Polpo: Covent Garden, Sunday March 31st, 2013

2013 was a year of big plans, big saving and big eating. Somehow we managed to fit the last part in there, though I can't really work out how. The wife and I continued to dine well all through last year, which, considering the lack of meals so far in 2014, is a blessing for my beleaguered efforts to bring this damn thing up to date. Over Easter, a friend visiting a friend visiting London gave us a great excuse to get another meal in there at the end of March.

Polpo has served us well since it opened on Soho's Beak Street. There have been occasional trips back and we have recommended it to just about everyone because if you want affordable, charismatic, fashionable Italian food; this is it. Covent Garden has been re-branded from the original guise of Da Polpo to simply 'Polpo Covent Garden'. There are now three branches with the opening of a newer site in Smithfield and Polpetto has been re-located to Berwick Street in Soho. In amongst this, Russell Norman has also opened the Ape And Bird pub, just to keep things fresh.

Keeping it fresh is not something the wife and I tend to do when visiting a Polpo restaurant. It tends to be what we know we like with a little variation thrown in once in a while. Having others with us is good because it means we can try some dishes we would not usually give much thought to. In this case, the Sicilian white anchovy salad was one of them (left). Combining bitter, crunchy leaves with the salty fish, this was a pleasant and appropriate way to kick off an evening's eating.

Our next stop was a special of the day we just could not resist: wild mushroom pizzetta (right). There is something about robustly-flavoured, soft mushrooms on a doughy base which I find irresistible and this was worth the £7.50 for sure. Equal parts delicate and simple, food like this needs no fanfare, it just needs eating.

We kept things very standard with our next two choices. We always seem to go for the spaghettini and meatballs at Polpo, the beef & pork a suitably comforting, bullish flavour with the ever so slightly spicy tomato sauce (above left). They were as hearty, warming and delightful as ever. Equally, the fritto misto was a crunchy, crispy plate of properly-battered and fried seafood (above right). It was light, full-flavoured, salty and fresh. The three of us devoured it with little regard for etiquette.

The dessert we were all drawn to was the panna cotta, served with rhubarb and pistachio (left). Whilst I could see the appeal of some nut crumble to provide textural variation, the wife and I weren't interested and had one each with no nuts. Panna cotta is something I wouldn't usually choose when dessert comes around but rhubarb is. In this case, I was delighted with the choice. The cream was not overly set or gelatinous which is half the battle with pannna cotta. The rhubarb was poached to a gentle bite and the whole thing worked wonderfully well. It was a great end to a pleasant meal. So much so that the wife and I instantly ordered another each. When the bill came, we realised £32.50 had been spent on panna cotta. They were that good.

A meal at pretty much any Polpo branch is guaranteed to be fun, interesting and generally enjoyable. The food is not overpriced, it stays simple and is a reminder that good Italian food is all about a sensible balance between rustic and refined.

Polpo

Universal Appeal? Jamie's Italian: Covent Garden, Tuesday March 19th, 2013

I've never been one for attacking anything just because it's popular. If I don't particularly care for something which people seem to rave about, my resolve to stand by my opinion stiffens. Of course there are things in this world which are genuinely evil (The Black Eyed Peas' biggest hits and The X-Factor spring to mind) and their popularity ought to be challenged and derided at every opportunity.

Jamie Oliver is not someone (or something, so huge is his franchise now) that I despise, despite popularity. He is a champion of various righteous causes, he's encouraging people to cook better food and he is a realistic kind of guy. Well, maybe a meal in 30 or 15 minutes is a stretch since not everyone has a team helpfully assembling everything for you, but still. There are decent recipes in there and we've all made a Jamie dish at some point.

What I cannot abide, however, is the horrendous mockney shtick, the endless development of new ways to get the face on screen, the cavalcade of books (would you buy a book on great American cooking from a chef who half-trained in an Italian restaurant in London?), the ludicrous number of ingredients thrown into food which simply does not need it... So maybe there are some issues there after all. But, as I started by saying, the guy's alright.

Going to Jamie's Italian should be a sure thing, a home banker. Italian food is one of the things Jamie should be good at, given his background, and there can be great things in the simplest of Italian restaurants. The problem is, given that Jamie has put his name on everything, you're caught between expecting fantastic food which you 'n all yer mates can get stuck into and an apprehensive distaste for the oi oi saveloy feel of the place. The waiting staff all pedal a degree of the pseudo-cockney and it's not that enjoyable.

The menu is also a little confusing. One can order 'planks' as starters. I get the idea of the kitsch sharing dishes but it leaves an annoying taste in the mouth just from reading it. Surely a plate would be better, no? The contradictions continue: two friends ordered a plank to share and enjoyed it. A nice selection of cured meats is no bad way to get going... I chose to start with some stuffed pasta which were described as 'pillows' on the menu and which actually were pretty damn close to being so (left). The problem with these was the creamy cheese filling, which was a little too light and not giving a full-bodied Italian punch of flavour.

