On the 3BM iPod: Deers

If we say Spanish girl group, you say.... Las Ketchup?

NO. Just no. 

Scrub all memory of annoying Europop from your mind, the Deers are here to shake up your perception of Spanish girl groups in a very, very good way.

Deers are a Madrid-based duo - Ana Garcia Perrote and Carlotta Cosials - who grab an extra two members when they're playing gigs. Their sound may be slightly scratchy and seat of their pants but they apparently record their tracks using their mobile phones and it just seems to work (they look like their having the most fun ever in their Bamboo video). Take a little Thursday listen...

Deers - Bamboo

Deers - Castigadas en el granero

 

Ham & Sherry Hong Kong

Straddling the East and West as we do in Hong Kong, you get pretty pro when it comes to celebrating a new year. At the start of the month we all tipsily toasted the start of the new Gregorian calendar year and now as we slither towards the end of the Year of the Snake and canter into the Year of the Horse, we’re  merrily looking forward to welcoming the start of the Chinese New Year. 

Of course, the end of January will also be our cue to raise a glass to Tet in Vietnam and Seollal in Korea. And then before we know it, it’ll be April and we’ll be busy ringing in Sonkran in Thailand, Thingyan in Myanmar and Chaul Chnam Thmey in Cambodia…

Frankly it’s impossible to keep up. Which is why we’ve cunningly devised a calendar of our very own… A calendar based around what we’ll be filling our glasses with when we toast each of the many anniversaries filling up our diary… The Great Booze Calendar.

Last year was the Year of the Gin (Origin and G&T opening within a couple of months of each other can only be down to Hong Kong’s collective thirst for the juniper juice). And this year is… drumroll please… The Year of the Sherry.

Yes, you heard right, sherry’s shrugging off its granny shawl for 2014, and will be filling up the glasses of all the most beautiful people around town. Of course Michelin-starred Jason Atherton, and Entrepeneur extroaordinaire, Yenn Wong, are ahead of the rest of us on this one, and have just unveiled the perfect spot to get your sherry fix, the very aptly named Ham& Sherry…

Set a few doors down from its elder brother, 22 Ships, Ham & Sherry looks perfectly at home on uber-cool Ship Street decked out as it is in a patchwork of blue and white tiles and mirrored walls wrapped around a large stainless steel open kitchen.

The menu is pretty Sherry heavy, with over fifty types to work your way through, complemented by a short but sweet selection of tapas to soak up all that fortified wine. If you feel slightly overwhelmed leafing through the weighty tome of Sherries, fear not there’s a super helpful section which neatly guides you through the list. We figure finding your perfect Sherry is sort of like finding your prince, if at first you kiss a frog, try and try again, we guarantee Mr Charming is just around the corner (ours is the super slinky La Cigarrera Manzanilla FYI…).

While there’s just a handful of tapas dishes to nibble while you sup your sherry, food definitely isn’t playing second fiddle here. Just think of the Ham & Sherry menu as a carefully curated selection of Spain’s Greatest Hits. All the big boys are represented, think: Paella Arancini (chorizo-spiked balls of risottoey heaven), jamon and goats cheese croquettes, salt and pepper baby squid and bright green, salty, fried padron peppers. Oh, and did we mention the ham?! Sherry’s soulmate, the salty, buttery Jamon provides the perfect partner to your tipple. We can’t get enough of the 48 month-aged Jamon Iberico de Bellota, and the Chorizo and Lomo and pretty great too.

Sherry got you revved up and ready to party like it’s 1999? Maybe mention to your friendly waiter that you’d like to shake things up with a little something in the Back Bar... We’ve been sworn to secrecy so we’ll leave it at that, but rest assured you’ll leave a few hours later feeling like all your New Years have come at once…

Ham & Sherry

1-7 Ship Street

Wanchai

Hong Kong

Catalunya Hong Kong - Hell Yeah, I'd Tapas That...

