Homeslice, Covent Garden

When I was 19, I was taken to Pulcinella's on Old Compton Street. It was a regular lunch spot for our department of engineers, and I was their new personal assistant. Upstairs they had vast tables; these were the days where you could go for lunch as 8 of you on a Friday afternoon without a reservation in Soho - remember that?! My pizza arrived, unusually larger than I had imagined. Instead of my requested 12 inch, the 15" had turned up. What was I to do? A lone girl, the table of men looked upon me expectantly. I hoovered up the lot, and was thus nicknamed 'gannet'. I didn't tell them that the pizza was remarkably easy to finish, no - I hammed up the glory of my triumph. For the best really, since I bumbled my way through that job role, with absolutely no idea what was going on. I was great at booking flights and hotels for the trips and conferences they attended abroad, and I was pretty good at getting meetings in diaries, but actually being able to take minutes and understand what was going on at those meetings? I fell asleep a lot. I lasted 8 months.

Anyway, almost 10 years later, and here we are at Homeslice. They started off in a van, and opened up their bricks and mortar place in Covent Garden's Neals Yard just under two years ago, with help from investor Mark, none other than Terry Wogan's son. On a Monday night by 7pm the place was full; we were able to put our names down and wander off for 25 minutes before we were called back again. A huge pizza oven dominates the back of the room, lit with harsh fluorescent lighting - very Naples. For the rest of the restaurant, the room is atmospherically lit with candlelight (so, you know, dark), and tables are squeezed closely together. There is some great tiling.

There is no messing with the menu. It's chalked up on a blackboard for all to see, and some pizzas are offered by the slice for £4 per slice, while others are £20 for a 20 inch pizza. Fine, I thought. 20 inches between 2? Absolutely fine. I remembered Pulcinella's.

It was not fine. I died from carbicide. I am not 19 anymore, god DAMN it. Sure, sure, they will give you a pizza box to take leftovers home. I watched an incredibly annoying couple on the table next to us package up at least 60% of their pizza to take home but on account of their annoyingness I refused to do so lest I become anything like them. Also, I have no self control.

But what of the pizza? It's good. The bases are thin, the crust (or cornicione) is pillowy and chewy. A little saltier than what I'm used to. The toppings are inventive; they have the classic margherita (which would be incredibly poor value at £20 for 20 inches) but they also do others like goat shoulder with kale, yoghurt and sumac, or chorizo, corn and coriander - which would have been my choice, had I not been a bit weirded out by the thought of coriander on a pizza.

Instead, we went for half and half of bone marrow with brussels sprouts and pickled onion, and Calabrian peppers with chervil and Lincolnshire Poacher (a type of cheese). Would it have killed them to take the stem off the peppers? That was a bit troublesome. But otherwise, the spicy pickled peppers worked beautifully with the rich cheese. The brussels sprouts were shaved very thinly, like a carpet of vegetable. This was the least favoured side as the bone marrow wasn't hugely flavoursome. The brussels sprouts kept flaking off into my wine glass too - lumpy wine. That is my fault though. The main issue I had was that both sides were a bit similar - again, our fault - next time, something like mushroom and ricotta would complement it well.

A word on the wine. Red, white or fizzy? They plonk a giant bottle of it on your table, which you help yourself to, and then at the end of the meal they measure how much you've drank and charge you appropriately (£4 for a glass of red). This is GENIUS - no hanging around having to finish your wine, thus freeing up tables, and no indecision on whether another bottle is a good idea (it usually is). Loved it. I assume everyone is adult enough not to go poking their fingers / bits of stuff into the bottles. Right?

Homeslice
13 Neal's Yard
London WC2H 9DP

New York, January 2015 - The Brooklyn Edition

This was my fourth visit to New York, and every time I go I love it more and more. My eyes welled up in the back of the cab on the way to JFK for our flight home, and that's not just because JFK is a huge ball of rage-inducing queue-mageddon. This time, for the first time, I wasn't leaving a boyfriend behind either. It's hard to describe what it is I love about it so much; the architecture? Probably. The people? Yes. The restaurants? Absolutely.

