harrington's pie and mash, tooting - review

In the heart of Tooting in South West London, amongst the throngs of great Indian and Pakistani restaurants and market stalls, nestled in the bosom of a thriving and buzzing Indian sub-continent population, you can find a little nugget of London’s English culinary history. 

For on Selkirk Road stands the same establishment that has stood for the past 105 years and all the time remained in the hands of the same family – Harrington’s Pie & Mash shop.

As London’s pie and mash shops go, they’re a dying breed. Once the staple diet for the cockney geezer, these days they face lofty competition from the latest pop-up, new and exciting cuisines, and places that serve your drink on fire in a jam jar with a fig roll - it’s a tough old market for an establishment where both the interiors and menu have changed little in over a century. 

But there’s a lot of love for this place and for the other remaining pie and mash shops in London – the loyalty from customers who once visited with their grandparents, now grandparents themselves, gives Harrington’s a special place in people’s hearts. I suspect many of their customers would sooner keel over before eating anywhere else – there’s a lot to be said for that.

The format is as such – you order your pies (£1.50 each). One, perhaps a couple – they’re not huge. To accompany this is a standard side of mashed potato (£1.00), scooped up with a spatula and arranged on the rim of your bowl. And for lubrication, a portion of liquor (50p) – otherwise known as parsley sauce. If you’re feeling adventurous, why not sample the jellied eels. 

Whilst it wasn’t the prettiest plate I’ve ever been served, I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t half tasty. 

Home made pies are churned out from the back throughout the trading hours, delivered to the front bar in the pie trays they were cooked in and piping hot. Filled with ground mince beef and gravy, they’re fresh and tasty. The mash was a little dry for my palette, but the parsley sauce helped loosen it up. Notice the gelatinous consistency of the liquor – it’s traditionally made from the water the eels are stewed in. Embrace it.

Harrington’s is a bit like an old dear – sure the tiles are cracked, the paint is peeling and the vinegar is served in old wine bottles with pierced screw tops. But the heart of it is still beating strong and stands steadfast as a pillar in the community, serving up tasty home made pies at low prices, feeding generations that span decades. 

While we were seated at around 5pm on a Sunday, a queue began to form leading out the front door – families ordering take-out for their tea at home; an old lady ordering what seemed to be a week’s worth of pies with jugs of liquor decanted into Tupperwear; a very fragile couple sitting and eating in a comfortable silence familiar to those who have been together for decades – I like to think they’ve come here every week since they were childhood sweethearts. The lady behind the counter knows almost everyone’s name and engages with the regulars – people feel comfortable and at ease here.

If you want a chance to live out any East End cockney fantasies and visit a slice of history frozen in time, don your flat cap and make your way to Harrington’s for a taste of London’s past that hasn’t changed in for ever, and probably never will. 

The bill

Me

pie x 2 £3.00

mash £1.00

scoop of liquor £0.50

Total £4.50

My rating: 3/5

This review can also be found on the Your Local Guardian website.

arancina, notting hill - review

It’s certainly no challenge finding somewhere in London that sells a pizza for under £8. What is a challenge however, is finding a pizza that comes at least somewhere close to the authenticity and unmistakable excellence of pizzas from Italy, and specifically Naples.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit Naples, round about this time last year. I ate my way through the Amalfi coast, sampling lip-puckering lemons as big as melons from Sorrento; sucking on sweet and garlicky clams in my spaghetti vongole by the sea in Positano; drinking an espresso above the clouds at the top of Mount Vesuvius. If it’s a part of the world you haven’t yet ventured to, I strongly recommend paying it a visit for some of the best Italian food you’ll ever get your chops around. The pierce de resistance though, the plate that somehow managed to exceed the other already exceptional dishes from that trip by miles, the food that rendered Matt and I to stare at each other wide eyed in silence at first bite, dazzled and slightly confused by just how good it tasted, was the pizza we had in the city of Naples itself. A shack of an establishment fronted by a perpetual queue at every minute of every trading hour, it had simply two items on the menu – marinara and margherita, of which we ordered the latter. A plate of just four components – thin dough, tomato sauce, mozzarella and a few leaves of basil. But four components so fresh, the sauce so flavoursome with garlic and oregano, the dough so thin and crisp from the treatment it received in the wood fire oven, it was perfection in simplicity at its best. And if you want to see what the most incredible pizza in the world looks like, here it is.

