thelondonvibe: pizza

Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts

2 Jan 2013

Princi

Princi is the perfect place for all Italian food lovers. The Italian brasserie is located in the heart of Soho and offers hot & cold Italian snacks. The long glass counter, the marble stand-up tables and the trickling water wall give the brasserie an unique Italian flair and timeless elegance.

The glass counter is filled with delicate Italian specialities. They have everything, from tiramisu over mini spinach and ricotta croissants to focaccia. At the end of the long glass counter they have a big choice of salads and hot food as cotoletta alla milanese, lasagne or melanzane alla parmigiana. Literally everything, I always need hours to decide what I want but usually I go for the olive-tomato pizzette, mini spinach-ricotta-croissants and some cake to follow.

the long glass counter, filled with Italian delicacies

Last summer they opened a pizzeria next door where they serve authentic Napolitana style pizza, a few pasta and meat dishes and antipasti. Breakfast is served until 11.30 am and is very good. To get a table you need patience, Princi is always full, no matter if you go at 9 in the morning or 11 in the evening. Prices are quite affordable.

Princi
135 Wardour Street
London W1F 0UT

pizza, piadine and focaccia

Crostata di Fragola

my favourite croissants!

Tiramisu

view of wardour street

3 Dec 2012

Best cheap eats

What I love about London's restaurants and cafés is the variety. Do you feel like eating Indian? Or maybe Indonesian? Latvian? Or rather Japanese? London has it all!

Every kind of cuisine, super chic haute-cuisine restaurants but also budget places. London's budget places show that low price does not mean low quality...to the contrary!

Of course outside of London's center there are a lot of cheap eats and good offers, but I know some places in the heart of London, where you can have drinks, main course and dessert for around £15.

Italian
Pizzeria Icco

Most people who don't know Icco and the pizza there would probably walk past this place. It looks like a American canteen, not chic at all, but curde with bright lights. But you forget about that after your first bite of pizza.

One of the best pizzas I've ever eaten in London, during lunch time it's always full of business men and students. But don't worry the service is quick and friendly.

You will have your Italian pizza after a couple of minutes starting from £ 3.50 (take-away). The Cappuccino is perfectly Italian!

Thai : Thai metro

I love this place, it's exactly opposite of Roka but less fancy. Simple interior, small and authentic. Friendly service and best quality. The currys here are amazing, but also the starters and noodle dishes are delicious. Almost all main courses offer a choice between duck, beef, chicken, tofu or prawns....

....and they don't serve you three poor prawns, or some slices of duck, but a generous full plate.

Same for the starters, instead of three slices of spare ribs we got a whole plate full of spare ribs with tasty sauce. Starters are around £ 4 and main courses are £ 6.50

Lebanese

Comptoir Libanais

This is a really delicious Lebanese food chain. One is located in Marylebone, one Soho and another one South Kensington. They have a large range of food, falafel, wraps, mousaka, halloumi steak and more. I can recommend the chicken taouk wrap, the chicken is really tasty and soft.

Prices for main courses are around £ 8. The interior is a lovely mix of colorful designs and Lebanese details.

...to be continued....

Addresses:

Thai Metro

38 Charlotte Street, Fitzrovia
London W1T 2NN

Icco

46 Goodge Street, Fitzrovia
London W1T 4LU

Comptoir Libanais

65 Wigmore Street, Marylebone
London W1U 1JT

1-5 Exhibtion Road, South Kensington
London E20 2HE

59 Broadwick Street, Soho
London W1F 9QH

8 Nov 2012

Sweet and savoury calzone

Make your own Italian calzone!

A calzone is a folded pizza, which is stuffed with different ingredients. Usually the same ingredients which are used for pizza topping. This time I made small calzoni ( plural of calzone), so that I had a bigger variety of fillings. Some vegetarian ones, some with ham, some with salami and olives and so on...I like that more than eating one big calzone.

For the dough you need (for about 15 small calzoni)

300 ml water

500 g flour

7 g yeast

1 tablespoon of salt

3 tablespoons olive oil

a pinch of sugar

for the filling: use whatever you like

I used...

Mushrooms

Black olives

Ham

Salami

Mozzarella

Fresh Basil

Tomato sauce

First of all dissolve the yeast in a small bowl of warm water.

Put the flour on a clean surface and make a well in the middle of the flour. Pour in the water and olive oil, plus salt and sugar. Start to knead the dough for about five to ten minutes until it becomes elastic. Put the dough inside a bowl, cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rest for one hour, so that the yeast can rise. Don't put it in the fridge the yeast needs warmth to grow.

While the dough is resting, preheat the oven to 190°C and prepare your ingredients. Wash and cut the mushrooms and grill them in the pan. Cut all the other ingredients into small dices, so that they are ready to be stuffed inside the calzoni.

When the dough is ready, roll it out about 1/4" ( 2cm) thick. Then cut out either small or big circles, if you want a perfectly formed circle use a overturned bowl as a stencil.

Fill each dough-circle with your favourite ingredients, leaving a two centimeters border around the edge.

Fold the circle into a half moon and press the edges together, use a fork to close it properly. Then put the calzoni in the oven for about 15 minutes at 150 °C. They are ready when they are gold-brown.

We had some dough left over...but instead of throwing it away you can make a dessert with the rest. It is the same procedure as with the savoury calzone but this time with NUTELLA.

A small calorie bomb but delicious!