Monthly Archives: July 2010

sketch

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Dining at sketch is a surreal experience. Unless you are actually seeking out the venue you’d probably just walk past what seems like an ordinary door … (but for the door man standing outside of it.) The interior of sketch is vast and consists of not one, not two but three dining experiences AND two bars. How it all fits comfortably over just two floors I have no idea!

Tonight Rehana and I were dining in the more formal and one-michelin-star-rated Lecture Room and Library. Upon our arrival, however, we were first taken on a tour of all the other areas. Quite overwhelming for me really and, after dinner, it was noted that we would definitely be back to visit the egg toilets … one of the foremost reasons that sketch was actually on my to eat at list!

We were one of the first to arrive for dinner in the Lecture Room and Library so before seating we were directed to a small anteroom of sorts where we were plumped for cocktails and provided with some very lovely amuse bouche. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite understand the waiter who delivered our food to us – him having the strongest French accent imaginable but the look and flavour of the amuse were enough to delight, so let the photos impress!

Don’t you just love the china!

By the time we emerged from the ante room we’d been joined by a few more diners. Though the space is large there are surprisingly few tables within the restaurant – so it strangely gave a sense of intimacy you otherwise wouldn’t expect. And, as befitting the Library theme, our fellow diners kept their conversation to a very low hum!

A nice touch to our table was a mini-table for our handbags! Awesome!

First dish of the day from the Tasting Menu (hey, if you’re going to only go once you might as well go for it!) was the Lobster (Lightly Cooked Lobster / Fresh Herb Liebig / Cauliflower / Lemon Jelly). Lovely and fresh and surprisingly refreshing.

This was followed by Scallop (Scallop Mousseline / Summer Truffle / Baby Leek / Artichoke Velouté). I’m so in love with truffle now that I can actually discern the flavour though served as shavings is not my favourite delivery method. You can’t see the scallop but it was perfectly cooked.

These two lighter dishes were followed by something quite heavy: Foie Gras (Pan-fried Foie Gras / Sauternes Jelly and Grapes / Paris Mushroom Shaving). Yummo. I’m developing a taste for a questionably un-ethical product! It looks messy in the second shot but trust me it worked well!

Pollock (Roast Fillet of Pollock / Salt-crusted Baked Potatoes / Red Wine Sauce / Cuttlefish) was lovely if a little unimaginative but much work had gone into our refreshing Granité (Riesling Granité / Green Apple Espuma / Coriander Salad)

Not a fan of lamb, but I am a fan of the gorgeous knife that came with our Irish Lamb (Slow-cooked Lamb / Vadouvan Butter / Aubergine, Melon and Serrano Ham / Lamb Sweetbreads and Garlic Cream Cheese) Heaps going on in this dish(es) that’s for sure. I didn’t not like it and for someone who loathes lamb that’s pretty good praise!

By this stage Rehana and I were nearly dying with the food we’d eating. 5 rich courses of savoury, we had the Cheese (Redcurrant Jelly / Cantal Cheese / Goat’s Milk / Roasted Nuts) and Pierre Gagnaire’s Grand Dessert to go!

The cheeseplate was I felt the least delicately plated of our meals. It was kind of like, let’s through some cheese on the plate and make it look like a pizza. I did, however, appreciate sketch’s style of serving the jelly

After a fruit bowl, presumably to cleanse our palette once more (because we weren’t already full enough!) it was on to The Grand Dessert which ended up being these 5 small desserts – Apricot and Rice Pudding, Peach and Lemon Quinoa, Liquorice Ice Cream and Cherries, Basil Ice Cream, Raspberries and Red Pepper, and finally Black Forest and Tapioca. I think!

And what meal would be complete without petit fours …

Overall, the food was quite lovely but oh so rich. We weren’t exactly overwhelmed by too much creativity or innovation in the dishes but we could appreciate the freshness of the food and the balance in each particular dish … I could see why it would receive a Michelin-star. Service was unobtrusive and sufficient if not overly helpful… maybe water could have been topped up a bit more responsively.

After dinner Rehana and I needed to work off some of the calories at dinner so went exploring a bit.

The Gallery, which is near where the Egg toilets are, was positively heaving. It was such a loud and busy contrast to the calm of the Lecture Room and Library! The toilets were entertaining and had piped music… but unfortunately smelt like porta-loos!

