of nuts and beansprouts. Taste wise it wasn't so much fun. Sweet fruit, sweet-ish meat and a sweet dressing left it one dimensional, needing something acidic for balance, or at least for the advertised basil to be detectable.

I couldn't resist ordering the seared beef pho to follow, partly because I fancied something soupy, and partly because at twelve quid it was by some margin the most expensive pho I've ever seen.

What does the mark up on your average Vietnamese restaurant prices get you? A very fine looking dish with a well stocked platter of garnishes, which although plentiful sadly didn't include any of the more unusual herbs, just regular coriander, mint and basil. The meat was the high point of the dish, a good slab of well seared, blush pink sirloin that wouldn't have been out of place with a bowl of frites. Springy noodles were also a hit.

So far so good, just the broth to taste, and oh... it just tastes of salt. Not offensively so, there's just not much else to it. None of the meaty depths of a good stock, no aromatic star anise back note. Ultimately what you're paying for is the European-isation of the dish, everything else acting as the supporting cast to the big slab of protein in the centre of the plate. Not unpleasant, just not really the point of pho as far as I'm concerned. It should be all about the broth.

Sadly it didn't really add up for me at Host. I hoped that the food would defy expectations, but it just served to confirm my suspicions that pan-Asian restaurants are never the place to go for genuinely good Asian food.  At £24 for two courses, one beer and service it's also not cheap.

Service, I should point out, was excellent. Everyone I spoke to was attentive, polite, and keen to check that everything was ok. Fine, I said, of course. Which it was. You can't really take up your issues with the entire concept with the waiting staff.


5/10

31 Hope Street
Liverpool
L1 9HX

http://www.ho-st.co.uk/

I Am Pho, Manchester

It's banh mi time! You'll find I am Pho, or Vietnamese Pho, or whatever it's called (this isn't really clear), on George Street in Chinatown. It's a basement café, next door but one to the 'Long Legs full strip lapdancing club' whatever on earth that might be.

It appears to be everything a good Vietnamese caff should be. Basic but clean, a fine selection of condiments on the wipe clean tables and a short menu of lovely sounding stuff, pride of place going to the pho. But I wasn't here for the pho this time, I was after a banh mi, the splendiferous Vietnamese sandwich.

A single filling banh mi costs a very reasonable £2.99, and it's 50p more for each extra filling. The best thing to do is just order one with every type of pork in it. That'll be roast pork, Vietnamese pork sausage (a bit like luncheon meat, but in a good way) and pork liver paté. You might think that sounds like a lot of pork, and you'd be right.

It was stuffed to the rafters with pork. Livery pork and slightly chewy pork and tender roast pork. The standard accompaniments were all present and correct with the notable exception of chilli: coriander, cucumber and lightly pickled cucumber and daikon. It really did miss that kick of heat from the chilli though, being just slightly unbalanced towards the rich and meaty side of things. Of course you could argue that's entirely my fault for ordering triple pork, and had I eaten in rather than taken away the problem would easily have been rectified.

The only slight downer was the bread; a fresh and perfectly acceptable regular baguette, but not the lighter, crisper rice flour baguette like they use in Vietnam itself. Lighter bread and a chilli hit and this would have been an outstandingly good sandwich.

The folks in there were absolutely lovely too, they fetched me a cup of tea to sip while I waited. A great new addition, I'll be back to try the pho.

7/10

44 George Street
Chinatown
Manchester
M1 4HF

Little Hanoi, Sheffield

Vietnamese food has well and truly arrived in the north, and not before time. This is one London food trend that's been slow to catch on outside the capital, but one that I wish really would (unlike certain others, like burger joints with sweary menus and queuing for example).

There's lots to love about Vietnamese food, it always seems healthy with the nourishing broths and generous use of herbs but never fails to satisfy with a good dose of meat, carbs and spice. Although the cuisine has plenty more to offer it's to the two most well known meals that I return time and again. Pho, the beef noodle soup of wonders, and Banh mi, one of the finest sandwich creations known to man (a Banh mi can involve no less than three different types of pork so must be amazing).