pizza in Naples - other worldly

Once you’ve tasted a pizza from Naples, you will spend the rest of your life desperately trying to seek out the same experience somewhere closer to home. That, or you’ll give in to the calls of the divinely intervened dough, up sticks and move there. I bet people have done it before. Arancina has two establishments in Notting Hill and whilst it doesn’t make Naeopolitan pizzas, it serves up Sicilian pizzas; if there’s going to be anywhere in the region of Italy that has the balls to dare rival the food from Naples, Sicily is probably it. And low and behold, the pizza and the atmosphere in Arancina certainly made a decent stab at providing the next best experience to being there.

On entering, my companion Aarti and I were presented with smiling female staff and a pizza counter housing some ready made slices for those who wish to take away, along with a range of salads. We ascended up the stairs to the main seating area – a small room overlooking the main street with a few rustic wooden tables and two ladies already seated at one of them. Once we made ourselves comfortable, we soon realised the two customers already present along with the waitresses were all speaking Italian. And then another two diners entered, also conversing in Italian. As I’ve said many times before, if you find natives in a restaurant, you know  there’s a good chance it’s going to be good.

If you want to order a pizza authentic to Italy, a margherita or a marinara is the only way to go. Peppers, onions, meats, sweet corn and heaven forbid pineapple (whoever came up with that as a pizza topping should be strung and quartered) are all additions to help satiate the American palette – you certainly won’t find an Italian eating pizza with fruit on. A marinara is a base topped with just a tomato sauce and oregano – no cheese. A margherita is a marinara but with the addition of mozzarella and basil. True to the Italians, Aarti and I ordered the margherita and decided to share it so we could sample some other delights on the menu whilst still keeping within the £8 per head budget. Should you wish to just order the margherita however, you would still have £1 change (£6.95).

For a pre-pizza whetting of the appetites we ordered a portion of arancine – deep fried saffron risotto balls encasing a filling of spinach and ricotta (£2.60). I was expecting a few to be delivered, but it was in fact a single large ball. We cut it in half and happily devoured – the ricotta provided a pleasant acidic tang, the filling well seasoned and the casing crisp and light. The pizza was rectangular (14” x 8”) and presented on a wooden board. The base was wonderfully thin, and the sauce was top draw with lots of garlic and oregano as it should be. There was a little too much cheese for our liking – another trait of an authentic margherita is a small amount of cheese – and it was in fact the bits of dough with no cheese present that were the tastiest, allowing the flavours from the sauce to fully shine. Perhaps a marinara would be the way to go next time. To accompany our pizza, we had a salad of roasted vegetables with chopped lettuce, sliced black olives and tomatoes. It was dressed with a tasty vinaigrette and seasoned with more dried oregano.

The search for the pizza I had in Naples somewhere in London still continues. Perhaps I’ll search forever – it may be it just can't be replicated outside of Italy and of course, the country itself in which it is eaten is a huge part of the experience. But in the meantime, Arancina certainly isn’t a bad place to begin such a search. Grab your Italian phrase-book, pay a visit and pretend you're there.

The bill

Between two:

arancine £2.60

margherita £6.95

roast vegetable salad £5.30

Total £14.85

Alfiyet olsun.

dishoom, covent garden - review

The main encounters I have with Indian food involve the always excellent, authentic and homemade doggy bags Indian friends bring me; leftovers from what seem to be almost weekly occurrences of some sort of event revolving around the eventual climax of a wedding – engagement parties; pre-engagement parties, pre-wedding parties, a pre-party party (these guys know how to have a good time). Or, dining out at a good local curry house – I tend to gravitate to those catered for the Eastern palette rather than customised for the West. A good example of these are Saravana Bhavan or Lahori Karahi (the latter more Pakistani cuisine than Indian). If you find natives in a curry house, you know there’s a decent chance of it being both good and authentic as is the case with both of these.
 
