Sunday Roast Review: Hawksmoor Spitalfields

Probably some of the best beef you can have.

There's only one choice of meat on offer but that's no biggie because the variety of beef that is available is enough. I've made a visit to the Spitalfields branch before for dinner. It was very good, with the exception of the triple cooked chips - they were nothing special but to be honest you don't really come to Hawskmoor to taste the chips.

A Sunday roast however is a different ball game entirely. The tradition that is the roast dinner, you expect not just a good portion of meat, it's equally important counterpart is the roast potatoes, equalled out with the gravy and the amount of gravy available, equalled with that all important Yorkshire pudding, and some may argue, equalled with the type of vegetables and its crunchiness.

Well, I can say for one thing, that there was no complaint with the Yorkshire Pudding (see picture). I think it's the biggest one yet, it wasn't soggy (one of my dislikes - nothing worse than an oily and 'soggy bottom').

A Yorkshire Pudding with a side of Roast...and horse radish.

For the price of £19.50 a pop it's pricey, but I could probably go again for a quarterly treat. I asked for my meat medium and it came perfectly medium, sliced not too thin but not too thick so it allowed for a good meat/yorkshire/bit of potato sized bite.

The vegetables were not too soft - which was to my liking, although I wasn't too keen on the whole roast garlic (don't even think about eating it if you're out on a date...or going to a work meeting the next morning - you'll still be sweating it out) and the cabbage leaves but that's only due to a bad childhood memory.

I've had better goose-fat potatoes I must admit, but they weren't too shabby and they fitted perfectly into my humongous Yorkshire. They weren't cut too big either and there was a good portion on my plate.

I could have done with a little bit more gravy, but liked the fact I was given our own gravy pot to pour on when and how I wanted.

I was totally stuffed by the end of it but still went for the peanut butter shortbread dessert - seriously, you need this in your life. It was more like a crunchy, soft cookie with some yummy ice cream on top.

Service was fairly quick seeing how busy it was, the bar area was also full. Being seated inside the dining area is better for a more intimate setting, tables were a tad too close for my liking (I was seated in between 2 couples) and my seat may have stuck out a bit as my chair getting knocked into as people walked past but once my food had arrived it was not important in the grand scheme of things.

Sunday Roast rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Vegetarian Monologues

#1

So, I've officially started my vegetarian month.  So far so good...

I am surprised I've kept to it a week to be honest.  The first time I tried this, I forgot after only a few hours and consumed some sort of sausage (no pun intended).

As first week's go - it was pretty tough.  Not only did I make a trip to The Diner, I also made a trip to Brussels, Belgium and resisted the temptation of meat, and ended the week with a roast dinner - veggie of course.

I had a lovely soft shell crab burger from The Diner...with sweet potato fries...and onion rings - all to share of course (sort of).  I was originally going to give up the fish, but I think it would be a wise idea to ease myself into this non-meat malark.  Thank god for seafood is all I'm saying.


I also went to The Cheesecake Cafe in Brussels and ordered a Lasagne aux brocolis.  I think the translation is obvious - but it was literally all it was, green pasta sheets and cheese.  It was an odd meal, I believe there are much nicer vegetarian meals out there, but it was quite boring in terms of what was actually on the plate.  The dessert soon made up for it however, a warm brownie with sauce and ice cream.  If this vegetarian experiment goes well, I want to try being vegan for a week.  It'll be extremely difficult but I want to see if I can do it - as a forever-loving meat eater that is, what's one week of my life?


My favourite veggie meal from this week has been the veggie roast from The Water Poet in Spitalfields.    I have to admit I am one of those snobby people who will give a vegetarian dinner - such as a roast dinner a bit of a dirty look.  A few years ago, a Sunday dinner with no meat was ludicrous to me, I couldn't comprehend it.  I have to admit though, my spinach and ricotta cheese sausages were really quite lovely, and the fact that we managed to get a table (albeit outside but the outdoor heaters really do work - I even had to take my jacket and scarf off - I would recommend booking though if you want to go for Sunday dinner later than 12:30).  I would definitely come here again and try out the meat option - I have my eye on the pork belly available.

Here's hoping I won't run out of interesting meat substitutes for the rest of the week, so far on my list there's falafel, (more) salmon, halloumi and lots of veg, oh and my iron supplements.  

Hayley

Review: Fire & Stone, Spitalfields Market

We needed a quick meal before rushing home so we wandered down to the restaurants at Spitalfields market. We've been to Fire & Stone before and enjoyed it, and it had been a while, so we decided to go again.

Last time we went the pizzas seemed huge and great value but this time they seemed a lot smaller to both of us which was a bit of a shame.

We started with some Zucchini Fritters (courgettes) which were sprinkled with Parmesan and a garlic dip. I love anything garlicky but was dissatisfied when a tiny bowl of dip arrived, which wasn't nearly enough for so many fritters. The fritters were nice and not greasy and I would like to have a go at making them myself, they were a little under seasoned but some table salt rectified that.

We also had a pizza each which arrived on a wooden board with a large knife for slicing. The pizzas have an 'around the world' theme, Hayley chose a Marrakech. The Marrakech came with cumin spiced lamb, a yoghurt mint drizzle and chilli oil, it also featured some olives which Hayley didn't enjoy.

I ordered a Mexico which was topped with spicy chicken, guacamole and rather bizarrely fried potato. It was tasty and had a nice kick to it but it tasted as though a lemon had been drizzled over it which I didn't like at all.

Both pizzas had a lovely crisp base and the dough was very tasty which somewhat redeemed their reduced size.

Our bill came to over £30 with only soft drinks, it wasn't great value for money as pizza is so cheap to make and we seemed to be paying a premium for novelty toppings. I don't think we will be returning any time soon and for high street pizza you would be better off heading to Pizza Express.