Restaurant Review: Le Chateaubriand in Paris

Let's get something out of the way.  Le Chateaubriand is not the 11th best restaurant in the world.  For Restaurant Magazine to assert such things is a flotilla of crap.  However, coming from a Top 50 list that gave Momofuku Ssam Bar  - the entry level Wagamama-esque version of David Chang's magnificent Momofuku Ko - 26th place I don't expect too much.

Jen and I disagree on Le Chateaubriand.  She would judge the food at our meal to be a failure.  I would judge it not to be a success (that night).  That is a very important difference.  For me optimism and excitement remains.  Le Chateaubriand uses the right ingredients, it has knowledge and passion and what let it down on the night we went was the adventure spiralled out of (food) control.  Quite simply they tried to experiment too much. 

"Restaurant" Review: My Blogger's Manifesto and McDonald's in the North Terminal of Gatwick Airport

This is a review of a McDonald's. Specifically this is a review of the McDonald's in the departure lounge of Gatwick's North Terminal. It is inevitably going to get pretentious but bear with me as it serves a point.

There are "issues" that I am having to grapple with now I have been blogging a bit (and it is not just the pain of reading your own prose on the screen). One is that you have to develop your rationale for blogging. I've done this grudgingly and by experimentation as I've gone along and what it has boiled down to is that I have two rules:

1. I only review what I pay for; and
2. I go to places I review anonymously (not that hard).

So far so boring.

Cafe Review: Penny University at 5 Redchurch Street

I am a complete brewed coffee novice.  All of my travels to coffee shops in London have involved one type of coffee - a flat white - ever since Gwilym and his coffee cart introduced me to them several years ago.  The only variation has been caffeination (and at times of true horror skinny milk).

Cafe Review: Yauatcha and Flat White in Soho

It is far far too sunny and wonderful to spend time posting so this is a short one with some pretty pictures.  Before I leave London I am trying to do all of those little things that make London so special once more.  When I worked near Soho I developed a ritual whereby I would have a patisserie from Yauatcha and then get a flat white from Flat White to accompany it.

There was a perfect symmetry to it.  The Asian brilliance of the confectionary and the simplicity of good coffee and good milk; fused.

Then Yauatcha got sold by Alan Yau and they got rid of the Asian high tea area and the patisseries on the ground floor to focus on more base elements of getting as many customers in as they can in rather than offering a multilayered experience.  This is a real shame as the precision and flavours in Alan Yau's patisseries were something else.  They have, however, kept doing macaroons so I thought these would still go with a good flat white.  They didn't.

Restaurant Review: Nomiya in the Palais de Tokyo in Paris

I went to Paris expecting to have one great meal and one good view.  The great meal at Le Chateaubriand (now the 11th best restaurant in the world according to Restaurant Magazine and the subject of my next post) and the good view at Nomiya which is perched on the top of the Palais de Tokyo.  The really surprising thing was that Nomiya had great food and a good view.

Paris (not the food)

(Now is this the Eiffel Tower or the Arc du Triomphe?)

It might seem strange for me to do a post about Paris and not center it around the food. However, there is a real reason for it. I just can't face it (yet). I just can't face the fact that I am not in a city where I can go to my local bistro for lunch, spend 14 Euros and get 3 courses and a glass of vin rouge.

Wednesday is Pizza Night at the Hackney Pearl

Last Wednesday, I made pizza at the Hackney Pearl. It was the first time that I stepped into a professional kitchen. The closest I'd come before that was a brief stint working in a coffee shop, making sandwiches and salads. Back then, I was just a dumb kid who needed a summer job. Now I had talked a big game about my pizza, the Pearl had taken a gamble, and it was time for me to deliver.

When I arrived, I was trying to hide the fact that I was a nervous wreck. I had one hour before service was suppose to start. I am a bit of a nut when it comes to timing, and I like to have everything in place before I begin a task. I looked at the clock after what seemed to be five minutes. Instead, it revealed that I had been working for 45 minutes, and I wasn't even close to finishing my mise en place. I saw that my window of "calm before the storm" was gone.

The Pearl doesn't have a wood fired pizza oven, so I made due with two stones heated in a commercial oven. Once the oven was hot, I did two test runs. Make that two and a half test runs. One the first go, I forgot to flour the peel, and the pizza dough stuck like chewing gum. There was no way to salvage it, so I had to bin the entire thing. I was mortified. I can only imagine what everyone else was thinking at that point. Here's someone who says she can bang out 20-30 pizzas for our restaurant, and she can't even get the first one off the peel? If it had been me watching, I would have been thinking, "What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?".

How you go from Paris to Pancakes.