What I haven’t really experienced is making a specific trip to a ‘proper’ Indian restaurant as opposed to a curry house. I see the differences being that the former would be a larger establishment well kitted out, centrally located rather than local, innovative dishes alongside traditional, enticing interiors, and with most if not all of their business coming from meals dined on the premises rather than take-away. Dishoom in Covent Garden certainly ticks these boxes, but it was hard to dismiss an almost glaring observation on this visit – amongst the packed out tables and ever increasing queue outdoors, it was a challenge to spot a single person of Indian heritage.

If I had stepped into a venue that hadn’t already bowled me over with some wonderful aromatics as soon as I had entered and descended down the steps into the basement bar, this observation would have set alarm bells ringing. But this place achieved just that, and along with some questionable over-Americanised but well intended greetings from a person not in waiting uniform and a cocktail quickly in my hand, I was more than ready to see if what came out of the kitchen matched the jaunty and vibrant vibes from the front of house.

My companions and I ordered what seemed to be almost every third dish from the menu – each entry read as something I wanted to consume and it was challenge to apply a filter to prevent a cry of ‘we’ll take one of everything’. But realistic we remained, and within mere minutes of ordering our table surface area soon dwindled as plate after plate was delivered.

The ‘small plates’ or starter proportions were generous, with a cereal bowl sized vessel presented to us, and actually with a component of cereal in it. It was the bhel - a sort of upmarket Bombay mix with the addition of puffed rice (just like Rice Krispies but without the sugar), seasoned with lime and mint, speckled with jewels of sweet pomegranate kernals, and a hell of a lot of ginger - never a bad thing. It was crunchy, spicy and very flavoursome. The bowl of skate cheeks (the cheeks of skate – who knew fish even had cheeks) were battered and looked like appetising chicken nuggets but with a better colour. They were accompanied by a fruity date and tamarind chutney which helped lubricate what were otherwise slightly dry bites. Okra fries were a great take on busying the fingers with the familiar form of chips but green, spiced and salty.

okra fries, bhel and skate cheeks

okra fries

From the grills we chose two meats and a vegetarian option. The paneer tikka while spiced did not lose its delicate flavour which I felt was quite impressive. It was the texture that was more so though - one that gave way to more of a crumble under pressure than previous experiences I’ve had with the cheese, quite delightful. The murgh malai consisted of chicken thigh meat seasoned with garlic, ginger and coriander – while tender and moist, the depth of spice and flavour did not quite lend itself to the expectations from the overnight marinade it had received. The lamb boti kebab however was outstanding – furry with the fibre of ginger, tender and moist, seasoned with impact from a whole host of spices – completely delicious and I could have done with a portion to myself.

paneer tikka

lamb boti kebab

murgh malai

To provide a purpose for our naans and kimono-silk thin roomali roti, a thick and creamy bowl of the house black daal was ordered – while relatively mild in its inclusion of spice, the texture was completely gorgeous and one of my favourite things on the table (after the lamb) for this reason. It reminded me a lot of refried beans and with a squeeze of lime and fresh coriander it could have been Mexican – a bigger stamp from Indian spices would have helped differentiate it more. But this did not detract at all from the pleasure it yielded. The portion of raita to help cool the table off was of generous soup proportions and my personal preference would have liked it a little more strained.

roomali roti and garlic naan

house black daal

Dishoom sells itself as a fond memory to the fast dwindling and traditional cafés of Bombay. While it’s hard for me to tell if the dishes that come out of its kitchen are true to these roots (I’ve never been to Bombay, let alone a Bombay cafe), I don’t think it really matters. Perhaps this is the reason I found too few natives within, but while the food is delicious and the staff are friendly, the restaurant will continue to be busy and I think rightly so. Don’t discount your local curry house now that Dishoom is here as there is no need to – what they provide are two quite different range of products and experiences.

It’s not possible to secure a table for less than six for dinner, but you can for breakfast and lunch reservations. I was quite eager to top the night off with some of their warm and spiced house chai, but caffeine after 3pm for me these days will render a sleepless night. All the more reason to return and perhaps try out a different time of day – I can think of few things more appealing than starting off a weekend with a buttered bun maska or two dipped into spicy hot chai. Already there.

