Well, summer really is in full swing. Taste of London is a wonderful event in the London food calendar, and one that I hope I will be able to attend as long as it remains interesting. Since last year, my tastes have changed a little, but the appeal of the event is twofold: sample some dishes that have previously hit the spot, plus try a few new things too. The hopeful upshot..? A load of places get added to the 'to visit' list and a great day had by all.
This year, the organisers had obviously cottoned on to the fact that if they split up the allotted time available into separate sessions, they would make more money and sell more tickets. So myself and two others went for the afternoon session on the Saturday to hopefully sample the best London had to offer.
The day (or afternoon) as a whole was enjoyable and eye-opening. Unfortunately, London's classic fickle weather didn't bestow us with the sun-drenched glory of yesteryear, so eating a variety of dishes in the wind and rain of a gloomy June day didn't have the same appeal. However, we weren't about to shy away from some good eats, so off we went in search of food.
It's always helpful if you can start a day of eating off with a bang, so when we managed to experience two quick high points at the beginning of the event, things looked good. We immediately headed for a throng of visitors surrounding the Trinity stand and realised that they were serving their signature pigs trotter dish (left). Served well diced with gribiche sauce (fancy pickle mayonnaise, really) along with a quail egg and crackling, it was definitely worth the extra crowns and the slightly long wait.
Whilst all this queueing was going on, we spread the net a little wider to gather another three dishes to start the day with. Trinity was also offering the more standard pork belly (right), which was correctly seasoned, accompanied and served, even though the crackling was a little hard. We also stopped in at L'Anima's stand for some rabbit Siciliana (above left). This was delicious - well-stewed rabbit meat served with a rich, luxurious tomato sauce which was punctuated with delicious sweet, tart shallots. A fine dish and no mistake.
Having munched our way through a fairly rich set of first courses, we gave our bodies no rest at all and hit Fino for a double-whammy of some rather fresh and tender suckling pig and some surprisingly excellent squid (left). The latter was the show-stealer, ticking all the boxes for how baby squid should taste. Often you can get rather chewy or dry stuff, but I was very grateful for my companions' insistence that we give it a go. Top stuff indeed.
We made a stop in at Tom's Kitchen, which seemed a formality after last year. Fortunately for us the foie gras and chicken liver parfait (right) was still on the menu, as well as 'seven-hour confit lamb'. Those two descriptions alone are enough to make a lavish carnivore like me salivate, and the pay-off was as expected. The two dishes did the job: the parfait in its own right as a rich, full and stunning starter; the lamb as yet another reminder of how much I want to try the kitchen, or indeed Tom Aikens' main restaurant near Sloane Square. The lamb was intensely flavoursome, coupled with sharp balsamic onions and a classic mash. We drifted back past there to complete an Aikens clean sweep later on in the day to try their Eton Mess for dessert. As it turned out, this was something of a let-down; a pale if pretty take on an English summer classic. However, the proficiency of their first two courses made the stand a winner.
We stopped in at the Launceston Place stand for their (apparently) famous goose egg and chips. Disappointing, given how good I know eggs at the restaurant are. I don't know what they'd done with this, but it tasted like smooth mayonnaise spread over overcooked chips. Perhaps this is something they'll do on their menu one day, but until then I remain unconvinced.
Theo Randall's stand made an almost-winning contribution to the day, as we tried all three of the dishes they were offering. As expected, the orgasmic chocolate cake I fawned over last year, as well as on the visit to his restaurant, was still wonderful. I believe we ate three of them by the time the day was out. We also sampled some aubergine and tomato penne, which was as you expect from Theo Randall - an exceptionally-presented, unexceptionally simple dish. Unfortunately, the pan-seared scallops with chilli and lentils served only to annoy me. Mushy, poorly-flavoured and just bad. My companions got a kick out of it, but it was not something I'd ever want to waste time on again.
What followed were two slightly less impressive takes on dishes from a year ago. Again, Le Gavroche was serving beef, but this time with polenta (left). It wasn't bad, but as with last year, you get a sense that they're just wheeling this out in their sleep. It's not a dish that made me think "I have got to get to this restaurant". I do actually think that, it's just because of reputation, as opposed to what I tried here. Similarly, the show-stealing lamb from Odette's had dropped from last year. Still served with peas and mint, the dish had lost some of its impressive smoothness and finesse (above right).
After a short break for a juice cocktail and the nice surprise of bumping into a couple of other friends, we headed for the Grill at the Dorchester. Now I usually have to remind myself that this is comfortably apart from Alain Ducasse's venture at the same hotel, but even so I was looking forward to sampling what they had to offer. There was average and there was spectacular. The former was some fairly undersold lamb with tomatoes and shallot pureé. Even if the Odette's dish wasn't quite up to 2009 standards, it still knocked spots off this one. However, the other dish we sampled was quite simply one of the very best of the day. Sardine pie with scallop sounded amazing, looked amazing and tasted outrageous (above left). Flaky, buttery pastry with sharp, salty sardine, complimented perfectly with the sweet, warm scallop on the side. Cauliflower pureé too, which adds pizazz to any dish. The Grill is now on my list after a dish this good.
As we surveyed the festival and our watches, we realised that we'd eaten just about all we could - in terms of capacity and available funds - so we turned our minds to desserts. We still had room to revisit Theo's delectable cakes and Tom's average Eton Mess as I mentioned earlier, but we also discovered a couple of stunners to see us off. We wandered back past L'Anima to try their Delizia de Limone, which was less the classic lemon tart I'd anticipated and more a delightfully crumbly mess of a dish (right). By no means a pick of the day, but very enjoyable nonetheless, and a classic summer dessert to boot.
We saved two of the best for last. Whilst the Maze stand hadn't captured our imagination with it's first two courses, the dessert choice of strawberry cheesecake was sufficient to tempt us. And it looked ridiculous (left). A frankly unnecessary and pretentious re-working of a classic dessert. I thought. I was wrong. The choice of sprinkling the base crumbs over the top of wonderfully creamy, thick cheese, then lacing the whole thing with fresh strawberries, strawberry sauce and a sheet of strawberry sugar was perfect. We ate three of them overall. It's a good job we hadn't found them sooner because we might've spent even more of our day eating them if we had. The final piece of the day was a simply superb custard tart from Rhodes 24 (above right). Served with a gloriously dark and sweet raisin syrup, the smoothness of the dessert was sensationally complimented. A top dessert to close the afternoon.
So that's what we tried. And we were highly satisfied. It was a lovely day, despite the driving wind and occasional rain. If you have any sort of interest in food, events or what's out there in London, fork out £40 or £50 next year and have four hours of fun in Regents Park. As for a menu of the day... Well, it's really difficult this year, because there were a good few stand out dishes and very little I didn't like. However, the pressure is on, so here's what I'm going for:
Starter: Scallop and Sardine Pie from the Grill at the Dorchester. Maybe not a starter in the conventional sense, but it worked wonderfully well for me and I would love to eat this at the start of a meal.
Main Course: Pigs Trotters from Trinity. Give me trotters with quail egg and sauce gribiche any day and I will be a happy man. The dish was a winner.
Dessert: Chocolate Cake from Theo Randall. Sorry, but I won't budge on this one: the very best there is. Despite a huge effort from the Maze cheesecake and the Rhodes custard tart, nothing can knock my appreciation from the Theo torte.
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