Taste of Flanders

February 12, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

Ever wanted to try all the best restaurants Flanders has to offer in as less time possible? I know I have, but as you might know from all my previous blog posts I’m a very greedy person when it comes to food. For all the other people who are like me, I have some good stuff coming. Food brings people together, this is a fact that everybody knows. So many cities/ regions started bringing together all those food lovers and the best food/restaurants/products their city or region has to offer. I can only support things like this! I’ve listed the upcoming events that will get you through the spring, summer and autumn: (Press the name to get more info on the event)

8-12/05 “Gent Smaakt”

9-12/05 “Antwerpen proeft”

7-9/06 “Limburg proeft”

17/09 “Proef Brussel”

28-30/09 “Kookeet” (Bruges)

Enjoy and I hope to bump into you guys!

FYI, I’ll check if they also have events like this in the Southern part of Belgium, as they also have some great restaurants and products! Keep you posted.

I looked, tried and liked

February 5, 2013February 5, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / 1 Comment

Saturday my fiancée and I tried and discovered a new little restaurant called Mi’ró. The location of the restaurant is maybe a surprise to lots of people as the area it is in is not known as the most popular part of town. Although more and more people seem to find their way back to Borgerhout and are opening lots of nice restaurants here. I actually grew up a few streets from this restaurant and lived here until I was 12 years old, so I enjoyed seeing this neighborhood heading back to its rightful place. When I then read on a fellow blogger website (be_gusto in Dutch) Mi’ró made a special version of one of my favorite dishes Vol-au- vent (aka vidée or koninginnehapje)….I just had to try this and needed no more convincing!!!

Already from the moment you walk into this restaurant you can immediately feel the good vibe. Maybe it is because the restaurant is not too big (only 7 or 8 tables) or the big photo of old Borgerhout hanging there? It also has to be said that the vibe only became better and better during the evening and this was not because of the wine ;-). It is also due to the very friendly and caring host and hostess!

I started with homemade grey shrimp croquettes (I had heard they were exquisite) and my fiancée followed me, but took the cheese version of the croquettes (don’t worry, they also have non fried dishes). I think that what makes these croquettes so special is as they have a Spanish touch to them, they reminded me of the croquettes filled with Iberico Ham I had in Barcelona a couple of times. This might be due to the fact the chef/owner has worked some years in Barcelona in avery good restaurant ( Comerç 24, FYI a restaurant you als have to try!). Anyhow to make a long story short(er) those where some nice croquettes.

As a main dish I just had to pick the Vol-au-vent, no matter how tempting the other dishes were. My fiancée took the Corvina with “schorseneren” and a champaign sauce. The vol-au-vent did meet my expectations, what made it different and special is that they used instead of regular mushrooms they used Enokitake mushrooms; they added duck stomachs (which they can leave out if you ask, and this proves all is made freshly on the spot!) Instead of puff pastry that usually comes with a Vol-au-vent they gave very big croutons. I would truly recommend it to try classic dishes with a twist.

There were very nice wines on the wine list. We took besides Lacrima Baccus cava to open our tastebuds, 2 different red wines I had an Italian Marchesi Antinori wine a Bolgheri ‘il bruciato’ (had a very rich and round flavor and I really those buttery tastes in wines (or butter in general 😉 ). My fiancée on the other hand took an Argentinian wine from the Mendoza region called “Fabre Montmayou” which was also a nice choice.

To sum it all up, we had a very nice dinner and they for sure haven’t seen the last of us!