Tap Dogs

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Topping off a very long day of activities we settled into the front row at Tap Dogs.

There’s no use pretending that we were at the show for any other reason then to check out the hot bods including our very own Adam Garcia.

Waiting for us on our front row seat were these:

Uh oh!!

The question was – were we cool enough not to wear them and risk a soaking, or could we wear the poncho and still be cool. Discretion being the better part of valour we all wisely donned the poncho at the appropriate time.

Tap Dogs doesn’t really try to be anything more than what it says on the tin – a group of dudes with big chunky boots tapping and moving their way around, on, above the stage and various other props. There’s humour and little stories (only to the extent of giving us some context of the relationships between the tappers) but mostly there is a lot of stomping. Many of the acts were creative, such as a basket ball scene, the water scene, an upside down tapping scene (now that is mad skill) and literal sparks in another scene. The tapping was HOT with a lot of tap-offs and joking around between the men on stage. Very entertaining for the ladies ….

The best part of the night, however, was getting to meet the man himself …

… followed by drinks with the cast at the pub across the road!

The Met Bar Afternoon De-Light

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Part II of Rache’s birthday present to me was afternoon tea with the girls at the Met Bar. The Afternoon De-Light at the Met Bar offers an interesting and modern twist on the traditional afternoon tea: promising a healthy alternative to the usual calorie-laden afternoon treat, the Met provided us with a selection of cupcakes, sweet and savoury, scones and ‘no-bread sandwiches’. Not a trace of unrefined sugar, flour or full fat anything was supposedly in site.

The afternoon tea started off well with our very fresh teas delivered to our table – so fresh that my ginger tea was literally bits of ginger in water. It was extremely soothing on the throat if not exactly sweet to taste. When we first arrived we were sat at a small table for four but were soon moved to a cosier booth table when one became available (although if you heed my advice our original table with ordinary chairs seemed much more comfortable for seating and eating.)

The food part of the afternoon tea was delivered all in one hit and whilst impressive looking we were disappointed to see that there wasn’t actually one of everything for everyone to try … which wouldn’t have been so much of problem had the “no-bread sandwiches”, cupcakes, cakes and scones actually been fairly easy to share. Additionally, though priced at a fairly hefty-ish price of £25, there were strictly no re-fills either which to me seemed a little on the cheap side. The waiter tried to explain it away as a logistics thing – claiming that the chefs had produced an exact amount based on the bookings only. I wasn’t impressed. Sure the sweets were more than enough for us but we probably could have done with some more of the savoury bearing in mind, as I mentioned earlier, that they weren’t particularly shareable. I wasn’t being greedy honest!

Overall, the experience at The Met was pleasant if not particularly striking experience though sadly this was one afternoon tea where we all actually walked out hungry and craving McDonalds!

Celebrity Tour of Notting Hill

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Notting Hill has long been synonymous with celebrities so Rache thought it would be a nice birthday present for me to arrange for us to go on a celebrity tour of Notting Hill. The tour did not get off on the right foot as our tour guide was quite late and no one had let us know. On the plus side it ended up just being just random Russian guy, Rache and I on the tour so it was very intimate indeed. Lasting over two hours it was overwhelming the number of places that were pointed out to us covering celebrity homes, film locations, celeb hangouts and even spots where celebs had died! Unfortunately, no actual celeb spotted en route though our tour guide did have a flip chart of pictures to help us with association.

You can read the itinerary here for a full lowdown of where we went cause I actually can’t remember some of the places. Here are a couple that I remember.

Supposedly Jason Donovan’s place (also formerly Dire Straits ‘member Mark Knopfler’s residence) but to me it did look rather empty!

Denbigh Close where some scenes from the Italian job were shot

I think where Robbie Williams used to live:

Where many celebs stay when they’re in town

Where Jimi Hendrix died:

Elle’s former front door (though I’m sure you’re thinking that could be anywhere!) – Ladbroke Gardens

And just to show it was a lovely day, St Luke’s Mews, though I do also think it was the tragic site of Max Moseley’s son who died of an overdose:

For those into music, Sarm Studios is near All Saints’ Road. It was here that Take That’s 2008 album, the Circus, was produced.

And finally, this was THE door in the Notting Hill movie – only now the columns have been painted over in white!

