Review: Chet’s, Shepherd’s Bush

I remember the first (only?) Thai meal I had in America. This was, admittedly, almost eighteen years ago in California. Huge chunks of chicken breast, capsicum peppers, baby sweetcorn, all bathed in a sauce that was gunky and thick with coconut cream and flavoured with… well, nothing. Just the mildest hint of some familiar Thai …

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Pork toast

Review: Mamapen, Soho

Right in the middle of Soho is apparently the only place doing Cambodian food in London: Mamapen at The Sun & 13 Cantons pub. I’m not sure how long that statement will stay true? I’ve only spent a few days in Cambodia and didn’t search out a lot of local food (indeed, the only street …

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STP

Review: The White Horses, Rottingdean

The White Horses Hotel in Rottingdean used to be a pretty typical boozer and meh restaurant on the seafront of the postcard village of Rottingdean, along the way from Brighton. Recently bought and re-vamped, now it’s like walking into the set of an Agatha Christie, all tasteful art deco furnishing, cane backed chairs and bright …

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Just chips

Review: Toklas, Embankment

Toklas occupies a very handy spot, just off the Strand in what is quite a wasteland for useful places to eat. So it’s been on our radar for a while. So having tickets to see Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing at the Theatre Royal gave us the perfect opportunity for …

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Venison dim sum

Review: Row on 5, Mayfair

I’m developing some clear preferences in my old age, I think. Nowadays I’ve got a strong preference for more informal mid-range dining, preferably ambitious and often ethnic. Small plates almost always feature. But as Row on 5 has just reminded me, I also love a real splurge on a destination restaurant where you feel super …

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Review: Chet’s, Shepherd’s BushReview: Mamapen, SohoReview: The White Horses, RottingdeanReview: Toklas, EmbankmentReview: Row on 5, Mayfair

Review: Min Jiang, Kensington

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Restaurant Reviews

28 May 2012

Starters were good, but they were ultimately just piles of stuff on a plate
For me Chinese has always been the ugly duckling of cuisines. It is spoken of as one of the three great originating cuisines of the world; French, Persian and Chinese. But my experiences of Chinese food in Britain have typically ranged from jolly tasty to utterly dire, with no hint of the snowy white swan that might one day arise from the chunks of chicken breast in various sauces (or from “pork in jam” either, a friend’s name for sweet and sour pork). Surely someone out there is doing to Chinese cuisine what places like Benares or the Cinnamon Club have done to Indian?

Touted as the best Chinese restaurant in London, I was keen to see whether Min Jiang was that swan.

It certainly has a fantastic setting. The Royal Garden Hotel might look like a monstrous and uncaring brutal edifice squatting at the end of Kensington High Street, but once through the doors and up ten flights in the lift we are greeted by a beautiful dining room with stunning views over Hyde Park towards the Royal Albert Hall and far beyond. Service was friendly but a little bipolar; waiters hovering to whip our plates away as soon as the last mouthful of starters were eaten, but the post-mains conversation gradually switching to “do you think we should ask someone for a dessert menu?” I couldn’t decide whether they wanted the table back or wanted to keep us all night. Nothing to ruin the meal though, unless you’re in a real hurry.

A lovely hot pile of sichuan chicken with seriously smoky notes
Our starters were the high point for me. I enjoyed my preserved zhachoi in spicy XO sauce. This included the revelation that zhachoi is a kind of vegetable, possible related to kohlrabi, which has a wonderful taste and texture when preserved and thinly sliced. The XO sauce it was braised in had a deepy savoury and very spicy taste. Crunchy deep-fried soft shell crab with crispy curry leaves worked well, as did the classic crispy fried squid with chilli and garlic. The fourth starter, of lotus root in a punchy sichuan sauce, was also great. Plating and presentation was typical of all my previous experiences of Chinese, however: there was some stuff, and it was on a plate.

We had pre-ordered a course of “famous” crispy duck, and it was certainly a more elegant variation on the fibrous sticky oily goodness beloved of Chinese restaurants throughout the land. However, I’m not sure if the elegance was a huge improvement, as the delicacy of the duck was rather beaten into submission by the strong hoi sin sauce. The alternative condiments of sweet garlic puree with pickled radish worked better.

