I have eaten so many almond cakes that weren’t this almond tart

A Review of The Hill in Greenwich

The Hill sits at the bottom of Royal Hill, and i have to be honest I was a little too prejudiced by its previous incarnation to go out of my way for a visit. On a journey home from Peckham, it was only after passing a road to Greenwich and watching it disappear into the distance like a lost eating out opportunity, that made me think of eating out and taking the Royal Hill and the restaurant it ended with.

See the cakes on the counter

The Hill suffers a little from its change in status because it appears to be a restaurant squashed into a pub, and that’s a pub with a very different agenda from sunny mediterranean food. As we entered, we saw tapas menus on the side and smiled. however on being seated, the menu we were handed had no tapas.

However there were good signs – the charm with which the staff found us a late seat with no booking; and the cakes sitting on the bar. This included an average looking chocolate cake which might actually have tasted more than average. But I had a suspicion that the blond looking cake was almond tart of a kind I have only yet enjoyed in Mallorca. Mixed olives and flat bread also boded well.

Tasted good too

Flat bread

Well firstly the starter was great. Chargrilled squid being a far superior alternative to calamari, and chorizo going well with errrr… everything. I do mean everything.

I chose the pork with apple mash. Sounds traditional, huh? Well, it was so much more than. There were other flavours in the mash. And hidden under the two fillets of pork, was yet another fillet of pork. Frankly I couldn’t eat it all. I gave it to my husband. He obligingly shared his which I remember being impressed by… Perhaps you can tell me want it was? I normally photo the menu to joke my memory. I forgot.

Sorry, I remember enjoying it. No idea what it was

Note the piece of pork hiding

I also recommend ratatouille. Ratatouille can go one of two ways, barely distinguishable from washing up, of a diversity of flavours (this was the latter, by the way. Hence the recommendation).

At about this point the chef burst out of the kitchen and arrived grinning at our table to ask if we had been here before, and were we local, and point out that we now knew where they were. This was far from cringing, we though about the meal so far and thought to ourselves in a rather satisfied way, yeah, we do know where you are and we should come back.

And the critical question was the dessert menu.this was on the mark. The chocolate cake turned out to have a fancy name “Selva Negra” does that change anything? (I’ve been hurt so many times.) Fortunately there were way too many fish in the sea (aka dessert menu, and not really fish either) for me even to consider it for long. I’d pretty much already decided on the almond tart, but the actual dessert menu left me angsty Don Pedro (ice cream with walnuts and whiskey – yeah, whiskey,) pancakes, and my perpetual weakness- CHURROs!

Errr… You caught me trying to hide a churro just there

I have eaten so many almond cakes that weren’t this almond tart. And they even stayed on the ball with the ice cream. I’d have celebrated them for that almond tart alone but the cinnamon ice cream that came with it was the absolute brilliant balance of subtle comforting flavours.

Yeah, I was sad that there was no tapas. But I felt somehow consoled.

020 8691 3626
89 Royal Hill, Greenwich SE10 8SE

‘Let’s all eat chocolate icecream because it is so much better than it used to be’ a review of Black Vanilla, Greenwich

A review of Black Vanilla in Greenwich

I don’t think the staff at Black Vanilla in Greenwich are very happy with me.
And that’s without even knowing about this blog.

It went like this: We arrived after a bit of a tourist outing in Greenwich. This had featured the Queen’s House (good art in parts) and the exciting Greenwich market. I’d just been sat by the Thames eating a South Carolina (err, or it might have been a different southern America. state…) hotdog followed by the market’s Churros. Both of these deserve comment, so please see the footnote below.

Needless to say, I wasn’t hungry when I arrived at the oft recommended Black Vanilla cocktail ice cream bar in Greenwich.

Also I was designated drinker. It is imperative to drink when you are designated drinker. Otherwise you would be depriving your other half of the next opportunity, see.