This time round, we stayed in Williamsburg, right under the bridge. I wouldn't recommend our Air BnB apartment, unless you're fond of cold showers and sleeping in woolly hats and sleeping masks. But Williamsburg is a great place to stay; it's village-y. It has cool coffee shops and nice people. It has GREAT bars. It's easy to get to Manhattan, if you so wish. They freaking love brunch.

We popped into Egg on a weekday, needing sustenance for the day's sightseeing. I couldn't resist organic cheesy grits (stone-ground from South Carolina, apparently) and eggs, with a side of country ham. I'm a huge fan of any corn product. The portion sizes of America caught us off-guard here; I worked my way through piles of country ham (basically ham, fried) and oozing egg yolk, while my friend worked through two hefty sausage patties, and I helped my other friend out with her candied bacon. The eggs are offered any style, and were poached perfectly which, you know, given its' name. We passed by on a weekend and the place was packed, an obvious wait-list in force.

Grits became a slight obsession of mine. We did a very hungover wander around Dumbo in Brooklyn on a freezing but beautifully sunny day, lighting the bridges spectacularly and the warehouses a rich red. The decor in Vinegar Hill House was completely surprising (a theme that ran throughout my restaurant expectations in New York); for some reason I had expected a bright airy room, perhaps light wood and stainless steel. I think it's the website. Instead, it was small, a bit dark and ramshackle, mismatched furniture, tables packed closely together. Trying to remove my very padded and REALLY COOL ski jacket was quite the kerfuffle. The toilet, conversely, is massive. Anyway, sitting down for a 3pm brunch when service finished at 3:30pm obviously really endeared us to the staff. Nevertheless, 'cheddar grits (see?) with braised beef, salsa verde, poached egg and scallion' was a flavour sensation. Smooth, creamy grits topped with shredded, crispy beef was lovely enough, but the salsa verde was tart, spicy and herbaceous; it sorted that richness right the rich out. My friend's biscuits and gravy with bacon was made that bit more with slivers of pickled apple, while eggs benedict was given a makeover with delicate pink smoked trout and wafers of pickled onion. The kitchen looked like a galley in which three people at the most could operate, so it was all the more impressive that they could turn out the food that they did. My only disappointment was that we didn't have time to give the menu a full work out. And the coffee was a bit shit.

Obviously you can't go to New York and not visit Flushing's Chinatown*. A whole hour on the 7 train out to deepest Queens, we were escorted by our new BFF who, as a stranger, suffered through 6 hours of us talking at him on the plane ride from the UK in an effort to stay awake and prevent jetlag. He still agreed to hang out with us after all that. Anyway, after 18 years living in Brooklyn, not even he had been this far out. But these are the things I will do at the promise of a new and exciting Chinatown, like the good Asian kid I was brought up to be. We embarked on a little tour of some dumplings.

Tianjin Dumpling House is not a house. It's not remotely a house. With the aid of Google maps we navigated our way into what seemed like the basement of a department store, also known as Golden Shopping Mall. Everywhere you turned were counters serving noodles, dumplings, and big steamy polystyrene bowls of stews and broths to people bundled up in their winter jackets.

You could choose up to three ingredients from a picture list and have the dumplings made fresh, or choose from a menu. The pork, pickled mustard green and chive dumplings were the boiled Beijing type. We ate them doused in chilli oil and black vinegar, and they're as good a Beijing dumpling as I've ever had. 12 for $5. Madness.

Best North Dumpling was through another door, down another arcade that was damn near closed - perils of visiting on a Sunday night - and this was a slight upgrade in terms of space and room to actually put your belongings down.

Beef and turnip dumplings, served straight from the steamer, again benefited from a splash of vinegar and chilli sauce. The skins were thin, the fillings juicy. We worried that dinner would become difficult, and they gladly packed us up a polystyrene box of leftovers which were promptly demolished after a quick blast in the microwave the following evening, when we rolled in steaming from a night on the absinthe cocktails. Literal life-savers.

We carried on upgrading our surroundings, and we ended the evening in Biang!, the posher outpost of my beloved Xi'an Famous Foods. Swinging filament lightbulbs, cold beer and dark wood tables juxtaposed with the ramshackle stalls we'd been at made it fine dining indeed. Fiddlehead fern salad had to be had, given the rarity of finding that vegetable, and they were dressed in a chilli-heavy oil, cold yet fiesty.