Alfiyet olsun.

food for thought - review

Whenever I see out-of-town families and couples alike seated in the window booths of a depressing Garfunkel’s, a desperate Angus Aberdeen Steakhouse or a dejected Frankie and Benny’s, all strategically situated in the tourist hotspots of London town to coax over-stimulated and disorientated visitors into their dull and uninspiring interiors by means of familiarity in both brand and menu, my being gives way to a full body shudder.

These faces often read despair – mine would too if I had just paid £10 for southern fried chicken strips slightly more moist than cardboard but with the same flavour. Leicester Square, Covent Garden, Charing Cross Road, Oxford Street are just a few of the areas littered with these and other equally vapid excuses for eateries – the footfall fodder of the culinary world. 

It is only the threat of police intervention that stops me from marching into these establishments, throwing Dad’s tough-as-old-boots steak to the ground, grabbing Mum by the shoulders in front of wide-eyed children frozen mid face-stuff with limp and greasy chips in their hands, screaming ‘But why? WHY are you here?! There are so many, SO many better places to eat than here. You’re in London - one of the culinary capitals of the world! Take a side street, venture into the realms of a new cuisine, an unfamiliar name above the door. You never know, you might ENJOY it’.

that most incredible aubergine dish

But I do understand that it must be hard to resist the calls from such establishments when you’ve been on your feet all day, the kids are hungry and whining, and you only have one hour before the show starts. 

There isn’t really time to wander round, working out where might be good or different that won’t blow the bank. This is central London after all - everything here must be expensive unless it’s a McDonald’s or Subway, right? Wrong. 

I introduce to you somewhere slap bang in the middle of Covent Garden, where you don’t need to book a table, where the food is both healthy and off the scale delicious, where they welcome BYO with no corkage charge (one for you Mums and Dads), and where you can fill your boots for under £8 per head. I present to you, Food for Thought.

inside Food for Thought

My regular London Cheap Eats companion (Aarti) suggested we try this place to see if it would make the grade in the form of a blog entry. It’s a place I’ve failed to notice or hear about before, yet after some research it turns out it’s been reviewed highly and has been established in the same location for around 40 years. I’m already excited.  

Food for Thought is an eatery where the focus is on fresh food and a friendly service – ‘simple decor of pine tables, stools and whitewashed walls, enlivened by original artwork’. It’s also located in an 18^th century listed building where the low seating alcoves were once used for ripening bananas, apparently. 

The menu is vegetarian (don’t wince – this is at absolutely no detriment to any flavour let me assure you), changes daily (while the prices stay the same) and is as fresh as it gets. The format is a two floored establishment – the ground floor has a few window stools and a take-away service counter while down the stairs you’ll find the main seating area, still cosy in its proportions. 

Once the stairs have been descended, you take a look at the menu and order what you fancy, pay with cash, then take a seat. You may well end up sharing a table as you cosy on up with your neighbour, but who cares. We felt it all added to the charm and atmosphere of the place.

Both myself and Aarti ordered the same hot dish out of three options (all options £5) – it was soft baked aubergine with chunky slices of fennel, courgettes, and puy lentils, coated in a wonderful yoghurt and dill sauce, topped with large croutons intense with the flavour of olives, with melted and then hardened savoury bites of cheese. 

I can’t tell you how completely gorgeous this was – all I was reading from it was the love, effort and consideration that had been put into both the design of this dish, and its execution. I am determined to replicate it at home. And I was almost certain I didn’t even like fennel – I'm not so certain now. I would take a tube ride from Clapham Common to Covent Garden after a long day at work just to eat this aubergine dish, it was that good. 

On the day of writing this up, some of the ‘hot dishes’ options include Jamaican black bean pot in a medium spicy coconut and tomato sauce, and butter bean and asparagus primavera in a yoghurt and sour cream sauce. These both read as things I would happily devour. And don’t forget this menu changes every day – what joy.

With my aubergine dish I intended to order a couple of slices of the freshly baked bread which was mushroom and sage on the day we visited, but they had alas run out. I can only imagine it was equally superb – must get there earlier next time. Instead I ordered a bowl of brown rice (£1.20) and a portion of Greek yoghurt (30p) to accompany my main. 

