Author: jamesclay

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Pistachio Danish

Pistachio Danish

One of the things I like about getting a Too Good To Go (TGTG) bag is trying out new places which isn’t going to break the bank. New places open all the time, and sometimes you think, should I try it out, or should I go to my usual haunts. For me the TGTG bag gives me a way to try out their food and not spend loads of money. 

For instance I got a TGTG bag from DoubleShot Coffee – Barbers in Bristol. This is an independent, well I want to write cafe, but they also cut hair. 

My TGTG bag was valued at £9.00 and cost £2.99.

In my bag I got

Two pistachio danish pastries
A maple pecan danish pastry
A croissant

By my reckoning that was worth £9.

Have to say the pistachio danish was rather tasty.

I will certainly try and get future bags from them, but I think I might also visit them for a coffee another time (probably won’t get a haircut though).

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Tres Tacos from Tortilla

tortilla

I have to say I am a bit of a fan of the tacos from Tortilla, and is one of my go to places for a light lunch. They make a nice fresh and tasty, but light meal. This time I tried out the branch of Tortilla at Cabot Circus. I had three chicken tacos with all the trimmings and added guacamole as an extra.

Tres Tacos from Tortilla

What I like about the food, is it tastes very fresh, true the chicken has been around for a while, but combined with the fresh salad, salsa, and toppings, they are delicious. Can be a bit messy to eat, so I usually use a fork, but in theory you can eat them by hand.  Really enjoyed these tacos and they made a nice lunch.

I do wonder why places charge extra for guacamole, and in the case of Tortilla they also charge extra for hot cheese sauce. Can make a cheaper deal a little more pricey.

One time I will get a burrito from Tortilla and see how that is.

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Pistachio laskiaispulla

Pistachio laskiaispulla

I had seen the delicious laskiaispulla on display at Gateau Kamppi in Helsinki quite a few times as I walked from my hotel to the Metro station.  I decided I would go against tradition have try to the pistachio laskiaispulla. This was a sweet bread roll, the top removed and a sweet pistachio paste added, fresh cream and chopped pistachio on top. It was rather nice, fresh roll, tasty pistachio, the sweetness offset with the fresh cream. Delicious.

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Slow Cooked Rolled Pork Belly Porchetta

One of the nice things about cooking at Christmas is the range of different products that are on offer. Sometimes it’s a pity that they are only available for that week before Christmas. I have been meaning to write this post for a while, and now it’s February.

I picked up this Slow Cooked Rolled Pork Belly Porchetta at Aldi as part of their Christmas range. Originally priced at £19.99 it was quickly reduced down to £9.99, which I thought was good value for money.

I never cooked it for Christmas dinner, but later in January I did get around to eating it.

I am never quite site whether I like these kinds of slow cooked meats, there are lots of different kinds out there now, and I have noticed over the years that there have been a lot more around Christmas time. One year I accidentally bought a slow cooked turkey, but though apprehensive, it was in fact pretty good. So, for the pork I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but I didn’t think it would be awful. 

One of the advantages of these slow cooked roasts is they are quite quick to cook. I followed the instructions to ensure some crispy crackling.

The pork was quite tasty, it was very tender, and the crackling was nice and crispy. I served it with roast potatoes and vegetables.

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Tempura Prawns in a Lobster Sauce

One of the hotels I stay at in London is the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. I was there in January staying just the one night. The last time I had been there was in May 2024. Since I was last there, they had done a load of refurbishment. There was a new larger reception area, and the rooms had been refreshed.

The food menu though was very similar. For my main I went with a pizza with buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil which I have reviewed here. For a small plate alongside I went with the tempura prawns in a lobster sauce. Now this sounded like a real treat.

Tempura Prawns in a Lobster Sauce

Alas it wasn’t.

The prawns were terrible and the so-called lobster sauce was horrible. The prawns did have a crispy batter, but it was quite greasy. The sauce did not have any flavour of lobster and tasted like tomato puree.

I did not enjoy the dish and did not finish it. 

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itsu Chicken Ramen

I hadn’t anticipated making a ramen, but I had popped to Waitrose to, essentially get some bread, but had a browse and in their stir fry meal deal they had itsu Chicken Gyoza Dumplings,  itsu Chicken Ramen Brilliant Broth, and itsu Restaurant Ramen Original Noodles.

I decided I would have ramen for tea.

So, what I did was first chargrill the chicken in a frying pan and kept this warm to one side. I stir fried some vegetables in the pan I had cooked the chicken. After they were cooked, I did some mushrooms.