Bistrot Mi’ró

Address: Moorkensplein 28, 2140 Antwerp Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0)3 235 03 25

Toronto the city of burning secrets part 2

January 30, 2013January 30, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / 1 Comment

Ok, so we have the CN tower and Eaton center covered, what is there still left to talk about you might ask yourself…? Lots of things that is my answer! Last year wasn’t my first visit to Toronto, but it always feels like like it, as you every time I come here I seem to discover new things. One of the“discoveries” I did this time was the Distillery district or known as the Gooderham and Worts Distillery until 1990 as this was the year they closed their doors for making bourbon and whiskey. Nowadays you’ll find theaters, a few artsy shops, some nice lunch options and a museum on the Distillery. What attracted me here (besides the nice lunch spots) was that the fact they have kept all the original buildings (although I’m sure that at some point it must have burned down like everything else in Toronto) and this gives lots of character to this part of town and the jazzy music jazzed it up :-). We had our lunch at the “Brick street bakery” where we had some very satisfying sandwiches (I had the day special “meatball sandwich”, not sure what my bride to be had 😦 ). If you’re not really for sandwiches for lunch, I’m sure there will be something else to your liking in the Distillery district for every kind of budget). What you should also know about The Distillery is that it has been used in lots of famous movies like Chicago, The Farm (with Al Pacino) and X men. (you can find a more complete list on the following link). So basically you can even pretend that’s you’re on a movie set 🙂

If you are into food (like me) a visit to the St. Lawrence Market is a real must! Walking here felt a bit like walking in a cleaner version of Barcelona’s “Mercat De La Boqueria” (which is an amazing covered market). Just like at ‘La Boqueria’ you can buy as well as eat both local as foreign products, but also farmers selling their own products. On top of this you can also follow cooking workshops here, given by some of Canada’s best chefs! A stop at Placewares while at the market is highly recommended as they really have every kitchen appliance you can imagine at a normal affordable price (I was like a kid in the candy store, to bad I had keep my luggage weight in mind). I can say for a fact that this market woke up a very big appetite!

Just like in every other city Toronto has a huge choice of restaurants of any nomination and cuisine, so I’m sure you guys won’t starve! Personally I didn’t try too many restaurants in all the times I was here, as I prefer eating the great food my aunt makes! She is a very good cook, I know when she’ll be reading this she’ll say she isn’t, but she is (she’s just modest)! She had two of my preferred cooks as examples 🙂 her mom and her mom’s sister aka my zia Livia (you might have already read about her in my post about her). However a restaurant that I hope to get to next time I’m in Toronto is restaurant ‘Nota Bene ‘. Why? Well a friend of mine (who now works at my favorite wine shop and studied at one Belgium’s best chef schools) worked there for a while and was so enthusiastically about this place that I just have to try it and I’ve also seen lots of positive reactions on this restaurant on the web… (Last year it didn’t work out to go there)

If you would have the time, I can really recommend you to also explore the area around Toronto. One thing you just have to have seen are the Niagara Falls, they are only an hour drive away from Toronto… so to Canadian standard very close by. I have seen it both at winter time and during summer and the last is definitely better as during this gives you the opportunity to walk a bit and see the falls from almost every angle or do a little walk in the park. You could also take a boat or walk under the fall, but is all quite expensive to do…I mean once you’ve seen the falls you’ve seen the falls. The “town” at the falls is a bit tacky if you ask me, Vegas style, a lot of light, lots of noise, casino’s and junk food 🙂 not really my thing, but still an experience… what I do recommend is stopping at Niagara on the lake, which is the opposite of Niagara town.

Another great trip outside of Toronto would be through the Ontario Wineries (if you like wine obviously), you would really be surprised what beauties (referring to wine) you’ll find here. You can check the following link to know more about the wineries and plan a route.

Or a stop at Oakville (an upscale town at Lake Ontario) could be nice if you like to see some smaller towns… We had a nice dinner at restaurant Julia, which to my opinion was a place where you can eat well for a modest price and enjoy some local wines… what more do you need?

I could keep talking, but one has to stop somewhere… Toronto, Ontario or better whole Canada have all so many beautiful things to offer for you to discover from beautiful nature to great cities with a European touch and Canadian friendliness . I recommend everybody to go there at least 1 time in their life!

