GOOD MORNING

If you find yourself in Broomhill, in Sheffield, you may well catch sight of the Nam Song Ca Phe, a Vietnamese joint that serves meals all day.  So obviously you might go in there for breakfast.  And as you sit down at the table and  look at the menu you’ll probably be tempted by this offering:

 

BÁNH MÌ OP LA FRYUP £11.95 

SWEET CHILLI SAUSAGE, BACON, BEEF, TWICE FRIED TOFU, SRIRACHA FRIED EGGS, SAUTEED SPRING ONIONS, DAIRYLEA CHEESE TRIANGLE, TOAST & PATE 

 

And you might think, as did I at first, that this item was a product of well-meaning immigrants who hadn’t quite got the grasp of the full English breakfast. Well you, and I, would be wrong.

 

Photo: Caroline Gannon

As soon as we entered it was conspicuous that there was nobody working there who looked at all Vietnamese, neither front of house nor in the kitchen, which you could see into from the dining room.

 

The explanation, perhaps even a mission statement, can be found on the website.

 

ON OUR GAP YEAR WE WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO 

EXPERIENCE THE INCREDIBLE COUNTRY OF VIETNAM. 

THE PLACES, THE PEOPLE, THE ATMOSPHERE,

THE FOOD AND THE COFFEE. SIMPLY UNREAL.

 

ALL WE WANTED TO DO WAS TO BE ABLE TO RELIVE THIS EVERY DAY SO WHEN WE GOT BACK TO THE UK WE CREATED NǍM SÔNG!

​

NǍM SÔNG (MEANING FIVE RIVERS IN VIETNAMESE, AN ODE TO OUR FOUNDING CITY OF SHEFFIELD WHICH IS BUILT ON SEVEN HILLS & FIVE RIVERS) IS AND ALL-DAY-ALL-NIGHT COFFEE SHOP, RESTAURANT AND BAR SERVING UP OUR FAVOURITE VIETNAMESE FOOD, DRINKS AND OF COURSE THE LEGENDARY PHIN FILTER COFFEE.

 

There’s more but that’s enough for anyone.  The ‘legendary phin filter coffee’ can be seen at the top of this post.

 

The breakfast duly arrived looking like this:

And no, I wasn't quite as troubled as I look in the photograph below.

Photo: Caroline Gannon

Everything tasted pretty good but you did have to wonder if it all belonged on the same plate.  I could certainly have done without the pate, and probably without the Dairylea triangle but I’m not complaining. The eggs were decent and the beef was terrific.

 

There was too much food, of course, but that was probably the whole point.  We honestly didn’t need to eat again for another 7 hours. And didn’t.

 

Now, I have never been to Vietnam, though I have been to a reasonable number of Vietnamese restaurants both in the UK and in the States.  Would you find anything like this in a restaurantion Vietnam?  Well I suppose so, otherwise why would the Brromhill folk have tried to replicate it?  But I can’t find evidence for this.

 

On the other hand a little light research (I mean I didn’t get much further than Wikipedia) tells us that ‘In the Nguyễn dynasty, (which lasted from 1802 to 1945) the 50 best chefs from all over the kingdom were selected for the Thượng Thiện board to serve the king. There were three meals per day—12 dishes at breakfast and 66 dishes for lunch and dinner (including 50 main dishes and 16 sweets)’

 

So who’s to say that somewhere among the 78 dishes there wasn’t an English fry up. It’s what they call fusion.

FREE IMPROV SANDWICH

 St John Restaurant put up this image on Instagram:

 

The caption was, ‘”Creating a sandwich is like jazz,” says Fergus (Henderson). “You must find your unique sounds.”  Fergus always orders the Egg Mayonnaise sandwich from the chalkboard bar menu, and requests the addition of brown shrimp or anchovy.  The perks of being the boss.’

 

I’m not sure that creating a sandwich is really very much like jazz but I would never argue with Fergus Henderson.

