Seoul, Finchley Road, NW3

Remains of yuke in the bottom right corner - this plate was picked clean before it was taken away

Korean cuisine in London doesn't come close to the widespread reaches enjoyed by Chinese, Thai, Japanese or Indian, possibly because unlike the rest, you can't properly enjoy it as takeaway, because while Kimchi or bibimbap soup might survive reasonably well in transit, the true uniqueness of Korean lies in its hot, freshly barbequed meat dishes. The sheer unfathomed joy of cooking little strips of meat over a barbecue, built into your table, before making a little lettuce wrap with red bean curd paste, salt sauce, rice and then biting into it is something that can't be replicated at home. It's definitely better for meat-lovers. 

Barbecue - each plate of meat waiting to be cooked, £4.00/£4.50 (normally £8.00/£9.50)

I don't have very many pictures of this meal, and they were off my phone, so I'll keep it short and snappy - Seoul is a small, local Korean restaurant in Finchley & Frognal, a two-minute amble from the overground station and not too far from the Jubilee line tube. It's the sister restaurant of a sushi place, and when we went - six of us, on a Saturday night - it was subdued but fairly busy, a brightly lit room with about 20 covers, with quite a few Korean people dining. The meal was outstanding in every sense of the word, and well worth the trip, if you live in North London or are a bus ride away at least. To be fair, we even had someone with us from Peckham who was still glad they came for the journey. This was my second trip here, admittedly it had been two years, but it has remained just as good.
We were with someone who was quite au fait with the whole Korean food experience (I asked her about 10 times what gets dipped in what) who thankfully took over the ordering process. We all agreed that barbecue needed to feature heavily, of course, but we were wondering what to get. Finally enticed by their 50% off offer, and the waiter going "why not just get everything" - that's what we got. Everything on the barbecue menu. Six animals! Vegetarians, look away. Several varieties of marinaded beef, pork, chicken, ox tongue, king prawn, squid, plus some onions, mushrooms, green peppers and garlic. Chucked onto the grill with gusto, cooked by everyone at the table, shared around, eaten piping hot. 10/10 for deliciousness apart from some very bony chunks of steak which we obviously couldn't eat.

We also got yuke, (or yuk hui as it's sometimes written), not for the faint-hearted when it comes to meat, but it sent our table into paroxysms of joy. Cold, raw beef strips, with raw quail egg, sesame oil, pine nuts, and raw pear. You mash it all together, then you eat it as it is. It doesn't sound appealing, but my god, if you're at all daring, you'd want to have a go. We also ordered a swathe of little plates - kimchi, sesame cucumber, pickled bean-sprouts, vinegary shredded radish (my favourite) - which arrived within moments of ordering, around £1.00 to £1.50 on the menu each. The wonderful waiter then told us that these appetisers were on the house, and that we were entitled to as much as we liked. I have no idea if this is standard for this restaurant, or because we were a large group ordering a tonne of food, but either way, it put a big smile on our faces. He also brought us out pickled mooli - kaktoogi - something we didn't order, but he told us that it was a traditional Korean side dish, and all the rest, which was a lovely touch. 
Then, the bill - get ready; for six people, all that food, rice, yuke, plus beers, and a breakaway member of the group who ordered udon noodles and a soup, the bill was £120. £20 or so each! (Without the 50% off all barbecue , it would have been closer to £155 - still a damn good deal.)
By the end of the meal, we were pretty much all dying with being full of amazing food and happiness. It's perfect for group dining, and a total delight - not quite so much for vegetarians though. This is another restaurant that has no website, but do yourself a favour and try some of Seoul's Korean food as soon as you can. Mmm. 

Seoul, 289 Finchley Road, NW3 6ND, 020 7784 9099

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Strawberry pavlova with chocolate cream

Strawberries could easily be considered to be heavily overdone in terms of summer puddings, and initially, this pavlova might sound no different to your standard Eton mess fare, or even strawberries and cream. But there's a reason for that - they're utterly delicious and beloved by almost all. And for a make-ahead dessert, what goes more perfectly together than crispy, chewy meringue, leaving-teeth-marks-in-it-so-thick cold chocolate cream, and juicy sweet strawberries? This is also heavenly when leftovers are rescued from the fridge then crammed into a tupperware box then carried by bike to Regent's Park to be eaten with greed by friends sharing forks. Lovely for posh picnics.  Plus I hear it's going to be a bumper year for straws, so you might as well!

