Franny's Pop-Up

It does seem odd to write about a restaurant that has a limited shelf life. Franny’s is a 21st century phenomenon that is to say a pop-up (horrid term) restaurant. I have written about restaurants on this blog that appear and sink without trace in a relatively short time. Their closures were due to over-confident business plans and they certainly didn’t have the advantage Franny’s has with its well-cited but invariably terminal existence. This blog is after all a personal diary of my dining-out experiences, if I decide to pen about a dream I had of a feast at Charlemagne's Table, I will. And Franny’s is no exception, the two dinners I had here were good enough for the diary entry.

Franny’s is located at a place (of flagship proportions and quite possibly more than a hundred grand rent plus crippling rates liabilities) in Soho which was once occupied by Bertorelli (ahh, a name that conjures up ‘luxurious’ Italian dining so worthy of the theatre-going tourists from the Home Counties!). The impermanent joint is run primarily by the remaining staff of the defunct Bertorelli Soho. Hence the Italian influence on the menu. By the end of January, this place will become another Giraffe entity. Sad for Franny’s but good news for the yummy slummy mummy brigade and their buggies.

The ambience at Franny’s belongs to the cocktail bar variety. The ground floor dining area is inherently dark (therefore effusively romantic for some, I daresay) and additionally a most befitting home for the lounge lizards. The service was excellent and consummate (gotta be, as all the staff members possess a purposeful equity within the pop-up initiative).

The menu

No poncey irrelevancies here, just a direct, efficient, and practical listing of dishes. Now if I may I would like to do a micro rant on eating out Italian. When I venture out for an Italian I want pasta but like everybody else I don’t bother simply because I think I can knock a dish at home at a fraction of a price and yet still tastes better. Now I’ve been to places like Semplice, L’Anima and Locatelli where the pasta dishes masquerading as main courses consistently cost up to 20 quid or more (to perhaps include the Death Eaters’ 12.5% curse), delicious they may be but I still end up hungry thereafter (‘tis a pity a majority of us are not willing to admit that’s the case). For my sins I’m of peasant stock and when I see a bargain of hearty servings I revel. The pasta dishes at Franny’s are on average seven quid each and trust me they taste as good as the above and certainly better than the supposedly ultra cheap La Porchetta Pollo Bar down the road.

A bottle of Barbera.

20 quid for a wine that costs 8 at the offie. It was ok but had a lingering aftertaste of cough medicine or was it cherry-flavoured lozenges?

Dining Companion’s started with an apple and celery soup.

DC’s a vegetarian and, like most veggies would, she said it was nice. I didn’t bother trying it as the word ‘nice’ means bland in my vocabulary. The fresh bread, reminiscent of a heavier and less sweet Panettone, was very good.

DC’s spinach and ricotta ravioli main course.

She declared it a lovely ‘nice’.

I said, ‘Hon the ‘lovely’ was simply due to the Parmesan!’

Now this pic confirms that I’m a pain in the arse sort of person to have a meal with. Well someone’s gotta do it and you can thank me for it! I call it nutritional forensics, anyway as you can gather the ravioli was well-filled.

Courgette fries

All very real and suitably heavenly.

For my main course I thought about my business partner Pete-

he who only ever orders a burger without fail no matter where he eats.

If there’s a Room 101 thing I could nominate, then it would have to be ciabatta bread. I just can’t stand the texture and its endless chewiness conflicts abominably with the unctuousness of the meat patty.

Bun withstanding, this was a bloody good burger. I don’t really know where the cow came from but it tasted juicy and cooked beautifully medium. The processed cheese slice was an added bonus.

Burger snobs, Franny’s effort was loads better than this and on par with this.

And there you have it, a ‘we like to be beside the seaside’ pudding menu.

I ordered Tiramisù straightaway without consulting DC.

The alcohol kick within the dessert imparts needfully. Am not entirely sure if it was made in the kitchen or otherwise, but it was still utterly passable.