Interestingly enough, the yoghurt was not charged for and the rice was only charged at £1, different to what the menu stated. I of course was not complaining. Also available on the menu is the soup of the day, quiches of the day, an array of homemade salads, a daily evening special, brownies, flapjacks, desserts and scones. And the scones are certainly something to write home about. 

My companion opted for that day’s savoury scone (£1.80) to accompany her aubergine, one with rosemary and cheese. I chose to have their other scone offering as a dessert, a fresh strawberry scone (£1.80). Both were almost the size of a side plate on their own and in particular, the latter was completely sublime. Buttery but light, not too sweet, a wonderful melt-in-the-mouth texture, and punctuated with fresh strawberries.

a quite wonderful fresh strawberry scone

Glass tumblers are continuously washed and placed on a drainer by a member of staff behind a large sink and are used for both the table water already present and any BYO that may have accompanied you. 

The food is served in and on quite lovely and weighty earthenware crockery.  We arrived at about 18.15 and had to hover around the ordering counter for just a handful of minutes before a couple of stools made themselves available - tables cannot be reserved. As time moved on, the seats started to empty out further, with a little flurry of clientèle just before last orders at 20.00. 

After devouring our hearty and life-affirming meals, swiftly emptying a bottle of very drinkable Beaujolais purchased from the M&S round the corner, and enjoying great conversation, my companion and I were quite far beyond the realms of mere satiety and were positively basking in the after-glow of a fantastic meal that barely brushed past our purses. The guilt of our consciences foreseeing the imminent descent into cocktails was at least slightly abated by the goodness that lined our stomachs and with bellies full, our night was yet young.

Next time you are in town for shopping, a show, seeing the sights or simply with an agenda to meander, I strongly urge you to try out Food for Thought. I have no doubts you will thoroughly enjoy it and return for more, as will I.

Liked lots - food, atmosphere, location, clientèle, staff, price, BYO, almost everything
Liked less - they had run out of incredible sounding bread - sad face :(
Good for - couples - wait for a private corner to free up, take in a bottle of wine and get cosy; spontaneity - no need to book a table; small groups; students; catching up; vegetarians and meat-eaters alike; hippies; the gut; the wallet

The bill

Me 

aubergine & yoghurt bake £5.00

brown rice £1.20 (but was charged £1.00)

fresh strawberry scone £1.80

Total £8.00*

*NB Also ordered Greek yoghurt £0.30 (but was not charged)

Aarti
aubergine & yoghurt bake £5.00

rosemary and cheese scone £1.80

Total £6.80

Afiyet olsun.

fat-free creamy beetroot and thyme dip

There are few ingredients that have as intense a colour as the deep flesh of beetroot. Combine purple with the white of quark and you'll end up with a bowl full of colour and goodness that will brighten up any spread.

This dip combines the earthiness of beetroot with the sweetness from soft roast garlic but the clinching flavour here has got to be the thyme. When wazzed up with the cream cheese, you'll be left with a sin-free thick and creamy dip that goes with almost anything. I keep a bowl of this in the fridge as often as possible and have it as a side with a range of dishes from fish pie, to left over pizza, to spreading it on toast and topping it with sardines. An all round winner - I am yet to introduce it to someone who hasn't fallen for it.

Quark
If you haven't heard of quark before, it's time to get acquainted. Meaning “curd” in Slavic, quark is a soft, white and un-aged cheese made from whey. It has a much lower fat content than other cream cheeses (99.8% fat-free) and is popular in Scandanavia and Eastern Europe. Where a dish requires a voluptuous creaminess, I often use quark in place of higher fat alternatives. It both cooks well and is also excellent used in desserts. Best of all, you'll find it in all the standard supermarkets.

Fat free creamy beetroot and thyme dip

250g quark
3 x medium beetroots
4 x garlic cloves
small bunch of thyme
salt and pepper
olive oil

Pre-heat your oven to 180C (fan). Place the beetroot (whole) and garlic cloves in an oven dish and drizzle a little olive oil to coat. Seal the dish with tin foil and place in the oven until the beetroot is soft and can be pierced to the centre with a knife.

