Villandry Kitchen, 95-97 High Holborn, WC1V 6LF (and an ode to macaroni cheese)

I like French bistros – especially ones where you can buy jams and breads and real lemonade, with wooden floors and nice wine. So I liked Villandry Kitchen as soon as I walked in - it reminded me of places like Pain Quotidien.  It’s light and airy inside with huge windows and a good noisy atmosphere – during weekday lunch it had a lovely mix of City boys, students, groups of friends and families. The service was friendly and the wine lovely.

Mi madre had a goat’s cheese salad. Which was a bit meh. And that’s not very good because if there’s one thing the French do well its salad – dripping with dressing and bacon and gizzards and cheese and sausage and lots of other things that make it far more interesting (and fattening) than a normal British salad and don’t make you feel like you’re denying yourself. Best goat’s cheese salad in the world = at Fabian O’Farrells on Place de Lux, Brussels. Please try harder Villandry.

But then I ceased to care about anything else because I ordered their macaroni cheese with bacon and dressed green leaves. And it rocked -  beautifully cheesily delicious and probably about a trillion calories of yum. Like many of the world’s retro delights, mac n’ cheese is now cool again – there are entire blogs devoted to it, blogs about mac and cheese recipes, New York Times articles on it. Us Brits are a little bit behind but I truly enjoyed my first experience of posh M&C. Who’d have thunk my favourite school dinner would become so fashionable? And does this mean there is an entirely new market for my favourite school pudding too - ginger pear crunch (pears from a tin, butterscotch angel delight and crumbled ginger biscuits) – anyone???

Anyway I will now devote the rest of this post to photos of my macaroni cheese. And I will be going back for more, nom nom nom…

Our mains, plus a glass of wine each and coffee came to £32 so £16 each – great value.

London garden update and Croxted Road garden centre, Herne Hill

The nurture side of the HPL rules has been lacking – my little Brixton garden was looking shockingly bare and weedy, I’ve had several plant fatalities (turns out basil isn’t quite as hardy as I previously thought) and I’ve not put enough time and effort into looking after it all. But a visit from mi madre, some time taken out of busy London life, and I’ve managed to make the garden look lovely in the space of one weekend AND got a suntan in the process. Here’s how:

1. Go to a good local garden centre where there are people on hand to tell you which plants are hardy, can live in crap soil in the shade without regular watering, etc, and who can help lug your compost and plants to your car. We went to Croxted Road garden centre in Herne Hill on Sunday afternoon and were really pleased with it – loads of choice, cheap and healthy plants, lovely people working there who can answer all your questions, and easy parking.

2. Pick a mix of different plants for your garden/windowbox. My choices were based on (i) things that don’t die easily (budlea, hydrangea and mint which apparently grow like weeds, perfect) (ii) things I like cooking with (mint and parsley) and (iii) a mix of colours, textures, ferns and flowers to make things interesting.

What I bought sitting in my garden ready to plant: mint, parsley, lavender, a ferny tree thing, budlea, hydrangea, a green plant thing and a red fern thing

3. Get a glass of wine/beer, roll up your sleeves, work out where you’re going to put things, plant them and water them. Then sit back and admire your fabulous handiwork and enjoy your lovely garden! You should probably water at least once a week and add fertiliser every few months.

The Illusionist @ Brixton Ritzy cinema

I saw the trailer for The Illusionist before seeing Gainsbourg at the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh – an intriguing mix of French-directed and written film set in my home town. The Cameo itself (a Picturehouse cinema too) even features in it.

What Kitty said in her post on arthouse cinema in London about the short-lived residency of art-house films in London hits the nail on the head. If you want to catch a low-budget or foreign film (on my current wishlist is Wah Do Dem, The Maid and The Secret In Their Eyes), you have approximately 5 days in which to see it and then its gone. You’ve got to be organised…

… So myself and Vodka Princess (I really should stop inviting friends to come up with their own blog names) headed to the Brixton Ritzy on Wednesday night for wine, food and The Illusionist. The new look Ritzy is great – Parisian pavement-style cafe spilling onto Windrush Square outside, decent food including a yummy burger (see photo below), wine you can pop back in the fridge while the film is on, and an upstairs bar doing comedy, music and quiz nights. All very community and arty and I liked how the board outside displaying the film names included messages from the locals - a proposal one day and that night a thank-you note to someone’s nanny (see photo above).

