Estonia - home cooking

Due to life getting in the way, progress of this project - once again - has been very slow of late. But finally, just a couple of weeks ago, a spare few hours on a Sunday afternoon resulted in the next country being ticked off the list. This time, Estonia. When I first considered how we would achieve this country, I just assumed I would have no problem finding an Estonian restaurant in London.

If we had reached Estonia several years ago, which we really should have done, then my assumption would have been absolutely correct. However, in the summer of 2018, there are no Estonian restaurants in operation. There are several Baltic and Russian-influenced restaurants in the city, but none - to the best of my knowledge - that offered any decent range of specifically Estonian dishes. So it was back to the kitchen...

Meat features heavily in Estonian cuisine, as does fish. Much of the food found in Estonia is similar to other countries in the region - potatoes, cheese, herbs, sauerkraut. It has been influenced by other Baltic countries as much as Nordic countries, and Russia. Finding a meal to cook was a little tricky. I didn't fancy any of fish dishes, and some of the meat dishes were, shall we say, "exotic". Including cuts of animal that I neither knew were to find, nor wanted to try in any case. Eventually, the same dish appeared across various sources that ticked all the boxes for me. Frikadellisupp. Estonian meatball soup.

The particular recipe I went for was to serve six, and didn't provide any problems when it came to sourcing any of the ingredients in my local supermarket.

Step one was, of course, to prepare the meatballs. They were a combination of 560g of minced beef (full fat... no lean mince here!), 3 tablespoons of dried breadcrumbs, 1 egg (beaten), 2 tablespoons of sour cream, 1.5 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, a pinch of ground black pepper, 0.5 teaspoon of salt, and 2 tablespoons of finely chopped fresh dill.

We're not massive fans of dill in this household, which I gather is a widely shared opinion. However, I couldn't omit it from this meal, as it is a signature part of the dish.

All those ingredients were mixed well together to form the meatball combination. One massive meatball, if you will. It's important now that this mixture is left to settle for half an hour or so. This softens the meatballs, which helps bind them together when rolled out. I also think that choosing non-lean minced meat helped with that.

Part of that "bonding" time can now be used to prepare the other ingredients for the soup - 1.5 litres of beef broth (I used four stock cubes), 1 large potato (peeled and diced) and 1 large carrot (peeled and diced).

Once the meatball mixture had been sitting for half an hour, it was time to hand-roll it out into meatballs. The idea was to create meatballs around 0.75 inches wide. I found that particularly difficult, and they ended up being a bit larger. It was probably just as well...

You're looking at dozens of meatballs. My mind was then troubled with two questions. One: how are these going to cook through sufficiently now that they're almost twice the size they should be? And two: how the hell am I going to get all these, and all the other ingredients, into one pot?

Anyway, time would tell. I started to heat the broth, and added the potato, carrot and a couple of tablespoons of uncooked long grain rice. And then the meatballs. One by one. I took care to make sure each one had sufficient space, and that they weren't sticking together. To be honest, when I dropped them in they each buried themselves quite nicely into the veg that I had added previously. By the time I had dropped them all in and stirred the pot, the outside of the meatballs had already started to cook, so they no longer stuck together.

The soup was then boiled rapidly for 10 minutes, and then brought down to a delicate simmer for a further half an hour. And it was done! Time to serve.

Rye bread is popular in Estonia. To the best of my knowledge the country has it's own twist on the bread, which is darker (sometimes known as "black bread"). I decided to serve the soup with slices of rye bread widely available in my local supermarket, for that "almost authentic" touch.

Despite being quite firm and stodgy, the rye bread worked well with the soup - softening well enough and taking in a lot of the soup, but nowhere near falling apart. I was quite surprised at how soft, almost melt-in-the-mouth, the meatballs were. I have a habit of overcooking meat out of an abundance of caution, but the consistency of these meatballs was perfect. The meatballs themselves were really nice - the dill was by no means overpowering. The pepper, Worcestershire sauce and even the sour cream came through very well.

The rest of the ingredients, especially the potatoes and the rice, coupled with the abundance of meatballs, meant this was a very wholesome soup. The potatoes and carrots were a simple but effective, recognisable touch. The soup was a little oily on the surface. This was probably the decision to buy non-lean minced meat coming back to bite me on the arse. Or it may just have been the fact I neglected to skim the soup before serving. But it certainly didn't ruin the meal.

