Tom Ilic’s (pronounced Ilitch – he’s Serbian) eponymous restaurant sits on Queenstown Road in Battersea, sandwiched between an Argentinian place which my dining partner described succinctly as ‘crap’ and a few carpet and lighting shops. A cheery cartoon pig’s head lurches forth from the ‘o’ in the ‘Tom’, giving it the air of a motorway service station or Little Chef. Plastic creepers line the walls and electric heaters blast out dry warmth in an already stuffy space. I keep my spirits up however, with memories of rave reviews: “hearty and generous,” ” excellent value,”  “not for vegetarians.” I hope it’s one of those places that just bubbles away gently, quietly turning out consistent, delicious, unpretentious grub to the locals.

It isn’t. Sadly, our meal was mediocre and one element, inedible. Things started off OK I suppose. My tartare (it’s under the lettuce) and carpaccio of beef was fine, although frustratingly drowned by a cacophony of huge flavours: salad dressed liberally with truffle oil, sticky balsamic, bolshy parmesan. All lovely things but a powerful gang which swiftly beat the beef into submission. My friend’s starter of roast bone marrow (a single, squat stump) came with – you’ve guessed it – parsley, caper and shallot salad but no toast to spread it on and sat awkwardly alongside veal sweetbreads.

The ‘Degustation of Pork’ should have been great, seeing as Tom is considered something of an expert in cooking the swine; what I  received was clunky, disjointed and disappointing. Two lobes of pink fillet appeared juicy and inviting, but were surprisingly dry. A rolled segment doused in gravy suffered from the same problem. A clumsy quinelle of mash was, surprise, surprise, dry and could be cut like a cake, each mealy slice working its way around the mouth before I washed it down with some of the (perfectly decent) house white. A kromeski was much better – excellent, even; crisp crumb encased soft shreds of flesh. I could have eaten a plateful. A supporting mound of lightly pickled cabbage was a pleasant foil to so much meat and black pudding had been treated well, boasting crunchy edges and soft fatty nuggets within. All redeeming features of the dish were overpowered however, by a bully of a spring roll (containing more of the shredded stuff) that was so sopping with grease it was simply inedible. My friend said it made him feel sick.

The time arrived to brave desserts and I was met with the familiar problem of wanting both cheese and ice cream. We shared cheese (nothing significant to report), and the only dish which had an ice cream element: a cheesecake and chocolate affair. The cheesecake was forgettable; was it vanilla? White chocolate? A scoop of black pepper ice cream on top was far more interesting, as were some poached baby pears. In fact,  just those two elements together would make a confident and charming dessert.

The ethos of Tom Ilic is supposedly to produce unfussy, generous, boldly flavoured food at low prices but instead I found it confused. The number of elements on the plate is at odds with this approach and attempts at more complicated arrangements such as my degustation lacked finesse. Service was sweet, water was tap and the restaurant itself perfectly adequate, if a little dated. Without doubt the best thing about the meal though, was the fact that my friend, Chris, had bid £100 for it (considerably more than it was worth), as part of the recent Blaggers’ Banquet event, and so did a brilliant and generous thing by giving £100 to charity. Disappointing meal aside, that’s money well spent.

Tom Ilic
123 Queenstown Road
London
SW8 3RH
Tel: 0207 622 0555
www.tomilic.com

I am not a regular visitor to Clapham. Mostly, it seems to be full of the kind of bars that think they are unique but are actually based on the template of All Bar One. My heart yearns for a proper boozer. The only time I’ve ever really dragged my judgemental ass over there, was to get loaded in the park. I’ve also been to Trinity a few times; each visit finding myself befuddled trying to work out who exactly they are catering for.

Head chef Adam Byatt offered the explanation of “everyone”. Customers in Clapham are mixed: young and hipsterish, yummy and mummyish, older couples with older kids. It’s a local restaurant with a whole lot of target customer on its plate; you’ve got to admire them rising to the challenge. Adam also keeps himself busy running cooking sessions at the kind of schools that require you to pass through a metal detector on the way in, and now they are running classes for the grown ups too, like this one – ‘The Pig’.

I never turn down an invite to anything with pig in the title and so found myself seated around the chef’s table watching Adam portion a half loin of Gloucester Old Spot on the bone, from Blackwell Farm, in Essex. The demonstration would be followed by a meal featuring various bits of one they prepared earlier, matched with Trimbach wines. You can do this too, for £70, although your meal will be served with a selection of ciders and perrys.

