This was a quick salad I put together. I took some salad leaves, added some chunks of cucumber, halved tomatoes, sliced spring onion and sliced red pepper.
Exterior completed
Going shopping at Flowerdown Retail Park I saw that the exterior construction of the Burger King (which is replacing the Frankie & Benny’s) has now been completed. I also saw they had started the interior refurbishment as well.
They still need to do the road reorganisation required for the drive-thru though.
Too popular, by far
Today I went for a walk at lunchtime and popped over to the Temple Quay street food market. I had a look round to see what was available. I nearly turned away when I saw that She Sells Sushi was there with their stall (which I am pretty sure I didn’t see on the Temple Quay Facebook post about the market). I hadn’t had their great dishes for a while.
There was a big queue, but I thought, well the food is excellent, it will be worth the wait.
I waited.
I waited some more.
However after waiting twenty minutes and there were about six more people in front of me I realised that I wasn’t going to have the time to queue more, buy some great food, take it back to the office, and then eat it. So with a heavy heart I left the queue and headed back to the office.
Next time I think I will have to get there earlier.
It does show how popular the stall is, and how popular the market is as well.
Chicken Bao Buns
I made myself some chicken bao buns for my lunch.
I took some cooked chicken I had in the fridge. I heated up the chicken by pan frying and adding some miso sauce.
I used some bao buns from M&S, I microwaved the bao buns to heat them through.
Once the chicken was hot, I added it to the bao buns, I added some shredded romaine lettuce and then added some Yo! Japanese Creamy Mayonnaise.
I then folded the bao buns and ate them.
Back to Côte Brasserie
I have been to Côte in Ealing a couple of times, on a recent visit I really quite enjoyed the cassoulet I had. I was needing dinner and decided that I would visit Côte for food. It was quite busy, which I found out later was down to the pre-theatre crowd. However a table was found for me and I sat down and looked over the menu. I was tempted by the cassoulet, which I’ve had before, or trying out the Breton fish stew.
As it was a weekday there was a prix fixe (fixed price) menu, so I went with that having two courses, a starter and a main.
If I am eating out I generally prefer a starter over a desert. There was a limit choice of four starters, though tempted by the wild mushroom soup, I went with the Pork Terrine with spiced apple chutney and pain de campagne.
It was a nice terrine and the accompanying chutney was a good contrast. I think a stronger flavour would have worked for the terrine, but it had a nice texture. My pain de campagne was well toasted, slightly burnt on the edges. I would have preferred a more lightly toasted bread with my terrine.
There were five choices for the mains. I did think about ordering the Toulouse Sausages with puy lentils and sautéed kale with a Dijonnaise dressing for my main. However I went with the Poulet Grille. This is a chargrilled chicken breast with a creamy wild mushroom and thyme sauce served with gratin potato.
The presentation of the dish was rather messy I thought. The gratin potato was nice and creamy, but there was no golden crust. I think I was expecting more of a defined structure of potato. The wild mushroom sauce was nice, but lacked flavour, partly down to the excess cream from the gratin potato which diluted the sauce. The chicken was slightly overcooked, but I enjoyed the flavour.
I did enjoy the food and it was tasty. Service was warm, friendly and efficient.
Time for timbits
I popped out to the new Tim Hortons to buy some Timbits for lunch. It recently opened and they had taken over the old Pizza Hut. They also added a drive through. I didn’t drive through and went inside. Having visited the Pizza Hut, it was interesting to see what they had done inside. They had kept much of the interior structure, but obviously done some decorating. There was a new serving area. I did actually start to queue, but in the end I went to one of their ordering screens and placed my order for a small box of timbits. These are small doughnuts in various flavours.
I then had to wait a while before I could pick up my order, which I took home.
There was a choice of timbits in the box, I had a chocolate one and a cinnamon one.
The timbits were okay, but I wouldn’t say they were outstanding.
Gluten Free White Choc Chip Muffins
We made some gluten free white chocolate chip muffins.
Ingredients
100g unsalted butter softened, plus 1 tbsp, melted, for greasing
140g golden caster sugar
2 large eggs
140g natural yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
250g plain gluten free flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
100g pack white chocolate chips
Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6 and line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
I bought my paper cases from Amazon, though I later found the kind I like in Waitrose.
Beat the butter and caster sugar together until pale and fluffy. Then add the eggs and beat in for about a minute. You then need to mix in the yogurt, vanilla extract and milk. Combine the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda in a bowl with ¼ tsp fine salt.
Add this into the wet ingredients and stir in. Finally, fold in the white chocolate chips and divide the mixture between the muffin cases.