While this was cooking I cooked the noodles in boiling water. The gyoza dumplings were heated up in the microwave. I also heated up the itsu Chicken Ramen Brilliant Broth in another pan.

In a large bowl, I placed the cooked noodles, the vegetables, and the chicken gyoza dumplings. I added the itsu Chicken Ramen Brilliant Broth, before topping with sliced chargrilled chicken. I garnished the dish with the cooked mushrooms and a boiled egg.

I was really pleased with the end result. So much so, that I did a version with a roasted duck breast.

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Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza

Buffalo Mozzarella Pizza

One of the hotels I stay at in London is the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. I was there in January staying just the one night. The last time I had been there was in May 2024. Since I was last there, they had done a load of refurbishment. There was a new larger reception area, and the rooms had been refreshed.

The food menu though was very similar. I went with a pizza with buffalo mozzarella, tomato and basil.

I usually avoid pizza in hotels as they usually use pre-cooked bases, or even prepared pizza. I remember once having a pizza at the Doubletree Hilton and being very unimpressed with that pizza. 

What I like about the Drayton Court Hotel, it has a proper pizza oven and use proper pizza bases.

This was a delicious fresh pizza. The addition of the fresh tomatoes was something I wasn’t expecting. 

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Wagamama in the heart of the city

I do like the food at Wagamama, though I like trying new things, I also like having what I had before. On a recent visit to Wagamama in the City of London,  I went with two dishes I had before. For my starter I went with the crispy otsumami. 

This is six squares of crispy fried rice soaked in a soy + yuzu dressing, topped with pulled shiitake mushroom, smashed avocado + edamame and sriracha mayo, garnished with coriander cress.

I had these before when I went to Wagamama in Basildon. I did think this time they were even better. They are tasty morsels of yum! I like the different textures and the flavours combine to create an extravaganza of different tastes within your mouth.

 For my main I went with the silken tofu gochujang rice bowl. I had this before in Ealing in 2023. This is silken tofu in a spicy gochujang glaze on a bed of sticky white rice, bok choi, pickled cucumber, snow onion slaw, red and spring onion, red chilli, sesame seeds.

I like the contrast between hot and cold ingredients in this bowl. There are a diverse range of complementary flavours within the bowl. Overall a tasty dish.

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Dirty Fries

food stall

One of the regular stalls at the Bristol Street Food scene is Big Nath’s BBQ. I haven’t had food from them before, in the main as their menu consists of rolls filled with BBQ meat, brisket or pulled pork. I think if they did a BBQ box then I probably would have tried them out. I usually avoid what I would call sandwich meals, as I generally don’t do sandwiches, and burgers are a kind of sandwich, well I think they are.

However this time, while I was at the Finale Reach street food market, I thought I would give it a go, and I went for the dirty fries.

These are fries with mac and cheese, pulled pork, BBQ sauce, pickles and mustard.

They do a regular size and a large, having seen them produce a large portion, I went with the regular size (which is still huge).

It looked great. It was very tasty, never sure about pasta and fries in a single dish, but this is an American thing, and this was a very American plate of food. There were some tasty seasoned fries, the aforementioned mac and cheese, tender and delicious pulled pork, with a really nice BBQ sauce. I liked the addition of the mustard and pickles as well. Overall a really fun and delicious box of food, also very filling.

Now the only thing that I would say is that I thought there would be some brisket on there as well, as the chalk board said “yes, it has everything on it”. Well there was no brisket, but not to worry, the fries were still delicious.

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Time for Wagamama in Basildon

I was on my way to East Anglia and was staying over in Festival Leisure Park in Basildon at the Travelodge.

Across the retail park are various places to eat. I did walk around looking at various outlets, thinking about what I wanted. In the end I went to Wagamama with the plan that I wouldn’t have what I usually have at Wagamama. For a starter (or is it a side) I had the pulled shiitake crispy otsumami. 

This is six squares of crispy fried rice soaked in a soy + yuzu dressing, topped with smashed avocado + edamame and sriracha mayo, garnished with coriander cress.

These were really interesting and tasty. They were also very pretty. They were quite an intense flavour, but I liked them.

For my main course I went with the (new) crispy chicken sambal fry.

Described as lightly battered chicken coated in garlic + red pepper powder, mild tomato sambal, vibrant pickled slaw. coconut rice. chilled turmeric-stained egg, amai sauce on the side.

I wasn’t as impressed with this dish as I thought I would be. The chicken was disappointing, and I didn’t really like the mild tomato sambal sauce. I enjoyed the plate of food, but I wasn’t blown away by it. Think I should have had my usual mushroom yaki soba.