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Yay Jamie!

Having successfully tackled Scottish local government finance structures for my upcoming journo exam (as bad as it sounds), I am rewarding myself with writing about my first ever outing to Jamie’s Italian, in Glasgow.

I warn you, this review was never going to be unbiased. I’ll give it a go, but the thing is, I love Jamie. Not, you should understand, in a ‘hey Jamie, come over here and show off your basting skills’ kind of way, but a ‘yes, Jamie, small children need to be fed properly, and thank god for crusading celebrity chefs like you who take lorry loads of shit for making it happen.’ So I was pretty excited to go somewhere that the big man had actually visited  - albeit twice since its opening, as the friendly bar man informed me.

A problem with this evening was the friendliness of bar men in general. I had shared a bottle of wine with a friend before meeting T to go to Jamie’s, and then there was another bar man, then this bar man, and a wait of over 45 minutes for our table (bookings aren’t taken, it’s a turn up and wait job), and suddenly it was almost 10pm, I’d had no food in a long time, and I had to admit to myself that I was, in fact, drunk. T was driving, so was not. I set my inner dial to ‘concentrate’.

It didn’t take much to concentrate on the mezzo plates that we started with. The menu is firmly Italian, no surprises there, but not in a chain-pizza-and-pasta way, thank god. Italian restaurants are probably my least favourite, generally, because if I want pasta and tomato sauce, which is rarely, I’ll make it at home in 15 minutes. But this – this was stuff I would/could never whip up at mine. T had a plate of wild boar salami – obviously savoury, but this was properly savoury, in the etymological sense of “pleasing in taste or smell.” Almost BBQ-ey, smoky and very meaty. Mine was even better – the seasonal meat antipasti plank. I’d go back just for this: every bit of it was better than almost any other time I’d eaten similar ingredients. The olive, they told me, was ‘the world’s best’ – don’t know about that, but it was damn fine. The mozzarella – I feel ashamed. I was in a chain Italian, and I’ve never had mozzarella like it. I need to buy better ingredients. It was a board of shame – proper ingredients vs what I buy. They tasted like different things entirely. I even tried the chilli jam – in my mostly-cut scrawled notes I’ve got “chilli jam – I’ll do anything for Jamie”…

On to the pasta. It took me ages to decide, and that was because of more than the wine. It’s just not what I’m used to deciding about – the meals look plain and simple – they are, in fact, simple. There’s no ‘oh, I feel like the pork over the steak’, it’s about a couple of ingredients, given a kick up the arse so they pull themselves to their full height and show off. Cockles linguine, for example – a handful of ingredients, but I’ll bet they’re unrecognisable to the stuff I’d chuck in a saucepan back at the flat. I was sold on the pumpkin panzerotti (£10.35), “Home-made half moons filled with roasted pumpkin, ricotta and Parmesan served with a creamy chilli, rosemary butter sauce and crushed ameretti”. It was the ameretti biscuit thing that clinched it, and I was right. They gave a crunch and a sweetness to contrast with the smooth panzerotti filling, that perfect, armadillo-like combination of smooth on the inside, crunchy on the outside. I didn’t even whinge about the creamy chilli bit – not too strong, just a well designed sharpness.

T had the magically named scallop and squid ink angel hair (£13.90), with chilli, parsley, anchovies, wine and capers. It wasn’t as enjoyable as mine, in my subjective opinion. There was nothing technically wrong with it, thus the subjectivity – it was just a bit salty for me, and a bit less ‘yes, that’s a mouthful I never want to end’.

We had to forego pudding – the real point of this evening was to preview our wedding ceilidh band (a disaster, but that’s another tale), and by this point we were over an hour late – Jamie’s isn’t somewhere just to nip to for a quick bite.

For a while, I considered it a bit steep that Jamie’s ‘accessible, for the general masses’ restaurant chain could set you back £50 for two x two courses with just a glass of wine each. But actually, I then thought about what we’d actually experienced. It’s a very slickly designed and decorated place – perhaps too much so in some areas. Downstairs, wine bottles are shelved across one wall like sham-library books no one will ever read: very beautiful, but not very practical. There are shiny mirrors, and exposed vents. It’s very cool, while not being somewhere anyone of any age will feel left out.

