Forkly, Food App

Seeing as I am skint, I’ve decided to tell you about my favourite food related App. Some of you may have noticed that most of the photos used in my blog, contain a small fork followed by the words “Forkly”. This is because most of the photos I use, I have usually uploaded to Forkly beforehand and use them later in the blog.

So what is Forkly and why is it so amazing. Forkly is a free food rating app from Brightkite founders Brady Becker and Martin May which lets you Taste and discover other dishes. Released in 2011 the App has had relative success and now has a hardcore fan base of daily users, myself included. Although similar to competitor Foodspotting , Forkly’s emphasis has been more on rating food items, not just taking pictures of them. There is also more of a community feel to Forkly, once you get to know the regular users in your area.

On Forkly, add a "taste" to say what you're eating or drinking and what you think about it. The app presents you with the option "Loved It," "Liked It," "It's OK" and "Not for Me" options. You can choose to add a photo or comment on the dish, and share the bite-sized review with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Your tastes are posted to the activity feed. Other users can follow along and indicate that they want to try your tastes, and also gain you influence points in the process. Think of it as Twitter but for food J

The discover tab is used to find out what's popular at nearby places, as determined by other Forkly users' tastes. You can also specify if you’re wanting to look for Breakfast, Desert, Drinks etc.

The App offers an easy way to look at specific dishes of restaurants in your Local area or further afield. You can also look for dishes you have “wanted” in your local area which is one of the best features of the app. I have used this feature religiously when in London and deciding what to do for lunch on the spur of the moment to great success.

 The app also provides you with a daily dose of “food porn”, I find myself most evenings spending 5 minutes to scroll through my feed of followed users and ogle at the tasty things they’ve eaten or cooked recently and the “Want” tab saves anything you want reminding you to eat it later on.

Bringing pictures of beautiful food right to your doorstep and providing an easy insight into the best pig out spots in foreign territory Forkly really is a top class app for true greedy guts.

Or to quote their website “Forkly makes it ridiculously easy to match your taste buds with the food and restaurants around you. Capture and share your tastes while dining out, and Forkly will help you discover a new dish around the corner, the best burger in town or your favourite cocktail in a new city.”

BOSH

BrewDog Leeds

Just a quick one today. Mainly because its getting near the end of the month and I haven’t been out anywhere to eat.

I went to the New BrewDog bar in Leeds on Tuesday night and was impressed.

Firstly the place looks great I’ve included some pictures off the Brewdog website below (I didn’t get any of my own because I was to busy getting sloshed on 13% beer).

Also I have to recommend the staff, they were the most attentive bar staff I’ve ever come across and every pint was followed with “enjoy your beer”. They were also helpful in choosing what drink I wanted and coerced me into tasting 3 different beers before I picked, when all I asked for was the palest. Very helpful indeed.

The beers were all delicious and I drank plenty of stuff I wouldn’t normally touch, which is great. Prices were a bit high end, £4.20 a pint. Some of the 1/3 pints were £3.65 but you’re paying for the taste I guess.

But, It’s the kind of place you might take your lady friend to enjoy a drink, or maybe your dad for one. I wouldn’t go with the attention of having a heavy one as after 5 different drinks which came to a total of about 2 ½ pints in volume I was pretty full and sickly.

I expect it isn’t the intention of BrewDog for their customers to come down and enjoy copious amounts of alcohol and then go hit the town, but that was my mistaken intention on the first visit.

So get yourself down here and try some beers you wouldn’t normally drink. Some of there stuff is delicious and the men all have great beards, what more could you ask for.

(Oh and the played some Fleetwod Mac that’s worth 1 bonus point)
9/10

Unit 2, White Cloth Hall,Crown Street,
Leeds,
LS1 7RB.

www.brewdog.com

Bahn Mi, Brick Lane

A friend took me for a trip down Brick lane a little while back and took me to the Boiler House Food Hall for some lunch. Think of it as an indoor market, but with only the food stalls.

Its here I had my first taste of a Vietnamese style Baguette or Bahn Mi as its more affectionately known. Bahn Mi typically consists of various Vietnamese cold cuts, such as sliced pork or pork bellies with the liver pate and vegetables.I can’t remember the name of the stall so sadly I can’t credit the producers of this lovely little number.

I ordered the “Special Dong”  . . . .  yes I know. Which came with predictably some form of pork and pate. The accompaniments being  pickled carrot, white onion, cucumber, fresh coriander  and chilli sauce. All served in a crusty roll.