It was probably the worst kind of meal for the middle of the most consistently hot summer London has ever seen. But it was very enjoyable. I'm sure this would even more be the case during an Estonian winter.

Eritrea - Adulis

Restaurant:  Adulis

Location:  44-46 Brixton Road, London, SW9 6BT

Date of visit:  24 February 2018

Time of visit:  7.30pm

It was back in the hot summer of 2017 when we last visited an actual restaurant on this project - partially due to the countries between Egypt and Eritrea, and partially due to life getting in the way. But Eritrea was one I was looking forward to. I had no doubt we'd have a selection of restaurants to choose from. And I was planning to ask my Eritrean colleague for his favourite restaurant. That was going to be good enough for me.

There are indeed a handful of Eritrean restaurants around London, some specifically Eritrean in nature, and some more broadly offering food from the Horn of Africa. A quick search online shows that the small Adulis chain of restaurants comes up on top. They have three branches, all in South London. And my colleague quickly recommend the Oval branch, which he visits often. I wasn't going to look any further.

He gave me two pieces of advice. Order only one meal each, the bread is very filling. And don't try the wine.

I booked earlier in the week via their website for the coming Saturday evening at 7pm. Unfortunately we were hit by some delays on the journey across London, but a quick courtesy phone call to rearrange our reservation to 7.30pm was well received by the restaurant.

When we arrived, however, I'm not certain we were even down on the reservation book. Giving my name, and checking the book, lasted just a few seconds too long for it to start getting awkward. Rather than make a fuss, the man who greeted us let us proceed into the restaurant and to a table.

Straight away, the first thing you experience - and in large amounts - is the incredible smell. Of red meat and ground spices. A real earthy, grilled, roasted smell. It was more than inviting. If I could buy that in a spray... The restaurant was also really quite large in size, but still cosy. It was almost full, comfortably warm, and well decorated. The lighting was perfect. 

As soon as we were taken to the table, we were handed the menus which differed from the menu on their website only in price, and only ever so slightly. When a restaurant is as busy as this was, it can go two ways. Either the staff are so overworked that service is slow. Or, as they want to make tables available as soon as possible, service is particularly fast. I definitely got a sense of the latter. It wasn't distracting, or unpleasant. But it felt like a thing.

As such, only a few minutes later we were being attended to again, and being asked what we wanted to order. Just as well we had already checked the menu in-depth online!

Elle had a question about the platter for one (she originally wanted us to share a platter for two, but I really wanted one full main dish), regarding what variety of dishes made up the platter. The menu says "Assorted meat dishes selected by our Head Chef." Unfortunately the response from the waiter was no more informative. "It's beef and lamb". That cleared that up...

That's not to say the service was poor, it wasn't at all, but we were looking for just a little more than that! Regardless, Elle took the plunge and ordered the platter, and I went for the beef zighni - "spicy hot beef slowly cooked to blend with the rich combination of spices and chilli". It always makes me laugh when a waiter replies to such an order with "you know that's spicy?". It's funny because a) it says so on the menu, and b) that's exactly why I'm ordering it!

We both ordered our meals with injera, traditional Eritrean bread, rather than rice. To drink, we both ordered a bottle of the Eritrean lager "Asmara", which thankfully they had in stock.

At this point we got to enjoy the environs a little more. It really was a very pleasant restaurant to be in. A very vibrant, but hardly chaotic, atmosphere. Very authentic decor, with large illustrated walls, hanging wooden paintings and other wooden decorative items. Very warm, subtle lighting. During our visit, there was an elderly lady roasting what I believe were coffee beans in a tin pot. Eventually, she would do a lap of honour around the restaurant, with the pot of beans. Shaking the pot, thrusting the pot towards each table of diners for a few seconds with a large, proud smile on her face, before moving on to the next table. I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this was, but it was enjoyable to watch!

We only had to wait around 10 minutes before the food arrived. No beer yet, so we asked again for those. The waiter asked us if we were planning to share. Elle said yes. I got confused and said no. I don't do sharing. Then I looked at the huge plate in front of us and realised what he meant. The entire base of a large silver serving dish was covered with the injera, and Elle's meal was placed on one side of it. My meal was still in a bowl, and once I realised what was actually going on, he emptied the bowl onto the other side of the injera.

It was quite an awesome sight. If you didn't already know what it was, you'd have thought the waiter had just dumped a couple of curries on top of a soft towel! The injera was like nothing else I had ever seen, touched or tasted before. It was amazingly soft. Spongey soft. Like a huge, thick crumpet. But spongier. And softer.

