The World in 202 Meals

I must admit to feelings of inexperience when picking out a place to eat dim sum in London. Reading reviews, it seems that opinions are strongly held on quality and authenticity within this rather tasty sub-genre of Chinese cuisine.

Not being sure to know an authentic dim sum dish from a chichi western imitation, we called on the assistance of Jill, who hails from the dim sum capital Hong Kong via pleasant Oxfordshire. (We’d already decided our dim sum meal should represent Hong Kong; we’re eyeing a Szechuan spot for China proper.) Jill is vehement in her dislike for chains like Ping Pong, which I’ll admit to having enjoyed in the past; so she suggested an oft-neglected dim sum restaurant in Chinatown serving the real deal.

The standard restaurant food at Golden Pagoda is, all told, as mediocre as any of the other outlets dishing up westernised Cantonese food on Gerrard street. That’s not why we visited, though. At weekend lunchtimes, a dedicated dim sum chef (Wai Sui Yu, from the acclaimed Dragon and Castle south of the river) takes over, and things take a turn for the better.

I did come with an idea of what to expect—my first dim sum experience in Toronto’s Chinatown centre was, I imagine, pretty authentic. Trollies full of small unidentified dishes were wheeled around the large room and devoured by eager Chinese pensioners, leaving the non-Cantonese-speaking amongst us to take a “lucky dip” approach to the day’s lunch menu. I tried many things, some delicious (dumplings, buns), some not to my taste (rubbery pickled slices of chicken feet) and some completely unidentified.

While Golden Pagoda doesn’t serve from trolleys, we were still glad to have some help in deciphering the Chinese order card, on which one ticks off quantities of dishes desired. Having a big table meant we got to sample a great variety of dishes, which is the best way to go about it, although leaves me struggling to describe all we ate.

Lots of Cantonese favourites were present, including many varieties of dumpling. (Har gau with their pleated wrappers; siu mai which are open-topped and orange-tinged; siu lung bau, extraordinary feats of engineering which burst with a filling of hot soup; the translucent fun gor.) And of course, some great steamed buns with char sui (bbq pork) and chicken.

Cheung fun are another Cantonese classic, with meat and seafood fillings wrapped in soft rice noodle sheets and slathered in soy. They’re slippery customers when armed with chopsticks, but proved very popular.

Yummy squid came both deep-fried and raw with a vinegary salad; lo bak goh (steamed turnip cake) and a similar steamed seafood cake proved a little gelatinous for some of us, although served well at soaking up soy. Lo mai gai (lotus leaf rice), while comforting, was not the best I’ve had.

The surprise for me was the chicken feet (fung zao), which I’ll admit to approaching with scepticism. This batch, served whole, boiled until tender, heavily seasoned and barbecued, were a much more agreeable proposition than the rubbery kind I’d tried in vinegar.

When it comes to desert, I missed out on my favourites, deep fried sesame buns. But we did try fried custard buns (near enough!), and a Hong Kong speciality, egg custard tarts. (These look very similar to the Portuguese pastel da nata, and probably arrived via the nearby Portuguese colony Macau.) Jill’s favourite was another Hong Kong dish, mango pudding, which rather resembles a blancmange.

How was the food then? Experienced hands certainly thought highly of it; for my part, I found it an altogether different experience to the fancier-looking dim sum chains. Perhaps a little less variety and subtlety when it came to flavours and fillings, but more wholesome and satisfying, and the feeling that liberties weren’t being taken with a reliable tradition. Good hangover food, in fact, making it an excellent choice for Sunday lunch, and great value at around £10 a head.

In summary

Golden Pagoda
15a Gerrard St, Chinatown, W1D 6JD
020 7434 2888

I passed by this (then) inconspicuous-looking restaurant many times when I went to secondary school down the road, but it wasn’t until long afterwards that I decided to try it. Since my first visit some three years ago, Mahdi has established itself as one of my favourite restaurants.

