The Herb Saver pretty much does what it says on the tin. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of spending above the odds for a bunch of fresh herbs at the supermarket, only to find that two or three days later that they are wilted, soggy and unusable. For those of us without a River Cottage style herb garden and limited outside space, there aren’t many alternatives but to keep buying packaged herbs and dealing with the fact that some will go to waste. Until now.

The Herb Saver gets round the wilting issue by keeping the herbs cool and hydrated. You fill the bottom reservoir with cold water,  stand your herbs upright (stalks down) in the water, close them into the ‘chamber’ and then pop into the fridge.

In our experience, the herbs will keep at least three times longer that usual, which has got to be a good thing, right? I’m sure you could achieve similar results with a jam jar, but it also looks good, and fits perfectly into our fridge door.

You can buy the Herb saver on Firebox for £13, which means after a few weeks it will have pretty much paid for itself. Recommended.

I Tweeted about these bad boys a few weeks ago when I discovered that they’d been re-stocked by my lovely Scandinavian friends down the road from work, but such is my love for the Peanott Kubbe that I thought they deserved a post all of their own.

I rarely get evangelical or geeky about chocolate bars, but having discovered the Peanott Kubbe last year I can make an exception. Hailing from Norway, and roughly translated as ‘Peanut Log’, it’s a chocolate, peanut and toffee bar with a difference.

Like a Bounty, the bar comes in two halves. The outer is made of a milk chocolate layer studded with roasted peanut chunks that surrounds a second layer made of dark chocolate, which in turn surrounds the smooth toffee centre. The toffee core has smooth nougatey texture with an almost burnt caramel taste, which contrasts with the bite and flavour of the peanuts and chocolate. Thats right. Toffee, peanut and two types of chocolate. Whats not to love?

I’m going to shut up now, but I can’t recommend them enough. You can find the Scandinavian Kitchen (which is a very fine cafe if you haven’t been) and Peanott Kubbe here.

My day job takes me in to central London each day, and whilst I’m spoiled for choice for places to get lunch, I tire of giving the Prets and Eats my cash every day.  That being the case, a year or so ago my old work partner and I set ourselves on a bit of a mission to find some alternatives to the standard fayre, the results of which you can find on this map. I’ll be posting about some of the names on the list in the not too distant future, but first up I want to talk about Benito’s Hat.

No longer the preserve of stoned Californian students, the burrito has made it’s way to the UK (well London at least) and seems to be growing in popularity. I used to get my fix from an imaginatively named place called ‘El Burrito’ which promoted itself with a young Mexican kid dressed as a donkey (burrito means ‘little donkey’ in Mexican) handing out flyers, and then Benito’s Hat opened across the street. I think I went in there on the day it opened, and I’ve never darkened the donkey’s doorway since.

Based on Goodge Street, Benito’s hat has been open for a little over a year, and pretty much every lunchtime has a queue out of the door. It’s not hard to see why. The food is fresh, tasty and fast, and if you leave out the sour cream and cheese, probably not that unhealthy.

I’m a bit of a creature of habit, and always opt for a burrito with pork, black beans, hot sauce and guacamole (which costs an extra 50p – my only complaint). Once unwrapped from the foil, you know you’re in the presence of greatness. The tortillas are as soft and as warm as (I apologise for this analogy) a baby’s bum. Taking a bite you immediately get a hit of the seriously tasty stewed pork. Very similar to a ‘carnitas’ burrito you’d get in the states, the meat is intensely flavoured with lime, cinnamon, oregano and pepper black pepper. Then you taste the beans, then the heat of the chili sauce, before being soothed by the cool of the salad and guaca. The flavours are big and bold. It’s a seriously tasty and satisfying lunch.

I’ve tried other things on the menu, they’re all good, and would easily rival anything that you’d get in the Mission area of San Francisco, but I’m not sure that I’ve really done the experience justice here , so do yourself a favour if you’re in the ‘hood and eat like a Mexican this lunch time.