Houses of Parliament Tour

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The Houses of Parliament is the venue for the two houses of Parliament for the UK – the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament responsible revising and initiating legislation, and the House of Commons, where the true power lays. It is the House of Commons who the Prime Minister is answerable to.

Tours of the Houses of Parliament are open to the general public (that is, non-residents) throughout the summer only, when the Houses are out on recess, or on Saturdays. Residents can get (free) tours throughout the year arranged through your MP or a Lord. So popular are these tours that apparently they have to be booked about six months in advance!

On a lovely brilliant summer’s day Rache, Nic and I took the easier, but more expensive option, of buying tickets for a Saturday. The tour provided very popular and even though they limit numbers (I think approx. 30) there were at least three English groups that left in our particular time slot and each one was maxed out.

The whole process of how the Houses of Parliament works was explained from how members get their “agenda” for the day, protocols in the two Houses (e.g. voting, speaking, where people sit!), and the history of significant art/statues were explained. I quite liked our tour guide but the big group made it difficult at times to hear what he was saying. We were taken through the House of Commons (the green room) and the House of Lords (the room). Interestingly in the House of Lords votes are physical votes, where members leave the chamber and walk through a particular division to indicate their choice. No hiding behind paperwork in the House of Lords!

The tour lasts for approx. 75 minutes and is well worth experiencing … if just to get a better understanding of how the UK legislative system operates. Unfortunately no photos inside the actual houses though 🙁

Caleya Iberica

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Caleya Iberica confusingly has two parts to the restaurant – the casual more bar-like atmosphere downstairs and the finer dining area upstairs, in addition the fine dining area seemed to be split even further into the main part where we were sat (we were the first diners, even arriving at 7pm!) and another area sort of along the top of the stairs. I was quite impressed with the space of the restaurant – it felt light and area and, even though we were the only diners upstairs for a little bit, the atmosphere of the noisier bar atmosphere filtered up to us.

Additionally we, or I did since I was facing towards the window, had a lovely view down the street level courtesy of the floor to ceiling windows. Anyway, you’ll see what I mean if you visit … and this is something I definitely recommend that you do.

Normally first impressions are everything but I’m glad I didn’t let the first impression ruin the evening for me. When Sandra and I arrived at the front desk there was a receptionist/maitre ‘d there who was at first busy on the phone when we arrived but then proceeded, at the end of her call, to go fix the chairs by the bar. Um … hello? Remember us – the customer? Finally she came to check our reservation and brought us up accordingly to the fine dining area upstairs. It took the waiter some time to come to ask to give us a menu and, in his very very strong Spanish accent, explain the unavailabilities on the menu. It was unfortunate we couldn’t understand him but I did like the pro-active approach to making sure there was an attempt to tell us what we couldn’t have tonight. Thankfully a more understandable waitress came along to help us later on with our meal selections and service really picked up after this.

Normally in a new restaurant Sandra and I will try out the tasting menu. One of the unavailable dishes tonight happened to be on the tasting menu so the restaurant was very good at letting us play around with the menu to come up with a tasting menu of our own. In fact I suspect they would let you do this anyway to create your own tasting menu, which was pretty cool. Effectively a main/dish would be split into two and served to us, so portions were supposed to be a lot smaller but actually we walked out very very full!

So what did we eat?

First up was a quarter of this mega loaf of bread served with two types olive oil salt. We must have been pretty hungry as we certainly dug into the bread which, in hindsight, could have been a mistake and might explain how full we felt at the end of the night. First up on our tasting menu was the Iberica Ham Croquetes. We got four each of these babies and they were delicious and very rich. Delicious.

Next up was something that doesn’t necessarily look appetising and had Sandra worrying about the egg component (she’s not a fan of scrambled eggs) but was yummy. Corn crispbread, scrambled eggs, caramelised onions and Blue Cheese. For me it worked quite well although the crispbread was on the salty side.

In substitution for a bean stew (not available) we chose a slow cooked octopus in its own jus with boletus (I had to google this – apparently it’s a mushroom), green asparagus, white onion and smoked paprika oil. I found I couldn’t really taste the smoked paprika oil drizzled over the onion but I think it worked mainly to take away the rawness of the onion. The octopus itself was extremely tender though strangely covered in a strange jelly like substance which made a delightful dish just a little off-putting.

