RECIPE: ITAL RICE

Ital rice is my take on the principles of Rastafarianism. Not that. More that food should be served in its natural state, without seasoning, oils or salt. Respect to the I.

So here is basmati rice with steamed spinach, spring onions, tomatoes, broad beans, sweet peas. Make your rice as YOU usually do, but approx 6 minutes before the end, throw in some sliced and diced vegetables. Let them steam, retaining their crunchy goodness.

Serve up with a trailer load of hot pepper sauce.

Diddly-diddly-whoooooo.

Negroni (Tanqueray gin, Campari & Martini Rosso), The Hot Black Wax Street Kitchen, London.

N/A. Five ice cubes in a long glass. Equal parts Tanqueray + Campari + Martini Rosso in a shaker. Whatever you put in, go deuces. A fistfull of ice. Shake it like a polaroid picture. Pour. To finish, get a strip of orange peel. Singe the peel to release some oil flava. Bang bang.

We back. With skills.  And we real-er than Real Deal Holyfield. [10/10]

Wedding cake and Prosecco, Shoreditch House, Ebor Street, Shoreditch, London.

Complimentary. It was the @hbwsk honeymoon and we did get this. B*I*G. [N/A]

Beef with vegetables in black bean and oyster sauce, Chompoo Thai, 155 Holloway Road, Holloway, Islington. 

£7.50. Everyone knows that despite its tourist pandemic, you can still get really good chinese food in Soho. Similarly for that Vietnamese hit, just reach up Kingsland Road and you know you’ll get that good stuff. Thai food? You get what you get. Considering its location, Chompoo makes a good fist of being decent. Here, there was plenty of succulent beef. Vegetables were Doug-E. And the black beans were black. However, the secret of Thai for @hbwsk has to be that hot and sour. Sho-nuff this delivered with that lemon-grass-chilli-heat-tang flavour which had cats sweating like when your mama chased you out of the kitchen because you wanted to sneak a packet of Frazzles just before dinner was served up. [7/10]

Fish and chips, Webbes Rock-a-nore, 1 Rock-a-Nore Road, Hastings, East Sussex.

£10.95. With the fresh sea-spray in the air, your stomach already full of cockles and mussels, and your pocket change emptied from trying to win the teddy bear for your better half and the fact you can see the fishing boat that caught part of your meal it is so easy to get caught up in the moment, and go for the big dinner show and almost guarantee this when you get home. And Webbes is right on hand to clear out your Visa debit, with it’s silver service, beautiful dining area and amazing daily caught seafood selections. Fresh and firm cod fillet, chunky chips were glorious though shame about baby sized sides. Need to hook these cats up with some of this, this or this, because hearing Celine Dion with dinner isn’t right. At all. [7/10]

Cheese and spicy chicken, Cafe Royal, 153 Plumstead Road, Plumstead, Greenwich.

£2.50. There are some observational questions of the above which need to be asked before eating. Wha’gwan for that cheese? Is that actually chicken? Where is the butter/spread/Fl*ra in this madness? How many days has that dry dutty bread been in the freezer? Mans could have gone on, but didn’t. Instead @hbwsk bought, ate, felt like this and spent the next few hours wondering whether death by gastro-enteritis soon come. It didn’t. Cheese was nice still though. [4/10]

Barbeque pork roll, Sun Leun Cafe, 24 Newport Street, Chinatown.

£1.20. Serving (and charging) for a dry bread roll injected with a syringe full of pork sandwich paste could result in this, this  or this almost anywhere else apart from in Chinatown. Only a few actions can describe this culinary experience. Like this. [2/10]

Beef tacos, L.A Suenos, The Long Table, Abbot Street, Dalston, Hackney. (Fridays from 6pm)

£4.00. A whole acid house party of food connoisseurs give mans the heads up regarding their new business. No VIP or freeness though. A madness. Still, with @TheLongTableAS opening night a few weeks back, and it being in the manor, @hbwsk had to reach. Considering the line up (Moro, Big Apple Hot Dogs, Hawksmoor, et.al) one word describes proceedings - road block. More iPhones, Barbour jackets and clean Hunter wellies than at Selfridges on a Wednesday night. Didn’t rate the dude playing acoustic guitar for an hour, nor the tourists discussing how ‘urban’ the location was, but in a discreet corner of the market, these lovely, friendly campanieros were dropping beef tacos like this, this or this. No website, no contact details, but if you find them, eat there. [9/10]

Boiled egg sandwich, Cafe Euro, 270 Holloway Road, Islington, London.