Adam selected a large saw from his surgical tray of implements and took to dissecting the loin with gusto. Sweat beaded his brow as he wrestled to remove the rack, puffing out his enthusiasm for buying whole and butchering, as it encourages the development of the chefs’ craft, allows for greater control over cuts and gives you more bang for your buck.

The rack removed, it was cleaned and trimmed, with all bits of extra meat going into a pot to be minced and mixed with onions, prunes, sage, chestnuts, thyme, breadcrumbs and sloshes of port and brandy. Its heady, herbaceous fragrance wafted around the table, piquing appetites for the meal ahead.

The stuffing was layered between meat and skin and tied up with heat resistant string in an appropriately cheffy manner.

And then it was time. The meal began with plump, rosemary-scented devils on horseback followed by spectacular biscuit like ‘flatbreads’ for scooping up dollops of smoky whipped taramasalata. Next, a white onion and thyme velouté, which triggered a hazy memory; I’m sure I’ve had it before here as an amuse. Deeply savoury, silky smooth and seasoned with pin point accuracy, it came in a small bowl which was actually a big cup. The only right way to consume this was by picking it up, although I saw others daintily spooning. It didn’t see eye to eye with a spiky 2007 Riesling sadly, which seemed a rather harsh accompaniment.

Smoked eel, steamed oyster and sole goujons with horseradish cream was “about as pretty as Trinity gets” according to the chef. This first experience of a steamed oyster was dominated mostly by alarm at its bogey-like appearance. It didn’t prove much more pleasant in the eating. The smoked eel sliver was perfect though, coating the mouth with its lingering oil and cut with horseradish bite. A very saline dish, buffered charmingly by the softness of a pretty leek terrine.

Pig’s trotters on toast were a gelatinous treat, cut by a pared down gribiche, which thankfully omitted the usual chopped eggs and much of the oil, presumably to avoid overkill against the rich, gummy trotters. A perfect strip of blistered pig skin balanced its bubbly self on top.

Trimbach Pinot Noir Reserve 2007 arrived alongside, but I failed to jot a single letter about it. At this point, the wine people started having a very in-depth technical discussion about some winey thing or other; I switched off and contemplated how best to steal the piece of neglected crackling on my neighbour’s plate. Food will always be my first love.

Pork belly came water bathed (for 16 hours), pressed and slicked with maple glaze and accompanied by cockles, celery heart and black olive oil mash. The combination of shellfish and pork is a personal favourite, but here I felt the cockles were slightly ill fitting, particularly against the aesthetically challenged mash. I think Douglas describes it rather well in his post as evoking “a pat from a cow prescribed a laxative-only diet.” Quite.

A quince tart tatin was thankfully just the right size for once (what is it with those monstrous versions?), glossy with oozing caramel and perfumed with star anise, as was the accompanying floral syrup: Gewürztraminer Selection De Grains Nobles (‘89). My favourite wines are nearly always Gewürztraminers, unless they are Rieslings. This is because I have a “hyper-sensitive” palate according to a tall man in a suit who gave me a sticker to prove it. A bold, sticky, harmonious marriage between liquor and pud.

Throughout the meal, the enthusiasm and charm of Jean Trimbach, Adam Byatt and (sommelier) Rupert Taylor was unrelenting and there were moments when my tongue was tied by the magic of a developing wine or a stunning element on the plate. Sadly, some of the food and wine matches felt forced and in these instances I couldn’t suppress the longing for one of those bubbly ciders. You need not worry about this however. Consume your Trimbach wine as you wish and keep an eye on Adam Byatt and Trinity; not everything coming out of that kitchen is perfect, but ambitions are high, sights are set and there’s a driving force of pure passion. I wish them all the success in the world.

The Trinity Pig masterclass costs £70 per person, including the butchery demonstration and lunch, matched with ciders and perrys. It runs from 10am-1pm. The next class will be held on Tuesday 2nd March. You can find details of other classes here.

You can see the rest of my photos from the evening here.

