Cambio De Tercio

Cambio De Tercio is seen by many to be one of the best Spanish restaurants in London and after seeing my fellow bloggers rave on about a couple of dishes I pushed this to the top of my to do list with a leisurely Saturday lunch.

Although I believe tasting menus are available in the evenings, at the weekend lunch a choice of a la carte or weekend lunch menus were available. We went for a couple of tapas dishes and a main course, and could mix and match from a selection of traditional tapas, chefs special dishes and main courses. The chefs dishes and mains show influence from modern Spanish cookery and the latest in food wizardry. We started with some bread, a basket of somewhat uninspiring rolls, but these came with the type of olive oil that reminds you that you aren't making enough effort to source olive oil for home, with a bright green colour and incredible fruity, fragrant flavour.

First up, one of the dishes we travelled across London for. Eight hour tomatoes are cooked for the aforementioned 8 hours in oloroso sherry and served with basil caviar and goats cheese. The tomatoes were stunning, textured almost liked figs, sweet, moist, packed full of flavour and well matched with the heady basil and tangy cheese. This is the type of dish that justifies why I go out hunting for good meals, I've never had anything like it before and I know this will be one of the vegetable dishes that I use to benchmark future meals. My wife pronounced this as one of the best things she has had, that is, until the next tapas dish came out.

The "New" Patatas Bravas are Cambio De Tercios take on patatas bravas and are basically, crispy potato cylinders filled with spicy tomato sauce and aioli but are so perfectly balanced, and each element so perfectly cooked that they resemble manna from heaven, a mouthful of pleasure eliciting a chuckle of joy and a smile.  Very little could top those tomatoes, but these were a strong competition.

I nabbed a couple of the incredible potatoes but also had a dish of my own, cuttlefish meatballs in squid ink sauce. Four generous size balls covered in a black sauce that defied my phone cameras ability to balance light, with a single tentacle and some pumpkin puree. The cuttlefish and squid ink came through really well, with huge depth of flavour that matched the gorgeous smell of the dish as it was presented. I might have liked a touch more puree as it really added a lovely touch of sweetness and extra dimension.

The mains continued with the quality, my main, an oxtail dish presented a new way of enjoying one of my regular Sunday casseroles, oxtail in red wine. This dish just took the humble cut to stratospheric height with a sweet, sticky, unctuous sauce packed full of flavour, like they had an entire bottle of wine distilled into each bite. With this, a fruit I've not even thought would go with beef, with an apple sauce and tangy, crunchy chips of green apple providing much needed balance to the fatty richness of the oxtail. The other element really stood out too, whilst I've had foams galore, the lemon thyme "air" was unusual in having a really strong, also perfumed herbal flavour and stayed a stiff and airy foam right until the last bites of the meat. I used it like a three dimensional dip, just coating the meat in thin layer of foam. The side of mash wasn't what I expected, textured almost like a thick sauce than mash, but utterly delicious and a lovely foil to the other elements on the plate.

My wife had an excellent bombas rice casserole, a rice dish using a rarer version of the Spanish rice varieties. This dish was not quite as wet as risotto and somewhat like a paella and came with some very well cooked vegetables, including enoki mushroom's that my wife isnt normally too keen on, but were polished off rather quickly due to being so fine.

Desserts were equally as good, my wife's white chocolate ganache, passion fruit, pistachios, and ginger ice cream a great combination, whilst I had a dessert that showed some real technical brilliance, a frozen mojito inside a blown caramel ball, resting on a bed of rum jelly. I really enjoyed this fun dish, where you had to smash the ball and mix everything in the bowl up to experience all the mojito flavours, and was a delicious as it was clever and hard to make. Top marks to the kitchen for this.

We finished with some petit four and coffee, the bill coming to £157, below what I would normally pay for food of this quality, and indeed, quantity. We left happy and sated and it reignited my passion for dining out. I see why Cambio De Tercio is so popular, and why its nearby sister restaurants and bars have a good reputation, and I can only recommend you give it a try, if only just to eat some tomatoes and potatoes.

8 hour tomatoes.

"New" patatas bravas.

Cuttlefish meatballs in squid ink sauce.

Oxtail. Apple.

Olive oil mash.