So to the film. Written semi-autobiographically by Jacques Tati and directed by Sylvain Chomet (he of Belleville Rendevouz), it bucks the trend of CGI and 3D -  instead the animation is lovingly and beautifully hand-drawn. This makes the film incredibly beautiful to watch – many scenes are stunning and luminous and like a piece of art in themselves. It tells the story of a French illusionist (Mr Tatischeff, modelled on Tati and maybe on Chomet too) whose old-fashioned show of rabbits pulled out of hats and card tricks is ill-received in the modernising cities of Paris and London, where screaming girls prefer Beatles-style bands and his audience has dwindled to old grannies and their bored grandkids. A chance encounter with a drunken kilt-wearing Scot (aren’t they all) takes him to a remote Highlands community where he befriends the maid Alice, loners both, and they head to Edinburgh to make their fortunes.

Much of the rest of the film centres on the beauty of 1950s Edinburgh. The views to Arthur’s Seat, over Princes Street gardens and the Bridges, the cobbled streets of the Grassmarket and boutiques of George Street. But this is Edinburgh in times of old – in the heyday of Jenners, the days of steam trains and antique shops, before London-style wine bars, high-street chains, pound shops and tacky highland souvenir stores took over.

Apart from the developing relationship between the illusionist and Alice, and her maturity into modern life, nothing much actually happens in this film. Indeed, no-one really speaks – apart from honking noises and sounds. It is more what the film says about the world it portrays. It is an ode to times gone by, to innocence and simplicity, before new fashions and entertainment and technology took over. It is an ode to loners, odd-balls, lost souls and eccentrics, many of whom share the Broughton Place hotel with the illusionist. It is a story of finding love and companionship where you may least expect it. And it is an ode to the beauty and grace of Edinburgh. Anyone who knows Auld Reekie should definitely take a look, if only to sigh at the beauty of Princes Street at the end of the 50s.

You can see The Illusionist at Curzon cinemas in Soho, Chelsea and Richmond until 9 September 2010. And you can read my ramblings on what to do when you’re in Edinburgh here.

Spanish class @ International House, Covent Garden (and adult classes in general)

So, I’ve stuck to my rules and booked the Spanish Survival Course at International House in Covent Garden to prepare for my trip to Argentina. The class is designed for those going on holiday or on business trips and is five weeks of two-hours a week intensive lessons.

Doing a class as an adult - simply because you want to learn something new – is a totally different phenomena from school/uni/mother-enforced piano lessons, etc. For a start, everyone actually wants to be there voluntarily and whereas at school forgetting your homework had a certain kudos, it doesn’t seem very clever when you’re paying for the course. I soon reverted to my childhood self – I realise that I like answering questions and pick up things quickly and like going at a fast pace. I’m also horribly impatient and a perfectionist and would make an appalling teacher. I had flashbacks to school days, sitting near the front of the class, hand in the air. And then I realised – oh my god I’m suuuch a geek! But its because I like learning. There’s something about the challenge of figuring out new things – that feeling of “ahhhh I GET it” –  that makes you really satisfied. And as an adult, the realisation that you aren’t old and forgetful from all those years of wine or clubbing or babies - your brain still works and it works pretty well. You clever little thing, you.

So back to the Spanish class. Its no coincidence that my two fellow students are off to South America too and our teacher is from Columbia. Its great to learn about specific slang and cultural differences, so I’m less likely to offend  and more likely to get on with the locals. I’m on class 3 now and enjoying it massively – we’ve done introductions, numbers (shouting out the 3 times table in Spanish while playing catch the ball = one of the funniest things I’ve done all week), what to order in a bar and how to say “I’m hot” rather than “I’m on heat“… I feel much more prepared for my trip and look forward to learning more. On Tuesday 7 – Thursday 9 September 2010, International House is offering free taster classes in various languages – if you’re thinking about starting a language class I’d really recommend you try it.

I would totally recommend doing an adult class – preferably something completely unconnected to your day job that you are only doing because you are interested in it. Next year I’d like to try a creative class like history of art or jewellery-making or something about writing or poetry. And part of me wants to learn Swedish massage just to be a hit at parties. Anyway, some interesting venues that do adult classes in London are:

• YMCA by Tottenham Court Road does everything from massage to juggling to public speaking to jewellery-making.
• City Lit in Holborn does varied and cheap courses from humanities to writing to languages, including at evenings and weekends. It always comes highly recommended and the people who work there are always lovely (I only didn’t do their Spanish course because the times didn’t suit as well).
• School of Life in Bloomsbury – interesting lectures and breakfast briefings on happiness, life and love – am dying to go (read Tired of London, Tired of Life’s post).
• Zoom In - good photography courses in South London (read my review).

