Eve Bidmead, Author at Bidmead Bites

Indian Canteen food at the YMCA

3rd June 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Finding dinner for under a tenner in London is a challenge. It’s not impossible, but it’s rare to come by a restaurant that isn’t a fried chicken joint and can offer you change for a £10 note. Certain cuisines always pop up when on the hunt for cheap eats, and a good curry house often makes an appearance. Sticking to Indian cuisine but with a slightly different take on the style of dining, last week some friends and I headed to the Indian YMCA in Euston to try their canteen.

The menu at the YMCA – who says students eat badly?!

I read about the YMCA in a Time Out review and since having returned from Sri Lanka last month, I’ve missed my daily dose of dahl and rice. The Indian YMCA canteen is open to the public, who are required to buy a dinner (or lunch) ticket before eating. This ticket is then handed over at the till before serving yourself from the small buffet selection of currys on offer, accompanied by a green salad, rice and roti. As long as you finish your plate, every guest is welcome to fill up as many times as they want. I wanted to try it all first round, so loaded my plate with the three curries on offer: chickpea, cauliflower and fish.

The cauliflower and chickpea curries on offer, accompanied by some roti bread

In true school canteen style, dessert is the very old school sweet of tinned fruit – not quite a pudding in my book, yet the idea of dessert mixed with school memories left me longing for a jam roly poly in bright yellow custard. Still, the unlimited warm milky tea on offer was well received.

As pudding is more of a novelty gesture than a real dish, more time can be spent exploring the savoury dishes on offer. The chickpea curry had a great texture; the chickpeas had retained their bite while still absorbing the subtle curried spices. The cauliflower curry was a favourite with my friends, although in my opinion it passed into quite a generic curry genre for me – vegetarian with not enough spices or interesting flavours to write about. Not bad at all, just not as strong a contender compared to the fish curry, which had meaty white fish fillets with the skin on, bathed in a thick, slightly sweet tomato sauce. This made the perfect filling for my hybrid fish roti burritos rolls, which I feel could surely be the next big food fusion trend.

My Indian YMCA eat

Comparing Sri Lankan and Indian cuisines may seem like a sweeping racial generalisation, but they do share a lot in common. Dahl, as an example, is a traditional dish to both countries. On this account, though, it’s safe to the say the Sri Lankan versions I had tried were far superior. More of a soup or accompanying sauce than anything, the YMCAs dahl is liquidy without much bite.

Is the Indian YMCA going to be the best curry of your life? No. Is the Indian YMCA a great place for a cheap dinner, with a nice friendly environment and generally good curry? Absolutely. So go, fill your plates and stomachs with some Indian canteen food for less than the cost of two London pints.

Padella, London Bridge

22nd May 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Padella in London Bridge was recently opened by the same brains behind Trullo (Ottolenghi trained chefs cooking seasonally focused Italian food). A smaller, less fancy Trullo, with no reservations taken and all dishes under a tenner, Padella does pasta in a big way.

Despite our seemingly ever-growing fear of grains, pasta is no foe in my eyes. Filling, cheap, and damn right delicious, nothing quite fills you or the need for a hearty meal like pasta. And if it’s handmade fresh before your very eyes, served alongside classic Italian starters and desserts with negronis on the menu too? All the better.

This Saturday I headed to Padella with two girlfriends to eat a pasta lunch. Making a day of it, we arrived earlier to beat the queues – you can’t reserve tables, so we came at 12 for the first sitting. We later nibbled our way around Borough Market, but before, it was time to sit and eat proper.

The restaurant itself is clean and simplistic, with a black and white theme throughout. The compact restaurant consists of ground floor and basement level, with small tables and the majority of the seats around the bars on both floors.

The menu at Padella

We looked to our waiter for starter suggestions, as although the menu in not extensive, we weren’t quite enough people to justify ordering one of everything (a crying shame, I thought). Freshly baked bread, soft burrata cheese and a plate of salami were our warm-up to the main event.

Padella sourdough & puglian olive oil, salame “Lovison” and burrata

A solid spread to sample Padella’s classic Italian offerings, the salami was smooth and creamy, with a touch of spice. Eaten alongside the soft warm bread topped with the meltingly rich burrata, these starters were a pairing made in heaven.

Using the very last bits of bread to clear up the Puglian olive oil which once covered the burrata, we were clearly ready for our mains. I had been recommend the pici cacio e pepe pasta, which I understood to be a red pepper and cheese pasta; interesting, I thought. In fact, this dish was no more than noodle-esque spaghetti coated in melted cheese and black pepper. While it sounds very much like my university meal of choice, this was a world away from the basic overcooked penne with cheddar, butter and salt I ate far too often in student years.

Pici cacio e pepe in the limelight, looking deceptively like worms

Despite its worm-like appearance, my pasta was perfectly cooked with just the right bite and a smooth, silken texture. The simplistic cheese and black pepper was almost all this pasta needed. I added salt, but then I like my food on the red-sea side of seasoned. The girls both went for the pappardelle pasta with 8-hour Dexter beef shin ragu, a dish on the menu of Trullo which has made it over. The pappardelle resembled longer, thinner lasagna sheets, and the rich tomato beef sauce nestled its way into the folds of these pasta ribbons, all topped with thinly shaved Parmesan cheese.

