Cooking The Books

Goodman City

Yesterday morning Richard Vines tweeted about a soft opening at the new Goodman City branch offering 50% off food.  I adore Goodman's restaurant in Mayfair and this is without ever having eaten a steak there, their burgers are enough for instant infatuation for me, so when the opportunity arose for 50% off I jumped to it.  50% offers abound - sure - but I normally think of them as a sign a restaurant isn't doing as well as it could and this certainly doesn't apply to Goodman.  I rallied some troops and a table for 8.15 was booked.

The interior of the new branch is much like the original, albeit with a bit more of an industrial feel with the exposed pipes near the ceiling.  There's the dark leather, dark wood, some booths and a bar.   One welcome addition though is the huge window to the meat aging room.  A dining room table sized opening into a world of stainless steel shelves and vast lumps of beef in varying stages of controlled decay.  Our waitress said it reminded her of Damien Hurst but for me it was like some huge food porn cinema screen stuck on pause.  I was transfixed.

When dining with others the grass isn't always greener, I don't always have food envy, but I do always want to try everything.  The Asian way of dishes in the middle of the table is far better suited to my inquisitive (greedy?) nature and whilst it can't be used for everything one western meal that it works perfectly for is steak, assuming the restaurant in question is like Goodman (or Hawksmoor) and has enough variety to get a good spread going. 

We did just that ordering a Wagyu ribeye (300gr), 2 x USDA Ribeye (400gr), a USDA sirloin (350gr) and a USDA on the bone sirloin (650gr), aiming to stick it in the middle so everyone could try the different cuts.  Everything was ordered around medium-rare to let the marbling melt down nicely.  We had wanted to try the grass fed Belted Galloway - as recommended to me by the Goodman grill-man himself - but alas our procrastination in ordering led to them being sold out, a 650gr on the bone rib would have been perfect too.

The wagyu was a melt in the mouth delight, the meat was tender but the most amazing thing for me wasn't the effects of the intramuscular marbling - as gorgeous as it was - but the intermuscular fat.  This was the softest, most tender fat I've eaten, collapsing under the teeth and probably so soft (alas I didn't try it) to suck through the teeth. I enjoyed the sirloin, especially the dry aged on the bone, but for me the star was the rib-eye, having the perfect combination of juicy fat and meaty chew, not to mention the perfectly seasoned and charred outside common to them all.  It's hard to put in to words just how good a steak these guys turn out though and I think a picture says far more anyway.

Accounting for the bone we probably ordered dead on 2kg of meat between 5.  I'm guessing the ladies probably managed 250gr each which left the men at the table 500gr each.  Nothing compared to some but with starters and sides I was well stuffed by the end, the last 150gr going down a lot slower than than the first 350.

With the 50% off food our bill of 3 starters, steak, a few sides, 2 puds and some dessert wine was a very good value £43 each.  Without the soft opening it would have been nearer £70 but even then I'd definitely have felt I got my money's worth and will be returning in the not too distant future to try their grass fed offerings at full price.

I've now had steaks at both Goodman and Hawksmoor and would find it hard to call a favourite, they're both so very good at what they do.  The burger has only been tried at Goodman though and it would be unfair on them, and myself, if I didn't give Hawksmoor's burger a go too.  That will have to wait to the new Covent Garden branch though as a midweek lunch in the City is a no go for me.

Matamala, Barcelona

Matamala was billed to me as having the best ham sandwich in Barcelona so I thought I'd give it a go.  Luckily for me the ham sandwich is one of the few things they serve at breakfast.

Before this trip I'd not seen the thin (we're talking 3cm diameter) baguettes so common in Barcelona but I'm a convert, they give a fine balance between crunchy crust and soft crumb.  Rubbed with sweet, ripe tomato and filled with jamon Iberico it made a very tasty, if not a little expensive at €5.80 (that's the jamon Iberico's fault) sandwich.  Cafe solo was dark, strong and small, as it should be.

A good sandwich indeed but I'm far too lacking in experience to give claim it's the best there.  Still a nice place for breakfast though and open on Sunday mornings too.

Matamala
Rambla de Catalunya, 13
08007 Barcelona

Babia, Barcelona

The Gothic Quarter in Barcelona is a fantastic high-walled maze, whilst the wide main roads make London's aged streets look too narrow for purpose once you step off them the alleys seem from a time forgotten back home.  Dark and identical to the untrained eye one can lose muchos minutos meandering through them.

Post Tapas24 we found ourselves doing just that and stumbled across the kind of place you really wish you'd not eaten half an hour before finding - Babia.  Whilst I'm sure the outer reaches of Barcelona are littered with local haunts that's not the feeling you usually get around Las Ramblas and Plaza Catalunya yet that's exactly how Babia felt.  It was cramped, noisy with Catalan and people smoked while they ate, something I can't remember people doing in England even when it wasn't banned - it was perfect. 

