Teri-Aki, Cambridge, UK- A return visit

I really love the Japanese food at Teri-Aki's, but I have a horrible feeling that the last time I went was actually also the first time I blogged about it. As is the way with such things, I seem to have reversed the trend recently by going three times in the past few months. Back in the day I always used to order their fried soba noodles, but on recent lunch visits I've switched to sushi and and some smaller hot dishes. So I can thoroughly recommend the tempura, agedashi tofu, nasu dengaku aubergine, and the maki rolls.

The tempura was crisp and oil free, whether contained seafood or vegetables, the sushi fresh and flavourful; and I've yet to have a poor plate of aubergine or tofu. Service has always been a bit patchy at Teri-Aki's, but based on recent experiences, it has become a lot more consistent.

So with prices hovering around the five pound mark for the smaller dishes, and smaller plates of sushi, and around a tenner for large plates of noodles, Teri-Aki's remains excellent value. This was all really rather reassuring after such a long gap between visits, and left me wondering why I'd left it for so long. Anyway, it's firmly back on the radar now, and next time I might even order something aside from tempura, aubergine, and tofu (but probably won't).

Teri-Aki Restaurant and Bar
6-8 Quayside
Cambridge CB5 8AB

A fantastic chocolate and prune cake

I really like prunes. For some reason, people often find this funny and start sniggering. I'm not sure why, as for me (really nice) prunes are super-juicy, succulent, and full of sweetness. They are also fab paired with chocolate in puddings and cakes. So when I had a bag of prunes that had been hanging around in my cupboard for a while, and some friends coming over for lunch, I sought out a chocolate and prune cake recipe.

Luckily one of the first I found was this one by cook and food writer David Lebovitz, which was fantastic. It produced an ultra-moist but mega-rich chocolate cake, which had a dense, almost mousse-y texture. The recipe also contained the great idea of soaking the prunes in black tea rather than booze for non-alcohol drinkers. I served the cake with a scoop of creme fraiche, and it disappeared quite rapidly (thus my lone slice picture above). I would make this cake again at the drop of a hat, but probably won't for a while due to the risk of me eating it all myself.

Wahaca, Soho, London, UK

I remember watching Thomasina Miers winning Masterchef many years ago, before the programme developed its comedy edge. She was super-keen on promoting Mexican food, and has done a sterling job since then by opening the Wahaca group of restaurants across London. My knowledge of Mexican food remains limited, but Wahaca has been on my list of central London places to visit for absolutely ages. I am obviously on a roll, as after my recent Dishoom success I followed up by making it to Wahaca a couple of weeks ago.
The Soho branch was absolutely packed when we visited on a weekday evening, but we only had a short wait before we were shown to a table. The Male Companion Person and I shared a main course and range of side dishes, so managed to taste a good range of the fish and vegetarian bits of the menu.

Fish tacos were essentially slightly exotic fishfinger sandwiches, which is no bad thing. If our substantial food order hadn't obscured the bottles, I probably would have added some hot sauce to spice these up a little though. The seasonal squid special, which though flavourful and non-chewy, could have done with something lighter than the thick breadcrumb coating they came in.

We also ordered a big green salad, fried sweet potatoes, and some frijoles. So basically quite a lot of food for two people. I particularly loved the warm frijoles topped with cheese, which was rich and exceptionally moreish (not something you can often say about mashed beans).

I got a bit over-excited at the thought of churros, so we had some of those too. This was the other thing I really loved- fried donuts with a dark chocolate sauce. If they had provided a spoon I would have scooped that sauce more directly into my face too.

So I really liked Wahaca. For me the stand-out dishes were the frijoles and the churros, but everything else tasted fresh and was more than pleasant. The restaurant had a nice buzzy atmosphere, and a special mention has to go to our server-person Maciej (I think); he was obviously looking after several large groups as well as us but was still friendly, efficient and helpful, and did not laugh at me when I completely messed up using the card terminal. Wahaca also seems very reasonably priced for central London, as all the above food, a couple of beers, and a non-alcoholic drink was about £35 (without service). I would happily visit Wahaca again, and well done to Tommi Miers for getting her mini-food empire off the ground too.

Wahaca Soho
80 Wardour Street
Soho
London W1F OTF

Dishoom, London, UK

One of the slightly annoying things about not being based in London is that I hear of lots of great sounding places opening there, but it takes me an age to get round to going to them. To be fair I'm only a 45-ish minute train ride away from Zone 1, but the idea of travelling down just to get some lunch seems a little over the top even for me. So when a good friend suggested a catch up in the big smoke, I immediately thought of where we could go to eat (as well as being delighted I'd be seeing her soon obviously).

