Grub Excursion #15 London- Cha Cha Moon

When I was in London I took the opportunity to meet up with an old Uni friend for tea. She suggested we go for dinner at Cha Cha Moon.

This is a little noodle restaurant located just off Carnaby St. Like many other oriental restaurants you sit on long bench seats. There is low atmospheric lighting, and an open kitchen.

The menu has an interesting mix of noodles, soups and stir fries. The range of dishes is completely different to anything I had ever seen, which is explained by the blurb on the website: 'Cha Cha Moon... goes beyond noodle pop culture and in to the soul of regional Chinese cooking'.

I had the Crispy duck lao mian, the noodles were delicious and the duck was perfectly cooked and crispy. The spring rolls were very average, but the chicken dumplings were really special.

The bill for 2 of us including drinks was only £26, which is a bargain for a delicious dinner, especially in central London.

Cha Cha Moon

*Cool Noodle Bar
*Reasonable Prices
*Excellent regional dishes

15-21 Ganton Street
London
W1F 9BN
020 7297 9800

Grub Excursion #15 London- Neal's Yard Dairy

I do love cheese, and so no visit to London would be complete without going to Neal's Yard Dairy. This shop sells cheese mostly from the British Isles.

This place is a wonderful cheese shrine, with all the cheese stacked in huge blocks on the counter. The staff are incredibly knowledgeable, and will quite happily stand and chat with passion about the cheese whilst letting you try sample after sample after sample.

I bought chunks of Colston Bassett Stilton, Gubbeen, and Flower Marie sheep milk cheese, all totally delicious and all fairly priced.

Anyone who appreciates good cheese should make sure they visit this place, even if its just to experience the wonderful smell in the shop and to reassure yourself it's quite normal to get excited about cheese!

Neal's Yard Dairy

*Wide selection of British cheeses
*Passionate, knowledgeable staff
*Reasonable prices

17 Shorts Gardens
LONDON
WC2H 9AT
020 7240 5700

Website

Grub Excursion #15 London- Paul A Young Chocolate

After asking for suggestions for places to visit on Twitter, @chocablog and @nalsa both recommended that I visit the Paul A Young shop for chocolate. Looking at the website made me remember that I had seen Paul before on TV, and that made me really want to go try his chocolate for myself!

I visited the branch at the Royal Exchange on Threadneedle St. Its only a tiny little shop with the chocolate laid out on trays to one side. There was also a pan of wonderful smelling hot chocolate bubbling away on the counter.

The assistant in the shop was really helpful suggesting flavours. He told me that all the chocolates are made fresh by hand by Paul himself, making me realise that £13 for a box of 9 was actually pretty good value considering the quality and care involved in their production.

The chocolates were presented in a sturdy little box and wrapped with a ribbon. I also got a chocolate pecan brownie.Needless to say the chocolates were amazing, wonderful flavours, and shiny beautiful chocolate. My favourite was the Sloe Gin variety, that was just genius!

The assistant told me that they needed to be eaten within 7 days... no danger of them ever lasting that long.

I'm definitely coming back here next time I visit London.


Paul A Young Fine Chocolates

*Beautiful handmade chocolate
*Traditional and alternative flavours
*Top quality treat or gift

20 Royal Exchange,
Threadneedle Street,
London
EC3V 3LP
020 7929 7007

Website

Grub Excursion #15 London- Paul

On another recommendation from the Heavenly Housewife I visited Paul. There are several outlets all across the city, but I decided to visit the Old Compton St branch.

The window is adorned with beautiful pastries and breads, it looked every bit the traditional French patisserie. I chose to have a slice of the coconut flan, and a cured ham, pear, rocket and Boursin sandwich. Together they were just over £6 to take out.

The sandwich was really good, fresh and crispy (I don't always like really crispy bread in sandwiches as it can be difficult to bite through). All of the ingredients were lovely and although sounding a bit unusual, worked really well together.The flan was amazing, dense and eggy and absolutely packed with coconut. Simple but delicious.

