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Thursday 17 June 2010

The Belgrade to airport taxi ride - spontaneous travel experiences



Enlightening moments when travelling come at the most unexpected times. For example my taxi driver to the airport. I'd picked the oldest, most battered-looking car at the taxi rank, and he quoted me a much lower price than a dude in a flash new Volkswagen I'd pulled over a bit earlier then let go.

Despite my listening to my iPod, he made the effort of grabbing my attention to tell me something about a building I took picture of (posted below - he explained it's that shape because it symbolises the western gate of Belgrade) as we drove by, then asked me where I'm from and what I'd thought of Belgrade. He knew hardly any English - and my Serbo-Croat consists of the words for "thank you" and the names of various local dishes ;-), but we started talking.



He grew up in Osijek, about 100 miles from Belgrade but now in Croatia. He came to Belgrade in 1999. Because he had to leave. Or, he says, he'd have been killed. I asked him if he could go to Croatia now. I expected a "yes." But he just took an expression of fear as if I'd taken him to a nasty place, and said "no! Never." Followed by a pause, as he seemed to think back to things."Croatians... they are Nazis." God knows what he saw. It made me realise how despite the apparent calm and serenity nowadays, such horrible things happened here, and so recently. Big painful wounds, while maybe now bandaged out of sight, are still open, I thought as we sped along past endless fields of wheat and crops.



The nicest man, likes living in Belgrade now because he has found a "beautiful wife" there whom he refers to as "a black magic woman." When we got to the airport he opened the trunk to show me some pendants with trinkets he'd made. He asked me to choose and take one. "For your woman," he said. I asked him how much, but he didn't want payment. Nor did he even accept a tip from me to the very low taxi fare. Such enriching and unexpected moments of humanity while traveling are valuable. I just wish we all spoke the same language and could explore them more deeply.
Such kind gestures volunteered by a stranger also help restore my jaded faith in the goodness of humanity!



As I sat on the propeller plane at Belgrade's Aerodrom Nikola Tesla waiting to leave, I reached into my pouch and to my dismay found the trinket had broken in two. I'll probably keep it and try to glue it back together. I may someday give it to someone. If not it'll make a good souvenir in my treasure box.

I so love travel.

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Persian food. A subtle taste of the Middle East.

While we've all doubtless often discussed going out for (or eating in with) an Indian, Chinese, Thai, Lebanese, Italian, or other variety of cuisine at the tip of our evening-planning tongue, Iranian comes up more rarely. Which is unfortunate because not only is it subtle and made with quality ingredients, but it’s also generally a hell of a lot cheaper than most other cuisines. Which, for the quality food you get, is a prized position in these credit-crunched times.

There's a whole gaggle of little Persian restaurants in West London, including Kensington’s Mohsen opposite Homebase in Earls Court, Bayswater’s Alounak on Westbourne Grove, and Sufi in Shepherds Bush. What do all these restaurants have in common? They are tucked away little gems with in-house bread ovens and loyal customer bases addicted to the top-notch food at a price level that will allow you to feast for less than 20 pounds a head.

Persian food is in some ways, a like Iran itself (geographically at least), somewhere between Indian and traditional Middle-Eastern (Lebanese). Its dishes often have a lot of sauce and can be served on pilau rice. Yet it also carries starters that, like Lebanese food,consist of meze and uses lots of skewered meat like Turkish food. The tea (pictured), generally served in Middle-Eastern cups and pots, is flavoured with cardamom – a ubiquitous ingredient in Indian cuisine. But there the similarities and straight fusion stop, because Iranian food has its own personality. Persian meze – sometimes described by first-time tasters as “bland” – is much subtler than its better known Lebanese counterparts, with smoked-aubergine dip being a must-try among these dishes.

Also, make sure you get bread. Persian restaurants tend to have a bread oven on site and in view, giving that flavour that only freshly-baked can muster! And while it uses some ingredients common to Indian food, it has not adopted chili, meaning that while tasty, it's a safe option for those who like to stay away from hot cuisine. The other must-have of Persian food is the lamb kebab, or koobideh. This skewer is tender and has been marinated and subtly mixed with onion, giving it a gorgeous tender texture and fine taste. Other sauce-based Persian dishes use a selection of ingredients including okra and can achieve a sweet-and-sour tinge by using pomegranate along with savoury ingredients. And don't forget dessert: try Fereni, made with rice flour, sugar and rose-water. It's delicious, and truly unique (see image below).





So next time you want something fine, tasty and new, without breaking the bank for the sake of a meal, why not give Persian a try?

Tuesday 6 April 2010

Can someone please point me to a decent taco joint in london?

These days London can convincingly argue that it is the world’s culinary capital. Nobody will seriously contend that this is due to traditional British cuisine (hard as rock liver, rancid custard or mushy peas anyone?). But the city has developed an eating out scene that has become a panoply of the world’s cuisines.

However, as a half-American, there is one food that always eludes me in London: decent, simple, greasy and nasty Mexican.

