Sambrook’s Brewery celebrate St. George’s Day with a ‘Beer and Food matching night’. With Beer Sommeliers Jo Miller and Jayne Peyton leading the night, expect beers from all over England. Purchase tickets here

&

Hackney Brewery ‘Meet the Brewer’ with tasters at The Regent, 21 Chesnut Grove, Balham, SW12 8JB.

Thurs:

Frank Turner’s Believe Beer a collaboration with Signature Brew is being toured around the UK and pops into The Monarch, 40-42 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8BG. Tasting session and Meet the Brewers from 5pm.

&

The Kernel Brewery has a ‘Meet the Brewer’ with Evin O’ Riordain at Borough Wines Stoke Newington, 63 Church Street, N16 0UL. Tickets are £20 and it starts at 7pm. Check here to see if there are still tickets left…

L’Entrepot
Hackney Downs

Brought to you by the folks behind Borough Wines, L’Entrepot is a glorious celebration of all things wine – primarily French.

The focus here is the wine, the small plates of delicious food proving a foil to the eclectic and vast wine list. The steak tartare was particularly succulent, as was the smoked salmon, and a curious treat presented itself in the form of an out-of-place (but very tasty) British pie.

As with their various Borough Wine shops, you can still pick up a bottle here – and a very reasonable price too. For those of the green ilk, you can refill your own bottles with your favourite tipple.

Borough Wines
67 Wilton Way, E8 1BG

After winning over the discerning folks of Borough Market, Borough Wines opened their second branch in East London 2 years ago – along Hackney’s bijou Wilton Way to be precise – a welcome addition to a well-furnished food-and-drink-friendly locale.

The rustic interior takes a back-seat to the quality and breadth of carefully selected wines available, and they regularly host ‘meet the maker’ events, where you can really get to grips with their stock (not to mention taste some delicious bottles).

Excellent quality beer, cider and port bump shoulders on the well-stocked shelves, and a ‘fill-your-own-bottle’ service adds a level of charm rarely found in your average off-license.

From the Borough Wines blog.

This is clearly a winning formula, as the French-born owners have recently opened their THIRD shop, on Church Street, Stoke Newington – another foodie paradise where no doubt they’ll thrive.

Keep an eye on these guys – owner Muriel is planning a new E8 eatery soon, and with a track record as glowing as this, it’s sure to be a rather special place.

Join the Wilton Way Borough Wines Wine Club here.

Sixty food fanatics gathered in the Rooftop Cafe to sample specially selected Nordic taster courses, ales and cocktails.

On the menu:

Nordic Blush and Nordic Mist cocktails
by Nordic Bar

Salmon gravadlax or Jarlsberg cheese with pickle, dark rye
by The Nordic Bakery

Pig cheek, pear, caramel, hazelnut

Artichoke, burnt leek, Danish Blue
with Nogne God Jul

Mackerel, apple, celeriac, gin, cucumber, tarragon
with Nogne Blonde Ale

Venison, juniper, beetroot, smoke, horseradish, pumpernickel
with Nogne India Pale Lager

Lavender, red bush tea, white chocolate, goji
with Nogne Ø # 100

Chokladboll
by Fika

Ale pairings by FlyingBooze – wines from Borough Wines – Ebeltoft Sodas from The Danish Bar

Photos © Jai Brodie – jaibrodie.com

]]> http://seethishere.com/2013/01/31/london-wine-lists-that-wont-break-the-bank/ Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:42:19 +0000 aimeehartley1 http://seethishere.com/2013/01/31/london-wine-lists-that-wont-break-the-bank/

Wine often figures as a part of our meal when eating out, yet it is rarely one of those things that MAKES us want to go and eat somewhere. This is probably, for the most part, because there is an assumption that you have to know a bit about wine to seek those places out, but also because a decent (even sub-par) bottle of plonk can turn your food bill into an unmanageable beast.

