Sabor

Despite never having been to New York, I feel that it's probably the one place that beats London in terms of variety, authenticity and quality of world cuisine. London's European and Asian cuisine is probably better than New York's, but judging from foodie blogs and restaurant reviews, New York has the better African and South American restaurants. Maybe it's because I don't know where London's hidden treasures are.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Sabor, a South American restaurant in Islington, serving what one might term novo andino (New Andean) cuisine, alongside Brazilian and Argentine specialities - something one might call Nuevo Latino, perhaps. It's located in an area with a number of interesting ethnic restaurants - there's an Afghan restaurant, an Ethiopian curry house, a Cuban bar, and a Portuguese-Italian deli among others. More later, perhaps. Back to Sabor (flavour in Spanish):

Sabor
108 Essex Road
London N1 8LX
020 7226 5551

The cocktails and wine lists are fairly authentic - this place does good pisco sours, as well as decent margaritas - with a Latin American twist. The cocktails and mocktails incorporate South American fruits, such as acai and mora. One can also finish off one's meal with a yerba mate, the ubiquitous (in South America) herbal tea.

The starters, as far as I can judge, are variations on South American street food - croquetas (fried potato or maize croquettes), empanadas (what my fellow Asians might term curry puffs, filled with stewed meat), quesadillas, and black bean soup. They are generally served with salad, the portions are substantial, and they are hearty and filling dishes.

I really enjoyed the mains - they are the kind of food that appeals to me. Not fancy, authentic-rustic-ethnic (is there such a word?), flavourful, but still imaginative. In this case the chef can make use of various Latin American ingredients while still staying true to the spirit of the food, but still. I particularly liked the aji de gallina, a Peruvian dish of stewed chicken in a milky garlic fruit sauce. I've had 2 versions, one in a Peruvian restaurant, and another at Sabor, and Sabor's has far more garlicky, sweet fruity flavour. I also liked Sabor's version of duck confit - served with arroz verde and a salsa, but on a recent visit my friend CY found it a little tough. The Pretty Lady likes the moqueca, a Brazilian fish stew. Sabor's version has prawns, mussels, white fleshed fish, garlic, tomatoes, and coconut milk. A Latin American version of laksa!

Desserts aren't great - mainly variations on standard fare flavoured with dulce de leche and mora (the Andean version of a blueberry), but I'd just have a yerba mate and call it a night. CY had something quite interesting, called an alfajores - biscuits spread with dulce de leche and topped with ice cream.

Sabor is the best Latin American restaurant I've found in London so far. An interesting introduction to a cuisine which I've still got a ways to explore...

Scores:

7 Feb 2008: TFQ = 24, CS = 22, S = 14, AD = 7, VfM = 8. Total = 75 points.

What does this mean?

Clynelish 15 yo 1992/2007 Cask Strength (Bread, bread wine, goes to my he-e-ad...)

I got this Highlander straight from the cask at the Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis. Sadly, the cask is now finished, and the chaps at the WE have now got a young Laphroaig in. Well, always something else to try. Nevertheless, the WE bottle a similar Clynelish under their Single Malts of Scotland label - I believe that it is also 15 years old, with a similar (though not identical) strength. My palate isn't educated enough to tell the difference.

Anyway, this particular Clynelish is extremely tasty - very interesting fruity and spicy flavours. I particularly enjoy the toasty hit at the finish. It's very drinkable despite being at cask strength, as many good whiskies are, and somewhat scarily, I don't really notice the alcohol at all. I think I'll try to pair this with some bread and various spreads. Why this is appropriate, I hope my tasting notes will make clear:

Clynelish 15 yo 1992/2007 Cask Strength (from the cask, Whisky Exchange)
Single malt - Highlands
Golden
57.9% ABV

Nose: Sweet toffee. Toasty, biscuity notes. Burning paper and woodsmoke. Big prickle from the alcohol, not surprising at this strength.
Mouthfeel: Thick and full bodied. Expands in the mouth.
Tasting: Sweet and rich. Ginger biscuits, wheat beer, spiced apple. Waves of hot honey. Corn on the cob.
Finish: Long and very warm. Fig jam on rye toast. Fades very slowly.