The chicken 'longevity' noodle was one giant noodle, coiled round and topped with a star anise-spiced chicken and vegetables. On the menu it says the chicken comes on the bone, but ours was bone-free - probably a blessing, given the mess I made with just the noodle itself, flapping around. The noodle was made from wheat, and chewy and elastic, satisfying on the teeth.

Cha'ang tofu was slightly disappointing - my last experience at Xi'an Famous Foods was wobbly, hot, bright, salty, sour, sweet, in your face - this seemed dumbed down, though I'm not sure if it was maybe my memory from two years previous that built it up.

Tofu skin, skewered and grilled was served with a lick of spicy, numbing chilli oil. We were quite meat-light on this visit, of which I was a little glad - I was stuffed to the brim by this point. The bill was so reasonable it was laughable.


I loved Flushing. I would live there if I could, which seems converse since most people like to actually live in the town they work in, but hey - I did East Dulwich for 3 years - an hour-long commute is nothing new to me.

We finished our trip with the only pizza we had - at Paulie Gee's. We arrived initially at 6:30pm on a Saturday night - HA! Fools! 2 hour wait! - and slinked off, tail between our legs. We are nothing if not determined though, and returned all eager at 5pm on the day of our departure. Ha! Fools! They open at 6pm. Anyway, I don't have a picture because it is so hilariously dark inside, I can't tell you what my pizza looked like. I can't tell you what Paulie Gee, who pops out for a chat with his customers, looks like. All I can recall accurately was the flavour of a great crust, and a shit-load of kale that came on my Lacinato Red pizza.

Next up - the Manhattan Binge.


*This is a complete lie. Only do this if you are a Chinatown fanatic, as I am.

Lardo, Hackney

Admittedly, Lardo isn't the easiest place to get to. Located down Richmond Road, a superior knowledge of the orange line that services East London all the way to West Croydon is helpful. We got a cab. 

Inside, the room is industrial-chic. Dimly lit with choice spotlights, the exposed brickwork made the room unmistakenly East London-cool. A mirrored, disco-ball pizza oven dominates one section of the room and a bar populated by diners on high stools oversaw the action. 

We had a table reserved - I know, RESERVED! - and we started off with some cured meats. Interestingly, no lardo was actually offered but instead some home-cured chorizo and loin of pork, garnished with thinly shaved fennel. The chorizo had a spicy kick and both dishes were good value at £4.50 per 25gr. Starters followed, and a fat bulbous burrata  was drizzled with olive oil. Pierced open, our forks scrabbled to scoop up its oozing centre. 

Arancini was crisp and well fried (possibly the choice starter of the night), its innards studded with ferociously spicy 'nduja. Vitello Tonnato was a dish that, when described, baffled everyone so of course it had to be ordered. Thinly sliced veal, poached until just pink was dressed with a sauce of smooth tuna mayonnaise and flecked with capers. It was pleasant enough to eat but I'm not sure I'm really down with the whole idea of the dish. Veal is a delicate flavour, and tuna isn't a shrinking violet - I know which flavour I'd prefer to taste more of. 

Goats cheese and courgette flower pizza was strewn with mint and only reinforced my thoughts that courgette flowers are just a pretty thing. It was one of my favourites of the pizzas though; the toppings were bright and light. 

A black anise pepperoni pizza was topped with rocket and was rich and meaty; when compared to our other two orders it seemed the most standard. Our wildcard was the clam pizza with garlic and chilli; it sounded interesting but I had no idea how it would go down. The clams arrived in their shells and the chilli kick was evident. Thankfully there was no sign of any cheese, and the garlic and parsley was pungent. A little on the salty side though. The dessert options were sparse, and I went for a grapefruit and Campari granita - a bitter, orangey bomb which was just what I needed after all that cheese and meat. 

At around £6 for starters and £9ish for pizzas, Lardo is a pretty perfect neighbourhood restaurant. The service was friendly, the atmosphere relaxed and buzzing without being overwhelmingly loud, sometimes a danger for dark industrial-esque places. While their pizzas aren't the best I've had in London - the bases were a little too shatter-crisp for my liking - I liked the inventive toppings. To be honest though I'd go back just to stick my face in another burrata. That stuff was pretty amazing. 

