Cafe Bonito

 

162 Wood St

London

E17 3HX

A rainy Saturday found me cycling around Walthamstow to see the neon signs at God’s Own Junkyard. There was quite a lot of uncertainty about whether they’d have to close after losing their lease so I made it out there on their last official weekend, but thankfully since then they’ve secured a new location not too far away. After looking my fill at incredible intricate neon art, I wandered around Wood Street and stumbled across Café Bonito, which serves a mixture of normal café food and Spanish specialties. The Spanish hot chocolate with freshly fried churros caught my eye and was the ideal antidote to the dreary skies – I relaxed with a book until the showers passed and then wobbled home, full of warmth and cinnamon goodness.

Tortilla de patata

For a Rioja tasting night that we were hosting, I decided to make some Spanish dishes for everyone to nibble on. Tortilla de patata is one of my favorite dishes and it is so simple to make - the ingredient list is short and it only takes a little bit of patience. Most recipes call for an astonishing amount of olive oil. While I am sure that adds a lot of grassy olive oil flavor, I cannot bring myself to cook my potatoes and onions in cupfuls of oil, so my version with a very reduced amount of oil is below. I still love it, and any leftover slices are fantastic for packed lunches or snacking on.

Tortilla de patata

Adapted from About.com

Ingredients

7 medium potatoes, peeled
1 whole yellow onion
6 large eggs
olive oil
Salt to taste

Method

Cut the peeled potatoes in half lengthwise. Then, with the flat side on the cutting surface, slice the potato in pieces approximately 1/8" thick. If you slice them a bit thick, don’t worry – it will simply take a bit longer for them to cook.

Peel and chop the onion into 1/4" pieces. Put potatoes and onions into a bowl and mix them together. Salt the mixture.

In a large, heavy, non-stick frying pan, heat about 3 tbsp of olive oil on medium high heat. Carefully place the potato and onion mixture into the frying pan, spreading them evenly over the surface. You may need to turn down the heat slightly, so the potatoes do not burn. Cook with a lid on the pan, checking every so often to stir the potatoes.

Leave in pan until the potatoes are cooked. If you can poke a piece of potato with a spatula and it easily breaks in two, your potatoes are done. Leave in the pan to cool.

Crack the eggs into a large mixing bowl and beat by hand with a whisk or fork. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Pour in the potato onion mixture. Mix together with a large spoon.

Pour 2 Tbsp of olive oil into a large, non-stick frying pan and heat on medium heat. Be careful not to get the pan too hot because the oil will burn - or the tortilla will! When hot, stir the potato onion mixture once more and “pour” into the pan and spread out evenly. Allow the egg to cook around the edges. Then you can carefully lift up one side of the omelet to check if the egg has slightly “browned.” The inside of the mixture should not be completely cooked and the egg will still be runny.

When the mixture has browned on the bottom, you are ready to turn it over to cook the other side. Take the frying pan to a sink. Place a large dinner plate upside down over the frying pan. With one hand on the frying pan handle and the other on top of the plate to hold it steady, quickly turn the frying pan over and the omelet will “fall” onto the plate. Place the frying pan back on the range and put just enough oil to cover the bottom and sides of the pan. Let the pan warm for 30 seconds or so. Now slide the omelet into the frying pan. Use the spatula to shape the sides of the omelet. Let the omelet cook for 3-4 minutes. Turn the heat off and let the tortilla sit in the pan for 2 minutes.

Slide the omelet onto a plate to serve.

Spanish Lasagne

I found a packet of lasagne sheets a while ago and have been trying to think up ways to use them. Then we had a Rioja night which resulted in some leftover chorizo, and Spanish lasagne was born in my head. A quick Google showed me that I was not the first to think about putting chorizo in lasagna rather than minced beef, but instead of using the recipes I found, I went ahead and just made this up as I went, based on what was in the house at the time. Sometimes these kinds of recipes are the most fun!

Spanish Lasagne

Ingredients

1 spicy chorizo sausage, diced
1 onion, diced
1 cup pitted black olives, sliced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 cans of chopped tomatoes
500g white mushrooms, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
500g baby spinach
12 sheets of lasagne
250g mature cheddar, grated
grated parmesan to top
1 tsp sugar 
olive oil

Method

1. In a large pan over medium heat, add the chorizo. Let some fat render, then add the onion and celery and cook for about 5 minutes until onion is translucent. Add the chopped tomatoes and olives and then cook over low to medium heat until the sauce thickens. Taste the sauce - if it is very acidic, add a little sugar to sweeten it. Take off heat.

2. In another pan over medium to high heat, add a little olive oil and then the mushrooms and garlic. Saute the mushrooms until they begin to brown. Take off heat.

3. In another pan, steam the spinach until it wilts. Place it in a colander and press down to drain out as much water as possible.

