In a week when Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money generated a fever of column inches, RiRi herself was less concerned with accusations of racism and misogyny and more concerned about breakfast. Instructing @chefdebbiesolomon to look out for “portion control”, the chef basically trolled her boss. But, as Solomon says, #atleastyougottwopancakes. I’m more disappointed in RiRi for that portion control: always took her for a fellow sausage roll lover. No, not a double entendre. This modern culture stuff is tricky.
This, on the other hand, wasn’t an amusing chefly jape, but an actual sandwich served to an actual customer by Eat at Edinburgh airport. It has since spread far and wide (unlike its filling), which makes me feel terrible pain for* the Eat marketing department.
*laugh like a drain at
And another. Someone from Lunya, the excellent Liverpool Spanish deli and restaurant, after being served this horror, offered to take over Virgin’s catering for the day. Virgin has yet to take it up on the offer.
This week’s GIMME. I love that it was made as a thank-you for a dentist.
Being a firm, devoted adherent to the Neapolitan model, I’ve never quite got the idea of a thin, bendy, giant “pie”, to be sold in slices and folded over in order to facilitate ramming into (frequently over-refreshed) gobs. They remind me too much of sleazy, Lewis CK-style eating on the hoof, or those places that squat around London’s Oxford Circus or Leicester Square, flogging slowly congealing atrocities to tourists too dim to do a modicum of research. This new outlet in Charing Cross Road – New York Fold – with its imported mozzarella, “secret dough recipe” and actual New Yorker owners, is making all the right noises to challenge my prejudice.
Am tempted to blame Noma and its ant-eating proclivities for this (again), but I remember necking ant martinis (the glasses rimmed with the insects) with my rattlesnake chilli at Exmouth Market’s Edible, many years before the Nordic lot got the, er, bug. But wait! Turns out this is “a joint venture between experimental Copenhagen-based Nordic Food Lab” - AHA! – “and the world’s first gin tailor, The Cambridge Distillery”. Yours for £210. But you do get a free 50ml bottle of pure wood ant distillate, so that’s all right then.
Oh, those chefs. They love doing things to themselves with food. But this, from Ignacio Mattos, chef of NY’s hugely lauded Estela, is a new one on me.
Not even a clue what this banana, marshmallow, Nutella, waffle monstrosity is. But @eatlikeyoureondeathrow – who appears to be something of a food terrorist – certainly doesn’t lack creativity.
I’m a huge fan of Mission, the wine bar (concentrating on Californian varietals) and restaurant in a moody set of arches in Bethnal Green in east London. Its regular menu is thoughtful and well executed – and I’d travel quite the distance for its toasted cheese sarnie. But its 4th of July BBQ brunch, starring these gently bronzing beasts, was, as they say, next level. I hope it makes a habit of it.
Got a great food pic? Feed @MarinaO’Loughlin on Twitter or Marinapoloughlin on Instagram using #FoodFeed
