Taqueria, London

For a Mother's Day treat my mum and I went to London to visit the V&A, and then I took her out for a meal at Taqueria in Notting Hill. There were some amazing exhibits at the museum; our favourites were the jewellery through the ages one, especially the display of rings with different gemstones, and the theatre and performance one, where you could see the horse puppet used in War Horse, and there was so much cool memorabilia!

I'd been to Taqueria once before with my friends Laura and Phoebe, and I knew my mum would love it - the main thing on the menu is a huge selection of tacos, plus plenty of other mexican style food. We went all out as after lots of walking round the museum we were both hungry, and tacos were half price between 4 and 6!!

My lovely drink of orange juice and hibiscus mix

We mainly went for tacos, plus a couple of extra sides...

Avocado with lime, salt, coriander and onion

Garlicky pan fried spinach

Champiqueso - garlicky mushrooms inside browned cheese with onions and coriander

Choriqueso - chorizo with browned cheese, onion and coriander

Milanese de pollo - fried breaded chicken, chipotle mayo,griddled cheese, house pickled scotch bonnet, tomato, onion, coriander and a lime wedge

Pescado - beer battered pollack, guacamole, chipotle mayo, tomato, coriander, onion, green chile, lime, shredded cabbage

Papas y rajas de poblando - fried potatoes, onion, strips of roasted poblano, crema, grated aged cheese and coriander

My favourite taco was definitely the chicken one, as it had so many different flavours and textures - crunchy tender chicken, mature cheese, fresh bursts of coriander and a spicy kick from the scotch bonnet. I also loved the pescado - the fish was so meaty - and the potato ones as the cheese was nice and strong, but all of them were absolutely delicious. Also, weird though it may seem, the sides were as good (if not even better!) than the tacos themselves!! The avocado was so simple but unbelievably delicious - I have never had an avocado that flavoursome before (the salt probably brought out the flavour and the lime juice made it tangy and fresh, as did the coriander), and the spinach was lovely and garlicky and also had red chilli running through it which gave it real heat. What I really liked about everything was how fresh it all tasted - even though there was some deep fried stuff and a fair amount of cheese, I still felt like I was eating fresh, good quality ingredients which might actually do me some good!

We were absolutely stuffed after this (which I was surprised about as I wasn't even sure if we had ordered enough!!); so much so I very nearly didn't get pudding.....but they had churros with caramel sauce!!!

Deep fried, sugary, cinnamon-y deliciousness, dipped in thick sweet caramel - how could it get better?! An amazing, value for money meal all round - I'll definitely go back soon!

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The Cottage Kitchen, St Andrews

Cottage Kitchen is a really attractive looking coffee shop on Logies Lane (near Little Italy); it's in a lovely white stone building, has fairy lights around the windows, and Christopher and I basically had our noses pressed to the window one day because of the amazing looking brownies in big glass jars! 

The inside reminded me of a lovely homely countryside kitchen, with big wooden tables and chairs, Cath Kidston jugs of water, and pretty cake stands, along with a chalk board menu and glass jars filled with different loose leaf teas. 

There is a small menu which I think might change daily (correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!), and there are also lots of homemade cakes which all looked so good!

I love places with freely available water so much!!

We arrived quite late for lunch, and this is clearly (and deservedly) a very popular place, so sadly they had run out of the steak sandwich and the brownies which Christopher and I had been craving earlier, but there were still tempting things to choose from! The man we spoke to at the counter (who I think was the owner!) was so friendly and helped me to convince Christopher to share with me so I could try both the sausage roll with apple chutney, and the pastrami, rocket, cheddar and mustard mayo sandwich. My dad had a sausage roll and my mum had butternut squash and ginger soup with soda bread.

The sausage roll pastry was very good - buttery, flaky and crisp, and the sausage meat was herby and flavoursome. The apple and raisin chutney was thick and chunky and went very well with the sausage roll, making it sweeter and more moist. The sandwich was also delicious - the cheddar was really strong and the pastrami nice and salty, and I loved the tangy mustard mayo. I tried my mum's soup and it was very tasty too - quite a thin soup (which I prefer to some soups which are actually more like a purée!) with a gentle heat from the ginger.

Obviously we then all had to make room for some cake (apart from my dad who is clearly mental/blind to not be tempted by the amazing display of them!). I went for the strawberry cake, Christopher chose carrot cake and my mum had espresso cake.

