THE BETTER FOODIE QUIZ AT BUTCHER AND GRILL BATTERSEA JULY 1st 2009

I will be holding my next Better Foodie Quiz: an evening of delicious, witty, and highly competitive but not fiendishly tough food quiz entertainment to flex one’s gastro-credentials at Battersea’s Butcher & Grill on Wednesday July 1st at 7.30pm. Tickets must be booked in advance, and include a 3-course set dinner and the quiz @ £21.50. It’s best to book in a table group of four-six, but not essential. Questions will focus on the seasonal, British and frankly carnivorous besides palate-challenging gastro-travel. Butcher Bar & Grill is just over Battersea Bridge, 39-41 Parkgate Road, London SW11 0207 924 3999 www.butcherandgrill.com
For information on how to arrange a bespoke food quiz event www.sudibetterfoodie.com

New Better Foodie Quiz updates

I am now posting details of my new better foodie quiz dates on my 2009 blog http//:diaryofabetterfoodie.blogspot.com

HIBISCUS - A MENU WITH TRULY ENLIGHTENING AND DIFFERENT FLAVOUR COMBINATIONS

I don’t really suffer from menu ennui. I always find it thrilling to read the menu when I sit down to dinner especially at some eagerly anticipated restaurant I’m visiting for the first time. But even at, even especially at, the fine dining end there is a certain amount of predictability on too many menus.

So dining at Hibiscus last night in the discerning company of Randy See and Raymond Lim of Singapore’s pre-eminent restaurant Les Amis, was utterly refreshing and enticing to my adventurous foodie spirit. Previously, I'd found some of Claude Bosi's ingredient combinations hadn’t really gelled tastewise and just seemed oddball for the sake of being different. Apart from an amuse shot of cucumber and pineapple soda with smoked olive oil which reminded me rather disarmingly of babycham, last night was spot on. First up were some delicious gougeres which presently seem to be the haute cuisine calling card. They’re one of the best features of Ducasse at Dorchester (Lyons born Bosi trained with Alain Ducasse and Alain Passard among others).

My wonderful, wholly seasonal starter was a mix of iced morel and warm asparagus velouté with candied pistachio and fricassé of more morels – sensational. Equally seasonal and delicately different was asparagus very lightly confited in salted butter and smoked over hay and presented dramatically at the table sprinkled with tamarillo powder. Another intriguing starter partnering oysters poached in their shell with baked canembert cream had already sold out!

Though I’d quibble about preferring my beef served slightly warmer than tepid, what I assume was its’ low, slow water bath poaching treatment delivered properly medium rare meat of memorable melt-in-the-mouth yet still firm texture. Its quintessentially Spring accompaniment of broad beans, braised baby gem, seaweed vinaigrette was spot on, especially with the extra star turn of poached razor clam mixed with lardo di colonnato and momentarily grilled – sublime. Other wholly successful dishes included slow grilled Pyrenean kid with caramelised onion, glazed turnip, whole onion and lemongrass puree and lemon thyme with a “kid” parmentier of the extra offal. Even a relatively safe option of sea bream with morels and lime came with a gently earthy coffee and morel polenta and chicory jus.

Desserts too had a delightful, yet not over-played element of surprise. Especially stunning was white asparagus cream tart (usually I find white aspragus underwhelming and woody, but this treatment brought out a lovely nutty, green accent) served with a gently sharp white chocolate and fresh goat’s cheese ice-cream. Equally pleasing were the beautifully balanced salt/sour/sweet flavours of salted caramel mousse, hibiscus flower jelly, iced balsamic parfait and bergamot lemon sorbet and gratin of sweet olive oil and gariguette strawberries, parmesan sorbet with a tiny elixir of pure 75 year old San Domino Balsamic.

On the strength of this meal, surely Hibiscus will be –re-elevated to two Michelin stars and perhaps even feature in the World’s 50 Best in 2009.

The Real Food Festival lives up to its name

THE REAL FOOD FESTIVAL

I first heard about the Real Food Show happening all this weekend 25-27 April at Earl’s Court 1 www.realfoodfestival.co.uk back in October of last year, appropriately enough at the Abergavenny Food Festival. Called me a hardened cynic if you dare, but I wasn’t entirely convinced the plan for a London take on Salone del Gusto (the wonderful bi-annual Slow Food event in Turin) would come to fruition.
Fortunately the enthusiasm and sheer determination of everyone involved has made it happen, and judging from the opening trade/launch preview it is gong to be a fantastic and rather different addition to the other mass-scale food shows.

