Borough Market

[rjs1]

I'm in total agreement regarding the fish from Applebees, not only is it not great quality, I once bought red mullet from there which was inedible, the staff are also rude and unhelpful.

Have to disagree; I've always found the staff pleasant and the produce decent. As for value, they had very fresh looking John Dory at £3 each or 4 for £10 this morning, which seemed a good price. Generally the Barrow in Furness place is better value, though - on Saturday they had supurb Sri Lanka tuna at £19 a kilo when Applebees were charging £22.

Applebees is also useful by being open five days a week.

[Jon Tseng]

I'm in total agreement regarding the fish from Applebees, not only is it not great quality, I once bought red mullet from there which was inedible, the staff are also rude and unhelpful.  My favourite place is next door ( I think) the chicken place, where it is consistently good produce and the people are always happy!

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Yes, just always find the selection somewhat desultory; lots of fillets, not much smackingly fresh looking and you don't even get the variety of interesting stuff (monkfish liver, cod cheeks, the occasional sea urchin) they do in the place in the middle.

One thing I have heard is they do black cod (I would assume this has to be frozen so freshness not as much of an issue). Although while I'm on the subject the BEST place to go for black-cod is any of the ATARIYA outlets (ealing, finchley-direction or oriental city colindale) where they sell it reasonable priced already marinated in miso - five minutes under the grill and u cld be in nobu

l8tr

J

[alexhills]

More or less the first morels of the season at Booths today (they said last week was the first they had them). Turkish, looked excellent, but 65/kilo. OUCH. Bought a very small handful, I can only assume they'll come down a good deal. Got some nice salsify too, looking forward to that.

Lamb's kidneys from Northfield farm, a dover sole from Furness, some wine from Arnaud at Bedales, not a bad bounty. There are plenty of nice small shops near me, but despite its flaws Borough remains the best overall foodshopping experience for me in London.

[muichoi]

Nice fellow, Arnaud at Bedales, and always interesting wines.It's the restaurant-style markups that are a little saddening.

[Matthew Grant]

More or less the first morels of the season at Booths today (they said last week was the first they had them). Turkish, looked excellent, but 65/kilo. OUCH. Bought a very small handful, I can only assume they'll come down a good deal. Got some nice salsify too, looking forward to that.

Lamb's kidneys from Northfield farm, a dover sole from Furness, some wine from Arnaud at Bedales, not a bad bounty. There are plenty of nice small shops near me, but despite its flaws Borough remains the best overall foodshopping experience for me in London.

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Yep, Morels looked nice, great Turbot around as well but £18/kg and weighing 3kg made for a very expensive fish

[alexhills]

Matt - I think I may have seen that very fish... It did look fantastic, alas no personal need to feed 8 or so with turbot in the next few days. Some belly tuna that looked good, not seen that there before that I remember. Was hassling them about monkfish liver too but the guy I was talking ot didn't know about it.

Muichoi - Arnaud does seem like a really interesting guy, always up for a chat and has very good taste. I've found the pricing more erratic than consistently high - I've got some excellent minor chateaux bordeaux from the 80s for very reasonable prices - low 20s/bottle - but saw a bottle of 96 Chateaux du Tertre there for 42 pounds today, I had picked some up elsewhere a couple of weeks ago for I think 20 quid. Was a bit shocked by that... Took the risk of googling what I'd bought there today afterwards but was relieved not to find it significantly cheaper anywhere!!

[Matthew Grant]

From Yesterday: I normally get my bread from Neal's Yard but decided to try De Gustibus again. I wish I hadn't bothered. De Gustibus bread is pants. San Francisco Sourdough had a very closed crumb as did the Ciabatta which had a texture more akin to a supermarket bought French stick. In fact i'd go as far to say that they were falling into the upermarket trap of everythign being just "bread2 and shaped into varous differnt guises and tasting the same.

Ginger Pig sausages were fantastic though, huge piggy flavour in the Old Spot and Traditional sausages. The Chipolatas are also fantastic.

I also bought a small piece of Stilton from Neal's yard, normally I would go for the unbeatable Colston Bassett but it turned out that it was beatable yesterday . It was still young and hadn't developed the creaminess that you expect from a Colston Bassett. Fortunately a Quenby Stilton was on hand with a lovely creamy texture. It had a milder flavour than the CB but was none the worse for it. I'd still choose top-notch condition CB but the Quenby was a good alternative.

[muichoi]

I quite agree-De Gustibus is v. bad. I was delighted with Ginger Pig sausages last time, a huge improvement on a couple of years ago when they hadn't got the hang of it. the Toulouse was a minor masterpiece.

[alexhills]

I haven't had Ginger Pig sausages for awhile - was unimpressed last time, far too mealy - but will definitely give them another try. Got some Venison sausages from Sillfield this time, have to see how those go. I liked but didn't love their merguez, good texture but underseasoned/spiced. My current favorite sausage in London is the Tolouse from Godfrey's in Highbury- just superb.

[MobyP]

Flour station bread (opposite game stall) best of the lot, as far as I can tell. Big crumb, big flavour, slow developed taste. Small production.

Edited March 11, 2006 by MobyP (log)

[alex james]

That turbot must have been the best observed fish in London.

It was still there at 3.30 on Friday afternoon. And yes, the tuna looked fab as well.

[Matthew Grant]

The best Turbot I saw last Friday was in Shellseekers which unfortunately seems a little tucked away. Take the path opposite the big fishmongers in the middle and its down there. Excellent looking Scallops last week as well.

[Adam Balic]

Farmed or wild turbot? £18/kg seems very cheap, but the size is a little larger then the what I would expect from a farmed turbot.

[Matthew Grant]

Farmed Turbot is pants but 18/kg does seem a little cheap. Don't they normally get more expensive the bigger they get?

[Adam Balic]

Maybe, but 3 kg isn't that big for a turbot (aquaculture market size fish are up to 4 kg), and as the majority of turbot I see now are farmed, I would ask if you were concerned.

[Matthew Grant]

It does seem a little cheap although I would be surprised if Shellseekers was using farmed fish, I may be wrong. He told me it had been caught the day before but i didn't ask the provenance of it once I was told they wouldn't cut it into smaller pieces.

[alexhills]

The stuff at Furness is definitely advertized as wild and usually 18/kg. Often very little 'uns though - Chicken Turbot I guess. The big one there last week was also wild, probably more than 3kgs I'd guess but purely an estimate. I thought Turbot, being a very sedentary fish, was supposed to farm at least reasonably well though. Off to Turkey next week at the height of the black sea turbot season though! Yay.....

[Adam Balic]

A very good price then. The only problem is cooking the buggers whole.

[alexhills]

Yep - that one was FAR too big for my oven... There's a funny - and typically self-aggrandizing - story in Brillat-Savarin I vaguly remember about him saving a dinner party by building a Turbot kettle out of a bath tub or something.

[Adam Balic]

A wicker basket I believe. There is also story of a bishop sewing the fins cut off by a servant back on, as they were the best bit.

[alexhills]

Prizes this week included mutton neck fillet and loads of lamb fat (from the kidney area) from Farmer Sharp. Made pretty amazing confit. Beef shin from Northfield Farm, much more intersting than the usual stewgin/braising steak. Also really rather a lot of morels this time, dinner party indulgence...

Slightly off topic, I had an interesting chat with one of the staff at Steve Hatt about turbot farming. He thought it was one of the best fish to farm, and said that they've discovered they need to put a few cod in the tanks to make the turbot a bit nervous and swim around, otherwise they just turn into total couch potatoes. Funny.