A HILL OF BEANS

The week of the terrible heatwave I was holidaying in the deep south west of France.  It was hot. Fearsome hot.  Around 40 degrees and probably more. The sun would reach full blast just about lunchtime, and so eating out became more of an ordeal than a pleasure.   It was all I could do to lift a lettuce leaf to my parched lips, and made frequent visits to the supermarket just to hang around the chilled food section.  Ideal conditions, you would think, to lose a bit of weight.  But despite profuse "glowing", not an ounce of lard melted from my body. 

My technical adviser and I flew down to Toulouse and spent a night there before following the canal south.  The place to go in Toulouse is the Place du Capitole, where the magnificent Capitole palace, seat of the regional Prefecture, dominates a vast square bordered with arcades, where cafés and restaurants abound, many of them quite fancy.  Instead of patio heaters they had vaporisers, which pumped out a fine water vapour every minute or so to cool down the punters.  It was so hot I didn't even care about my hair frizzing, and hoped to be mistaken for a retired Black Panther with a melanin deficiency.  Pizza Marzano, for those of you who don't know, is the continental name of Pizza Express.  And Pizza Express, for those of you who don't know, make the best pizzas in the UK.  Our waiter was a most agreeable young man who turned out to be English, not that you'd know when he spoke faultless French.  I knew this part of France was overrun by Brits, but was not expecting to be served food by one.  Oliver (for it was he) had mastered that very French trick of being efficient and still finding time to chat.   Our pizzas were delicious, especially washed down with two bottles of rosé (well it was a hot night).  Probably not the cheapest pizza in France, but a very pleasant evening nonetheless. 

The cassoulet is the typical dish of the southwest.  Like every other dish in France, ownership of the "genuine" cassoulet is jealously fought over by neighbouring towns.   Toulouse, Carcassonne and Castelnaudary dispute the recipe, but Castelnaudary has won the right to call itself  "world capital of cassoulet".  The dish informs the whole social calendar, and Castelnaudary's annual cassoulet festival was being held that same week, including such events as bean-throwing, and probably a cassoulet-eating contest, organised by the Confrérie du Cassoulet, who dress up in robes and silly hats for their official dinners, and have long confabulations about what constitutes a genuine Castelnaudary "lingot", or haricot bean, which is the only type allowed to be used in a Castelnaudary cassoulet.  There is even a syndicate of bean growers, comprising about 40 local growers, to defend the provenance of the legume.  They certainly have their finger on the pulse. 

The Grand Master of the Confrérie du Cassoulet de Castelnaudary

 
 
French provincial food festivals are nutty affairs, as readers of Peter Mayle will know, usually involving the Mayor, funny hats, a number of dogs on the loose going potty, and - always - a brass band.  In Castel they had a mini marathon, and at 9 p.m., with the temperature still at 30+ degrees, we watched the runners come gliding in, not a bead of sweat on them.  The townspeople cheered each runner, and gave especially big cheers for those who ran in groups, like the firemen or the policemen.  We sat at a nearby bar, next to a giant tattooed man who looked like an escaped murderer.  It turned out he had done 16 years in the French Foreign Legion, so my first guess might not have been far from the truth.  I couldn't understand a word he said.  He couldn't understand a word I said.  My technical advisor had to interpret.  The man had a beautiful Golden Labrador who smiled encouragingly at all the runners, and seemed to be on the lookout for Peter Mayle.  The scary man told us how he'd rescued him from abusive owners, and that the dog even slept with him.  Nice to see that even a hard case like that can be redeemed by the love of a good Labrador.

 The Mayor and a couple of other official looking types stood in a row and dished out the prizes, while a bloke with a microphone kept up a nonstop stream of overexcited patter.  The main events would be taking place at the weekend, after our departure, and I made a mental note to return the next year to see the parade of the Confrérie in their robes, throw some beans, and cop some free grub. 

However, there was one thing that remained to be done.  Someone had to try a cassoulet.   In Carcassonne, where it was nudging 40 degrees at lunchtime, we steered clear of the tempting shady terraces under the enormous fig trees trees between the inner and outer walls of the citadel, and headed for "La Divine Comédie" on boulevard Jean Jaurès, technically a pizzeria but we had inside information that the chef made the best cassoulet in town.  The genial Didier emerged sweating from his kitchen to greet us.  I just could not face a cassoulet, and ordered the salade méridionale, but my technical advisor made the ultimate sacrifice.