There wasn't a knife, fork or spoon to be seen. The idea, as is traditional, is to rip off a piece of the injera and to use that to scoop up and eat the meat and sauce. This was going to get messy! What didn't help is that we were given no napkins, so we had to ask.

After the initial impressions of the injera mentioned above, the next surprise was that it was quite cold. I imagine this is the way it was supposed to be, but I expected it to be at least a little warm. In any case, we began to attempt this meal. The injera did a fairly good job at being an implement with which to eat, although as the main dishes - particularly mine - were quite saucy and greasy, the bread started to suffer. I wouldn't say it started to go soggy. It was just the tiniest degree away from soggy. I think "sodden" is a better word. The bread was very porous, allowing a whole lot of sauce and grease to become part of it. So it ended up quite sloppy.

But this was simply a practical issue. As for the food itself, my dish was rich, deep in flavour... earthy is the word that came to mind. The ground spices were deep, heavy in flavour, and added a lovely warm spice. After the warning I was given, the spiciness wasn't up with what I was expecting. But it was a decent, long-lasting warmth. There wasn't a huge amount of meat, but the chunks of beef that were present were melt in the mouth soft, not too fatty at all. Reminiscent of a South Asian beef curry, but with a bit more depth.

As for Elle's meal, we ran in to the problem which deterred me from going along with the platter. We didn't really know what it was! There were five, distinct selections of meat with sauce. One was definitely the same as my meal, beef zighni. There was a minced meat dish, a lamb and spinach dish (sigha tibsi ms hamli?), chicken in a yellow creamy sauce (dorho?) and beef and carrot. The five dishes were served side by side, and overall looked to be a slightly smaller portion than mine - but maybe more meat than sauce, unlike my dish. Generally each dish stood out and were all really enjoyable.

The lager, Asmara, was brewed in the Eritrean capital and imported by a British company. And I have to say, it was one of the best imported lagers I've had in quite a while. Real great flavour, very refreshing and quite distinctive. Definitely worth looking out for.

Overall, this was a really good experience. We can forgive the few lapses in attention to detail in the service, as everything else made up for it. The meal was satisfying. Not massively filling, and maybe a little pricey at £33 all in, including the drinks. But the quality was high.

I suppose the main complaint was that the whole experience lasted barely 55 minutes. Absolutely nobody's fault, as such. It's just unfortunate there wasn't really the option to stay a little longer and buy another drink. But I was aware that we were taking up a valuable table in a restaurant which was now almost completely full. And full for good reason.

Equatorial Guinea - home cooking

It took me a while to accept that this was going to happen. Firstly, that succotash was more than just a Looney Tunes reference. Secondly, that a dish popular in North America was the national dish of a West African nation.

Turns out, both are true. 

One thing that was fairly certain - there were no Equatorial Guinean restaurants in London. I did check to see if any London restaurants were offering succotash on their menus. To be honest, a couple were. My brief research flagged up a couple of seemingly high-end restaurants offering succotash as part of a starter. More like a succotash relish or accompaniment. And certainly more of a North American adaptation rather than African. So it was time to get back in the kitchen.

Quite how succotash became the national dish in Equatorial Guinea would likely be a complicated story. I admit I've tried to find some explanations online, and can only really come up with the likelihood that it was Spanish immigrants who brought the dish to these West African shores. Perhaps that's how the dish ended up in North America too. Anyway, I was cooking it now before someone could suggest it was just one big hoax and ruin this part of the project.

The dish is based around lima beans, corn and fresh herbs. I wasn't entire sure what lima beans were, and therefore how easy it was going to be to find some. So I was relieved to find that lima beans and butter beans are roughly one and the same. And my go-to supermarket stocked the latter. 

As for corn, I cut a corner here. The recipe I used mentioned fresh corn. Lots of it. The only corn I could find were fresh corn-on-the cobs. I couldn't even try and guess how many of those I would have needed to take a knife to in order to collect half a kilogram of fresh corn.

So I bought tins of sweetcorn. Go ahead and judge.

