Ramadhan is here! Some of you will be celebrating at that, others crying, but whatever it is I hope your fasts are going well 🙂
I know it has been a while, but I have posted a review of an absolutely to die for hidden steak place. Aged halal steak! It does not get much better than that.
Have a read here. Enjoy!
For those of you that have read the ‘About Me’ section on here, you will know I actually work in the meat industry. It was a chance encounter with an editor at the Meat Trades Journal (the leading publication for the industry) that means I am now one of their regular bloggers! Yay!
All I was really after were some photos to use for my ‘Halal Conference’ write up… but instead I had an interesting conversation about guest bloggers on their website. And now I am one!
Here’s my first post. Please have a read and share 🙂
http://www.meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/18573/Creating_awareness_is_vital.html
It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I apologise… I’m going to use the usual excuses of Ramadhan and work (it is true). I hope you can forgive me!
But I do have some exciting news… A little while ago I was asked to be a guest blogger on another site and now Ramadhan’s over and the eating has recommenced, here it is http://halaleatout.com/halal/its-not-fiction-its-pop-brixton/
Some of you will have already read it, but for those that haven’t please check it out. Plus you can find other interesting blogs and general halal info on the site.
Such an honour and lovely gesture of recognition to be featured on someone else’s page! Thank you to Juwel and the rest of the team for getting in touch 🙂
Some new material coming from me soon… I promise! Stay tuned 😉
Hi all,
This is a quick one, but Fine Burger Co are rebranding to Prime Burger and are giving away 100 free burgers at Kings Cross Station between 1-2pm today. Only their chicken burger is halal (but please verify with them).
You need to download a voucher from the link below and take it with you. I understand there will be a range of burgers on offer, so if you are in the area maybe worth popping by. Otherwise probably not worth the journey as who knows how many chicken ones they’ll have or if they’ll have any:
http://www.prime-burger.co.uk/100freeburgers/
If anyone manages to get one take a pic and tag @halal_you! 🙂
Congratulations to Saif for winning the Fatburger competition!! Woop woop! A meal for two will be on its way to you very shortly.
I look forward to seeing a photo of it!
To those who entered, thank you so much for taking the time to do so. All the entries were delicious! I’ve just got to find time to make them all now… Although I suspect that’ll mean new larger jeans for me!
But seriously it means a lot having others contributing to my blog, so please do carry on. Hope to hear from you all soon 🙂
Hi guys,
I’ve got some exciting news…The lovely people at Fatburger have given me a meal for two to give away! I know… Yay!! 🙂
I would love to give you all the prize, but as I only have one I had a think about how I would choose. See who sucks up to me the most… Ask you all to cook me a meal and judge the best chef… Take bribes generally… All these ideas ran through my head, but I thought no I must be fair and it should be related to burgers.
So here it is… In order to be in for a chance to win the meal for two (if you’re generous you could treat someone, if you’re greedy you could just have two yourself!) you need to:
1. Follow this blog so I know who you are! How to do this – scroll right to the bottom of the page and enter your email address in the ‘Follow blog via email’ field. You will then receive an email with a link to confirm your subscription. If you’re on WordPress it’s even easier, just click the ‘Follow’ button at the top of the page and it’ll automatically know who you are 🙂
2. The fun bit… At the bottom of this post you should see a ‘Leave a reply’ box, please write your recipe for the ultimate burger in here! How would you cook the burger, would you add anything to the patty, toppings, sauce, bun… The whole lot!
If you don’t see the reply box, click on the ‘X Comments’ option in italics at the bottom of the post after all the tags.
3. There is no 3. That’s it!
I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but the best burger wins! Get in early in case someone steals your idea. Get following, writing and sharing! Competition ends on Sunday 28th June (exactly two weeks from now) and I will pick the winner shortly after.
Looking forward to hearing your ideas!
You heard it here first guys (well I hope so anyway), Fatburger is opening its first branch in the UK in Camden and it will be 100% HALAL. I know why I will be obese by the end of the year!