La Divine Comédie, Carcassonne

It looked easily enough for two people, with a duck leg perched on top of a big terracotta bowl of haricot beans, duck and a gigantic Toulouse sausage.  My salad on the other hand looked like a summer dress, with big slices of Cavaillon melon, mozzarella balls and slices of duck magret sitting atop a mound of fresh salad.    "Good luck old chap," I saluted him, as he looked slightly warily at the giant steaming dish of cowboy food.  But he set to it, taking his cue from Mo Farah - slowly at first, spooning a little onto his plate at a time, chugging steadily through it, and picking up speed at the end, to show a clean plate. As he crossed the line, he raised his spoon and fork in the air triumphantly and was awarded the gold medal for cassoulet eating in very hot weather.  

My salad had been an elegant sufficiency for me, but I still ordered an ice cream, just to cool me down, you understand.  

Of course on my return to Brussels, where the weather was less than half the temperature - 15 degrees and drizzling - the urge for a cassoulet overcame me, and I had to research where to find one.  There appear to be five recommended restaurants specializing in the cuisine of south-west France.  I cannot vouch for the provenance of the beans, but here goes:

 

Au Coin des Artistes

5 rue du Couloir

1050 Bruxelles

Near Flagey

Tel: 02.647.34.32

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g188644-d2315660-r126250546-Le_Coin_des_Artistes-Brussels.html

La Grenouille Bleue

97, rue des Alexiens
1000 Bruxelles

Tél : +32 (0)2 514 00 05

www.la-grenouille-bleue.be

Le Saint-Boniface

Rue Saint-Boniface 9

1050 Ixelles

Tel:  02 511 5366

www.saintboniface.be

Domaine de Lintillac

Rue de Flandre 25

1000 Brussels

Tel:  02 511 5123

Closed Mondays

http://sitebe.resto.com/d/domainedelintillac

Le Domaine de Chavagnac

Place du Beguinage 6

1000 Brussels

Tel: 02 223 3340

http://www.ledomainedechavagnac.fr/

And if you're ever in Toulouse or Carca:

Pizza Marzano
Place du Capitole
Toulouse

La Divine Comedie
Boulevard Jean Jaures
Carcassonne
Tel:  +33 (0)4 68 72 30 36
Closed Sunday

VALLEY GIRL

The Loire Valley is a mere three and a half hours from Brussels on the train (including a metro journey across Paris) or five hours by car.   You can visit it in grand style, staying in a chateau, or on the cheap, as I did.  I chose my hostelries mostly from the Logis de France guide, small hotels in the 65-85 euro bracket, with good restaurants attached.   In the run-up to Easter, most of these hotels were underoccupied so you could just turn up, although these days my nerves wouldn’t be able to stand the uncertainty of finding myself without a bed.  I worked my way downstream from Orléans to Chinon, stopping off at Bourgueil, Vouvray, Saumur and Chinon. Just to see the chateaux, you understand.  It was purely coincidental that all these towns make stonking wine.

Le Pavillon Bleu, Olivet 

Orléans is an elegant town built mostly in white stone. It’s smaller than you would expect of a regional capital, and most sights worth seeing have a Joan of Arc connection.  It’s got quite a bourgeois feel to it, and it’s the sort of place where well brung up young men take their ancient mamas out for lunch.  I stayed at Le Pavillon Bleu, a delightful olde-worlde hotel-restaurant in Olivet, just south of Orléans, on the banks of the peaceful Loiret.  On weekends in summer it turns into a "Guinguette" - one of those olde worlde riverside open-air restaurants with accordion music and dancing, as seen in Auguste Renoir paintings.     I arrived mid afternoon to find the place shut up, and a sign saying that the hotel opened at 5 p.m., so  I went for a walk along the river path which was popular with the old dears from the old people's home along the road.  I could think of worse places to retire.  There are only four or five rooms, which overlook the courtyard and the river.  My room had a gorgeous walnut "lit bateau" or sleigh bed.

