pimientos de padron at brindisa tapas bar

after a few hours of browsing around borough market wide-eyed on saturday, i was ready for some snackitos spanish style at brindisa, a tapas bar located right near the entrance to the underground at london bridge. what i wasn't ready for was champagne and wine which everyone else seemed to be washing down over a late lunch. it felt like being in spain already!

i was reunited with my new best friend, the pimiento de padron, which i've heard is becoming quite popular even as far west as san francisco. i encountered it only one other time at a tapas bar in clerkenwell but have been quite taken up with it ever since. i read online about zarzuela,one of my most favourite restaurants in san francisco, serving crispy padron peppers deep fried in olive oil and sprinkled with kosher salt. that's exactly how i had them on saturday afternoon at brindisa. they're not exactly the spiciest peppers around. in fact, they actually taste a little sweet. but every now and then you bit into a spicy pod and therein lies the fun.

delicious as they were, i couldn't survive on pimientos de padron alone so i also ordered a salad of greens and roasted beets.



so brindisa is where the naked chef gets his recipe idea of roasted beets from! the soft and flavbourful beets were delicious and they reminded me of shopping for beets of all varieties at the green market in manhattan.



to be perfectly honest, the beets are brindisa were much better cooked than when i have made this dish. i get impatient and pull them out of the oven sooner than i am supposed to. 45 min for roasting beets is just so excruciatingly long, no?!

brindisa has a fantastic selection of tapas. the atmosphere is so cheerful and the crowd a bit boisterous. i felt transported to spain at least till i walked out and had to confront the horrible english weather.