I’m moving off tumblr and over to Blogger. It’s just a bit better for what I’m bloggin bout, and searchability (for you and me!). You’ll be able to search my posts (for like, when you’re going to die without my quiche or meatballs) and comment! Come join me: http://lmdinlondon.blogspot.com/ I promise that I will begin bringing over content from here, and will make the page more interesting in due time.
Thanks so much!
Man, what a bore. Both Matt and I have been crazy busy lately with work, wedding planning, planning a wedding, and making plan for our wedding. So, after a quick night out Friday making the rounds and seeing some friends (and being introduced to tobacco fried onions - side note, something so good someone took the time and effort to make a blog about) we had plans to just walk around Saturday, dine (or, actually drink) at our friends Julian and Rachel’s place before an Italian dinner out, and that’s about it.
Drinks w/ Julian and Rachel didn’t work as Matt’s stomach was bothering him, so we ended up having a ridiculously relaxed weekend at home. During this, we came to the conclusion that the couch we have is, in fact, never going to ‘break in’, and is horrible. Lucky for us, on what’s turned in to a weekly event, we stopped by the auction house in our neighborhood and saw a sectional on sale. So we can have friends over now and not be embarassed - phew! And, Matt and I can finally lay (or even just sit) on the same couch again, which is nice, as I see a lot of evenings doing that in the future as we’ve become hooked on Downton Abbey (hopefully we’ll make it to the countryside where they film the show someday - looks lovely!).
Following the un-eventful weekend we had a rather eventful week; I had dinner w/ friend Julie at Wahaca - yay for Mexican! - had an evening out with Rachel celebrating her new job, and celebrated friends Daniel and Jemima’s engagement on Friday (yikes, too much fun at The Albion!). Since then we’ve had two notable and very exciting findings - 1) Pho Express on Upper Street is perfection for a take-away dinner (£5. nuff said) we’ve been there thrice already… and Monte’s, the Italian deli around the corner that Matt frequents for his requiste offering at dinner parties (cheeses and meats!) makes awesome sandos. Seriously awesome. Maybe even skip-brunch (favorite weekend meal) awesome. How we didn’t think about this until now is unforgivable; noshing on one was an instant throw-back to SF days eating Palermo (later La Spiagga, later Tony’s) or Molinari sandwiches in Washington Square Park, praying that the sun would stick and the wind wouldn’t come. Ah, memories. I guess the next step will be eating similar sandwiches in Italy. Oh, good idea! I’m off to kayak.com to look at flights. Check you later!
Had the opportunity to meet our friend Julie’s twin this week, finally, giving me the excuse to use this title to post.
So, this blog, it’s for the people! But also, selfishly, it’s for me too. It’s turned out to be a great way to document adventures in life and eating (same thing, really) so that I can look back from time to time.
We met Julie, here sister, and some of her lovely coworkers (they’re all in the film industry - always fun to hear about different peoples’ professions; especially when they are so far from my own) at one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants. That guy is prolific! We met up at York and Albany in Camden (near to Primrose Hill) before some of the group headed off to an early concert (openers on at 7:30? seems early to me when no one in this city gets off work until 6:30 on the earlier side). The space was great - high ceilings, lots of different table sizes and setups (booths loungy, etc.) and then, surprise! a huge room downstairs. I think it’d be a great place for a big birthday dinner. We had heard the pizza was good, so most opted for the salami, though I went with the pesto/chicken/carmelized onions. I thought it was great. Delivered on what it was explained as, was big (would have been easily shared with another person and salad) and tasty.
We spent Thursday night over in the same general ‘hood; our friends Matt & Claire wanted to go out to dinner to celebrate her birthday, so my Matt and I got to babysit their darling daughter Pippa (otherwise known as Peej). Such a little cutie. We picked up Japanese at Feng Sushi near the Chalk Farm station, which was really good - fresh sushi, noodle salad, salmon donburi, and all very quick!
