This has become of my favourite Charlie Bigham ready meals. The chicken is in a tomato sauce with peppers and chorizo. The roasted potatoes have a patatas bravas feel to them. I usually heat the potatoes out of the wooden tray on a foiled baking tray which aids them crisping up.
Unlimited Tapas
Down in Ealing there is a branch of Las Iguanas. It took over the site occupied by Bills four years ago. I remember been saddened, as I had some excellent food from Bills, and my experience with Las Iguanas (in Birmingham) was somewhat disappointing. Though I have eaten many times in Ealing, I had never got around to visiting Las Iguanas. The main reason for this is that there are plenty of other choices in the area.
Looking for somewhere to eat, in the end we went to Las Iguanas as they had an unlimited tapas deal for £17 each. Having seen the adverts for this offer, I have been meaning to try it for a while. We did think it might be a bit sketchy, but for £17, it sounded like good value for money.
Save you reading to the end of the blog post, we had a lovely meal and enjoyed ourselves.
You have to pre-book, which to be honest, we did outside on the app and then walked in. It was a quiet Tuesday so it wasn’t busy, and we were offered a table by the window. We were given a menu, but mentioned we were here for the unlimited tapas deal, so we were given the menu for that.
There are 13 choices on the menu, well there are really only 12 as the tacos have a £5 supplement. There is a nice mix of dishes including salads. Alongside you can purchase additional sides such as fries, mac & cheese, and different kinds of salad.
You can’t just order everything all at once, they place a limit. We could only order three dishes (per two people), and we could only order food for 90 minutes.
Out first order was for the loaded nachos with fresh guacamole, fresh salsa, cheese, jalapeños, spring onions, pickled red onions, chipotle cheese sauce, sour cream, a portion of popcorn squid with garlic aioli, and some buttermilk fried chicken with agave aioli.
The nachos were nicely loaded, though some of the nacho chips were soft and chewy, the rest of the plate was delicious.
The popcorn squid was interesting, similar to popcorn chicken, these were small portions of squid covered in a crispy batter. They were interesting, but tasty. The buttermilk chicken was a portion of fried buttermilk chicken sliced and served with the agave aioli.
After finishing off those dish we ordered three more plates of food. We had calamares with garlic aioli, some hot honey fried halloumi with chilli flakes, and a plate of patatas bravas, fried potatoes, chipotle sauce and garlic aioli.
The calamares were excellent, crunchy on the outside, tender and soft in the inside. I really liked the hot honey fried halloumi which were salty and sweet, but not too squeaky. The patatas bravas was very tasty, a nice spicy sauce offset by the aioli.
Our final order of food was some hot honey chicken wings, the roasted red pepper salad fresh red pepper salsa, cherry tomatoes, rocket, pumpkin seeds and pineapple dressing.
These were excellent chicken wings, moist and tender and full of flavour. I have found with other places chicken wings can be somewhat dried and overcooked, these were really nice, and I was impressed. The salad was lovely and refreshing and the fresh red pepper salsa had a real zing to it.
We also had some extra portions of the hot honey fried halloumi and the calamares.
Overall the food was good, much better than my previous experience of Las Iguanas. I could not fault the service which was excellent.
Another new Bento Box
It was a Friday in Bristol, wanting lunch I headed off to Finzel Reach street food market.
I went to She Sells Streetfood and went with a bento box and went with the same choice I had last time I was there. This was the Beef Donburi and the Katsu Fries.
The beef donburi was delicious as always. It’s a fantastic dish with flavourful tender beef in a teriyaki sauce, not overpowering served on rice with pickles, cucumber salad and spring onion garnish.
The Katsu fries are dressed with katsu sauce and furikake seasoning. On top are two crispy pieces of fried chicken.
This time the chips were hotter than previously, though the chicken was better last time, I think last time it was chicken thigh whereas this time it was chicken breast. I personally prefer chicken thigh for this kind of dish.
As I have written many times, this is one of my favourite street food vendors and the food that Lisa serves is always very tasty.
Homemade Kung Pao Chicken
I took half a pack of chicken drum fillets and sliced into strips. I then coated the chicken with some gluten free flour.
I fried off the chicken in a wok until crisp and brown.
I removed the chicken from the wok and removed the excess oil from the wok.
