food, reviews and of course coffee
So nice to see Coco di Mama (near out London office) reopen for business. I obviously went in and had a great flat white.
Yes there was the little square of dark chocolate as well.
I also treated myself to a cross between a brownie and and a panettone. Rather rich and tasty pastry concoction.
Nice to sit in and relax with some great coffee.
The last place we went out to eat before the lockdown in March 2020 was Wagamama at Cribbs Causeway.
We had thought that places might close or be restricted, so took a final opportunity to go out and eat.
Though we have eaten out since that visit, wanting to go out and eat for Father’s Day my children decided that we would go to Wagamama. The fact that we couldn’t book a table didn’t seem to deter them…
We drove up to the Mall, and like on our recent visit a few days earlier the M5 was rather busy.
However we did mange to get their okay. We had decided to eat at 2pm, so we could miss the lunchtime rush. Despite that when we got into the Mall there was quite a long queue for Wagamama. Though I prefer not to queue, this time I knew there were very few alternatives around and my children had their heart set on going there, so we decided to wait. The queue actually moved quite fast and we took the time while we were waiting to peruse the menu.
I was really torn about what I was going to have. I did think about having the cod mokutan soba which I had back in 2019 and despite the initial dish being burnt the returned dish was much better. Interestingly back then I said
It was the kind of dish I enjoyed, but probably wouldn’t have it again on another visit.
I did quite like the idea of having it again this time, shows what do I know about what I like!
Another dish which caught my eye was the grilled duck donburi.
tender, shredded duck in a spicy teriyaki sauce. mixed with carrots, mangetout, sweet potato and red onion on a bed of sticky white rice and topped with a crispy fried egg, cucumber and spring onions. served with a side of kimchee
Or the teriyaki sirloin steak soba.
grilled sirloin steak with soba noodles cooked in curry oil with mangetout, bok choi, red and spring onions, chilli and beansprouts in a teriyaki sauce. garnished with coriander and sesame seeds
In the end after much consideration and flip flopping I went with the shirodashi ramen
slow-cooked, seasoned pork belly on top of noodles in a rich chicken broth with dashi and miso, topped with pea shoots, menma, spring onions, wakame and half a tea-stained egg
The rest of the family went with their choices, yaki soba, chicken raisukaree, gluten free chicken ramen and chicken and rice noodles.
As is typical at Wagamama for me, everyone else’s dish arrived well before mine, and I was waiting for while for my food. The others trying to be polite wanted to wait, but I didn’t want their food to go cold. Anyhow I can eat quite fast, so was okay with them eating.
This serving as food as soon as it is ready, does mean that you get your food fresh, reality is that unless you don’t mind eating your dish whilst others have none, it strikes me more as lazy planning than “serving food as soon as it’s ready”.
Finally my food arrived and though not quite as good as the pictures on the website it did look nice.
I had anticipated the slow cooked pork belly to be tender and soft, but actually was crispy, which I wasn’t expecting.
I did enjoy the ramen and it was very tasty and delicious.
I did think about having a beer with my ramen, but in the end went with a jasmine flowering tea – flowering lily and jasmine green tea.
It looked great and tasted nice, it reminded me of the flowering tea I had at Tea Monkey in Bath back in 2012.
I wasn’t going to have desert, but was persuaded to by everyone at the table, and it was Father’s Day. Though I did think about cheesecake, I went with the smoked chocolate caramel cake.
For some reason I wasn’t expecting to get a slice of cake! But I did, the cake was layers of smoked chocolate mousse, salted caramel crushed biscuits, chocolate fudge brownie and chocolate ganache, served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Not as rich as it sounds and the ice cream added freshness and balance.
Overall we all enjoyed the meal, and the service was excellent.
Nice to be back.
These are tasty tiny loaf cakes.
I had seen these mini loaf cake cases in Sainsburys a few times, but I bought a pack to try them out.
The recipe is based on the weight of two eggs
Ingredients
Cream the sugar and butter until you have a smooth consistency.
Beat the eggs, add some vanilla essence.
Stir the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar with some of
the flour, until the mixture is smooth and consistent.
Then fold in the remaining flour and the cocoa until it is combined with the rest of the mixture.
Then stir in the chocolate chunks, leaving some to add to the top of each mini loaf.
Spoon into a the mini loaf cake cases. The mixture should be enough for five or six cases.
Bake in a 180º normal oven or 160º fan oven for 25 minutes or until a metal skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
You can add fudge icing for extra decadence if you wanted to.
Over on the Twitter there was an image shared of an old Wilkinson’s Christmas Catalogue.
Vintage Wilkinson Catalogue pages from Christmas 1999. pic.twitter.com/kgVycrn6FV
— OldUKCatalogues.bsky.social -Vintage UK Catalogues (@OldUKCatalogues) December 12, 2020
What caught my eye was the carton of Heroes.
We have seen the return of the Crunchie, but alas no Picnie, Time Out or Fuse (remember them).
Of course if you go to Wikipedia you can find out what is currently included and what has disappeared over the years.
Missing or removed includes
I did quite enjoy when they included Toblerone.
If it may contain milk then it isn’t vegan. Just saying.
