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Wednesday 29 June 2011

NORDIC BAKERY Marylebone



Bolsa cutlery



Calling Card




Carrott + Apple juice with Herring and Egg bap.



The Iittala trays are so cute !



Bloggers Bic Pen and Bagel


# 4 Knock at the Door

Uncomplicated Honest Goodness

The Nordic Bakery is an achingly beautiful Scandinavian-style caff. A homely and peaceful meeting place, nestled within the soft inner skirt of a frantically paced city. A transparent, non pretentious design tuned space, where visual clutter is eliminated, to focus your sights and taste buds upon the simple ambiance of a quality cafe-bakery experience, which drips in functional deep smarts.

Offering simple sweet and savoury - lovingly prepared fresh Nordic bakery products, served up with utterly uncomplicated and honest attitude. The girls look at home and at ease in uniforms. The Marylebone shop is the pick of the bunch, over shadowing it's busier counter part in Golden Square. Proclaiming an inner confidence and sense of knowing they have 'nailed it' and thus allowing their staff to smile breezily. The take-home breads and cakes are the perfect anecdote to the mind numbing clone like experience of any nearby corner pret-a-manger.

Everything about the place is considered with its Scandinavian design, from the stained wooden table benches, painted flat oil gypboard flooring, simple wall clock, framed posters, deep red oblong tiles, low fall lamps and simple non reflective glass counter, to the tactile paper and graphics of the business cards and posters. At points the design ambience is so good the food and drink is almost sidelined as an unexpected bonus ball.

The simple and visually stimulating cups, beakers, tumblers, plates, formica trays, balsa cutlery and condiment holders are such a pleasure to use. They provide the perfect eye candy for any breakfast arrangement.

We ordered :-

Short Latte
Carrot + Apple juice (James White)
Egg + Herring on Rye bread £3.60


The egg and herring was seriously good. The rye bread perforated with little indentations like smiling dimples on cheeks. Lacquered in dill mayonnaise and Danish mustard, the egg and herring reached epic proportions as two complimentary soulmates.

It was all great. Truly great. The epitome of Scandinavian-Finnish-Danish-Norwegian cool.

Friday 24 June 2011

THE PROVIDORES and Tapa room



Flat White, Spirulina, Squeezed Orange Juice


The Antipodean Veggie fry up.


# 3  Cup Of Tea


Peter Picks a Pocket or two

Hello everyone, it has been an exciting week for the intrepid blogger.

By rare opportunity, I snuck into Providores on Marylebone High St, London on the way to work for a breakfast fit for kings. Peter is such a clever bloke. He and his artful team have manged to create the London answer to kiwi kool - laid back, relaxed indulgence with extremely tasty and delicious things to put in your mouth.

The atmosphere is always buzzing with high levels of excited chit chat. The blogger thinks the morning is the best time to visit the tapa room, it is quite a small snug functional space which is part of its elegant charm. Though be warned, if its lunch or dinner your after in the tapa room, it can get packed to the rafters. The result of being really good at what you do, is almost everyone wants a piece of the action.

The Blogger opted for a Flat White to start the day, this is coffee that has been on a blind date with the gods. If you manage to keep your focus, then try the Spirulina. The jewel like jade colour is so rich and vibrant and the straw the perfect instrument to suck through. How do they do it so well ? Ask Peter. He is quite often hanging out up top. He is also a really humble, polite, clever guy.

For breakfast the blogger opted for the Veggie Fry Up. Wow wees. This is good. Sauteed Buttered field mushrooms and slow-roasted toms served on sourdough toast, with two eggs of your choice from the Organic Estate in Barrington Park. Scrambled eggs goes exceedingly well, though you can't dismiss the beauty of poached or the simplicity of fried-sunny-side-up.


All in all, this is, quite possibly, the finest breakfast in town.


*the blogger has heard through the grape vine, former disher-washer-upper for Fergus Henderson and formerly part of the team at The Providores, Anna Hansen is now running her own ship at the Modern Pantry, and the blogger will be heading over to Clerkenwell as soon as the sun rises out east.




Wednesday 22 June 2011

GARDEN CAFE Regents Park.



Grilled Mackerel, Waxed New Potatoes, Samphire.



Sticky Toffee Pudding and ice cream. Yum.



