Cheese, onion and potato pie

Sunday was a pie baking sort of day. Cold, with lying snow on the ground. Head a little delicate from the previous night's excess.

A big plate of carbs was the order of the day, something filling but frugal. This pie really hit the spot. Cheap to make, satisfying, cheesy, savoury, and lighter than you'd imagine thanks to the delicate, flaky pastry.

Good pastry is essential for this. Stodgy pastry with a cheesy potato filling would all be a bit heavy going, but Delia's flaky pastry recipe is just perfect. Butter-rich but thin and with a lightness that belies the fat content. It's ridiculously easy to make too.

This will serve 3-6 people depending on greed and accompaniments. It will take around 90 minutes to cook, not including the time taken to make and rest the pastry.

What you'll need:

1 batch of flaky pastry made using the recipe here
2.5 lbs of good mashing potatoes
milk and butter for the mash
2 large onions
6-8 ozs of strong tasting cheese (mature cheddar with a bit of parmesan added is good)
salt
vegetable oil
white pepper
one egg (not essential)

What to do:

1. Put the oven on at 180 deg C then finely slice the onions. Warm about 1 tbsp of oil and a knob of butter in a large heavy bottomed pan then add the onions. Keep the heat low as you want them to sweat without browning until they're very sweet and tender. This will take up to 45 minutes.

2. Get out a large, deep oval or round pie dish. Roll out about two thirds of the pastry so that it will cover the bottom and sides of the pie dish. Push the pastry case into the dish then put it in the oven to blind bake for 20 minutes. If you haven't got baking beans any dried bean or pulse should do the trick. Put the remainder of the pastry back in the fridge.

3. Remember to keep stirring the onions to make sure they don't stick and start to colour. Peel and chop the potatoes then put them on to boil in salted water until tender (about 15 minutes).

4. After 20 minutes remove the blind-baked pie case from the oven. Drain the boiled potatoes and mash them with a little warm milk, plenty of butter and loads of white pepper. Add more salt if it needs it. You want the mash to be very moist, but not wet. Just so it can't quite hold its own shape.

5. Grate the cheese. Check the onions for doneness. They should be very soft and sweet, give them longer if they need it.

6. When the onions are done everything can be layered up in the pie dish. First spoon in the mash, then the onions and finally the cheese.

7. Roll out the rest of the pastry to make the pie lid, then add it to the top of the pie. Seal the lid and brush it with egg wash if you've got an egg to hand. Otherwise just squash the lid into place. Prong a couple of holes in the top with a fork then bake the pie in the oven until golden brown, about 35 minutes.

8. Serve hot with peas, or even better, with baked beans. This is also good served cold, sliced into wedges, maybe with some salad.

Art's Café, Leeds

I'd describe Art's Café as one of the workhorses of the Leeds dining scene, and that's meant very much as a compliment. It's not new, there are no big name, high profile chefs involved, they don't even have a Twitter feed as far as I can tell [edit: they are on Twitter: @artscafeleeds, as Clare helpfully pointed out]. It's been quietly going about the business of serving good food since 1994, and those 18 years experience shone through in my first meal there last night.

It's a convivial place to be. On a Saturday night the music was turned up above background level, not intrusively loud, but combined with a full house enough to give the room a pleasing, lively atmosphere.

The menu is short and probably best described as modern British, with some simple and some more ambitious sounding dishes. My main of seared venison haunch steak, buttered green cabbage, honey roast parsnips and parsnip puree, chocolate sauce and roast hazelnuts was a lovely wintry plateful, perfect for a snowy night.

The venison was excellent, a substantial steak already sliced to reveal a dark, ruby rare interior. It was very strongly flavoured too, rich and intense, the gamiest venison I can recall eating. The strong tasting meat matched the sweet, earthiness of the parsnips very well. Both ways were cooked beautifully too, particularly the wonderfully smooth puree.

I'd have been happy to eat an abridged version of this dish, as I'm not sure the last two items were really needed. The hazelnuts were nice but didn't really lend anything extra to the whole. As for the chocolate sauce, I'm actually quite surprised to see it there, I'd forgotten about it until I just checked the menu online. I don't recall noticing any flavour of chocolate in what to me just tasted like a very good meat reduction.

Across the table the quite complicated sounding seared monkfish with duck leg & smoked bacon bolognaise, courgette & pepper spaghetti, basil emulsion was also declared a success.