Poor scallops, mired in spicy goo. Nice goo, but entirely misplaced
The main course included a delicious plate of hot, smoky sichuan roast chicken. Delicate Dover sole served with various mushrooms of quite distinct textures was pleasant but lacked any flavour to call its own. There was a splendid specimen of pork and jam, in the form of nine neat cubes of braised belly covered in a smooth sweet-and-sour sauce that was abundantly richer and better balanced than the typical fayre. For my taste the white fat was still far too prevalent in the belly, but I’m aware that this is a more classically Chinese way of enjoying fat. The final dish divided us a little; I felt that sweet, simple scallops were being unfairly punished in a stickily spicy bean curd sauce that would have paired much more happily with deep-fried tofu or something, anything else. Tim declared it his favourite dish.

Desserts, and here once more Min Jiang is certainly applauded for sticking to authenticity. “Eight Treasure Tea” was indeed a bowl of dark and somewhat bitter fermented tea with eight different preserved fruits and nuts lurking below the surface; fascinating, and certainly challenging to a western palate. My soya pudding, somewhat like a

Eight Treasure Tea! Now that's a dessert beyond the expected
delicate pannacotta, was less startling and was very good indeed in a pond of warm ginger consomme with sticky bits of flavoursome osmanthus flowers on top. Mango cream with sago pearls and pomelo was light, refreshing and sharp in taste while black sesame dumplings were chock full of that lovely dark, nutty black sesame flavour.

So, is Min Jiang a swan? Not for me. Yes, I enjoyed probably the best and most interesting Chinese meal I’ve eaten in Britain. But they’ve still done next-to-nothing with plating and presentation; each dish is just some stuff, on a plate. At a French bistro I can get some delicious French stuff, on a plate, for £20 a head three courses. Or I can spend £60+ per head to enjoy high French cuisine with eye-catching and inspiring presentation. Min Jiang cost £70 per head without wine, and for that I’m looking for Chinese cuisine to be taken to that next level. This isn’t a friendly neighbourhood restaurant doing good authentic cooking, this is a fine dining room with a price tag to match. I expect more.

I have to admit, though, the view from the table does almost make up the difference. Almost.

What would you want to find in your eight treasure tea?

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Soufflé essentials

Categories:

Desserts, Recipes, Showing off

20 May 2012

Look, a souffle. Simple
It is so often said that soufflés are challenging, precarious concoctions that will collapse pathetically like your dreams of a place on Masterchef if you so much as look at them funny. They’re not! I’ve never had a problem with them, sweet or savoury. It’s not as though I learned from a pro, or spent weeks perfecting my recipe, I just started doing them. It might have been a Delia book I referred to first time, but it’s so long ago I can’t remember.

So right here, with no formal training and absolutely no reason for you to trust me, I present my essential guide to doing a soufflé

It’s really quite simple
Take three eggs. Separate the whites and yolks. Whisk the whites until the froth forms stiff peaks, then whisk in a dessert spoon of caster sugar for another minute to make them shiny and sweet*. Beat

Could there be any less ingredients? Eggs, sugar, a lemon
the yolks together with whatever you’re using for flavour and with enough sugar to make it sweet (maybe 2 dessert spoons). The whites make it rise and be fluffy, the yolks provide richness and flavour. So mix the two halves back together, put them in ramekins, and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes at 170C. You know when they’re finished because they stop rising and the tops go a nice brown.

That’s it, really. Everything else is just useful tips, and warnings against what might go wrong.

Danger, Will Robinson!
So, what might go wrong? There must be a reason why soufflés are supposed to be scary.

First of all, your mixing bowl has to be clean and free of grease (or any fat) otherwise you won’t be able to whisk your whites into stiff peaks. This is also true if any yolk at all gets into the whites. Start again.

Beware of adding too much stuff to the yolks! In your quest for novelty and flavour (“wouldn’t it be nice if people found pieces of strawberry right through their soufflé?”) you will add too much wetness or acidity to the yolk mix and the whole thing will be a

Whisk to the stiff peak stage for maximum fluff. I always hand-whisk, as I like pain
flop. I’d say no more than 2 tbsp of stuff added to the yolks. You can always put some flavour in the bottom of the ramekin.

The way to recombine the whites and yolks is this: take 1 tbsp of the fluffy whites and mix it fairly well into the yolks. This sacrificial spoonful will lose most of its precious air, but will loosen up the yolk mix. Now add the rest of the whites and fold them in, do not beat or mix vigorously. It is much, much, much better to have a somewhat unmixed soufflé than to lose all the air in the whites by mixing too well.

Don’t disturb them while they rise. There is no need at all to touch the oven for the first 10 minutes. After that, if you suspect they’re done then you could have a quick peek. A nicely nutty brown is fine, especially if half a minute’s observation through the glass doesn’t show any more rising going on.

