Entering through the black noren, you find yourself in an industrious looking room. It had a minimal as in functional setup. This is a ramen joint after all,  and could be seen as serving what would be considered a utilitarian food service or in this situation it served a niche version of it. Just ignore that wall of tattooed people and cigarette advertisements; were they rockabillies, yakuza or a rich cultural blend?

I didn’t feel like I had to vibe off the decor. I was much too distracted by the menu and the gadgets they have for you to to dress up your dish with: garlic crushers and sesame grinders, home made chile sauce and a pot of soy. At some point during the fiddling and the perusing of the menu, an Asahi with a stonkingly creamy head arrived. Intrigued by such a mighty head, I enquired. What followed was a lovely, long description of how the head came about. I lost the plot at some point; apart from the novelty, it was almost like a cartoony implausibility – the never ending creamy head. Next time, I’ll go for the Redchurch beer on offer – supping British beer and sucking up Japanese comfort food.

A big , cold, green artichoke; scaly, godzilla like was bestowed upon the table. I pulled the scales back and dipped them in the spicy yuzu kosho mayo; the cool and slightly bitter taste of the artichoke was warmed and pleasantly received by the wondrous citrus riffs, chile hits, and good salt heft that the mayo provided.

Did you ever sprinkle salt on your watermelon? Imagine adding sochu and plum liquor to the mix. Sweet, salty, sensational with a plum anchor and salt accelerator. This drink blew my lid but the price for this little piece of relaxation came in way too high for the resulting quantity – half a martini glass.

My tantanmen arrived post haste, the liquid, a slurry of mineral farming and rust: orange depth and a swirl of off-white, which was contrasted by the glazed blue bowl, that when half-way finished revealed.. a white explosive expression(you’ll see).  This ramen dish played off of the Chinese dan dan noodle version of minced pork and chilli. Here the addition of sesame paste thickened the already silken and well balanced chicken bone stock. When you do ramen you have to get your eggs right and these little pre-cluckers were marinated and soft boiled(Ajitsuke Tamago). The noodles had bite, the bok-choy came with a vegetative crunch, it was a textural cornucopia of a bowl. Often with ramen in London, you feel like all the ingredients have just been flung in there – they sit looking knackered and unappealing. But, here everything held its own. Building to something bigger, creating a fully structured final, lasting emotive taste.

I powered through, I was happy to get my munch on alone; my slurp was keen and my lips smacked, the dish was spicy and I did not look pretty. I looked out the wide glass windows enjoying this dining experience in the dark early expression of winter.

One thing…..the music wasn’t loud enough. If you have the guts to play Japanese rockabilly, then I want hear it. Play it loud, play it proud – because I swear, I heard a Japanese Cramps cover, and I needed that turned up to eleven.

Bone Daddies
30-31 Peter St W1F 0AT
tel: 020 7287 8581
web: http://bonedaddiesramen.com/

Have a read of what other people are saying about Bone Daddies-
1.This guy is the man, when it comes to noodles:
http://eatlovenoodles.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/rock-n-roll-ramen-bone-daddies.html?showComment=1353928441546
2.If you want to see some damn fine images of Bone Daddies, check this out:
http://londonfoodfreak.com/bone-daddies/
3.Nice breakdown from the Culinary Creep:
http://theculinarycreep.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/bone-daddies-ramen-bar-soho/
4. Follow this lady as she tackles the ramen movement going down in the capital right now:
http://thefworld.org/2012/11/16/best-ramen-noodle-in-london-bone-daddies-shoryu/

You gotta love this city, always ready to throw you a curveball. It could be a new pizza place that has just been hailed as king of the crusts, or better yet another barbecue place has opened and cooks their pork for one more hour than the last. The competitive nature of this city keeps things buzzing. But sometimes an originator is what we need. A fresh breath in the battle for the best. There is nothing new about the opening of one more Mexican place in town. You wonder, will they throw down a new dish or intensify the seasonings just a little and not worry about Londoners sensitive palates?

Well this newcomer truly comes out of left field. Los Pastelitos is a Mexican bakery and serves up a little bit of sweetness in three forms: conchas, which kinda resembles a seashell and is brioche like in nature, but is a touch moister that its French counterpart. The seashell topping is made up of sugar and flour, which crumbles, then dissolves as you bite your way through. The wedding cookies have a similar texture to shortbread, yet they don’t have the dryness. The wallop of orange zest in them seals the deal and makes me forget about prenups. The third pastry looks a little more formidable than the other two. It is an empanada with a sweet filling of butternut squash infused with cloves, anise and other spices – it tasted like a wrapped up pumpkin pie. All of these treats cost between £1-£1.50, and can be washed down with a fresh brewed coffee, agua frescas or even a fridge cold Mexican soda pop.