Preparation of the dish is largely simple, with a few intricacies which I'm sure actually make a big difference. Time wasn't really on my side this Sunday afternoon, and I'm not a fan of soaking beans for days on end either, so I flash soaked 400g of butter beans. By which I mean I boiled the beans for two minutes, removed from the heat, and left to soak for nearly one and a half hours. The beans were actually popping when boiling, which I guess was the beans suddenly expanding and popping out of the thick skin around the bean. This didn't have any negative side effect on the dish overall. It didn't get mushy.

I then drained and rinsed the beans, and boiled them again, this time with a clove of garlic, half an onion and some fresh thyme sprigs, for twenty minutes. Then I removed the onion and thyme (I couldn't find the garlic clove!), drained the beans but reserved 200ml of the liquid, and set the beans aside. 

The next part is optional. This would have been a vegetarian dish, were it not for the suggestion (non-traditional, I'd imagine) of adding crispy bacon to the dish. I was absolutely up for doing this. I fried three bacon rashers until very crispy, set these aside on some kitchen paper, and then fried a chopped sweet onion in the bacon fat. This is one of those small details which I think really added to the dish, and would have been missing completely had I decided not to use bacon at all. Which is a ridiculously obvious statement to make. What I mean is, aside from the bacon itself, frying the onion in the bacon fat added so much to the dish. Especially as sweet onion, by nature, isn't particularly flavoursome.

I then added around 500g of drained tinned sweetcorn and about 10 halved cherry tomatoes, followed by the cooked beans and the reserved cooking liquid.

At this point, as I could tell the beans were still a little hard - a side effect of the flash soaking, I imagine - I rapidly cooked the whole mixture. There was no risk of burning or dehydration as there was a good bit of liquid to play with. After about 10 minutes of that, I added a couple of tablespoons of butter, some chopped chives and dill and a tablespoon of red wine vinegar. Finally, a sprinkle of salt and pepper and the crisp bacon, crumbled. A good mix together, and the dish was good to serve.

I wrongly assumed that the dish would almost be like a soup, and had bought some bread as an accompaniment. It wasn't at all. It wasn't dry by any means, but there was certainly no excess liquid. In fact, it was perfect. Beans, vegetables and bacon in a luxurious but sparse buttery glazey gravy. That's the best way I can describe it.

Overall, it was a seriously enjoyable, very wholesome dish. The beans were still a little under-cooked in places - again, mostly due to technique (an overnight soak would get around this). Flavour wise, nothing really stood out too much over anything else. The butter was ever-present and very enjoyable. The bacon flavour was very much there, thanks to the bacon itself, but almost more so the fried sweet onions. The tomatoes and sweetcorn were almost refreshing - crisp, sweet and a lovely contrast to the mostly soft, carby beans.

This is a perfect, one-bowl complete meal which went down very well on this cold, winter night in London. Which is strange, as Equatorial Guinea isn't known for its cold winter nights. But I don't write the rules.

El Salvador - collection from chef

We've been doing this project for over eight years now. Yes, I know the fact we are still on the latter "E" is embarrassing. But that's not the point. For the last eight years we've either visited a restaurant (or small cafe) or cooked a traditional meal from the relevant country.

Never have I arranged on the internet to meet a female stranger in a London train station, to give money to in return for a bag of goods. Until now.

I didn't expect to find a restaurant for El Salvador in London. Although while I was searching for such a thing I did come across some evidence of a sizeable Salvadoran community in and around London. That's how I stumbled upon the Facebook page of Adelina. Some of her "Cuzcatlan" page on Facebook is in Spanish, and some in English. But what she offers is clear. Personal deliveries of Salvadoran cuisine on a regular basis.

This went against how this project has run in the past. There was no restaurant to visit. Which is when I usually find a recipe for the national dish - in this case "pupusas" - and make it myself. Why on earth would I do that when Adelina, a native of El Salvador, can do it properly?!

So I messaged her on Facebook, briefly explained why a Scotsman was asking her about her pupusas (this was the first time I had ever mentioned this blog to anyone who was about to serve me) and how I could arrange to collect some. By chance, she was already planning to carry out a few deliveries in London the following day. Her response to me was lengthy, including the different varieties of pupusas available, what it comes with, and the cost.

A pupusa, by the way, is a filled corn tortilla - stuffed with a savoury filling of one, some or all of a variety of meat, cheese and beans. All Adelina needed to know was what I wanted inside the pupusas. I ordered the minimum amount, 10 pupusas, all mixed - pork, cheese and beans - which came to £20. I also asked her how to cook them, store them and how long they could be kept for. She was very responsive to all my questions. We swapped numbers, and the deal was on.

