Guinea-Bissau - home cooking

 

I was particuarly pleased to have found Guinean food for the previous review, albeit from a Senegalese food outlet. I was pretty certain, however, I wouldn't strike it lucky when I started looking for food from Guinea-Bissau in London. I was spot on.

My last option was to identify what is commonly seen as the, or one of the, national dishes of the nation. Caldo de mancarra popped up repeatedly. Peanut stew. I did think it was possible I'd find a West African food outlet in London serving this dish, but I came up with nothing. So it was time to head back into the kitchen.

The prospect of cooking this dish was actually quite a good one. I had cooked dishes like this before. I quite enjoy cooking with peanut butter, but it does get messy. And it's difficult not to be dragged down by the guilt of the sheer amount of fat and calories involved. But... there's nothing to be gained from that type of thinking...!

The ingredients were pretty simple. Which was just as well as I sourced them on Easter Sunday, when all of the largest supermarkets were closed! I was restricted to a fairly medium sized Tesco Express. The recipe only required the basics. Tesco Express does the basics.

There are several versions of caldo de mancarra. Shrimp is popular. However I opted for chicken. Ideally I'd have gone with boneless chicken thighs. Not basic enough for Tesco Express apparently. So chicken breast it was.

I diced four chicken breasts, plopped in some olive oil, seasoned with salt, cracked black pepper and three chopped red chillies, mixed well so the diced chicken was well covered, and then marinated for 10 minutes in the fridge.

After which I fried the above with 1 large chopped onion until the chicken was just browned, then added 500ml of boiling water with one chicken stock cube dissolved, stirred, and cooked this on a low heat for around 20 minutes.

During which I added 250g of peanut butter (crunchy or smooth - up to you) to a bowl with two large chopped tomatoes, and blended this into a smooth paste. I'd recommend mixing the chopped tomatoes and peanut together with a spoon first. Blenders don't like to tackle only peanut butter head on; the juice from the tomatoes definitely helps that process.

The peanut and tomato paste was eventually added to the chicken and onion broth, thoroughly mixed together, and cooked for another 20 minutes. Then I cooked 200g of white rice to serve with the stew.

It became quite clear quite quickly that my proportions were way off. I had a lot more sauce than anything else. When serving up I ensured I used a slotted spoon to make sure I was serving enough chicken and onion first, before spooning over more of the sauce as desired. After serving around half of the remaining sauce was left in the pan.

As for the dish itself, it was very vibrant looking and still quite flavoursome, despite each plate only really having a quarter of the ingredients. The peanut flavour was definitely there, but in no way overpowering. Nice and delicate, with a decent kick coming through from the chillies. The tomato helped the meal's vibrancy, physically with how it looked, and adding a slight sweetness to the sauce. The chopped onion helped give the sauce some good substance.

The consistency of the sauce was perfect, suiting the white basmati rice perfectly. This was a very substantial meal. The sauce does become slightly hard work to finish just because of the consistency and richness. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it did turn into a struggle.

In the end this was a very enjoyable, satisfying and wholesome meal. Moving from our spot anytime soon after the meal wasn't really an option, so it was actually quite good that we were at home and not in a restaurant that we needed to leave.

And the best part is we'd do it all again two days later with the leftover sauce and more chicken breast from the freezer!

Guinea - Little Baobab

Restaurant:  Little Baobab

Address:  Unit 504, Peckham Levels, 95A Rye Ln, London SE15 4ST

Date of visit:  Sunday 4 February 2024

Time of visit:  6pm

When selecting an eligible restaurant to visit for each country I do have a certain amount of rules. Maybe more so than other people I know of in London who have also embarked on the same project as Elaine and I. We must pick something from the menu - if it's not on the menu we don't ask them to cook something specially. We want as normal and as an authentic experience as possible. We never let on that we're on any kind of mission, nor that we're going to write up the experience and post it online.

Another rule is that we will visit a restaurant of another country if it's the only place we can find that serves the national dish of the country we're trying to tick off. Case in point: Guinea. I could not find any specifically Guinean restaurants or food outlets in London. However, after identifying that the national dish of Guinea is poulet yassa, I discovered the dish being served at a number of Senegalese food outlets. This passes the critera our project!

Little Baobab started off as a pop-up outlet around London, led by Senegalese chef Khadim Mane. It now offers event catering, an online shop, and a food stall at the cool and quirky Peckham Levels - a former multistory car park now turned into a recreational and creative space, with food and drink outlets.

The stall is open Tuesday to Sunday, although the opening times are a little confusing. The website says it's open until 9pm on Sunday. Google said 7pm. Another website said 6.30pm. I was desperate to make sure we got there in good time, as the journey from home/work to Peckham is a long way to travel only to find it's closed and that we need to come back again another day!