2 x beef shin ragu + 1 x pipi cacio e pepe + prosecco = bloody great lunch

Padella lives up to its great reviews. Friendly staff, accessible prices and pared-back traditional Italian food done right is a recipe for a winning restaurant. I’ll be returning without a doubt to try the rest of the mains, and also to taste their sweet tarts.

However on this occasion, my sweet spot was met in Borough Market, just next door to Padella. Wandering around after lunch, despite my savory belly being full to the brim with pasta, my sweet section was on the look out for it’s next bite. When I saw a woman with a half eaten doughnut in her hand, eyes closed, mouth covered in sugar and exhaling noises of sheer delight, I felt my sweet treat could be in the vicinity. Asking her what thing of beauty she had eaten, she spoke through a mouthful of doughnut and told me to head to Bread Ahead Bakery.

Hazelnut & Praline doughnut

Although I’ve never been huge on doughnuts, when I come to think about it, I wonder…why? A sweet, fluffy bread with a gooey, sugary centre. An invention of genius! Sweeping past the regular old jam options, hovering over a lemon curd choice, I ultimately went for the hazelnut & praline filled doughnut- the size of a small rodent, I should add.

No words, just doughnut

And all too soon I was that woman who I had spoken to five minutes earlier, stood in the middle of the market, mouth sugared and hands filled with this delicious doughnut.

Despite being a doughnut down, I couldn’t resist popping into Portena to pick up an alfajor, the biscuit sandwich filled with dulce de leche that stole my heart during my year in Buenos Aires. In what turned out to be a bit of an Argentine themed pit stop later on in the day, we stopped for a bottle of the countries Malbec at Gordon’s wine bar, and it seemed only right to bring out my biccy…

Alfajores y malbec…como si estuviera en Buenos Aires de vuelta!

After another bottle of booze and yet more food, we decided it was time to put an end to the day’s indulgence. But go, induldge away, in all the pasta your heart desires (and belly can fit) at Padella, because it is fantastic.

Padella

6 Southwark St

Greater London SE1 1TQ

Kandy’s culinary and cultural offerings

24th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Moving away from the small town of Ella and onto Sri Lanka’s second largest city, we reached Kandy, the capital of culture. The city centers around a large lake and on the lake’s edges stands the impressive Temple of the Sacred Tooth temple, home to a molar from the mouth of the very Buddha himself.

Eager to get our own teeth into some of Kandy’s culinary offerings, we hunted down the central market. A mix of meat, spices and more teas than I had ever seen before, friendly stall owners invited us to smell and sample their goods, with many enticing Ayurvedic beauty products too. We stocked up on spices, buying sweet cinnamon bark in bulk and sniffing our way around the huge array of curry mixes on offer.

Spices at Kandy market

After spending what felt like hours in the whirlwind of smells and sights within the market, we moved onto a popular local spot for lunch. The Kandy Muslim Hotel is not a place offering accommodation and is not particularly Islamic either. No religion, or lodging, but instead, some of the best food in Kandy, eaten in a busy café right on the main road.

Serving buttery, pillowy roti breads with sweet and creamy cinnamon dahl, customers quenched their thirst slurping down avocado lassis and fresh lime juice while selecting from a pick and mix of savoury pasties and bread being brought round to each table. Famous for its kottu, a dish of day-old roti, finely chopped and cooked with vegetables and meat on a hot plate, we ordered three portions.

Kottu for three?

Three portions were enough to feed a family of six, and despite all the willing in the world, I was defeated. Not too quickly, though…I still made an impressive dent in this dish, which was a textural mix of soft and crispy roti strips, combined with golden roasted chicken and vegetables.

One of my favourite things about Sri Lankan food is their style of eating. I envision the ‘one pot dish’ to be a crime in their eyes, as each meal I ate came with at least three dishes, all made to be mixed and eaten together, shared amongst your other dining companions. This culture of mixing various plates comes to its absolute peak at the almighty curry buffet. In truth, with a tendency to cook large amounts and such a variety of dishes, almost every meal in Sri Lanka was like a buffet. It’s really just the difference between a Sri Lankan and a greedy Brit that earns these meals their ‘buffet’ title.

Being the aforementioned greedy Brit, I reached a true glutton’s paradise at the infamous Sharon Inn dinner buffet. Contradicting the age-old buffet mantra ‘quantity over quality’, every single dish on offer was delicious in its own way, a feast of flavours, textures and food types. Smooth, velvety chard with desiccated coconut sat next to a slow-cooked and richly spiced dish of jackfruit, a fruit that when cooked takes on an almost disconcertingly lamb-like appearance, soaking up the intense curry flavours of turmeric, chilli, cinnamon and cumin flavours like a greedy, fruity sponge.