Came back the second time because of the 25 per cent off the food offer from the first bill.

Deep-fried calamari

The notable batter coating suggested that the dish was at least prepped in the kitchen. However, if I was wrong with this observation and it was made from the frozen variety, then I’m a convert- Iceland here I come! The squid was amazingly tender and I couldn’t fault the tame mayo (in spite of the menu saying spicy aioli) either.

DC’s courgette rigatoni

She said not nice this time, but very nice. Yes, it was excellent. See the amount of pine nuts…and I thought they’re pricey enough these days! Franny’s, hats off to you, a memorable veggie dish!

Now a dish by which all Italian joints are thus judged in Britain (Yes Sybil I know, spag bol’s on their menu as well!) -

Spaghetti carbonara

Silky smooth, creamy (as well as eggy) and a near 2 die 4 dish. Huge portion with perhaps too many lardy pancetta pieces. The carbonara simply took the mickey out of the 15+++ quid mushroom fettuccine I had at L’Anima last year! A Michael Winner historic.

The House red at a jolly happy-hour-time price of 8 quid.

Marvellous. I'm so hopelessly uncouth but it was so much more quaffable than the Barbera I had on me first visit.

DC’s childhood favourite.

The ice cream sundae. She said it was very very nice. I said I wasn't totally sure about the ‘strawberry a la permafrost’.

Still, one couldn’t fuss much, the second outing came to a mere 25 quid for two! Franny’s is remarkable, and remarkable things don’t last forever. Take heed and enjoy…time’s running out.

Franny's

11-13 Frith Street

Soho

London W1D 4RB

Delhi Grill

Success can be begat by the networking powers of Twitter. To open a new Indian restaurant in London these days can only be described as a Herculean gamble in willing to take risks in order to make a profit. What with the market that’s been sewn up for a fair number of decades and thus hopelessly saturated. I can only envisage three types of the following curry houses:

Formulaic (your local neighbourhood ‘Star of India’ et al serving textbook ChickTiksMas and where all the luridly coloured sauces look and taste the same except for the varying degree of macho hotness applied).

Vegetarian (on a partial mission to convince carnivores to kowtow to the experience that aubergines and chickpeas can be more satisfying than their usual battery hen or stringy lamb but never sufficiently fulfilling enough to sway even the most fair-tempered lovers of the tandoori mix grill).

Or get a PR dork to concoct some kind of Canterbury Tales about the chef’s bio. (Poor sod will be under pressure to serve the smallest leg of partridge imaginable, cook it in a tandoor and charge us 13 quid for it. He then appears on the BBC’s Saturday Kitchen and somehow gains a Michelin star soon after!)

Thank goodness, Delhi Grill applied none of the above and took a different route instead. DG was inspired by the food served by motorway cafes or truck stops in India known as dhabas. I think I’m not too far wrong in also suggesting that a dhaba is the Indian subcontinent’s version of our beloved greasy spoons. DG undertook the initiative to promote itself on Twitter by making friends with the food networking sites and teasing (albeit gushingly) the food bloggers who twitter actively. DG sealed its reputation in a relatively short time; it became the place for a righteous curry fix in London!

Located in Angel, Islington, the street DG resides on is far from pristine and orderly (if strewn rubbish is your idea of misunderstood beauty then Chapel Market has answered your prayers). As the name implies, this stretch of road is also home to a daily street market. Angel is en route to my girlfriend’s abode in deepest Hackney so I religiously stop off here to pick up a couple bottles of malbec or pinot noir from Waitrose- the resulting perversity to saunter past DG on several occasions indicated that the place was mind-bogglingly deserted and desolated! What happ’ed and did all the tweets resulted in nowt much!?

On my first pilgrimage here the restaurant was empty and I wanted the best-lit table in the middle of the dining room (bloody cameras and so on). Unfortunately I was turned down as the table was allegedly reserved for a table of six (guess what? They never turned up! Bleeding porkies and tall tales…restaurateurs, please take note, a majority of your potential patrons don’t relish the idea of being bullshitted to!). That said, DG is all about informal dining and the service is genuinely chummy and undoubtedly efficient. If you’re coming here for the first time, do keep your eyes peeled on the monthly specials on the blackboard, take this advice as a well-worth nag.