This Clynelish is so toasty and biscuity, particularly in the finish, that I wonder if I could somehow enhance that with some good bread and an interesting accompaniment. For the experiments, I've used Poilane walnut bread (decided on walnut because the Pretty Lady likes walnut), and some spreads that I thought would best match the flavours. Here goes:

1. Walnut bread, untoasted.

Some fishiness comes out - very surprising, like Thai fish sauce. Also something estery, like new plastic. Smoke. Salty nutty flavours - but that's probably from the walnuts in the bread. Not particularly nice. Maybe if I toasted the bread...

2. Dulce de leche on toasted walnut bread.

Nutty, fruity sweetness. The toastiness of the whisky seems to have been subsumed by that of the bread. Hard fruits - pear and apple mainly. The malty character of the whisky has also disappeared. Some smokiness.

3. Chestnut puree on toasted walnut bread.

Very nutty! Caramel, toffee sweetness - I had to check to see if I had gotten the pieces of bread mixed up. No, it's definitely chestnut puree. Toasty character still there, surprisingly. Not smoky at all.

4. Guinness marmite on toasted walnut bread.

I thought this might be interesting... and it was! The whisky turned smoky and nutty, with the toast and malt character shining through. Magic marker, comice pear, very pleasantly salty sea, from the marmite.

5. Tiptree tawny orange marmalade on toasted walnut bread.

The whisky was overwhelmed! Some toast and malt remain, but all the fruitiness has been killed by the sweet and bitter flavours of the jam. Some coffee overtones in the finish, but that's hardly enough to make up for the loss in the tasting.


Surprisingly, this Clynelish goes better with the savoury spread. Somehow, the salt in the marmite preserves the fruity flavours, and brings out the pear notes on top of the toast. Very tasty - too bad I only have a single jar of Guinness marmite.

Barrafina

Barrafina is a fairly new Spanish tapas bar in Soho, opened by a pair of brothers called Sam and Eddie Hart, one of which can usually be found behind the counter (the other probably works at the sister restaurant, Fino). It opened sometime in May or June 2007, and is a member of the annoying group of new egalitarian London restaurants - it's one of those where you cannot make reservations at. Still, they've gone some way to taking the edge of that annoyance (adding to the authenticity of the Spanish tapas experience in the process), making it a fairly pleasant place to eat. The Pretty Lady and I enjoyed our meal very much.

Barrafina is on Frith Street, in fine company - it shares the road with Arbutus (Michelin-starred too) and Bar Shu (authentic, good, spicy, blow your head off Sichuan hotpot). It holds its own though. If you're looking for the address here it is:

Barrafina
54 Frith Street
London W1D 4SL
020 7813 8016

The Pretty Lady and I arrived there at about 6 pm on a Saturday evening - early enough, so we thought, to beat the main evening rush and avoid a lengthy wait. No such luck. All the seats at the bar, which is to say all the seats in the house, were full, and there were already about 10 people queueing, behind the bar seats. It worked out alright though - there is a small ledge at about chest height along the queueing area, and one can order a glass of wine, and some raciones to take the edge of one's hunger. Which is exactly what the Pretty Lady and I did.

The sherry list is pretty reasonable - we had a good Manzanilla and a Pedro Ximenez (yes, a dessert wine, but this is tapas!) to wash down some reasonably good sliced chorizo. This killed a good half an hour, and by the time we were finishing up our sherries we had a seat at the bar.

There is a very good list of specials, mostly seafood - we happened to be able to choose from clams, large Mozambican prawns, langoustine, mussels and John Dory, and the Pretty Lady chose the prawns. I plumped for the land-based special, green beans cooked with jamon serrano. We also had a tortilla (classic Spanish omelette), chipirones (deep fried, battered baby squid), and chuletas (lamb chops).

I was particularly impressed by the green beans and jamon - I wouldn't call this classic Spanish, but it's certainly Spanish-inspired, and the combination works very well. The tortilla was not quite perfect, being runny in the middle (I think tortilla needs to be moist but firm), but this was more of a variation on a theme rather than a flaw. The Pretty Lady loved her prawn, which was grilled in front of us. Unfortunately we had the misfortune to get a male, so there was no roe in the head (the people next to us had 4, at least 2 females, and left the heads - what a waste). For puddings, the Pretty Lady had a crema catalana which was done creme brulee style, and I had a dram of Maker's Mark bourbon (not very Spanish, I know).

There were also a number of things we didn't try, but wanted to - pisto on egg, for instance, which sounded interesting (could it be the Spanish version of pesto on duck egg?), tuna tartare, and morcilla. Maybe next time.

