IN THE MELTING POT

I’m normally a shocking slattern on a weekend, but last Sunday I dragged a comb through my luscious auburn tresses, threw on an old Armani peignoir, and schlepped out to St Gilles for brunch at Britxos, the recently opened outlet of catering supremos La Britannique, with the editor, who presumably wanted to offer me a pay rise.

I wouldn’t say it’s in a prime location - a bit off the beaten track to tell the truth.  However, it did afford me the opportunity to see that bit of St Gilles just past Ixelles, which is an up and coming area with a lot to offer - Art Deco houses, including the Horta museum, walking distance from the trendy Rue du Bailli, and a mere 15 minutes by tram from Mérode.  So you could kick off an afternoon’s cultural learnings with a visit to the market followed by a copious brunch at Britxos, which styles itself as a café-deli, serving breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, cocktails and snacks to eat in or take out.  The menu changes weekly, so it’s worth checking out their website to see if the weekend brunch is going to be Asian, English, Irish, Mexican, or something else.  The nice people at Britxos are open to suggestions, if you’d like to surprise a visiting Albanian delegation (for example) with a taste of the old country.

The cocktail list is on the blackboard above the bar and I sipped a Bloody Mary whilst perusing the top shelf of drinks which boasted some impressive beverages - top hole gins The Botanist and Hendrick’s (voted best gin in the world), and no less a rum than Nicaragua’s finest Flor de Cana.   I made a mental note to come back at cocktail hour, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and try a Glasgow Slag (Irn-Bru and peach liqueur if you must know).

Photo:  Alison Cornford-Matheson

The brunch concept is based on Spanish style tapas, or pintxos as they are called in the Basque country.  British pintxos = Britxos.  Geddit?  Oh suit yourself.  We had the Mexican brunch, which comprises four courses and a bottle of wine for 27 euros.  The entree was a Guadalajara chicken quesadilla, rather like a flattened chorizo, guacamole, potato, onion and cheese pie, drizzled with the chef’s own recipe sweet chutney;  this was followed by Huevos rancheros - two fried eggs with a cold Mexican spicy ratatouille, and tasty jalapeno cornbread.  Then came beer-battered white fish with Mexican sweetcorn salad,  and to finish, vanilla ice cream with Mexican  ganache and a raspberry macaroon.  All washed down with a very pleasant Spanish cabernet sauvignon.  

Photo: Alison Cornford-Matheson

The place only seats 14, plus four seats at the bar - brunch is served in two sittings at 11.30 and 1.30 on weekends, so it’s advisable to phone ahead and book.  If you like improbable multicultural combinations, this is the place for you - a Mexican brunch cooked by a Latvian in a Basque inspired British tapas bar with Spanish wine - Brussels in a nutshell.  The craic was uniquely Brusseleir however - relaxed and friendly, and if you’re on your own, it’s quite likely you’ll end up chatting to your neighbours, as I did to a shy young gentleman from South London who was lunching at the bar.  I was born in Knightbridge moiself, but I will share with you now a little known fact, I was brung up in Sarf London, and it only takes the dulcet tones of the Old Kent Road and a couple of Bloody Marys and my carefully contrived veneer flakes away quicker than Kat Moon’s nail varnish.   By the time we’d finished the four course brunch and were on our second bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, I was singing “Maybe it’s becorze I’m a Londoner” and the place was starting to resemble the Queen Vic on a Sunday lunchtime.  

Your writer doing a Christine Keeler with a couple of British pouffes I found in Britxos
Photo:  Tony Mallett

Needless to say, no pay rise was mentioned.

On second thoughts, perhaps you ought to get your cultural learnings out of the way first before brunching at Britxos.  If you're more interested in the Glasgow Slag than the huevos rancheros, you might prefer to go on a Monday evening when they have live jazz.

Britxos
13 rue de Savoie
1060 St Gilles
Tel:  02 613 48 90
www.facebook.com/britxos
http://www.labritannique.com/contact-britxos

ANOTHER TOUR OF THE HOME COUNTIES

Sunset over the lake, Midsomer Dibley, Oxfordshire

I was back in Blighty for a week's detox after the torpor and excess of the Christmas/New Year holiday, during which I lay on the sofa for two weeks stuffing my face in front of the telly. Tarquin La Folle met me off the Eurostar, and after dropping off my luggage at Ye Olde Travelodge Inne, we stopped off at The Lamb in Lamb's Conduit Street, one of the contenders for the title of Oldest Pub in London, for a small libation, before heading towards Russell Square in search of sustenance. We ended up in The Old Amalfi in Southampton Row, which was empty when we arrived but by 9.00 pm was packed - mostly with Italian tourists! How unadventurous of them. I had veal - just because I could. Italian restaurants are the only places you can eat veal in England. It's as if they have an exemption from political correctness. Tarquin had bresaolo something or other. We ordered a £12 bottle of house red wine - when it came it was a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which was listed on the wine list at £18. A good start. They didn't have panna cotta for dessert, which caused me to downgrade them somewhat.