All the tables were gone but we managed to squeeze in at the bar and ordered a couple of cervezas, everyone else seemed to be eating so I scanned the menu for a name I didn't recognise and ordered some lacon, declining the potatoes we were offered with it having just eaten a full meal.  Lacon turned out to be ham, which I should have known already, but it seems to be a different cut than in England, even if the cure is similar.  It was tender and salty, bathed in olive oil with the sprinkling of paprika adding warmth.  Pa amb tomaquet was fresh baguette rather than toast and very good.  I wish I could tell you more but we really couldn't fit anything else in.

Just from our tiny nibble I can't recommend the place enough and it's well worth searching out, good luck finding it though as Google maps doesn't even seem to know the road.

Babia

Carrer Sagristan, 9,

08002 Barcelona

Tapas24, Barcelona

Last week I made my annual trip to Catalunya and decided to spend a couple of days in Barcelona with the gf before meeting up with my family on the coast.  Having no idea about the city's food I turned to twitter for some inspiration and ended up at some really good places, the first of these being Tapas24.

Tapas24 is sister restaurant to Comerc24 and ran by former El Bulli chef Carles Abellan, so one would expect some little twists away from the norm.  It's unassuming from the front, just being a couple of tables on the pavement and a door leading downstairs, and pretty unassuming when you get inside too with a few tables dotted around and an open kitchen and bar surrounded by folk drinking wine and eating tapas.  We decided to join the bar dwellers so we could watch the chefs do there thing.

When we sat down the couple next to us were eating a plate of red slices of something that looked rather good so I directed a customary 'Que es?' to the waiter and failed miserably in understanding his speedy reply.  Luckily for me the lady of the couple must have heard my inquiry as she pushed the plate towards us, now sporting a lone slice, and said 'Try it, it's fish' before telling us at a much more ear-friendly speed that it was called mojama.  After devouring this lone slice - and deciding to order more - we turned to the menu and found the unassuming ex- and interiors belied a rather fantastic menu. 

The classics were there, sure (your patatas bravas and your tortilla), but they sat alongside mini-burgers with foie gras and ham and cheese sandwiches - bikini - with black truffle, not to mention jamon iberico and buffalo mozzarella.  We decided to supplement the mojama with the bikini comerc 24, the McFoie, some Padron peppers, a Russian salad, Braves, Pa amb Tomaquet (tomato bread) and some cava and red wine to wash it down.

The mojama came served with darkly toasted almonds and a drizzle of strong olive oil - it was fantastic stuff.  The initial taste was like an expensive ham, salty and melting on the tongue.  Up to this point you'd be forgiven for not thinking it came from the sea but the aftertaste quickly stopped these thoughts as a strong, but pleasant, fish flavour came through.

A bikini is a cheap eat by the beach, €3 of plastic bread and plastic cheese to fill the gap between a vast late breakfast and an evening of grilled seafood.  Here it was transformed to posh tapas though with some top draw ingredients.  The bread was still mass produced - would anything else work? - but the ham was now jamon Iberico and the cheese buffalo mozzarella, black truffle added its inimitable muskiness.  It was very good.  If I was being critical the one thing I would say is the use of a squeezy bottle of melted butter to grease the outside left butter hot-spots that were literally soaked in the stuff.  When I recreate this for the blog - I have the truffles waiting - I'll thinly spread the outside instead for a more even flavour.

This was my first encounter with Padron peppers and I loved every one.  The sweet earthiness was a delight and the tentative Russian roulette of waiting for a hot one certainly didn't detract.  The occasional tingle of warmth suggested my time had come but then the one truly hot one showed prior peppers had been false alarms.

The McFoie was billed as a mini-beefburger with foie gras minced into the patty and the fatty liver making a second appearance in the accompanying mayonnaise.  I watched this being made and at one point it did look like a normal burger, sat inside a tall bun, but a few minutes inside the contact grill left it flat and crispy.  The foie gras definitely added some fat to the patty but I found the taste a bit lost, this could have been due to the preceding hot Padron pepper though.

Pa amb tomaquet (pan con tomato/bread with tomato) was simply the best I've eaten.  The usual slices of country style bread replaced with a thin, ciabatta like loaf cut into top and bottom.  It was crunchy and sweet, which is how I like it.

The low point of the meal for me was the patatas bravas (or Braves) on the menu.  The potatoes were chips, and good ones at that, but there was just far too much mayonaisse for my tastes, they were literally swimming in the stuff. 

Braves aside it was a fantastic start to what turned out to be two days of culinary delights in Barcelona.  It was pretty cheap too - a pair of cavas, a pair of red wines and all the food working out not a lot more than €20 a head.  Definitely recommended and, if you eat at a UK time seemingly OK to get a seat - at 8.30pm on a Saturday we were seated instantly.