I heard a lot about Dishoom and their 'Bombay cafe' concept, when it first opened. The idea immediately appealed, I added it to my list of places to go, and a mere twenty-two months later I've finally made it! I've only been to Bombay once but the interior of Dishoom did seem quite evocative of some of the small restaurants we went to (mainly because of the ceiling fans and loose cabling). The menu is mainly made up of lots of smaller savoury dishes, which I quite like as it makes it easier to taste a range of things, as well as lots of types of chai and lassi.

I ordered a tikka paneer, which came nicely charred (rather than burnt) and skate cheeks koliwada. I hadn't even realised that skate had cheeks, let alone that they were edible, so I was quite keen to try these. What arrived was a generous portion of fishy nuggets in a properly spicy coating, and an accompanying tamarind dip. I really liked the heat and spices in this dish, which didn't overwhelm the fish at all. And it worked really well with the coriander chutney that was provided too. To balance out the protein, I also had a fresh and zingy 'slaw and a roomali roti which was soft and pliant, just as I had hoped it would be.

To finish things off, we ordered a couple of malai kulfis, (which came on sticks). The kulfi was rich and creamy, with a hint of cardamon, and the perfect size for fulfilling a pudding craving. All of this along with some soft drinks, a lassi, and a paneer roll for my friend only came to around £40 (including service). I think this would be excellent value anywhere, but especially so in central London.

So overall, Dishoom really lived up to expectations for me and I would be very happy to go back again. It offers a few interesting and different dishes, the chance to eat Indian food in a slightly more casual setting, a nice atmosphere, and some of the nicest kulfi I've had for ages. My only minor gripe was that a combination of Indian-style piped music and a packed room, meant that it was quite loud and a bit difficult to hear what the staff, and indeed my friend, were saying. However, I guess it did contribute to an authentic Bombay atmosphere, and as I have started complaining about pensions and the weather, it may also indicate that I am getting a bit old.


Dishoom
12 Upper St Martin's Lane
London WC2H 9FB

Hakka, Cambridge, UK

I was taken out for a surprise dinner the other weekend. I have to say that my heart didn't exactly soar when we ended up walking past the Cambridge City football ground and up to a small parade of betting shops, newsagents, and kebab emporiums. In amongst this row was the Chinese seafood restaurant, Hakka.
Hakka looked as nondescript as its neighbours, and inside it contained the generic interior design notes that you you can find in any average Chinese restaurant. However, what was truly distinctive was the food. We had some superb salt and chilli squid, that was hot out of the fryer and left my lips tingling with proper spicy heat.

This excellent start was followed by a steamed sea bass with garlic and spring onion, sizzling scallops in black bean sauce, sea spiced aubergine, stir fried green beans, and a seafood fried rice. Considering there were only two of us, this seems quite a lot now I write it down but let's gloss over that bit.

Everything we had tasted fresh and packed with flavour, with nothing floating in gloopy cornflour heavy sauces. I loved the simple but delicious crunchy beans, and the perfectly cooked sea bass. Even the fried rice was notable for it's fluffy egg, lightly cooked seafood, and non-clumpy rice. And all this delightful food, along with a couple of drinks, only came to around £60 (not including service)- a bargain!

So, as you might be able to tell, I really liked Hakka. It's in a pretty insalubrious location, has an interior a bit like a late 90's conference room, and plays easy listening versions of Tina Turner songs. But all of this somehow adds to its charm, and with its friendly service and lovely food, I think this might just be the nicest Chinese restaurant in Cambridge.

Hakka
24 Milton Road
Cambridge CB4 1JY

Ambala Indian Sweet Centre

In many ways I'm not very good at being a Bengali. I don't merrily chomp through fish heads, and there is no Rabindra Sangeet on my ipod. However there is one way in which I am very Bengali, and that is my love of mishti, Indian sweets or mithai.

As a child I baulked at my mum's thin, yellow macher jhol fish curry and fried bitter gourd uchay bhaja, but was happy to scoff down homemade syrupy sweet gulab jam or roshogolla. It's actually quite unusual for Bengalis to make many sweets at home, as back in Calcutta pretty much every neighbourhood has its own local sweet shop for all your mishti needs. Unfortunately an equivalent was very much lacking in the Cambridge of the 70's and 80's, so I was dependent on my mum's skills in this area and the occasional trip to the Ambala Sweet Centre in London for my fix. There are many branches of Ambala across London now, but the original shop is on Drummond Street. This is dangerously close to King's Cross Station, and I have to restrain myself from visiting on every single trip to London. Amabala is not a Bengali shop, but I'm not parochial in my mishti enjoyment, so anywhere selling jelebis, burfis and ladoos is fine by me.

