Battersea Beer Festival

This is a bit late and the event is no longer on (there's always next year), but that's not really the point.  The fact that its the Battersea Beer Festival is sort of irrelevant, it's great because CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) are amazing.  They put on loads of events like this all around the country all through the year.  The format is more or less the same everywhere: hundreds of British ales and ciders with a smattering of good foreign beers, mainly from small producers that take time over their products.

Restaurant Review: Gourmet San

Finding places to rent means a lot of talking to estate agents who don't have anything you want and then ring you for weeks after asking if it was a 3 bedroom for September that you wanted.  No it wasn't, that must have been someone else, and could you please STOP RINGING ME!  On the plus side you do go to parts of town you don't often visit (at least not during the day) and that means you get to eat at new places.  This led me to find a place that did amazing cupcakes, it also meant I got to try Gourmet San in Bethnal Green, somewhere I've been reading about for a while.

Magazine Review: The Art of Eating

Edward Behr's quarterly magazine The Art of Eating has built up a solid following over the last 24 years and has gained the reputation as the most serious and well researched food quarterly around.  The Financial Times has written glowingly about it, but its main market is still America, where it hails from.  Here it is said to be read by anyone who is anyone in the food industry.  Despite this the Europhile nature of the writers means at least as much focus, if not more, is given to Europe.  Not only will you find interesting, relevant articles to read, you will also not find any adverts between the well researched pieces.

Restaurant Review: Santo

Real Mexican food in London is difficult to find, people search desperately, trawling message boards discussing where they can get something that faintly resembles the real thing.  This is mainly the concern of ex-pat Americans.  Us Brits have been generally happy with Wahacca and that place that sells enormous burritos that fall apart when you take off the foil and leaves you with sour cream and guacamole all over your shoes.  I like Wahacca for the record, I think its fun.  One of my friends, who is  half Mexican, has a problem with its lack of authenticity, however, and has been trying out various places to find something that reflects his summers over there a bit better.  Santo is one of the places he found and liked, so when he suggested it for dinner I was happy to go along with the suggestion.

Restaurant Review: The Loft Project

A little bit of internet research led me to 'drop hints' that a meal here would be a really great birthday present, a really really great one a really really... Yes annoying for about 20 seconds in type, imagine it for a lot longer in a simpering whine.  Well here we were outside a very nice maisonette flat in Dalston after a couple of cocktails, slightly nervous about meeting our other diners and very excited about the 12 course meal to come.

Restaurant Review: Sushi Hiroba

In the 90s I remember that conveyor belt sushi sounded like a fantastic idea.  That was possibly because I was a child, however, a lot of big grown up people seemed to share my enthusiasm.  It seemed very modern in a kitch kind of way, it was informal and fun and apparently they did it in Japan a place much trendier than London since Brit Pop kicked the bucket.  So we all loved it.  But not as much as the restaurants that served it.  'Here's a clever way to stop people paying attention to how much they're spending.  Sure the price of each plate is up on the wall, but these idiot are far too lazy to count'.  They were right.  A quick lunch anywhere with a conveyor belt when you're hungry is the same as putting your credit card behind a bar 'to save you the hassle of having to pay each time' - a bad, expensive idea.  Well a whole decade removed from the 90s I fell for this trap, in the nicely decorated and okay but unspectacular Sushi Hiroba in Holborn.  Have I learnt nothing!

Gothenburg: an Eatist's City Guide

I ate a lot of good food in Gothenberg and to stop this turning into a long ramble, punctuated only when I need to wipe a bit of drool from my chin I think the best way to organise this is probably a kind of photo diary of things that I ate and liked.  I used to come to Gothenberg a lot when I was younger, but haven't been for a few years now and I had a lot of fun rediscovering it and all the things I used to eat there.  The food scene here is respected throughout the country, with its chefs regularly winning national awards, and increasingly international plaudits.  On the other hand there is a lot of great traditional food served in small places and a whole host of wonderful cafes.