Manchester and Sheffield had single Vietnamese food outposts until recently, and there's the odd place in smaller towns (Ilkley for one), but we haven't had anything like competition until now. Both Sheffield and Manchester have had new openings recently, with Little Hanoi in the former and Hanoi Quan and I am Pho across the Pennines, about which more tomorrow. I took a trip to Little Hanoi to sample the pho.

The classic rare beef pho at Little Hanoi was very good, the finest I've eaten outside London (where I like Café East at Surrey Quays best), the all important stock offering up deep, savoury satisfaction. The beef, thin slices of flank, was marvellous, tinged pink and delicate in texture but strong on flavour. Springy noodles completed the package.

There's room for improvement on the herbs front though, this was a better effort than Pho 68 over the road but single sprigs of coriander and mint is still a bit lacking. More of both and some of the Vietnamese specific ones (sawtooth herb in particular) and they'll really be on to a winner.

The rare beef pho will set you back £6.80 and everything on the menu is under eight quid. I drank an iced coffee but they are licensed if you fancy a few beers. Service was friendly and the food came fast. It's worth noting that although my pho was great, others haven't been so lucky. Clare from Feast and Glory tweeted a photo of the same dish that didn't look a patch on mine, so they may be a little inconsistent. Go, and hopefully you'll get them on a good day.

8/10

216-218 London Road
Sheffield
S2 4LW

 

East One, Sheffield

East One is a noodle bar, very much in the Wagamama style. One bowl dishes, seating at long wooden benches and so on. The menu leans more towards Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai rather than Japanese, but the styling is similar. I like these places, and am always hopeful that independent ones will come up trumps with better food than the chains.

Sadly East One wasn't that great. Vegetarian spring rolls were crisp and greaseless, but otherwise boring. Probably straight from the freezer catering pack, but certainly no better than that if they were made in house.

My Thai fried rice (chicken, onion, tomato, stir-fried with chilli paste, basil and fish sauce) was underseasoned in every way. Not enough chilli, basil or fish sauce. I asked for fish sauce and chillies so I could pep it up a bit, only for the waiter to explain that fish sauce wasn't used as a condiment as it was too salty. News to me. He brought me a tiny dish of chillies in vinegar instead.

AS had roast pork and duck on rice with greens. I tried the duck;- good flavour but a bit chewy. The sauce was too gloopy.

The chap, who to be fair was friendly, came back for another chat when we'd finished, and decided to explain the situation vis a vis appropriate use of fish sauce in more detail. I wouldn't have minded had I not known he was talking bollocks. Thais eat fish sauce laced with sliced chillies all the time. It's a condiment called nam pla prik (annoyingly I couldn't remember the name at the time).

Anyhow the food was ok, and was served quickly. Service was friendly but irritating. We paid around £23 in total, reasonable but not particularly cheap for this sort of thing.

5/10


13 The Plaza
West One
8 Fitzwilliam Street
Sheffield
S1 4JB

www.east1noodlebar.co.uk

Pho 68, Sheffield

Mission 'find pho in Yorkshire' arrived in Sheffield last Friday. Surely Pho 68 would come up trumps. The clue is in the name.

Pho 68 is a Vietnamese Cafe serving 'Traditional Vietnamese and select Pacific rim cuisine'. Their words not mine. I'm not really sure what they're on about with the Pacific rim bit, in practice the lengthy menu comprises a fairly short list of Vietnamese classics (noodle soups, summer rolls, clay pot dishes, grilled meat and rice/noodle plates) and a far longer one of Anglo-Chinese dishes.

We mixed and matched, left to my own devices I'd have stuck to the Vietnamese stuff but AS had a craving for crispy duck. A quarter duck and a Vietnamese pancake was clearly far too much food for a starter as both were enormous, a theme that would continue with the mains. Be warned.