But, alas -be gone that furrow in your brow- there are some amazingly good quality and value places in London where you can find tip-top wines at rollickingly good prices.  And by ‘value’, I don’t always necessarily mean the ‘cheapest’, but good quality for the price tag in comparison to other bars and restaurants in London. Here are some of my favourites:

The Quality Chop House

This Farringdon stalwart- previously a workers ‘caf ‘dating back to 1869- (think black and white tiled flooring, dark wooden booths) has opened its doors once again as The Quality Chop House and the wine list is the star of the show. Part restaurant, part wine bar, part wine shop (no mean feat for the square footage) you can buy your vino and take it home, or settle in for a bite to eat on the lovely, but supremely uncomfortable pews and quaff your plonk until you are no longer aware that you’ve lost all feeling in your right bum cheek. The list has some good value bottles at the lower end, but their specialty is at the mid-upper end (£30-£70), where classic, fine wine’s are stonkingly good value should you fancy a vinous treat without the crazy price tag.

Ones to try: 

White: Auratus Quinta do Feital Vinho Regional Minho,Portugal, Minho | Alvarinho, Trajadura £24 (bottle)

Red: 2003 Chateau Bernadotte, Haut-Medoc, France, Bordeaux | Bordeaux Blend £40 (bottle)

Borough Wines

After beginning life in the humdrum of Borough market, Borough Wines were one of the first to figure out that, yes, there were probably quite a few people in East London that drink wine and have a bit of cash to throw at it. And *poof *, just like magic, they opened up shop (3 of them) in Dalston, Hackney and Stoke Newington to quench the thirst of the cooler folk and solve many a middle class wine dilemma. Their specialty are their re-fillable bottles that they top up straight from barrel and sell for a fiver (plus a small amount, £2.50, for the bottle that you can re-use) but they also have a small, but nice selection of French leaning bottles that line the simple wooden shelves in their shops.  Whilst the Wilton’s Way and Stoke Newington outposts are wine shops, L’entropot in Hackney also doubles-up as an eatery should you fancy a spot of charcuterie with your wine.

Ones to try:

Good company for your mid-week dinner, their refillable bottles are cracking value- they serve a white, red and even a Prosecco straight from barrel for £7.50. Take your bottle back to be topped up and you’ll only dish out a fiver for each.

10 Greek Street

A shining beacon in Soho with a refreshing approach to both their food and wine list. They source only what’s fresh from the market on the day, often choosing less familiar cuts of meat or fish, but creating classic and tasty dishes. Because of their clever, more ‘thrifty’ approach to the food (never sacrificing quality) they can be much more agile with the price of their wine. Their thoughtful list consists of great wines, with bottles very rarely creeping above the £30 mark. They also serve a nice variety by carafe (half a bottle equivalent) and by the glass to keep things interesting if a whole bottle doesn’t tickle your fancy.

Ones to try:

White: Terras Gauda, Albarino ‘Abadia San Campio’, Rias Baixas, Spain  £23 (bottle)

Red: Proprietà Sperino, Uvaggio, Coste Sesia, Piemonte, Italy 2008, £5 (glass), 15 (375 ml carafe) £30 (bottle)

The 10 Cases

No direct relation to 10 Greek Street, 10 Cases tout themselves as a British bistro and wine bar. Refreshingly unfussy and cosy inside, dishes are written up on blackboards and reams of brown paper on the walls, whilst hand-written, ever-changing wine lists litter the tables. As the name suggests, they only buy in 10 cases each of red and white wine at a time, and when they’re gone, they’re GONE and new ones get added to the list.  Bottles again between the £20-40 mark, whilst by the glass offerings straddle £5-8. Super friendly and knowledgeable staff are also on hand to help you find your tipple of choice.

Ones to try:

White:  Riesling, Bonheur Convivial, ‘Riefle’, Alsace, Austria 2008  £4 (glass) £16 (500 ml carafe) £20 (bottle)

Red: Gevrey-Chambertain, Vallet Frères, 1998  £10 (glass) £30 (500ml carafe) £38 (bottle)

I don’t know why it took me so long to visit  Borough Market, I have heard about it time and time again, and it’s unlike me to be lazy about this sort of thing. It was only after my friend SN said that she visited during her recent trip to London (her first time!) that I mobilised the troops (me and my brother) to visit on a Friday morning, when all of the stalls are open and the market is teeming with edible temptations. So thank you SN for the inspiration!

