Jiffling reshuffle

After my recent hiatus, I thought it might be time for a bit of reformatting chez Jiffler. The previous layout looked rather serious, so I've tarted it up a bit with a picture of an orange and a friendlier template.

The links on the right have changed too. A few old favourites remain, but some of the more, ahem, career minded, freebie tasting blogs have been banished. Previous favourite Dos Hermanos is also out, as there are only so many times one can read about eating expensive steaks in London, then complaining that they are not as good as at Hawksmoor. The Guardian food page is out as well (where did Jay Rayner go?), and the RSPCA will be sent round later on to have a word with them about the flogging of dead horses.

Welcome though to Around the World in 80 dinners, the story of one man's quest to taste 80 different world cuisines, mostly in Manchester. Also check out Khymos, an exploration of molecular gastronomy by a Scandinavian kitchen mentalist.

Finally, I'd like to give a push to The Great British Kitchen website. Next time a poorly educated American turns his nose up at British food you don't have to resort to violence, just point them in the direction of this website, maintained by the British Food Trust.

Back soon with some more tasty far flung stories.

Shifting the backblog

The backblog has reached Himalayan heights now. I need to get things moving a little, which sadly involves cutting the rest of the Istanbul trip into bite sized chunks, to be consumed at one sitting. Rather like tapas.

So, without further ado, here are some tasty street scenes:

Baklava? My favourites are the ones that filled with milk and honey that burst open when you pop them (whole) into your mouth.


Or perhaps some Turkish Delight? None of that dodgy Fry's stuff either, this is a serious business. Those nutty rolls along the bottom shelf are specifically designed for the removal of fillings.


Check out these jars of preserved vegetables. How cool would a bunch of those look on your kitchen shelves?


One of the friendlier stalls in Beyoglu (Sahne Sk, Balik Pazari No:3/A). I stocked up on apple tea here and the owner, Murat, gave me a little bag of mixed nuts to munch on as I tramped around the wet city.


Restaurantage:
It's far too easy to get lured into the tourist traps in Istanbul, but there are some great little places out there. Little cafes where you can buy strong tea and munch heavy slabs of borek (preferably for breakfast) are everywhere.

My top pick for Istanbul is the Sultanahmet Fishhouse (http://www.sultanahmetfishhouse.com/ , Te: +90 212 527 44 41) in the old part of town. The welcome here is super-friendly, the wine list is good (check out the Corvus Estate Okuzgozu Bogazkere 2005, pictured below) and it's the kind of place you can stop for a few tasty nibbles or a full on seafood extravaganza that smells like a good day at the beach.


Another oddity I came across, and thoroughly enjoyed, was a small place with a name I couldn't comprehend in Beyoglu. Wandering the streets alone one Sunday night I pressed my nose up against the window of a place filled with laughing Turkish families under strip lighting tucking into massive salads and skewered meat.

After finding myself a seat it quickly became clear that none of the staff spoke a word of English (unusual in an Istanbul restaurant) and the familiar game of smiles and hand gestures ensued. A can of Diet Coke in hand I observed my fellow diners - the place was packed with families and groups of young students, who all seemed to be eating the same thing and chatting away noisily. As the only none Turkish person there I realised I'd finally, and happily, escaped the tourist traps.

Plates of flatbread arrived, along with yoghurt, lemon slices, fresh parsley, mint, and coriander, spring onions, tomatoes and lettuce, and a chap brandishing thin skewers of lamb and beef. Self-assembly kebabs then? I haven't been able to find another word to describe this style of eating, but the food was zinging fresh, and it was very informal, and lots of fun. The whole lot, with a cup of tea at the end, came to about 5 euro. Happy days.

That concludes Istanbul Jifflings, rather too briskly I'm sorry to say. I think some reformatting of Jifflings is in order, so watch out soon for a new look blog, with some more reports from Senegal, the UK, Lisbon, and Kyrgyzstan.

