Blackmail and bribery aside, there’s very little I can do to make my other half eat his vegetables – lettuce especially.

“Disgusting, rabbit food. Pointless”, he argues to me.

So you can imagine my face, jaw on the floor, when he wolfed down a dish of ‘Cogollos de tudela con vinagreta de panceta’ and asked for seconds.

For the non-Spanish speaking among us, that’s a warm roasted lettuce salad, with honey and smoked bacon vinaigrette.

Renown chef Omar Allibhoy, who has appeared on the likes of Sunday Brunch and MasterChef, launched his new cook book Spanish Made Simple recently.

To tantalise the tastebuds he has updated the menu at his chain of restaurants, Tapas Revolution, to include some of the new recipes.

The lettuce is a traditional recipe his mother would make, but with a bit of the Omar flare thrown in.

The Madrid-born father has created a menu for the whole family, with a young son himself who he loves to teach to cook, and strong memories of helping his mum in the kitchen as a boy himself.

I’ll concede when I saw the menu, roasted lettuce was the least exciting looking dish.
But just you wait. It’s comfort food to the highest degree, sweet and smokey, warm and wonderful.

The marinated crispy chicken wings with a lemon and honey dressing and a traditional slow-cooked lamb stew with tomato, peppers and herbs went down a treat.

But my personal favourites were the baked piquillo peppers filled with mushroom béchamel and piquillo pepper sauce.

The best thing about the dishes though, were that even though it was dinner out, a treat, everything on the new menu can be done at home, without the faff you might expect.

It’s simple but flavourful.

If you’ve never been to Tapas Revolution before, give it a go. Choosing, trying and sharing an assortment of dishes makes it more than just dinner out, it’s a whole evening of fun.
And if you’ve been before, go again, you need to try the new dishes.

In what can only be described as a bizarre parallel universe, my other half is already dragging me back to Bluewater for, you guessed it, lettuce.

Tapas Revolution is in the Upper Mall, Bluewater, and is the only Kent branch.
Omar’s new book is £20 and can be bought at the restaurant if you fancy giving the recipes a go yourself.