mikeeatslondon

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This week's #TravelTuesday reveals the origin of my profile pic! Lovely and fluffy soufflé pancakes at Hoshino Coffee in Tokyo.

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Impromptu Harvester lunch with the team. Battered halloumi was surprisingly nice!

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Inamo Camden - High Tech Eats?

When I first heard about Inamo I was enticed by what I saw of the menu; after all its pan-Asian fusion theme is right up my street.

And then I heard they have “electronic tablecloths” that you can draw and play games on. I had to go.

It just so happens that Inamo recently opened a branch in Camden (conveniently close to me) and put on a 50% off food offer just as I was kicking myself for leaving it so long before visiting. Sorted.

Oooh, I could just go for some beef tataki… Wait, I see what you’re doing here!

After being informed that we only had our table for an hour and a half — a disappointing state of affairs that had not been mentioned when I booked — we were shown to our table and greeted by the default display of vibrant, rolling colours and Japanese patterns, with a slideshow of menu items projected onto our plates.

Whilst awaiting an explanation of how the table worked, we discovered that the menu is presented via iPad.

You can make all of your selections and send them off to the kitchen without once having to interact with a waiter.

However it was at this early stage of our Inamo experience that we realised it was not going to live up to our lofty expectations.

It took all of 25 minutes to get that explanation, bring us a second pointer for the table, replace said broken pointer, bring us a new iPad as our initial one was on 1% battery and reset the new iPad as it hadn’t synched properly.

That was a third of our allotted time gone before we could place any orders or experiment with the table. Not super impressed.

All of this hassle was topped-off by the comment from a waitress upon replacing our iPad: “Technology, eh?”

A usually harmless remark that would have been laughed off in the workplace, for example, but in a restaurant where the entire gimmick revolves around the use of said technology it’s hardly encouraging.

Kitchen cam...

Upon finally submitting our order we set about playing with the table. You can choose your “tablecloth” from a selection of the aforementioned dynamic display and a plethora of photographs of pretty Asian things.

There is even an option to get a livestream from the kitchen in order to watch the chefs prepare your food. This seemed very cool at first, but then I realised I got a slightly better view by turning in my seat…

…now in HD

The real disappointment was the drawing tool, which was frankly just broken.

Supposedly clicking with your pointer brings up colour options, whilst clicking and dragging draws on the canvas. In actuality, clicking did indeed bring up the options but clicking and dragging, rather than drawing, merely flooded the display with these options pop-ups wherever we moved.

There were some parts of the table where it did seem to almost work as advertised — it took all of my patience and creative flair to conjure up the hearts in the top image (the default colour is red) — but we just had to give up, frustrated.

I have seen pictures posted on social media of some amazing doodles people have managed to realise with this tool, but I can only assume they poured inordinate amounts of time and effort into getting the table to cooperate or they are black magic practitioners of some kind.

The “instagramable” sushi bagel

But I haven’t even got to the food yet!

Dishes are brought out as and when they are ready, rather than in courses, to promote sharing. As such we kicked things off with the “sushi bagel” that is exclusive to Inamo Camden for the first month after opening.

What I was expecting here was a selection of nigiri arranged to look like a bagel (which the menu boasts to be inherently “instagramable”), but in actuality we effectively have sashimi arranged on top of a bed of rice.

I would describe the salmon and tuna sashimi as “average”, but the prawn was rubbery and mostly tail and the avocado was was oddly firm (“al dente” springs to mind) and sliced so thinly that you could barely tell it was avocado.

The rice certainly wasn’t made for sushi — it lacked the stickiness (or “mochi-mochi” as the Japanese might say) required to give any purchase to the fish atop it or even hold itself together, and it crumbled to the touch. Needless to say eating it with chopsticks proved difficult.

I think the blob in the middle was cream cheese, but served no purpose other than to contribute to the bagel aesthetic.

It doesn’t look like much, but trust me when I say this is one of the nicest things you can ever taste

Next came the yuzu miso aubergine. We decided to go with this because the picture looked good and we needed to get some more veg involved, little did we know we’d unwittingly picked out the jewel of the menu.

Simply described as “tender aubergine marinated in a flavoursome blend of yuzu, miso, soy & mirin”, it is hard to put into words just how phenomenal this dish was — easily the best food I have tasted in a long, long time.

The aubergine was indeed tender, to the point of melting in the mouth, and the flavours of the marinade come together to form a perfect harmony that takes the taste sensation the next level. The portion was thankfully very generous as well.

All I can say is that if you ever find yourself at Inamo, do yourself a favour and order this.