Then you have to consider that I really love Black Vanilla’s coffee; and an affogato (did you know that meant drowned? I only learnt it from the menu at Black Vanilla) would be great with a brandy.

Affogato after

But the hot chocolate kept catching my eye. The hot chocolate came with chocolate icecream in steamed milk. Wowee! We all know that the UK was slow on the uptake with chocolate ice cream, so when people actually started making the real stuff here, everything became a bit ‘let’s all eat chocolate icecream because it is so much better than it used to be’. And some of those Belgian chocolate ones were what we always knew chocolate ice cream should have been.

Let me make this clear: hot chocolate made of cold chocolate ice cream, melting in the cup. And that is chocolate ice cream with promise. Are you getting me?

I’ll never know if Black Vanilla chocolate icecream was as rich as it would need to be to make a really good hot chocolate. I didn’t choose it. (Well, I say never… I do after all have to keep visiting new places to keep you lot happy…) I just let it keep on short circuiting my brain from making any non-hot drink decision.

So in the end, I ordered brandy in Affogato because that would also be great and tick the alcohol box.

I leaned back as the waiter walked away and said, I can’t believe I haven’t picked a cocktail- they make ice cream versions, you know. To which my husband replied he was also in disbelief. That was the catalyst. What had I done? I’d missed ice cream mojito. It was the hot chocolate’s fault for diverting me.

I had to change the order to a coffee and the ice cream mojito. Hence their annoyance.

 

Ice cream mojito

They are very civilised service there. We were offered water in elegant glasses with our order, something that I have only seen at l’Artisan despite all of my travels. It is also a very pretty upstairs room. It’s nice to see the opulence of the original building being enjoyed. And BV have chosen design rather than ‘shove ‘em all in’ tables’, possibly to their detriment given the number of people being turned away.

 

So the coffee arrived, and I won’t bore you on the subject of how great the Black Vanilla coffee really is again. See my review of the non-alcoholic Blackheath branch. But the mojito…. Ahh, the mojito. It wasn’t a long drink; it was served in a martini glass. It was refreshing, green, hapifying. I kept saying “I’m so sorry that I am designated drinker today” to my husband as I licked the sugar from the bottom of the glass.

Note on Greenwich Market Food: Since discovering these churros, a visit to Greenwich Market really means an excuse to eat the Churros with cinnamon sugar and chocolate (nice as creme du leche is, chocolate is a needed low note). There is no such thing as “I am not in a mood for Churros now”. Ever. The hotdog was also pretty pizazz- spicy sausage and all the trimmings in a half wholemeal baguette. I didn’t think I could eat it all, I couldn’t stop myself.

Ham sandwiches with jam- A Review of With Jam and Bread

http://www.withjamandbread.com/home/4567838228

People have been raving about With Jam and Bread. It’s a good title, you have to admit, echoes of the nostalgia of Nigel Slater’s toast. It’s a bright studio space with pops of art and uncomfortable red seats and is a welcome addition to the Lee high Road.

Interior if With Jam and Bread

It is in fact an art gallery coffee shop, with the sort of art I would actually buy as opposed to strange collages that started off with a good corner, but had to make up for the rest with thick confused splodges of paint. Nine out of ten for atmosphere. I think this is why it is is such a favourite.

With jam and bread turned out to be a description of the sandwiches. I did anticipate that my ham salad sandwich would come with bread, but I was taken aback by the oodles of strawberry jam soaking through it.

Ham sandwich with bread… And jam

Actually, this proved a rewarding combination. Afterall, people eat honey roast ham. I could even see it working with goats cheese, egg (maybe I’m getting carried away), but I just would have preferred to know before I ate.