Lardo
Richmond Road
London E8 3NJ 

Tel: 020 8985 2683 
http://www.lardo.co.uk/

FORZA WIN

There is one weekend from 2011 that my friends still speak of with a wistful fondness, eyes misting over. It was Easter and I had forcibly commanded that they ditch their plans and join me instead to make a team for a New Cross Easter egg hunt. No, I didn't really know the person who'd organised it. No I didn't really know what was involved. They were skeptical. We spent the day with about 25 other strangers running around New Cross gathering coloured eggs, to return to various challenges, devised by Bash and Amy, before ending up in the local pub dancing our socks off. That we won the hunt is by the by (ahem), but it was declared the MOST FUN EVER.

So when Bash emailed me earlier this year asking if I could put him in touch with the Pizza Pilgrims, I sensed a fun new adventure. FORZA WIN was born. They built a pizza oven on a Shoreditch rooftop; having ascended those stairs twice I can only wince and imagine how much hard work that alone was. I went along to their family n' friends test run and they stuffed us silly with pasta dressed in a porky fennel-spiked ragu. Pizzas upon pizzas finished us off and I died a happy carbocide.
 

Their press night saw Aperol spritzs flowing during a sunny evening. Those same excellent pizzas were snatched up by hungry hands. Elderflower sorbets were a floral bomb to the face and blood orange granita refreshed. I was too busy having fun to take photos of the food. Sorry.

It doesn't rain in London okay? But if it were to, then they have a back up plan. Open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until the 29th September, book here.

Forza Win's website is here. 

Princi Pizza

I've never liked Princi much. I walk past it every morning and watch the businessmen gazing onto Wardour Street, absent-mindedly munching on their crumbly pastries and sucking coffee back. Early evening, I walk past it again and it looks sleek from the outside, bustling and lively within. There's usually a bouncer on the door, typical of Alan Yau's places, like Cha Cha Moon (which I actively despised).

It lures you in with the open plan view of bakers rolling and patting dough, placing it in a wood-fired oven. When you walk in you can mill about at the counters displaying the food, queueing up to place your order. Then, after collecting your order you can shuffle amongst the bodies, desperately seeking a seat. Perhaps you thought ahead and made a mate guard some stools, and then you have to tag team while they go and do that food ordering thing while yours slowly loses optimum temperature. No, it was all too stressful for me.   But then, they extended next door and built what looked like a sit-down restaurant. You know, one of those places where you're seated and your order is retrieved from you. One Friday, seven sheets to the wind and in need of late-night sustenance, four of us staggered towards the bouncer, pizza in our minds. Miraculously we were let in. 

Heritage tomatoes were sweet and juicy, like no tomatoes you usually get in the UK. Paired with the sweet, creamy mozzerella and drizzled with olive oil (£7.50), this was simplicity at its best. We devoured this while we waited for our pizzas.

 Diavola (£9.50) was monstrously spicy, with hidden chilli slices ready to heat-bomb your face. It was addictive. We sucked air through our teeth as we attacked through the slices.  

Bresaola (£10.50) was huge and generously topped with the thinly shaved cured beef, some rocket and Parmesan. The base was chewy, well charred and the tomato sauce flavoursome. This was hard to fault. 

 I was less impressed with our waiter's recommendation, the Valerio. Topped with mushroom, ham, mozzerella, cream and basil, this was a white pizza and it was just a bit too boring for my tastes. With a beer each we paid roughly £15 each including service. By no means the cheapest drunk food I've ever had, but it was incredibly satisfying. Stress-free dining helps. 

  Princi London  

 135 Wardour Street London W1F 0UT 

 

Pizza Pilgrims at Berwick Street Market

In the interests of full disclosure and all that, I should state that one third of the Pizza Pilgrims (Thom) is a friend and we worked together. When I heard he was leaving the company to start a pizza van I was full of admiration (and, I'll admit, a little envy). I watched their Twitter stream and their Facebook status updates as well as YouTube videos as they made their way around Italy, learning to make pizza from the masters and picking up their Piaggio Ape van that was to house their pizza oven.

