Yeni London - Fine Turkish Cooking Like You Have Never Tasted Before!

 Name: Yeni London

Address: 55 Beak Street, W1F 9SH, Soho, London, https://www.yeni.london/

Cost: 10-dish Carte Blanche Tasting Menu at £79pp.

About: Chef Civan Er is the chef-owner of Yeni Lokanta (https://www.yenilokanta.com/), an established fine dining restaurant in Istanbul. He opened Yeni London in Soho in 2019 aiming to bring a more sophisticated style of Turkish cooking to London but in a casual, sharing plate-type restaurant.

And indeed, Yeni London was nothing like what I had tried at other Turkish restaurants in the UK. Living in North London, I am lucky enough to have a plethora of fantastic Turkish restaurants on and around Green Lanes, N4, which I frequent often. But nothing here comes close to our experience at Yeni London.

Yeni London occupies an enviable spot with plenty of natural light and very high ceilings on Beak Street, Soho. With exposed bricks on the walls, wooden flooring and leather banquette, we loved the elegant and yet casual setting of this restaurant.

The service on the night we attended was nothing short of outstanding – the British-Turkish waiter helping us was more than happy to be quizzed about every single dish he served me, I learnt a lot from him on that night, and it was refreshing for me to meet staff who were obviously knowledgeable and proud of what they were doing. It really added to my appreciation of the food.

What We Ate: We opted for the Carte Blanche tasting menu at £69 pp, this is a 10-dish menu featuring some of the restaurant’s star dishes chosen by the chef himself. Many of the dishes were on the menu, some were not, but every dish was a surprise. I loved the variety of dishes but also the generosity of the menu – we nearly had to be rolled out of the restaurant at the end of our meal, put simply, you will not go hungry on this menu! This is what we had:

1. Yeni’s home cured beef pastrami (not on main menu) served with toasted, warm Turkish flatbread.

2. The most scrumptious dish of grilled aubergine, Colston Bassett stilton, figs, Port and smoked almonds. This was smokey, and aromatic with luscious figs and the STAR dish of our meal.

3. Tempura of feta cheese wrapped in vine leaf, served over red pepper purée, with chilli, cumin and honey. Light, crispy, excellent.

4. Fine green beans in a zing dressing of coriander, sesame and sivri biber (Turkish long, hot green pepper), with red grapefruit and coconut flakes.

5. Manti dumplings filled with dried aubergine in a wonderfully nutty broth of double fermented yoghurt with chilli and chlorophyl oils. And this really highlighted the beauty of the Carte Blanche menu – manti in yoghurt sauce would not have been my first choice on their menu, but I am so glad I was served it.

6. Scottish langoustine in Raki sauce (not on main menu) - tender langoustines served in a rich, bisque-style sauce with a touch of aniseed from the Turkish raki (grape spirit).

7. A refreshing salad of citrus fruit including pomelo, grapefruit and orange with slices of fennel and finely chopped dill topped with a spicy sour cherry sorbet. This was simply heavenly.

8. And when we thought this could not get any better, we were served our main – a whole, organic, slow-roasted salt-marsh lamb neck, served with cavolo nero, tamarind and wild mushrooms. 

As with many meats cooked on the bone (especially when done properly), this was succulent, meltingly tender and intensely flavoured.

9. Pre-Dessert of Turkish Kadayif fried dough filled with cheese custard and served with pistachio ice cream.

10 . Dessert of Hazelnut Panna Cotta with pumpkin sauce, wafer with hazelnut cream.

What We Drank: We enjoyed a couple of cocktails before our dinner – in-house made tonic and gin (£10) and Negroni (£10.50) were well-made and strong.

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Kara Sevda Papaskarasi, Chamlija, Turkey (£56), made from 100% Papaskarasi grape, a native Turkish varietal, which was highly recommended by our server. Lightly coloured but with great acidity and plenty of soft tannins, this was a great complement to our food. Sound recommendation.

Likes: *that* grilled aubergine was to die for, as was the manti in double fermented yoghurt, the citrus salad with fennel and the slow-roasted whole neck of lamb. Great service and atmosphere.

Dislikes: None.