4. Depending on the type of lasagne sheets you buy, you may need to cook them first. Check the packaging and follow those instructions.

5. Preheat the oven to 180C.

6. In a large baking pan, place a little bit of the tomato sauce and spread it into a thin layer to cover the bottom. Place one layer of lasagne sheets on top. Scatter about 1/3 of the mushrooms and spinach, then a little less than third of the tomato sauce. Scatter a handful of grated cheddar on top of that, then another layer of lasagne sheets. Repeat until you have placed a fourth layer of lasagne sheets in the pan. Top that with the remaining tomato sauce and another good handful of cheddar, then grate parmesan over the top to finish.

7. Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until bubbling hot and cheese on top is browned. Let it cool for about 15 minutes before serving - it will help it hold together when you cut into it. Serve slices with salad and garlic bread on the side.

Morito

32 Exmouth Market
London
EC1R 0

More fun with A's mum! Since the sun was shining and we were thinking about a little snack before a late dinner, A and I brought her to Morito for a few tapas and an afternoon drink. We selected four dishes: salt cod croquetas, mussel empanadilla, crispy aubergine with miel honey and potatos with chilli and cilantro sauce. All of it was lovely but the potatoes were a real revelation. I don't know what they do to those things, but they were perfectly cooked and the verdant green sauce on top made me wish for a basket of bread to mop up every last drop. I will be back and I am always choosing Morito over Moro, no matter what anyone else says!

Moro

34-36 Exmouth Market
London
EC1R 4QE

With J&A in town, we decided to try out Moro which several friends had raved about. Perhaps our expectations were raised too high, but I found it mildly disappointing. Our favorite part of the meal were the tapas that we ordered to start -grilled chorizo, piquillo peppers, fried chickpeas (especially nice!) and tortilla (also an exemplary dish). Things all fell down a bit when we got to mains - A and I shared the wood roasted chicken with chermoula and cooked Moroccan salads and the charcoal grilled lamb chops with garlic purée and slow cooked green beans, while J&A had wood roasted pork with turnips cooked with sherry vinegar, lentils and slow cooked piquillo peppers and pan fried bream with clams, scapes and salsa verde with new potatoes. A left quite a lot of her bream, saying it tasted extremely fishy, and it was also swimming in an oily pool of liquid. J thought the pork was pretty fatty, and while the chicken and lamb were decently cooked, there was nothing special enough about them to justify the high prices. 

Drinks were slightly better - a Manzanilla sherry - La Goya Delgado Zuleta- went down quite well to start, and we had a chilled Borsao (Garnacha/Syrah/Tempranillo) Joven Seleccion Campo de Borja, Spain '09 to go with our mains. Service was polite, but somehow the whole meal was underwhelming and I doubt I'll be back, considering how much it cost. A much better option, I think, is to go next door to Morito for the tapas - which we did a few weeks later.

Camino

3 Varnishers Yard
The Regent Quarter
Kings Cross, London
N1 9FD

P and I have been trying to go to Bar Pepito, the sherry bar next to Camino, for ages. Alas, when we made a Monday night date, we found out that Bar Pepito is closed on Mondays. We consoled ourselves with a sherry at Camino instead, but I'm sure we'll be back on a non-Monday to try some more. The nice thing about Camino is that it's a restaurant as well, though, so we settled in for some tapas feasting. After greedily ordering chorizo, txigorki, arroz negro con calamares, fritos mixtos and some lamb skewers, we started in on a lovely bottle of tempranillo. I think this arroz negro was my favorite - everything was well done, though the chorizo was a wee bit too greasy and salty. The danger with tapas is that the cost adds up quite quickly - still, for an evening with lovely company, Camino fit the bill.

El Rincon

244 Deansgate
Manchester M3 4BQ

A quick weekend in Manchester allowed us to try El Rincon, which H and G had booked for our large group. We went with the party menu which resulted in a quick stream of tapas being brought out. The picture above is disgusting (sorry) but the food was pretty good. Standouts for me were the meatballs and patatas bravas. There was a really odd tuna mayonnaise dish though that I found dubious, and the fried calamari was too rubbery and greasy. I managed to spend most of dinner talking with C about how we both have problems with knowing when to stop eating, especially when there continues to be food in front of us, and what do you know, I left El Rincon way too full. This is primarily because after all of the tapas, an enormous serving of paella was brought out to tip us all over the edge. If you go, may I recommend: 1) not waiting until you are starving to eat, 2) if you are ordering the party menu, order it without paella rather than with; and 3) going with a smaller group and maybe ordering a la carte rather than doing the party menu.

