Monthly Archives: September 2011

Heston’s Dinner

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As with any new celebrity chef offering, especially when the chef in question is one Heston Blumenthal, there has been plenty of hype surrounding the opening of “Dinner”. Opened in January this year in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel at Knightsbridge “Dinner”, potentially confusing when planning a lunch date, pays homage to food from Britain’s historical times and features dishes inspired by recipes reaching as far back as the 14th century. Tonight Sandra, Jenny and James C also came along for the trip back in time.

If you’re taken on the right path, the walk to your table is impressive. The surrounds are well plush, as one would expect I guess from a hotel in Knightsbridge, but the most pleasing aspect and drawcard is that the kitchen is an open one although thankfully, for our clothes, behind giant glass windows! (My brother would be super-excited by the Josper grill.) As you pass by on your way to your table you can see the pineapples happily roasting away in preparation for the numerous Tipsy Pineapple Cake orders which are surely to follow. I also was enjoying the jelly mould light fixtures which gave the serious room a bit of a quirkiness.

Be warned for those expecting to experience a little bit of Fat Duck at “Dinner” – you will be disappointed! Yes these recipes from the 14th century have been innovated and updated but not to the same level of gastronomic magic at Fat Duck. The closest you will get is the ‘Meat Fruit’ and this is a definite must order for the table. Lucky for me I was able to have the best of all worlds when James ordered the Meat Fruit leaving me to be able to sample other delights on the menu.

Service at first was excellent. Heaps of staff (maybe too many) saying hellos and goodbyes, circulating around us, serving us water, bread (a giant loaf of sourdough) but then it seemed to taper off through the meal – water glasses started to remain empty, the wait staff delivering the food seemed nervous or something (one girl nearly tiped my plate of dessert over because rather than move to an easier spot to allow her to put the plate down she opted for trying to reach across the table instead – a bit baffling.) Even though the restaurant has been opened for 8-9 months I’m surprised that front of house felt like it hadn’t quite got things going smoothly yet.

So what about the food?

I can’t really speak much for what the others (except for the sublime Meat Fruit) had but I will attach the photos. It is fair to say that prices are a little on the overpriced side, in particular for starters and sides. For mains they were mnre fair and you could easily do with a main each with shared side (of gorgeous chunky fat chips) if you choose wisely (Black Foot pork chop!)

As I keep harping on, the Meat Fruit is the singular most amazing dish on the menu. The best of the rest were simply good in comparison. A very light chicken liver parfait covered in a very thin shell of mandarin jelly this dish was simply incredible. I was so very happy that James was nice enough to let me taste some – if I had ordered the dish (and knowing how incredible it was) I doubt I would have been quite so generous! Visually appealing to the eye too though if there was one thing the dish needed it was more bread!

My “Rice & Flesh” was more exotic sounding than it actually was – basically a posh risotto with the saffron, the calf tail and the red wine. It looked fabulous all vibrantly yellow and glossy. It was cooked almost to perfection – just slighlty over-salted I felt and could have done with more protein (that’s right I’m looking at you calf tail.)

For mains I would say that my Black Foot pork chop was the winner in the categories that really count: taste and value for money. I was worried that such a big fat piece of pork chop would be tough and dry (and even worse, rare towards the middle) but again the kitchen shined through with its skills and what I bit into was gorgeously juicy tender mouthfuls of lovely pork. Winner: Josper Grill. Great texture and perfectly seasoned. It was also served with the most gorgeous barley “carb”. There was this transparent almost onion skin type thing laying on top of the barley which was strange-looking but tasty. The fat cut chips we ordered for sides were decent and had that perfectly double-cooked-ness you want in such a chip.

Tipsy Cake is no doubt the sexy celebrity of the dessert offerings. Both Sandra and Jenny fell to its charms. I opted for a more sedate but adventurous sounding brown bread concoction (nice without pushing too many dessert boundaries.) For me the tipsy cake was just on the wrong side of too much alcohol which I felt overpowered the whole dish. It also failed my requirement of coming with ice cream which I think would have balanced the dish perfectly and offset the super sweetness of the brioche and pineapple. Without the ice cream or other counter-balance it felt like it was a serve of sugar with a side of sugar.

A meal was nicely finished off with a petit four of white chocolate ganache with taste of Earl Grey and caraway seed biscuit. Gotta love the free stuff.

Overall I found that Dinner was a pleasant experience. You may have to ride a few ups and downs with the service but if you come here mentally prepared that you will not be getting the scientific food trickery that is often associated with Heston and instead look forward to some good quality chow (and choosing the right dishes) you will should be delighted.

UPDATE: Gained a Michelin Star in October 2011 and jumped straight up to Number 9 on The World’s 50 Best restaurant’s list for 2012. Someone must have been impressed.

Brighton 2011

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Our weekend in Brighton was a bit random but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Other than where we were going to go for dinner on Saturday night we really hadn’t thought about where or what we were going to do! Checking into our very small but cheap hotel room (oh yes we had a shower in the room, but it was literally a shower in the room – no bathroom or anything!) Couldn’t really complain for only £33 each per night I guess we could hardly complain.

