Morito

Morito is the little offshoot tapas bar of Moro, the excellent Moorish restaurant on Exmouth Market.  Moro is consistently great, and consistently busy / booked up, so having a walk-in place next door is a good idea.

We went to see Sylvie Guillem at Sadlers Wells and popped in here beforehand.  (I know sweet f.a. about ballet, but I've seen Sylvie Guillem dance twice before, and she is mesmerising - her body's like a ribbon.  I want to be her almost more than I want to be Tina Fey.)

We were in a bit of a rush eating and I forgot to write down details but in essence we ate this:

Bread basket - good - 7.5/10, particularly the flatbreads

which come with a little dish of sumac, salt, chilli, and a fennel related arrangement,

and which were delicious served with this pretty, pretty beetroot, feta and dill dip (I love dill deeply.)

The absolute stand-out dish was the chickpeas - super moreish - crispy, crunchy salty little explosions, on a bed of fresh, sharp cucumber and tomato.

Ottolenghi has tried to recreate the dish - he fries the chickpeas, although I wonder if they've been roasted and then fried - not sure.  I shall return to this recipe at a later date and try it myself.

We ate this delicious, tender pork with peppers

and these phenomenal spicy salty Mojo potatoes, which had coriander and chilli - and were very similar to the potatoes I ate in Lanzarote after I broke my finger when a surf board fell on me.

The chickpeas and the Mojo potatoes were exceptional and I'll be coming back for both.  I'll try Ottolenghi's version of the chickpeas and report on how close it is, and I'm going to hunt down a recipe for these bad boys too.

Between here, Jose, Brindisa, Dehesa, The Salt Yard, Barrafina and Opera Tavern,  Londoners are getting pretty damn spoilt on the high-quality tapas front.  Now if only there was a similar flourishing of places serving top-notch  made-at-the-table guacamole, I'd be very happy indeed.