The Food Market at Brent Cross

I've been coming to Brent Cross shopping centre long before they got rid of their giant fountain and the multicoloured glass dome above it- which is for a very long time indeed. I remember being about four or five years old and sitting by that fountain on one of the chairs that circled it, eating an apricot pastry with my mum and scuffing at the red carpet with my shoes. I also seem to remember it always being dark all the time, but in a stylishly moody way. Anybody out there got any old photos of Brent Cross from the early 1990's, incidentally? There seems to be a drought of them on the interweb.

Anyway, enough of my wistful nostalgia. Brent Cross has come a long way since then in its efforts to stay in favour of the general public's ever-changing whims, and I'd say it's done pretty darn well over the years. Twenty years on and I still find myself there several times a month, at least- I'd say that's a good sign.

The most recent addition to the Brent Cross experience is the Food Market, which runs every Friday and Saturday and launched about a month ago. It's no secret that food has become fashionable, particularly home-made cake and street food, and I've always loved street food, food markets and festivals. Usually I have to travel all the way to Borough Market to get my food market fix, so I was thrilled to hear that one was opening virtually in my own backyard. Even more thrilled to hear that a few of my favourite traders from Borough Market would have stalls too, such as Ion Patisserie and Comptoir Gourmand. No surprises from people who follow my baking blog Tashcakes! that two of my favourite stalls happen to be cake stalls...

You can check out a selection of the traders on The Food Market at Brent Cross website, although it's a bit frustrating that it's not a comprehensive list and, from experience, the list differs between Fridays and Saturdays. I'm hoping that with a little time they'll polish the main website up a little more to include this sort of information. I'll go easy on them though, since they still seem to be adding new traders to sell even more tasty things.

On with the photos!

I got talking to Claire of Claire's Fancy Cakes- a fellow North West Londoner, as it turns out- who had some gorgeous cakes, cupcakes and cake pops on offer. I have the greatest respect for people who go for it and open their own food businesses, and Claire's been selling her goodies for a couple of years now. All the best, Claire!

Noted.

You can see why I love Comptoir Gourmand.

And Ion Patisserie.

I also quite like Karantania Deli, which is normally found in the Southbank Centre's weekly Real Food Market. Check out their 8-layer cake on the top left hand corner of the photo! It's made with poppy seeds, apple, ricotta cheese and walnuts.

These looked deliciously moist. Next time, my pretties...

I thought this was a cute name! They sold falafel things.

Of course there was a lot more delicious savoury food such as curry, Caribbean and much more- but you all know where my loyalties lie in the battle between sweet and savoury. Plus I make it no secret that I'm pretty bad at capturing savoury food on camera- I never do it justice. In any case, it looks like I'll be continuing to visit Brent Cross for another good twenty years at least!

Golden Gate Cake House Revisited

It's been a while since I last visited the Golden Gate Dessert House, even though their rainbow array of cakes calls out to me like little sugary sirens every time I'm around in Chinatown. Luckily for me, my friend Siu Yen visited today, and was game for a colourful cake session there.

To the left we have the mango mousse cake that my friend chose, and to the right the strawberry mousse cake I (eventually) decided upon.

Look at how pretty they are! I could make a collage out of pictures of Golden Gate's cake slices. Just like last time, the sponge was so light it was like eating a cloud, and the mousse was refreshing and not too sweet. I was also rather amused that the plastic wrapping around the cake was unchanged from my last visit, which was in December (see my last post about Golden Gate for pictures)- they're still using the Christmas stuff. Waste not, I guess.

To drink, Siu Yen chose iced soya milk, and I chose a matcha smoothie over a milkshake, thinking it'd be lighter. We were served our cakes, which we eagerly started off, and in a few minutes our drinks followed.

This is what I was presented with.

Ah.

There was a moment of horrified silence as the waitress set this monster down and my friend and I stared at it. Had I just been given an ice cream sundae challenge?

