Archives for April 2018

Duck and Waffle Local – Waffled Out !

April 8, 2018 by admin

More often than not we are a group of four friends that visit various restaurants, concerts,shows and events etc and it regularly falls to me to organise such events. Be it the original recommendation or suggestion of a Concert/show/Restaurant through to the purchasing of the tickets. The most complicated issue is usually syncing our dairies to determine a date we can all make it as we all have other life commitments, whether they be work, family or others to take account of. A recent example of this was one of us trying to organise a one week holiday recently and complaining that there was not one clear 7 day period in her diary over the next 3 months that she could find where there was no event already booked. Therefore the only way to proceed with a holiday would involve her having to miss out on one of our forthcoming reserved nights out. This was not necessarily a criticism- almost the opposite- in that I have managed to fill our diaries with a plethora of interesting events over the coming months.

Being the designated Entertainment officer comes with responsibilities and unsurprisingly requires being relatively well organised. Last night was one of those times wherein my organisation went awry and the panic button had to be hit. In short I had told everybody we were attending a show at the Globe Theatre on the Southbank at 19.30 and had booked a restaurant close by to coincide with the end of the show. At 18.50 I was leaving home to attend this event when I realised I had not printed off the tickets. Found the e-tickets on my phone, sent them to print, and as I stood there viewing them spewing out of the printer I realised that in fact they were for a performance a week later, and realised the show I thought we were to see a week later WAS, IN FACT, TONIGHT ! (Emma Rices quite brilliant, emotional and evocative Brief Encounter) It was of course in a completely different location, at The Empire Cinema, Haymarket. Panic ensued with urgent texts being sent out followed by phone calls to divert everyone en route to the correct location. Cutting a long story short , miraculously we all managed to arrive within a minute or so before the show started, all a little stressed out, and one of us having had to make a dash in killer heels from the nearest underground, whilst another was diverting an Uber and also clambering out of the car when it became stuck in traffic to sprint the last few hundred meters. My friends were extremely thankful for my small screw up…..

What this has to do with Duck and Waffle Local ? Well it explains how we found ourselves in the Haymarket at 9.15, after the show, without a restaurant booking and feeling extremely hungry for a steak or similar as quickly as possible. Piling into the restaurant (which was a few doors down from the Cinema) we were told a table would be available within 5 minutes and we should grab a drink at the bar and we would be called over imminently. We all needed a drink, so there were no arguements there.

What caught our attention immediately were the speedy cocktails and wines which they had available on tap! These included one of my favs, or close to it, namely Duck and Stormy ( see what they did there?) upon arrival it was not quite what I had hoped for, and involved a light instead of dark rum with added coconut, but being somewhat parched I made quick work of this and were then guided to a table by our waitress – the lovely and so helpful Lucy.

The menu is apparently a casual take on some of their iconic dishes from the main restaurant located in Heron Tower in the City. The conception of this relatively new location was to do away with the 2 month waiting list at HQ and have a fast and quality restaurant experience based on their love affair with the Duck.

It certainly has many Duck orientated offerings,including, on the starters, dry fried Duck tongues with Sichuan spices £5 and a duck jam doughnut for £7. Unfortunately we skipped all starters on this visit and went straight to mains as a quick and large intake of Carbs were a priority for us all.

I felt I had to partake in their iconic Duck and Waffle dish which involves Confit duck leg, fried duck egg and a mustard and maple syrup, of course on top of a waffle.

Independantly each part of this dish were more than acceptable, albeit not the best duck confit I have experienced, but this combination is a little sweet and sickly and a waffle as a main does not work for me. I think it’s a very American idea and maybe our transatlantic friends like this combination ( I am sure Trump has one or two every night in bed whilst watching his 100 TVs) but it was not something I will be ordering again !

Other mains ordered included the Duck Burger which also involved duck leg – crispy this time – crushed noodles,miso mayonnaise and spiced slaw. These seem to have gone down well ( albeit with a question mark over the inclusion of noodles) with lots of rosemary dusted duck fat chips, which I was also stealing in preference to my main course as the chips were indeed very good.