 

 

And then Fuchsia Dunlop put up this image on Instagram: 

 

with the caption, ‘Scotch woodcock (a scrambled egg and anchovy dish, no bird involved) and crab on toast …” A Scotch woodcock is a version of the Welsh rarebit – the anchovies can be on top of the egg (as in the pic) or below the egg as in Gentleman’s Relish.  

Both would be OK by me.

 

I decided the kitchen gods wanted me to make an egg mayonnaise sandwich with anchovies.

 

The truth is I never willingly make an egg mayonnaise sandwich without anchovies so I boiled my eggs readied my mayo and anchovies and in due course began assemblage.  

But the fact also is that I never willingly make an egg mayonnaise sandwich without smoked paprika - and I suddenly realized I’d run out.  I’m not prepared to drive to the supermarket just for a jar of smoked paprika, so I improvised.

 Here is my egg mayonnaise sandwich with anchovies and ... turmeric. 

 

It tasted pretty good. To be honest I think that was because of the egg and the mayonnaise and the anchovies rather than the turmeric.  Does turmeric really have much taste at all? I don’t think so, but I stand to be corrected.  But it looked reasonably jazzy.

Do you want to see a picture of a young Rachel Riley (of Countdown fame) dressed as an egg salad sandwich?  Well, of course you do.

 

 

MENISCUS TEARS

(Photo not by Araki)

We’ve spoken previously about the importance of the meniscus on the martini, but the subject never gets old. If nothing else, it makes you think you’re getting your money’s worth

Below is an Instagram photograph of Grace Dent sipping a meniscus-positive martini at the Egerton House Hotel in Knightsbridge.  And kudos to all involved.

 

The Egerton menu describes it like this:

‘The Classic

‘We start with a frozen glass, chilled to 22 degrees below. A dash of vermouth first, then gin as cold as the glass. It’s poured all the way to the rim, so there’s only one way to drink it: our trademark Egerton Slurp. Trust us – it’s the only way to avoid spilling a single drop.

‘We normally finish things off with a single squeeze of lemon rind, nothing more, nothing less. Times have changed since the first martinis 130 years ago though, so if you prefer vodka to gin, we’re happy to make the switch.

‘We strongly advise one thing; whatever the spirit, treat it gently. As far as we’re concerned, our martinis are never shaken, never stirred, always perfect.’

 

When they say ’22 degrees below’ do they mean Fahrenheit or Centigrade?  I’m guessing the former but I’m not sure.  -22°F is -30°C and domestic freezers don’t go down that far but maybe industrial freezers at the Egerton do.

 

Also note the frosting on the glass in front of Grace Dent.  That’s the measure of any half-decent martini.  And you know, the movies rarely get that right. And even rarer is the meniscus.

 

Here, to pluck an example out of nowhere, is Nicolas Cage in the movie Next.

And here in Leaving Las Vegas

 

And here in Lord of War:

 

No meniscus and no frosting as far as I can see.  And of course you could say there’s no meniscus because he’s already drunk half of it. And no frosting because he’s been savouring it over a good long time.

 

But we know that’s not really the case.  It’s half empty because an overfull martini glass is hard to handle and no movie star wants to be seen  splashing gin down his or her front.    And as for the frosting, well you try to keep a glass looking frosted on the 27^th take.

Here's Bette Davis avoiding the problem by having a completely empty glass:

And below is poor dear Meryl Streep on Youtube, supposedly at home in her bathrobe singing in honour of Stephen Sondheim.  

 

She’s made the cocktail herself and she’s still only going to get half an inch of warm booze. 

And, of course, we know it's not really booze, but that applies to all the above except for Grace Dent.

You know, sometimes it seems as though Hollywood doesn’t have all the answers.

ACID

I was having lunch with an old friend in my local pub, the Crown.  I was having the Tuna melt (above) which is pretty reliable, and my companion was having a sausage sandwich and chips because his wife doesn’t let him eat that stuff at home.