Jackfruit curry

Aubergine came cut into fine julienne strips, cooked in a sweet and sour style sauce which was sticky and dark, contrasting with a bright yellow mango curry which was light and tangy. Radish and banana leaves featured in curry dishes too, as well as green beans and yellow peppers. Fresh naan and hoppers were brought out throughout the meal, and I made a sterling effort to squeeze them in alongside the other twelve dishes on offer.

Sharon Inn curry buffet

Vegetable curries completely stole the show, leaving little need for the one token meat (chicken) dish on offer. This is a point that bears repeating; Sri Lankan cuisine is a dream for vegetarians. With such inventive use of all fruits and vegetables, Sri Lankan food is bursting with options for a meat-free diet.

Yet despite an abundance of meat-free meals throughout the trip, we ended our holiday with a seafood feast. Back in Colombo for our final night before the flight home, we paid a visit to The Ministry of Crab. Highly regarded as one of the best restaurants in Colombo, there’ll be no prize given for guessing their speciality.

Crab is, of course, their dish of the day, with customers choosing the desired size of their crustacean for consumption. You are then a given the option of which sauce you’d like it cooked in. Having eaten a fair amount of spice over our trip, we veered towards a garlic sauce without chilli. Garlicky enough to keep vampires at bay but not a touch too much, the garlic flavour melted in with mounds of extra virgin olive oil and together this mix of flavours sat perfectly on top of the crab.

Sri Lankan prawn curry

With an enormous crab to share, naturally, we felt the need to order yet another dish. The prawn curry came with impressive, almost lobster-like king prawns, cooked in a coconut curry sauce and served with freshly baked slices of bread. The prawns had a perfect, firm texture, yet for my very last meal on this earth, I may well just request a load of bread and the sauce these prawns were cooked in. A mix of coconut, large amounts of oil, gentle curry spices combined with lots of garlic and soft onions made for an all-around blow-out of a dish.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better holiday. Two weeks was a wonderful amount of time to travel around, and while we by no means covered the whole country, we managed a relaxing and fascinating mix of city, culture, beach and nature. To anyone thinking of going to Sri Lanka, this is a country with so much to offer. So go travel, eat and cook, and try for yourself all the incredible tastes of Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka’s tea towns: cuppas and curd

19th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Sat high up in Sri Lankan’s hill country, the air in Ella feels different to the warm breeze on the south beaches, and a world away from the thick hot smog of the capital Colombo. A cooler climate and rolling green hills make Ella a popular stop for tourists, keen to sample the country’s finest tea and hike up into mountains where it is grown.

The rolling hills of Ella

Home stays are popular all over Sri Lanka and in Ella, staying with a family is the perfect way to explore and taste the town. Friendly families arrange everything from your climbs to your meals, and the whole experience feels far more personal than that in larger hotels or guest houses.

We stayed at Restful Inn and were the sole occupants – it has only one room! Upon arrival our host family helped us head straight out to a green tea plantation, where we learnt about the process of making green tea – did you know it comes from the same leaf as your regular cup of builders? Both green and black tea originate from the same plant, but what differentiates them is the process used to obtain the tea we drink.

Tea tasting at the green tea plantation

As well as trips around the town, the family catered our evening meals for us and served up a typical Sri Lankan breakfast. As seen in my previous post, hoppers are thin, bowl-shaped pancakes which are often eaten alongside lentil dahl in the mornings. The hoppers at our home stay were by far the best of the trip. The came either plain, wafer thin with a sweet, coconut flavour, or with egg, a combination of the perfectly cooked egg inside this thin delicate pancake.

Like a perfect poached egg, inside a pancake – oh, yes.

Beautiful breakfasts

Eating al fresco, staring out into the wild greenery and nature that surrounded the house, I’ve certainly had breakfast in far uglier places. First meal of the day down, surely in a few hours it’d be time for a snack?

When elevensies called, we took a stop at The Curd Shop. An uninspired name but doing exactly what it says on the packet, this was supposedly the best place to sample the Sri Lankan sweet of choice – curd and treacle.

Curd and treacle at The Curd Shop, Ella

Much like Greek yogurt and honey but with a tarter yogurt and sweeter honey, I ate a lot of curd in the two weeks away. Some of it veered dangerously towards a distinctly savory feta-tasting cheese, with a questionable, slightly clumpy texture, although on the whole the thick creamy curd was a favourite dessert or morning snack of our holiday.

Another culinary highlight of Ella town was our lunchtime stop at The Downtown Roti Shop. Roti is a soft, buttery thin bread similar to a flatbread. Pol roti, made from coconut flour, is a popular breakfast item, yet the larger and thinner pancake-type rotis are seen more commonly; perfect for scooping up curry or for wrapping around a whole array of fillings.

The roti station – where the magic happens

At the Roti hut, you could see the dough being stretched out and made right in front of you. This would be the rotis used for all the wraps, with a variety of fillings, from beef and prawn all the way to veg-friendly avocado and cheese. As well as roti wraps, another popular plate here was kottu; day-old roti, cut up into thin strips and cooked on a hot plate with vegetables and eggs, with the option to add in meat. My sister chose a vegetable kottu while I went for a chicken roti – a doughy yet crispy roti, filled with slightly mashed curried potato, mixed in with strips of chicken.