They have the decency to name their coffee source on the chalked up boards. Which tells me that they respect coffee. The 2:20 charge said they respected it a touch more than maybe I did. But the flavour suggested that respect was a distant affair, a conceptual respect for coffee that did not get close to intimacy. (It wasn’t bad, just wasn’t amazing),

The cakes also were so so. Particularly the almond croissant. Croissants are not to be messed with, they should be light, crumbling and crunchy. By no stretch of the imagination should they be squished, stale or made with margarine. Like I said, the almond croissant at With Jam and Bread was so so, possibly on the squished side. The lemon poppy seed was no better. It was a generous slice, but it was kind of stodgy.

The tea, on the other had made up for it all. But not all that respected, appearing on the menu as leaf tea, with no variations led me to expect nothing but English breakfast until I ordered, and a vast array was rattled off. The pot arriving was both sophisticated in look and taste. There’s nothing like pouring endless cups from fresh steaming leaves and thinking, just thinking.

I am going to get a lot of stick for this… A Lament for a Lost Starbucks (and some alternative recommendations)

I am pretty sad to see Starbucks bite the dust in Blackheath. I would have been sadder to see it go had it actually been allowed to use the downstairs for seating.

Ok, so it sold chilled cakes and thought that coffee was interchangeable for brown coloured perfume.

But it started the whole cafe culture thing. There were the days when I would sneak out of my creative writing college in my 15minute break for nothing less than a Starbucks latte to bring back to the classroom and slurp to the annoyance of my more grown up colleagues. And while I am obviously far to cultured to ever err… regularly buy a high street coffee now I have aged, I’ve still been known to pop in for a gingerbread latte (with even more subterfuge than when I go for a McDonald’s breakfast.)

Starbucks still has a few gems: eggnog lattes, and cinnamon rolls. it was in Blackheath Starbucks that I first read of the ‘Save the Con’ campaign.

Apparently the closure was all over licensing. Which at least means that, despite all appearance to the contrary, the village is not going to die in the strangle hold of betting shops and estate agencies. But it will suffer. It is hard to get a seat in the village at the weekend and sometimes you think you might not be bothered if the trip does not come with cake and coffee. (Because all trips are really about cake and coffee… or haven’t you been listening?) And another high street women’s clothing chain feels soulless, even as a woman, who really likes clothes.

And i would also like to note the good grace with which it departed, (even if it was a PR ploy)offering the residents of Blackheath free coffees in its dying days.

I hope the other coffee shops have hired baristas with skates on to meet the morning commute requirements of Blackheath station. Recommendations for alternative coffee for commuters I received from fellow tweeters:
Most like Starbucks: Giraffe (I have not reviewed Giraffe)
On the way to the station from Lee: Petit Boulangerie Jade (rumoured to open 7:30) My first ever coffee shop review!
Good Coffee: but differs from Starbucks Hand Made Food (you’ll laugh at the title of this review) and also Chapters
Exceptionally Good Coffee, but not open early, Black Vanilla
I’ve tweeted Black Vanilla that earlier opening hours would go down well (and probably make them a huge amount of money), bu t they do not fear my coffee shop reviewer power and haven’t actually replied. I was about to do a glowing review of their Greenwich location too. Sniff!
Highly recommended (but yet to be reviewed by me): Blackheath Deli
Coming from Blackheath Standard, Mocca
Costa has also been mentioned, but I can’t really side with that I’m afraid…

Leave Trifle in the Seventies! A Review of The Guildford Arms

We decided to risk the Guildford Arms. I say ‘risk’ because our on our last visit we had a very uncomfortable experience there. Admittedly we arrived late and not too sure we wouldn’t be turned away. However on being welcomed, a rush job was done with our meals – especially the partially cooked potatoes, making the whole visit a pretty disappointing expense. This was a pity as we have never experienced this at the sister restuarant, ‘Inside’.

Fake candles

Ah but everyone deserves a second chance. Even if they seem to spend more time and effort advertising and writing in the local glossies than actually cooking.

