Hog Roast at The Red Lion & Sun

I first met Heath Ball, owner of The Red Lion & Sun, at The Ship in Wandsworth. He told me about his pub which is located in Highgate - so far north of the river it's nosebleed-inducing. I knew it was unlikely that I would visit his pub any time in the near future.

However, dangle a carrot in front of a pony and the pony will eventually knock you clean out of the way, wrenching that sweet carrot from your grasp. That is what Heath did to me; the offer of a hog roast. A whole pig on a spit. I gathered 30 of my friends and we made the mission. Immunisations all up to date, we headed to leafy Highgate.

We walked into the garden to be greeted by cute jam jars of Four Roses bourbon, kindly donated by them. I'm not usually a fan of whiskey, but this concoction, full of sweetness and lime, was addictive and thirst quenching. A tray of puffy, crispy crackling dipped in apple sauce kept the hunger pangs at bay while the wafts of pork on the spit wafted over tantalisingly.

The poor piggy had his head chopped off to fit in the spit. A whopping 75kg Gloucester Old Spot, it was basted regularly with bourbon.

Salads were laid out and they were not your usual buffet affair. A multi-coloured tomato salad with plenty of basil featured actually ripe tomatoes that tasted of something. Potato salad had bite and no clag, while the leaves had ribbons of carrots and half moon slivers of red onion. We were never going to make even a dent in the most enormous bowl of white bean salad.

"The foccacia smells like real foccacia!" squealed one Italian lady. I didn't get a bite of it (why eat bread when it could be room for meat?) but everyone that did raved about it.

Photo above by Emma Dickinson

The pork was served to the masses. It was absolutely delicious. I haven't been to a hog roast where I didn't encounter a dry piece of meat, usually from the loin as it's lean and it dries out the quickest. Not here; all of it was juicy and tender. I had 2 platefuls before I had to take a break.

I casually walked past the spit again, and Heath got my attention. "Here, have some belly" - he ripped it straight off the pig with his hands. Oh. My. Silky, fatty, porky, all those adjectives. I shared a bit with a friend and the only noises we could make were "ahhhuhhmmuuuuhhhhhh". It was slightly obscene. Later on, I was accosted with some tenderloin; still pink, it felt like biting into butter.

Claire from D'Arenberg Wines, an Australian winemaker from Adelaide, kindly supplied us with copious amounts of booze. I liked how they all had odd names; my favourite was The Last Ditch. It was a delicious Viognier from 2008 and it matched the food well (if you believe in that kind of thing) - fuzzy fruits and slightly nutty.

We finished up in a far more uncivilised fashion. Oh, those Jägerbombs.

We paid a measly £10 each for all that grub, though we got lucky on the booze front as Four Roses and D'Arenberg catered for us. Poor Heath has gone well and truly off lamb and pork after having roasted hundreds of the beasts in two years, so you should make the most of it and book your next celebration there. Or you don't even have to be celebrating. We had a truly cracking night, to be followed by 3 hours sleep and a dog-rank hangover the next day. Jägermeister for you, I suppose.

Red Lion & Sun

25 North Road
Highgate Village
N6 4BE

Tel: 020 8340 1780

Terroirs Wine Bar

If you saw my Christmas post, you may have deduced that I come from a family of food lovers. Ma and Pops didn't tolerate fussiness and when we were kids, they were liberal in taking us out to restaurants. I remember several occasions of sitting in a restaurant called Spices in Repulse Bay, Hong Kong, while my mum had business lunches. Satay chicken was a favourite, and the green minty-tipped toothpicks excited me. My sister and I were also covertly taken to Singapore on another business trip; we feasted on chilli crabs every evening and blew Mum's cover by wandering into her conference, dripping wet from the pool, having mislaid our hotel key.

Another sticking memory was of dinner with my parents and their friends, where I had my first steak tartare (I think I was 8) and was upset when Mum insisted I shared it with my sister. A darkened pub at a late hour, aged about 11 was where I sampled the finest bowl of Irish stew in memory. My love of restaurants (and pubs...) obviously stemmed from my childhood.

It is with this that I go out for meals with my parents with some trepidation. I suggested we meet at Terroirs Wine Bar; the wine list, mainly comprising of natural wines, looked really interesting - my teetotal mum was enthused by the menu - and it was well located for all of us to head home after.

We were seated downstairs and at 6:30pm there was only one other table seated. Duck scratchings were crisp, salty and (of course) ducky. A glass of 2008 Boisson Rouge Pet Nat was a delicious sparkling companion. The menu is simple and having spotted quite a few dishes I wanted to try, I convinced the table to share a selection of dishes.

