I first heard of this tart on ‘Come Dine With Me’ and the woman who made it, made it look quite unappealing. Then after looking through my Hawksmoor At Home book again I realised that a recipe for Manchester Tart was in there and looked far more delicious! Initially I didn’t comprehend how rich and decadent this tart would be even though the custard filling uses 750ml whipping cream……….but it turned out delicious and such a satisfying dessert.

Manchester Tart

For the Pastry:

250g plain white flour
Pinch of salt
150g unsalted cold butter, cubed
75g caster sygar
Zest of half a lemon
1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk

For the Custard:

8 egg yolks
100 g caster sugar
750ml whipping cream
50g jam, loosened with a little water if necessary
25g desiccated coconut

Tart tin size: 23cm, with a removable base.

Method:

For the pastry:

1. Sift flour, salt into a bowl and rub cubed butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
2. Add the sugar, lemon zest and egg plus egg yolk. Bring the mixture in with your hands until it is smooth and firm. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in fridge for 2 hours.
3. Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4
4. Take pastry out of fridge, let it sit for a few minutes to soften slightly. Roll out until large enough to line the tin, gently pressed the pastry down. Leave the excess pastry to hang over the tin to stop shrinkage (trim off after you have blind baked it).
5. Fill with baking beans, bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove the baking beans, bake for a further 10 minutes or until pastry is entirely cooked and golden brown.
6. Brush all over with egg yolk and bake for a further 3 minutes (I left this step out and it tasted fine!)
7. Once finished blind baking carefully saw of the excess pastry.

For the Custard:

1. In a heatproof bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together and add whipping cream.
2. Place bowl over water, warm this through until mixture gets to 37C. Sieve into large jug. (As I didn’t have a thermometer, I just warmed it through until it felt slightly hot on my fingers; of course this is different for everyone. SO best bet is to actually get a thermometer).
3. Spread thick layer of jam on the pastry.
4. Place pastry (still in tin) onto the middle shelf of oven; gently pour in custard until the very top.
5. Bake at 130C/260F/Gas ½ for 35 minutes, sprinkle with coconut and bake further for 15 minutes or until custard has set.
6. LET IT COOL before slicing it.

Hakata Tonkotsu

London has found a new hobby to focus on; we are currently heading to become ramen slurping addicts. So I was ecstatic when Japan Centre announced they were opening one a few doors down from Japan Centre. Logic tells me that if it’s backed by the Japanese then the ramen must be of decent quality. I was not wrong.

This time we invited our Japanese friend to come along and slurp, naturally we let him take charge of the ordering and opted for the 3 most common type of ramen and 1 of the special ramen. Between the 3 of us, we had ordered 4 bowls of steaming ramen, these were: Tokyo Shoyu (£8), Sapporo Miso (£8), Hakata Tonkotsu (£8) and Yuzu Tonkotsu (£10.40).

Tokyo Shoyu

Let’s keep this short and precise because I know you’re just dying to get off and slurp ramen. Lets start with the drawbacks. These were the pork, which weren’t as melt in the mouth as Bone Daddies Ramen and the egg which isn’t as good as both, Bone Daddies and Tonkotsu. Both, I feel, are important elements to the dish.

Sappora Miso

The Sapporo Miso broth was quite light though would have been a touch nicer if the miso flavour was stronger. The highlight for us was the Yuzu Tonkotsu, it was amazing. The Tonkotsu broth was flavoursome; it was a proper pork base broth without shortcuts taken, the Yuzu simply added an extra citrusy spice to it which we loved.

Yuzu Tonkotsu

On the first slurp of the Yuzu Tonkotsu, we forgave them for the dry pork and overcooked egg. And have plans to go back there again. Ittenbari and Shoryu Ramen:  You two are undoubtedly our favourite ramen places in London. The egg and pork can be easily improved I’m sure.

Condiments, with a garlic crusher for those who want more flavour.

The name made me giggle a bit and reminded me of the yoghurt shop names they have in HK, like Yo-mama. Anyway, when London first started the burger craze it made me all crazily excited about going to try and eat the delicious burgers. However now, well ….well my burger taste buds are slightly fraying and dying a little from all the trying, plus I’ve concluded that Hawksmoor still tops my best burgers list. No more trying burgers instead I’m glad that ramen has decided to hit London, so very glad! There is nothing better in winter than to sit down and slurp on ramen, sip hot broth and eat silky eggs. Nothing beats that in winter and I can never get tired of ramen. I can never get tired of rice and noodle dishes.

