Christmas Eve - pretty, pretty.

Can't believe it, I've lived in London my whole life and have never been to the Royal Opera House.

Well, I can believe it.  I'm culturally unsophisticated.

And often more excited by the building:

And the funny Rudolph topiary spied from the roof of the building:

Than by what's on stage.

In this instance, The Nutcracker.  Which was lovely - very Christmassy and pretty.

And then when I got home there was this sunset, which was also pretty, if not very Christmassy:

Meat Liquor - the famous Dead Hippie burger, and how I turned in to my dad.

The most hyped burger of the year in London, the one all these people are queueing for?

The Dead Hippie, at Meatliquor.  As ever, I'm late to the party.

In brief (long year, I'm tired): good enough burger.  Not the double-pattied nirvana the blogosphere promised, not a patch on this bad boy,  but tasty and carnal nonetheless.

Other highlights: the blue cheese dipping sauce that comes with the deep fried pickles.  (I hate blue cheese so I don't say that lightly.)

The chicken in the chicken burger.  Brilliant texture, great crunchy coating, let down by a papery bun:

Deep fried pickles - conceptually great, executionally not quite: batter too soggy.

Onion rings - not quite crispy enough, again almost great.

A long, long time ago, when I was 12 and three quarters,  I went with my family for lunch to a groovy restaurant south of LA called El Ranchitos.  El Ranchitos was Californication-esque.  Grungy but not really grungy, dive-bar ish  but actually quite clean.  They played thumping loud 80s cock-rock, and more to the point they made mean burgers.

We'd been there a whole 5 minutes before my dad asked the hot tattooed waiter to turn the rock and roll down.  I can still remember the moritification my near-teenage self felt when the waiter said no, and my dad dragged us out of there.

Tonight, Matthew, I am my dad.  I can live with the Dexter-ish slaughter / blood themed decor at Meatliquor.

But the music's TOO BLOODY LOUD.  I couldn't hear myself think.

I stopped short of asking my hot tattooed waiter to turn the music down, but the thought crossed my mind.  Which made me feel old, which made me feel cross.

If I were 26 and on a date, I'd love this place.  It's fun, it's cool, and even though it knows it's cool you can forgive it because it has a sense of wit.   I'd drink loads of the bourbon-based cocktails, wolf down the burger and think I was almost, almost in Williamsburg.

But I'm not 26.  I was out with friends, talking about adult things like babies and careers and unreliable builders.  And I was acutely aware that I wasn't in Williamsburg, but I was 2 minutes from the back door of John Lewis, and had yet to buy most of my loved ones the right Christmas present.

So I didn't love it.  I liked it though.  I really did.

E. Mishkin - E is for Effortful, Ersatz, and Enough Already

Hmmm.  I'd heard mixed reports.  Time Out gave Mishkin's 2 out of 5, and my chef friend said the same.  Still, you've got to see for yourself, right?

After Spuntino's exhaustive try-hardness, and Da Polpo's very good pizzas, I thought it could go either way.  But Mishkin's is basically quite nice food, hiding behind some faux 'old-fashioned and Jewish' shtick.

It has the usual surface charm of the Polpo chain - nice, young, good looking staff, nice lights:

Fashionably stocked bar...Sipsmiths anyone?

 And a toilet with willfully awkward taps and retro wallpaper:

The whole concept claims to be 'a kind of Jewish deli' - and the menu does have lots of nods to Jewish food (chopped liver, bagels, latkes, matzo ball soup).    However the entire experience is so-so, because Mishkin's lacks what real delis (Jewish or otherwise)  have in spades: heart and soul.

We had meatballs (good flavour, texture too firm), onion rings and fries (not quite crisp enough.)

We had a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel which came with a soft boiled egg.

This was the closest we came to good.   The fish was delicious - Severn & Wye salmon - and the egg was perfectly cooked, but the bagel was a 6 out of 10 bagel: not fresh enough, no crisp exterior to give bite, no soft yet chewy innards - just flavourless, too firm dough.

Come on guys.   It is not that hard to source a decent bagel in London in the 21st century.  You've spent so much time making sure your decor and fonts are cool, why not spend twenty minutes talking to someone who knows a bit about bread?  Try Carmelli's, or Panzer's.

As we left, the waitress handed us a brown envelope, inside which was a copy of Ezra Mishkin's story.  Ezra - who 'dreamed of owning his own restaurant' and established Mishkin's in 1931.  (25 Catherine Street, site of this spanking new restaurant, was previously Taste of India curryhouse. ) The powers of the internet provide no evidence of a real Ezra Mishkin.  The internet does of course tell us that Mishkin's is owned by the same two guys who run 4 other themed restaurants in central London, all established in the last 3 years....go figure...  I have little choice but to cynically assume E. Mishkin is a marketeer's fictive creation.  Which is fine.  My sources tell me that Ronald McDonald isn't real either. 

Except that the legend of Ezra Mishkin goes on to describe Ezra, shivering over a bowl of soup and pondering desperately his flight from the Ukraine, to escape being murdered - as his parents had been.  Class: chuck in some murdered 19th Century Jews to give your restaurant some personality.  Now that's  cool.

