Fun for all Foodies

Jess and I  both admit to being total foodies, we love eating out, trying new foods and indulging wherever possible. Dukan diet aside, on any given midweek evening one of us will undoubtedly be at a local restaurant enjoying the culinary delights that SW6 has to offer.

When the 'Foodies Festival' came to Battersea Park there was only one person I could take as my guest, my highly talented best friend and supremo chef Elizabeth. We arrived ravenous and left replete, it was a perfect day. Highlights included sumptuous fresh oysters with the perfect dash of Tabasco, basking in the sunshine by the Pimms tent and a spicy Moroccan lunch which left our tongue's tingling. 

The event had an informal lively atmosphere yet there was enough room to poke around the various stalls munching on the tasters as we went. Local restaurants such as Bennetts in Battersea (review here) had pop up stalls and for those in the mood for some serious opulence the Harvey Nicks pop up food hall and bar appeared to have a constant supply of champagne flowing.

I have taken some snapshots from the day below but I wouldn't advise looking at them if you are hungry or on a diet, some of these cakes are not for the faint hearted!

Molti Piatti on the Kings Road

There is an absolute abundance of Italian’s in Fulham and Chelsea. Big ones, small ones, chains, independents, iconic ones, ones with longevity and ones that seem to disappear in the blink of an eye. With a strong preference for independent restaurants, one place that has long been on my hit list has been Osteria Dell’Arancio, which sits on the Kings Road just before the World’s End. Last Sunday, I finally got round to it!

From the outside, the place looks like a fairly large and unpretentious restaurant. The premises are light and airy, and the cool white exterior punctuated with bright green makes the place seem instantly inviting. Inside, the feel is vibrant, spacious and quirky all at once. The tables are of solid build, well spaced out, and the walls are covered in eye-popping collage-style paintings replete with tongue-in-cheek pop culture references, whilst the banquette seating is covered in a selection of colourful cushions.

However, if the look and feel is unpretentious, bright and welcoming, don’t be fooled that this place doesn’t take its food seriously. The menu is diverse and imaginative, and the wine list (helpfully divided by Italian region) is absolutely enormous! The food offering follows the traditional Italian format of bruschetta, antipasti, primi piatti, secundi piatti, contorni and desserts but you will not find a bog standard Bolognese here (though the owner is very accommodating, and I have a feeling he could rustle one up on request!)

We had a tough time deciding what to eat, but in the end plumped for:

Starters:

Octopus, borlotti bean, sunblushed tomato and olive warm salad

Squid, fennel and orange salad.

Mains:

Traditional Italian beef “tagliata” steak accompanied by rocket and parmesan

Tagliolini with langoustines and shredded courgette in a light tomato sauce

The owner was really helpful in finding us the right wine. Having recently returned from Tuscany we fancied a white from that region that wasn’t eye-wateringly expensive. Having chosen a selection of meat and seafood we were directed to a Tuscan white called Il Volano, which was fairly full bodied white with a very distinct taste that lent itself very well to our chosen dishes.

The octopus was rich and meaty, and the accompanying beans, tomatoes and olives were carefully balanced to produce something that was part hearty stew, but also retained a certain freshness and lightness. I really would recommend this as a starter

I’ve always been a big fan of squid, and this was done to perfection, cooked to add a slight smokey flavour, and remaining tender and not in the least rubbery. The boy doesn’t usually like the taste of orange anywhere but dessert (philistine!), but even he had to agree that the fennel and orange were each other’s perfect counterpoint and this was the dish I perhaps enjoyed the most from the meal.

Having recently got back from a trip to Italy where we had both fallen in love with the traditional tagliata dish, I’m sorry to say that although the steak was beautifully cooked (and good Lord do you get a lot of meat for your buck) some of the finer details that we had grown to love about the tagliata were missing. In Tuscany, and perhaps there are regional differences at play here, we had always been served tagliata cooked in a rosemary sauce with almost pesto-like consistency. This extra dimension of flavour was absent from the Osteria Dell’Arancio version, although the meat was cooked very well nonetheless.

On the other hand, my taglioni dish of dainty thin spaghetti was really delicious, even if langoustines were a little thin on the ground! The courgette had been carefully grated into little threads which meant it integrated itself well into the spaghetti and lended its flavour evenly throughout the dish, whilst the accompanying tomato-based sauce was well seasoned and light enough not to detract from the langoustines and courgettes which were the main event. As were all our dishes, it was served in almost artistic clean white crockery and was presented in a thoughtful and elegant manner.

