Five things David Sexton ate this week

1. At the new Ivy Market Grill in Covent Garden, before the Unbroken premiere, the signature shepherd’s pie, made of slow-braised lamb shoulder, too little degreased, alas. Clubby, theatrical atmosphere: the horror!

2. An enjoyable plate of meat and cheese with a juicy grenache, while reading the papers, at a likeable new discovery, Muddy Boots Meat Shop in Crouch End (muddybootsfoods.co.uk), really making that shop/bar thing work well.

3. At Bafta’s early Christmas drinks, a try-out of the canapés to be served at its awards in February: tasty and ever so tastefully tiny.

4. Long puzzled by this root vegetable (pictured) in all the grocers in Green Lanes, I bought it and cooked it as per instructions from the shopkeeper, with onion, celery, tomatoes and lemon juice: delicious, like a special potato, unlike anything I’d ever tasted. Kolokasi to Cypriots and on Green Lanes, it’s known elsewhere as taro. Strange, how it looks like a giant morel ...

5. The taste hit of the week: white, creamy, ravishingly good Swaledale from Rawcheesepower at Harringay Market. A little slice each night...