The Fervent Foodie Lives Again!

Gluttony with taste - that's the motto of the new incarnation of The Fervent Foodie.

You'll find all of the content from here along with a brand new post on Matcha Chocolate Fondue - quite possibly the holy grail of matcha chocolate experiences.

 There'll be much more to come, including a special project I'm currently working on...for now, whet your appetite. Think of it as a tantalising starter, if you will.


-FF

Cronut @ Masters Sandwich Bar

You may have heard of the 'cronut' food fad that's been going on for some time. Billed as part doughnut, part croissant, this hybrid was born on the streets of New York (where else?),

I'm not one to jump onto 'trendy' food in general - quinoa, kale and acai existed long before they were famous and I'm pretty unimpressed by the practice of doubling the price of something because it's a 'superfood' or the like. That said, I had been intrigued by this alleged crossing of textures for a while, and decided to take the plunge. What would it look like, this chimerical beast that had attained near-mythical status in its quick and meteoric rise?

Pretty much like a doughnut, as it turned out.

So far, so ordinary. However, an unusual flavour was on offer in the form of caramel and pistachio. Now it was starting to grab my attention!

At £3.50 for a single piece it was certainly steep, so my expectations were high. As I bit into it I was immediately reminded of...a dense doughnut. It was quite heavy and there was none of the characteristic lightness and flakiness of a croissant in the texture. It was also somewhat dry and the pistachio and caramel flavours didn't hold their own in the overall balance with the dough. I was disappointed.

Wondering what all the fuss was about and thinking of how many decent pieces of sushi I could have procured for my £3.50 (probably 1), I took a second dejected bite -

And everything changed. What was this? A generous river of thick-flowing caramel hiding in the centre of the dough? Hallelujah! It was like irrigation to parched lands, delivering crucial moisture to the dough with a knockout punch of delicious buttery flavour. It was like butterscotch with a pistachio topping: at once devilish and heavenly.

Perhaps the jam version wouldn't have been as good, but I can heartily recommend the caramel-pistachio cronut as a bit of a gem. Try it once - you'll probably spend the next year running it off.

You can find Masters at 53 Great Portland Street; the closest Tube station is Oxford Circus.

@FerventFoodie

£5 Lunch, Match Bar

The novelty of the (actually rather good) office canteen was wearing off, as was the grind of assembling a packed lunch every day. If only there were some way to find a balance between the hole in my stomach and the one in my wallet, alas! So it was that I went, in search of cheap eats nearby.

A chalk board on the street advertising cheap food in central London is always likely to grab my attention – my Fervent Foodie sense is engaged 24/7 (I dream in sushi). Such was how I happened upon Match Bar’s ‘lunch for £5’ deal. 

The lunch on offer is simple fare – eggs benedict or a choice of filling for your ciabatta/pitta/salad. Avocado & prawn and jerk chicken were both contenders, but in the end I could not resist the lure of chicken and chorizo, in a salad.

The food arrived at the table bursting with colour and I was glad to see that the chorizo was in satisfying chunks. The salad consisted of leafy greens, tomato, cucumber and herbs. It looked good, but another of my first impressions was of the portion size – really rather small for a main. That explained the low price.

Meat.

The chicken was in grilled strips and the salad had a good mix of textures between the tender leaves, crunchy cucumber and juicy tomato chunks. It would have been decent, if unremarkable were it not for addition of the chorizo. The rich and oily, almost nutty quality of the chorizo stood out against the mild backdrop of the chicken salad, which enhanced the depth of its flavour. It was a classic example of how judicious use of a bold ingredient can add life to an otherwise plain dish.

Though the taste of it was great, by the end of my meal I was left feeling hungry: the portion just wasn’t big enough. Perhaps the ciabatta option, with its thick wedges of bread, would have gone some ways to solve this problem but on the flavour-balanced salad option I can only recommend it for small appetites or a light lunch.

You'll find Match Bar at 37-38 Margaret St, the closest station being Oxford Circus

Nizuni go, Marylebone Lane

It could be cosy

Nizuni go markets itself as ‘Japanese sushi and sashimi’, but in fact the menu is quite a bit wider than that, with ramen, curry and the like too. It's a takeaway-focused outlet of the main Nizuni restaurant - which spans several floors  on Charlotte St. nearby. Of greatest prominence here seems to be their menu of salads, featuring gyoza and hoisin duck. This didn’t bode particularly well for traditional authenticity, but I tried to keep an open mind.

It’s more of a cafe than a restaurant in feel. The wooden theme evokes a traditional Japanese feel and cosy warmth. This theme extends to the wooden sign hanging out front. Slightly jarringly juxtaposed to all this though is the glaring soft drinks fridge residing in the corner.

I ordered a katsu curry and a couple of pieces of Salmon nigiri sushi. The curry is particularly well-priced at under £7. The sushi came to £3.60 for 2 pieces, which is fairly standard for a hole-in-the-wall type of place.

The katsu curry arrived in record time and the first impressions were good: it was well-presented in a traditional wooden rice tub and was piping hot. It came with a small side of Japanese pickles.

There were only a couple of vegetable pieces in the curry which was a little disappointing. The curry was also by far the mildest I’ve ever had, at the expense of flavour. In fairness, it is described as mild in the menu, but the level of mildness was such that it had only hints of that distinctive Japanese curry spice blend. The katsu itself was well-seasoned, possibly with garlic powder added to the meat during the breading process.

The sushi was surprisingly good considering the curry. The salmon melts in the mouth nicely with an almost buttery texture. It was a little too warm though and the fish, in its softness, lacked a little body. It didn’t feel like biting into much.