I got a little lost trying to find the place. I arrived before Elle as we were travelling from work and home respectively. I actually ended up entering via the rear of the property, through the car park and out onto the rather attractive branded walkway that runs alongside the other side of the building. Through some doors, up several flights of stairs (all well signposted) and I walked into a fairly vibrant environment, past an indoor skate park and a few other food stalls before coming up to a bar. Obviously I took my opportunity to get a pint (from the one single pump that didn't have a glass hanging over it to say it was finished). A very short wander beyond that bar and I saw where the Little Baobab stall was. Thankfully still open, but very quiet. Elle was still ten or so minutes away, but I really wanted to make sure they would stay open.

I walked up to the stall and was greeted by a young girl. A woman, who I presumed was her mother, wasn't far behind. I said hello and clearly studied the menu before asking when they closed. "Seven". I made it fairly clear that I was going to come back in 10-15 minutes to order some food, which was confirmed to be ok. Some relief.

When Elle arrived, we went back to the menu. Slightly pointless as there was only one qualifying main course on their menu. But we also added some extras. We returned to the stall and gave our order to both the mother and child together. Two portions of chicken yassa, and one portion of lamb fataya on the side.

The young girl processed the payment, I made the payment, and we were handed a slightly battered flashing electronic buzzer. We stepped away to find a place to perch and continue our drinks, which we did on some high stools next to a bar-type area. Around us was a fairly sparsely filled space. A kids birthday party had clearly not long ended, and the hangers on remained there finishing their drinks. An English Premier League game was on a big screen just beyond them which a good few people were paying attention to. We both quite enjoyed being in what was a brand new space for us.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen. This was good. This meant the food was being cooked fresh.The buzzer went off and we returned to the stall. The food was ready and laid out, and the woman was adding the cutlery. She asked if we wanted some chilli sauce. The answer to this is always an empatic yes, which almost led to a bit of a smile on her face. The service was very friendly, but very subdued. Not much was said. Very practical and to the point, but also attentive and full.

We took the food to some free benches nearby. The venue was quite quiet by this point, but generally the eating spaces are communal and plentiful.

The presentation of the food was great. The chicken yassa was presented on metal bowls, and the lamb fataya on a wood-look paper plate.

First impressions were of a very substantial portion. It felt heavy, and that wasn't just the metal bowls! The bowl was essentially split into three - the chicken yassa, a side salad and rice. The chicken appeared to be from the thigh, boneless, topped with a sauce of caramelised onions, garlic and chilli. The chicken appeared to be marinated in, and almost somehow stuffed with, lime and some more spice. Everything was piping hot and very fresh. The flavours were fantastic. Hardly any words were said between the both of us as we were both just fully engaged in enjoying what was a very wholesome meal. We did try to involve the rice as we ate, but I think we may have failed with that as - towards the end - it ended up being a fairly dry, rice heavy dish. The added chilli sauce was such a great addition. Fierce and flavoursome, and apparently available to buy by the jarfull on the Little Baobab website! That was a seriously satisfying main meal, ticking all the boxes. The cutlery was wooden, which is the only real downside. I've never enjoyed the feel of dry wood against the lips.

The lamb fatayas were presented around a little pot of tomato and onion relish and a sprig of coriander. They were very much like little meat filled pasties. They appeared to look a little paler than maybe expected, but they were lovely. Made with really tasty lamb, with a spicy kick to boot, which topped off the meal nicely.

I imagine some people think it isn't possible to get restaurant-grade food at a small food stall. I completely disagree. This meal was very much an example of how good it can be. Plus not too expensive, and very decent value for many. The venue alone, Peckham Levels, is worth visiting, but a stop at the Little Baobab stall while there is highly recommended.

And hopefully the bar will have some more beer in!

Guatemala - Quinta

 

Restaurant:  Quinta

Address:  18 Bute St, South Kensington, London, SW7 3EX

Date of visit:  29 October 2023

Time of visit:  6pm

Before we head to Guatemala, we need to revisit El Salvador briefly. When we embarked on El Salvador back in 2018 there didn't appear to be any restaurants in London serving Salvadorian food. But, thanks to Facebook, I did connect with a Salvadorian lady who was making pupusas - filled corn tortillas - for fellow countryfolk. And for those curious, like us.

Fast forward to 2023 and there is finally a restaurant in London serving pupusas and some other Savadorian dishes. That restaurant is Quinta, in South Kensington.

"Why is this relevant to Guatemala?" I hear you cry. Well it turns out this same restaurant actually specialises in Mayan food, including dishes from Southern Mexico, Northern Honduras, Belize and... Guatemala! And it seems to be the only place in the city to serve a specifically Guatemalan dish. The national dish, no less.

We arrived at 6pm on a cold Sunday evening and walked into a venue that seemed more like a cafe than a restaurant, complete with open kitchen. With no one around to ask on arrival we walked up to the kitchen to confirm our booking. A gentleman in the kitchen led us back towards the exit, offering us a table by the window. That exit door wouldn't close properly, meaning it remained quite draughty and cold for the duration of our visit, although it did eventually start to warm up a little.