Here's what I picked up on my most recent trip:

Ladoos! Probably my favourite Indian sweet, ladoos are made from fried gram flour soaked in syrup. The chickpea at its finest in my opinion.

Burfi! In this case chocolate and pistachio. The chocolate ones are a bit of a Western innovation, which involves pouring a thin layer of chocolate over a plain burfi. My sort of fusion cooking.

Indian sweets do have a reputation for being almost painfully sweet, and indeed some are. But there also some beautiful flavours of cardamom, cashew and pistachio, the richness of milk and cream, and textures that range from crumbly or softly spongy, to crispy. So as a change from the mince pies and chocolate yule logs that I might be consuming in the forthcoming festive season, I may well have a ladoo too. And with Christmas in mind, a selection of Indian sweets would make a top gift (nb they freeze very well, so you don't actually have to eat them all immediately).

Ambala also sell a range of savoury food, (I've written about their samosas before). And if you can't get to one of their many shops you can also order online (though not the samosas sadly).

Salt and pepper squid

I pretty much like any form of fried squid whether it's calamari, or the more Asian salt and pepper squid. Actually, forget that, I pretty much like anything that's been fried.

Anyway, I can only remember making calamari once a few years ago. I'm not sure what I put in the batter but it all spat like crazy when it went into the hot oil, and I vaguely recall that most of the coating fell off during the cooking process anyway. After risking life and limb for my dinner, I wasn't keen to repeat the process again. But as salt and pepper squid is one of my favourite Chinese takeaway dishes, I thought I'd try cooking it as a side dish to go with the fish fragrant aubergine I was making too. I'm not sure why, but this time round I wasn't attacked by the squid and frying it was perfectly straight-forward. Perhaps the cornflour was just super effective in absorbing any moisture, but it does mean that this is a dish that I'd be happy to make again.
There isn't much of a recipe, but it's based on this one by Nigella Lawson. She uses baby squid, which is also what I would have done had I been able to buy any. But props to The Sea Tree for a perfectly nice big squid.

Recipe (enough for 4 as a side dish with other things):
I large squid tube, cleaned, scored and cut into small pieces (apart from the tentacles)
Around 1 heaped tsp Sichuan peppercorns
Around 2 heaped tsp regular black peppercorns
Around 2 heaped tsp rock salt
Around 5 tblsp cornflour
1 spring onion, finely chopped (optional)
Quite a lot of sunflower oil, enough for at least a depth of an inch in a deep pan or wok

Crush all the peppercorns and salt in a pestle and mortar, until they are well broken up but not finely ground. Put this seasoning and the cornflour into a plastic freezer or sandwich bag and mix well. Make sure the squid pieces are as dry as possible, and put a handful into the bag of cornflour so that they end up lightly coated. I usually use a wok for deep frying, and you'll need enough oil to ensure that the squid can float in it. Heat the oil until it's hot and shimmering (but not smoking), and gently lower in the first batch of squid. It should only take a minute or so before the squid is cooked and the coating is lightly browned. Carefully take the squid out and drain on some kitchen roll, to absorb any excess oil. Repeat with the rest of the squid. As it takes such a short time to cook, you shouldn't have any problems with the first batch getting cold before the rest are done. Once all the squid is done, sprinkle with the spring onion, and scoff while it's still hot and crispy.

Ohn-no khao swè AKA Burmese coconut noodles from Meemalee's Kitchen

I've been meaning to make these Burmese noodles for ages now, ever since seeing it on MiMi's excellent Meemalee's Kitchen blog last year. The full recipe can be found here but as ever I adapted things a bit.
Instead of chicken I used ready-prepared deep fried tofu, and added some chilli flakes to the ginger/onion/garlic paste it's cooked with. And due to laziness I bought some chilli oil and used prawn crackers for the garnish (rather than deep fried rice stick noodles as MiMi instructs). I also forgot to add the thinly sliced shallots and lime before eating, but this can be entirely attributed to rushing to scoff my lovely smelling bowl of food. I hope MiMi forgives these dips in authenticity, but even so this was a totally delicious dish.
The noodles in their coconut broth were rich but not heavy, and the tofu provided a good contrast in texture. It was all lightly spiced but very flavourful, despite missing the garnishes which I suspect would have provided a touch of freshness too. This was also a really simple and straightforward meal to prepare and could easily be an after-work dinner.
I heartily recommend it, and will definitely be making it again- this time with full garnish compliance!