British Archives - - Page 2 of 2

UK eating

It’s amazing how a great meal can all of a sudden put you in a good mood. That’s how I’m feeling right now. Happy, bubbly, energized but at the same time stuffed and sated. But I’ll get to that meal much later. There’s a lot to catch up on.

I flew into the UK last Friday morning, arriving at an ungodly early hour and then caught the first bus from Heathrow to Cheltenham, a beautiful spa town in the English countryside some 2.5 hrs away. Because the town is a popular weekend destination for London yuppies (and partly but less because the Cheltenham Ladies College has become a popular place for wealthy parents from around the world to dump their daughters for a few years), Cheltenham is quite cosmopolitan, with a healthy selection of chic cafés, gourmet restaurants—including a two-Michelin star French place called Le Champignon Sauvage—a disproportionately high number of fancy kitchenware shops—including a branch of my fave HongKong kitchen supply store, The PanHandler—and an enormously well-stocked cookbook store called amusingly Cooking the Books.

On our first day in town, we ate at Raymond Blanc’s Le Petit Blanc, a no-frills restaurant through which Blanc proposes to cook unpretentious, reasonably-priced food. Both my colleague and I had the promotional menu, a two course meal with a glass of wine for 10 Pounds. I started with a pork belly and prune terrine, served with apple chutney. This was followed by deep fried whiting, pommes frites, and tartare sauce (yes, fish and chips). The food, while good, was nothing special.

Amazingly, the weather throughout our visit was amazing… perfect “sitting outside with a cuppa” weather. And the best place that I found to do this at was a very French café called Café Rouge. Here’s a quick picture of the menu that I like, followed by a picture of one of their two al fresco areas. You can see how nice the weather is from that one.

The other place in Cheltenham that I tried and that’s worth mentioning is called very unoriginally The Pie & Mash. Yup, no rewards for figuring out that it’s a pie shop. But it’s a pretty unique pie shop. In fact, it’s the UK’s only 100% organic pie shop. Some purists, of course, might scoff at that. Pies are, they’ll argue, meant to be unhealthy. But I think that this is an impressive effort. Unfortunately, while the owners’ hearts are in the right place, their tastebuds weren’t. Organic is fine. But organic doesn’t have to be bland, which the food here was. Of course, a healthy helping of their organic ketchup and a liberal sprinkle of salt, and my chicken, bacon and leek pie was actually pretty good. Here’s a picture of it.

We took another coach back to London on Sunday, getting into town around noon. After quickly unpacking, I headed over to Knightsbridge for an afternoon of shopping. My first stop was Harvey Nichols, where I enjoyed a late lunch at Wagamama. After Harvey Nicks, I made my way down the road to Harrod’s, home, among other things, of some pretty legendary food halls. Imagine my surprise when entering the baked goods room to see this:

Yup, a Krispy Kreme outlet. Yum. Of course, I joined the queue and 15 minutes later was happily devouring two hot original glazed doughnuts. Yum Yum! That night, I caught up with some friends over a lovely French dinner at a very classy restaurant in South Kensington called Racine.

The next day was a work day and that meant meetings after meetings all day. Our last meeting ended around 530ish. My colleague and I had made plans to meet another colleague, vacationing in London, and cult foodie Kevin Gould at St John for dinner. Kevin’s a huge advocate and fan of St John and its amazing chef-owner Fergus Henderson. S and I have the cookbook at home and while before that night, neither of us had ever eaten there, we were fans too. So, this was a meal I’d been looking forward to for a long time. The restaurant’s great looking, all white and modest, which forces the attention of the diners on the food.

The crowd was also young, surprisingly young given the prices and the prestige of the restaurant. I knew that I had to try the Roast Bone Marrow and Parsley Salad. It was wonderful. The marrow was rich, oily, and full of earthy goodness. I was instructed to dig the marrow out and spread it on the toast that the dish came with. Over this goes the parsely salad, which is dotted with capers, and diced and sautéed small onions. The combination is pretty amazing.

For my main, I had calves’ liver and onions, a traditional English dish that’s been taken up a notch. For side dishes, Kevin had ordered some sautéed sprout tops (these were wonderful), a mixed salad, and a Welsh rarebit. For dessert, I ordered a half dozen madeleines, baked a la minute. This was the only dish that disappointed. Both Kevin and I agreed that the madeleines were only passable.