That said, there’s one thing that I’ve never liked about it—the service. This time it started before we even got there. I got a call from the restaurant the day before our 202 Meals visit, informing me that although we had a booking for six o’clock, we’d have to come at “four-thirty or five”, because a group of 60 and a group of 20 were coming at half-past six. The waiter on the phone assured me this was to give us “the best service”, but the rather abrupt command to leave at the end of our meal the next day confirmed their motives were entirely more predictable.

Every Persian restaurant I have been to has nice decor, but Mahdi’s is particularly pleasing, with real waterfalls as well as Persian rugs and cushions. While waiting for the inevitable latecomers, we admired the walls, covered in Persian art, and ordered a pot of Iranian tea (black tea with cardamom). The tea was not to everyone’s liking; the same cannot be said about the houmous, which everyone ordered. The sesame seed-covered nan, made onsite by a baker stationed by the front window to tempt passers-by, was an excellent accompaniment.

The choice in main courses is between kebabs and lamb stews—the menu is more or less evenly divided between the two kinds of dish. Fortunately there were no vegetarians among us, for there’s only one (unspecified) vegetarian dish on the menu.

Most of us went for kebabs, and all three kebab varieties on offer were represented at the table: lamb, minced lamb and chicken. The lamb versions were not hugely different from similar Turkish or Lebanese dishes, but the chicken was cooked with saffron and lemon juice, making it a little more distinctive. Those who ordered a side of rice rather than salad or rice/salad split were given not just a mountain but a mountain range of the stuff.

Unfortunately for Andrea, the waiters brought her a slightly boring lamb and okra stew she hadn’t ordered, only then informing her that that the more exciting lamb, pomegranate and walnut stew she’d chosen wasn’t available. Matt was luckier on the stew front, receiving a pile of fragrant saffron rice filled with tender lamb bits. Everyone else was happy with their choices, if a little overwhelmed by the size. There were certainly more unfinished than finished dinners, but it wasn’t a reflection of the food itself.

There are many good Persian restaurants in west London, but for the best it’s worth going a little further out than West Kensington or Bayswater. Despite the negative picture this review may give about Mahdi’s service, the food convincingly trumps this.

In summary

Mahdhi
217 King Street, Hammersmith, London, W6 9JT
0871 075 7388

Ever since Daniel moved to West Hampstead there’s been talk of eating at the nearby Czechoslovak National House. Based in a large detached house on West End Lane, it’s been home to London’s Czech émigrés since the late 30s, and (so Daniel would have us believe) became quite a hotbed of espionage in the cold war years.

The building’s interior is an odd mix of embassy and suburban house; we catch some old Czech guys watching TV on the way in and feel like we’re entering a rather grand home.

The club’s restaurant does appear to cater primarily to ex-pat members missing a taste of home. Our lack of Czech proved quite an impediment, both to explanation of the menu and comprehension of our order, leading to a few mistakes. The food is comforting rather than fancy, and lacks some of the flair of eastern European restaurants we’ve tried elsewhere in London. That said, the club is one of the few places in London where you can try Czech specialities, and resulted in an interesting meal.

(The Czech Republic and Slovakia were of course still a joint entity for much of the club’s life, as its name reflects. Its founder was a Czech, however, and its website humbly admits that “if you are after a classic Slovak restaurant in London we may not fully satisfy you”. So we’ll be seeking Slovakian food another time.)

A few of us picked starters, something of a brave move considering the usual size of eastern European portions. Pickled herring, one of my favourites, has just the firmness and pep I demand from it. Potato pancakes in the Czech style prove delicious, large, dark and topped with smoky bacon, but Alex’s brie salad, while interesting (it was served in a vinegary dressing) didn’t quite leave him crying out for seconds.

Whether by accident or design our main courses turned out very similar. On each plate a big hunk of roast meat swam in a generous but rather sickly soup of sauerkraut, more the consistency of apple sauce than the shredded German variety I’ve tried before. Czech dumplings (knedlíky) on the side were not quite what we expected either, consisting of large, bready slices of boiled dough. (Apparently smaller potato dumplings are also served, but knedlíky are the classic Czech variety.)