My sister’s vegetable kottu

A chicken roti wrap

Essentially a chicken wrap, I think this could well have been up in my favourite eats of the entire holiday. Filled to the brim with a mix of textures and flavours, this roti, once wrapped, was placed back on the hot plate to seal and cement all the flavours together. With Sri Lankan food becoming more popular in the UK, I predict a big roti trend coming our way soon (and I will be the first to tuck in!).

Coconuts and curry for Breakfast

11th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

From one beach to the next, the Bidmead tour of Sri Lanka continued down the coast to another small beach town – Tangalle. Less developed than the small but touristy town of Unawatuna, Tangalle is the perfect spot to spend a couple of days, doing absolutely nothing.

Beaching in Tangalle, Sri Lanka

Nothing, of course, still consists of consuming some truly fabulous Sri Lankan food. Our guest house included breakfast, and although we opted for a continental one morning (sometimes, you just want a dippy egg), on our second day it was time to sample our first Sri Lankan breakfast.

Popular breakfast dishes in Sri Lankan include lentil dahl, spicy but cooled down by the coconut milk it’s cooked in, eaten on top of buttery soft roti bread. Hoppers, eaten either for breakfast or lunch, are bowl shaped pancakes made from rice flour and coconut milk. Sturdy enough to stay erect in the shape of the specially shaped pan used to make them, these pancakes are actually paper thin and delicate to eat.

A typical Sri Lankan breakfast. To the left, lentil dahl (top) and below, chilli coconut sambol. On the plate (clockwise): hopper, string hopper, egg hopper & roti

The breakfast at our guest house consisted of not only hoppers, but egg hoppers too – the same dish, but with an egg cracked in the middle. Alongside out hoppers we were given a lentil dahl and pol sambol (shredded coconut, lime juice, red onions, chilli and spices). There was also freshly baked roti bread and string hoppers, which are plain cooked noodles made to be eaten along the dahl.

Don’t judge a book by its cover – Saliya restauran

After one long morning of beaching, we took a break from the sand and sun and headed towards Tangalle town for a spot of lunch. We followed a Lonely Planet recommendation and ended up at Saliya, a large wooden hut off the main road. Although its rustic setting and squat toilet would not suggest it, the food was of a very high standard. We shared a large mullet fish and fresh jumbo prawns between us. Both dishes were grilled in a sweetly spiced ginger glaze, with much more of a Japanese flavour than the spicier Sri Lankan flavours we were becoming accustomed to eating.

Grilled king prawns and mullet, served with a fruity salad

The salad was a mix of pineapple, mango, tomato, cabbage and red onion. The sweet fruit mixed with the strong and acidic onions made for a tangy culmination of flavours, with lime juice on top to help them all blend together. It was the perfect light lunch, leaving just enough room for some soft, eggy and sweet coconut pancakes for dessert.

And with a fresh coconut on the beach, it was goodbye to the sea and up into the hills, for our next stop in Ella.

Keep reading for the next Sri Lanka post, where I explore more of the wondrous dish that is roti bread, while sipping lots of tea in the cool and mountainous tea region.

Learning to cook, Sri Lankan style

6th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

A country’s cuisine is an insight into so much more than just what people fancy for lunch. It’s a glimpse into a culture’s daily routines and rhythms; is lunch a quick sandwich inhaled in front of a computer screen, or a two-hour, two-course affair, leaving time for an afternoon siesta? Sri Lankan meals are never a quick one-pot affair, with various dishes and sides present in each meal. Looking to learn the recipes and techniques that make up Sri Lankan cuisine, we donned our aprons on and took a Sri Lankan cookery course.

On a Lonely Planet recommendation we chose a cookery course in Unawatuna, a little beachside village just 10 minutes away from Galle, the colonial town we had headed to from Colombo. Leading the class was the extremely charismatic Karuna, who has been running the course since 2004.

Having read lots about the course, and Karuna, I knew what to expect – a trip to the market, the chance to make an array of traditional curries, and the experience of Karuna herself. Chatty, smiley and an absolute domestic goddess, within ten minutes of meeting her she had her arm around me and was already bossing orders. I felt like Karuna and I would really get on.

Colourful fresh produce at Galle market

Picking up our ingredients in the market, I saw vegetables I didn’t even know existed. Round baby aubergines? Well I never. Leaving the market, we stopped off to buy some fresh tuna. Never one to be squeamish, the sight of a man driving a machete into this enormous tuna fish’s head had even me looking away.

Tuna beheading

We made an impressive 7 curries in total, each using a similar blend of curry and pandan leaves (pandan is similar to lemongrass) and various spices. Each curry contained coconut milk or cream, which we extracted ourselves from just one coconut. Once split in two, the coconut flesh is then extracted out of the shell and then twice drained through a sieve with water; once to obtain the coconut cream, and a second time to get the milk.

