Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Birthday at Hibiscus

Hot off the press from Monday, the San Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants have just been announced. Only 3 restaurants from the UK made it onto the list this year, old favourites Fat Duck, St John, and a new entry at number 49 for Hibiscus.


Either Fil is psychic (unlikely), or just very well trained (even more unlikely), but it ended up being the venue of my surprise birthday dinner a few weeks ago! For their Friday and Saturday nights, you don't get a menu, you just get to choose the number of courses you want: 4, 6, or 8. We decided to be averagely fat and went for 6 courses. Here they are without any commentary from me:

Amuse bouche

Apple and Carrot Soda

Devon brown crab

Salad of Devonshire Crab, Tokyo White Turnip, Kentish Sea Leaves, Cream & Smoked Olive Oil Dressing


Black bream

Cornish Black Bream Stuffed with Morels & Kaffir Lime, New Season Broad Beans & Coffee

Snails

Fricassee of Herefordshire Snails, Turkish Morels, “Vin Jaune” Sauce & Wild Chervil

Squab Pigeon

Roast Squab Pigeon, Tamarillo Confit in Muscovado, New Season Carrot & Passion Fruit Puree, Cheltenham Beetroot


Selection of British & French Cheeses

From Neal’s Yard and Bernard Antony


Pre dessert

Strawberries and Celeriac with Sichuan Pepper Foam

Winter Garden

Iced Nougat Parfait of Candied Roots, Physalis Coulis


I'm a bit dubious about the World's 50 Best list anyway. I've only been to 6 on the list, and only one of them (lovely Martin of San Sebastian) is the only meal I would say has absolutely blown my mind.

I loved loved the surprise element at Hibiscus, especially as I wouldn't have ordered the best dish of the lot. The stuffed sea bream was a creation of wonder, I could have happily eaten about 5 portions of it. And the other thing I absolutely adored was the so right cheese selection (you can tell I was excited as I didn't even take a picture) - fourme d'ambert, comte, a goatey one and a soft stinky one. I couldn't really have asked for a better place for my birthday.

But obviously, now I have to overanalyse every aspect of my dining experience, there were a few niggly things I have. First, the dining room is really odd, the tables a bit too spaced out almost, and I'm not sure about the minimalist blonde panelling, the room needed more character. I also thought it was weird to have two dishes with morels (the sea bream and the snails) back to back; unfortunately the sea bream dish was so so good, the snails felt like a let down. And finally, I really disliked the dessert. I know I'm not a dessert person, but this was just an odd choice to try and display your dessert talents. Simply not very nice at all!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Berlin

So yes, it was an awfully long time ago that we had our little visit to Berlin, but work has been incredibly busy, and I am now catching up on all my blogs! Even with my ridiculous OCD memory for food though, I am struggling to remembr the exact ingredients of the food we ate there.

I have a real fondness for German food, even when it is so unfashionable to like it. I like a bit of stodge, and am a big fan of sauerkraut. Unfortunately though during our little weekend away, we never found the opportunity to go and eat any wurst, it does somehow feel wrong, especially as I'd even researched where the best curry wurst supposedly is. But the food we did eat was consistently good.

I arrived in Berlin very late on a Friday night, and as much as we loved our hotel, their concierge was rather rubbish at recommending something that was still open at 10pm, especially as I'd insisted on eating German food. We also insisted that we wanted to walk there, so she pointed us to somewhere near Hackescher Markt.

We loved the walk there, taking in most of Berlin's sights in Mitte, but it was only when we were quite near the restaurant that we realised we were walking right through the red light district. It didn't make us feel particularly uncomfortable, but knowing us, we started to overanalyse their business model and started thinking of ways to improve their sales. For some reason, all the girls had almost exactly the same outfits, with the exception that some boots (all equally patented and shiny) were black, whereas some were pink. Maybe men are just not that fussy.

Anyway, we ended up at a place called Lutter & Wegner, which turned out to be a sort of chain restaurant serving extremely traditional German food. Definitely a lot of stodge and soured cream to be had here! I had a goulash with spatzle, and spatzle has become one of my new favourite foods:

I think we had also ordered some kind of wurst and they got our order wrong, which meant some black pudding with apple arrived instead. I really ought not to try my bad German on actual German people:

All in all, it was good, but not particularly exciting.

More exciting was Moses' recommendation of Monsieur Vuong, also in the Hackescher Markt area, which he had described as being like a Vietnamese Busaba in Berlin. We'd also read it in the New York Times, which meant we knew it would be rammed, and even when we arrived at 4pm for a very late lunch, the place was packed!

And to be honest, I'm not really sure what the fuss is about. I did love the decor, quite utilitarian yet chic at the same time, but the short menu was almost too short (probably 6 main dishes in all with 2 or 3 specials), especially as the things on the menu didn't really excite me exactly. There was no beef pho (not sure whether that is a good or bad sign), so we both went for the chicken pho:

It was fine for what it was, but the soup base was a bit weak, maybe I'm just a bit spoilt for Asian food in London. What I was more impressed with was their setup; they didn't appear to have a kitchen at the back, and did everything in a tiny area by the entrance (boiling the noodles, spooning on the broth etc.), which probably explains the tight menu.

Undoubtedly our most exciting dinner was at Schneeweiss in Friedrichshain, also mentioned in the NYT. It wasn't quite as chic as we had expected it to be, it was definitely very white, but also quite down to earth, including some quite amateurish snowflakes on the windows which quite endeared me to the place. The whole idea of the menu is modern Alpine food, and whilst it won't set the world on fire, it did feel right to eat it in what is supposedly the equivalent of the East End of Berlin.