50p. It is always a joy when you stumble on somewhere which doesn’t try to be anything else other that itself. Like this community champion and humanitarian. Anyway. This little cavern of joy provides discretion, old-skool Eurosport style handball on the TV, fresh coffee and the best boiled egg sandwich austerity London can provide. If you go there often enough, you can also ear-wig lecturers conversations related to how the Industrial Revolution can be held directly responsible for developments in geno-sequencing advancement in Shandog province of mainland China. Who said higher education isn’t free?. [7/10]

Chilli beef currywurst w/pommes, Herman Ze German, 14 Villiers Street, Embankment, Westminster.

£4.95. Chopped up sausages, smothered in curry sauce with deep fried fries. A trailer load of cayenne pepper and significant squirts of mustard, tom sauce and mayonnaise. Looks? Not great. Taste? You know that dirty little secret that everyone has that sometimes get discovered accidently? Like when you hear Shania Twain singing ‘You’re Still The One’ on the office radio that someone [you] tuned to Heart FM and it gets to the second chorus and you want to turn the volume up a little, and then you do that fist clench to bring home that slightly higher note……….? [SHAAAAAAAMMMMMEEEEEEE] Yep, it is that good. You got to. [8/10]

Sausage and (homemade) beans on toast, The Pavilion, Victoria Park, Hackney. 

Breakfasts from £4.00. It is lucky @pavilionvicpark provides access to open spaces and pop-up cinema showing kid-dog flicks. Seriously. It means the single poodle walking ladies and the single fathers doing the Saturday afternoon shift have got somewhere to hook up. And you know a trailer load of this a gwan, Mos Def. The Pavillion also serves perfectly toasted brown seeded bread, two fat mama bangers, home made(**) baked beans and some of the tasting best coffee this side of the Cut. Going to be major next summer. [8/10]

** That is some serious austerity Britain business. Heinz 57. End of. Get me.

Coconut ice cream, Maroush Deli, 45-49 Edgware Road, London.

£4.00 for two scoops. Being in the middle of this here street food revolution, as fought by these, these, these and these soldiers, it is easy to forget the heroes who were on road pre-Twitter, pre-Pop Up and pre-Nandos. @maroushrest are 31 years in, have at least six take-away spots on Edgware Road and a trailer load of restaurants across West London. All serving a variety of Lebanese snacks, sweets and treats. All rammed daily. As standard. With families, couples, the elderly AND hipsters. And the coconut ice-cream was creamy, tasty and had little bits of coconut in it. We dig this, jack. [8/10]

Kit Kat chocolate bar, Waterfront Leisure Centre, 30 Woolwich High Street, Woolwich.

70p. Next time you use the unisex changing facilities to wrap yourself in a fluffy dressing gown after relaxing in that mini-Jacuzzi, get your blueberry and acai tea and use that spare golden nugget you keep in the side pocket of your bum bag to play the ultimate game of chance by giving the vending machine a gentle side tap of your bootie in time to a classic Heavy D beat on your iPod. You could get two Twirls for the price of one.  [6/10]

Scampi and chips, The Fish House, 126-128 Lauriston Road, Victoria Park, Hackney.

£9.50 / £1.50. A good chip shop has some standards that you expect wherever you go. White tiles. Onion vinegar. Tomato ketchup on the tables. A queue. Students reading  the S*n and off shift bus drivers with Chomsky essays tucked under their arm. The chips were thick cut and cooked well. The freshly made scampi was full of sweet white cod and covered in crunchy breadcrumbs. But for fish & chips costing over a tenner a portion, where was the cherry coke cans in the fridge? And wha’ gwan with having no Bullseye fruit machine? You want to know the @hbwsk price of progress? [7/10]

Mince pies with brandy, The Cooperative, 196 Plumstead Common Road, Plumstead.

4 for 50p (reduced). Mince pies in October are systematic of an over-zealous capitalist system keen to take advantage of financial plight of millions by encouraging the unnecessary expenditure of money on sundries. So @hbwsk bought 5 packets. [9/10]