January 2016: a RRRound up

by - February 01, 2016




January - loads of things happening and changing! Good job food exists, isn't it!? Read on to find some mini reviews of: The Dog Haus, Lick Supper Club, The Blue Man and a chance to catch up with any recipes you may have missed from January.




So, "Happy New Year" and all that is now DONE and we are one month into 2016. Has it gone fast or slowly for you? January tends to drag because of the drawn out pay days, yet it seems to have flown by for many reasons. Food wise, there has been one new major element and that is the Fuji FX30 camera. Cannot sing it's praises highly enough; it's just fantastic. GET ONE. Obviously you have to know how to use it, which I can a little bit; it's always funny when you see people buying top of the range cameras which cost a bomb and they have no clue what to do except point and click. This one is great because you can preset what you want it to prioritise (aperture, shutter speed etc) and it does all the hard work for you.


You will know by now that it's rare to find a review here on RR. Mostly because I don't have many bad words to say about people who've worked their assess off to open restaurants. I empathise and forgive them/file it under them having a bad day if a bad experience is had. Most places I have a good experience at anyway just because I'm happy to be eating out and also I don't want to become a kiss-ass/free loader like a lot of bloggers are branded. That aside, there will be places getting shout outs on here from time to time. 

ESPECIALLY EAT NAKED! OH MY DAYS. Where has this been? Well it's been in The Lanes the whole time and yes I follow them on Instagram and lush out over their posts daily but like most things on a social media feed, it falls victim to information overload and sits quietly in the back of the mind until the next day when it pops up again. Enough popping up eventually resulted in a visit and I am boldly going to state that it's the closest to how I would want my cafe to be. Yes. Finally. A place where there's nothing I would change about the menu. Check this out...

EAT NAKED







Beautiful salads, a choice of hot smoked salmon or poached salmon, courghetti with a garlicky mushroomy sauce, salsa verde as a dressing AND AND AND they even do bulletproof coffee which I failed to f**king notice so will HAVE to back for that anyway. What a shame! Just so good!  Click here for their website and check them out in person in the lanes in that little arcade near Cath Kidston. Buff. 

THE DOG HAUS

Sausage dogs & hot dogs. The launch party of the new hot dog restaurant, The Dog Haus, inside Patterns (formerly Audio) saw sausage dogs, who are the best dogs, taking part in a sausage dog fashion show! SAY WHAT!? 

This was followed by a hot dog eating competition (humans doing the eating, not dogs) and accompanied by plenty of beautiful booze and some delicious food...



We tried The Booze Hound (pictured below) which was battered and covered in mushy peas and pickled onion and the Hound Dog (further below) as well as some potato smileys (Circa 2005) which were covered in some rather sloppy pulled pork. The hot dogs were awesome though  - I think they'll really take off in the summer on that magnificently placed terrace opposite The Pier. Beer & Sausage & Sun = YES


"The Dog Hound" - Bacon, Blueberry syrup and peanut butter.




Look at their little FACES!

The Lick Supper Club

You've heard of frozen yoghurt, right? "Froyo" if you will. Have you heard of Lick? They opened a little shop in North Laine in 2008 and are now stocked in Sainsbury's as well as other super markets and have taken their product global with stockists in Korea, Dubai, Ireland and Sweden. GOOD EFFORT! Just shows what you can do when you focus on a project, hey? I was lucky enough to be invited with my good friend Rosie to their supper club at their studios for an evening hosted by Alan Rosenthal, a talented chef, charismatic teacher, cookbook author and food consultant...

 Lick is also a music label, has a space for pay as you feel yoga, is the home of art workshops and installations as well as brewing up it's famous frozen yoghurt in 'The Yoghurt Room' which instantly made me think of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. The space itself was really cool and is open to hire for events too - I need to get my thinking cap on to see if I can arrange an activity for my students there. Any ideas? Please put them in the comments below!


This was the gorgeous menu for the evening - I had two starters as it was so good. Smoked pork fat from a Lithuanian place in London called something which sounded like "Mokkkkkin Baaaach" which translates to Little Pig in welsh. Alan, if you are reading this please correct me if it's wrong. The Ghanaian chicken stew wasn't dissimilar to satay sauce covered chicken thighs; yet delightfully flavoursome and the Peruvian lamb just fell apart. The succotash allowed me to appreciate sweetcorn's full potential, which I find is often limited. It was served very buttery and with squash. Pudding was a tart berry crumble served with the house FroYo itself and was a lovely way to end a lovely evening. I even learnt a new joke (you can decide how bad it is) OK, ready? Who would star in a South American version of the film 'Grease'?

BOLIVIA NEWTON JOHN

I lolled.







The Blue Man


North African cuisine. How many countries can you name in North Africa? What do you know about the food? All I knew was that there are raisins and apricots and prunes and things in the savoury dishes. Of this I am not a fan. However The Blue Man, on Queen's Road, has been top of my 'To try' list of places for a while and I was lucky enough to be taken there recently. The menu said all the mains came with tabbouleh, bread and salad but for me the salad was hugely lacking (especially after having been to Eat Naked earlier in the week!) However the mains were delicious and only a couple of raisins. We had spicy lamb sausages, spicy chicken and halloumi with apple and honey. YUM. Need to remember how well cheese and apple goes together again! 

Please forgive the photos on this one, only had the phone.  



Overall it was lovely -  the decor in there makes it so cosy and the ceiling is covered in teapots! They have over 100 different types of spirits, open mic nights, great wine and because they mixed our food up they gave us the halloumi dish for free! 

Recipes From January

Click on any of the pictures below to go to the recipe...










What did YOU get up to this January? Did you take part in any challenges such as #DryJanuary or #Veganuary? Talk to me in the comments below or hit me up on social media for more fit food and fun!

X






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3 comments

  1. Great post! All of the food looks great, recipes and places you've visited. Will definitely have to pay a visit soon x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Natasha! Yes please do come down, Rosie and I will show you a fun and delicious time again! x

    ReplyDelete
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