Skint Lunch Club: 81 Renshaw Street

Streaky Bacon, Cream Cheese & Spring Onion sandwich and a large bowl of Sweet Potato and Chickpea soup.

Hands up who’s skint. Well, that makes two of us. I looked at my bank account last week and let out a wail that could probably be heard across Merseyside. To add insult to injury, January looks to be the month where everything I own suddenly decides to break or run out. Eyeliner, jeans, PC hard drives, you name it. It’s like one long Monday where your bank manager has you on speed dial and you can’t afford to drown your sorrows in overpriced cocktails.

However, like the brave little soldier I am, I refuse to allow my straightened circumstances to stop me indulging in the odd lunch out every now and then. Thankfully, I’m lucky enough to work in an area of Liverpool where I’m spoilt for inexpensive lunch options, one of these being the recently opened 81 Renshaw Street.

81 Renshaw Street is an ‘arts cafe’, which opened with relatively little fanfare a few months ago. It’s the kind of unassuming little place you could easily walk past if you didn’t already know it was there. Like so many recent Liverpool openings, it’s decorated in ‘shabby chic’ (Christ I hate that term), so there are lots of old cabinets full of vintage crockery, rickety-looking tables, large squishy sofas and a gas fire that I’m sure my Nana June owned back in 1989. Where in other places this kind of ‘I’ve just accidentally wandered into a jumble sale’ style looks contrived, here it works – although this may just be because you can tell it’s there with no sense of irony whatsoever.

I had the soup and a sandwich, which consisted of a Streaky Bacon, Cream Cheese & Spring Onion sandwich and a large bowl of Sweet Potato and Chickpea soup. The sandwich itself was fairly utilitarian – two slices of crunchy streaky bacon and a large smear of spring-onion-studded cream cheese on a crunchy ciabatta roll – yet salty, creamy, crunchy and delicious. Plus, it wasn’t filled with any of the limp lettuce and watery tomato slices that can so easily ruin a perfectly good sarnie.

The real star of the show, though, was the Sweet Potato & Chickpea Soup. It’s always good when you see a simple dish done right, and this was as warm and welcoming as a bear hug. Hearty, slightly sweet and heady with toasty cumin, here was a soup that actually tasted of something, a delightful change from the bland fibrous mulch I’ve often had served up to me in other places. As a testament to how good it was, I overheard a woman at one of the other tables asking her waitress for the recipe, which she duly scribbled down. You don’t get that at Subway.

Flourless Clementine Cake

But woman cannot live on soup alone, so I decided to buy a slice of Flourless Clementine Cake for the road. Packed full of almonds and sour-sweet clementine peel, this was a squidgy slice of tasty complexity, and a cake that I will definitely be attempting to recreate in my kitchen sometime in the next few weeks. While I was there, I also had a sample of their Banana Bread in my mouth and didn’t instantly spit it out and cross myself. As regular readers will know, I deem bananas to be the devil’s own fruit, so the fact I managed to eat something containing them without wanting to wash my mouth out immediately with antiseptic is definite progress.

With its ramshackle charm, minimal web presence and really good homemade food, there’s a refreshing lack of pretence to 81 Renshaw Street. While its food is never going to win any awards for originality, it will win plaudits for being simple, tasty and full of heart. Plus, you can eat like a queen and get change from a tenner. And, in these times of economic hardship, you can’t really say fairer than that.

Reader, I married him

So I got married then.

In case you were wondering, this has been the reason behind my radio silence over the past few weeks. Lord knows I attempted to create culinary wonders to post on here, yet my pre-wedding nerves led to them dissolving into huge piles of fail. Take, for example, the swiss roll I attempted to make the Mr. for his birthday. I over-whipped the cream on my first try, leading me to layer my sponge with something which was more akin to watery butter than any recognisable creamy treat. The second attempt was such a disaster that I ended up waving a glass of whisky at it while crying and watching it slowly collapse all over my washing machine. Thankfully, I am now able to see the funny side of this situation, even if I have yet to remove all of the remnants of the strawberry jam from underneath the spin drum.

