Tapas Revolution Bluewater

It’s been a crazy few months for me and Tapas Revolution but we’ve finally opened our second restaurant, which means you can visit us at Westfield and Bluewater! It’s a great feeling to see an idea that I once scribbled in my notepad come to fruition.

We opened our doors to the lovely people of Kent a few weeks ago and the response to our little piece of Spain has been overwhelming. We have a brand new team and have also added a few new design elements to the bar such as leather booths and a Churros con Chocolate take-away counter. However, it still has a similar feel to that of Westfield and we’ve kept the traditional style of dining, where our customers can watch the chefs prepare their food in the open plan kitchen – I love the theatre of it all…

As well as the new Tapas Revolution opening, I have also been busy cooking live on Channel 4’s daytime food show, Drop Down Menu – for a few episodes. It’s been a great experience and have really loved cooking alongside some great chefs and being able to share my passion and style of cooking with a wide audience, which is what Spanish cooking is all about.

With everything being so busy with the Bluewater opening and filming, Christmas has crept up on me this year. I love Christmas, it’s a brilliant time for family, friends and of course, food. Food brings people together, which is what I love about this time of year the most.

I hope you all have the chance to enjoy the company with the ones you love the most.

It has been an amazing year for me and Tapas Revolution, so thank you very much for all your support, I can’t wait to continue the revolution next year!

But now, I’ve got to get my head down, as it’s time to cook for you all during this busy time of the year, buen provecho!

How do you fancy stirring up a Spanish fiesta at home using one of my favourite ingredients – Spanish Olives!

Not so long ago, I teamed up with Spanish beer giant, Estrella Damm for this year’s Taste of London. Following this great partnership, I’m excited to announce that over the next few months, I’ll be working with Olives from Spain on their latest campaign, to show all of you how easy it is to cook with this incredibly versatile ingredient!

A lot of people don’t know that Spain produces the majority of the world’s olives, over 40%. Whilst they’re largely eaten as a pre-dinner snack here in the UK, I’m on a mission to show you that olives are a great ingredient to use in a whole host of delicious dishes. Not only are they versatile, but they also taste great and are packed full of goodness.

I’ve always been frustrated with the fact that Italian and Indian food has such a high profile in the UK when Spanish food is just as easy to prepare, contains an array of exciting flavours and is also very good for you! That’s why I’ve created five delicious recipes, in conjunction with Olives from Spain, to show you just how easy Spanish cooking can be and how to incorporate Spanish Olives into your daily diet with amazing results.

Check back regularly to see what I’m up to and look out for me and Olives from Spain in the media – sharing recipes, facts and cooking tips on the wonderful Spanish olive!

A few weeks ago we teamed up with Spanish beer giant, Estrella Damm for this year’s Taste of London. I was really excited about the partnership because it was my first time at this event and I planned to make it memorable…

Dani, Omar and Kike

At the very start, the team at Estrella Damm and I decided that we wanted our tent to offer Taste of London guests complimentary food and drink. In fact, I later found out we were the only tent at Taste who did this.

The idea was to come up with a selection of tapas dishes that would be a perfect match with Estrella Damm. So I decided to make four Spanish pintxos: Chicory Endives with Valdeon cheese foam, Foie Gras Lollypop’s, Morcilla de Burgos snacks and Roasted Red Peppers with Anchovy.

The week leading up to the festival had been totally manic, as I just returned from filming in Madrid (which I will tell you more about in my next post). I was like the energiser bunny rushing about all over London, making sure I was as organised as possible – I wanted to leave nothing to chance!

With so much to do in such little time, the weather was the last thing on mind but when the day finally arrived… the weather was all I worried about. It was raining and there was no sign of any respite. I was wet, cold and my feet were muddy but I was determined to make this a special event.

To be honest, I was a little concerned that the rain would deter people from travelling to Regents Park, but thankfully my doubts were proven wrong! Floods of people (no pun intended) came to the event, it seemed not even the miserable weather could affect the turnout for Taste.

I had a great team behind me, my number one man and best friend Dani and the extremely talented head chef at El Pirata Detapas, Fabio.

We started at the crack of dawn and began setting up and preparing our tapas dishes for the day… by 12 pm we had our first group of visitors.

As planned I did some “Master classes” which turned out to be very interesting for the people as I brought different pre-prepared ingredients which they then put together afterwards. The most exciting was the Mussel in escabeche with a carrot and orange puree, samphire and mandarin caviar.