You can just make out the mess of rice that fell into my soy sauce

Here we have a pair of little wagyu burgers with a side of “wasabi fries”.

Has “sliders” made it into the common vernacular now? I can’t say I approve of meat portions being scaled down in general, though I’m sure there are some circumstances in which it makes sense.

These particular sliders were definitely passable, but that’s about it. Previous experiences of wagyu burgers have blown me away with the quality of the meat — even ones that have been bought in the supermarket — but this one seemed bland and dry. Dare I say barely better than fast food fare? Possibly not helped by all of the sauce leaking out before I could even take a bite.

The wasabi fries were a bit of a mixed bag. They suffer from the crisps curse, or that of anything that is “tossed” in a spice mix, in that the distribution of flavour is all over the place. If found myself licking the exterior of countless chips in an attempt to pick up a hint of that infamous wasabi kick, until eventually I had my mouth blown off by a single one.

I can’t tell you what the white sauce is despite spending a lot of time trying to figure it out, though the lighting in the picture makes it look like some kind of ectoplasm. It must be said that it did pair very well with the wasabi fries however.

A true blessing that the aubergine lasted us throughout the whole meal. I couldn’t stop going back for a “fix”

In a classic example of the “sharing style” of service, we finished with the traditional starter of Korean chicken wings. You can see the characteristic “danger red” that betrays the heat contained within.

I don’t tend to enjoy overly spicy dishes, but there was some good flavour in there as well and the chicken itself was nice and tender. I’ve just seen that the wings were apparently dusted in desiccated coconut, but I definitely couldn’t pick that out at the time.

Familiar?

Once the food was cleared away we were left with a mere 15 minutes to attempt to make the most of the table gimmick once again.

There are two games available: the one pictured above (I believe it was called “ping”) and “puzzle race”. The pointers were almost adequately responsive for the former, so that was a good bit of fun, and the latter took the form of a classic picture-matching memory game…

...which I won!

When we again tried and failed to achieve anything with the drawing tool we decided it was time to pack up and go home.

So despite being almost saved solely by that heavenly aubergine dish, I think it’s safe to say our impression of Inamo was largely negative — exacerbated by the high expectations we had going in.

With 50% off food (and including 2 cocktails) the bill came to £47. It is a rare experience indeed that even with such a good offer the bill still feels like a sting, but there you have it. I realise you are also paying for the experience, but when the experience isn’t up to scratch then you’re just paying extortionate prices — if I had paid full price for the “bagel” or sliders I would have been mightily disappointed.

As such it is hard to recommend a visit to Inamo (at least in its current state) without some kind of discount or voucher. Maybe we just happened to draw the short straw with the tech on the night, or maybe these are teething problems experienced by many of the still relatively new restaurant’s patrons that will be ironed-out over time, but I can only judge based on what we got.

We visited Inamo Camden branch on 19/01/2017 and paid £47 (with 50% off food and including service charge) for 2 cocktails, a sushi bagel, korean chicken wings, wagyu sliders and the yuzu miso aubergine.

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#tbt to Shogun Teppanyaki in Birmingham, for my 17th birthday no less! Didn't go in for the teppanyaki, but very satisfying nonetheless.

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#TravelTuesday brings you fast food- Mos Burger in Japan. Slogan: The Taste of Happiness, Everyday. Suggested slogan: It's alright, I guess.

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Rainy trip to the London Designer Outlet brightened up by pork belly & panko apple hirata buns from Wagamama and a Shaketastic milkshake

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Throwback to when I first discovered My Old Dutch in Holborn. Ridiculous large pancakes, both savoury and sweet, and the customary milkshake. I have been back many, many times since.

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#TravelTuesday & Okonomiyaki in Asakusa

When I decided to embark upon this misguided venture (that is, writing about food on the internet), I thought people might find it interesting to see some glimpses of my visits to establishments much further afield than The Big Smoke, exotic though it may be.

“#TravelTuesday I’ll call it!” cried my inner voice, assuming he had struck social media gold.

Thus far I have only posted this ludicrous ice cream from Spain, with many more snaps in reserve. However I think these pictures are probably best served with some context that can’t be provided within 140 characters, so here we are!

As many of these delights will be coming from my 2015 trip to Japan, let’s start with my very first meal of that adventure. Apologies for the photo quality — if only I had known that I would be blogging about it in the future…

Tokyo greeted us with this glorious evening sky

We’d survived the 20-hour flight from Birmingham to Tokyo, including a change in Dubai.

We’d endured standing with our luggage for 50 minutes on the express train into the city.