The aim last Friday night was to get there early, because somehow I had a feeling that there would be queues. But, erm, the ‘get there early’ never happened because naturally I was distracted by shops. I mean what girl doesn’t need another pair of shoes? Or test all the beauty products? No, okie that’s just me.

Mr SPARKLE

Luckily, once we got there, no queues were to be seen and we were seated within 5 minutes! For drinks I ordered the Carrot n Ginger Juice (£3), Mr A chose the Mr SPARKLE (£4.20). Mr SPARKLE was weird; we couldn’t taste the oolong tea or cucumber (though I never expected to taste cucumber). But the whole drink was very much overpowered with bitter pink grapefruit. It was an odd sparkling drink, not refreshing nor was it tasty. Carrot n Ginger juice was mainly just carrot juice, but again not very nice. I’m not sure whether they skinned the carrots/ginger before passing it through the processor because there was that distinctive muddy skin taste to the drink. I always have Carrot n Ginger juice at home, and it certainly does not have that taste when all the skin has been taken off the carrot and ginger before juicing.

Pickles

Food wise we ordered the Tonkotsu Ramen (£11) because you can’t visit a ramen place without ordering Tonkotsu! We also ordered the Soy Ramen (£9), both dishes we added corn (£0.50) as extra. Sides consisted of Pickles (£4) and Soft Shell Crab (£8), the soft shell crab was a measly 3 bites with some legs for an expensive price of £8. The taste was lovely, crunchy with crab meat in the middle and the spicy dipping sauce gave the crab a real punch. We liked it but for £8, the portion was far too small. The pickles, overall the pickles were very good however they had pickle apricot we think it was and that was just too much. Apricot is a soft fleshy fruit, pickling soft fleshy fruits means that it soaks up all the pickle juice. This leads to the eater having a burst of pickle juice and mush in the mouth when eating, not nice at all. Carrot needed a little longer time in the pickle jar but otherwise the pickle side dish was delicious!

Soy Ramen

From the ramen side of things, the egg was perfect and the pork was much nicer than the ones we’ve had at Tonkotsu and Ittenbari. This was because the pork had even distribution of layers of fat and meat, brilliant! Many have said that Tonkotsu soup has improved since they first opened, unfortunately I haven’t been to try it recently so can only compare with Ittenbari. The soup isn’t as good as Ittenbari or Cocoro as BoneDaddies soup doesn’t have the lovely intense flavours that you usually get with a good broth. We both prefer the eggy ramen that Ittenbari has to offer.

Tonkotsu Ramen

I think I’ll stick to Ittenbari for now because for me, a bowl of ramen is meant to fill you up. Tonkotsu will be for when I’m peckish, though I shall give it another try as the broth has improved. Mr A says ramen in Japan is mind blowing, I’m still waiting for that in London. For now I’m off to try Shoryu Ramen tomorrow!

Freshly baked Eggtarts

It’s not a secret to anyone that knows me; eggtarts (蛋撻) are one of my favourite foods of all time. There are two types of pastries available at Chinese bakeries, shortcrust pasty and puff pastry. The eggtarts at each bakery differs from another, for example the Tai Cheong bakery in Hong Kong does a shortcrust pastry and it’s my favourite one; whereas a little local bakery in Yuen Long eggtarts has light puff pastry. When I’m back in HK, I indulge in these delicious tarts for breakfast, lunch or just as a snack whilst sipping Kowloon Dairy milk.

Living in London however, means that you can only get eggtarts in Chinese bakeries and unfortunately I do not live near one! So what does a girl do when she has cravings for these delectable eggie goodness? Simple, make them herself.

Puff pastry is well, have you seen Paul Hollywood make it? It’s rolling, re-rolling and more rolling. I decided to opt for my usual favourite pastry base: the shortcrust pastry otherwise known as the cookie pastry in Hong Kong. After scouring the net I plumped down using Christine Cantonese Egg Tart Recipe and combined it with a few other recipes out there. The original recipe is below, with the changes I made stated after it.

