Author Archives: Svend

Food, oh glorious food.

It might not have been obvious from my posts so far, but food is very important to me. Even as I child, I remember how one of the most exciting things when traveling was to try the food. Here is a blog post to show some of the culinary adventures of this year.

Dave and Laura's Wedding Buffet

Dave and Laura's Wedding Buffet

The London Burger at The Centre Page in The City (of London)

The London Burger at The Centre Page in The City (of London)

Pizza Emmigrante from La Forchetta in Islington

Pizza Emmigrante from La Forchetta in Islington. Notice how it looks just like the Italian flag.

Amazing sausage and mash from The Alma.

Amazing sausage and mash from The Alma when we were there for their beer festival.

The Sharing Starter Platter at The Alma.

The Sharing Starter Platter at The Alma when we can back for the beer festival the day after.

Amazing window in a food shop in Boulogne.

Amazing window in a food shop in Boulogne-sur-Mer. We stopped by and admired it several times over the weekend we were there.

Katie's tasty salad.

Katie "only had a salad" for lunch on our last day in Boulogne. It was quite amazing with herring, salmon and lots more.

Moulles Frites Creme Saumon

I had this pile of Moulles Frites Creme Saumon. There was quite a lot of salmon and in the end I couldn't finish the mussels, having hardly touched the chips.

Tiny Crab from my moulles.

This cute, tiny, little Crab was hiding in my moulles, and I very nearly ate it.

Beers of April/May 2012

I’ve decided to start blogging all my beers. I’ll split it up by months and just add them as I get them. The amount of description or detail will probably vary, but it’s more about getting them up there, and adding a few words of recommendation. I’ve started in April even though it’s almost over, so to avoid it being a bit too short, I’ve merged it with May.

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First beer on the list is Fullers Chiswick, served in the best condition at The Centre Page by St Paul’s

The Alma in Islington has a beer festival, and I went there with my lovely Katie. Below are some of the beers.

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Thornbridge - Wild Swan

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Red Squirrel - London Porter

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Mighty Oak - Oscar Wilde. One of my favourite ales overall, and a very tasty mild.

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Milton Brewery - Minotaur. Another lovely mild for Mild May.

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Milton Brewery - Nike. Dark and flavoursome.

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Crouch Vale - Brewer's Gold. A deserving multi award winning hoppy beer.

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Tring Brewery - Side Pocket For A Toad. My favourite brewery with a very hoppy session beer.

Kingston Beer and Cider Festival is on, and here are some of the beers I’m having (while writing)… May is Mild Month, so mild there will be. I decided to start rating the beers, so I should probably give a quick explanation of what the ratings mean: 5 – an amazing beer, that you would go well out of your way to drink again, 4 – a great beer that stands out from the general nice pint, 3 – a decent pint that you would order again, 2 – a mediocre beer that you would only drink if there were no other (better) options, 1 – a horrible beer that you would do your best to avoid in the future and might even tip away.

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King - Royal Mild. A very pleasant mild. 4/5

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Rudgate - Ruby Mild. Relatively strong and flavoursome mild. 4/5

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Ossett - Dark Ruby. Unusually dark-flavoured mild almost with a coffee edge rounded by a smooth sweetness. 4/5

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Coastal - Merry Maidens. Strong Cornish mild with fruity cherry undertones. Almost too strong. 3/5

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Plain - Inntrigue. Very interesting full flavoured ale with fruit, biscuit and chocolate. Mysterious and surprising. 4/5

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Welton - Light Duty. As the description says it's nothing like making love in a punt. Surprising amount of strong taste for a beer of only 2%. Not that pleasant though. 2/5

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Surrey Hills - Greensand IPA. A fruity, hoppy and fresh IPA. 3/5

Before going to Boulogne we stopped in at The Antelope near Victoria for a drink.

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18/5 2012 -George Gale - Spring Sprinter. While waiting for a bus to France. A very tasty, fresh spring beer. 4/5.

22/5 2012 – Cambridge Beer Festival is on and I’m there with the sun (and James).

