Category: Eating

Jan 07

A visit to G Kelly Noted Eel & Pie Shop

[This post has been restored following Website Death in 2009. It was originally posted in 2008 I think]

G Kelly Pie and Mash Shop on Roman Road - FrontageYesterday I went back to Roman Road market for the first time in a while and thought it was high time to post about G Kelly’s Noted Eel & Pie Shop.

It’s not up to me to tell you why pie and why mash and dear god why jellied eels. I’ll leave that up to the wonderful and terrifying www.eelhouse.co.uk, who offer a mail order pie service, and even pie and mash gift vouchers (‘the perfect gift!’)

Trying the pie and mash at G Kelly’s esteemed establishment was one of the first things I did when I moved to Bow, and although I did think that it was pretty bland (that’s obviously what the chilli vinegar is for…) it was hearty and cheap and peculiar. The interior of G Kelly seems to have been left mostly unchanged since the 1930s, all white tiles and mirrors and long wooden benches. On their website they have some fantastic history and a slideshow of old photographs.

They have a much more varied menu than other p&m shops I have visited, offering eels both stewed and jellied, soya mince vegetarian pies, mushy peas and even sweet pies and apple crumble with custard. The staff were friendly, and clearly amused at my confusion when offered ‘liquor’ on my pie – liquor is a thin green sauce made of parsley, rather than the bottle of gin I was momentarily expecting. (“Bargain!”, I thought.)

G Kelly gets busy at lunchtime on market days (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday) often with queues out the door, as traders come in and put in incomprehensible orders like “one, two and peas, please love” (I think that’s one pie, two scoops of mash, and mushy peas). Saturday afternoons it’s a bit quieter.

My friend tries the eels

Jen and the eels

I think over the years I’ve had all kinds of their pies, but I have never gone near an eel. I am simply not brave enough. Have you seen what jellied eels look like?

Seriously. Step in my much braver friend Jen, who gamely tried some stewed eels with her mash. Apparently they were ok – fishy, squidgey, and yet full of bones. Yum.

There are quite a few pie and mash shops still dotted around East London, including one just down the road from me on Leytonstone High Road opposite Harrow Green. Writing this post is making me hungry, so perhaps I’ll stop in. Hm.

Before I sign off though, photographer Chris Clunn has a great collection of black and white photos of the exteriors, staff and customers in a selection of pie and mash shops.

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Posted in Bow, Eating, History, Leytonstone, London

Feb 11

Another wild night in

This is what I have been doing tonight besides working. You can’t see here, but the pony has ‘irony’ written on it in sugar letters. We wanted to write ‘ironicorn’ but there wasn’t room.

what I have been doing tonight besides working. The pony has ... on Twitpic

There were others, but they have been eaten already.

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Posted in Eating, Random

Jun 30

Meze fun from Istanbul to Leytonstone

Well apologies again for the lengthy silence (but also many thanks to the 30 odd daily visitors checking out Sajarina even without any new posts – you rock my tiny webstat counting world!) As you might have guessed I have been further East than usual, to Istanbul. It rocked, in a big old buildings, iznik tiles, sunshine and baklava kind of a way, which is one of my favourite ways, truth be told.

Topkapi palace in Istanbul

One of the many things I love about London (and any ethnically diverse city I guess) is that you can go away on holiday, eat and drink tasty things and then find somewhere to buy them when you get home. So today I had lunch with a friend in the Meze Cafe on Church Lane in Leytonstone. I’ve been there a few times before and I like it a lot, from the prettily painted but distractingly phallic gourds hanging from the ceiling to the incredible tat-encrusted mirrors – it really is worth getting up close to these, the one I was next to today had a glow-in-the-dark star gluegunned onto it!

