Saturday 27 February 2010

Kai




Kai was the destination this week and only because a company card funded repast had been cancelled and we were seeking a suitable substitute albeit at our own cost. I explain this because the restaurant was not one I had heard much about though it's first star last year after some 15 years in situ had left it's name paddling around in my subconscious.

A starter of Wasabi Prawns lightly fried in Tempura batter and smothered in the eponymous sauce were pronounced delicious though the reference here is more Nobu's Rock Shrimp Tempura than Chinese. Drunken Pork was cooked to perfection though lost points for presentation as it arrived in a flaming foil pouch, more combustible NASA rocket shrouding than presentational theatre. The set lunch of grilled pork was excellent with a rich savoury sauce however the portion size was comedic in comparison to an a la carte dish. Better to increase the price and limit the set menu than leave diners hungry for more.

Service was polite with table side preparation of some dishes and the dining room is a pleasant five star hotel interior.

Prices here are an eyebrow raising experience though for some diners the sheer extravagance may be the point. Certainly traditional delicacies such as an Abalone and Sharks Fin based soup at £108 will reflect the rarity and cost of their ingredients whether you splash out in Mayfair or Aberdeen Harbour. The bill though outstrips China Tang's at the Dorchester without the kudo's of Alan Tangs's China Club brand and offers a mix of cuisines that puzzle the palate. An amuse bouche of a strawberry and grape salad with cos lettuce in a light dressing was neither seasonal nor oriental. A miso soup accompaniment is well put together but it's classic Japanese flavour contrast attacks the savoury sauces of it's partnered dishes. A standard selection of high end Petit fours at the end of the meal were a missed opportunity to reference the restaurants menu.

Ultimately, the kitchen wins on quality of ingredients and lightness of touch. It can produce some fine examples of classic Cantonese and Northern dishes but fails at the fusion approach when it strays from these.

Kai Mayfair on Urbanspoon

Sunday 21 February 2010

Boeuf Bourgignon



It's February and it's as dark when you get up in the morning as when you leave the office to go home. There are few things to celebrate at this time of year but stews are one of them. Wherever you go in the world, if there is a winter season there will be a regional stew. Whether it is Lancashire Hotpot, Irish Beef Stew or as in this case, Boeuf Bourgignon the approach is broadly the same. Browned stewing beef, onions, mushrooms, a stock of some kind and a long long time in the oven.

I have been told whilst on holiday in Burgundy that it cannot be "BB" unless it includes Charolais Beef, Burgundy wine, local mushrooms and is left on shelf for a couple of days after cooking to improve. The 3-4 hour cooking time is as delayed as my gratification gets. Red wine and butter (remember you are not in the Mediterranean yet) are the key markers for this dish as far as I am concerned but there are many variations .

Serves 4-6

1 kg stewing steak cubed (the butcher can do this for you)
50g butter
1 medium onion, sliced
2 heaped tablespoon plain flour
375 ml full bodied red wine
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 sprigs fresh thyme
Chopped streaky bacon
4 oz (110 g) portobello mushrooms, sliced
salt and black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 140°C, shake the meat in a plastic sandwich bag with the flour to coat it thoroughly. Then brown the beef in your cooking pot in batches to make sure the meat doesn't stew in its own liquid. Keep the meat warm in a separate dish whilst you gently fry the onions, bacon, garlic and then add herbs to your pot. Add the red wine, return the meat the stew, bring to a simmer and pop into the oven for a couple of hours. Then add the mushrooms and put back in the oven for an hour.

This is a staple one pot dish, freezes well and can be served with any kind of root veg for a hearty warming winter supper.

Vasco and Piero's Pavilion


A few drinks too many in Soho left us searching for a supper venue from memory (no we didn't have an app for that). A stroll to Kettners presented us with a menu that had clearly undergone an uninviting revamp since the last visit sweeping away a slightly shabby but loveable Soho regular. We detoured to Alastair Little who even sans namesake offers a decent meal but it was boarded up, apparently preparing for a relaunch. Last choice then was Vasco and Piero's Pavilion and in retrospect it should have been our first. Allegedly Micheal Palin's favourite restaurant (which will either put you off or recommend it to you) and a Soho media haunt for all of it's 21 years at it's current Poland street location.