Being over in that ‘hood twice in one week has made me realize we need to do some more exploring - the only other time I’d really seen much in Camden was walking around the market, which is a bit more seedy. Maybe next weekend!
St. Petersburg you came and left too quickly!
We spent three days and four nights in St. Petersburg and I must say that we loved it.
Upon landing at St. Petersburg airport we had the immediate feeling of being somewhere else. Unlike we would see in the city an hour later, the airport is rather dingy, quite small, and rather austere. They’ve still got the smoking room inside the building, so not only did it look different than where we usually fly in and out of, it smelled different as well.
For the first time in our travels, we hired a guide to show us the main sights (rather than aimlessly follow a guidebook) both in and outside of the city. Sasha, who I found through a few blogs and exchanged emails with before, met us outside baggage claim and arranged for a cab to take up to our hotel. We went on our way, down Muskovsky Prospect (which continues on straight from St. P to Moscow, 702 km) passing memorials to World War II soldiers that held the Germans outside of Leningrad (St. Petersburg’s former name), a statue of Lenin, many buses (in addition to regular city buses there are ‘mini buses’; oversized passenger vans crammed full of people), and over a few canals. We were intrigued. And we were freezing cold.
Over the course of our four nights and days in the city we stuck to Russian food three nights, and a light Italian meal one. Both of us are fans of pickled anything, mushrooms, and caviar (it turns out). So we were pretty much in heaven. Most meals consisted of ordering as many starters as we thought we could manage, and often one more on top of that. As I mentioned earlier, I picked up Vodka nicely as my drink of choice, and Matt sampled many of the local brews. I’m now upset that there aren’t more Russian places around here. The pies (pirozhkis) that we had for every meal other than dinner were surprisingly light and filling at the same time, and went perfectly with the requisite tea or coffee needed to bring feeling back to the hands (did I mention it was FREEZING). Blinis (mini-pancakes to be topped with cream and caviar) are my new best friend and I vow to make them for the next dinner party we have (I’m going to have to make sure it’s not another 12-person dinner… that’s a whole lot of blinis!). And I got my Borscht. We almost didn’t get it! That would have been a foodie fail.
Our favorite restaurant of the trip was the one we visited on our last night. Matt sent a picture to our families, accompanied by this description:
“Gogol restaurant (where the namesake writer used to frequent)…on the same block where Dovstoeksky wrote ‘the white knight”; where tchaikovsky died in his brother’s apartment (apparently after being shunned by the Emperor); AND the same street—Astoria Hotel—where Hitler planned his celebration dinner for sacking St Petersburg (editor’s note: this never happened, with many ramifications…).”
As you can see, in addition to eating… we learned lots and lots from Sasha the guide. He took us around the city Friday, starting with Peter and Paul Fortress, the ground zero of St. Petersburg. Peter the Great built the fortress in the early 1700s, marking the change in capital from Russia to St. Petersburg. Clearly, Sasha also studied at the school of Matathons, as we spent 8 hours walking all the major sights of the city. He wove facts and anecdotes together, making for a mix of tour and what felt like an intensive Russian History 1700-present course.
The Russian czars (tsars) and their families knew how to really dress things up nicely, with gold leaf, bright colors, mosaics and more, which we bore witness to on our trip Saturday to the summer palaces in St. Petersburg’s suburbs. You can see a few of these rooms shown in the pictures above.
I’ve got to run, but I’ll pick up where I’ve left off soon!
Toured St. Petersburg on foot today and froze our little buns off, as it’s been -7 C. Regardless, beautiful, grand city. More commentary to come.
St. Petersburg Day 1 - City Tour
We arrived yesterday evening after one of the easiest travel days ever (ok, stressful morning, but otherwise straight forward). We are always trying to cram travel in at the end of a work day on the way out and the beginning of one on the way back, and this was one of the few times that we took the extra day to make life easier. Returning - different story. Check back with me in a few.
