Restaurants

I AM sipping cool Chablis from an almost ecclesiastical goblet under designer Philippe Starck’s decadent Black Zénith chandelier – identical to the 19th-century original in all but colour. I am at Guy Martin’s Cristal Room in Maison Baccarat. Overlooking the manicured Place des Etas-Unis, it feels removed from Paris’s snarl of traffic. Now HQ and museum for arguably the world’s most famous crystal brand, it first saw fame as Marie-Laure de Noailles’ mansion. The lavish patron of the arts supported Buñuel, Man Ray, Duchamp, and knew Dali as a pauper...Read at Square Meal »See pictures at Visuals »

Mr P and I both enjoy a good bit of bread. When Pump Street Bakery in Orford opened we thought that all our Christmases had come at once and we would never need to attempt to bake bread again. I enjoy baking bread, do not misunderstand me, but the enjoyment wears off quickly for me with something as technical as baking bread when it’s done on a daily basis, especially when menus change regularly. The British Larder Suffolk team visited the Hand and Flowers in Marlow a couple of months ago. It was a very special and memorable visit and Tom and his team looked after us very well. Amongst all the special and delicious plates of food, the memory of the delicious and very tasty soda bread has stayed with me. I was inspired to bake my own version of soda bread. It took a few attempts to get it right, or shall I say, the way I would like it to be. I used a local spelt flour mixed with wholemeal bread flour, and a teaspoon of honey gives the soda bread a rounded, moreish and lasting flavour. I add pumpkin and sunflower seeds for extra crunch to make it more interesting and give the bread another taste dimension too. The crust is superb; bake the bread at a fairly high temperature and the crust will be crisp and the interior fluffy and delicious, exactly as you would expect it to be. I now regularly bake this bread as I do find it very satisfying, and the best bit of all is that it’s incredibly quick to make. You can have a loaf of freshly baked soda bread on the table in just over an hour and you’re guaranteed to have the best smelling kitchen in the world!

Following last year’s successful Soho hit La Bodega Negra, Ricker Restaurants will launch Casa Negra in Shoreditch on 6 June 2013, adding to the group’s portfolio that also includes E&O, XO, Cicada and Eight Over Eight. Casa Negra will offer a menu of Mexican style street food, including ceviches, coctèls, aguachiles and tostadas, along with a number of different tacos. Casa Negra’s signature dish will be the Carnitas de lechon – a suckling pig ‘served at the table with fresh salsas and traditional garnishes’. The head chef at Casa Negra will be Brad McDonald from New York, formerly of Brooklyn restaurants Gran Electrica and Governor. Casa Negra’s dining room will seat 82, with space for 30+ at the bar, which will be open until 2am. There will also be a ‘Casa Playroom’ downstairs – full details to follow! For the latest updates, you can follow @CasaNegraLDN on Twitter or sign up to our blog below for our full review in due course: Enter your email address: Address: Casa Negra, 54-56 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3QR The post Casa Negra – New Mexican Restaurant in Shoreditch appeared first on Bon Vivant Concierge Service by Emyr Thomas - if you enjoyed this post you can read more at Bon Vivant or follow us on

