I rarely buy cookbooks in London because one day I will have to take them home (or worse, leave them behind!), but we spent so much time in the cookbook section of Borders, that I ended up buying the new John Torode cookbook 'Beef'.
We don't eat a lot of beef in London and as we don't have a barbecue (I do miss barbecue!), that makes it less appealing for me. However, I seem to be seeing recipes for ragu and slow-cooked meat everywhere lately and so this cookbook really appealed. It has lots of information about different and more unusual cuts of beef and recipe sections covering stocks and soups, carpaccios, slow braises, ragus, steaks and even a couple of puddings. It is the most specific cookbook I have ever owned but I think it will be nicely challenging. Added to this, my husband and I are both fans of Masterchef and John is a fellow Australian in London and it just seemed fitting somehow!
Having spent a few hours reading this cookbook, we decided to go to Smiths of Smithfield for lunch (just the cafe). I had to have the steak sandwich after reading about so much beef and that sandwich in particular. It was very simple with rump steak, parmesan and rocket on buttered thick white bread and I had to get some hot crunchy chips and mayonnaise to go with it. Good comfort food (did I mention I was mildly hung over?!).
Most excitingly though, John was in the restaurant, signing some books, wandering around, trying the chips. It was really good to see although as I had just bought the book unsigned (and paid more!), it was a bit annoying. He told me to bring it in and he would sign it, which was nice. I did get a photo taken though - if only just to make Kyle jealous!
Really want to go back to SOS and try perhaps the second floor restaurant.
Food: 8/10
Drinks: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Ambience: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Smiths of Smithfields
67-77 Charterhouse Street
London EC1M 6HJ
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment