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Namaaste Kitchen, lunch like no other

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on Foodepedia on 3rd February 2011:

When you get invited to sample the menu at a new restaurant, you sort of expect to try a few things that define the restaurant and make up your mind based on that. Generally, they’re the most interesting things on the menu anyway but you will almost always walk away more than satisfied. On this occasion, I was invited to sample the new menu at Namaaste Kitchen – a restaurant so new, even finding its website on Google had been a struggle. But they do have one, it’s at www.namaastekitchen.co.uk.

Being new doesn’t necessarily mean that they are lacking in experience of course. On the contrary, the head chef Sabir Karim has had over 20 years of restaurant experience working for the likes of Chutney Mary, Red Fort and British Airways. Plus, this is the second restaurant from Karim and his team – the first being Salam Namaste in Bloomsbury.

But that’s just the research talking – I’ve never been to Salam Namaste, and with my fair share of average Indians under the belt, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Certainly the long trek to Camden wasn’t doing it any favours.

Having been presented with the first course – an amuse bouche sized plate where one side is salmon on some sort of crispy blini and the other is a lamb shish wrap, I was beginning to warm to the restaurant. “The starter’s a bit small” I thought, “but it tastes good”. Plus, the dips served with the poppadoms as a prelude to the first course had been positively divine.

But the real starter put me firmly into my place. In essence, we were getting to try the entire starter menu and that menu wasn’t small. On each serving plate was a small selection of starters, like the Tandoori Portobello mushroom, in miniature. The rest of the starters were served on bigger plates to share – I suppose you can’t really shrink those spicy soft shell crabs without getting premature baby crabs.

Trying all the subtly different blends of spices was like taking my taste buds on an assault course, in a good way. And the Pinot Grigio we drank held its own remarkably well. I certainly can’t complain about the lack of choice, and for once the spread is definitely bigger than both my eyes and my stomach can handle. That said, I did glance over at the next table to see what they’re eating – lamb shank in a pie of some sort.

I needn’t have worried about missing out – the Dumpukht lamb biryani, as it’s really called, was brought to the table along with all the other mains. Instead of having canapé bites of food this time, we each had a Goan style sea bass with the other mains to share. The char grill Jingha was incredible and you definitely won’t want to miss out on the dates and ginger naan. But the real show stopping piece, for me, has got to be the lobster in Malabar spice with its vibrant colour, impressive style and, naturally, fabulous flavours.

With an afternoon of meetings lined up, dessert still beckoning and no room to spare, it was time to throw back the last of that Pinot and make my excuses. Next time, I will be bringing my spare stomach and an empty schedule.

Namaaste Kitchen is now open at 64 Parkway, Camden, London NW1 7AH.

Haggis and whisky tasting at Boisdale

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on Foodepedia on 22nd January 2011:

Andy Rose at BoisdaleAhead of Burn’s night on the 25th of January, I was invited to a lunch time blind tasting of haggis and malt whisky at Boisdale of Belgravia.

Boisdale is, for some, synonymous with Scottish food. The owner, Ranald Macdonald, is a Scotsman whose family’s roots can be traced back to the 14th century. His father, also Ranald Macdonald, is the 24th Chief and Captain of Clanranald – a branch of one of the biggest clans in Scotland. With these strong Scottish ties, it’s only natural that the restaurant takes an air of, well, Scottishness. That bit is obvious as soon as you enter the restaurant and see the tartan chairs.

Tartan aside, the restaurant is eccentric to say the least. Every wall is filled with something framed – be it painting, drawing or photograph. Each room also embodies some quirky characteristic. And there’s certainly plenty of character to choose from, with the Macdonald Bar, a courtyard garden, a back bar, the Auld restaurant, the Jacobite room and a cigar terrace. Perhaps that’s why it’s also the perfect venue for events such as live jazz, cigar nights and whisky tastings, which Boisdale runs regularly.

The haggis and whisky tasting is one such event. On this occasion, the attendees were a mix of members (the restaurant has its own member’s club), their guests and regular diners of the restaurant. The restaurant’s head chef, Andy Rose, presided over the tastings and introduced the haggis. We also enjoyed a recitation of “An Address A Haggis” by a descendant of Robert Burns.

Haggis at BoisdaleWe each had a sample of six whiskies and six haggises to taste. The idea was that we would taste them all in turn and pick our favourite haggis, whisky and haggis/whisky combination. In practice however, the events were a little more lively. That is not to say, of course, that people didn’t take it seriously. On the contrary, some took it very seriously in fact and tried to guess the whisky according to its defining characteristics. But others were simply content to taste some fine whiskies with some delicious haggises. And when you gather a room full of strangers over drink and food, things, inevitably, takes on an air of “Come Dine With Me”.

But back to the haggis and whisky.

It was my very first taste of haggis and I have to say, I rather liked it. Each haggis had a very distinctive taste and texture, with its own unique blend of spices. My favourite was from Mogerleys of Dumfries for its slightly more meaty flavour. We also tried Crombie’s of Edinburgh, Macsweens, Ramsay of Carluke, Findlay’s of Portobello and Boisdale’s own, specially created by Andy Rose.

Whisky at BoisdaleOn the whisky front, we had Johnnie Walker Black Label 12y.o., The Macallan 10y.o., Talisker 10y.o., Gelnfiddich 12y.o., Glenmorangie The Original 10y.o. and The Glenlivet 12y.o. Of these, the Glenfiddich 12y.o. came up tops for me although both of my neighbours had different ideas. Such is the nature of personal taste.