We woke up this morning with post-Paris depression. Stumbling around the flat like zombies with bed head, we both had bad cases of holiday withdrawal. We spent the weekend in Paris bouncing from one high to the next. We shoved pretty much every kind of food into our mouths that we could get our greedy hands on. We sampled some of the best wines I've ever tasted. And when we weren't eating or drinking ourselves silly, we were slammed in the face with architecture so ridiculously grand it makes you reconsider your entire understanding of beauty. So after that kind of action, who would possibly be happy to face work and chores on Monday morning?

London Notes: Part 4 - Bonnington Square

(This is definitely not WC1 - Harleyford Road Gardens)

Before I take Jen on her first trip to Paris this weekend I thought I would put up a new post in my goodbye to London series (others here) about Bonnington Square. If you haven't been, Bonnington Square is a special place. It is the one place in London where I have ever felt part of a community.

It is also an unlikely place. A lone square of Victorian ramshackle beauty in the middle of Vauxhall which resisted being ripped down by developers because it was squatted in the 1970s and 1980s. And it is because of those squatters that an air of anarchy remains in the square and its gardens.

Restaurant Review: Pearl Liang in Paddington

I love dim sum but I have never approached it in a structured way as I don't have the breadth of experience to be able to do so.  I mean this is a cuisine that I have never eaten more than 15 times a year in my entire life. 

As with Japanese cuisine I think there is a particular skill that some people who have the requisite experience and interest in it can have and that is being able to order for the entire table.  When done properly the order will emcompass everyone's likes and dislikes and result in a meal which entices people to try dishes that are new to them but will still leave everyone full and smiling at the end. 

Before I fly off to live in HK Mr Noodles offered to take me on a proper dim sum outing and use his experience to show me the pacing and variety of a proper dim sum extravaganza.  Not being an idiot I said yes.

First Ever Pizza Night this Wednesday at The Hackney Pearl

I am nervous for the first time in months. I will probably not sleep tonight, and when tomorrow afternoon comes I will be ready to jump out of my skin. Tomorrow night, I will step into a professional kitchen. Not as a TV producer or as a wide-eyed tourist, but as a cook.

A few weeks ago, I decided to finally bite the bullet and do what I've been talking about for all these years. Tom and I spend so much time talking about food, reading about food, cooking and eating it. We dissect every nuance of a meal or a recipe. We photograph it, and we blog it. It's clear we are consumed by restaurant culture, but neither of us know what it's really like on the other side of the fence. Well, maybe it's time to find out.

Restaurant Review: Nuno Mendes at Viajante in Bethnal Green

The problem with Viajante is that it wants to play with the restaurant gods and is priced on that basis - 6 courses for £60, 9 courses for £65 or 12 courses for £85.  But for those kind of prices you could go to Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley.

(crostini de romesco and gordal olives, almonds and Jerez)

So let's start with the "soft" side of the meal because that was their biggest failure. Marcus Wareing, Gordon Ramsay (here), Marcus McGuiness or any of their ilk who do similar "big" tasting menus like Viajante is offering guarantee good service.  Napkins magically return to your lap.  Chairs migrate in and out of the table in time with your movements and plates appear and disappear without you thinking about it.

Now I really really don't care about good service.  For me the best (cheap) meals come where it is warfare with the waiters.  You sit unloved and ignored in the corner.  But then the food.  The juxtaposition between the brilliance of the food and the obnoxious service (and cheap prices) make those kind of meals something even more special (see Antpeliler here).  Viajante wants to be more than that though.  It wants to be haute Bethnal Green cuisine but it is striving to be so with shonky so so service.  What is even more strange about this is when Nuno Mendes was at The Loft he oversaw an experience that was both fantastic on the food front but also had pleasant and paced service (here).

What pigs and princesses eat when they are not at the party.

When I first moved to London, one of the many things that impressed me about British culture was the extraordinary effort put forth for birthdays. I was amazed to be receiving "save the date" emails six months in advance. And then later reading invitation details that clearly involved hiring private rooms, lengthy guest lists, and sometimes multiple days of activities. If I was really lucky, the birthday party would require some sort of "fancy dress" which is Brit speak for an outlandish costume party that usually follows a theme.

Tom celebrated his 30th this year not once, but three times. One party was scheduled in April even though his birthday is in February. This sort of behaviour is unheard of for most Americans. Sure, we might let loose for the customary 21st or 40th, but you'd be hard pressed to find people getting crazy for their 33rd. That said, I prefer the British way. What could be more fantastic than knowing in four months time you will be required to dress like a pink salamander for someone's 28th?

Restaurant Review: The Gunmakers Pub in Clerkenwell

I am in love with The Gunmakers.  You know that moment when you unexpectedly meet someone new and you can't stop thinking about them?  When you compare every other experience to them and all of it is left lacking in the face of your new found awe. The Gunmakers is that for me right now.