Though I’ve liked all the other stuff I’ve had there, I haven’t tried their meze platter yet. Today I was warned off it because it was too much for one person, and given the size of the house special salad they brought me instead I think they may have saved my life. I could have eaten myself into sweet auberginey oblivion, but instead I just pushed myself to the brink with broccoli, cauliflower, peas and almonds. Mmm. I had a satisfyingly dark and sludgy Turkish coffee as well, which with my friend’s latte and two gargantuan salads came to £10.90. They also do sandwiches, jacket potatoes and that sort of thing, as well as some hot dishes like moussaka for about £6. And it’s another of those wondrous unlicensed places, so you can bring your own alcohol, with no corkage.

This sort of thing makes me really happy. Although the rent in Leytonstone seems to be generally cheaper than in Stratford, I’ve moved from a shared house to solo living, and my disposable income has taken a knock. So far though, I’ve still been able to eat out pretty regularly because there are a few good, cheap options available, the Meze Cafe being one of them. Long may it live, and bring meze to the people!

PS Will be posting about Ichiban at some later date, and have already had a recommendation for the Singburi Thai. I’d love to hear any other suggestions!

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Posted in Drinking, Eating, Leytonstone

Jun 02

Waging war on mass-produced tat

*Fanfare* I now have internet access! Will get to work making up for lost blogging time.

*Nother fanfare* I went out this weekend! On an expedition to Walthamstow.

As promised, I paid a visit to the small but perfectly formed East London Craft Guerrilla Market on Saturday, and purchased this lovely grisly necklace:

Heart Necklace

It’s made by Glowing Doll, who won my prize for Stuff I’d Like To Own, though there were some other stalls which caught my eye, including a lady making awesome soft-toy guitars. There were about half a dozen stalls (and a sleepy cat) in the sunny leafy back garden of Beautiful Interiors, which is also worth a visit if you’re up that way.

And you’d probably like to be up that way because, my goodness isn’t Walthamstow Village lovely? In a similar way that the door of Eddie’s pub in Stratford deposits you in Hampstead, a short walk down Third Avenue from Hoe St transports you to Church Street in Stoke Newington. As well as all the twee and sexy crafts in Beautiful Interiors, there is a restaurant and deli called Eat 17 which looks gorgeous. It was formerly a waffle cafe (a wafflery? If that isn’t the word it should be) so has a pretty impressive choice for dessert, including a cheesecake waffle. Yup, that’s cheesecake on a waffle. Num num num, say I.

Glowing Doll Stall

Ooh, also Diamond Geezer has been in my neck of the woods recently with this post on invisible artwork ‘Linked’. Will add that to my Leytonstone to-do list, especially after my rant about rubbish public art a while back. Though can imagine it wouldn’t be for everyone – I have been covering my organisation’s press phone this weekend, and got an impassioned call at 5.30am from an unhinged person ranting about ‘skull-based receivers’ and how the Government is controlling the voices in his head. Sca-ry.

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Posted in Art, Craft, Eating, Walthamstow

Mar 03

Banana latte lady

Click. Click… Click? Ah, the sweet sound of another power cut. Whenever this happens, and I get interweb withdrawal shakes, I head over to Roman Road market and to Chicchi internet cafe. I’m not sure exactly what their internet policy is now – it used to be if you bought anything over £1 then you could use the internet free for an hour. But when I was there last weekend I had been online for a good hour and a half before I noticed I’d overrun and nobody came to pester me.

This easygoing approach to internet time is just one thing among many that I love about Chicchi (pronounced ‘kikki’ apparently, the Italian for ‘beans’) As well as excellent, tasty and reasonably priced pasta and salads, you can buy intriguing teas with exciting names. Clear favourites in the name stakes are Gunpowder Qing and China White Jade Butterfly. Who wouldn’t want a cup of tea that sounds like part of a kickass crime-fighting team?

Chicchi also takes milkshakes to a whole new level. Strawberry, chocolate, banana? Sure, they’re there, for your casual milkshake drinker. For the ever-so-slightly-more-adventurous there is delicious coconut or dashing hazelnut. But the milkshake drinking pro you can wet their whistle with peach & vanilla, pistachio & hazelnut, or chocolate & cinnamon. Even sick milkshake obsessives are catered for with a strange mutant creation: chocolate & strawberry. That’s right. In the SAME GLASS. If you think that sounds exciting, you should see their waffle menu. Take a moment to let that sink in. Waffle. Menu. I’m just going to link right to it.