Ramekin tips
If a soufflé tastes good, I really don’t care if it has a lumpy top and has flopped sideways out of the ramekin. But if you want supermodel-perfect soufflés then I would do as follows:

It's worth fingering your souffles before they go in the oven.

  • Butter the sides of your ramekin and pour caster sugar in, swirling it around to make a coating. The soufflé will “climb” up this rough texture, and the little bit of sweetness at the edges is also nice when eating.
  • Slightly overfill the ramekin with mixture, then swipe a palette knife across the top. You should get a nice flat-topped soufflé now.
  • Run your little fingertip just around the inside of the ramekin rim, making a little groove. This helps prevent any of the soufflé edge from catching on the ramekin and rising unevenly.

Go forth and soufflé
Apart from a bowl of ice cream, there really are few quicker and easier desserts. We finished dinner the other night. I put the oven on to 170C, split three eggs into two bowls. Into the yolks I grated the zest of a lemon, added 2 dessertspoons of sugar and 2 dessertspoons of limoncello and a splash of lemon juice. I whisked the whites to stiff peaks, then whisked in a dessertspoon of sugar, mixed them back into the yolks, poured the mixture into four ramekins (with sugared sides). Into the oven, 12 minutes, out popped four nice lemony soufflés Probably 20 minutes start to finish. Stick a dollop of vanilla ice cream in the top when you eat ’em.

One more ingredient in the simple lemon souffle - a scoop of ice cream shoved in the top!

Your turn.

Viagra for the stiffest souffles!

* – I’ve just read that a good pinch of cream of tartar will help stabilise whisked egg whites, something I must try next time. But, as I say, I’ve never had a flop without any help from tartar.

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Review: The Mail Room, Ludlow (part 1)

Categories:

Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

16 May 2012

Somehow when the menu said 'anchovy lollipops' I was expecting... well, I was amused
Blogging for nine months now and this is the first time I’m reviewing a restaurant in its opening week. What can I say, it’s not often a new place opens in a small town like Ludlow, a town already stuffed with places to eat. One promising aspect of The Mail Room is that it looks like filling a useful niche. If you’re in Ludlow and you want a pub, or something Asian, you’re jolly well served. If you want to put on your glad rags and dine out on white linen then you’ve also got three or four options. But there’s definitely space for a good mid-market option in the bistro or casual fine dining category, as the only place I rate at all in that bracket currently is the tiny-but-decent French Pantry. So, is The Mail Room going to become a favourite? At two minutes’ walk away it would certainly be handy.

The décor is light and welcoming; mushroom tones on the walls, big metal canteen-style lampshades taking advantage of the high ceilings and dark wood furniture. There’s a bar and an open kitchen window, all good. Service was swift and most importantly friendly with only a couple of the tiniest slips to show that it’s still week one.

My starter, disappointing on every level
I started with a ravioli of jerusalem artichoke with parmesan foam, pea puree and coriander broth. The solitary ravioli was the wrong side of al dente and the teaspoon of filling bled into the broth so quickly that I never got a taste of jerusalem artichoke. Then again, the broth wasn’t exactly punchy with coriander either. And the parmesan foam was simply creamy. If I’d been presented with this dish blindfold and asked to name it I would have said: pea puree with cardboard, rocket and balsamic vinegar. Didn’t work. Maureen went for the duck hash with crispy duck egg and cranberry sauce. The egg was good, the duck hash looked the part but was let down by underseasoning, and I don’t think cranberry sauce was the right accompaniment; something with the bite of vinegar was lacking.

Seasoning woes carried into the main course, where Maureen’s cod dish was lacking any. The swipe of cauliflower puree was lost at the bottom of the dish under a pile of potatoes, and the dish as a whole just seemed to be a gathering of unconnected components. By contrast, I was on more of a winner with my poached pork loin wrapped in parma ham and pan-fried. The loin was still juicy and couldn’t help but be properly seasoned – thank you, parma ham. The fondant potato was good, as was the herby black pudding faggot. Apple and vanilla puree made a neat accompaniment.

Kirsch brulee, perfectly yummy
Puddings were kirsch brulee and white chocolate bavarois. The brulee was good, with macerated cherries and a scattering of entirely unrelated blueberries. It was supposed to come with shortbread but instead came with tuille and no explanation. The bavarois was a bit heavy on the gelatin but the taste was okay in combination with the very sweet strawberry soup it sat in. Black pepper tuille might have added a kick, but the tuille had no black pepper. I don’t mind a restaurant having to change elements of a dish, but I’d like to be told about it. The whole meal was £35 each with a glass of white wine, so it’s not a cheap three courses.