Mine was absolutely huge, and basically a tower of cream! It was such an impressive sponge though; extremely light and moist - I wish I could make one like that! The fresh strawberry was delicious with the cream and soft sponge too, but the only thing I would change is maybe having more fresh strawberries in the centre of the cake too! Christopher enjoyed his carrot cake and said it came a close second to the one at North Point, and my mum absolutely loved the espresso cake. I tried it and really enjoyed it too - another very moist sponge with lovely buttercream with a really strong taste of coffee, it was excellent.

I really loved it in here - the décor mixed with the extremely friendly service and delicious food (made all the more impressive because it's homemade!) made it a really great place to have lunch - I kept telling Christopher he has to come back lots, especially in the summer as they have an outdoor seating area! 

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Nahm Jim, St Andrews

On my first visit to St Andrews a year ago, Christopher's friend Natalie (who is from St Andrews) said that Nahm Jim is her favourite restaurant, and a year on I finally managed to go there to put her recommendation to the test! Nahm Jim was also the 2010 winner of Gordon Ramsay's best UK Thai restaurant, and the Times ranked it in their top ten, so I definitely had high levels of expectation.

As you walk up the stairs into the restaurant, there are numerous pictures of the staff with various celebrities who have been there, including Hugh Grant, Ian Wright and Tim Henman, so they are obviously used to serving some pretty discerning clientele! How cool that we might have sat in the very same chair as Hugh Grant....!

The menu is much more expansive than is shown on their website which meant all my pre meal preparation was pretty useless as I had so many more choices to narrow down! Luckily for starter my mum was willing to share with me, so we got sweetcorn fritters and prawn toast (I quite wanted to try the tuna basket, but I was kind and let my mum make the final decision!). Christopher went for the pork and crab meat dim sum (I was very proud at the adventurous choice!) and my dad chose "Haggis Bombs" which aren't on the website menu but are basically haggis in filo pastry with sweet chilli sauce!

The food was really beautifully presented, and tasted just as good as it looked. The prawn toast was crunchy with lots of king prawn and a good sesame flavour, and the sweetcorn fritters were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, and had a lovely sweet taste, as well as bursts of coriander every now and again. The sweet chilli sauce had a good kick. Christopher's dim sum was also great - soft meaty little parcels bursting with flavour, complemented well by the soy sauce dip. I think my favourite starter could have actually been my dad's though; the haggis was meaty, spicy and smokey, and it was just such an interesting and different starter, but executed well so it still contained Thai flavours and didn't seem out of place!

I asked the waitress on her opinion for my main as I couldn't decide between beef panang and rice, or a "Fruits of the Sea" seafood curry - she didn't even have to think and immediately said the seafood, so that made it very easy! I also had a side of sticky rice. My dad had chicken in oyster sauce with steamed rice, my mum had sizzling chicken and steamed rice and Christopher had thai red curry with duck, and royal fried rice which was pretty much egg fried rice but with crab meat in it as well!

My "Fruits of the Sea" seafood curry had scallops, mussels, prawns and squid in it, and the sauce was quite similar to a thai red, but had the addition of egg which changed the texture somewhat. I thought it was absolutely amazing. It was chock-a-block with seafood, and everything was so meaty and delicious. My favouite was either the scallops or the king prawns as I love the texture of both, but I have to say they had also cooked the squid really well as it wasn't rubbery at all. The sauce was fairly spicy and rich but not overpowering (although I think they got the portion size bang on as more might have been too much), and I liked the way the egg made the sauce a bit thicker and added more flavour. With the occasional crunch of vegetables and the sticky rice soaking up all the sauce I basically had the perfect curry. I absolutely loved it.

Christopher's duck thai red had a lovely creamy sauce but was much spicier than mine - he must have drunk nearly the whole jug of water! Despite that he really enjoyed it and said the duck was very tasty. The rice was also great - lots of egg and flaked crab!

My mum's sizzling chicken was so cool - they set it alight just before serving it, and so it arrived on a sizzling black platter! It had a honey based sauce (I think!) and the chicken was juicy, with lots of crunchy onions and some coriander (our favourite!).

My dad's is the only one I don't remember trying, but it looked colourful and attractive and he really enjoyed it, which makes the meal an all round success!

Nahm Jim definitely isn't cheap, but the presentation and the taste of the food show that it is an extremely high quality place, so it's one that I would recommend for a treat - it would be the perfect post graduation meal (hint hint Christopher!) and is certainly somewhere that anyone living in St Andrews should try at least once!

