I’m very late discovering Panda Panda… but what a great café!

I was in Deptford, London SE8 and tweeted for suggestions of places to eat. @Sarahluv81 suggested Panda Panda, and she’s spot-on.

It’s a small café on the busy main road of Deptford Broadway – the main A2 out of London to Kent, close to Deptford Bridge DLR station. They’re famous for their Vietnamese baguettes, but we both had noodles. My pork noodles were delicious and hugely filling – £4.95 a bowl. My companion had Mushroom and Tofu noodles which were almost as nice. We were the only customers when we arrived for an early lunch but it soon started filling up, and our food arrived almost before we’d ordered it. You can have optional nuts and chillis on your noodles – we had both. Chillis were pretty hot, but on a cold day that’s no bad thing.

The thing that really has me hooked is the bubble tea, though – amazingly-textured concoctions served with a big fat straw through which you suck velvety balls made of tapioca. I love South Korean Aloe Vera drink, so this was very much up my street, but they have plenty of other healthy fresh juices without tapioca if you don’t fancy silky balls slipping down your throat…

A very filling lunch for 2 including fresh drinks came to £15.10.

Rather frustratingly it’s only open from 10.30 am to 6pm, so the free local delivery isn’t that useful, and it’s closed Sunday. I hear they visit Brockley Market in Lewisham too.

I don’t really do ratings, but I’d give it 9/10. They probably deserve an extra point for restraint – I almost certainly would have called the place ‘Panda! Panda!’ and would have been much more in-your-face with the panda motif all round.

I will be back – with my Oriental-food-crazy kids.

Website: http://panda-panda.co.uk/

I was making a chicken curry and a vegetable curry and somehow ended up making a mushroom one and a potato one as well. I think the potato one was the best of the bunch, followed by the mushroom. Here’s how I made it.

• 4 large potatoes
• 1 tsp mustard powder (recipe called for seeds but I didn’t have any)
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, minced or finely chopped
• half a tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• chopped fresh coriander to garnish

Peel and chop the potatoes into 1 inch cubes. Parboil for a few minutes. Don’t let them turn to mash.

Fry the mustard and cumin seeds in some hot vegetable oil. You’ll know when they’re done because the seeds will start popping and you’ll start to choke. Add the chilli powder and ginger and stir vigorously for 1 minute. Then add the drained potatoes, tomatoes, sugar and water. Simmer until the potatoes are cooked through, then stir in the cumin and coriander powder and serve with a sprinkling of fresh chopped coriander on top. Rather hot, and great as a side dish with any curry.

The Guildford Arms is a gastropub in Greenwich, SE London. It currently looks a wee bit blank and uninviting from the outside – indeed I had walked past it ages ago and found its starkness a bit intimidating. It might not exactly be a cozy boozer, but it turns out to be a great place to eat as well as drink, with local Meantime beer on tap as well as Madonna’s favourite pint, Timothy Taylor’s Landlord.

For my starter I had cauliflower soup with truffle oil – this was creamy, perfectly seasoned and the cauliflower flavour was spot-on, not too over-powering. My companion had Roquefort, Roasted Walnut, Beetroot & Chicory salad which was nice.

M’companion had beer-battered fish and chips – fish was excellent. I tried the chips – not quite crispy enough on the outside for my liking; possibly they’d not been cooked twice (or thrice) on a high-enough heat at the end. My main course was sublime though: slow-cooked ox-cheeks with anise, smoked garlic mash, sprout leaves and carrots. The meat was delicious and melted in the mouth. The smoked garlic was hardly detectable in the mash, but it was perfectly smooth and warm and filling, and perfect for a sunny winter’s day. The greens hiding underneath were perfect.

For pudding my companion had warm chocolate and hazlenut brownie with ice cream, and I had pecan tart with whisky ice cream. The former was very nice, the latter was perfect. The pecan tart was sweet and moist and the ice cream had a big hit of whisky flavour. One for the road!

The Guildford Arms has a formal dining room on the first floor and a second floor function room, plus a decent-sized garden and decked area. It’s run by Guy Awford, who also runs the nearby Inside restaurant which we had a lovely after-movie dinner in recently.