Under the bridge, downtown

Part of the market is located directly under the Borough High Street railway bridge, which was completed in 2011 but won’t have any trains running across it until 2016. We hopped on the Tube and went all the way down to London Bridge station, towards the south east on the Jubilee Line. The market is close to the station and really quite easy to locate – just look for the huge railway bridge!

A pan very easily the diameter of a 32″ TV screen

Upon entering the market, the first thing we were greeted by was a HUGE pan of simmering red sauce, next to an equally huge pan of paella. This is Café Brood, one of the bigger cafés which has lots of indoor and outdoor seating.

Eyes wide open and stomachs growling, we went in search for our lunch. It is quite a dilemma to have so many choices with limited-sized stomachs! Whilst there are a few nice cafes and restaurants around, it’s much more fun to get something from a stall and eat it sitting on a park bench, and then go in search for more. Whilst we were walking around, I spotted a lady walking by with a plate of new potatoes and cornichons (mini pickles) covered in a glorious amount of melted cheese – RACLETTE!!! “Follow that plate!”, I said to my brother! We found the raclette stall and joined the line of fellow hungry people.

Raclette!!

The wait passed quickly, as we watched the raclette-makers swing the cheese holder around and out to expose the bubbling half-moon of cheese. As they deftly lifted the huge block of cheese and scraped the top layer onto a plate of tender new potatoes, there were a lot of “oooooooooh”s and “aaaaaaaah”s – and all the tourists (including us) scrambled to take out our cameras to catch the next scraping.

They look so happy, making raclette!

I’m amazed I had the will power to take the time to take this shot – so.so.so.freakin.good! @ £6 a plate

It was the first time I had tried proper raclette, apart from the small do-it-at-home kits. It’s the usual fare for après-ski, and as I’m scared sh*tless of skiing, it would be the only way someone could convince me to go on a ski trip. We sat on a curb in the park, as all of the benches were taken. Both of us managed to drop melted cheese or cornichons on our pants, leaving grease marks – but we didn’t care. My brother was convinced that his grease mark was shaped like a smiley face Even his pants were happy to have raclette!

Baps BURSTING with goodness

After that we went back to the  charming boys at the Guildable Manor for a truly awesome sandwich. The guys grill up all of the fillings right there and then, while chatting up the girls in the queue and bantering with each other – very entertaining! I ordered their version of the Club Sandwich – a generous helping of grilled haloumi,  super-tasty back bacon bacon and (I opted to go for it without) huge chunks of grilled chicken breast in a soft bap, with a selection of tasty sauces. It was a truly superb sandwich, I would go back to the market just for one of them!

My haloumi and back bacon sandwich with salsa verde – take me back to London now! £4.80

A cross section

We went back to Café Brood and ordered two of their apple ciders so we could sit at one of their tables. At £4 it was a bit pricey, but it certainly hit the spot on that cold November day.

Sausage world! Each at £4

My brother opted to have a hot dog from Sausage World (Love the name – I know a few people who could crack a hilarious joke or two about it!) – run by the same guys who do the sandwich stall, but apparently no where near as good. I suppose that should have been self-evident from the fact that it was one of the few places without a huge line in front of it.

More sausages!

After this we decided to do a spot of shopping. There were so many products with a quality and taste that are just so hard to find in Hong Kong, and you’ll pay through the teeth for them. I wanted to buy a small selection of these products (bearing in mind the limitations of airline weight restrictions), to savour at home and share with friends. Our first stop was Une Normande a Londres, a cheese and saucisson stall run by two French brothers.

They had a great selection of sausages (Blueberry saucisson sec, anyone?), and I bought 3 for £10 – plain, ceps, and genepi). PB was very happy to receive them when I got home last night!

They also had a nice selection of cheeses. My favorite cheese is Brebis, I love it’s subtle, creamy flavour. The only way that it would stay fresh was if bought a whole block of it with the crust intact. They had a beautifully flavoured middle-aged one, but I was a bit shocked to hear that the price of it was £90! I have bought one twice the size in Paris’ Bon Marche before for less than half of the price – whilst it might have been a smaller and finer producer, I wasn’t prepared to pay that price, and reluctantly walked away from it …

Say cheese!