The following day I arrived at Victoria Train Station at the arranged time of 5pm. To be perfectly honest, despite her clear instructions about where to find her, I wandered around aimlessly for 5 to 10 minutes! After calling me on the phone, she managed to direct me to where she was sitting. We greeted each other, she gave me a heavy, full carrier bag of food, and I gave her £20. We both sat down and chatted for ten minutes or so. I told her more about this blog and the project in general. She told me about her and family, her background, and the Salvadoran community in London. On departing, I promised her that I would send her the link to this review. I didn't tell her it would have been over four months before it was published (this all happened in September 2017 - sorry!).

The next evening I followed Adelina's instructions, by warming the pupusas in a frying pan for a few minutes on each side. Each pupusa was quite sizeable - I could only really warm two at a time, so once they had been warmed I put them in the oven to keep them warm whilst adding two more to the pan. Judging by the size, I decided Elle and I would have three each.

As the photo at the top of this review shows, the pupusas also came with two more things. A tangy tomato salsa, and curtido - a spicy, lightly-fermented cabbage relish/slaw. 

So, to the dinner table. The pupusas themselves were very satisfying. Probably more tortilla than filling. But the filling was fantastic. Small cubes of pork in a very wholesome refried beans mash, with a very distinctive toasted/roasted cheese flavour coming through. A very filling meal. Three pupusas was a struggle - mostly because of how heavy and filling they were, but also due to them being slightly greasy. But not unappealingly so.

The curtido was fantastic. Very unique. Some liken it to sauerkraut or kimchi, and I can see why. But this was different. It was so fresh, and the spicy kick to it was almost strange. It was as slight as it was punchy. Very much there, but not overpowering. Together with the very refreshing, flavoursome salsa and the filling pupusas made this a hugely enjoyable, authentic and very satisfying meal.

On telling people about this at work the following day, one of my colleagues went straight onto Facebook to order some for himself. I urge you to do the same at https://en-gb.facebook.com/cuzcatlan.co.uk/

UPDATE - November 2023:  As part of trying to find Guatemalan food, we actually ended going to a Salvadorian restaurant which didn't exist when we originally reached "El Salvador" in 2018. This restaurant served the national dish of Guatemala, but also served traditional Salvadorian pupusas. Even though we "ticked the box" with the review above, we couldn't pass the opportunity to finally experience Salvadorian food in a Salvadorian restaurant. Below is an except from that 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."

Egypt - Ahl Cairo

Restaurant:  Ahl Cairo

Location:  13 Bell Street, London, NW1 5BY

Date of visit:  16 June 2017

Time of visit:  8.15pm

Choosing an Egyptian restaurant in the middle of Ramadan, falling right in the middle of an exceptionally hot London summer, was either a really good idea or a really foolish idea. The fact that the restaurant is not operating business as usual meant that we wouldn't get to experience a "normal" day at the restaurant. Conversely, we would get to experience a "special" day at the restaurant.

We arrived at Ahl Cairo just over an hour before sunset on one of the hottest days of the year. We walked in to what essentially, at first look, appeared to be a takeaway with a few cafe-style tables. But we already knew that the main restaurant was downstairs. On asking if we could have a table for two, it became clear that there was no normal menu tonight. The waiter we spoke to did go to some length to rattle off a list of some of the things that he *could* do for us. He also, fairly reluctantly, invited us to partake in the post-sunset Ramadan feast early, which we later found was already sitting out, covered, waiting for the evening ahead.

We didn't commit to anything at this point, but took our seats downstairs and contemplated the Ramadan menu. But it didn't seem the right thing to do, plus I already my heart set on a dinner of kochari.

Other than the two of us, and a handful of staff, the restaurant was empty. As we discussed our ordering options, a few bowls and plates were brought to the table. 

A bowl of watery salsa with tomato, onion and coriander, a bowl of lemon and lime, a bowl of pickled olives, courgette, chillies, a bowl of mint sauce, a small pot of chilli sauce and a small plate of mixed fried vegetables.

When the waiter came to the table to see what we had decided, we asked him to remind us of a few of the dishes he suggested when we arrived. One of those was indeed kochari, which I went for. Elle decided to go for the Egyptian fattah. We were also encouraged to go for a couple of soups to start. With no alcohol on the menu, we both opted for a couple of cans of Diet Coke.