I finished with sticky toffee pudding with Horlicks caramel and vanilla ice cream, which was the real deal. A huge brick of proper pudding of the dark, date filled variety, a lake of toffee sauce and a nice, malty ice cream. I'd have liked it served a little hotter, but other than that it was great. I tried my companion's panna cotta, and that was good too.

With a decent bottle of Puglian red the bill came to just over £57 including an already added 10% tip. Automatic inclusion of tips is never something I'll be a fan of, but that's a minor gripe when it's 10% rather than the almost standard nowadays 12.5%, and also when the service was excellent throughout.

I don't often have much to say about service, but it was particularly good at Art's. Well-versed and efficient, casual and friendly, but not the least bit intrusive. It just felt right.

Good food and wine, great atmosphere and service, fair prices. Long-lived, reliable, quality restaurants are an asset in any city, and Leeds has one of those in Art's Café.

8/10

42 Call Lane
Leeds
LS1 6DT

http://www.artscafebar.com/



p.s. Thanks to those who reminded me about this place on Twitter.
p.p.s Sorry about the lack of photos, sometimes it's good to focus on the moment, and not worry about the future blogging opportunity.

Bacon Sandwich Quest: January

I'm starting to wonder whether Bacon Sandwich Quest was such a good idea. January wasn't a particularly auspicious start. I ate four bacon sarnies only one of which was much good, and I didn't remember to take a photo of any of them.

Scrap that, I've just found a photo hiding on my work phone. Here it is you lucky people:

That's the passable effort served by the Cosy Caf in Bollington, Cheshire. Exciting eh?

Without further ado here's the championship list so far:

Venue	Where's that?	Bacon	Bread	Accompa-niments	Value	Service	Total
Rumbletums	Otley	8	3	4	4	3	22
Cosy Caf	Bollington	6	4	2	2	3	17
Monty's	Windsor	7	2	3	2	3	17
McDonalds	A19 Billingham	4	1	3	3	2	13

A very solid effort from Rumbletums of Otley is the clear leader so far. A standard soft bread roll harbouring a generous three sizeable rashers of thick cut piggy goodness. Brown sauce added in sensible quantities. The right price. Good but better will almost certainly await me.

Next in line are two average attempts that I can't be bothered writing about, and bringing up the rear is a lamentable effort from Maccy D's. Why would you have a bacon sandwich at McDonald's you may well ask. Why would you do such a thing when you could have had a strangely delicious but clearly evil breakfast pork burger with overdone egg? I can't answer the question I'm afraid. I don't know why I did it, but I won't be doing it again.

February is the month of bacon (possibly), so let's hope things take a turn for the better.

London and South-East round-up: the not so good, the bad and the ugly

I thought I might as well balance things out with a report on the less than inspiring things I ate down South last weekend. It's not all amazing street food and wonderful sourdough pizzas down there you know.

The George, Gravesend

This was actually better than expected. It's a pub attached to a Premier Inn which usually means crap food. The George seems to have retained some semblance of independence though, offering a Sunday carvery which isn't the norm for Whitbread establishments. Carvery is usually a byword crap food as well though, so it was almost a pleasant surprise.

The beef was dessicated and flavourless, but the turkey, hidden beneath its leathery cloak of cow, was much better, moist and tasty. None of the vegetables were overdone, a welcome change to the regular carvery mush. Good gravy and a passable Yorkshire too.

Sponge pudding and custard for afters wasn't bad either. Overlook the beef and all in all a satisfying enough meal.

6/10

Hever Court Road
Singlewell
Gravesend
DA12 5UQ


Wagamama, Windsor

Sometimes I hate Wagamama, but after a visit to the Windsor branch I left feeling generally positive about the place.

When I'm in hating Wagamama mode I tend to dwell on how average much of the food is, and how if you're in most UK cities the same dishes can be had elsewhere, executed better and for less money.

I was probably liking Wagamama on this occasion for two reasons, firstly I had one of the dishes they're better at, chicken chilli ramen. In my experience there's a sliding scale at Wagamama that goes something like this:

Noodle soups = not bad, can be quite satisfying
fried noodle dishes = ok
fried rice dishes = just about ok
curries etc = awful

My bowl of ramen was quite satisfying, it hit the spot on a cold day. Nice bouncy noodles too.

The second reason was the presence in our group of four young children (in the under 1 to nearly 4 range). They've really got the family angle covered in there, there were crayons and colouring pads and beginner chopsticks all over the place, which generally made for a festive and entertaining lunch.