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Anstruther Fish Bar, Anstruther

Located in the pretty seaside town Anstruther, the Anstruther Fish Bar has won numerous awards, including UK Fish and Chip shop of the year, so I felt like it was definitely deserving of a visit and a review. I went last year and loved it, but since then went to the Magpie in Whitby, and Poppies in London (read my review here), both of which are lauded as having amazing fish and chips, so I wanted to see how it compared!

You can eat in or take away - we decided to eat in as you get bread and butter, a hot drink and sauces included, and we were going to need A LOT of sauce! If you take away you get them in really cool newspaper print boxes though - we did that last year and it's lovely to sit by the sea and eat them in the sun (just beware of seagulls snatching your chips!).

It's all quite basic - the hot drinks come in paper cups...

...and the bread is bog standard sliced brown...

...but to me that's fine - you come here for good fish and chips, not bone china and toasted sourdough - for a chip butty sliced bread works just fine!

You can view the menu online here - there is a fair amount of choice of fish, and they also have daily specials. I thought the Pittenweem prawns sounded delicious (also partly because I love the word Pittenweem) but I decided to go for battered lemon sole as I love the lemon sole goujons from Waitrose and thought this could only be better! My dad had the same as me, my mum had battered haddock and Christopher had good old battered sausage.

Lemon sole

Haddock

Money shot of the lemon sole!

I think out of all the fish and chip shop chips I've had, these are my favourite. Despite looking quite pale and giving the worrying impression they would be undercooked/soggy, they are delicious - fluffy and hot in the centre, salty, sharp with vinegar and crunchy when they should be. The lemon sole was also excellent; it tasted so fresh and was meaty and flaky, with a light and crunchy batter. Both my mum and Christopher really enjoyed theirs as well, and the general opinion was that it is definitely one of the best ones we've been to. Out of the three I mentioned earlier, I think Anstruther Fish Bar wins best chips, The Magpie wins best menu because of the vast amount of choice, and Poppies wins best bread (I know I said sliced is good, but tiger bread has got to be the ultimate winner!). It's so hard to decide who wins best fish as I tried a different fish in each place, so we'll just proclaim it a draw on that one - they were all excellent!

Also, cool fact - Charles and Camilla have eaten here! If it's good enough for royalty, it should definitely be good enough for the rest of us!

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Kind Kyttock's Kitchen, Falkland

On our trip to St Andrews, my parents wanted to take us for a post walk lunch at a tea room they had discovered on their last visit. I pointed and laughed at the name "Kind Kyttock's Kitchen" (it sounds like somewhere old fashioned, serving dry cake and tea) before realising that that's where we were heading! I'm glad to say though that my first impressions were completely wrong!

Kyttock's IS old fashioned, but in a sweet, quaint way rather than a depressing one. There is an open fire in the downstairs room, lots of pictures and paintings hung on the walls, and Cath Kidston style tablecloths on every table. They also had really nice crockery - watch out for the red and white spotted cake stand - and chunky wooden table numbers which I thought were cool. The menu is pretty extensive and includes omelettes, toasties, jacket potatoes, nachos (definitely not old fashioned!), and lots of different cakes!

It took me ages to decide as usual, but eventually I went for a cheese and tomato toastie on white bread

 Really nice bread and lots of cheese - also I love red onion so was pleased to have that in the side salad!

Christopher had a gammon and cheese toastie

And my parents shared a huge afternoon tea for two!

We couldn't quite believe how good value it was - it was only £14 or £15 and included sandwiches of your choice (my mum had bacon which was deliciously thick and salty, and my dad had gammon), a scone each, a scotch pancake each, bermuda shortbread, carrot cake and millionaire's shortbread! They didn't even manage to finish it all themselves and that is definitely saying something!

Not to be left out (even though this was about 3pm and we had dinner reservations for 6pm!), Christopher and I also had cake...Christopher had Victoria sponge and I had hot chocolate fudge cake with about half a bowl of cream!

Christopher's Victoria sponge was really light and fluffy, with lots of jam and cream, and my chocolate cake was amazing! As I have said before, chocolate cake can so often be a huge disappointment - dry and nasty -  but this one was rich and gooey! Possibly one of the best I have had in the UK! (I nearly wrote England then, what a faux pas!)

Quite a short review, but there's not much more I can say - Kind Kyttock's Kitchen is definitely worth a visit for comforting, homely, filling food after a long walk!

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