Weddings do strange things to your brain. In the months leading up to mine, I was convinced that I wouldn’t fall prey to all of the neurosis’s that afflict brides. I pledged to be sanguine, rational, the very picture of calm. And then August rolled around and I turned into a shaking, stuttering wreck. Stress turned my mind into  marshmallow fluff. I lost my appetite and woke up craving cigarettes – despite the fact that I stopped smoking in 2007. I had anxiety dreams which involved me walking down the aisle wearing nothing but a vintage Manchester City shirt and a bright orange tutu. On the Monday prior to the big day, I found myself running laps around the perimeter of my office in an attempt to calm myself the fuck down. My life had suddenly turned into a bad RomCom, albeit one where the bride chugged red wine out of the bottle at 6am while watching Great British Bake Off the morning of her wedding.

Me and my father. Copyright: Charlotte McDermott

And then my wedding day rolled around and everything went brilliantly (well, if you ignore the fact that my truly beautiful shoes nearly crippled me numerous times, and I accidentally managed to smother my husband in bright red lipstick when I kissed him to seal the deal). My bridesmaids Charlotte, Kate and Kathy provided me with moral support, amazing porridge, a ridiculous amount of Prosecco and stupid YouTube videos featuring Nic Cage to prevent me bursting into tears and ruining my carefully applied make-up. And while my facial expression while walking down the aisle was more ‘pant shitting terror’ than ‘blushing bride’, getting married to the man I love more than anyone else in the world was genuinely one of the best moments of my life. 

Cutting the Cake. Copyright: Fong Chau

Naturally, I wouldn’t have done it without a whole heap of folks helping me out and keeping me sane along the way. So, like a weeping Oscar winner, allow me to thank all of the brilliant people and suppliers who made my wedding day so amazing.

• The Athenaeum on School Lane were absolutely brilliant. Nothing was too much hassle for them, even when I ran in there sweaty and panicking the day before just to check one last time  that our MP3 player would work with their AV system. We got married in their private library, and (if you’re a massive literature geek like myself and Mr. McMc) I could think of no better place in Liverpool in which to get hitched.
• Leaf on Bold Street provided us with a giant dancefloor, huge squishy sofas, piles of food for our guests to feast upon when they wanted a break from dancing badly to Fleetwood Mac, and truly brilliant service. There are far too many pictures of me twirling around in my wedding dress in their toilets, but I’d like to blame that on the bounteous waves of joy I was experiencing rather than the four Jagerbombs my Brother bought for me.
• Laura’s Little Bakery provided my wedding cake, a beautiful confection comprised of a gingerbread cake swathed in cream cheese icing. It was squidgy, rich and utterly delicious. It’s always a sign of a good cake when all of your guests lick their plates clean and then ask for seconds. Indeed, many said that it was the best wedding cake they’d ever had – something I was inclined to agree with when I was munching a giant slab of it on my sofa the next day. The cakes she provided for the reception were consumed with equal gusto – so much so that I’m already thinking of ways in which I can replicate her lemon curd cupcakes in my own kitchen.
• Our wedding photographer, Rebecca Who, was an absolute wonder who exhibited both patience and skillz in following us around all day. One of the highlights of the day was me, my bridesmaids and her all wandering through Liverpool City Centre in our regalia, making people wonder if we were a real bridal party or just a very elaborate photo shoot. Honourable mention should also go to Mr. John Doran of The Quietus who was possibly the best wedding-disco-DJ a person could have asked for. The memory of my entire family dancing to Azealia Banks’s ’212′ is one which will stay with me for a very long time.

And then, in the best traditions of all newlyweds, we spent the next day eating pizza in our pyjamas, drinking Champagne and watching the football before buggering off to Berlin. But that’s another story for another blog post. Until then, look everyone! I’m married! BLOODY HELL!

