Ottolenghi | Upper Street, Islington

Last Saturday, after work, I met my good friend Michael for lunch at Ottolenghi in Islington. This restaurant is owned by the same chef who owns the restaurant Nopi, that I featured recently, here on the blog.

There was a long queue for lunch, as they don’t take daytime bookings, we were told it would be a 30-40 minute wait. The time passed quickly enough as we chatted, looked at the menu and salivated over the food being sold at the deli section at the front of the restaurant.

We were eventually seated and got lucky with a table for two. There is a large bench style table that runs the length of the rear half of the restaurant, communal dining style, but we were offered a table to ourselves. Prosecco was ordered as we looked again at the menu, and agonised over what to have!

We decided on a main course, with three salads. I chose free range chicken with orange, grain mustard, garlic, honey and sage as the main, and my three salads were; roasted aubergine with feta yoghurt, pickled cucumber, pink peppercorn and herbs, saffron cauliflower with caramelised red onions, sultanas, pine nuts, pomegranate seeds and celery, and roasted butternut squash with lemongrass sour cream, peanuts, Urfa chilli, lemon zest and mint.
I have never been a huge fan of cauliflower, but Michael assured me it was delicious, done Ottolenghi style, and he wasn’t wrong. It was all absolutely divine. The only tiny criticism I have is that the chicken was very cold, obviously refrigerated after cooking, and it made it a bit difficult to cut up, but I can’t fault the taste.

Dessert was a delicious passion fruit meringue tart, more Prosecco then an espresso. The tart was gorgeous, just the right amount of passion fruit cream inside and meringue on top.

The service was excellent, the waitress was happy to recommend wines to us that would go well with our choices, she knew the products inside out. Lunch for two, with bread, wine, water, dessert and coffee was £90, and I was extremely lucky to be treated to this wonderful food by my lovely friend. My turn next time!

If you find yourself in Islington and want a wonderful treat, or even a take-away (it’s all sold from the deli), I heartily recommend Ottolenghi.

Ottolenghi
287 Upper Street
London N1 2TZ

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Restaurant review – Nopi

Tags

food, ottolenghi, restaurants, shakshuka, warwick street

Last weekend, I went with five of my friends for brunch at Yotam Ottolenghi’s restaurant, “Nopi” in Soho. I had been assured that the food was superb, and having perused the menu for a good week prior to my visit, I was very much looking forward to it.

Interior at Nopi

The restaurant is very minimalist in style, lots of white tiles, and beautiful plain wooden tables and chairs. We were greeted promptly, the waitress remembered one of my companions by name, that was a nice touch. Ice cold still and sparkling water was provided immediately while we looked at the menu. Not that I really needed to…

I chose the shakshuka, braised eggs in a piquante tomato sauce, with smoked labneh yoghurt. Four of us chose this, one had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, and the other had a selection of pastries.

Well what can I say? The shakshuka arrived in its’ own little pan, it looked and tasted absolutely divine. The eggs were perfectly cooked, the yolks beautifully runny and golden.

Shakshuka at Nopi

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their food, the service was impeccable, and a final word has to go to the bathrooms… Completely mirrored, inside and out, it was like a fairground attraction. There was even an arrow on the floor to point you toward the exit!

Can’t wait to visit Nopi again, brunch with coffee and extra toast was £20. Very reasonable for such outstanding food.

Shakshuka in its own individual pan.

Nopi – 21-22 Warwick Street, London, W1B 5NE

http://www.nopi-restaurant.com/

Out to eat – twice in a week!

This is virtually unheard of! Gone are the days we used to eat out three times a week, now we have a 6 year old, and I work extreme shifts, we generally eat out (on our own) about once every three months. We had a babysitter in the form of my Mum last week while we went out for a Greek meal, and while she was here, my son managed to twist her arm into letting him sleep at her house last night.

So of course, it was rude not to go out again, wasn’t it? We decided on Wahaca, “Mexican Market Eating” at Westfield Stratford. The meal was very good, we would definitely return. We enjoyed quesadillas with potato and chorizo filling, chicken tostadas (crisp tortillas), chicken taquitos (corn tortillas), steak tacos, and a very interesting pot of “green rice”, which was rice, “blitzed with coriander, onion and garlic”.

Quite honestly though, the pièce de résistance  for me, unusually, was the dessert. I chose ‘churros y chocolate’ Mexican doughnuts with a rich chocolate sauce to dip them in. Oh. My. Goodness. I had to share them with my husband, so I shall of course be returning, alone, SOON. The photo below says it all really.

Churros y Chocolate

Wahaca was good value, we had five sharing plates, two desserts, a beer and a glass of wine (which came in a tumbler, I didn’t like that really!), and it was £34. We will definitely be returning. Branches at Westfield Stratford City, Westfield London, Covent Garden, Canary Wharf, Bluewater, Soho, Charlotte Street, London South Bank.

ClemenGold fruit review

Tags

clementines, food

Before we went off to Cornwall in mid-August, I was contacted via Twitter by a company called ClemenGold, to ask if I would like to take delivery of, eat, and then review some of their South African citrus fruit. Free food you say? Ah, go on….

The very next day, a box of ClemenGold the size of a small country arrived. My son and I actually counted them, and there were 198! What on earth was I going to do with 198 clementines? Well my son got stuck straight in and we were immediately down to 195, as he declared them “Yummy!”. We put some in the fridge, gave some to the neighbours and my Mum, and then packed as many as we could in with our camping stores, as we were going the very next day.

ClemenGold

 

Well, the boy was right, they were simply yummy and delicious! Easy peelers, beautifully soft and juicy, almost totally seedless and lovely and sweet.

Thank you to Michelle at ClemenGold for sending them to me, we all enjoyed them very much. The ones in the fridge kept fresh until after we returned from camping, so we had plenty more to enjoy.