My unctuous Tuscan sausage and bean stew was a tonic whilst perfectly seared liver and onions for my drinking companion more than made up for the evening's liquid misdemeanors. The cheese plate dripping with Gorgonzola dolce allowed us to savour the last bottle of wine of the evening with pleasure.

The Umbrian food in this closely spaced and bustling Italian restaurant is simple but delicious, the service informal but excellent and the staff unchanged in most of the years I have been eating here. I wish I lived closer to this restaurant.

Vasco & Piero's Pavilion on Urbanspoon

Saturday 20 February 2010

Smiths Brasserie


Back once again to the venerable Smiths Brasserie, now sixteen years at it's present site in Ongar for an excellent value set lunch at £18 for two courses.

The dining room is modern, spacious, well lit and pleasantly themed. So full was the busy Saturday lunchtime service that every table was turned at least once whilst the atmosphere was buzzing with enthusiastic diners.

The cuisine is a little more old fashioned but generous in measure and classically prepared. Any fish can be served grilled, battered, a la meuniere or in matzo meal on request. Smoked salmon was rich with flavour whilst a fully dressed crab contained a good mixture of dark and white meat and a full range of accompaniments.
Well seasoned mushy peas arrived with cod and chips whilst an excellent prawn and scallop brochette was simply served. A dessert of apple tart that was halfway to a tarte tatin was, sadly a little undercooked, the apple relying on the sauce for caramelisation rather than time baking in butter and sugar.

The wine list is wide and ranges from fish friendly varietals to premium Burgundian whites with reasonable value. Wines by the glass included selections above the basic level though descriptions of the wines were limited to fine wines. A simple explanation of fruit flavours for the more modest offerings might make wine selection a less daunting process for those who don't know their french appellations by heart.

Unlike so many restaurants with the suffix this restaurant offers precisely the level of dining you would expect from the term Brasserie. It is upscale with polite but engaging waiting staff draped in chefs whites and full aprons, ours having worked at the restaurant since it opened. It is difficult enough to find a quality fishmongers so a restaurant that saves you the bother, pays you the respect of deciding for yourself what to tip and does so with a touch of class is one to return to.

Sunday 14 February 2010

Terroirs


A recent quiet Friday afternoon allowed us the chance to bag a table at the wine industry's drinking hole of choice. Very Gallic and stuffed full of waiters with real enthusiasm for their metier, this is a wine bar that offers an enormous range with a strong emphasis on organic, unfiltered, unfined sulphate free offerings regardless of where they sit on the appellation hierarchy.

To drink here, take advice and ignore your preconceptions about correct wine. If it's served cloudy, it's meant to be. The wine list runs to forty pages and our choices were all light as they followed a long lunch and required that we still be able to converse politely by the evening.

We tried a 2008 Chasselas from Jean-Pierre Frick, leading light of the bio dynamic movement. This is typically a Swiss grape but in this Alsace example offers a fruit packed yeasty, almost ciderish quality, a result of it's being left on the lees. It is a light and refreshing wine held together with a fine backbone of acidity. A 2003Riesling Bihl from the same maker offered typical perfumed notes with a fantastic schisty mineral aroma. A 2008 Morgon Classique from Domaine Jean Foillard was a hazy unfiltered wine stuffed fill of light red fruits and a touch of minerality with a complete absence of the banana and bubblegum notes of carbonic maceration so typical of Beaujolais.

We downed plenty of small plates of charcuterie and fromage. Food portion sizes are small but the quality is excellent.

Terroirs offers real competition to Vinoteca over in Farringdon and each bottle of wine took us leagues further away from anything you will find in a supermarket or major retailers. The food alone would be enough to encourage a return visit but the sheer diversity of the wine list means you will always find a new expression of a grape to enjoy. This of course is the whole point of wine so we shall without doubt return.

Terroirs on Urbanspoon

2 star BYOB


I can't explain why we had not paid a visit here before now, particularly given that
Shane Osbourne, Sous Chef to Tom Aikens with time at The Square and L'Oranger, is still the only Ozzie to win two stars. Pied a Terre has been a stalwart of Mayfair dining for nigh on two decades and has been through it's "difficult second album" phase of losing and regaining it's second star in this time.

