Today has been rather busy, mainly because I went into Taunton to get some venison and cheese. It was a very lovely day: best weather we’ve had all year by far. Consequently I don’t have much to talk about, but I did make a food discovery: South Devon Chilli Farm.
Yes, there are crazy people near Torquay who grow chilis, make hot sauce and do other stuff that makes those of us with an addiction to capsaicin very happy. They have plenty of stockists in the south-west, so I’ll be eating my way though their offerings in the coming months. For those of you in London, there’s a Mexican restaurant in Spitalfields that looks like the real thing.
I checked out the website for Poncho no 8, and alas, people who want Mexican food in London are going to have to wait a little longer: “unique recipes inspired by Cali-Mex and European cuisines” sounds potentially tasty, but not terribly authentic.
I made Mexican food while I was staying at Martin Hoare’s place. The only ingredient I wished I had but couldn’t source was queso fresco. Everything else was either stuff that ships pretty well [dried peppers, pumpkin seeds, corn tortillas] which I brought with me, or could be bought in one of the shops in Reading [fresh leaf coriander, Greek yogurt to substitute for crema, meat, veg, rice].
It used to be impossible to get decent Mexican food in Toronto, and since I had become addicted while travelling in the US, I taught myself to cook the stuff out of one of Diana Kennedy’s books.
If you are in withdrawal, I can ship you some ingredients.
Well, it is fusion, and we Californians are cool with that. The point is that they use the right ingredients and techniques, and their food probably tastes of something other than sugar and tomato, which marks them out as significantly better than most “Mexican” restaurants in the UK.