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Lord Conrad's - Hedgerow Hop. Tasty and hoppy golden beer. Great for a sunny day like today. 4/5

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Moonshine - Harvest Moon Mild. A local very malty, tasty dark mild. 4/5

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Felstar - Peckin' Order. Another amazing, golden larger with so much tasty flavour it's hard to believe it is indeed a larger. 4/5

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Tring Brewery - Mansion Mild. My favourite brewery is back with this lovely mild. 4/5

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Tring Brewery - Woodland Bell. A pleasant beerey golden beer. Slightly bitter and very fresh. 4/5

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Binghams - Hot Dog Chilli Stout. Pleasant stout with a sharp spiciness without being unpleasant. 4/5

During the break of the Cambridge Beer Festival, we discovered that the Maypole have a beer festival on as well!

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Tring Brewery - Blonde. This is one of my all time favourite beers from my favourite brewery. Sweet and tasty. 4/5.

Back at the beer festival and it’s even sunnier than before.

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Brentwood - Summer Virgin. Very strong tasting bitter beer with some grapefruit. A bit harsh. 2/5.

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Broughton - Dark Dunter. Dark licorice and sweetness dominate this exquisite old ale. 4/5.

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Thornbridge - Sequoia. Another amazing fruity roasted beer. 4/5.

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Gadds - Common Conspiracy. A bitter and flavoursome ale, with a crisp refreshing finish. 3/5.

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Lord Conrad's - Gubbins. Strong tasting regular beer. 3/5

Back again at Cambridge Beer Festival, and having a breakfast beer:

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XT - No 6. A scrumptious beer with lots of hops and malt. Great for breakfast. 5/5!

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Hop Monster - Freak Show. Very hoppy beer with bitterness and slight grapefruit. 5/5

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Hop Monster - Rochford Banshee. A rauchbier with a plenty of sweet flavour. Not too smokey. 4/5.

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Moonshine - Red Watch. A sweet, malty beer with slight fruit. It's not obvious that it's made with blueberries. 3/5.

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Lord Conrad's - Her MajesTea. A very special tea-infused beer, special for the jubilee. Very dry with an almost cocoa like bitterness. 3/5

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Pickled Pig - Old Spot. For a change we're having a cider. A medium dry, very pleasant cider with lots of apple flavour. 4/5

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Beartown - Black Bear. Smooth, ruby dark mild with fruit and slight licorice. 4/5

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Buntingford - 92 Squadron. Tasty and hoppy golden beer with a citrus finish. 4/5

Food 2012

The title says it all. This post is dedicated to food. Like the beer one, it’s going to be mostly photos and maybe a little bit of description with each one.

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First photo is of the lasagne I had today in the SCE canteen. Very well done by The Good Eating Company.

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More Italian with the amazing pizza I had for dinner tonight. It's from La Forchetta by Islington Green Gardens. A great find where we will most likely be back!

Sandwich from the good old sandwich machine at Jagex

How I miss the sandwich machine that was installed for a while back in the Jagex days. Sad when they took it away. As you can see from my early blogs, I made the most of it while it was there, and it was a surprise my business alone wasn’t enough to ensure that it kept going. Maybe the problem was that I found their weakness and that they were losing money on my orders. I’ve found a couple of photos of the monsters, so I thought I’d bring back the memories.

Sandwich 2009-11-12

Sandwich of 12th November 2009

This is one of the earliest sandwich adventures and the list of ingredients can be found listed in my first sandwich blog post. It was very tasty and one of the meatier ones. Who needs protein powder when you can simply eat all the different kinds of protein all in one sandwich? As you can read on the blog post, I didn’t make do with the sandwich, but had a roll as well. That way I could have all the seafood proteins too. Tasty proteins…

Sandwich 2009-11-17

Sandwich of 17th November 2009

This one came a few days later, after a bit more experimentation. Though it still looks quite stuffed, it actually only contains three kinds of meat as opposed to four in the previous. Instead it has two ingredients that would quickly become regulars throughout the “sandwich era”: Stilton and Branston pickle. Raw red onion joined the fun to add an extra sharp kick.