Sunday morning my first stop was the Café Pompidou on Pentonville Road, where I treated myself to a Full English with the Sunday papers and a pot of tea, which came to not much more than a fiver! You can take the girl out of the caravan but ... I then boarded a bus which was half full of Italian tourists (not the same ones) who all alighted, with me, at Camden Town, intending to re-visit Camden Market. I was last there 25 years ago, and my goodness, hasn't it grown? I counted at least five different markets, but was particularly impressed by The Stables, which reminded me a bit of the old Kensington Market where you could buy "hippie" paraphernalia back in the 70s. You know - cheesecloth smocks, joss sticks, mandala posters, T-shirts with pictures of marijuana plants, bongs and all that. Except it's vastly bigger and labyrinthine, like a real middle eastern souk. Beautiful, exotic, shiny things. Clothing, fabrics, shoes, jewellery ... and food. I regretted having had a late big breakfast, as I would have liked to try some of the many kinds of street food on offer whilst sitting on a Vespa, but was still picking the bacon out of my teeth. I bought a smashing pair of boots for 35 quid, the saving covered the cost of my train ticket so it was like getting a free trip.

Chalk Farm Road has a similar vibe to Carnaby Street or the Kings Road in the 1960s

The restaurant seating at Camden Lock Village market

The Stables market is full of equine sculpture such as these horses galloping out of the wall

With an hour or so to kill later that afternoon I took a bus down to the City of London, and wandered about amongst the strange juxtaposition of ancient monuments and futuristic edifices bereft of merchant bankers.

My camera is so good, it can even take pictures of the future. This is the
City of London at night as it will look when the Pinnacle is finished.

On the Monday morning I had 2 scrambled eggs on toast and a mug of tea for £2 in another greasy spoon. You'd pay more than that for a croissant in Starbucks. I then collected the rented jalopy and headed north out of the "Smoke" and onto the M1. Driving in UK is so much easier than on the Continent. Signage is much better, roads are more logically laid out, other drivers are more courteous and restrained - even in London, where I managed to avoid straying into the congestion zone. I didn't have one single prang and had a lovely drive up the motorway listening to Steve Wright in the afternoon and singing along to The Fifth Dimension's "Let the sun shine in".

Up in Northants I visited my friend Fernande-Arlette de la Foufounette, or Foufounette-Stickers as she now styles herself, since her Hello! type wedding back in 2007 to Bill Stickers, ex front man of the Prosecutors. Some of you may remember my report - the speedboat, the helicopter, the fireworks, the Maharajah .... Anyway, Sweet F.A. (as Bill dubbed her in a song that just failed to make the top 200) is as delightful and fragrant as ever. We went for lunch to the Fox & Hounds in Lower Harlestone, just on the edge of Norffampton, which is a gorgeous pub with a fab restaurant. The beams and flagstones are original 17th century, and are offset by the modern Scandinavian-style furniture. The food is très gastro. F.A. had pork fillet wrapped in pancetta, with gorgonzola cream sauce, and roasted potato & apple croquette, and I had pesto-crusted cod with herb & spring onion mash, baked cherry tomatoes and sauce Choron (pictured below). Afterwards we drove to Great Brington, in the heart of what the Tourist Board likes to call "Diana Country" and poked our noses into rich people's gardens. F.A. is the most English of Frenchwomen, so much so that she does not even cook.

The next day I took a leisurely drive down the picturesque A508 to Milton-on-the-Keynes, where I had a most agreeable lunch at The Barge with The Lady Banjobile, a dear friend from my days out in the tropics, and a young man of her acquaintance known only as "The Doctor". I didn't ask - she's always been a free spirit. We camped by the roaring log fire and reminisced about our adventures in Africa, where we once danced the cancan in a dugout canoe going over Victoria Falls. Lady B wouldn't let me take any photographs of her, something about being wanted for credit card fraud in 14 countries, so for the benefit of Interpol here is picture of the pub where she may be found most days. I dished out bottles of Belgian beer and jars of real Flemish advocaat, aka electric custard, and the jalopy felt much lighter as I proceeded in a southerly direction.