Crust

225g Plain Flour
125g Butter
55g Icing Sugar
1 egg
Vanilla extract

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffly.
2. Add in the egg and beat until smooth.
3. Add in the vanilla extra, mix well.
4. Sift in a third of the flour, mix well. Carry on until all the flour is fully mixed into the batter.
5. Rest dough for around 5-10 minutes in the fridge if you find the butter is melting.
6. Roll the dough till 0.5cm thick. Cut dough with cookie cutter that is slightly smaller than your tin size. Place dough into tin and using your thumb, gently press the dough from bottom upwards whilst turning clockwise to make an even tart shell. (You can make the pastry higher than the tin, if you want more egg mixture into your eggtarts, I find that most of the bakeries in Hong Kong do this. However I haven’t mastered that professional egg tart shaped case yet.)

Custard

3 eggs
110g caster sugar
225g hot water
85g evaporated milk
½ tsp vanilla extract

1. Add sugar into hot  water, mix until it completely dissolves.
2. Whisk egg with evaporated milk.
3. Pour in sugar water. Mix well.
4. Sift egg to rid of any foam and other particles. This is to ensure your egg mixture is smooth and silky.
5. Pour into shells.

Baking

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Position rack in lower third of oven, so that the pastry cooks before the custard.
2. Bake for 10-15 minutes until edges are golden brown.
3. Turn oven down to 180C. Once you see custard puff up, open oven door about 2-3 inches.
4. Bake for another 10-15 minutes.
5. To check if done, put toothpick into custard, if it stands upright, it’s done.

Changes I made

• I used 50g more butter, as I found the base to be too hard so adding 50g more butter would make the pastry more crumbly and buttery. I chilled the pastry for 5-10 minutes in the fridge before rolling it out, so that the dough wasn’t melting in my hands.
• If you want a slight lift to the pastry, you can add 1 teaspoon of baking powder to the mixture.
• I added an extra egg yolk to the custard to give it a more yellow colouring (though this doesn’t show up in the picture as it was taken with a camera phone!)
• In my first batch of eggtarts I added evaporated milk to the mixture, but found this far too sweet for our liking. I substitute the evaporated milk for 40-50g of fresh milk.
• If you have custard powder, you can add 2-3 teaspoon to the water as well. This is optional, but as I substituted the evaporated milk for milk I was worried about it not setting, so I put this step in. If anyone makes it without the custard powder and it’s fine, do let me know!
• I didn’t open the oven door as suggested at the end and the eggtarts turned out fine. Again, this is really to do with how your oven functions.

Have fun baking!

The cute love seat

My friend told me about this place and it’s something I want to recommend to all of you out there. The shops are based in South Kensington and Islington, so wherever you are in London you can visit the shops easily! So what is this place that got me so excited? IT’S A WINE BAR. (And shop).

So how does this work? It is a straightforward and simple concept. You buy a card that looks like this, which you top up with however much money you fancy.

The card to your world of wine.

You see these type of machines plotted round the shop, they are the machines you want to go to: IT’S WHERE THE WINES ARE HELD. Insert your card into the machine, press the wine you would like and how much. I’m sure I don’t need to teach you the next part which is, taste it.

Machines holding the wines.

The shop is small but has a huge selection of wine and I’m assuming they change it every now and then. This is a great place that you can go to pre or post dinner for some wine drinking with 1 or 2 friends, or simply go to try wine and buy the one you like best. Anyway just go, drink wine and have fun!

Main courses and Side

That moment the confirmation email landed in my email I was feeling rather like this: I mean seriously it is the ticket of the year and nothing beats luxury comfort food during winter months. The one thing that caught my eye in the reception was the green leather sofas. It looked all masculine, sexy and the type of sofas I imagine in ‘The Great Gatsby’ novel. Hawksmoor Air St like its predecessors has the dark and cosy feel. Perfect for winter, but probably not somewhere I crave in the summer months.

The masculine 1920’s sexy theme continues upstairs, where there are sleek green leather booths (that I was hoping to be seated in) and shiny mahogany tables with black leather armchairs. All very lush. Despite being the largest restaurant of the Hawksmoor group, it doesn’t feel that way, they have cleverly used the booth seating style to create ‘sections’ in the room. It’s clever and it works, you still have the intimate feel.

