the old brewery, greenwich

I do like a brew, even better if it's made locally, so it's natural that I should like the Meantime Brewery based, naturlich, in Greenwich.

They already have a pub, called the Greenwich Union, but when I heard that they had opened a kind of bar/cafe/restaurant in the old naval college I was pretty much beyond excited, but it took until a hot weekend in July to tempt me over there.

Unlike a lot of English breweries Meantime is about more than real ale, in fact ale, with the exception of their London IPA, in practically off the menu in exchange for lovely hoppy malty, European style beers and lagers. They also serve a selection of bottled trappist beers, American lager on tap such as Brooklyn lager and various other German beers like Schneider Weisse. Carlsberg, is, fortunately totally off the menu.

We both tried their Kellerbier, although this is the first time I've opted for it, their Pilsner is becoming almost commonplace in pubs and bars around the UK and I've drunk it a number of times. It was pleasant, though I think I thought I would find it a bit less bitter and a bit more refreshing, in line with the Pilsner.

I am ordinarily a massive fan of wheat beer, but the brief tagline on the pump which mentioned it tasted of clove put me off, so anyone who has tasted it please let me know I this is the case.

Mr LROC sampled a Kolner, when quizzed about it he said it was 'like a lager, but nice' so you can see what I have to put up with! My second drink was a Brooklyn lager, described as a 'smooth full bodied lager' it was dark, cool and hoppy.

They also have a restaurant and cafe, although the restaurant menu is served only from 6pm and errs on the pricey side it is all designed to complement the beer and what we did see coming out from the kitchen to the shaded al fresco garden looked delicious.

Personally, as a beer lover, it's great to see somewhere take a stand from to dominance of wine with food and a great place to visit on a sunny weekend.

hurwendeki, cambridge heath road

Hurwendeki opened up about two years ago in a railway arch on Cambridge Heath Road, which conveniently happens to be just around the corner from LROC HQ aka my flat.

Advertising 'Coffee, Antiques, Play' and being most famous for turning its garden area, which overlooks one of East London's major traffic arteries, into some kind of twisted Garden of Eden featuring urinals, carousel horses and sand.

They also make excellent sandwiches.

Although London has been swept by a 3 week heatwave and really it's too hot to eat anything unless it has been barbequed and served up in fancy al fresco style, today I opted for the roast vegetables and goats cheese on a round rosemary foccaccia. This is taken off and grilled up until the foccacia gets a lovely crunch and the chevre melts ever so slightly. It's thoroughly delicious, I might go as far as to say it might be one of my all time favourite sandwiches, it tastes carefully made, natural, homely. The goats cheese is rich, but not overpoweringly so as it can so often be. It's a symphony.



Although I hear that the coffee is delicious (another La Mazocco machine) I haven't tried it as I've never really understood hot drinks (heresy i know for a nation that loves tea!). The cakes however, do leave something to be desired and the selection is quite small. Today a carrot cake, a lemon cake, a pecan pie, brownies and I think some kind of lemon meringue pie was on offer. Of course I tried the brownie.



It was alright - equal to anything I could make myself, but no way comparable to the quality of the brownies from some of my other London favourites, or even as good as last week's Popina. It was chocolate-y but not rich or decadent. The texture was good - soft in the centre with a slight crunch in the corners but it didn't make me want to bathe in it. If I'm going to consume those calories, they better be worthwhile.

The other cakes on offer look nice, but not exceptional.

So, in summary, Hurwendeki is great at savoury, but not loving sweet so much.

Of course the main reason that anyone would pay a visit is for the wacky and unusual interior, most of the internal fixtures are for sale and they seem to have slashed the prices, probably because it's the last place anyone would think to look for antiques and the prices are not particularly Bethnal Green friendly. There's lots of taxidermy and skulls, including an £800 penguin, record players, old plugs and also a deli selling gluten free flower and the such, and it's also probably my nearest purveyor of Montezumas chocolate.

Free wi-fi is a great touch too, and there was a notable presence of the MacBook posse tapping away whilst enjoying their lattes (iced?).

Convieniently they also offer free membership which entitles you to 10% off, not only in the cafe but in the boutique and salon in Spitalfields too, which is handy if you live nearby.











I'm also planning on a wee hiatus from the cake blogging; I'd always planned for this blog to be full of visually engaging original material that spoke about food in a way that appealed to the heart and to the eyes, and by taking photos using my iPhone camera that's not really happening, it's not becoming what I wanted it to be just yet.

So the cake posts will be back in around 3 weeks, and the whole blog will hopefully have a new look if I can figure out how to get rid of this pink template!

I also have a little bit of weight to try and loose for a surprise I have planned for Mr LROC for our first anniversary. More of which later! So, yeah, no cakes for a bit, and definitely no beer....

weddings and cupcakes

Because cupcakes were involved - here's some of my favourite detail shots from my own wedding to Mr. LROC.