A pan of Scouse for #globalscouseday

The Irish have their Irish Stew, the Lancashire types their Hotpot. And Liverpudlians have Scouse. It’s part of the fabric of the city, a major component of what makes those who live in this corner of the North West of England who they are. Ostensibly, there’s no real difference between these  dishes bar their construction – all three being a simple combination of lamb (or beef), potatoes and a few root veg chucked in for good measure. But, if you’re being poncey, you could say that there’s something about the Merseyside terroir which makes Scouse unique to Liverpool, and so much more than your average, everyday meat stew.

Of course, Scouse isn’t a native Liverpool dish. Like many things you’ll find in this city, you’ll find that it’s an immigrant that has been taken in and brought close to Liverpudlian’s hearts. To quote my good friend Wikipedia;

“In the 18th and 19th centuries Liverpool, being a major seaport, found itself inundated with foreign seamen, especially Norwegians, looking for a berth on any ship. There is still a Scandinavian Seamen’s Church in Liverpool built in the 19th century. Scandinavian seamen’s churches proliferated in many British ports in the late 19th century, and it is therefore probable that these incomers brought their recipes to Liverpool.

A “pan of scouse” became a common meal in working class Liverpool. A thickened stew, usually of mutton or lamb with vegetables slow cooked to tenderise cheap cuts of meat, it takes its name from the Norwegian for stew, “lapskaus”

My first introduction to Scouse came when I’d been living in Liverpool for only a few months. It was an achingly cold February day and the canteen in my office was closed. I ran across the road to the café situated in the Anglican cathedral and devoured a bowl of the stuff whilst watching flakes of snow drift slowly across Hope Street. Warm, rich and soothing, it made me immediately feel comforted and at home. It was the first time I really felt in love with Liverpool   – although it certainly hasn’t been the last.

I’ve now been living here for (almost) three years, and in that time I’ve eaten a lot of Scouse. But I’ve never actually gotten around to sharing my own recipe for the stuff. So what better time to celebrate this most seminal piece of Liverpudlian cuisine on this blog than today – Global Scouse Day?

According to folklore*, every 28th February, Scousers from across the globe all cook up a pan of Scouse to remind them of home. As I have come to realise whilst trying to formulate my own recipe for the stuff, every bowl of Scouse is different – and every Scouser you meet with invariably have their own opinion on what it should contain. Some people say you should use only lamb, some say a proper Scouse should always always contain peas. Others say that it’s a lump of swede which provides it with that certain something. However, it’s been agreed upon the core components of it are:

• Lamb or mutton (cut into chunks, and never minced)
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Beef stock of some kind and a few generous dashes of Worcestershire Sauce

All of this various components are thrown into a pot and cooked together until the potatoes break down and the gravy acquires the consistency which could coat the back of a spoon. Again, there’s a fair bit of argument about whether it should be a thick or thin stew, but all agree that it should always be served up with pickled red cabbage or beetroot, and plenty of bread to mop it up with.

For mine, I made it with a mixture of a cheap cut of lamb and some stewing steak, which I fried in some butter and cooked down in a few pints of Bovril. I also added a dab of tomato paste to the mix to provide it with a bit more of an umami kick, as well as the ubiquitous potatoes, onions and carrots. After a few hours of football watching and concerted stewing, it was done – just the thing for a lazy Sunday spent watching Liverpool (fittingly) win the Carling Cup final.

I can’t make any claims for this being authentic Scouse, but then again, I’m not an authentic Scouser. If you fancied gussying it up a bit, I imagine it would be brilliant with a bit of black pudding or chorizo chucked into it. Happy Scouse Day everyone!

*a few people I’ve spoken to in the pub recently, and this Twitter account

SCOUSE (Serves four)

I used this recipe as a rough guide, as a quick search of the internet revealed it to be the most authentic

You will need

• 400g Stewing Steak
• 400g Neck of lamb (I used shoulder of lamb here and found it to be slightly too boney. Lamb is expensive at the moment, so use mutton if you’re trying to save your pennies)
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 2 medium sized carrots, chopped into rounds
• 5-6 large floury potatoes (I used King Edwards), chopped into large chunks
• 2 pints of good beef stock (I used Bovril because I really like Bovril)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• A few good glugs of Worcestershire sauce
• Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Make It!