So I was going to do my usual rhyming thing, something like ‘I could murder a Fatburger’ (actually that’s pretty good, I’m going to keep that one in my back pocket!). But I didn’t, because this story is so big that I had to get to the point…
It is currently scheduled to open in June this year, so not too long to wait, and will be situated on Jamestown Road, where Yo Sushi used to be right next to Byron. The burger competition is hotting up! Gone will be the days when we gaze defeated and salivating at everyone eating those delicious looking Five Guys burgers… Such a momentous day for us halals!
For those that don’t know (shame on you), Fatburger is a US burger chain much like Five Guys in that it is fast food, but the burgers are made fresh from lean beef (not like the cheap sloppy stuff you get at your local kebab shop, no offence to kebab shop owners). It was supposedly started in 1952 by a woman (woop woop!) and it now operates in 29, soon to be 30 countries around the world.
It has been made famous by American Hip Hop and RnB artists opening up their own branches, like Mr West, Pharrell, Montell Jordan and Queen Latifah… Magic Johnson also got in on the action.
Keep checking back here for the inside scoop and updates on what’s going on. Also I’ll hopefully have some delicious Fatburger prizes for you lovely people… I’ll see what I can rustle up! In the meantime… I wish you lovely juicy Fatburger eating dreams 🙂
Hope you guys are as excited as I am!
Guys!! Great news… Morrisons has now started stocking halal pick ‘n’ mix! So get your asses there to show your support and make sure it’s here to stay!
For me this is a complete breakthrough… Firstly a major supermarket is stocking a halal product over the counter, not pre-packaged and is not afraid of any backlash. Instead the supermarket has realised the importance of catering for the Muslim community and respecting different diets.
Secondly… The Daily Mail (yes you heard me right) is celebrating the news… http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3040047/Morrisons-halal-pick-mix-sale-Britain.html.
Now if I remember correctly, The Daily Mail was the newspaper screaming and shouting about the fact Pizza Express and others use halal chicken and do not openly advertise it. So the second victory (yay us!) is that The Daily Mail is happy about the news and putting such a positive light on it. Woop woop!
See you guys at a Morrisons somewhere 😉
So I took a punt when I saw there was a street food concept setting up shop in Soho and emailed them to ask if the meat is halal… and (as you may have guessed because I have written an article on them) it is!!
It was a Londoner’s dream last Saturday, sunny and hot, a very unique and blissful occurrence. We were out just as the rest of the city was, soaking in some much needed Vit D and looking for a lunch spot. So thought we would give these guys a try…
I have to say walking around Soho during the day is definitely an eye-opener! But 
anyway back to the point… Bunny Chow serves delicious South African street food, which consists of a bun shaped like a muffin that has been hollowed out and is then filled with ‘bunnies’. Now when I first read this on their website, I did ask myself are these real bunnies?? Because I think I would have an issue eating them as I had a pet rabbit when I was younger. Now I am no animal lover, but even that brief encounter is enough to put me off eating little fluffy bunnies.
The ‘bunnies’ are in fact your choice of chicken, mutton or pork (obviously the last one’s not halal) curry filling. They also add mango chutney, raita, poppadoms and a side salad of cabbage, cucumber and other things flavoured with lemon. I know what you are thinking, this sounds like an Indian meal… and you would be right, it tasted just like that.
So when I got back home I did some googling (i.e. Wikipedia-ing) to understand where the Indian influence came from. I learnt that the dish actually originated in Durban where there was a large Indian community who came over as migrant workers, some say they worked on the sugar cane fields. As always, thank you Wikipedia it makes so much more sense now!
Right back to the story… omg the food was amazing!! Now I am Indian, so I know what a good curry tastes like and this was delicious! Not the sort you get in an Indian restaurant where nothing but oil is left at the bottom of the bowl once you’re done, but the yummy curry your mum makes for you.