Unfortunately there were no Guatemalan lagers on offer, but the menu did offer a Mexican lager I'd never had, Pacifico, which we ordered. The waiter returned shortly afterwards to tell us he had none, so we went for two bottles of Modelo which duly arrived. We were a little surprised that no glasses came with the bottles, but this wasn't an issue as we would've consumed directly from the bottle regardless.

It became quite clear quite quickly that this one gentleman was running the restaurant floor on his own. He remained very friendly throughout but was clearly quite stretched. Attentive when called upon, but just as eager to get away.

The menu was quite a familiar one to anyone acquainted with Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, rice bowls. No starters per se, but plenty of sharers: nachos, padron peppers, chicken wings to name a few.

And pupusas. This is the first time we've encountered a previously completed country on the A-to-Z with no restaurant visit, and then later found a new restaurant offering that country's food. So we had to start with some pupusas. And the following paragraph will be added to the end of 2018's El Salvador review.

The restaurant clearly specialised in pupusas, referring to itself as a "pupuseria" on its website, and a hard-to-miss neon sign in the window demanding "EAT MY PUPUSA". There are eight different pupusas offered, with a mix of a few key ingredients - black beans, cheese, pork and jalapenos. We went for two of the pupusas stuffed with all four ingredients. They were excellent. Very fresh, hot and filling. The cheese was very firm and stringy, with minced pork and jalapenos on top of the cheese. The pupusas were topped with pumpkin seeds and fresh chopped coriander and served with curtido - a pickled fermented salad - and spicy tomato salsa which were fantastic accompaniments. 

For the main dish, we were only ever going to go for one thing. The only Guatemalan item on the menu, and apparently the whole of London. Fried chicken pepian. A thick curry pretending not to be a stew. Slightly annoyingly, despite asking for the pupusas to come as a starter, the mains arrived almost straight after the pupusas. This meant by the time we got round to eating the mains they had cooled down quite considerably, not helped by the door opening and closing with more frequency as the restaurant got busier. But that wasn't the sole reason. I don't think the dishes were served particuarly hot in the first place. 

Which was a real shame because it was a lovely dish that wasn't allowed to shine properly. The meal was served in a large, shallow bowl with the sauce taking up one half, and the rice and pickled salad on the other half, and the fried chicken placed on top of the rice. 

The chicken itself was very well fried, to the point it was quite dry on its own. But there was ample curry sauce to help with that, sauce that was quite flavoursome but not particularly spicy. It had quite a rustic, deep earthy flavour to it. The pickled salad, which involved pickled cauliflower, was an interesting addition, and actually quite a nice touch.

Despite first impressions of the dish being overwhelmed by curry sauce the proportion of rice, chicken and salad was pretty much spot on. It wasn't a particularly generous portion, but the earlier pupusas helped with that overall.

The whole visit was accompanied by a selection of pretty generic, recent pop music in the background. The rush had been and gone as we dined, and the waiter did eventually take the opportunity to come and check all was ok with the food. However it was still quite an effort later to get his attention to ask for the bill. When that did finally happen he reassured us that they would have Pacifico lager back in tomorrow.

It wasn't a bad experience by any means. The food was excellent, but the main course coming out lukewarm-to-cold, and the rushed frantic nature of the service as a result of bare minimum staffing took the shine off what could have been a very enjoyable evening. Still, I felt satisfied that we left that evening having ticked two Central American boxes in one visit.

Grenada - home cooking

 

I was particularly enthused by our renewed committment to the "A to Z of London Restaurants" project, and was keen to tick the next country off the list as soon after the prior Greek restaurant visit as we could. A two and a half month gap is a definite improvement on two and a half years!

However that enthusiasm was fairly quickly dampened when the preparatory research began. For some reason I didn't expect to find a problem locating traditional Grenadian food in London. But I was wrong. After identifying a handful of traditional, fairly exclusively Grenadian dishes it was then a case of finding a restaurant or food stall serving such dishes. I could only come across one "defintiely" Grenadian restaurant, which unfortunately seemed to serve only pan-Caribbean dishes (patties, bakes, jerk chicken and curries). And of the other pan-Caribbean establishments in London, of which there are many, nowhere seemed to sell anything particularly Grenadian.

The bar I had set myself was oil down. The national dish of Grenada. If I couldn't find it served, I'd cook it myself. Easy? Not quite. The next hurdle was sourcing the key ingredients. One of which was new on me. Breadfruit. Given the fact it was the first time I'd even seen the word, I was fairly sure this wasn't something I could easily get my hands on.

In the end, it wasn't as tricky as first thought. I was assured I would "probably" find it at Caribbean market stalls in Brixton or Shepherd's Bush (areas with a sizeable Caribbean community). I also realised I could buy it tinned. Normally I would always go fresh. However, there was a great degree of "maybe" about sourcing a real breadfruit. Also, not an excuse, but I really didn't have the time to wander around markets looking for something I still wasn't really sure wasn't a myth in this country. 

Oh look! Six tins for £16 on Amazon. Buy now.