The service was attentive but direct. Not unfriendly, but very much sharp and to the point. But the guys in the restaurant were very busy preparing for the night ahead, setting all the other tables. I could imagine this place was going to get very busy very quickly. So I was quite keen to be done and out before sunset.

The restaurant was still empty. We spent a few minutes taking in some kind of soap opera or drama on the Arabic TV channel MBC. There was no music in the restaurant, only the audio from the TV.

The soups arrived fairly quickly. Elle had a pasta soup, which was thick - like a pea soup - with a generous amount of noodles. I had what was supposed to be lentil soup, but it was more like garlic, onion and rice soup. Both were decent. They looked quite appetising too, but you'll never know that as I forgot to take a photo.

Shortly after we finished the soups, the mains arrived.

My koachari looked exactly as I had expected and hoped. It was essentially a big bowl of rice, loads of tiny macaroni pieces, chick peas, caramelised onions and spicy tomato sauce. On its own, with all the carbs, it was a very dry, not massively flavoursome meal. That's where all the other bowls that we were first given came in! With the extra vegetables and sauces added, it really made the meal. Very wholesome and very filling.

Elle's fattah was another layered combination - a base of thin bread pieces topped with rice and two very large pieces of lamb, with garlicy spicy tomato sauce. One piece of the lamb was very soft and substantial, but the other piece was very fatty indeed. Again, with the additional veg and sauces, this was just as wholesome and filling as the kochari.

On asking for the bill, we were sent upstairs to pay at the till. Overall it came to £22, which is very decent for a substantial two-course feast.

As we left, we saw that the restaurant had taken on a delivery of a huge array of Middle Eastern sweets, laid out in dozens of covered trays. I can only imagine how very different the restaurant was going to be in a few hours time.

Ecuador - El Inca Plebeyo

Restaurant:  El Inca Plebeyo

Location:  162 Essex Road, London, N1 8LY

Date of visit:  7 May 2017

Time of visit:  8pm

London has a handful of establishments that are Ecuadorian, or specialise in Ecuadorian cuisine. A stumbling block I came across with this country was the cuisine itself. Most of the restaurants seemed to specialise solely on ceviche dishes. Raw fish dishes. Most of the other non-ceviche dishes weren't particularly Ecuadorian, but more general South American in style.

But there was one establishment that stood out. El Inca Plebeyo in North London offered an horndo. An Ecuadorian roast dinner. There was absolutely no reason not to do this.

A couple of weeks before our visit I emailed the restaurant for clarification on the hornado. Their menu online stated that it was available at weekends only. I knew the answer to this question already, but I thought it was worth asking if this included Friday nights. And generally, as it was a special dish and quite pricey, I wondered if we had to order it in advance. Unfortunately, I didn't get a response to my email.

We went ahead with the visit anyway. Earlier in the day I reserved a table for two using Quandoo. We actually ended up arriving 15 minutes earlier than the time we booked.

Which was fine, as went entered to find a restaurant completely bereft of customers. As such, we were greeted straight away by the waitress. She asked if we were Taste Card customers, which we weren't. But she then confirmed my name from the booking I had made hours earlier, so at least that worked.

We took our pick of the tables, and the waitress brought the menus over immediately and ran us through a small list of the items on the menu that were not available. This was actually really appreciated. I can't remember ever having that before, but it makes ordering from the menu a whole lot easier for all involved!

We already knew what we were going for, but we still took time to look through the menu which had a great selection of Ecuadorian ceviche dishes, South American meat dishes and traditional sides. As we looked through the menu, we were offered a warm bowl of freshly cooked vegetarian sweet potato and plantain chips with large baked corn kernels.

We ordered fairly quickly - two hornados, and two bottles of Quilmes (Argentinian lager).

As we sat enjoying the snacks and the beer, one by one people started to come into the restaurant. Some for takeaway, some staying. Upbeat Ecuadorian music was playing throughout the visit.

The food came in good time. My very first impression was that the plates quite a little on the small side - just a little smaller than a normal dinner plate. But what a bloody plate it was - literally piled up with so much goodness!

You don't really get a sense of it from the picture, but buried under all that you can see is a mountain of pulled pork. So much meat. The pork itself wasn't seasoned or mixed in with any kind of sauce, but it was hugely tasty and very tender. Seriously substantial. There was one plantain on the dish, cooked to perfection. Rich, sweet, almost caramelised. But nice and firm, not by any means sloppy or greasy. Exactly how it should be.