Tip Be sure to put the beetroot in whole. If you chop them up their juices will bleed during cooking.

Tip Take the garlic cloves out as soon as they're soft - they'll be done some time before the beetroot. If you leave them in too long, they'll go hard and brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool. When they're cool enough to habdle, peel off the skins - there's no need for a peeler as they'll come away in your fingers. Quarter the beetroots and squeeze out the garlic from their skins. Put them in a food processor along with the quark and the leaves from a good few sprigs of thyme. Season with salt and pepper and wazz. Be sure to taste the dip and season further as you wish - you may want more thyme or more seasoning. Spoon into a serving bowl and top with a few more thyme leaves.

Alfiyet olsun.

ricotta dumplings

There are few things that remind me more of how much I love Italian food than the perfectly complimenting aromas from gently frying garlic, cooking canned tomatoes and torn basil leaves. Representing the colours of the Italian flag, these ingredients are some of the key vertebrae that make up the backbone of this cuisine and once my senses have clocked their presence, the anticipation of what delights will follow is almost frantic.

Italian cuisine is generally very simple, allowing quality ingredients to steal the limelight rather than dulling their impact with too much fuss. Despite this simplicity, it’s incredible just how many restaurants manage to get it wrong. Notice my restaurant review page – there isn’t a single Italian venue on there. I am yet to eat at a really good quality Italian restaurant in London that can be compared to the pastas and pizzas I’ve been fortunate enough to savour in Naples (so the bar is set pretty high). It’s relatively easy to quickly tot-up a hit-list of quality French restaurants (often high-end), or really good and reasonably priced Asian venues, for example. But finding an authentic trattoria that stays true to the food and uses quality fresh ingredients with everything homemade (including the mozzarella – it’s best eaten the day it’s made and it only takes a few hours to make from scratch), seems to be an impossible task. Perhaps I’m not looking in the right places – if anyone does have recommendations for excellent Italians in London, please share them.

Genarro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio

In the meantime, it’s necessary to make Italian food at home. And that’s no bad thing. In my opinion there’s no better inspiration than the dishes cooked from The Two Greedy Italians series starring Gennaro Contaldo and Antonio Carluccio – two clearly very close friends and evangelists of the cuisine. The passion and love they have for their food, the humour they use and the genuine chemistry between them on the screen is both completely inspiring and heart-warming. I honestly don’t think there’s a better cookery show on the box, and I watch a lot of them. Consequently, I have the recipe books from each of the two series and for a quick and simple meal, I opted for the ricotta dumplings. The slightly sweet cheese and tangy tomatoes combined with the yielding plumpness of the light dumplings and aromas from the garlic and basil present to you a plate of nothing other than comfort and delight. Fight these grey May skies and open your home to the tastes from the Amalfi coast.

Ricotta Dumplings

‘These little dumplings, made from a few staple Italian larder ingredients, are traditionally made in my home village of Minori on the feast day of the town’s patron saint’ – Gennaro Contaldo

For the dumplings
200g 00 flour, plus extra for dusting
225g ricotta
3 free-range egg yolks
30g freshly grated parmesan
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and black pepper

Tip 00 flour is very fine flour and is typically used when making pasta. You shouldn't have a problem finding it in the supermarket.

For the sauce
6 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled, cut into thick slices
1 chilli, sliced
2 x 400g tinned plum tomatoes, each tomato chopped in half
Few basil leaves

Mix the flour, ricotta, egg yolks, Parmesan, nutmeg and seasoning together in a large bowl to form a soft, moist dough. Tip the mixture out onto a floured work surface and knead for 3-5 minutes. Roll the dough into a long, thin sausage shape, then cut into dumplings about 2cm/1in long. Cook the dumplings for 3-4 minutes in a large saucepan of salted boiling water.

Meanwhile for the sauce, heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the garlic and chilli for one minute, then add the plum tomatoes. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes. Turn the heat off and stir in some of the torn basil leaves. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Remove the dumplings from the pan with a slotted spoon and mix them in with the tomato sauce. To serve, spoon the dumplings onto a warmed serving plate and sprinkle over the remaining basil leaves.

Alfiyet olsun.