Yeah, I'm not sure about the pun in the title either. It made me snigger when I first came up with it though, so I'm sticking with it....

But, one thing I am sure about is the subject of the pun - new(ish) Hong Kong restaurant, Catalunya. So certain in fact, that as I left after my first visit, I attempted (without success) to book straight back in again for a week later... This was love at first bite (my word play is definitely veering dangerously into bad-Dad-joke territory today, I apologise).

Opening in a blaze of mega-hype backed up by brilliant reviews back in May, I've heard countless great things about the food at this modern tapas hot spot and have tried and failed to book a few times. When you consider that Catalunya is spread over a colossal 8,000 square feet space and is still perenially packed you have to figure that they're doing something right...

So a few Saturdays ago, having made sure that I'd reserved a table a few weeks in advance, I headed out to deepest, darkest Morrison Hill with two of my best girls to see what all the fuss was about...

We started off with a round of cocktails. I opted for the Stairway to Heaven - bacardi, vanilla syrup, pineapple puree, celery, a slug of lime juice and a dash of egg white all topped off with coriander leaves. Unlike any cocktail I've ever sipped before, this was sweet and savoury with a very delicate flavour - absolutely delicious!  You've also got to love a cocktail that comes with its very own dry ice supply...

Which also helped to make everyone else's cocktails look pretty darn awesome...

While we gossiped over our cocktails our first nibble of the night arrived - the spherical olives. Catalunya's executive chef, Alain Devahive Tolosa, spent a decade honing his molecular wizardry in the kitchens of El Bulli, but this is the only molecular dish on Catalunya's menu. What may look like any old regular olive, turns out to be a little bubble of olive juice which bursts on your tongue - fun, innovative and not to be missed.

We followed our faux olives up with a delicious spread of dishes to share. The tomato tartar...

...the avocado and lobster roll...

...the Tortilla de Trampo - to quote from the menu: 'also called the "Sin Tortilla", this is the perfect example of lust in gastronomy'... all at once creamy, spicy and familiar yet decadent...

...the calamares with lemon mayonnaise...

... the gambas al ajillo...

...and last but not least - the ham, cheese and truffle bikini. 

Nope, we're not talking an itsie bitsie swimsuit, this is the grilled cheese sandwich to end all grilled cheese sandwiches. It may not look like anything particularly mindblowing but seriously, this is the sort of dish that changes your life. After one bite this went straight onto my last supper menu.

In fact it was so good that as we fought over the crumbs we decided that there was nothing for it but to order a second round of truffly, cheesy deliciousness... Total piglet behaviour but we were three VERY happy little piglets!

A jug of sangria later and before we knew it, the lights had gone up and the waiters were sweeping around us. Nothing for it but to bid a sleepy adios and head off back to Lang Kwai Fong for a nightcap.

For delicious cocktails, fingerlicking great tapas or actually, even just for one mouthful of ham, cheese and truffle bikini, Catalunya is a total smash!

Catalunya

G/F Guardian House Morrison Hill,

Oi Kwan Road,

Wan Chai,

Hong Kong.

+852 2866 7900

Tasty Tapas : Iberica Review...

After being back to the daily grind for nearly two weeks Mini Mouse and I are still suffering quiet significantly from the post-holiday blues. The worst shade of blue possible if you ask me! To lift our spirits and give us a reason to carry on (!) there really was only one direction to turn ... to food and of course a little booze...!

Our cuisine of choice was Spanish tapas and our restaurant of prey was Iberica on Great Portland Street. Mini mouse had heard good things and we'd recently spotted a couple of the girls from Made in Chelsea dining out there, so we thought we'd give it a whirl! 

 

The restaurant's interior is white, spacious and texture laden... Mary Poppins-esque carpet bag high stools, blue and white authentic Spanish wall tiles and bronze and glass low hanging statement lights...

We eased ourselves in with a bowl of green olives stuffed with anchovies - tasty with a delicious after tang! 