Bombas rice casserole and vegetables.

White chocolate ganache.

Crispy Cuban mojito in blown caramel ball before,

and after.

Petit four.

Cambio De Tercio

Return to Grain Store

My wife and I had to go to St Pancras, so we had a good excuse to return to Grain Store, where we were lucky enough to get a walk-in.

The food and drink was outstanding, with many new dishes and drinks on the menu. Special mention has to go to the excellent range of soft and alcoholic drinks, with some really unusual cocktails and top quality juices on offer. My wife started with a Fellini, an apple, fennel and prosecco cocktail that was absolutely delicious. I love the style of the food at Grain Store with a focus on vegetables, a menu inspired from cultures around the world. This is one place I would love to live near enough to visit regularly, definitely one of the best of the newer restaurants in London.



Salted watermelon, borage flowers, pink grapefruit, curry oil, crab mayonnaise.

Sweet potato waffle, raw and cooked vegetables.

Grilled Lebanese cucumbers, pickled tomatoes, duck pastilla.

Grilled aubergine, rice, cucumber raitha.

Coconut, kaffir lime, green tapioca, sweet potato, banana leather.

Jurancon Moelleux 2007, Domaine de Souch.

Grain Store

C&R Cafe

C&R Cafe is a Malaysian cafe, located in a small alleyway in Chinatown.  It has a good reputation with the Malay expat community, and a number were present, drinking Milo gives it away.

I had Nasi Lemak, a dish of coconut rice, chicken curry with accompaniments of sambal belacan, cucumber, ikan bilis (dried anchovies), peanuts and acar. Sambal belecan is a kind of paste with chillis and belacan, (pronounced bla-chan) the famous fermented shrimp paste of Malaysia and is a fiery, blow your head off type taste explosion that is best considered an acquired taste. Even though I'm half Malay, I'm not that good with chillis and could only handle this in pinprick amounts mixed with the rest of the food. The acar pickle was lovely, with large chunks of pineapple helping to wash away some of the fiery heat of the meal.

My wife had a beancurd and rice dish, with another chili hot sauce. We both had satay on the side,  chicken satay for me and a fried beancurd satay for my wife. These were pretty good, the chicken crisp and sweet on the outside, but soft and juicy inside. The beancurd satay were excellent, crisp throughout and to quote my wife; "like air", perfect with the robust peanut sauce. We also had some roti canai, the fried bread that is dipped in curry sauce. This was ok, albeit quite greasy compared with others I've had.

Nasi Lemak

Beancurd and rice

Chicken Satay

Beancurd Satay

Roti Canai

C&R Cafe

Galvin La Chapelle III

We returned to Galvin La Chapelle for Sunday lunch, which rolls in at a rather tasty £29.99 for 3 courses, excellent value considering it has a star, top end service and a gorgeous dining room.

The meal was as good as ever, with a fantastic summer truffle bouillon to go with my guinea fowl and vegetables being the highlight of my meal. Another dish of note was my wifes cucumber soup with horseradish cream, a perfect summer starter.

The bread has really improved too, the crust on my white sourdough kept me returning for more.

Mackerel, pink grapefruit, fennel

Cucumber soup, horseradish cream

Guinea fowl, vegetables, gnocchi, summer truffle bouillon

Risotto, girolles, sage

Tarte tatin

Grain Store

Grain Store is the all day restaurant from Bruno Loubet, part of the regeneration area behind Kings Cross. I'm more than familiar with the area, being a regular visitor to the now defunct Cross and Bagleys clubs that were there in the Nineties but now the area has changed beyond all recognition, the walk from Kings Cross taking you through a collection of building sites and over the Regents Canal to the finished Granary Square area, home to Grain Store, Caravan, Kerb and St Martins College of Art and Design.

The restaurant retains its original warehouse dimensions, a large industrial space with bar and open kitchen, and was already busy when we arrived at midday. The menu is interesting, with a focus on vegetables, and the meat or fish element being mentioned last on the dish description and a large selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes. There's also a cocktail menu with savoury and sweet cocktails, and some unusual herb infused and smoked wines.