Trinity Restaurant
4 The Polygon
Clapham
London
SW4 0JG
Tel: 020 7622 1199
www.trinityrestaurant.co.uk

Trimbach Wines

When a friend announced that his birthday meal would be at Snazz Sichuan in King’s Cross, I grinned from ear to ear and swiftly ticked another one off the hit list. These types of meal are only possible with groups of three or more really, otherwise you can never order enough different hot and cold dishes to make the meal complete. With six of us present, we managed to give the lazy Susan a really good work out, spinning her this way and that with eager eyes and poised chopsticks.

Our particularly enthusiastic waiter offered suggestions and gentle warnings, which was very sweet of him really; he obviously wasn’t sure if we knew exactly how much oil, chillies and tongue tingling peppercorns we were about to receive.

The first and only item I really had to have was the cucumber salad. In Sichuan cuisine, the humble cuke is totally transformed; the above marinated in rice wine and mellowed garlic and here stir fried with chillies and Sichuan pepper. The seeds are removed and moisture salted out, transforming limp and watery into crisp and cooling.

My favourite dishes were the hot and numbing pork (top photo) which arrived bathing in a typically Sichuan scarlet chilli pool and lived up to its name rather well, and the crispy pig’s intestines, below. If you’ve never eaten crispy fried intestines, then you are missing out on a tasty piece of pig – pull yourself together! An initial outer crunch gives way to a little soft layer underneath, which makes for a chewy finish; highly addictive. That said, I think these were sliced a little on the thick side for my taste and I prefer the version at Chilli Cool, in nearby Leigh Street.

Jelly fungus was another highlight; with a texture like a cross between jellyfish and seaweed, they were slippery customers, liberally sprinkled with sesame oil.

‘Strange flavour rabbit’ was lacking strangeness but delicious anyway (and very similar to this version I cooked recently), while boiled pork slices were forgettable, as was ox haslet. The real let down though was the BBQ prawns which arrived in a strangely charming novelty dish shaped like a fish but contained a mix of curiously flavour-sapped prawns, various shredded things and then, inexplicably, some flaccid chips. The kind of chips that only a Chinese restaurant can produce. Most remained untouched.

When all is said and done, I have to be honest and say that I was slightly underwhelmed by Snazz Sichuan. By the end of the meal, our noses were running and our napkins well and truly soiled and yet I felt it lacked the intensity of the food at Chilli Cool. I’m not sure everyone agreed that the food lacked punch but I have fonder memories of this crazy grouper hotpot (below) and of course, my first crispy intestines. I do remember feeling that my head might be about to fall off but personally I admire an all or nothing approach.

I would definitely return to Snazz Sichuan, particularly for that jelly fungus and hot and numbing pork but with Snazz and Chilli Cool being so close to one another, I’m going to find it hard to make that choice.

Snazz Sichuan
37 Chalton Street
Euston
NW1 1JD
0207 388 0808

When I found myself in Whitechapel one weekday lunchtime, it seemed only right to nip into Tayyabs for a pile of sizzling meat. Unfortunately, I  ran out of time and ended up reluctantly skulking to my appointment, tummy grumbling loudly, cursing the grill Gods under my breath. Later that day though, when trying to find my way back onto the High Street, I stumbled upon Needoo Grill quite by accident,  nodded a little apology towards the heavens and sailed straight in, cheesy grin, eyes fixed firmly on the prize.

The restaurant is owned by a former manager of Tayyabs, and you’ll find many familiar dishes on the menu: lamb chops, dry meat and punjabi tinda for example. Not wanting to engage in a snore-a-thon comparison with Tayyabs however, I steered well clear and ordered Thursday’s daily special (advertised as a kofta – came as koftas with hard boiled eggs in a sauce), an aubergine dahl, plus a garlic naan to scoop it all up – a change from my usual default choice of roti. The waiter tappy tap tapped it into his nifty electronic ordering pad and 10 minutes later the food was in front of me.

The lamb koftas themselves were excellent: very dense and finely minced, yet juicy, and deftly spiced – each flavour distinct – the main players of cumin and coriander didn’t overpower the sweet meat. The eggs were like, er, hard boiled eggs but the main let down was the sauce, being as it was outrageously oily. As I spooned it onto my plate an orange slick burst forth taking out everything in its path. The smooth sauce of puréed onions, garlic and tomatoes was pleasant but slightly muddy and inaccessible anyway, hidden beneath the impenetrable viscous layer. I picked the meatballs out and left the rest behind as it was, quite frankly, inedible.

