All posts tagged: Review

Brighton Be Beautiful: Bardsleys, The Chilli Pickle, The Lion & Lobster & Coggings & Co.

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Oh I do like to be beside the seaside. So much so that last weekend I played away from home (cheated on my glorious sandy hometown of Swansea) and enjoyed a weekender in Brighton. I was fortunate enough to have plenty of suggestions and advice from a network of food lovers and twitterers, so ‘the ol’ food itinerary’ was pretty chocker block.  Alex has been away with me enough to know that ‘free time’ doesn’t really feature in my holiday itineraries – but what’s leisure time when you get the chance to taste the best food around with me, eh? BRIGHTON BITES 1. For the perfect fish & chips – Bardsley’s   Now, I spent the best part of my early teenage years working in a cracking local chip shop on the seafront in Swansea. During the summer of 2008, I think mushy peas were the only vegetable in my diet and my lunch of choice was curry and cheese on chips with chilli sauce (oh to have the metabolism of a teenager again.) So I know good fish …

Etta’s Seafood Kitchen – Review

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I’m really gunna miss East London (farewell Pizza Union, Beer & Buns, Clutch and Song Que, I won’t forget you.) But the move to South London really excites me food-wise and I’ve already found where I’m gunna get my fix of fantastic fresh fish and really well priced Caribbean food. It was 9pm on a Saturday night and Brixton village was rammed. We had originally sat at the place opposite that did burgers and grilled meat. After being ignored twice by the shirty waiter (meaning angry, not wearing shirts), we left and instead sat down at Etta’s. I’m so glad we did. None of us have much knowledge about Caribbean food (apart from those Jerk seasonings and sauces you can buy in supermarkets that bear no resemblance to the real deal.)  Etta’s is a seafood restaurant, and bravely, they only serve seafood (with 1 vegetarian option.) There are plenty of choices. If you like fish. Which we do. So we got stuck in. FOOD The dishes are really well priced and portions are decent. There was a long wait for the food, but …

“I want my great Thai food back!” Review of Busaba Eathai

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Last weekend, I caught up with my lovely family for my brother’s graduation at Kingston Uni. We always seem to end up in the same two places whenever my parents come to visit  – The Druids Head, Kingston-Upon-Thames (a great central pub with a cute pub garden for the Summer and wood fireplaces and mulled wine in the Winter), and then Busaba Eathai: One average Thai dish too many! I used to really rate Busaba Eathai. I first visited the Shoreditch branch around three years ago when the restaurants were only in Central London locations (no shopping centres) and the food was amazing – the jungle curry nearly blew my face off, in a really good way. But now they seem to have sold out, opening restaurants here there and everywhere, each with less charisma than the last. Vouchers and offer codes have taken over, and now it’s the sort of place that you’d never go unless you were getting at least a 25% discount (just like Pizza Express or another below average soulless chain.) A group of us visited …

The Big Food Fight

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Of the 481 accounts I follow on Twitter, aproximately: 200 are chefs 150are  restaurants 81 are food writers 50 are food fanatics and a fair few MasterChef contestants are thrown in there too. I am bombarded with tweets about new places to eat and new things to try. From the short-lived ‘Cronut’ hype of 2013 to the recent gravy-dipped burger trend that I keep bloody hearing about, its safe to say nobody’s stuck for choice when deciding what’s for dins. Take the beloved beefburger: Cool person 1: ‘Have you been to (restaurant title including one or more of the following words: dirty, bun, burger, cow, liquor, meat, patty). It’s the best burger in London!’ Cool person 2: ‘I beg to differ.. you’ve gotta try (another restaurant title including one or more of the following words: dirty, bun, burger, cow, liquor, meat, patty). Cool person 3: ‘What about (yet another restaurant title including one or more of the following words: dirty, bun, burger, cow, liquor, meat, patty)? It’s the bomb!’ Well, which is it then people?! Are these new places ‘WE’VE GOT TO TRY’ actually that special? Are …

Clutch – Review

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CLUTCH Clutch, 4 Ravenscroft Street, London E2 7QG http://www.clutchchicken.com Fifth result down on a quick google search, after discount handbags, care repair advice and gig dates for a 90’s American rock band, you’ll find Clutch- ‘the home of guilt-free chicken.’ This restaurant’s website has been at a practically blank holding page for months now, but I can tell you for free that the fried chicken here is clean-tasting yet completely addictive. We ate more chickens than there were diners at our table on the night in question and no, I do not feel at all guilty. Right around the corner from Columbia Road, Clutch pops up out of nowhere, like a petrol garage in the desert. The building was once a dirty little East End boozer, but now, painted cartoon yellow, with a faux turf lawn and dolls house-style garden furniture out front, Clutch couldn’t be further than its former haunt. A chirpy and sour ‘Jay Z’ (cocktail) started our night off nicely – the making of which had so many different elements it resembled that classic Rowan …

The Rise of the Chicken Shop, how not to do it & a Chicken orgasm at Clutch.

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The chicken shop market is a crowded coop.  Gone are the days that fried chicken was reserved as fuel for gangs of teenage boys or a second dinner for drunks stumbling home. Just like the burger before it, and the chip before that, fried chicken has shed it’s ‘fast food’ reputation and been given a makeover. First came the dirty (Monkey Fingers at CHICKENLiquor and the like); American-style chicken burgers and wings, clogging you up with thick, sticky stuff, served in paper wrap on a big metal tray (or dogs bowl, or whatever looks the most filthy). As tasty as this face-plant inducing, cheese-drenched, bacon-suffocated cuisine is, this type of eating is not sustainable. I mean, it’s not the right type of food to set you up for for a quiet night, let alone a night of dancing (plus, you don’t want to add to that morning-after guilt with the regret that you scoffed all that greasy poultry). Now there’s a surge of ‘high quality’ chicken shops that achieve perfect balance – that amazing fried …