RESTAURANT FILE – Page 18

Dinner at Rex & Mariano, Soho

Published on March 20, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

It’s a few weeks ago now, that Daisy, Rowena and I had a lovely dinner at the fairly new addition to the Soho restaurant scene; Rex and Mariano.

This is a seafood restaurant with great produce but very reasonable prices. And they still have oysters, tartares, ceviche, prawns, mussels and plenty of fish.

The interior goes with the less is more price-setting. It’s simple and scaled back but still nice.

After being seated at our table, we’re told we order everything on the table’s iPad. The software is very easy to use and you can order one or a few things at the time. The waiters’ job is from here on in just to bring the food to the table and answer any questions from the diners. Very efficient!

Just like in many other restaurants, Rex & Mariano encourages sharing the dishes, which I also enjoy as it’s the best way to avoid food envy. Our first dish was burrata with tomatoes and balsamic vinegar. It was nice but not the creamiest burrata I’ve ever had.

We then had an oyster each, and they were really big and juicy. And delicious!

After that we shared this seabass ceviche with coriander, yuzu and red onions.

The grilled red prawns with lemon, olive oil and sea salt were amazing! So simple but great produce.

Also the tuna tartare with avocado, chilli and lime was very nice.

But my favourite that evening was the mussles. We had them as a main with fries and tenderstem broccoli, and what I liked about this dish apart from the mussels being top quality (they were big, sweet and juicy), I loved the sauce. It wasn’t the usually creamy Mariniere type sauce, instead it was a light buttery emulsion.

After all of this I was quite happily full, but the girls fancied a pudding and enjoyed a lovely chocolate mousse with pistachios. The pudding menu wasn’t large and they all seemed to be prepared ahead of time, but they were still very nice. But you can tell the focus here is on the fish and seafood.

Because of the efficient ordering process on the iPad the service charge is as little as five or six percent, which also contributes to the value for money track this restaurant is already on.

Rex & Mariano, 2 St Anne’s Court, London W1F 0AZ

Burger delivery with Chosen Bun, London

Published on March 19, 2015March 18, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

It was thanks to a flyer through the letterbox that I found about about a company that specialise in delivering burgers in London. So one day when I really wanted a burger but was too tired to make my own, I ordered one on my mobile on my way home from the tube. It was really easy, but I wish I could have paid with PayPal instead of putting in all my credit card details.

Approximately 20 minutes after ordering there was a knock on the door and my burger was delivered. Great stuff! Chosen Bun gets plus points for the very thought-out packaging (with air holes to let your burger breathe and not become soggy in transit) and for the imprint of their logo on the bun. I like the little touches.

I had The Patty burger with caramelised red onion chutney, lettuce, ketchup, mayo and pickle and my own addition of cheddar.

I thought the patty itself needed more seasoning, especially salt, and the chutney was too sweet and overpowering for my liking. The bun was great though and I liked the texture and how the patty was cooked and the pickles were delicious. The chunky chips with rosemary were enormous, crispy and very nice!

All in all a nice burger, but next time I will omit the, for me, too dominant chutney. The idea of getting a burger delivered in sensible packaging is genius though, keep up the good work!

Chosen Bun, 647 Fulham road, London, SW6 5PU

Dinner and cocktails at Solar, Berlin

Published on March 16, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

On the plane from London to Berlin I asked the woman in the seat next to recommend a nice bar in to me, and thanks to her Emma and I ended up in this fabulous restaurant and sky lounge in Kreuzberg.

The restaurant was really nice and although we had booked a late table (that was all that s available) they could fit us in around 7.30pm, which was great as we were already starving.

After ordering prosecco we received this lovely bread basket with thick still warm slices of dark and white bread, a grassy olive oil and a sweet potato crème.

Emma loved her cod with chickpeas, leek, pickled lemons and smoked fish broth and a side of creamed spinach.

I had fregola pasta, which I’ve never had before. It’s little pearls of pasta from Sicily that looks very much like giant couscous but is a little chewier. It was prepared like a risotto and was served with coppa ham, salted almond’s, olives, lamb’s lettuce and soft goat’s cheese. Delicious!

After dinner we walked up to the sky bar with great views over the city and had cocktails and prosecco.

Solar, Stresemanstrasse 76, 109 63 Berlin, Germany

Lunch at Lutter & Wegner, Berlin, Germany

Published on March 11, 2015 by Hanna2 Comments

After a long walk through a sunny Berlin on Saturday, Emma and I were ravenous by the time we saw some restaurants near Gendarmenmarkt. Most other cities have restaurants and cafés scattered everywhere but in Berlin they were a little harder to find if you wanted to avoid the real tourist traps. But around Gendarmenmarkt and off of Kurfürstendamm here are a few clusters of restaurants, so we’re glad we found them.

