Jumbo prawns fried with lots of garlic, some black pepper and salt. Lightly covered with mayonnaise and served in romaine lettuce leaves. A tasty light lunch…
Archive for September, 2007
Prawns
Sunday, September 30th, 2007Koto II, Grange City hotel
Sunday, September 30th, 2007I was back in London for a couple of days with work, and stayed in the rather nice Grange City hotel near Fenchurch Street station. It was raining outside so I dined in the hotel. There were several restaurants to choose from, but given my preference for Asian cuisine, opted for the Japanese one called Koto II. Koto I is at another of their hotels in Holborn.
The set price dinner was too good to miss, starting with a very impressive sushi buffet, followed by one hot course and finally miso soup. After admiring all the sushi on offer, I picked my favourite which is salmon nigiri, and ate it with a little bit of ginger. I decided I should venture further to tuna, shrimp and octopus, all of which were very good as well.Â
The hot course was terikayi chicken, which was very tasty but fairly small. I was tempted to ask for a second, but reverted to the sushi buffet instead. Finally came the miso soup. As my company was paying, I limited myself to one glass of chenin blanc from South Africa, which was a good accompaniment to the meal.
If only on the BA flight back to Frankfurt I could have eaten this meal again, rather than the caesar salad I seem to get every time I fly with them…
Veuve Clicquot tasting
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
I was unexpectedly invited to a Veuve Clicquot tasting. Fortunately, I had nothing planned for the next two hours, so along I went. There were six different wines on offer, from their standard yellow label up to a vintage 1999. Some of the wines were rather too sweet for my liking, as I tend to think champagne ought to be dry. I can never figure out what you might eat with sweet champagne. Perhaps some sort of bizarre shellfish.
There were rosés there, too, which were really quite interesting. Never having tried one of these before, I was surprised at the complexity and the big body. The finish was often far more complex than cheaper sparkling wines, but the usual conversation turned up eventually: is it worth spending four times as much on a single bottle of this than a lesser-known, but tried and tested brand? The answer is no, of course, unless you’re trying to impress or are so rich that the four-times factor in price makes no difference to you. My favourite was the 1999 non-rosé, as its finish was very long, very complex and extremely satisfying.
A Plough’s lunch for a man?
Saturday, September 29th, 2007A recent lab group trip took us to the Plough at Coton for lunch. A short trip out to this little village just outside Cambridge took us to the only pub in the village – now a swanky gastropub.
The bar is well stocked, in terms of wine and champagnes, and the beers are well-kept and varied. I personally drank both Tim Taylor’s Landlord and Greene King Abbot Ale. For a gastropub, the service was not up to the standard I expected: food was slow to come, and the staff were terse and unhelpful. A personal disappointment was that the sautéed samphire was off the menu when we went.
That said, the food was broadly acceptable – I had chicken stuffed with a sweet potato and garlic puree with parmentier potatoes, along with the world’s smallest portion of vegetables. Dessert for me was white chocolate panacotta, served with spiced rhubarb. Whilst the food was edible, criticisms abound: the parmentier potatoes weren’t – they were balls of potato in a light cream sauce; the panacotta was overwhelmed by the rhubarb sauce, and the three inch-long stems of rhubarb had the consistency of rubber.
Overall, I left disappointed: the food was not as good as it could’ve been, and the staff detracted from the atmosphere. Given the price, I was very glad I wasn’t paying.
Hard(l)y a bad price…
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Currently on half price at £3.99 this Cabernet Sauvignon is rather good value.
Take into account the further 25% off that Sainsburys is offering on all wine purchases of 6 bottles or more and you end up with a bottle of wine around the £3 instead of it’s regular £7.99.
Weighing in at 13.5% it packs a punch without being too strong; It tastes pretty good too…
Liver and cheesecake at the RAC
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
The Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall is in the fine tradition of London’s best clubs. It has an imposing entrance, magnificent pillared galleries, and a fantastic swimming pool.
I dined in the Brooklands Room, whose walls are adorned with giant oil paintings. I decided to have courses 2 and 3 instead of 1 and 2, so started with the pan seared calves liver with Lyonnaise potatoes, crispy bacon and sage jus. While I waited for it, I ate a nice light bread dipped in olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The liver came exactly as I asked (“pink, no blood”) and was delicious in both taste and texture. The bacon was far too crisp – indeed, it was rock solid, but the potatoes were mouth-watering.
I’d left room for dessert, a really nice marscapone cheesecake served with caramelized mango. Hey, with ingredients like that you can hardly go wrong. They didn’t.
Big Apple hotel supper
Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Originally uploaded by dynamist.
One of my favorite meals last week in New York was probably the simplest: Sushi from Whole Foods, eaten in my hotel room after a very, very long day.
Dessert was a plum and a soft, chewy vegan chocolate chip cookie from Boston Cookies (also purchased at Whole Foods – or, as it is popularly known, Whole Paycheck). No, I have not turned over a new, anti-meat leaf: I just like vegan baked goods, which tend to be more healthful and made with finer ingredients than others.
I washed all this down with a tall bottle of mint-infused water, one of those items that reminds me – as if I could forget in the middle of New York – that I’m definitely in America now.
Tarted-up tomato soup
Friday, September 28th, 2007
Instant soup from a packet – just what’s needed once in a blue moon for a quick, warm precursor to a lunch. This was Bachelor’s Mediterranean tomato. When I added the boiling water and stirred, it was a bright, unnatural orange colour. I put it on the stove and added two spoons of basic chopped tomatoes from a can, then a quick quirt from the tube of tomato purée. Then I put in some chopped basil, and finally ten turns of black pepper.
All right, it was no longer quite as instant as soup-in-a-cup, but it was light years better. Moral: Confucius, he say “In soup, always tart up tomato.”
Stowells from France
Friday, September 28th, 2007Wikipedia assures me that it’s also known as Ermitage Blanc in Switzerland, but this wine called it Marsanne. It was its second grape after Chardonnay and apparently, this is an unusual blend. Described on the bottle as dry, crisp and fruity, and 12.5%, I have to agree, although they happen in bizarre parts of the wine. The nose smells slightly sweet, the body is full of fruit and the finish has the crispness and the dryness. There’s a hint of aniseed on the body and finish and rubber on the nose. I bought it from Threshers, where their constant offer is to get three bottles for the price of two, which generally means they don’t price a bottle less than £4.99. On balance, it means a bottle costs around £3.50, similar to supermarket prices, but you do tend to find yourself walking away with three bottles when you intended to only get one!
Tas on The Cut
Thursday, September 27th, 2007Tas offers quality Turkish food on The Cut, a street near London’s Waterloo Station. I hadn’t intended to go there, but the target place had been pretty well filled by a large party, and Tas was nearby. I noticed that the street’s restaurants divided into those that were crowded and those that were empty (and you pick the crowded ones because people know something). Tas was crowded, but it had a free table.
I started with the Somon Tava, which consists of skewers of battered, deep-fried salmon, served with a sweet and sour rose sauce. This was an excellent starter. My main course was Patlican Ezmeli Kebap, with rissoles of minced lamb served with aubergines and red pepper sauce. I didn’t care for the vegetables because their texture was too soft, but the kebabs were good, and so was the spicy chili sauce (more of a salsa) of which you only need VERY small amounts. I finished up with a Baklava which was darker than more intriguing than I’d expected. It had filo pastry, walnuts, pistachios and honey, and was quite delicious.
A live guitarist lent atmosphere playing quite attractive easy listening tunes, and the service could not be faulted. Not surprisingly, the place was full of people enjoying themselves. It’s not expensive, either.