Thankfully it wasn't a horrifying pile of ice-cream: it turned out to be snow ice flavoured with matcha latte, sort of like a green tea frappucino with extra ice. But it was still a pretty horrifying pile of snow ice flavoured with matcha latte. I'm also pretty sure you shouldn't have to eat any smoothie with a spoon. It was refreshing, and had it been a hot and sunny day (and had it been the only thing I'd ordered), I'd have quite enjoyed it. Alas, I was having this on top of cake, and it was cold and rainy outside. In the end, I only managed to battle through half of it before succumbing to a combination of liquid overdose and severe brain freeze.

Defeated.

I'll be coming here again for more cake, but next time I'll beware the monster drinks and stick with a cup of tea.

Afterword

I only just noticed something about my matcha smoothie after uploading the pictures. Can you see it?

Look closer.

How about now?

It's a Chinese lion!

Chinatown: C&R Restaurant

Cendol. In London. I'm all over it like orange on a carrot.

... Wait, what?

It was tough to get the whole restaurant in this shot. See the white sign at the top right of this photo? The wall pretty much began at the right hand side of that sign and my back was against it.

Where?

Chinatown, London, 4-5 Rupert Court, Nearest station is Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus. Rupert Court is a narrow little alleyway that runs from Rupert Street right through to Wardour Street and is pretty easy to miss.

What?

A café offering a selection of Malaysian food, a bit like Rasa Sayang. And like my visit to Rasa Sayang, I chose nasi lemak.

Nasi lemak consists of coconut rice, yellow chicken curry, boiled egg, peanuts, little fried fishies (ikan bilis/ anchovies), archar (picked vegetables) and sambal (mind-blowingly hot chili sauce). Often cucumbers too, to cool off.

As I was eating this, I thought to myself, 'This isn't as hot as Rasa Sayang's... I wish it were hotter.'

Be careful what you wish for.

The heat from C&R's nasi lemak is like a ninja- you don't notice it until it's too late. The heat from Rasa Sayang's hit me instantly and without mercy, but it stayed constant. I don't know what sort of chilies they used at C&R, but I didn't notice how hot it was until I was about a third of the way through- then *WHAM*. It didn't stop there though: it got steadily worse and worse. Well played, C&R, well played.

I liked it. Oh, and if you think you're not a pickles person, you'll find that you're going to need the archar: the sweet vinegar-y-ness will help to balance out the heat of the curry and sambal. Which speaks volumes, because archar has chili in it, too.

Flavour-wise, the curry was weaker than Rasa Sayang's, which was a shame. It certainly wasn't bad- far from it. In fact, I found the coconut rice more fragrant and generally tasty at C&R, whereas it was a bit dry at Rasa Sayang. I can certainly in no way fault the portion size: I could only eat half of the mountain of rice, and only a bit of the sambal sauce... although I admit that in the case of the sauce, it was the chili that defeated me. Next time I'll order the Hainanese chicken rice, which I've heard is pretty good- and devoid of chili.

Now, onto the main reason why I came here: the cendol.

How beautiful is that? (I can hear some people going 'err....')

I've written about cendol before in one of my Australiafiles entries. Just to recap, cendol are green pasta-like noodles made from rice, tapioca or mung bean flour, and coloured and flavoured with pandan extract. Pandan is a plant who's leaves are used to make the green extract, and it's used in Southeast Asia like we use vanilla in the West.

See the green things? That's cendol.

Cendol-The-Drink, also spelled Chendol, consists of these green wormy things, with lots of shaved ice and coconut milk, and sweetened with gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup- which is the brown stuff you see in the picture. It's a bit like dark muscavado sugar in taste, and is very, very yummy.

This is the first time I've seen cendol served like this in the UK, if at all: it's sort of hard to come by, here. Before I'd only ever seen it used with ice kacang in a bowl as a dessert, or has red beans and other things added to it- again more like ice kacang. At C&R, they serve it just how I like it in Malaysia: green worms, ice, coconut milk and palm sugar, in a tall glass with a straw.