What makes The Real Food Festival truly different and worth visiting in my view is that the organisers have been able to lure the truly small, quirky and delectable artisan producers who simply wouldn’t be able to afford the charges made by other more established events. This is largely due to adopting Slow Food Salone del Gusto’s policy of having sustainers such as Wholefoods Market (who do stock many of those producers exhibiting), daylesford organic, Grana Padano, delicious magazine, Tyrrell’s and others who effectively subsidise the cost of the small players participating.

Among far too many empassioned and intriguing producers to even single out all those whose samples tasted so delicious I had to buy stashes for later, a few of my absolute favourites well-worth seeking out are:

Jules and Sharpie’s irresistible hot preservaments hand made in Suffolk include chilli mint jelly to accompany salt marsh lamb and irresistible hot mango chutney www.julesandsharpie.com;

Tea Together’s utterly exquisite, highly seasonal, organic hand-made jams such as summer pudding with vanilla pod, rhubarb, lemon & angelica and apricot with lavender leaf. These jams are usually only available in top hotels such as The Berkeley, The Grove and Browns. Plus Ttogether’s new range of “Orchard haute couture” products such as sun-dried white figs stuffed with an almond, citrus zest and wild fennel seeds, Quercy candied walnuts and the most decadent Agen plums mi cuit and conserved in Eau de Vie de Pruneaux and dipped in dark chocolate. www.teatogether.com

Clippy’s Apples, based in Cheshire whose preserves are based on British apples.
I particularly liked the apple, saffron and cumin chutney made with British Bramleys, Chivers Delight and Belle De Boskoop apples and fragrant with saffron and freshly ground cumin and the Barmley apple, thyme and garlic jelly.
www.clippys.com

Emeyu Tea, who source and blend a fabulous selection of traditional Chinese loose leaf teas beautifully eco-packaged. Owner Kristiane promises me that if I sip the Puerh tea after every meal not only will it aid digestion but help see the excess pounds shift.
www.emeyu.com

The Giggly Pig Company whose owner Tracy Mackness frankly admits she first learnt how to raise pigs whilst “inside” for drug offences. She now has her own outdoor rare breed British saddleback pigs and produces 40+ varieties including lemon & fennel, chestnut, lime & sweet chilli and cider apple which are all exceptionally meaty, flavoursome and fulsome. T 07944 610834 for details of farmer’s markets from Dulwich and Vauxhall to Reigate, Southend and Harlow.

Artisan du Chocolate, one of the few British producers to conch their own chocolate from ground cocoa beans. I’m especially partial to the Moroccan mint and apricot “O”s or thins and the exceptional liquid salted caramels which they were the first to introduce to the UK.
www.artisanduchocolate.com


Arabica Food and Spice for their unrivalled Damascean falafel (as served in Borough Market every weekend) plus exotic spices from sumac and zatar to definitive pomegranate molasses.
www.pulsefoodislife.com

What’s more I really liked the fact that there are hands-on cookery workshops run by Barny Haughton from Bristol’s Bordeaux Quay Restaurant and Cookery School giving realistic advice on how eat real food without spending a fortune, delicius magazine workshops/tutored tastings ranging from oysters and champagne to discovering Portugal’s sheep’s cheeses and British game and meeting Blur musician turned cheesemaker Alex James. Even the chef demos are not the usual over-exposed celebs but those who truly uphold the Real Food ethos including Raymond Blanc, Shane Osborn of Pied a Terre, Ashley Palmer-Watts of The Fat Duck, Sophie Conran and Oliver Rowe of Prince Konstam.

A double whammy of food awards on an auspicious Monday night

Who needs to quaff Taittinger with the Bafta award winners at yet another James Bond styled party, when an unprepossessing Monday night turns out to be high foodie in the extreme.