Navarro's

67 Charlotte Street
London W1T 4PF

Navarro's was the restaurant chosen for E's 30th birthday celebration - about 20 of us fit around a large table in their downstairs room. M did a great job of organizing and arranged for us to just have a load of tapas brought around for a set price per head. The picture above is probably only about 1/3 or 1/4 of the different dishes that ended up on our tables - from left, going clockwise, there are prawns (one of my favorite dishes, these tasted fresh and were cooked perfectly), garlic mushrooms (yum), tortilla Española, (passable), patatas bravas (good, but could have been crispier and spicier, I think) and chorizo (always good). Before dishes came out they had already set the table with cheeses, olives and roasted pepper salads (surprisingly delicious, I think the peppers were marinated in a vinegary dressing). There were also skewers of grilled chicken and lamb that were presented in fantastic stands, hanging over plates of vegetables and roasted potatoes. I also really liked the deep-fried calamari, which was tender and in a crisp batter. All in all, a lively and tasty dinner that got us all ready for more partying!

Spanish Feast

As we were leaving Laguardia, A and I couldn't help but pick up some jamon, chorizo and manchego so that we could recreate a Spanish feast when we got home. We managed to restrain ourselves for a few weeks, but finally we picked a date to crack open a precious bottle of Rioja and stuff ourselves silly with the bounty we had carried back with us. These all came from a carniceria (there were at least three different ones I saw in Laguardia, which is pretty remarkable for such a tiny town). Jamon was nice and fatty, with that lovely nutty acorn flavor you get from Spanish ham, and the chorizo was full flavored as well, though some slices were a little too fatty for our tastes. We think the manchego must have been a younger one as it had a more subtle taste than we expected. Still, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am looking forward to feast part two with the remainder of the treats!

Gallipoli Cafe Bistro

102 Upper Street
London

N1 1QN

I haven't seen E in almost two years - she's a friend from Austin but she's been living in Berlin recently and then let me know she was in London for a few days, so we met up for lunch at Gallipoli Cafe Bistro. There's another one just a few doors down the street called Gallipoli Again, and I think there's one called Gallipoli Bazaar close by as well? Anyway, the lunch special was a good deal - 7.95 for 2 courses - so we both chose the red lentil soup and the seafood paella. The lentil soup was really nice - a little lemony and perfect for an autumn day. It was served with a generous basket of Turkish bread. Then the seafood paella came out and it was huge! I counted at least three big prawns, four mussels, and about four substantial chunks of various kinds of fish (I spotted tuna, salmon and swordfish). Lots of nice bits of vegetables in there as well, and the rice was deliciously flavored. There was also a side salad of rocket and cucumber that went really well with the savory paella. Service was friendly and there was a nice atmosphere inside - not too lively but not too quiet either. I'd definitely go back.

Laguardia, Spain (Part 3)

Breakfast again - this time there were croissants and thin slices of jamon with baguette in addition to the cake, fruit, raisin bread, juice and coffee. Afterwards, we headed off to Bodegas Palacio winery. Unfortunately, despite emails confirming we could tour on Sunday at noon, no one showed up so we left, disappointed.

Back in Laguardia, we dropped into La Vinoteca, a wine shop on Plaza Mayor, to get our last bottle of Rioja to take home. We also stopped at a carniceria to pick up some chorizo, jamon and Manchego. Then we drove to Bilbao to see:

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, another one of Frank Gehry's architectural creations. This was great - the €11 entrance fee includes an audio guide, so whenever something caught our eye we could hear a little more about it. There was also some interesting information about the building itself, which apparently has no flat surfaces at all aside from the floors.

After touring the museum, we got dinner at the mall where we had parked the car. We picked a restaurant called Cerveceria Cruz Blanca (Centro Comercial Zubiarte 2d floor, 2 lehen. Leizaola, Bilbao) and had two small glasses of their house Rioja, a thinly sliced tomato salad with pieces of jamon and Roquefort strewn on top and a dish of grilled pork sandwiching some sort of cheese, ham and scrambled eggs, fries, and a salad with tuna on top (no idea why these four items go together in one platter, but that's what comes when you order the #10 meal). Nothing to go out of your way for, but much better than most food I've eaten in shopping malls. With that, we ended our eating and drinking festivities in Spain for the weekend, but we're already talking about going back for more...

Laguardia, Spain (Part 2)

Lunch at Bar Velar (37 el Santa Engracia, Laguardia) consisted of flamenquines, bocadillo con lomo, tortilla de patata (pictured) and something else unidentifiable - we were just pointing at tapas that looked good. Cheap but a little greasy.

After a siesta we headed out to Marques de Riscal, in the neighboring town of Elciego, an enormous winery attached to a hotel designed by Frank Gehry, hence the crazy twisting metallic shapes. Unfortunately the tour, which costs €10 per person, was in Spanish (oops!). Still, we got a sense of how big this place was and enjoyed the tasting of the 2008 Rueda Verdejo (white wine) and the 2004 Reserva. I never associated Rioja with white wine before but this one was great - really refreshing with some tropical fruit flavors.