The cupcakes came from The Hummingbird Bakery - other than their downright deliciousness I'm not entirely sure that I'd recommend them as a wedding cake supplier - they don't deliver during an exact time slot and they don't loan stands - meaning they had to be collected on the day and we had to collect assorted vintage style cake stands from ebay, willing elderly relatives and car boot sales.

Still, since they make a supremely divine red velvet cake, and the whole thing cost around £150 they can be forgiven.

All images by AJ Williams Photography.

popina

Sometimes I forget how wonderful it is on a sunny Saturday to wonder up to Broadway Market and grab a few bits from the stalls and eat them in the sunshine, and that's exactly what I did yesterday.

There's a wide number of stalls selling baked goods that make appearances at all of London's food markets but when I'm there browsing for the sweet stuff I keep getting pulled back to Popina. I think maybe because they have less artisanal bread and more cakes.

Unfortunately my camera situation is still leaving a little something to be desired with regards readily available digital photography so I've had to rely on some images from their website to show their delicious range of savoury bits and bobs and fruit tarts.




I picked one of the spinach and cheese Bureks which is a kind of Turkish savoury with a filling of spinach, cheese and potato layered between a very fine pastry and served sliced into triangles. The filling is rich, tasty, moist and most importantly on a hot summer day, surprisingly cooking. A great grab-and-go snack.

I also picked up a brownie and a lemon drizzle cake, to split and share with my friend, the lovely Kathy from 5678 Vintage. Brownies are a good measure of baking prowess, as I know exactly how I like them to be, in fact the Ottolenghi book waxes lyrical about the way one should be cooked to be just so. Popina's brownie was extremely chocolatey and moist in the middle, but maybe could have had a slightly more 'mousse-y' centre. It had the added addition of cranberry, well at least according to the labelling on the stall. Although I found no chunks of cranberry as I think it was pureed, it offset the richness of the cocoa in a surprising and delicious way. The sun's rays on the top of the miniature picnic we had assembled actually brought out the flavouring, which suggests that if you were going to buy one of these at a market somewhere round town, take it home and heat it up and serve with some cream, then you might be in for a hell of a treat.

The lemon drizzle was just like you wish you could make them yourself. Tangy but not sticky with the fruit syrup, a good crunch on the icing and a splattering of ground pistachio on the top. It's a simple classic.







all gone...


Eating these in the sunshine reminds me how one should never buy cakes from a service station, or why those tubs of 'brownie' square from the cake counter in the supermarket are just junk. Real baking rocks.

Popina has won a load of taste awards, and they have quite an interesting story behind them... Their founder describes it thus :

"it was food for art's sake that was so inspiring it strengthened my desire to set up a food business that was about art for food's sake"

so if that has you intrigued you can read all about it here.

Memories of me

Memories of me
Originally uploaded by o&c Photography

I love this sweet image from O&C photography - especially the balance of the yellow and coral against the great soft blue. Would be a great colour scheme - or the starting point for a collection.

Memories of me
Originally uploaded by o&c Photography

melt chocolates

Recently, I was lucky enough to be given a box of Melt chocolates.

I was excited when I opened the box as we normally get Godiva hastily purchased at the airport (not that I'm complaining) but instead we were greeted with Melt's UK-made, beautifully packaging artisanal loveliness.

On further inspection what was initially thought to be a box of chunky chocolate lollies turned out to be a collection of luxurious, single origin drinking chocolates. The concept is simple - heat up milk (or cream it suggests!) and dunk the chocolate-y cube in until it melts - then stir with the stick. Having experienced many a lumpy, bitter submarino in Argentina and Uruguay I wasn't holding out much hope but it turned out to be better than I could possibly imagine. The chocolate melts into the milk perfectly, and the cocoa rich chocolate lollipop turns into a creamy and rich hot choc which far exceeds those made from powdery cocoa.

I'd seen these in LIberty, and according to the company's website they are £2 each. Which is about the same price as the kiddie's hot choc in Starbucks or any other high street coffee chain.

They do also make standard bars of chocolate, mouth wateringly considered flavours like orange and cardamon and sea salted caramel. I'm quite partial to Montezuma's rice crispy bar and Melt's take - the popcorn bar - looks downright delicious too.


They do do lollies, if you're looking for them too. They just look like this.

london review of ?

To date their have been precious few cake reviews, something I'm hoping to rectify shortly. In the mean time console yourself with patisserie based cake porn courtesy of the Cherry Blossom Girl (3rd image down) and also this super amazing looking giant macaroon thing. It's making me think I should plan a visit to Laduree sometime soon...

In the meantime I could console myself with this gorgeous cookbook.


I am thinking of getting a tattoo at some point soon and joining the queue for Saira Hunjan whose doodles you'd be happy to sport into old age. I'm particularly taken by this lock and key wrist number.


In other news my favourite TV show - True Blood (don't flay me - it's nasty and nice all at the same time) is back on HBO. But I'm not in the states so I sneak a peek here....