The menu is very similar to the other Hawksmoor restaurants, with all the different cuts of meats, but Air St has an added section which is seafood. Surf and Turf we’re doing tonight. We were sensible with the way we ordered, choosing the wine first (as you do), then the mains and sides before deciding whether to do starters. But then who are we kidding, 50% off and not eating starters? Ludicrous.

Tamworth Belly Ribs

We opted for the Tamworth Belly Ribs (£10) it came with pickled red cabbage which complemented the dish very well; succulent tender meat with crispy slight acidic cabbage. Brixham crab on toast with mayonnaise (£10) was very good, rich crab meat slathered on top of toast is delicious! I can’t be certain the crab will always be this rich, or whether because it’s crab season so it’s doubly rich and yummy.

Chateaubriand

Steak wise we ordered the Chateaubriand (£12.50/100g) and the Porterhouse (£8.50/100g), 900gr or so of each. For me, the Chateaubriand is much nicer than the Porterhouse. It has more flavour and more tender than the Porterhouse. We had it cooked medium-rare so I ate the smaller bits at the end as I am the only one in the party who prefers medium-well done. Or rather I prefer steaks with only have a tiny dot of pinkness in the middle, not red, can’t quite bring myself to eat a big slice of nearly rare meat. I find that with good quality meat, whether you have it rare or well done, the taste doesn’t alter that much. The rich meaty taste is still there, only the texture is different.

With the steak we ordered Peppercorn sauce, Bone Marrow gravy and Bernaise (£3 each). I felt that the Bone Marrow gravy paired best with the steaks mainly because I prefer a lighter and non-creamy sauce. I’m slightly picky and like the taste of meaty goodness in my mouth.

Seafood wise we ordered the shoulder steak of the Turbot (£35) and the Dover Sole(£36). The Dover Sole which is grilled whole; the fish meat was firm as a sole should be, juicy and fresh. However the Turbot was unfortunately uncooked, for people who do not eat fish on a regular basis, fish is uncooked when the meat is still stuck on the bone. So this is what happened to us, we informed the waitress and another one was ordered and swiftly came. This time, only tiny specks of meat were sticking to the bone, if it was cooked slightly longer would have been perfect as the fish meat would gently flake off. Given that this is their first restaurant doing seafood and it was during the soft launch week, the seafood was passable but not the best. However I’m sure that over time the kitchen would have perfect their seafood skills.

Janssons Temptation

Sadly for the sides beef dripping chips was not available that day, so we ordered Tripled Cooked Chips (£4), Macaroni Cheese (£5), Bone Marrow  and Jansson’s Temptation (£6). Jansson’s Temptation was divine, serious winter comfort food; layers of potato, cream and anchovy. It was rich, creamy, all that good carbs and topped with a hint of saltiness so you can eat more of the dish. Needless to say, the Tripled Cooked Chips and Macaroni Cheese were simply as good as ever.

By the end of the feast we are full, but we weren’t leaving the building unless dessert was eaten, and this time we weren’t sharing. No-one actually consciously shares desserts right? Not unless, the menu says ‘to share’, right? We were, well just the two of us in the party, very curious about the Jaffa Cake dessert. The only reason being, on Great British Bake Off they made this amazing Jaffa Cake, it was cake and orange in a dome shape the covered with chocolate. Alas this was not the case at Hawksmoor when we asked the waitress about this particular dessert. So the following desserts were ordered to our table, Toffee Apple Cake (I was sharing with another friend, only because it said ‘to share’) (£12.00), Plum and Bramley Apple Pie (£6.75), Sticky Toffee Pudding (£6.75) and Sticky Toffee Sundae (7.50). Oh and the much talked about Salted Caramel Rolos (£4).

Sticky Toffee Pudding

The Toffee Apple Cake can feed 4 people so needless to say we had trouble finishing it. Again, the winner of the desserts was the Sticky Toffee Pudding for us all. Warm, soft, moist, flavoursome and not too cloying even with the clotted cream on the side, initially I thought the cream was ice cream and wanted to put the whole scoop in my mouth…..luckily I was stopped. Hawksmoor really kicks arse with their Sticky Toffee Pudding, I haven’t eaten this dessert anywhere else that has been as good.

