Alquimia, Putney

Putney isn't exactly known as a foodie hotspot so when I saw a review of Alquimia in Putney from How Not To Do A Food Blog pop up on my Google Reader I was intrigued; especially as Putney's best (possibly only?) tapas restaurant La Mancha is now moving to Chiswick. I went along with Hannah and E on Sunday with no real preconceptions other than that I was hoping for a really lush tortilla. You see, I heart tortilla with all my, well, heart.

My first sense was one of relief as the restaurant wasn't empty. I am actually quite phobic of empty restaurants but as the last of the three of us to arrive I wouldn't have had much of a say in the matter over leaving anyway! There were a couple of tables finishing up as we went in and by the time we left the place had filled up with a mixture of couples and families, standard Putney really. Though, that is pretty much standard the world over, so a pretty unremarkable observation.

BOOM. Olives, bread and olive oil on the table along with automatically brought to the table tap water. Really lush bread actually though unfortunately no idea what it was. I would guess, but my brain has gone totally blank on Spanish breads.. Other than churros. Which are definitely not bread. But also lush. Though totally irrelevant. Sh, Katie.

One friend was on a bit of a budget so Hannah and I decided to order together:

Unsurprisingly, first shout was tortilla (£6.50). This was gorgeous and light and fluffy and potatoey and eggy and all you could want in a tortilla. It came with bravas sauce and ali-oli i.e. win-win. I'll be honest, thought I was going to get a whole one but I am super, super greedy.

Ham, chorizo, salchichón and lomo - though don't think or know whether this is the right order......

This was such a gorgeous spread of cured pork. Special shout out to the rolled ham on the right, Jesus Christ it literally melted in the mouth. This was £12 but a really generous portion and especially so when only two of you are eating it!!!

This was on the menu as a salad of duck and warm beetroot (£8.20) , which also came with orange and possibly grapefruit segments and dressed leaves. I really thought this was lovely, not something I would normally think of as Spanish but hell, if they say it is, who am I to disagree and it was really gorgeous. Duck is definitely my favourite meat, so I'm pretty fussy about it, and this was a beautifully put together plate and I would have happily eaten the whole thing :)

 Now, I don't eat fish (UGH) unless in smoked form or in pate or in fishcakes or fishfingers (do they count?) but I do like the odd bit of seafood. I refused Hannah's initial suggestion of octopus because its rank so we settled on the tapas staple of gambas with garlic oil (£7.80) . I TOTALLY freaked out when I saw they were still in insect form to the point that when I pulled the head off I was terrified by all the blood until it was pointed out to me by Hannah that this was tomato oil so I felt a bit stupid. Though she kept saying Grazia instead of gracias so I feel we are kind of equal. I would have liked more of a garlic hit with these but I'm overwhelmingly partial to garlic so that is probably just me! 

 Think I must have had prawn on my lense.... These were the little goodbyes they left with our meals. Apple chunks with lemon juice and mint and some very powdery chocolate truffles! Really lovely touch.

I ended up paying about £20 for my half of these dishes and a coke including service. Really lovely service by the way, the touches with the olives and bread and these mini desserts and friendly staff made me not even consider to quibble the tip.  It's not somewhere I would go every day because I can't afford £20 lunches  sans alcohol every day but I think it is a fantastic restaurant and is a great addition to the gastronomic wasteland of chain restaurants that is Putney. (Enoteca Turi on the High St is excellent btw but mentally expensive)

A Wong - A Journey Through China

Right, I am no expert when it comes to Chinese food. Ever since I realised there was an alternative to the MSG neon food you get in a lot of places I have been fascinated. I have always been entranced by the bright red ducks hanging in the windows of the Chinese restaurants in Bayswater though have always been a bit wary of picking one and being disappointed as there is such a huge spectrum of varying quality in the Chinese food scene in London.

I had heard a lot recently about A Wong on Wilton Road in Victoria so decided to give it a go. I turned up with a good friend, a 6pm reservation and a truly atrocious hangover, I was hoping for something spicy and some dim sum and then heading off. What ended up happening was we went for the £38 eight course tasting menu and didn't end up leaving until 3 hours later. Consequentially, not having been prepared for this marathon meal, my phone battery died, so the pictures are minimal and crap.

The staff were very sweet they introduced the tasting menu explaining that the chef (Andrew Wong, LSE and Oxford student who gave up his economics headed career to take over his late father's restaurant) had been on a journey round China and had brought back what he felt were the highlights of the different provinces. I'll be honest, I can't really remember everything I was told so this is a slighty hazy overview

Step 1 Hong Kong. Three different, very decently sized, dim sum.... one, was filled with pork and prawn, with a little pork cracker on top, one had a vegetarian tapioca on top, and one had a citrus foam on it..... I can't be much more specific than that because I was so hungry I gobbled them down practically before the waitress had said what they were.