1. If it hasn’t been already cubed by your butcher, cut the lamb and stewing steak into large cubes and season well. Brown in batches in a mixture of butter and vegetable oil (or, if you have it, beef dripping).
2. Transfer the meat to a large saucepan  and add the chopped onions, carrots and the tomato paste. Add the beef stock until it has just covered the meat. Add a few good glugs of Worcestershire sauce and  simmer on a low heat for two hours.
3. After two hours, add the chopped potatoes and another glug of Worcestershire sauce, and simmer for another two hours, stirring occasionally. The large pieces of onion will start to break up and the potato will become soft and will make the final sauce thick.
4. Serve with pickled red cabbage (I used this recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for mine), and fresh bread. You can also add ketchup or HP sauce if you like (although personally, I think that’s a bit wrong).

Crowdsourcing: Where’s the best place to get pancakes in Liverpool?

Sometimes, food bloggers get it wrong. Really wrong. This post was supposed to be a recipe for sourdough pancakes. I spent Saturday night harvesting some of my sourdough starter and turning it into the perfect sponge and Sunday morning mixing it together with an egg, some sugar and some milk to create – what I anticipated – would be a visual and sensory battery delight. But, alas, whilst my pancakes tasted amazing they looked bloody awful – like flat, burnt pieces of bubbly crap. Not even a judicious smothering in bacon and pancake syrup could hide the fact that they looked thoroughly unappetising. I had no time to make another batch that day, and by the time I got home last night, all I wanted to do was eat a massive bowl of pasta and laugh like an idiot at old episodes of Seinfeld.

This left me in a bit of quandary. After all, it’s pancake day, and I feel that I would be remiss in my duties as someone who enjoys going on about the food products she shovels into her mouth on a daily basis if I didn’t write something about pancakes.  So, like numerous other lazy journalists before me, I turned to social media.

Liverpool’s eateries are no slouch when it comes to pancakes. If, like me, you follow many of them on Twitter, you’ll probably see them spending most of today tweeting about their various pancake-day-related deals (although I’m yet to see any of them offering to allow me to eat my own bodyweight in the things for a quid). However, not all pancakes are created equal. So, if you’re looking to satiate your lust for a short stack today, where’s the best place to go?

Well, if Scouse twitterers are to be believed, it’s Moose Coffee on Dale Street (which is only a hop skip and a jump away from Moorfields and James Street train stations), which came recommended by pretty much everyone.  I’ve been to Moose Coffee a few times now and I’m inclined to agree. Of course, I could be biased because they believe in serving what (in my opinion) are ‘proper’ pancakes -  huge, American-style fluffy things which come slathered with a  choice of chocolate spread, ice cream, blueberries or bacon, as well as maple syrup and butter. As you’d expect from somewhere which has ‘coffee’ in their name, Moose Coffee serves up a pretty decent caffeinated beverage too. And if pancakes aren’t your thing, they also do a selection of American brunch greats, including sausage and grits, waffles, and arguably the finest Reuben sandwich in town (maybe because they’re the only place in Liverpool that I know of which serves Reuben sandwiches).

Of course, this is only one opinion of one place that serves pancakes. So Scousers – if you’re indulging today, where’s your favourite place for some Shrove Tuesday delights? Does Leaf float your boat? Or maybe you prefer the shady ambience of Bold Street’s Café Tabac?  Or perhaps you know of  some secret little hideaway that cooks up God’s own battery treats? Wherever it is, let me know in the comments!

Pancakes image used courtesy of avlxyz under Creative Commons license

Introducing #Scousetroclub

For the past few weeks, I’ve been helping my friend Sid of Sid’s Food Fascination on a secret project. It’s a secret project which has seen us meeting up in pubs across the city, drinking far too much beer, eating burgers and thinking up interesting names. So, after a lot of discussion (and more than one mild hangover), I’m quite happy to see that he’s launched Scousetroclub, Liverpool’s first (and so far only) dining club.