The fish is good, but the block as a whole is top-heavy

Never devour the green wasabi mountain whole - it's extremely potent.

The rice held together well but the proportions were off. It may seem great to get a whacking great piece of fish on top but in actual fact, it made the nigiri difficult to handle with chopsticks while keeping it in once piece. The fish was prone to slipping off or engulfing the rice at the sides. Service was attentive throughout despite the cafe feel of the place.




All in all there was enough there to make me interested in trying the salads. It offers decent sushi on a budget - of far better quality than anything you might get at say, Itsu. I’d give the curry a miss though. There’s far better to be had for a few pounds more, with heartier servings too. The exception perhaps would be if you took away - the menu is slightly cheaper in that case.

You can find Nizuni go at 39 Marylebone Lane, W1U 2NP. the closest Tube stations are Bond St. and Oxford Circus.

Follow me on Twitter: @FerventFoodie

Office Porridges of London #2

The little things make mornings better: waking up actually feeling refreshed, getting a seat on the train or catching the connecting tube right as you arrive at the platform.That's why I've taken it upon myself to seek out the sublime in the mundane by finding London's best desk porridge to make mornings that little bit easier. 

This second entry is from Starbucks. (You can find the first one, along with the review rules here.) Judging by the wording in their branding, they set the bar very high:

That's right, *Perfect* Porridge!

On first impressions, Starbucks' offering didn't look too shabby. I choose dried fruit as a healthy topping, which made it look about as good as you'll get for porridge.

That's some seriously sexy porridge. God, I need to get out more.

Unfortunately, appearances proved to be deceiving. Now, porridge-making isn't rocket science by any means - oats, hot water or milk and toppings are all it takes for a basic, hearty breakfast - but there are a few steps in porridge-making that make or break it. The water or milk needs to be hot enough, the ratio of liquid to oats needs to be right, the mixture needs to be stirred properly and the liquid needs time to cook the oats.

In this case the oats had clearly not been mixed properly. Although the dried fruit was flavourful and sweet enough to avoid adding sugar, there were clumps of dry oats that, even when mixed into the rest, hadn't had the moisture or cooking time necessary to become porridge. It was actually rather unpleasant.

It may depend on the branch but I went back the next day and the problem was the same. In other branches, I have been served porridge that was incredibly thin. The devil is in the detail, even for simple things and 'Perfect Porridge' was a description far off the mark here. It looks like Starbucks needs to make sure it trains its staff to ensure consistency in this. Overall, it's rolling the dice depending on who's making it so I can't recommend it as a reliable start to the day.

Easter special: CHOK A BLOK American Dreamcake Egg

The annual chocfest that is Easter has this year brought with it something rather special. It's a rather chunky-looking white chocolate egg from CHOK A BLOK. It's not a one-choc egg though - it's got a front of dark chocolate encasing various sweet treats, and goodies hidden away throughout the white chocolate shell.   

This egg definitely can't be broken by hand. Don't go thinking that a gentle tap from a spoon will coax it into releasing its treasures either. This beast needs a whack from a hefty spoon to crack it open. After that exertion of course, you deserve to gorge on chocolate. You've earned it.

I'm sure this shell could double up as a helmet of some kind.

The white chocolate is smooth and creamy without being sickly. It's when the chocolates collide though that this egg really comes into its own. I'm not usually a fan of combined chocolates as found in various gift box-type selections. I find that usually everything just blends into a generic sense of sweetness. This is different: the dark chocolate is a delicious bitter punctuation against the sweetness of the white. Then you start to discover pieces of biscuit, brownie and fudge. The crunch of the chocolate reveals a wealth of textures within and scoffing an Easter egg becomes a sensory delight.

The whole thing is a decadent symphony of gluttony. I laugh in the face of the packaging that tells me that 1 egg provides 6 portions. If Tesco are still flogging them today I suggest you grab one.

It's as if pieces of Humpty Dumpty were glued back together again using chocolate.

Office Porridges of London #1

Now that I'm commuting in to London, time is at a premium in the mornings. I like to have a good breakfast, but sometimes there just isn't time. Yet not for me the sinful cereal bar or pathetic breakfast pastry! The Fervent Foodie is only soothed by things delicious and nutritious too.

I like my morning porridge. It's not exactly a gourmet feast but it's homely and wholesome. Therefore, it is my duty towards the office-bound throughout this great city to find the best cubicle cuisine in London. There are a couple of rules for this:

1. It has to be take-away porridge. If there's no cardboard pot to take to your desk, it's not eligible!

2. It has to be from a chain. It's gotta be available to everyone, not some amazing independent place that only few will be able to appreciate. (Woe is me.)

So, that brings me to our first entry, from the imperiously-named EAT.

Now I've got to say, EAT has an image as being a bit pretentious so I was interested to see what they'd do to push the boat out on something as simple as porridge. The toppings they offer are honey and banana, fruit compote, and chia seeds (the fancy pants discerning gentleman's topping). Unfortunately, social mobility was at an all-time low today and they were out of chia seeds, so I had to settle for the reliable banana and honey.

First of all, look at this:

No Instagram filter would save this

 Does this look appetising to you? Granted, porridge is not exactly the Miranda Kerr of the food world but seriously, this? Is this place called EAT or DRINK?

OK, it's definitely EAT. I'm getting confused with all the monosyllabic instructional food joints around these days.

The oats were actually nice and chunky, but the water just made it into a depressing gloop. At £2.24 with a topping it's one of the more expensive pot porridges out there. Maybe it was a one-off but I'm loath to go back again to try. Quite disappointing indeed. On the plus side, the bar has not been set very high for the next challenger. Onward! (Lunch had better be good now...)