Meat and game are quite central to Czech cuisine—we tried goose, duck, boar, beef and chicken and all proved well-prepared, rich and tasty. My main course, stuffed breaded wild boar (plněný kančí řízek & příloha), was the subject of particular curiosity. Wobbling on the plate like a morbidly obese schnitzel, the wild boar fillet is breaded and fried after stuffing with onions, ham and smoked bacon. (More conventional schnitzel has a strong presence on the menu too, alongside other eastern European standards like goulash).

All this left us with little room for desert—just as well as we were turfed out rather summarily at the club’s 10pm closing time. All in all I’d say it’s worth visiting for the authentic Czech experience and the history of the place, but the service left a little to be desired and I’m not sure I’d recommend it as a first place to try eastern European food.

In summary

Czechoslovak National House
74 West End Lane, West Hampstead, London, NW6 2LX
0207 372 1193
Open Tuesday to Friday 5pm to 10pm, and weekends noon to 10pm.

A few weeks ago I posted about the special tasting menu unveiled for two nights at Stratford’s Circus Eats in honour of the East festival. Described as a modern East End seven course meal accompanied by specially-chosen international drinks, it looked like a great event. But it also looked like it would be crazy for us to attempt going. We had two other blog meals scheduled for that week, and big ones at that: a hearty Georgian feast at Tbisili, and a yet-to-be-written-up dim sum lunch. Plus, Stratford is really far for some of us.

But curiosity, and panic at the prospect of missing out on a one-time opportunity at a restaurant that’s gotten some really nice reviews, took over. So Matt, Karol and I visited. And didn’t regret it at all.

The restaurant—set up like more of a café—is part of the Stratford Circus theatre at Theatre Square, located off a desolate stretch of road skirting some indeterminate large-scale Olympic development near the Stratford rail station. The square, I’m told, is becoming increasingly hip. (Besides the theatre, it boasts an arty cinema reminiscent of Rich Mix, but also a Pizza Express.)

Maybe it’s because I’m naturally an easily-confused person, but when I entered I had to ask someone if I was actually in the restaurant—the fact that I only saw a bar and a couple of flimsy tables and chairs, plus no restaurant staff, threw me. It turns out the dining action was up above on the mezzanine-like first floor, for this evening anyway. Thanks to some dim lighting and a pianist, the simple space, naked but for tables and some long, sheer curtains, turned out to be pretty atmospheric.

All we knew coming in was that the tasting menu had been inspired by Newham specifically (according to Wikipedia, the most diverse district in the UK). And that, according to some website hints, the dishes would probably reflect some combination of African, Caribbean, South American, European and traditional East London cuisines. We’d also read that, promisingly, chef Kevin Richardson is actively trying to promote quality food at freakishly affordable prices. (No dish on the standard menu is more than £10.)

The resulting meal was filling and delicious. And had been carefully prepared—the dishes were well-presented, loaded with traditional foods made over with bursts of modern creativity. Here’s what we ate and drank:

For Eastern Europe

Thick, mildly spicy borscht unlike the thin, vinegary kind we’re used to, adorned with cream, a slice of beetroot and, interestingly, fresh mustard shoots. It was a bit salty, but good, and went well with the accompanying vodka and apple juice.

For India

Smooth, fluffy, bright green spinach pakora with okra, a tomato-y sauce, dried tomato slices(!) and fresh baby spinach. The dish was served with a French white wine.

For Asia

Thai fish cakes and noodles in a sweet chili sauce. The fish cakes were lumpy and homemade-tasting, a revelation for me—I’d only ever had dry, rubbery, bland excuses for Thai fish cakes before, and hadn’t realised any other sort existed.

For South America

A refreshing, palate-cleansing, genuine mojito, brimming with mint leaves and crushed ice, and minus the sickly gobs of sugar that often ruin the drink.