The Book Club, 100 Leonard Street, Shoreditch, EC2A 4RH

I shuddered slightly on my way into The Book Club in Shoreditch (just across the road from the Great Eastern Dining Room), because it used to be home to Home – one of the wankiest restaurants I’ve ever been to in London. I may have judged it a little harshly as it was my first meal in London after moving from Brussels where restos served great food on the cheap. I couldn’t believe how much we paid for crap service and mediocre food, but then again I was spoiled…

Anyway, its now The Book Club, run by the same guys who do the Queen of Hoxton, and with a much nicer, friendlier atmosphere and a lovely bright and airy venue. The kind of place you can order a bottle of wine and Monopoly and chill out.

The real gem of this place was the ping pong room. Yes, not just a table, a room. We went there on Tuesday night for Pippalippa’s birthday when they hold a ping pong league there. You can just rock up and play, but by the personalised bats and serious faces, the league isn’t really for tipsy amateurs like ourselves.

Once the league games were over (about 9pm ish), filled with wine and sharing plates of fajitas and nachos, we managed to get on the tables. Pipalippa and I have something else in common – a previous history of taking ping pong very seriously.  Aged 10-ish, I was enrolled on a week-long ping pong course in the Summer holidays (I have to thank my mother for imaginative yet random school holiday ideas), which meant I’m actually pretty shit-hot at smashes, backhand lunges and similar. Although I now realise that my 10-year-old sober self can probably play a lot better than my 30-something self after a few glasses of vino, oops.  The photo below is typical of our games – which were mostly spent rescuing the ball from the floor/roof/people’s pints etc. I had lots of fun and would certainly return for a few more games – and you can hire the ping pong table if you’re in a group.

Oh and btw while writing this post, I mixed up “book club” with “hat club” and landed at the website of the Old Hat Club supper club in Angel which looks fab and which I’m going to try to go to in October.  And I also passed the Cineroleum petrol-station-come-cinema on my way through Clerkenwell to Shoreditch and it looks fantastic – hoping to see a random film there sometime in September.

My search for the best coffee shop in central London #3 – Wild & Wood, New Oxford Street, WC1 A1BA

 Continuing my search for the best coffee shop in central London, I stumbled across Wild & Wood on New Oxford Street and I think it may have jumped to the top of my list already.

The coffee is Monmouth coffee, changing every week and this week it was Guatemalan (which I’ve discovered I like mucho). Inside, its all cakes, wooden panelling, church pews and “please share tables” which makes for a friendly, relaxed atmosphere, and the pictures and movies are all 50s style. A few minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road and its a little bit of Central London peace and quiet.

I was solo on this trip and took my coffee to go, but the next time I’d love to stay and hang out longer – its the sort of place I’m sure you could while away the time with a book and some coffee. I also felt ridiculous taking photos on my own in this little coffee shop which reminded me that blogging is much more fun with friends - plus I can pretend that I’m taking photos of them or just reeeeally enthusiastic about the coffeee. I got a flat white at £1.90 and it was lovely – nicely creamy, only a little bitter with a nice kick which kept me going all afternoon. Also made me think why on earth people go to Starbucks et al when you can find a nice little coffee shop like this.

Leong’s Legends, 4 Macclesfield St, Chinatown, W1D 6AX

You know those Saturday nights when you find it hard to leave the sofa? Well I had one of those last weekend but luckily Pippalippa encouraged me to get my glad rags (jeans and trainers) on and hit Chinatown for some yummy food, red wine and banter. Pip loves Chinatown and I love Chinatown with Pip – she lived in China and always orders interesting stuff. Being an indecisive and rather lazy menu-fretter, I love asking her to order for me (apart from the jellyfish incident, splodgy bleurghness).

We started in De Hems, a great Dutch pub on Macclesfield Street which was perfect because it had good music, an upstairs room with free places to sit (in Soho - hurrah) and Lindeboom, nice Dutch beer on tap, which they also let Pip try before ordering, hic. Two pints later and we headed across the road for some Taiwanese food and wine. This was my second visit to Leong’s Legends, the first involving duck’s tongue (gristly bleurghness) and thousand year old egg (surprisingly yum and I don’t think its actually a thousand years old..). Last time I was here I promised Pip I wouldn’t blog about it to keep it a secret. That was until I realised it was much loved and written about by London’s food bloggers…

Rice with bean curd and pork belly nom nom nom

Service is good and efficient and very quick even though they were chocka.  We got all our food at once and seemed to be in and out fairly quickly – so perhaps not ideal for a lingering romantic meal but I guess you could just take your time eating. We got a bottle of Argentinian red and ordered the food – crab dumplings (xiao long bao) and bean curd with thousand year old egg to start; and pork belly and pork with green beans for mains.