The pancake was stuffed to bursting with beansprouts, other veggies and chicken, and wasn't overly greasy like some of these I've eaten in the past. I was rather pleased we'd chosen the duck once it had arrived, as it was fragrant with lovely crisp skin and still moist flesh. The hoi sin sauce doesn't really do it for me though, it's far too sweet. Give me some chilli bean sauce and I'm happy.

Here it is. The real purpose of the visit to Pho 68. Pho with rare beef and braised beef. It looked the part, and tasted it too. They've got the makings of a really good pho here. The stock was excellent. Deep, aromatic and intensely savoury. Wafer thin slices of beef were rare on arrival but cooked through as time progressed, the gentle poaching keeping them tender. The braised beef (brisket I think) was also sliced thin, but had a stronger, minerally flavour. The tendon running through it was soft and gelatinous speaking of long, slow cooking. The noodles, save for a little gluey clump at the top, were cooked just right.

So all was well with everything that arrived in the bowl, it was the plate of accompaniments that rather let the side down. For me, the thing that can really lift a bowl of pho from the good to the sublime is the plate of things to add. The contrast between the earthy depths of the nourishing broth and the freshness and zip of herbs and citrus can be just the best thing ever (especially when hungover).

You'd expect to get beansprouts, a wedge of lime, some chopped chilli, and as a minimum, a good handful of coriander and mint. There are several other herby possibilities (sawtooth herb is my favourite), but I've never seen anything other than mint and coriander offered outside London. Pho 68 offered up one measly sprig of coriander. To be fair, I didn't ask for extra, maybe the good folk of Sheffield don't want their tea tainting with unnecessary greenery so they don't bother. Next time I'll ask, but more herbs really should be the norm.

Our other main was a Vietnamese chicken stir-fry which was pleasant enough, if a little boring. A more generous hand with the lemongrass and chilli would have perked things up a bit.

It's a casual sort of place but they are licensed so we had a couple of beers each. Including those the bill came to around £34 before tip. Service was efficient but also very friendly. It's a bit of a tricky one to rate this, as some things were excellent (the pho broth, the duck) but others disappointing (the stir-fry, the lack of herbs).

I'll definitely return though, sort the herb issue out and this is best pho I've eaten in the North by a clear distance (ahead of Vnam in Manchester and Viet-Thai in Leeds).

7/10

175 London Road
Sheffield
S2 4LH

www.pho68.co.uk

Viet-Thai-Cuisine, Stanningley, Leeds

I found pho in Leeds! Ever since returning to Yorkshire I've been moaning about the dearth of South-East and East Asian dining options in these parts. It's still proving a bit of a challenge. Thai Aroy Dee have come up with the goods for great Thai food but there's still no sign of Korean or Malaysian, and Vietnamese continued to prove elusive. Until last week that is.

Viet-Thai is a lovely little neighbourhood restaurant in Stanningley. When I paid a visit one lunchtime last week it was clear this is a popular place with the locals. There was a steady stream of customers, most of whom seemed to be on first name terms with Huong, who runs front of house with husband Minh in the kitchen.

I ordered beef pho, upgrading to a large portion because the normal size is listed alongside Tom Yum on the menu as a starter portion. What arrived was still in the small sized bowl  rather than the huge vats pho tends to be served in, but there was a more than generous amount of beef in the dish and I was brought an extra bowl of stock to top up from if I ran dry.

So what about the all important stock? Intensely savoury, quite salty, just a hint of anise and all round good depth of flavour. That, combined with nice, bouncy noodles made me very happy. The beef wasn't the thinly sliced flank or brisket usually used for pho, rather the same stuff they'll be using in the curries and stir-fries - cut into strips and tenderised using cornflour, like Chinese takeaway beef. It was tasty enough though and I ate every last morsel.

The platter of bits and bobs to throw in to the soup included beansprouts, hot chillies, lime, mint and coriander. All standard stuff but a more generous hand with the herbs would have been a bonus.

