Jose Pizzaro: Spanish Simplicity

Spain has a long and inspiring culinary history, every province resonates with such a clear cultural identity, forged from a mixture of nature, politics history and the available ingredients. Cantabria with its amazing boquerones, Castilla y León and it's superlative Iberico pork and Valencia with its paella. There's a vibrancy and passion for food that matches both France and Italy, yet is given far less credit by the external food community. While Spain boasts some of the highest ranked restaurants in the world: El Cellar de Can Roca being named the best in 2013, Mugartiz (4th), Arzak (8th) and of course the previously imperious El Bulli; a Spaniard has never even ranked in the top 3 at the fabled Bocuse D'or and the country has only half as many three starred Michelin restaurants as those sausage-eating, sauerkraut-loving Germans.

Croquettas

Burger & Lobster Review [Farringdon]: Catch of the Day

Back in 2011 London slowly started mirroring a very New York trend for single-dish restaurants; so much so the Graun even wrote an article about it. By 2013 it seems that despite our love of supermarkets and the mantra of "Choice, choice, choice!"; when it comes to eating out we prefer to take the less taxing route. Virtually every Soho joint is a 'singlet': steak, noodles, falafel, burgers, meatballs, even mash potato! Clearly fans of Adam Smith's work, I can appreciate that the potential to create something truly special, when you only have one dish to focus on, is that much greater. Burger & Lobster caught on early, opening their Mayfair joint in 2011 and they took the limited menu idea one step further by offering everything at the same price. No starters just a lobster roll, a burger and a whole lobster each for £20. Needless to say they became rather popular. Since then they have opened three other locations around London in Soho (Dean St), the City (St Pauls) and Farringdon. Because of the other trend of not taking reservations and my general lack of patience for queuing when I'm hungry, I'd never actually been before. To rectify this I met up with Clerkenwell_Boy and Burger Addict at the Farringdon branch. Will, who runs the whole network, kindly showed us around the kitchens and the tanks and answered all our annoying blogger questions. Thanks again Will, t'was very kind.

I think we're gonna need a bigger boat