I want some of those beginners chopsticks in adult size though please. They're like normal chopsticks but fatter and with a little hinge to join them together so they kind of form chopstick style grabbing tongs. All the better for eating more noodles at once I say.

6/10

31 High Street
Windsor
SL4 1PH


The Kingfisher, Chertsey

Things are heading downhill now. I had the burger here (£8.95) and there wasn't a huge amount right with it.

The patty itself was the high point, generously proportioned and formed from good quality beef. But it was overcooked and the cheese on top wasn't even remotely melted suggesting it had been added some time after the burger finished cooking and the bun was dry and the chips were average at best.

Other dishes of calves liver, steak and another burger were respectively overcooked, not bad at all and no idea because it never turned up after an exceedingly long wait so we got bored and cancelled it.

Not much in the way of beer choice either. A distinctly mediocre pub.

4/10

The Kingfisher
Chertsey Bridge Road
Chertsey
Surrey
KT16 8LF


Frankie and Benny's, Rochester

I can't recall ever having been to a Frankie and Benny's before so in a moment of retail park madness with a work colleague I thought we'd give it a try. Rest assured it's as crap as you might expect.

A louisiana wrap was a large flour tortilla stuffed with some low grade chicken that was more mushy, bready chicken coating than actual chicken, alongside some bits of iceberg and an awful lot of red onion, the whole lot doused in far too much of a one-note vinegary, hot sauce. A bit like Frank's hot sauce with the heat and acidity, but without the flavour.

The chips were weird and undercooked. It cost six quid. Couldn't fault the friendly chap who served us though, so he got his tip.

3/10

Medway Valley Park
Rochester
ME5 2SS


Côte, Ealing

Another chain, another disappointment. I've eaten at a Côte before and quite enjoyed it, so I did expect better. Breakfast this time. I wanted eggs but not a fry-up. The breakfast menu at Côte had just what I was after.

Sadly when it arrived it wasn't just what I was after anymore. It's not a complicated thing, Eggs Royale, but I do think it needs quality ingredients and accurate execution otherwise it will be minging. It was minging.

The salmon and bagel were inoffensive but basic, like if you bought the cheapest available version of each in the supermarket. One of the eggs was woefully underdone and leaked raw liquid white over everything as I cut into it. The hollandaise was ok but what with the greasy salmon and egg juice it was like eating a great big pile of cholesterol slop.

I didn't bother sending it back because I didn't really fancy another plateful even if the eggs were right. £8.10 for the meal but by the time a small coffee and 12.5% for the (confused) service had been added that had become £12.64. Shit.

2/10

9-10 The Green
Ealing
London
W5 5DA

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/

Silk Road, Camberwell, London

Silk Road is one of my favourite restaurants anywhere, ever. I first ate there around three years ago after a whole host of recommendations on the Chowhound boards.

At that time I'd barely scratched the surface of the myriad wonders of Chinese food, my only experience being takeaway standard Cantonese and a couple of tentative forays into Sichuan.

Silk Road pretty much blew my mind. It's one of the only (if not the only) restaurant in the UK specialising in food from Xinjiang province, the vast territory in the far west of China. The geography and many of the people here are more central Asian than Chinese. The native Uighurs are predominantly Muslim and their cuisine is influenced by the nations to the West -Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan to name the largest.

That means plenty of lamb and mutton, a diet based on wheat and potatoes rather than rice, and use of spices not always associated with Chinese food, cumin being the most obvious example. Mix that all up with the majority Han Chinese influence from the East - loads of chillies and peppercorns, rice, soy sauce, stir-frying, and you've got some fantastic food.

Anyway, lesson over. Camberwell isn't that handy for someone who now lives in Wakefield, so I hadn't been to Silk Road for well over a year. That was rectified last night as four of us headed South to fill our boots.

It's not a posh restaurant this. Expect bench style seating and sometimes rather erratic service but it's more than worth it for the food. Order a round of Tsingtao beers and as much of the menu as you can manage, then just wait to see what arrives first.

In our case, the lamb skewers (£1 per skewer). Don't wait around, eat these quickly while they're fresh off the grill. The juicy pieces of meat and fat come liberally doused in a cumin/salt/chilli rub and are delicious when hot. After they've cooled down they lose succulence and the fat goes a bit wobbly and unpleasant. When they're fresh I can't think of a better way to eat sheep fat.

