Tuesday 24 April 2012

Week beginning April 23rd - Catching up

I am fortunate enough to be have been away for a few weekends of late, so below is just the menu, no ramblings.

Probably best enjoyed that way anyway. Next week will be the same.....

Breakfast
Porridge - served w choices chopped dried fruit, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 2.70
Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yoghurt)
Ciabatta Roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta Roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Cinnamon and raisin toast 2.30
Banana Bread 2.20


Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Rocha pear, chocolate and red wine sweet muffins 2.00
Four cheese and pink pepper savoury muffins 2.00
Blueberry friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Afgan biscuits 1.70

Lunch

French retro baguettes 4.70
Roast aubergine with sweet chilli, goats cheese and rocket
Tuna with rouille, capers and spinach

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Coppa cotta ham with onion jam, plum tomatoes, gruyere and spinach
Plum tomatoes with olive tapenade, parmesan butter, rocket and capers

Salads 4.90/5.90
Samphire with short brown rice, prawns, pickled ginger, cucumber and wasabi dressing
Cherry vine tomatoes with celery, gem lettuce, runner beans and Worcestershire
Innovator potatoes roasted with mustard

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Jersey Royal rusty

Sunday 15 April 2012

Week beginning April 16th - Our Chef Jared

The advert read something like 'Inspirational Chef de Partie required for Australian Style Cafe'. We had a few applications, but the best by far turned out to be our lead chef for the past two and a half years, Jared Bryant.

I met him in the Scandinavian Kitchen as we were not even open yet, and we discussed his prior experience in Australia and New Zealand, working in similar cafes and also for a while in the Womens Weekly test kitchens in Sydney.

I brought him across to see his 'kitchen', which was was being used as a construction area in the final building stages, and he said 'yes, I will take on the job, when do I start?'

It really wasn't much of a kitchen to start with, our cooker was a four top domestic electric oven, a three door and a two door undercounter fridge and a pretty poor sink area, not much shelving and not much equipment.

Jared worked by himself, six days a week for at least the first six weeks until we became busy enough to justify a second person. I can't remember all that he did in those first few weeks, or how the kitchen really was, but am sure he can. It will make a good story one day.

However now, we have a six burner electric stovetop, 2 commercial ovens, an extra 600 litre stand up fridge and a 400 litre freezer, and a proper sink area and dishwasher, a seperate dry store cupboard and on busy days up to four staff in the kitchen.

We also needed to install 3 phase power to be able to cope with all the electricity he was wanting to use!

A lot of people say we are all about coffee, with a name like Kaffeine why not, but really, and very importantly, we are also equally about food. Food is a very important part of our business, on an equal par with the coffee we serve and the service we provide, and Jared has been absolutely the 'inspirational' chef I was looking for in July 2009.

The way he combines ingredients that you may think would not work but somehow do, into our salads, our sandwiches, or our muffins is amazing. He has a real talent in putting together ingredients to make something special, something different.

We change our salads each week and I think this gives him the opportunity to show that creative flair and to use our suppliers and market conditions to the best possible use.

We are often asked will we do a recipe book and are also asked for recipes for such favorites such as lamingtons, ANZACS, friands and salads. A recipe book would be something Jared especially would really love to do, and we do hope to achieve that one day.

We are lucky because a lot of his recipes are able to be enjoyed via his fabulous blog site which is here.

http://redjarcooking.blogspot.co.uk/

Jared is an integral part of the history, the reputation and I hope the future of Kaffeine and I have much to thank him for. If anyone knows anything about publishing a recipe book, we look forward to hearing from you.

And you must try his new creation, the blueberry friands, amazing....

Breakfast
Porridge - served w choices chopped dried fruit, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 2.70
Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yoghurt)
Ciabatta Roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta Roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Cinnamon and raisin toast 2.30
Banana Bread 2.20


Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Nectarines and wine sweet muffins 2.00
Red onion and parmesan savoury muffins 2.00
Blueberry friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Afgan biscuits 1.70

Lunch

French retro baguettes 4.70
Manchego cheese, plum tomatoes, baked bramley apples, aioli and rocket
Coppa cotta ham with red onion, gherkin, spinach and gruyere

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Roast chicken with brie, salsa verde, spinach
Plum tomato with courgette, peppers, mozzarella, oregano, mayo and rocket

Salads 4.90/5.90
Pulled pork belly on candy beetroot and castel franco
Sea beet with heritage tomato salad
White broccoli served with garlic, chili and rosemary syrup

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Jersey Royal rusty

Thursday 12 April 2012

Week beginning April 9th - Just the menu this week

Hello,

Away over Easter last weekend so just the menu this week for you, have a fabulous week and see you soon.

Breakfast
Porridge - served w choices chopped dried fruit, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 2.70
Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yoghurt)
Ciabatta Roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta Roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Cinnamon and raisin toast 2.30
Banana Bread 2.20


Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Plum and cherry brandy 2.00
Broccoli and blue cheese savoury muffins 2.00
Lime friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Afgan biscuits 1.70

Lunch

French retro baguettes 4.70
Smoked salmon with hollandaise, capers, dill, red onion and rocket
Coppa cotta ham with apple butter, gherkin, basil, spinach and gruyere
Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Roast beef with aged cheddar, gherkin, dijon, red onion and rocket
Plum tomato with peri peri sauce, bufala mozzarella and spinach

Salads 4.90/5.90
Roast beetroot with red onion, red peppers, wild garlic, feta, olives and pesto
Watercress with raspberries, hazelnuts, oat balls, red wine dressing
Chicory, puy lentils, pancetta, wet garlic, Gorgonzola

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Asparagus with lemon, parmesan, cherry tomato, basil

Sunday 1 April 2012

Week beginning April 2nd - Our guest espresso weekends

I'm really very lucky and grateful that the staff who work at Kaffeine are all passionate and enthusiastic about their jobs and not only that, but also passionate and enthusiastic about the business.