St. P is a 4 hour time difference from London, which is a little odd seeming, as flight time is just about that - 4 hours. I’m used to US east coast/west coast 5-6 hour flight for a 3 hour difference. Regardless, ended up arriving in a very different world. The airport alone was night and day difference - for the second largest city in Russia, I’d expect something bigger. The like the grandiose here (more on that later), but it seems like this may have been one of those places the Soviets took a go at planning, and a beauty it is not. But, on the other side of baggage claim our friendly guide-to-be for 2 of our 3 days here was waiting to help us get a cab and say hello.
The sights on the way in… well, we passed the state building from Lenin’s years (from back when the city was named Leningrad), lots of old-school ads (Pepsi! Subway!) and bright lights, and about 30 minutes later we arrived at our Petro Palace Hotel. Well, tripadvisor, maybe not exactly a 4-star as we’d expected, but it’s clean, it’s centrally located, and the room is oddly large. Oh and heated bathroom floors. Which are great, as it was -8 (c) when we arrived.
As it was nearly 9:00 p.m. when we arrived, we dropped our bags and headed to the ‘Russian Vodka Rooms’ for a traditional Russian dinner - blinis (little pancakes) with cream and caviar (salmon - little spheres ~1/2 cm in diameter), marinated mushrooms, sour cabbage, prioshkis (sp?) and these ridiculously good double baked potatoes with… more cream and caviar (pike - almost looks more like a slightly chunky paste). Matt had a couple of beer and I had 2 ‘shots’ of vodka (the entire menu above is their list of vodkas available) to be sipped (I’ve come so far since college… or last year even). I try to drink the ‘local’ thing if I can, at least once. In this case it worked - I’m thinking maybe this should be my thing? Get to know vodkas really well and just be a sipper. Kind of bad ass? I don’t know, we’ll see. Happy that I liked the experience though - in Buenos Aires a few years ago I tried to be ‘cool’ and ‘local’ and ordered a Fernet and coke. What was I thinking? I used to gag the stuff down in SF because it was the unofficial drink of the city, but it didn’t taste any better on vacation. Worse if anything.
I’m off topic.
Today we met our guide Sasha at 10:00 am for a long tour/walk around the city. I’ve got plenty more pics to upload and lots more to tell, but I’ve climbed in to bed and am too warm and weary to continue.
This place is pretty cool though.
Well we made it all the way through January without having a dinner party, but February came around and the itch came back. Work has been busy lately, and we’ve had some busy weekday evenings, but with a weekend free in London we decided to do it again. We asked a few friends to come around Saturday night – some of the regulars (Nicole, Freddy, Phil, Julie) and a few new people that we’ve been meaning to catch up with since the holiday season died down – Bryan, a friend of mine from college, his brand new fiancée (congrats!) Katy, a real – live Brit, and Tim, a friend of a friend. One of Phil’s friends joined us as well, so we were close to half new friends!
Anyway, I have been dying to make braised short ribs for ages. I got all pumped to make these. Thennnn I called the butchers. Both the ones in our neighborhood (am I the only one that thinks it’s awesome that we have two butchers?) and nothing. “You’ll have trouble finding those around here, m’darling”. Damn. Oh well, maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t try to make them until I have the Le Creuset.
Alas, I made beef brisket, white bean mash, and a simple salad. The brisket – well, I need to check the temperature on my oven as I think it’s running a bit high, but the sauce was amazing. I’ll say it. Damn, tangy, beefy, carmelized-oniony. And though it was good that night, it was so much better the next day when we didn’t leave the house and had steak and eggs for dinner. Lightly fried egg, sauce, brisket. I’ll make the whole thing over again just for day two.
And, I’ll say that the white bean mash, which I tried a few years ago for the first time, was a great alternative to the British staple – potatoes. It looks a bit like warm hummus, but the consistency is thick and luxurious (without an entire stick of butter!) and soaks up a sauce quite nicely.