It was pretty clear when trying to find a good authentic recipe that, like many national dishes, there are many varations of oil down, which no doubt would differ from family to family, and neighbourhood to neighbourhood. I deliberately chose a recipe that brought together the mean average of ingredients of all the other recipes I came across.

There was however one key ingredient that I already decided I was going to miss. Pig tails. I had absolutely no intention of sourcing, cooking or eating anything close. If that immediately disqualifies this as anywhere near an authentic replication of the national dish then I'm absolutely fine with that.

So, to the kitchen. Green seasoning is another new one on me, but apparently very common and widespread in much of the cooking across the Caribbean. Rather than buy ready made, I decided to make my own. This was a mistake.

It was actually reasonably easy to put together. I combined in a bowl the following: 6 stalks of spring onion, 4 twigs of fresh thyme, 7 fat garlic cloves, 5 pimento peppers, a small handful of coriander leaves, 1 large onion, a handful of fresh parsley leaves, an inch cube of ginger, teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, and a tablespoon of vinegar. I then used a hand blender to blend everything together until it became a nice paste. Which it did quite nicely, leaving me a really nice bright red green seasoning. Very ungreen.

Even just looking at that again makes my heart sink. I bought red pimento peppers. Which completely dominated the colour of my "green" seasoning. I had no doubt it was still going to taste pretty epic. But I feared for the overall look of the final dish.

Anyway, onward. Rather than chicken on the bone, I used six boneless chicken thighs and covered the thighs in the red green seasoning, placing this in the fridge for now while I prepped all the rest of the ingredients.

After that I added one and a quarter tins of coconut milk to a bowl, added 2 teaspoons of ground turmeric, and blended this until the milk was an even colour throughout. Then coated chicken (plus all the remaining red green seasoning) was added to the bottom of a heavy cooking pot, along with 250g of the tinned breadfruit (cut into chunks), 1 unripe banana (sliced), 2 carrots (sliced), 250g pumpkin (chopped), 100g okra (sliced, from frozen), and some salt.

I then poured the turmeric coconut milk into the pot, and covered the contents of the pot with 70g of spinach. Lid on and cook over a medium heat for 25 minutes. The pot shouldn't be stirred while cooking.

When there's about 10 minutes left of the 25, its about time to make some dumplings. Really basic ingredients. 120g of flour. 240g water. A dash of salt. This is my nightmare. I cannot do anything which involves flour, baking, consistency... Even when I follow the instructions to the letter, it all goes terribly wrong. The very same happened here. So Elle had to step in to turn my mix of slop into about a dozen pinkie-finger-sized long dumplings. When the timer was up, I added these dumplings to the top of the pot contents.

The pot was then re-covered, and cooking resumed for another 45 minutes or so. Again, stirring should be avoided.

Forty five minutes later, the dish is ready to serve. I originally panicked about the amount of liquid still in the pot... I was expecting just a little left at the bottom. I tried to boil some off originally, but started to worry about overcooking the dish. So I served up the dish as it was, onto two plates, and provided a copious amount of bread to help with the sauce!

It turns out the bread was barely needed. The sauce thickened up really nicely on serving, and had a really rich, luxurious consistency to it which came as a surprise. Also, on presentation, I was quite relieved to see that the initial utter redness of the dish before cooking wasn't quite so prevalent now. In fact, comparing my final dish to other photos of oil down online, it didn't look too far off at all.

As for the food itself: This was a really wholesome, flavoursome dish. A kind of stew, which to me seemed more suited to a cold, winter night in the north of England than a hot, steamy Caribbean nation. But it was a lovely mix of meat and veg. The chicken was perfectly cooked and had taken in much of the flavour of the sauce. The breadfruit added a really nice consistency and "stodge" to the dish, as did the dumplings which ended up much firmer and more dense than I had expected. But this was no bad thing.

There was a really pleasant underpinning spiciness to the entire dish. Not too much at all, but definitely making itself known.

The spinach seemed a little lonely to me. The spinach did what spinach does. It largely disappeared. So its presence during eating was quite sparse, to the point I questioned whether I should have increased the amount I used. Maybe even doubled.

Overall despite the failure to find a restaurant, the stress over acuqiring breadfuit, the ballsing up of the green seasoning, and the horror show that was the dumpling slop, this didn't turn out to be the unmitigated disaster I thought it would be. It was a really tasty meal. One I want to try again, but either properly in a restaurant or food stall somewhere in this country. Or maybe we'll just have to visit Grenada and try it for real on home turf.

Greece - Andy's Greek Taverna

 

Restaurant:  Andy's Greek Taverna

Address:  23 Pratt St., London, NW1 0BE

Date of visit:  23 July 2023

Time of visit:  7pm

I was anticipating the Greek restaurant visit for a while, knowing that London would have a wealth of excellent options. To the point the prospect of researching and choosing just one restaurant was originally a little daunting. However, by chance, I happened to walk past Andy's Greek Taverna on one of my regular trips to Camden. I was immediately impressed by the cuteness of the corner cafe, and by the masses of people inside and out. A quick look at reviews online as I passed made up my mind. We had to make this our Greek stop.