I like muted blues

The environment at the Guildford arms was very pleasant: a wood clad room and jazz. They even had really clever fake candles that flickered in a frosted glass. Although I did wonder why they are needed. Is the cost of wax prohibitive these days? Are the papers full of reports of restaurants burned down by escapee candles? Equally mysterious was the two cubicle toilet with one elongated sink. It was very sophisticated in appearance, but if the two cubicles were used at similar time, there’d be a queue for the single tap. Watch our for that.

I began by enjoying a very rich roquefort souffle, but then a scan of the mains menu presented a challenge. It didn’t leave me in a quandary of which exciting meal to pick, so much as trying to infer what possibly could have something exciting lurking underneath the dsecriptions. While I very much enjoy ‘traditional with a twist’ (see the Rivington review) the menu at the Guilford arms was very traditional with a very subtle twist, almost too subtle to notice. We were not entirely forsaken to a single flavour: corn purée accompanied the guinea fowl and blue cheese with the steak. In fact following the long agony between starter and main (what is with these waits?) the roast guinea fowl with bacon and beef fillet with supplement arrived and were delicious. It’s hard to describe what went so right with these dishes- clearly not their descriptions on the menu. Both were hugely reminiscent of a good English roast. I mean of the standard that your good cook friend would make you rather than an £7 a head carvery plus plate design and elegant portion sizes. I appreciate that sounds like I have missed the point, but I would go so far as to say (on this occasion) that they were absolutely and without reservation flawlessly cooked, taking the dishes to their best possible performance.

Beef with supplement

Guinea Fowl

This very traditional seems to be defining Guildford’s market. I had a sneak peak at it’s more popular sister restaurant Inside’s menu, and they at least tossed chorizo into one of the meals. This is probably more my style. Mark’s and Spencer have my demographic tagged.

Fortunately the dessert menu presented more sparky selections – oh that trusty course ‘dessert’. Some of them extended to the odd spice, albeit in the traditional combinations of ginger and rhubarb or vanilla and cream. The ginger and rhubarb was a brilliant balance of the two flavours- a rare achievement having sampled many attempts at this combination, many overdo the ginger. But this being part of a trifle, I had to fight through clouds of cream to reach this harmonious performance. Leave trifle in the seventies. The only part worth keeping is the sponge fingers in jelly. The other dessert was creme brûlée with cardamom shortbread. For those of you who think that shortbread is best served with caramel and chocolate on top you need to try this- a way more sophisticated twist than millionaires shortbread.

Clouds of Cream

Creme Brûlée

Desserts compounded the reality that the small portions were large enough. We were now completely satiated. I ordered a black coffee to finish with. Think it was an Americano, but I can’t get excited.about the difference between this and a filter coffee. Can you? It came with such rich stiff frothy milk in a jug on the side that it quickly evolved into a cappuccino. I have no faith in my own convictions. We were warned that the truffle on the side came with cognac.

I thought that was kind.

This review was of the restaurant upstairs.
The Guildford Arms, 55 Guildford Grove, Greenwich SE10 8JY

The Neon Counter Base Glowed Pink in Appreciation. A Review of the Coffee Shop at the Maritime Museum

Yet another surprising addition to the reviews that i had not expected to have much to say about. but the cafe at the Maritime museum is jolly jolly nice, and worth a visit in its own right.

It takes some finding. We emerged from the Ansell Adams exhibition determined to find the coffee shop for sustenance to keep going in out long evening out to come.
Distressed, we found that upstairs was closed and I concluded that the coffee shop no longer existed.

Not so, my hungry husband who insisted that we were too far from Rhodes for the coffee smell to be coming from anywhere else and located a map, only to find that it had been hiding behind the entrance to the exhibition.

What a magnificent vista from a large open space (locals will know that ‘large’ is an achievement in these parts). You can overlook Greenwich Park. Suddenly the months of boarded up maritime museum ruining the views from the park made sense. This was what they were building.

Winters day view

We purchased a dark chocolate lemon tart. The neon counter base glowed pink in appreciation of our choice, then red, the purple… Actually it just rotated through the visible spectrum.