Oh, and they serve Belu water! These people certainly know what they are doing. For your choice of beverage, you can enjoy Cruzcampo on tap, plus any number of spirits. They have a bottle of Elijah Craig bourbon, which means that fellow whisky freaks could amuse themselves by musing various combinations of said bourbon and sherry casks...

I digress. Bottom line, Barrafina is great for couples and groups of up to 4 (any more and they turn you away). Turn up early, drink your sherry, eat your pork, wait patiently, and enjoy. Oh, and eat your prawn heads.

Scores:

5 Feb 2008: TFQ = 26, CS = 26, S = 13, AD = 6, VfM = 6. Total = 77 points.

What does this mean?

Much ado about not very much

Someone very indignant brought this story to my attention today, together with a lot of complaints about how this country is going to the dogs, and that the UK is wasting a lot of money on "multiculturalism" and "immigrants". That, of course, isn't true, but it gives a certain type of Briton some satisfaction to think so. The problem with this particular instance is that the amount of money is peanuts.

First, a quick summary of what the story is about - basically under the current Labour government, it has just been decided that men in polygamous relationships will be allowed to claim benefit for all their wives, not just a single one, despite bigamy being illegal in the UK. Now, this is wrong - why should immigrants get paid to break the law? But the Telegraph story implies that this is a big waste of money. It's not - as a bit of thought and Fermi estimation will show.

• Benefit that a polygamous couple gets per extra wife = GBP33.65. A quick search on Google doesn't enlighten as to whether it's weekly or monthly, so let's just assume it's weekly (52 weeks in the year) for the worst case scenario.
• Number of polygamous families in the UK = 1,000. Let's assume that they are all 4 wife families, giving 3,000 extra wives in total.
• Then extra amount spent on benefit to polygamous families is 3,000*33.65*52 = GBP5.2 million.
• If the benefit were paid daily, the amount spent is GBP37m.

Now, even GBP37m is pretty small compared to some of the cock-ups announced recently. For example, see this story on defence overruns on both the Astute submarine and Type 45 destroyers - approximately GBP2bn. Better focus management energy and talent on sorting out the big wastes first.

How much should I put into angpows?

Chinese New Year is coming around again - the Year of the Rat arrives on 7 February - and this time I am faced with a new puzzle. Since I'm married now, I have to hand out red packets (angpows to regular recipients), which means I am now a net donor rather than a net recipient. The question is, how much should I put into angpows?

Or, if one inverts the question, why do people give angpows in the first place? Sure it's nice to receive angpows, but the custom would never have evolved unless the giver did not reap some benefit, even if said benefit is intangible. As far as I can tell, there are a few possible reasons:

• Signalling one's wealth. This is quite important to save face - Chinese culture seems to have an obsession with appearing prosperous, even if the creditors are at the door. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, in Chinese society.
• Genuine altruism. For many children a few decades ago, the money received at Chinese New Year represents a whole year's worth of pocket money. Nowadays with inflation and different levels of consumer spending this is no longer the case of course, but that simply means that one needs to give larger angpows...
• Making sweet nothings mean something. If one just wishes relatives and friends Happy New Year, that can easily be insincere. Adding some money actually reinforces the greeting and says "Hey! I really feel you deserve a Happy New Year, to the extent I'll fund some of your happiness!"
• Signalling respect, or the quid pro quo. Giving money to people who, or are connected to people who, have done something for you. It's a simple thank you gesture, although in Chinese culture, money doesn't quite repay favours - it's just an interest payment.

Right, that seems to be enough. There's still one constraint though - because people do compare what they get, one can't tailor the angpow to the person. People of the same degree of connection are supposed to get the same amount - i.e. all siblings get the same amounts, all friends of equal closeness get the same amounts etc etc. So, depending on this constraint and the signal I want to send, it gets complicated. Examples of the questions I would like to answer are: Should I give my sister, the Squeaky One, less because she doesn't need the spending money? If I were to give my boss's children angpows, do I give them very little to signal that I need a raise? Should I give younger relatives in school more money according to a sliding scale depending on how many years they have left till they start working? And so on.

Clearly, the signal is more important than the money. Even more important, the first year's signals set precedent for future years. The strongest signalling power I have is now. I will have to think on this - thank goodness I paid attention to the lecture on Spence in university. And I'm not posting conclusions on the blog either - the power of signalling improves when you don't pre-signal, and you keep your signals secret.