Our food was nigh on perfect, and that on an evening when the chefs must have been running around like their trousers were on fire. Yes, there was a very long wait, but I’d known that was the scheme of it – and when we told our dry-humoured waiter our dilemma, things rattled ahead at an impressive pace for us.

You can pay £25 a head without drinks easily in Pizza Express, my personal pet hate chain, and what we had at Jamie’s was infinitely more imaginative and satisfying, and impressively locally sourced to boot. I’d pay it again in a second – this is simply what good food costs. If it’s much cheaper than this on the bill, it’s going to have to be cheap on the plate. I think Jamie can hold his head up high – it would just be good if he visited it a bit more often to shake his chefs’ hands and congratulate them on doing such a good job.

The supper club that became dinner for 120

Terrible blog guilt. I haven’t logged in for so long I had actually forgotten my log-in details and had to request a new password.

I feel particularly guilty as I have a really important review to do, for a dinner I’d been hankering after and looking forward to for about 6 months.

There might be hundreds of supper clubs in London, but in Edinburgh I know of only one proper one, Charlie and Evelyn’s Table (by proper I mean not a restaurant PR gimmick). It is the child of the fantastically welcoming Rachel and Chris Rowley, and, indirectly, Chris’s grandparents Charlie and Evelyn, at whose table the 8 diners eat. It has also been so popular it took us about 6 months to get a reservation.

Speaking of children, this welcome was even more impressive considering that, when we went (the 21st Jan, over a month ago now – eek! Bad blogger!) Rachel was 6 months pregnant with their first baby. She was still running around giving perfect service at almost-weekly supper clubs until just a week ago, on the 21st Feb. Not to say she is without help – the club is very much a husband-and-wife affair, with Chris being the main man in the kitchen, churning out some seriously impressive grub. So impressive, I wanted 120 portions…but more on that later.

The couple had moved a week before our dinner, and we were let in to their already-immaculate top floor flat by Rachel. Our wine (byob) was given a little label to distinguish it from the other diners’, and had its cork popped. As the first to arrive, we got the comfy sofa in their sitting/dining room, and waited for the others. I’m not sure whether we count as guests or customers – in theory, the latter, I suppose, but it didn’t feel like it.

One of the lovely things about eating here is the flexibility of experience it offers. You can come alone, as a couple, like we did, or in a group of up to 8 people. There will always be 8 of you, so if you don’t come as a group you’ll meet some new people. It’s a concept with very diverse appeal, as illustrated by the other 6 people around C and E’s table that evening: the head of the Scottish Health and Safety Executive and his wife, two middle aged sisters, their elderly mother, and a lone American student. All very friendly people with a helpful desire to chat to total strangers. Though no lifelong friendships were made, there were no awkward silences all night. I was on my best behaviour, remembered my mother’s advice not to talk about religion, politics or money, and shelved a couple of strong opinions at relevant moments.

As dinner was served, it quickly became apparent that Rachel, Chris and I share the same views on food, i.e. get good ingredients and don’t muck them around. Local, seasonal and ethical ring strongly through the menu: from the canapes – haggis bon bons and mackerel ceviche with ruby grapefruit and avocado, curled into little lettuce leaves – to the deconstructed quince cranachan dessert. Our bouches were amused by coffee cups of cullen skink, creamy and, crucially, not oversalted. To start (well, continue, really) we had a simple stack of hot smoked salmon (from the great Armstrong’s fishmonger in Stockbridge), topped with rocket and pumpkin seeds and surrounded by roasted beetroot. Talk about letting your ingredients speak for themselves. The conversation continued with our main: rare seared venison loin (George Bower the butcher, also Stockbridge) accompanied by haggis, neeps and bashed tatties all-mixed-together, in honour of Mr R. Burns. The we-love-Scottish-food theme continued with an imaginative take on cranachan: caramelised quince instead of raspberries, laid next to granola and a pool of greek yogurt and honey. It was as delicious then as it would have been for a super-posh breakfast the next day. I could happily have eaten a large bowl of that granola, preferably atop a pile of greek yoghurt and honey, preferably topped with a lot of the quince.

