Taste of London

Once a year, food snobs and would be food snobs (me:) from London and beyond gather in Regents Park to taste what the top London restaurants have to offer. It's all great fun with lots of food but tickets do start from about £20 for entrance alone, so it's not the cheapest day out you can expect. This year 40 top London restaurants cooked up feasts and numerous other stalls touted wares from specialized sushi knives to little known village cheeses and everything else in between (almost) - bring large reusable shopping bags, they come in very handy or if you're not planning on wearing those 8inch heels, rough it out and bring a backpack - there are offers aplenty here.

It's a 4 day event and as all of us were expected to slog the week away at work, Saturday was our chosen day. As with any other English summer's day, rain threatened us but we are hardy Londoners :) Armed with umbrellas, cardigans, scarves and even Jo packed a pair of wellies (on my advice, which I later felt very bad about), the positive part of us dressed ourselves in light, short sleeved tops (for heaven's sake... it is summer!). The whole day the sun and clouds played peek-a-boo with each other but no rain (hoorah!)...sigh if only summer ever felt like... summer :)

There was already a crowd by the time we arrived at 12.40pm (gates open at 12.30pm) but the site is large and it didn't feel very crowded until we got to the restaurant stands. And in spite the British being famous for queues, there never seemed like there was one. Lighthearted jostling to see who would get the attention of the waiting staff behind each counter. Food wise, this was a great opportunity try dishes from restaurants normally beyond our means but this didn't mean everything was that good (some downright disappointing, unfortunately) and it was still pricey. £s have to be swapped for crowns, with each crown worth 50p. Dishes cost between 6-10 crowns with each restaurant serving 3 dishes priced at 6 crowns, 8 crowns and 10 crowns. Unfortunately my tummy couldn't quite match up to my legendary greediness but I did try ..very hard!

One-O-One

Norwegian red king fillette and potted confit of Norwegian salmon with sea lettuce butter, soft onsen quail egg, cured lemon and almond cauliflower mousse

This was rich and creamy, perhaps overly so for such a little dish. The crab and salmon was good and quite distinctive beneath all the other ingredients but they should have been left alone a little more to speak for themselves. This is the sort of dish a chef would make to wow a diner - creamy rich poached quail's egg and mousse of any sort would just yell ...over the top!

Coupe liegeoise of dark manjari brownie chocolate, coffee and salt caramel ice cream

Despite not being overly impressed with my first overly fussy dish from One-O-One, I went back to seek out some dessert and this I throughly enjoyed. The little chocolate brownies were dense, bordering on chewy that weren't overly sweet. The salt caramel ice cream was delicious and I loved the how well the salt complemented the normally very sweet caramel. Below there were bits of crushed honeycomb (seen in the 1st photo of the dessert), which lent a nice crunch. The coffee foam (foam was very fashionable this year - last year it was micro herbs) rounded up the dessert very well. The slight bitterness against the sweet crunchy honeycomb, sweet-saltiness of the caramel and the richness of the chocolate. Very well done, indeed. My only regret would be not asking for more foam when I was asked how much I would like - and there I thought they were offering to top it up with whipped cream. Sigh!

Benares

Chicken Tikka

I fell in love with the tandoori lamb that Benares had on their menu at the festival last year and I have been having beautiful dreams of it ever since. Yes, I am that much in love and it is really that wonderful. Beautiful layers of flavours that mingled so beautifully in my mouth. I was definitely looking forward to what this stand had to offer this year. The chicken tikka was good. Lovely flavours and cooked just right but ..... it just didn't... couldn't... match up to the lamb. The lamb was tender, juicy...and the chicken, well chicken is chicken. If I wasn't such a scrooge, I would cough up the dough to pay full price to eat at the restaurant.. maybe next year...

Imagine my excitement when when I saw the man behind Benares - Atul Kochhar. Definitely more exciting than spotting Gordan Ramsey last year! :)



Aiden Byrne

Line caught sea bass with shrimp chorizo and saffron pickled vegetables

Nice fresh succulent flesh with a crunchy skin. I only had a bite of this but there were no complaints from those who ordered it. Fresh, light and unfussy; very well executed.

Confit chicken with white onion and parmesan soup

It didn't blow me away but it was tasty. The chicken was well cooked, the potatoes ... forgettable, the Parmesan soup was an indistinguishable bit of foam, and foam was what the onion soup was as well... but here the chefs got it right. Sweet onions with a slight caramelized edge was tasty stuff. Now if they had just forgotten about the Parmesan foam, this would have been a really delicious dish.