So, that’s part 1 of my review. Part 2 will have to wait, because I’m going to go back in a few weeks and see how they’re doing. I’ve no problems with the ambience or the front-of-house, I’d love to dine at The Mail Room regularly, but the food needs some work before it could become a favourite haunt.

Some say it’s unfair for a critic to review a restaurant in its opening weeks, but that’s nonsense because what could be more exciting than trying somewhere new? Some critics respond that if a restaurant is going to charge full price from day one then the food and service should be perfect from day one. I don’t know if it’s reasonable to expect that, there’s a lot of financial pressure in opening a restaurant as soon as the paint is dry. I guess you just accept the risk that you may disappoint and lose early customers if you aren’t perfect straight out of the traps. But in an ideal world restaurant critics ought to be willing to give new restaurants a second review and a chance to erase the first one if they were caught by early day problems. With so many places to eat, I’m guessing few have the time or inclination to risk a second disappointment.

Well, The Mail Room is only two minutes’ walk away from us, and they’re trying to do the kind of food I like. That’s definitely worth a second shot, and of course a chance to erase this largely negative review.

Presumably all the food will taste of mouthwash!

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Hay, hay, hay!

Categories:

Lunch or supper, Recipes, Showing off

9 May 2012

Apparently high in beneficial fibre and dental health
The latest bit of experimentation inspired by our astonishing meal at Noma is hay smoking. The principle is fairly simple: put some hay into a big casserole, put some foil in with your foodstuff on top, cover with the lid and get it on a high heat for 5-10 minutes. This will get the hay burning and smoking, after which you can turn the heat down or off and leave the food in as long as you think it wants.

Waitrose aren’t doing culinary hay yet (though it’s surely only a matter of time) so I had to visit a pet shop and steal the hay from the mouths of poor guinea pigs and chinchillas. They had a bewildering variety on offer. No, really, at least a half-dozen different hays. I plumped for “Timothy Hay with Chamomile” because I hoped the warm scent of the chamomile might carry into the food. It doesn’t, but it does smell nice.

So now I’ve smoked some tea bags, some cheddar, some potatoes and some garlic. What, you expected me to start experimenting with a side of salmon or a chunk of best fillet?

The potatoes and garlic were smoked for thirty minutes with the heat still going on low, then left for twenty minutes before removing. Both turned out brilliantly, the hay giving a really strong taste of sun-scorched meadows and reminded me of playing around in a barn as a kid. The garlic was ten times more awesome and smoky than any smoked garlic bulbs I’ve bought at farmer’s markets before.

For the cheese and tea bags I tried turning the heat off as soon as the hay was smoking, but it was still a little too hot in the casserole and twenty minutes later the cheddar came out as a lump of rather deliciously smoky goo. I think next time I’m going to have to try heating the hay until it is smoking and then tipping it quickly into another (cold) pan and putting the cheese on top. The tea bags are good, though again it turned out powerful and making a pot with one smoked bag to one normal bag is giving me a better brew.

How about a few tips for anyone thinking of smoking with hay themselves? From my own experience…

  1. The burnt hay will stain the inside of your casserole. If this bothers you, line it with foil first. Personally I think it adds character
  2. Your kitchen, possibly your whole house, will smell pleasantly of burnt hay for the rest of the day. Emphasis on ‘pleasantly’ and I’m afraid there’s no getting around it. Maybe don’t have washing drying on radiators while smoking with hay
  3. Once you’ve turned the heat off, leave the pan to cool for twenty minutes before lifting the lid. Otherwise smoke will ensue and you can extend that ‘rest of the day’ to ‘two days’
  4. Don’t assume all foods take the same time to smoke, the cheddar was way too strong despite having half the time of the potatoes and with less heat
  5. Oddly, potatoes that have been cooked in smoke for forty minutes actually take longer to boil than ordinary potatoes – make sure you allow another five or ten minutes

And so for supper we had skate wing with a shallot and caper butter, cubed butternut squash pan-fried with smoked garlic, asparagus and smoked mashed potatoes. Delicious. I can’t emphasise enough how often I’m going to be doing hay-smoked mashed potatoes and hay-smoked garlic from now on!

The taters needed five more minutes boiling, but the fish was done. Timing is everything!