Service was lovely and the bill was £8.40 including a large pot of jasmine tea (£1.80). I've had better pho, but I doubt a little place like this would sell enough of it to make stocking the little extras worthwhile (pho specific beef, rarer herbs, enormous bowls), and it was still very satisfying. If I lived in Stanningley I'd be a regular. Good food, small, basic, clean, friendly and you can bring your own booze.

7/10

132/134 Bradford Road
Stanningley
Leeds
LS28 6UR

www.viet-thai-cuisine.co.uk

London and South-East round-up: the good

Home at last. I'm just back from a rather silly week long jaunt around the country for both work and play. I've stayed at a Premier Inn, a Holiday Inn, two Travelodges and one friend's house, with no more than a couple of nights in one place. I'm not half glad to be home.

It's been an interesting week food-wise though, I've experienced much of what's good about eating on the cheap in Britain; the enthusiastic adoption of foreign cuisines and the rapidly developing street food scene being the primary examples.

On the other hand I've also experienced much of what's bad; the distinctly average offering in most pubs and the proliferation of crappy chains interested only in the bottom line being cases in point.

Other than Silk Road, which got a post all to itself, here are the things that were good, and if I can be bothered I might write about those that were bad too:


Franco Manca, Westfield Stratford City

There's much to dislike about the new Westfield mega-mall adjacent to the Olympic site at Stratford, if, like me, you're really not that enthused by shopping. Or by corporate-style marketing nonsense, which seemed to be in overdrive in an area of the centre named the 'Great Eastern Market', and described as a 'modern take on a traditional market'. If that's the case then a 'modern take' on a 'traditional market' means not actually like a market at all, more like an area of a shopping centre where the units are small and everything is hideously overpriced. Great.

Now I've got that rant out of my system I'll have to give credit where it's due. There is much to like about Westfield Stratford City from an eating perspective. All of the usual suspects are there, but a significant proportion of the extensive food offer is given over to small London based businesses. Businesses like Franco Manca who have opened their third outlet here.

Franco Manca are widely acknowledged to make some of the finest pizza in London. I've eaten at both of the other branches, in Brixton and Chiswick, and agree that they're excellent, although I didn't think Chiswick was quite up to the standard of the original in Brixton market.

When I spotted them in Westfield I was worried that they might have sold out, expanding the empire at the expense of the quality. I needn't have worried, the wood burning ovens were present and correct and the prices no higher than in Brixton.

Just tomato, mozzarella and basil, simple but absolutely delicious. They use a sourdough for the base which is then blasted in those fiercely hot ovens producing a crust that's beautifully bubbled and charred on the outside but remains soft, light and slightly chewy within. Good quality cheese and tomato in just the right proportions offset the dough nicely.

The ease with which a whole one of these can be gobbled up is amazing. Just compare and contrast with the heavy going stodgefests that so many pizzas become. An absolute bargain at £5.90, especially when you consider that the vastly inferior equivalent at Pizza Express costs £7.50.

9/10

Unit 2003
The Balcony
Westfield Stratford City
London
E20 1ES

http://www.francomanca.co.uk/




Buen Provecho, eat.st at King's Cross, London

I'm all for the street food revolution. Mobile catering has been improving at festivals and the like for a good few years now, and it finally seems that bringing the same idea (that you can serve good food from a van) to the city streets has caught on in a big way. London's new eat.st is at the forefront, with a rotating list of traders pitched up along a new pedestrian precinct round the back of King's Cross station.

Mexican stall Buen Provecho tickled my fancy last Friday, mainly because I'd heard great things about their tacos. Which as luck would have it were unavailable because the tortillas were late arriving. No matter as the lunch box meal is any two of the same taco fillings served on rice, with salsa, guacamole and tortilla chips.

A point of note to virtually every one of those burrito places that have popped up in recent years. It wouldn't kill you to include guacamole in the price. 50p extra or more for a smear of mashed avocado is a rip-off. Buen Provecho showed how it should be done by making good guacamole and including it in the price. Self service salsas and tortilla chips, and the fact the guy serving was friendly and looked like a pirate also made me smile.