Sister Bidmead on coconut duty

Coconut admin out of the way, we could start preparing our many curries. The tuna curry was our spiciest, with an intimidating two teaspoons of chilli flakes. Karuna ignored my pleas for a milder version and continued to add in a handful of baby green chilis. She told me if I didn’t like spice, I just didn’t eat the chilis. Fair enough…and what Karuna says, goes.

Tuna curry

After just over an hour of cooking, we had managed to rustle up a true feast. We all took away mini notebooks, with the recipes scribbled down and top tips noted. It was fascinating seeing how these traditional dishes are made, and to summarise a bit about each recipe…

– They all have a lot of garlic. Want to cook great curries? Don’t scrimp on the cloves – all of the dishes we made contained at least 6.

– Revelation: you don’t need to soften or cook the onions first. Honestly! We just mixed all the ingredients in a bowl with its liquid (either the coconut milk or cream) and then put it straight in the pan. A time saver or what?

– Garam masala, turmeric, salt, ground black pepper and chilli are your key flavours.

– Fresh curry leaves are amazing. All recipes had at least 10 in, shredded roughly by hand. Pandan leaves are also incredibly fragrant, but if you can’t find them, opt for lemongrass instead.

Without further ado, here is my favourite curry recipe from the day.

Pineapple curry

Serves 4 people as a side dish, 2 as a main.

Ingredients:

– ½ kilo pineapple (can also use plantain/green mango/chicken – for chicken, alter cooking times*)

– 1 and a half tsp curry powder

– ½ tsp chilli powder

– ½ tsp ground pepper

– ½ tsp garam masala

– ½ tsp salt

– Ginger

– Garlic

– Onion

– 20 curry leaves

– Lemongrass

– Cinnamon

– 1 cup coconut milk

Method:

– Mix all ingredients together. Cook in 3 tsp of oil (sunflower/vegetable/coconut) and simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, add in 2 tsp sugar. Stir, simmer for 5-10 more minutes*.

*If you’re going for the chicken version, make sure you’ve cooked the dish for at least half an hour, and that no flesh remains pink!

The fruits of our labour: tuna, pineapple, green bean, pumpkin, beetroot and lentil curry, eaten with brown rice and poppadums

Not one to blow my own trumpet (and of course this plate is due mainly to Karuna’s knowledge in the kitchen rather than any skill of my own), but this meal was one of my favourite of the entire holiday. This huge mix of flavours on one plate meant every mouthful was exciting, with different tastes in each dish, from the sweet pineapple right through to the spicy, meaty tuna fish. It was incredible how every dish was so unique, despite all of them using a similar mix of spices and herbs.

If anybody is eager to know any of the other recipes we made, feel free to drop me an email and I will happily share them with you.

Sri Lankan BidmeadBites from Colombo

4th April 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

With ‘rice and curry’ as the national dish, Sri Lankan food, at first glance, doesn’t reveal much to the foreign palate. But this is no anglicized chicken korma affair. Think of a jackfruit curry with a surprisingly meaty texture, or a lentil dahl spiced with sweet cinnamon and cooked in coconut cream, piled on top of sweet, yet ever so slightly charred, soft roti bread.

These, along with many other dishes, form a cuisine that is both richly spiced yet soothing and comforting, which at each meal allows itself the chance the present three or four dishes, made to be shared and eaten in company. I was lucky enough to head to Sri Lanka on a two week holiday with my mum and sister.

After arriving in the countries capital of Colombo after a long flight and unsure whether it was lunch, breakfast or dinner, the three Bidmead’s ordered a distinctly odd array of dishes for our first bite to eat. Porridge for my mum, a banana roti for myself and a vegetable kottu for my sister.

Vegetable Kottu

By far the most interesting of all three, kottu is chopped up roti bread (a roti is similar to a flatbread) mixed with either egg, fish, meat or vegetables. It’s similar to egg-fried rice if the rice was replaced with small slices of flat bread, and the whole thing was bursting with spices.

With just a day in Colombo, I made sure we made it down the Galle Park pier for sunset. An expansive stretch of green on the sea, this charming spot fills up on a Sunday evening with families, couples and kite flyers, but more to my interest…a truckload of food vendors too. Selling typical street food, known as short eats, it was the perfect place to gain more insight into Sri Lankan cuisine.

Fresh crabs and fried prawn cakes filled the glass cabinets of the street food carts, as well as richly spiced fruits (think pineapple with chili and mango with salt) sold from huts behind.

Fresh crab and fried prawn and sweet potato pancakes

As we sat down at a barbecue shack with tables and chairs, I admired their fresh seafood, marinated in a wealth of spices, ready for the barbecue. The meaty menu options caught my eye too; my offal enthusiasm seemed to be shared by the Sri Lankans, as waiting to hit the grill were trays of tripe, prepped in herbs, onions, and spices.

A tray full of tripey goodness

After having a rest from a day walking in the fierce sun and heat, we decided for our first dinner we’d opt for a taste of the North. We sadly wouldn’t have time to make it up to the Jaffna, one of Sri Lanka’s biggest Northern towns, but thought as second best, we’d at least be able to give the cuisine a go.