On to Reading, Berks, where Vera Slapp and I took Aunt Flossie out to lunch at her favourite restaurant, the London Street Brasserie. No Good Boyo knows the place. Aunt Flossie is a very loyal customer to restaurants she likes, and I am delighted she has found an alternative to the cafeteria at Debenham's which was her lunch venue of choice for the past 30 years. Apparently she takes her granddaughters to the Brasserie now, to show them how cool she is! She always has the Leffe beer battered gurnard and handmade fries - or fancy fish and chips (you can take the girl out of the caravan) but we managed to talk her into the warm goat’s cheese, caramelised onion & tomato tart to start, whilst I had terrine of local game, fig & port chutney, glazed beetroot, and sour dough toast, followed by a whole grilled Cornish plaice with caper, shallot & parsley butter and potato & watercress salad. Afterwards Aunty just wanted a "nice cup of tea" and that is exactly what they brought her. Vera, more adventurous, ordered a "tea pig" of liquorice and peppermint. It was extremely weird. At first, when it goes over the front part of your tongue, you only taste the liquorice. Then the peppermint hits the back of your tongue and you get the sweetness. It really messes with your head. She didn't like it much, so I finished it for her.

So much for a light lunch. Vera and Cyril took me out on a very long drive in the evening to The Frog at Skirmett, near Henley, gastropub par excellence. I had roast rump of Oxfordshire lamb (not Berkshire, please note) which I pronounced to be officially The Best Lamb I Have Ever Tasted. You could have cut it with a runcible spoon. Vera had a baked stuffed squash stuffed with spicy lentils and crumbled goat's cheese. Cyril, who's a bit like his mother-in-law, in more ways than he would like to admit, had pie and mash. Apart from the superb quality of the food, the portions were very generous and the prices perfectly reasonable. So you can take your fricadelle, Monsieur Larousse, and put it where ze sun don't shine. The sun shone till the very last in Vera's village Midsomer Dibley, as the photograph at the top will attest.


Back in London, I paid a visit to Oxford Street but it's all gone to cock. I don't like what they've done to Selfridges one bit. It's gone all faux-trendy. My favourite little Italian lunch place, The Lucky Spot in North Audley Street, is no more. I spent my last evening in London at China City just off Russsell Square, tucking into a quarter crispy duck with pancakes, before making a last sweep of Waitrose and heading for St Pancras laden with Melton Mowbray pork pies, Paul Rankin sausages, Davidstowe cheddar, M&S cheese scones, tea bags, bacon and Lemsip. As if to torment me right up until the last minute, there were MORRIS DANCERS at St Pancras! A bunch of elderly geezers dressed up in straw hats, odd socks and bells were capering about to the sound of an accordion, while baffled Belgians and French looked on open-mouthed.

The Harrow Morris (for it is they) performing ancient

fertility rites, which were quite wasted on me

For the rest of the month I shall be nibbling on a lettuce leaf.

BRITANNIA FIGHTS BACK

After my ranting rage about Larousse's treacherous slander of British cuisine, I have just completed a visit to Albion's shores and have visited a series of excellent eateries from central London to the wilds of Oxfordshire via the bracing beaches of Sussex. All I can say to Monsieur Larousse is: ah speet on yeur overpriced French foreign meuck, and yeur muzzair was a 'amster!!


London:

Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK), Baker Street and elsewhere
Chain of simple burger restaurants, burgers are made from ground beef and cooked to order. Various options, food is fresh and reasonably priced.

Regency Cafe
The uncontested star of greasy spoons, this spotless corner caff has featured in the film "Layer Cake", as well as Masterchef 2011 and Andrew Neill on Class. The menu is standard British caff fare - all-day breakfasts, sausage & mash, etc. - and the place is always packed with builders, taxi drivers and office workers during the week. Nuff said.

The Betjeman Arms, St Pancras International Station
I always arrange to get the 14.35 Eurostar back from London so that I can have lunch here. Their fish & chips are stonkingly good - and that's from someone who lives in Belgium.

Pompidou
Another simple caff situated on the Pentonville Road between York Way and Caledonian Road, a couple of minutes' walk from St Pancras. Miles better than all those chain coffee shops like Costa Packet or Caffe Zero that abound in the area. I had a simple toasted bagel with butter and jam and a latte, but my nose was twitching at some huge salads two tables down which were emanating freshness.


Berks, Bucks & Oxon

The Shoulder of Mutton, Playhatch, Berks
Lovely olde-worlde country gastropub with superior bar food. There's also The Crown in the same village if there's no room at this inn.

The London Street Brasserie, Reading, Berks
If you're having a day's retail therapy in the Oracle, the LSB is a great place to set your bags down for a couple of hours. Classier than the chain restaurants on the riverside, less flashy than the Jamie Oliver place, the food is good, fresh, beautifully presented and served with a smile. The staff are professional and know about the food and wines. Extremely reasonable prices for such high quality.