If you are in the Bethnal Green area or happen to be shopping for Mexican supplies next door at ‘Casa Mexico‘, don’t forget to add a fresh pastry to your visit. You will be welcomed with a smile and something sweet to eat.

Los Pastelitos
3.5 Winkley Street
London, E2 6PY
Open: Sat-Sun 10-5pm
web: www.lospastelitos.com
email: teresa@lospastelitos.com

For more Mexican mayhem on the Spork Network: http://thebrokenspork.com/category/mexican-2/

Oh Rita, you plied me with frozen hibiscus margaritas, then dumped paper bag loads of crunchy(ginger?) fried chicken sandwiches on the table.  One madman kept on ordering them until he couldn’t fit another in his mouth and just pecked at the chicken and left the roll. The ox heart tacos were a favourite and even turned a few sceptics into lovers of the once pumping organ.

Fish tacos filled with fried whiting, gave inspirations of Baja and memories of Cornwall, all sauced in a salsa verde, tomatoes, pickled red onions and sour cream.  A patty melt looked deceivingly plain. But, bite into the wannabe burger and get the umami shrills when your taste-buds hit bone marrow butter, beef, cheese and caramelized onions. The slices of rye bread soothed all the salt lick tendencies coming from the ingredients and delivered enough support to keep things contained.

Yeah, you can probably tell I’m gushing a little here, so let me hit you with the sour.  The ginger  & soy hot wings were sticky fun, but just a little to sweet. A plate of mustard greens had no outstanding qualities: no vigour, no backbone, kind of limp and expressionless. Not available that night: bacon peanut brittle; smoked pork and duck heart baked beans; shrimp rolls; sausage, peppers and grit cakes.  The menu reads like an adventure and all these items will be tagged up on another explorative mission up to Stoke Newington.

Oh Rita, you have entranced me, and with the news that your going to be doing a brunch service to boot, I’m all yours for as long as you last.

Head north youngbloods and feast!

Rita’s Bar & Dining
Tuesday-Saturday from 7pm
33-35 Stoke Newington Road, N16 8BJ
web: http://www.ritasbaranddining.com/
twitter: @Ritasdining

The start of this excursion began with a text that somewhere along the lines got muddled and compressed into an alternative vision of the original intention. In the mood for burgers a message was sent out. Maybe my counterpart was in the mood for Chinese, but somewhere in the data field, the lines blurred and the smart-ass reply came asking for Chinese Burgers. They must exist in some shape or another and after a little googling, a blog post had mentioned Chinese style lamb burgers at a place called Silk Road in Camberwell. So forward we marched…

The epic fail came upon ordering, met by a blank stare and a confidently vague answer, there were no Chinese burgers. But in this busy little place, you could sense that plenty other things would prove to be just as rewarding. I was picking up a good vibe here: relaxed, almost like it was not a restaurant but a takeaway with picnic tables bolted down, people chilling, drinking beer and socialising. A place popular with the young’uns/art students all experimenting with with life and tripe.

On first view of the menu, there seemed to be a large amount of shredded dishes and the meal would have went 100% shredded if not for the restraint of my counterpart, because I wanted to shred it all up and put it in a big bowl. The hot/cold shredded potatoes came cool but with a garlic n’ chile sneak attack.  Calmly satisfying, not a flavour out of line or too egotistical, just bare naked slivered potatoes.

Meat dumplings, were all dough: hearty and wheat tough, with a solid moist chew. The dishes were arriving as they were prepared. We didn’t have to follow the age old here’s your starter, now here’s your main. It adds to the relaxed dining atmosphere. A Kidney shish  displayed three textures; smooth, then sharp, then a little bit wobbly.  Dry hot powdered spices made the lips burn and the grilled kidneys left an aftertaste akin to melting plastic – good or bad, take your pick.

Then the belle of the ball arrived. Hand pulled belt noodles; density-chew with a follow through, and in a broth that was a flavour surprise every bite. A building wave of flavours played out as you took the next slurp: szechuan pepper subtly built itself up and then flipped in the next sip to an aromatic burst of lemon grass. But, beware stay conscious and don’t slip into a food coma, the broth will seduce you and next thing you know the heat will burn your throat and you will choke. Concentrate on your breathing and you will be well rewarded – a mid-section of chicken wing was a highlight bite. The skin still on, which left the flesh tender and containing nodules of residual broth flavour.

We had gone on a mission to eat Chinese burgers and had ended up in a world of textures. Beers sunk, bellies full, minds blissfully content. This was our first taste of Xinjiang style food and we would gladly follow the Silk Road from east to west any day of the week.