C&R put cendol on their dessert menu rather than with the drinks in the main menu, but since it's common in Malaysia to have it alongside or instead of a main meal, the waitress didn't bat an eyelid when I ordered it with my nasi lemak. In fact she seemed mildly impressed that I didn't treat it like a dessert.

The cendol was most definitely my favourite part of the meal: it had just the right amount of actual cendol, plenty of ice and not so much gula melaka syrup that it was sickly. Two thumbs up. As a nice little bonus, the ice and coconut milk helped put out the flames from the nasi lemak, so all was well.

I look forward to coming here again, especially to order the cendol (although apparently they do a pretty mean ice red bean drink too, which I'm also quite fond of- which to chose??) C&R is a great little place for affordable food- and a good portion of it too- in London.

They also seemed to have a bar area directly opposite the café, also named C&R. It was closed, but apparently in the evening when it gets busy you get sat in there. I noticed they also had quite a lot of another one of my favourite drinks too, also popular in Malaysia:

Now that's a lot of Milo.

Edgware: The Kitchen

I don't actually often visit the restaurants that are local to me, which is a shame when I think about all the choice there is available- and really I should be supporting my local businesses more. Going out for me is usually more like Going Out: into central London, different cities, even abroad. So it's a nice change to be reviewing a place in 'my territory'.

Where?

Hale Lane, Edgware- literally on the corner of a street called 'The Drive'. Nearest underground station is Edgware Station.

What?

It's a Kosher restaurant with meat dishes and parve (dairy-free) options. Relatively new to Edgware, The Kitchen looks quite unassuming from the outside: grey and brown signs that are too small or coyly placed to be noticed at a distance- almost like the Hollister of the restaurant world (but without pulling it off quite as well as Hollister, I daresay).

Funky fibre optic ceiling- fun, but the overall lighting was a tad too moody.

Nevertheless, it does have enough of a sleek, modern look to it to attract interest- and it must be doing something right because the place is always packed and tables often need to be booked in advance (although this goes without saying for any good, well-known Kosher restaurant). And although The Kitchen is new on the block, it seems word of mouth has given it an instant kick start in popularity with Edgware's Jewish community. In fact, even though I often drive past this place on the way to work, I only really considered visiting it after a recommendation from my grandparents- so my mum, dad and I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

If you've read my previous posts and are now a bit confused about my ethnic background, then yes, I am in fact Jewish, as well as being half Chinese. An unusual mix, granted, and indeed when with either side of my family I feel neither Jewish enough nor Chinese enough- but at least that makes me exotic and interesting (at least I like to think so!)

The menu is very eclectic, from boasting Jewish classics like schnitzel and and salt beef, to general staples like fish and chips, to sushi and even donburi. I instantly knew what I was going to order though: a Caveman Burger. Even the name sounds epic. The menu describes it as: 'Two Prime Beef Burgers with Smoked Goose Breast and Pickles. No Bun.'

Oh, hell yes.

I was even given an epic knife for the epic burger.

This sounded pretty much perfect for me: plenty of protein for me to recharge (I exercise six days a week and Sunday is my resting day), and no bun- which suits me just fine as I often can only manage one half of a bun with burgers these days. When I, a small-ish young woman, ordered it, I could see the silent 'are you sure?' in the waitress' eyes. Portion-wise, when it came, I was not disappointed.

Each burger was nearly the size of my hand.

Remembering Adam Richman's advice from the (awesome) TV programme Man vs Food, I attacked the meat first, knowing that the carby chips would slow me down. Maybe I've picked up one too many tips from that show, because I made the whole thing disappear in record time.

