Surprise lunch at L'atelier de Joel Robuchon - 20th of July 2013

It was my birthday earlier in the month and 2 of my lovely girlfriends "booked" me out for a belated birthday last Saturday. It started with a lovely 1 h 20 min thai massage in Covent Garden followed by lunch at L'atelier de Joel Robuchon. I do love this restaurant. Great interior in black and red, lovely waiters (all with a french accent) and if you sit by the bar you can watch your lunch being made in front of you!
We had a 2 course meal with wine pairing for £38 per head - not bad for a 2 michelin star restaurant.

First off was a little amuse bouche of foie gras mousse with a port wine reduction and a parmesan foam.. beautiful and indulgent!

My starter was smoked salmon on a potato rosti, confit fennel and creme fraiche. Beautifully presented with caviar and edible flowers.

My main was a Pollock fillet with garden pea broth and baby carrots. The fish was perfectly cooked and the whole dish was lovely and delicate.Note the beautiful and translucent crispy skin shard!

We did not have dessert - instead we had coffee and got some lovely warm mini raspberry friands and homemade lime marshmallows.. they were gone before i remembered to take a photo.
I would happily go back to this restaurant again and again.

And what happend next? Well, we went to the El Bulli exhibition at Somerset house. Very inspiring! Note that the exhibition is on until the 29th of September so catch it whilst you can (£10 entrance fee) http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/elbulli-ferran-adria-and-the-art-of-food

Dinner - Heston Blumenthal - Round 2 - 24th of June 2013

2nd dinner at Dinner in a week! This time a leaving dinner for my boss who is moving to the other side of the pond.
We had the private dining room booked which was really nice and spacious (it was 9 of us).
We had a set menu with a choice of 3 starters etc for the table.

I went for the famous "Meat fruit" this time and it was a velvety smooth pate encased in a orange jelly and served with toasted sourdough bread. It looked amazing and was very tasty indeed.

My main course was a little bit disappointing. I went for the Turbot with Leaf chicory, sea purslane & cockle ketchup. It was all a bit soft in texture for me and i did not like the bitterness from the leaf chicory.

Had to have the Tipsy cake for dessert and yes, it was lovely and gooey.. buttery brioche baked in the oven with some alcohol (hence the "tipsy" part) the roasted pineapple however i didn't really care for that much. I guess it is a bit hyped up since you can see the pineapples being spit roasted in the kitchen.

All in all we had a lovely meal with lovely wines.

Dinner - Heston Blumenthal 18th of June 2013

I have now been married for 2 years - time flies! My lovely husband surprised me with a dinner reservation at Dinner - Heston Blumenthal at Mandarin Oriental in London! Yay!
We arrived bang on time for our booking at 7:45pm so did not have time for a drink in the bar - which by the way looked so cosy and nice.

We were seated close to the windows looking out over Hyde park. The restaurant was pretty busy with a mix of people: families, business men, hotel guests, foodies and the odd celeb (well, my husband spotted a german footballer..)

Service was very friendly and not overly formal (which can be the case in some restaurants) but then again, the dresscode for Dinner is "Comfortable" so it is a bit more laid back then some other establishments.

So, we started with a glass of rose champagne - mind boggling price of £21 per glass.. oh well, you only have a wedding anniversary once a year so why not.

I then had a new dish on the menu which was a "Cold cucumber soup with a lobster salad" it was gorgeous. The lobster salad is on the plate when served and the cold cucumber soup is then poured on the plate at the table. The soup tasted of more cucumber than an actual cucumber - if that makes sense?

For my main i had the "Powdered Duck Breast" with smoked confit fennel and umbles.. the most tender duck i have had i think.. so you might wonder what umbles are? Well, not for the faint hearted.. it is kidneys and heart etc of the animal so in this case - the duck's.
I am not a huge fan of offal but since this was Heston's food i did eat them and you know what - tasted fine :-)

Dessert - well, i was drawn to the "Quaking Pudding" which was described like this "pear, perry, caramel & lime" and it was very nice. A bit like a very light pannacotta with lots of cinnamon and the most amazing poached pears i have ever eaten in a broth (very light) that tasted of caramel and pear.

My husbands dessert was too pretty (and very tasty too) - it was a "Strawberry tarte" with a strawberry sorbet. Just take a look at this!

We really enjoyed our dinner @ Dinner.. and guess what? i am going back again on Monday with work.. so more dishes to be reviewed very soon!

Little Social - 6th of June 2013

Looks like i can't stay away from Jason Atherton's restaurants :-) This time i had a dinner date with my friend Iolanda at "Little Social" which is the little sister to "Pollen Street Social" which is across the road.
Little Social is a cosy, intimate and quite dark restaurant and i really liked the ambiance. It is not cheap but the food was very good and i would go back again.
My one complaint was that the music was pretty loud and later in the evening when the restaurant filled up it got pretty noisy with people talking and the music..so not that great if you are there to have a good old catch up!

So, what about the food? Well, like i said, pretty good! I started with "Crab, tomato and radish salad, miso tomato dressing, marinated beetroot"

The dish was very pretty to look at and tasted light and fresh.

My main was "Lamb shank with spring vegetables". You can't really make a lamb shank look pretty and delicate but here it was off the bone and on top of a medley of vegetables and a lamb jus poured over. The meat was rich, sticky and full of flavour.