You could try some of the cheeses with bread from the Bread Ahead Bakery, which offers a great selection of freshly baked breads, including this monstrously huge loaf (can you even call it a loaf at this size?!) of bread, aptly called “le pain grand” (the big bread). You see those smaller loaves to the right – those are normal sized loaves!

Holy baguette! That’s a big loaf of bread

Whilst it looked quite grand, I wasn’t going to buy any of it after I saw two guys pass by, and was horrified. Understandably, they were equally as amazing buy this huge thing, but then they promptly started … poking it!! Ew.

Amazing olive oils

The ones that we bought

Make sure to visit the Olive Oil Company, where they sell a wonderful selection olive oil and vinegar, sourced from specialist producers across Italy. This was a truly wonderful source of all kinds of olive oil. The owner welcomes you to try as many of the oils as you want, and provides you with lots of nice, crusty bread to do so.

The tastes transport you immediately to Italy in your mind! I purchased one bottle of Incanto, a lighter and more fruity olive oil, whilst my brother prefered the Maremma, with a stronger tasting and more peppery flavour. At £11.30 and £13.80 for 700ml respectively, price-wise they were not far off the generic olive oils you can buy here in Park ‘n Shop! I wish I could have bought so much more!

Mons Cheesemongers

There are several cheesemongers, but the moment I saw Mons, I made a beeline for it. I recognised it immediately as the producer of the cheese that we buy regularly from GrEAT! They make some really lovely cheeses.

Our favorite is the selles sur cher, a creamy goats cheese with a crust of black ash, not too strongly flavoured yet still packs a punch. They sell it at grEAT for about HK$ 120, which is not far off the price that they sold it for at Borough Market. Even though I wasn’t able to buy any of them, I was happy to walk away knowing that even though the cheeses at grEAT are expensive, they are not marking them up by a huge amount.

The market is split into two main sections, the Jubilee Market and the Green Market, as well as other vendors scattered around them. The Jubilee Market is where most of the fresh food and artisan stalls are located, whilst the Green Market is mostly fresh produce. Feeling fully satiated from the raclette, sandwich, hot dog, mulled wine, cheese and olive oil tastings (!!), we went to check it out and to walk around to make some room for dessert.

Dried mushrooms

I wanted to try them all!

Head to Bourough Wines to  see an amazing array of artisan beers and ciders.

After scouring the website, I’ve noticed that Borough Markets have teamed up with Celia Brooks to offer 3 hours food and wine tasting tours on Fridays until the 26th April. Celia Brooks is an American vegetarian chef who was once Stanley Kubrick’s private chef. Boys, she’s also a bit of a looker, so if you take the tour, you guys might acquire a new appreciation for culinary pleasures! It’s a bit steep at GBP 70 (HK$ 860) per person, but you can taste  a whole bunch of the foods, (including the fine cheeses, Turkish delights and rare breed meats below). If I were there for longer, I might have tried it – if anyone has, please feel free to share your thoughts on the tour!

Camel burger, anyone?

Turkish delights! £5 per 100g

Vist the website (http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/) to see what’s going on at the market (there is so very much!). Cooking demonstrations, cheese evenings, Christmas events – this is just what’s flashing across my screen now, but I’m sure they have different things happening all the time, and next time I’ll be more prepared to coincide my next trip with one of them! Check the webiste also for the various opening times, I’m glad I did because I was originally going to go on a Sunday, andwhile some of the restaurants are open, all of the stalls are closed on Sundays.

Borough Markets

8 Southwark Street
London SE1 1TL
United Kingdom

Tel: 020 7407 1002

All bases are covered at Borough Market, including beverages from specialist teas and world famous coffee to English cider, international beers and hundreds of wines. For a tippling market experience, fill up with a glass of Prosecco from Borough Wines or Cartwright Bros. and get shopping!

In the middle market, New Forest Cider sells by the glass or the bottle and offers dry, medium, sweet, Kingston Black, perry and – in the winter months – hot mulled cider, along with a selection of ciders made to the Normandy and Champagne methods. Apples from their own orchard in Hampshire are pressed in October and November, along with fruit from Somerset and Herefordshire.