Beer Battered Red Gurnard and Chips with Tartar Sauce

The nation's favourite dish made beautifully by Tom's Place. Thin, crispy batter encased wonderfully succulent bits of fish. Chunky chips that were surprisingly crisp and light. Generous portions that left us wanting more but ... as there's usually a but.... the tartar sauce was flat to the point of it being pointless of it being served and a little more seasoning on the fish and chips would have gone down a treat. Otherwise, two thumbs up.

Salt Yard

Courgette flowers stuffed with monte enebro goats' cheese and drizzled with honey

The lone vegetable of the day. As I never see many courgette flowers served or sold (and my home grown ones a little too puny to be stuffed), I was rather excited to see some of these being served up. Deep fried in a light batter, the flower encased warm, almost runny, goats' cheese. The sweet to this salty was the honey drizzled over the courgette. I've never had this before so I'll say it was interesting. I'm not hugely keen on goats' cheese - in my excitement I didn't realise the stuffing would be any sort of cheese and it's creaminess left me reeling slightly in the stomach - that and the huge amounts I had eaten and kept eating :) Probably not something I would order again.

Le Gavroche

Braised beef in red wine and creamed potatoes

The one big disappointment of the day. Despite the reputation of the restaurant and the hype behind this dish at the festival, where it's been sold for quite a few years now, I thought it fell flat on its face. The beef, the star of the dish, was stringy and needed more cooking time. The taste, I suppose was fine though now forgettable. The potatoes, well.. it was always just a side dish with no real merits of it's own.

We also had a portion of Classic Lobster Creamed Soup flavoured with Brandy. Of the two dishes, I'm not sure which I would say was the worst. The soup was a cup of brandy flavoured cream with a tinge of lobster essence. Where's the lobster? Ahh... we finally found a tiny centimeter wide nugget of lobster right at the bottom. Despite this, the Le Gavroche was amongst the more popular stands....business on reputation alone? I don't doubt that the food at the restaurant is very good but I wish they would put more effort in serving their customers at the festival - 10 crowns still is £5.

Zilli Fish

Surf and Turf - char-grilled marinated lamb chops and spicy tiger prawns

This was one instance where they should have got rid of the surf and just kept the turf. The lamb was tender, juicy and a joy to eat. The prawns, however, were pretty hopeless. Far from fresh, it was soft and floppy. If they wanted to make it ones of the stars of the dish then at least serve fresh prawns that crunched rather than flopped. Very disappointing.

Lobster ravioli and shellfish cream sauce

It sounded good, it looked and smelt good but I can't remember what it tasted like. Very likely not as good as the lamb (or I would have remembered it) and nowhere as bad as the prawns (or I would have remembered it as well). One of those dishes where I would wonder every time I looked at the photo of how it tasted.

Theo Randall

Soft chocolate cake with crema di mascarpone

Chocolate-y with a nice ganache centre. I only had a bite of this and enjoyed my little spoonful very much.

Nan's Cheese Savoury

Stuart's been wanting to make his Nan's cheese savoury for ages but I've always been a little hesitant. Probably because I always imagine it to be greasy and stodgy (if any of his previous attempts to feed me are anything to go by) but this dish was really delicious. There really isn't anything that goes in it to dislike. Layers of blanched sliced potato with softened onion, bacon and topped with cheese. Baked in the oven for a good 45 minutes to an hour. This is real comfort food for a cold evening, when you're tucked up on the sofa watching something mindless on the telly. I must admit this wouldn't be my ultimate comfort food, now that would be nice steaming bowl of chicken soup, but I so enjoyed this I went back for seconds....and thirds.

Leftover Coriander and Parsley (Green) Sauce

Ahhh the versatility of the green sauce! I have found a batch goes a long way... or just whip up another, it only takes up all of 10 minutes (yes, I'm that keen on it:) But this also a chance for me to try out another gadget I found in Vietnam. A peeler cum knife called dao bao, which I used to cut long slices of courgettes. I did try it with some carrots but it seemed a little more dangerous... too hard you see. I had lots of fun experimenting with my new toys.


Stir fry some pieces of chicken, add some assorted vegetables - this is where my sliced courgettes and carrots went in, and in with the green sauce. I liked the texture of the vegetables - both carrots and courgettes had a nice bite to them without being too crunchy.