I had read about Lutter & Wegner while doing my research and it lived up to its expectations. The menu is German with some other influences. The service was great, the interior is cosy and the food really good.

Emma had a Caesar salad with large prawns which was nice and substantial and looked really fresh. I went a bit more local with a Wienerschnitzel serves with potato and cucumber salad. The schnitzel was huge but very flat and tender and the salad was delicious too. We both had a glass of wine each with our lunch, both matched with our food by our knowledgeable waiter and the recommendations were spot on. After having refuelled in such a nice way we were ready to continue our long walk in the sun.

Lutter & Wegner, Charlottenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Tasting menu at Harwood Arms, Fulham

Published on March 9, 2015March 6, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

I celebrated Valentine’s day with my fellow foodie friend Caroline at Harwood Arms, amongst a few couples but we enjoyed the food too much to notice it much. I’ve only had their a ‘la carte before and was a little worried that the tasting menu portions would be huge as the portions here are very generous, but it was just the right amount.

Shortly after having received water, bread and wine at the table the first course arrived; beetroot poached salmon with yellow beets and smoked sourcream. It was a very fresh dis and the smoked sourcream was a fun twist.

Next we had a rabbit terrine with almond praline, turnip, endive and yoghurt. Also really nice!

Thereafter turbot with smoked bone marrow and parsley root. Another nice dish with a fun twist. It was the first time I’ve had bone marrow paired with fish!

The best dish was without a doubt the last savoury one; perfectly cooked fillet of veal with velvety garlic potato purée with jus and toasted garlic. A-ma-zing!

After that high, the puddings were quite a blur. I prefer savoury over sweet any day and was really content after the first four courses. It was nice to have something sweet to finish off the meal but I’m afraid, to me, the puddings weren’t that memorable.

But they were just the right size to round off the meal nicely, and especially the mousse-topped shortbread with ice cream was really nice, even though it didn’t top the veal.

Harwood Arms, Walham Grove, London SW6 1QP

Barrafina Adeleide Street – revisited

Published on March 5, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

Since Barrafina opened its second restaurant a two minute walk from where I work I’ve been there for lunch a few times. Last time I went with two colleagues and we had a lot of lovely food. So much that it was rather laborious to walk back to the office after lunch.

We started off with Jamon bellota and pan con tomato; actually one of the best pan con tomato I’ve had both in and outside of Spain. Perfect amount of garlic and the bread resists the wetness just enough.

Then we had these lovely crab croquetas.

And the tortilla with caramelized onions. So yum!

And extremely crispy smoked cod fritters with tartar sauce.

The fried artichokes was another favourite; so crispy and served with a lovely mayonnaise.

I can never resist the goat’s cheese stuffed courgette flowers with honey. Mmm…

And these ribs were delicious!! Good combination of salty and sweet in the sauce and the meat just fell off the bones. We also shared a pork belly with crackling and white beans with morcilla that I forgot to photograph, it was nice but the ribs were just amazing!

Although we were extremely full we couldn’t resist to share a plate of churros with cinnamon sugar and chocolate sauce. The perfect ending to a fabulous lunch!

Barrafina, 10 Adelaide St, Covent Garden, London WC2N 4HZ

Dinner at Eelbrook, Fulham

Published on March 3, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

Even though I don’t live in central London I am more than pleased with the restaurants near where I live. Boma have nice burgers, just like Joe’s Brasserie and the best pub ever is just around the corner (all three places are actually within a 4 minute radius!).

There’s also a lovely one starred pub with amazing food a 10 minute walk north, and if you walk the same distance in another direction you have lovely Claude’s. And now there’s another addition; Eelbrook.

Caroline and I had dinner here on a Saturday night at in January and had a lovely meal! We started with pig’s head croquetas that were utterly delicious! As was the little crab tartlettes with beurre blanc and chives which I loved.

We also shared a portion of smoked eel, with beetroot, apple, mustard and horseradish.

Then it was time for our mains. I had bavette with broccoli rabe, trompettes and wild garlic butter. Very simple but absolutely perfect.

Caroline’s pork chop with lentils, leek and romesco sauce was equally amazing!

What a great addition to the already mentioned restaurants! This is definitely a little more up-scale than some of the others but the cooking is consistently very good and quite homely so it really works for a neighbourhood restaurant.