The menu described it as "potato dumplings", but essential the plate contained two good scoops of mash potato. There were massive, dense corn kernels - similar to those that were served dried in the complimentary bowl when we arrived.

I have a love-hate relationship with pork crackling/scratchings. But this was, I think, the first time I had ever tried it fresh, in a restaurant. It was really tasty, and very easy to eat. I managed to eat quite a bit of it before the reality of what I was eating hit me, as it always seems to do!

Finally, to top off the plate, the green sauce - no idea what that was, but it was very fresh, very herby and really quite spicy. Not a drop of gravy to be found, but the green sauce was a nice alternative, serving a very different purpose. And it was all topped with some kind of shredded pickled onion.

It was a Sunday roast unlike any I'd ever had. And at £18 it was also one of the priciest. But it was unique, and exactly why this restaurant project exists. It's clear that many Ecuadorians eat very well on Sundays!

East Timor - home cooking

East Timor is one of the newest countries that we can expect to encounter during this project, as it gained independence from Indonesia in 2002. (Although God only knows how many new countries will be formed by the time we actually finish the whole thing!). And it was fairly clear quite quickly that I wasn't going to find a restaurant in London serving food from this country specifically.

I opted for a recipe that I found in various places: a lamb and tamarind stew. The dish was an East Timorese twist on a traditional Portuguese dish, usually with fish instead of chicken. East Timor is a former colony of Portugal.

This looked like a fairly simple dish to make, with the majority of the cooking time set aside for the lamb itself, to ensure maximum flavour and tenderness. Like any other stew, really.

Rather than use a block of tamarind to create a paste, I skipped this part and just bought tamarind paste. There was also an option of adding lambs liver and tripe. I opted not to.

I started with about 600g of cubed lamb shoulder and browned this on a high heat, then removed and set aside. In the same pan I then fried two chopped onions for a few minutes until it started to soften, added 3 crushed garlic cloves, some chopped fresh ginger, three sliced lemongrass stalks, 6 chopped red chillies and some turmeric powder and cooked this all together for another couple of minutes. Already the kitchen filled with a fantastic aroma!

This is where the meat was returned to the pot and topped with around 650ml of water mixed with a substantial amount of tamarind paste. Once simmering, the pot was covered, heat reduced to low, and this was left to simmer away for two hours. 

I didn't need to top up the water at any point, and once two hours had passed I removed the lid, turned the heat up to medium and boiled off some of the excess water in the sauce. I then seasoned the pot with some salt and pepper, and finally stirred in some chopped fresh mint.

This looked and smelled amazing. The sauce looked really rich and the consistency was perfect.  It was served up with boiled rice.

The result? A seriously tasty meal. The sweetness of the sauce from the tamarind paste was so good! The lamb was gorgeously tender. The addition of fresh mint at the end really set this meal off, and worked so well with the tamarind. Overall, despite there being a good number of chillies in this meal, the spice was ever-present but nowhere near overpowering. It has to be said the lemongrass ended up being quite chewy and a little too abundant. It made difficult eating at times, but overall this was a seriously enjoyable meal.

Dominican Republic - La Tropical

Restaurant:  La Tropical

Location:  85 West Green Road, London, N15 5DA

Date of visit:  5 March 2017

Time of visit:  6pm

This is one we were looking forward to. Elle and I have visited the Dominican Republic twice. Once in 2005, and again ten years later. Neither of us would profess to have sampled a large amount of traditional Dominican food, as most of our time on both trips was spent within the grounds of a gigantic multinational hotel complex. Still, we spent a lot of time with the local people, listening to the music, and getting a feel - as best we could - for what life was like in the Dominican Republic.

As it happens, this restaurant was just a minute away from a previous restaurant on our quest - The Bash - which we visited for Cameroon. We headed to La Tropical on a rainy Sunday evening. As it seemed a bit more like a cafe in nature, I didn't feel the need to book ahead. Which was warranted when we arrived to find only a few tables occupied.

The table tops were clear. No menus. No cutlery or condiments. There was no greeting when we arrived, but we made our way to a table and Elle approached the counter to ask for some menus. She was greeted by a reaction which is quite a common occurrence for us on this project. An air of confusion. Almost like the restaurant worker was expecting to be asked for directions to the nearest pub, or if we could use their toilet. Certainly not "Could we please have a couple of menus". The primary purpose of this establishment was obviously for Dominican expats! 