The Salted Caramel Rolos despite being a big hit with the Twitterspehere, sadly was not a hit for us. Perhaps it was the batch that was made for us on that day, it was slightly too salty. I’m still rating the ones I’ve had at Paul A Young or Artisan Du Chocolat ones the best, a balanced taste of sweet and saltiness.

This has probably been my longest post, along with the Dinner By Heston  one because when I like something I can really talk about it. Though I thoroughly enjoyed Roganic despite the short post. Hawksmoor has and will always have a soft spot in my heart, it is the place to go and have a good meat-out. It’s relax, intimate, casual and has a lovely ambiance which are all the other qualities I look for in a restaurant apart from the food. Now with the Air St location, I can’t say that it will be easier to get a table during the weekends; it will certainly increase your chances of dining with Hawksmoor. If you haven’t been to any Hawksmoor restaurants, I suggest you give them a visit.

Just remember to order: Tamworth Belly Ribs, Chateaubriand and Sticky Toffee Pudding. More pictures here.

Address:
5A Air Street
W1J 0AD
0207 4063980
Website

In this case the Little Black Dress is replaced with the Little Black Jacket.

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono

The Little Black Jacket

One of the most famous person in history.

Exhibition is until 4th November at the Saatchi Gallery. Deserves a visit.

Address:
Saatchi Gallery
Duke of York’s HQ
King’s Road
London, SW3 4RY

Honest Burger with Rosemary Salt Chips £9

I’ve been hearing about Honest Burgers and have always wanted to try it but Brixton seems, well a trek away! So when they launched in Soho I suggested it for a girly lunch one Saturday afternoon. It’s cosy, efficient and busy. Not quite the place I would venture too at the peak hours, especially during the winter when waiting outside is just freezing and boring. Head here during the non-peak hours and you’ll be rewarded with juicy burgers and delicious moreish rosemary salted chips.

It really is the place you need to visit for burgers at least once in your lifetime. Bit like Hawksmoor (I HAVE GOLDEN TICKET TO SOFT LAUNCH –hyperventilates a little-). Oh, and they have vegetarian option too which sounds divine (friends can confirm they are yummy) so fear not if others in your party are vegetarian. Drag them here and burger away.

Address:
4A Meard Street,
W1F 0EF
0203 609 9524
Website

Honey and Co seats about 20 people at the max, with two small tables outside. On the outside it’s a shop you could easily pass by without noticing the tempting cakes placed in the window, nor the constant stream of customers coming in and out of the small eatery.

The menu all fits onto a piece of A4 sheet so it’s not the most extensive menu out there but there is abit of everything plus everything looks so appealing that it’s a hard choice to choose what to have!

I chose to have the Roasted Aubergine, Focaccia bread, Tahini and egg which was delicious! Though I might be bias because firstly, I love aubergines, secondly I heart Tahini and lastly focaccia is one of my favourite breads. Aubergine was roasted till soft and went really well with the cream tahini, and firm focaccia. Friends ordered the Chicken salad with large Couscous and Falafel; they said ‘this is really good’ and silence follows, we are too busy eating for conversation at this point.

When I said the mains were hard to choose from, the dessert menu or rather dessert menu PLUS dessert boards were even harder to pick a choice from. We wanted to order one of every dessert but finally settled upon a chocolate cake, pistachio plum and coconut cake, cheesecake and another plum cake. We weren’t too keen on the cheesecake at first because it sounded too strange, but a man (who we thought was a waiter turned out to be the owner and chef) said the cheesecake was awesome. See how easily persuaded we are?

Indeed the best of them all was the cheesecake! Crunchy syrupy Kataifi pastry worked so well with the tangy raspberries, cream and sweet crunchy almonds! Overall the desserts here have beaten cake shops like L’Eto, Patissere Valerie and Pauls. Honey and Co have much more interesting choices, reminds me of Gails (though I haven’t tried Gails yet).

Fresh, simple and delicious is really what this little place is. Do go before word gets out how uber they are. Then you’ll have to queue at all times, for now its best kept a secret because I want to go there again! Oh, not very relevant but they have a cute toilet area, visit it.

Address:
25a Warren Street,
London,
W1T 5LZ
0207 388 6175
Website