The best places to eat out and drink this week

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jan/24/this-weeks-food-and-drink

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Mike & Ollie, London

Brockley market – a weekly parade of south-east London’s well-dressed art students and better-dressed babies – has long been a reliable hub for tip-top street food and seasonal produce. Appropriate, then, that the stalwart Mike & Ollie combines the two to heavenly effect. The ethos is simple: a stripped-down menu – single meat, veg and fish options – featuring whatever seasonal and hyper-local produce has been foraged, smoked or cured that week, crammed into a hot flatbread. Thus, on top of, let’s say, slow-cooked lamb shoulder, mackerel or grilled cauliflower, expect curveballs like Crystal Palace quince membrillo, pickled rhubarb or Greenwich chestnuts (though, alas, none of the bruised roadkill seen on M&O’s blog). The breads themselves are worth the visit alone – the kind of charred, chewy pillows normally only found in smoke-filled Ocakbasi houses.

Brockley Market, SE4, Saturdays, mikeandollie.co.uk

TH

My food vice… Caramac

Putting away childish things is an inevitable step on one’s path towards maturity, but I’m not about to shun the confectionery of my youth any time soon. Despite being a bit of a third division player in the sweetie league (because it’s not made of actual chocolate and has an ever-so-slightly gritty texture), I always liked a Caramac – the Milkybar’s less anaemic cousin. Launched in the late 50s, the competition-winning name was simply derived from a combination of the caramel flavour and then-manufacturers Mackintosh’s. It’s a bit like the candy equivalent of those actors you think are dead but aren’t really: despite forever having an air of the 1980s about it, it’s still going strong. And I’m not the only one who enjoys this Proustian, golden-hued treat – telly baker Paul Hollywood even wrote to Nestlé (sadly without success) demanding the return of the Caramac Easter egg. It’s good to know that I am not alone.

60p from supermarkets

PB

Boak & Bailey on booze… Laying off the sauce

A decade ago, real ale had a serious image problem, not helped by the prevalence of beers with “saucy” names and often downright obscene graphic design. Back in 2009, Jeff Pickthall, a pioneer of craft beer culture, decided to take brewers to task for these “aesthetic atrocities”, cataloguing examples of poor taste on his website, pumpclipparade.blogspot.co.uk. “It’s just a bit of fun!” is the most common defence for, say, a “busty” nun mascot or beers called Top Totty. But they’re rarely even remotely funny, and many are examples of what we would now class as sexism. As consumers, at any rate, we want to buy beer with a bit of self-respect. Though it seems less common these days, there are still brands that persistently offend in their marketing techniques – such as Hobgoblin, who are, we suspect, now just (rather appropriately) trolling.