Greedy Eating, January - London & Margate

Restaurants to which I would return

Greedy Eating is my ongoing project documenting restaurants to which I would return, for paid subscribers. There will be a monthly list of places I have eaten (here) and backdating - currently I am giving my recommendations for Barcelona, in time for Spring. All restaurants are added to the Greedy Eating Google Map along with descriptions - link at the bottom.

Chef or Cook?

In food news, the month saw a famous male chef say there was no longer sexism in the kitchen and, after, used the ‘my wife and daughters are women how could I be sexist’ get-out. The replies were quick, sharp and eloquent and addressed the idiocy superbly.

I think a lot about the term ‘chef’. Sometimes people describe me as a chef and - if it’s not too obnoxious - I correct them and explain I’m a cook. This has a lot to do with my expertise - or lack of - since I’ve never worked in a restaurant kitchen. But it also has to do with the discomfort I have with the title chef in general, which allows (mostly male) chefs to distinguish themselves from the people who do most of the cooking in the world. Chefs are experts, they have brigades, theirs is a hierarchical system. It’s all a bit military. It’s all a bit protesting too much, a way of making sure you don’t think they are the sort who make food for children, for family, with few resources and cheap ingredients, with what is there: a cook, or, in other words, a woman.

---

February, as it always does, seemed colder and bleaker than January. No longer the afterglow of Christmas, and no end to winter forthcoming. The cliché of getting older is true - you do feel the cold worse. Besides, I hurt my shoulder, so I didn’t really feel like leaving the house. But, I’m a trooper.

Amani behind an Afghan Naan

Afghan Grill

339 Bethnal Grn Rd, London E2 6LG, United Kingdom

Afghan Grill has a well deserved hype, which means its clientele is made up of young Londoners interested in food, men in taqiyahs and gossipy hijabis - it is loud and bright and fun. I went with an old friend, who I’d not seen for years - an echo of last month’s first meal, also at an Afghan restaurant - and we caught up over sizzling steaming lamb charsi karahi and an Afghan naan, hung on a precarious stand, cut with salad and aryan. We spoke about Palestine while, beside us, a large group of men parsed difficult points of Islamic theology - “but in this surah it is said…” - in English, with some sometimes halting Quranic Arabic, before a heavily laden table. The food really is excellent. I hardly know anything about Afghan food, but I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve tried thus far.