Hay-smoked mashed potatoes

4 potatoes for mashing
3 handfuls hay
3 tbsp milk
50g butter
Salt & black pepper
  1. Put the hay in a layer in the bottom of a big casserole, put some foil on top and then put four scrubbed potatoes on the foil
  2. Pop the lid on, crank up the hob to max, and wait for 5-10 minutes until you can distinctly smell smoke from the pan (if uncertain like me, quickly lift the lid and check for a waft of smoke)
  3. Turn the heat down and leave the ‘taters for 30-40 minutes. Then turn the heat off and leave for another 20 minutes for the smoke to completely finish in the pan
  4. Take out the potatoes, peel them and halve them, then boil for perhaps 20 minutes in salted water – varieties vary, so poke with a knife to find out when they’re done right through
  5. Drain them and set aside for 2 minutes with a tea towel over the pan to absorb the steam
  6. Mash the potatoes, then add the milk and butter, season well, and beat with a whisk until really creamy

Now, what next? I need more ideas for things to smoke with my hay (well, the smallest bag the pet shop sold was a kilo). Need to think outside the box, though – chicken, salmon, booooring. Anyone got any suggestions for me?

I think the tiny sheep's response may give away my age a little!

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Review: Odette’s, Primrose Hill

Categories:

Fine dining, London, Restaurant Reviews

4 May 2012

Odette's is a series of welcoming little dining rooms
There is a new(ish) restaurant in Richmond which has a nice big sign beside the door that reads: “Richmond’s Favourite Neighbourhood Restaurant”. ORLY? D’you know what, I rather think the good people of Richmond will be the judge of that. The laurel of “neighbourhood restaurant” is something you earn by consistently providing good food at fair prices in a welcoming atmosphere to the fine burghers of a town or district for a number of years. Writing it on your door the day you open does not make it so.

I won’t embarrass the place by naming it (*cough* Moomba *cough*), but that sign alone has deterred me from ever venturing through their door. Ever. I’m funny like that.

By contrast, as we sat sipping our coffees at the end of our meal at Odette’s we all agreed that if we lived anywhere near Primrose Hill we would eat here all the time. As soon as we walked in we felt at home. The décor is comfortable, the layout thoughtful and helped immensely by the restaurant being spread over a number of rooms in a couple of knocked-through buildings; three other tables would be the most you’d ever be dining with. The service was friendly and although we were kept entertained by the occasional hiccups from the clearly

Crispy egg with celeriac and truffle, a light yet rich start
in-training waitresses who were serving us, it was charming and unannoying. That’s a lesson for anyone: service slips are eminently forgiveable with a smile and a friendly attitude. Oh, and the food was all faultless and highly approachable. That’s how you become a beloved neighbourhood restaurant.

Where shall we start? Starters. Mine was a crispy coated duck egg, essentially what you’d get if you took the pork out of a scotch egg, with a tangy mixture of mustardy celeriac, sliced truffles and watercress. I found the watercress a bit aggressive alongside what were otherwise calming and amiably gentle flavours. Maureen’s terrine of pig’s head and black pudding was a slab of dense and meaty excellence. If pubs ever manage to come up with terrines like this I’d order them a lot more often. Across the table there were cooing noises over lovely looking crab lasagnas, but they disappeared before I could sample one.

Mutton is probably my favourite red meat, well served at Odette's
Mutton for main, presumably a piece of medium-rare loin (I’m rubbish at identifying cuts) served with long slivers of pickled salsify and an intensely sweet mint sauce. I must admit I’ve had better mutton for flavour before, but the combination with the salsify was excellent and a startlingly good mint sauce brought me out in a happy smile. My favourite touch was the mini shepherd’s pie on the side, and here the mutton really spoke to me.

My dessert of pistachio cake topped with nicely caramelised pieces of a sharp apple and blobs of cloud-soft calvados cream was excellent. But on the other hand, the dramatically coloured and perfectly shaped blackberry souffles across the way were equally excellent and had me a tiny bit envious once I’d tasted one. And on the other other hand,

Sleek dollops of calvados cream worked well with moist pistachio cake
Maureen’s sharp-sweet lemon parfait topped with an exquisite white meringue with just the right touch of scorching was universally agreed to be best of all. Good puds.

Odette’s provide a very accomplished meal, with a good wine list, in a very convivial setting. Nothing here is going to astonish or amaze anyone, but nothing is going to disappoint either. The price seems about right, around £36 for three courses a la carte, and there looks to be a superb bargain on set lunches. I’m almost tempted to move to Primrose Hill just so it can be my local.

This gets said to me a lot, and I'm always flattered while remaining quite realistic about my culinary accomplishments

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