I think I've managed to remain unbiased though and you should really believe me when I say their pizza is indeed excellent. But given my previous disclaimer you may not, but it'll only cost you £6 to find out. The pizza I had was dotted with 'Nduja, a spicy spreadable sausage much like the Spanish chorizo. From Calabria, it is typically made with fatty parts of pork shoulder. Dotted sparsely on the pizza, its oils flavoured the dough well and leaves a lingering kick on the palate.

The dough was rolled thin and cooked until the crusts puffed and the insides stayed soft and pliable. On the day we visited on their first week, it took around 10 minutes from placing my order and receiving my pizza. I watched with fascination at the pizza oven built into their tiny van. I ate it then and there in the sunshine, melty cheese strands dangling out of my mouth and a small glob of basil-scented tomato sauce on my chin.

They are there Monday - Friday lunchtimes.

The Big Red

Whoever looked at the space between a pub and a railway bridge and thought "I know, I'll park a bus up there and serve pizzas" was a little genius. Thanks to The Deptford Dame, I found about about The Big Red and dragged six of my mates there to try it out.

Deptford is no stranger to restaurants in strange confines. Though I haven't been, The Deptford Project looks like a perfect brunch place housed in a train carriage and now we have pizzas from another mode of transport. But you don't have to sit on a bus; a patio with tables and chairs, as well as big squidgy couches were where we chose to sit.

We got right stuck into a few jugs of sangria which were packed full of fruit and tasted dangerously unboozy.

As there were so many of us, we managed to order pretty much everything on the menu. A slight mix up in the ordering meant that we also got a starter of bread with nuggets of chorizo and black pudding - the black pudding in particular drew gasps of appreciation, as the sausages were split open to reveal soft creamy insides.

I went for the special veg pizza with extra Spanish anchovies. The bases were crisp and light, though not too thin that they'd shatter. They held the toppings of red onion, courgette, olives, peppers, capers and tomatoes well. The anchovies were obviously of top quality as rather than being overwhelmingly salty or fishy, they were just right.

Pepperoni and mushroom pizza was great - just the right amount of pepperoni and not overly greasy. Around the table, the Flamenco (with black pudding and chorizo) was hugely commended, as well as the seafood pizza. Even the Margherita, which I usually find a bit dull, was excellent. As we digested our food, huge satisfied grins beamed around the table. With a red heatlamp bearing down on us and the music at a happy 'it's Friday night' level, we all had to remind each other that we were sitting under the Deptford railway bridge, and were not in fact, on holiday. We fell in love with the place.

After an espresso to get us moving, we paid up the very reasonable £18 each with service (we had at least 4 jugs of sangria, at £12 per jug) and waddled off to a nearby pub.

The Big Red

30 Deptford Church Street
London SE8 4RZ

Tel: 020 3490 8346

The New Cross House

Outside

Inside - very Capital Pubs-esque

Buttermilk fried chicken

Decor

Enormous pizza oven

Bar

Beer garden

Inside at the outside beer garden...

Upstairs of the beer garden

Capital Pubs have done it again; in what seems like yesterday since the Meateasy closed, they've transformed the desperately grimy Goldsmith's Tavern into a sleek new outfit. In our sneak preview, we saw that wallpaper to mimic original tiling decorate the walls. Booth seating, seen in many Capital Pubs, line one side of the pub and an enormous pizza oven sizzles thin-based pizzas that I know I'll be stuffing myself with in the future.

But perhaps the best bit (especially for a dirty smoker like me) is outside; plenty of seating on the patio decking and a wood burner to keep people warm. Upstairs in the mezzanine is like being on holiday; ivy frames the window frames and sun spills onto the wooden frames.

Time will tell what the atmosphere will be like; predominantly student-heavy, from nearby Goldsmiths? Yummy mummy Brockleyites? Local young professionals, like me and my friends? An amalgamation, I imagine.

Opens MONDAY 9th MAY 2011.

New Cross House

316 New Cross Road,
New Cross,
London,
SE14 6A

Deptford Dame reports here.

Brockley Central reports here.