Over the four days we had more than 6,000 members of the eager public come to our tent to try our tapas!

Despite being as busy as we were, I still found some time to bump into a few of my food heroes like Pierre Koffman and Michel Roux jnr. By the way, Pierre loved my food and honestly I was touched.

I also managed to sneak off and visit a few stands and tried lots of dishes, my favourite by far was Club Gascon’s Foie Gras Burger, but to be honest I wouldn’t eat that more than once a year.

My first year at Taste was everything I imagined, busy and entertaining. I can’t wait for next year…. hopefully I will see you all there and  fingers crossed, next year it will be sunnier J.

Well here we are in Cowes! We have come so far on this journey, both emotionally and physically. But we have made it! Today we made bocadillos for the sailors coming back from racing, and it was a race for Dani and me to get them ready. Thanks to the members of the public and the RNLI for their help.

Here I am out on a boat about to deliver some bocadillos… there are much cooler photos… I will post them soon.

Now Dani and I are going to find a quiet place overlooking the harbour to cook ourselves one last supper just for ourselves, and reflect on an amazing trip.

Thanks to everyone we met (on the trip and online) for their support, and to the Spanish people, who have been totally amazing!

The Tapas Revolution continues…

Omar and Dani

It was great to meet all you guys in the layby at Junction 11 of the M3. And thanks Mike for taking some pictures. You were a very good cook.

The crew has left us for a couple of days to attend a friend’s wedding…. so Danny is using his camera to film!

We are off To Ocean Village in Southampton to cook for a load of people and tomorrow we are in Cowes. Get in touch by phone/email/Twitter if you’d like us to cook with you.

Our journey is nearing its end. We have so many great cooking stories to tell. I will post more as soon as I get a second.

Love from your amigos Omar and Dani

Saturday 31st July 12noon-4pm.
A3090, Hockley Link, (M3 Junction 11).

Fed up of service stations ripping you off with overpriced, rubbish food? Tapas Revolution to the rescue!

This Saturday we’ll be setting up in the Hockley Link layby just off Junction 11 of the M3 (which our Tapas T intersects). So if you’re in the area and feeling peckish, be sure to turn off and meet us for some free tasty tapas.

Or if you’re in London and at a loose end, why not come out and say hello. My TomTom says it’ll take you 1hr 35 minutes from Parliament Square.

Here are the coordinates for your TomTom:

Lat: 51.036529, Lon: -1.321390
Nearest Postcode: SO21 1PL (NB this is the postcode for a golfclub which just around the corner from where we actually are)
OSX: 447677, OSY: 126571

Visit the Tapas Revolution Map for a closer look.

So another great night for The Revolution.

We headed south from Derby to the Fox Inn near Nuneaton where the landlady Denise had invited us in to serve traditional tapas to the regulars.

Here it is on the T…

And what an amazing pub, the perfect traditional English pub that I hoped for.

Dani declares the revolution is in town… So macho Dani!

We were running late (as usual) so we had to crack on as soon as we arrived. I was in the kitchen with Denise and Shell the chef making tapas while Dani was out front practising his pint pulling techniques!!!

It was a bit of a rush but we just about got ready for 7pm when the regulars started turning up. We served a traditional tapas ‘lid’ free with every drink, and they loved them, well nearly all of them apart from one guy who just wanted fish n chips!!! He should have been in Grimsby.

We made meatballs in a tomate sauce, garlicy chicken and roast pepper pincho. Here are my meatballs:

Once we had finished serving we started to pull some pints behind the bar for customers who then challenged us to a game of darts. I have never seen a pub so happy as when I was eliminated from the round it was as if England had scored a goal!! All very funny.

So we kept drinking and playing until late before we slept upstairs in the pub. Amazing evening and thanks to everyone at the Fox Inn.

Serves 5 hungry crew members…

Ingredients:

100 ml olive oil
5 garlic cloves
2 onions
2 red peppers
2 chorizo sausages
3 tomatoes
1/2 tbsp of Hot pimenton
2 tbsp vinegar, any kind
5 potatoes, the ones that are good for boiling
1.5 l of water
salt
pepper
fresh thyme

Recipe:

Fry in the olive oil the sliced garlic, chopped onion, red pepper and tomatoes. Add the chopped chorizo, pimenton, potato chunks and cook for further 2 minutes. Add the vinegar, water, herbs and season. Boil for around 30 minutes till the water has reduced and looks more saucy than soupy and the potatoes are cooked.