The Bird in Hand, Sonning Common, Berks
Another country gastropub, pleasant environment, fresh chunky sandwiches and cider. No such thing as a ploughman's lunch any more, I was told by the barman. Shame. I am going to start a movement to bring it back.

The Kingswell Hotel, Harwell, Oxon
Superb 3-course meal for half the price you would pay for similar quality in London. (About 30 quid a head). The hotel is in the pretty village of Harwell.

The Barge, Woolstone, Milton Keynes
Charming olde-worlde pub with an airy conservatory restaurant, or you can eat in the bar or at a table outside in the garden.

Sussex
The Crown & Anchor, Shoreham By Sea
Nothing much to look at from the street, but a charming conservatory restaurant at the back and a terrace overlooking the river Adur. Selection of chunky club sandwiches, salads or hot dishes.

Carats, Southwick Beach, Portslade
The beachside greasy spoon is a popular Sunday brunch venue for locals and a few celebs - Chris Evans is rumoured to have been spotted here tucking into a bacon sarnie. You'll have to queue for 20 minutes or so if you come between 11 and 12 on a Sunday, but it's worth it. The Carats Breakfast at 5.65 will set you up for a long walk along the beach.


So, Monsieur Larousse, put zat in your peep and smirk it.

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA

Consistently good: Margaritas

A friend of mine once gave me his analysis on why Americans were all neurotic.

"You go to a restaurant, and they give you a great big laminated menu with colour photographs. Every item on it has a whole paragraph of descriptive along the lines of: try our succulent quarter-pounder, freshly made with a generous four ounces of prime ground beef from Angus cattle fed on the lush grasslands of North Dakota, seasoned with Tahitian rock salt and cracked black pepper from the slopes of Mount Popocatapetl, lovingly barbecued over a hickory-wood charcoal fire and laid on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce and shavings of white salad onion fresh from our organic kitchen garden, layered with thin slices of juicy plum tomato flown in this morning from Italy, and lightly drizzled with homemade low-cholesterol mayonnaise made personally by our Chef , all of this encased in a warm sesame bun and served to you courteously by our staff."


"It takes you 20 minutes to read the menu, and another 20 minutes to decide what you want.


"And when you get your food, it's just a burger.


"That's why Americans are all in therapy - they're all suffering from chronic disappointment."

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I have spent most of last month travelling in America, and did my best to eat American wherever possible. This only involved a burger once, not counting the MuckDonalds I had one night because everything else was closed (in Vegas! 24/7 my eye).

Farmers Market in LA, early morning

I have always wanted to say the immortal words: "Pastrami on rye and hold the mayo!" I finally got my chance in Los Angeles, not at one of the famous Jewish delis down on West Pico but at Phil's Deli in the Farmers Market. The "small" size had "only" 400 grammes of beef - that's about a pound. I'd always thought pastrami was an Italian speciality but it is in fact Jewish, a prime side of beef seasoned in brine and then steamed until the meat is so tender it melts in your mouth. Also known as a salt beef sandwich, in Jewish delis it is often served with a large dill pickle. Mine was relatively unadorned, served in plain white rye bread and washed down with a Martinelli's apple juice in an apple-shaped bottle.

San Francisco was the only place where I chose to eat "foreign" - but Chinatown is a must, and the Chinese community have been there so long that San Francisco Chinese is probably a cuisine in its own right by now, rather like Scottish-Indian. I happened upon the Far East Cafe on Grant, which is a cavernous high-ceilinged room with the full-on look of old Shanghai - red paint, gilt, ornate heavy wooden furniture, and dragons. It has been in operation since 1920. Down one side of the room are cosy little booths with carved wooden swing doors, for a tete-a-tete or a discreet opium deal. The service is brisk and unsmiling, but at least they don't interrupt you three times while you're eating with "Everything OK with you guys?". I had won ton soup, followed by Peking baby ribs with fried rice, and a pot of green tea. I could eat in there every day.

Cioppino: Italian dish invented in San Francisco

Dungeness crab down on Fisherman's Wharf is another San Francisco classic. A local speciality is cioppino, a sort of fish stew but which involves molluscs so was off limits for my delicate stomach. I had a bad cold, so maybe that's why the crab cakes didn't taste of anything. I was in one of the Italian restaurants on Jefferson Street - it could have been Alioto's, or Tarantino's, or Scoma's, I don't know, they're all Italian and all serve crab. I ordered a glass of white Zinfandel to go with my meal. The waitress served me a glass of rosé. I pointed out that I had ordered a WHITE Zinfandel. That is a White Zinfandel, she said. But it's pink, I said. She went away and the manager came back to explain to me that a White Zinfandel is in fact a rosé wine. Whatever. In Starbuck's if you want a small latte, you have to ask for a TALL latte. Honestly, sometimes it's like being in a foreign country.