A scotch rib eye with grilled chicory, marmite hollandaise, shallot crumble and watercress completed our mains. This was ordered rare and was voted as quite excellent and exactly prepared to order. The mayonnaise lived up to Marmites usual standard of being loved or hated – in this case hated. Tasted very yeasty and ruined what could have been an enjoyable mayonnaise, and not something you would want to pollute your RibEye with.

This came with a side order of grilled tenderstem broccoli with chilli garlic and lemon Creme fraiche which very well seasoned and had a good crunch to it.

We washed all this down with a couple of bottles of Peirano Estate 2014 Six Clones Merlot from California. This was recommended by Lucy and was 100% merlot grape, a bright ruby red with hints of cherry, vanilla and spice and was enjoyed by all. Retailing here at £55 – one of the most expensive wines on a very short list.

Desserts – we were unsure what to order – only three choices, so we were told they would prepare a sharing dessert for us. This basically involved two plates of Waffles – one with Vanilla fudge and salted caramel , the other with banana,peanut butter, strawberry and Chantilly Cream. 2 Elvis inspired heart attacks on a plate and not too different to what you might experience from a waffle stand on Oxford Street. Ok if you like that sort of thing ! Admittedly we managed to more or less polish off all between the 4 of us, but by then we were well and truly waffled out !

The bill for 4 came to £250 but as mentioned above it involved 2 quite expensive bottles of wine and a few cocktails – all in all it was not bad value. I would not rush back to experience their signature dish, but the Steak was highly rated and the service was quick, helpful, lively and friendly. Lucy even came to say goodbye as she was going off shift. Not a bad experience,as a walk in,when you have totally screwed up arrangements for the evening, and me, personally, trying to recover a situation I had totally d**ked up !

Rating –

Food – Hot Pan 3/5

Service – Blazingly Hot Pan 5/5 ( thank you Lucy)

Duck and Waffle Local, 52 Haymarket, St. James Market, SW1Y 4RP.

Les 110 De Taillevent – 110 Green Bottles hanging on the wall !

April 7, 2018 by admin

A couple of my very best friends have been badgering me to visit this restaurant for a year or so and realised the only way to ensure I would pay a visit was to book it and take me. Hence I found myself in this very traditional English style building, just off Cavendish Square – once a Coutts and Co Bank – on a Friday evening with three good friends to determine what all the fuss was about.

The restaurant calls itself a Brasserie and is the London offshoot of a well established 2 Michelin star Restaurant in Paris (named Le Taillevent) which apparently was the inspiration for the film Ratatouille. The claim to fame in the London branch is that it has 110 wines to try by the glass that compares to the average “fancy” restaurant offering of on average around 6. It also prides itself on pairing wines with the food, and the menu itself is a jigsaw of food listings which can then be paired with a choice of 4 different wines in different price brackets ranging from around £8 a glass to in excess of £20 enabling you to very much choose the exclusivity or rarity of the wine you wish to enjoy with your food.

It is quite an original concept and to my knowledge nothing else in London can compete with such an offering. To overcome this daunting but impressive looking menu – which would involve long decision making processes – 2 of our party( myself included) decided to opt for the Tasting Menu (£59) with pairing wines at an additional £45. The other 2 present went off piste and chose their own wines. So we had a situation with the 2 Brits present doing preordained Tasting – we cannot be bothered to choose the wines – and my 2 French friends doing their own thing – what this says about the respective Nationalities I am unsure, other than us Brits know nothing about wine and prefer to leave it the experts, and our friends from across the Channel apparently do!

To the food – as mentioned above we opted for the tasting menu which on the face it looked exceptional value bearing in mind we would enjoy 4 Courses followed by 2 desserts.

The first offering were some beautifully light cheese gougeres that almost needed to be tethered to the serving plate to stop them gravitating to the ceiling they were so light.

