Plate Down, Glass Up

That's the way we like to...cook.

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Zhonghua Traditional Snacks - Review

Please excuse the picture. Every time we eat here - which is at least 3x per week - we absentmindedly dig in without taking a photo. This is happened each and every time and I honestly don't think we'll ever remember to take a picture. The food is SO UNBELIEVABLY ADDICTINGLY AMAZING!!!

This tiny shop front on Norfolk St. (Next to the old Ark location and 2 doors down from CB2) is a traditional Chinese snack factory. I have been to China - and I ate a lot while I was there - and nothing, nothing, nothing compares to this place. 

For about £5 you can get 12 dumplings (steamed or fried), which range from beef and carrot to chicken or prawn to pork and kimchi to egg and vegetable to vermicelli and Chinese leaf to lamb and celery, and that's not an exhaustive list. 

There is also a variety of steamed bun. We definitely suggest waiting till after your dumplings for a egg custard bun. Not too sweet, and big enough to share. 

The main reason I keep going back, and back, and back (we went twice in one day once) is for the soup. I have never gone and not ordered the Hot and Sour Vermicelli. I have never tasted something with such intense umami. I don't even think I knew what umami was before I had this soup. There is no meat - although I sometimes order it with shredded chicken - just potato starch based vermicelli noodles, Chinese vinegar, spices and pickle, and a couple pieces of steamed pak choi. Unbelievable. 

Like I said before, Sam is a fanny when it comes to spice, so he always get the pork wuntun with seaweed. It's everything you would expect from your run-of-the-mill wuntun soup, but just phenomenally better. The ingredients are fresh and made on site. And they use no extra additives, like MSG - which I am violently allergic to, so another plus for me!

After your meal, there are these not-too-sweet milky, creamy sweets on the counter that will get rid of any lingering spiciness you don't want. Do not miss those. 

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Pulp Friction - Recipe

The reason for this title has to do with mine and Sam's constant arguments over having fruit and vegetables in our recipes. I recently got a really great juicer (for £20 at the local pawn shop) and I hate throwing the pulp away. I am a bit of a health freak - well, I'm trying to be anyway - and it just seems like such a waste of amazing, nutritious fiber. Also, I feel like a dick when I waste food. 

So, we had some major arguments over this carrot cake. It's a recipe from his old work that he raves on and on about, so he didn't want to alter it and tamper with such a 'good combo of ingredients.' I got my way in the end, as usual, and the result was a delicious and nutritious pulp cake. 

Here it is:

- 300g Flour (we used half wholemeal and half white)

- 300g soft brown sugar

- 300 ml vegetable oil (you can sub apple sauce for a healthier option)

- 3 eggs

- 300g pulp (make sure there is some fruit pulp in there, we used apple, beet and carrot)

- tsp baking powder

- tsp cinnamon

- thumb sized piece of ginger - grated 

- handful of chopped walnuts

- tsp vanilla extract

- pinch salt

- raisins (optional)

Mix oil sugar and eggs, then add everything else. No strict mixing policy needed here. 

Bake on 150C/300F until knife poked in centre of cake comes out clean (ours took about 1.5 hours)

Enjoy your fibrous pulpy cake. 

Oh also, if you'd like an icing mix juice of 1/2 lime, one container of Philadelphia cream cheese, sugar to taste and lime zest. Tasty, tangy, healthy frosting! 

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I had ribs for lunch... That's why I'm doing this. - Recipe

Sunny bank holiday weekends, once you've mentally reached the age of 65, are for cutting the grass, and pottering round garden centres. So that's what I've been doing today. Well, Sacco mowed most of the grass once I got bored and sat down with an iced coffee. 

Once all the boring stuff got done though, there was only one choice when it came to food, and we both know it involved charcoal. 

But as for what to grill. Burgers and sausages are OK until you consider the alternative being chewing sweet, burned, spicy pork off the bone of a pig. So it was settled then.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7pItr03bE

Sacco insisted that we couldn't eat just ribs so we also had some other shit with it, vegetables or something, I dunno. But the important thing is, RIBS.

The burned bits are fine.

Papa Sam's Real Home Cookin' Recipe:

-Ribs (Obviously)

-Honey and brown sugar

-Garlic

-Paprika, Cumin, Chilli powder, Coriander, Cayenne pepper.

-Olive Oil

-4 tbsp ketchup

-Worcestershire sauce

-Juice of half a lime

Mix all that together to make a delicious, delicious marinade. Amounts of ingredients don't really matter because you should probably be pissed whilst making this anyway. But clearly if you don't like chilli, go easy on that, etc etc. Slather it all over the ribs and leave for as long as possible. Wrap in foil and cook in the oven on 100C for an hour or so. Then BBQ them until the edges are black and you can't wait any further. (Also, baste them with more marinade as they cook)

If you also have someone who isn't as enamoured with the idea of eating solely meat for a meal you can make the beans too. Fry some bacon lardons until crispy, then add some garlic, then a couple of tins of black eyed beans, along with a generous touch of ketchup, and all the spices that went in the marinade. We served this with coleslaw and potato salad but y'all aren't idiots, you know how to make that. In a similar vein, obviously season everything with salt and pepper. I don't like to patronise you guys too much.

