Caphe House’s Special Banh Mi

Special banh mi at Caphe House

This post is a little later than expected, apologies. My trip to Germany kind of got in the way.

I ended up at Caphe House by accident one Saturday afternoon.  Back in September, I was asked to judge the bake-off at the Bermondsey Street Festival with my Band of Bakers co-founder Naomi.  I don’t know if you’ve ever considered the practicalities of judging a cake competition, but you end up consuming an awful lot of sugar.  We had a plan to taste just one bite of each cake, but some were so good, I ended up going back for seconds, and even thirds, fourths and fifths of the winning cake.  With the wide eyes and slightly manic demeanour of a child that’s overindulged on e-numbers, I went on the hunt for some savoury food to try to counteract the sugar.

The Bermondsey Street Festival has grown considerably since I first visited in 2009 and now has a huge street food section, with many vans pitching up for the day and a number of the local restaurants setting up their own stalls.  There were a couple of beer-and-burger deals, including one from The Woolpack, one of my favourite Bermondsey pubs, but the queues were colossal.  With neither my husband or myself willing to wait that long, I suggested we instead go for a banh mi.

Although there are more Vietnamese restaurants south of the river than there used to be, most are still concentrated around the Kingsland Road in Shoreditch.  Caphe House is more cafe than restaurant, with a few menu items focusing around baguettes, soup and salads, rather than the pages and pages of menu you find in the east.  Their speciality is authentic Vietnamese coffee, which becomes an obsession for anybody lucky enough to have visited Vietnam.  I like mine with ice and a lot of condensed milk.

Another obsession that followed me back was banh mi.  Both my husband and I ordered the special banh mi, which is pork and pate – one of the most common types you will find in Vietnam.  The pork and pork pate have a deep flavour, despite the pork looking perhaps a little pale and the bread, although not the traditional rice flour baguettes, was both crispy and light.  What I liked the most was that the sandwich was packed full with pickled carrot, daikon and onions and topped with a generous amount of red chilli.  I have had far too many banh mis that lack both the acidity and the heat that comes from these items, but this one had those flavours in abundance.  The service was a little sketchy and we had to wait a while, but what the hell.

Caphe House, 114 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TX

The Meatball Sub of My Dreams

The meatball sub of my dreams

As the summer turns to autumn and the days get shorter and cooler, I find myself with an urge to fill up the freezer for winter.  One of the first things I make is a stash of meatballs and tomato sauce which can quickly be defrosted and turned into a quick and hearty meal when it’s just too cold to leave the house.  As well as this, they can be used to make one of the greatest sandwiches ever invented: the meatball sub. 

I first encountered this Italian-American creation at the Southampton branch of Subway in the 1990s during the dark days of sandwiches when few were available outside of chain restaurants, supermarkets and what you could buy in the buffet carriage of the train to Waterloo.  20 years, a move to London and two trips to New York later, not only have I tried many far superior examples, I have also perfected my own.  It seems fairly straightforward; a simple combination of meat, bread, melted cheese and sauce, but there are a few pointers that can turn a meatball sub into a thing of beauty.

A quick google search will bring up a number of recipes for this most delectable of comfort foods.  Reading them and tweaking them will lead you to the combo that is just sheer perfection.  Below is not a recipe for my own meatball sub, but instead a few pointers from years of trying to get it right.  Seriously, there are few things better on a cold autumn day. 

The Meatballs
I use this recipe by Polpo.  I have experimented with meatballs of various sizes, but have found that the best ones for a standard-sized submarine roll are 35g balls.  The best thing about these meatballs are that they are baked in the oven, rather than cooked in a pan, which gives them a lovely soft texture.  If you like the crispy edges, by all means, fry them instead.  They use both beef and pork mince, which gives a lovely depth of flavour and stops them being too dry.  The addition of garlic and chilli flakes makes them extra special.

The Sauce
The traditional sauce for a meatball sub is marinara, however as I always make large quantities of meatballs and sauce for the freezer, I tend to use what I have rather than make a whole new batch of sauce especially.  This  great recipe, also by Polpo, that uses both fresh and tinned tomatoes.  Once the meatballs have been poached in the sauce, I pick them out and arrange them in the sub before ladling a little sauce over the top.

