My Favourite Type of Friday...

...or any day for that matter!

At the beginning of my Food for Thought blog I began to discuss my love for antipasto platters. This love grew from a young age at family gatherings in New Zealand where we would always start with h'orderves, which usually consisted of what I feel a traditional Kiwi antipasto platter should entail: cheese (often a few types), olives, sundried tomatoes, gherkins, a dip of some sort usually hummus or a pesto inspired concoction, salami crackers and / or sliced French bread.

This love for antipasto platters has never wilted, however there seems to be a severe lack of antipasto options on many menus over here in the UK, hence the lack of posts and ratings on the blog!  More so they seem to call them a 'chacuterie board' which they have inherited from their French neighbours. Which is all good and all when they actually have it on the menu. You tend to have to go to a particular delicatessen or charcuterie to actually get a proper selection of meats and cheese for example Gordon's Wine Bar, one of London's oldest wine bars (definitely recommend!!). However, pubs and restaurants are catching on with a selection of cheeses to have after your meal. The English tend to save cheese for a post dinner and dessert snack usually consumed with a glass of port or whiskey. This does seem to make sense to me considering when we have antipasto platters as h'orderves they tend to fill us up so much that we then are either too full to have a proper meal or for those of you like me, tend to still fill up the dinner plate and overeat!

Sharing platters are also common over here, usually consisting of a selection of deep fried seafood, a Greek mix of tzatziki, koftas, olives and pita or a meat platter with an assortment of sausages and processed meats.  Despite these great efforts to catch on over here I have missed a good ole classic Kiwi antipasto platter. So recently on one snowy Friday night in London, I decided to make my own. One that would conjure good memories of back home with the family, one that would make them proud and one that would certainly be jam-packed with all the goodness of what I truly consider to be the ultimate antipasto platter.  Of course consumed with a bottle of red... Voila!

 

One thing to note: There can never be enough cheese... I have a love for cheese that can be satisfied at any hour before during or after dinner - There is always time for cheese! However I do consider myself more on the English side here that cheese after a meal served with a glass of red or port is one true delicacy that will never fail to delight me.

Polpo

On a crisp winters Tuesday night in December, Adam and I ventured out for dinner in Soho when we stumbled across 'Polpo' a restaurant I had been wanting to try for quite some time. Polpo had been recommended to me by numerous friends and work colleagues, serving Italian-style tapas it was right up my alley. After dining there and reading more about the restaurant it is in fact a bàcaro which is a Venetian word to describe a humble restaurant serving simple food and good, young local wines (www.polpo.co.uk).

 I had heard it was very hard to get into (another 'no reservations' culprit) but as we were there for a quick, early bite to eat before a movie we entered and were seated at the bar within a couple of minutes, which suited our agenda just fine.

After being served with menus from the helpful bar staff we decided on a MGM (an elderflower, ginger beer and lemon concoction) and a Birra Moretti beer. As we were seated at the bar our drinks came out reasonably fast which gave us a good few minutes before we were served again to peruse the menu and order our food.

We settled on the arancini, potato and Parmesan crocchetta (croquettes) and chicken liver crostini to start, however we ordered all the food in one go, which also added to our palate; lamb and pistachio meatballs, pork belly with radicchio and hazelnuts, and roast potatoes with rosemary. These all came out within very reasonable timing and we just had enough space on the bar to accommodate all the plates. The arancini, crostini and crocchetta cicheti (small plates) were gone within moments.  For those of you who don't know how right up my alley arancini is, they are crumbed, deep-fried risotto balls... total indulgence in one mouthful, and these in particular did not disappoint.  The croquettes were pretty standard and to be honest if we were ordering again I think these would miss the cut, as five dishes were probably enough to feed us both comfortably. 

 

Being lovers of pate, the crostini was a favourite however it was the lamb and pistachio meatballs in a thick tomato sauce that really hit the home run. We only wished we had a couple more of these to gobble down (they have even inspired me to create my own recipe - watch this space on LoveBites). The pork belly, (crackling and all) was a delight, its succulent flavour oozing with tenderness really complimented the hazelnuts and runny gravy, although I did find the bitterness of the radicchio a bit much. The roast potatoes were the perfect accompaniment to the pork and meant that we were still attempting to get our 5+ a day and lets face it, as roast potatoes are in my top five foods, they really can't go wrong in my book.

The meal came to under £40.00 for food and drink (service not included), we were fed and hydrated within an hour and were more than satisfied with our spread. I would highly recommend visiting any of the Polpo restaurants sprinkled around London and I myself will definitely be calling in again, that sliced flank steak with portobello mushrooms and cured pork shoulder with pickled pepper pizzette looked too good not to go back and try. I also look forward to visiting the other sister restaurants owned by the Polpo crew, Spuntino and Mishkins, if they are as good as Polpo I can't wait to devour the treats they have installed.