Still hankering after the green sauce, I made another batch and this time paired it with some salmon. I cut up some salmon into large-ish cubes and fried it up with some more of those long sliced courgettes and some spinach leaves. Just as delicious. All that fish sauce and lime juices really makes my tummy growl for more!

Chicken Rice with Ginger & Spring Onion Sauce

Hankering for some good old home cooked Chinese food, which alas...I can't pop down the road to buy, I decided to make some Hainanese chicken rice. There were a few frantic phone calls to my mother, who was more than a little amused by my sudden need to know how to poach a chicken. Mind you, this is no ordinary poached chicken - this was done the Hainanese way! Specific steps must be followed to ensure a silky smooth chicken at the end.


Poached chicken
1 medium chicken - I used corn fed, free range

• Fill up a pot with enough water to ensure that the chicken will be totally submerged during the cooking process. If you have a choice, better go with a pot that is slightly narrower but deeper. Your pot should also have a good fitting lid. Let the water get to the rapid boil stage. Lift your chicken into the pot - preferably legs first - and cover tightly.
• Let the water come back to a boil. Lift the chicken out, cover the pot and let the water boil rapidly again. Return the chicken to the pot.
• Do this another 2 times (or if you're being fussy like my mother, another 3 times) but on the 2nd/3rd time after returning the chicken to the pot, let the water come up to a boil. Switch off the heat and let the chicken sit in the covered pot for 30-40 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE POT!
• Once the time is up, carefully lift up the chicken and plunge it into a bath of cold water. Some people use ice water, others like my mother runs it under a cold tap. Apparently this is to ensure that the chicken stays smooth.
  
• After it has cooled considerably, chop the chicken up into good chunky pieces. Serve with soy sauce, fried garlic and some of the oil the garlic was cooked in.
  

Garlic Rice
One of the best things about chicken rice is the rice. Cooked with the liquid that the chicken was poached in, it's full of flavour.

rice
chicken stock
garlic - lots and lots
salt
fat of some sort - if you're ready to go all the way, chicken fat is the best thing. Butter is also a good alternative. But if you're going healthy, a flavourless oil will do - or be a little naughty and mix it with some butter

Lightly fry the garlic in the fat of your choice. Add the rice, all the while ensuring that the garlic does not burn. When the rice is opaque and toasty (a minute or two), add the chicken stock. It should bubble quite rapidly at this point. Season and give it a good mix. Cover and cook as you would normal rice.

If you have some time on your hands, then chicken rice accompaniments must be made. Ginger sauce is one of them and garlic chili sauce is another. I was a little lazy, so I just made the ginger sauce. Great thing about both sauce is that they do keep and always great with rice or noodles.

Ginger and Spring Onion Sauce
ginger
spring onions
oil
salt

Skin the ginger and chop if very finely to a paste - if you have a food processor, even better. You can actually just serve the ginger paste at this point but I like taking it a step further. In a bowl, I add oil, salt and the finely sliced whites of the spring onions. I then steam it - if you're using old ginger, it can take up to an hour. If you have young ginger, then 10 - 15 minutes should do it. Served slightly cooled or room temperature with the chicken and rice.

Roasted Vegetables with Coriander and Parsley Pasta

Cauliflower is a one of those vegetables where I don't hate but I don't quite like either. The broccoli's poor cousin... until I had it roasted. Oh wow, I'm now officially in love! Sadly, it's still only with the roasted version.

The green pasta ... well, another successful experiment. With lots of coriander, parsley, garlic and fish sauce, it's almost a Thai version of pesto... yum!

Roasted Vegetables
Your choice of vegetables - peppers, aubergine, cauliflower, courgettes, tomatoes..
Olive oil
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt and pepper

Cut the vegetables up to your preferred size - the smaller they are, the faster they cook. Coat the vegetables with olive oil. Squeeze on some lemon juice, a teaspoon or so will do. Roast in a medium to high oven until the vegetables are cooked through and slightly charred on the outside. Season well.