The meal ended with little vividly-coloured Patisserie Madeleine  macarons, the treat that will forever remain exotic for being something hardly anyone ever makes for themselves. A delight.

You’ve gathered by now that Chris can cook.  Without Rachel though, it would just be delightful food. With her, it’s delightful food, charming service and teaspoons with adorable little teacups on the end. And a blog. And the macarons. And the daffodils and hyacinths on the table to remind you that spring will soon exist. In short, it’s a complete experience, for £25 a head. Even the bill – billed as ‘a bill, but not as you know it’ – is charming, being in a little Charlie and Evelyn’s Table red envelope, slotted into a toast rack.

I was so sold, on the food and on them, that a week later I sent Rachel an email, detailing all the reasons why she shouldn’t cook for my wedding:

1. they’ll have a 3 month old baby

2. they’ve never cooked for more than 40 people, and we’re having 120

3. the venue has a ‘vintage’ old industrial cooker, with 4 hob burners and an oven. And a fridge. That’s it.

But please, would they consider cooking for it anyway?

So I am looking forward to reviewing my second supper club, with 119 of my nearest and dearest, in just over 4 months time. I can’t wait.

Battling the Bread Robot

I have 9 brothers and sisters.

5 of the first, 4 of the second. That’s an automatic 9 Christmas presents, then about 5 more essential family presents, before even thinking about fiancé or friends. I am an unemployed student, as are several of my siblings. Therefore, to prevent people getting things I’ve found on the street, a loving hug or Asda own-brand socks for Christmas, I now compulsorily organise Secret Santa. I also organise wish lists with a £50 limit, so people get at least one present a year that they actually want. It’s unromantic, it ruins the element of surprise – but then, isn’t that mostly mythical? How many times have you held a colourfully wrapped box in your festive little hands, so full of potential and hope, only to open it and find a Morrison’s bubble bath trio/oversized orange and pink jumper/The Hills boxset?

This year, just to ramp up the levels of Christmas magic, I asked for a £50 John Lewis voucher. To most people that probably sounds like choosing to be given an ironing board cover, but my 1950s housewife alter ego has yearned for a bread machine for yonks, and to this end was my voucher’s destiny. I have long hated fake supermarket bread pumped with air and steroids (ok, preservatives), and I’m tired of our succession of international lodgers moaning about how crap UK bread is within 23 minutes of landing in Edinburgh.

That wonderful magazine, The Week, had reviewed bread machines in the run up to Xmas, and John Lewis’ won the prize. It was £74, and didn’t come with a recipe book.

This has been an issue. One that, while writing that sentence, made me break off and order one for the princely sum of £2.80 from Amazon. It promises the possibility of ‘transforming simple bread into something really special’. Well, we’ll see about that. For the next 2-4 working days, however, I shall soldier on chucking this and that in and hoping for the best.

My first batch, when I literally did chuck vague bread-like ingredients in and press ‘start’ with my eyes closed, had a consistency not unlike that of sand and water mixed together then heated. It could similarly have been used to build weatherproof residences of all kinds.

Second – an improvement. Good crust, and had discernibly risen. Probably because I Googled ‘white bread machine recipe’.

Third time, almost a charm. Same recipe – totally different result. Thought machines were supposed to eliminate that possibility, but perhaps mine’s still practising. Alarmingly fluffy – even the crust feels fluffy. Great apart from the lack of crusty crust.

The experiment continues…next stop – wholemeal. Later, when I’ve really beaten it into submission, there’s the possibility of exploring the ‘cake’ and even ‘jam’ settings…Cake and jam! That, to me, promises a perfectly assembled Victoria sponge cake at the end of a simple spin cycle. What’s that in the air? Is that what palpable excitement feels like…?

A food low in Oslo

Oh god, it all started so well…

My BF Olivia and I were sadly parted at the end of last summer. She left Edinburgh to go and work as a responsible and exhausted doctor in London, and here I remained to study journalism and be loved up with the fiancé. To alleviate the distress, and the expense of train fares between the two capitals, we decided to try and meet regularly in whichever place had the cheapest air fares (yes I feel guilty about the carbon footprint, but there’s a friendship at stake here).

Visions of escaping the Edinburgh freeze came to nothing when, after a little research, I found that we could fly to Oslo for £22 return, all in. Done.

