posted
Just back from Rebato's in Vauxhall. I can thoroughly recommend it. There's a very convivial room at the front with a nice bar serving Estrella Dam and mainly Torres wines, a reasonable selection of decent tapas and i f you want a big meal they lead you through to the dining room out the back. The rear dining room is fine. It should be warm, and breezy with no roof and the sound of distant junkies mugging a Scandinavian tourist on the beach, but we're in Vauxhall, so, what can you do?
Two of our party had suckling pig which was good, if less crispy-skinned than hoped for, Mrs Mask had a sea bass and the other bird had a paella. The paella was made of rice and tasted of saffron and fish. The food isn't dyynamite here but it's okay and they encourage drunkenness. Mrs Mask sent a (large) plate of paprika-drenched pulpo flying and not a brow was raised.
We paid our bill and then returned to the nicer room out front. So far we'd got away with food and drink for four at about 30 pound a pop. We got a bit carried away with our enthusiasm for Spain's appalling brandy and spent about half that again at the bar.
The staff were your typical dour-faced, forgiving Spaniards and they got a big tip. If I were you I'd go. I'm going again.
At the weekend we went to Ran a Korean restaurant just around the corner from Bodean's. My sister went to school with a Korean girl who'd sometimes give me parts of her packed lunch that she wasn't so keen on. Mainly this was her mum's homemade kim-chi, a fiery hot dish of fermented cabbage. It was pretty good, but not as good as the kim-chi at Ran. What I mean is, I suppose, that the kim-chi at Ran was better than Hye-Chung's mum's kim-chi. I've only tasted two kim-chis, so I'm no expert. Both were good, but Ran's was best. we also had spinach in sesame oil, which was nice, and skate sashimi (that came in a big gristly red-hot jumble) and a sashimi of raw beef that came mixed (at the table) with egg-yolk, sweet soy sauce and a julienne of oriental pear. Mrs Massk and myself chewed through the skate as if we were on a bet. The waitress had warned us against it, saying it was too hot for most Koreans, we ordered any way and weren't going to let the unwelcome presence of cartilaginous bone ruin our rep as culinary hard-asses. The skate was, apparently unfilleted and cut across the bone, so was studded with nuggets of chewy skate-bone. Go figure. The beef sashimi I was crazy about, Mrs Mask was lukewarm about it.
For the main course we had a grill of 'special beef', a variety of wafer thin fillets of beef that came from pampered cows and that had been kneaded with rock sugar, soy sauce and spices. The grill was built into the table. You have to surrender yourself to any cuisine that has the commitment to place cooking devices in the furniture. They know it's a winner. It's not a fad. How many dining tables have you spotted in Ikea that are fitted with an integral fondue? Precisely.
The meat was great, we wrapped it in sweet little lettuce leaves with rice and some sort of plummy sauce. We both drank a Korean beer called Hite Prime. It was refreshing, malty and 4.5thingys. I liked Ran. The place was about three-qurters filled with Koreans the waiting staff treated the rest of us with patience. Who the fuck else is going to eat Korean food?
Now, I've broken my cherry I shall eat Korean again. Go.
Oh, yeah. On the way home we went to the ICA to get a cocktail. Man! That place was rammed with arseholes. Maybe I'd been too drunk to notice previously. Anyhow, give it a miss for a while. There was some festival or other going on.
posted
It you like rage and pies and mash and liquor then G Kelly's pie and mash shop, Bethnal Green High Street will provide exactly what you're looking for.
Nothing more, just that.
Tacked to the entrance, using what our American cousins would call 'Scotch tape', is a crude handwritten sign boasting the legend 'Only Pie and Mash may be consumed here. No other food will be allowed on the premises'.
Any sane customer with a wish to challenge this decree should make an immediate U-turn about the time they see the formidable roadblock stationed behind the faded mock marble counter - where a hatchet-faced double act bars the way like two culinary sentinels, Stallonic forearms locked together as a barrier against crisps, ham rolls or mirth.
Kray blood undoubtedly runs through their generous limbs, but the attitude is more 21st century Frankie Fraser than 1960s Ronnie and Reggie. Here is a pantomime duo that knows exactly where its bread is buttered. And you're not bringing your fucking bread and butter in here, son. These ladies of the manor are supremely aware that a po-faced here's-your-fucking-dinner attitude is as central to the authentic East End pie and mash experience as watery liquor and photographs of local boxers.
Former flyweight champion Charlie Magri adorns the wall, all sinewy splendour and twinkling WBA belt. To be absolutely accurate, it is a picture of the fighter, rather than the man himself; though, one could hardly blink an eyelid if these pastry-making bad girls stuffed Champagne Charlie and mounted him above the counter in a glass case like a pike.
"Fly weight? He's a fucking lightweight is what he is!" Ronnietta informed me when I dared to mention Magri's name. "Double, single!" she bellowed, "That's all Charlie eats."
Double, single? That really won't do. It isn't very difficult to understand the menu at Kelly's. They sell pies, they sell mash. Liquor and condiments aside, that's your lot. The choice of pies is limited. You can have one, two, or three. Single, double, triple. There's no need to dither over steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom or maybe a Jamaican pattie, just think of a number between one and three.
Mash options are the same - single, double, triple. There are a number of permutations of course, but double (pie), single (mash) won't win you much respect from Regiedetta or her partner in pies.
It's a dangerous place, Kelly's.
"I wouldn't stand there. You wouldn't want me to come through with a red hot pie tray and burn a hole in your head now, would you?"
"That's fucking hot, you idiot!"
Hot and sharp things seem to be everywhere but none are as frightening as the ladies themselves.