I would also like to thank Gabby and the family for making our trip even more amazing. Thanks guys!

BTW: I didn’t know I had such big fans in Canada? These guys even had a Spinelli Sticker on their car 🙂

WY, because it is just right

January 23, 2013January 23, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

My restaurant wish list is getting longer every day, so this time I decided to have a lunch at one of the restaurants on my list. ( hopefully this way I finish my list quicker) This time it brought me to the Mercedes House in Brussels, to restaurant WY by Bart De Poorter. For my readers who don’t know Bart De Poorter, he is the chef and owner of the 2 Michelin star awarded restaurant “De Pastorale”. So the fact that this restaurant was from Bart De Poorter was the first reason to try it, the second reason was that the executive chef of this restaurant is nobody less than Wouter Van der Vieren who is a Michelin star awarded chef who used to have his own restaurant. It just had to be good, although I must admit that after my last famous chef side project experience I had my doubts… But I can confirm that this was a well thought through and coordinated project with a very professional staff that can work fine even with Wouter Van der Vieren’s absence.

The restaurants itself has of course a Mercedes Benz touch to it (as it is the Mercedes House), but it is not too much… it has modern interior with only 3 (very nice looking) cars on the restaurant floor. I like the very open kitchen, because there are big screens that you can follow exactly what the chefs are doing in the kitchen. I wouldn’t call it the coziest restaurant I have ever been to, but it surely didn’t disturb me. The acoustics on the other hand are very good, so you can come here with a group and understand each other.

This time my partners in crime weren’t just any friends, but foodie friends :-). Foodie friends know as Thomas (Chef and owner of 12 Place du marché and former classmate from me) and Gianluca (Sommelier and son from Spiga d’oro owner)

Food glorious food, this was after spending time with friends the reason for this lunch 🙂 Choosing what we wanted to eat wasn’t easy as the 3 course and 5 course menu had different dishes that I all wanted to try, but to make it even more difficult the ‘à la carte’ menu was also different from the tasting menus with again so many things I wanted to try (A true luxury problem)… but at the end we decided to go for the five course menu, which was (when looking back) a great choice. Not only did all of the dishes taste well, they also looked like little paintings…

The only dishes that didn’t really blow us off our feed was the first dish from the menu: Mackerel with beetroot (prepared in different ways) and oyster snow, it just missed a bit of assiduity. Don’t get me wrong, the dish was good, but I (we) think that with a touch of assiduity it would even be better. Besides that all great combinations, with a bullet for dessert 🙂 this were actually filled white chocolate balls (for some reason when writing this I think of Jerome “Chef” McElroy from south park). I also enjoyed the bouillabaisse sauce with the seabream (the smell from this sauce was soooooo good as well)

I wouldn’t be able to say which was my favorite dish. We first also wanted to try the Wouter van der Vieren signature dish, but as I didn’t see him in the kitchen… it wouldn’t be the same trying it without him being there. We did get to see him as he arrived a bit later, but I think the fact Jeroen Meus was eating at the table next to us had something to do with it 🙂 But nevertheless Wouter did a good job training his team, he can be proud of them!

I was lucky enough to have a sommelier at my table to pick the wines and he really did a good job. Gianluca picked a white Italian wine a Gaja Rossj-Bass Langhe. The red wine however was a wine suggested by the sommelier from WY, he picked a 2007 red Italian Barbaresco by Serafino which was also a very nice choice.(with 2 Italians at the table you can’t go wrong with Italian wine 🙂 ) So if you add all these comments up I can only say that this was a nice restaurant with you get true value for your money and brought to you by very professional people and I was lucky enough to also have great company at my table 🙂 and on top of that I got to see Wouter van der Vieren AND Jeroen Meus… wow what a lunch 😉

FYI: for the car lovers, you’ll find lots of great cars when you go downstairs 🙂

Restaurant WY:

Website: http://www.wybrussels.be/

Address: Bodenbroekstraat 22-24/ Grote zavel, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Phone n°: +32 (0) 2 400 42 63

Toronto the city of burning secrets

January 18, 2013January 18, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

The following question is without any doubt a very popular quiz question “What is the capital of Canada?” funny enough most people will be wrongly answering “Toronto” instead of “Ottawa” which is the actual capital… I’m not sure why, but I will try to tell you what makes Toronto a very special place (besides me having family there). If you would be thinking visiting Toronto don’t do this at wintertime, wait for the spring or summer! I’ve been there in both seasons and in wintertime it is sooooooo cold, when the wind is blowing it feels like little razors cutting in your skin. On top of that the city is so much more beautiful in the warmer season, all the flowers, being able to sit outside to eat or drink, …

Toronto is a ‘smaller’ and calmer version of New York to my opinion. I know there is only 1 NYC, but did you know that most movies that seem like they are recorded in NYC are actually recorded in Toronto?! Next time you see a movie in “NYC” check the credits from the movie and I’m sure they’ll be thanking the city of Toronto. Toronto even has their own mini ‘Time square’ aka Dundas Square 🙂

I know I did already mention it in previous post of cities (and will keep mentioning it) I’ve visited, the way to get to know a city it taking a sightseeing bus on the first day! So that’s what we did (this wasn’t my first time in Toronto, but it was for my fiancée). You just get such a good overview of the city and it is easier to see which parts you would want to explore further. I can also strongly advise you to take the boatride in the sightseeing package as this way you’ll get to see Toronto in a front view (great to take pictures)! You also get the see the islands in front of Toronto … Yes the islands which also has one nudist beach (for those who would be into this … sorry no pictures :-).) and one of the smallest airports in the world. In case you don’t feel like taking a boat y ou also have a great view of the airport and the islands when going on top of the CN Tower.

The CN tower is without any doubt one THE most important landmarks (ok, maybe also Rogers center), it isn’t cheap to go on top, but it is worth it as you get a really beautiful overview of this city and it is then that you notice that it is a very green city with lots of trees and parks…

One thing I’ve learned during the sightseeing is that Toronto is a very new city when it comes to architecture. Why? Because since the 18^th century until now, there have been more fires in Toronto than snow 🙂 Really I think every building you see in Toronto has at least burned down once in its history 🙂 But nevertheless there are some very beautiful buildings and houses in downtown Toronto! From very modern architecture and reinstatements of buildings that burned down.

For the shopaholics amongst you, I’m sure Toronto will also have a lot to offer for you! Try to get to Eaton Center, probably one of the biggest malls I’ve ever seen! You could also just walk down on Yonge street, but I would think twice if you would want to walk the whole street as this is one of the longest streets (with sidewalk) in the world and it would take you around 48hours to walk from North to South 🙂 but then again women always like to shop until they drop 🙂

To be continued as I’m not done talking yet and I still didn’t talk about the food…. so stay tuned!

Sogliola alla Fiorentina

January 9, 2013 / dolcevitaspinelli / 1 Comment

For those who don’t speak Italian, Sole with spinach and a light ‘creamy’ sauce. This is a very easy recipe. I don’t prepare too much fish at home, not that I don’t like to eat it, but more because of the smell it leaves in my house 🙂 (I sound like my Italian aunt). Normally this dish is made with sole, but you can easily replace this fish by plaice or any other flatfish. I also didn’t use sole this time as it was a bit expensive when I wanted to buy it. I’ll be preparing/ serving it the easy way, but you can be as creative as you want when serving it. You could role the fish up with the spinach in between or just make the fish with the sauce and serve it with mashed potatoes with spinach, etc….

For 2 people you would need the following amount of ingredients (in case for more people, just multiply 🙂 ) When you buy the fish you can either by filets or an entire fish. In both case the fish as to be skinned. If you would use a whole sole for example you first bake it an afterwards remove the bones.

