food, reviews and of course coffee
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The last time I was in the Netherlands was in October 2022 when I visited Amsterdam for a conference. Having spent a few days in Delft at a conference, and meetings in Utrecht I took the train back to Schiphol Airport where I had booked a hotel, the CitizenM, which is literally next door to the airport.
I ordered some Japanese-Style Crispy Chicken, which was described as karaage inspired juicy chicken bites, served with lemon and Kewpie mayonnaise dusted with Japanese 7-spice.
This was beautifully presented dish and looked great. The chicken was cooked well, with a nice crispy coating. The spice level was perfect. I really enjoyed these.
Back in February I was on a trip to Helsinki in Finland for a few days for work. I was staying at the Scandic Hotel Simonkenttä in the heart of the city.
For a quick good value meal I went to Momotoko in the Kamppi shopping centre, it was close to the hotel, and it was nice food that was reasonably priced. Part of me wanted to have some authentic Finnish food whilst I was in Finland, but I was on a budget, and I quite like Korean style food. You order at the counter and then they bring the food to your table.
I had enjoyed my previous donburi at Momotoko so when needing something to eat it was easy to head back there. This time I went with the Teriyaki Chicken Donburi, this was rice with teriyaki sauce and chicken slices. It was accompanied by marinated egg, shiitake mushrooms, edamame beans, marinated cucumber, sesame seeds and spring onion.
This was a delicious bowl of food, fresh and tasty. The chicken was tender and nicely done. I liked all the accompaniments, I did like the egg and the mushrooms.
I also had another Kimchi Fried Chicken Bao, which I had on my previous visit, This was chicken fillet, salad leaf, fresh cucumber, kimchi, momo-mayo and spring onion in a steamed bao bun.
This was similar to bao buns I have had elsewhere. A crispy piece of chicken, the freshness of the salad constructing well with the kimchi. Really tasty bun.
I have since found out that Momotoko has now closed down, so if I ever get back to Helsinki, I won’t be able to taste these dishes again.
Back in February I was on a trip to Helsinki in Finland for a few days for work. I was staying at the Scandic Hotel Simonkenttä in the heart of the city.
For a quick good value meal I went to Momotoko in the Kamppi shopping centre, it was close to the hotel, and it was nice food that was reasonably priced. Part of me wanted to have some authentic Finnish food whilst I was in Finland, but I was on a budget, and I quite like Korean style food.
You order at the counter and then they bring the food to your table. There were quite a few choices, so I went with the Korean Pork Donburi. This was rice with Korean style sauce and deep fired tofu. Accompanied by marinated egg, shiitake mushrooms, edamame beans, Momotoko-kimchi, sesame seeds and spring onion.
I really liked the tender pork in this dish. The freshness of the edamame beans was a good contrast to the deep spicy pork and flavoured mushrooms. The pork was tender, and I liked the addition of the egg.
I also had a Kimchi Fried Chicken Bao, which was chicken fillet, salad leaf, fresh cucumber, kimchi, momo-mayo and spring onion in a steamed bao bun.
This was similar to bao buns I have had elsewhere. A crispy piece of chicken, the freshness of the salad constructing well with the kimchi. Really tasty bun.
I have since found out that Momotoko has now closed down, so if I ever get back to Helsinki, I won’t be able to taste these dishes again.
I had stopped off at Cribbs Causeway to charge my car and grab a late lunch.
Was going to go to Wagamama and try out their tteokbokki. However, they were quite busy, and I couldn’t see the tteokbokki on the menu. In the end I went to Tortilla and had tres tacos.
I do like the tacos from Tortilla, they are tasty, fresh and I think good value for money. I went with three chicken tacos and added extra guacamole. That is probably my only annoyance, is that I have to pay extra for guacamole, and it’s not as though you get a massive portion of guacamole either, it’s a small spoonful on each taco. I remember once getting tacos from somewhere else, a street food market, and then popping into Tesco Express to get a pot of guacamole as it was significantly cheaper and you got more guacamole. Don’t think I could do that at Tortilla unless I did takeout.
When arriving at Paddington and needing something for lunch, I have on the last few occasions headed to the Market Halls.
Having been impressed with the meal I had there, I had thought about repeating the steak and chips I had before. However, there is quite a choice of places to eat and I do like to try new things. I decided to try out one of the other stalls, so this time I headed upstairs and went to try out the tacos from Breddos Tacos.
I had their lunch deal, which was three tacos and some rice for £15. I went with three different tacos.
I did enjoy all three tacos, but in order of preference, my least favourite was the chicken taco. This was Yucatan grilled chicken, pico de gallo, habanero salsa, and avocado. I had anticipated a warm chicken taco, but this wasn’t to be the case. Don’t get me wrong it was really nice, but I was expecting hot grilled chicken.
The mushroom taco was full of flavour. This mushroom guisado taco was filled with braised mushroom, onion, jalapeño, and habanero salsa. I do like mushrooms, a and this was really tasty.
The fish taco was the best of the three. The Baja Fish taco had tempura cod, pico de Gallo, and habanero mayo. The taco looked great, the cod was hot and crunchy and the accompaniments were tasty.
Overall I really liked the three tacos and it was a nice meal, the rice in my opinion didn’t add much. I think next time I would forgo the rice and just go with the three tacos.
It’s interesting to compare this with the Wahaca lunch deal for one, which is available next door. I think the Wahaca meal is a better choice if you want tacos.