The dahl by contrast was a triumph and easily one of the best I’ve ever eaten; silky, smoky, slender baby aubergines melted in the mouth, as did the sweet lentils, yielding to a smooth, spicy paste with the slightest pressure. I wallowed in the layers of spicing and rejoiced in the subtle escalation of chilli fire and depth of sweet, toasted garlic. The dish was completed by an intriguing lemony perfume, which I suspect may be imparted by simmering lemon segments with the lentils, as in Simon Majumdar’s family recipe: Life Saving Dahl (LSD), which I can also highly recommend. The result is a subtle fragrance rather than the harsh acidity you get from adding fresh juice at the end of cooking.

The atmosphere in Needoo has much in common with its nearby inspiration: sizzling, clanging, clattering and banter bring the place alive. The interior designers have come right from the Tayyabs school of bright coloured panels and neon lighting. A Bollywood movie blared loud and proud from a wall-mounted TV, staff members taking turns to watch a portion as they scooped up mouthfuls of lunchtime curry. It is the kind of place where you feel totally at ease taking lunch for one.

The problem with dining alone though, is that one can only reasonably order so much. I thought two dishes plus bread seemed enough, seriously doubting I could finish much more given the nature of the beast: rich, meaty and carb bolstered. I was right. The dahl was the kind of dish you crave for weeks afterwards and order on every visit thereafter, while the kofta special was an oleaginous insult. I am, quite frankly, confused; a return visit I Needoo.

Needoo Grill
87 New Road
London
E1 1HH
0207 247 0648

When visiting a capital city, it is hard, as a Londoner, to resist a little game of matching up the different areas with London equivalents. The area just off Rossio for example, we decided was Leicester Square (high concentration of tourists), and our riverside beers were enjoyed on the ‘South Bank’. Our trip out of town to Belém then, to the home of the Pastel de Nata (custard tart), was rather like heading out to the ‘burbs for a day trip. We also made a classic capital city transport error, by getting the train and changing twice (as TFL would no doubt advise you to do), when just a short bus ride would have sufficed; not all parallels were immediately apparent.

Our destination, Pastéis de Belém, was apparently the first place to sell the tarts outside of the spectacular, dream-like Jerónimos monastery (where they were invented) that stands just a few hundred yards away. The tarts are supposedly the best in Lisbon and only 3 or 4 people in the family-run business are privy to the recipe. From the outside, Pastéis de Belém looked like a regular-sized coffee shop but on the inside we discovered room after cavernous room, not a single one of them empty.

Before getting down to the important business of the tarts, we took refreshment in the form of Bock (of course), and some savoury nibbles. The Portugese seem to have a fondness for foods which have been deep fried and then left to go cold; I found some more palatable than others. These salt cod cakes were warm thankfully and very pleasant; simple and light, with soft flakes of fish which didn’t overpower and a grassy lift of parsley. There were a couple of sizeable yet forgettable quiches too and then it was on to the main event. Of course we wanted to know just what was so damn special about these tarts compared to others we’d tried and I’ll admit to being slightly sceptical. When they arrived however, even on first appearances, they did look different. See the Pastéis de Belém tarts in the top photo below and one of my earlier conquests underneath…

You can see that the pastry is much more delicate in the Belém version, and the custard covers the whole surface of the tart rather than being a smooth, sunken pool as above. The pastry was familiarly delicate and flaky, sending a flutter of shattering flakes all down your top with every bite, but there was less of it, meaning more room for that wobbly baked custard, which was slightly less sweet and pleasantly more eggy than the lesser versions. Cinnamon and powdered sugar are provided for sprinkling at the table but I prefer to eat mine as they come. Top tarts indeed.

If I were to find myself in Belém once again, then I would definitely pay a return visit, although I would probably just order Pastéis de Nata and plenty of them; an indecent, towering plateful in fact. I would suggest that any visitor to Lisbon do the same. A national culinary treasure and quite rightly so; go and eat the original and the best.

Café Pastéis de Belém
Rua de Belem, 84-92,
Belem
+351 21 363 7423
http://www.pasteisdebelem.pt/

Winter opening hours (1st Nov-30th April): 08.00-23.00 Mon-Sat, 08.00-22.00 Sun.
Summer opening hours (1st May-31st Oct): 08.00-24.00

N.B. The nearby monastery is closed on a Monday – we were most disappointed.