The €33 menu gourmand comprises no less than six courses - an "amuse-bouche" to get your gastric juices going, a starter and main course of your choice, then a "pré-dessert" before your chosen dessert, and finally "mignardises" which I think used to be known as "petits fours" in the better class of Harvester, with the coffee.  I fell into my sleigh bed a happy bunny and dreamed I was riding through the snows of Siberia wrapped in furs with Omar Sharif, the tinkling of the rain on the surface of the Loiret somehow transforming itself into the sound of sleigh bells.

 The next day I swung by Chambord and Cheverny to Blois, and then on to Amboise.  That’s four castles just in that last sentence.  Amboise on the left bank is a delightful town stuffed with history.  The castle is the last resting place of Leonardo da Vinci, which is reason enough to visit.  I paid my respects to the Maestro, whose presumed remains, as far as they could tell after they had been chucked unceremoniously into the communal pit by the revolutionary hordes in 1789, are interred in a special chapel under a marble slab engraved in French and Italian.   Nice touch.  About a mile down the road is Le Clos Lucé, the mansion where Leonardo lived for the last 3 years of his life as a guest of King Francis 1st.

Il Maestro

But can’t hang about, on to Tours where I stayed in the Hotel du Manoir, a small hotel with its own (small) car park, although it’s only 5 minutes walk from the main railway station where you can park a car underground for €10 a day.  This hotel didn’t have a restaurant, so I had dinner in Le Bistro du Chien Jaune, an old fashioned bistro next to the tourist office which does a pre-theatre menu for theatergoers to the Salle des Congrès across the road.  While I waited my turn, I tipped my head back and looked at the original artwork on the ceiling.  I had the €19.50 three course "menu gourmand" and treated myself to a half litre of Chinon for €12.50.  

Tours old town, place Plumereau

Tours is an eminently pleasant town which behaves as though it was the regional capital, although that honour falls to more sedate Orléans.  It has a university, a cathedral, a big Préfecture, a big opera house, an old quarter, a market, a big station, the TGV, and, more importantly as far as I was concerned, a Monoprix, a Galeries Lafayette and a Printemps.  The old quarter around Place Plumereau is delightful and stuffed with restaurants.   

My next stop was Saumur, which I reached via Bourgueil and St Nicolas.  You can tell you're in a wine growing region when the road into town is lined with wine shops.  The  Hotel Cristal in Saumur has rooms overlooking the Loire with a 180 degree view.  The rooms are clean and quiet, but I literally did have to open the bathroom door to turn around.   The hotel restaurant Au Quai de la Loire offers a €19 gastronomic menu which did not disappoint.  I washed it down with a half bottle of Réserve des Vignerons white Saumur for €11 extra.

Azay-le-Rideau

From Saumur, my westernmost point, I headed back east via Azay-le-Rideau, one of the fairytale castles.  It sits in the middle of its own lake and has lots of pointy turrets where you might expect Rapunzel to stick her head out the window and empty her chamber pot.  The roof space of one wing has been opened up to show off the magnificent eaves.  French roof timbering has been classed as of exceptional cultural importance by UNESCO.  In fact, the whole Loire Valley has been classed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  It struck me that maybe UNESCO is not situated in Paris for nothing.  I stopped by Rigny-Ussé where there is a gorgeous chateau that allegedly inspired Charles Perrault to write The Sleeping Beauty.  They are milking that for all it is worth.  They wanted a whopping €14 to visit, and you can't even get into the grounds for free.  All of the chateaux charge, but usually €8 or €9. 

I veered away from the Loire to spend the night in Chinon at the Hotel Boule d'Or which is situated on a pedestrian street.  There is free parking on the riverbank, a few minutes walk from the hotel.  The town was gridlocked the day I arrived by a huge crane on the river road.  I read in the local paper over breakfast the next morning that the crane had been fishing out of the Cher a car which had been stolen from the very car park where my car had spent the night.  Fortunately it was still there when I arrived.  The hotel restaurant is called At'able (geddit?) serving a superb menu for €22.40, with excellent service by a charming young waitress who spoke good English.  I had the honour of being the first person to taste the first asparagus of the season, which came from a local supplier and melted in the mouth.   Only three tables were taken on a Good Friday evening, two by British people, one by a young American couple.  Some French people came in at 9:20 and were seated without a murmur.  There's no separate entrance to the hotel, but there's not much else to do in Chinon so unlikely you'll be out past midnight.