More Istanbul

Where were we before that brief hiatus? Ah, yes Istanbul, about two months ago.

Istanbul in Feburary is like Manchester in February. Grey up, grey down. It's just as wet, but has more mosques, and fewer children dressed like security guards.

It's easily done. You arrive in a new city, one that is throbbing with eating potential, all confident and well travelled, ready to take on the best that Istanbul has to offer.

Then you end up in a tourist trap. Twice.

Our first foray into the aforementioned TT occurred in the Cicek Pasaji just off the Istiklal Caddesi. At a cellar restaurant filled with a mix of tourists and young locals where we're promised multiple courses plus all we can drink for about 30 Euro. I can drink a lot, so this seems like a good deal. There is entertainment as well. Goody.

The food is unremarkable, as I should've expected. A variety of fridge-cold dips and mezze introduce an overcooked Bream, followed by a plate of pale fruit for dessert. The drink flows liberally though, which adds to my sense of well-being.

Entertainment is in the form of a drunken band. Perhaps a shambolic act, or perhaps just a general shambles, I'm not sure. They periodically interrupt their routine to argue threateningly with each other as they make their way between tables. The sweating guitarist grimaces at me and indicates his top pocket. I cotton on sharpish, fill his pocket with the green folding stuff, and mutter a gentle instruction to shut up and piss off.

A belly dancer arrives, her torso tight as a drum, her face like a rucksack full of broken bells, hips alternating between "drugged snake", "angry wasp" and "malarial cat". I blew the last of my baksheesh on the band, so she goes in search of a more generous/drunk target.

Thankfully there are some good bars in Beyoglu, playing old fashioned rock and roll.

The next evening is Valentine's night. Can there be anything more depressing than walking up the Istiklal Caddesi in the pissing rain, fighting against a tide of umbrella wielding couples (while your valentine is on a different continent)? Yes there can. You could go to the Haci Abdullah restaurant, which looks alright from the outside - all jars of preserves and air of authenticity. It's not until you're inside and seated that you discover that it does not serve alcohol.

This time the entertainment comes from an adjacent table filled with British IT contractors. We listen in to their awkward stories and tedious anecdotes about mobile phones and facebook. One man announces that it is his birthday, and his colleagues look at the ground and mutter happy birthday. The food is grimly unmemorable. I may have had meatballs. And maybe some things wrapped in vine leaves. My colleague remarks that the conversation of one the gentlemen on the adjacent table (blessed with a foghorn voice) was so stupid and inarticulate that she worried that he might have been bitten by a zombie. The Dawn of the Dumb.

Things got better in Istanbul though...

Mogador

What a mighty name for a restaurant. Mogador sounds like a baddy from Lord of the rings, played by an 18 foot hammer-fisted Brian Blessed on PCP. Mogador eats cats, smokes children, and does very unpleasant things to those naughty Hobbits.

A swift google reveals that Mogador is many things:

• The Portuguese name for the south west coastal region of Morocco
• An ancient Phoenician fort in Morocco
• A small hamlet near Margery Wood (would she?) in Surrey, UK.

The Mogador in Dakar is a fine dining establishment with a snow white interior and some neat outdoor furniture for the summer. I'm told that the ladies loos are 'the most luxurious in Dakar'. So make sure you spend a penny.

The menu sticks to very creative French stylings with none of the miserable ethnic diversions common to Dakar fine dining. While the wine list offers the usual suspects at not too outrageous prices. We stick with the usual suspects - beers and Beaujolais - and I make another mental note to remember to bother to learn more about wine.

Amuses are a delicate diversion from the usual mini-crostini type annoyances, but nowt special. Mrs jiffler's potato gratine starter disappears quickly, although the truffle oil didn't really assert itself. My starter demonstrates that some creative thinking is going on in the kitchen. A neat pastry feuillette comes bursting with smooth melted Bresse Bleu, accompanied by a camembert ice cream. The competing yet strangely complementary flavours and temperatures of these two cheesy components form a whole far greater than the sum of it's parts. A slightly odd bush of salad on the side appears irrelevant at first, before it's intended purpose as a bitter mop for the unctuous bleu presents itself. My word. In Dakar.

