Dinner Diary
40
I’m feeling a bit discombobulated.
It’s getting darker even earlier in the day, and darker in the mornings too. And yet this week we’ve had 16 and 17 degree days. Days that warm at this time of the year feel normal to me, but the darkness doesn’t. It was Bonfire (Guy Fawke’s) Night in London on Wednesday, and people started setting off fireworks from 5pm. That was weird. But it just makes so much sense here. We spent the weekend in Lisbon for Phil’s birthday. It was sunny and balmy, and so it feels like Summer is on its way - which is of course what I’m used to at this time of the year. But it’s not. I need to buy some Vitamin D tablets.
Anyway, to dinner!
Monday
After our weekend of dubious nutritional quality in Dublin we’re in need of vegetables. I make a big salad of carrot, cucumber, radish, lots of herbs and a few handful of leafy greens that I dress with fish and soy sauces and lime juice. I cook some rice, and we have that and the salad with salmon Thai fish cakes. I will confess that the fish cakes weren’t made by me, simply cooked by me. Thank you Waitrose for saving a weary-post-weekend-away cook once again.
Tuesday
We see friends for a speedy midweek dinner involving minimal drinks (by our standards) at The Plimsoll. A cheeseburger each and a plate of Best Potatoes with aioli to share. We share some breaded sardines too, which are good.
Wednesday
We’re meant to see a friend for dinner but for the better part of the day I’m feeling decidedly average so we reschedule. Maybe I just can’t do two nights out in a row anymore.
As I arrive back at the station nearest to home I realise I’ve left my keys in the little turtle shaped box I keep them in. I text Phil and tell him I’ll meet him at the pub. He’s pleased for the early exit from the office. We have a glass of wine and a pint and then go home for steaks, some fries and a big salad, which I dress with a homemade vinaigrette. The steaks are good ones that I picked up from McKanna Meats, but I overcook them ever so slightly. I’m feeling much better by the time I go to bed. Steak and wine are the cure.
Thursday
Fish katsu bowls with a cos, cucumber, radish and coriander salad. While Phil clocks up some pre-Lisbon billables, I make Alison Holst’s Champion Cheese Muffins (IYKYK) - some for us, some for everyone at Scotti’s.
Friday
We’re in Lisbon for Phil’s Birthday Festival, (yes, Phil does festivals). We have dinner at Cantinho do Aziz, a Mozambican restaurant that you wind your way up a hill to, and which I found by burying my way through the depths of Nick Bramham’s Instagram feed. Borderline dodgy behaviour, really. Nick is the Head Chef at Quality Wines and the King of the Bifana, so I figured if anyone had eaten at good places in Lisbon it would be Nick.
We share beef and chicken chamussas (the Portuguese and Mozambican name for samosas) and a plate of spicy chicken nibbles while we wait for plates of prawn curry and rice, because we’re hungry. The prawn curry is amazing. It’s not overly spicy, but it’s one of the more flavoursome curries I’ve ever had. The prawns are sweet and juicy.
It’s nice to sit outside eating and drinking at quarter-to-ten at night.
Saturday
It’s Phil’s actual birthday. I had booked a flash-ish looking steak restaurant for dinner but at about 2.30pm, after a big lunch, we decide neither of us is much in the mood for steaks or flash-ish restaurants. That’s mostly because we’re already onto our sixth drink of the day (birthday breakfast mimosas compliments of the hotel will do that to you). So we cancel the dinner booking and decide we’ll play it by ear instead. I think both of us have bifanas in mind.
As we’re in a Bolt heading back to our hotel after finding ourselves at an hilarious bar on the other side of the city, Phil declares that he wants Chinese food for dinner. When in Lisbon. So I Google, “Best Chinese in Lisbon”. The result that most piques my attention is “Chinês Clandestinos” - obviously with a name like that. I do a quick search through Google reviews and photos people have posted and decide the place looks good. It looks like a big dining hall, looks like it’ll be a bit of fun.
We arrive just before 9pm after drinking a bottle of bubbles at the hotel, well and truly in need of food. And while the well and truly in need of food thing may have influenced our view of this place, I’m convinced that even without skinfuls of booze I’d still have thought it was exceptional.
The restaurant is run by a gorgeous woman, whose husband does the cooking on the level below the restaurant. He seems to send everything upstairs via a dumbwaiter. But really this place is run by the couple’s eight-year old son. He tells his mum when customers arrive and need showing to tables, whips the tops off bottles of Tsingtao like someone who has been drinking the stuff for a lifetime, and gave a masterclass in customer service when an old man grumpily questioned his choice of football teams on the telly: he just shrugged and walked off.
When you are seated at your table by mum, she brings you a menu, a slip of paper and a pen. There are no instructions given, but of course it’s obvious what to do: just write down the numbers of the dishes that you want.
We decide to order the homemade chive dumplings, sweet and sour pork (which is described as the restaurant’s specialty dish; the sauce is homemade using 9 ingredients), a plate of spinach cooked in garlic and an egg fried rice. Phil orders a Tsingtao and I order what I think is a glass of wine. I’m presented with a whole bottle. It costs six Euros.
The dumplings are beautiful. They are so light and dainty and packed full of chives. The undersides of them are nicely browned. The sweet and sour is superb. The sauce is perfectly balanced, and the pork is perfectly cooked - it’s tender, and the thin batter is shatteringly crisp. The garlicky spinach is delicious, and frankly, quite needed. The egg fried rice is perfunctory rather than anything to write home about, but I’ll forgive them that.
Finding this place was an unexpected joy.
Sunday
An M & S pasta salad on the train home at 9.15pm. Glamorous.
Other good bits
On Tuesday I needed to pop into Scotti’s to pay Al for mine and Phil’s Friday morning breakfast, which I realised, en route to Luton Airport, I hadn’t actually paid for because my card hadn’t worked. So, that became an excuse for a morning coffee at Scotti’s. Phil came with me. We decided to have a snack too, morning tea if you will. A cheese and pickle sandwich each. Butter, cheese and Branston pickle on soft white bread. When Al gave us our sandwiches he said he’d felt like a rebel. Why? Because he’d cut one sandwich into triangles, the other into squares. I told him the triangles tasted different. It was honestly such an incredible sandwich. We ate the same sandwich on the train to Gatwick Airport on Friday afternoon.
At my work, a staff canteen has recently opened. It’s run by a social enterprise that provides employment and training opportunities to people in need, and that makes use of food that would otherwise go to waste. I decided to have my fortnightly team meeting there, and so got to eat there for the first time on Wednesday. Team meetings are so much better when the main purpose is breaking bread together. For £6 I got a plate of really good chicken biriyani, which came with a handful of small poppadoms, an onion bhaji, and as much salad, raita and tomato and black mustard chutney as I wanted. It was so delicious. One of my colleagues got an eggplant and potato curry with rice for only £3. I reckon I’ll be going every week now.
We had a great lunch in Lisbon on Saturday at another place I found on Nick Bramham’s Instagram. We shared a huge platter of salt cod, chickpeas, potatoes and a tumble of fennel, onion and pickled cabbage that all sat on top of a small pool of oil-slicked broth. It was such a beautiful dish, and a very memorable lunch. Before lunch we had beautiful freshly squeezed orange juice and the best pastel de nata of the trip at a crazy tavern-cum-cafe at the flea market. I liked Lisbon a lot.