The charcuterie selection had slices of saucisson 'Noir de Bigorre', duck rillettes and a slice of pork and pistachio terrine. The rillettes oozed fat and spread unctuously across the bread, while the green-studded terrine went very well with the cornichons and were porkily good.

Squid with aioli was beautifully cooked; the squid was buttery soft though I thought the aioli could do with a more garlicky hit. This may have been the fault of the clams though. Bathed in parsley-stringed buttery juices with strips of cured ham, thin transparent slices of raw garlic decorated the dish. A dried chilli provided a building punchy background. Simple, but stunningly good.

My favourite dish of the night was the Cantabrian anchovies with shallots and butter. Toasted bread, smeared with the butter, piled with the shallots and topped with an anchovy was a lesson in great ingredients. The anchovies weren't too salty but were plump and silky. The shallots added freshness and counteracted the richness of the butter well. I found it a real struggle to share this dish.

By this time, the restaurant was packed to the rafters and there was a lively buzz emanating throughout the restaurant. Service never slipped, and our bottles of tap water were replenished regularly. Dishes (and two baskets of bread) finished, we contemplated ordering a main to share but decided that was overkill and dived straight into the cheeses.

Soumaintrain was served apologetically fridge cold but after leaving it as long as we could to warm up (oh, about a minute) it was pungent, slightly sweet and intense. The Fourme d'Ambert was very blue indeed, but I preferred the stinkier former and Pops hoovered up most of this.

To finish, a refreshing glass of Moscato d'Asti, tasting of pear drops and springtime, was matched with my prune and Armagnac parfait. The parfait was served very simply, with just the right amount of booze in it - Mum made a face on tasting it. The texture was as light as a mousse, with the prunes giving it just enough sweetness.

Dinner was near perfect. I found the cheese servings a little stingy for £3.50 each, but that was my only complaint. Service was sweet and our server valiantly stepped up to the challenge with a a fortified red Banyuls when Pops voiced doubts over whether there were any dessert wines to go with his bitter chocolate pot. We left vowing to come back; after all, there are the main courses to try. A sign of a brilliant find.

Terroirs Wine Bar

5 William IV Street
London WC2N 4DW

Tel: 0207 036 0660

Our bill came to £130 with service

In a Drunken State

I was recently invited to a press and bloggers' brunch to preview Towards A Fluid State. It was organised by Angela Newell and Hayley Sudbury, the duo that make up The Tasting Sessions - "curators when it comes to social lubrication"- it promised to be a boozy and fun affair. Boozy and fun I like.

So one Saturday morning not so long ago, I made my way to Broadway Market. Hackney isn't an area I frequent very often, and anticipating getting lost, I was infact almost an hour early. No matter; Broadway Market was bustling in the crisp autumn sunshine, and I busied myself with a banh mi, a delicious Vietnamese baguette washed down with some rocket fuel coffee. When the time came, I headed for the venue. Upon entry, I was handed a test tube of clear liquid. I was warned not to shot it, and I wondered if my reputation preceeded me. The liquid was infact 80% proof and had a strong flavour of mustard. When mixed into the Bloody Mary I was given, it made for a great drink.

We whizzed through a few tastings; biodynamic Champagne paired a vegan canape, a couple of whiskeys paired with cheese. Gin cocktails came with a bit of molecular gastronomy - spheres of fruity cocktail dissolved in the mouth. A couple of 'geishas' arrived to herald the tasting of an earthy sake made from brown rice.


Next up, a troop of black caped people came in, carrying black balloons and gave us pins. I could see what the end point was going to be, but I was nervous. I am not a fan of needles and everywhere I looked people were brandishing them. On the count of three we were ordered to puncture the balloons, and a sweet, vanilla-scented aroma filled the room, one apparently found in Couvoisier. After a tasting of this and a quick munch of some Bompas & Parr Courvoisier flavoured jellies, we were then given a breakdown of what we had consumed and promptly told to eat it. Rice paper menus.

We ended the two hour stint with a tasting of a very exclusive Courvoisier, poured by an impossibly glamourous, white-gloved representative of the company.

We stumbled out into the blinding daylight, headed for the pub across the road to digest our brunch over a few pints. I didn't really know what to expect from the afternoon, but if this preview is anything to go by then I would suggest getting tickets to the actual event at a Dalston warehouse on the 5th December quick snap. Slightly surreal, informative and lots of fun.

http://towardsafluidstate.com/
Tickets from £16.50.

Just in case you think I've suddenly acquired some snazzy camera skills, sadly this is not true. Photos are from The Tasting Sessions and the full set can be viewed here.