For Africa

Spicy jollof rice, familiar from our Ghanaian expedition, with a buttery-soft fried tilapia fillet and a Nigerian beer called Star.

For England(?)

Tender, perfectly cooked lamb chops with a fruity red wine reduction and potatoes and veg, including a single white asparagus spear. Like a fancy miniature Sunday roast, the dish came with a glass of Argentinian red wine. (Delicious as the dish was, its French influences made the connection to East London seem a bit tenuous. Being a modern East End menu, though, I guess it didn’t have to be pie and mash or jellied eel representing East End English fare.)

For desert

Continuing on the English theme, some interesting British cheeses, AND two mini cakes, AND a glass of port! The cheeses, paired with apple and pear slices, were amazing, and this is coming from an incredibly picky cheese lover. One resembled double gloucester with chives, one was bright green and tasted of basil, and one was an orange blue cheese that tasted like a firmer stilton. We should have asked their names, but by now we were quite drunk, with near-bursting stomachs, and so a bit preoccupied. Cakes-wise, the passion-fruit cheesecake outshone the slightly dry Chantilly-topped brownie, but they were cakes, and we weren’t complaining.

Somehow, bizarrely, this seven course combo was priced at only £25 a head plus service, including the drinks. We’d been expecting a decent meal, but for what we paid, we got way, way more than we ever would have dared to hope for. If it’s really possible for a restaurant to feed picky diners this well and still profit from an almost non-existent bill, Circus Eats is on to something. Hopefully chef Richardson won’t wait until the next East festival to launch another multi-course tasting menu experiment.

In summary

Circus Eats
Stratford Circus, Theatre Square, Stratford, London, E15 1BX
020 8279 1022
Open daily. Breakfast 9am to 11am, ‘light bites’ 12pm to 6pm, a la carte 12pm to 3pm and 6pm to 9pm.

Meals like our meal at Tbilisi are exactly the reason we started this blog. The food was maybe the most unpredictable we’ve tried so far, and the wine, coming from a country that claims to have invented the drink, was just as interesting. Plus, the presence of a few new additions to our group of eaters made for a big, crowded table—the perfect atmosphere for sampling the cuisine of a country that prides itself on a tradition of wine-soaked feasts full of toasts and chatter.

It’s strange that Georgia isn’t better known for its wine. Wine is central to Georgian culture, and those who claim Georgians invented it might be correct. Archaeologists have found evidence of viticulture in the region from early as the fourth millennium BC, according to The Georgian Feast by Darra Goldstein. (Other fun facts from Goldstein: scientists believe the original wine grape was native to the Caucasus; some linguists consider the Georgian word for wine, ghvino, to be the prototype for the words vino, vin and wine; and early Georgians actually worshipped the grape with sacred back garden wine storage sheds.)

Tbilisi celebrates this with a long list of authentic Georgian wines, and through a few decor nods—shelves displaying spot-lit wine bottles hang on the wine-red walls of the modern-looking space. (The restaurant is a warm, cosy place despite the contemporary look, though, with a menu full of charming spelling mistakes like “crashed walnuts” and “vanilla ace-cream”.)

Kvanchkara, at £18.99, was the priciest Georgian wine on the list, but we couldn’t resist; it came recommended by our waiter, and by the menu, which calls it “most favoured” by Georgians “with a rich sweetness of fruit and oak tones”. The sweet red was unusual but more than drinkable, with a honey aftertaste. Our second bottle was a dry red made from the saperavi grape, still boasting a hint of sweetness; its name, Tamada, so the label said, is the Georgian word for a host or toastmaster charged with creating a social, celebratory atmosphere during meals.

The arrival of our starter, khachapuri–cheese bread–was enough to create a celebratory atmosphere at our table. Like hot, fluffy pizza dough with a moist, mildly cheesy centre, it was delicious on its own, and even better with two accompanying toppings: a spicy salad of cooked carrot, coriander, cumin, crushed walnut and pomegranate seeds, and, the surprise favourite, salty, spicy chunks of liver adorned with onion, parsley and more pomegranate. (Surprising because some of us, like me, who had been disgusted by liver as children, couldn’t get enough.)