Kaffeine would not be the business it is today without the fantastic input, ideas and creativity from our staff, who it seems are constantly thinking of new and different ways to run or improve the business. Sometimes it takes me a while to action them, or to get my head around it, but more often than not, it is the right thing to do. Many of the few business books I have read all highly recommend talking and listening to your front line staff about how the business runs, as they are the one of best sources of information you can have on ways to improve. I wholeheartedly agree.

One of these ideas was brought to me by our former lead barista, Catherine, who recommended that instead of running decaf on weekends, when we only sell two or three coffees, why not run a guest espresso, where we could feature different coffees from roasteries across London and the UK. We soon implemented that and as it proved to be a great success we have continued it.

Since Catherine has left, our lead barista James has really taken on the role extremely well, planning up to a month ahead what coffees he will feature each weekend, dealing with the roasteries, creating contacts, managing the supply chain from samples through to invoicing and finally, designing and writing the customer side descriptor sheets as well as the baristas tasting notes.

Each Saturday he is in 30 minutes early to dial in the new blend to our decaf grinder, tasting and assessing, then recommending how best the coffee is to be served or to be recommended to our guests. Our service staff are all briefed, and we can then recommend with confidence a different, but often just as good as the Square Mile red brick, coffee.

We have had coffees from roasters such as Square Mile (wonderful single origins), Union Hand Roasted, Extract Coffee, Caravan, Climpson and Sons, Origin, Small Batch and St Ali to name a few, and the list will just get longer as more roasteries enter the UK market.

We find this has so many positives. It creates interest and improves the knowledge and skills of our baristas, it gives our customers, many of them regulars, a different coffee to try on the weekend, it helps to raise the profile of other roasteries that may not have had that chance, and if you are one of the many 'coffee geeks' that frequent us on weekends, you now have two espresso blends to try.

In April, James is planning a London Roastery month, to coincide with the London Coffee Festival. He also plans to run a guest decaf, and what I am looking forward to is a guest cascara weekend, where we will have two different cascaras served in 3.5 oz glasses one after the other so you can really taste the difference between the two.

Unfortunately, this does mean we cannot offer a decaf to those who wish for it, and for that we apologize to our decaf customers. We wish we could, but because of limited bar space we cannot fit three grinders.

However, each weekend we sell up to 3 kilos of our guest espresso, that's between 120 and 150 coffees, as well as retail bags if you wish to buy some to take home.

We like to think that this is a really positive action, one that will help raise the profile of coffee and roasteries in London and the UK, as well as enhancing the skills and knowledge of the staff who work in the industry. Long may it continue.

Oh, and encourage and listen to your staff ideas, they are a wealth of information and knowledge.

Easter Opening Hours
By the way, we are closed Good Friday, but open the rest of the weekend with Hot Cross Buns on the menu all week. Have a wonderful Easter weekend and travel safe.


Breakfast
Porridge - served w choices chopped dried fruit, muscovado sugar, golden syrup or honey 2.70
Traditional bircher muesli with rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Granola muesli with pomegranate molasses and rhubarb and raspberry compote 3.30
Fruit salad (pineapple, mango, strawberries, grapes, passionfruit, peach) 3.50
(add 30 p for granola or yoghurt)
Ciabatta Roll with omelette, pancetta, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Ciabatta Roll with courgette omelette, rocket and tomato salsa 4.70
Croissant with Italian roast ham, talleggio cheese, spinach & plum tomatoes 4.70
Croissant with gruyere cheese and plum tomatoes 3.90
Seven seed bakery bloomer toast with homemade preserves 1.70
Cinnamon and raisin toast 2.30
Banana Bread 2.20


Pastries by Seven Seed bakery
French butter croissants 1.70
Pain au chocolat 2.30
Almond croissants 2.70

Baked Treats
Hot Cross Buns 2.00
Cider, mushroom, sager and cheddar savoury muffins 2.00
Lime friands 2.00
Super moist chocolate brownies 2.30
White chocolate blondies 2.30
Portuguese tarts 1.90
ANZAC cookies 1.70
Afgan biscuits 1.70

Lunch

Soup 3.70 or 4.20
Watercress and salmon

French retro baguettes 4.70
Pickled spiced beetroot with goats’ cheese, rocket and Dijon
Coppa cotta ham with apple butter, gruyere, gherkin, red onion, spinach

Foccacias with sea salt and rosemary crust 4.90
Smoked salmon with aioli, red onions, capers, rocket and dill
Bufala mozzarella with asparagus, lemon mayo, tomato and spinach

Salads 4.90/5.90
Roast lamb with stewed rhubarb, broad beans, salsa verde, baby spinach
Pickled Jonathan apples with walnuts, mature cheddar, rocket and Valencia orange dressing
Roasted piccolo parsnips with wild garlic and tarragon dressing

Tart 4.00 or 6.90 with salad
Brown rice tuna bake with rouille