We’d stumbled through the dark side streets of Asakusa, dragging said luggage and trying to make sense of the road signs in an attempt to find our hostel.

We’d managed to check-in and even found the time to take a couple of snaps of the impressive road leading to Senso-ji temple.

Now we were hungry. Very, very hungry. But where should we go for our first meal? We don’t want to mess this up! Indecision had struck.

We must have walked the surrounding streets for the best part of an hour, snubbing all sorts of wondrous places — noodle bars, curry houses, gyoza restaurants — as our hunger only grew. As it became clear that places were beginning to close up for the night we knew we just had to settle on something.

So it was that we found ourselves climbing the stairs to an unassuming okonomiyaki place, just two floors above an owl & parrot cafe that we sadly didn’t find time to visit.

I say unassuming because the only sign of its existence was a tiny advert on the building’s floor guide beside the stairwell. I quickly learned to look up, as well as around, for places to eat in Tokyo.

DIY eating out is an Asian custom I’d definitely like to see more of over here

There weren’t many tables and we were the only customers aside from a trio of salarymen — presumably colleagues getting together after work. They sat on the floor around a low table, drinking and smoking heavily whilst a bizarre variety show blared out from the TV against the wall.

We were in Japan alright.

The lady who came out to serve us did her best to accommodate our unpractised Japanese — they even had English menus for just such an occasion — and we managed to order.

For the uninitiated, okonomiyaki is often translated as pancake or omelette but it’s not quite either. An eggy batter is fried on the hotplate together with vegetables and any desired toppings. In our case I believe cheese and bacon were involved at the very least.

The lighting conspired against us taking the perfect action shot

The ingredients were brought out and, noticing our trepidation, the kindly hostess got things started for us. Then we were away!

The spatulas were used largely to keep our little edible mounds from falling to pieces, but also to give them the traditional pancake flip.

Et voilà!

Okonomiyaki wouldn’t be complete without the special sauce and bonito flakes

As far as the taste goes, I remember being very happy with it — though all things considered any food would have seemed divine at that point. Of course there was the extra satisfaction to be taken from dining on one’s own handiwork as well.

Having polished off our concoctions and settled the bill it was time to make a beeline for bed.

But not before a final ill-conceived jaunt to the Tokyo Skytree.

The somewhat magical atmosphere at the base of the Skytree by night was ever so slightly besmirched by the constant nagging electronic voice of the escalators reminding us to hold on to the hand rail

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Tonkotsu - #keepslurping

I love a good deal, but what I love even more is a prize. And a prize - a £10 off voucher from Hackney Walk on Twitter to be precise - is exactly what led me to Tonkotsu Mare Street on a drizzly Friday evening in January.

Now, I'm not a ramen expert by any means. Don't get me wrong, I certainly eat more than my fair share of it (possibly more than any other food stuff apart from burgers when dining out) and enjoy it immensely, but there are people who devote their lives to the art of making good ramen. I simply like it a lot.

So I had been waiting for an opportunity to see how Tonkotsu stacked up against London's many and varied ramen providers, and what better chance than when it's dirt cheap?

I didn't try to translate the speech bubbles, but there certainly seemed to be some off-the-wall (get it?) scenarios playing out

As with most culinary adventures, this one began by having to make our selection from the menu, though with a slightly less orthodox wall of manga looming large above our heads.

Initially we both remarked upon the relative lack of choice of mains: 5 different ramens, with an additional selection of 3 specials that weren't going to get a look-in due to the fact they are served cold.

But what's wrong with that really? If Shoryu decided to stop serving everything but their classic tonkotsu I'm sure I would continue to offer them my regular patronage. It just goes to show how spoiled for choice we are now that we expect these restaurants to conjure up a plethora of gimmicky variants to suit every individual's taste. I say if an establishment wants to dedicate itself to crafting one perfect dish then they shouldn't feel pressured to dilute their menu with a long list of alternatives. And conversely I find myself complaining if I have too many items to choose between anyway!

Crispy on the outside, gooey on the inside

So despite being tempted by the lighter 'Tokyo Ramen', I opted for the eponymous 'Tonkotsu Ramen'. Partly to sample the dish that has presumably been given the most care and dedication, but also partly because the menu promised "a fuller mouth-feel", whatever that is. We also opted for some crab korokke at the behest of my dining companion.

The korokke/croquettes were delicious, somewhat surprisingly. I don't usually go in for crab dishes as whilst the flavour is passable it doesn't tend to be actively nice. But here the perfect balance of textures between the thin and crispy shell and the rich and creamy filling served to elevate the taste to a higher plane.