No, I don’t mean ceviche, or anything served up at Wahaca. I guess what I REALLY mean is Tex-Mex.

At its base, this cuisine is simple and is built especially around the hardshell taco, filled with ground beef, cheese, lettuce, tomato, salsa and sometimes guacamole. It is ubiquitous stateside. The point is that the hard corn chip of the taco gives the dish a distinctive (and addictive) taste. Yet, since the closure of the late great (until it went tragically downhill in the mid-1990s) Texas Lone Star, I cannot think of one place in London I can get a good basic hardshell tacos US-style on a hungover day.

Sure, it may not be the most authentically Mexican dish, but anyone taking that view should make sure they haven’t ever enjoyed an aromatic crispy duck or chicken tikka masala – both UK-created dishes.

Enough of this!

There is plenty of Mexican in London. A lot of it new, a lot of it quite good. But in my quest for a decent – in the case read American – taco, I have raided the menus (and venues) of both Wahaca and Westbourne Grove’s Taqueria and any taco that arrived was nothing I’d recognise stateside. Other Mexican restaurants, like Cafe Pacifico on Covent Garden, seem to be more about margaritas and drinking than any serious attempt to provide quality tex mex.

So, does anyone reading this know of a place in London where I can get a decent Tex Mex meal? If so please tell us all. If not, I am in the unfortunate position of having to conclude that the best tacos I can get in London are the Old El Paso packs at the supermarket. Which would be a truly depressing thought…

Where to find great Ethiopian food in London

So you want to try something new? And different? And unique? But need to save your cash for christmas presents?

Well then here is one type of food you should definitely go for if you haven’t already. Ethiopian or Eritrean (they are very similar) is a well-priced healthy and tasty cuisine that is very group-friendly and can be found for a good price in London.

The basic presentation usually involves your food being laid out a giant piece of Ethiopian bread. It is flat, supple, pancake-like and, unlike Middle-Eastern bread, is actually moist and doughy rather than thoroughly baked.

One woman I used to know told me she had a block on Ethiopian food because the bread reminded her of human skin. Nice. Dare I say this was a bit of a conversation-killer and I opted to leave her to her thoughts? Anyway…

The food is eaten with the bread, rather than cutlery. The food ranges from meat to vegetables, from subtle and lemon-flavoured, to spicy; so there should be something for everyone. A good tip is that you can never really over-order. Anything you don’t eat on the night can be taken home because it benefits from a night in the fridge and a reheat, and often tastes even better the following day.

So if you are feeling adventurous where can you go try Ethiopian food? Well, there are two places that I’d like to talk about. Conveniently there is one in West London and one in north east. The first is in Kings Cross, and is called Merkato. Make sure you go to the right restaurant as there is a cluster of Ethiopian places in that area and I for one have been known to enter the wrong one. Merkato is charming, it only has a handful of tables but is so relaxed and the staff so kind that it warms you heart to just be sitting there. The service is good, and the waiters will be able to help you choose your dishes. It is the calm, quiet date-style of the two restaurants.

The other, Mosob is in west London on the Harrow Road. Unlike Merkato which stands out through its attentive service, Mosob is at the other end of the spectrum. As far as timekeeping goes food arrives when it arrives. Although the staff there are equally helpful when it comes to helping choose dishes, so the only variable is really how much of your evening you have to give them. It is a slightly bigger place and, crucially, rather than seats has several large couches so is great for big parties. And the food is great.

So guys and dolls – if you have any other addresses to add, please feel free to post a comment, and keep Ethiopian in mind when you are next planning an evening out eating with your friends.

Image by abbeychristine, used under Creative Commons license.

Sunday 28 March 2010

Dimsum in London

While, to many, Chinese food is about noodles, rice, sweet & sour and black bean sauce, for a substantial number of us (and for even more Cantonese), one of its finest moments is made up of tasty little steamed parcels.

Dimsum – also known as yum cha – are a subset of chinese food that luckily for London come mainly from Canton, the southern region of China where former British colony Hong Kong is.

There are dimsum places all over London spanning from cheap and cheerful authentic Chinese in Chinatown to three-figure bill upmarket Western interpretations. So here I would like to try to quickly talk about a few places to eat quality dimsum, aside from the ultra-famous (and uber pricey) top-notch like Hakkasan and Yauatcha, which both definitely produce the goods for those unaffected by the credit crunch or lunching on copious expense accounts.

Firstly, lets set up the context and protocol. Dimsum is typically brunch food, so is normally eaten late morning to afternoon in China. It’s also always worth getting as big as possible a group of people together to go. This allows more dishes to be ordered and brings down the price. A meal for one or two at a decent Chinatown place is around 20 pounds a head, but once 3 or 4 more people are there it’s somewhere near 15.