Fab, I’m converted. The same friend who brought me here had recently visited Vietnam and told me that practically the only thing he ate whilst in the country for 2 weeks was Bahn Mi he liked them that much and I would have to agree with him. This may not have been the finest sandwich ever to leave Vietnam but as a starting point I was pretty pleased. The pickled carrot in particular marries great with the greasy pork and the layers of flavour definitely surpass your average baguette.

So next time you’re going down Brick Lane on a weekend pop in and grab one of these babies. . .  Just avoid the Chinese stand its crap.

7/10

http://www.boilerhouse-foodhall.co.uk/

The Old Truman Brewery
152 Brick Lane,
E1 6RU London

Crathorne Arms

I’m back at home (Aka Teesside) so as it was my lady friend’s birthday I took her to the Crathorne Arms in Crathorne village, North Yorkshire.

The Crathorne arms is under new management as of 6ish months ago and has had a refurb and new menu to boot.  I decided to go here based on the amazing pictures of the food on the restaurants new website. They’ve obviously spent a bit of money of food photography here because the dishes all look great and seeing as this is the only reason I went, I’d say its money well spent.

The venue has a rustic farmhouse appeal with polished dark wood floors, high beamed ceilings and plenty of country charm in a formal setting.

We skipped a starter with dessert in mind and ordered our mains, (once the waitress had stopped talking to another table across the dining room).

First up I had fillet of cod with gnocchi, battered muscles, cockles, samphire and creamy caper sauce. The fish was cooked perfectly as was everything else on the plate except the cockles which were like bullets. The dish was very rich and missing a squeeze of lemon or some more acidity, perhaps a little on the salty side as well, or is that just the sea I can taste?

 The second dish was Pork with black pudding and vanilla sauce. This was a woeful effort, dry pork, burnt caramel on the apple and an overly sweet very strong vanilla sauce. Pork and black pudding ice cream anyone?  . . . . . . . No? I didn’t think so. We called the waitress over to let her know about the burnt caramel and she said that is how the chef cooks this dish. Once we got the waitress away from her table of friends, we paid the bill and left.

This place has classic Tees valley syndrome when it comes to fine dining in the area. Just because the food offered is considered fairly up market it must be delicious by right and the clientele must be gob smacked by the occasion even if the food is shoddy and the service crap.

There are some decent venues to eat out in Teesside but they’re few and far between when it comes to exciting food. This place highlights the problem with many independent restaurants in the area.

5/10

Crathorne Village
North Yorkshire

TS15 0BA

http://www.crathorne-arms.co.uk/

In other news Brew Dog’s new Leeds bar is open WOOO! It’s tucked in behind the corn exchange next to Pizza express, I walked past last week and had a peer in and things looked far from finished but low and behold it opened last night. I shall be visiting in the next few days and let you know how it goes.

Lard Glorious Lard!

There’s been a few things missing in my life of late, but one of them it turns out is Lard. In my 23 years of existence I have never cooked with, or remember eating anything which was fried in Lard. Weird isn’t it?

So . . . . this leads me on to the serious 1^st world problem of what is the best fat to cook your Yorkshire puddings in? I’m told this issue is being discussed in the House of Lords as we speak.

 As I said earlier I’ve never cooked with lard before but all that changed the other day when I decided to use the lard that had been sat in my fridge for 6 weeks to cook my herby toad in the hole in. I bought the Lard to make some pastry object out of Paul Hollywood’s latest book but never got round to it. So it’s been sat in my fridge for a while now forgotten the last few times I’ve made Yorkshire puds.

I cant find the name of the amazing young chubby woman that said  on the telly she only uses lard when it come to Yorkshire puds, I’ve scoured the internet but to no avail. She was on channel 4 about 2 weeks ago and had a black beehive.

So I made my toad in the hole using Nigel Slater’s Yorkshire pudding recipe which is shown below. I’ve tried a few recipes now and a lot of them seem to come out to stodgy I think due to the higher egg content. I’m blaming this stodginess problem solely on the fault of the other recipes and not my wildly varying cooking skills.

Nigel Slater’s Yorkshire Pudding Batter

2 Eggs

125g Plain flour

300ml of milk

Salt and pepper

Anyway I put way more lard than is healthy in the tin (approx 1.5cm deep when melted) and hey presto it was bloody lovely. I thought it was slightly crispier than Yorkshire puddings done in oil, but the main difference was the flavour. It had a deeper meatier flavour than oil and left me feeling like it was really bad for my heart, which on a cold winter’s night I think is a good thing.