Saw this Galaxy vegan chocolate bar in the Free From aisle at Morrisons, where I was getting some gluten free stuff.
I did think that the only real ingredient in chocolate bars which isn’t vegan is the milk.
I can appreciate that it may not be possible to set up a separate factory, but seems a lost opportunity as I suspect many vegans will not bother with these as they don’t want to take the risk of accidentally eating a milk based product.
I’ve been meaning to try and make these for a while now, but kept making other things instead.
Heat the oven to 180ºC or 160ºC for a fan oven.
In your muffin tin or tray add six muffin cases.
Sieve the flour, cocoa and baking powder into a medium bowl.
In a jug add the egg, sugar, oil and milk, then mix well together
Gradually pour part of the mix into the dry ingredients and stir until combined. Then add some more, repeat until all the ingredients in the jug are combined with the flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Stir in the chocolate chunks.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin cases and bake for 20-25 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Scatter a few dark chocolate chips on top of the muffins.
Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the muffin tray for 15 minutes and then remove from the tray.
Not 100% sure about the blue muffin cases, but you’re not going to eat them are you?
My son found a recipe online for choc chip cookies which we tried, though we replaced the standard flours with gluten free variants. These were nice, but they were a little too crisp and a little too sweet.
He then adjusted the recipe and the result was tasty chewy gluten free choc chip cookies. What I and my son liked about them was that they were very similar in taste and texture to the fresh (non-gluten) cookies you can buy at supermarkets that he use to enjoy before he went gluten free.
Ingredients
225g of unsalted butter
125g gluten free bread flour
125g gluten free plain flour
1 egg
1 egg yolk
100g caster sugar
120g light brown sugar
85g plain chocolate chips
130g plain chocolate chunks or chopped chocolate bar
One teaspoon salt
One teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Two teaspoons of vanilla essence
The adjustments we made to the original recipe was to increase the amount of flour, reduce the amount of sugar and swap the dark brown sugar for light brown sugar.
Melt the butter in a pan and bring to the boil, stirring frequently. The aim is to boil off some of the water off the butter. The recipe said to go ensure the milk solids got a nutty brown. I was a little wary in case of burning the butter, so didn’t probably go far enough. Once the butter melted and had turned slightly brown this was removed from the heat and cooled to room temperature.
Cream the liquid butter with the sugar, vanilla essence. The idea is to mix it until it is light and fluffy. The recipe calls for an electric mixer, ours was broken, so we did it by hand, which was hard work. Beat in the eggs until they are incorporated into the mixture.
Combine the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda.
Stir in the dry ingredients a third of it at a time until it is incorporated.
Using a wooden spoon fold in the chocolate chips and chunks.
Chill.
Place six small balls, about 2-3cm across, of dough on a baking tray and bake for 6-9 minutes.
This quantity of ingredients will make about eighteen cookies.
After cooking leave on the tray and then after three minutes move to a rack to cool further.
Eat!
Though I do make my own cakes I sometimes use mixes, both for convenience, but also sometimes to try something new.
One pack we recently used, and really enjoyed was Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake Mix.
Despite what you see on the box, you don’t get the icing, so you need to buy that as an extra.
As well as the mix you also need:
There are three steps:
Once cool you can smother the cake with chocolate fudge icing.
It was rather good, and to be honest you wouldn’t know it was gluten free as it had the taste, texture and smell of a chocolate fudge cake even without the icing.
During the lockdown I have been making gluten free rocky road a fair bit.
In a large pan, gently melt 150g of dark chocolate, 50g of butter and 3 large spoons of Golden Syrup. The key here is gently, too harsh then the butter and chocolate will burn. Once it has melted then leave for 15 minutes. You need to leave it to cool down otherwise when you add the marshmallows they will melt.
Crush some gluten free biscuits. I usually use a 160g pack of gluten free digestives, but have used a 120g pack of Schär Viennese Biscuits as well (though these are a lot more crumbly than the digestives. You easily make your own biscuits instead. I also add 50g of gluten free chocolate rice cereal as well, for added crunch. Then add 50g of small marshmallows.
This mixture is then stirred carefully to ensure that all the ingredients are coated in the chocolate mixture.
Spoon the mixture into either a greased lined baking tray or a foil tray. Press down into the tray and ensure that it is evenly spread.
Then sprinkle the top of the rocky road with decorations. I use small marshmallows, white chocolate stars and fudge pieces.
Chill in the fridge and then cut into squares or slices.
We got sent sent a huge (expensive) box of chocolates that arrived in an even bigger box.
This was the John Lewis & Partners Chocolate & Truffle Selection.
71 white, milk and dark chocolates and truffles in a unique and innovative collection, carefully selected for the ultimate in chocolate indulgence. Each irresistible flavour combination has been made from a recipe exclusive to John Lewis & Partners.
21 flavours include: praline popping truffle, grapefruit and coriander, raspberry and hibiscus, mascarpone and lime, sloe gin ganache, coconut, rose and violet, butter caramel and passion fruit.
I don’t think I would have bought a box of chocolates like this, but I have been enjoying the chocolates. I’ve had posh chocolates before and not really liked them, these on the other hand are quite tasty. There are some strange flavour combinations in there, but they’re not overpowering.
Tasty and a lovely gift.