Like most of my corner of South East London, Deptford Broadway isn't much to look at. Derelict, boarded up shops litter the roads, dodgy old pubs reeking of old men and sweat line street corners. New build housing, all metal and glass gleam incongruously beside railway bridges, but a splash of colour lights up the drab grey, orange letters shining through the fug.
Panda Panda, billed as an Oriental sandwich cafe opened here last month. A friend told me of it's existence and I was invited to dinner here. A mere 20 minute walk from my flat, I was excited at the prospect of bubble teas and Hong Kong-style desserts.
The welcoming and friendly owner, Van, is a young Vietnamese man who had taken advantage of a banking redundancy to open Panda Panda. When we arrived, five teenagers lounged around on cafe-style chairs. They asked if they could watch the football and it emerged they had ordered a staggering twenty nine
bánh mì to take away. The kitchen staff worked in a frenzy behind the counter to slice, toast and fill the Vietnamese sandwiches from fresh. We were happy to wait for ours with some snacks to share to stave the hunger pangs.
Made with mango and watermelon, my bubble tea was studded with fat chewy tapoica balls. I find something innately childish and fun about these drinks, and this didn't disappoint. Almost like a dessert, it was refreshing and thirst-quenching.
Served in a takeaway style carton, curry fishballs with chilli sauce has long been a Hong Kong street food favourite of mine. At £1.45 a skewer, these were textbook bouncy and chilli-spiked with the merest hint of curry. Summer rolls were crisp and packed with herbs, prawns and noodles served with a standard hoi sin dipping sauce.
A mammoth portion of grilled pork with noodles was priced at an absurdly good value of £3.45. Drenched with an accompanying pot of fish sauce, I felt it could have done with a little more chilli. Nevertheless, I felt smug in the apparent healthiness of all the lettuce, carrot and cucumber I was shovelling down messily. The pork was well marinaded and was satisfyingly juicy.
Half the menu is dominated with bánh mì, the Vietnamese baguette that seems to be taking London by storm.
Banhmi11, a stall at Broadway Market is always busy and the short-lived Viet Baguette in Charlotte Street apparently closed to find bigger premises to cope with the demand. Van's aunt previously owned the
bánh mì stall at Greenwich Market, which explained his dedication to the cause of finding good bread. Made with rice flour, bánh mì baguette should be crispy and airy, lighter than their French originals.
We tried a traditional baguette made with 'rolled pork & Viet ham'; smeared with pate, a dab of mayo and stuffed with slices of slightly gelatinous ham (this is a good thing), pickled carrot and radish, coriander and lightly scattered with scarlet-red chillis. From the first bite it was clear Van's efforts in sourcing decent bread were not in vain. Crispy but not enough to scrape the roof of your mouth to buggery, it gave way to soft pate and the crunch of the vegetables. The grilled chicken and pork variant was just as successful, though I preferred the livery hint the traditional had. They were polished off with ease.
I was pretty full by this point, but I wasn't about to leave without trying the 'Tofu-Fa', which I haven't seen much of in London. When I was a kid we had a favourite cafe we'd often go to in Hong Kong; right in the middle of a smelly market, they did the best potsticker dumplings which we almost always inevitably followed with this dessert. Served chilled (warm in winter), the wibbly wobbly tofu has the texture of just-set jelly and is sweetened with syrup. Mildly flavoured with soy, it's a cooling and light dessert and to me, is ultimately comforting and reminds me of childhood. I would come back for this alone.
So, another decent local addition. While it's not a place for a long lingering evening, it's perfect to grab a lunch or dinner on the cheap; none of the dishes or sandwiches are over £4.
Oh, and did I mention they make milkshakes with ice cream and a chocolate bar of your choice? I was, sadly, too full but I am already plotting when to get me a Ferrero Rocher milkshake.
Panda Panda8 Deptford Broadway
London SE8 4PA
Tel: 020 8616 6922
We were only offered a set menu, each course with three options. My starter was chicken liver parfait; a huge block of silky smooth liver accompanied by heady truffle-scented brioche and a plum chutney to lighten things up a bit. It was a mammoth portion, and as delicious as it was, there was not enough chutney or bread. Or perhaps there was too much parfait. It was left half finished.
My main, a fillet of cod on creamed potatoes and leeks with a scallop roe sauce was well cooked. The potatoes and leeks had obviously been made with swathes of butter while the sauce was only vaguely reminiscient of its description. It was a very rich dish, and it could have done with an acidic element to balance it out. Across the table, lamb fillet was disappointingly over-cooked.
I'm yet to convince everyone about the joys of tofu, but I'm giving it a good go. Rather than just a vegetarian meat substitute, I think the Chinese and the Japanese recipes are always the best, letting the natural flavour of the tofu shine through rather than marinating the hell out of it and masquerading it as something it's not.
I was reminded of this dish at The Empress of Sichuan, recently opened in Chinatown. Of a few dishes, this one impressed me the most; the spicy dressing was fiery and yet cooled by the chilled cubes of tofu. Sichuan pepper gave it a trademark mouth numbing and especially eaten with hot rice, the temperature contrasts were pleasing. Sesame is the dominant flavour here, with coriander and spring onion giving some freshness, and heat from chillis and ginger. Served on the side with some ferocious chicken with chillis and some stir-fried okra, it was, again, my favourite of the three. Quick to make and easily done in advance, it's a dish that will be gracing my table often.
Sweetcorn in all its formats pleases me. Creamed in a can, it forms the basis of a good chicken and sweetcorn soup, Chinese style. Ears of corn wrapped in their husks and grilled on the barbeque to be later slathered with salt, chilli, butter and lime juice is one of the joys of summer. You should never leave a barbeque unless you have bits of yellow stuck in your teeth.