This is a wonderful summer dessert for whenever you're entertaining, again - I've fed my whole family on this during my graduation in 2009, when I cooked a huge vegetable lasagna, with leftovers. So don't make if it's just the two of you - for health-related reasons!
The original recipe suggests raspberries, my absolute favourite food. But I've always gone into the shop intending to buy but flinch at the last minute at the cost. The recipe also calls for the meringue base to be rolled up into a roulade, which I've never managed - this is basically Nancy's meringue pie with a chocolate cream filling and strawberry topping. And good god it looks seriously impressive. 


Strawberry pavlova with chocolate cream
Serves about 6 to 8 people

• 250g strawberries
• 2 tbsp caster sugar
• 150g plain chocolate
• 400ml double cream
• 5 egg whites
• 275g caster sugar
• Mint, optional garnish

Avoid doing this too much while cooking

Before you begin, 'mascerate' your strawberries. Cut off the green, and any other bits that would inhibit you from eating them whole, slice them all in half or quarters, then scatter over the 2 tbsp caster sugar. This will really bring out the flavour of the strawberries, and ensure that the fruit is gloriously sweet.
Meanwhile, get to making your meringue. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and line one of your biggest baking trays with greaseproof paper (suggest 33cm by 23cm swiss roll tin.) 
Whatever plastic mixing bowl you have knocking about in the back of your cupboard, rewash it with a non-skimpy amount of detergent to get any grease off and dry it with a clean tea towel. Carefully seperate your eggs - I like to have three bowls on  the counter. A mug to catch the white, one to catch the yolk, and then the bowl to tip the white into - meaning if you balls up one seperation, you don't lose contaminate most of your egg whites with yolk. 
Now, the whisking - get your electric whisk (and how I feel for you if you don't have one) and whisk on high until the peaks of the egg white are standing up stiff. Turn the setting on the whisk to low, and gradually add the caster sugar, stirring all the while until the mixture is nice and glossy. 

Fresh out the oven

Carefully spread the meringue mixture in the tin, and try to make as even as possible, then pop in the oven for 8 minutes. Don't forget! After this time lower the oven temperature to 160C for another 15 minutes, or until golden and firm on top. When it's done, take it out the oven, flip it over then peel off the backing paper, then put right-side-up again.
Chocolate cream time (you can do this while the meringue is cooking.) Whisk the cream now (avoid eating TOO many strawberries dipped in them), until it's a nice thick consistency. Meanwhile, melt your chocolate using a double boiler method, or if you're lazy like me, put it into a pan on a low heat and stir frantically until melted. Pour the now-melted chocolate off into a cold bowl and leave to cool down for ten minutes or so, so it doesn't curdle when you mix it. Fold the chocolate into cream (then sigh heavily at how gorgeous this looks), reserving a little chocolate for drizzling. 

Then it's just assembly: when the meringue is cooled off, use a big spoon to smear the lovely cream all over the meringue, then arrange the strawberries on top. Use a little teaspoon to flicky-flick little dribbles of dark chocolate all over the top for a nice effect, add a sprig of mint if you're using, then put it in the fridge until you're ready to serve it big indulgent slices to happy people. 
Credit where credit is due - Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall in The Guardian

Spicy pancetta pasta, Penne Amatriciana

Blogger unhelpfully ate this post, with the comments too. Thankfully, I had a cache of it, so here it is again. 

To take a bit of a departure from my usual "oh so good, yet so healthy, plus vegetarian!" shpiel, here is a fatty, gorgeous, meaty pancetta pasta, Penne Amatriciana, which has such deep flavours, that even though I've made it countless times, I always go "oh god" everytime I take my first mouthful. It's the incredibly simple ingredients that make it, red onion with pancetta being a winner, plus some red wine, rosemary and chilli.
This one is a real crowd pleaser as well. If you're ever trying to get people round for a non-fussy Italian-style dinner with some garlic bread and salad and 5 bottles of red, this is a perfect, utterly PERFECT main.
I first saw the recipe, I think, on Saturday Morning Kitchen when I was a student, and I can't remember where I scribbled down my version from, but I've used it ever since four years ago and time and time again it's been perfect. The original invited you to let the sauce thicken for 40 minutes. 40 minutes!! That's way too long! This version is much quicker and still insanely delicious. Seriously, invite your friends round for dinner, make this, be popular. I recommend it.


Penne Amatriciana (serves 2)
Just double the quantities for 4, etc.