 

And as we ate we overheard the two blokes on the next table discussing Landrovers while they waited for their fish and chips to arrive.  Ah, Essex!

 

Now, when we’d first sat down I’d noticed there were two bottles on the table.  The first contained malt vinegar, and the other contained a light coloured liquid, which I supposed was white wine vinegar.  And I thought, ‘Two kinds of vinegar – the Crown is getting sophisticated.’  But I am a malt vinegar man so it didn't matter much to me.

 

The fish and chips arrived at the neighbouring table and one of the blokes, evidently a sophisticate, put lashings of what he thought was white wine vinegar on his food.  Then he realized (as in fact I had some time earlier) that it wasn’t white wine vinegar at all.  It was hand sanitizer.

 

he described his plight to the waitress who said, ‘Well that was a silly thing to do,’ but she did give him a new plate of fish and chips, which I thought was pretty good of her.

 

Above are Robert Palmer and Elkie Brooks when they were in Vinegar Joe.  I cannot tell you what kind of vinegar was preferred by Joe.

GEOFF THE KNIFE - PART TWO

 

You’ve probably been worrying about my lack of oyster knives.  You may recall I broke a couple:

 

The local kitchenware shop was no help so I went online.

 

I found one I liked the look of but it cost 15 quid plus delivery, whereas I could buy 4 plus a pair of gloves for about the same price. The gloves are 'Cut Level 5"!! and no, I don't trust them at all.

I ordered the set, but then I had to wait.  The supplier did keep me informed with updates about the order's movements around China, and I admit there was some anxiety, but finally it came.

 

Not a bad haul for the price, I thought.

 

And then I went down to the fish man at the local farmers’ market.  He had some oysters – which isn't always the case.  They were, I think, the biggest oysters I’ve ever seen in England, though I think I may have seen bigger ones in Japan, from Hokkaido.

Photo by Caroline Gannon; and yes that is a UFO outside the window.

 

The new knives did the job, though when it was over I saw that one of them was bent like this, which may not be the very best sign of quality:

 

On the bright side it didn’t break – and I have 3 others in reserve

Meanwhile I am left with some very big oyster shells, which I like, and the feeling I should DO SOMETHING with them

 

Norman Mailer apparently used to draw faces on the inside of his oyster shells but I’ve seen no examples of this.

 

The internet is full of crafty and creative things to do with oysters shells.  Here’s just one of the things I shan’t be doing with mine:

 Below - Geoff and his Hokkaido oyster - in fact not quite as big as I remember it.

 

 

GEOFF THE KNIFE

 We bought a shark.  Its teeth weren't all that pretty, dear.

 

ALL PHOTOS - AND FOOD STYLINGS - BY CAROLINE GANNON

I can’t tell you the species but it was a small shark, and also a cheap shark.  The fishmonger was asking two quid per kilo and this one cost 2.40, and it came gutted.

 

A bit of marinating and then pan frying 

produced this result:

One thing I’ll say for shark (or at least this particular shark), it really only has the flavours you bring to it, and I wish we’d put in more of everything. But on balance it was a moderate success.  Sometimes that’s more than enough.

 

I had in fact looked up shark on the interwebs to find a recipe or two and was confronted by stuff like ‘Shark meat: delicacy or deadly?’ ‘Is Shark Meat Scrummy or Satanic?’

 

I paid no attention, obviously, but the alleged trouble comes from mercury.  Sharks grow old and big, they’re top of the food and so mercury accumulates and concentrates in their flesh. But one small shark seemed safe enough.  

 

However I did read about Jeremy Piven, who in 2008 gave up his role in a Broadway production of David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow after suffering from weakness, dizziness and nausea, diagnosed as having a "high mercury count." His doctor said "He was eating sushi twice a day for years ... and this is the problem."  Others thought it was a different problem.

 

Mamet said that Piven was leaving the play "to pursue a career as a thermometer" which is not one of his very best lines, but not bad.