Star of the show was Cochinita pibil, slow roasted pork marinated in orange juice and spices (I'm not quite sure what). The meat was reduced to lovely moist shreds that oozed juices with an intense tangy flavour. If I ever get round to going here again I'll just have this stuff. The salsas were also pretty good, one of raw finely diced veg and coriander, the other a hotter, smokier affair probably involving some sort of roasted chillies. A dollop of refried beans were also successful, lending creaminess to the rice.

The only duff note was the other meat dish, chicken and chorizo in a sauce that was a bit nondescript. It tasted ok but was dull in comparison with the outstanding pork.

A substantial meal box costs £6, service is friendly, you can help yourself to salsa and there's plenty of kerb to sit on.

8/10

King's Boulevard
London
N1C

http://eat.st/kings-cross/




Banh Mi Bay, Holborn, London

Imagine a sandwich that's rich and meaty but fresh and tangy. A sandwich that marries three types of pork with mayo and pickles. A sandwich that's spicy and fragrant. A sandwich that's crusty and crunchy but smooth and moist. This is the Banh Mi, Vietnam's notable contribution to the pantheon of great sandwiches.

I fell in love with the Banh Mi when I lived in Woolwich. Someone opened up a Vietnamese coffee shop just off the high street, so they were pretty much the only exciting foodstuff I could eat without hopping on a train (Woolwich is not London's finest foodie suburb, there are some potentially good Ghanaian places, but they always had strange blacked out windows and I never plucked up the courage to venture inside). I would muck around in the gym for half an hour or so, then reward myself with bread, and chilli, and three types of pork.

I digress, the special Banh Mi at Banh Mi Bay was pretty damn good. All the key elements were there: a light rice flour baguette, roast pork, pork roll, pork liver paté, slightly pickled carrot and mooli, mayo, cucumber, coriander, chilli. I'd have liked the paté to have been more liver-y, there are plenty of other strong flavours present to stand up to it, but apart from that I couldn't fault it.

£3.85 for the special Banh Mi, perfectly reasonable as it's an impressively proportioned sandwich. It contains three varieties of pork too, did I mention that already?

8/10

4-6 Theobalds Road
Holborn
WC1X 8PN

http://www.banhmibay.co.uk/

Cà ri gà (Vietnamese chicken curry)

Vietnamese curries are often an altogether subtler affair than Thai ones. This is almost a curry and coconut flavoured chicken stew. It's mellow and soothing with only a gentle heat, but not at all bland. The chicken releases its goodness during cooking to create a lovely savoury-sweet coconutty broth, and the spices provide fragrance.

Served with crusty french bread (baguettes made partially with rice flour are very popular in Vietnam) or steamed rice it's perfect when you're feeling jaded on a cold winter night.

I'm not going to claim this as a wholly authentic Vietnamese dish, but it definitely bears some resemblance to what you'd find in that part of the world. I mention this as authenticity and whether it matters is something I've been thinking a lot about recently, there's a very interesting post and discussion about it here and it ties in to my experiences searching for good Thai food in Leeds.

I'd love to hear any opinions on this. Does authenticity matter? Has the word become meaningless when used to describe food? Should restaurants describe their food as authentic when it isn't? How do you define what's authentic in the first place?

Back to the recipe, which will serve 2 generously and takes around an hour and a quarter from start to finish.

What you'll need:

4 bone-in chicken thighs
1 medium-sized onion
1 large carrot
a few potatoes
1 tin coconut milk
1 tbsp curry powder (I use Bolst's)
1 tsp turmeric
1 small cinnamon stick
1 star anise
1 tsp black peppercorns
3-4 large cloves garlic
1 large thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 tsp palm sugar (optional)
Fish sauce (I'm sure you can get Vietnamese fish sauce but I used Thai)
steamed rice or a baguette to serve

What to do:

1. Brown the chicken over a medium heat in a deep frying pan or wok for 10-15 minutes, then remove it from the pan and set aside. While the chicken is browning chop the onion.