• 200g penne pasta
• Half a pack of pancetta from a supermarket (100g), or lardons or even a few rashers of smoked bacon chopped
• 1 large red onion or 1.5 small ones (peeled and chopped)
• One tin of chopped or plum tomatoes
• 1 tbsp (ish) of dried chilli flakes
• 2 tbsp dried rosemary
• A handful of grated Parmesan cheese (or two handfuls if you like it extra cheesy-creamy)
• A good few glugs of red wine

Note - I understand completely if you don't feel like buying a bottle of wine just to make a meal, but honestly, the difference it makes, plus having some wine to drink while eating this makes it outstanding for a simple plate of pasta. However, I've made this several times without and it's still wonderful.
Heat up a pan on a fairly high heat, and chuck in your pancetta dry. The fattiness of the meat, as it melts, will mean that there's more than enough oil in your pan to cook your onions later. Cook it for a while and don't be impatient, this is as crisp as the pancetta will get, so you may as well let it get quite well cooked. What you're looking for is the golden edging appearing around the outside of the chunks.

Once that's done, turn down your heat to medium and add the onions. Keep an eye on them at first, see if they're looking like they might burn, adjust the heat accordingly and then stir every now and then over the next few minutes until wonderfully soft and approaching translucent.

Mix in your chilli flakes next - depending on how spicy you like it, obviously, you can add less or more. I use the amount shown in the picture for two and it's just about right. Not too hot, but not too bland either. Awesome stuff.This is the part I really screwed up the first time I made this - so be ready! Have your tin of tomatoes open, and ready, so you don't have to fuss with opening it up. Then turn the heat up super high, add your glugs of wine, and it should hiss as it goes into the pan. Stir rapidly with a spoon and you can see the alcohol evaporating off, which is what we want, and make the sauce quite liquidy. After a short period, 30 seconds, although you can judge yourself, quickly add the tomatoes, give a good stir, and turn down the heat so the sauce simmers briefly.
Add rosemary - quite a lot, maybe double the amount of chilli that you used. The pungent rosemary is one of the main flavours in this, so don't be afraid to add a lot. Then stir. Now, bring the sauce up to boiling point, then turn down and let thicken. The thickening is really crucial, it's the sticky oily goodness that makes this sauce which you can't appreciate if the tomatoes are still watery and runny.

I put my pasta on at this point, in well salted water, and let boil. You can grate your Parmesan now if you like. When the sauce has thickened enough, add the parmsean, then mix through with the pasta. Serve with some red wine, and if you're feeling like being fancy you can garnish with some parsley or basil.

As you can see it goes down a treat. The wine bottles in the background have candles in them - promise!

Pollen Street Social, Pollen Street, W1S

Sorry for the lull - three- and four-day weeks make for laziness, and then returning to work makes for high stress! Plus I've been helping out a friend by subbing her master's thesis, as you do, so when I have a moment to myself, all I want to do when is sit in front of the telly playing Playstation (damn you PS3 network, when will you be back up?!) But anyway.

The hype that surrounded the Pollen Street Social before it was opening was quite incredible, so I was desperate to go. And with good reason - former shining star and top chef at Gordon Ramsay's Maze, launching a brand new restaurant just off Regent Street in Mayfair, promising a gorgeous bar for tapas-style munching, or a mix-and-match style menu so you can create your ideal meal from, and a dessert bar? Oh my God. But we'll get to that. All in good time. 

Inside - dessert bar on the left and glass-fronted kitchen on the right

We arrived for the lunch menu, on the day of the Royal Wedding (no comment) and made our way inside to a surprisingly empty dining area. Considering how fraught the booking process seemed to be for many trying to secure an evening table, on a bank holiday, this seemed pretty surprising. It was pretty nerve-racking trying to take some covert snaps, as we were so well attended to by the staff. The main room was as promised - huge, light and airy, decorated tastefully.

What I absolutely adored about the décor above all other things was the use of glass-fronts. The front of the main kitchen is entirely glass, so you can watch the chefs skilfully smearing a teaspoon of purée, or mashed potato across a plate, then carefully building the meal around it, intensely wiping stray drops of sauce from the dish. For me, it was an utter joy to be able to watch it (the best view is from the dessert bar). Then, head downstairs to the bathroom and there's the second kitchen. A glass fridge visible from the corridor to the bathroom acted as a window into the kitchen, with big meaty hocks of lamb and pork hanging off gruesome-looking butcher hooks. All in all a totally fun experience. 

