Category: Food

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Sushi and Noodle Bar opens up in West Ealing

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I’ve just had a flier through my door for the new Sushi and Noodle Bar in West Ealing. So, the renovation work must be finished and the one-time Joey’s cafe in Leeland Road next to the Salvation Army is now the Sumo Sushi & Noodle Bar. It’s open from 12noon -3pm for lunch and 6-10.30pm for dinner and they do take-away and home delivery. If anyone tries it do please come back and write a review here for us.  Their website is www.sumooriental.com and has their menu and prices on it. Good luck to them.

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One shop closes and another one opens – noodle bar coming to West Ealing

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Sad to see the end of Blockbuster. It’s now closed down and we await to see what comes in its place.  The betting seems to be on Morrisons. I’m trying to get this confirmed but no luck so far. A few streets away in Leeland Road I saw a sign on an empty cafe announcing the arrival of a noodle bar. It’s taking over Joey’s cafe next to the Salvation Army hall. I can’t remember a previous noodle bar in West Ealing so it will be intertesting to see how it does. I wish it well.

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Had enough of cooking over Christmas? Give yourself a break and come along to Sally and Steff’s Supper Club on Saturday

If you’ve seen enough of your kitchen stove and sink this Christmas and New Year then give yourself a break and come along to Sally and Steph’s Supper Club at the W7Emporium in Hanwell on Saturday. Sally and Steff met at OPEN Ealing and out of this was born the supper club. It’s a chance to get out and enjoy someone else’s cooking in good company and accompanied by music from two musicians from one of  West Ealing’s best bands – Blushing Bones.

Their three course menu is based on the recipes of Yotam Ottolenghi with live acoustic folk-based music from singer Tess and guitarist Jibs, of the Blushing Bones. 

Date: Saturday  January 5th  2013 

Time:  7.30p.m. for 8.00p.m.–11.30p.m.

Place:  W7 Emporium, 60b,Boston Rd,Hanwell,London W7 3TR (Opposite Wickes)

Price: £30 per head for welcome glass of Prosecco and nibbles, 3 courses + coffee.

Wine and cheese at an additional charge will be provided by the local W7 cheesemonger Claire.

Booking: Please contact Sally on sashrubsall@aol.com Stephanie on s.sundle@btinternet.com or book through the W7 Emporium directly. Please mention when booking if you have special dietary requirements (e.g. vegetarian or allergies) so that we can take this into consideration. N.B Some recipes contain nuts, and will be present in the food preparation areas.

Menu available shortly from W7 Emporium Facebook page.

 

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Winter and the bees: good news from the Walmer Gardens orchard, West Ealing

Thanks to WEN Abundance volunteer, and novice local beekeeper, Veronica Chang for this update from the Walmer Gardens community orchard:

“Wow, 30 jars of honey!! That’s amazing. I hardly had any from my hives this year”.  That comment from an experienced bee-keeper in Suffolk was a real testament to the good fortune we had with the hive in the Walmer Gardens orchard (helped along by a bit of skill, dedication and enthusiasm from our beekeepers too).

 An encounter with Sarah Dye during an Abundance blackberry-picking session led to my involvement with the Ealing Transition Community Bee group, which Sarah was setting up.

Our bees arrived in April this year and over the spring and summer months we carried out weekly inspections of their hive.  We checked to see if the queen was present, if there were eggs, and if the eggs were turning into adults.  It was amazing to see the workers (female adults) bring in the pollen in such a fantastic array of colours, and they managed this despite the appalling summer weather. And of course one of the most rewarding and exciting things for us novice beekeepers was being able to take our wonderful crop of honey in August.   As the cold weather descends we ensure that the bees have enough food to get them through the winter; and we look forward to next year, with hopefully a good harvest for us, and my friend in Suffolk too.

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West Ealing project wins national food award

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Congratulations to Cultivate London for winning the Producer of the Year award in the 2012 Observer Food Monthly Awards. In the company of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall,  Nigel Slater and Sir Terence Conran as prizewinners, Cultivate London was set up and is funded by West Ealing based charity Pathways.

Cultivate London converts derelict land in to urban farms to grow herbs and plants. It has two sites in Brentford and you can find its produce at the weekly farmers’ market in West Ealing in Leeland Road.

The Ealing Today website has a fuller version of this story.

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Where has all the fruit gone?