The two dining rooms have the smell, feel, discretion and restrained volume of extreme luxury. Whilst space is perhaps at a premium, the service is faultless and the wine list arrives in two hardback volumes in it's own slipcase. The sheer breadth of it presents a danger for wine geeks as it is too easy to indulge in oenophilic porn for so long that it becomes rude. At least I wasn't flipping through the F.T like the gentleman on the next table, rather to his partner's disappointment.

In any case, a starter of Skate Wing Poached in Beurre Noisette with Belly of Suckling Pig, Sweetcorn, Roscoff Onions and Pickled Chanterelles was a balanced, perfectly prepared mixture of lightly poached fish, earthy mushrooms and rich porky parts.

A roasted Saddle of Fallow Venison followed and took well to the Date and Port Sauce it was paired with. The addition of baked beetroot may have added a few too many punchy flavours but it if you are going to be bold on the plate, game season is the time to do it.

A Rully from the wine list should have worked well with the starter and whilst the Chardonnay richness matched the Pork and butter, the oak overpowered the fish a little. Proof if ever it was needed that unless you have tasted the dish before, check with the sommelier if the match works. This is what they are there for, after all.

Next, we took advantage of the little advertised but wonderful opportunity to pay corkage. A bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges Domaine des Perdrix 2003 from the domestic cellar with it's rich, dark fruit and chocolatey Pinot notes prompted a dreamy little trance when drunk with the main course. The cheese plate was a straightforward selection of Brie de Mieux, Epoisses and Goats cheese and the bread was both worthy of note and plentiful.

In all, a fine meal and nothing to fault though on this occasion we didn't quite find the wow factor of technique, flavour combination, presentation and theatre that is the holy grail of dining at this level. I have no doubt it is there so we shall be back to hunt it down and explore the menu.

Pied à Terre on Urbanspoon

Sunday 7 February 2010

COHO Brasserie


So this weekend we set off with friends to Coho Brasserie in Old Harlow, on the borders of Sawbridgeworth a well heeled Essex enclave which I suspect is their target market. The chef is ex of Hanbury Manor, a double AA Rosette holder, the dining room an Ikea-esque work of light colours and wood flooring.

The wine list offers a good spread of varietals and at 100% markup, is offering value, even for a local restaurant. It is perhaps a missed opportunity though. There are no descriptions or vintages for the wines and there are a few unfortunate spelling errors (Margeaux, Verve Ciquot). For a modest list this is irrelevant but for one that aspires to premium French offerings (Nuit St Georges, Givry Chambertin) the effect is unfortunate.

The portions are generous, with a high percentage of premium ingredients such as Turbot and a king prawn, scallop and crab laden bouillabaisse. This in addition to a lack of seasonality (no game?) of many ingredients must play havoc with margins. A fillet steak and a special of Madagascan prawns in a garlic sauce demonstrated an experienced hand on the grill station whilst Eton mess offered a creamy rich indulgent dessert that was a suitable foil to a grey and dismal February night.

There is little competition at this price point in the immediate area though further out into Essex, Smiths, Barda, The Bear and Mustard are all in the same league. This then is a restaurant with good atmosphere and service that has the potential to be much more. With a menu that plays to the strengths of local produce, some more focused cuisine and a little salesmanship this venue could really excel.

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Galvin at Windows


I confess it took a recently awarded Michelin Star to lure us here and I can confirm the mixed reviews of this restaurant are entirely unfair. Whilst it doesn't have the intimacy of the Galvin Brothers first outing, Bistrot Deluxe, the setting and service are a pleasure, the latter no doubt enlivened by the recognition of the Inspectors.

The meal, which included Foie Gras, well sauced Venison and a rich Valrhona chocolate palet screamed luxury as did the pricing of the wine list which is, on ocassion, as elevated as the view from the 28th Floor of the Hilton Park Lane.

Perhaps we should expect no less given the Mayfair location.

A tarte tatin, creme fraiche and, given the sugar levels, rather superfluous caramel sauce was a simple but perfectly caramelised confection.

There is a rule that states that the higher you ascend the worse the food. If this does not ring true, think of the best airplane meal you have ever had. Galvin at Windows comprehensively refutes it allowing you to leave modesty aside, bag a window table after dark, join the West End Gliterati and indulge.

Galvin at Windows on Urbanspoon