This was followed by the first course on the tasting menu being a very seasonal pea veloute which arrived as bright green tiny spheres accompanied by a few girrolles, baby gem and pea shoots with a little pecorino ravioli balanced in the middle, with the vibrant,almost kryptonite, pea veloute poured in at the table. I love a good pea – very underrated when at their seasonal prime – and this was a fantastic concoction, sweet tiny balls of joy with a little bit of hidden hazelnut somewhere inside to give a crunch and change in texture.

Next up was the restaurants most iconic dish, that of Spelt Lobster Risotto. Again we had waiters pouring the final accompaniment at the table, this time being an earthy lobster bisque which gave the dish a lot of punch and depth of flavour. The spelt had a lovely chewiness to it and the lobster claw floating in the middle was sweet and the whole dish came together perfectly.

This was followed by Scottish Cod with steamed broccoli, yuzu and a Beurre Blanc. A tiny portion of the B.B. was poured out on the side of the plate by the waiter, upon him disappearing we all emptied out the pot that had been left on the side onto our plates – who does not want a full portion of beurre blanc – especially when it was this good. There was a wonderful “zingy” Strong citrus flavour coming from the Yuzu, and the Cod – it appeared to be cooked but not cooked. Almost translucent- not a good sign for fish cooking- falling apart and incredibly delicate and gorgeous. On enquiringly on the cooking method, it was, as I suspected, poached, but to my surprise in buttermilk. Outstanding.

The final savoury Course was a Surf and Turf which always worries me – I don’t usually enjoy the 2 on the same plate together – but I need not have been concerned. This was Veal rump that was coupled with langoustine, one separately on the side, and strangely enough one langoustine in the centre of the veal too – they cannot have been cooked together like that ? The langoustine was meltingly soft and I would have thought only took 1 minute or so to prepare hence my question of preparation together. Interestingly enough a langoustine bisque also mingled on the plate with a Veal jus – it was surf and turf on a another level. We had a brassica element to the plate here too, namely small cuts of cauliflower sitting on a cauliflower purée that was infused with vanilla. I am not a huge cauliflower fan but the vanilla hit and the crunchiness of the roasted or pan fried cauliflower with the soft purée also was a hit. Cauliflower seems to be making a huge comeback presently and is being prepared in all sorts of inventive ways – I could be becoming a fan !

Wines – I have not mentioned the Wine but it involved a very original selection wherein our Sommelier was enjoying playing tricks with us and getting us to blind taste some. We had a wonderfully light red 2014 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre with the cod, and a Moroccan 2012 Syrah produced by French wine makers Thalvin and Graillot with the Veal which none of us could get close to on a blind taste and I would defy anyone ! Closest we got to was South African.

Desserts – first up was Mandarin which came with pistachio and vanilla, gold leaf on top, and a sort of mandarin soup to go with it. We were told to smash the mandarin immediately and to get all of the tastes together which we did not need to be asked twice to do.

This was followed by a chocolate dessert that involved peanut caramelia, a cocoa sorbet and a light shard of chocolate that disintegrated upon touch. Effectively this was a high quality chocolate peanut magnum, but I was always a fan of those, so enjoying a higher quality version worked for me.

By now all of us were feeling somewhat overindulged, the portion sizes for such a tasting menu were quite generous and we were struggling to finish our magnums. I would say this is one if the best value tasting menus I am aware of in London presently, especially when lined up against Simon Rogan at Roganic and the like. The quality of every dish was exceptional and if you do not go for the wine pairing you are coming away having experienced 6 amazing dishes for less than £10 a plate – in Central London !

The service was also spot on, not too intrusive, but there when it was needed, and this helped to establish a relaxed atmosphere rather than what potentially could be a stuffy location.

I would highly recommend this location and intend to visit again soon to try the A La Carte offerings. This was a case where I should have listened to my friends earlier, maybe there are trendier spots,and a lot more recent openings to try out, but Taillevent is offering modern/classic perfectly prepared food at extremely competitive prices. Faultless.

Rating :

Food – Blazingly Hot Pan

Service – Blazingly Hot Pan

Les 110 de Taillevent, 16 Cavendish Square, Marylebone,W1G 9DD.