Famous for their curried crab, Yaal Restaurant was a very casual, low-key local diner, where no dish cost over £4. Knowing we had to order crab but otherwise feeling quite overwhelmed by the amount of dishes to choose from, options ranged from savoury curried porridge to devilled kidneys and livers.

Jaffna style crab, cooked in a spicy curry sauce

Fiddly to eat (as all crab is), we wasted no time in cracking, sucking and biting our way into this curried crustacean. A hot and spicy dish, the crab was slightly cooled by the rich coconut milk in which it was cooked, and this sauce had us all slurping away to the very last mouthful. Along with the crab, we ordered a cuttlefish pitthu, with bears some resemblance to egg fried rice, yet instead of rice the grains are actually made out of rice flour, mixed with spices and steamed in a banana leaf.

Two prawn paratha plates, top right is the cuttlefish pitthu and bottom rigtht, Jaffna style crab

The wraps were parata flat breads filled with crispy prawns and served with dahl and a curried coconut sauce and were a great mix of crunchy prawns wrapped in the soft, doughy bread. Northern Sri Lankan food is typically spicier than that of the south, and for a first meal in Sri Lanka, I realised I would have to get my spice tolerance up for the duration of the trip!

From Colombo, it was onto Galle, an old Colonial town down in the South. Keep reading for the next Sri Lankan Travel BidmeadBites!

Food and a fair bit of drink…4 days in Prague

23rd February 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

Prague is famous for its stag-dos and beer that costs less than water, and with return flights for under £50, it was the perfect New Year mini-holiday for me and my three friends. Gloves, scarfs and beer hats at the ready, we set off for a few days of sightseeing, beer drinking and beef eating in the capital of the Czech Republic.

Typical Czech food is meaty, carb-heavy and lacking in fresh vegetables. Vegetarians, fear not, because there’s plenty of apple strudel, and who needs their veg fresh when it comes perfectly pickled instead? Here is a rundown of some culinary highlights from the trip.

Oatmeal pancakes

Our first day in the city saw us breakfasting at Kare cafe – half cafe, half trendy interior shop. Given it was the day following Shrove Tuesday, I nodded to Pancake Day with these oatmeal pancakes served with vanilla cream. The chopped fruit served on top was mixed with fresh mint which worked well in cutting the rich vanilla-specked custard.

There was also the lighter option of yogurt, granola and compote – all homemade and a fantastic combination, prettily arranged in an appropriately fashionable mason jar.

Homemade yogurt, granola and compote

After working up an appetite on our walk up to the top of the funicular railway, we lunched at a friend’s recommendation, the popular spot Lokal. Serving typically Czech food, brain, pickled herring and at least five types of sausage featured on the menu.

Lunching at Lokal

Changing the phrase ‘when in Rome’ to fit the Czech capital and you end up with something like ‘when in Prague, eat all the goulash and drink an awful lot of beer’. At Lokal, we ordered some goulash and bread dumplings, along with a mixed sausage platter to share.

The vast mound of bread dumplings and my poor photography skills mean the goulash is lost, but alongside these carby bread pillows was a smooth beef shin stew – the perfect plate for a cold day and a large appetite. The trio of sausages came accompanied with some mild mustard and horseradish cream.

When unsure of what to order for dessert, a tried and tested approach is just to get it all. The top two plates here are chocolate and caramel eclairs. The chocolate eclair was just far too rich, replacing any custard for an overly dark chocolate ganache, but fortunately the caramel variant was a dream. The caramel was not just mixed in with the icing but also the whipped cream sandwiching the two eclairs together.

Something sweet at Lokal

What looks unfortunately similar to a nut-crusted turd is actually a hazelnut biscuit topped with chocolate ganache, covered in dark chocolate. Despite its uncanny physically similarities to poo, it tasted fantastic and was essentially just a large dark Ferrero rocher chocolate.

Prague is famous for having beer that’s cheaper than water, and as someone who loves a pint but not the £5 London price tag, this was music to my ears. After having tried, and failed to see the Jewish Museum (because it obviously closes early on a Friday for sabbath), we thought we’d do another museum instead.

Working their way in – The Beer Museum’s tasting selection

The Prague Beer Museum is not a museum at all, although its title may allow you to believe you’re involving yourself in Prague’s rich cultural history while you sink several pints from their 30-strong collection of beers and ales. An overwhelming amount of choice and subsequent confusion as to what to actually order is all remedied in the option of the ‘taster platter’, where you can sample up to 10 different beers.

Another great Prague watering hole is the slightly more upmarket Bugsys Bar, a swanky cocktail bar serving up expertly mixed drinks to Prague’s well-to-do. Checking out the fancy interior and dolled-up customers, upon arrival we started to worry drinks would cost more than our return flights. Currencies converted, it seemed most cocktails were around the £5 mark, which for the quality of the drinks was a real bargain. I tried a classic Negroni, followed by a rum-based long drink and then finished with a sweet and fruity iced-tea of some sort. Clearly, three drinks in and my attention to detail waned slightly.