Don't get me wrong.  This is not bad taste on a Clarkson scale - though really who takes Jeremy Clarkson seriously anyway?  (He's a paunchy middle-aged attention seeking bloke who says provocative things to help his career - just ignore him if he bothers you.)  However it is, to me, proof that the food doesn't stand up on its own, and needs the whole 'back story' thing built around it - which is a shame.  More attention to bread, less attention to cutesy, pretentious wank, please.

If you are the type of punter who loves a trendy contrived narrative to go with your trendy contrived menu, then, as they actually do say at Katz's deli, 'enjoy...'

On the other hand, if you are in Covent Garden and crave decent old-fashioned European kind of Jewish food, your money would be better spent at The Delaunay - the newly opened restaurant by the folk who brought you The Wolseley.

The Delaunay is gorgeous, grand and elegant - though not quite as buzzy or pretty as The Wolseley.  I didn't take photos as it's really not that sort of place (Gordon Ramsay, Janet Street Porter, and possibly Shelley Von Strunkel were all there on the night we were.)

The food is good enough.   We ordered a cheese-stuffed weiner, and a cheese-stuffed bacon wrapped weiner, purely so we could engage in a lengthy conversation about weiners with our poor waiter.  The weiners were delicious - proper well done trash food, served with amazing waxy potatoes in a grainy mustard dressing.  The side dishes (sprouts with chestnuts, carrots with ginger) lacked seasoning.  The puddings were disappointing (pear and blackcurrant millefeuille thin and slightly soggy -  not a patch on Pierre's millefeuille).  The two sittings next to us both ordered the Salzburg Souffle for 2 which looked absolutely spectacular - a giant, golden puffed up colossus, with a soft middle - resembling a cross between a Baked Alaska and a souffle.

I probably wouldn't hurry back - not because it's not good, but because it's Wolseley light, or actually Wolsey dark - darker room, less lively.  Next time I'm in Covent Garden, I'm going to Benito's Hat for a burrito: my cash isn't paying for the interior design, and I know the food's going to taste delicious.

Call me old fashioned and Jewish, but isn't that the point?

Happy Saturday

First on the ice at Somerset House (skating like a drunken newborn foal.)

Pretty-pretty Tiffany Christmas tree and matching cupcake:

And champagne tea at No 1 Aldwych, with free refills on sandwiches (chicken & mustard mayo, egg mayo & cucumber, smoked salmon & cream cheese, plus mini Welsh rarebit.) 

There's nothing I like more in life than free sandwich refills.

Except perhaps warm scones with clotted cream and berry jam, served with a perfect mini apple and almond trifle on the side, like a custard-y chaser.

Or even a trio of cakes:

A trio of cakes: the only thing better than a trio of cakes would be a trio of Trios.  I miss Trios.

And the icing on the cake/s?  All of the above was hosted by a man of such charm and good humour that he was willing to balance Battenburg cake in his ears, like a demented Princess Leia, just to make me and my friend laugh.

Bread - or why the Dukan and I shall ne'er be friends

I love bread so much I rarely have it at home.   I simply can't delay my own gratification - I go full on Homer and eat entire loaves without pausing for breath.

Recently a friend brought me round a still-warm loaf of home-made caraway rye.  Feeling the heat through the wrapping induced a wave of happiness I hadn't experienced since I found out that I was right about whodunit in The Killing.   And I'd been right since the first episode!  (The fact that I'd changed my mind in every subsequent episode is entirely beside the point.)

But just because I rarely have bread at home doesn't mean I don't eat it pretty much every day.  I recently went to a food event - the highlight of which was these bad boys:

Jazzy bread hands, with a wild garlic butter, made by artist Sharon Baker, who casts other body parts in bread too - like these scary hands and feet which, come to think of it, might work well dipped into jam or honey.  The last time I dipped my toes in some honey, my breakfast companion said it wasn't the done thing at The Wolseley.  What is it with young men nowadays?  They embarrass so easily.

Anyway, these particular mitts were pretty tasty - the fingers were a little firm, but the palms were beautiful: soft, white cloud innards with a delicious chewy crust.  Almost as good as this bread:

Boiled eggs and soldiers at The St John Hotel

- which I like for two reasons.   Firstly, I love the size of this bread.  If I were a Guardian arts journalist, I'd mention how the juxtaposition of form, the elongation of what is essentially the humblest and most democratising of foods, is playfully extended, in the best tradition of post-modernism, to act as metaphor for consumer society - the Hummer of toasts, etc.  However I'm not a pseud, so I shall merely say I LOVE BIG LONG WHITE BREAD THAT MAKES LOTS & LOTS OF SOLDIERS.

The second reason I love this bread is that it is smothered in the saltiest paste imaginable - made of anchovies, shallots, vinegar and capers.  My whole life seems to be one long Arthurian quest to seek out as much tasty salt and fat as I can find, and ingest it promptly thereafter, and this breakfast meets my needs admirably.