The Cheese
Parmesan, or a similar hard cheese, is the best option here as the strength means that a little goes a long way.  You can also use a decent strong cheddar if you have one, although many meatball sub purists may wince at this suggestion.  Always finely grate and add after the sauce.

The Bread
Arguably the most important part of the meatball sub experience, only a white submarine roll is acceptable here.  One of the best ones I have found is a cheapo 2-pack from Sainsbury’s, it is just the right size and has that lovely dusting of polenta on the top which gives the otherwise soft sandwich a bit of crunch.  Slice the submarine roll in half lengthways and scoop out some of the bread from the inside.  This creates a groove for the meatballs to snuggle into and a neater sandwich.  You don’t need all that bread after all.

Other Additions
It’s up to you whether you add any salad.  Many don’t, but I always feel a little undernourished without at least a little something green, so add a single layer of lettuce leaves (soft part only) under the meatballs.  Because neither my sauce nor my meatballs contain any basil, I also like the addition of a few torn basil leaves.  Other salad items don’t really work.  Black pepper is essential.

Chi’s Char Siu Pork Banh Mi

Char siu pork banh mi from Chi, Fitzrovia

Ever since I made a trip to Vietnam five years ago I have been on the hunt for a good banh mi.    Whilst staying in a hotel in Saigon that overlooked the main road, we would be woken up every morning by the sound of a woman shouting “Banh Mi! Banh Mi!”  We would then wander, hungry and bleary eyed, down to the street for our breakfast.  Her set up was incredibly simple:  a hot plate built over a motorbike, a couple of knives, a few tupperwares containing the rest of her ingredients, and a basket of rice flour baguettes.  A baguette filled with pickled carrot and daikon, a lot of chilli, a slick of pate and a fried egg was enough to shake off any hangover from the night before.

The banh mi is a product of the French colonisation of Vietnam.  Baguettes and coffee are as ubiquitous here as noodles, and can be found all over the country in various forms.  Such a European-inspired element of Vietnamese food was easily transferable to the culture-hungry diners of London.  Fortunately my return to London coincided with both the explosion of street food in London, so I never had to look too hard for a banh mi.  In more recent years, these have been so popular as to move off the street and into permanent cafes.

It was a tube strike that brought me into contact with Chi through a morning walk from Kings Cross to Oxford Circus on a previously unknown street.  I made a mental note of its location and went back at lunchtime.  It is a small cafe, sparsely decorated in the same way as the Vietnamese restaurants you would find on the Kingsland Road.  By the window is a small bench and there is one two-seat table.  Each time I have since been in there, there has been a few people eating in and a bit of a queue – mostly office workers.  They have a small menu, mostly of banh mi, but of a few noodle dishes as well.  There are a number of different banh mi on available, priced at £3.50 for a regular sized baguette, or £4.50 for a large.

The char siu pork baguette contains a few slices of the sweet roasted pork, warmed up as needed, topped with a generous amount of pickled daikon and carrot, some chopped parsley and coriander, and a scarlet slick of Sriracha.  The flavours from this banh mi are actually very good, the vegetables are nicely pickled and the flavour of the pork comes through well against them.  For me, it could use a lot more chilli.  I know that the western palate is not always amenable to heat, but this had barely any.  Even a second helping of Sriracha did not do the job that a handful of finely chopped red chillies would do.  Having this as an option would improve the banh mi immeasurably.  I’m not even going to get into the whole issue of rice flour baguettes as I have never come across anywhere that uses them.  Apparently there are hardly any wholesalers in London.  Somebody has definitely missed a trick there.

Chi, 168 New Cavendish Street, London W1W 6YX.

Kaffeine’s Ham, Cheese and Grilled Peach Baguette

The ham, cheese and grilled peach baguette from Kaffeine, Fitzrovia

You know when your hangover from Saturday night’s drinking lasts through until Monday it was a good weekend.  After dragging my sorry self into the office with a slight headache and the tail-end of the drunk dreads, the only thing that would remedy the situation was to get on to the streets of Fitzrovia and look for a good sandwich.