Main courses were another mixed bag. One friend ordered a crab pasta dish which he was delighted with and which, having tried, I thought wasn't half bad either. I decided to go for a favourite of mine: mushroom risotto (right). I had settled on this choice since the menu is such a large tome to study, littered with nauseating phrases - "Jamie's favourite!", "Jules's favourite!" - and dishes which just didn't belong. A burger on an Italian restaurant menu feels like playing to the lowest common denominator. This was somewhat lacking in the flavour, richness and creaminess one associates with great risotto. The mushrooms weren't strong enough, there wasn't enough butter and the whole thing was flat.

I wasn't sure what to make of this all so far. I had to go for a dessert to find out if something could salvage the meal and thankfully I chose well. The raspberry tart with almond was a pretty good way to finish (left). It was satisfyingly soft, rich and well-judged. This was by far my highlight of the evening and showed me there is some genuine simplicity lurking underneath the baffling menus and stacks of cooking books.

So there you have it. I think I wanted to dislike the place but in truth it isn't that bad. Given the array of restaurants in and around Covent Garden, it's not somewhere I would go back to, but if it was a family occasion with children I could totally see the appeal. This is not a restaurant striving for culinary perfection or epicurean purity, it's just trying to put people at tables. And it's doing so with ease.

And that's what I really do admire about Jamie Oliver. For all that's irritating, he's a remarkably savvy businessman. The success of his ventures speak for themselves and he's making a lot more money than some of his former contemporaries who were far more decorated cooks than he. Our obsession with Jamie has got to the point we'll eat just about anywhere he slaps his name on. My first musings on the guy were when the wife and I were surprised with his take on pizza at Union Jacks, which has sadly now only one location remaining, also in Covent Garden. Whilst that might have been a commercial failure, Jamie's Italian remains an internationally-renowned brand.

Maybe after all I just feel indifferent to Jamie Oliver. Unless he starts doing stuff like this. Then he invokes all the kind of unfettered loathing I usually reserve for the likes of Simon Cowell ventures and reality television.

Jamie's Italian

A Complaint Retracted - Thai Rice: Fulham, Friday 15th February, 2013

Some time ago I wrote this piece on how Thai food was growing on me. Aside from all the irritating spicing, nuts where they don't belong and fragrances which just aren't to my taste, there is a lot of good in Thai food. On a Friday night early last year, I got a call from a good friend who fancied catching up. We compromised on Fulham as a location we could get to easily and were on our way.

Thai Rice is part of what you'd usually call a chain, five restaurants owned by the same group. Except they're not really a chain. Each restaurant has its own distinct website and menu. There are small intricacies which make each branch slightly different, meaning you're never quite sure what to expect. The Fulham place came with a pretty decent reputation, so I was happy to give it a go.

The evening sprawled out of control instantly. We ended up spending a frankly irresponsible amount of money on a last minute dinner for four, ordering what seemed like way too much but all of which was eaten. That tells you one thing: it was a fun evening. The wife had taken some advice from a friend in the know on what to order so we also sampled a few dishes we wouldn't have otherwise been aware of; a sure bonus when visiting a Thai restaurant.

Several dishes stood out for the right reasons. Some scallops weren't cheap at around £6 each but the result was worth the expense (left). Delicately spiced and seasoned, swimming in a butter sauce, they were a great way to get us started. It was a similar story with the soft shell crab tempura, which for around £5 was great value and a typically crunchy, sweet, salty and greasy proposition (above right).

The wife tends to go crazy for a decent papaya salad when eating Thai food, something I am rarely enthused by since it is usually both too bitter and packed with nuts for me. In this case it was refreshing, cool and a great accompaniment to the food (left). Still too many nuts for me but the wife loved every mouthful. She remarked that the salad was very traditionally and typically Thai, with the sweetness coming from the peanuts.

In ordering our food we had thrown caution to the wind and dishes to the table were a procession at this point. Some 'off menu' beef with noodles was a delight which I had not been expecting at all. The meat was tender, salty, savoury and sitting in a throaty, rich broth. All the tiresome clichés I had been dismissing about Thai food began to drift away somewhere in amongst the table which was now becoming so full we could barely fit our own plates on it.

No English person's visit to a Thai restaurant is complete without either a curry or some noodles. Naturally we had both. The curry was a delicately-balanced, mild yet flavoursome bowl (right). This was a Panaeng curry which I had never heard of, but our friends in particular put paid to this with no time to stand on ceremony. The noodles were a fairly unadventurous chicken variety but were a nicely grounded plate around some of the headier flavours.

We ordered some Pla Ma Kham which was sea bass served with pineapple, vegetables and a spicy sauce (left). I was not so bothered with all the sides to the dish, just hugely impressed with the tender, moist flesh underneath. There's something so delightfully refined and pure about a fillet of Asian fish and this was a terrific example. It was another plate which sat well with the rest of the cavalcade of food we were eating.

Making sure we had enough meat, we ordered two dishes which had been sliced and grilled, then served with variations on spicy sauce. Both the chicken and the pork were delicious and earned us the dubious achievement of having eaten just about every animal on the menu. This was all being washed down with mango lassi for me, beer for one friend and Thai milk tea for the other and the wife.

This was a ridiculous exuberance of a night out but a great one. The meal was lots of fun and all the food was great. I can't say I am now a huge Thai food fan but this kind of experience is making me re-think my past criticisms. Thai Rice is a great place to spend a Friday evening with friends. If that's not a ringing endorsement of a restaurant, I don't know what is.

Thai Rice