Social Eats: Food to Impress Your Mates

Jimmy Garcia is not a man who does things by halves.From cooking elaborate five-course meals for his university friends to expanding his culinary knowledge by catering for Arabic royalty on yachts for three summers, his enthusiasm and zest for life are clear. 

His impressive skills have gained him a wide and dedicated following. 

CLICK ON BOOK TO BUY

In Social Eats, he shares his best pop-up secrets to show you how to turn your meals into gastronomic events to be remembered.

Divided into three sections - Pre-party (salads and quick fixes At the Party (cocktails, canapes & little dishes; crowd pleasers; the great outdoors; celebrations), and After Party (breakfast, brunch & comfort food)

Social Eats is packed with fun and flavour and features recipes whose variety and imagination are sure to inspire even the most jaded palate.

Jimmy Garcia Buy his new book SOCIAL EATS   click on the book to buy 

Wolverhampton Market

This morning we went for a trip to Wolverhampton to pic up the weekly veg.
  
The fruit and veg market is not what it used to be when I was a kid, but then again nothing is these days.

We visited the indoor market where we found The Spice Centre to stock up on all the ingredients you need for a curry.

We then made our way outside to get some Vegetables from Bradleys, They have been trading in the market for over fifty years.

However they are very concerned that when the redevelopment of the indoor market happens there will be very little left of the outdoor fruit and veg market. 

This problem is not exclusive to Wolverhampton, Markets have been disappearing all over the country , no doubt they are forced out of business when a huge supermarket springs up right next to them as happened here last year when Sainsbury's opened a new 60 million pound store.

Towns like Wolverhampton are suffering up and down the country and the problem is a hard one to solve.

The supermarkets have large amounts of cash to invest in deprived areas which can be very tempting for local councils.You have the likes of Tesco etc offering incentives like paying for new pedestrian crossings etc, to help their planning applications go through a little quicker. Small independent retailers and market stall holders can't compete with that. 

We need to find a balance to our retail economy and this is one of the biggest challenges facing the national government and local planning departments. 

Mary Portas had good intentions when she launched her campaign to rejuvenate the High Street a couple of years ago.  

A trip to Wolverhampton would tell you there's much more work to be done. 

Hospital Food at King's London

I was visiting King's hospital in Camberwell last week and I popped into their shop to get a sandwich.

I was shocked at the prices they were charging, A beef sandwich was £3.95 which seems a hell of a lot for a basic Sarine, that's Top end prices you expect to see in Pret a Manger and other deli sandwich shops.

When you are visiting a hospital you notice that the vast majority of the people there are not wealthy, they are ordinary people going about their business, struggling to pay the bills and yet they are being asked to fork out top dollar for basic sustenance while sorting out their health issues or visiting friends and family.

This sends out a bad example of how we view our access to basic food and how it is reserved for those that can afford it .

A hospital should set the benchmark and should be High in quality and Low on price

Come on Labour party! this basic cost of living crisis is what you should be focusing on in the run up to the election in 2015 . The Tories are not helping anyone apart from the wealthy in this country , its about time we had saw fair prices return to our food shelves. The price of oil has dropped enormously over the past six months due partly to government sanctions against Putin, this just shows when they want to change systems they can do it . So lets fix up our food pricing structure so that good quality food is available to the masses and not just the few.

Taj Mahal Restaurant in Streatham

The Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant Streatham

Back in the late 1980’s I shared a bedsit with my friend Dennis in Streatham, it cost £23 a week, unimaginable these days.  In true bedsit tradition we had our local Indian curry house, we went there most weeks, eat the same dishes and always seemed to pay £22 for two.

Recently when Dennis was back in London I returned to the restaurant for a trip down memory lane, some 20 years after my last visit.

The Taj Mahal was established back in 1962, it has basic seating for about 30 people and a small bar at the front of the restaurant. 

On arriving we were met by the owner Moben, who remembered us from years before, he is very knowledgeable about his food and he made us feel very welcome.

We chose starters of, Onion Bhaji, Prawn Puree, Vegetable Samosa and mains of Chicken Jalfrezi, Lamb Naga and for old times’ sake we had Chicken Korma and Lamb Rogan.

The Naga Lamb was tender and fell apart in my mouth the flavour was excellent and the chicken in the Jalfrezi was perfectly cooked. The curries were very tasty and not overly spiced.

We had Sag Paneer to go with our mains which was very creamy and sweet.

The usual accompaniments of rice, Nan bread and poppadum’s were also good.

We also had Cobra and Kingfisher beers and a Mango Lassi.

The bill for the meal for four people including drinks and service was about £85 which seems reasonably good value.

Delivery Service

A few weeks later on a Wednesday evening I tried their delivery service and I am pleased to say this is pretty good too. All the dishes were equally as good, although the Nan bread was a tad cold on delivery, a minor slip which did not spoil the experience.

On the whole Taj Mahal is a good value restaurant serving quality produce in a friendly environment and definitely worth paying a visit.

Taj Mahal

11a Leigham Court Road

Streatham

London

SW16 2ND

020 8769 0704

^{https://twitter.com/TajCurry}