WEN Abundance is having a lean year for the first time since its inception 5 years ago with very little fruit on offer so far. We are by no means the only group suffering from a lack of Abundance, groups across London and the rest of the country are scaling down activities.  A mixture of a bumper year last year and mixed weather earlier on this year has resulted in fewer yields to date. 

Luckily for us we made lots of produce last year – including delicious new chutney recipes. All of which will be on sale at West Ealing Family Day on Saturday 22nd September.  Come along to our stall outside St James Church, St James Avenue from 10am – 4pm (providing stocks last!).

If anyone knows of any suitable fruit going spare, particularly apples for our fruit press to use at West Ealing Family Day please contact wenabundance@gmail.com

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Blue Monday, St Nectaire and other fabulous cheeses available locally

Months ago I wrote about subscribing to Claire Rosser’s Hanwell-based W7emporium monthly cheese service. Shortly after that Brent opened Cheddar Deli in Northfield Ave and, blow me, we now have two fabulous local cheese suppliers. That’s pretty good going for West Ealing/Hanwell.

I’ve subscribed to Claire’s monthly delivery service since it started and it’s always a pleasure to open up the neatly packed paper bag with its cheese selection.  Last week we got six cheeses including the delicious St Nectaire from the Auvergne. I’m half way through the Bleu D’Auvergne and my wife has eaten the Camembert without me ever getting to taste it – never mind!  We’ve yet to try the mature cheddar and Leicester. And whatismore, Claire is planning to open a shop in Hanwell this spring and more news of that when it’s open.

Talking of open, at OPEN Ealing we have a monthly First Friday event when we have the opening of two new gallery exhibitions. For this we offer wine and cheese and this time the cheese has been coming from Cheddar Deli. Brent sells a fantastic variety of cheeses, is hugely knowledgeable about the cheeses he stocks and it’s a pleasure to hear him talk about where they come from and what they taste like.

I hope both succeed as that’s got to be good for both West Ealing and Hanwell.  Do please try them out and both have Facebook pages:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/w7emporium/223601020990051

http://www.facebook.com/CheddarDELI

 

 

 

 

 

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Ealing Transition looking for people to help it tell its story

Ealing Transition is a focal point for practical community action on peak oil and climate change. It now has 1200 members and is looking for volunteers to help it tell its story:

Telling the Transition Story

Are you a storyteller, a journalist, blogger or film-maker? Could you get Ealing Transition into the headlines? We need a team to start magnifying the effect of our work, making our website work harder, using social media to its greatest potential, making presentations to groups around the borough etc. Contact steering@ealingtransition.org.uk if you think you can help.

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Try one of the triple smoked hams from Luckhurst’s in West Ealing

Triple smoked hams are a  bit of a strange topic for a blog entry but I hope it will be of interest to some of our readers as they are just fantastic.

We buy a lot of our meat from Luckhurst’s in Melbourne Avenue and I’ve seen these dark-coloured hams hanging up for some years but never gave them much thought. This Christmas however, and with a bit of prompting from my wife, we decided to find out what they are as they seem very popular. Talking to Tony Luckhurst I found out that they are triple smoked hams and come from a specialist supplier in north London. Not surprisingly they take some time to prepare and a whole one will cost around £40 and a half around £20.

So, having found out what they are, we ordered a half one for Christmas. I got some advice from Tony on cooking it and did a bit more research and decided to boil it for half the time and then bake it in the oven for the other half. We had it for dinner one evening just after Christmas and it was by far and away the best ham I’ve ever eaten. It was tasty and moist. It hadn’t dried out at all despite being cooked for about 4 hours. We bought another one yesterday and it was just as good. It does smell a bit like kippers when you take it out of the wrapping but I thoroughly recommend it.

In terms of cooking, I cut off the skin but left as much of the fat as possible. Then I scored the fat and managed to find a large enough saucepan and covered the ham in water and brought it to the boil. I then drained off the water and put in clean water and brought it to the boil again and simmered it for half the necessary cooking time – about 90mins/2hrs depending on size. After this I took it out and put molasses (or treacle) over the scored side, out it in a roasting tin and covered it with foil and in to a moderate oven (160C) to finish and took off the foil for the last half hour. I’m sure there are lots of other ways to cook it but this works well for us.

I know it’s a bit of a treat but if you have a special occasion it’s well worth it and cold ham is still good to eat afterwards so it will all get used.

Do let us know what you think if you try it.