So what did our weekend consist of? Well, mainly walking around just checking things out. Beautiful sunsets, Brighton Pier, walking past the Royal Pavilion (Saturday was too nice a day to actually spend time inside!), nice food (breakfast at Jamie Oliver’s Recipease and breakfast at Bill’s Brighton, the latter being a particularly funky place and heaving with Sunday brunch diners), a couple of markets, a massage (yay!) and best of all – catching rays on the pebbled Brighton beachfront.

Bliss and just what the doctor ordered!

Drakes Restaurant, Brighton

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Drakes is a lovely cosy restaurant located in the basement of a boutique Brighton hotel which we stumbled over at the last minute when planning our Brighton itinerary. The hotel is very cute actually – and I love their exterior and interior decorations. I liked this particular piece which we encountered on the way down to the restaurant from the reception:

Cuisine at Drakes is best described as Modern European with a pleasingly rotating menu to take advantage of seasonal ingredients. For a very reasonable £55 Cathy and I sampled the Chef’s Tasting Menu and for the vegetarians out there they also have a very decent vegetarian Tasting Menu – which we could testify to as Jumana (more pescatorian really) took up this option. Along with our five courses we were also supplied with an amuse bouche and a pre-dessert – so great value indeed.

First up was our amuse of Duck Rillette and Fig Jam. I’m not normally one for pates but this was quite tasty and coming as an amuse bouche meant the portion size was just right! Fig really does impress me as an ingredient and it provided a nice balance to the rillette.

Combining two rich ingredients was our first official starter – Sauteed Fresh Cep Mushrooms on Toast with Poached Duck Egg. The duck egg was perfectly poached to runniness and I love the smear of mushroom on the plate to really lift this one. Yum. (Although I do have to admit I probably would have preferred a regular chicken egg as the duck was just a touch too rich for me.)

Arguably my favourite dish of the night was up next to the bat – a Squid Ink Risotto with Poached Lobster. Fantastic ingredients, risotto was cooked to perfection and the poached lobster on top just finished the dish off perfectly

Pan-roast Duck Breast with Sweet Potato Fondant, Baby Vegetables and Cherry Sauce is how I like duck served – tender and juicy with a crispy salty skin.

At this stage we were all fairly full – finishing the cheese and desserts was going to be a big ask but none of us backed away (okay – I didn’t quite finish my crackers from my cheese course. Heh heh). Four cheeses (blue, camembert with walnut, goat, and a mild cheddar) were accompanied by sultana and walnut rye bread, water biscuits and grapes. Grapes were so sweet and went very well with the blue and goat.

Our pre-dessert being a vanilla pannacotta, berry puree, and pistachio cream in a shot glass was very cute and thankfully not super rich.

This paved the way for a beautifully baked and risen Mirabelle Souffle with Poached Plums. Plums were a little on the tart side but the soufflé was incredibly light and fluffy and sweet so eaten together it was a lovely mouthful.

Service at Drakes was attentive without being overbearing. And very friendly too I must note. We girls had a lovely time and would recommend this restaurant for all.

Sports Day

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The peeps sure know how to throw a Sports Day event. I was impressed at the turn out, impressed with the equipment (thanks mainly to Andre!) and even more impressed that the turn out was fairly evenly split between the women and men … and no, the women were not on the sideline all night as this photo might suggest. Heh heh.

First event was the Egg and Spoon race. Impressively eggs were only dropped once or twice over the 20 metre run. However, I was laughing so hard I missed the finish!

Next up was the three-legged race. Tip: pair up with someone with the same length of leg! My partner was tiny and it felt like I was practically dragging her along. Still, somehow we didn’t come last 😉

Then it was the welly throw. If you have never thrown a welly you’ll never realise just how tough it is. Underarm throws win the day!

The wiffle ball was up next since everyone had warmed up with their welly. MUCH easier to throw!

Cheerleeders:

Then quite possibly the best event of the night, the obstacle course. Mega cool – it started with a maze you had to complete with your feet, then a crawl through a tunnel, a jump over a little hurdle and then a final sprint with a balloon between your legs. Hilarious.

I thought we should have finished with that but we still had a couple of more events. The long jump:

The sprint:

And a penalty shoot out.

Great defending by Andrew on this one.

Mahdi

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Geez, I thought I’d seen everything at Mahdi … that is until lunch today with Reza. That man sure knows how to order a feast. We had so much food it was ridiculous … and you know that’s a ton of food coming from someone like me! Seeing all the food come trundling out I thought for sure we’d be having take out for days … but the boys did the business and ate everything up!

Respect La Diva

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Not the most awesome of musicals I’ve seen but this tribute to a range of female “divas” such as Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Dolly Parton, Whitney, Diana Ross, Madonna and Beyonce is touching and sweet enough that you don’t mind too much (especially for those of us with discount tickets!)

There is no real story to the musical and they did tend to wander from one song to another without a real sense of connection. Other than that it was a touch of nostalgia in the air as all four leading ladies, Sheila Ferguson, Denise Pearson, Katy Setterfield and Zoe Birkett (who I recognised from her stint as part of the original cast of Priscilla) belted their hearts out. The ladies were also ably supported by Andy Abraham (2nd in X Factor in 2005) who played host.

