Restaurant Review: The Lahore Kebab House vs Tayyabs

Its a well loved restaurant, serving authentic Punjabi Pakistani cuisine, about ten minutes walk away from Brick Lane you have, to BYOB, its an amazing feed for about £12 and their lamb chops are justifiably famous.  Well that could refer to a few places depending on who you are  - Tayyabs or The Lahore Kebab House being the most famous.  Since they are so close together and there is a debate surrounding them as to which is better I thought I should wade in.  (A third option also appears to be Needoo, which I shall endeavour to get to soon).

So lets put this in some context.  The Michelin Starred Indian chef Atul Kochhar rates the Lahore as his top curry place in London, Time Out rates underrates Tayyabs at 4 stars compared to the Lahore's 3 and Jay Rayner backs Tayyabs as the best lamb chop around, threatening to punch anyone who disagrees.  Well risking the wrath of Rayner (on the off chance he ever come across this), I am going to say something controversial.  The lamb chops at the Lahore are better!

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.

Fire and Knives: A New Quarterly Magazine

The other day I came across the new quarterly magazine Fire and Knives whilst reading the Dos Hermanos (Dos Hermanos', Dos Hermanoses, Dos Hermani's?)  blog.  This is the brainchild of Tim Hayward, the official Guardian food blogger and has contributions from such notables as Tom Parker Bowles and Mathew Fort (The Great British Menu, etc).   A couple of days later I received the first issue through the post.  Its a beautifully produced item, printed on high quality matt paper, about the size of an old-school gentleman's journal.  They have no advertisers and instead each spread is based around high-quality, slightly retro feeling design - much nicer than being based around Sainsbury's adverts.  The writing is a mix of well known food writers and 'enthusiastic amateurs'.  Enthusiasm is really at the centre here and the editors have tried to steer well clear of connoisseurs telling the readers what is what.  At root it tries to genuinely focus on food and food culture rather than the lifestyle pieces that characterise a lot of newspaper food writing.  

Restaurant Review: Arbutus

We had a pre-theatre dinner booked, though I had no idea where it was, having failed to spoil the surprise (something that is a real hobby, I hate surprises). It turned out we were going to Arbutus in Soho, a modern, brightly lit restaurant that's won lots of awards. Excellent!

The idea was to have the pre/post-theatre menu at £18.50, except my greed got the better of me. Although for the purposes of this I will say that I thought it would be more interesting to compare the a la carte to the set menu.

Standing on the Shoulders of (Big Fat) Giants

'Movement and life are the cause of continuous wastage of substance in every living body; and the human body, that complicated machine, would soon break down if Providence had not equipped it with a device for warning it when its strength is no longer equal to its needs. This warning device is appetite '.

This is how Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin defines appetite in his classic The Physiology of Taste (1825. This translation is the Penguin Classics edition and is available here). He then rattles off some heroic feats of large appetite; a man that drank 8 bottles of wine everyday at breakfast, a friend who could eat a whole turkey, and another chum he watched polish off a soup with boiled beef, a large salad, a capon and a whole leg of mutton a la royale. The most impressive, in my opinion, was his lunch guest who managed to eat 3 or 4 dozen oysters. I have a friend who has a peculiar gluttony of his own that only really stretches to oysters and I'd be curious to see if he could manage this, some how I think probably not (though if he wants to try I think it would make for a great post).

But not to let the past outshine the present there is plenty of evidence of truly staggering feats of modern-day eating. The world hot-dog eating record currently stands at 59 in ten minutes, jointly held by Joey 'Jaws' Chestnut (US) and Takeru 'Tsunami' Kobayashi (Japan). There's also the 72oz Big Texan challenge and a list of finishers to go with it. So have all the great mountains of gluttony been climbed, apparently not. I came across this post that indicates a new Everest of greed here. Its good to know that there are still challenges out there.

(P.S. I wouldn't actually advocate anyone actually try and replicate any of the above feats, I think if I did my stomach would fall out).

Jay Rayner travels the Silk Road

Sorry for the tortured title! I thought that given my love of Silk Road, which I constantly bore all my friends with and have already made clear in an earlier post, I should probably put up this link. Jay Rayner of The Guardian reviewed Silk Road back in September and liked it. This is probably why it has been a bit busier of late and hopefully this is something that ensures it a good degree of longevity.

Chorillana; The Unhealthiest Dish on Earth?

To start off; no it probably isn't, there are loads of contenders for the above accolade, including deep fried mars bars, doner kebabs, and a sort of amalgamation of the two which relies on wrapping a hot-dog in doner meat, battering it and then deep frying it. But, what actually is a chorillana? Well apart from being greasy and delicious. It is a Chilean speciality made from fried beef chunks, fried onions and scrambled eggs all served over chips, with none of the fat drained off. Some versions have bits of hot dog in, but I didn't enjoy that to be quite honest. The best version is meant to be found in Casino Social J. Cruz, Condell 1466, Valparaiso, which is where the pictures above were taken. I ate this when completely sober, but I imagine it would be a fantastic post-pub option and I would like to cite it as my ideal food for this type of occasion. If any one has any contenders please join the debate.