The spicy theme continued into the mains. My khinkali, dumplings resembling a larger version of the Chinese steamed sort (in texture, not shape), were topped in fiery black pepper that added an edge to the ground beef/pork and vegetable broth filling. Those dining on chanaki, “spicy lamb and aubergine”, called it a cross between rogan josh and goulash—the perfect description.

Walnuts were back again too, in vegetarian dishes like aubergine with walnut sauce. (This was surprisingly un-walnuty, more like a Moroccan aubergine/tomato combo with a jalfrazi spiciness.) Walnut sauce can also come atop tabaka, traditional Georgian chicken grilled on the bone, but our table chose a sweet and sour plum sauce for the dish.

The desserts arrived full of yet more walnuts—a baked green apple filled with a very Greek mixture of yogurt, honey and crushed walnut, and a jelly-like concoction made from grape juice and corn flour, and topped with whole walnut pieces. (Georgian chacha—grappa—was also consumed.)

Tbilisi’s food isn’t the most mind-blowingly delicious we’ve tried, but it’s exciting, reliable and filling. We’d love to see Georgian cuisine increase its presence around London, but for now, Tbilisi makes an excellent North London hub for those wanting to discover it. Here’s hoping the near-empty dining room we witnessed isn’t threatening this restaurant’s survival, because I want to go back.

In summary

Tbilisi
91 Holloway Road, Holloway, London, N7 8LT
020 7607 2536
Open daily, 6:30pm to 11pm

More Georgian

My friend Emily, who made a point of seeking out the most exotic restaurants she could find while visiting London a few months back, drooled over her cheese bread, khinkali, and trout at Mimino.

- Allegra McEvedy’s account of eating her way through Lebanon reminds me of why Lebanese is so high on my list of potential next meals. I thought I knew Lebanese food, but I hadn’t heard of many of the dishes she describes–like man’ousheh, muhammara and ‘boiled brains with lemon’. Here’s hoping a few of them are served on Edgware Road.

- We love the sound of this! Circus Eats at Stratford Circus has a special menu for the East festival this weekend: the theme is celebrating the cultures of London’s east end with a mix of international dishes, from African, Caribbean and South American to European, Asian and traditional East London eats like pie mash and salt beef bagels. The Thursday night launch has a “modern East End seven course tasting menu accompanied by specially selected international drinks.” We hope to investigate.

- Our mission plan page is filling up. Matt, our chief geek, has designed a really clever drop-down menu you can use to easily view the countries we’ve covered, the countries we’re working on and the countries we have no idea about.

Wow, Time Out has featured us as one of London’s best food blogs and websites! We’ll need to get going with some more meals and reviews if we’re going to live up to that title—our next stops will be (South) India, Georgia and China.

We’re also in the middle of launching a biggish new project for the blog—a new page to plan the rest of our mission, outlining where we’ve eaten already and compiling our ideas and your suggestions for tackling the remaining countries on the list. We’ll be filling it up with as many ideas and suggestions as possible over the next few days, weeks and months. We hope to eventually build this list into an indispensable London food resource, so, as always, get in touch if you have a recommendation, especially for one of the more obscure countries. (We’re really excited about one of the latest recommendations we’ve received, for Kyrgyzstan. Thanks Andy!)

UPDATE: Our list of countries now contains a large number of restaurant suggestions!

Like many an Englishman, my first encounters with Turkish food had me wolfing down a pita full of chicken shish on the way home from the pub. Like the curry and the Chinese takeaway, the kebab—served by Turks more often than not—has become quite a fixture in our fast food landscape, almost as English as Chicken Tikka Masala.

Like all foreign fast food though, it leads one to certain inevitable questions: Is this how it’s really eaten in Turkey? What might a more authentic sit-down meal consist of? How can they stand the influx of drunks at closing time?

