After years of continuous eating, the 'Girl Who Has To Eat' has been spurred on to create her own food guide & blog. Read about her fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) culinary adventures in her restaurant reviews. This and more, including stories on her cookery school.
A girl has to eat, and this time it’s Japanese food! So check out my latest review on Tsunami Japanese Restaurant as I storm my way through a multitude of dishes. I’ve posted it as part of a blog exchange with fellow food blogger, Londoneater.
So to read all, and savour the yummy dishes, click here ‘Tsunami Restaurant Review’.
And be sure to come back here on Wednesday to check out Londoneater’s post.
Happy eating!
Pre-dessert of poached beetroot and beetroot sorbets
Although I have been to the one-star Michelin restaurant The Greenhouse before, this lunch was my first visit since it was refurbished in January 2008. My previous visit was at dinnertime, and my memory of the restaurant was that it was rather romantic. However, this time round, the dining room seemed a little more sombre. Perhaps my original impression was influenced by the volume of champagne I had drunk, or by the person I was dining with that evening. And being daytime, there was also no soft hue emitting from artificial lighting to provide a more seductive feel, instead there was a lovely, albeit slightly harsher, natural light pouring through the windows instead. Nor were there the lights that shimmer of an evening along the length of the pathway leading up to the entrance, and which also serve to illuminate the lovely landscaped garden. And rather than a clientele who might dine at night for the primary pursuit of culinary pleasure (or other pleasures), the lunchtime crowd appeared to have a more business focus. And my dining companion: he was just a very good, platonic friend.
There is an adage that all good things must come to an end. In our case, we will no longer be allowed to take the food that we cook home from cookery school. Truth be told, Westminster Kingsway College has always had a rule of forbidding students from taking the food, and this was communicated to us on day one. So the fact that we have been taking home our food ever since the course started was because our lovable teddy bear of a teacher (Chef), in his usual generous spirit, turned a blind eye.
But someone (not from my class) snitched, and the powers that be came down on Chef. Therefore doggy bags are to be no more. The food is to be sent to the cafeteria for sale so that the college can recoup some of their costs. This is understandable given how little our cooking course costs in comparison to the courses at other notable cookery schools such as Leiths School of Food and Wine and Le Cordon Bleu London. But you could imagine the collective chorus of groans that echoed across the room when we were told; and the disappointment that formed on our faces when at the end of the day, after plating and tasting the output of our work, we then had to relinquish ownership of the dishes: plaice florentine, grilled sardines with herb butter and deep fried sprats (a small oily fish) with paprika and cayenne pepper.
Plaice florentine
I know I was a little naughty and that I missed blogging about last week’s class. Somehow, time just passed me by. We also covered fish last week: salmon fish cakes, supreme of pollock with a herb crust, pan fried mackerel fillets and a supreme of salmon with a herb beurre blanc. I am glad to say that my filleting skills have definitely improved, but next week we will move onto meat; and I am also glad to say that I won’t be missing that fishy smell that just stays on my hands for hours after the class is over.
Westminster Kingsway College:
Web: http://www.westking.ac.uk
A call to chocolate lovers! The 2009 Chocolate Festival will be coming to London’s Southbank between Friday 3 to Sunday 5 April 2009 (11am to 8pm daily, 6pm Sunday). And it’s free to attend! There will be chocolate tastings (yum!), chocolate cakes, chocolate workshops, chocolate fountains, chocolate art, chocolate books, chocolates with wine, chocolate demonstrations, chocolate truffles, organic chocolates, chocolate milkshakes, hot chocolate, and even chocolate beauty products. What more could you want?
William Curley, the winner of the 2009 Best British Chocolatier prize for the third year running (as awarded by The Academy of Chocolate), will also be hosting a stall.
And here’s another date for your diary. Chocolate Week 2009 will run from 12 to 18 October 2009.