2012-02-09 Upcoming beer festivals

It’s time for a beer festival update. It’s now late February and a few of the previous lists have past but more importantly we’ve moved to London. This might move the main focus slightly south from Cambridge, though I’m sure anything that can be easily reached from here isn’t too far away from Cambridge either and vice versa. The Battersea Beer Festival is on as I’m writing and I’m planning a quick trip there tomorrow before going to Denmark for the weekend. I’ve been a bit cheeky and added the big Cambridge Beer Festival, even though it’s not on until May, but it’s always a great one, though this will be the first one for me where I don’t live in Cambridge, which will inevitably make it a bit less convenient. On the other hand is the Camden one, just by Kings Cross, going to be really easy with about 15 minutes walk home.

Date Location Festival
 8-10 Feb London 22nd Battersea Beer Festival
16-18 Feb Luton 29th Luton Beer & Cider Festival
15-18 Feb Derby 11th Derby Winter Beer Festival
17-18 Feb Ely 3rd Elysian Beer Festival
24-25 Feb Chappel 3rd Chappel Winter Beer Festival
 7- 9 Mar Camden 28th London Drinker Beer & Cider Festival
 9-10 Mar Hitchin Hitchin Beer & Cider Festival
15-17 Mar St Neots The 37th ‘Booze on the Ouse’ Beer & Cider Festival
12-14 Apr Sidcup, London 7th Bexley Beer Festival
25-28 Apr Bury St Edmunds East Anglia Beer Festival
 2- 6 May Reading 18th Reading Beer & Cider Festival
21-26 May Cambridge 39th Cambridge Beer Festival

2012-01-04 Upcoming beer festivals

A new year has begun, and I’ve started looking forward to what it will bring of ale enjoyment. However, it’s a slow start in the South East, and the list below is both a bit short and does include some events that are a bit further away, though they do sound like they would be worth a journey. Above all it includes the Cambridge Winter Ales Festival, which is always the place to be for me in the winter (even if this winter isn’t that wintry).

Date Location Festival
18-21 Jan Manchester National Winter Ales Festival
19-21 Jan Cambridge 16th Cambridge Winter Ales Festival
19-21 Jan Colchester 5th Colchester Winter Ales Festival
3 – 4 Feb Dover 19th White Cliffs Festival of Winter Ales
8 -10 Feb London 22nd Battersea Beer Festival
15-18 Feb Derby 11th Derby Winter Beer Festival
17-18 Feb Ely 3rd Elysian Beer Festival
24-25 Feb Chappel 3rd Chappel Winter Beer Festival
16-17 Mar St Neots The 37th ‘Booze on the Ouse’ Beer & Cider Festival

Banana Cake

Yesterday, we noticed that one of our two bananas was almost black, and Katie said “We should probably eat that banana today”. Casually I replied “It looks like it would be good for a banana cake”, to which Katie replied “Are you going to make a banana cake?”. This first seemed like a joke to me, as I’ve (practically) never baked a cake in my life, but Katie found a recipe in her big cake book, and it didn’t seem that hard (and I had half an hour before football), so I thought “Why not?!” 🙂 And it was quite easy. Managed to pop it in the oven just before leaving for football, and when I came back I was greeted with the lovely smell of banana cake 🙂 As we didn’t prepare for this we didn’t have all the exact ingredients, so it became our own, and possible much better, recipe. Therefore I’ve posted it below so others can share the joy of cake. First, however, a picture of the cake 🙂

Banana Cake

Banana Cake

Ingredients:

  • 90 ml olive oil
  • 250 g plain white flour
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 170 g muscovado sugar
  • 30 g vanilla flavoured pure whey protein (instead of extra sugar and vanilla)
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 ripe bananas
  • 125 ml yoghurt
  • a small handful of chocolate chips (we used little dark, milk and white buttons)
  1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
  2. Sift the flour and baking powder together.
  3. Stir in the sugar and protein powder.
  4. Mash bananas, eggs, yoghurt and oil together.
  5. Combine the dry and mushy ingredients together until an even mixture.
  6. Spoon into a greased and lined 1 litre loaf tin.
  7. Bake for 1 hour or until nice and golden in the preheated oven.
  8. Cool it for 15 minutes and then eat it all! 🙂