It wasn’t until I first moved to London (Dalston, fortuitously) that I found answers to some of these. Dalston is home to London’s most recent wave of Turkish immigrants, and as such the best place for a really authentic Turkish meal. A cheap one, too—I remember being astounded at the generosity of the diner across the road, which would feed me lots of lamb stew with plates of rice, fresh bread, salad and pickles for just £3. Some years later I was hankering after a return to one of these establishments, and found the options have multiplied even further since my last visit.

Turkish grills, or ocakbasi, dominate the upper stretches of Kingsland road, with the Mangal chain particularly renowned. These represent the more authentic origins of England’s fast-food kebab shops, with their charcoal grills and cabinets full of freshly-skewered meat. We wanted to try some Turkish mezze as well though, so after some deliberation headed to 19 Numara Bos Cirrik 1, one of the best-reputed local restaurants with a grill and an extensive restaurant menu too.

Turkey, of course, is a big country with many borders, and its cuisine reflects this, bringing together flavours from Greece and the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Our plate of mixed mezze served as a great example of this. Cacık (cucumber with yoghurt, dried mint and olive oil) is the Turkish version of Greek favourite Tzatziki, and Patlican soslu (grilled aubergine and pepper in an olive oil-rich sauce) definitely brought to mind the Mediterranean. Tahini-rich hummus and taze fasulye (a mezze made from green beans) might feel at home in the middle-east, while the Russian salad and our favourite starter, mücver, recalled Eastern Europe. (Mücver are soft fritters made from potatoes, cheese, egg, minced courgette and dill).

The kebab and the charcoal grill still feel like the heart of Turkish cooking, and of the menu at Bos Cirrik. Having led 202 Meals there myself, I feel almost obliged to try their £12 mixed grill, a selection of kebabs which you can watch sizzle over the coals.

(We are sorely tempted by an aubergine and minced meat kebab, grilled wrapped in foil, but are warned, as I have been elsewhere, that these involve a quite a time commitment. Someday I must wait for one of these beasts.)

Juicy chicken şiş and çöp şiş (small lamb chunks) are familiar from more everyday kebab joints, but what a change to taste them succulent, well-marinated and fresh off the smoky charcoal grill. Pieces of lamb shank (a giant skewer of which Andrea almost conquers) add variety, and an Adana (minced lamb) skewer tastes homemade, juicy and rich with fresh herbs. Alex’s beyti is similar, but comes encased in thin Turkish bread before slicing, something of a novelty to us and very tasty. His was served İskender style (sliced over garlicy yoghurt and tomato sauce), while our grills came with butter-infused Turkish rice.

We all shared free sides - lots of fresh pide (the Turkish version of pita bread, softer and thicker, without the pocket) and three different salads including, to my delight, what I now know to be Izgara soğan. I have saved this until last, because it is actually my favourite part of the meal. It is slices of grilled onion, served with a dramatic purple sauce made from pomegranate syrup, turnip juice, and sumac (a sour, purple-coloured powdered spice common in Turkish cooking). It’s wonderfully intense, providing sour bursts of flavour and some crunch to help the meat along its way.

By now, as you can imagine, we were stuffed. The size of their portions is incredible, and in retrospect ordering mains after mezze was a little rash. Sometimes I do find Turkish main courses a little too much of the same thing, consisting as they often do of big, straightforward combinations of grilled meat, bread, rice, salad and yoghurt. When well-executed with fresh ingredients, as they are at Bos Cirrik, they are delicious—but the ingredients are key, and one should be careful to avoid ordering too much.

In summary

19 Numara Bos Cirrik 1
34 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, N16 7XJ
020 7249 0400
Open noon to midnight daily

More Turkish

Dalston abounds with cheap and authentic Turkish eateries, with lots more in surrounding areas of North and North-east London
including Stoke Newington, Green lanes and Finsbury park. We can recommend Petek on Stroud Green road, which offers some great Turkish food in a slightly cosier restaurant setting.