Here’s my attempt at some little individual toads in there holes, with a few sprigs of rosemary and some crushed garlic (Controversial).Apologies for the cheap Richmond sausages and the fact that they look like a mans genitals, but my girlfriend maintains she doesn’t like posh sausages and it was the only way I could get her to eat toad in the hole.

So there you have it lard makes the world go round, along with Crude oil and cheap 3^rd world labour.

Almost Famous, Manchester

Let me just start this review by saying I was massively hung over/Still drunk when I visited place, because I didn’t get to be till about 6:30am after going to the Warehouse project  on Trafford wharf road in Manchester.

With one massive hangover I headed into Manchester city centre and ended up queueing outside a nondescript door in the Northern quarter which houses Almost Famous one of the best burger joints in Northern England. Once the queue had reached about 30 people a bouncer appeared and ushered up the stairs. This place has been around for about 2 years now I think and you can expect to queue most days to get in, but trust me it’s worth it. I’d stand in a line for half an hour to eat here any day.

I’ll be honest I cant remember to much about what the place looked like, I think I was still some way off being declared sober. I do remember it was light airy and pretty simple and that the bar was cool, that’s about it for the venue I’m afraid. I suffered pretty bad tunnel vision once the food arrived.

So the food. It’s not cheap and it’s not expensive, I ordered the DD burger and a flashy imported beer (Cos I’m a lad and drinking is cool) and shared some chili cheese fries with a friend and I don’t think it was much more than £10? (Once again I can’t remember, sorry).

The Food was absolutely bloody amazing. Possibly because every knows deep fried food taste 10x better when your hanging or possibly because it just was bloody amazing!! I think it’s the latter. The burger was great, 2 smallish patties combined to give just the right amount of beef loads of cheese fried onions and a toasted shiny brioche bun Yummmmmmm. The beef must be decent quality because it was beautifully flavoured and let’s not forget the all important burger sauce.

My mate ordered the Triple Nom burger which is 2 patties and pulled pork, I can’t comment on what it tasted like but he seemed to enjoy it quite a lot, he went back again the week after if that says anything.

The chilli cheese fries were the highlight for me though. A mixture of sweet and normal potato fries, topped with chilli, cheese, jalapeños and fresh red onion. They were huge and bloody awesome. The chilli was full of flavour and refreshing red onion helped cut through some of the grease, I say “some” its all pretty greasy. The fries had managed to stay crisp underneath all the stodge which speaks volumes for the speed of the service, Fries would go soggy in about 60 seconds with chilli con carne on top, you do the maths. The fries had been tossed in some type of seasoning so no added salt was required and I love salt. It was all just too much for my little hung over heart to handle I had to have a nap after to recover, before unsuccessfully trying to persuade my friends to come back again on an evening.

I was blown away by this place, I heard it was good and when my friend suggested going to “this awesome burger place” I was quite surprised he’d even heard of it but the cats been let out of the proverbial bag along time ago in Manchester and deservedly so.

MESSY, TASTY, HONEST FOOD. Don’t let people put you off by saying its gimmicky or pretentious to have a bouncer for a restaurant, its just totes amazeballs.
The people behind almost famous have recently opened up there latest business venture “Luck, Lust, Liquor & Burn” serving Mexican dishes. I haven’t been here yet but initial reviews sound good, if Almost Famous is anything to go by it’s probably a knock out.

9/10

100 High St
Northern Quarter
Manchester

http://almostfamousburgers.com/

Boring

I’m getting pretty bored of the food scene in Leeds, it’s probably my ignorance but there’s no where about at the moment that’s got me that excited to go. I still haven’t tried friends of ham partly down to my girl friend who says it’s just overpriced cured meats. But Friends of Ham apart there’s not anywhere I feel I’m really missing out on. Hopefully something might crop up in the new Trinity shopping centre set to open. Their website says the Trinity kitchen will be “Taking its cue from culinary trends emerging in major international food capitals, such as London, Paris and New York”, I really doubt this. I bet its just the same old mish mash of chain restaurants that’s in all the other big shopping centres, but kudos for trying something different. Apparently there having some form of street food as well? But it will be inside . . . hmmm. Crêpeaffair has signed up for a stall so at least my missus will be happy.