So we returned on what was a lovely, sunny Sunday summer evening. I booked a table for 7pm several days in advance using The Fork (https://www.thefork.co.uk/restaurant/andy-s-greek-taverna-r719957) and arrived right on time. 

I had only ever seen the restaurant from the Bayham Street side, and assumed that the "corner cafe" made up pretty much all of Andy's. So to the corner we went, which was surprisingly very quiet, with no music playing. Almost abandoned, including lack of staff. It took some time before someone emerged from the enclosed kitchen area. We told him we had booked in advance, and he took us out of the corner cafe, and to next door to the adjacent unit on Pratt Street. Which was clearly the main restaurant. Who knew?!

We found ourselves in a lovely, inviting environment, full of diners with not-very-discreet traditional Greek music playing. Much more of a restaurant feel than the corner, with a choice of tables. We didn't have to wait long for the menus to come. We ordered a bottle of the house white wine, which was Italian, rather than Greek, in origin. We had mulled over the menu in advance and had pretty much already made up our minds. But we still spent some time to check it over again in the restaurant environs.

The menu is really impressive. Plenty of cold and hot starters for not much more than a fiver, which is incredibly decent. The vast majority of the mains are between £10 and £15. All the traditional Greek dishes you'd expect to see, with descriptions. A plentiful selection of seafood and vegetarian dishes too, although we tend to overlook those due to personal tastes! There are also some excellent value Set Menu options, which were very tempting.

Someone else came to take our food order. We were served by almost all of the waiting staff at some point in the evening. The service was very friendly, light-hearted and actually quite banterful. These guys clearly enjoy what they do!  Elle and I ordered the "Chef's Mixed Grill" starter to share. I opted for the stifado for main, and Elle went for the moussaka.

Time to take in the atmosphere. The music was quite loud. It wasn't offputting for us, we quite enjoyed it. But I could definitely imagine someone else potentially taking issue with it. The simple solution would have been to move away from the speaker, but there was no need for that with us. The interior was very blue. Almost nautical. Probably helped by the massive photo of a gorgeous Greek island landscape looking over our table. 

The restauant was by no means fancy, but also more than just a cafe. The tables were basic, with comfortable soft blue chairs and plastic benches. It was a very pleasant place to be, with absolutely no pretences. It really stuck me as the kind of place where the most attention goes into the most important things - the food and the service.

When the starter arrived, it initially didn't look to be particularly large (keeping in mind the prices are very decent). But in the end it was absolutely perfect, leaving you very eager for the main dish. The mixed grill was made up of halloumi, loukanika (Greek pork or lamb sausage), lountza (salted, smoked grilled pork tenderloin) and pastourma (beef sausage with wine and black pepper). The starter also came with a basket of bread.

The sausages were very flavoursome indeed, aided by the taste of the grilling process. The lountza almost had the appearance of a thick slice of straight forward bacon, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing! It was still excellent, as was the halloumi. The bread was very fresh and fluffy. We originally regretted not getting some kind of dip for the bread, but there ended up being enough goodness on the plate to use with the bread. The vegetable accompaniment - tomato and cucumber - was also very fresh and complemented the dish well.

Our attention once again was on the service. In a good way. This was a very well run place. The team of waiting staff were absolutely on it. Very polite and in no way invasive, but very swift to take away empty plates and attend to any needs. It was quite impressive, and no doubt one of the reasons this restaurant is so widely loved.

Then the mains arrived. This was a sight to behold.

I was already excited about this. We have been on several Greek holidays in the past, and stifado quickly became my favourite Greek dish, and I was therefore very hopeful about this. When my eyes met the content on the plate I'm sure my heart started racing. I could see the most incredibly substantial chunks of beef, luscious rich thick gravy, and amazing looking roast potatoes, all garnished with herbs. And I have to say, this dish was abslolutely exceptional. Defintiely the best stifado, and best Greek meal generally, that I've ever had. And one of the best main dishes on this project so far. The beef was melt in the mouth soft, but so beautifully flavoursome, the gravy matching it perfectly with a wonderfully balanced presence of cloves throughout. Those potatoes were something else... perfectly roasted and well looked after. A truly perfect meal.

It's hard not to be utterly impressed by this substantial wedge of layered goodness that is the moussaka. I actually really wanted to see the "mothership moussaka" from which this came. That must have been some sight! Again, generous is the word that comes to mind. It was packed full of layers of really succulent minced beef, and thick creamy bechemel sauce, which was perfectly baked at the top. A superbly tasty dish, and quite easy to see why this has won awards.

It also arrived with a very fresh, delicious side salad of tomato, cucumber, red onion and feta, drizzled with olive oil.

We need to go back to the potatoes.

I don't know how they get potatoes to taste like this. But they were some of the best I've ever had. We ordered more.

Surprisingly, despite a very decent dessert menu offered, there was no heavy sell. In fact, the question was never asked. Plates were cleared (typically swiftly) and we were left to enjoy the rest of our wine without interruption. In fact, it was a little bit of an effort to find someone to let us pay the bill. We geninuely could've spent all night in there. And we would have been happy to do so.