Tejo and the Cork Forests

After a heavy night quaffing wine, downing some gin, and a 4am dirty burger scoff I awoke after 3 hours sleep to shuffle towards a coach to take us to the cork forests north of Lisbon. Hosted by the Quinta do Lagoalva, a two hour journey took us here. I was expecting clusters and clusters of trees, but instead there weren't many. The cork trees were a stunning colour; recently stripped, they were the same colour as the cows that were milling around in an adjacent field. Amorim, a leading cork producer, sponsored our trip and I have to admit, the hungover fuzz meant I didn't listen to our guide, Carlos, as much as I should have. Nevertheless, the cork trees were fascinating. Some were over 100 years old but can live up to double. The cork is only harvested after 25 years and is used for a variety of things; shoes, life jackets, that sort of thing.

A quick demonstration on how the cork is stripped showed that great skill and care is needed. One wrong move, a cut too deep means that the tree becomes scarred and won't heal properly.


After this, we moved off to Quinta do Lagoalva taste some wines. Some refreshing roses, dry whites and full bodied reds were tasted, and it was perhaps the first time I've spat (elegantly I'm sure...) - it was a bit early in the day for my fragile state. The winemakers showed us the wines they had on offer and they were an interesting bunch, later sitting down with us for lunch to sample more of their delicious wines. In addition to this we had a jaunty tour round the vineyards in a horse and cart.

Lunch was a simple but tasty affair consisting of a well-dressed salad, pork in walnut sauce, rice bejewelled with sultanas and, much to our delight, an industrial tub of praline ice cream. We finished off with a 46 year old dessert wine, thanked the Tejo winemakers (pictured above) and hopped back aboard the bus. I assumed we were homeward bound, but in fact we were making a quick stop at a cork factory.

It was truly an awesome sight. Piles and piles of cork stacked in neat piles covered an area as far as the eye could see. It would have made a brilliant adventure maze; having ventured down an aisle of cork it was eerily quiet, almost soundproof. We wondered what it would be like to live in a house made of cork. Carlos did a quick question and answer session which became not-so-quick. He did his best to explain to us how the cork industry have been trying to combat cork taint, in finding the best possible way to treat the cork. I got a bit distracted and wandered off, poking and prodding bits of bark here and there.

We arrived back in Lisbon, a full 9 hours later but a day well worth dragging my corpse out of bed for. I was a shell of the person I once was, but gamely soldiered on. Dinner, drinks and a bit of dancing later, I declared myself spent and was in bed by 2am. Rock n' roll.

Vinoble Wine Tasting in Lisbon

You may have gathered from my last post that I spent a long weekend in Lisbon, for 2009's European Wine Bloggers' Conference. I'm not a wine blogger, nor have I done many posts on wine. I write about what I know, and as I don't know a lot about wine, I've never been very confident in writing about it. I am aiming to change this and this weekend was a step in the right direction.


On the first night, we remarked on the irony that we drank absolutely no wine whatsoever. After a few Super Bocks down by the water we gorged ourselves with roasted chicken, and then hit the ginjinha bars - little holes in the wall selling little plastic cupfuls of brandy, drank on the streets. The bottles were packed full of cherries and we got a couple of cherries in our cups at one or two places. The brandy ranged from tasting like cough syrup at worst, to a lovely fruity liquer at best. The soaked cherries were potent. We wobbled back to our hostel.

Nursing a slightly fuggy head the next day, we made our way to the rather plush Grand VIP Lisboa, where the conference was being held, and where we were to stay for the rest of our trip. On the first evening, we faced two formal tastings; one with Vinoble and the next with the Douro Boys. We were to taste a mammoth 26 wines. I was nervous. Tweets flew around warning us to spit the wine, or we'd never make it through. I've never spat wine out.

We entered the room and were faced with tables and tables of Riedel glasses set up in a crescent shape around each seat. A friend remarked that there must be at least £10,000's worth of glasses in the room. It was a nightmarish situation; there isn't usually an evening that goes by that I don't knock a wine glass. These would go down like very expensive dominoes.

We kicked off with a Vinoble's tasting of dessert wines. To start, an almond flavoured, caramelised Gran Barquero Amontillado was surprisingly dry for a sweet wine. Lustau Solera Reserva Amontillado Escuadrilla followed swiftly. Aged in American oak casks, it smelled a bit vegetal and salty. The nutty flavour wasn't immediate and was more of an aftertaste. I found it tasted better on the second sip.

