Tidbits

I know it's spring because we had the first strawberry smoothies for breakfast on the weekend, and they were pink glasses of frothy fabulousness.

The defining food for the week though was this wonderful top rib roast that I cooked Sunday. Well I say cooked, but in many ways I simply warmed it up. I was taken with the idea of slow cooking it, John at Ginger Pig had said low and slow was best. When I googled for it the first thing that came up was Heston and his suggestion to cook it in the oven for 4-6 hours. At 65C. And I couldn't resist! Actually I was out for the afternoon so I left the man in charge of the thermometer with instructions to take the meat out when it got to a core temperature around 55C.

He kept a neat list of where it was at....

 

We wapped it out at 6.30, then sealed it all over in a really hot pan, then left it to rest for an hour. It was wonderful, richly flavoured, really juicy and tender. Made a perfect Sunday dinner.

Lots left over though, so as well as lunches thought I'd get a bit creative for dinners.

 I figured it would make a brilliant thai style beef salad so marinated slices and chopped up lots of  crisp and crunchy things and tossed the lot together for a very pretty bowl of food 

Still had plenty left - it had been over 2kg when I bought it - no I don't know why I decided to buy so much!

thought it would make for a fine curry - it did, with cucumber raita and coriander chutney

And the rest of the curry is in the freezer for a fabulously quick dinner one night soon  

We had two lunches out this week, came down to one to love and one to avoid.

 This pretty bowl of veg was part of a disappointing tapas collection at Boqueria on Acre Lane, which was a shame, had been looking forward to it, made a (totally unnecessary as it turned out) reservation and everything. It was so empty when we arrived the man thought it was shut. This was okay, but underseasoned and very thin on flavour. It was part of a menu that was a special advertised as being the food of the Roca brothers. Ha!

If the veg had too little flavour this puckered pea puree had way too much and all of it horrible, it tasted the way bad fish shops smell. Guessing the Roca brothers don't serve anything like this, either.

Saturday we took a walk to Victoria, a place that is pretty much a wasteland for decent food to try a new place I'd read about. A Wong. They make individual dim sum and I love that you can order them one at a time. For some reason there is a horse, akimbo, outside. 

A tiny bowl of Chengdu street style tofu, gloriously silky 

We did share an order of mu shoo pork pancakes 

Everything else was single serves - we have to go back so we can both eat our way through the entire menu. And also go in the evening for the tasting menu, it also sounds brilliant.

Love A Wong big time!