If anyone has any suggestions of exciting places around Leeds please let me know? I’m also back down in the capital in 10 days time and In need of inspiration

Here’s a quick list of places in Leeds I hope to tick off in the next few weeks:

• Fuji Hiro
• Safran
• Friends of Ham (once I’ve persuaded my other half its not so overpriced)

Now I’m all done whinging I’ll write up a review from the last time I went to Almost Famous in Manchester. OMFG yummy, I should be going back to Manchester one weekend soon just to go back to this place or there latest creation. . . .  more about that to come.

Boozy Brunch

Last weekend was pretty banging, I had a boozy brunch at Anthony’s at the Piazza in the Leeds corn exchange and followed it up with a backwards Otley Run (Pub crawl if your not local) out of town towards Headingley. I’m showing my student roots here.

The brunch deal we had at Anthony’s was bought off living social for £17 a person and got you; one breakfast, toast, hot drink, juice and a bottle of prosseco between two. I normally only buy deals of these websites if I’ve been to venue in question before so I know its not some greasy spoon masquerading as a Michelin starred restaurant.

The Food was good as ever at the Piazza, I’ve had breakfast here a few times and this place currently has my award for best eggs Benedict I’ve ever eaten. This time seeing as we’d already paid upfront and I’m a massive scruff at heart I got the most expensive thing on the menu which was the full English breakfast.

To start we had fresh fruit juice, which was ok. I opted for orange it was nothing special and not even a patch on a carton of Tropicana. This was followed by a glass of prosecco de dolci colline.  I don’t know much about wine or fizz, but I was expecting something which had fallen off the back of a van to be given to lowly living social deal customers. I was wrong it was nice plonk and I’ve had a look online and apparently this is a good value bottle of fizz from award winning, Claudio Manera? Whoever he is? It tasted great even if it was a bit early in the morning for alcohol.

With my head now suitably dizzy, breakfast arrived. Everything was nice; good quality sausage, tasty black pudding (the British kind, not the posh French boudin noir) and bacon which had been shown a bit of love. The baked beans were particularly good, which surprised me as i'm a bit of connoisseur when it comes to beans thanks to my dad’s obsession with them. You’d be amazed the variation between baked bean brands.

So seeing as it was all going so well, its time for me to have giant moan about one of my pet hates when it comes to fried eggs. Brace yourselves because this really pisses me off (I might suggest skipping this paragraph if you’re in a rush). The top of my yolk on my fried egg was translucent and raw, which in my opinion ruins the entire egg. You have to faff about scraping off the gelatinous mass just so you can dip your toast and by this point I’m normally in a bad mood. I once had a friend who told me he didn’t like fried eggs because they were raw on the top. When I asked him why he didn’t just cook the top he replied by telling me that he didn’t know you could do that with fried eggs (you know who you are)! This seems to be a recurring theme with me and breakfast, for heavens sake will someone just splash a bit of fat on the top or flip the thing over for 10 seconds, I don’t want my yolk cooked within an inch of its life, I just don’t want raw egg on the top.

Phew, rant aside everything else was lovely. The end of brunch was wrapped up with a cappuccino to perk me up, which was definitely required because I was falling asleep having drank half a bottle of Prosecco.

In conclusion everything was pretty good, as I said before I’ve eaten here for breakfast a few times and it’s always been good, you seriously need to try the eggs Benedict (I put some pictures up from the last time I went below). The venue is nice for an informal special occasion in the grandeur of the corn exchange or in my case to start of an impromptu pub crawl at 11:00am. No I don’t have an alcohol problem. Do I?

 

7/10 would have been 8 if not for the egg

anthonysrestaurant.co.uk/piazza

Corn Exchange
Leeds
LS1 7BR

0113 247 0995

The Kiss of Death!!

Ironically after my last review of The Leeds Kitchen, it seems I have the kiss of death as the Alea casino is closing down along with the restaurants; The Leeds kitchen and The Bird by Vineet.

A statement was issued on the casinos website last night which read “London Clubs International, owners of Alea Leeds Casino (including Leeds Kitchen and The Bird by Vineet) regret to announce that the company will be suspending trading as of today. We have reluctantly taken this decision following continued difficult trading conditions at the Clarence Dock development.”

I’m a bit devastated about this if I’m being honest, partly because I just reviewed one of the restaurants last week and secondly because the food was bloody good in The Leeds kitchen.

When I visited the restaurant had plenty of people inside and I have a hunch it’s mainly the casino that’s been loosing business. I could be wrong though.

Anyway I’m sad  L , not only will I not be able to go this lovely restaurant anymore I’m also one giant bad omen for any venue in the food industry I review.

So watch you better watch out establishment owners, I’m coming for you!!!