Ingredients:
• 2 Soles (or 8 filets, if you are a small eater you can always take less)
• 200g fresh spinach (young leaves)
• 30g Parmesan cheese (for making a nice crust under the grill)
• Flour (not much, just to put on the fish just before baking it)
• Salt, pepper & nutmeg
• 2 lumps of butter (for the spinach and to bake the fish)
• 250 ml cooking cream
• 1 glass of fish stock (this would be between 350and 400 ml)
• Glass of white wine

Get started:
• First of all we’ll start with talking the stalk of the spinach leaves.
• Melt some butter in a small pot (make sure you can fit all your spinach in the pot) and throw in the spinach. Just let it absorb the butter for max 10 minutes (stir from time to time). Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

• The following step would be the fish. Season them with salt and pepper. If you use fish filets you first flour them. Heat a pan with a lump of butter (or olive oil if you prefer it) and bake the filets max 2min on each side (they just need a little bit of color) In case you use a whole fish you do the same, but remove the bone from the fish.
• Put the fish aside and use the same pan (not cleaned) to make the sauce. You put the pan on the heat; deglaze the pan with the white wine. Add the fish stock and cream. Let it cook for 5 minutes
• Take 2 baked filets. Put some spinach on one filet and lay another filet on top. Make “double” filets until all filets are used.

• Take a baking tray (butter it to make sure the fish won’t stick) and arrange the “double” filets in it. Pour the sauce over the fish. Put a bit of grated Parmesan cheese on top of the “double” filets and let it cook for 8 minutes in a preheated oven of 180°C (356°F) and 2 minutes under a grill to make a nice crust.
Enjoy 🙂 you could serve it with mashed potatoes. I added some mustard in my mash with gave it that little extra flavor.

My 2013 restaurant wishlist

December 19, 2012December 19, 2012 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

2012 was a good year if you ask me. I made lots of nice discoveries and had a lot of great food… but that you’ve seen in my blogposts. I hope you liked them as much as me

I’m sure 2013 will be as promising. A New Year needs a new restaurant wishlist:

El celler de can roca (Girona – ES)
Comerç 24 (Barcelona – ES)
Librije’s zusje (Zwolle – NL)
Etablissement 1880 (Groede – NL)
WY (Brussels – BE)
Cuines 33 (Knokke – BE)
De Kruidenmolen (Klemskerke – BE)
’T Vieremmershof (Lokeren – BE)
De Tuinkamer (Beerzel – BE)
De Godevaart (Antwerpen – BE)
Lotus Root (Eke Nazareth – BE)
Tête Presée (Brugge – BE)
Vina Clara (Borgerhout – BE)
Sport hotel Alpina (Madesimo – IT)
Theo Randall (London – UK)
Odette’s (London – UK)
Lots more 🙂 …..

I hope to find a nice Indonesian restaurant that serves some great Rendang!

Roca Brothers

Me versus 117 by Wout Bru

December 14, 2012December 14, 2012 / dolcevitaspinelli / 2 Comments

117 by Wout Bru

You guys can’t believe how happy I was when I first heard that Wout Bru was opening a “pop-up” restaurant in Antwerp. In the past I tried a few times to get to his restaurant in France, but something always came in-between. So knowing that he would bring his whole kitchen crew from “Chez Bru” with him made it even better, as this way I just knew the level of cooking would be star level, even though you could read in most newspapers that this was not Wout’s aim in Antwerp (but let’s call a cat a cat, even when relocated a Michelin star teams stays a Michelin star team). So you can imagine that my expectations were high about the food and Wout or shall I say Mr. Bru didn’t disappoint me as I can really give no comments on the food (also not on the quality). All dishes we got were nice looking dishes that tasted the way they looked.