One of my favourites of the evening was Apostol Palo Cortado VORS. It had a rich caramel flavour, and smelled nutty and of toast and buttery. It had a sharp finish that livened you up some, like a smack round the face. I was enjoying this tasting. Quevedo Colheita 1994 was a dark rich red colour, and was dark soft fruits on the nose. It was very sweet, coating the mouth with syrup.
The Moscatel Roxo 1999, above, was another favourite of mine. It was a beautiful light amber colour, and having been aged for 8 years in old oak barrels previously used for whiskey, I expected it to have a more oaky flavour. Instead, it was flowers, herbs and grass. It had just a hint of sweetness and had a light, tea-flavoured finish.

The Justino Henriques Colheita Fine Rich 1995, saw a return to nuttiness. It was a deep, dark brown and quite dry. A rather stark contrast to the wine we'd tried previously. The penultimate wine, Sandeman Vintage 2007 was the only in the tasting that I disliked. It was peppery, spicy and of cloves, with an earthy hint of soil. I'd heard murmurings that it was too young.

The final wine we tried was a Pedro Ximénes Gran Orden. It was the colour of iodine, and stained a yellowish tinge to the glass. It smelled of molasses, figs, and reminded me of Christmas. It tasted intensely of toasted raisins, and I didn't get a lot past that.

After this, we breaked for a glass of beer, apparently a good palate cleanser. I was cheered by my first foray into a formal tasting; no glasses were broken by my hand, and as I looked back at my notes they sounded coherent. I hope you think so too.

Guilty Pleasures Dinner Party

One blustery night after a wine tasting meet-up, myself and some food and wine bloggers got talking about our guilty pleasures. The sort of things that you're shame-faced to admit, but absolutely insist that they're delicious. Crisp sandwiches were mentioned, and when I volunteered Spam ramen noodles, I got a chorus of "bleeeuuuurrgghh!" Well! Hmmppf.

So, we decided to have a Guilty Pleasures dinner party. Myself, Niamh, Chris, Helen and Dan from Bibendum met up at Denise's lovely flat (I got massive flat envy). On the menu: Cheesy sausage biscuits (picture above, Denise), Marmite and cucumber sandwiches (Helen), Spam ramen noodles by my good self, Bovril on toast (Chris), macaroni cheese (Niamh), and a blind tasting from Dan with wines from Bibendum - the theme being 'everyday wines you’ll probably like’ vs. ‘posher wines you should like but might not’.

So, after starting the evening off with gin martinis, we kicked off with the cheesy sausage biscuits. They were delicious - slightly herby and warm. Once I get my hands on some Bisquick I am making me some of these. Helen's Marmite and cucumber sandwiches, specifically on white bread, were next and were great, with no hint of sogginess.

Next: Spam Ramen Noodles. Everyone loved them! (No, really, they did). It was quite a common dish when I was growing up; in fact, much of Hong Kong and South East Asia (as well as Hawaii) still love their Spam without shame. I promised a recipe, so here it is...

Spam Ramen Noodles

Serves 6

1 block of instant noodles per person
1 large tin of Spam, sliced into 1/2 inch pieces
3 spring onions, sliced on the diagonal
Light soy sauce
Toasted sesame oil

In a non-stick pan, add the slices of Spam. There's no need to add any oil, Spam is quite fatty enough. Fry until crispy on both sides, and leave to drain on kitchen paper. Add the noodles to a pot of boiling water and stir with a fork or chopsticks to loosen the noodles. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes. Add a few splashes of soy sauce and a drizzle of sesame oil to each bowl, then divide up the noodles with a few tablespoons of the cooking water to moisten. Toss the noodles, then lay the Spam slices on top, garnish with the spring onions. Eat with gusto, then cry a little about how guilty you feel. Or not - as you can see from the photo, the dishes were polished off.


Next, came the macaroni cheese. It was impressive - a huge baking tray filled with the stuff. It was seriously tasty too, due to an inclusion of bacon, and topped with panko breadcrumbs for added crunch. I like to eat mine with ketchup, which I suppose may be another guilty pleasure of mine.

By this time, there was some bloating occuring. It's not easy eating all this stodge, but we soldiered on gamely. Bovril on toast surprised us by being on rather artisan toasted sourdough, slathered with butter. Delicious, and really comforting. It must've been a night of revelation as Dan had never tried Marmite, Spam or Bovril.

So what about the wines? I get a bit lost when it comes to tastings. I can get the flavours once someone mentions them, but conjuring them up on my own is difficult for me. The first were two whites - #1 was Katnook Founders Block ‘07 Chardonnay, which I vastly preferred to #2 - a 1er cru ‘03 Meursault. Incidentally, most of the wines tasted better when eaten with a sliver of the extremely delicious Tomme de Savoire cheese Dan had brought.