True to my roots I went for mutton and chose a brioche bun. The curry soaks into the bread and the sweet and savoury combination worked so well. The meat was very tender and broke apart easily, and the spices were just right. I was amazed! I had to forcibly slow myself down as I was guzzling the thing. The mango chutney and raita worked well as always and the broken pieces of poppadom added great texture.
The husband went for the classic chicken in white bread. It was also really flavoursome, but I definitely preferred mine. I have to say in recent years I am beginning to realise that red meat is in my blood! (I know that’s not physically possible and doesn’t really work, but you know what I mean!)
The other thing which I loved about Bunny Chow was that they make their own juices. Not only that, but right there in the basement. You cannot get much fresher than that. I went for plum and mint as I have never seen plum juice before, so was intrigued. It was certainly tasty, but I am not a plum juice convert. I would highly recommend the fresh juices.
So basically… go there! It is delish and at only £5 per bunny, a flippin’ bargain! Especially slap bang in the middle of Soho. Let me know your reviews…
There was chat around the office about a new Dishoom opening and when I heard it was around the corner from my flat… well how could I say no.
So it was decided, I told the husband Friday evening would be spent queuing outside Dishoom to get a delicious 50% off as it was opening week! I was warned it would be a wait, but I’m Asian,  someone is offering me 50% off and it’s food… every inch of me was screaming ‘You have to go!’.
I rushed home from work, wrapped up warm and 
prepared myself to wait outside in our famously unwelcoming climate. We got there at 6.30pm and there was already a decent queue, so we took our places at the back. Half an hour went by, not much movement… about fifteen minutes or so later a lovely assistant came around with some masala chai (yum!). I am a committed chai drinker!
Another fifteen minutes and an even kinder gentleman came down the queue apologising for the wait and handed us free breakfast vouchers! More free food, I was in heaven!
Two hours and we were at the front! We felt a huge sense of accomplishment when we stepped in, but then we were handed an electronic thingy and told it was another forty five minutes (sigh). Then I looked around and knew the venue would keep me more than entertained, it was breath-taking! A former railway transit shed… forget double-height ceilings, there were triple and even quadruple-height ceilings! I felt like I was taken back to the days of the Victorians with the decor doing the venue more than justice.
While waiting we had a good ol’ favourite, fried calamari. What can I say, they were as expected, crispy on the outside and the right amount of chewy on the inside. I hate it when calamari is rubbery!
Once at the table we went all out, after almost a three hour wait it had to 
be a feast… For mains we had the Dishoom Chicken Tikka, Lamb Boti Kebab, Spicy Lamb Chops, Gunpowder Potatoes (because the name was too interesting to pass up) and steamed basmati rice (just because I’m Asian and I like my rice). The dishes were good, a good amount of meat and spice. The gunpower potatoes definitely worth a try, something I have not seen anywhere else and a strong flavoured side that are a nice break from the usual more bland accompaniments.
I have to say I was surprised the mains were dry, rather than a curry which I was expecting… Delicious nonetheless. I later discovered that these ‘Bombay Cafes’ which Dishoom is modelled on were the inventions of Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran. So the food is a fusion between Indian flavours and Iranian style of cooking. I love it!
By far the best choice were the lamb chops. Wow! Rolled in an array of strong, dry spices and then grilled. The harsh flavours make it a dish not for the faint hearted. This was my clear favourite and the reason I will be going back!
To top it all off, Guju Chocolate Mousse for dessert. So I am a Gujurati, but I had never tried shrikhand until I spent a couple of months in Gujurat a few years back and oh my god I fell in love with it! So when I saw a mix of chilli and salt chocolate with shrikhand I could not resist, plus a chance to expose my non-Guju husband to one of the region’s delicacies. However, I have to say I was under-impressed. The chocolate was nice, but shrikhand not amazing, so all in all it was under-whelming.
Our 50% off bill came to £40, well worth it! But at 100% of the bill… for me it’s a special treat kind of place.
halal you 