Also surprising was that although I would not consider crab to be a strong flavour, it managed to completely extinguish that of the lemon juice we had doused the korokke in, and did so whilst maintaining its subtle taste on the palate rather than overwhelming it.

Its unassuming appearance often belies the gastronomic experience of ramen

Then it was ramen time at last. I suppose I should talk about each of the main components in turn. As I said above there are plenty of ramen devotees out there, and many of them have written at length about the heavenly harmonious conglomeration of broth, noodles and toppings far more eloquently than I could hope to.

The nitamago (seasoned soft-boiled egg) is often my favourite part of the whole ramen experience, and I tend to polish it off immediately. I can't say the egg I had at Tonkotsu is the best I've had in London as there wasn't much flavour there - and it was oddly chilled as if it had been taken from the fridge and dropped into the bowl just before serving - but it had definitely been cooked to the optimal point for its purpose.

One would normally expect the meat to be more of a highlight than half an egg, and that can sometimes be the case, but I wasn't convinced here. My main complaint probably has to be about the quantity of the pork itself. "But Mike," I hear you cry, "there are two huge pieces right there! Surely that was satisfactory?" And it certainly would have been if not for the 'flesh to fat ratio' on said pieces. Obviously with pork belly you're letting yourself in for a reasonable amount of fat, but we're talking 2/3-3/4 of each slice, which was rather disappointing. On the plus side they were cooked well and absorbed a good amount of the flavour from the broth which is just what you want.

A decent mouthful?

Tonkotsu take their homemade noodles very seriously, as shown by this page on their website. Unfortunately I have to reiterate that I am not a ramen connoisseur (I probably couldn't name a single type of ramen noodle flour) and probably couldn't appreciate them to the extent intended. However they did their job well. Not too hard, not too soft and took on some of the flavour of the broth. A generous helping as well!

But the real star of the night was the broth. You can almost tell just from the photos above, but it was thick, creamy and absolutely delicious - I could almost say it tasted meatier than the meat itself! I couldn't exactly pinpoint what gave it such a fantastic flavour (perhaps it's time to start studying to be a ramen master), but I made sure to drink it all down to the last drop.

It has been a long time since I've had the delectable kotteri hakata tonkotsu at Shoryu, but I think this broth must at least be its equal, and that is high praise indeed. I now have an appreciation of what they mean by "fuller mouth feel". The only things I would say are that it is a little on the oily side, and that it weighed incredibly heavily on the stomach afterwards so be warned!

Godzilla fighting some kind of giant noodle monster? Because of course.

And that concludes this particular foray into London's ramen culture. Aside from what are really quite small niggles in the grand scheme of things, a tasty meal and a wholly pleasant experience. Service was quick and attentive and the food was ready in a flash, possibly because the place was surprisingly empty but they certainly can't be faulted on that. Value-wise expect to pay as much as you would at Shoryu or any other purveyor of fine ramen, and you are unlikely to be disappointed.

I doubt I've seen the last of Tonkotsu.

We visited Tonkotsu Mare Street branch in Hackney on 06/01/2017 and paid £18 (with £10 off and including service charge) for two ramens and a side of crab korokke.

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Sorry for the radio silence, will be hitting Tonkotsu for a review on Friday! In the meantime here's the last post...

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The next in a long line of overindulgent family meals over the festive season.

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Visited the Nag's Head Chef & Brewer near Burntwood. In short: disappointing, particularly compared to previous visits.

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Pom’s at Christmas

It's a pseudo-Christmas post! Finding myself back in Lichfield for the festive period, it seemed only right that I sample some of the local fare - stay up to date with smaller posts on my Twitter! - and so we made our way to Pom's Kitchen & Deli to sample their Boxing Day menu... 

Not my meal, though I sort of wish it was 

At first I was confronted with choice paralysis. Many of the items on the Christmas menu looked both novel and delicious, and to compound my indecision we were aiming to go for all three courses. Eventually I managed to settle on the choices that I thought would lead to least regret, assisted by the age-old method of ruling-out the dishes that others had ordered.

To start: Marinated hoi sin duck with a pickled plum gel, spring onion, cucumber and coriander salad and pancakes. I was tempted by both the cauliflower and chive oil soup of the day and trio of melon with goats cheese, however these were both snapped up by my dining companions.

Served with a traditional smear of blood across the plate

I love me a good bit of hoi sin duck, though this fishcake-esque delivery system for the meat was a new one on me. Not one to be perturbed at the sight of food, I set about wrapping 3 or 4 of my own little pancakes including a slice of the duck, some of the greenery and a generous portion of the plum pickle.

