Mama Lan

For me hearing the combination of Beijing street food and Brixton market is pretty much like putting crack and a crack pipe in front of a drug addict at this point.  My favourite place to eat in London with some of my favourite food from when I used to be fun and travel a lot (wistful sigh... also please no comments that I never used to be fun).  Mama Lans also has the benefit of being setup by a blogger, so obviously its getting immediate points, it's also a family mother and daughter enterprise - so all very positive and cosy.  So how was it?

In short pretty good.  The cold slow cooked beef came in thin slices with a good star anise flavour as well as a lot of other warm, autumnal spicing, very nice and tender, still moist enough despite the fact that chilling has a drying effect on meat.  The pickles were great, and the dumplings were good.  It was especially fun watching them being hand rolled infront of us the whole time we were there, given the counter puts you practically on top of the kitchen.  The only dissapoinment was that despite the filling being good the dumplings were pretty underseasoned.  At this point, however, I think it's fair to put that down to teething problems given Mama Lans had only been open for a couple of days.  I will definitely go back and try this place again.

Brixton Village: Kaosan

Kaosan has been getting a lot of good press lately.  Brixton Village has made it into the Standard, Jay Rayner has review Kaosan specifically, it's loved on Chowhound.  Sadly when I first went there I was a bit underwhelmed.  But then I had Larb Gai, a combiation of toasted rice, minced chicken and coriande, which is fine, but not the most exciting thing in the world - this Saturday the Moo Ping pork skewers marinated with sugar cane, and stir fried pork with holy basil turned me around completely.

Brixton Village: Casa Sibilla

I was saying before how difficult it has been in the past to go out for decent pasta.  Now two places open practically next door to each other in Brixton Village market.  Casa Sibilla does a lot more than just pasta though.  It's got a daily changing lunch menu and is open for dinner on days when the market is open late.  Lovely salads and more substantial dishes are all available in a lovely setting.  They even do cooking lessons.

Brixton Village: Etta's Seafood Kitchen

It can be disappointing when you read about how friendly and welcoming a cook/owner of a restaurant is and then go there and find that they're not talking to you anymore than a chef does anywhere else.  Do they not like me you think, who are these stupid newspaper reviewers who everyone talks to anyway - mutter, mutter.  Thankfully I cannot imagine this being a problem at Etta's.  Talking is what they do (that and cooking, obvously).  They are welcoming and chatty and extremely friendly the whole time.  Their caribean influenced food's pretty sharp too.

Curry Ono

I've been writing a lot about the newly(ish) rejuvenated Brixton Village lately, but it would be a mistake to ignore the good new places that have opened up in next door Market Row.  Curry Ono is one of these, and its my favourite so far.  It specialises in Japanese curries and they do them very well indeed.  In fact they do them so well that I'd say they're the best I've tried so far anywhere in London.

Brixton Village: Federation Coffee

Coffee houses used to be places where rebellions were planned and where deals were struck.  In the 18th century they were the central trading houses for shares and bonds, a fairly new idea at the time.  Lloyd's Bank has its roots in this world, having itself started as a coffee house.  However, coffee in the twentieth century was very different.  Seen as a slightly strange drink that had a peculiar popularity on the continent, good coffee was hard to find.  Then came the chains.  Still not so good, but better.  After a while they upped their game and good coffee came to be expected.  No we are in the midst of a new wave of smaller artisan cafe's that focus on high quality in preparation and detail in sourcing.  At least half of these places are run by antipodians.  Enter - 'the flat white'.

Brixton Village: Bellantoni's

Market Row in Brixton was the lunchtime place to be for a while.  This was down to Franco Manca, which got rave reviews from basically everyone.  It even made it into newspapers that only use the words South London if they sit next to 'postcode wars'.  Then came Rosie's (of the Spooning with Rosie cookbook) and Wild Caper.  What makes it nice is that it sits next to the South American butchers and West Indian and African grocers that made the place interesting for a lot of foodies anyway.  Now it's Brixton Village's turn.  This is a very similar covered market that sits just opposite Market Row.  A series of rebuilds and an influx of new restaurants, cafes and delis again sit next to places that have been there for years.  I want to take longer to explore it, but to kick it off I thought I'd talk about a small pasta place in there called Bellantoni's.

Jerk (Chicken) Off, Brockwell Park 2010

Crude puns averted, so far so good.  Sunday the 15th of August saw London's jerk cookery competition take place in Brockwell park having moved from the Horniman gardens.  There were at least thirty to fifty different stalls all competing for the honour this year and Caribbean.  A portion of jerk (or curry goat, etc) was yours from between £5-6.  Sadly though I queued to get some jerk lamb from the people I found out were last years winners it wasn't ready and the chicken I got somewhere else was okay but not mind-blowing.  It serves me right really I should have looked up the previous winners.  Strangely I was too full to have seconds, a cause for concern in itself.  Next year I won't make those mistakes.  Good foody event in the sunny outdoors and if you go with loads of people you can sample a whole host of delicious wares, highly recommended.

For more info and good photos look here, here and at my new favourite London food blog (except mine obviously) here.

Restaurant Review: Asmara

Me and a friend came across this place after a trip to the perennially brilliant Ritzy cinema in Brixton.  We were looking for some dinner and the Time Out review in the window promised good things, so we thought we'd give it a go.  The inside is far nicer than the standard looking store front would suggest, clean lined, pale wood furniture, paintings and weavings of Eritrean scenes cover the walls, of what is a pleasantly small place.  Never having eaten Eritrean food before we decided to go for the royal banquet so we could try a lot of different dishes.  I remember being impressed.  So when I was looking for somewhere to eat dinner in Brixton the other evening I suggested Asmara.

Restaurant Review: Franco Manca

'Why are  the last few places you've reviewed in North London when South London is SOO much better', I hear you cry.  Well those poor buggers need all the help they can get and frankly I took pity on them.  But enough of that, its time to come back South where everything is better.

Ok, Ok this might not be quite accurate, but what is true is that our pizza is better, specifically Franco Manca is better.  Better than what?  Well better than basically everything else that involves cheese, tomato and dough in this country, maybe its because South London is closer to Italy, who knows.  Everyone has reviewed this place by now, so there's probably not much need to go on about the sourdough that, rumour has it, is made from a  batch that has been going in Naples for over 200 years, or that it's rested for 24 hours before being turned into a beautifully elastic, soft base.  Also everyone's already written about the 2 wood-fired ovens made by Neapolitan Artisans that cook that base to a beautifully blistered finish in around a minute.  The fact that its mainly organic and ingredients are from England as far as possible (even the Mozzarella) cutting down on air miles, etc,etc.  You've probably already had a glass of their home-made lemonade.  Well I don't care, I'm going to gush about this place anyway because its local and because its amazing.