Silk Road
49 Camberwell Church St, SE5 8TR
tel: 020 7703 4832

Random Disclaimer
We don’t know nothing or at least next to nothing about true Chinese food. We are fixing to learn a little bit more on our adventure and at the same time find some good spots for all of you out there! If you want to drop the info bomb on us please do so – gn@thebrokenspork.com
Read this to hear how it all started ‘The Legend Begins‘

It was a shaky start, we had hit gold with our meal at Yipin China, my eating co-pilot was looking glum when I tardily walked through the door. He was flicking through a green, sad looking laminated menu. The bowl of prawn crackers uneaten. His beer more than half sunk. I slump down and automatically go for a cracker. It was the silver age comic version; created in the 60′s and had probably been sitting in somebodies attic ever since. Musty and not the brilliant white it used to be, yellowed and brittle.

Something needed to be done, the excitement had leeched out of us and the second place on our Chinese-Takeaway tour looked  like it was going to leave us with a bowlful of generic, colour saturated, iconoclastic anti-culture jamming junk.

“You specialize in Shanghainese cuisine don’t you?” quizzically asked by the ever hopeful yours truly.
“Yes we have a different menu,” came the unguarded reply of the waitress.

The anxious eyes of my dinning companion lit up as the new menu arrived, a whole new world had just opened up for us. All of a sudden our cutlery was replaced with chopsticks, and a neglected wobbly table sturdied.

It had looked like it was going to be a dire situation, but turned into a real treat – a meal we nearly missed. The restaurant had a non-permanent look to it: A few bits and pieces nailed to the wall, tables constantly re-sized and shuffled about the room depending on the number of covers.  The rudimentary requirements for establishing atmosphere came from the red lanterns that raged subtle warm pink hues all over us and the Chinese Women’s Institute(author’s imagination) that sat motherly round a large circular table, clapping as their dishes were brought out. They made us excited, although not enough to make us clap when our dishes came.

First we went for fried prawns in soya sauce(Shanghai style). They were slippery fried  buggers that blasted  shanghai style sauce all over my shirt. I exacted my revenge by sucking out their juicy head flesh- nutty and sweet. Our prawns came with a disclaimer that they had shells, and with our next dish we were warned of the bones that lurked within – basically we are dumbos and the dynamics for dining here are different.

As for the dangerous bone riddled drunk chicken, it was hands down the best dish that night. The drunk part, not your basic rice wine, but a house recipe; home-brew that came with long lasting flavour and a hint of fermented barley. Now I just couldn’t figure out if I had become addicted to the booze or the chicken, let’s call it a draw.

That Drunken Chicken

Pork shards with Chinese celery looked pretty plane Jane but with one bite of the celery you could see that it played a big part in the dish; not a stock base or a trinity, but a player, a long lasting mustard follow through of a player. The pork shards a secondary support unit for layer transference.

The one dish we could not get our heads around, was sweet dates and sticky rice. You become accustomed to ordering a rice dish when getting takeout. So, preprogrammed to do so we ordered this expecting a bowl of rice with dates, but instead received rice stuffed dates sitting in a puddle of greenish liquor. The rice compressed to a resilient texture and toughness, the dates like ancient crumbled armour and the liquor, sweet with an undetermined flavour follow-through.

After years of looking at the same menu, this will perk you up. Chinese food is such a broad statement. Look for things out of the ordinary. Could this place make money on just serving Shanghainese food, or survive on serving up the classics from all regions of China? It is their choice to make but surely two faced dinning must be expensive and with a huge array of dishes on the combined menu how do they pull it off? Book your table now and find out at this duality of an eatery.

Red Sun
2A New Quebec Street, London, W1H 7RD
Telephone: 020 7723 5350
Web: http://redsun.foodkingdom.com/SupplierWebSite/Template/Default.aspx

Random Disclaimer
We don’t know nothing or at least next to nothing about true Chinese food. We are fixing to learn a little bit more on our adventure and at the same time find some good spots for all of you out there! If you want to drop the info bomb on us please do so – gn@thebrokenspork.com
Read this to hear how it all started ‘The Legend Begins‘

If you are fanatical follower of Mexican cuisine and have a hard time getting hold
of fresh produce, then head down to the new Wholefoods in Piccadilly Circus and pick up some rare on these shores ‘Poblanos(used here)’ before they’re all gone. You can always freeze some for later use.

Whole Foods Market Piccadilly Circus
12 to 20 Glasshouse Street
London, UK W1B 5AR UK
http://wholefoodsmarket.com/stores/piccadillycircus/

And so it begins…..We are dashing into the unknown here, ordering some pumpkin cakes as a snack, the waitress didn’t smirk when she told us they were a dessert. Needless to say the goofballs(us) upped their game and ordered fiercely and maybe out of kindness,  and with encouragement the waitress let us know that we were hitting all her top dish buttons whilst ordering. Feeling full of ourselves and with a clink of our Tsingtao, this night’s eating looked promising.

