Hoxton Apprentice, 16 Hoxton Square London N1 6NT

One sunny weekend (a few weekends ago), the bf and I decided to go to Hoxton Square to bring down the arty atmosphere there a notch or two. Hoxton Square is located near Shoreditch (or possibly, in Shoreditch?) which, come on, everyone knows is an arty sort of area.

For pictures of what the place looks like, check out the link to the restaurant. I didn’t take any pictures in the excitement in finding the place for brunch, though it was a really awesome sunny day, so the pictures would have been soooo good.

Anyway, this restaurant is something different altogether; something I found out while I was on my way to the ladies. Why, you ask (no, not why I was going to the ladies, but why is it different).

Well, as taken DIRECTLY from their website:

Hoxton Apprentice is part of a group of apprentice restaurants owned by the charity, Training For Life. It is a social enterprise combining two purposes – to serve you great modern European food at affordable prices and also to give people who have rather lost their way in life a chance to get their lives back on track, learning the skills that will secure them employment in the hospitality industry.

Which made it even more awe-inspiring that the guy serving us proved to be one of the most polite, attentive, and accommodating waiters we’ve had the pleasure of being served by.

Having only wanted to sit there for a drink, the menu proved too difficult to resist (like most menus). So, we picked the cheapest item there aside from the fries, and ordered it. The Eggs Benedict (about a fiver) was so very yummy.

For that price, we got quite alot. One English muffin (or, I call it, the McDonald’s-style muffin, yes, how un-haute cuisine) halved, toasted, topped with really beautiful, wobbling, delicate little poached eggs, and creamy hollandaise sauce.

Not the best picture of what it should look like, but it sure tasted good.

For the cheapest item on the menu, these fries were one of the best we’ve had.

Most definitely would recommend this place, we really enjoyed it, and would go back there again one sunny weekend.

Google Maps to here!

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Just can't keep the Spam out

And I don't mean the luncheon meat variety (those are nice; fried, baked, deep-fried, grilled, all sorts of ways to cook and eat those but I'll save it for another post).

What I'm referring to are those horrible spam comments with lots and lots of dots at the end of the comment, each dot linking to some other site. These comments are the reason why it's so hard to leave any comments on the blog, as I have to switch on word verification, allow only Google members to leave comments, and then moderate each comment as it comes in (usually lots of spam, and no real comments, but never mind).

So, when Blogspot finally sorts out the issue of spam commenting, you might find it easier to leave actual comments on this blog.

New York eats – Peter Luger, 178 Broadway Brooklyn, N.Y. 11211

May I begin by saying:

This is the best steak house in the world.

I started this blog when I realised that I seemed to remember what I ate better than what I did. Whenever someone asked me what I did or where I went, I’d struggle to sometimes come up with the details, but ask me what I had to eat one day last week and I could probably dredge up the most boring, delicious detail from the menu to the price. So, I thought, what better way to keep a picture journal than with food pictures.

I also wanted to let people know what I ate, and never more so than for this place. Now, when we told family and friends that we were going to New York, we were told, yep, told to go to Peter Luger’s. We were then showed a YouTube video of Peter Luger’s, and which steak house has a YouTube video? (maybe quite a few, who knows)

Being told that this was The Best Steak House in the world (with prices to match), we were kinda sceptical, not to mention slightly frightened by the prospect of paying so much for cow, but anyhow, determined to try it out since we were in the Big Apple, we booked a slot at the restaurant. People told us how difficult it was to book a place. Not at all.

(Granted, it was at 3.45pm on a Friday afternoon. I can’t imagine that being a prime time slot for steak consumption.)

Having got lost from Manhattan to Brooklyn (we walked across the wrong bridge, and then had to take a cab to the restaurant, and NONE of the 3 cabbies we flagged knew where this place was. The guy we finally went with (the 3rd guy) had a running commentary from his walkie-talkie (or taxi-talkie) central person thing and was directed to the place. When we finally got there, it almost felt like we were being taken into shelter from the unfamiliar sights of the Brooklyn streets, and so, settled in with a sigh of relief and hunger to the wooden, big armchairs in the restaurant.

They sure know how to treat lost, hungry people here. Within seconds of being sat down, a basket of warm, fresh bread was brought to the table. The bits on top of the bread were shallots maybe? But this was by far one of the nicest bread basket bread I’d ever had. Slightly chewy when torn apart, it tasted slightly garlicky, almost as though it had been mixed with some garlic-flavoured olive oil.

On the table was a gravy boat, presumably for the steak. It tasted of tomato, but spiced up with something so the overall effect was one of a spicy tomato sauce (NOT ketchup).