I made Croissants !

April 5, 2018 by admin

Today I attended a 3 hour baking course at Bread Ahead in Borough Market which was basically a Croissant workshop.

To make proper Croissants – or so I learnt today – you are involved in a 2 day process. First day you need to make the dough which needs to rest in the fridge for at least 8 hours IE overnight. Only this lengthy period will give you the acidity in the dough that you need to make a proper croissant . This base dough is a mix of 500g strong plain flour, 12g of fine sea salt, 55g of caster sugar,40g of softened butter,30g of fresh yeast,140g of full fat milk and 140g of water.

Due to the fact that this was only a 3 hour class we were all provided with a base that had been made the night before (using the above ingredients) and we started working from this position.

So we were basically rolling and folding – akin to making flaky pastry – I do not intend to give the full process here , but from the pictures below I hope you get the idea:

Pastry rolled out and butter placed in the centre

3 x Folds performed

Sectioning the pastry into long triangles ready for rolling and then into shape before proving

Baking !!! Hurrah !

Ok this course was £80 for 3 hours, so from one point of view it was the most expensive Croissant I have ever eaten – £6.66 per Croissant – but it was a good fun experience and Manuel also treated us to Pain au Raison and Pain au Chicolate and he was brilliant, funny,amusing and educational all at the same time.

And the fact that he decided my lamination was best in class has nothing to do with the fact that I thought he was a brilliant teacher ! (I also did not let on I was a Leiths student and a should know better, albeit I admitted I had made flaky pastry before which nobody else owned up to 😂😉)

So my 12 Croissants were a hit and now the challenge is to make them at home over a 2 day period to see if I can replicate the taste and the lamination. But first I need to eat 12 Croissants as I am not sure I can handle 24 going forward 👍…..

Food Styling – I can style a Tomato !

April 4, 2018 by admin

Last night I attended what was the 5th evening of a separate Course I am participating in at Leiths which is devoted to Food Styling.

I do not really have any intentions of becoming a Stylist per se, but was hopeful it would assist me with overall food presentation on a plate. To be candid it is really focused on Food Styling,and the content is fairly sparse even on this subject, but I am learning a few things – like how to mix Marmite,washing up liquid and water together to “paint” meat to give it that just cooked/juicy look that appears in many advertisements or recipe books ! That was a surprise for me ! You basically undercook meat to style it and use the above process to get the desired effect.

Anyway last night was about Styling a simple salad for our first real attempt at doing something completely by ourself and were asked to bring in our cameras and an idea as to how our salad would look.

My effort is above which actually I am rather pleased with. It looks something like the image I had decided upon and uses a background prop as provided by our teacher Jane. I thought this background would work best with a dark plate and would highlight the red, green and yellow of the Tomatoes – which I think it did. After trying out a view different angles I decided a “helicopter” view was the best angle, notwithstanding the fact it compacts the image and you lose any perceived height.

The image was created by standing on a chair near a window to capture as much natural light as possible and was taken by boosting up the ISO to 640 due to the lighting conditions and that I had no access to a tripod. It was f4.50 at 1/40sec. There is no filter, photoshopping,post editing etc. Would have been easier with tripod but you have to deal with what you have !

Lets see if I can foodstyle a Potato next !

If I wanted to try to improve and edit/boost the colours, then maybe this could be the result ?

John Dory with Crab,Asparagus, Wilted Spinach and Wild Garlic

April 3, 2018 by admin

This is not exactly my recipe but made by me without having any recipe. I had seen it prepared at The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow whilst working in the kitchens there but never had the chance to cook it ! When I returned home I tried preparing it for myself, and so now will claim it – but with a polite nod to Padstow!

Portions – 2

Time – 20-25 Minutes in all, Cook is only 10 minutes.