Chenonceau

En route to Bourges I made a detour to visit the stunning Chateau de Chenonceau which is actually on the Cher river, although generally included in the Chateaux of the Loire.  The €11 entrance charge here is entirely justified, as it is truly magnificent and extraordinarily well maintained, down to the fresh flower arrangements in every room.  If you only do one chateau in the Loire region make it this one.  It has a wing built out right across the river, which of course makes the river unnavigable.  You couldn’t get planning permission like that these days.  During the Nazi occupation of France, the Cher formed the boundary between Free France and the Occupied Zone, and resistance fighters were smuggled to safety through the basement of the Great Hall and the door that opens onto the opposite bank of the river.  Chenonceau is the most visited castle in France after Versailles, and the car park was full of tour buses.  However the gardens are vast, and there was no crush inside the castle. 

Easter floral arrangement at Chenonceau

I must say the Loire region ticked all my boxes.  The climate is temperate, the landscape is gentle and green, and the city of Tours has everything you could need, including not one but FOUR Irish bars;  property prices are alarmingly reasonable; it's an hour and a bit from Paris on the train, has good public transport (like all French towns) including a new tram network under construction, and the food is amazing.  You could eat your way round Tours every night of the year and never come back to the same restaurant twice.  Every village in the region has at least a couple of top class restaurants.  And then there is the wine. 

Oh yes, and I nearly forgot -- the chateaux.

INDIAN COUNTRY

(Wrong Indian! - Ed.)

Indian food has always been popular in the UK, going back to the days of the Raj - albeit in an Anglicized form. Kedgeree and mulligatawny soup are but two of the many delicious dishes that would be served at a Memsahib’s table back in the days of Gandhi.

Things have changed a bit since Indians started serving their food to the British back in the 1970s. It is no longer a question of a vindaloo and a pint of lager after the pub shuts. North Indian, South Indian, Goan, Kashmiri, Bengali, Mughal – going out for an Indian is no longer just a chicken korma, pilao rice and a pile of pappadoms. The British are quite au fait with Indian cuisine these days, be it the local tandoori or a Marks & Spencer ready meal eaten at home, and most of them have a fairly wide vocabulary of Indian culinary terms: naan, roti, tandoori, thali, dal, dansak, biryani, balti, saag, aloo and paneer are terms that will trip off the tongue of residents of cities almost anywhere in the UK.

We certainly know our pakora from our pappardelle and our Panini from our punani these days, for which we can thank Madhur Jaffrey the TV chef in the 1970s and Patrick Campbell, founder of the Curry Club. Even the Hairy Bikers can whip up a saag ghosht, or lamb and spinach curry, although in a Geordie accent it sounds more like an expletive. The chicken tikka masala is now, apparently, the most popular dish in the UK.

If you are a visitor to the UK and have a penchant for an authentic “Ruby Murray” as our chirpy cockney mates down in Walford would say, head for Brick Lane, near Aldgate East tube. Or if you want to go more upmarket, Veeraswamy’s on Regent Street will take you back to the glory days of the Raj. Birmingham boasts a “balti triangle” where the best balti restaurants this side of Lahore can be found, and in fact the balti – a way of cooking in individual dishes - is reputed to have been invented in that city. Birmingham, not Lahore. Whichever the type of cuisine advertised, in 99 cases out of 100 the chefs and owners will be from Bangla Desh.

Subcontinental food is becoming popular in Belgium too, if the increasing number of Indian restaurants in Brussels is anything to go by. There are now about 40 in Brussels alone. Unfortunately French gastrofascism got its garlicky fingers into Belgian culinary tradition decades ago, and anything that is not in the Larousse Gastronomique is viewed with suspicion, if not outright fear. I met a couple in Paris once who would not go to Chinese restaurants because there was no bread on the table! Indian cuisine is therefore adapted to local palates, which is not always a bad thing. The lower the chilli factor, the more you can taste the subtle blends of spices. However, some lovers of sensations fortes – mainly British men – like a degree of pain with their rogan josh. It’s a macho thing. You won’t find anything in Brussels to compare with Bradford, Leicester or Tooting Bec but have a discreet word with the waiter and most chefs here will turn the heat up a notch or two on request.

