Food

Tonight, king prawns and crispy fried squid with japanese flour, spinach salad with red onion, celery, very thin slices of parmesan, pine nuts, black pepper and Modena balsamic vinegar.

A bit of rice with melted cheese on the side.

Sick dry aged steak last night at Casa Paco in Madrid. Soooooooo good!

Yesterday I met one of the founders of People's Kitchen: https://www.facebook.com/groups/101207026611712/ and Brixton People's Kitchen: http://brixtonpk.wordpress.com/

Initiated by a talented young chef who found the amount of perfectly edible but wasted food in the restaurants he worked in, hard to bear, People's Kitchen is sustained with donations, crowdfunding and volunteers, the groups meet regularly in Dalston and Myatts Fields respectively (and at pop-up events with their bike-cart), to turn surplus food donations in to cheap healthy meals (sometimes Pay What You Like Pizza Buffets!) for the whole community.

Can you tell that I get really excited by projects like this? ;)

They mainly need unwanted food and volunteers - so check them out if you're interested.

^ They might even like unwanted volunteers.

I've a lunch meeting in Kings Cross next week.

Are there any places of note that are meat heavy in a home cooked style?

BBQ / Vietnamese / Kosher / Pimpable burgers of note?

Any suggestions. The guy I am meeting suggested Caminos, tapas is meh.

The filling station does a solid soft shell crab burger but everything else in there is a bit rubbish although the cocktails are nice.

Plum and Spilt Milk is delicious but spendy but it depends if you're paying or not...

Other than that, Sen Viet is nice and just round the corner. It's quite low key though if you're trying to impress a client etc.

Finally, there's an honest burger but Honest don't take bookings so you'll need to get there early.

Bazschmaz method of impressing a client - go to a place, buy two family platters. Pass client one. Roll up sleeves. Remove watch.

Sen Viet looks good, its a 3rd sector meeting so low key is good. I'll go to Honest on my way back from the meeting I have after that.

Thanks Soul

Started out with the base bizcocho.

Then made a chocolate and a vanilla filling.

Cut the base cake into 3 layers. They are thinner than I had hoped, as my mould was too big. And made a glazing of sugar, water and a touch of orange marmelade.

Glazed the base layer and added a thick layer of chocolate filling.

A bit of glazing and vanilla filling on the next layer.

Chocolate and cream au bain marie.

After adding the top layer with a little glazing on it, put the cake on an oven rack over a piece of cardboard and covered the whole thing in creamy chocolate, topped with almond flakes.

My first layered cake. It already looks worse since the chocolate cover moved a bit when I put the cake on a plate to stick in fridge, but still happy with it. Hope my guests will enjoy in on Friday. Don't have time tomorrow so did it a day early.

I already liked kale, especially in its salad format. Now I find that I really like chia seeds soaked in milk. I need to find some jogging leggings and a good yoga spot.

Made this tonight. Simple, easy and delicious with some excellent Burnley black pud. Nom...

Cheers for posting about that. Never heard of them before. Just sent them my details, see if I can help.

me too! :) they're very active on Twitter...

Am hopefully doing homemade burgers for a few mates tomorrow night.

I cannot however be arsed to make the buns - any recommendations for somewhere to get brioche buns around Brixton / Herne Hill? Or just a heads up on good supermarket choices? I do love a good set of baps.

any recommendations for somewhere to get brioche buns around Brixton / Herne Hill?

there's a couple of bakeries around those sides
https://www.zomato.com/london/ye-olde-bakery-herne-hill
is the one on just on the corner by herne hill station, they do buns, not sure about brioche.

blackbird almost opposite ye olde bakery is more of a cafe and cake shop, but they do good bread.
http://www.yelp.co.uk/biz/blackbird-bakery-london

kindred bakery is further down half moon lane, list of breads they do is linked beneath.
http://www.kindredbakery.co.uk/our-bread.htm

my personal favourite is the old post office bakery a bit further over on landor road, again they mostly do loaves, but might have some buns in..
http://oldpostofficebakery.co.uk/

you can always try the farmers market up by oval tube station.
otherwise if you'd held off until sunday night, the farmers market in herne hill and brixton would probably be a good bet as welll...

tesco's does a passable brioche loaf / buns.

mrs hell still won't countenance buying anything from the Old Post Office Bakery - not since they blanked her at their WPM stall... in 2009.

mrs hell still won't countenance buying anything from the Old Post Office Bakery - not since they blanked her at their WPM stall... in 2009.

so she's not one to hold a grudge for very long.
Personally love the old post office bakery, their bread is fairly reasonably priced, and I like getting up early of a morning and riding over, buying a still warm loaf and then making toast or bacon sarnies...
Love their pain levain...

Cheers tommmmmmmm - sorry forgot to reply Thanks for the info!
We'll be spending the last few days based near alghero so will check out the farm.

If I were you, I'd go with Portuguese rolls or carcaça... You can pick them up at the deli on the corner of Atlantic/Brixton Road or Funchal Bakery on Stockwell Road... They're fab, like these but less crusty...

Old Post Office is great, but not for buns...

Thanks dude. Not sure which deli you mean on Atlantic road as there's loadsa stuff going on around there, but know the Funchal - will investigate!

I think it's called Continental Delicatessen, the one by the lights at the top of Atlantic Road...

@jim1985, he means the deli almost right on the corner of brixton road, opposite argos and before the fishmongers on atlantic road if you're walking up towards the dog star from the tube station..

^ Confuzzling... Opposite the 3 shop...

Just seen this too! Thanks - very comprehensive!

I quite like the very unassuming looking bakers at the end of the road with HH station on it in (where the road meets Norwood road) for general good tasty cheapo loaves. They've obviously not caught on that you can charge about £5 for a loaf of rye bread in london yet...

That's ye olde bakery. Best bread in HH.

Old Post Office rye loaf is only £1.90 tho' (if you go to the shop and not the WhitePeople'sMarket™, you get charged more there) and much tastier than the Herne Hill Bakery imho... I think they're about three quid in Herne Hill Bakery... #glutenintolerant #alsogenerallyintolerant