Verdict: For Turkish food like you have never experienced before, Yeni London is the place to be. Fantastic food, great service and one of the best aubergine dishes I have ever eaten. I can’t wait to return. Highly recommended.

Hakkasan's CNY Year of the Pig Menu - Reviewed

Name: Hakkasan Hanway

Where:  Hakkasan, 8 Hanway Place, London W1T 1HD, https://hakkasan.com/locations/hakkasan-hanway-place/

Cost: The Year of the Pig Chinese New Year menu is priced at £88 per person. 

About: To celebrate the Year of the Pig, Hakkasan Hanway Place is offering a Chinese New Year set banquet, available only until Sunday 24th February. 

What We Ate: The menu kicked off with a salad of Peking duck with crispy bean curd and mango - this had perfectly crisp duck skin, candied orange peel, mixed greens, shredded chilli strands and dragon fruit.  Fresh, with great acidity, and wonderfully sweet and fatty duck morsels, this was a great start to the meal.

A dim sum duo followed - a bravura display of culinary skill, with seafood jian dui coated in white sesame seeds, and a fab shacha chicken puff - an ingenious, feather-light pastry case which opens up in segments like a savoury chocolate orange, to reveal a core of chicken with a savoury Fujian shacha sauce made from soybean oil, garlic, shallots, chillies, brill and dried shrimp.

The superior soup with Chilean seabass, goji berries and rings of bamboo pith had a well flavoured broth perfumed with chrysanthemum petals and ginko nut, and dainty cubes of seabass and yam.

Wok-fried lobster with spinach, lily bulb and lotus seeds was fresh, succulent and generous.

The Rhug Estate lamb had tender nuggets of fillet, served with shiitake mushrooms and rice cakes, in a spicy sauce fragrant with ginger, spring onion and chilli peppers.

Crispy suckling pig, with skin as crisp as caramel, was served atop sticky glutinous brown rice with a delectable pomegranate foam.

The side dish of stir-fried pak choi with meaty eryngii (king mushroom) and the rare but revered pioppini (aka the highly prized matsutake mushroom) was nothing short of outstanding.

Dessert was a "wealth pot", signifying favourable financial auguries for the New Year.  The pot was of dark chocolate, filled with mandarin granita and a crunchy hazelnut and chocolate ice cream.

The patisserie at Hakkasan is justly renowned, and the Fortune Macaron did not disappoint - with a crisp crust and a light, slightly chewy interior and a floral cream centre, this was an understated gem to bring the meal to a fitting end.

What We Drank: We started with a Liao Liao cocktail - a refreshing blend of Ketel One vodka, with rosella, oloroso sherry, lemon, kumquat and plum bitters.

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Albariño Abadia De San Campio, Terras Gauda, 2017 (£47). From Rias Baixas, this has pineapple and tropical fruit flavours, refreshing citrus acidity and a long finish, expertly recommended by Deputy Head Sommelier, Asturian-born Noelia Calleja.

Likes: Highlights for me were the ingenious shacha chicken puff, the lobster, the Rhug Estate lamb fillet, and the magnificent matsutake and eryngii mushroom dish. 

Dislikes: None
  
Verdict: If you have not yet celebrated the 2019 Chinese New Year of the Pig, hurry along to Hakkasan Hanway Place for this CNY banquet, which ends on 24th February 2019.  For me, its their best CNY menu yet. Very highly recommended!

New Sunday Brunch Menu at DUM Biryani House - Big and Bold Flavours Be Warned!

Name: DUM Biriyani House

Where: 187 Wardour Street, London W1F 8ZB, https://dumlondon.com/

Cost: Sunday brunch dishes are priced from £6 to £19. The entry level wines, both priced at £25.50, are an Argentinian Torrontes, and an Australian Shiraz-Cabernet.  There is also draft Cobra beer at £6 per pint, with Empress Ale at £5 per bottle. 

About: Opened in 2016 on Wardour Street, this is the first restaurant of Dhruv Mittal, who was born to Hyderabadi parents and grew up in Manchester. Dhruv trained at Le Cordon Bleu London, as well as at The Fat Duck, Hibiscus and Restaurant Sat Bains.