In the olden days Indian restaurants were called The Star of India or the Maharajah, and had red flock wallpaper, twangy sitar music and cooking oil drums stacked up in the corridor blocking the way to the loo. Nowadays – in the UK at least – they are all painted in neutral colours with Ikea furniture and venetian blinds and have names like “Monsoon”, “Billy Patel’s” or “Chutney Mary’s”. I blame Danny Boyle. A pair of recently arrived Yanks from the colonies agreed to join me on one phase of my search for a decent curry. “We’re going Indian hunting, cowboys. Call in the cavalry!” I quipped. The lady shuddered. “We call them Native Murkans now and they’re protected,” she said, deadpan. I had a Jeremy Clarkson moment.

We ordered a selection of samosas – two chicken, two vegetable – and a couple of onion bhajis. The samosas were fine, although not remotely spicy, more like triangular Cornish pasties, and the onion bhajis were tasty but about the size of a truffle. For main course we shared a lamb danzak, a chicken tikka masala and a vegetable curry. The lamb danzak was generally judged to be the most tasty of the three, the taste of lentils came through unswamped by fiery spices. The vegetable curry was mild but flavoursome all the same. The chicken TM was the colour of a radioactive carrot. We asked the waiter what they put in it. He insisted just paprika and general masala spices. Otis swore he could detect something like ketchup in the sauce. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the possibly apocryphal legend that the CTM was invented by a chef at the Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow who whipped up an improvised sauce using a tin of Heinz tomato soup. With one garlic nan, one plain nan, and two portions of basmati rice, the whole lot came to around 26 euros a head. The waiters are smiling and nice but don’t expect the sort of expertise or banter you’d get in Sauchiehall Street.

Personally I find wine a bit wasted with curry, as it all tastes the same with the strong spices, and Indians themselves recommend drinking either beer or lassi (fermented milk) with their food. Indian beers such as Cobra and Kingfisher are brewed under licence in the UK, and have been designed especially for drinking with curry, having a lower gas content. If you follow me.

I ventured to the Koh-i-Noor on Avenue de la Chasse with another colonial, this one from the land of the long white cloud#. This small, unprepossessing establishment must have taken over the premises of a Swiss fondue chalet if the décor is anything to go by. Wood panelled walls made me feel I was inside a cuckoo clock. One little lady in a sari runs this place single handedly, she does all the cooking and serving, and goes as fast as she can, but we did wonder if the kitchen was in the same street. The place is not exactly heaving on a Friday night – in fact there were just the two of us. This would seem to be more due to lack of appreciation of Indian cuisine from the locals, or possibly the off-centre location, than on the quality of the food which, when it did arrive, was extremely good. We munched on a pappadom and worked our way through a bottle of Beaujolais while we waited for our large plate of mixed entrees, which comprised 2 samosas (one meat one veg), an onion bhaji, pieces of chicken tandoori, chicken tikka, lamb tikka, shik kebab and a little side dish of mint yogurt. By the time we’d worked our way through these, the main courses were ready: a chicken tikka masala that was reddish but didn’t glow in the dark, a lamb badam pasanda, a vegetable biryani to share and a side order of vegetables. All the food was freshly cooked, including the garlic naan which was the best I have tasted anywhere. A second bottle of Beaujolais at 17 euros was required due to the slow service, which whacked the bill up a bit to just over 40 euros a head, but I cannot fault the food which was delicious.

The third in my trio of Indians is Annapurna on Rue de Laeken which advertises Indian, Bengali, Tibetan and Nepalese dishes, and is named after one of the highest peaks of the Himalayas. I popped in for a quick standard menu (samosas - chicken tikka masala - basmati rice) with a French friend. The waiters are sweet and speak good English, although they can barely speak French. It was quite busy, and they obviously weren’t used to dealing with a full house. We tried to channel the patience of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing on the first conquest of Everest while waiting for the food, but we had the impression that base camp was quite a long way down. It finally dawned on them that they’d forgotten us. Some panicking in the kitchen, and we finally got our meal - which was delicious. I can’t fault the food, but avoid it on a weekend, they haven’t quite come to terms with their own success, yet.

Indian restaurants here are somewhat timid in their cooking, and in none of these three did the waft of curry spices hit you as soon as you walked in. If you are a novice where Indian food is concerned, Brussels is probably a good place to start. If you are a Brit desperate for a really good curry, London is only two hours away on Eurostar.