Starters were a goats' cheese tart and a potato and carrot soup - both humble yet very well done:


My memory is failing me slightly on the mains. One of them was definitely red mullet, very light and fresh:

But the other one was another goulash (maybe?) with some pink stuff on the top.

We really liked the Friedrichshain area actually, with some quite interesting bars including one called the Big Lebowski that served (not particularly good) White Russians, and also a very self-consciously grubby place that played good 60's British music!

Berlin is one of those places I can go back to again and again. The first time I went was with a group of 20 raucous consultants and ended in Berghain, this time, it was a much calmer experience. If only I can go there once when it's not freezing cold! Anyway, here is probably the best memory of the weekend :)

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Glasshouse/ Chez Bruce

I recently (re)discovered the joys of taking a day off during the week recently: I had a few days' holiday left over before the holiday year ended, and London is such a lovely place before the weather is good enough that it is flooded with tourists, and there is no-one around!

One of the nicest things we did was to go to Kew on a Friday and eat at The Glasshouse. Unfortunately, I now fear for the survival of the place, along with its brother Chez Bruce in Wandsworth. We went to Chez Bruce on a Saturday night, completely on a whim, and managed to get a booking by calling about 4 hours ahead. Worrying. And when we got there, it was definitely not fully booked. I know it is in the middle of nowhere, but I always thought that reputation would sustain a place like that.

Even more worrying was when they gave us a discount voucher for The Glasshouse with our bill. It was for a half price weekday lunch, 3 courses at £11.75. Yes, a Michelin starred, 3 course meal for less than £12. Even at full price it is ridiculously cheap. Thankfully, the place was quite full on the Friday lunchtime that we went, but we were definitely the youngest people in the place by a good few generations.

The worrying goes on too, as the food was such generous proportions, and the wine by the glass list far too reasonable. I had a gorgeous Slovenian white (must look up what it was) for a fiver a glass! This accompanied some great dishes, but enough food to feed a small family.

I started with a chicken raviolo with a garlic veloute. Whenever I read 'raviolo' on a menu, I start thinking it's going to be tiny and would never satiate my never ending desire for pasta. NOT THIS TIME! Look at how big it was!!!:

As big as a Cornish pasty, just this would have been enough for lunch, especially as the veloute is so thick it's the sort you can stand a spoon in. Fil unsurprisingly went for a salad, this time a wood pigeon one topped with a truffled egg. Again, so big you wondered why they thought following this with 2 more courses was a good idea:

And here is a gratuitous shot of the egg, very truffley it was too:

I am guessing they are making some money out of this by using lesser meats and worser cuts, but that logic goes out the window when they serve you nearly a whole rabbit for your main, which also came with a huge potato gratin thing, Bayonne ham, vegetables drenched in butter:

How we managed dessert is a small mystery, but probably helped by how good they were. Everyone knows I'm not a dessert person, but both Chez Bruce and The Glasshouse had me licking the plate. I had a fig roll with almond ice cream and a poached pear. Another good thing about having lunch at The Glasshouse is being able to take colourful pictures:

Fil found out how amazing trifles were with his black forest version:

We went to Kew Gardens afterwards (very nice by the way, even with its very ugly Asian pagoda), the admission for which was about the same price as the meal! I really ought to stop over-analysing restaurant business models and relax and just enjoy the damn food. I've just remembered the main course at Chez Bruce was this veal and spatzle concoction featuring veal tongue which was probably one of the best mains I've had in a long time. But do I mention that first in the blog post? No. Bad Connie!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Just about worth the hassle

I have wanted to go to Franco Manca, apparently home to the most authentic Napoli pizza in London, for the longest time, but given that it is in the deepest depths of South London (well, ok, Brixton), I knew it would be a trek. But oh what a trek it turned out to be. Obviously Fil and I decide to go when the Victoria line is down, and didn't manage to get our arses ready until about 2pm anyway. Then we had all sorts of fun with the buses, including getting one going the wrong way, so we arrived finally at about 3:30pm. And this place closes at 5pm.

After getting a bit lost around Brixton market, we got there to find this humungous queue, like 30+ people in the queue. Yes, look at it! Fil hilariously went to try and find some sustenance to keep him going, and then bought a plantain without realising you can't eat it raw, hahaha!


We were in the queue for about an hour, I don't really want to think about how much time we spent travelling/queuing for a freaking pizza. And we probably sat down for about 15 minutes whilst we wolfed it all down. F went for the more classic margarita. It was as good as the ones I had in Naples, slightly sweet, slightly sour, a shame that I left it to get a little too cold:

And I should have known better than to order something a little funky. When I first read about the place a few years ago, it only had 3 or 4 very basic pizzas on the menu, and whilst the choice is still pretty tight compared to more commercial outlets, they now have a fixed menu of about 6 with another 4 or so specials each day. The one I went for was probably the most different to the margarita, a non-tomato one with crumbled sausage and some kind of pickled vegetable that I didn't write down:

I must say I struggled with this a little bit, the pickled veg was quite bitter, and I guess I was craving a simple margarita. Trust me to try and get too creative! But even more wondrous was the homemade lemonade:

Yes, looks really dark and oxidised and a bit dodgy, doesn't it, but oh it was soooooooooooooo good.

I hear Franco Manca now have a second branch in an equally inconvenient location of Chiswick. It does hearten me that little places like this get crazily popular, yet they still maintain that 'we don't care that our opening hours are really inconvenient, and yes we do insist on making everything fresh and in our own way' charm.