Special Series Introduction: Carnivore/Sous-Vide

Greetings!  I don't know if anyone other than myself actually reads this blog, but I've decided to do a special series of posts on the topics of Carnivore (aka Zerocarb) and Sous Vide cooking.  For the past couple of years, if you've paid attention to trends on this blog, you may have noticed my meals tend to consist of low to zero carbs.  As a result of my change in diet, my enthusiasm for reviewing restaurants has diminished somewhat, as my options for eating out have been restricted.  In addition, I have reviewed so many restaurants in my immediate vicinity that it now takes more effort to find something new, let alone interesting or good!  Thus the blog has languished with my haphazard updates.

Additionally, I frequently find myself having to explain to friends or family all about my journey towards eating Carnivore, answering questions about how that really works, whether I experience any side effects, how I don't get bored of eating meat, and how do I manage to keep the grocery bill manageable.  Add to that my recent obsession with Sous-Vide and those explanations.

So the other day I thought to myself in the shower (where else?) that maybe I should do a new blog or series of posts all about these topics, so that if someone was genuinely interested they could learn from my experience.

And here we are.  This is the introductory post...future posts are forthcoming, but here's my current plan:

Journey to Carnivore:  Baby Steps
Sous-Vide:  Equipment and Advice
One Main Recipe:  Sous-Vide Ground Meat with Cheese
Baking Bacon
Carnivore and Eating Out

I may add more over time as inspiration strikes.

Enjoy!

Suihou

Rating: Not great
Meal: Lunch for 3
Price: 6240 yen
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Two lunch specials, one fried rice
English Menu: Yes
Smoking:  No

Wow, this was a disappointment.  This is a fancy looking chinese restaurant right next to Ueno station and the place our church meets (we moved recently).  I've been looking forward to trying it to see if possibly downtown Tokyo near one of the busiest stations in town a decent Chinese restaurant might exist.  Verdict:  No, it doesn't.

Fancy indeed, the atmosphere is super nice, and so are the prices.  But the food is of the same general mediocre "japanese" Chinese we've come to expect here, sadly.  I didn't bother with pictures this time...it was so disappointing.  I can't believe how much they charged us...we ordered off the lunch "special" menu, except for my son who wanted fried rice, so we got one off the main menu for him.  The English menu did not have price details for a lot of things, but I thought nothing of it.  The specials were around 4000 yen together, meaning my son's one dish was around 2000 yen...crazy.  

If it had been some of the best food we'd ever had, that would be one thing, but the disappointing quality combined with high prices makes this a spot to avoid.

Cave of Lanka

Rating: Excellent
Meal: Dinner
Price: 31 GBP
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Cave chicken appetizer, black port curry set, glass of wine

Finally, an Excellent review!  It's been over a year I think since the last one.  My wife and son were not feeling well so I went out to eat by myself.  There are so many good looking options near Earl's Court Station, but I finally settled on a subterranean wine bar called "Cave of Lanka."  The proprietor told me it's London's second oldest wine bar, under recent new management.  They serve Sri Lankan cuisine and wine of course.

Sri Lankan is somewhat similar to Indian food, but I thought I'd give it a try since I don't have any reviews of that cuisine on my blog.  Of course I had to try glass of red wine, which was quite nice.  I wanted to try a few things, but sticking with mainly meat of course, so I got a cave chicken appetizer, which also comes as a main.  In addition the black pork curry set which came with some roti, and a few other small dishes.  All of it was very delicious and it is by far the best meal I've had since coming to the UK.

The Blackbird

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Dinner for 2
Price: 45 GBP
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  3 small beers, pie/beer sampler, cheese board

We really love meat pies, and lo and behold, one of the top rated pie-houses is right near where we are staying by Earl's Court station.  This lovely pub/hotel is a classy joint.  We started by asking for beer recommendations given our Pacific NW hophead nature.  They were free with their tasting and we both settled on a couple of small glasses before perusing the menu.

Of course we wanted all the pies, so we decided to try the pie/beer sampler which came with 3 of their pies and 3 more beers.  The pies were very delicious, especially the steak and minced pies.  The third veggie cauliflower one was just ok.  The beers were typically British, not that great, so I reordered the beer I had originally. The beers were all by Fullers Brewery, and the one I liked best was the Honeydew.

We finished off with a cheese platter, munching on stilton, brie and cheddar (I think).  The stilton was the best...but all quite delicious with the circular crackers.  We were glad we got there early as it became quite crowded towards the end of our meal.

Ma La

Rating: OK
Meal:  Lunch for 3
Price: 54 GBP
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: 8 piece dimsum set, special peanut sauce dimsum, beef with black bean sauce set, pork belly main, water, rice

We were just done with Westminster Abbey and hungry, so we looked around for a place to eat and came across Ma La, a Szechuan chinese restaurant.  Didn't expect it to be so fancy, but there were hovering waiters, ridiculously expensive bottled water and the whole nine yards.

We ordered as listed and while everything was ok, nothing was really incredible flavor-wise.  And it was very spendy.  Meh.

Maroush Lebanese Bakehouse

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Dinner for 3
Price: 64 GBP
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes:  2 glasses of wine, mutabbel, muhammara, lamb shawarma plate, chicken shawarma wrap, shishtawouk wrap

This Lebanese restaurant appears to have equipment in the back for mass producing arabic bread, probably the origin of their "bakehouse" name.  However they are also a full restaurant, quite a nice one at that, but still do a brisk takeout business as well.

I really liked the look of their lamb shawarma meat on display as it was clearly not the processed gunk you see many other places.  Carefully layered slabs of lamb and fat were clearly visible.  We had the usual mezze items, but not as many as the prices were quite steep.  Also we went for a couple of glasses of Lebanese wine, which was very tasty.  The bread was, unfortunately, pretty much what you'd expect at a supermarket in the Middle East, not the special, hand made, freshly baked variety we'd expect at the better Lebanese restaurants.  Still, the meats were properly spiced and the mezze dishes tasty.  The lamb was a little dryer than I expected, but still quite good.

Wraps and burritos never photo well, but that one was my wife's chicken shawarma.  She liked it.  We also ordered another wrap to go for my son, and he didn't like anything about it but the meat, but he's ridiculous like that.

Masala Indian Restaurant

Rating: Very good
Meal:  Dinner for 2
Price: 27 GBP
Payment: Credit cards accepted
Dishes: Lassi, samosas, paratha, kofta with sauce, chicken saag, butter chicken takeaway

Finally!  Real Indian food in a small, low key restaurant.  This place seems like a local fixture as many people kept coming and ordering to go, seemingly on a first name basis with the lady running the place.  My wife and I enjoyed our first night out in London immensely after finding this spot.  We are staying near Earl's Court station, so many of the upcoming reviews will likely be in the same area.

As this is primarily a to-go counter, the food is all on display, but you can order from the menu as well if you want to sit down.  They had a salt lassi on the menu, as well as some meat and peas samosas, both delicious.  Of course we had to try the paratha, which was more of the whole wheat variety, but still full of ghee and fabulous.  I had a special dish with kofta meatballs and a curry sauce, while my wife had her preferred chicken saag curry.  We relished each bite.  We also ordered a butter chicken and rice dish to take home to our son for his dinner.

The only reason I wouldn't give them an Excellent rating is that we have had better Indian, but this is at last a return to the flavors we got used to in the middle east, and the price is great.  There are tons of Indian restaurants in London, but many of them are fancy sit down places which is not our favorite experience.  This place is relaxed and much less formal.