Focus on the dimsum, there is no need for noodles or rice with it. Oh, and maybe just get a dish of Chinese vegetables like kailan or bok choi. Aside from the Hakkasans of this city, there are two main types of dimsum place in London. The authentic Chinese version and a slightly more adapted take – also known as “modern dimsum” – of Ping Pong type western restaurants. As a purist who prefers the integrity, taste and variety of the Chinese version, I would venture that Ping Pong is not actually bad although I would pay NOT to ever have to eat at its rival chain Dim T going on my dining – nay, wretching — experiences at its Gloucester Road branch.

The top end is made up of glitzier restaurants like Royal China, Princess Garden and Marylebone’s Phoenix Palace. These are good, though Phoenix Palace stands out for me a little among them.

China Garden on Finchley Road is one I have never tried, but it stands out as getting very strong reviews from Chinese friends. My personal favourite is Harbour City on Gerrard Street in Chinatown, which has a very wide selection of good dimsum, reasonably priced. For people in a hurry however, Chen Cheng Ku on Wardour Street serves decent dimsum from mobile trolleys that circulate around the tables so there is no need to wait the 15-20 minutes for them to be steamed after ordering. On the downside, as they are not prepared to order, try to go at peak times to make sure your food is as fresh as possible.

So those are my dimsum pointers. I am, as alway,s open to comments or suggestions from people on places to go, if I have not mentioned them. Now, for your next hungover Sunday if you fancy a feast with friends and are bored with British fry-ups, why not head out for a steamed Chinese treat?

On the London Spice trail!

Are you a die-hard chili-junkie, locked in a constant search for a stronger buzz, that undiluted high? Did your last attempt at blowing your taste buds with a vindaloo land flat?

Well fear not, for London, as the most cosmopolitan city in the world, is a trove of different cuisines. And where there are chilies, there is probably a restaurant serving them in London. So let’s take a look at a couple of easy taste-bud blowers.

Despite all the silly bravado, there actually is a rational explanation for liking chilies. They ARE like a drug. According to recent thinking, their consumption leads the body to release serotonin, the chemical the brain uses to create happiness and pleasure. In the case of chilies the secretion is caused by the initial feeling of pain created by ingestion, which the body instinctively counters.

So where can you get a potent kick in a restaurant near you? Well, you may not be surprised to read that your local Indian is one place. I am sure we have all heard of vindaloo. But that’s nothing, compared to phall (pictured below). Any Indian restaurant I have been to can serve up a phall, which, like so many “Indian” standards including Cobra beer and chicken tikka massala, is actually a British dish invented by people of Asian descent in the UK. But Indian restaurants hardly ever put it on the menu, and when I order it, I invariably get a worried look from the waiter who then says “sir, you know it is very spicy?”. Once the dish arrives, its red colour spells danger, and it also reflects its make-up, which is basically ground chillies and a touch of ginger in a tomato base. If you feel like having a personal sauna, followed by an exhilarating buzz once the heat wears off, then this is your dish at the Indian. It also tends to ensure that nobody else at the table touches your platter and you are able to eat it peacefully while still tasting other people’s orders.

But it’s not just well-known cuisines like Indian and Thai food that pack a punch. It’s also worth knowing of that region of China called Szechuan, which is known throughout Asia for its chilies. Of course, while we speak of hot Indian and Chinese food, we tend to forget that chilies are indigenous to neither of these regions. They started in America and were exported worldwide where they were then bred differently in different regions, leading to the wide variety we now find.

Szechuanese chilies are not the hottest in the scale, but they definitely pack enough of a punch to get noticed. They are also quite large and flavourful, and give a nice unique taste to Szechuanese cuisine. So if you like chinese food and chilies, then leave the Cantonese staples of Chinatown behind and look a little harder to find Szechuanese. There are at least two such restaurants in the West End worth mentioning.

The first, Bar Shu, is the glitzier alternative. It is located on Frith Street in Soho and boasts a nice dark designery interior with intimate tables, as well as separate rooms for large parties. Its food comes in rather expensive, at 40-50 pounds a head. But it is good, offers many alternatives, and is known, according to a Chinese friend, as the dating hangout of Chinese embassy staff. It is also worth trying the fiery Chinese liquor on sale there. Maybe stick to a single shot however as it is almost as strong as lighter fluid (I haven’t checked on the latter, and just thinking of a certain scene in Withnail and I).

The second option is a street away on Charing Cross Road, and is called Red & Hot. It is almost exclusively packed with Chinese, much more relaxed and while the décor doesn’t compete with Bar Shu, the food definitely does, and the price tends to come in at a much more reasonable level between 20 and 30 pounds a head. Make sure you try the specialty, of pork or beef “Sichuan Style Lavishly Topped with Chilli & Sichuan Pepper”. The only thing as memorable as the food is the awfulness of the menu translations and some of the staff’s English. I remember asking if they had snake, for the waiter to say “yes, yes” then bring me a menu of “snacks.”

Anyway, there are some suggestions. I am very open to other people’s advice on places to go in London off the beaten track to experience hot food,so let me know your tips in the Comments.