Summary information:
The Chocolate Festival at:
Southbank Centre Square
Belvedere Road
Outside Royal Festival Hall
Friday 3 - Sunday 5 April 2009
11am - 8pm daily (6pm Sunday)
Email: thechocolatefestival@yahoo.co.uk
Web: http://www.chocolate-festival-southbank-london
Ever since I started this food blog, I have come to realise just how tolerant my wonderful friends are. When we eat out together, they sit patiently by as I take photos of all our food. All the while they look hungrily on, twitching to start eating. I also suspect they silently groan every time I say “just one more photo”. But ever so supportive of my cause, they always let me taste their dishes without necessarily wanting to taste mine. One of my friends occasionally lets me order for her. (Am I spoilt or what?) I have therefore decided that there is definitely some merit in writing these restaurant reviews: I get to eat my food, and I get to try everyone else’s too. Could there possibly be a more winning combination? But in what was to be a first, I recently found out what it felt like to eat out with someone like me.
Tom Aikens
Having got in touch with a professional food writer recently, we decided to meet for lunch; our choice of venue - Tom Aikens, one of the restaurants currently taking part in London Restaurant Week. So here we were the two of us, at a one-star Michelin restaurant, with notepads in hand, scribbling madly away. And there was also the not so subtle matter of our photo taking: swivelling plates around for that ever better angle, rearranging the table for perhaps a more superior shot. What a sight we must have been to behold, both snapping crazily at the food like Japanese tourists! And oh no, it wasn’t just one photo, but at least two, three or four of every dish. At one point, I almost elbowed my dining companion in the face as I scrambled to take better aim. And we really couldn’t have been missed. With only five tables occupied during our sitting, less than half of those available, the black and white dining room was rather quiet and a little stark.
I am hoping the sunny, beautiful weather that we’ve been having in London for the past few days is a sign that this summer will be a brilliant one. For me, one of the highlight events of the summer is the food festival, the Taste of London. It surely is one of the best foodie events that London has to offer, what with some of this city’s top restaurants setting up camp at Regent’s Park so that we can taste our way through each one. The first time I went was in 2005, and that day was one of the hottest of the year. You couldn’t have asked for anything better; food, booze, and lots of sunshine.
Taste of London 2009 is almost upon us again and tickets are on sale now. It’s on between 18 – 21 June at Regent’s Park, so put these dates in your diary. Here’s to a great summer.
Web: http://www.taste-of-london-2009/
A taste of the line-up *
Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester • Asia de Cuba • Benares • Boxwood Café • Bumpkin • Cinnamon Kitchen • Cocoon • Croque Gascon • Fino • Kai Mayfair • L’Anima • L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon • Launceston Place • Le Café Anglais • Le Gavroche • Le Pont de la Tour • Odette’s • Pied a Terre • Quo Vadis Refettorio • Rhodes Twenty Four • Salt Yard • Sumosan • Tamarind • The Grill at The Dorchester • The Landau • Theo Randall • Tom’s Kitchen
* From the 2009 Taste of London website. Correct as at 20 March 2009.
The 2009 Ideal Home Show is upon us again between 20 March to 13 April 2009 at Earls Court, London. For foodies, you might be interested in the ‘Celebrity Chef’s Kitchen Theatre’; a series of culinary demonstrations performed by celebrity chefs. The line-up includes Raymond Blanc from Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons and Jun Tanaka from Pearl. For the 2009 demonstration timetable, a complete list of the chefs that are participating, their bios and the recipes they cooked in the 2008 Celebrity Chef’s Kitchen Theatre, go to the link here.
http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/chefs-kitchen-theatre/
Finally, if you are a Pizza Express Lover, this might be the thing for you. The Ideal Home Show is offering a 2 for 1 voucher on all main courses after 5pm for people who visit the Show. The voucher is redeemable at various Pizza Express locations near Earls Court.
http://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk/pizza-express-2-4-1-special-offer/
I am convinced that eating bad food is what makes one fat. My logic goes something like this: when you eat bad food, you are left feeling unsatisfied. So if you’re anything like me, you will want to eat something good, something a little comforting to make you feel better. This is why eating bad food is what makes you fat, because you just end up eating more. Take a look at the French for example. Despite all the wonderful trappings of lots of good food, they are generally not very hefty.
So, as I sit here about to write about my dining experience at Trishna Restaurant, I find myself tucking into a newly opened tub of ice-cream (Green & Black’s organic vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce). I feel in need of some comfort food and I am going to assume that my present disposition is enough to tell you that I found Trishna particularly unsatisfying.