There are also many Turkish bakeries in North London; a local favourite for me is the Yildiz bakery in Archway, serving delicious lamacun (Turkish flatbread with minced meat and spices), börek (pastries stuffed with cheese, spinach, meat and other fillings), baklava and other Turkish deserts.

There’s one thing that embarrasses me a bit about being Canadian, aside from our prime minister and our pathetic film and television industries. Canadian food—or the lack of it. Toronto is a carnival of exotic cuisines, but for a taste of the uniquely Canadian, what can you get besides Timbits, butter tarts and the masses of maple candy in the duty-free shops at Pearson? When British foodie friends ask you about Canadian delicacies, what can you describe besides beaver tails, peameal bacon, Tourtière and poutine?

The above (all delicious, by the way) are possibly the only Canadian foods that exist, or at least that I can think of. So having any sort of Canadian meal in London, let alone finding a restaurant for one, was always going to be a challenge.

Luckily for 202 Meals, there’s the Maple Leaf. I was floored when I heard about it from a Canadian seatmate on my first ever flight over here. Canadians aren’t used to having our identity celebrated in any way—we’re not even sure we have one. So the existence of a Canadian-themed pub in a foreign country is both an honour and a curiosity.

The pub, which sits on a little lane off Covent Garden, is a celebration of Canadian-ness in the most clichéd sense: all framed hockey jerseys and mountie paraphernalia, a portrait of John Molson and a gigantic (dead) stuffed bear. Squeeze through the middle-aged male crowd clogging the entrance, navigating past slightly grimy tables to the back wall by the fireplace, and you’ll be rewarded with the only London pub television that’s ever shown a National Hockey League game.

The typical low-end pub menu gives only a few token nods to the Canadian theme, like the “Full Mountie” burger (made with British beef) and some maple-drenched desserts. And most of what we tried didn’t really impress—MSG-laden nachos topped with cheese and salsa, meat loaf more like a meat mash, and “Buffalo wings” drenched in gloopy sweet barbecue sauce rather than the trademark vinegary spice they’re famous for in North America. But none of that mattered, as we were really here for two things: poutine and Canadian beer.

Our tasting panel had quite a lot of poutine expertise for a bunch of Londoners—fellow Canadians Sarah and Brian, and sceptical Matt, who once bravely downed the mixture of chips, cheese and gravy on a trip to Montreal. Only Karol had never tried it, but he had high expectations. I’d built it up over the past year in a series of drooling descriptions: back home, even Burger King has poutine, but the most authentic Quebec versions are dotted with delicious, mild cheese curds rather than slathered in melted cheddar.

Needless to say, it was the latter here—large, formerly frozen chips lying limply in thick gravy and sprinkled with shreds of cheese so faint as to be almost undetectable. Luckily, chips and gravy are always a comforting food no matter how little thought goes into them. And, as Brian noted, the presentation—on gleaming white plates, with actual cutlery—was an interesting departure from the greasy boxes that normally hold the concoction.

Two Canadian beers were more of a success. Sleemans Honey Brown, available on tap, is a darker than average lager and infused with a honey sweetness bordering on Belgian; and there’s always something comforting about bottles of Moosehead, although the beer itself isn’t that special. (The Sleemans Cream Ale, alas, was not as creamy as I remembered, and we skipped the famous but bland Molson Canadian.)

Soon we were ready for what was meant to be the highlight of the night—dipping into a box of London’s take on Tim Hortons doughnuts, which I’d brought over from the Spar on Haymarket that’s now selling them. Strangely, Tim Hortons has licensed its doughnuts (and coffee and muffins) to just this one London Spar location, which has become a bit legendary for Canadian ex-pats, even though the word is they taste nothing like the real thing. Now that I’ve tried them, I can agree that they don’t, nor do they look it, save for the comforting Canadian doughnut chain logo-covered packaging, which is the same as back home. Really, they’re just the usual flat, misshapen, lying-all-day-in-a-corner shop kind of doughnut. Only two varieties bore any resemblance to true Tim Hortons flavours: the maple glazed and old-fashioned glazed. But instead of the cakey freshness I’ve grown up with, they were dry, and the maple glaze hard and gritty rather than the soft, fudgy topping I’m used to.

