Happy New Year

HNY one and all! I wanted to take a few minutes to share some of my favourite moments from the past year as I am extremely grateful for how much my life has changed in just 365 days. 

Georgie's Top 2014 Moments

• Visiting River Cottage for their Pig in a Day course and staying at the very nice Deer Park Inn
• Experiencing Austin, Texas and SXSW
• Being offered a job at the end of the graduate programme - better yet, being offered a job that I very much wanted
• Finally feeling like part of something and feeling like I am making a difference at work
• Working with some amazing people who make me feel like I can do anything
• Crosstown Doughnuts
• Reintroducing an old friend into my life who makes every day a little bit better
• Meeting Felicity Cloake and taking part in her Food Writing Masterclass
• Eating at The British Larder and Duck and Waffle
• Sausagefest.
• Getting drunk with my mum at a very posh restaurant.
• Finally feeling sure of who I am and what I like - then sticking to it!
• Getting my new tattoo with my BFFL
• Seeing Slash and Myles Kennedy then staying up to the wee hours to play GTA5 with three of the best people ever.
• Too many whiskies.
• Creating something and successfully launching it out into the world! 
• Moving into our new flat and finally having more than one room.
• Sheen Living.
• Chinnabons.
• Coffee.

The Great London Coffee Series - Peloton & Co

Crisp Autumn days with crunchy russet leaves and bright blue skies deserve good coffee and warm jumpers. I used to be unable to drink coffee at all without my heart feeling like it was about to burst through my chest. But after many years of slowly dripping caffiene into my body, I can enjoy the drug of choice for London's workers. A large part of my job is understanding coffee bars and how they integrate into the hospitality business, so naturally my interest in coffee has expanded vastly over the last year - I am even a trained barista! 

 I am now a coffee snob and proud. 

As a result of this, a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a copy of London's Best Coffee's Speciality Coffee Map of London (2nd Edition) via their Facebook page. Their are so many fantastic independent coffee shops in London and without a guide to tell you where they are, you can drown in the number to choose from. 

This weekend, whilst at Old Spitalfields Market, we hit our first map shop - Peloton & Co.

 

Typography geek that I am - I love the logo at Peloton & Co, what a great font! It is half bicycle shop/half coffee bar and is as hip as East London requires. They use their own house blend coffee - Butterworth & Son Espresso and use Goodwood non-homogenised milk to compliment.

I had a Flat White and Rob had a Cortado. As a first test of the coffee map, it was definitely a winner. It was so beautifully smooth and naturally sweet, and gone way too quickly. Even the cortado, with it's bitter kick of strong espresso was delicious. Even the blue Peloton & Co cups were impossible not to fall in love with. 

A must visit for anyone in the Spitalfields area.

Crab House Cafe

When you move into your first flat in central London, you realise that you can never go outside again. Because going outside means spending money, money that you don't have. So I've had to say goodbye to evenings out on the town, eating at restaurants and visiting the cinema on any day other than 'Orange Wednesdays'. Last weekend I was lucky enough to obtain a cheap train ticket home to Bournemouth. So I took the opportunity to have a good catch up with my best friend. As a lover of all things seafood, he decided that we absolutely needed to visit a particular restaurant in Weymouth, Crab House Cafe. It was the first time I'd been out on a Saturday night since goodness knows when. 

We embarked on the epic journey to this hidden gem in his little Fiat Panda and I worried that my ever-growing food standards would hinder my enjoyment of the evening. It's a long way to go for a bit of fish. But after our meal, I would have traveled a hundred miles further. It was a particularly chilly night, with a cutting wind blowing from the waterside, so we wasted no time in getting through the door. We were greeted immediately by (probably) the happiest looking man I have ever met - Alex was convinced that the waiter fancied him, totally disregarding the fact that he might just enjoy his job. The atmosphere in Crab House Cafe is a relaxed and rustic, with the kitchen slap bang in the center and fish counter laden with their succulent fresh catches. 

We were given our menu - which changes daily depending on what they have caught - and a wine list to peruse. A small menu is a virtue and I still really struggled to decide what to have. Their wine list had a good selection of wines and beers to accompany the seafood. Alex chose their house Oyster Stout, which was smooth, treacle-y and aromatic, whilst I opted for a glass of Sauvignon Blanc (Isabella da Silva, 2010, Chile). Recently I have had some bad luck with Sauvignon Blancs (one of the only white wines I enjoy drinking), but this was crisp, fruity and sweet. It went down very easily to say the least. On the house, we were brought a board of bread and olives laced with seafood. As any good diner knows, you don't fill up on bread before you meal but the farmhouse look of this miniature loaf was begging to be ripped apart.

Spicy Mussel Bisque

Country Oysters

To start we had the Country Oysters (oysters cooked in cream with bacon) and a Spicy Mussel Bisque. I am a big oyster fan but have never tried the cooked variety before. You do lose the seawater tang in the cooking but the flavour coming from the sauce was worth it. Half a dozen was not enough. The mussel bisque was presented beautifully and had quite a kick to it. It was heady, rich and not overpowering - a beautiful bisque.