 

But anyway, Piven survived. And we have too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HE GIVES YOUR HOLLANDER A VOMIT

 As I wander the city streets around London, or most other places else for that matter, I often look at the ground to see what’s been discarded, and sometimes I even photograph it.

 

Of course vomit is the one of the things I sometimes see, and although it’s occurred to me to photograph pools of sick, I’ve always thought better of it.

 

Obviously I am a terrible square.

 

Those funsters Bompas and Parr have opened a pop up ‘Vomit Vault’ at the Crypt Gallery just off Euston Road, and inside you can gaze at multiple pictures of vomit on the streets of London. The images are compelling and disgusting in equal measures.  There’s a book too, titled Salute to Puke.

 

In many ways this seems a natural progression of the Bompas and Parr enterprise. If you’re fascinated by the food and drink that goes into the human body it’s only natural to be fascinated by what comes out.

 

The serious, or at least somewhat serious, point seems to be that the reappearance of vomit on the streets of London marks a return to post-pandemic normality, a ‘sign of economic and social recovery.’

 

At the opening night party there were some ‘do it yourself’ cocktails that could be imbibed and then used to replicate some of the images on the walls.

But I managed to restrain myself.

 

Photo: Caroline Gannon

The lighting conditions in the vault made it hard to take photographs of the exhibits, which some may think just as well.

 

Those bleached out spaces are the colour prints on light boxes. The actual images look like this:

 

Art lovers can buy them in various forms and editions and have fun deciding where in their   homes to display them.   Prices are from 21quid to 630 smackers. 

The real joy of the exercise is that Sam Bompas is a man of such charisma that he can drag you to a crypt, make you look at pictures of vomit, and come out thinking you've had an uplifting experience. 

Here’s a link to Bompas and Parr:

http://bompasandparr.com/projects

GRACE AND FAVOUR, AND TARTARE

I don’t know Grace Dent and she doesn’t know me.  

We were once co-judges of a food and film competition but we didn't judge in the same place at the same time, so we never met.

 

Nevertheless I think she’s a good thing.  And as I continue my steak tartare research and experimentation, I wondered if she might have something interesting to say on the subject.  Well of course she does.

 

Her Guardian review of Six by Nico was illustrated with this image

 

I'd have thought that caption 'little more than a "meaningful glimpse of a dish"' was quite a put down, and I'd feel pretty well cheated if a waiter delivered that to my table, in in the review Grace sounds quite approving.

 

Less so with Tom’s Kitchen, reviewed in the Evening Standard, describing ‘the drab, under-seasoned steak tartare which arrived with a colossal mountain of rocket’

 

And even worse was the Bistrotheque at Cultureplex, Manchester reviewed in the Guardian, ‘A chunky steak tartare with a neatly placed,wobbly yolk looked pretty, but was jam-packed with capers that quashed any subtlety of flavour in the meat.’

 

Well I don’t suppose Grace Dent will be eating my tartare any time soon, which may be a blessing for both of us, but on I go.  I decided to try a venison version, in part because venison is so hard to cook - leave it in the oven a couple of minutes too long and it goes dry as a coir doormat – that raw seemed a reasonable method.  This was my venison tartare.

 

It thought it hit the spot but the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed the absence of raw egg yolk.  I think this may partly because of an Oedipal issue – my dad, when he was feeling under the weather, started the day with a raw egg in sherry.  I was appalled in the way only a teenage boy can be by his father.

 

The idea still gives me the willies, but I thought maybe I could handle the yolk of a quail’s egg.  That's it at the top of this post.  It looked fine at least it did until the moment I poured it into little well (or dent, if you will) that I’d made in the top of the the steak at which point it burst – but the overall effect, and the taste, was surely much the same. 

 

Did I need the raw egg yolk?  Not really. Did I think I was making and eating something more authentic?  Yes.

 

And since you ask, those chive sprigs are local, artisanal and grown by me.  Yes, I have been self-sufficient in chives since at least 2019.