The menu is wonderfully idiot proof and concise. To the suburbanites from Pinner to Croydon, sorry no butterflied king prawn, Dansaks, Vindaloos or Kormas here, but sob no more mates as DG offers their take on the nation’s much loved Chicken Tikka Masala.

Booze
Now I know there are wine bloggers out there who are mercilessly snooty about ordering house wines and only because they have a certain ‘reputation’ to uphold. Well sod them, as I’d absolutely no complaints about the springboks’ Shiraz. At a tenner a bottle, it was much better and tastier than either a pint of Cobra or Kingfisher fizzy dishwater!

The complimentary chutneys and dips
You’ll need to order some poppadoms now. The chutneys were all amazing and a special mention goes to the memorable but fiery coriander, mint and chilli chutney.

Tandoori Paneer
Excellent and incredible value at less than two quid!

Lamb chops
Impressive and dare I proclaim, much better than HERE. I cannot see this dish being listed at £2.95 for too long!

Sheekh Kebabs
Unashamedly spicy and voraciously juicy. A must have at £2.50!

Tarka Dhal
Ubiquitous in name but rather superior here than the norm ordered everywhere else. The amount of fried caramelised onions and cumin seeds added to the dish was spot on. A sort of dish that can be eaten everyday and anytime without an ounce of interfering conscience.

Egg Curry
The only fail IMO. Dispiritedly laden with enough cloves to numb the mouth. It was at best a disappointing local anaesthetic of a dish.

Haandi Murgh
A most delectable chicken on the bone curry and only a close second to this. A nigh on unmissable dish that should by all accounts appear permanently on the menu instead of the specials board (but then again folks in Blighty only eat boneless and tasteless breast meat…sad beyond belief).

Naan
This belonged to the non-heavy dough variety. Light and fragrant, a mandatory order to mop up what’s left of the various karahi dishes.

Masala chai
Soothing and delicately spiced. One should be able to slumber with ease after this cuppa.

Mango kulfi
I could’ve sworn this was made with sweetened condensed milk. Loved it nonetheless, intense mango flavours and texture-wise; a perfect balance between a sorbet and ice cream.

Second visit-

Tandoori Paneer
Now there are more sweet peppers crowding the sizzling dish to achieve a better perceived value. It was as rewarding as my first visit and stonking value at £1.95.

Tandoori Chicken

The best I’ve had in London. Period. I bet the guys at DG guard their secret recipe for the marinade like the Coca-Cola Company does for their dark liquid.

Rogan Gosht
Slow-cooked tomatoey lamb curry. Another sensational offering from the regular menu. For the faint-hearteds, best be warned that this dish was hot enough to make me hallucinate and perspire like a wretched wuss. Sublimely delicious.

Channa
Gracious and much needed protein for my dining companion, an unrelenting vegetarian. The chickpea curry was as spicy hot as the lamb rogan and equally decent.

Tarka Dhal
Less majestic looking in a plain-jane bowl than the one served in a karahi from the first visit. But worry not, as it was just as good as expected.

Delhi Grill is an immense find, so much so that I’ve decided it’s my best restaurant of 2010. The outstanding food served here is so good I can perceive DG either relocating to or starting a second branch in an area in London that’s more prominent and noteworthy, and alas the upping of the prices will be inevitable. DG knocks the spots off its contemporary Dishoom and as far as great Punjabi cooking is considered it’s also the new New Tayyabs. With the latter getting a trifle too big for its boots (what with indifferent service, greasy dishes, badly cooked rice, etc), Delhi Grill is for now London’s current curry champion (let’s just hope they maintain the consistency). A thumping recommendation is thus endorsed. GO!