The third in my trio of San Francisco culinary classics is John's Grill. This is one of the settings in Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon" and is, fittingly, the HQ of the San Francisco Dashiell Hammett Society. The interior is classic American grill room with photos of all the famous patrons on the walls. The food is fairly ordinary - not bad, but not exciting. I had seafood cannelloni which was slightly underwhelming and not cheap.

The patio of the La Fonda

Moving on to New Mexico, this was a risky place for a dame with a delicate palate. In Santa Fe I primed my lips with a margarita at the elegant La Fonda Inn. The origins of this hotel are fascinating, it was one of the original Harvey Inns which inspired the movie "The Harvey Girls" starring Judy Garland. I was invited to taste tamales with mole sauce at Café Pasqual's in Santa Fe. I didn't like either much. Tamales are made with maize flour, and maize, as anyone who has lived in Africa will tell you, is a very tasteless cereal. Mexican food seems to be either fiery hot or completely bland, with no subtlety of flavours in between. Although it is not true, as Billy Connolly contends, that all Mexican dishes are the same, only folded differently (see photos - although if you can tell a burrito from an enchilada you must be a local). At The Alley Inn in Taos I liked the fish and chicken tacos, but the chicken tostada at the Guadalajara Grill, also in Taos, was quite blah. Back in Santa Fe, Cowgirl is a fun place to eat, and I demolished a whole side of BBQ ribs to even my surprise.

Tacos (2)

Enchilada

Burrito

American breakfasts require a whole menu to themselves, and I tried to sample every type of breakfast from bagels to eggs Benedict, leaving out waffles as I live in Belgium and knew they wouldn't be up to scratch. Starbucks was just confusing - there's a whole system there and if you don't know it you look like a twit. The girl took my order and then asked me my name. "My name??" I repeated, baffled. "Yes, you pick up your order at the other counter down there, so we call out your name when it's ready," she explained patiently, as if talking to a child.

I tried pancakes, thinking they would be something like the pancakes here, which are shop bought but then cooked gently in butter. When they arrived, there was a stack of three bogstandard Scotch pancakes, barely warmed out of the packet, stuck together with confectioner's cream and covered in icing sugar, with blueberries and strawberries and a jug of maple syrup. The maple syrup proved necessary as they were so dry. It looked pretty but was a heart attack on a plate.

Comes with a complimentary defibbrilator

In San Francisco there is a chain of diners called Lori's which are replicas of the traditional 1950's diner, with red leather bar stools, booths, lots of chrome, and staff in perky little white hats. Well at least it's not called "Happy Days". I went to one to try the "famous Lori's French toast" which sounded delicious, but when it arrived was just a thick slice of industrial brioche soaked in egg and milk and shoved under the grill, served covered in icing sugar. The Americans seem to think food is something shameful to be hidden by sauces, syrups, sugar, anything to disguise the flavour, or lack of one.

In several places I ordered just a toasted bagel or simple eggs over easy and bacon, which they do very well. They also top your coffee up as many times as you like. I had to try Eggs Benedict once, and did so in a posh hotel in Las Vegas. The eggs were fine, but once I'd scraped off the heavy layer of chilli-spiced Hollandaise sauce I found they were sitting on a thick gammon steak which itself was sitting on a couple of English muffins. With freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee it turned out to be a $30 breakfast, but as I'd been too busy to treat myself to a decent dinner in Vegas, and had a long afternoon at LAX airport in view followed by an overnight flight, it kept me going till England, where I had the first decent cup of tea I'd had in three weeks.

Eggs Benedict

Vegas is full of swanky empty restaurants. Mon Ami Gabi at the Paris always seemed to be full, and I would guess requires advance booking. But you don't need to be a high roller to get a good meal in Vegas. The Hawaiian Market has a number of places to eat, including a very pleasant open-air Mexican cantina where you can eat breakfast, lunch or dinner, or just sit and sip a frozen margarita or a Corona. The Fashion Show shopping mall has a food court on the 1st floor (sorry, 2nd floor over there) which is not top quality but you can eat quick and cheap and choose from about 10 different dining options. The Chinese wasn't bad. House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay resort has a good Southern menu, and I can recomment the chicken gumbo as well as the music.

I can also recommend the margaritas.