Contary to the more typical Peking duck style, the crispiness that one expects from such a dish came from the batter(?) here as opposed to the meat itself. This was a novel sensation, and also made way for the flavour of the duck to come through from the more tender meat, but the real hero here was the plum "gel". It was nice and sweet, though not sickly so, and complimented the duck perfectly whilst the salad merely served to add some texture to each bite.

Strangely enough it wasn't until I had effectively polished off the duck that I came to an epiphany: "Wait a minute, this isn't hoi sin at all..." Then it struck me that the lines of brownish sauce traced across my plate, that had hitherto escaped my attention, was all the hoi sin I was going to get from this dish. What had been a thorougly enjoyable starter was slightly soured by that realisation, as I felt rather betrayed.

For the main course: Wild mushroom, chestnut and blue cheese roulade with sweet potato fries and watercress salad. The runner-up here was the open steak sandwich (pictured above, and truly divine from my small sample) which was pilfered by not one but BOTH of my compatriots.

Not so much a harmony as three completely distinct islands of food on the plate 

This seemed like it would be an interesting alternative to some of the more traditional yuletide offerings, and I am naturally drawn to anything claiming to involve blue cheese or sweet potato fries.

The roulade itself was absolutely gorgeous. Mushroom and blue cheese are both very strong flavours, yet they were perfectly balanced here with neither dominating, and combined to form a wonderful taste sensation. The chestnuts acted almost to hold the rest of the mixture together, but also to give a nice and smooth, creamy texture to the dish. The pastry did an admirable job of containing the filling and making it look presentable, and was of a small enough quantity so as not to hamper my enjoyment of it, but the dish would have worked just as well without it.

A rogue dash of gorgonzola sauce sits atop the roulade 

My only complaint with the main thus lies with the sides. As we've previously established, I'm not a fan of salads at the best of times, and the little mound of watercress did nothing for me. Primarily because its flavour (and its general refusal to be added to a forkful of anything else without great difficulty) was not a good match to that of the roulade; it was just a bit sour.

I mentioned above that I am a fan of sweet potato fries for the most part, and whilst there was nothing offensive about these ones - they were perfectly decent - they again didn't seem to go with the dish in question. If nothing else there was no sauce or gravy to go with them, and as such it was just a dry bowl of chips. Perhaps I should have asked for some ketchup or something, but at that point it becomes hard to justify pairing the fries with this main. Though I must admit I dipped one or two of them into the gorgonzola sauce adorning the steak sandwiches to wondrous effect.

For dessert: Dark chocolate and salted caramel tart with Needwood's honeycomb ice cream. Just beat out the sticky toffee pudding (which is a personal favourite) on novelty value.

From above it seems like an innocent little dessert... 

This one took me by surprise from the first bite - the chocolate and salted caramel filling was incredibly rich and thick and creamy, and of course very very sweet. Mind you, unlike some people, it takes a lot for a dessert to be "too sweet" for me. Both the taste, and particularly the texture, of the filling was reminiscent of the Gü range of puddings, which can be no bad thing.

Adding some ice cream to accompany the tart was a good move as it prevented the palate from becoming overwhelmed by its concentrated richness. However whilst the honeycomb was not as sweet as one might expect (or as crunchy, sadly), it might have been better to go with the classic vanilla rather than adding yet more sweetness onto the pile. All-in-all a great dessert, but not for those without a well-developed sweet tooth.

But its centre betrays the true measure of its decadence 

So how did the meal score on value? Well the courses were priced invidividually at £6 for the duck, £9 for the roulade and £5.50 for the tart, coming to a total of £20.50 - quite a bit more than I would usually aim to spend per person, but then again I very rarely go for three courses if I am paying for myself.

Perhaps at another time of year I might have complained about the portions being slightly smaller than I had envisioned - you pay for the quality of the food and its presentation here rather than the quantity - but during the festive season it was actually pleasantly refreshing to come away from a three-course meal and not be uncomfortably full. Pom's is definitely worth a look if you ever find yourself in the area.

I visited Pom's Kitchen & Deli in Lichfield on 26/12/2016 and paid £20.50 for the three courses listed above from the Boxing Day Lunch menu.

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Round 3. (Round 2 was just a repeat of Round 1)

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Round 1...

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Being home for Christmas obviously means being spoiled rotten with food. Here is a wagyu burger.

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Back home for the holidays, and first stop at The Lounge of Lichfield where they've given some festive hot chocolates the freak shake treatment! To die for.