Yesterday was another busy day. Fortunately, we had a late morning meeting on Monmouth Street and a bit of time before the next one. One of my favorite places to eat in London is Food for Thought, on Neal St. I’ve been popping in there since my university days—especially because back then that was pretty much all I could afford. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a delightful, laid-back and tiny vegetarian restaurant and take-out joint. The food has always been consistently delicious. For lunch, I had a spinach quiche and a salad. It was fantastic. My colleague and I chased down our meals with equally amazing espressos from the Monmouth Coffee Company.

That night I went to Gordon Ramsay. I want to be as honest as possible about my meal there. It was my first visit and despite the fact that some friends of mine aren’t fans (ahem… Kevin), I was really excited. I went with a friend to the branch on Royal Hospital Road. The space really surprised me. It’s the complete opposite of Parisian 3-Star restaurants. While those are often majestic, palatial and fantastical, this restaurant is small and deceptively humble. Both my friend and I had a 4 course meal. I started with the ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon poached in a light bisque with a lemon grass and chervil veloute, After this, I had a small portion of slow braised pied de cochon pressed than pan fried with poached quail’s egg, ham knuckle and hollandaise sauce. My main was line caught turbot on the bone with coriander, tagliatelle, braised vegetables and a citrus butter sauce. For dessert, my friend and I split a tarte tatin and vanilla ice cream for two. Of the dishes, the pied de cochon and the tarte tatin were the stand-outs. They were truly amazing. The ravioli and the turbot were good. They were executed perfectly, but they didn’t knock my socks off. Which I think I was expecting.

One of the criticisms of Ramsay is that while his team serves up technically perfect food, it’s not exciting, not new enough or different enough. And, after eating there, I have to agree with this assessment somewhat. While the meal was very good, it comes nowhere close to the brilliant experiences I have had at places like Le Cinq. In fact, the restaurant that I have been to recently that I was most reminded of during my dinner at Gordon Ramsay was Gaddi’s in Hong Kong. The meal that David Goodridge cooked for S and I two months back was equally technically competent, and equally delicious. So either Gaddi’s deserves 3 Michelin stars or Ramsay doesn’t. Either way, there’s no way this restaurant is on the same level of a Le Cinq or an Alain Ducasse. That said, it was still a hugely enjoyable experience.

We flew into Frankfurt this morning, had an appallingly bad lunch at the restaurant that’s in the hotel we’re staying in, and spent the afternoon being amazed at the Frankfurt Book Fair. By evening, I was exhausted. Hoping to eat somewhere close to my hotel, I took a short walk down the road and found a small Italian restaurant called Da Pio. I had some antipasta (aubergine, zucchini, mushrooms, seafood, and onions), followed by a tagliatelle with shaved truffles (yum). The antipasta was really, really good. And the pasta delightful. And the after effect of the good meal is a natural high that’s motivated me enough to sit down and finish this post.

A Healthy Dip (the hummus, not the hubby), another guest post by S

For quite some time now, I’ve been on a quest to reduce the chubbiness of my hubby. I’ll readily admit that he isn’t clinically chubby, but I’d still prefer it if he’d eat a little healthier. So whenever he shows enthusiasm for anything that is remotely good for him (you’ll notice that his usual gustatory passions are pork belly, cream, duck fat and Strasbourgian foie gras), I try my best to master the dish in the hope that it’ll wend its way into our everyday menus. Yes, wives are sneaky and conniving in that way. Recently, we had some lovely store-bought organic hummus which he snacked on with gusto. Subscribing to the homemade-would-obviously-be-even-better-philosophy, I decided to make some myself.

I dipped into husband and wife restaurateur team, Sam & Sam Clark’s lovely first cookbook, Moro for a simple recipe. I haven’t yet eaten at their restaurant, Moro, in the increasingly trendy neighborhood of Clerkenwell, London. But the tale of their three-month honeymoon spent driving around Spain and Morocco has always drawn me to their recipes. It was exactly what CH and I had planned to do on our own honeymoon but couldn’t get enough time-off to do (we ate our way across Paris instead).

Their recipe, which makes roughly 1.5-2 cups, calls for
200g chickpeas, soaked overnight with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda
3 tbs olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed to a paste with salt
3-4 tbs tahini

Rinse the chickpeas under cold water, then place in a large saucepan, fill with 2 litres of cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, skimming off any scum as it builds up, and cook for about 1.5-2 hours or until the skins are tender. Remove from heat, pour off excess liquid until level with chickpeas, and season with salt and pepper. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Drain the chickpeas, keeping aside the cooking liquid, and blend in a food processor with a little cooking liquid to help the chickpeas on their way. When smooth, add the lemon juice, garlic, tahini and olive oil. Taste for seasoning. Add salt and pepper, and some more liquid if necessary.