Tash: 1 | Burger: 0

The burger itself was fine- not the best burger I've ever had and not comparable to the burgers of say the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, but then again Kosher meat does have a slightly different texture and taste because of the way its prepared. It was an okay burger none the less, if a bit on the dry side, and packed full of chopped onions for flavour. The goose breast was good- I've never had it before, and I'd describe it now as sort of like pastrami- I cut away the fat though, as you can see in the above picture (as if  that would make any notable dent in the final calorie count...).

The real star of the show, it turns out, happened to be the chips. I chose sweet and sticky chili chips, and they were wonderfully sticky too- but still managed to be crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, with no sogginess whatsoever. Overall it was a good meal and one I'd recommend for the keenly carnivorous- my only real gripe was the serving plate itself, which slid around the table so much I had to wedge my napkin underneath it so I could cut the burger without the whole meal escaping.

I also decided to go American-style and order a chocolate milkshake with my burger. I was a bit apprehensive because I've had some pretty feeble milkshakes in the past, but The Kitchen did not disappoint.

Frothy, chocolaty (despite the pale hue the lighting in this picture makes it look like), not overly sweet and blended with ice-cream while not being too thick. Anyway, back to the food!

Dad had a real Jewish restaurant classic: hot salt beef.

As you can see, they don't skimp on portion sizes here.

Coming with chips, pickles, coleslaw and oodles of sauerkraut, this was another Meal To Be Reckoned With. Feedback from my dad deemed the salt beef good, if again not the best he's ever eaten. But again, on the whole, the meal itself was 'okay', and the chips again were stellar.

Mum ordered Pad Thai. Both mum and I love our noodles and I think we both felt somewhere in our hearts that this was going to be at least a bit of a letdown, Mum being Chinese, born in Malaysia and used to authentic Oriental food. Alas, we were right.

Pad Thai is usually made with flat rice noodles, for a start.

Feedback from Mum deemed it 'okay'. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. She ordered it with chicken as an extra, and having tried a bit I have to say the chicken was lovely. I can't speak for the other Asian-inspired dishes served here, but if you're visiting this place and more experienced with authentic world cuisine, I'd say it's safer to stick to the more classic Kosher restaurant dishes, because it's these that The Kitchen really does justice to. Again, portion size was very generous.

When we were done (Mum and Dad staring at my empty plate in disbelief), the waitress came over with the dessert menu.

(I had to fight my copywriter instincts and not mark accents and an extra 'e' on 'Brule' with a pen)

...

Challenge accepted.

I (and Dad, not being one to be outdone) chose the soufflé. I've never actually eaten a soufflé before, so I was quite excited to try one.

Well, I still haven't eaten a soufflé yet, because what came out wasn't a soufflé.

However I'm willing to let it slide just this once, because it turned out to be something just as awesome: a chocolate fondant.

Chocolate fondant is also known as molten chocolate pudding- a chocolate pudding with an oozing chocolaty centre. Combined with the extra chocolate sauce running into it, the strawberries and the ice-cream, it was perfect. I haven't eaten chocolate fondant in years- I used to make it so often I got very thoroughly sick of it (this was back when I lived with my ex, who was quite a particular eater). I've been meaning to post my recipe for it to Tashcakes! now that I've had a bit of a rest from chocolaty bakes, so if you check back in a few weeks I'll show you how to make them. Anyway, presentation-wise the icing sugar could have been done with a little more care, but aside from that it all looked very pretty on the plate as well as tasting amazing, too. A great end to the meal.

After all of that I probably won't need to eat for another week or so, and I'm suffering a bit for it now as I type. Was it worth it? It most certainly was. Would I do it again? You betcha.

Overall experience:

I generally had a good experience here, but for a few niggles: we'd booked a table for three a week ago, but when we arrived there was no record of us. It took us about ten minutes to be seated, and although we tried out best to be understanding, it got increasingly difficult as we were asked by three different serving staff the same questions ('What name did you book under? When did you book? How many did you book for?') One even asked my dad 'Are you sure you didn't change your name?'