Three course lunch for two, including a pint of tasty Meantime pale ale and a half of cider came to £33.85. We’ll be back.

http://www.theguildfordarms.co.uk/

• 500g brisket
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika – must be smoked, this is a key ingredient
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
• veg stock powder
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• small amount of chopped fresh coriander

Put the oven on – about 150 degrees C, or lower perhaps.

Score lines in the brisket. Season with salt & pepper and rub in the cinnamon, cumin, paprika and oregano. Brown the meat in a slug of olive oil a hot casserole on the hob. While it’s searing, in a small saucepan boil the chopped red pepper, bay leaf, tomatoes, Worcestershire sauce and stock made up with some boiling water – you need enough liquid to cover the meat.

Then add the onion to the meat and cook for about 5 minutes on the hob until the onions are translucent. Add the tomato sauce from your other pan to the meat, and put the casserole in that low oven – or on a low heat on the hob if you like. I cooked mine in the oven at 150 C for about 2 hours, then I cooked it for another half an hour on the hob with the lid off to thicken it up a bit. You could probably cook it for longer at a lower heat and get even better results.

When the meat is ready, pull it apart with a pair of forks. It should just fall apart. Adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper and a small amount of red wine vinegar to taste. Remove the bay leaf. Add chopped fresh coriander and serve on warm tortilla wraps with grated cheese, lettuce, rice &c.

The orginal recipe uses fresh red chillis, but I find the spices, especially the smoked paprika, give it enough kick. My middle son loves heat, so we let him add Barefoot Kitchen Habanero sauce to taste – you won’t need much!

• box of chestnut mushrooms
• knob of butter
• tsp dried oregano
• slug of Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons crème fraîche
• half a teaspoon of smoked paprika
• salt and pepper

Wash and dry the mushrooms. Quarter them and fry in the butter and the oregano until almost cooked through. At the last minute season, add the Worcester sauce, stir in the crème fraîche and sprinkle over the paprika. Mix and serve at once on warm toast. Must try this with kidneys…

Serves 2.

• 400g tin of tomatoes
• 1 small onion
• butter and/or oil for frying
• some fresh chilli, chopped – I used some Ring of Fire chillis – zing!
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• salt and pepper
• tsp brown sugar
• Worcestershire sauce
• grated cheese
• 2 tortillas / flatbreads
• 2 eggs

Put the oven on a low heat.

In a pan, fry the onion and chilli in a little butter until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic and fry briefly. Add the chopped tin of tomatoes, salt and pepper, sugar, a generous slug of Worcestershire sauce. Simmer over a low heat for half an hour.

Then quickly fry the flat-breads or tortilla wraps, and wrap in foil on plates in the oven to keep warm if needed. Fry the eggs, put a wrap on each plate, smother in sauce, pop an egg on each one and add grated cheese. Eat in bed.

• 1 medium or small pumpkin
• 2 carrots
• 1 onion
• tablespoon of ground coriander
• thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
• 1 litre of stock – I used chicken
• 2 cardamom pods
• tablespoon double cream

Chop the onion roughly and fry in some oil until soft along with the ground coriander. Then peel, seed and dice the pumpkin, and fry off along with the diced carrots and peeled, chopped ginger.

When it’s all looking soft, crush 2 cardamom pods and squeeze the seeds into the mix. I threw the husks in as well. Add the chicken stock, bring to the boil and then simmer for half an hour.

Remove the cardamom husks, if you left them in, and blitz with a hand-blender or in a food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste, and stir in the cream. Enjoy!

Suppertime! – ‘delightful and useful’ – The Guardian

I was thrilled that the lovely Jon Henley mentioned this site (and linked to it) in his piece on modern eating habits in The Guardian today.

If you’ve followed the link from the paper, welcome! This is my personal recipe blog – a scrapbook, a digital equivalent of a notebook stuffed with scribbled-down recipes and cuttings from magazines. It’s also mobile-friendly, so you can refer to recipes on the site on your phone while cooking.

Recipes on the site are tagged by ingredient – use the search box, ingredient drop-down box or the tag cloud. Contributions very welcome – the simple, tasty recipes that get you through the week.

best wishes

Giles Booth,
London.

It was delicious – though I probably ought to have read to the end of the recipe earlier in the day – I slammed it in the oven after the afternoon school run. Doing it before would have been cleverer – it takes 3 hours to cook.