Eelbrook, Eel Brook Common, New King’s Road, Fulham, London SW6 4SE

Brunch at Berns Asiatiska, Stockholm

Published on February 26, 2015 by Hanna1 Comment

On the Sunday in Stockholm Carina had booked brunch for us at Berns Asiatiska and Emma and myself will be for always grateful. It was such an amazing brunch for three sushi lovers like us!

Look at this. We queued a few times by the sushi bar to fill our plates; the sushi chefs were definitely kept busy. There was tuna, salmon and scallop sashimi which were all very nice but the scallop sashimi was absolutely fantastic!

There were also plenty of maki rolls and they were also utterly delicious. The nigiri were just as amazing. This is the best sushi I’ve ever had in Sweden!

Here’s my first (of several) plate(s). It looks like a lot, but we’d been out the night before and the rolls were actually not too big which meant we could eat more.

Even though we loved the sushi there were plenty of other foods to try as well so we did a proper lap around the restaurant. The asian flavoured oysters with coriander were delicious.

The dumplings were nice too, but I could have done with some more flavours since I love dumplings. There were also lots of other nice food such as ribs, nudel salads, spring rolls, stews etc. They really covered everything.

And the pudding buffé was just as nice. This picture shows about a third of it. I prefer sushi over dessert any day but still had to try two small pots, the lemongrass crème brulee was nice but far too rich for me after all that food but a pixie pot of yoghurt mousse was perfect to end the meal.

Berns Asiatiska, Berzelii Park, 103 27 Stockholm

Dinner at Matbaren, Stockholm

Published on February 19, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

I chose the dinner restaurant for the Stockholm trip carefully; I wanted it to have amazing food (of course), have food my non-foodie friends would enjoy and a nice atmosphere and I think I did very well choosing Matbaren from those parameters. The restaurant is a contemporary bistro with one star, and more casual than chef Mathias Dahlgren’s two-starred Matsalen.

When we were showed to our table (starving after having danced around Carina’s flat to 80s tunes) the menu as well as a paper bag with three types of crispbread and butter was already on the table.

We then ordered a bottle of wine and after having finished the crispbread we were served nice sourdough slices. The concept here is small plates and the staff recommend you order one at the time, which worked really well; the kitchen was utterly efficient (it’s the Swedish way!). My first dish was amazing. Smooth potato purée, 53 degree egg (which means it’s super creamy), crispy potato sticks and shaved black truffle.

Carina and Emma both chose the aubergine purée with delicious beetroots and sesame seeds. They both really enjoyed the dish, but the pricing was a bit off as quite expensive but not containing any fancy ingredients.

Our first courses were quite filling and Carina was full already, but Emma and I needed (and wanted) more food, so we decided to share two dishes. The first one was the above chicken kebab in a Chinese steamed bun with yoghurt sauce. Fun fusion and so very delicious!

We also shared this plate of Swedish sashimi. It was pretty as a picture and absolutely amazing. The oyster crème in the middle was to die for and the fish just melted in the mouth.

We were very content after these dishes and asked for the bill, skipping pudding. And I am glad we did as this big bowl of sweets were put in front of us. The madeleines with almonds, lemon and poppy seed were fantastic and the peanut fudge was lovely as well. Such a nice way to end the meal!

I really enjoyed Matbaren, just as I thought I would. The menu was nice and varied, the dishes interesting and modern (and of course very well executed), the ambiance nice and the service friendly and efficient. The only thing I can’t seem to get to when eating out in Sweden is the wine prices, but that’s not the restaurant’s fault.

Matbaren, Grand Hotel, Södra Blasieholmshamnen 6, 111 48 Stockholm, Sweden

Cava and pinxtos at Boqueria, Stockholm

Published on February 18, 2015 by HannaLeave a comment

It was snowing in Stockholm two weekends ago so after walking around for a bit on the Saturday after a very late breakfast we were happy to escape the cold and look around a shopping centre. We got bored fairly quickly though and went to a pinxtos bar in the shopping centre and had a glass of cava. And then another. And then had some pinxtos.

2015-02-07 13.23.07

It was a really nice setting (especially for being in a shopping centre!) with high ceilings, natural light and lots of tables scattered around the atrium with the bar in the middle. Close by was the proper restaurant but we preferred the bar.

The pinxtos were not nearly as good as the real deal in Spain’s Basque Region, but for being served in Sweden they were nice. We had some with serrano ham and Manchego and I also tried a seafood one and one with chicken and tarragon. The olives and Spanish almonds were great!

Boqueria, Jakobsbergsgatan 17, 111 44 Stockholm, Sweden