I've made sweetcorn fritters a couple of time but each recipe I've followed has been too heavy on the batter and too light on the kernels, resulting in a bland, claggy heap of a meal. This recipe though, flavoured with coriander and lime is light, flavoursome and packed with juicy popping nuggets of corn. I had it with an avocado salsa which worked well enough, though I think a tomato salsa would be more suited. But that will have to wait until summer.
Like most of my corner of South East London, Deptford Broadway isn't much to look at. Derelict, boarded up shops litter the roads, dodgy old pubs reeking of old men and sweat line street corners. New build housing, all metal and glass gleam incongruously beside railway bridges, but a splash of colour lights up the drab grey, orange letters shining through the fug. Panda Panda, billed as an Oriental sandwich cafe opened here last month. A friend told me of it's existence and I was invited to dinner here. A mere 20 minute walk from my flat, I was excited at the prospect of bubble teas and Hong Kong-style desserts.
Made with mango and watermelon, my bubble tea was studded with fat chewy tapoica balls. I find something innately childish and fun about these drinks, and this didn't disappoint. Almost like a dessert, it was refreshing and thirst-quenching.
Served in a takeaway style carton, curry fishballs with chilli sauce has long been a Hong Kong street food favourite of mine. At £1.45 a skewer, these were textbook bouncy and chilli-spiked with the merest hint of curry. Summer rolls were crisp and packed with herbs, prawns and noodles served with a standard hoi sin dipping sauce.
A mammoth portion of grilled pork with noodles was priced at an absurdly good value of £3.45. Drenched with an accompanying pot of fish sauce, I felt it could have done with a little more chilli. Nevertheless, I felt smug in the apparent healthiness of all the lettuce, carrot and cucumber I was shovelling down messily. The pork was well marinaded and was satisfyingly juicy.
Half the menu is dominated with bánh mì, the Vietnamese baguette that seems to be taking London by storm. Banhmi11, a stall at Broadway Market is always busy and the short-lived Viet Baguette in Charlotte Street apparently closed to find bigger premises to cope with the demand. Van's aunt previously owned the bánh mì stall at Greenwich Market, which explained his dedication to the cause of finding good bread. Made with rice flour, bánh mì baguette should be crispy and airy, lighter than their French originals.
We tried a traditional baguette made with 'rolled pork & Viet ham'; smeared with pate, a dab of mayo and stuffed with slices of slightly gelatinous ham (this is a good thing), pickled carrot and radish, coriander and lightly scattered with scarlet-red chillis. From the first bite it was clear Van's efforts in sourcing decent bread were not in vain. Crispy but not enough to scrape the roof of your mouth to buggery, it gave way to soft pate and the crunch of the vegetables. The grilled chicken and pork variant was just as successful, though I preferred the livery hint the traditional had. They were polished off with ease.
I was pretty full by this point, but I wasn't about to leave without trying the 'Tofu-Fa', which I haven't seen much of in London. When I was a kid we had a favourite cafe we'd often go to in Hong Kong; right in the middle of a smelly market, they did the best potsticker dumplings which we almost always inevitably followed with this dessert. Served chilled (warm in winter), the wibbly wobbly tofu has the texture of just-set jelly and is sweetened with syrup. Mildly flavoured with soy, it's a cooling and light dessert and to me, is ultimately comforting and reminds me of childhood. I would come back for this alone.
The Ship is one of those pubs that cater to most tastes. A huge outdoor area with a smoking barbeque ensures lazy summer days by the river can be well accomodated and they even have draught Pimms and lemonade. Inside, the bustling bar area is flooded with natural light housing many tables, all around a huge enclosed burning furnace. Out the back, a more sedate restaurant, where we had our lunch.
We kicked off with a little amuse of foie, rolled in some sort of crushed nut. It was velvet-smooth, and the little disc of apple was intensely flavoured and tooth-sticking.
My starter of smoked duck breast, tempura of confit thigh (hiding behind that massive beetroot triangle), spiced aubergine caviar and cherry jelly was visually stunning. The beetroot crisp was cut into a fearsome shard and the tempura duck leg was beautifully battered and grease-free. Aubergine caviar looked innocent enough but it packed a pleasant punch that I wasn't expecting. However, I thought the cherry jelly to be superfluous, perhaps an element too far as it didn't add much to the dish.
The 'surf and turf' consisted of braised pigs cheek and tiger prawns accompanied by carrot and ginger puree. While the puree was a mere colour splash, the pigs cheek was fork-tender and interspersed with wibbly swathes of fat. Pork and shellfish is a classic combination, one that worked well here with the big juicy prawns. When I came towards the end of my dish though, the pigs cheek has a slightly unpleasant granular texture beneath it - a bit like haggis, and almost too intensely porky - and it was pushed aside. A slight blip on an otherwise delicious main.
One of my favourite, most comforting and homely dishes when I was a kid was a steamed pork dish my grandmother would often make. Strangely I never got round to making it until now but now that I have, I know it'll be a regular dish.
The minced pork is marinaded briefly and is studded through with salty shards of preserved cabbage to season the dish. Lily buds provide an interesting texture contrast, and a hint of herb about it. After steaming, you are left with an amazingly porky juices to spoon over some plain steamed rice. It's much like a meatloaf and any leftover works well sliced up and crumbled in brothy soups or chopped into fried rice. Both the Tianjin preserved vegetable and the dried lily buds were bought from my local Chinese supermarket.
Steamed Pork with Preserved Vegetable