The bicarbonate of soda helps to tenderize the chickpeas, but will result in a soapy taste. Paula Wolfert, in true slow Mediterranean kitchen-style, recommends cooking the chickpeas in a slow cooker for 8 hours. I just did without the bicarb (Claudia Roden doesn’t use bicarb but cooks the chickpeas for 1.5 hours).

The other thrill from making hummus came from getting to use our strapping, relatively new Sumeet Asia Kitchen grinder, a Christmas present from close friends of ours. It took no more than a couple of pulses to get a perfectly smooth texture.

Claudia Roden offers a tempting array of optional garnishes (I’d like to try her hot version which involves topping the hummus with melted butter and pinenuts fried in the same butter, before baking it), but my favorite way of enjoying hummus is to lick it off my finger. — S

Best Easy Roast Chook

Image hosted by Photobucket.com

Until I discovered this recipe, my favourite roast chicken recipe was a rather unhealthy but delicious version picked out of Nigel Slater’s Real Food, which is also one of my all-time favourite cookbooks. Nigel’s version asks us to rub our chicken inside and out with butter (herb butter, granted, but still butter).

The recipe my wife and I now like best—which is the topic of this post—comes from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon cookbook. In fact, it’s the very first recipe in the book, and one that, when we first read, we didn’t quite believe. It calls for nothing more than salt and thyme (and of course the chicken). First, get a really good, big bird. Wash it and pat it dry. Preheat your oven to 230 Degrees Celsius (450F). Sprinkle some good salt over the bird-preferably inside and out. We like using fleur de sel but for the bird above we used some wonderful Murray River salt flakes, picked up on a trip to Adelaide. Truss the bird and then place it on a roasting pan (you can sprinkle a tad more salt over the bird if you want). Roast it for 50-60 minutes. Take it out of the oven, off the pan and let it stand for 15 minutes. While it’s resting, sprinkle the fresh thyme over the bird and pour some of the pan juices over the bird.

The chicken comes out moist, tender, and delicious. The skin will be lovely and crispy. All you need to make it better is a glass of wine and a side salad. The bird pictured up top was made over the weekend for my wife’s sister—back for the weekend on holiday from Beijing—and a good friend who was leaving town for a few months. We started the meal with a roasted vegetable tart and finished it off with some macarons from Canele. With the chicken, we enjoyed a lovely bottle of Veuve Clicquot Brut.

Chocolate Nemesis Part Deux

Ah, I’ve just discovered that The Guardian has kindly posted Mr Barnes’ essay on the Chocolate Nemesis here in case you want to read it. Enjoy!

Chocolate Nemesis

One of the best food books I’ve read recently is Julian Barnes’ The Pedant in the Kitchen. Here’s a shot of its cover (click on the image to go to the Amazon UK site to buy it).

This little non-fiction book covers Mr Barnes’ attempts to learn to cook fabulous food at home. In it, he praises Gordon Ramsay, slags Nigel Slater, and writes hilariously about the Chocolate Nemesis, a legendary dessert from London’s River Café. His chapter about the Nemesis, in fact, is my favourite in the book. He relates to the reader how, among his social set during the mid to late 1990s, attempting to make the Nemesis was de rigueur at dinner parties. Unfortunately, while most tried, most failed, and Barnes believed it was partly because Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers purposely penned a not so complete recipe in their cookbook (the blue one)—forcing customers to return over and over again to their restaurant to taste the real thing.

While Mr Barnes’ friends never found success with this cake, fortunately, for my wife and I, my brother’s better-half J, she of the amazing homemade pasta, has mastered it. And it is amazing. It’s a super-rich, sweet, gooey, oozy cake with a slightly crisp crust on top. At least, that’s what J’s tastes like. I’ll admit I haven’t had the pleasure of dining in River Café as yet, and therefore, have yet to try the real thing. But I can’t believe it’s much better than J’s version. Above is a picture of a slice I happily devoured just a couple days ago. (The picture, by the way, was taken with my new, sexy, itty-bitty camera, featured in the post before this one.)

On a really random last note, and not related to the Nemesis, here’s a link to a really cool slideshow done by the New York Times on chef’s with tattoos.

Chefs With Tattoos