If all the above wasn't good enough, we received a free amaretto shot each on paying the bill.

I'm not sure if I've said this often through the years of this project, but we'll definitely be back here again. A very memorable visit.

Ghana - Connie's Authentic Ghanian Restaurant

Restaurant:  Connie's Authentic Ghanian Restaurant

Address:  85-87 Woodgrange Rd, London E7 0EP

Date of visit:  8 August 2021

Time of visit:  8pm

The previous restaurant visit on this project was made on February 2020. One month later, like the rest of the world, the World of London Restaurants project stopped.

I made a determination that we weren't going to resume it until life was as back to normal as possible. I needed the restaurant experience to be exactly the same as it was pre-Covid. In August 2021, we were finally there.

Next up we headed to East London to a Ghanian restaurant sandwiched between and behind two shops on Woodgrange Road. As such we were greeted by a long passage, marked by a big "Connies" sign above, and walked into a fairly sparse cafe/restaurant space. As we fully expected this definitely appeared to be a community eating spot and not somewhere that often received first time vistors who have travelled across London to be there!

Nonetheless, the waitress was quite attentive to our arrival, inviting us to sit at a table, to which she very promptly brought menus. Already we felt welcome and could tell the service was friendly.

The menu looks pretty decent, but it was clearly not aimed at the uninitiated due to the lack of descriptions of the dishes. Nothing a crafty Google search can't help with. There was no table service at this restaurant, adding to the "cafe" vibe, but it was made clear in a friendly way that we had to order at the till. Elle paid the full amount when she ordered, reinforcing a cafe versus restaurant vibe. As such, there was no service charge added to the full total.

Elle opted for the kebab to start (it was simply listed as such on the menu). For me, it had to be the deep-fried turkey tail. Definitely not being stereotypically Scottish. More intrigued by the revelation that turkeys had tails, which I don't think had ever dawned on me! 

For the main meal we both went for the chicken jollof, which definitely seemed to be the signature dish. A popular West African dish of baked chicken with rice cooked with tomatoes, garlic, ginger and spices.

And to drink, we each had a 625ml bottle of Star beer, from Ghana.

The service at the till was very friendly, with the waitress trying to upsell and offer us some palm juice for the table.

I love the waiting. This is when we simply take in the sights, sounds, smells, conversation and everything else that hits our senses. There was a mix of local Ghanian music playing in the restaurant, and the sound Sky Sports Cricket being shown on a TV at one end of the restaurant. A few families were dining during our stay, which meant some kids running around, but it wasn't really an issue. And one point the kids waved at me emphatically, ensuring that they were seen! The slight blip of annoyance was when one of the boys cranked the tunes up on the massive boom box in the corner to the max! 

The starters arrived, with the turkey tail arriving with a bowl for the discarded bones, and no cutlery. So this was clearly one to eat with the fingers! The chopped tail pieces were topped with raw onion, with an incredible hot salsa to the side. The turkey was fatty, but there was a surprisingly good amount of turkey meat to find. The meat was very dry but very tasty, going perfectly with the hot sauce.

Elle's kebab probably wasn't quite as interesting to look at. A single skewer which wasn't particularly large. But it wasn't particularly expensive. It was served with some kind of ground spice on the side. It wasn't particularly clear what the spice was. Perhaps just chilli powder. But the real mystery was trying to guess what meat was on the skewer. We never did reach a conensus on that.

As for the main course. RICE. So so much rice. I hope the photo above does it justice. That was one extremely generous, densely packed, ball of rice. It was very clear that this meal was probably more about the rice than the chicken. The chicken was chopped and on the bone, which made it a little cumbersome to eat. Still very tasty and in a rich spicy tomato sauce. 

That rice though. It was dense and had a chewy consistency to it. Purposefully. It was cooked to perfection and had an amazing real deep spice which added so much to the flavour and the experience. It was incredibly moreish and a real pleasure to eat. The chicken felt like a side show.

We were only a few minutes into eating the main before we realised that we really shouldn't have ordered starters! But the main was so enjoyable that we pushed ourselves to finish it.

Getting up out of the chair was going to be problematic. Thankfully, the chilled vibe in the place ensured that we knew there was no rush to free up our table. Somehow we did eventually manage to get up, and get out. Very full and very satisfied.

Sadly, it's taken me so long to write this review (absolutely no excuses for a nearly two year delay...!) that Connie's is no longer trading, and in its place a "new ladies saloon" called Club Diamondz. A sad loss.

Germany - Bierschenke

Restaurant: Bierschenke

Address: 4 London Wall buildings, Blomfield St, London EC2M 5NT

Date of visit: 1 February 2020

Time of visit: 7.30pm



The impending German restaurant visit had been on my radar for quite a while. It was quite clear what kind of venue we were going to visit, as German restaurants in London are pretty much limited to Bavarian-style beer halls. Absolutely fine by me, don't get me wrong! But I also wanted to make sure we picked one which had a good selection of well rated food.