2. Drain off most of the chicken fat from the pan, leaving just enough to fry the onions in then return the pan to the heat. Add the cinnamon, star anise and peppercorns to the pan and fry for a minute or so.

3. Add the onions to the pan and sweat them for around 10 minutes.

3. While the onions are sweating grate or finely chop the garlic and ginger and cut the carrot and potatoes into large pieces (keep them big otherwise they'll disintegrate too much). Open the coconut milk.

4. Add the garlic and ginger to the pan and fry for a minute or so, then add the turmeric and curry powder. Continue frying, stirring constantly for another couple of minutes. If it starts to stick loosen with a splash of the coconut milk.

5. Pour in the coconut milk then fill the empty can with water and pour that in too. Throw in the chicken, potatoes, carrot and palm sugar.

6. Simmer for around 40-45 minutes, until the chicken is starting to fall from the bones and the potatoes and carrot are soft.

7. Taste the sauce and season with as much fish sauce as you like.

8. Serve with crusty bread or rice.

Vnam Café, Manchester (revisited)

There's a new kid on the Manchester Vietnamese restaurant block. It goes by the name of Hanoi Quan and it's next door but one to Vnam Café. I was first alerted to its existence by Mancfoodian ages ago, and after it appeared to be open when I drove past a couple of weeks ago I'd planned a return visit.

It wasn't open on Wednesday night, and according to the guys in Vnam Café where I went instead it hasn't opened yet, and the owners are 'having some problems'. Oh well, that's put paid to my fantasies of Oldham Road developing into Manchester's answer to London's Pho mile. If they do ever open you can't miss the place, the sign is bright pink.

This was my third visit to Vnam Café over the last year (second visit blogged here), and all three have been good. Three meals is plenty enough to give the menu a good going over as it's brief and to the point. Various grilled things and rolls as appetisers, just six things on rice or noodles for mains, a few salads and pancakes, and of course noodle soups.

On Wednesday I had the summer rolls, then BBQ chicken with rice to follow. The summer rolls weren't freshly made (I don't think) but were pleasant enough, and two dipping sauces rather than one as a bonus. The thick peanutty one was excellent.

The chicken was simple but tasty. A chicken leg, de-boned then chargrilled so the skin was crisp and blackened but the flesh moist. Plain boiled rice and fresh salad. The whole lot doused in sweetened fish sauce with a little garlic and chilli.

I like this place a lot. The food is basic but reliable, served quickly and cheap. This meal cost me under a tenner. If the Manchester Pho mile doesn't quite come to fruition can we have a place like this in Leeds please. Just one will do. Pretty please.

7/10

140 Oldham Road
Manchester
M4 6BG

http://vnamcafemanchester.com/

Pork hock udon

I love noodle soups. I don't know why I'm writing this now because I'm craving noodle soup something rotten, but have no suitable ingredients in the house and no intention of leaving it to get some. I'm sort of torturing myself with temptation.

Anyhow I love noodle soups because they are the comfort food of the gods, because they are infinitely variable, and because they can be utterly, utterly delicious. There's rarely an occasion when a great big bowl of steaming goodness won't hit the spot. From the simple, almost ascetic pleasure of a clear broth spiked with nothing but a scattering of herbs and a few shards of ginger, to the dense, rich pungence of a good laksa.

I make noodle soups all the time, rarely bothering with a recipe and mixing and matching ingredients from across East and South-East Asia as the fancy takes me. They're always satisfying, and sometimes memorably delicious too.

This was a particularly good effort, so I thought I'd put it on the blog. The flavours are quite clear and bright, with added richness from the fatty pork and crackling. I'm sure it's not in the least bit authentic, but if it's close to the cuisine of any country I'd guess it's Japanese with a bit of Vietnam thrown in.

it's a leftovers recipe really, so you need to have the pork prepared in advance. I had it left over from a different meal. If you do it from scratch a whole hock should do about 3 people.