Next up we had rosés. The first one I could barely drink; it was sweet and sickly, much too much so for my palate. The second, a salmon pink colour was much more palatable and I loved it, possibly my favourite of the night; I remember drinking rosé similar to this when I was in Provence briefly last year. Anyway, they were revealed as California Zinfandel ‘07 Delicato for the first - eurgh! - and the second as Chateau des Sarrins Cotes de Provence ‘07 Rose. Lovely stuff.

Lastly, the reds, and an Old World vs. New. I much prefered the Los Alamos '06 Cabernet Sauvignon to the Les Tourelles de Longueville 2003, Pauillac.

So what did I learn? I have common taste in wine, unless it's a rosé. But then I knew that anyway.

All in all, a great night, rounded off by a selection of ales, some seriously tasty Eis Wein and... er... some penny sweets. It was pleasurable, and I sure felt guilty by how much cheese I'd consumed.

St John

I was recently invited to St John's for dinner. Shortly afterwards, the Michelin list came out; St John had been awarded a star. Most excellent timing.

I had been meaning to go to St John for a while; nose-to-tail eating sounds great and also challenging. I'm not offal's biggest fan - kidneys and liver aren't my favourite, but I do like tripe, so I was looking forward to pushing my own boundaries a bit.

Myself and a few other bloggers (Niamh, Helen G, Helen, Chris) were kindly invited along by Rob from Wine Conversation so that he could tell us about some wines that we were drinking, and in turn talk about the impact on social media tools - such as Twitter - as well as food, drink, and general banter.

So, upon arrival I was surprised to see the restaurant itself looking quite spartan. High ceilings, stone floors and plain tablecloths is very different from what I'd expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant, but there was a heathy buzz in the restaurant and a lot of full tables. We were seated in the private room, which was perfect due to so many of us taking photos!

To start, I ordered the 'Pig's Head & Radishes'. In my mind I expected some sort of pressed terrine, and was quite surprised when I got this. Amongst the radishes there were chunks of pork, quite fatty and flavoursome pieces. The radishes worked well in this dish. The contrasting textures were very pleasing, and it was all lightened with a warm vinaigrette. Excellent crusty bread helped mop up all the lovely juices.

Others had the signature dish from St John, the 'Roast Bone Marrow on Toast with Parsley Salad'. It was an impressive plate, with the bones standing tall like the pillars of the Colosseum. Armed with what looked like a torture instrument with which to extract the marrow, the bones released a luscious paste with which to spread on the toast. The parsley and caper salad was perfect to cut through the richness of it.

With this, we had the first of the wines, a white Rioja. I had commented that I'd not had a white Rioja but apparently it's not that common to find it. This wine was perfect, and possibly my favourite of the night - it was light and refreshing, matching my pork dish perfectly.

Next came the mains. When I first saw the menu, I saw several things that I wanted to try - roast kid, woodcock, teal, ox hearts. But one thing caught my eye, which was 'Chitterlings & Turnips'. I've never seen chitterlings on a menu before, and I wanted to seize the opportunity to give them a go. I've had pig's intestines in Chinese cuisine before, but I don't remember much about how it tasted. Besides which, in true food envy paranoia, I made Helen promise I could try her roast kid dish...

When the plate arrived, I was surprised to see the size of it - I shouldn't have eaten so much bread... I loved the turnips; they were juicy and had absorbed much of the porky goodness. The pork itself was tender and some pieces fell apart at the touch of a fork - other pieces had a pleasing, jelly-like wobble. The Dinastia Vivanco Crianza was my favourite red; it was robust, slightly smoky and stood up well to the meaty mains.

Speaking of jelly-like wobbles, this rhubard jelly, compote and shortbread was one of the highlights of the food. The jelly was just the right consistency and was the right side of sour. The sugary shortbread and the custard balanced it out perfectly and was a light and refreshing end to the meal.

I had a great time at St John - good food, excellent wine and great company. I must say it's very different from other Michelin starred restaurants and I did come away feeling a bit confused about them being awarded one. Of course the food was gorgeous in it's own right (although perhaps I over-did it with the double pig courses), but when compared to places I've been to like Maze, Benares and Umu, it wasn't really in the same league. I mean, there was no one to walk me to the toilet or to pull my chair out for me - or even to pick my napkin off the floor (!). That says a lot, really; obviously these things aren't always needed.

The great thing is that the menu is contstantly changing, meaning I have an excuse to go back.

Edit - check out Rob's excellent post for more info on the wines we drank.