Visiting as we did mid-Sunday afternoon, the place was not exactly heaving but the owner was very attentive, and you could see that the atmosphere would be absolutely fabulous on a Saturday night. It’s the kind of place you could go as a family, or for a fun night with friends, and although the atmosphere is light-hearted, I could recommend it for a date also. If they added the rosemary to their tagliati – I wouldn’t hesitate to give it a solid 9 out of 10!



383 Kings Road, London SW10 OLP
For reservations call 0207 349 8111 or book online

Getting M.A.D.E

As much as Sarah and I love eating and drinking our way around SW6, all in the name of producing an excellent local blog of course, our supposed ‘altruism’ has been wreaking minor amounts of havoc on our waist lines. We’ve tried yoga, hell, I’ve even tried the Dukan (effective, but short-term and painfully dull), but with summer holidays approaching, it was really time to bring in the big guns.

And what big guns they were...  Ladies and Gents, let us introduce Karl Williams of M.A.D.E  (@MadePtLondon).

Karl offers a service that is bespoke and also pretty darn efficient. He’ll assess your diet, lifestyle, objectives and body fat ratio and his 30 minute sessions use abbreviated metabolic training to make sure you get the same results as you would from a full hour – whilst you retain an extra half hour of your social life! He is also a big believer in getting the techniques right, as there’s no point congratulating yourself on your 100^th squat if the way you’re squatting has made them all only 10% as effective as they could be! He also whole heartedly believes in the importance of building a community to help people achieve their goals. M.A.D.E aims to offer online services and hubs that help people share their achievements, top tips and motivate each other to make sure you keep on going, improving and surpassing your own expectations even when he isn’t there to stop you slipping!

When we met with Karl last weekend, he not only devised us a doubly efficient work-out regime but also gave a very educated, and diplomatic, analysis of our frankly shambolic food diaries from the previous week. Glossing over the several flapjacks, cocktails and total lack of vitamin C (it was a tough week in the office, OK!) Karl explained a little more about his philosophy towards food. He encouraged us to work with what we’re all already doing, and avoid absolutes. If someone is a total coffee fiend, there’s no point banning it completely, as it simply won’t happen, and they’ll get demoralised. Naturally, I have since gratefully applied this principle to my abhorrently large chocolate intake. He believes everybody is different and so you’ll need to experiment with your diet and find what works for you – hence our food and mood diary. That said, he’s a firm believer that the modern diet simply doesn’t work with the way our bodies were designed. The original human (and sadly, we don’t seem to have evolved much since) was designed to eat meat, fish and vegetables. Refined carbs like white pasta and white bread are harder to digest and hence lead to sluggishness and weight gain. Still, not all carbs are bad, and my favourite sweet potatoes were given a thumbs up (thank god!)

Diets and philosophy well analysed, we moved onto our introductory training session. Karl invited us to train at the wonderful 37 Degrees club in Kensington Olympia, and after an introductory tour filled with loads of oohs and aaahs (they have a sweet roof terrace which has been used to film many ads) we got to see just how efficient one half hour could be...

...The answer, for all you gym marathon loving sceptics, is pretty bloody efficient. The abbreviated metabolic training method means you do not stop! Whilst you rest your legs you’re pumping iron with your “guns” (*ahem* bingo wings) and whilst you’re not lifting barbells, doing planks and impersonating Usain Bolt on the cables, Karl will have you doing squats, the dreaded burpees (guys there is no escape, we really did beg!) and step ups. He also introduced us to a fairly ruthless Japanese method of interval training, called tabata, which involves working at a well-enforced 100% on the cycling machine for 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds gentle cycling, repeated four times. This may sound short, but even the resident “Spinning Queen” Sarah admitted she found it quite a struggle. All I’ll say is, if there was ever a way to maximise your workout in the shortest amount of time possible, tabata is it! The net result is, your heart rate is raised (in my case, verging on cardiac arrest) very consistently for the whole half hour, even when you are “resting” one part of your body. Half an hour was definitely enough to wash away the sins of a chocolate-flapjack breakfast (told you the food diary was dire) and a little more –Sarah are I were very grateful for the steam room and pool at 37 degrees afterwards!

The best news is, initial consultations with Karl are free (for the ladies, the next best news is that Karl is pretty easy on the eye). Karl really does place emphasis on the bespoke elements of his programme and so we heartily encourage you to find out what he can do for you. He’s totally accessible, and always available to his clients via email to give extra advice, motivation and tips: everything from how to negotiate the breakfast buffet on your next holiday to “Help! I need something I can do at home to get rid of my bingo wings!” (guilty!). We reckon we’ve found a real gem here, so we’ll definitely be going back.