Unfortunately, Oslo was also judged to be the world’s second most expensive city in 2010. We’re bargain-hunters, thought I – it’ll be fine.

And so it started out. Saturday was an action packed day of free sightseeing, snow, sculpture parks, more snow, and a miniature bottle museum. That last was more awesome than you can possibly imagine: picture tens of thousands of miniatures, of all shapes and sizes (pianos, animals, furniture, sporting scenes…) all displayed in a magical wonderland with waterfall, faux-rocks, a football you can get into, a bottle of absolut so large you can pretend to be a tiny person trapped inside, a slide to get downstairs….we eventually got kicked out at closing time.

It started to unravel on Saturday night, when a late-night munchies session of two cartons of minging pasta cost us £27. We laughed it off – or slurred it off more likely – as a drunken error.

It wasn’t entirely our fault that, the next afternoon, there was a thick mist up in the mountains outside the city. It was just unfortunate that we had chosen that day to go to the ski-jump tower. Not only was no-one ski-jumping, the most we could make out of the tower was a vaguely threatening shadow through the white ether.

“Not to worry!”, we cried, after taking our picture in front of the nothingness, pulling sad faces. “Let’s go and eat.”

And here’s where this tale becomes relevant to a food blog.

It was a lovely restaurant. The kind of mirage-place your feverish, snow-blinded imagination conjours up when in a freezing fog on some random mountain somewhere when your toes don’t work anymore and you’re hungover.  Everything was wooden, and muted, and there were antler chandeliers. The curtains were 10-feet long, and made of faux-fur. There was a ginormous fire of real crackling logs, before which were deep leather sofas and a wooden coffee table.

Even the menus were of a chicly Norwegian rustic-sophisticated design. Unfortunately they listed food at chicly Norwegian prices, and of average-to-inedible execution.

I was hanging, and cold, making fish soup looked like a comforting, warming plan. I asked our pastiche of a Norwegian waiter (tall, ice-blonde, snow-pale, with aquamarine eyes and hair gelled back like a character from True Blood) how big it was: “medium”. I ordered plenty of bread. Olivia ordered homemade spicy sausage with creamed potatoes.

The bread was both knekkebrod and wholegrain, the former with iceberg chunks of salt on it that were quickly overpowering.

My soup arrived. It was not medium. Bear in mind that it cost around £16.50: it had three mussels in it, a small chunk of salmon, and some miscellaneous white fish lurking under a pond of broth slickly glistening with oil globules. It looked horrific. I called the waiter over. “I’m not very happy with this.”

Look rapidly over the menu, wondering what the safest bet would be. Risotto: saffron risotto with crab. £12.50.

Replacement ordered, I tried Olivia’s. It was fine – fine sausage, not very spicy. Fine potatoes, though weirdly not creamed as you would think – i.e. smooth mash – but boiled potatoes, in cream. Grated apple on the side – new. Not unpleasant, but I won’t be doing it at home.

Risotto arrived. I could have cried. A wide bowl, filled with orange rice, not of the risotto variety, and a dollop of pink crab in the centre. No other ingredients, except something that resembled grass clippings sprinkled across the surface.

It was inedibly salty, particularly to one who doesn’t like salt. There was no discernible saffron taste despite its lurid colour, and the crab was overpoweringly fishy to the point of unpleasantness. I ate about a third, and asked for the bill. “Was it better?” the waiter asked concernedly. “Not particularly”, I answered. It frustrates me when people don’t say what they think about food. How can a kitchen ever know how it’s performing unless people tell the truth? A good kitchen should always be happy to have something sent back – if it genuinely is substandard – and be able to make amends rather than have a diner leaving dissatisfed, to then tell their friends not to bother with such-and-such a place.

Adding insult to injury, on the way out I clocked some awesome-looking open beef sandwiches. Everyone else’s meals looked appealing as well, which made me confident that I successfully managed to pick the two worst items on the whole menu.

It would all have been pretty funny, had we not missed Olivia’s airport bus on our return. She had to pay £100 to get to the airport, thus somewhat defeating the point of a cheap weekend break. I got my flight that evening with wet feet and a taste of salt in my mouth that no water could wash away. As I said, it all started so well…

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