Spicy Grill

Rue Stevin 102
1040 Etterbeek
Tel: 02 512 25 05
http://www.spicygrill.be

Koh-i-Noor
Avenue de la Chasse 123
1040 Etterbeek
Tel: 02 736 50 22
http://restaurantkohinoor.be

Annapurna
Rue de Laeken 26
1000 Bruxelles
Tel: 02 219 3933
http://web.resto.com/annapurna/

Veeraswamy’s
Swallow Street
(off Regent Street)
London W1
Tel : +44 20 7734 1401
http://www.veeraswamy.com/

TOUKOUL - ETHIOPIAN GOLD

What does the name Ethiopia conjure up for you? Probably long-distance running - if you can name one Ethiopian it will be Haile Gibreselassie, marathon man par excellence. You may also think of coffee (quite likely they invented it). You may be aware that Ethiopia had a great influence on reggae music through the Rastafarian religion, but jazz may come as more of a surprise, unless you've seen the Jim Jarmusch film "Broken Flowers" which featured the hypnotic Ethio-jazz of Mulatu Astatke. Oldest Christian church in the world, anyone? And going even further back, Ethiopia can stake a valid claim to be the birthplace of civilization. If that proves to be the case, then we are all Ethiopians.

If you're around my age - that is to say, mid to late 40s (Come off it! Ed.) - you will have grown up with depressing images of Ethiopia - famine, disease, war, refugee camps - so it is heartening to learn that Ethiopians are not sad people at all. In fact they are regular party animals, and smiley Haile Abebe, the de facto ambassador of the Ethiopian community in Brussels, is out to spread the word with co-owners Natalino Arena and Serge Anton. He already scored a hit with his first restaurant Kokob, and music and cultural venue Le Cercle des Voyageurs which he still runs with a business partner. The new restaurant on the Rue de Laeken, a stone's throw from Place de Brouckère and Sainte Catherine, is called Toukoul. (A toukoul is a small thatched hut where the Afar people of the highlands live). The huge high-ceilinged room has been inventively and tastefully decorated by Serge Anton with genuine Ethiopian artworks.

At the official launch of Toukoul in January, live bands played smoky jazz and lively dance music and the place was packed wall to wall with fans of Ethio jazz funk. At one point the chef gave an impromptu demonstration of vigorous Ethiopian eskesta dancing on the bar, to noisy stamps and whistles of appreciation from the mixed Ethiopian and European crowd. I returned in February for a less frenetic evening, with my editor Tony Mallett and a couple of other novices to Ethiopian cuisine. Not knowing much about it, we trusted in our waiter to serve us a typical selection, and were not disappointed or hungry when we left.

The traditional Ethiopian meal consists of a large spongey sourdough flatbread called "injera" made from teff flour indigenous to Ethiopia, which is used as both plate and cutlery. It is served with small portions of various meat and vegetarian dishes, some spicy, others less so. Strips of injera are used to scoop up food. The various stews and mixes made from vegetables, pulses or meat such as lamb, beef or chicken, are known as wat or aticha and are seasoned with a hot chilli sauce called berbéré, ginger or erd (similar to turmeric). There are also fish dishes and a selection of salads. The “discovery menu”, ranging from 18 to 25 euros a head depending on how hungry you are, is the nearest thing to a typical Ethiopian meal, consisting of a selection of prepared dishes served with a tray of injera and served with an explanation of how to eat it.

Vegetarians are easily catered for, with a good selection of veggie dishes on offer, including spinach with mushrooms, lentils, split peas, ratatouille, ayeb (cottage cheese); the meat dishes range from diced chicken with spinach, minced beef spiced up with berbéré, and diced lamb in a creamy yogurt sauce to chicken with ginger and vegetables. All the dishes are extremely tasty, some are surprisingly mild - apart from the berbéré, nothing will blow your head off. An extra bowl of rolled injera strips is provided for you to break up and use them to scoop up the food on the tray. It’s a convivial and fun way of eating in a couple or a group, and apparently the typically Ethiopian way to do it is to feed each other with a mouthful of rolled and filled injera, called a "goursha". The bigger the goursha, the deeper the friendship. If you don’t fancy your friends' fingers in your mouth, or even your own, cutlery can be provided on request.