Next all three vegetable plates arrived in quick succession. Home style cabbage, home style aubergine (about £6 each) and cucumber with garlic sauce (£3).

The home style dishes are similar in execution, but taste quite different. Both have the main ingredient stir-fried in a garlicky sauce with plenty of chilli heat, fresh green peppers and a little soy, but the aubergine is silken and comforting whereas the cabbage is more assertive, crunchy with dried chillies and a lovely smokey back note from the wok. I love both dishes but the cabbage is my favourite. To make something so delicious from a humble cabbage really takes some skill.

The cucumber dish, served cold, brought large chunks of the veg, bashed around a bit to absorb the flavour of a very garlicky marinade. Strangely refreshing and really enjoyable.

On to the dumplings, there are several different varieties, we just had one plate of the pork and celery. They're small with satisfyingly chewy skins and a meaty filling, and are also a steal at £2.50 for ten.

Then the beast arrived. The photo really doesn't do this dish justice, and nor does the name for that matter. It's medium plate chicken (£9, small and big plate are also available), a huge vat of beautiful, deeply savoury broth, spiked with star anise and Sichuan pepper, in which are hidden bone-in chicken pieces, potatoes and sliced mild green peppers.

Included in the price is a serving of belt noodles; thick, chewy, wheat noodles that are a carb-lovers dream. The dish doesn't arrive with them in, one of the waiting staff will come over whenever a fresh batch are ready and chuck them in the bowl. Much mess-making then ensues as everyone at the table dives in at once, attempting to fish the two foot long monsters out with chopsticks.

The final dish of the night was pork with black fungus (about £6), another dish of interesting textural combinations. Soft pork, a few crisp greens and slightly rubbery fungus, all held together in another knock-out flavour packed, umami rich sauce.

We ate everything with a few extra bowls of steamed rice and washed it all down with Chinese tea and beer. The total bill came to just £56.30 between four of us before a tip was added. As ever the service was a little random, one happy guy, one miserable and the rice didn't turn up until after most of the other food.

But what food, and what fantastic value. It's all so deceptively simple. Hearty food with theoretically straightforward seasoning, but all imbued with such utter deliciousness I'm not quite sure how they do it. The prices also haven't risen in three years despite the place attracting the attention of the critics and being constantly busy

I don't know when but I know I'll be back. I love Silk Road.

9/10

49 Camberwell Church Street
Camberwell
London
SE5 8TR

Malaysian Delight, Chinatown, Birmingham

I've been in Birmingham today. I needed a quick, casual, cheap meal before leaving and was reliably informed that the city has a decent Chinatown. Where better to head?

A bit of a British Chinatown classic this place. It reminded me of similar restaurants I've encountered in London, Manchester and even Newcastle. Small, a bit grubby, brisk, efficient service and a menu covering all the usual Chinese bases (i.e. if it's on your local takeaway menu it's on this one) to keep the punters happy.

That, and a separate menu section for whatever the restaurant actually intended to specialise in. In this case not Chinese at all, but Malaysian.

There weren't really any Malaysian sides or starters which was a little disappointing. I wanted roti canai damnit.I bloody love roti canai. Against my better judgment I ordered curry samosas, kind of hoping they'd turn out to be a delectable curry puff.

They were ok, in a straight out the freezer and fried properly in hot, fresh oil sort of way, but nothing more. The salad underneath and an almost tasteless dipping sauce were completely pointless.

I fancied noodle soup but not anything coconutty so I went a little off piste and ordered assam laksa rather than the more common curry laksa. I'd never had an assam laksa before but had a vague notion it was fishy and sour.

Memory served me correctly as what arrived was an exceedingly fishy, moderately sour (tamarind I think) and spicy broth topped with various bits and bobs. The broth itself was very good, intensely flavoured with shredded mackerel and (probably) shrimp paste.

Everything else was a bit of a let down though; overcooked noodles with no bite, very little mackerel in actual pieces and not much of the other stuff which mainly comprised cucumber and pineapple (though I'd happily have foregone all of that for some good springy noodles in the broth).

Passable and cheap at £12.50 including a beer but I wouldn't rush back. It's also worth bearing in mind that as well as only taking cash, they also only accept real cash. There's a useful sign pointing this out at the counter. 'Forged money is forbidden' it says. I was ok today as I've not been on the counterfeiting plant and I won't be laundering until next week, but on another occasion it could have been embarrassing. You have been warned.

5/10

8 Ladywell Walk
Birmingham
B5 4ST