Back in Laguardia, we popped into a bar right in front of the church of St. Mary for a couple of glasses of Crianza - the 2006 Decenio and the 2006 Ruiz de Vinaspre. Both were good but we preferred the Decenio.

We later stumbled upon a fabulous wine bar and cellar called Entrevinas y Olivas (12 Cuatro Cantones, Laguardia) where we had some of the best olive oil and bread I have ever tasted. We also tried three wines - the 2004 Finca Valpiedra Reserva, the 2005 Esencias de Varal and our favorite of the three - the one our friendly waitress recommended - the 2006 Cantos de Valpiedre.

We headed back to Mayor de Migueloa to tour their wine cellars. It was in Spanish, though we got a quick English summary afterwards, and we tasted their Joven and Crianza (again).

We had dinner upstairs at the hotel restaurant, where we ordered a bottle of wine, and had our other funny encounter with Mama. She told me I had to order the croquetas as a starter. After some cheek pinching and hugging I agreed. Mama came back with wine, gesturing about how good it was, but when I looked at the label more closely I realized she had given us a totally different bottle (2001 Imperial Reserva) from the one we ordered. At this point, we were loving the wine so much we didn't kick up any fuss, and then the croquetas came out and they were a revelation - I think these are the first proper croquetas I've ever had, with creamy, ham speckled centers and an incredibly thin, crunchy crust. The ox entrecote with blue cheese sauce was delicious and the Riojan stew of chorizo and potatoes was comforting and hearty - this is probably one of my favorite meals in recent memory. The atmosphere in the restaurant was perfect and after we finished dinner, a neighboring table of Spaniards who had also been on the wine tour with us invited us to join them, although conversation was a bit tricky as only one of the four of them spoke English. When we checked out we got a bit of a surprise as the wine that Mama had substituted cost way more than we expected. Still, there was something so charming about the hotel we couldn't help but enjoy our stay.

Click here to read part 3.

Laguardia, Spain (Part 1)

We went on a weekend trip to Laguardia, Spain to try some Rioja wine and eat some tasty Spanish food. We stayed at Mayor de Migueloa (20 Calle Mayor, Laguardia), on our friend A's recommendation, and we loved it, even though there were a lot of quirks. First, we arrived late on a Friday night, and the woman who seems to run the place (let's call her Mama) explained in Spanish that since we had come so late she had given away our room for the next night. My Spanish is really poor, so I basically made helpless noises and looked distressed, and then somehow it was all resolved and we were back in her good graces. The hotel itself is really charming and it contains a restaurant, wine bar and wine cellars that you can visit underground. One more thing happened with Mama before we left, but I'll leave that for later.

We were tired and hungry on arrival so we popped down to the wine bar and tried glasses of the hotel's Crianza wine (aged for a minimum of 2 years, with a minimum of 6 months in a barrel) along with plates of jamon serrano, chorizo and Idiazabal cheese. The wine was lovely but we wanted to relax with a bottle so we tried their Reserva (aged for a minimum of 3 years, with a minimum of 1 year in a barrel) - you can really tell the difference as the Reserva was much more complex and oaky, but I think what you prefer at any given time might depend on the mood you're in.

The next morning we breakfasted on a mix of fresh squeezed orange and grapefruit, a wonderful cake and yummy rolls filled with chorizo. Coffee with milk, raisin bread, butter and jams and a big fruit plate completed the spread. We were ready to start some wine tasting!

We got a bit lost on our way to the first winery and ended up stopping at Heredad Ugarte (A-124 Road, Laguardia). Most wineries require a reservation for a visit, but they were extremely nice and let us do a free tasting when we wandered in. We tried their Joven 2007 (very young wine, no minimum aging), Crianza 2006 and Reserva 2005, but as they had a 3 bottle minimum for purchase, we couldn't buy any wine since we didn't have enough space in our suitcase.

Onwards to Ysios (Camino de la Hoya, Laguardia), which is identifiable by the gorgeous wavy architecture pictured. Again, we had no reservation as they were all full for the tours, but a very nice lady allowed us to try their wine - they only make two Reservas and she poured a taste of the 2004, which we liked enough to get one for home.

Back in Laguardia we went for a tour of one of the few wineries that still exist within the city walls. At Carlos San Pedro (44 Calle Paganos, Laguardia), we got a little history about Laguardia's military past and then were taken down to the caves underground, where they still store their wine in their cellars in tanks and barrels. We found out that only four types of grape are grown in Rioja, the primary one being Tempranillo. The special part of the tour was tasting their 2006 Crianza straight out of a tank before it had time to age in a bottle. It was good, and our tour guide said it would get even better and smoother once it rested in bottles for a few more months. We also tried their Reserva and one of their "special" wines labeled simply as Tempranillo. Really great wines and a very interesting tour - this felt like the most personal place we visited.

Click here for part 2.