What you'll need per person:

handful shredded pork meat

about 1 pint pork stock

shards of crunchy crackling

fish sauce

sriracha chilli sauce

2 spring onions

1 hot chilli

1 clove garlic

small lump ginger

mint

coriander

lime/lemon

1 sheet udon noodles

some greens or other veg (I used runner beans)

To make the pork, stock and crackling

1. Simmer the hock with onion, celery and peppercorns for a couple of hours, skimming off any scum from the surface. 

2. After a couple of hours remove the pork and veg from the stock. Chuck away the veg. 

3. Pull the skin/fat off the hock, then pull off the meat and shred it. 

4. Put the remaining bones back in the stock and simmer for another hour. 

5. Dry the fat, salt it and roast in a hot oven 'til you get crackling.

To make the noodle dish

1. Finely slice the spring onions and chilli.

2. Shred or grate the ginger and garlic.

3. Chop some mint and/or coriander leaves.

4. Heat the stock in a large pan or wok.

5. Add the noodles, greens/veg and pork and heat until the noodles are just done.

6. Squirt in some fish sauce and sriracha to taste.

7. Garnish with the garlic/ginger, the spring onions/chilli, the mint/coriander, the crackling and a wedge of lemon/lime.

8. Serve immediately, stirring in all of the garnishes with your chopsticks.

For blogs providing more expert coverage of all things noodles I can wholeheartedly recommend Eat Noodles Love Noodles and Hollow Legs.

Vnam Café, Manchester

I love Vietnamese food, but it's a bit difficult to find it in the North. There's Little Saigon in Newcastle, Pho68 in Sheffield, Vnam Café in Manchester, and that's about it as far as I'm aware. I don't think there is a single Vietnamese restaurant in West Yorkshire. I'd love to be proven wrong here, so if anyone knows otherwise I'd love to hear from you.

I went to Vnam last summer and was a little underwhelmed, to the extent that I hadn't returned since. Someone kindly reminded me of its existence the other week and I thought I'd give it another shot. It wasn't bad before but I think things have definitely improved.

First up, Vietnamese style barbecued quail. Quails are not the strongest tasting birds, they aren't particularly gamey so benefit from livening up with plenty of spice and a good chargrilling. Most of the fun is to be had in gnawing the flesh from the bones caveman style. These were pretty good, not overcooked so the flesh remained moist. Dipped in salt and pepper with a good squeeze of lemon they were really enjoyable, although the skin would have benefitted from being a bit crispier.

And for the main event, Phở bò. This is the quintessential Vietnamese dish of beef noodle soup. The single most important thing in a good Phở is the beef stock used for the soup, it should have a real depth of flavour from long boiling of bones, and be aromatic with spices, particularly cinnamon and star anise. The stock base at Vnam was what really seems to have improved since my last visit, this really hit the spot whereas before it was weak and watery. The beef had plenty of flavour, but was cut into pieces too large to eat in one mouthful which made things a bit tricky.

 
The plate of greens and other accompaniments to add to your taste (I usually chuck the lot in) was also better than I remembered, with generous quantities of chilli, beansprouts, mint and coriander. Only a tiny wedge of lemon though, where a big chunk of lime would be better.

Vnam Café is well worth a visit, the food is good and it's cheap too. My meal came to £12.50 but I did choose the most expensive starter on the menu (£6 for the quail whereas summer rolls will only set you back £3). The staff are friendly too. It's a bit of a trek up Oldham Road from town, so why not combine a visit with a pint in the splendid Marble Arch round the corner.


7/10

140 Oldham Road
Manchester
M4 6BG

http://vnamcafemanchester.com/

Tampopo, The Trafford Centre

I needed to buy some stuff, so after working late last night I headed for the Trafford Centre. Regular readers (by regular readers I mean people who mistakenly click on the Twitter links and end up here again) may recall that I don't much like the Trafford Centre, but on a Tuesday evening it's a far more amenable prospect than on a Saturday afternoon. I bought the stuff I needed and on account of having no food in the house, decided to stop for a bite to eat.