Before we arrived, we’d read reviews from places which said things like:
a) You can’t ask for a menu, otherwise they will know you’re a tourist. Well, the huge DSLR on my neck kinda gave that away. This must be why they gave us a menu anyway (and to every other table in the room). Myth de-bunked.
b) You can’t even SAY what meat you want, just the way you want it cooked and for how many people. Again, myth kinda de-bunked because unless you come to a steak house looking for a tuna sandwich, it’s kinda presumed (not unfairly) that you’re coming for steak. The menu is pretty idiot-proof (refer above).

We ordered the Steak For Two. Rare, please, and settled down to wait.

While we waited, I amused myself by seeing how many pictures I could take of stuff around the table.

Bread.

And then, the Steak For Two was brought to the table.

Wait for it …

Keep waiting, it’s worth it.

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Steak For Two, rare. OHMYGOODNESS how much cow is on that plate?!?!

While I gasped and snapped away, you’ll notice that the huge chunk of missing cow from the top left of the plate was silently being consumed by the boyfriend.

The piece of steak which was gingerly put on my plate by the waiter, presumably slightly afraid of my grinning, salivating self. I could barely bring myself to eat it, so I took about a hundred pictures of it, thinking that if I kept snapping and never eating it, it’d remain on the plate. (Highly logical, I must say.)

Then, I remembered how much it cost, and decided to eat it.

Look, I know it’s almost the same picture as above, but look at how beautiful this piece of steak is. It’s almost an insult to call it steak; to class it with other pieces of inferior steak-pretending things. I’ve never had steak like this before, and after eating it, the only name I think is fit for this is:

Cotton-Candy Cow Meat

I can’t even begin to imagine how they cooked this, but the outside was almost charred, and the inside was still pink and quivering. There was a worrying amount of oil (I prefer to think of it as juice, or even, gravy) on the platter, which is why the plate is tilting slightly to the left. It’s something the restaurant staff did for everyone, and not some weight-loss method derived by me, nope.

Like the boyfriend so aptly described it, you didn’t need the steak knife provided because you could just pick the meat up with your fingers and just nibble it gently, and it felt like eating cotton candy (minus the sweet stuff, of course).

How many pictures of steak is enough? Never enough, I say.

Helpful that they put a little reminder that its rare.

When we were done with the pieces around the bone, we started working on the bone, and this is the resultant meatless bone. We must have done well because the waiter came over to marvel at it. Marvel, I say, but it could have been to laugh at it, for all I know. I’ll choose to believe the better version.

Chips that cost us US$10. Expensive, but I must conclude, worth it. Very crispy, and still very rich and satisfying inside.

Then the bill came. But the beef had done so much to impress us that we almost felt like we were glad to pay US$135 for the meal.

Look, you don’t even have to guess if I will recommend this or not, because if you don’t go there, you don’t know what you’re missing.

Google Maps to here!

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New York eats – Lombardi’s, 32 Spring Street New York, NY 10012-4173

From their website - ‘During the year of 1905, Lombardi's was licensed by the City of New York, becoming America's First Pizzeria.’ Which is why we HAD to visit this place when we were in New York.

Jet-lagged, slightly wet from the rain, and so very tired, grumpy, and hungry (these 3 things go together), we traipsed through the wet streets of Little Italy to get to this famed pizzeria. In the dimly lit street, slightly misty from the drizzling rain, we saw the shiny, colourful restaurant standing out like a bright light full of food-y promises.

A friend of ours said that we’d be expecting long queues at this place (not good when one is tired, grumpy and hungry). And so it was to our great surprise when we found NO queue at the restaurant door (only to find the crowd of people huddled by the bar inside, all waiting for their turn). Blah.

Spent a few dollars on some drinks, and started waiting. One nifty trick I found which seems to work is to kinda stand as close as possible to the waitress holding the Power Pad (the pad consisting the waiting list), to kinda be in the way and to ask as often as possible when your table is going to be ready. Granted, this also makes some people look at you funny, and might even get you yelled at, but it also gets you to your table.

Having been led to the table which could not look any more traditional than it did (cheqeured red and white plastic table clothes, Tiffany-style lamp shades, Italian posters on the wall), we were given a one-page menu. Hurray for one-page menus!

Condiments on the table.

Large pizza with 3 toppings US$25.50 – mozzarella, spinach and meatballs. Why? Mozzarella because it’s tough to find any cheese nicer than fresh mozzarella on top of pizza. Spinach because we like the taste of wilted, soft, green spinach on top of bread, and meatballs because they’re meatballs. Mmm mm mm.

The largest pizza ever was then brought to the table, which, without the elevated stand, would never have fit on the table.

The fresh mozzarella was awesome! Soft and stringy, and very creamy in a nice way. The meatballs were spicy, soft, and tender. Spinach, nice and perfectly wilted.

And yes, one slice is huge.

Google Maps to here!

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