Dhruv aims to bring classic Hyderabadi cooking to London's diners (but giving his own personal stamp on it), with its blend of southern Indian tropical ingredients like coconut and spices, and the Islamic influences coming from Mughal, Turkish and Arab waves of migration over the centuries.

The restaurant is in the lower ground floor on Soho's Wardour Street, has natural light from a lightwell, and is decked out in bright colours with Indian cartoons adorning the walls.

The restaurant has garnered a reputation for its excellent biryanis, and since July 2018, is serving a Sunday Brunch menu from 12pm to 4pm, and from 6pm to 10pm, so I hurried along to give it a try.

What We Ate: Shredded lamb fry with masala quail eggs (£11.50) is a variation on a typical Hyderabadi breakfast dish, with sourdough bread toasted and topped with fenugreek pachadi, stir-fried lamb and spicy fried quail eggs.

Next up was a whole banana chilli filled with a creamy potato and paneer stuffing,  and served with sweet and sour tamarind chutney, with a refreshing crunch from fried puffed rice, pomegranate seeds, peanuts and coriander chutney (£6).

Whole deep-fried soft shell crab in a garlic and butter sauce (£7) was crisp and delicious.

I loved the Portuguese chorizo stir-fried with garlic, ginger and Hyderabadi whole spices, served in a brioche bun (£10.50), like an upmarket Indian burger.

Andhra chargrilled half baby chicken (£16.50), roasted in a richly flavoursome masala rub, was served with mustard seed and coconut chutney, and pickled onion salad. The chicken was beautifully presented on banana leaves - the meat was succulent, and the flavour heightened by a squeeze from the little chargrilled limes.

Best of all was the restaurant's signature dish, a whole lamb shank biryani (£21), served thali-style with a beetroot raita, poppadoms, a salan made from sesame seeds and chilli, and lime pickle.

Served in a metal serving dish topped with puff pastry, waves of saffron-infused steam burst out when we cut into it.  The lamb was tender, succulent and fragrant, and I would happily return just to enjoy this biryani again.

To finish, we had a glass of refreshing watermelon chaat (£6) - the fruit had been spiked with a host of different Hyderabadi spices.

What We Drank: We shared the bottomless Hyderabadi Rum Punch (£15 for 2 hours), with Old Monk rum, mango juice, pineapple juice and Grenadine, which had refreshing tropical fruit but appeared light on rum. There is free of charge still filtered water and sparkling at £1 for the first bottle, but with free top-ups which is commendable.

Likes: The food overall was really well seasoned, fresh and zingy.  Dishes were well priced. Highlights for me were the lamb shank biryani, the baby chicken and the banana chilli. It is great to see Dhruv bringing his own ideas and Cordon Bleu training to Hyderabadi dishes.

Dislikes: For me, the punch was a tad sweet and lacking in rum, and I would not want to drink it for 2 hours. 

Verdict: Zingy, fresh and well-seasoned Indian food, the whole lamb shank Hyderabadi biryani is superlative. DUM is now my go-to place for biryani and well-priced modern Indian cooking in London. Highly recommended.   

Temper Soho - Wondrous Meat, Fearless Seasoning and Great 90s Soundtrack

Name: Temper Soho

Where: 25 Broadwick Street, London W1F 0DF, http://temperrestaurant.com/

Cost: A meal at Temper will cost on average £45 per person not including drinks or service. Small-eats (all tacos) are priced between £5 and £11.50, larger-eats (meat on flatbread) cost from £8.50 to £11, with sides at £3.50 to £7 and desserts from £6 to £12.

About: Temper Restaurant is Chef Neil Rankin's latest venture with three London branches in Soho, City and Covent Garden, which opened in May 2018.

I recently visited Temper Soho on Broadwick Street. The restaurant is a raucous affair in the basement of what seems a wine shop. As you walk down the stairs, the loud 90s music, the BBQ smoke, mezcal fumes, and charred meat odours welcome you with a bang.

Temper Soho is cavernous, with booths and tables filling every corner, but if you want a piece of the real action, grab a counter seat around the open kitchen where tacos are hand-pressed, flatbreads are blistered and chefs busily go about finishing off their dishes.