First, I convinced myself it was fine to be sipping Champagne Gosset Grande Reserve NV at 5.30pm when I was greeted with Michel Roux senior saying I must hurry for the comedy act of the year in his deepest Gallic accent. The banter between Michel and Albert is an important part of the ritual of The Roux Scholarship which this year celebrated its 25th anniversary. The winner was Daniel Cox of private fining dining company Compass Group, private who triumphed on his third attempt to reach the final with his definitive rendition of Escoffier challenge dish Rouen ducking with Burgundy Pinot and Brandy served with potato gnocchi and peas. As ever his prizes include a stage with a 3 star Michelin restaurant inn Europe arranged through Roux connections. Though, I couldn’t help sympathising with honest fellow finalist who admitted he loathed making gnocchi with a passion, it’s something I’ve never managed to master. The fact that a significant number of the past scholars (pretty much all those based up in the UK) turn up for the event, many in extremely illustrious roles such as Frederick Forster at The Ritz, Sat Bains and Steve Drake with their own (Michelin starred places) speaks volumes for what Michel Roux repeatedly called his extended family. Needless to say the stations post awards were good especially the lobster pasta in Thermidor sauce and more surprisingly the dim sum.

Sustenance enough to take me on to The San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants of the World which has raised its game and capacity once again and was held this year in the awesome Freemason’s Hall with a good 500+ audience of mainly chefs and critics. I guess the winner was pretty much a forgone conclusion Ferran Adria of El Bulli, for the third year in succession. Yet his “acceptance speech” was endearing and rousing in the extreme. As he’d done the previous year, he asked all the other Spanish chefs who featured in the list to come up (and perhaps it’s no coincidence that there are further 6 Spanish restaurants in the top 50: Mugaritz, Arzak, El Celler de Can Roca, Can Fabes ) . He made a particular fuss of “chefs’ choice” Andoni Luis Aduriz of Mugaritz now rated at number 4, widely seen as his heir apparent to lead the second generation of avant-garde gastronomy in Spain. I liked the way Adria also gave due credit to his great mate and no 2 Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck. Equally he dedicated the award to the awesomely determined and extremely creative Chicago based chef Grant Achatz of Alinea who’s winning a personal battle against cancer of the tongue and a definite ascending star.

Perhaps even more significant were a number of other chefs/restaurants singled out as culinary forces to be reckoned with. Most notably Simon Rogan of the wonderful and refreshingly different L’Enclume in Cumbria, who won a reader’s choice award. Equally interesting was the singling out of Victor Arguinzoniz of Etxebarri restaurant (approx 40 mins from Bilbao) as “hot” property. Arguinzoniz, a self-taught chef and former forester, is elevating the bbq to culinary cutting edge (a whole side of the dining room is dedicated to his bespoke designed grills and pulleys on which he cooks everything from eggs, foie gras, seafood, awesome chuletas to ice-cream. He even makes all his own charcoals each day, fine-tuned to suit each dish. Rumour has it that stellar Italian chef Cracco Peck (whom I enjoyed meeting for the first time) was spectacularly late for a demos as he was so all consumed by the food. And this is despite being self taught and fittingly a former forester.

I was also intrigued to see a Parisian restaurant I’d visited in Paris only a fortnight previously at bistronomique Le Chateaubriand owned by young Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte featured as the the restaurant tipped to break through into the top 50 in 2009 . Certainly my meal served in a buzzy bobo rustic room was trailblazing in terms of texture, taste and visual presentation from the starter of raw grated cauliflower and cauliflower “powder”, lime couscous and shavings of foie gras arranged at a jaunty angle in a utilitarian small pyrex bowl to black al dente Camargue rice with frog’s legs and tarragon juice and stunning sous vide low temperature cooked salmon with miso foam and espuma-like chocolate mousse with a definite tantalising edge of wasabi.

I was also delighted that Noma, Rene Redzepi’s thrillingly different and delectable New Nordic restaurant in Copenhagen (which I was bowled over by and have talked about and written about frequently over the past year) rose to coveted no 10 stop.

The 50 Best provided a wonderful chance to mingle with the great and the good of the gastro-world. It was lovely to meet Paulo Marchi who runs the ground-breaking Identità Golose gastronomy festival in Milan, and most excitingly, this October will recreate elements of the festival in London, watch this space. It was an unexpected surprise to catch up with delightful and arch foodie Ignatius Chan, chef-proprietor of Iggy’s over from Singapore too.