Green Sauce
a small bunch of coriander
a small bunch of parsley
1-2 cloves of garlic - if u like your garlic put more in (not too much though), if you hate the stuff then leave it out
fish sauce
Thai sweet chili sauce
lime juice
lime rind
kaffir lime leaves
flavourless oil - sunflower or groundnut

Coarsely cut up the coriander and parsley - leaves only. Remove the hard stalk from the kaffir lime leaves and slice finely. If your lime rind is in large pieces, slice it but quite as finely as the lime leaves. Put all the above ingredients into a food processor. Add the garlic and oil. The oil is really there to help the blending along. Whizz until all the ingredients are blended together and you have a thick-ish green paste. Add in the lime juice, chili sauce and fish sauce. Blend well. You should have a bright green sauce that is not too thick nor too runny. The amount of ingredients really depend on how much you like certain things - if you dislike coriander, replace it with basil. For a nice fresh zing, add mint. Hate garlic? Leave it out. Can't get your hands on limes? Use some lemons instead. This sauce goes really well with battered seafood or just stirred into boiled rice.

Putting it all together
Just before the vegetables are ready, cook your pasta - I used linguine - according to the direction on the packet. When the pasta is done, drain it and mix some of the green sauce in - use it like you would pesto, coating the pasta. Top with the roasted vegetables. For me, there's always room for a bit of meat so I sliced up some left over salami and tossed it in with the vegetables before they topped the pasta.

You Can't Go Wrong with a Ham Sandwich

In my book, there's nothing better than a good ham sandwich (not including a fried Spam and cucumber sandwich, of course - that is the king of sandwiches! :) Add some salad to the ham and it becomes an even better tasting sandwich.


Pret A Manger does a pretty mean Dry-Cured Ham and Greve Baguette with salad and a good smear of mustard mayonnaise. Look closely - the ham even looks like the real thing :) I'm quite partial to this sandwich (even with the cheese, which I would happily do without) but....


...... another sandwich I quite like from Pret is the Dry-Cured Ham and Eggs Bloomer. I love the layers of ham and even in my slight distaste for boiled eggs, I must admit they paired very well with the meat. Ham and eggs is after all a classic.


A newly discovered favourite - Red Pepper and Goats Cheese Soup. I've never liked the thought of goats cheese very much (hence the reason why I had never got round to trying any), even less so in a soup but this is rather yummy. The soup fills the tummy without being too heavy with a nice blend of red peppers and onion. The goats cheese lends a slight creaminess and salty tang. Very enjoyable indeed.

Spaghetti with Smoked Haddock and Prawns

A quick weekday dinner of pasta with smoked haddock, which I got discounted at Waitrose (yay!) and prawns, which I also got discounted - this time from Sainsbury's (double yay!). Yes, I'm quite the queen of a good bargain.

Smoked haddock - the dyed variety, unfortunately. It was discounted, so can't complain and it was very good. Can't fault Waitrose :)


Some shredded courgette - me experimenting with my new toy, a that I brought back from Vietnam. Originally intended for shredding green papayas for green papaya salad, I used it on some courgettes as they are roughly about the same .. 'hardness'. It works quite well, except of course courgettes have a higher percentage of water. I know texture and taste wise both the courgette and papaya are quite different, but shredded courgettes make a nice substitute in Thai inspired salad, with tomatoes, cucumber, lots of herbs - coriander, sweet basil, some lettuce, some avocado. Like I said - "Thai inspired" ;)


Out comes the pan and in goes some oil, lots of garlic, some diced de-seeded fresh tomatoes, the hearts of the courgettes that were too floppy to shred (the middle bit where the seeds are) and a handful of sliced button mushrooms. A splash of white wine and the smoked haddock in and once the fish is nearly done, in goes the prawns for a minute or two to heat through. Season and its done.

The result - a nice smoky-ness from the fish, a good punch from the garlic, nice crunch from the prawns, slight tart-sweetness from the tomatoes and an interesting contrast between the long shreds of courgettes and the spaghetti. The more traditional of you would shake your heads at the sprinkling of Parmesan over the top but what the heck, the smoked fish provided a good platform for a little of that hard salty cheese. All in all, thumbs up :)

Cheesy Scrambled Eggs on Toast

Back in London after a brilliant holiday, Stuart asked for cheesy scrambled eggs on toast. And that is what he got...though a little more than he bargained for. Fours eggs scrambled over low heat with a knob of butter, a splash of milk and a minute before the eggs were ready, a generous handful of grated mature cheddar. Served over granary toast.

Stuart thought it was there was too much cheese :) I thought it made a lovely photo but as I didn't eat any of this, I had no complains.