Modelled around Manchester’s award winning Gastroclub (@gastroclub_mcr), Scousetroclub is a chance for gastronomes across Merseyside to get together,  enjoy great food, meet new people and discover new restaurants. Each restaurant will be producing a special set menu for each event (This won’t be  food that you can walk in off the street and order). It also gives you the chance to try something new and different, prepared by a professional chef in a top Liverpool restaurant.

I’ve been to quite a few Gastroclub nights in Manchester, and I’ve never had a bad meal. Indeed, the Gastroclub evening held at Harvey Nichols in March stands out in my mind as being one of the best dining experiences I’ve had this year. So, I’m excited to see how Scousetroclub is going to take off  – and the chance to meet some cool, interesting new people.

The first Scousetroclub is being held at Lunya on 1st February 2012, and the meal menu will include a cava sangria on arrival and a five course meal for £29 per person. I’ve long been a fan of Lunya (and their amazing chorizo sausage rolls). Indeed, I’d even go so far to say that it’s one of my favourite restaurants in the city. I think it’s the perfect place to hold the first event, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what Peter Kinsella and his team will be serving up.

Liverpool’s had an awful reputation for food in the past – one which (in my opinion) is really quite undeserved. Hopefully, events like Scousetroclub, the birth of the (reportedly excellent) Liverpool Supper Club, and the legion of new restaurant openings that we’ve seen in the city over the past twelve months will go some way to convincing outsiders that it is possible to get a damn good meal in this city.

If you’re interested in attending Scousetroclub, a place can be booked by emailing scousetroclub@me.com. Alternatively, keep an eye on their website, and on their Twitter account.  I’ll see you there.

Blackburne House Café: Is this the best soup in Liverpool?

As a rule, I dislike soup which I haven’t made myself. You may think that this sounds like a ridiculously arsey statement, but it’s rare I find a café, restaurant or lunch emporium which manages to get such a simple dish right. Most of the soups I’ve eaten recently have tasted of overcooked vegetable mulch and old string. Hell, even the ones I’ve made myself have lacked that certain something (that something mainly being a) seasoning and b) the ability to not smell like I’ve been stewing knicker elastic for an hour and a half).

However, yesterday, I managed to stumble upon possibly the best soup purveyor on Hope Street (if not the whole of Liverpool City Centre), the Blackburne House Café.

Blackburne House is a pretty ace place. Not only is it home to the Liverpool branch of the W.I. (who, may I say, aren’t your average W.I. and seem like a rather cool bunch of ladies), but it’s also a place which supports women’s enterprise, health and wellbeing. They provide massages, well being sessions, education and help for freelancers, or women starting out in business. Despite working on Hope Street for (almost) eighteen months now, and walking past it practically every day,  I’ve never really visited its rather unassuming little café, preferring the (ever so slightly overpriced) delights of the deli situated in The Quarter.

However, on Monday, I was craving something warm and comforting, and – seeing as the last time I bought soup from The Quarter I ended up spending far too much money on something which was, frankly, disgusting – I decided to pay Blackburne House a visit and see what they had on offer. And blimey, I’m glad I did.

There’s no fussy flavours here, no flavours of the East or strange grains chucked in for a bit of exotic flare. Instead, this is simple, uncomplicated fare which puts me in mind of the kind of thing your Nan would make for you when you’re feeling under the weather.  Homemade, well seasoned and absolutely delicious, truly these are the king of soups. Which would go some way to explaining why I’ve gone there for my lunch three days in a row, and demolished a bowl in under five minutes whenever I’ve been there.

Special mention should also go to the bread  it’s served up with.  Soft, fresh, doughy and delicious, it’s just the thing for mopping up all of that excess. Not that you’ll have much if you’re anything like me. And, best of all, you can get this and a Diet Coke and still have a change from a fiver. Bargaintastic!

Does Blackburne House Café serve the best soup in Liverpool? Well, at the moment, I’m reserving judgement until I actually manage to eat a bowl of soup in every restaurant situated within the Merseyside area. But it definitely serves up the best soup on Hope Street. And when I’m cold, hungry and grumpy, that’s enough for me.

Blackburne House Café

Blackburne Place (just off Hope Street)

Liverpool

L8 7PE