And because every party is judged on its food and I arrived too late for the canapes, it was good to be able to soak up the Laurent-Perrier and go round a series of immaculate food “stalls” of exemplary British producers. These included Forman’s inimitable wild salmon carved to order; Wright Brother’s Duchy oysters: newcomer Deli Farm charcuterie made only with Cornish pork and beef – especially taken with salami substituting black olives for fat to pleasing effect - and Paul A Young’s irresistible sea salt chocolate.

The ultimate degustation menu at The Vineyard's Chef's Table Gourmet Festival

Degustation menus

I firmly believe there’s a time and a place for tasting menus. Often I only want to sample one or two dishes, which instantly leap out from a menu. I don’t necessarily want the waiter telling me exactly how many degrees each component of the menu has been cooked at nor whose nephew-in-law foraged for the chickweed whilst the dish in question is visibly wilting and cooling to below tepid. Apparently at Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York, it is now only possible to order the dizzly priced $250 degustation. Keller’s justification is that it is important to experience the entire experience, otherwise he says diners are doing the equivalent of leaving at play at the interval and not getting the whole plot.

I know John Campbell of The Vineyard at The Stockcross elevated earlier this year to 2 Michelin star is a Keller devotee. I loved the prospect of his approach to putting on the whole razzmatazz show as a week long “Chef’s Table” gourmet festival extravaganza whilst still serving his stunning a la carte in the restaurant. Though dinners with Angela Hartnett and Mark Edwards of Nobu were tempting I opted for Campbell himself and was blown away.

There was a real sense of playfulness about his menu besides a strong commitment to sourcing locally. I loved the deconstructed “room service” classics served as amuse such as a blt of lettuce espuma, tomato confit, crispy bacon and breadcrumbs and fish and chips with ultra-light whip of fluffy potato, scallops and sprinkles of salt and air-dried malt vinegar in twists of newspaper.

Plasma screens strategically placed around the dining room ensured we could see exactly how each dish was constructed and meticulously plated at the pass without experiencing the sweat of the kitchen. It has to be one of the calmest kitchens anywhere. Rather than mini soliloquies between each of ten courses, Campbell was simply beamed up on screen to introduce the menu from the start. Highlights for me included cleverly deconstructed piccalilli flavours: a cornichon, carrot, tiny turnip with stunning suckling pig terrine, awesome sweetbread ravioli of fabulous rich intensity accompanying veal rump and cheek; and two quirky cheese courses: beetroot ravioli stuffed with English goat’s cheese and delicate swatches of summer squash and a shot class of ultra light cream cheese, carrot and orange jellies plus a bon bon sized spicy carrot cake.

A consummate treat, and I know now to plump for the sweetbread ravioli on my next return to the Vineyard.

Ile de Ré

After yearning to visit Ile de Ré for years I finally made it. The little dot of an island on South Atlantic coast more than lives up to its protected reputation. Still very French and best if you can speak the language. Light is gorgeous as is the equal to the Cote d’Azur weather. Even none regular cyclists like myself end up notching up impressive amount of kilometres visiting impeccable whitewashed villages and charming ports and exploring wild life in salt marshes. Enough to justify plenty of feasting. Can stop for oysters en route overlooking sea 3E for 6 direct from farmer. Never seen such a large fish stall as at the daily market of Ars de Ré huge amount of shellfish from local mussels and crabs to six kinds of clams and local speciality vanets between queen scallop and clam. Sampled as a marmite in probably best restaurant encountered Le Serghi in St Martin en Ré. Other local specialities must try include tourteau cheese bread with scorched top, plentiful supply of canelles absolute favourite from nearby Bordeaux. Rétais produce Fleur de sel everywhere, which has a distinct discernible light delicacy, used in local cheeses, caramelised ham hocks on the traiteur, even in salted caramel ice-cream to accompany roast peaches dessert at St Martin’s newest restaurant Avant La Porte. Best places to stay are French run. Book well ahead for Le Senechel features in “Hip Hotel France” brick walls, unvarnished floorboards, bright stripy fabrics, quirky mix of ultra modern and brocante in best possible taste and exquisite courtyards.
www.le-senechel-com. Equally French and ultra elegant is Hotel Toiras in former private home, no expense spared in using best French fabrics even in lift, gorgeous garden for breakfast and indulgent salon dining room serving rigorously local produce exceptionally well prepared and served. www.hotel-de-toiras.com