School of Wok strikes again

Jeremy Pang has been running his School of Wok of cookery goodness for a number of years and now, naturally, comes his own range of noodle kits.

Three new 15 minute noodle kits are now available in Tesco stores - includes Singapore Noodles, Chow Mein and Pad Thai. 

I'm sceptical of ready made meals generally, especially when it comes to noodles as they're not renowned for its healthy benefits. However, I was pleasantly excited when Jeremy Pang's range arrived through the post. Mainly because it's all about authenticity and good food, what you get in the pack is noodles, seasoning and sauce, you still have to do some work (the cooking), but you can see all your ingredients and that's what makes me feel at ease.

Here's how it happened:

I went for the Pad Thai, as I usually order this but never cook it at home - not as difficult as you might think.

This is what is in the box - all labelled and numbered so you know what goes in the wok in which order.

The instructions are very clear to understand and even comes in this magic 'clock' showing you what needs to be prepped and in the wok. Remember, when wokking out, everything goes in fairly quickly, so it's handy to have everything ready before you heat the wok.

Some real spices to add flavour which is quite refreshing to see in a kit.

And in goes my food. I added broccoli to my dish as I'm not a big fan of beansprouts. Looks pretty good already...

And dinner is served!

It was a really lovely, quick dinner. Although, the 15 minutes doesn't include bringing the noodles to the boil, which is a little bit cheeky, but I'll let it pass, as it was very simple, easy and delicious to have as my dinner during a tiring mid-week slog.

Definitely recommend.

Dinerama, Shoreditch

This gem has now reopened after its unfortunate fire which is great news for anyone who likes a bit of street food and drink. Beware, queues for the bar may get quite long on a busy day...especially at the cocktail/champagne bar.

Visit before it closes!

Steamed buns, or bao, is the new burger. This pork belly one was pretty good, not the best bun I've had though.

I'm not a big fan of mac'n'cheese but this one with crab in it tempted me.

Let's get drunched on the gin boat

When my friend suggested there was gin on a boat, I wasn't going to say no, so off we sailed into the sunset...well, the canal in the East end of London.

The little voyage was set up by Butler's Gin. All the boat sails are sold out for 2015 now, but I definitely recommend this. Book the bigger one for a party perhaps, it's lots of fun. Includes two bottles of gin (of course, if you don't finish it, you can take it home), mixers, and even a bottle of prosecco to start you off. They recommend you a cocktail recipe to make yourself during the journey.

Action shot of the crew.

The boat was pretty small but sturdy, so if you haven't got the best sea legs, maybe give this one a miss. It comes with a speaker too, so you can bluetooth your own music, our speaker ran out of battery 20 minutes in which was a shame. The two hours felt like 2 minutes, it was a lot of fun, and the novelty definitely didn't wear off.

We had a really friendly captain, who sailed us safely to the East and back again. He even tried some 'gone-off' gluten free crisps from New Zealand.

You can bring your own snacks too. My friend's went one further and ordered a couple of lobster rolls from Smack in Soho

After the boat, we ended up by the Turntables in Hackney Wick - not quite sure what the bar was but the two cocktails I had were simply delicious - a frozen raspberry number and a sour lemony limoncello - my fave.

Old El Paso's new Restaurante range

Old El Paso's Restaurante range

I was lucky enough to be invited to Old El Paso's taster session with the lovely Kimberly Wyatt (MasterChef 2015 winner, obvs) to launch its new Restaurante range - and to show us just how easy it is to cook like the locals. There was also butchery, fishmongery and cocktail (of course) expertise at hand.

The class took place at the cookery school Food at 52 in Barbican which used to be someone's house and had a very quirky decor to it.

Here's what went down.

The quirky decor at Food at 52 cookery school 

A lot of research went into the ingredients, to show just how authentic and easy it is to cook like the locals, only you're in the UK

Kits and knives at the ready!

Kimberly shows us how it's done with the Baja Fish...

It really is as easy as that.

Yum!

Now it's our turn

Boiling the chicken with the sauces - easy and healthy way to cook chicken

Ta-da!

The steak version 

Cocktail masterclass

Funky lights and tagines on shelves

I love guacamole

Review: Bibimbap, Soho

Korean food is the new trend this season apparently, forget burgers, it's all about grilling at the table and raw food in hot stone bowls!

I went to Bibimbap in Soho to try out the national dish of bibimbap and a few extra bits - it'd be rude not to.

Raw beef, raw egg, vegetables and rice in a hot stone bowl. After quite a bit of mixing my beef was cooked and it was delicious. It's a bit of a novelty for non-Koreans I guess, as you sort of end up cooking it yourself (CIY instead of DIY) in a way.

We had the starter of kimchee pancakes and prawn and chive dumpling. The pancakes were very appetising and not too heavy. The dumplings were also very good.

Overall, it was a good little dinner. The place gets quite busy - within 20 minutes of opening there were very limited tables left. It's very quick service and a great place to catch up with friends, but if it's more of an intimate setting you're after this place probably isn't for you. A sort of eat and go. The only thing missing was the grill on the table which is the other fun bit of Korean food.

RATING: 3 out of 5

MunchMap: Instagram for Foodies

Foodies (and non-foodies actually) - all your problems are solved with this new app...me and my family atually have a Whatsapp group entitled 'Food!' where we constantly post food pics from Hong Kong, Sydney and London (via Bath and Leeds), but this may be the answer.

Taking photographs of your dishes in restaurants, before devouring the food, has become increasingly popular (myself included). The newly launched food sharing app from MunchMap Ltd. is a perfect solution to save and share your food journeys and experiences with fellow foodies.

MunchMap is free to download and available on iOS. Its range of settings enables you to customise your views, yet maintain privacy as you wish. You’ll never be lost for something delicious to eat in your local area, just check your friends or families feed and see either by images of the food, or by location on the map - everything is available with easy access including ratings and comments.

The clean interface and smart features were designed by the co-founder, CEO and serial entrepreneur, Jonny Caplan:
“I found myself constantly sending pictures of my meals to my family on our Whatsapp group. I am not normally the sort of person to post pictures of everything I eat on Facebook, or other social media sites, but as a family we like to share these things. I also found many others who had been following suit, but nothing was available with the right tools and features to record and access this properly. It was immediately clear that we required a platform to document everything we eat stored by location and time. We simply created an environment dedicated to food and unrestricted by region. You could be eating pizza in Peru, or soup at the South Pole, and you will be able to tag it and store it for later. Plus you get recommendations from people you trust, which provides a much higher level of trust and loyalty.”

MunchMap was designed for food, by people who love food, so it’s taken this very seriously and they have put steps in place to ensure that MunchMap’s content meets those specifications, which means strictly no Selfies allowed.

With record downloads for the first 3 days since launch and reaching a top 100 (41th place) ranking on its third day seems to suggest a bright future for the MunchMap team. Caplan also mentioned that they have an Android counterpart currently in development.

Download MunchMap today from the Apple AppStore: https://itunes.apple.com/il/app/id1030733839