I started with lobster "Bloody Mary", with an accompanying plate of potato and rye bread, a fantastic slice spread with a umami rich seaweed butter and dense leafy covering of borage, oyster leaf, flowers and some hairy plant I didn't recognise. Hats off to Grainstore here, even though it had no noticeable fish or meat ingredients it was not labelled as vegetarian on the menu due to the parmesan in the seaweed butter. The lobster dish was a timbale of lobster and green, yellow, cherry and red tomatoes around which was poured a consomme of tomato and vodka. The consomme was excellent, intense with flavour and the tomatoes a nice mix of crunchy, soft and sweet. The lobster itself was cooked to perfection, soft as a pillow. My wife had a lovely looking plate of baked beetroots; orange, candy and red, goats labneh, pink pickled onions and a dill dressing. 

The mains kept to the same high standards, for my wife a dish with a poached egg, a type of cheese, a spiced crushed nut mix called dukkah and a white bean hummus and had some very good feedback, a really delicious dish. I had a cast iron pan containing gratin dauphinois and topped with rabbits leg and salsa. The dauphinois was heavenly, creamy, garlicky potatoes and topped off with a beautiful piece of rabbit cooked under a Josper, soft and juicy, timed perfectly and with the pleasing smoky barbeque flavours from the Josper. The salsa verde was more guacamole than anything, lots of avocado mixed with the herbs and pickled jalapenos. You wouldn't have thought it would go with dauphinois and rabbit but it provided a pleasing creamy topping to the rabbit amd worked perfectly. The dish was utterly wonderful, supreme comfort food and just right for a damp September morning.

The dessert menu featured some unusual vegetable ingredients, horseradish ice cream and strawberries in one dish, and the the one I choose featuring spiced candied tomatoes and goats milk panna cotta. The tomatoes were actually whole cherry tomatoes, and whilst retaining a hint of tomato the sweetness from the candying process and spices provided a taste unlike anything Ive had before. The panna cotta was of excellent quality. My wife had white chocolate rice crispy cake chocolate mousse and almond ice cream. This was an excellent plate, in particular the lovely crispy cake and ice cream.

Grain Store is a popular place, when we left it was full and for good reason too, a whole menu of highly original and innovative dishes can be found and some really good food. I look forward to returning. Kings Cross and Saint Pancras, once desolate wastelands as far as food is concerned, now have a number of good places to eat and Grain Store is certainly one of the better choices. The bill came to 85 quid and included a £1 covercharge for water, two cocktails and service, not bad considering I had the most expensive starter and main and the quality of the meal.

Potato and rye bread, borage, oyster leaf.

Lobster 'Bloody Mary'

Beetroots, goat labneh.

Flat bread, poached egg, white bean hummus.

Gratin dauphinois, salsa verde, rabbit leg.

Spiced candied tomatoes, panna cotta.

White chocolate rice crispy cake, chocolate mousse, almond ice cream.

Grain Store

Opera Tavern

A trip to the El Bulli exhibition at Somerset House saw us stopping for lunch in Covent Garden at the Opera Tavern, a Spanish restaurant in the Salt Yard Group. Opera Tavern differs from the other restaurants in the group, Dehesa and Salt Yard, in having a charcoal grill and specialising in Ibérico pork dishes as well as tapas.

We started with 2 glasses of a pleasant Manzanilla Pasada, as my sum experience of sherry to date has been a sip of my nana's Bristol Cream and I wanted to try something proper as it was all the rage a while back.

The first plate, some butternut squash and sage croquettes with a quince alioli was a perfect start to a meal, smoky, buttery and sweet, topped off with a great alioli and utterly delicious.  Following this a hunk of roasted salt cod on a base of compressed and crispy black rice, with a tomato sauce and basil sauce around it.  This was a lovely piece of fish, and the rice beneath gorgeous, crisp, sticky and unctuous perfectly matched with the tomato and basil. My wife's plate of courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese was fabulous, the courgette flowers in a tempura batter and generously covered in honey, top class stuff. I tried the mini Ibérico burger with foie gras, done on the charcoal, feted as one of the better burgers in London, and well, wow, a triumph of a burger and well worth at the top of any list. The burger was gorgeous, smoky and so juicy I left a pool on the plate as I bit into it, with fantastic onion rings and jam and brioche bun.