Cocktail drinking at Bugsy’s

Not letting any cocktail induced hangovers hold us back, it was out bright and early to continue seeing Prague’s sights. Walking around the centre of town and a smell of sweet pastries filled the air. Trdelník, or chimney cake if you’d like a name you can actually pronounce, is a traditional Slovak cake which is extremely popular in the Czech capital. Soft, sweet dough is rolled around a stick, grilled and then topped with sugar and filled with chocolate or fresh strawberries.

The tastiest chimneys around

For more sweet cakes and treats, Bake Shop is a cafe based in the old Jewish Quarter. Serving some of the best coffee in town, this cafe is extremely popular with tourists as it features in every guide book – with good reason too. Beautiful looking cakes sit alongside savoury tarts, sandwiches and a whole host of small biscuits and bakes. We popped in on more than one occasion to sample some of the goods on offer, with these pretty Valentine’s biscuits being a favourite.

Not just tasty, but beautiful treats at Bake Shop

Before we knew it, our brief holiday was drawing to a close. To bid farewell to the city we had enjoyed so much and had kept us so entertained (not to mention well-fed), we had our final meal at Pivovarský dům. A local place serving the best of traditional Czech food, it was beef, bread dumplings and goulash galore. I eyed up the interestingly named ‘Knights Platter’. With duck, beef and pork all on the same plate, served alongside yet more bread dumpling, and of course some pickled cabbage, this seemed like an awful lot of food for just one person.

The Knight’s Platter

Despite my impressive appetite, I was relieved to learn this was a two-person platter. I was even more pleased when I realised I actually had a friend who wanted to share it with me. We got stuck in and did a sterling job of finishing it off. The pork ball dumplings were particularly good although I prefer not to spend too much time thinking about what combination of animal parts they actually contained. Post Knight’s Platter and there was even some room left for dessert.

A classic Apple Strudel cake is one of my favourite desserts, and eating it in this traditional Czech diner felt as authentic as it gets. The soft, buttery and flaky pastry encased the delicately spiced apples and raisins perfectly, and despite having consumed three animals in the main course, this went down a treat.

All to soon and we were on our Ryanair flight back to blighty. Prague was a perfect 4-day mini break, and I’m now incredibly keen to check out more central and eastern European cities. I may go steady on the pickles beforehand though.

Barrafina, Frith Street

26th January 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

My experience of Spanish food in London has never been great. Sad jugs of overly sweet sangria and soggy patatas bravas, drowning beneath a mound of flavourless chopped tomatoes is hardly inspiring. It always fared pale in comparison to the simple, pared back, yet impeccably executed traditional tapas I grew accustomed to eating on family holidays to the small Andalusian town where my grandparents retired. But last week, that all changed – I ate at Barrafina.

With three London locations, Barrafina does not accept reservations, so you should be prepared to wait. I had tried to visit the Frith Street branch once before, but after being told it’d be two and a half hours before I could sit down, my rumbling stomach and I went elsewhere. This time, I arrived less hungry and more determined. An hour’s wait? With pleasure.

Serving up simple, classic Spanish dishes, ranging from the famous tortilla – Time Out’s 10th best London dish of 2015 – to the hispanic black pudding morcilla, Barrafina is more than worth the wait. Friendly staff (all Spanish speaking) advise you on the menu and keep the bustling bar running smoothly as you agonise over what to order. If bottomless wallets and stomachs existed, I would still be propped at the bar.

However, with only so much cash to spend and an impressive, yet not invincible appetite, we ordered a solid, varied spread. Opting for a mix of the characteristically carby traditional tapas options (the beiger the better), we went for meat and fish dishes too, with a pudding to share.

Pan con tomate

If it’s wrong to say that this plate above, toast and tomatoes and very little else, was my favourite dish of the entire meal, well…I don’t want to be right. The sweet, tomato sauce is slightly tinged with garlic, providing this bready bite with a wonderfully contrasting savoury taste, enhanced by the addition of salt and a sprinkling of chopped parsley on top.

Ordering the Spanish tortilla was a given, and even when presented with variations (one with prawn and one with ham), I knew it has to be la classica. Sitting by the bar, you can admire the chefs at work, creating this small yet perfectly formed dish. Brown and golden on the outside but meltingly soft in the middle, this is yet another dish that uses minimal ingredients, but used to their best potential to create an exceptional result.

For the gambas al ajillo, I took nose-to-tail eating onto seafood, quite literally devouring them from ears to end. Salty, meaty and served with thin slices of chilli, to have left any part of the prawn uneaten just seemed wasteful.

Tortilla classica y gambas al ajillo at Barrafina

Tortilla classica and gambas al ajillo

Barrfina do a brilliant job at quashing the myth that pork has to be cooked right through, as they serve their pluma ibérica bloody and rare…so much so, I thought it was beef. This particular cut comes from the shoulder of the loin, and when left medium rare as it was, the outside caramelises while the inside is left a glorious red, the marbling fat left to melt into itself. This results in an incredibly tender pork dish – a far cry from the tough, grey pork chops I remember from my childhood (sorry, mum).