To the hot wok I added some stir fry vegetables. When the vegetables were cooked I added a pack of Lee Kum Kee Kung Pao Chicken Stir-Fry Sauce and the cooked chicken.
I served the chicken with some sticky rice.
A new Bento Box
It was a Friday in Bristol, wanting lunch I headed off to Finzel Reach street food market.
I went to She Sells Streetfood and had something different this time. I went with the Beef Donburi, but instead of the Udon Noodles, I went with the Katsu Fries instead.
The beef donburi was delicious as always.
I enjoy the tender slow cooked beef rib which is full of flavour. I did enjoy the fries, but they weren’t hot, just warm. It was a really cold day, and I think they weren’t that warm when they were served, but I did enjoy the seasoning, the crispy chicken, and the katsu sauce.
I think I prefer the Udon Noodles, but it was nice to have a change.
Korean Chicken Wings
I have had these chicken wings (from Sainsburys) a couple of times now and have really enjoyed them.
In a pack of The House of Chicken Korean Crispy Chicken Wings, you get a number of wings in a crispy breadcrumb coating. They also come with a Korean style BBQ sauce.
The cooking process is nice and simple, you cook the wings in the oven and then when nearly cooked you add the sauce.
Charlie Bigham’s Thai Panang Chicken Curry
This curry was on special offer at my local Waitrose. It is tender chicken in an aromatic Panang curry sauce with coconut, lime, lemongrass & ginger. It is served with some fragrant rice.
I followed the instruction and cooked the dish in the over for 20-25 minutes.
This was a lovely and mild curry, you could taste the aromatic flavours in there. The chicken was tender and I really enjoyed the whole dish.
Quick Sweet and Sour Chicken
Sometimes you want a quick meal, and you don’t have the time (or the motivation) to spend hours in the kitchen.
For this quick Sweet and Sour Chicken I used the (frozen) Battered Poppin’ Chicken from Aldi. This £1.09 box contains portions of chopped and shaped chicken breast in a breadcrumb coating. When picking these up, note that they also do a Southern Fried version, which probably doesn’t go well with sweet and sour sauce.
These are baked in the oven, from frozen, in about 10-15 minutes.
In my wok I stir fried some (prepared) stir fry vegetables. Once they were cooked, I added a sachet of sweet and sour sauce. I used one I had picked up in Tesco for 50p. I then added the chicken to the wok and served with rice, and topped with some pea shoots I had in the fridge.
Obviously you can cook your own crispy chicken, I have in the past used chicken thigh with a flour coating. I prefer this to Aldi’s Poppin’ Chicken, but it does take more time, and makes more mess. This meal was about doing things quickly.
Conference dinner at the Marriott
Back in October I was at a conference at the Marriott in Glasgow and there was a nice conference dinner.
For the starter we had a confit pork and apple terrine. I wasn’t a fan to be honest, the terrine was rather plain and I don’t really like oatcakes.
The main was a roast chicken supreme stuffed with haggis. It was served with dauphinoise potatoes and vegetables. This was rather nice, not spectacular, but tasty.
The salted caramel tart was very rich, it really needed some ice cream to offset the richness.
Overall I did enjoy the meal, certainly better than some conference dinners I’ve had, but not one of the best.
Grilled spatchcock chicken
I was staying at the Drayton Court Hotel in London. One of the hotels I regularly stay at in London is the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing. It’s a easy trip from West Ealing station to the heart of London and is always significantly cheaper than central London hotels.
Looking over the menu and deciding to go with something different I chose the grilled spatchcock chicken with endive & herb salad, hazelnuts & chilli oil. I liked the sound of the salad and I did think grilled chicken would be nice, especially as I assumed it would be cooked on the chargrill.
I was intrigued by the plate of food which arrived on my table. I wasn’t quite sure at first what I had been served, but eventually worked out that this was a spatchcocked poussin sized chicken. I cooked grilled chicken quite a lot and I felt that this grilled chicken could have been cooked with more care. I will say though the endive & herb salad, hazelnuts & chilli oil was very nice. I do like hazelnuts in salad and they added flavour and text sure to this salad. Though described as endive & herb salad, I couldn’t see any herbs in my salad. It was a great salad, the chicken though was something of a disappointment.