I’ll forgive the burnt bits on my roasted baby potatoes on the next dish because the lightly smoked organic salmon was perfectly cooked. I couldn’t taste the heat in the supposed chilli cauliflower sauce but this dish actually worked for me. But I suspect that’ s only be cause of the gorgeous and obviously fresh salmon.

Next up was another substitute to the tasting menu. Instead of chicken crispy confit suckling pig, apple puree and frizzy salad. Hello manna from heaven! Okay yes the pig was probably a touch on the overly fat size and as a result an extremely rich dish but I loved it. That’s the pig lover in me I guess …

The regular tasting menu has two desserts on it but in a bonus, because it was my birthday, we got an additional dessert course and free champers. Caleya I love you! The caramelised rice pudding was up first. Rice pudding – I love you too!

Then the champers

Then a very strange dish which actually worked well even though it again doesn’t look the greatest. Crème caramel as you’ve never seen it before made with Muscovado sugar, granny smith apple consumme, black olives and rocket. Yes you read right! It was quite a mix of sweet and sour, with a bite of the rocket.

Then the most giant birthday cake I’ve ever received or seen from a restaurant (and gratis!) Sandra said she’d emailed them before hand just to ask that Happy Birthday be scrawled on my dessert and maybe a candle thrown in and the restaurant replied to say they would bake me a mini-cake. So lovely although, in all honesty, my stomach could barely fit anything in at this stage.

I was so pleased with my meal tonight at Caleya Iberica. After a slow start with the service it really picked up. For example, unlike Chez Bruce, they explained each and every dish (something all good restaurants do), they were very quick at topping up our water (the water test!), the head waitress was always coming in to check in with us (and not too much) striking up a nice chatter and, at the end, we got goodbyes and good wishes for my birthday from all the staff, with the head waitress making a point of coming to our table before we left even though she was busy with another table.

I would be quite happy to darken the doors of Caleya Iberica again that’s for sure – though I’ll make sure next time not to eat so much as to require that I be rolled out the door …

Bompas and Parr: The Complete History of Food

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Bompas and Parr are known best as the jelly mongers, molding jellies into interesting shapes such as well known buildings (like the Gherkin) and even glow in the dark jelly (this one for a Mark Ronson birthday party.) You can tell that these guys are all about innovating with food – but not just what you consume but how it smells, the textures, the tastes etc. For a few days only their latest venture is The Complete History of Food.

Pat and I had no idea whatsoever what to expect – all we knew was that we had to turn up at a particular time, that we’d get some food and, being sponsored by Courvoisier, a fair amount of alcohol!

The event was being held in a house on Belgrave Square. It turned out that every floor represented some decade in the history of food. The first room was our introduction. There was a guy there who was going to assess our “humours” – which apparently dictate whether your body was in harmony.

He would assess which humour was more dominant than the rest and based on this he would prescribe you a restorative. If you were:

Choleric you would get Cabbage (white wine, caper, artichoke) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Rose Water.
Melancholic you would get Popsicle (lemon, sorrel) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif pear and Cardamom Sidecar.
Phlegmatic you would get Popcorn (truffle, porcini) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Apricot Martini
Sanguine you would get Fig (Beetroot, port, vanilla) paired with a Courvoisier Exclusif Spiced Meade with celery bitters

The mixologists and chefs from Saf were responsible for the restoratives and was served to us in a flooded Banqueting chamber. I tell you I hadn’t even started drinking yet and it was a challenge to walk into the chamber without losing balance – the threat of the water was real! But no one fell in which was good.

This was the Medieval period by the way. The next was the Contemporary where we took a lift all the way to the top floor! Actually the lift was a good thing because it basically broke up the group so Pat, myself and two other people (who where from New Zealand and were very friendly) had the top floor to ourselves for the next experience. Up here the treat was representing the current bounty of good food that we have in the world today. The Rocher a l’Or (Michelin starred chef Aiexis Gauthier of Gauthier Soho’s take on a “Ferroro Rocher”) was a port reduction centre, surrounded by duck foie gras, coated with caramelised almond and rolled in gold leaf. This was paired with a flat champagne cocktail with a fizzy grape (from mixologist Paul Tvaroh of Lounge Bohemia.) I really liked the idea behind the fizzy grape which was a surprise to the tongue and mouth.