Pink Neon Glow

I have to respect what is going on in the aforementioned lemon tart… We get good quality shortbread base, we get high content cocoa chocolate layered sneakily above it – in a kind of grow up, paid attention to detail sort of way, and we get luscious oozing lemon curd- you know how that is (see Boulangerie Jade review), plus a lightly brûléed top.

I do respect it. But I don’t agree with it. With the exception of bitter midnight lemon club bars (last seen in school lunch boxes of the nineties) lemon and chocolate don’t go. It’s the rules. They take you on two completely different sensory journeys – sorry to sound like an aromatherapist but it’s true. One is deep and bitter and cavernous. The other is sunny and light hearted. They wouldn’t even get on with each other on a date for goodness sake.

Fabulous ingredients individually. All wrong together

Fortunately the coffee shop at maritime was all over this and provided orange and chocolate shortbread tarts. I did not taste and cannot vouch for the adequacy of the tart, but consider this a much more acceptable combination.

We were there quite late, so we may have been seeing a depleted collection, but there were at least 2 other interesting looking cake options that I may return to investigate in addition to some very interesting main meals chalked onto the menu board.

And so to coffee. It boded well as the Italian primadonna barista hung over his assistant’s efforts, and it tasted good, arriving with a very romantic latte art. It tasted so good that we went to investigage the make despite closing time hanging over us. It was hard to miss.

Latte Art

But we did not purchase. At £7 a bag, this was indeed the most expensive coffee we had ever seen. So the various grades if strengths remain uninvestigated, and £2.20 a cup sounds like a very good deal.

Coffee Shop at the Maritime Museum
(Not the 16″ West Brasserie, which is above it)
National Maritime Museum
Romney Road
Greenwich
London
SE10 9NF

Mocca Coffee Shop, It replaced Fosters. Easy to tell.

A Review of Moca, coffee shop and deli in Blackheath Standard

I have been neglecting Moca. i visit. I keep eating at Moca with friends who ask me if this will appear in the blog … and somehow it never does.

Moca Interior

Perhaps this is because it took me ages to actually try the coffee… it’s never beeen a coffee moment when i land there… and it feels unjust for a coffee blogger to opine without actually trying the coffee.

Or maybe i just can’t think of anything to say about it. it’s neither ‘out there’ or ‘back here’. It’s at a sort of at a moderate distance.

I can provide a brief history of Mocca. Moca replaced Foster’s. It’s easy to tell: it now has a big shiny red banner instead of a run down yellow banner. More importantly, through this change in ownership, peculiar little polystyrene cups with some frothy brown and white stuff in have been replaced by cappuccinos; real ones – and lattes. I don’t quite get this because the last owners were Italian and did have a propa cappa maka. But i do have the absolute recollection of actually binning a cappuccino from Foster’s one cold morning.

Well, I can assure you all that the change in ownership means that it has undergone a thorough upgrade, with smart brown seats and semi-deli provisions. I think they even use butter on their sandwiches now: The sandwiches are nice, there are freshly squeezed juices of all mixes, on demand and flatbreads with interesting fillings. In fact all of the savoury offerings have proved enjoyable, served by the upbeat staff, albeit in occasionally freezing conditions, because they open the back door to cool down the kitchen.

I recently discovered the another reason why I had not reviewed Mocca: Other than the litle bite sized italian sweets, The cakes are nothing special. And cakes are meant to be special, right? Even if you are a Victoria Sponge eater (and I judge you not for your undemanding taste buds) the very name, Victoria (that’s Victoria as in big time monarch of the British empire- wore lots of big dresses) implies special. You don’t want to look at the cake counter and think, yeah well maybe next time. And I do at Mocca. I feel adequately nourished for lunch, and walk away thinking, at least the waistline hasn’t grown.

Actually, they do serve Portuguese tarts. Portuguese tarts are great.