The Garden Cafe garden onto Regents Park

# 2 One Little Duck


Garden of Eden

So, here it is folks, my first foray into the world of blogging, featuring the everyday food places that make me happy. I was delighted when on my way home in the pouring rain, on a mid summers night, to find myself approaching the Garden Cafe, within the heart of the Inner Circle of Regents Park - cosseted by nature and the attractive rose garden.

I had passed by a few times and had one eye on the cute restaurant when the time was right...

The first thing that struck me as I walked in, was how lovely the space was. It was just that, spacious and welcoming without the usual throws of an over crowded park eaterie. The waitress was radiating smiles and when she seated me next to a large well lit window on a comfy bunker couch, I thought she could read my mind. The rain drops racing each other down the window panes added to the snug factor.The ambience was great, I virtually had the place to myself which is a rare treat in London. The building was originally built in the 60's and the architecture reflects this with a beautifully aged modernity and patina from the original use of quality build materials. The beech wood panelled ceiling is particularly ace.

The tables are a lovely milky white formica on layed ash timber frames, and are perfect for serving food when complemented by the exposure to intense natural daylight. The cafe furnishings are charming and provide a sense of the modern, the aged and the well loved. Squishy oaked yellow bunker booths vie for attention with sets of neatly layed out chairs nestled around with their padded seats, mellow oaked-yellow formica backs and metal legs.

The menu was simple, clear and comprehensively tempting, set out for Spring with natural ingredients. The set menu for 2 or 3 courses was just what you wanted and a 2 course priced at £14.75 seemed exceptional value when weighing up the charm of the location and quality of the food.

The food service was prompt and friendly and thankfully arrived with a glass of wine in a rather cute glass tumbler. The blogger ordered Grilled Mackerel with waxed new potatoes, samphire and lemon mayonnaise. The potatoes were out of this world, dressed in their perfect waxy shell and coated in herbs and butter. The fish prettily layed out in a criss cross formation was fresh and extremely tasty and the samphire well balanced and a perfect accompaniment.The appearance of Toffee Pudding and Ice cream on the menu made the choice of pudding a formality. When it arrived, it knocked-the-bugger-off as Edmund Hillary might say. It was world beating and a revelation. The ice cream had perched on it's noggin  a small hard toffee curly wurly corkscrew crown and the pudding was the perfect sticky consistency with a toffee sauce so rich you could feel yourself melting into its indulgence. Ka-pow!

I loved hanging out in the Garden Cafe and will definately be back.

This is the sort of place you would not want to tell too many people about, though would want to take as many people as possible too!

Saturday 18 June 2011

FAVOURITE PLACES TO EAT








Keeping Food Current


# 1 Kelly's Eye

Raison d'être


There aren't too many things in life I enjoy more than visiting my 'Favourite Places To Eat' and discovering adding new favourites to the list. 


Whether your at a friends home or at a restaurant, shack, osteria, cafe, boulangerie, tent, native bush, tearoom, or canteen, there is something uniquely memorable about our favourite places to eat. Occasionally, resorting to discreetly unbuttoning your waistband to tuck in is A OK in my rule book. The occasion,  the ambience and the company we keep often forms an integral part of the experience.

My blogger tag is 'Tinker-Tailor-Soldier-Spy' and I am starting this blog feeling extremely lucky I wasn't born a food critic. Quite the opposite, I love food. Rather than focus on what's wrong, I prefer to focus on whats right, admiring the effort, skill and creation of the artisan chefs and homemade recipes we can discover along the way. This isn't about elitism, I don't care if its down a dodgy backstreet as long as it leads me to the homemade recipes of your great-grandmother. I  have no desire to waste our natural born craft of mastication by being a boring critical critic.  So if you like reading a good old humdinger of a moan, winge and general slating, then this blog will be likely to disappoint you.  

The posts will feature my 'Favourite Places To Eat' and in whichever location or time they find me. There will be no chasing of favours or secret handshakes for chocolate-brownie points with the maitre d, just the real, honest, everyday experiences I find along the way. I don't hope build a massive following but just to document a few of the places who provide a truly edible soundbite and hopefully for this blog to provide an interesting personal record along the way. Something the grandchildren can dip into one day and retrace my footsteps.

It will also prove an interesting experiment for me to see with first hand experience how a blog readership grows across the globe through self discovery and without any form of commercial investment such as a huge Advertising budget. This post isn't an advert for KFC, thats just me adding some humour to the mix.

Wishing myself a modicum of good luck and hope my readers might like it.

Here's to a 'Favourite Places To Eat' food adventure.






















Favourite Places To Eat

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