After a communal meal eaten with the fingers from the same plate, treat yourself to an abridged version of the Ethiopian coffee ceremony, where diners are enveloped in burnt-coffee smelling steam, as the freshly-roasted beans are waved over the table like incense. The roasted coffee beans are then taken away and ground on the spot to produce a light coffee with a delicate flavour that will not keep you tossing and turning all night. Alternatively, you can sip an Ethiopian herbal tea flavoured with ginger and cinnamon.

Toukoul serves tasty food in a warm and friendly atmosphere. During the week, discreet Ethiopian background music provides background ambience. On Fridays and Saturdays there is live music, but not necessarily Ethiopian sounds. The night we went was just after the death of Whitney Houston, and the whole restaurant ended up singing along to "I will always love you", not entirely soberly I might add. Our waitresses said, with a perfectly straight face: "She is here with us tonight". Ethiopians also have a dry sense of humour.

The service is efficient and extremely friendly, and accompanied by helpful explanations of the different dishes and how to eat them. The kitchen is permanently open to the main room so you can see the chefs at work (when they're not dancing on the bar, that is). Haile, Natalino and Serge make a point of going round chatting to all the customers, and everyone gets a warm handshake and a dazzling smile on their way out, with a genuine invitation to come again. I can endorse Toukoul for a night out with a difference. The word is already out, and the place gets very busy on weekends, so you are advised to book your table by Thursday at the latest for Friday or Saturday night.

Another gold medal for Ethiopia – this latest venture should run and run. Haile recommended.

Toukoul
Rue de Laeken 34
Tel: 02 223 73 77

Le Cercle des Voyageurs
Rue des Grands Carmes 18
Tel: 02 514 39 49

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.

ALL GREEK TO ME

I'm not a big fan of Greek food, to be honest. The best Greek meal I ever had was in Paris, in a restaurant in the 14th arrondissement which I think was called Odyssee, and was taken there by a Greek called Pericles. So that's the key. Get a recommendation from a Greek with a name straight out of the classics (but establish that the restaurant is not owned by a member of his or her family). I remember that I had a delicious lamb dish called kleftiko, made with tender baby lamb and yoghurt, which I have never been able to find again, even in Cyprus where they tried to serve me mutton and thought I wouldn't notice. I am now persona non grata in Ayia Napa.



In May I was in Athens for the Euroompah championships, which involved a number of visits to Greek tavernas and other eating establishments. Many of them were chosen at random whilst wandering aimlessly through the Plaka. The only one that stands out is a taverna called Hermion in a courtyard off Pandrossou, where I had a Greek sausage omelette and a beer for lunch. There are some pretty restaurants on the slopes of the Acropolis, but I could not distinguish one from another in terms of food. Not one of them offered kleftiko. There was a fair bit of bouzouki music although to be fair, I didn't hear one smashing plate. I suppose in the current economic climate, they can't afford to be as extravagant as they used to be.

There is one restaurant in the Plaka which is reputed to be one of the best in Athens. Mais bien sur, she blushed modestly. Sadly I did not get a chance to eat at Daphne's since we were so busy with the championships, but if you find yourself in Athens do drop in. I do hope it hasn't been attacked by protesters.



On the last night we had booked a large table for what was meant to be a celebratory dinner in the Thissio district, which is where what's left of Athenian cafe society is to be found. Filistron is known for having the best view of the Acropolis in the whole city. The roof terrace was packed. As we had ended up with "nul points" we were not exactly cheerful, and the thought of another plate of moussaka was depressing us even further. The set meal was a seemingly endless series of plates of food to share. I have to say that, although I'm sure the grub is better than you'll get down by the Plaka, it's a bit like Lebanese food in that there are a limited number of dishes. Stuffed vine leaves, olives, feta cheese, calamari, meatballs, souvlaki, aubergines, when you've worked your way through one lot of meze you've tasted all Greek food has to offer.



However, the view made up for everything. As the sun slowly went down and the sky darkened from duck-egg blue to azure to dark blue to black, the lights on the Parthenon came up, and by the time darkness fell the ancient ruin seemed to hover in the night sky. Magical. No wonder I can't remember anything about the food.

We almost forgot our misery about the competition result. But not quite. Manfred and the boys started singing mournful tunes. We got some very unpleasant looks from couples who were trying to have a romantic evening and whose mood was not being enhanced by Germans singing Leonard Cohen. As if the Greeks didn't have enough to be miserable about.