Let’s face it you don’t come to a show like Respect La Diva for the story but a chance to walk down memory lane and hear those classic songs of the past. If that’s all you’re looking for then you’ll definitely enjoy your evening.

GreenCity: Angel Building

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Open-City, formerly Open House, events grow every year and are concerned with creating better places, better cities. I know them mostly for their work on Open House. This year I thought I’d check out their new event, Green Sky Thinking, a nearly week long programme highlighting new thoughts and solutions in incorporating sustainability in architecture. In addition to gaining access to buildings in the way Open House allows, the events also include talks by a number of architecture and design firms. I wanted to go to all of them! But unfortunately I could only narrow it down to one event as most of the sessions were during the working day.

The Angel Building, Islington, was completed in 2010 and cost £72 million to retrofit.

It used to be an ugly environmentally unfriendly 1980s commercial block that BT moved out of with 7 years left on the lease. After Derwent London were done with it 100,000 square feet had been added to the building (an increase of 73% net floor space) by building outward not upward, two roof top terraces, reduced energy consumption thanks to a number of innovative measure such as 6m glazed bays providing natural light, wrapping the existing concrete frame with a highly energy-efficient glazed skin (which also reduced the amount of demolition required), rainwater recovery (used to flush toilets saving 455,000 toilet flushes a year), installation of waterless urinals (saving 87,000 liters of water per year), and passenger lifts which recycle energy as they descend. Yes the lifts are a bit slow but they do use 50% less energy to power. Then there are all the technical things like biomass boilers etc. etc.

Add in some art. Add in communal meeting spaces, breakout areas, cafes and benches (so you can mingle with other tenants in the building rather than just being secluded to your own business.) Add in some trees. And you get quite a beautiful building inside and out that would just be a joy to come to work to.

Current tenants include Cancer Research UK (the first time they have all been in one building allowing them to save 20% on costs), Expedia and Sage.

The environmental/sustainability theme even trickled down to our afternoon tea which included muffins, carrot cake and “Green” tea (as in environment not just green tea …)

The architects were really inspirational. They really sounded like they were into the whole sustainability concept including having the belief that if they can’t walk to a site/building then they won’t buy it and they don’t consider themselves developers but refurbishers. The Angel Building was shortlisted for this year’s RIBA 2011 Stirling Prize. (Update: The prize this year was won by the Evelyn Grace Academy, London by Zaha Hadid Architects)

HK Diner

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Ha ha, dinner at HK Diner just in time. Although I do like the fact they have to tell people they are closing at 1 am … like that is unusually early on a Sunday night??

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstacy

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People may accuse me of being a perv, and yes I do just love looking at anyone and anything, but I’m sure admitting to going to watch this movie in a public cinema no less would certainly cement that title! Ha! It had me wondering what other type of person would go see this movie and looking around at those in attendance today I have to say that I couldn’t really pin-point a type!

Need I even bother with a plot? Well, ok – in short there is an egotistical scholar who thinks that to get the most out of life you should get as much sexual pleasure as you can. Although he falls in love with a woman she ultimately isn’t enough for him and off he goes to find pleasure elsewhere. I’m sure there’s a moral in there somewhere (Chinese stories always do) about love eventually triumphing but it was lost in the gore and horribleness that was the conclusion.

For those looking for eroticism and a bit of sexy fun don’t bother with this movie. If you want to laugh your head off then you may enjoy it … that is until the last third where suddenly there are some truly awful rape and dismemberment scenes. Not awful in the sense of bad acting but awful as in horrible, dark, and downright unpleasant. I’m not really sure why it needed to go there because up until then it could at least be sold on its merits as somewhat of a comedy.

Not really date material this one!

Roast and Duplo – great ways to spend an afternooon

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I worked up quite an appetite trekking around seeing all these lovely buildings for OpenHouse so it was with great delight that I landed on Nate and Caro’s doorstep for another beautiful roast prepared by Caro. She really should think about opening up a restaurant! But then … no doubt a food blogger will pick it up, her food will get all trendy and I’ll never get a booking! Ha!

I love visiting Nate and Caro. Not only do I get a proper feed, get a chance to catch up on all the goss in their lives but I also get to play with their adorable little darlings, Gas and Ces. Both are growing up so quickly and I’m honoured I get to spend time with them at this precious time of their life. Ces may be growing up too fast with his cigar …

… just kidding. He sure likes those breadsticks though!

Gas’s duplo train set got a work out, and we got to see what Dad Nate’s engineering skills were like .. um … maybe stick to your day job Dad? Just kidding again (sort of – heh heh). Nate made a decent enough track with the train … too bad Gas was most interested in destroying things!

Ces wanted to get in on the act too. Bless he is starting to turn over on to his stomach now. Won’t be long before he is up and running everywhere!

And then Gas did the most gorgeous thing ever – he started to play with my hair like he was a hair dresser – working my hair until it was “just right”. Soooo cute!