Eyre brothers, London, UK

I have always heard that pork meat has to be cooked well done and that no pink meat should be left. Otherwise one should have his intestine liquefied and die in atrocious stomach pain. Therefore, what a shock to find on the menu of Eyre brothers, a Portuguese restaurant on Leonard street a "Medium-rare grilled fillet of pork". Despite the fact that it seemed unnatural, I must say this pink fillet of pork was the highlight of the dinner.

We had three starters to share and I absolutely loved the figs in ham and the Jamon ibérico bellota. However, the black pudding with fried eggs and potatoes looked more like a breakfast dish in a Madrid bodega and even if I usually love everything that is greasy and heavy, this one was "one-step" too fat. For the attention of my friend "Magic F.", I must say this made me think of the song of the movie "Allumeuses".

While everyone else had the pork as the main, I ordered the salt cod which sounded to me as the typical Portuguese dish. My first reaction was that the name was well chosen. The texture of the fish was nice but it was SO salty that I could hardly eat it. The only thing I could do was to drink 4 liters of water to calm down my polydipsia and look with envy at the pink pork fillets my neighbours were eating.

Figs in ham

Jamon ibérico bellota

Morcilla (black pudding) fried potatoes and egg

Salt cod

Medium rare grilled fillet of iberico pork

Fried zucchini

Despite the salty cod, I enjoyed my dinner at Eyre Brothers. Everyone else praised their pork fillet. We had also a wonderful Douro red wine. The dinner room is lovely and intimate. Definitely an address worth trying and located right in the heart of Shoreditch.

A comment: this is another post with a serious delay as we ate at Eyre Brothers in October 2010.

Cost: £10-£18 for starters, £20 for mains