Of which there is clearly a sizeable amount in this part of London, given the number of people who came and went, and almost everyone seemed to know everyone else well! 

I haven't mentioned the first thing that hit us as soon as we walked in. The music. Loud Dominican vibes. For some, this might have been off-putting. For me, it was what I was hoping for.

The menus came to our table and we inspected the selection of starters and mains. The menu, like the restaurant in general, was on the whole generally Caribbean in nature, but with a particular focus on the Dominican Republic. This latter point is validated by the several national flags dotted around the restaurant, and slogans on their Facebook page (La Tropical does not have a website).

The menu selection was fairly vast, with a large number of the mains taken up by various different meat, rice and beans dishes. Strangely, a large number of those were in a section described as "starters and mains" although only one price was quoted.

Elle and I decided to go two dishes in a different "Meals" section anyway. Elle opted for the "pica pollo" - four pieces of fried chicken with plantain and salad. I absolutely could not resist the "yaroa de papa y pollo". That's chips topped with fried chicken and cheese. A ridiculously unhealthy Dominican speciality.

For drinks - which weren't on the menu - I was really hoping for a bottle of Presidente, a lager that sustained me on both holidays to the country. Unfortunately, they only had pretty much what the off-licence next door sold. Two bottles of Heineken it was then.

It was interesting to watch the comings and goings in the restaurant, and to listen to the music as we waited. My eyes were often drawn to the Dutch football on a Portuguese TV channel in the corner. As we waited, a waitress - who continued to serve us for the rest of the visit - brought us a small dish of sun-dried tomato stuffed olives. I love olives these days, and these were really good. Elle's mind still isn't made up on olives generally, but she also managed a good few with no problem!

We didn't have to wait too long at all for the mains to come out. They brought out Elle's fried chicken first, and it seemed that they weren't going to bring out the second dish until we had finished the first. Which then made us question whether they thought we were sharing both dishes, or had ordered one as a starter after all. Either way, we decided we'd split both meals anyway. This was a fantastic idea, for reasons you'll discover shortly.

The chicken was really very well fried. Not quite overcooked, but there was certainly no risk of it being undercooked. But this also meant that the spicy coating was really nice and crispy, and really quite tasty. Really nice big portions of chicken thigh, rib and leg which had loads of meat. Despite being deep fried, the chicken pieces weren't greasy at all. Really quite dry, but not in a bad way. The same goes for the plantain, which in the past has often been sloppy and greasy elsewhere. Not in this case. Consistency was fantastic. Cooked perfectly, and very enjoyable. Not very sweet, which - with the consistency - made me question if it was actually potato. It wasn't.

Just look at that. That is a plate piled with chips and fried chicken, topped with melted cheese, tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. A beautiful beautiful horrifically unhealthy beautiful thing. It's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to be able to get from a chippy back home on the west coast of Scotland. And it was exactly as you would expect it to be. I don't really know what else to say about it! It was a beautiful thing. If anything, the coating on the chicken seemed to disappear underneath the bed of melted cheese, but it was still there somewhere. Lots of a lovely pieces of chicken breast. And lots of lovely chips and lovely melted cheese. A beautiful beautiful thing. I would have had absolutely no hope of finishing this on my own. Just as well Elle and I split the dishes between us!

It's fair to say we were absolutely stuffed after this meal. Just after we had asked the original gentlemen who served us for the bill, the waitress was walking around with a large bottle stuffed with herbs and liquid. I can only imagine it was mama juana, which we had tried often in the past when in the country. She poured us a couple of shot glasses of this liquor. Minutes later, we felt it. Strongly! We suddenly felt quite merry. And very very chilled. At this point we started to question exactly what herbs were in this stuff! Absolutely not complaining though, especially as it appeared this was a freebie.

That was a really nice touch. And that coupled with the buzz, the music, the vibrant atmosphere, and how relaxed we were feeling, made me realise that this was starting to feel quite similar to the experience during our famous Angolan restaurant visit in Stratford, still the absolute finest experience we've had on this project. Not quite as good, but it felt similar.

We did have to ask for the bill again. And were pleasantly surprised when it came. Two good substantial meals and two bottles of beer for £20! Plus two free shots, and a complementary plate of olives. 

I had high hopes for this visit. While I won't be telling the story for years to come (like I will about the Angolan restaurant), this really didn't disappoint. A great visit.