We could have continued on this creative trajectory through main courses and desserts, but decided to test the chef's hand with straightforward steak frites. Over poncification of steak frites spells disaster, but Mogador serves it straight up and smoky, rare as requested, and hung like a horse. A five pepper sauce, and proper chips are simple perfection.

No dessert. That steak will take some digesting. Petits Fours Secs are made in-house and amuse Mrs Jiffler over good coffee.

Two courses, a beer, water, bottle of brouilly, coffee comes to 51,000Fcfa for two. Not cheap, but better value than most upmarket places in Dakar. We're not talking molecular gastronomy here, but I'm glad somebody in Dakar is taking things a little further than the usual French school dinners with a token selection of mediocre sushi. I await the day when the chef at Mogador gets hold of a sous vide cooker. Then those pesky Hobbits had better watch out.

More from Dakar at Dakar Restaurant Reviews

Bishkek Restaurant Reviews

I can't see Bishkek becoming another addition to the Jiffler empire of obscure city guides, especially since the good people at the Spektator are doing such a good job of reporting on the restaurant and nightlife scene. I should be back here later in the year so I might give the editorial team at the Spektator a call, see if they'll take me out on the town.

I've had a run of bad luck with Chinese restaurants lately (see Dakar Restaurant Reviews for the latest disaster) and my first meal out in Kyrgystan was to prove no exception. Exhausted from two nights in the air and a days work my colleague and I cast out for the nearest restaurant.

It looked popular, and we were led into a back room crammed with smoking Russian teenagers in various states of inebriation. Somewhere nearby there had been a fashion explosion. Girls with crimped fringes sported diamond print sweaters paired with leggings and fuck-me boots, while the boys, shaven haired and pale, dressed as if they were at work on a Welsh sheep farm circa 1983.

With an English menu finally procured we managed to order three dishes and settled back to drink lukewarm tea from dirty bowls. As our dishes came out of the kitchen it became clear that we'd over ordered. First, an enormous bowl of "Meat with aubergines" which was in fact "Tripe with boiled cucumbers and whole garlic cloves". I don't care what people say, tripe is not my idea of easy eating. I've tried it many times, and will no doubt eat it again, but once every two years is probably enough. Next up was a large and murky puddle of bizarrely textured mushrooms served with greens, before we were served the house speciality, that old Chinese classic "Chicken with potatoes".

We ate about a third of what was in front of us. Felt a bit guilty, and left.

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Adriatico on the other hand is a smashing place. Rated by many as Bishkek's best Italian restaurant the menu promises Pizzas, pastas and the usual meat dishes. Service is swift, if a little fussy, and once again we over order. This time we eat the lot though.

Greek salad lacks punch, and olive oil, but the selection of salumi more than makes up for this. cheesy ravioli all round comes with what appears to be a super generous serving of grated truffle. Judging by the mildness of smell and flavour. and the paleness of colour, these must be Chinese truffles, bit still, nice to have truffles innit, perigord or not.

Decent coffee, so-so gelato and tiramisu wrap things up. This may end up being the default comfort eating restaurant for my future sojourns to Bishkek. One of those restaurants that fit the bill when you're hungry, worn out and just need something pleasing and familiar.

Adriatico Restaurant
219 Chui Avenue
Bishkek
Tel: (+996) 312 61 46 09 (Take away service available)

Chinese Chain Reaction

That last post started a chain reaction in my head, leading to this post, which I hope celebrates some great Chinese food. It also clears up the last of my notes from Hong Kong.