Next stop was.... I'm not actually sure where the inspiration was from but it was a tea smoked egg with fried strips of tofu, they almost looked like vermicelli noodles, the idea being it was like an egg sitting in its nest. There was incense brought over at the same time which played havoc with my hangover and I found a bit overpowering. We also had a slight problem as my friend doesn't eat runny yolk (her loss, I know) so we tried to remove it using chopsticks and a spoon which resulting in our egg going splat on the table Humpty Dumpty style, so I can't really comment on the egg..... the tofu was lovely and crispy and salty though.

Then it was the province best know for its vegetables so we had a mixed bowl of Chinese vegetables. This came with a shrimp butter and lots of tiny weeny little shrimps (I know shrimps are tiny weeny but they were still cute). There were some crispy, perhaps dehydrated and then dried circles of a vegetable which neither of us had any idea what it was but they provided a nice contrast in texture.

 Next was the "fish course" which was 'poached Scottish razor clam with sea cucumber, pickled cucumber, vinegar tapioca and wind dried sausage'. For someone who doesn't really like seafood that much I really enjoyed this, and we were encouraged to swallow it in one (??!?!?! don't think those were there exact words) by tipping into our gobs with the shell. Photos stop here (I know right, gutting, they are so lovely and clear) because my phone died.


 Sichuan was next with gong boa chicken with peanuts and rice which I was pretty nonplussed by.  Was really hoping for big numbing chilli from the Sichaun peppers but I didn't really get any. Then was possibly my favourite course with beef in oyster sauce and big fat Chinese mushrooms. I get a little confused here though because there was spicy lovely aubergines served with the beef I think, but it was spicy so I'm wondering if maybe it was the chicken........ Regardless the beef was gorgeous. Honestly think it might well have been the nicest beef I've ever had. Then came Beijing with pineapple and chilli and a typically Beijing yoghurt, nice little touch was a little paper cover for the yoghurt with what I'm guessing was a pretend brand. Basically there was a little logo and lots of Chinese characters. Loved the pineapple and chilli but the yoghurt at this point in proceedings left me very stuffed! Lastly was a lychee granite with a sugar sphere which had a soft meringue and mango puree inside. By this point, I'll be honest, I was just waiting to finish but this was a lovely cooling cleansing finish to the meal. This was from a province beginning with F.

And there ended our journey through China!

Thanks for sticking with me through what is possibly the most un-informed write up of a meal I have ever read. Next time I will try harder but I was so overwhelmed what with the hangover and the surprise decision of ours to have a tasting menu that I wasn't really prepared for the onslaught of information!!!!!!!!!

Bearing in mind that to go to one of the new modern Chinese restaurants in London such as HKK, the latest Hakkasan outpost, or at 'Demon Chef' Alvin Leung's Bo you are looking at £48 (only offered at lunch, otherwise its 15 courses for £95) or £98 for ten (no sex on the beach edible condom at A Wong though....) for the tasting menu, I think that a restaurant like this showing these ingredients and attempting to start to educate the dining public on the differences between Chinese regional cuisine and for 8 (very decently sized) courses for £38 is damn good value. I had a fantastic evening with a good friend of mine and the service was swift, friendly and knowledgeable. I'm sure there are better restaurants, there always are, but I loved it and as I waddled off to Victoria I knew I would definitely be going back.

Salad Dressing

In my afformative teenage years, I, along with my friend Jess, was always given the job of making the salad dressing whenever a big group of us were cooking at someone's house or went away on holiday together. This mainly stems from an attempt Jess and I made while we were all away at a cottage in North Devon to make supper. This was such an unmitigated disaster that I can't even remember what we were trying to make, all I can really remember is that we were both absolutely plastered and were finding ourselves incredibly funny while everyone was just getting pissed off and hungry. That was really a roundabout way of saying that the dressing with my friends and family is always given to the person who doesn't know the first thing about food/flavour/cooking as you can't really go that wrong with oil and vinegar. While yes, I was/am not a great cook, I still took this as a bit of a slight and consequentially now am slightly obsessed with salad dressings.

Surprise, surprise, my favourite dressing is the one that my Grandma always has in her fridge. She has absolutely no idea what goes in it as it is "just a little bit of everything, dear".  Bearing in mind my gran also has a jar of béarnaise sauce in her fridge that she regularly uses and has had since 2010, the ingredient list for her dressing really could be anything. From what I can discern though it is olive oil (obvs), white wine vinegar, garlic, celery salt and sugar, though there is far, far more in it.

To go with the leg of lamb last weekend for Easter I made a dressed aubergine salad of sorts? Is a salad a salad if  there is only one main thing in it????  I roasted some strips of aubergine with sea salt and olive oil just until they started to roll up and brown slightly and then while still warm added them to a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, chopped red chilli and chopped garlic. IT WAS LUSH. So lush in fact that I ate it all before the lamb was ready which wasn't really the plan but oh well, sh*t happens.

To my knowledge Jess' hasn't progressed much further than our initial failures at cooking, I remember at uni she just used to eat tortillas washed down with instant mochas, but I am starting to feel that I am getting little by little slightly further away from being the one who gets lumped with the dressing.

Looks a bit like some burnt slugs have ended up in a bowl but they were lush. Oh and shoot me, it was bottled lemon juice, I wasn't going to start faffing around in the snow to find lemons.