The focus point of the kitchen though is the central charcoal grill where whole carcasses of lamb and goat are roasted over glowing coals.

There is also a cedar wood oven, as well as charcoal and oak grilling areas depending on the dish being cooked.

The menu at Temper Soho is centred on BBQ with South American influences - the meat dishes are designed from every bit of the animal, so everything is used (Temper buys the entire animal) including their fat – think beef fat potatoes, grilled corn in lamb fat, and chilli and bone marrow just three of the dishes which give you a flavour of the food on offer.

Temper City, opened in July 2017, focuses on Indian cooking, with a tandoor oven, offerings of curry and freshly made paratha whereas Broadwick Street has a more Mexican theme with corn tortillas, flatbreads and mezcal-based drinks. Temper Covent Garden has an Italian angle, and serves wood fired pizzas, ragu, charcuterie, wine and vermouth.

What We Ate: From the small-eats menu, we chose the taco of aged cheeseburger (£8.50) - this was excellent, with intense flavours of cheese and corn, and a tender beef patty.

We also enjoyed the crab, dill, pickled onion and pork skin (£9) served on tacos, this was fresh and well seasoned although I could not detect the pork skin.

From the meat course menu, we chose the smoked beef (£10 per 100g) - this is cold smoked for 8 hours over charcoal or wood. Deliciously tender, with yellow fat and a wonderfully smoky flavour, this was simplicity itself and magnificent.

Smoked goat (£11 per 100g) was slightly less smoky than the beef, but surprisingly for such a wiry beast was just as tender.

The weakest link for me was the lamb belly masala (£8.50), with an anemic sauce and shredded meat lacking interest or texture.

Chipotle miso chicken half (£25), was smoked and grilled with paprika, then served with a herb salad of fresh mint, coriander, green chilli, radicchio and burnt lemons. The meat was succulent and tender, and had a great depth of flavour and heat from the miso and chipotle, a great combination of ingredients.

We enjoyed the ‘burnt-end’ Thai larb (£5) with lamb knuckle meat, ground toasted rice, and plenty of heat from the diced fresh red chillies. The larb was fresh, zingy and incredibly flavoursome.

The grilled corn with lamb fat béarnaise and mint (£4) was equally delicious, leavened by the surprising but very effective addition of popcorn. So novel and wonderful.

For dessert, we had the deep dish brigadeiro cookie with fior di latte ice cream (£6). With a sweet and buttery cookie and a neutral ice cream, this was a nice pudding but bore little resemblance to the Brazilian brigadeiro I grew up eating in São Paulo.

Sadly the signature butterscotch kouign-amann with dulce de leche ice cream (£6) was sold out, so instead we opted for the gin and tonic sorbet with honeycomb, grapefruit and a shot of Caperitif (£7). An adult dessert with some astringently bitter flavours, this was a refreshing and light dessert that ended our meal on a high note.

What We Drank: Cocktails are all priced at £10, with wines mostly from the New World, starting at £31 for a Pinot Noir Valle del Maule 2015, with most of the wines priced upwards of £50.  

To kick off, we had a brace of cocktails - Mr Faulty is a blend of rum, basil, rice wine vinegar and lime. Essentially a basil daiquiri, this was refreshing and full of citrus freshness.

Neil's Negroni is a modification of the classic blend of gin, vermouth and Campari, substituting gin with mezcal. The Negroni had a smoky note from the agave, which in this version is burned before being fermented to alcohol.  

With our meal, we shared a bottle of Quinta de Falorca, from Dao, Portugal 2011 (£42). A blend of Touriga Nacional, Rufete, Jaen, Alfrocheiro and Tinta Roriz, this was a straightforward wine, with plenty of red berry fruit flavours and some structure, with soft tannins.

Likes: Bold flavours, excellent meats and fearless seasoning. Catchy 90s soundtrack (Prince, Blondie), lots of seating around the central barbecue pit, reasonable prices, what's not to like?!

Dislikes: None

Verdict: If you like good quality meat, fearless seasoning and a great atmosphere, you will love Temper Soho. Grab a seat at the counter to watch the action (though not for the squeamish). I thoroughly enjoyed our meal at Temper Soho and highly recommend it.