Thousand year old egg (yummer than it sounds) and bean curd (Pipallippa likes, an aquired taste I think!)

Crab dumplings – Time Out raved about them, we thought they were good but not crabby enough

Pork belly – super tender and fatty, delicious…

Pork with green beans – this was lovely, one of my favourites – delicate, spicy, meaty

After a bottle of wine, all this grub and very full bellies, we paid £23 each and were on our way sofa-ward again. Great value and delicious food, perfect for those who know and want authentic Asian food, or who like me are happy to give most things (apart from jellyfish) a go. Try to order stuff you’ve never had before – what a shame to order crispy duck pancakes when there’s way more on offer.

You can read about my visit to its sister resto the Empress of Sichuan and my guide to Chinatown here.

Vinoteca, 7 St John Street, Clerkenwell, EC1M 4AA

I’ve been meaning to go to Vinoteca for aaaages, having been told by a couple of friends-in-the-know how wonderful it is. When you find a restaurant that people go back to time and time again, you’ve definitely found a winner. And I have to say that having been, it has sailed to the top of my (as yet unwritten) “best restaurants in London” list.

So why did it take me so long to go? My problem was the “no-booking” policy. I get that this makes it more of a local restaurant, but dinners at Wahaca and Polpo failed because we didn’t want to wait 2 hours for a table (Polpo on a Thursday night) or we had to wait until everyone had arrived before we could put our names on the waiting list (Wahaca). Both me and my friends are guilty of rocking up to dinner late depending on our workloads so we’ve always gone for places we could book.

But the good news is that the wait at Vinoteca was fine. I went with Escobar and we rocked up around 7pm on a Friday evening, got a nice seat at the side bar (some people after us didn’t though) and nattered our way through half a bottle of delicious French white wine (see photo below – you can also see from Escobar’s lovely hand gestures how he felt about my taking blog photos during our meal).  We were seated within around 30-40 minutes and it didn’t bother me one jot, I quite liked the pre-dinner drink aspect.

First, I loved the laid-back wood floor long-conversation vibe of the place. You weren’t rushed, service was lovely, it felt like a comfy French bistro inside. It was relaxed and homely – my perfect resto.

Then, the wine. It makes SUCH a difference to have a delicious well-priced bottle of wine served at the perfect temperature. At first the huge wine list  was a bit scary, but we took a punt on a lovely bottle of white (2009 Coteaux de Languedoc from Domaine La Croix Gratiot although I was also thinking about an Aussie Verdelho) which was brilliantly priced at £19. When emptied, we had the recommended glass of wine per main course, again really reasonably priced and absolutely perfect with the meal (a deep red with the bavette and a light fruity riesling with the mullet).

I was also massively impressed at the food – right up there with the best I’ve had in London. To start, we shared toast with chorizo with quail’s egg and some amazing sauce that I can’t remember which was incredible – sooo tasty and warm and delicious. You know when food’s so good you make impromptu appreciative noises and scrunch up your face in appreciation? Just like that. We almost licked the plate clean.  

And then Escobar had the char-grilled bavette (med-rare), chorizo butter, chips and smoked ketchup washed down with the recommended red wine . I managed to grab a bite and the meat was perfectly tender and juicy, delicious. I had the red mullet with samphire (sadly ran out but instead it was a herby thing) with a sort of bulghur wheat, washed down with the delicioso riesling. It was a fantastic mix of tastes and textures and absolutely delicous. I admit sometimes I find fish dishes a little dull but this was interesting and rich.

The amazing thing about all this? For a 3 hour or so meal, with two wonderful courses, a bottle of wine shared and two large glasses with the main, it came to a brilliant £40 each.  So not an everyday meal but a nice meal out with friends, or your mum, or a date. And it is truly a local neighbourhood place - somewhere you could rock up for an impromptu bite to eat after work and have a chat, drink wine and eat superb food. I have never found a restaurant I wanted to return to regularly and could actually afford to do so, but this is it. I’m so pleased I found it!