The lovely Chicchi people (and they are lovely – smiley and friendly) take a similar approach to their coffee. It is damn fine coffee, needless to say, but I like strange flavours in mine. And rather than pedestrian hazelnut, cinnamon, vanilla etc… I can walk right into this little cafe and order a banana latte, without shame, without needing to explain myself, or meet the confused and pitying gaze of some hapless barista. Not here. It’s up on the board, on their list of syrups, as is coconut. Is there a greater joy than feeling accepted, and loved like this?

Also a brief little shoutout to AMT Coffee (they have a stand in Liverpool Street station, so it counts as east endy) I heart you! You make similar strange concoctions such as banana lattes, hot apple with cinnamon, cherry flavoured yogushakes and the adorable froffee. And, at the request of your customers, you went completely fairtrade years ago, way before it was cool. If there is one thing that would improve Chicchi for me it would be fairtrade coffee. Happy fairtrade fortnight!

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Posted in Bow, Drinking, Eating, London, Tea

Feb 16

Eating out in sunny Stratford

Picking up from my last post about why Stratford doesn’t completely suck, I consider the fine dining options available to Stratfordians. Once this is done I can get on with blogging about places I like to go to to get away from Stratford without feeling too guilty…

Don’t come here unless you really love Pizza Express. There’s not really anywhere else to eat out except fast foody joints like Nando’s, Pizza Hut, KFC et al and a couple of good curry houses. On the subject of which, India Gate, we love you! Thank you for shamelessly currying our favour (geddit?!) with your endless freebies – not one small sweaty bag of salad in our takeaway, but two! Praise be! In all seriousness we like them a lot. Tasty food, friendly staff, a discount if you’re a member of the cinema… They have stolen our hearts away from the Spice Inn, who comically refused to serve my friend her beer in a pint glass, we assume because they were afeared her spindly ladywrists would snap under the weight of all that manliness.

Another place we sometimes go is a gastropub type affair called King Eddie’s. It’s a bourgeois oasis on Stratford Broadway. I’m not slamming the fact that Stratford is poor here, but the contrast is shocking, I’m still not totally convinced that the door isn’t just a portal to a pub in Hampstead. If you ever want a concise visual representation of social inequality and lingering class divisions (and let’s face it, who doesn’t?) go for a drink in King Eddie’s, then go over the way for a drink in Wetherspoons.

In spite of myself I love it though. It’s a beautiful pub, an ex-coaching inn with green walls, a saloon bar and many quiet corners. Sitting with a good friend and some mulled wine or cherry beer in a dark and cosy nook while it pisses down outside is up there in my top ten loveliest things to do. I warn you though, it’s not cheap. It is still cheaper than most places in the centre, but once you’ve adjusted to Stratford prices it seems extortionate. The food is consistently tasty, traditional English fare, using seasonal gourmet-type ingredients but doesn’t offer much for vegetarians unfortunately. The wild mushroom risotto is delicious, but that’s often all there is for my not meateaty friends.

Our final dinner destination, although we more commonly go there for lunch at the weekend is the new Londek Cafe. It’s right at the top of the Grove, if you head towards Maryland station from Stratford centre you’ll pass it on the left. Londek serves Polish home-cooking, and is full of Polish people eating it, so one can only assume they’re doing it well. I certainly like it a lot. The staff have been very friendly, not to mention surprised, as me and my friends troop in on a regular basis (and once ordered one piece of every kind of cake – all in the interests of research, you understand).

Again they’re not brilliant for vegetarians but there are two or three different options. It is incredibly cheap – a plate of extremely filling pierogi is around £3.90 – so you could eat like a king for well under a tenner *and* they have no license to sell alcohol so you are welcome to bring your own free of charge. We had a fairly raucous night a while back fuelled by cheap wine and cabbage parcels. It was awesome.

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Posted in Drinking, Eating, London, Stratford