Barcelona Restaurants: Barceloneta

How much would you pay for a plate of prawns, 6 to be precise?  At a good restaurant £12-15, though baring in mind they're just grilled, no foams, or sauces maybe not.  I'm guessing you would not pay £35, but if you don't at Barceloneta you will be missing out big time (I am going to caveate this by stating quite clearly that I wasn't paying, and if I was maybe I would be less adament).  The gambas de palamos are regarded as the best prawn world wide and after trying them I can't disagree.  If I was more pretentious I would say they were the Platonic archetype of a prawn, all others being paltry shadows dancing on the cave wall... but I'm not (ahem) so I'll just say they were bloody brilliant.  Food like this is what differentiates the Spanish and Itialians in their food culture.  Simple, unpretentious food, with bags of flavour, beautifully grown, caught or bred is king and people will pay a lot (some would say an extortionate ammount) of money for a great, great prawn that hasn't had much cheffing inflicted on it.  This is a very, very good thing.

Barcelona Restaurants: Cova Fumado

Barcelona is full of experimental food, molecular gastronomy, etc, etc blah blah, I was trained with Feran Adria, blah blah, el Buli blah blah. Sadly very, very few people can do this food well, and honestly it's quite boring if people don't.  It stops being food and starts to be an infuriating attempt by the chef to convince you he's clever, and far too many kitchens seem to think this kind of experimentation and scientific apporach is a short-cut round learning how to actually cook.  After a couple of these trendy tapas/pintxos later I felt a bit deflated, I wanted a bar with proper food.  So after desperate Time Out IPhone search we decided to go to Cova Fumado, somewhere which seemed to fit the bill of proper food.
Initial signs were good.  It was heaving and not with a lot of tourists with guidebooks (as a tourist I shouldn't sneer, but it's often a bad sign).  The guy behind the bar was loud and shouting conversations at regulars and new joiners alike, his mum was behind the griddle along the other wall and the bar was made of granite and cracked and the chairs were near falling apart through years of enthusiastic eating.  The food did not dissapoint either, anything but - squid with oil and garlic was caramalised on the edges and beautifully soft and fresh.  Chickepeas with morcilla rich and moreish and the fried sardines were perfect.  Dried broad beans flavoured with black-pudding and chilli were another highlight.  The bill with beers and wine came to comfortably under £35 for two and was worked out with a pencil dirlectly on the bartop. 

This is exactly the kind of food I like, simple one to four ingredient dishes made with top quality produce and not messed around with.  The place had a great atmosphere in a been on the dockside forever kind of way, it's rough and ready and great fun.  Highly recommended.

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'.

Istanbul Restaurants:Akdeniz Kokorec

Again I'd like to thank the brilliant Istanbul Eats for turning me onto this place.

I like to take every opportunity to champion offal.  I think eating the whole animal (in one sitting if I can) is crucial in limiting waste and the damage caused by mass farming.  I also think it's more respectful.  Imagine my joy then when I found out about kokorec an enormous sausage stuffed with lamb fat and sweetbreads inside a thick outer casing of wound sheep's intestines.  Imagine my even greater joy when this - admittedly slightly unappetising sounding dish - turned out to be absolutely delicious.