Still, it was really fun to sit, armed with Tim Hortons paraphernalia, in a kitschy Canadian pub for the night, attracting a bewildered Montrealer to our table to ask where we’d gotten the doughnuts. And it’s comforting to know that there’s a place to go for yummy, if overpriced, Sleeman’s. Spar’s doughnuts and the Maple Leaf may not be the best Canadian ambassadors, but it’s nice to have them around, especially for an identity-starved Canadian.

In summary

The Maple Leaf
41 Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 7LJ
020 7240 2843

More Canadian

The Canada/Australia/New Zealand/South Africa shop down the street from the Maple Leaf on Maiden Lane stocks goodies common to Canadian supermarkets, like Kraft Dinner, Kool-Aid and Shake ‘n Bake, Canadian beer, and yes, plenty of maple syrup products.

Brixton, my neighbourhood, is the centre of London’s Caribbean community (the Notting Hill Carnival notwithstanding). So where better to sample Caribbean cuisine for a 202 Meals outing?

Bamboula is a small, basic and busy restaurant right in the centre of town. The décor and music are perhaps a little predictable, but that does not detract from the overall atmosphere. One motive for choosing Bamboula is that it looks the most inviting of the local eateries; another is that it’s good enough for heads of state (the Jamaican prime minister, Bruce Golding, was there when he visited Brixton in May 2008). Although billing itself as Caribbean, all signs suggest that it is Jamaican—perhaps unsurprisingly, seeing as there are more Jamaicans in the UK than people from anywhere else in the Caribbean.

One look at the menu confirmed that this was going to be a three-course meal. Choosing starters was the easy part, as there are only two. The codfish fritters with love apple sauce were cod like we’d never tasted before (the sauce lending a sour fruitiness), and the plantain ring with ackee (a kind of savoury fruit) and saltfish was a good balance of salty fish and slightly sweet plantain.

The main courses—vegetarian options excepted—are all based on meat on the bone, which is stewed, curried or grilled. Andrea and Alex, both curried goat first-timers, liked theirs so much that there was some enthusiastic scraping of the bones after the meat had gone. Matt and I both had jerk meat (lamb and chicken, respectively), which is probably the most famous Jamaican dish. The taste is a pleasing combination of sweetness and a unique peppery spiciness. Matt’s lamb was flavoured with Guava, adding an extra fruity kick to the traditional jerk sauce.

Whereas the meat choices were straightforward enough, the side dishes, which all looked extremely tempting, threw the table into a fit of indecision. Matt’s “Caribbean salad” included mango and avocado as well as the usual veg, and Andrea’s rice included callaloo, a spinach-like plant. Alex opted for starch in the form of fried sweet potato; I was unable to commit to one thing, so I ordered “ground provision”—a general term for starchy sides in Caribbean cuisine, which here means green banana, yam and dumpling. To my surprise, the dumpling was a little sweeter than the banana, whereas the yam was a little too similar to potato to be exciting. We also ordered two festivals (corn fritters) to share, which were akin to doughnuts in both taste and texture, and very useful for mopping up curried goat and jerk sauce.

As always seems to happen in good restaurants, we were full (as our knowledgeable waiter predicted we would be) but not so full that we couldn’t manage dessert. Andrea and Matt’s pineapple mojito made the whole table smell of rum; Alex’s mango, pineapple and papaya crumble was a fusion of traditional England and its tropical colonies; my rum bread pudding had me craving more of the same the next day. The final pleasant surprise of the evening was the bill: the meal was altogether very good value for money. (Matt described the festivals, at 60p each, as “the best price-to-calorie ratio I’ve ever seen in a restaurant”.)

In summary

Bamboula
12 Acre Lane, Brixton, London, SW2 5SG
020 7737 6633
Open 8am to 11pm Monday to Saturday, and 1pm to 9pm Sunday