I only got as far as Kaffeine when I realised that a good coffee was exactly what I needed to shake me out of my current mood.  This little black-fronted coffee shop has taken a lot of flack since it opened a few years ago, however a slightly negative TimeOut review and some snipes about ‘hipster coffee’ hasn’t damaged its reputation.  Getting a seat outside the front window is near impossible and the inside too is always busy.  It almost always features on the list of best coffee in the capital and I, for one, am in agreement.  They use the excellent Square Mile Coffee and are really particular about how they make it.  Whilst not a coffee expert, I am always happy to receive a nice strong cup with a slick of crema.  Definitely not style over substance.

They have a range of sandwiches that are listed online in their weekly menu alongside a range of cakes, biscuits and pastries.  There are usually three sandwich options, with at least one vegetarian, which are usually seasonal and use a range of different breads.  Some have said that the £5 they charge for a takeaway sandwich (£5.30 to eat in) is a little steep, but this seems to be the going rate in Fitzrovia coffee shops these days, and is only really £1 more than the offerings of the chains, Pret, Eat etc.

I opted for a the ham and cheese baguette, which seems a bit of an underwhelming description for what I was served, which was an absolute delight.  Roasted Italian ham, mature cheddar cheese, grilled peaches, aioli and spinach.  Both the ham and cheese were deep in flavour and good quality, but it was the other accompaniments that made the sandwich.  A ham and cheese always needs a bit of mayo to loosen it up, but the substitution for aoili just gave it a little extra flavour element – a hum of garlic, but nothing too overpowering.  The grilled peaches added the sweetness and did the job that a chutney or relish would usually do.  It got me thinking that adding cooked fruit to a sandwich could actually be a more appealing option than chutney, as many of the ready-made versions are often too heavy in spice and vinegar and overpower the rest.  What else is there to say? Kaffeine make a damn good coffee and a damn good sandwich too.

Kaffeine, 66 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7QJ

Scandinavian Kitchen’s Swedish Meatball Baguette

Swedish meatball baguette from the Scandinavian Kitchen, Fitzrovia

Another world-class photo from me.  The smudgy pink fingerprints really set it off, don’t you think? I could lay the blame at a number of doors, but it’s just that I’m not very good. Sorry.

Working just around the corner from the Scandinavian Kitchen is both a blessing and a curse.  It is wonderful to be able to pop out for one of their excellent cinnamon buns or enormous semlor whenever I want; but on the other hand, the convenience of doing so means that I am there frequently, which is not pleasing to waistline or wallet alike.  As far as their savoury options go, there are a number of good sandwiches on offer.  They sometimes have a lunchtime deal of a hotdog and beer for £5 (just don’t ask them whether the Swedish or Danish beer is better as the staff hail from both countries!), or a number of open sandwiches that you can have as part of a lunch platter:  three ‘items’ for £5.95.  My favourite is the herring.

Yesterday I had little time to dine in so these options were off the table.  I turned my attention instead to a selection of pre-wrapped baguettes behind the glass counter – the kind you can eat at your desk in between phonecalls.  Two words grabbed me:  Swedish Meatball.

It’s nearly impossible to write about Swedish meatballs without the mention of a certain furniture stall and its food hall.  Although this is probably the extent to which much of the UK has been exposed to Swedish food, they are a poor example.  They have definitely gone downhill since the horsemeat scandal – make of that what you will.  Proper Swedish meatballs, homemade or from a Scandinavian cafe, are infinitely superior.  Made into a sandwich, they also work well, and are an interesting alternative to the Italian meatball sub.  The Scandinavian Kitchen version comes in a soft white baguette with a delicious sweet beetroot sauce (hence the mucky edges!), some lightly pickled cucumbers and a whole lot of salad.  Eternally preferable to the gloopy gravy and lingonberry jam (shudder).  The meatballs have a good amount of flavour and seasoning and are plentiful enough to make a substantial lunch.  The presentation could be improved a little, but their usual selection is so pretty, we’ll just put it down to an off day on that front.

Plus, who can resist the hilarity of the puns on the board outside?