Old Haunts - Seng Lee

Yes, the one behind Hock Lee mini market in Damanasara Heights. I have been coming here since I was a wee lil thing (a dangerously long time ago!) and it's quite amazing that most who work here still recognise me. It's the same with the staff at Hock Lee, the older staff at the Kiddies store (the magazine shop), the flower shop woman, the pisang goreng (banana fritter) man and of course, Andy (my trusty hairdresser who I can always count on to save my ruined hair). It's always nice to say hello to everyone but at the same time I get a little embarrassed when the greetings come as - 'Oh, you're all grown up. You've lost weight' or 'Oh, you haven't been back in such a long time! You have put on quite a lot of weight'. Sigh..

For food, it's straight to Seng Lee (or known as 'the place behind Hock Lee' to us - surprise surprise I only found out the name of the coffeeshop yesterday when I looked it up). There is another coffeeshop a few doors down called Shangri-La, I believe (I have no idea why I remember the name of this coffeeshop when I don't remember the one I've been eating at for years). There is certainly more variety at Shangri-La but the food isn't as good (or if I'm feeling less diplomatic - any good at all?)

Seng Lee is well known for its char kway teow, which comes with a long wait during lunch hours. But when you're on holiday, there's certainly no need to wait until lunchtime so when we got there about 10.30am on a weekday, it was nice and quiet with only 2 other tables occupied. I have to admit I was never a huge fan of char kway teow whilst I was growing up - my usual order when I used to come here with my mum, at least once a week, was pork noodles-dry. But I have learned to appreciate it. And in true Asian style (also because we hoped to sneak in a visit to Chillis later), we decided to share all the food. A few plates of famous char kway teow - a plate without chilli and cockles, another with both - I'm the cockle eater, everyone else shuddered in disgust. The noodles are good - nice charring from the big fire with the lingering taste of wok hei. A good dose of garlic and still juicy, plump cockles. But it has a paleness that is usually found is in fried kway teow from Penang. Perhaps I'm just partial to the char kway teow stall in the coffeeshop at the corner of Jalan Imbi - Weng Hing (where the pork noodles is seriously good)?


Wantan mee with char siew - good, reliable dish.


Curry laksa - bit of a revelation for me. I've always stayed away from this dish as it's quite heavy (haha coming from a person who used to gorge on bowls of pork noodles!) but I found this to be absolutely yummy. My sister and I had decided to share this but couldn't decide between mai fun (rice vermicelli) or kway teow, so we got a mixture of both. It's a good combination but I'm still convinced that mai fun is better suited to curry laksa - it soaks up the soup much better. Unlike it's thicker and heavier on the coconut milk cousin, curry mee, curry laksa is ...well, lighter but just as satisfying without over-burdening the belly. Other bits and bobs in the bowl include long beans, tofu puffs, shredded chicken and cockles (yay!)

One Last Meal - Hanoi

A last minute change of plans brought us back to Hanoi a day early, which meant an extra evening to hit the streets for food and stocking up on another batch of those oh-so-cheap DVDs *ah hemmm*.

I was really gearing myself up to a last minute gorge everything on sight. First stop, banh cuon. A rice noodle roll, much in the spirit of the cheong fun found in dim sum restaurants, banh cuon has an even yummier (is that possible?) stuffing of fried minced pork with fish sauce, garlic, dried shitake mushrooms and wood ear fungus. What isn't there to like?

Here's the banh cuon woman hard at work. A mixture of rice flour is ladled over a flat surface sitting over a big pot of boiling water, the pot lid goes on for a few seconds and when it comes off, a thin sheet of wobbly soft rice noodles is revealed; all ready to be rolled into banh cuon. The woman quickly peals it off the steamer and stuffs it with the delicious minced pork mixture. She works incredibly quickly, never once slowing down to let me take a proper photo ... ahhh tourists! :)

The finished product. A fuzzy photo reflects a hungry tummy :) and poor lighting. A mound of soft rice noodle rolls bursting with meaty goodness and piled high with crunchy deep fried shallots. Served with cha lua/gio lua - a local sausage, which came in a bowl with nuoc nam (seen at the top of the photo) and a plate the usual greenery - sweet basil and coriander. It was utterly delicious, even better with the shallots.

Despite gearing myself up to eat lots that last night, I was way to full for anything else. A pity :( We left with a feeling that the banh cuon woman overcharged us but hey - it was still came to about US$1 -1.50 per person, so no complains from us :)