117 by wout bru

But, yes unfortunately there is also a “but”, it wasn’t the “total experience” one expects to have especially when paying over 100EUR per person (the min. budget you to count at this restaurant is 100EUR, unless you don’t drink). If I think back at my dinners at restaurants like Pure C or even Nuance where I paid more or less the same price (around 130EUR per person drinks included) I got spoiled from the moment I came in until I stepped outside. This was the thing I was missing at “117” I know they are only open for 5 days and that this is just a “pop-up” and not yet oiled machine (which is logical after 5 days). It were not the big things, but the little things that ‘bothered” (maybe not the correct word to use) me. For example not getting amuses or some “special kind of cookies” with our coffee or when my friend booked the table they asked to make sure we were there punctual at 6 pm (which we were), but they only let us in at 6:10pm….

It was also a shame to see that the serving staff was far from being at the same top level as the kitchen staff. It felt a bit like sitting in an old rusty car that has a Rolls Royce engine, it drives ok but you just know something missing. Don’t get me wrong it were all friendly (I admit cute) young ladies, but you just missed that “sparkle” that separates the good from the best. Again, it were the small things like refilling the glasses of wine, not that I’m too lazy me to do it myself, but you know what I mean… especially when you pay 130EUR per person it are just these little things that make it worth going to restaurants like this instead of a regular restaurant.

I think if they do a few small adjustments in the serving area they will make this “pop-up” experience a trip the wonderful world of gastronomy for everybody. It would be a loss if Wout’s impeccable reputation as chef and restaurateur would become less (in the eyes of lots of people) after this “pop-up” adventure. Because I know they are the best and that’s where they should always belong!

Ok, enough of the “bad” comments, back to the good part of the night (besides my wonderful table guests!)! The food was without any doubt very good and did indeed pet my taste buds! (for a correct price to my opinion).

Feast your eyes on some of the Njammy dishes we were fortunate enough to try! I have to be honest that I don’t remember in which order I got them (besides the desserts), so I’ll just show them in the order I think it was 🙂

FYI, I didn’t eat all these dishes myself 🙂 we had 5 courses per person. Just move your scroll over the picture, this will bring up the hoover text specifying which dish it was.

117_Vitello Tonnato

117_veal sweetbreads

117_belgian endive with ham

117_veal cutlet 117_king crab 117_milk pig 117_porc legg with truffle 117_seabass

117_ lobster lasagna

117_Feuillantine

117_tarte citron

My personal favorite dishes were the Milk porc and the lobster lasagna.

To accompany our wonderful food three of us first took a glass of Jané Ventura cava (the 4^th person took a Hendrick’s Fever tree Gin and Tonic) after that we had a white Italian Gavi di Gavi followed by a 2009 red Gevrey-Chambertin from Domaine Marchand –Grillot. The red wine was slightly young, but after it got some air it opened up nicely.

117_Gevrey Chambertin

I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’ll try Wout’s food, next time i’ll go to to Chez Bru to get Bru-anized. One thing is sure, the good food made me happy and I have the picture to proof it.

117 happy me

FYI: A great surprise yesterday evening was to see Dagny Ross enter the restaurant to have dinner. To all the men reading my blog, she even looks better than on TV (or is this inappropriate to say now that I’m engaged? :-))

If you are lucky you might still be able to find a free spot at this restaurant, check http://www.117bywoutbru.be for it.

Quick lunch spots in London

December 12, 2012 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

Use the forks!

I love good food, but I’m sure you already knew that. A key factor in eating is time! Especially lunch time, when you are on a city trip there are obviously other things to do then eating the whole time. Although I have to admit that it were for me I would be eating non stop (Am I surprising you?), but even I would start to feel guilty for not visiting the city I’m in. That is why for lunch we (me and my beautiful fiancée) always have a quick (preferably in a place where we can sit) lunch. In the evening we can make up for it and take our time for dinner. Finding a place to have a quick good lunch can be tricky and going to one of those multinational fast-food chains is out of the question. Before leaving on a city trip, I usually write down some places I’d like to try. But you can be sure that most of the time they opposite side of the city from the sport where I am at that moment :-).