(Yes, I keep notes)

Yi Jiang Nan, 33-35 Staunton Street, Central, Hong Kong.
The first and only time I've had the pleasure of drinking cold beer out of a chilled bowl was at Yi Jiang Nan. It didn't make me drink any slower mind you, such a receptacle has not yet been invented. Despite this, I also managed to find room to try a few delicious brews from the extensive tea menu.

The punters here were a mix of foreigners and small groups of Hong Kong Chinese, while the decor stretched to pleasant 'scenes of rural China', with no over the top jade monstrosities. All was calm, but I'm not sure if the atmosphere was spoiled or improved by the Irish "traveller" on the adjacent table loudly trying to impress a group of American "travellers" with his 15 words of Mandarin. I didn't realise quite how many ways there are to wordlessly communicate the words "this bloke is a tosser" without resorting to the internationally recognised hand signal.

For an upmarket Szechuan place, it's not a million miles away from what gets served up in the better places in UK, albeit less sweet, with more heat, and more of an emphasis on the danglier bits of the animal. The food here is surprisingly light, and a large bowl of minced chicken wrapped in lettuce disappears quickly. The real speciality though is the crispy roast mutton with garlic sauce,.As masculine as a plate of food can possibly be, this revels in the oft-ignored robustness of mutton and pairs it with dedicated finger sucking garlickery. That is how to distract me from my beer.

Yi jiang Nan made me want to explore more Szechuan cooking, not so easy in a world of "internationalised" Chinese restaurants. Recommendations welcome.

Dims Sums at Eighteen Brook Cantonese Cuisine, 8/F, Convention Plaza , 1 Harbour Road , Wan Chai , Hong Kong
Certain people may tell you that the best dim sum are served in grotty little street cafes with dead animals hanging in the window and the smell of drains outside. Only by sitting among the ordinary folk with their bad haircuts and cheap plimsoles will you get the real authentic dim sum deal, in between slurps of tepid green tea and bouts of diarrheal anxiety.

All a load of complete lopsided bollocks of course. Street markets and backstreet cafes have their place, but where dim sum are concerned, I prefer air-conditioning and glass fish tanks over greasy windows and the scent of sweaty arses anyday.

Eighteen Brook Cantonese Cuisine in Wan Chai fits the bill alright. On the 43568th floor of some sort of swanky office building/ghastly exhibition centre, you'll find glacial A/C, Bond-villain style fish tankery and robot-ninja waitering staff. Orders are taken via some sort of bingo card system and smoothly delivered to the kitchen. The atmosphere is that of zen-like calm and precision despite the 100+ diners, which can only mean that the kitchen is like some sort of shouty, sweltering temple of doom.

Green tea comes piping hot and poured to electron microscope precision by the robot waiters. Dim sums come as delicate as dandelions, none too sticky or too greasy. Roast pork puffs are as light as clouds with a core of hot, sweet, unctuous pork. Fresh shrimp dumplings practically leap across the table to do battle with baby scallops rolled in rice sheets. Even pan-fried turnip cake is better than it sounds.


Ho's Bakery, 44 Faulkner Street, Manchester
The taste of those roast pork puffs takes me back to one of my favourite lunchtime stops in Manchester - Ho's Bakery on Faulkner Street. Ho's has a little upstairs restaurant that does a cheap and filling lunch. But the real magic is in the downstairs bakery, which churns out the best sweet and savoury pastries in Manchester.

The roast pork crisp pastries are the the most fun you can have for less than a quid. It gives me a warm glow to reminisce about how lucky I was to be able to shop in Chinatown (try the Wing Fat supermarket) once a week, and pick up something small from Ho's bakery on the way home.

The best time to go is just before seven o'clock on a winter morning, before the city has really woken up. Bleak skies, damp streets and the occasional rattle of a tram leave you feeling as though you've stepped into an Anton Corbijn photoshoot. Dodging the delivery vans and streetsweepers you can duck into the bright, scented warmth of Ho's bakery and treat yourself to a soft, golden honey bun fresh from the oven.