Now I'm sure what she meant to ask was if we'd booked under a different name, on behalf of someone else or something of the like- I hope so anyway- but she phrased it in that more unfortunate manner. Dad, who's always been quick off the mark with quips, remarked 'I'm pretty sure my name hasn't changed in the last fifty or so years.'

There was also an incident at the end of the meal with payment, where something happened with the card machine that ended up with the card being repeatedly rejected- which is fair enough, these things happen- but it took four separate members of staff flapping around and absolutely no explanation as to what went wrong and what was going on before it was decided that using a different card would be quicker.

Having said all of that, the staff were very pleasant, quick and efficient in all other respects. Since it's such a popular place they do have to be on the ball to ensure efficient turnover, so once we were seated we didn't have to wait around to order, for our food to be served and for our plates to be cleared- but at no point did we feel rushed, either. In terms of value it was average leaning towards the pricier side, but at least the portions reflected this.

To conclude, I'd probably visit this place again given the right opportunity- maybe next time I'll take on the massive mixed grill. However I can't say I'd go out of my way to visit again since the food wasn't stellar for the price we paid- I'd say the best things going for this place are the portion sizes, chips and dessert.

Trafalgar Square: Eat Tokyo

This place is pretty much as authentic as you can get here in London when it comes to Japanese food.

Where?

On Whitcomb Street, a stone's throw away from Charing Cross underground station.

What?

This place not only boasts authentic Japanese food, but it has an almost mind-bogglingly huge choice of it, too.

Good thing I came with friends to we could order a whole bunch of stuff and share.

I don't eat prawn so I got to watch and laugh as my two friends struggled with this one!

The thing in the photo above looked frigging amazing in person, and was called something like 'dragon roll sushi'. At least, it definitely had the word 'dragon' in it, and it definitely looked like a little dragon on a plate.

We got a mixed sushi platter, salmon sushi, yakitori and agedashi tofu, too. It was all delicious.

Sushi rainbow!

The Japanese tea was lovely, too. I made quite an embarrassing gaffe: when we were ordering drinks, I blurted out 'a Chinese tea, please.' My friends and the waitress went silent, and the waitress narrowed her eyes.

"Japanese tea," She corrected me. You could actually hear the bold, italic and underline in her voice when she said 'Japanese'. My face went very red, I think.

Embarrassment aside, if you love things like sushi, bento and katsu curry, come here! You'll be blown away by the choice, so if you can, come with friends so you can have a bit of everything.

Chinatown: Longji

Or Long Ji. The character for the 'long' part I know is 'dragon', but I wasn't so sure about the 'ji' part. I looked it up and apparently it's 'remember' or 'note down', so maybe 'longji' means 'remember dragon'? 'Dragon's memory'? Please tell me if you know.

This is where Vicky and I went before visiting the Golden Gate Dessert House.

Where?

Chinatown, London, 47-49 Charing Cross Road. Nearest station is Leicester Square.

What?

Formerly Cafe de Hong Kong until relatively recently, It's a Hong Kong café that offers various noodle-based and rice-based one plate meals, as well as many fun icy drinks like bubble tea and ice red bean drink (the latter of which I had this time).

What, no bubble tea this time? I've actually mentioned this place before in previous posts, and usually to say that they do the best taro bubble tea (which is, as you may know by now, my favourite flavour for bubble tea). However ice red bean drink happens to be one of my favourite fun iced drinks, so I'll just as often order it instead.

Ice red bean's basic ingredients consist of red beans boiled until tender, then served with a glass with plenty of ice, along with sugar syrup and a milky substance (often evaporated milk- which is what I got here). Plenty of versions have coconut milk and/ or condensed milk instead, though. Sometimes it's mixed with cendol (the actual cendol, not the whole dessert), sweetcorn, other things... but then with a lot of other stuff it becomes ice kacang.