I've been to Tampopo before on a couple of occasions, and have generally left satisfied so I thought I'd give it another try. It's a canteen sort of place with bench seating very much in the Wagamama sort of style, and covers similar ground with the food as well. The menu is fairly extensive, but sticks quite sensibly to dishes from South-East and East Asia which at least have common themes, rather than randomly selecting dishes from all corners of the globe like another local chain whose name I won't mention. I ordered the Laksa with a portion of Goi Cuon on the side.

The Goi Cuon (Vietnamese summer rolls) were lovely and fresh tasting as they should be, with plenty of crunchy vegetables, but not as good as the real thing which usually have prawns or pork or both in them as well. This isn't really a criticism though, as they are advertised as a veggie version on the menu.

The condiments provided at the table are worth a quick mention at this point, as they are a good basic Asian selection; - Kikkoman soy sauce, Ketjap Manis (a sweetened, syrupy Indonesian soy sauce) and Sriracha Hot Chilli Sauce (a Thai classic). Some combination of these three will liven things up if your meal is a bit dull.

The Laksa was a decent effort. Laksa is a dish of noodles in a rich, heavily seasoned coconuty, curry broth with some sort of protein and assorted veggies. The broth was a bit underpowered, it needed a good squirt of Sriracha as it was a lot milder than the 'three chilli' warning on the menu would suggest. It was also too sweet. Having said that it also had some fine attributes. Many of the extensive range of flavours often found in food from the Malay peninsula were present including coriander, mint, lime leaves, garlic, chillies, coconut and even a hint of pungent shrimp paste. Prawns, tofu and chicken provided the protein, with cucumber, red onions and breansprouts on the veg front. All were fine except the chicken which seemed to be rather poor quality and tasteless. The whole made for pleasant if unspectacular eating.

In summary my opinion of Tampopo hasn't changed much after this visit. It's a decent option. I'd rather eat there than most of the other places in the Trafford Centre, but it's overpriced. Any small independent restaurant doing the same sort of food (I could name Vietnamese, Chinese, Malaysian and Korean places that fit the bill) would generally charge in the region of £5 - £8 for a dish like this, whereas I paid £10.75 at Tampopo. Any dish costing over a tenner at Middle Kingdom or Hunan would be served in something the size of a household bucket, and have about a kilo of meat in it. In total I paid £18.25 for the food, a lime soda (£1.90!) and service. Ok, but I wouldn't make a special trip.

6/10

The Orient,
Trafford Centre
Manchester
M17 8EH

Plus various other branches

http://www.tampopo.co.uk/

Little Saigon, Newcastle

This week's grand tour continues. The final leg before home was Newcastle and I was after something with a bit of zip and zing to it after the previous nights debacle. I spent quite a lot of time working in Newcastle a couple of years ago so I knew it had a Vietnamese place. Situated incongruously on the Bigg Market across the road from a row of neon doner and chips emporia is Little Saigon.

Free prawn crackers arrived promptly and I ordered a saigon beer to wash them down with. First up, a salad of prawn and papaya. I love South-east Asian salads, the kings of the salad world without a shadow of a doubt. The range of textures and flavours crammed into each mouthful brings sheer gustatory pleasure not always associated with the word 'salad'. This was a fine example, soft prawns, crunchy peanuts, crisp juicy papaya, crispy fried onions. Classic hot/sour/sweet/salty dressing. I wolfed it down in no time. The only criticism I have is that it was a touch too sweet/salty and not quite hot/sour enough. More chilli and lime please.

For main course beef with lemongrass, chilli and onion. Not as successful as the salad, the sauce was a bit gloopy (possibly reduced with cornflour) and there wasn't much chilli or lemongrass involved. It tasted generally fine though and the beef was tender.

A good option overall, we don't have too many Vietnamese restaurants in the North (is there one in Leeds at all??) so the more the merrier. My dinner was £21 for the salad, the main, steamed rice, one beer and service.

7/10

6 Bigg Market
Newcastle
NE1 1UW
http://www.littlesaigon.uk.com/