Got a cool link from Serious Eatser 2qrs this morning:
In the issue of The Cool Hunter newsletter I got this morning, one of the features was this deli in London: http://www.pierluigipiu.it/web/projects_olivino.htm. It is what I would imagine a delicatessen inside the MoMA would look like.
You know, 2qrs, it is somewhat similar to what the Museum of Modern Art has going on in its Cafe 2 eatery, which is, as you'd imagine, über-designy. Thanks for the link!
Where do you eat in London for fish-and-chips made only from nonthreatened species from small-scale farmers, or for a meal where 85% of the ingredients are sourced from within the limits of the London Tube system? Check out Portfolio.com's report on London's environmentally-conscious restaurants.
As we noted earlier on Serious Eats, a London chef is opening a fish and chips shop selling only sustainably caught seafood. A basket of fish and chips is going to cost about $20. This reminded me of the age-old question facing all of us: Are we willing to pay more for food that is sustainably grown, raised, or caught?
Food in the U.S. is still, relatively speaking, incredibly cheap, mostly because of a combination of government policy and the laws of supply and demand. Our food supply is created too efficiently. So people who can pay more should. And I don't think it's an either-or proposition. We produce enough food in this country to feed every man, woman, and child in it. That we don't is downright shameful.
British restaurateur Tom Aikens is working on a sustainable fish and chips shop in London: "He has consulted half a dozen environmental groups to decide 'which fish I shouldn’t be using' and to make sure the rest are sustainably fished. He will get most of his fish from 30 British fishermen whose practices he has studied." A typical basket of fish and chips will cost £10 (about US$20).
Whole Foods is opening in London next month. The store will be Whole Foods' first in the U.K. In recent years, all the top chains have relaunched their organic lines in response to consumer demand. It'll be interesting to see how the store is received by Londoners, and if the nickname "Whole Paycheck" will make the Atlantic crossing.
Remember all the drama that ensued from Frank Bruni of the New York Times giving restauranteur Jeffrey Chodorow's steakhouse Kobe Club a zero-star, start-to-finish smackdown back in February?
Well, Chodorow's latest venture is in London—Suka, which serves Malaysian fusion cuisine created by the New York-based Zak Pelaccio of 5 Ninth and Fatty Crab—and this Sunday it received a review from the Observer's Jay Rayner that begins thusly:
"It takes a special kind of incompetence to create a restaurant with dysfunctional tables. At Suka, a new hipper-than-thou joint in London's Sanderson Hotel, which does to the noble culinary traditions of Malaysia what the Romans did to the Sabine women, they have managed it."
Ouch. Still no response on chod-o-blog, but maybe he'll buy a ad in the Observer first, just like last time? [via Gulfstream]
N.B. Suka means "to like" in Malay but, as you'd expect from a disyllabic word, means different things in other languages. In Polish, it means "bitch"; in Tagalog, it means either "vinegar" or "vomit" depending on pronunciation.
London has gotten frighteningly expensive, so it was good to see New York Times London correspondent Jane Perlez's guide to budget restaurants there. Here's the list.
I must say I wasn't all that turned on by the Times list, so I checked out the Epicurious London budget picks. Its list of restaurants—Anchor & Hope, Busaba Eathai, Carluccio's Cafe, Inn the Park, Masala Zone—sounded much more appealing and delicious.
Interestingly, there was no overlap at all.
Photograph from iStockPhoto.com
Jason Perlow visited the famous Harrods Food Halls on a recent trip to London and says, "The food halls are quite magnificent in sheer size, let alone their opulence. [The photo at left] is just one of the several ballroom-sized areas where you can buy any kind of gourmet foodstuffs your heart desires, including places where you can sit down and eat prepared dishes." My favorite photo is the one titled "Land of Bacon" but the one of his $30 Jamon Iberico sandwich is pretty killer.
"Britain is now as cuisine-obsessed as anywhere. Chefs are big stars. Food has become a facet of fashionable style in England. So where does this leave the traditional Indian restaurant, with its menu of rich, variously colored curries that come in mild, medium and hot, usually with a film of oil swimming on top, and its clientele that swells after 11 p.m. when the pubs close?" Henry Shukman of the NY Times visits five of London's best high-end Indian restaurants, three of which have Michelin stars.
Seattle's got its latte artists at Caffe Vita, while the Londoners that jam Monmouth Coffee like their coffees understated.
The coffees in Perth belong to another category altogether, thanks to "cappuccino Michelangelo" Simon Law.
For other latte art, check out the pics at Google Images.
Farmer's markets all over the place--at the Ferry Plaza in San Francisco, in the Twin Cities, at the Greenmarket in New York City, and at Borough Market in London--are suffering from wintertime blues.
Yeah, January's not the best time to be a locavore! But at the Ethicurean, Spanky Horowitz manages to have himself a good time at the market in Montreal anyway.
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