Bake for 5 mins, then reduce oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and bake for 15-18 mins more until risen and golden, and a metal skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
Cool in the tin for 10 mins, then carefully lift out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container.
You can after a day or two, pop them in the microwave for 10-15 secs on high to freshen up.
Not very impressed
Noticed on the Twitter that my tweet of my Instagram photo of my rice dish had been noticed by quite a few people from Spain. They were, to say the least, not very impressed.
James.. just a small question; what the hell is that?
— Isabel ❌ 🇪🇸 ♰ (@Belisa82754991) March 13, 2022
Best comment so far…
“I have seen rice that would make a goat vomit.”
This one made me chuckle
“if it doesn’t have pineapple, it’s not paella”
Time for a Spanish inspired rice dish
Well we call this paella, but I know it isn’t paella, but it was inspired by paella.
This is a regular dish in our household and this pan of paella was finished off at dinner time.
What goes into the pan, depends on what we have in the house and whether I have been shopping or not. If I am out of the shops knowing that I am going to cook paella, then I will probably buy some cooking chorizo, some squid, and maybe even other kinds of seafood such as langoustine or clams. This time was what we had in the house.
This serves about four people
In preparation I diced a red onion and a large pepper. Well actually I diced half a red pepper and half an orange pepper.
In a hot large frying pan, I put some olive oil and I cooked off some smoked pancetta bacon and a small amount of diced (dry) chorizo. I then added the diced onion and pepper. When this was softened, I added 250g of paella rice. I ensured that this was then coated with the peppers and onions in the pan. I let this cook for a minute or so before adding a splash of white wine (we had that in the fridge). Recently I have been using some Spanish sherry I got from Aldi for Christmas, but that was all finished off the last time I did paella, sorry Spanish inspired rice.
I then (cheated and) added a jar of paella paste from Waitrose. In the past I have used herbs, spices and saffron when making paella, however I do like the jar that Waitrose do as it does taste quite authentic and is quick and easy. Tesco use to do a sachet of paella herbs and spices, but they’ve stopped selling that now. I use to prefer that.
After stirring in the paste I added some chicken stock. Last time I did paella I used a fish stock, but didn’t have any of that in the cupboard.
Stir once and then leave.
I once got “told off” by a Spaniard for stirring my paella, so now I just as advised, leave it to cook.
In a separate pan I cooked off the remaining dried chorizo I had sliced, I also added some sliced linguiça sausage from Lidl I had picked in their Iberian week recently. In previous Spanish themed weeks Lidl have done some nice cooking chorizo which I have liked using in my paella dishes. This time though in their most recent week they didn’t do it, hence picking up the linguiça sausage. Not quite a replacement, but worked well with the paella.
We had some cooked prawns in the fridge, so I warmed them up in a pan with some olive oil and mixed herbs.
The prawns, chorizo and lemon slices were added to the top of the paella, with some chopped flat leaf parsley and served.
Overall, delicious.
No time for waiting
I was staying in Birmingham and was looking for somewhere for lunch. My original plan was to go to Bistrot Pierre, as I did quite fancy some French food.
I went in, there was the usual “please wait to be seated” sign. So I waited, then I waited a little more. Finally someone saw I was waiting and I asked for a table.
I sat down and looked at the menu. Then I waited, I waited and I waited.
I knew I had a meeting in my diary in less than an hour, but looking around seeing other people waiting for food and others waiting to order. I realised that there was no way I was going to order, get my food, eat the food, and pay my bill in the hour I had for lunch. So instead of waiting, I left my table and exited the restaurant, which was a pity as I did like the idea of eating French.
Still knowing I needed lunch (and that I was going to eat late that day) I headed off to Wagamama at Brindley Place.
Much better service.
I went upstairs and there was no queue and I was quickly shown to a table I looked over the menu and chose to have some chilli squid, which I hadn’t had for a while and yasai yaki soba, which I had had more recently.
I didn’t have to wait too long before the food arrived. The yasai yaki soba arrived first and looked like the dish I had before and on the menu.
This was soba noodles with mushroom and vegetables, egg, peppers, beansprouts, white and spring onions. garnished with fried shallots, pickled ginger and sesame seeds.
Though I enjoyed the dish, I don’t think it was as good as the last I had it, which surprised me a little.
The chilli squid arrived and I liked the look of the dish.
This was crispy fried squid dusted with shichimi served with a chilli coriander dipping sauce.
I was though disappointed with my squid. I was expecting to have soft tender squid in a crispy batter. What I actually got was rubbery squid in hard crunchy batter. I think it could have been so much better. I think I should have had the bao buns instead, maybe next time.
I used the QR code process to pay the bill, so I didn’t need to wait for that, and left feeling I had a nice lunch.