This is a review of The Cannibal. But it’s also a love letter to the ladies of the world who eat meat. To our female vegetarian friends, we’ve got nothing but respect and admiration. Whether your motivation is health or humanity, we’re all about the animal-free lifestyle if that’s what suits you. But there’s just something magical about a girl who not only craves the occasional steak, but would consume a baby cow’s feelings if they had enough flavor. That’s the girl you’ll find hanging out at The Cannibal. And she’s not as rare as you might think. All you need is the name of this place to understand what kind of restaurant it is. No, The Cannibal doesn’t serve human, but they do serve all kinds of other delicious mammal parts, along with a mind boggling selection of beers. As a result, you’d probably expect to find a certain kind of clientele here: men who look like absolute sh*tbags. You know what I’m talking about. A restaurant like this tends to exclusively attract the oh-so-desirable demographic of dudes who shave every two weeks and sweat while they eat. But that’s not the crowd you’ll find in this place. Every time we’ve been to The Cannibal, we’ve observed plenty of classy looking women in the joint, enjoying a Belgian ale and a plate of something that has pig face meat in it. Those are the women we’re here to honor. We love you. So why the contingent of lady-regulars in a place that you’d otherwise expect to be filled with people who have no regard for their own personal health? The Cannibal attracts a diverse crowd because they do it right. Yes, the menu is full of heavy-duty carnivore feed, like liver mousse and terrines and blood sausage and lamb neck. As a matter of fact, half of the tiny space is occupied by a butcher counter. But everything we’ve eaten here has had a certain touch of refinement that makes it appealing to the causal meat eaters among us – regardless of gender. The pig’s head terrine is less gelatinous and more solid than we expected, and served with an amazing honey-chili paste to bring out the flavor. The beef heart tartare is prepared and spiced so that it tastes more like high-flavor, high-quality meat than squeaky weridness. Even the slow roasted half pig’s head comes with a bunch of pita and fixins so that you can eat it “gyro style” rather than from the end of a knife like some sort of heathen. Add in a freindly staff to walk you through the menu and endless wine and beer options, and you can see why this place is loved by all walks of life. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be in the corner of the bar watching girls eat hot dogs. Respectfully. Food Rundown Pig’s Head TerrineThis is an absolutely fantastic terrine made up of the delicious parts from a pig’s face (all of it). This is almost always a dish we shy away from, just because when it’s bad – it’s bad. But here, the meat is packed in tight so that there’s very little jiggly gelatin holding things together. It’s nice and firm and full of flavor, especially when you spread whatever condiment they’re serving with it on top. On our visits it was a chili-honey paste that was crazy good. Beef Heart TartareEat it, even if you don’t want to. You’ll be very surprised at how tame this tartare is, even though it’s made up almost entirely of a f*cking cow’s heart. What you’ll find is a meaty flavor complimented by vinegary things like tobasco and crunchy things like fried shallots. There’s even some parmesan on there for good measure. Oh, and you’ll appreciate the relatively small portion size so that you don’t feel like a Komodo dragon after eating it. Cannibal Dogs, “Coney Style”Two delicious hot dogs, covered in a beef and beef heart ragu “chili,” and then topped with mustar

The Best Time to Drink Beer in B.C.  “There has never been a better time to drink beer in British Columbia.” – Gary Lohin, brewmaster, at the Central City Brewing tap takeover at the Moon Under Water brewpub on May 9, 2013. I couldn’t agree more. The Canadian Brewing Awards were held in Victoria earlier this month. It was the first time the event has taken place west of Toronto in its 11-year history—perfect timing with the boom of new breweries we are enjoying here in British Columbia: seven new microbreweries opened in 2012, and a dozen or more are expected to open in the next year—six in metro Vancouver alone. Overall, B.C. breweries did very well at the Awards, winning 35/116 awards handed out. Central City Brewing won three golds and a silver; Parallel 49 Brewing won one gold and three silvers in its first year of competition; and Howe Sound Brewing won four medals as well—two golds, one silver and one bronze. But Vancouver’s Powell Street Craft Brewery stole the show by winning Beer of the Year for its Old Jalopy Pale Ale, which also won gold in the North American Style Pale Ale (Bitter) category. It was a stunning accomplishment for this tiny nanobrewery that just opened last December—making it B.C.’s youngest brewery. Here’s owner/brewer David Bowkett, still buzzing off his big win back on May 11. Powell Street Craft won’t be the new kid on the block for long—a string of new breweries is set to open over the next few months. I will profile each of these new operations in this column as they open. Four Winds Brewing Delta, BC Website | Facebook | Twitter Opening: June 2013 First out of the gates with beer flowing will be Four Winds Brewing, a family-run operation led by brewer Brent Mills, who previously learned his craft as part of the team at Vancouver’s R&B Brewing. Brent’s two brothers, Adam and Sean, are involved on the sales and marketing side, and their dad, Greg, is handling the administration. Four Winds will release four core beers to start with—a saison, IPA, American pale ale, and a Czech pilsner—all packaged in four-packs of 330-mL bottles that will be priced at $8.99. The idea is to appeal to consumers who usually just buy single 650-mL bomber bottles, spurning six-packs because of the lack of variety. I tasted the saison and IPA early in May when I visited the brewery, and both were excellent, and I have no doubt they will be well-received in the craft beer community. The brewery will also put out limited releases in bombers or 750-mL corked bottles, depending on the style. Mills plans on brewing a saison aged with Brettanomyces yeast right off the bat—talk about trying to hit it out of the park on the first pitch. He wants to put out a mix of old-world (unfiltered, bottle-conditioned) and newer craft beer styles from everywhere—hence the brewery’s name. Four Winds Brewing will be holding an open house on Saturday, June 1, and will be participating in some Vancouver Craft Beer Week events. Look for their products on the market later in June. Next month, I will profile North Vancouver’s Deep Cove Brewers and Distillers, which is opening right across the street from Bridge Brewing, which itself just opened last summer, and 33 Acres Brewing, the first of a trio of new breweries set to open in Vancouver’s historic Brewery Creek neighbourhood. Quench your thirst at www.thirstywriter.com. Follow along on twitter @thirstywriter and @craftbeerrevolu.