The last dishes to appear were a plate of roasted cauliflower with cumin, pickled romanescu, raisins and pinenuts for my wife, a pleasant combination, with a nice mix of spice and sweet. I had a plate of Ibérico presa, cooked medium rare on the grill, smoky and rich in flavour, and with a drop dead gorgeous sauce of shallots, capers and lemon, thick, sticky, sweet and tart. I have to say this was one of the best meat dishes I have ever had, astonishingly good, not just for the presa as the sauce was amazing.

We then tried a plate of 3 Manchegos, with some melba toast and quince and walnut jam. I'm a big fan of Manchego and really enjoyed the one with rosemary. Pudding saw us indulge in a few puddings, the cold chocolate fondant with salt caramel, espresso ice cream and coffee crumb and a parfait of Turron, a Spanish nougat, with yoghurt ice cream and apricot sorbet. The chocolate dessert was lovely, rich and filled with an excellent salt and PX caramel, but the Turron parfait was the better of the two, a gorgeous combination with the sweet parfait, tart sorbet and an almost cheesy yoghurt accompanied by a crunchy bed of praline.

The meal served as a reminder that I focus too much on certain types of restaurants, with the majority of my write ups being longer tasting menus and more formal dining, and that I need to spend some time trying some tapas and less formal places. The two Ibérico pork dishes, the burger and presa, were as good as anything I've had before, stand out dishes that will see me return next time we're in the West End for certain. The bill came to £117 and included 2 sherries, 2 peach bellini's.

Butternut squash and sage croquettes.

Roasted salt cod.

Courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese.

Mini Ibérico pork and foie gras burger.

Cauliflower.

Grilled Ibérico presa.

Cold chocolate fondant.

Turron parfait.

Opera Tavern

Terre à Terre

A few days in Brighton (staying at our favourite Hotel Una) saw us having lunch at what could possibly be the best vegetarian restaurant in the country, Terre à Terre. Terre à Terre has a cafe out front, with the main restaurant in a large room with a small open garden and patio at the back, perfect for the warm summers day we were there.

We started with the tapas to share, a huge platter containing a selection of dishes from the menu. All were delicious, with some lovely beetroot soup and sour cream in a shot glass, 2 absolutely fantastic vodka roasted tomatoes, warm and fragrant and unlike any tomato I've had before, corn cakes, some spice covered crispbreads with aubergine dip, smoked tofu and a fabulous ratatouille and burrata.  This was a great selection, and presented a good variety to demonstrate that there was some seriously good food coming out of the kitchen.

My main was an excellent goats cheese ravioli on a particularly good globe artichoke, poached egg on a grana padano sauce and smoked tomato sauce, with a mustard dressed salad providing some crunch from green beans and hazelnuts. The ravioli, egg, cheese and tomato sauces had some excellent deep and rich flavours, My wife had some fantastic beer battered halloumi, chips, preserved lemon relish, pea mint hash and some home made tartar sauce and pickled quails eggs. The batter had a nice crisp, with the lemon relish a stand out, again a quality dish.

Dessert was a gargantuan plate of churros to share, with 6 huge warm churros, a superb caramel sauce, a chocolate sauce with brandy cream and my favourite, vodka cherries. The doughnuts were really good, light and fluffy and the sauces accompanying them absolutely divine. After the huge starter and generous mains, we only managed half of the plate, and the remaining were packaged up for us to bring home.

Our meal at Terre à Terre was really good, with top notch dishes and some very high quality food on offer. Unlike some of the other vegetarian restaurants I know of, this is one that I am happy to visit, losing nothing at all by missing out on meat or fish. We will definitely return to sample more. The bill came to £120 and included an elderflower cocktail and kir royale for my wife, and 2 mango non alcoholic drinks for me.

Brighton has got to be one of the most vegetarian friendly towns in the UK, with Terre à Terre setting standards of vegetarian cooking for all others to aspire too, and the Laines containing not just one but a dozen or so vegan and vegetarian cafes, a far higher concentration than anywhere else, even in London.

Tapas

Sussex Poached Pillow Talk.

Better Batter and Lemony Yemeni Relish.

Churrosimo.

Terre à Terre