"Is your mate always like that?" said Ronnietta once, after my boss asked how long fresh pies would be. "Because if he ever does it again I'm going to climb over this counter and smash a plate in his face. And I'll make him fucking pay for the damage too."
All this delivered from beneath a poster of a former Big Brother contestant dressed in high heels, a sexy apron and rubber gloves.
'Kate Lawler enjoys her pie and mash,' it says.
The wording always struck me as odd. Despite the ludicrous staging of the picture, it reads like the words beneath a candid snap in a tabloid: 'Jude Law enjoys a crafty cigarette between filming';'Hate Moss shares a needle of heroin with daughter Lila Grace.'
I like that. I like the fact it is presented as evidence. It's a fact: Kate enjoys pie and mash. Want to make something of it?
The pies themselves contain generic meat that is never named (traditionally, I understand, it's minced lamb). They have very little flavour, the pies: not a herb or an onion in sight.
The mash is equally bland - no doubt rustled up from an ancient recipe, reading, "Boil potatoes, smash the fuck out of them, and serve with a sneer".
In these day of whipped garlic pomme and creamed kiwi gastro mash, a double portion of mashed potato that has never been near a knob of butter or a soupcon of milk is as alien as a decent pub lunch for a under a fiver. Mash. Bang! There you go.
Moisticity comes in the form of liquor. I'm not really sure what liquor is. Water and parsley appear to be the main, and probably the only, ingredients. Either way, it has all the flavour of Iocane powder. Under the circumstances, the idea of a seasoned Pie and Mash consumer seems faintly ludicrous. But such characters do exist, and they (along no doubt with Kate Lawler) will tell you that the secret to enjoying pie and mash lies in the condiments.
Apply lots, and I mean lots, of the following: salt, pepper, vinegar and chilli vinegar. The latter is kept behind the counter and must be asked for specially. Some kind of test to sort the men out from the Magris I assume. Chilli vinegar, as far as I can tell, consists of vinegar in a plastic vinegar shaker with the words 'chilli vinegar' taped to the side.
So, Big Brother's Kate Lawler, what is enjoyable about the experience?
"Well, stop looking at my lithe, perfectly toned yet disconcertingly mannish body and I will tell you. It's all about the flavour, the food is all there in stodgy form, the seasoning blends with the ancient authenticity of the decor, the location, the faded photographs and the coughing clientele to create a unique eating experience orchestrated by two fat puppeteers with faces of stone, arms of Stallone and a simple, yet highly succesful, business plan baked in a pie."
And the last word falls to Ronnietta: "And if you don't get it, you can fuck off!"
quote:Originally posted by jonesy999: using what our American cousins would call 'Scotch tape'
In 1921 the 3M Company hired a Mr. Richard Drew as a lab technician and put him to work in improving their products. One day Drew watched a painter spraying a car on which he had used gummed Kraft paper to cover up details he didnąt want painted. However, when the painter attempted to remove the gummed paper, it stripped the paint away with it.
Drew promised the painter that heąd work on an adhesive which would leave a clean demarcation line. In time he produced a 2 inch wide masking tape with adhesive on each edge which he delivered to the auto painter. To quote the article:
While testing Mr. Drew's first product. . . the painter watched it fall off as he was preparing to apply the second color of a two-tone car. The tape came loose because it was not fully coated with adhesive. It had only a 1/2" wide strip of adhesive along each edge, a money saving measure. The painter angrily told Mr. Drew, "Take this back to your stingy Scotch bosses and tell them to put more adhesive on it." This ethnic slur regarding Scottish thrift may have been unjustified, but it eventually got him the stickier tape he wanted. The name "Scotch" has "stuck" ever since.
posted
No such delights as pie and mash though. I'd pay good money for bite-sized minced lamb pies. And why can't you get snack-mash in a bag?
I did have the best curry of my life last night though, in the unlikely venue of 'Balti Raj' in Oulton Broad. With it's inadequate lighting and carpets so old that thick black pathways lead you to the most popular tables.
The disconcerting fusion of eclectic musical styles (at one point we had hits from west side story arranged with no due care or attention for sita and 80's synth) did nothing to detract from the bubbling silver bowl of perfection before me.
I've never been a huge curry eater, usually opting for something too hot and spending the next hour in oral agony and trying to arrange the leftover mush to look like I'd eaten more that I had.
But last night was a different story. No agony, no grimacing, no need for more than a single pint of Kingfisher.
I raise a glass to you Peshwari Lamb.
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posted
Oulton Broad, eh? I spent much of my childhood there. Curry hadn't been invented then, though. We dined on chips from The Mermaid, which were lovely until 1981 when they started cooking them in diesel.
quote:Originally posted by Bill Oddie: The Commodore seems to be the OB pub of choice these days - although the salad is always gritty. How the f*ck can that happen?
It sounds like they don't do a thorough job of rinsing the lettuce to me.
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posted
I think it's more likely that they actively add grit to the salad. The sheer consistency and pure volume of grit is quite impressive. Don't want to know that they do to the chicken goujons.
I was chatting to a girl who worked in a pie factory the other week. Her collegues routinely wanked into the pie mix.
I can cope with a bit of grit.
[ 06.10.2005, 09:12: Message edited by: Bill Oddie ]
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quote:Originally posted by Bill Oddie: Her collegues routinely wanked into the pie mix.
Girls or boys?
You really must try the fish at The Lemon Plaice in Newbury. They reputedly coat it in a rich fannie batter for a full flavour.
One of my colleagues at Deep Pan Pizza Co. once added his special sauce to a pasta carbonara dish. And he would have got away with it, were it not for that pesky pube...
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