Plaice stuffed with Crab and Cheese

Sand Sole cooked in garlic oil

As soon as our starters had been cleared, our mains arrived. Alex opting for the Plaice stuffed with crab and cheese and myself for the Sand Sole cooked in garlic oil. The two sand sole fillets came off the bone incredibly easily and were perfectly cooked. On a bed of roast vegetables and potatoes and with a deliciously pungent sauce, this was a satisfying (and surprisingly filling) meal. 

Dorset Apple Cake with Cream

Chocolate Bourbon Tart with Whisky Chantilly Cream and Chocolate Wine.

I wasn't going to have a dessert as I was already full until I saw the Chocolate Bourbon Tart with Whiskey Chantilly Cream and Chocolate Wine. If not for the curiosity behind chocolate wine itself (was that just a really pretentious way of saying chocolate sauce?), then for the combination of two of my great loves - chocolate and bourbon. Alex was handed a sizeable slice of Dorset Apple Cake with cream and my tart arrived looking as good as it tasted. It turns out chocolate wine is genuinely just chocolate wine and was served in the cutest little glass I have ever seen (so easily pleased). The only criticism I have of Crab House Cafe is that my pastry was a little bit rock solid and quite difficult to cut through. It could have done with a little more time to come up to room temperature. But this didn't distract too much from the exquisite taste. 

I have to say that this is, without a doubt, the best meal I have eaten all year. Alex states that it was the best meal that he has ever eaten. Go to the Crab House Cafe for the crab, for the excellent service, for the skilled chefs, for the reasonable prices, for the changing menu, for the oyster farm. Just go, you won't be disappointed.  

Outsider Tart

Wide leafy roads. Delicatessens. Hazy afternoon sun. Yummy mummys guarding their Mamas and Papas pram whilst indulging in skinny lattes and artisan croissants. It can only be Chiswick. Those who have been to Chiswick will know how appealing it's peaceful streets can be. Filled with quality shops, restaurants and a few good old gastropubs, Chiswick mixes London style perfectly with suburban heaven. Of course, you have to be disgustingly wealthy to have a nice house here, unless you fancy renting a pool-house cupboard for your entire months salary. 

That doesn't stop me dreamily wandering it's streets and staring through windows at things that I will never be able to afford. But food is a necessary expense. At all times. Let me introduce you to one such necessity. Outsider Tart is run by a couple of New Yorkers, living the Chiswick dream, and sharing the American love for a great piece of cake. Their menu never ceases to confound and amaze me. From brownies to cookies to the up and coming trend of whoopie pies, if you need an excuse to sit down for a brew then look no further.

We first discovered Outsider Tart at an international Southbank Food Festival. My eyes meeting with a delectable selection of brownies and whoopie pies across the crowded courtyard, there was no way I couldn't just have a look. Despite having sampled many of the great food on offer already, including a huge piece of Apple Strudel, a Maker's Mark brownie had found it's way into my hands for later and a whoopie pie had made it's way into Robs hands for immediate consumption. I've only previous tried supermarket whoopies, but this had no contention. The beautiful chocolate sponge with the marshmallow centre melted in my mouth and made me want to raid the rest of their stall. I needed all of the whoopies. 

I'm of the opinion that no brownie at all is better than an average brownie, and I have been questing to find that moment of brownie heaven for quite some time now. I like my brownies squidgy and rich with a crumbly outside and the closest I've come to that, surprisingly, is Pret's chocolate brownie. But that all changed the moment the Outsider Tart brownie hit my belly. I was in brownie heaven. Four times the size of the meagre Pret brownie, this was fudgy, crumbly and sickenenly good. I tried to savour it, I really did, but it was gone in a matter of minutes. I'm also a big bourbon fan, so the additional Makers Mark flavouring made it all the better.

Since that day, Rob and I had been obsessing of their website and the sweet memory of those treats. But last weekend, I finally had an excuse to visit the place itself! I could not contain my excitement. After a stroll and a bit of book shopping, we finally arrived at our tasty destination for the true American experience. Another great factor of Outsider Tart is their huge selection of teas. As a tea freak, I had serious trouble in deciding what to have. I settled on a Teapigs chilli chai whilst Rob went for a cream soda (of which there were 3 varieties to choose from!). The shop is full of US goodies, stocking a huge variety of peanut butters and other treats. 

There were so many delicious looking cakes to choose from. I opted for the Mile High Bar. Is it a brownie, is it a cake, is it a cookie? I have no idea, but it tasted beautiful. Chewy cranberrys, fudgy chocolate and crunchy biscuit made this an explosion of textures and flavours - a joy to eat. Rob sampled what appeared to be an oatmeal whoopie, although I couldn't tell you for sure. Full of dried fruits and nuts, his treat felt as though you were eating something remotely healthy. Balanced with the creamy centre, getting your mouth around this was an exciting feat. Our only problem this time was finishing our treats. We had to take a doggy bag home, although I think we managed to get about 10 minutes down the road before I was snuffling for the bag again.