Delhi Grill,
21 Chapel Market
Angel
London N1 9EZ

www.delhigrill.com

Market

I cannot think of any other reason to visit Camden than to make a pilgrimage to Asakusa, the famed Japanese eatery for the majority of us with budget constraints. Alas, when attempting to secure a reservation at Asakusa, I’m either downtroddenly luckless or phone-ragingly impatient (with its constantly engaged lines), for I’ve yet to sup here. Apart from Drummond Street and of course Asakusa, Camden has little to offer in terms of joints offering a memorable meal. I might well be gazumped by some that NW1 offers more diversity and variety of restaurants than most districts in London, but the bulk of the newer places are annoyingly PRd for the wrong reasons and truth be told they end up confusingly forgotten before you even set foot in them! Was it ‘Made in Camden’, ‘Proud Camden’ or ‘Kentish Canteen’ (I know it’s in NW5, but for a Notting Hillbilly it’s still Camden to me!)? You’ll be forgiven for being baffled.

It was on an occasion I was turned away by Asakusa for the umpteenth time (You! One place…sushi bar and you, no win lottery…actually they were magnanimously more polite than that) that my Dining Companion and I decided to seek tummy solace elsewhere in the vicinity. Luck doesn’t always abandon me without a cause for I remembered reading the great Terry Durack’s review of Camden Market Market Camden Market Tydfil Shaka Zulu Market market summat. Off to Parkway we did.

I would without much R&D classify Market as Modern British but interventions on the menu like chorizo, risotto and onglet (hanger doodah FGS!) suggest otherwise. Market is thus a tad Modern European but without the straying into the bigos or pierógi territory. However the waitresses, who provide a decent service, are from the latter and they speak English miles better than Camden’s own N-Dubz. The ambience during dinner is particularly suited to those who are aversed to bright lights and conforming to first-dates rituals but not so for photography. FYI, the rendering of the photos shown took me a couple of days to make them vaguely presentable but the usual flawed text as with all my posts, never more than ½ hour.

The shot that did no justice to the bread served. I sincerely hope this was homebaked at the premises because it was one of the best I’ve had in memory. The butter accompanied was served at a perfect room temperature (rare and indifferently ignored at most places).

DC’s starter of chicory, beetroot, Stilton and pinenuts.

She was more than happy and I said thank gawd for the Stilton!

My first course came from the daily specials’ board. Ox tongue fritters and mustard mayo.

A wonderfully executed dish and beautifully seasoned. I love tongue dishes and this is in spite of a psychological trait to injure one’s own when eating them. These fritters put to shame to the ones I had at Peter Gordon’s Kopapa recently.

Fussy veggie DC’s mains of risotto, roast cauliflower and hazelnuts.

She was utterly praiseworthy of this dish and thought the chef deserved a triumphus like Cicero and Pompeius Magnus. I tasted a bit and concurred, but felt the rice was slightly undercooked.

My mains of confit duck, boulangère potatoes and red cabbage.

The duck was as good as it gets; crispy, tender and salty enough without the aid of the Dead Sea. The potatoes (think dauphinoise but baked in meat stock instead) were a revelation. The red cabbage, for once not over marinated in vinegar, was subtly sweet and heart-warming

A 5* dish.

The pudding menu is to all intents and purposes a British affair.

The shared poached pear and ginger ice cream confirmed that Market is serious contender for one of the better restaurants I’ve been to this year. The well-cooked fruit had the right amount of watery crunch that boded well with my elderly gums. And the excellent ice cream tickled imagination of strong ginger beer without ten teaspoonfuls of sugar and the fizz. Another 5* deemed.

Market is an overlooked and unheeded joint, maybe it should stay that way, at least you can get a table here without the fiasco that’s associated with Asakusa. Market is not entirely without faults, the coffee served was crap and the grim single page website is food and wine menu-less. But it’s still a splendid place. A big hearty recommendation is warranted.



43 Parkway
London
NW1 7PN

www.marketrestaurant.co.uk