Paesan: Exmouth Market

For the past few months I've been walking through Exmouth Market to get to my internship. Over these months I've watched the former 'Dollar Grill' close down and then turn into an Italian cucina povera (peasant kitchen) called 'Paesan'. I finally had the chance to visit today and it really exceeded my expectations - the food was so fresh and the service was great.

(Sorry for the instagram photos, I forgot to bring my camera!)

We had planned to just grab something on the way to the library, but after seeing Paesan was open I managed to run in, plop myself down and ask for a menu before my boyfriend even had the chance to blink.

The menu is split into antipasti and piccolo - smaller dishes that you can share - for starters and then the mains are split into meat, fish, pasta and pizza fritta. I went for the fennel sausage pizza fritta, which is a deep fried pizza (clearly I'm watching my weight) while my boyfriend chose the clam linguini. There is one thing about me - I only choose the same meals over and over again. If its a pizzeria, I will have the margherita pizza. A burger place? A cheeseburger. I basically choose the safest options over and over again. People tend to poke fun at that but I think hey, these have served me well over the years, why change now? And whenever I do go for a pizza with toppings I'm disappointed and spend the whole meal thinking 'why on earth did I choose the artichoke/sardine/broccoli pizza?'. This pizza though has really made me rethink that.

 Look at this! It is seriously an amazing pizza. It wasn't one of this pizzas that is far too big and you think 'who can finish this?' and 15 minutes later you've shamefully shoveled the whole thing down your gullet. No, this pizza was the perfect size, with an amazing crust and really flavorsome mozzarella. I am pleased that for once I chose a pizza with toppings, the fennel sausage was really lovely. 

I sadly wasn't able to get a photo of the linguini since it was inhaled before I even had the chance to get my phone out of my bag. Instead, here are some empty clams for you to take a gander at. 

All in all Paesan serves delicious food that is fresh and generally just lovely, and I'm definitely going to be paying them a visit again!

Spinach & Chickpea Hummus

Lately I've been seeing the 'Honestly Healthy' cookbook everywhere. I mean everywhere. I would open up a magazine and there it was. People kept tweeting about it. Finally I gave in and decided to see what all the fuss was about.

I hadn't realised that this cookbook focused on an alkaline way of eating - basically, eating mainly alkaline foods (with a high pH) to aid our digestive system and match the pH in our blood. Though I wasn't really too sure about only eating alkaline food (and I definitely wasn't too sure about testing my urine, er, what?) I did like the idea of eating smaller portions and just generally eating healthier. 

The photographs are really beautiful, and I love that they are showing that eating vegetarian doesn't mean just salad, salad, salad - healthy eating can be colourful and vibrant! 

I decided to first test out the spinach and chickpea hummus recipe. It was really simple and I'm really pleased with it! Be warned, certain people (i.e. my boyfriend) were put off by its colour. While I thought it looked tasty, he thought it just looked odd. It took a lot of persuasion to get him to eat it (basically I just put some on a carrot stick and waved it in his face till he gave in) but once he did eat it he agreed it was really tasty. 

Spinach & Chickpea Hummus (from Honestly Healthy)

This recipe serves 4. 

You need: 

400 g. canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained

60 g. spinach

1 tbsp of tahini

juice of 1/2 a lemon

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 small garlic clove

125 ml of water

1. Place the chickpeas, spinach, tahini, lemon juice, and olive oil in a blender or food processor, grate in the garlic and whizz till it forms a paste. Gradually add in the water till it forms the consistency you like.

2. Thats it. Seriously, just one step. 

I did a mixture of pita bread, carrot sticks and cucumber slices to serve with it.