Longji is awesome in terms of portion size verses what you pay (and it's one of the more affordable places to eat in Chinatown). It's not haute cuisine, but don't forget you're in a café rather than a fancy restaurant. In any case, it's a good place to sit down and grab a bite to eat. Back to portion sizes though: usually I order their ho fun noodles, but I knew that having ice red bean drink along with a main would kill me (there are beans in ice red bean drink. Beans are pretty filling, y'know.) So I went with an appetiser.

Sticky steamed glutinous rice parcels with chicken.

Even the portion size of this appetiser was quite substantial! I was quite happy.

I was a bit of a noob and tried to eat the leaf wrapping at first. Don't eat the leaf wrapping.

These tasted amazing, sort of like a chicken baozi but with sticky rice instead of a bread bun. With two of these parcels it was more than enough for me, along with the ice red bean drink. Vicky went for the ho fun, and even without a fun iced drink it nearly defeated her.

Don't be caught offguard by the 10% service charge added onto your bill- I've seen one review where someone's been incensed by it and gotten into a hot disagreement with the staff about paying. Personally I think it is a bit awkward to say it's an optional charge but stick it on anyway (which would instantly make you look like the bad guy if you wanted to opt out): then again, I always tip anyway unless service is actually bad, and I've found the staff of Longji nothing but helpful. Maybe it's also because I used to be a waitress, and I know what I long-houred, messy, exhausting and often thankless job it can be. Also, a lot of places put on an automatic service charge on the end of the bill, so it's not just Longji. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm not saying it's unforgivable.

I recommend this place because the food is decent for a café and not too pricey, there's a great selection of Fun Iced Drinks (which I shall capitalise from now on since I seem to be constantly going on about them), and I've always found the staff to be pleasant. It's probably more of a lunch-y place, but I have no problem with going there for dinner in the evening (as I did this time).

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I'll be doing some Japanese food posts soon, for a change!

Chinatown: Rasa Sayang

If you didn't already know, I'm half-Chinese, and my Chinese family lives in Malaysia.

Where?

Chinatown London, 5 Macclesfield Street. Nearest tube station is Leicester Square.

What?

As you can see, it's a Malaysian/ Singaporean restaurant-slash-café. Malaysian eateries are harder to find in London than Chinese, Thai and Japanese places for instance- quite sad for me, since one of this things I love most about visiting Malaysia- aside from seeing my family of course- is the food.

Enter Rasa Sayang. It kills two birds with one stone for me: it offers popular Malay dishes, and scores points on affordability too (a much-prized quality when it comes to eating out in London).

For the main course, I had nasi lemak:

Chicken curry, coconut rice, peanuts, peanut sauce, various veggies and little fried fishies.

This was delicious. It was also really, really spicy. The kind of hot and spicy that makes your nose run and your face steadily go red. In other words, it was perfect. The chicken curry was just like what I remember from previous visits to Malaysia, and the portion size was quite generous- that potato in the far right doesn't look like much, but in real life it was almost the size of my fist (I have really small hands, in case you think this is a bit far-fetched).

For dessert, I had ice kacang (possibly an obvious choice, given that ice kacang is partially known for its colourfulness):

Ice kacang is ice shaved so fine it's like snow, and it usually has all sorts of flavoured syrups and toppings. Rasa Sayang's ice kacang is flavoured with rose syrup and evaporated milk, and also has a rainbow of toppings (well, not really 'toppings'- more like 'bottomings'): creamed sweetcorn, palm seeds in syrup, grass jelly, red beans and cendol (read more about cendol in my Australiafiles post).

Just to recap briefly, cendol is a bit like pasta, flavoured and made green with pandan leaf extract, and often looking a little bit like green worms. It can also be served as its own dessert with ice, coconut cream and syrup.

Rasa Sayang, along with Longji, is definitely one of my go-to places for a cheapish meal when I'm about in the area. Something I keep meaning to try is a drink called a 'Milo dinosaur', made with the malted chocolate Milo drink- anything associated with dinosaurs has to be good, right?