It came down to one of the two Bierschenke venues in London, and we chose the one near Liverpool Street Station solely for convenience.

We booked ahead, with it being Saturday night. When we arrived at the restaurant we walked into the bar area, and there was no real indication of where to go. And no one to give us that advice. So we followed to the sound of people having a good night, which was downstairs. There, we were greeted by the bouncer which wasn't really of any help to us. Eventually, the waiter came, asked our name, and walked us to a table.

As you would expect from this kind of venue, personal tables per couple or small groups isn't how it works. The seating arrangement was rows and rows of communal benches. I was reminded of Japanese restaurants like Wagamama.

The music played in a Japanese restaurant would have been more German than what we were hearing when we walked in to this place! Authenticity was pretty much on point until we heard the cheesy English-language pop that was being pumped out!

So there we were, sitting, waiting, listening to The Vengaboys. What happens next? That was anyone's guess. Eventually, we managed to get the attention of a waitress (who, to be fair, was run off her feet). She came back to us, laid out two menus on the table, and asked if we had been served yet. All good things to do, just in the wrong order. The service was sharp and abrupt. Matching the frantic nature of the kind of night I'm sure she was having, but not a experience for a couple of diners who have recently arrived.

She went away to let us study the menu... for ten seconds, when she came back to ask us what we wanted to drink. She also asked us to open a tab. I'd understand the need for that if we were a group of lads drinking all night, but for a couple clearly out for a meal it seemed a little unnecessary. But we played along, and opened the tab by ordering a pint of Hacker Pschorr Hefe Weisse and a glass of Chenin Blanc.

The drinks came very quickly, brought to the table by what seemed like a dedicated barman. The waitress was very close behind him and came to take our food order. We asked for a few more minutes (a recurring theme in this blog...!) and the waitress all but rolled her eyes at us, and walked off clearly annoyed at that. Elle and I both instantly checked with each other that we both just saw the same thing!

More often or not when we ask for a few more minutes in a restaurant, that's it for about ten minutes. You've missed your slot. No difference here. So we started to take in the environs. It wasn't particularly busy, especially for a Saturday night. But it also seemed that we had been sat away from where there was a party going on - at the far side of the restaurant there was a group of about thirty people, making a lot of noise but clearly having a good night.

Suddenly, it all got very German!

A four-piece Oompah band marched out in front of the bar area and started to play. This felt like a crucial missing piece of the evening, and really added to the experience! All that was missing now was the food...

The waitress finally came back to take our order. We both went for the Leberkase - Bavarian beef and pork loaf with two fried eggs, mash and gravy. The waitress took the menus away, including the extensive drinks menu, which was going to make adding to the tab all the more difficult.

It was a little bit of a wait before the food arrived, but much of that wait was accompanied by the sound of live traditional Bavarian music, so it wasn't too bad.

The food eventually arrived, and it looked every bit as good as I had hoped. Sliced meat loaf topped with two fried eggs, a substantial portion of very buttery-looking mash, and some deep dark gravy.

The meat loaf was really good. Very easy to eat. Very tender and very tasty. The fried eggs were runny, which isn't usually something I enjoy, but for some reason it really added to this dish and worked well with the creamy buttery mashed potato. The gravy was very thin, and not substantial in volume. But somehow it seemed to be the perfect amount for the overall dish, incredibly rich and topped off what was a really enjoyable wholesome dish.

The night felt like it was back on track, but it was let down again by the remainder of the service. The venue had run out of all wheat beers by 8.30pm on a Saturday night, just as it was starting to fill with the "Saturday night out" crew. I went for a dunkel instead.

It was a real struggle to get anyone to give us the bill. And when they took our card away to take payment, which we're never comfortable with, it was a mission to even get our card back!

Overall the service was very hands off, inattentive and generally unfriendly. The quality of the food and drink was high. Granted, this isn't a restaurant in the traditional sense. But if you're going to provide table service, then that should come with the very basics of good customer service. That was lacking on this occasion.

Georgia - Iberia Restaurant

Restaurant: Iberia Restaurant

Location: 294-296 Caledonian Rd, Islington, London N1 1BA

Date of visit: 5 October 2019

Time of visit: 8pm

I was quite surprised to find that I had a choice to make when it came to deciding which Georgian restaurant to visit in London. I had clearly underestimated the appeal and market for Georgian cuisine in the capital. I was then fairly confused by the fact the most favoured restaurant that popped up during my research was called "Iberia". A quick bit of reading answered why - the important thing is that the Caucasian Iberians are not related to the "Iberians" of Spain and Portugal.

After reserving a table for two via the website earlier in the week, we turned up at Iberia just after 8pm on this Saturday evening.

We stepped into the intimate restaurant, to find two waitresses both very much engaged in serving other diners. We were greeted by one of them, and we advised them that we had a table for two booked. She gestured to the general space in the restaurant and asked us to choose a table, rather than be taken to one. To be fair, that's ok with us. She was busy. We're more than capable of doing that bit ourselves.