You order things with cool sounding names and from eyegasmic  photos. You’re blind to any other way of ordering, because tastes won’t translate into menu descriptions. It’s lucky dip and this place is a hit. Five Spice smoked fish – black on the outside. Real five spice with peppers necessitating slight numbness to the mouth. Smacked Cucumbers Hunan Style- what images conjure up in your mind? Salted and served with chiles, so maybe smacked with heat. I’m not sure, but even with the chile, the dish serves as a palate cleanser. With all the dishes coming highly seasoned or bold in flavour this wet, cool respite prepares you for the next chop-stick take-down.

Preserved duck egg with roasted peppers- the garish green yolk wobbled gently as it rested on translucent slices of egg. The roasted peppers took me to Spain but the egg fermented the idea that this was all Chinese. Stewed pork belly with preserved vegetables- A hill of a dish, bands of the salty sliced pork belly came apart as you poked at the mulch looking vegetables under-neath, a barley flavour permeated the brown mound of pig greased compost.

Steamed spare ribs with glutinous rice brought out in a steamer. Before you sits a  circle of rice rectangles, and inside each of these of sticky sticky rice rectangles was a spare rib surprise. Engaging food, food that you have to pick at, work at and even eat. The pleasure is in the process. The performance of eating. Tactile pleasures, texture running a close second to taste. A place that does not take its seasoning lightly.

A successful first outing. The dishes breathed new life into years of eating the same old things at Chinese restaurants here and abroad. It ignited a new flame, and has thrown up more light for us to see what regional Chinese cuisine has to offer. And to top it all off this place does takeout. If your in the Islington area you are in luck sunshine.

Yipin China
70-72 Liverpool Road, London N1 0QD
Tel: 0207 354 3388
Web: http://www.yipinchina.co.uk/

Random Disclaimer
We don’t know nothing or at least next to nothing about true Chinese food. We are fixing to learn a little bit more on our adventure and at the same time find some good spots for all of you out there! If you want to drop the info bomb on us please do so – gn@thebrokenspork.com
Read this to hear how it all started ‘The Legend Begins‘

The first installment of Spork London is finally here. This will be a place for London based food foraging. Reporting from the frontlines of the Big Smoke. Finding little gems, amongst the minefield of the mediocre. We will try and keep the narrative more passionate and personal–entertaining, kind of like your along for the ride, a voyeur, yes like a creepy voyeur. Just don’t call us in the middle of the night and breath weird down the phone.

I’m sure you noticed the insane illustration by now; the end result of a supremely disapointing meal at Manchurian Legends. With reviewers going giddy for this restaurant, we eventually made our way over to check out the fuss. What follows is not exactly a review, but more akin emotion spillage:

Battle food, a forced engagement.
This meal was an ordeal.

You try hard to get into something,
you work at it, but it exhausts you.

Cold pork jelly cubes sit uneaten.
The slivers of garlic suspended within,
reminiscent of a giant’s toenail clippings.

Maybe I’ll call this the despair issue.

What began as a highly anticipated meal,
ended with a musty pig’s arse causing a
tired reluctance to finish anything else off.

You edge for the crazy shit, you aim to eat all the bits
that lurk in the deep bloody cavities of a dead animal.

Hearts rubbed with rough spice particles,
have the haggard appearance of your favourite unshaven,
leather faced grandpa. A light sprinkle of the ancient.

Was this a transition too many?
From dry to wet, to cold and slippery.
You put up a fight, but you couldn’t win.
Punching at shadows, not connecting.

Your mouth, eyes and nose cannot handle it.
They all had conflicting interests in what you are eating,
disagreeing on what is good and what is bad.

Sometimes the profiles line up; a thousand year old egg,
such a pleasant surprise.

Non-threatening bean curd makes a pact with the devil– rolls up into the form of a snake, tough n’ salty. Fresh herbs within,
a tear and a chew away from being too much hard work.

Enough! (note: only order a little bit of crazy)

So, there it is. A meal that kicked our asses. We were beaten, wounded and licking our wounds. To recover, we went for a burger and regained our strength. Discussing what went wrong, we vowed to not let this happen again. Culture ourselves in Chinese cuisine and return stronger, wiser and ready to master the food at Manchurian Legends. Then again it might not be us, the food could just be nasty. Join us on our quest to go around town eating regional Chinese food, finding choice places and readying ourselves for the final showdown.

“G.N”