Cooking The Books

Evin Cafe

I think Dalston is amazing for food.  There's nothing flashy, I doubt there's too much organic, fairtrade or rare breed, but if when it comes to multiculturalism few places can beat it.  You can eat food from so many different countries and it's nearly always cheap.

One little gem is Evin Cafe, not too far up from Dalston Kingsland train station.  I've never eaten there in the evening but for breakfast it really stands out.  Every Saturday and Sunday morning two ladies sit in the front window preparing the most delectable filled flatbreads called gözleme.  One lady fills and stuffs and the other cooks them on a domed griddled, which Google has just told me is called a sac.

 There's two filling choices, a slightly spiced and minty mashed potato and a quite fiery spinach.  Both a delight, the bread itself getting towards wood fired pizza in its taste, charred in spots and soft in texture.  All this for £1.50 each.  If you ever pass by I recommend you pop in and get one.

Evin Cafe

115 Kingsland High St
Dalston
E8

Mangal Ocakbasi (Rick Stein's favourite)

I don't know about other bloggers but I like to have a little root around in the logs, seeing how many people have visited and especially how they've got there.  At first it was always friends or from food blogs where I'd been shamelessly self-promoting.  After a while you notice people coming from elsewhere though and it was with great joy that I started seeing visitors from search engine results.  Browesrs had been searching for something and Google had suggested me.  

I noticed after a while that people frequently turned up at my blog when they'd been looking for a certain Turkish barbecue restaurant in Dalston that Rick Stein mentioned on his Food Heroes show. When I first moved to Dalston I turned to google to find out the restaurant's name, a query like 'Rick Stein Dalston' probably.  It's funny how search engines index things because at time of writing this blog gets returned 4th for that query, and I've only mentioned the place briefly so anyone clicking that 4th result must be sorely disappointed.

I'm seeking to redress that though with a review of Rick Stein's Dalston favourite, Mangal Ocakbasi on Arcola Street.  Mangal Ocakbasi probably isn't the kind of place you'd find if you didn't know about it, I doubt many people come to Dalston for much and if they do they probably stick to the myriad of Turksih restaurants on Kingsland Road rather than nipping off down side streets like Arcola Street.  It's worth it though, not only can you say you've been to a restaurant Rick Stein likes you get great value, perfectly barbecued meats and the thrifty pleasure of bringing your own beer.  Fingers crossed going forward people now searching for 'Rick Stein Dalston' get sent to this post on my site and get something useful in return this time.

Shanghai (Again)

I've already reported (here) about the Shanghai restaurant on Kingsland Road in Dalston so I won't go on for long.  Whilst I spoke lovingly of the great food there the photos from that day were less than great.  We went again this morning though and so I decided to take the proper camera along and get some photos of a standard more fitting for the food.  The dim sum was still fantastic and I'll be going again, although this will probably be the last time I blog about it.  So saying I'm yet to have an evening meal there and when I do I'll have to tell somebody - right?