 

I opted for a solid Hendricks and tonic and Mini went for a large glass of the house wine. Suitably relaxed and ravenous, it was time to tuck into the food on offer - we had discussed en route how we were going to eat light and order picky mice-sized portions but that went out of the window as soon as we laid eyes on the menu! Instead we ordered up... 

 

A portion of the half and half which is a selection of different cured meats and cheeses...

 

 

The tosta de asparagus, Manchego cheese, onion confit and my fav truffle oil...

 

 

A traditional Spanish omelette...

 

 

And Serrano ham croquettes - crispy on the outside, oozing in the centre...

 

The dishes came from the kitchen in staggered intervals which was lovely in the sense of allowing us to take our time to savour every dish and each and every bite. After the last scrap was devoured, we asked each other 'if you had to pick just one dish to eat for the rest of your life which one would you choose' - we both blurted out in lightening fashion - OMELETTE - the clear winner overall!

With full bellies, and snoozy food coma eyelids we asked for the bill and were both pleasantly surprised when two sloe berry aperitifs arrived on the house to soften the blow... 

 

In addition to the superb food, Iberica also has a cuter than cute delicatessen based within the restaurant boasting an impressive range of Spanish foods and produce, including a collection of over twenty different olive oils and one of the largest selections of Spanish cheese and cured meats available in the UK - pretty impressive! The perfect opportunity to taste test during your meal and then purchase your favourites to take away as an indulgent sofa treat...

 

Iberica Marylebone

195 Great Portland Street

London

W1W 5PS

020 7636 8650

Pix up Sticks - Tapas Style...

Tapas for me brings back memories of the long summers spent as teeny, tiny Mice in a sleepy Menorcan fishing village, Macaret. We would go once or twice a year and spend three super fun weeks playing on the beach, collecting shells and making new local friends who we couldn't speak a word other than 'Hola' to!  

 

Our love for food dates back to those days and may even have been ignited in Macaret. While all the other children demanded burgers and chips, we would be happily tucking into rich, tomatoey Menorcan soup served up in traditional clay oven bowls, crispy baby squid complete with miniature tentacles, slabs of Spanish omelette and plate upon plate of Iberian ham!  

 

Since then, I've been on a constant hunt for calamari to live up to those napkins piled high with baby squid gobbled down on the beach as a snack! But chewy squid rings from La Tasca never quite cut the mustard! Food is a big deal to me, and in my opinion, good tapas outside of Spain is a hard thing to find!  

 

Pix however may be just what I've been looking for... this is Tapas with a twist! Not your standard little sharing plates of potato bravos, soggy paella and wizened olives but instead a station at the front of the restaurant laden with miniature pots of all different tapas deliciousness on a stick! You're seated, you order a drink, and you're then handed a plate, told to pick whatever you want from the front and to make sure that you keep your sticks. Pricing's simple, big sticks are £2.75 and small sticks are £1.95, when everyone is done the pot of discarded sticks are removed and cashed up for your bill.  

 

Beware it's very easy to get carried away... especially when seated right by the kitchen door where you're first to witness all the new trays of delights emerging! It's just so very easy to grab a little stick as the waiter walks by, you don't even need to get up from your table...!  

 

We feasted on the following delights.... 

 

 

 

 

And as you can see, this made us very happy girls!

 

Tapas on a stick - an upgrade from the dry, generic tapas chains we've all tried hopefully thinking maybe this time we'll be wowed, only to leave disappointed a couple of hours later with lighter pockets and rumbling tummies... Pix however serves up genuinely tasty mouthfuls of culinary heaven! Everything is thoughtfully put together and presented beautifully plus the small batches of each stick avoid food sitting out and going cold but, fear not there is never a shortage of options! 

 

A super tasty, fresh and fun way to do Tapas in London! We like! A lot!

 

Pix Soho

16 Bateman Street

London

W1D 3AH

0207 437 0377

Pix Covent Garden

63 Neal Street

London

WC2H 9PJ

0207 836 9779