My love of offal is no secret – from genitals in Colombia, duck liver in Berlin and some hearty (literally) skewers in Buenos Aires, it’s been well documented. Alongside organs, I’ve really got a thing for black pudding, and seeing my old friend morcilla on the menu at Barrafina made me all nostalgic for my beef-filled days in Buenos Aires, where I reckon I single handedly upped my local butchers sales of this beautiful blood sausage by at least 50%.

Morcilla ibérica topped with quails eggs

This morcilla ibérica was served on top of roasted red peppers and wore a hat made of tiny, baby quails eggs. A visually stunning plate, I was slightly disappointed at the actual amount of sausage given in a portion. Now don’t tell the Spanish speaker in me that ‘small plates’ is very much the point, and definition of tapas. I am aware. But two bites of morcilla? That’s just a bit mean. Portion size aside, the morcilla was rich, as you’d imagine a sausage made of blood would be, but actually with a taste far more like a smoky chorizo than the rice-filled Spanish morcilla I’ve eaten in Spain. And while I love smoky chorizo and its peppery pimentón flavour, it’s not quite what I’m expecting when I opt for my beloved blood sausage. All the same, this morcilla was marvellous…I’d perhaps just like to have eaten a bit more of it.

Other items we ordered included the patatas bravas, so very unlike the description of the sad and soggy potatoes I opened this post with. Served on the side rather than on top of the potatoes, the sauce was a fluffy cloud of roasted red pepper puree; I’m now concerned that any tomato condiment eaten on future sides of chips will never compare.

For dessert we chose a crema catalana to share, the Spanish cousin of the French creme brûlée. Just like the kids at school who seem all tough on the outside but are just big softies underneath, as we cracked into this dessert’s hard, caramelised outer layer, our spoons were met with warm and creamy custard below.

This meal between two, with a bottle of wine to share, was £40 a head. For the quality of food, so good that tomatoes on toast taste better than far fancier dishes at other restaurants I’ve eaten at, I think it’s good value. Maybe not what you’re looking to spend on every meal out, but then you’re probably not keen on queuing for an hour every time either. So find a friend who appreciates good food, have a little snack beforehand to see you through the wait, and go to Barrafina. Because it is really, really rico.

Berry Smoothie Breakfast Bowl (or anglicized açaí)

9th January 2016 by Eve Bidmead Leave a Comment

As the smell of meat grilling, multiple chickens slowly cooking on a spit roast and sweet, freshly baked cheesy bread wafts past me, I know I’m back in Latin America. This time, I’ve ditched my Spanish and taken to speaking Portuguese (extremely, extremely poorly) in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

1 of about 100 açaí bowls I consumed while in Rio

On street corners and along the beach front people quench their thirst with ice cold coconuts, slurping its water of the shell. Juice bars churn out sweet, creamy avocado juices and serve up salty and deep fried salgados. While I enjoyed the abundance of beige fried food and sugary avocado, my favourite Brazilian bite was a purple bowl of beauty, otherwise known as açaí.

A berry native to Central and South America, açaí has been touted as a ‘superfood’, supposedly even richer in antioxidants than cranberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, or blueberries. Served frozen and blended, either on its own or mixed in with other fruits like banana or strawberry to make a thick smoothie, açaí is served in a copa (cup) or na tigela (in a bowl, topped with granola and chopped banana).

Since the beachfront of Copacabana has been swapped for the streets of Camden, I’m now looking to recreate this Brazilian delight in my own kitchen. You won’t find any açaí down your local Asda, so I’ve opted for a mix of raspberries and blueberries instead. You could, of course, top this with shop bought granola, but try this recipe for a decidedly unhealthier version to balance out all the pesky vitamins inside this superfood smoothie bowl.

Replacing the Brazilian berries for British ones obviously gives this bowl a different taste to those I ate in Brasil, but it makes for a brilliant breakfast all the same. There’s a fair bit of oil in the granola, but it’s the fat and sugar that give it that crunch. My use of coconut oil here is a nod to those cocos sipped beachside and gives a rich and warm flavour to the granola.

Coconut and cinnamon granola

(This recipe makes two large trays, which is about one large jar)

Ingredients

350g oats (the real deal jumbo ones, certainly no instant quick cooking ones)

25g light muscovado sugar

120 ml honey (4 tbsp of solid or runny)

120 ml coconut oil (4 tbsp hard coconut oil)

1 and a half teaspoons of cinnamon

175g raisins

Method

Heat oven to 150 degrees.
Heat sugar, honey and coconut oil on a low heat, stirring constantly to achieve a golden syrup consistency.
Combine warm syrup with the oats and cinnamon, covering oats in liquid.
Divide onto two baking trays lined with baking paper, and put into oven for 25-30 minutes. You want the oats golden but not overly so, and should poke oats around every 5-10 minutes, as for this granola clusters are not what we’re after.
Remove from oven, leave to cool and add in raisins.