Pal's owner Jeff Mason serving up sandwiches during Sunday Streets. [Photo: sanfranannie/Flickr] THE MISSION—Pal's Takeaway fans, be advised; the popular Mission sandwich shop is going dark on Friday, May 31 at its original location. It'll return in mid-June, when, as previously announced, it co-opens a space at 24th and Folsom with wine bar La Movida. [Tablehopper] COLE VALLEY—Padrecito is now open on Sunday nights, and is looking to launch Monday nights and weekend brunch shortly. [Tablehopper] THE MISSION—It's one hell of a day for local Kickstarters: in addition to the already-discussed Chefs Feed guidebook and Sandbox Bakery parklet, Anthony Myint and Andrew Barnett have put their previously-announced Linea Caffe project up on the site in hopes of raising funds for an entrance on San Carlos Street and sidewalk seating. The prizes range from $10 for a coffee and waffle when the cafe opens, to $35-45 logo cups made by Heath Ceramics. And for coffee addicts, $800 buys a lot: a year of a free coffee and waffle every week, a coffee subscription, a signed Mission Street Food cookbook and T-shirt, and more. Check it out here. [EaterWire] OAKLAND—This Sunday is World Sherry Day, and all this week, Duende is celebrating in style with tons of deals. First off, they're offering free tastes of a daily sherry to anyone over 21; just ask at the counter and they'll offer up a sample. Special sherry cocktails will also be available all week. Then, on Sunday, they'll offer a $10 tasting of 10 different sherries from 2:30-5:30 pm, followed by discounted tapas and sherry pairings and 50% off sherry bottles from 6 pm onwards. Teatro Flamenco will perform at 8 pm, and all ticketholders will also be given some free sherry to enjoy. All the info is here. [EaterWire] BERNAL HEIGHTS—Pop-up wine bar Mugsy is returning to El Rio on Friday, May 31, in a celebration of Bayview-based Gratta Wines, which recently took home double gold medals at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition (one of only two competing Cabernet Sauvignons to do so). In addition to the winning 2010 Cab, poured by winemaker Barbara Gratta, they'll also have bubbly from Rock Wall Wines and French sparkling rosé, as well as salumi. The event runs from 5:30-8:30 pm; more info here. [EaterWire]

Chaac Mool's trailer hasn't been open in Dolores Park for weeks, and a La Cocina rep tells us that they're no longer serving there: "The trailer they were at selling their food is a rotating opportunity for La Cocina businesses and now we are transitioning it into another business." They wouldn't disclose why they left, but they're still operating at Fort Mason every weekend. La Cocina owns the trailer, and is evaluating new potential tenants from its program. They'll announce who's taking the spot in the next couple of weeks. [EaterWire]

This is a really quick post, but the Oklahoma Humane Society needs donations to treat and house displaced animals — can you help? Make it happen, animal-saving captains!!

Onetime Garden State cart owner Kevin Sandri has been named executive chef at the soon-to-reopen Alberta Street Pub, and in this Q&A with Portland Monthly, reveals that some old-school cart favorites will be making a comeback. Expect the re-emergence of Garden State's famous chickpea and meatball sandwiches, as well as "some good farm-focused locally sourced pub grub." [Eat Beat]

Ever since news hit last week of $70 lion skewers at yakitori restaurant Mokutanya in Burlingame, we've been considering a visit despite the high price tag -- I mean, when else are you going to...