 

 

My search for the best coffee shop in central London #2 – Reynolds, 34 Eastcastle Street, W1W 8DW

Last week I decided to start learning more about coffee and to find the best coffee shop in central London. Reynolds on Eastcastle Street is a big hit on Qype and one of the Duracell free coffee shops so I went along. 

 [Note the Duracell offer did not work when I texted (apparently its a glitch in the system) so I've stopped advertising it on this blog. But the guys at Hill & Knowlton organising it, who are veh nice, are on the case and I'll let you know when its up and running again (and thanks to H&W for sending me a free Duracell charger thingie as compensation).]

I loved Reynolds, loved it. Its the HPL’s perfect cafe - great ingredients, local, good value, friendly, quirky. Sadly only two tables outside but luckily Penelope managed to nab one so we could have a relaxed natter over lunch. The idea is you buy small things (around £1-3 each) - half a wrap, some salad, maybe soup – and add it all up to an interesting lunch. I ended up having a roast salmon and advocado wrap with a bean and feta salad and it was delicious and cheap too.

 

Anyway I came for the coffee so we had this afterwards. This time I remembered to ask where the beans were from, and they are the ones above – a Guatemalan hand-roasted mix (on sale there for £3.85) and very nice too. I ordered a two-expresso shot flat white (antipodean-influenced coffee craze) and Penelope had a cappucino – £2 each for a huge coffee so great value.  

It was a lovely coffee – really smooth and just a tiny tang of bitterness and gave me enough of a kick that I felt really en fuego all afternoon. I’m beginning to find a good coffee a real treat - it even affects my mood. Bit of a revelation!

Everyone’s talking about happiness

I get sent a lot of articles on happiness nowadays – from friends and family and lovely readers. And it seems more and more people are interested in what makes them happy. Maybe the recession has made us question what is really important? Maybe in the absence of religion we are looking for something more spiritual in our lives? Maybe we’re just all too busy and need to work harder at spending “quality time” with those we love? Maybe we don’t know our neighbours like we used to, and need to get  that feeling of “community” back?

Anyway here’s some of the recent things you’ve sent me which I thought I’d share and please keep the tips and articles coming – I love them.

El madre sent me an article from the Sunday Times called How To Be Happy which refers to a book called Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements by Tom Rath and Jim Harter. They reckon you need five things:

1. Career wellbeing – buddies at work are very important
2. Social wellbeing - Spend more time socialising (sound familiar?!), make happy friends
3. Financial wellbeing – focus on career and social wellbeing not money, don’t get into debt, make “experiential” purchases rather than material purchases, i.e. spend money wisely and enjoy what you do choose to buy
4. Physical wellbeing – I told you so
5. Community wellbeing – giving is really good for you. 

My mum pointed out how similar these are to the rules of the HPL, and I love how we’re all thinking along the same lines. However, the financial and career side I’ve not included in my rules, but I realise they are really important which is why I did this post on curbing your consumerism. I definitely think life is way too short to stay in a job you hate or where you don’t feel like you fit in. And the pursuit of the bigger house, better clothes, nicer car, certainly doesn’t make you happy. The purchase of other things do though - like buying lovely food from a local deli or a book from a dusty bookshop or tickets to a play or a holiday or a dress that you’ve wanted for ages and saved for. I like how the Slow Guide to London encourages us to shop – take your time, savour the experience, cherish things.

Alex M, wonderful reader and of Rosa’s yummy Thai restaurants, sent me this article from the New York Times which is specifically on the issue of consumption (again – maybe I should re-visit the rules, money might have a bigger link to happiness than I first thought?). It refers to a couple who downsized, giving their possessions to charity, working less hours, volunteering. They were happier as a result and truly believe that material things do not equate to happiness. Again the article refers to the fact that spending money for an experience (buying opera tickets or a holiday) produces much more satisfaction than “plain old stuff“.

Finally, Maximilian told me about the mappiness application for itunes (its free) which is part of an LSE research project which aims to map happiness per area. I downloaded it to my iPhone and I think it beeps me twice a day to find out how I’m feeling and where I am, and they’ll put all this research together to find out how our surroundings affect how we feel. Interesting stuff – being beeped when I’m being crushed along Oxford Street compared to when I’m in sitting in a park or coffee shop will have very different results!

Oh and I loved reading the interview with Steve Slack on happiness in London on the Little London Observationist blog this morning. And not just because I get a mention !

Note I have filled this post with some lovely photos from a holiday in Zanzibar I had in 2006, for no other reason that they make me happy, especially in this weird autumn-like weather…