Before we sat down we were given a key - for something to take home at the end? We didn't know! It was a novelty I really liked. To start things off we enjoyed some complimentary bread, for which we were shortly after given a dip which I cannot remember the name of - the waiter said something about smoked trout, and potato, I believe? It was definitely a little bit weird, but quite an interesting addition to the usual butter-and-olive-oil fare.  

Salmon with jersey royals, avocado

The three course lunch menu (£23.50) offered a nice variety, although dishes were almost slightly under described. Ordinarily a restaurant will faff about with pan-fried this and locally sourced that on a bed of whatever. I ordered salmon with jersey royals, and was presented with a thick slice of cured salmon with cucumber, slices of potato, some ice shaving (I think?). It looked incredible, but I would have liked to have known what I was actually having. Also, as a fan of strong flavours I desperately found myself wanting more seasoning. This may be a side effect of drizzling every piece of sushi I eat in soy sauce, but I kept looking for a smokiness or a sweetness, and found very little. It was tremendously refreshing, and a lovely light dish though. 

Salad Lyonnaise

My boyfriend's starter on the other hand - Salad Lyonnaise with roasted quail was fabulous. I kept nicking pieces off his plate. A gorgeous tower of creamed egg, game and salad with some thin crispy bread, oh it was truly amazing. Probably my favourite dish of the entire experience. Ooh la la. 

Shortly after we finished up, the mains arrived. I opted for spiced braised pork cheeks with turnip, celeriac and a coffee purée. The pig cheeks were divine, cooked to perfection and melting off the fork, and the whole dish was presently beautifully, with tiny little purple flowers atop a little mountain of meaty goodness. I didn't discover any coffee-flavours, which was disappointing as I was very curious about it, but a lovely well-rounded dish. 

Braised spiced pig cheeks - the gravy was poured over at the table, beautiful presentation.  

Boyfriend was temped by the Cornish brown crab risotto, with seaweed and samphire. It packed an incredibly salty punch and was right up his street, and again was beautifully presented, in a silver pot that was left on our table for top-up as and when needed. It was a nice touch - it's always fun to feel involved in looking after your food. 

We finished up, and ordered a dessert each - me opting for Eton Mess and boyfriend being brave and going for the Fruta Cru (we'd no idea what it was) with basil sorbet. "Would you like to eat your dessert at the dessert bar?" Why hell yes, we would. 
And it was the total highlight, 100% fantastic. Sitting on a row of bar stools, six or seven or so, full kitchen view, in front of us a lovely chef, working away, chatting intermittently. "What I'm doing here is .... ", "and this is a little drizzle of balsamic syrup..." and so on. It was an absolute delight, as were the puddings. 

Over-exposed shot of our dessert chef making my Eton mess

The basil sorbet in particular was outstandingly delicious. Highly recommend it - plus the presentation of the fruta cru, which turned out to be a compressed fruit dessert drizzled with ginger syrup and caramelised herb leafs tarragon oh my god, was placed in front of us with quite a dramatic flow of dry ice over the counter. My Eton mess was fantastic, quite complex creation for a simple dessert.

Fruta cru. Not pictured: dry ice wafting out bowl

Overall, the Pollen Street Social served really excellent food, but the portions were incredibly small, particularly compared to the Riding Street Cafe, which was where I last reviewed.  Still though, quality over quantity, and that's what you get with fine dining though, I find. Plus, big flavours can often more than make up for small sizes. However, I'd be lying if I didn't mention how the prices were pretty damn high. Although we went with the lunch menu, wine and coffee prices were very off-putting - two black Americanos (not even a froo-froo cappuchino or anything) coming in at £4.00 each, and £7.50 for one fairly small glass of wine, meaning that the Pollen Street Social is most definitely a budget-buster, and best saved for a special occasion.
But the addition of the dessert bar, and the other extra touches, means that you're definitely getting more than the food - like at the end of our meal, we presented our key, and got two little brown scones with some tea, "Afternoon tea, on us". Lovely! There's a wonderful atmosphere, so if that doesn't make it up for you, it'd be wary to recommend going. But you could easily drop in off the street on an afternoon, and enjoy a drink and pudding without spending your life savings, and still enjoy the lovely kitchen view as well. 
The Pollen Street Social, 8/10 Pollen Street, London, W1S 1NQ, 020 7290 7600

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