From Contemporary we headed down to the Early 20th Centry where we were faced with a bouncy castle designed like the inside of a stomach! It was very funny! The message here was about the increasing consciousness about the effects of food on the body. The stomach showed someone who had eaten a TV dinner … which was our next stop.

The 1950s and the world of mass production and technology. This was really cool – no food here but a scratch and sniff TV dinner! Chicken, Chips, Peas and Generic Strawberry Pudding. It was very effective!

After this TV Dinner and our work out in the bouncing stomach we were starting to work up quite an appetite so we were very happy to see that our next meal was the Iguanadon dinner. The stories goes that on New year’s Eve 1853 Anatomist Richard Owen and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins teamed up to recreate life-size models of dinosaurs, the first in the world, at Crystal Palace to which 22 leading scientists were invited to dine in and around.

The food from Bistrotheque was lovely: duck confit with lentils, beetroot, black champagne sauce. The duck was cooked perfectly. Accompanying our meal was Josephine’s Tea Garden by Ben Leggett: Courvoisier Exclusif with green tea, apple juice and elderflower cordial, garnished with fresh mint leaves and citrus wedges. Refreshing but I’d had too much alcohol at this stage and passed it on to Pat!

Finally we entered the Renaissance. We walked in this room which was overwhelmingly pink and fully of dessert! This was inspired by the time the Earl of Leicester tried to woo Queen Elizabeth I with an entire garden full of dessert (over 300!) This was also of the introduction of sugar hence our dessert of candied Orange, iris Jellies and Ambergris Posset with Courvoisier XO. The Ambergris is actually the vomit of sperm whales and is a highly sought after ingredient in the perfumery world – as it ages it gets more fragrant. Apparently it makes a good flavouring in food too with some claiming its an aphrodisiac! Oh – I forgot to say there was a “biometric jelly” in this room where you put your finger into this electric monitor and once it picks up your heartbeat the jelly above it starts to jump around. Quite funny.

The experience tonight was extremely cool. It takes ordinary dining to another level and gave it an interesting twist. For the alcohol lovers you get quite a bit of alcohol and for the foodies there’s quite a representation from various fine dining providers in the London so you get a bit of both worlds. Great fun.

Chez Bruce

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Chez Bruce has long been on my to do list ever since I think it was Gary who recommended it to me all those years ago. Using my birthday next week as an excuse, ha ha, I got Nate, Caro and Pat out for a night out. Chez Bruce is in Wandsworth so an area where I don’t normally go, that is south of the river! It’s a fairly smallish location but was apparently just about to go under renovation. Pat and I were just hoping it wasn’t going to be like Viktor where they were just trying to run the ingredients down! Luckily it wasn’t like that at all.

Service, at the start, was quite good. Nate and Caro were running a little late and even though they were fully booked for the evening there was no pressure on us to turn the table around. Very nicely they even let me charge my iphone on the laptop they were using to manage bookings. They put us at the front of the room which was nice because we could enjoy the last light of summer that way. The drawback to this position was that our main waitress barely paid attention to us after our food started arriving though I noticed that didn’t affect the service the tables next to us were getting. Service also eventually started to get steadily worse – the lady who served our drinks kept getting our drinks wrong and to be honest she just didn’t seem like she could be bothered to get it right, food was very slow in coming out (taking almost 40 minutes between courses) and generally wait-staff just weren’t giving our table any attention at all. This was quite surprising as normally in a Michelin-starred restaurant service is their top priority.

Food-wise at least it was all very well put together. Surprisingly there was no amuse bouche, which I must admit I’ve come to expect now from these kinds of restaurants, or no other delights though we did get some nice fresh bread at the start.

Our meals consisted of quite high quality ingredients and mostly working together though my main, Sea bream with provencale vegetable relish, grilled baby squid, sauce nero, gnocchi and almonds, was more complicated than it needed to be with so many competing ingredients that it was hard to tell the flavour or theme. The nero squid sauce was divine however and the baby squid themselves very tender. Food portions were quite reasonable too.

In a sign that I’m starting to get used to rich food I voluntarily opted for the Roast calf sweetbreads with truffle veloute, mushrooms, spatzle and peas. This was gorgeous!

The delightful food was finished with a rather large crème brulee.

My experience at Chez Bruce tonight felt like quite a mixed bag – I was very disappointed in the service which started off so promisingly but I was very happy with the food. I’m hoping the blip in the service was just that and not a longer term sign that its going down hill.