If you come here and don’t order a pie, you’ll only have yourself to blame. Don’t let me down, says Jay Rayner
Holborn Dining Room, 252 High Holborn, London WC1V 7EN (020 3747 8633). Meal for two, including drinks and service £60-£130
My late mother had no truck with religious observance. She preferred cultural signifiers of her Jewishness like a full fridge, a belief in the utilitarian qualities of cake liberally applied and a hatred of silence at the table. There was, however, one way in which she observed Jewish religious ritual, though she was utterly bewildered when I pointed it out to her. She liked to cook gefilte fish, that sustaining mix of ground white fish, bound with matzo meal and sweetened with sugar. It comes in two forms. There is the boiled, served cold with its own fishy jelly, an abomination I always regarded as the closest food could come to cruel and unusual punishment. And then there is the fried, which is a different matter altogether. It should be crisp and golden outside and light and fluffy inside. Cooking them made the house smell of indulgence. I would watch them being lifted from the oil with a slotted spoon to the rack to cool a little. At which point I would try to take one and would have my hand verbally slapped away. “Not until they’re cold.”
Continue reading...