Ingredients

2 John Dory Fillets (Unless you fancy filleting them yourself!)
100g Fresh White Crab meat
6 Asparagus Spears
Bunch of Spinach
Bunch of Wild Garlic Leaves
6-8 Shavings of Fresh Parmesan
Clarified Butter/Ghee or if unavailable just use Olive or Vegetable Oil (or the 2 combined)
Salt and ground Black Pepper
Beautiful Spinach and Wild Garlic

Set the oven at 120C/100 Fan/Gas mark 1/2
Trim the Asparagus by cutting off the root end and then cut off the heads, and if thick, slice the remainder of the body in two lengthways.
Put on a pan of salted water, bring to the boil and have some iced water ready in a bowl to blanch and refresh. When the water is boiling put in the asparagus for around 2 minutes(depending on thickness) and then immediately plunge into the ice water. This will stop the cooking process and also retain the vibrant green colour.
Now trim the Spinach leaves by breaking off the stalks and cut off the stems of the wild garlic. Wash them in a bowl of water, agitate gently to wash off the dirt, and get them as dry as possible by using a salad spinner if you have one. Set aside.
Lay the crab meat on a baking tray. Take the asparagus out of the ice water and lay this on the same tray.
Peel a few ribbons of Parmesan and set aside.
Put a frying pan (large enough to take both Dory Fillets) on Medium/High heat and add the clarified butter or Ghee (or Veg/ Olive Oil if using). Once the pan is hot, salt the Dory Fillets on the Skin side and lay them in the pan gently pushing them down with your fingers to give a good contact between skin/ pan and to stop them curling or rising up. Ensure the pan is not so hot so that the skin starts to scorch/burn, but you want to achieve a golden crisp skin. Leave the Fillets frying in the pan for approx 3/5 minutes (depending on size/thickness) regulating the heat if too hot or if the skin starts to burn. By checking the underside using a palette knife you should be able to determine if the skin is crisp and golden. Place a job of butter into the pan and flip the fish over, salt/pepper on the skin side and turn the heat down a little. Fry the fish for a minute or two more (depending on thickness) whilst at the same time basting it with the butter regularly. When the fish is done (Should be starting to flake and be opaque – not translucent), set aside on a warmed plate.
Whilst the fish is frying place a wok/ large High sided Frying Pan on a high heat with a nob of clarified butter/ ghee, once steaming hot place the Spinach/Garlic leaves into the pan, give a quick twist of Salt and Black Pepper and gently stir around from time ( I prefer to use tongs to do this).
Whilst both of these pans are on, place the tray with Crab and Asparagus into the oven for a couple of minutes to warm through the crab and bring the asparagus back up to temperature.
The Spinach/garlic should only need 2/3 minutes to wilt down and soon as it does take out of the pan with tongs and place inside a folded j cloth, or between a couple of sheets of kitchen paper, and gently press down to compact a little and squeeze out any liquid.
By now your fish and crab and asparagus should all be ready.
Assembly – use the j cloth or kitchen paper to roll the spinach a little so that it is shaped evenly about 3-4 cm across and the length of the circumference of your plate, place into the centre of the plate. Scatter the crab along the length of the spinach. Lay the asparagus tips in criss cross fashion over the crab along the length of the spinach. Scatter the shaved Parmesan on top and finally lay the Dory on top of this. Drizzle a little olive oil on top if so desired.

There you have it – a Rick Stein inspired dish with a recipe not be found elsewhere on the internet !

If I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake …..

April 2, 2018 by admin

so I did … and here is my Easter Cake !

This is not going on my recipe page as it is not one of my own originals but from Jemima Jones and Lucy Carr- Ellison, who, amongst other publications, write a page in the ES magazine. So I followed their recipe for White Chicolate, Almond and Raspberry Fudge cake and did my own egg and raspberry decoration.

Its an easy flourless cake but their article/ recipe suggested a 30-40 minute bake, whereas mine took over an hour ! Don’t know why but after it cooled down the taste was just great – even my wife is eating it and she does not do cakes ! She likes the nuttiness of the almonds and the hidden fresh raspberries that are baked inside the cake. I can provide the recipe if anyone interested but as I have said it is stolen from the eager bakers named above.

Hope you all enjoying the Easter break !