Around the corner, Cartwright Bros.  specialises in importing wines sourced from small independent estates, sometimes directly from the growers. Wines are primarily French and Italian, but the range is ever increasing. Try a glass of Prosecco for £3.50 or a glass of mulled wine for £3.00.

Just next door is Utobeer, which stocks beers brewed in their country of origin – whether that be Britain, America, Belgium, Germany, Holland, Scandinavia or Australia, to name just a handful. As a proud South Aussie, I am very pleased to see not only Cooper’s Pale Ale, but also the Cooper’s Sparkling and Cooper’s Stout!

And right next to that? (This shopping malarkey is so simple!) Top up your Prosecco again at Borough Wines – although at £4.50 a glass rather than £3.50, it may be worth a few steps back to Cartwright Bros! Started as a promotional stall for Chateau Ponchapt, Borough Wines still remains amostly French selection, with representation in smaller numbers from Italy, New Zealand, England and other regions. As I was there, Nyetimber Sparkling was available to taste, and was on a special offer price.

If it all just gets too much, head to The Wine Pantry, just on the edge of the Market on Stoney Street – London’s first English wine tasting room. With over 20 wines available to taste or buy by the glass, thanks to automated dispensing machines, owner Julia Stafford is an inspiring ambassador for English wines as well as English cheese and cured meat producers.

A gourmet foodie’s idea of heaven, Borough Market is open for lunch Monday-Wednesday 10am-3pm, Thursdays 11am-5pm, Fridays 12-6pm and Saturdays 8am-5pm.

JoJo’s own photos 15th September 2012

Some of you may be nearing the end of your month long abstinence from alcohol …(how dull do you want to be?)

…But for those still thinking of an exciting resolution, why not take the opportunity to explore booze you’ve not tried before.

Sure, January’s a tough month on the wallet if not on the liver, but that doesn’t mean affordable and exciting wine isn’t on tap!

Borough Wines have taken inspiration from the South of France and now offer an updated version of the refill bottle.

againagainagainMOREMOREMORE!!!!

How it works:
You buy a bottle for £2.50 and fill it up with £5 of wine from the barrel.
Then when you come back, just top it up yourself and it only costs a fiver.
The wines change every two months or so (currently a Merlot from South West France and a Sauvignon/Colombard blend from the same region), and there’s even a QR code on the costolata which will take you directly to the website and give you details of what’s in the barrel. What’s more, you can top up at a number of refill spots around East London, including the shop at Borough Market.

For those with a little more to splash, there’s a great range across France, all of which is imported directly from small producers. And for those who would rather venture into the unknown, here’s a selection of some undiscovered delights.

Quevedo White Port £14

Quevedo is a small, family run producer based in the Douro Valley. Their aim is to steer clear of the Stilton eating stereotype and produce a modern wine for modern times. The result is straw coloured in appearance, with fresh pear and citrus aromas. It’s sweet on the palate with notes of honey and more white fruit, but it still remains clean and fresh. Why not serve over ice with a slice of lemon to accentuate that citrus note? Or if you’d rather a long drink, it can be topped up with tonic.

Nectar de Kefraya £22

Another fortified white wine, this time from Chateau Kefraya in Lebanon. This is made from Ugni Blanc grapes (same stuff they grown in Cognac) and is then aged in oak barrels for four to seven years. It smells a little like a spiced rum, with notes of honey, toffee and vanilla, followed by a distinct nuttiness from the time spent in oak. Delicious with a crème brulée or a tarte tatin.

Hungarian Riesling and Tramini Both £1

Monks have been making wine at the Benedictine Archabbey of Pannonhalma, Hungary since 996. They cultivate a number of varietals, including Riesling and Tramini. Riesling makes a number of styles, from super sweet to bone dry, of which these are the latter. The Pannonhalma Riesling is lean, crisp and minerally with notes of peach and citrus. Gewurztraminer can also make a variety of styles, but this Tramini (as it’s known in Hungary) is bone dry. The nose is very aromatic and floral, with notes of lychee, lavender and pepper, but the palate is fresh and clean with none of the residual sweetness normally associated with this grape. Both would be an excellent accompaniment to sushi, or would easily cut through the richness of pork or duck.

*He’ll be back! Next time with some tips on how to say fuck off to an evil hangover.