Taste London

[ermintrude]

Anyone go ?

I went twice. First with m8's I'd organised via work, then after sorting that out, I won VIP tickets from O2 for Sat noon, so talk my chef m8 Kitty, will go again next time if in the UK or near.

[ermintrude]

Taste of London.

This is a food festival in London where the premise is loads of restaurants offer 3 or 4 tasting dishes for you to sample along side these are loads of food /wine/cooking suppliers with stalls to promote and sell . Add to this demonstrations/talks/tasings by chefs ranging from unknown to Heston Blumental around the site. These could be in main theatre tent or say every hour at a particular stall. Alongside this there are several corporate tents offering VIPb ars and chef meet and greets for invited guests. customers or prize winners.

In past years I’ve always been out of the country or had other commitments that meant I could not attend. This year I could go and as several colleagues where I work were interested decided to suggest/organist that we all go for 5:30pm session on Thursday the 17th. After sorting that out I the discovered I’d won 2 O2 VIP tickets for the Noon session on Sat the 19th, so I would be going twice.

The Vibe

Compared to other “Taste Of….” Events I’ve been too “Taste of London” was much more fine dining and premium food orientated with low key corporate (VIP tents, subtle advertising, competitions) and champagne and wine bars compared with “Taste of Chicago” that’s more informal, home and comfort food (I still drool at some of the BBQ stuff) and full on corporate (Think Coke etc) and beer and fizzy drinks. I loved both London and Chicago taste festivals but they are VERY different and don’t think they can compare.

In general the vibe was relaxed, friendly and adult and sophisticated.

Tickets

You need a ticket to get in for a particular lunch (12 – 4pm) or dinner (5:30pm – 9:30pm) on a particular day. Standard price is £22 with other options ranging up to £80. Best standard value ticket is the premium that includes £20 worth of crowns for £37. From what saw fast track entry with some tickets would only save you 10 mins max to get in but some free drinks and access to lounges mat swing this for you. Lounge access is great to get out of crowd or bad weather but is it worth the £. Also monitoring newspapers, twitter etc there were several web/voucher deals going on e.g. 7 for 8, 3 for 4 (These worked about the same a premium as no crowns included. Best deal was £10 on the day

Crowns

The currency for the restaurants for taste is crowns and 2 crowns = £1, I get the idea, and possibly crowns also are used to give a percentage to the festival depending on sales BUT since I never saw anything priced an odd number of crowns what’s the point. Also I believe it stopped sales of the higher priced dishes , and I heard several people saying to expensive (but they were thinking crowns) but the price was half that. Why not just have 1 crown = £1, even more confusing (not restaurants) but many stalls would also accept cash and even better plastic.

At the restaurants dishes range from 6 - 40 crowns and items on stalls from 2 crowns up

The Restaurants (About 40 offering 3-4 dishes each) but here’s what I tasted.

Club Gascon – Pimms Foie Gras Plancha. (16 crowns)

The best foie dish I tasted, a slice of hot fried foie, served with fruit, cucumber and a Pimm’s foam. The foam was made so it was just the right amount of acidity to cut through the fattiness of the foie but also the sweetness to complement it.

Dinings – Sea Bass Carpaccio with ponzu jelly and fresh truffle. (8 crowns)

This was amazing one of my top 3, the only criticism was too much of the acidic sauce (easily cured if you made sure you did not pick up to much) this was heavenly .

Dinings – Seared wagau sushi two ways (16 crowns reduced to 12 crowns on Sat)

This was very tasty, but two ways was how they dressed it not how it was cooked. Basically wagau sliced then prepped sushi style, a quick blow torch and various dressings, foie, wasabi, daikon etc, etc. I liked this dish, but the beef was “two ways” due to sauce/ dressings /plating etc NOT different preparations of wagau and the plating was a bit more style over substance. Who cares about the zig zag wibble drizzle on a paper plate at a festival (This was Thurs when 16) stop it. Did not eat here on Sat but price down to 12 crowns, and look they’d dropped the poncyness.

Launceston Place – Spit roast old spot suckling pig and black summer truffles. (10 crowns)

This was the FAIL of the place. It was basically slices of roast suckling pig in a bun with salad freshly grated slices of summer truffles and some sauce. The problem was the sauce, taste was ok and in a small amount would have worked, but way to much, to the extent it detracted from the rest of the dish. We ate what we could but threw half of the bun away soaked in sauce. I’m guessing we were unlucky and had the human error, as many others loved this dish.

Le Gravoche – Lobster cocktail with summer truffle, tomato jelly in an engraved La Gravoche glass (40 Crowns)

First had this on the Thursday, this was really, really good but a minor criticism was that the jelly was a bit stiff. After eating they will swop the dirty glass for a clean one. Nice glass great for red wine.

On Saturday had this again, as it was colder that day the minor niggle went to a major as the gelatine was almost solid. I’m guessing this was temp related but perhaps a different gelling agent (iota?) with a lower shear factor would be better. If it wasn’t; for that, this would have been my favourite dish.

The Modern Pantry – Garlicky Snails With Chorizio mash. (8 Crowns)

At the time thought this was good, great snails not swimming in garlic butter with a soft spicy chorizo mash but after some time this is one of the dishes I really remember.

Toms Kitchen – Foie Gras parfet with grape chutney served on brioche (8 crowns)

As described, well worth the mone, and well executed but no different to what I’ve had elsewhere,

Trinity - pigs trotters on toasted pain polaine, fried quail egg, sauce gribiche and crackling.(12 crowns – I think?)

The best way to describe this “Nom Nom Nom” , the flavours and textures in this were perfect, rich unctuous trotter, with smooth egg yolk and gribiche to cut through all that – on toast. After eating this, the taste just lasted and lasted, had to sit and drink a glass of champagne and reset the pallet.

Other things to note, Summer truffles where everywhere and reasonably priced www.truffleland.com had a good stall. Not seen summer truffles thiscommon, I was wondering if some of the truffle farms are now coming online, but would have expected them to focus on the premium Tuber melanosporum rather than summer truffles. Or was it just a bumper harvest.

Also found www.blackmothvodka.com a truffle infused vodka, the first time I tasted it on the Thurdsday could not taste any truffle at all, however on Saturday I tasted a freshly poured sample and this gave a up front truffle flavour that was then swamped by the after burn of the vodka, and was not convinced. However the same with a splash of tonic made this a much more interesting drink and bought a bottle.

Best drink find of all was http://www.sipsmith.com/ gin, one bottle bought on Thursday another on Saturday, one of the best gins I’ve tasted.

Also purchased some knifes http://www.ziganof-knives.com/demascus-knife.php the full set for £110 and they are incredibly sharp. There were loads of beautiful knifes on display there.

And finally spotted Laudree on the way out so took home a box of yummy macaroons.

Overall a great evening / afternoon out, worked out more expensive than expected, even just for the restaurant tasters but still worth it.

[alexthepink]

Nice write up! I was working on the Action Against Hunger stand on Friday/Saturday (with Valentine Warner and Paul Merrett). We were working so hard in a tiny tent kitchen that we didn't get to see any of the other food! Theo Randall's team sent us some spicy scallops which were pretty tasty though. Will have to make sure I get at least one day as a visitor next year.