Weekly Blog #13

This week has been one of my least impressive.

On Tuesday night I went out for dinner with a friend to FM Mangal in Camberwell.  My friend and I had no idea what we were doing so pretty much pointed at the menu and hoped that it would turn out OK.  I ended up with a plate of minced lamb - sort of like chopped up koftes - which was mixed up with a tomatoey sauce and little bits of turkish bread with a load of yoghurt on the side.  It was nice but it was enormous and I had food envy - my friend had chunks of lamb and chicken with salady things which looked more appealing.  I really want to go back, but I need to go with someone who will order good stuff for me.  Incidentally, when you arrive they bring a bowl of charred onions and garlic in a deep purple sauce (the whole of the internet seems to be speculating about what's in the sauce - I have no idea but it's delicious) and a basket of bread which is covered in spice and meat juices.  The bread is incredible and only gets better and more meaty and savoury as it gets cooler.  Frankly, I could happily have gone just for the onions and the bread, but given that they're free, that probably wouldn't be allowed.  Anyway, here's a picture of my dinner.  It's not going to win any prizes for presentation, but it tasted good.

 

 

I'm trying, largely unsuccessfully, to eat the contents of my freezer to make way for some ice-cream I am making for a dinner party in a couple of weeks.  I got a steak out for dinner on Wednesday which I had with salad and rice noodles.  I dressed the salad according to a recommendation from @ShedLikesFood in the comments section of last week's post - soy, hoisin sauce, sesame oil and mirin.  It was really good and was a far tastier and healthier alternative to regular salad dressing.  It turned out that the rice noodles were surplus to requirements - I left most of them.

 

On Thursday, I went to the ballet so my friend and I had a quick bite to eat at Polpo beforehand.  Now, I'm quite a fan of Polpo - the food is good, if not incredible, and I just like it there.  That said, Thursday's meal was pretty disappointing.  The pizzette was undercooked and floppy, the arancini were also undercooked (the mozzarella in the middle was solid), the braised scallops were very sweet and were crying out for a big squeeze of lemon, the sardinian flatbread with lardo was all flatbread and very little lardo and was just DRY.  The fritto misto was good though.  It was just all a bit sad.  I didn't take any photos.

 

I was shattered on Friday as I had to go home via B&Q.  I'm vaguely considering moving and since the idea popped into my head, I've realised that my flat is looking a little uncared for so I'm forcing myself to do a bit of DIY (hateful, HATEFUL.)  Due to lateness and tiredness, I had a fishfinger pitta sandwich and it was AWESOME.

 

Saturday was taken up with horrible chores.  I sanded down a window frame, painted stuff and then trotted off to get my hair done which is 4 hours of my life I'll never get back.  I had taken some mince out of the freezer and, upon rooting through my cupboards, discovered a jar of "Chinese Hot Chilli Sauce" which, on inspection of the ingredients, turned out to be black beans, chillies and sichuan peppercorns and tasted pretty good.  Laziness prevailed and I just chucked some of it into the mince, added some spring onions and served over rice.  It looks horrible but tasted nice enough.

 

 

Shed came and rescued me from the decorating on Sunday.  I had been up at the crack of dawn painting stuff and freaking out Ralphie with the roller.  By the time Shed arrived at 12:30, I was pooped and Ralphie was on edge.  She came via The Ginger Pig and had bought bavette steak and pork tenderloin.  While we were deciding what we wanted to do with the pork, we had a little steak starter of...just steak, actually.  Shed ALWAYS wants bibimbap when she comes over (which is fine by me - I can't usually be bothered to make it just for me) so we cobbled it together with random fridge and cupboard ingredients and the last of the gochujang paste. 

 

Dinner wasn't necessary on Sunday night - I just had some toast.

Yesterday, my friend Jassy and I went to the cinema.  We go to this lovely little independent cinema in Bermondsey and one of the best bits is getting a glass of wine and a hot dog to take in with us.  Cue total devastation: they seem to have stopped doing the hot dogs so dinner last night was a large glass of sauvignon blanc with an 11.30pm supper of scrambled eggs on toast.  Not ideal.

So a largely crappy week where I put on 2lbs.  I have to confess, I'm not entirely sure I deserved that - I was expecting to stay the same so I felt pretty sad this morning.  I have noticed that on weeks where I'm very Bread Heavy, which I have been this week (lots of lunchtime sandwiches, fishfinger sandwich dinner, scrambled eggs on toast dinner, toast dinner, lots of bread at FM Mangal etc etc) it does seem to lead to a big weight increase.  Bread is bad, it seems.  Challenge for this week - eat less bread.