Pan-fried salmon
Odette’s Restaurant has become something of an institution in Primrose Hill since it opened in 1978. In 2006, Bryn Williams took over as the head chef, and went on to become the owner in October 2008, when he purchased the restaurant from music mogul Vince Power. Having previously worked at Le Gavroche, The Orrery and Galvin at Windows, Bryn gained further recognition in 2006 on the television programme, The Great British Menu, by winning the fish course, and consequently the opportunity to cook the dish for The Queen at her 80th birthday banquet.
Therefore it was with great curiosity that JK (and that’s not Rowling) and I ventured to Odette’s. Having met up for a drink before dinner, we set off to the restaurant in two separate cars. And what a journey that turned out to be. As she thought she knew the way, I decided to follow her. But as it turned out, she didn’t really know the way. Furthermore, her road handling is of the kind that belongs more on a race track than on the speed bumps that lead to Primrose Hill. In contrast, I am rather slow in my little car. And alas, it was not long before we became separated.
The International Food & Drink Event (IFE09) is converging at the Excel Centre, London, to bring together food and drink suppliers from across the world (15 to 18 March 2009). This biennial trade event provides an opportunity for the global food and drink community to share ideas, and to discover the latest in food and drink innovation. In 2007, the exhibition attracted over 24,000 food and drink buyers.
If you are not a food or drink buyer, or a restaurateur, you may still find the programme line-up at the IFE09 interesting:
1) The Skillery - run in association with the Craft Guild of Chefs, it will feature live demonstrations from a number of top chefs; and
2) Flavours of the IFE – a series of food seminars.
It’s free to go to IFE09 if you register in advance on their website, saving you the £30 fee charged at the door.
We have now migrated from vegetables to fish, and I’m delighted that we’re starting to cover the meatier, more substantial stuff. As much as I appreciate some good veg, I do like my meat, or fish as the case might be. Filleting and skinning were the order of the day. The former requires good knife skills of course. As for skinning, once you find the angle at which you ought to guide your knife along the fish, well, it isn’t really so hard after all. Patience and care are what is needed.
We covered how to poach a darne of salmon, which is the middle cut of the fish; in a court bouillon made from water, malted vinegar, onions, carrots, bay leaf and peppercorns. As for the filleted fish, a plaice, we churned out deep-fried goujons and shallow-fried fillets finished with beurre noisette (a brown, nutty butter sauce). At what seemed like a quarter pound of butter going into the pan, I mildly protested at all the calories. “Yes” said Chef, “but it tastes so good”, as he contentedly laps up my sauce for grading with a happy grin. I can’t help but agree, but then, he is a little rotund after all, and that is a state I want to avoid becoming. But truth be told, Chef has had many more years of cooking and eating than me, so hopefully it will be a little while longer before I too, become more round.
Plaice with beurre noisette
Chef started his professional career in the kitchen of the Savoy Hotel and he occasionally regales us with some of the stories from that time. The hotel is currently under refurbishment and is scheduled to reopen later this year, but Chef was there in the 1970s, before even the last refurbishment. Back then, there was a long corridor that ran from the kitchen to the pot wash. All the chefs avoided this protracted walk, preferring instead to funnel the pots that needed washing down to the pot wash by way of rolling them down the corridor. Oh what fun! But rue the day you got in the way of one of those pots as it barrelled towards you. Nowadays, with health and safety regulations, no doubt a time honoured tradition is unlikely to ever see light again.
Westminster Kingsway College:
Web: http://www.westking.ac.uk
Dear fellow food lovers, here’s a quick reminder about the upcoming London Restaurant Week which runs from 16 to 29 March 2009. In conjunction with Visa and Lastminute.com, over 100 restaurants in London will be offering some top value menus: two course lunches from £15, and three course dinners from £25. Restaurants include the gorgeous looking Landau, and some Michelin-starred eateries such as Nahm, Quilon, Benares, Tom Aikens, and one of my personal favourites, the Foliage at the Mandarin Oriental. Just as well London Restaurant Week runs for two weeks.
To book, go to www.londonrestaurantweek.co.uk
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