Without further ado, here are the recipes:
Brisket - ingredients below, rest of directions here.
Serves 8 to 10 servings
3 large onions, sliced
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 garlic cloves, peeled and halved
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 1/4 teaspoons black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (adjust to your heat preference)
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups beef stock (unsalted or low salt)
1 cup ketchup*
1 cup chili sauce* (the recipe had this listed - I had to look up how to make, but Heinz will do)
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
8 to 10 pound brisket
White Bean Puree
(serves 4)
* 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided, plus additional for drizzling
* 2 garlic cloves
* 2 (15-oz) cans white beans such as cannellini, rinsed and drained
* 1/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
* 1 1/4 teaspoon chopped rosemary, divided
* 1/3 cup dry white wine
In a food processor, with the motor running, drop in garlic. Add the white beans, chicken broth and 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1/4 tsp salt. Pulse until smooth.
Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Add rosemary and sauté for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add wine and bring to boil. Stir in the white bean mixture. Keep on heat until warm.
Off to Russia today for a long weekend – thanks for the Christmas gift Matt!
Just a sampling of the selections at Borough Market. I can’t wait to go back!
The best thing as a little kid was snow. The teeeeniest tiniest bit of snow would send every kid to the window, praying it would stick, putting on ski gear and waiting for justenough of it to stick for the sleds to be brought out, and in Oregon, for school to be called off. Turns out as adults, it’s pretty much the same feeling.
Matt’s sister Jen and brother-in-law Nic came and visited for the weekend, and among many other things, we got to play in a good 5-6 inches of snow (thought Matt will swear it was a foot) - making snow angels, giant snowballs, and horribly mis-shapen snowmen. After a few glasses of wine it was surreal and almost dreamlike! ”So quiet!” we commented (well obviously, it was 12:30 in the morning), as we galloped around. And then in the morning it was the bad snow - browning, melting and everywhere. But, at least we’ve got the dream to hold on to.
Coincidentally it’s snowing again - but not sticking nearly as much. It’s still pretty cool to see the snowflakes falling under the streetlights.
Aside from the snownight, we had a really great time and accomplished quite a bit. Friday night that started with Rock of Ages - a musical told through the songs of the 80’s and narrated by a young Ron Jeremy look-alike - and ended with a long, amazingly delicious dinner at Salt Yard (return visit!). The show was both funny and entertaining, and with an early show starting at 5:30 we were able to have dinner at a reasonable time.
Saturday morning we FINALLY made it to Borough Market, amazed by how easy and quick the journey was. It was pretty chilly out so we didn’t meander quite as slowly as usual, but we were able to basically make a breakfast out of collecting samples from the cheese, meat, sauce and jam purveyors that fill this giant market. I had a warm spiced apple juice, and had we not had a long day ahead, would have been easily convinced to try the mulled wine at every other stand. Had we known how much it would snow that night we probably would have collected all the fixings for a great home-cooked meal, but opted to stick to our planned restaurant instead. Warning potential visitors - you’ll definitely visit this place with us, so stretch out your belly and get ready to fill it.
The late morning and afternoon were spent at a brunch (we kept some space) at what’s become our go-to spot in the neighborhood - Blue Legume - serving clean breakfasts and worthy-of-weekend cappuccinos - and an afternoon blow out at Emirates stadium (Arsenal 7 - Blackburn 1). The rest of the weekend blurred together between Bistrotheque dinner (I didn’t like my sting ray, but I hear we must go back for their cabaret show), snow, and a rather lazy Sunday for Jen and I. Dinner at The Albion rounded out Sunday and the weekend with our lovely visitors, friends Freddy and Nicole, and Jen’s brother Frank and partner Aidan. The visit came and went so quickly but we can’t wait for the next! (Pictures next post)
Snow in London! No one is leaving here anytime soon…