Indeed…

Scandinavian Kitchen, 61 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7PP

John Lewis’ 150 Years Ham and Cheese Sandwich

The ham and cheese sandwich from John Lewis’ A Place to Eat

Everybody’s favourite department store is currently celebrating 150 years since the opening of its flagship Oxford Circus store in 1864.  I often wonder what life would be like without John Lewis.  I am so fond of it that my best friend and I refer to it as ‘The Mothership’.

Department store cafes are a strange beast, evoking images of their 1990s glory days when you would trundle up the escalator from homewares for a cup of tea and a scone, and a quick trip to the loo, before heading home.  They still exist in their many guises; some have drastically improved and installed restaurants (Selfridges) whilst others are like stepping back in time to the above (BHS).

There seems to have been cafes in branches of John Lewis since time began and although they have moved with the times somewhat, there is still a sense of nostalgia:  the coffee is still served in teacups and you can still buy the largest scones on earth from the cake counter alongside the more modern vertiginously iced cupcakes.  The omelette station still seems to have the biggest queue which seems strange to me as I have never eaten an omelette in a cafe. Ever.

A Place to Eat, as it has been called for some time, is also celebrating 150 years of John Lewis by offering up some of the old favourites on the sandwich counter.  Prawn mayo baguettes with cucumber curled in a 1970s fashion and tuna sandwiches with a lot of cress sit next to the more modern offerings.  I opted for the heritage ham and cheese. The oldies are the goodies.

The baguette was at least a foot long, so was cut in half by the gentleman behind the counter.  Thick slices of ham were folded into the sandwich with triangles of cheese sticking vertically up from the slit like yellow shark’s fins.  Among the mixed leaves I detected a smear of sandwich pickle.

The bread was fresh and the ham good-quality and well-flavoured.  The cheese was a fairly generic medium cheddar, but nice enough.  The problem was that the whole thing was a little dry and didn’t quite have enough pickle.  A quick trip to the condiment station (that had just about everything by the way) procured a little sachet of mayonnaise that sorted it out right away.  Ham and cheese sandwiches have become a little hard to find of late, but a good one is a thing of beauty.  This is a good one, a little more pickle and it would be a great one.

Workshop Coffee’s Hummus, Harissa and Roasted Red Peppers Baguette

The hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers baguette from Workshop Coffee, Fitzrovia

There’s a lot of good coffee in Fitzrovia right now.  Gone are the days of the terrible freeze-dried stuff they provide at my office, or the overpriced chains where they burn the beans and scorch the milk (shudder).  With baristas flocking to W1 and new cafes opening up all the time, it is very difficult to remain monogamous to one.  The caffeine-hungry, it seems, are spoiled for choice.

On my return to work from a long summer holiday, I was pleasantly surprised to find a new branch of Workshop Coffee on Mortimer Street, conveniently placed at the very end of my commute.  I had schlepped over to their Marylebone branch a few times to pick up coffee for my home machine, but it was a little too far for a mid-morning sneak-out-of-the-office coffee.

I could talk about the coffee all day, but this is a sandwich blog, so I will leave it at this: it’s blinding.

The new Fitzrovia cafe is characteristically sparse in design, but has a comfortable seating area at the back, should you wish to stay a while.  My favourite feature of the place was the rows of bright peacock blue espresso cups lined up on top of the coffee machine.  If I hadn’t espresso cups enough, I would have bought one there and then.

There were only a few varieties of sandwich on offer, in a glass case by the window.  There was no menu in the shop, nor is there one on the website, so I imagine the selection changes daily.  I opted for the vegan option: hummus, harissa and roasted red peppers, with a bit of salad, on a malted wholemeal baguette.  It can be quite difficult to make vegan sandwiches filling and exciting, especially without the usual stalwarts of falafel or tofu, but this worked really well.

I often approach harissa with a bit of caution as it can be blisteringly hot (my brother-in-law makes a particularly ferocious one), but Workshop blended it with the hummus, which cooled it down whilst retaining the chilli tang.  The hummus was slightly chunky, which gave a good amount of texture, especially against the slipperiness of the roasted peppers.  If I’m being particularly fussy, I would have preferred the peppers to be chopped more finely to make the sandwich easier to eat.  Aside from that, it was perfect.

Best eaten with a cappuccino.

Workshop Coffee, 80 Mortimer Street, London W1U 1QD.