On one of these moment we walked into Wardour street (coming from Oxford Street), it was like finding the “Holy Grail”. So many nice spots to have lunch (here my greediness kicked in again). All kinds of cuisines, from Pizza to Indian to Fish&chips to healthy food (as you can see on the map below, that is one loooooong street, so it would even be possible to eat nonstop whole day long :-))

map wardour street

Our choice went to a place called BananaTree that is specialized in Indochinese kitchen (Indonesian/Chinese). What actually convinced me was the fact they had one of my all-time favorite dishes on the menu, Rendang. Rendang is a slow cooked beef stew with a nutty curry with a coconut based sauce and is for me without any doubt ‘King of Curries’(Amen to that!).I used to eat it in a great Indo restaurant in Antwerp, but they closed down a long time ago (so I was craving for some Rendang). It tasted just like I remembered it, spicy with a little touch of sweetness and all the rich flavors a curry supposed to have! (I’m about to eat my keyboard) On top of that we also had a green pancake (yes green) as dessert filled with coconut (that was some goooooood eating we did!).

Bananatree

Bananatree interior

Bananatree Rendang

Bananatree Green Thai pancakes

Bananatree one happy camper

A few other places that caught my attention in Wardour street:

Imli: the place Indian tapas, perfect to taste lots of different Indian dishes.

Imli

Princi: I actually tried the original Princi in Milan, where I probably had one of THE best breakfasts ever. The London branch (only branch outside of Milan) also sells pizza… check my blogpost about it. I can definitely recommend this!

But there were sooooo many more nice places (to many to write down), I’m sure you’ll find something of your liking.

To be continued….

Great British Food

December 4, 2012December 4, 2012 / dolcevitaspinelli / Leave a comment

British food doesn’t always have the best reputation, which is strange as every experience I had was good. It is true that the last few years chefs like Rick Stein, Gary Rhodes, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and many more have done many efforts to show that British food is more than only fish and chips! They try to show that there are so many good local products that one should be proud of! Every time I visit a foreign country or city I at least have to try one local dish meal. Like the saying says: “When in Rome do as the romans” when in Britain….. All the times I was in Great Britain I have always eaten well, which doesn’t always have to mean “expensive”. When you are ever in London and you feel like trying real British food made with local products grown by local farmers, I would suggest trying one of the “Canteen” restaurants. As you might already expect, the restaurants are like canteens, but don’t worry they really did their best to pimp the interiors (different in every Canteen restaurant). So no boring school canteens 🙂

canteen interior

Canteen interior 2

View from my seat

We came here to eat of course, so let me start talking about the food. I took a Beef pie (I love pies) and my fiancée another great British classic, smoked haddock :-). How better to end our meal than with a slice of carrot cake (although I have to admit I would have also enjoyed a slice of bread pudding). I have admit that choosing wasn’t easy as there were so many great dishes on the menu that I wanted to try… (and I cannot always be greedy)

Canteen Smoked haddock

Canteen_Beef pie

Canteen carrot cake

We enjoyed our real British meal very much and you will never hear us say that British food is bad! Simple and good, that’s a combination that is always a success. So if you are looking for traditional authentic British food, Canteen it the place to be. We went to the Canteen at Covent Garden, as this way after our dinner we could enjoy Covent Garden by night in a Christmas atmosphere 🙂

Covent Garden

Covent Garden (2)

Covent Garden (3)

The only thing that would have made this dinner better for me is if I could have tried English/British wine… I know they exist or aren’t they worth drinking? (Although I would find that hard to believe)

If you need some more convincing of great British food, watch one my favorite BBC shows “Saturday Kitchen”, and see how great British food can be!

Canteen

Website: http://www.canteen.co.uk/

Address (the one in Covent Garden)

21 Wellington Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 7DN

Spinelli's Dolce Vita

My passion for life