The menus came very quickly, and seemed very similar to the menu on the website. But a little pricier on the night than online.

It's a very impressive menu, offering a wide selection of hot and cold starters, breads, main courses, fish dishes, sauces and extras. Everything was presented with the name of the dish in transliterated Georgian, with the English description below.

When it came to ordering, there was nothing in the way of a Georgian beer option on the menu, so I opted for the closest thing they had which was the Russian lager Baltika. And was told they had none. So I had a bottle of Heineken instead. Elle would normally have contemplated the wine, but it started at £6.50 a glass. On the plus side, it was imported Georgian wine, but still too much for one glass. And a risk at that. So she too opted for a Heineken.

We seemed to hit a turning point here. From this point on, the level of service seemed to change. It became a bit more attentive and warmer. To the point Elle and I discussed, quietly, if we'd been "rumbled". Did they know we were there to review the experience? We always try and avoid giving that away. Anyway, we'll take it!

We were then asked for our food order. First we went for a shared hot starter option, imeruli khachapuri - flatbread stuffed with Georgian cheese. For my main course, I asked for tsitsila adjikashi - spatchcocked fried spring chicken in spicy hot sauce served with baby potatoes. Elle opted for the garlic version of the same dish, chqmeruli.

This was a fairly small restaurant with a lower section and an upper section, both hosting a handful of tables. We opted to sit in the upper section. The layout of the restaurant actually reminded me of our visit to the Donde Carlos restaurant in Shepherd's Bush when we reached "Colombia" in this project three and a half years ago.

It was a very comfortable environment, and cosily decorated. The walls were adorned with dozens of kantsi horns, tradition Georgian drinking horns, The music was really good too. Elle was particularly enjoying the chilled vibe of the music - a mix of Georgian pop and covers of English language tracks - all quite soulful, until it stopped. Then started again. Then skipped to something else. Then stopped again. And started again. And stopped. And repeated. For the entire duration of our visit. It seems to completely escape the attention of anyone else in the restaurant, especially the waitresses. But it was quite distracting.

The bread came fairly quickly, and was a little uninspiring at first glance. It was fairly small, and cut into quarters. Not very well fired, or particularly cooked looking at all. For me, a Scotsman, almost like a large uncooked potato scone. On eating though, it was very tasty. Well stuffed with at least two types of cheese - one was a cheddar-like cheese, and another quite like goats cheese. With it being cheese-stuffed bread, the two quarters were quite satisfying. Especially as a starter

The mains also came in good time, and these looked impressive! Albeit deadly... the ceramic pots were insanely hot, of which no warning was given. Again, the portion didn't look particularly big, but the contents looked exceptional. You could almost taste it with your eyes - as a spicy dish, and for a spice lover, the colours in this were perfect and very encouraging! And the flavours were fantastic. The spice kick was really intense, and went really well with the other flavours. The chicken was cooked to perfection, but with it being spring chicken, the bones were really something to contend with. And something I completely forgot about. It was a laborious task at times, and had I remembered this at time of ordering I might have actually opted for something else. But then I would've missed out on what must be one of the finest dishes on their menu. The potatoes were very useful for mopping up the remaining chilli and herb sauce, and soaking up the broth. Not a huge amount of potatoes in there, but still good to have.

As mentioned, Elle's dish was basically the garlic version of mine. And it was as fiercely garlicky as mine was intensely spicy. Comments on the chicken were the same as mine - tasty but troublesome. Elle seemed to be left with more broth in the bowl than I was, but mine did seem to have a thicker mixed sauce generally, compared to Elle's crushed garlic and herbs, with chicken broth below. Portion size was on par with mine... small but mighty.

With two meals containing hundreds of tiny bones, it was necessary to have somewhere to put these bones. There was nowhere else within these small dishes that they could be safely "discarded". So Elle asked one of the waitresses (the more nervous, less assured of the two) for a "side plate for the bones". The waitress returned with two pepper shakers. It's awful, but we both laughed. Quite a lot. Not at the waitress, of course! Just at the situation. I was amused that it was Elle being misunderstood for a change (it's usually me). We apologised for our reaction (no offence seemed to have been taken, which was a relief) and Elle tried to explain again. The waitress queried if we were asking for salt. The other waitress (the more confident, assured of the two) overheard this back and forth and explained in Georgian to the other that we wanted a plate, which came straight away. (At one point later, Elle accidentally dropped a knife on the floor, which was almost instantly picked up and replaced).

Our final impression of the restaurant was that it was fairly pricey for what it was. It was high in quality, but definitely could have done with a touch more quantity. The food itself couldn't be faulted though. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, it lacks some finer touches. The service was just odd at times. Inconsistent - either really good, or really lacking. And to have music that plays for no longer than 20 seconds before stopping and repeating, for hours, is entirely avoidable and really quite unforgivable. Clearly the back of house is in good order here. The front of house needs some work.

They're on Uber Eats. Just do it that way instead.