Paul

*Good quality
*Several locations in London
*Cheaper to take away

Old Compton St
49 Old Compton Street
London W1D 6HL
020 7287 6261

Website

Grub Excursion #15 London- Laduree

I visited the small Laduree store in Burlington Arcade, just of Piccadilly after reading the wonderful reviews from the Heavenly Housewife of their Macaroons. The shop took the form of an amazing grotto, with all the shelves were embellished with gold, the jewel coloured macaroons laid out in neat little rows.

Like all things posh and London, these little things weren't cheap- working out at just over £1 each. I purchased 8, beautifully presented in a fancy box.

Its worth noting that unlike her faultless colleagues the girl at the till was a bit rude, she took my card and then turned her back to polish some shelves. After about 3 minutes I asked if I could have my card back and she replied- its still processing, it takes ages... I wish she had told me that before, then I wouldn't have felt so abandoned!

Anyway, back to the Macaroons, they looked so lovely in their box I was really excited to try them. They were as macaroons should be, crisp on the outside and gooey in the middle. The pistachio and chocolate were by far the best, I found the 'jam' centre in the fruit varieties a bit strange, but they were still nice.Overall as a treat the Laduree macaroons were lovely, but actually no better than ones I have had at Anthony's (for a fraction of the price) so that's Leeds 1 London 0!

Laduree

*Lovely flavour macaroons
*Wonderful presentation
*Expensive treat

71-72 Burlington Arcade
London
W1J 0QX
0207 491 9155

Website

The Fox in Menston

We decided to go on a little jolly out to the countryside for a pub dinner. The Fox is a 5 minute walk from Menston station which is just a short train ride from Leeds.

The moment you step inside the pub you are taken back by the warm cozy feeling. The lights are low and there are roaring open fires. The decor is fresh and modern but retains a really cozy country pub feel.

The menu has a range of traditional foods and some modern dishes. I had a broccoli and Stilton soup for starter and Liam had an amazing looking (ok so the photo doesn't do it justice) bruchetta with bacon and creamed mushrooms.

For the main course I had a traditional scampi and chips and Liam had an immense mixed grill.
The food was all lovely, nothing over the top or totally amazing, but tasty and good value and the service was very (almost embarrassingly over) polite and attentive.

We didn't have room for pudding so we toddled off back to the station and onto the train back into Leeds.

The Fox

*Comfortable and cozy
*Delicious pub lunches
*Very polite welcoming staff

129 Bradford Rd
Menston
LS29
01943 873 024

Website

Merkato Ethiopian Cafe

We visited Merkato as part of Home for Tea. The food we had was donated, but it was so good I thought it would only be polite to do a micro review!

Merkato is located in the Merrion Market, a slightly strange and sadly empty market space at the back of the Merrion Centre.

Merkarto is a small and simple affair with a few tables inside the cafe and a couple of sofas outside (but still really inside as its all in the covered market!)

We were given a traditional platter of Injera, a Ethiopian flatbread, with a spongy texture and a slightly sour taste. On top of this were various different piles of meat stews and seasoned vegetable dishes.

There was no cutlery, you just tear off a piece of bread and use that to scoop up the stews.

Everything was delicious, the bread soft, the stews lightly spiced and the meat tender.

Although we didn't pay this time, the prices on the menu were really reasonable, only £3- £4 a dish, and they do take away too.

This place is well worth a visit, we discovered African restaurants are hard to come by in this city and Merkato is an example of a really unique hidden gem, plus the staff are lovely!

Merkato

*Traditional Ethiopian food
*Good value
*Quirky location

79 Merrion Market
Merrion Centre
LS2 8NJ

07961 883500/ 07930 649061

Nash's Fish and Chips

The famous Nash's on Merrion Street has this week reopened. As I was one of the first people to sign up to their mailing list I was delighted to find out that I had won a free lunch for 4 in the restaurant!