I was very naughty with my dessert and went for an ultra decadent and rich chocolate pud! "Hot chocolate moelleux, sea salt and almond ice-cream"
Warm and gooey chocolate with the cold ice cream... very naughty but nice. Iolanda had a really good dessert too. "Brown sugar tart, crème fraiche sorbet, black sesame crumble" I really liked the sesame crumble - so clever!

 

Lovely food in cosy surroundings - just a shame about the noise level.. but that is me being picky! :-)

 

Pollen Street Social - 1st of June 2013

I have been to Pollen Street Social before with my hubby for dinner - this time it was for lunch with my girlfriends.

They have a really well priced set lunch menu - 2 courses for £26 or 3 courses for £29.50 with a choice of 3 options for each course. You also get some included extras: little nibbles to start (green olives, cod brandade, pork scratchings and apple sauce), bread, pre dessert and petit fours.

Pollen Street Social Lunch menu

We were seated close to the bar area which was quite busy and good for some good old fashioned people watching!

I started off with the "Grilled mackerel, "Waldorf salad", peanut powder, English radish"

It was nice but i felt that the description was slightly mis leading since the mackerel was more soused than grilled - i also did not taste the peanut powder.
Saying that - it was a light and tasty starter.

Starter

My main was the "Roasted Atlantic Cod, Catalan paella, Asparagus, Pepper and chorizo puree"

The paella was the star of the show here.. it was served in a side dish so you added it to your plate yourself. It was amazing, rich in flavour and with lots of prawns and perfectly spiced - i could have eaten more! The Cod was perfectly cooked and i really enjoyed the dish.

 

 

Desserts were the star(s) of the show though.. 2 of us went for the Tiramisu and 2 of us for the Eton Mess. I loved the Tiramisu which was almost like a vanilla pannacotta, with chocolate ice cream, chewy cookie crumbs, chocolate chards and a side of thick hot chocolate served in an espresso cup with a hint of coffee. Lovely. The Eton Mess looked absolutely spectacular and it was apparently very good too!

We then had some mint tea and got some petit fours and macarons. The petit fours were interesting -Milk chocolates with a balsamic caramel, yoghurt coated freeze dried raspberries, dark chocolate with a raspberry mousse inside. The macarons nobody really liked - they were too sugary and the filling was just pure buttercream with not much flavour.. they were supposedly, chocolate, green tea and .. hmm.. can't remember!!!

We did however also get some "hot from the oven" Raspberry Financiers.. they were amazing.. and eaten before a photo could be taken!

It was 4 of us for lunch - 3 courses each and with one bottle of wine between us (how sensible!), 2 bottles of water, 3 mint teas, service charge etc it came to £50 per person which i think is pretty good value.

STK at ME London - 29th of May 2013

STK is the funky steak house chain from America with restaurants in both Vegas and New York. It arrived in London a few months ago in the new ME Hotel on the Strand.
I have read mixed reviews about it and i tend to agree with what other reviewers have said.

I got 4 vouchers for STK from Groupon that had a deal on - £49 for starter, main (steak flight), dessert and a glass of champagne - for our friend Adrian's birthday.

You can enter the restaurant from the street or via the hotel lobby. At first glance it is very 80's, black and shiny chrome everywhere and as per other reviews, a lot of TOWIE lookalikes.

We had a few drinks in the bar before dinner and the cocktails were very good. I had to ask 3 times for us to get seated however which i thought was funny since they kept telling me when booking and re-confirming the table that there is a STRICT turn around of the tables - max 2 hours - then you have to vacate..

We started off with the champagne and some warm brioche covered in a blue cheese butter and a pesto dip on the side.

I then had the crab salad as a starter which was nice (but i can make a better one) one of my friends had the grilled goats cheese and beets which looked very nice.

It was then time for the main event, the Steak flight, which consisted of a 100 gr each of Fillet, Ribeye and Sirloin served with a very tasty house sauce. It also came with a side order of artfully stacked Truffle chips and we also had some mac'n'cheese. Carb fest!
The steaks were lovely and tender and the mac'n'cheese was very cheesy and yummy. The chips were nice but a bit soggy for my taste. It war enjoyable but i have had better food in Hawksmoor or Gaucho.

 

For dessert i had the Rhubard and champagne trifle - nice but didn't really have a lot of rhubarb flavour and it had too much cream.

 

All in all it was good but the real downside was the music - it was super loud so you had to almost scream in order to make yourself heard across the table. However, this is the image of STK.. they have a DJ in the middle of the restaurant and has a funky vibe etc.. It is probably ok if it is only 2 of you but for a table of 4 it was difficult to keep a conversation going.

 

 

 

Yauatcha Macarons - 26th of May

I can never walk past Yauatcha and NOT look in their window or go in and look at their display.. all the pastries, macaron's and chocolates are so beautiful to look at - i am definately going here for tea and cake one day - their pastries are almost too pretty to eat.

This time i just bought some of their more interesting flavoured mac's to take home and try.

Clockwise from top:

- Pina colada
- Cola
- Popcorn
- Salted caramel
- Jaffa cake
- Bubblegum (pink one in the middle :-))

The clear winner was the Popcorn flavour - really really lovely and buttery with lots of popcorn taste.. i will need to try and replicate this one myself.

I also really liked the Jaffa cake mac but the orange jelly could be a bit punchier i think - another one i want to try and make.
Bubble gum and cola tasted too artificial for my taste. The salted caramel and the Pina colada were both a bit so so - nice but not memorable.