The Red Arrows also popped by for the occasion which was a bit irritating really.

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Split Second Decision - Review

Afternoon all. A few weeks back now, the better looking half of this blog decided that we were going on a last minute trip to Croatia, despite my impending exams. That isn't to say I'm complaining, as I planned to eat as much delicious Croatian food as possible, and pray it wasn't as diahorreah (sp?) inducing as the 'delicious' food in Marrakech. (Another blog post, another day)

Anywho, three trains, a plane and a coach later and we were in the beautiful town of Split, Croatia. 

I decided to also take this opportunity to drink as much of the fantastic local beer as possible, at around 15kn a glass (About £1.50), and generally try to sit in street cafes and stare at the wall of the building opposite, as seems to be the custom amongst the people of Split. 

The coffee situation is akin to Italy. Unbelievably cheap and tasty espresso and cappuccinos all day long. 

Oh, and the pizza. I honestly have no idea how the majority of the pizza in the UK can be so far removed from what you get served in places like this. I accept that you don't have a 450C pizza oven in most homes, but surely people can see that half an hour on 150C is just f-ing perverse.

I think Sacco is gonna give you more of a lowdown on the rest of the food but I just wanted to put in my two cents on how amazing the food was. Other than this bizarre breakfast where the centrepiece seemed to be Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants. 

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Saigon...Shit - Apocalyptic Shredded Pork - Recipe

If you get the Apocalypse Now reference - keep reading. If you didn't - you can still keep reading, but you're uncultured, ugly and no one likes you. 

Naw, just foolin. 

Vietnamese food is the best. When I was living in London it was relatively cheap and easy to find. However, Cambridge is not quite there yet. There is only 1 Vietnamese place we've found and we haven't even tried it yet. 

In the meantime, we made up our own Vietnamese-ish pork recipe that you can serve in the traditional baguette or with rice, noodles, a blueberry muffin - whatever you want. 

Ingredients: 

- 1 large piece of pork shoulder/leg/belly about the size of your head

- 3-4 cloves garlic

- 2-3 tbsp honey

- Hoi sin sauce (the kind in the packet will do), and a couple tbsp fish sauce if you have it 

- Juice of 1-2 limes

- Thumb size piece of ginger

- 1 red chili (You can use whatever chili you want. Sam is a fanny so we have to use the mild ones.)

- Sesame oil, soy sauce, salt and pepper

- Fresh coriander, shredded carrots and lettuce, peanuts for serving

Finely chop garlic, ginger and chiil. Mix into honey, hoi sin, fish sauce, lime juice and 1 cup water. Cover with tin foil and cook on 100C/212F for 6-8 hours or until pork is shreddy. Check every couple of hours. Serve with chopped coriander - cilantro for the Americans - shredded carrots and lettuce and peanuts. 

I know it's a reallllllllly lonnnnnng cook time, but you can just sit yourself down and watch Apocalypse Now (that's a pointed remark at those of you who haven't seen it). Also, trust us, it's worth it. The end result is SO amazingly good - and cheap. 

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Scone with the Wind - Grantchester Meadows - Review

If you live in Cambridge you know about Grantchester Meadows. Y'know, the place Pink Floyd wrote a song about? Well it's GORGEOUS and great for swimming in the summer when the rain decides to take a nap (don't get excited, it rarely ever happens.)

The tea rooms at Gratchester have freshly baked scones, which are phenomenal if you get them when they're still warm. A bit pricey, but worth it for the array of spreads and toppings you can jam - ah, look a pun - on top. 

The tea is just tea. 

I realise I haven't written much description of the food, but if you're British you know what a good scone tastes like. Expect that. 

Here is the official Orchard Tea Garden page. 

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Git yer plate down and glass up.

Welcome to our blog. We are Sam and Brigitte. A couple of unemployed (he's a student) losers living in Cambridge. We spend as much of our money as possible slamming food into our faces at an alarming rate. Cambridge has a pretty extensive offering of great places to eat, and the overall food scene seems quite underrated. You do need to dig a little bit to find these gems, hence why we decided to make this blog. We also want to share some of the recipes we've come up with more-or-less by accident that ended up being really cheap and tasty! 

We had a hard time picking a name. 'Food Blog' was already taken...shockingly. As was 'Fatman and Slobbin.' Here's some others we came up with incase you want to steal them (you wont, they're shit.):

- The Lambshank Redemption

- Snacker in the Rye

- Ravenous Liasons

- Jambon with the Wind

- Prawn of the Dead

- Fed Zeppelin

- Apocalypse Chow

...Sam wants me to make it known that he came up with most of them. I'm fine with that, as they are all so terrible he should be embarrassed, not proud. 

Anyway, get yourselves ready for some instagrammed photos of our food from ALL Cambridge has to offer.