There are no pretensions at Nash's, this is an old fashioned fish and chip shop, the menu is based around fish and chips (with a few fishy starters and a couple of pies) and the restaurant is decorated in a traditional way.

Emma and I had a rather tasty lobster bisque for a starter. Liam had the mackerel pate, which was good but the huge portion was too much to be spread on the two little slivers of toast that came with it. Mill had the Whitby crab mayonnaise, which was a similar sized portion to the pate, and nice but we all agreed not amazing. It was rather sweet served in a mini kilner jar but in my mind not worth the £6.50 price tag.

For our main course we couldn't have anything other than the fish and chips. Served with mushy peas (beans for me cause I really don't like peas!) and bread and butter.

The chips were fluffy with crispy skins and the fish batter was as light as air, with no hint of grease and the fish was soft and delicate, pretty much perfect, and good value for £7.95 a portion to eat in.

The service was good and the fish and chip portions were huge. My advice would be forget the starters and just have the fish and chips.

This place isn't trying to be anything new and trendy, but if you want a good dinner with a bit of nostalgia, or somewhere to take your nan on her birthday this is a great place.

I have also just noticed that they have pineapple fritters on the take out menu. That makes it a winner in my book!

Nash's Fish and Chips

*Traditional Fish and Chips
*Huge Portions
*Take away available

17 Merrion Street
Leeds
LS2 8JE
Website
0113 2855960

Make Bake and Grow

On Sunday the third Charming Armley Cake Competition was held, this year under the name of Make Bake and Grow. This meant that this year along with the baking there were classes for craft, vegetables and home brew.

I submitted 2 entries, a cookie cake pie constructed of a sweet pie crust, peanut butter and oatmeal cookie, Nutella, and vanilla sponge. I iced it with pink icing and star sprinkles (I chose pink as my friend who works at Bettys said people prefer pink because they think it tastes better!) You can read about the origins of Cookie Cake Pies from their inventer Cakespy. Anyway my effort came second in its class so I was well pleased with that!

My other entry was in the 'Pimp that Snack' catagory inspired by the website of the same name. I was actually rather dissapointed that I was the only entry in the class, as I wanted a bit of competition and to see what other people had done. Anyway here is my default winning Giant Crunchie. Made with cinder toffee, cast in a shoe box and coated with chocolate.
I won a lovely recipie book and 2 huge bags of Dr Oetker (AKA Supercook) baking goodies.

My favourite category again was the kiddies, there were some wonderfully decorated entries!

There was also entertainment from Briggate Morris including a dance workshop and some singing from Mik Artistik and wonderful craft stalls.

The winners table (taken through the marquee window):

It was an excellent event once again, so thanks to the guys at the Armley Tourist Board for organising it!

Make Bake Grow Blog and Facebook

Havana Cultura Leeds Events

Just to let you know that Havana Rum will be hosting some great events in Leeds over the next few weeks under the banner of Havana Cultura.

At each event there will be Feature DJ’s, live percussion, giveaways, tastings and the
music will include the best Cuban DJ’s, pioneers of Reggaeton, Latin, World, Jazz Funk, Including MC Magico – the first Cuban hip hop MC in UK

*16th @ Boutique - DJ GIB (Brasilian Beats/Spanish Harlem) Plus latin hiphop/reggaeton MCs MAGICO (Colombia) and FLOWIRAN (Cuba)

*29th @ Jakes - DJ LUBI (FANIA RECORDS) Plus latin hiphop/reggaeton MCs MAGICO (Colombia) and FLOWIRAN (Cuba)

*13th November @ Wardrobe - •Gilles Peterson, DJ Lubi, The Cultura Band, Sinbad

If you like the sound of this you may wish to visit the Havana Cultura website Where you can read about all sorts of things including an album launch.

There will also be a treasure hunt on Twitter so follow @_havanacultura_ #havanaleeds if you want to get involved.