After that jolly lunch, some retired to the bar for more drinks, others stayed for more haggis and conversation. And if you’re me, you would have gone out searching for coffee to try and counter the inevitable intoxication.

Boisdale of Belgravia is at 15 Eccleston Street, Belgravia, London SW1W 9LX. To find out more about Boisdale and its events, go to www.boisdale.co.uk

Guilty chocolate pleasures

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on Foodepedia on 13th January 2011:

There’s a lot of talk about January detox but admit it, how many of you have already fallen off the bandwagon? And even if you’re still going strong, isn’t the best part of the detox the day when you get to retox?

And there’s nothing so tempting as the guilty pleasure of chocolates so that’s why I’ve brought you the ultimate guide to chocolate in the next few months.

Demarquette www.demarquette.com

Award winning British Chocolatier Marc Demarquette has put together a Nutkeeper’s Collection which is available in store and online now. It’s a collection of four hybrid praline caramels in hand painted 71.1% pure origin chocolate shells. The pralines are flavoured with Kentish cobnut, Provençal almond, Persian pistachio and American pecan and maple. Along the caramel route, Demarquette has also introduced a Cornish Sea Salt Caramel Box.

Choccy Munchy Seeds www.munchyseeds.co.uk

Completely new to the market, Choccy Munchy Seeds are a mix of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and pieces of dried apricot all coated in Belgian milk and dark chocolate. It’s produced by a small family company based in Suffolk, who have been producing sweet and savoury coated seeds for over 12 years. The new Choccy Munchy Seeds are available now from their website or in Lakeland stores from March 2011.

William Curley www.williamcurley.co.uk

Consider putting your feet up and letting the chocolate come to you by joining the Curley Chocolate Club. You can sign up for either a three, six or 12 month membership and get a selection of William Curley chocolates delivered right to your door. You will receive everything from couture chocolates and truffles to Jaffa Cake and crystallised almonds. You will get something different every month but expect to try the latest products, best sellers and award winning chocolates.

Leiths School of Food and Wine www.leiths.com

If your ambitions are more active then think about taking on the Leiths Chocolate Workshop. You will spend a day learning about the history of chocolate, tasting different varieties of chocolates as well as making chocolates to take home. The one off course will take place at the school on the 7th of April 2011, visit their website for more details.

Hotel Chocolat www.hotelchocolat.co.uk

You probably always thought that Hotel Chocolat was just for adults but they have just put the finishing touches to their new children’s range. There are two heroes in the new range – Nibblatron the robot and Twinkle Toes the fairy. Beware, these are so cute that you will probably end up buying them for yourself. The new range is available online and in store now.

Thornton’s www.thorntons.co.uk

Eating chocolate isn’t all about indulgence though. This January, Thornton’s will be launching their new limited edition Chocolate Blocks made from Haiti cocoa beans. 91p from every bar will be going to Save the Children’s educational programmes in Haiti. The first of the series to be released is milk chocolate with mango and is on sale in all Thornton’s stores and online now, priced at £1.79.

But that is not all for Thornton’s – 2011 also marks the chocolate company’s centenary year. To celebrate, Thornton’s will be releasing limited edition Centenary boxes, which will include chocolates made according to 100 year old recipes from the Thornton’s archive. They will also release boxes with one hundred chocolates in.

Artisan du Chocolat www.artisanduchocolat.com

It may only be January but things are definitely hotting up on the love front at Artisan du Chocolat. The chocolatiers have teamed up with New York designers, Bureau of Communication, to create a special limited edition Declaration of Romantic Feelings box. As well as the romantic mad lib in the box, there is also a selection of 54 assorted couture chocolates. A heart shaped XOXO Box, a sweet No.14 Passion Fruit Caramels and a bewitching Love Potion No. 9 are also part of the Valentine’s collection. All are available online and in store now.

Divine www.divinechocolate.com

Love is also in the air for fair-trade chocolate company Divine. It is launching two new chocolate products – milk chocolate praline hearts and dark chocolate covered salted fudges which are both on sale in Oxfam stores nationwide now.

Paul a Young www.paulayoung.co.uk

Paul a Young Fine Chocolates will be releasing their spring collection in February and will feature flavours such as pink pepper truffle; saffron, green cardamom and vanilla bean; and sultry chilli with ginger and nutmeg. For Valentine’s day, the chocolatier will also be releasing wild strawberry and champagne truffles and a rose water heart. The collection will be available online and in store.

Harrods www.harrods.com

Harrods have launched yet more exclusive chocolate products. This time it’s a series of hand-crafted chocolate trees, designed for dinner party centrepieces or as quirky alternatives to flowers. The trees are created by a mother and daughter-run family business, and includes a strawberry champagne truffle heart, a milk chocolate truffle tree and a marshmallow heart terracotta pot.

 

Desserts and wines with Nancy Gilchrist MW

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on Foodepedia on 12th December 2010:

Leiths dessert wine tastingLeiths School of Food and Wine, famed for training professional and amateur chefs alike, has recently launched a new series of evening tasting classes. I went to its West London kitchen classroom to try some food and wine matches.

The class was fairly informal and led by Nancy Gilchrist MW – author, journalist and Master of Wine. For any worshipper of desserts, the evening promises to be enjoyable, entertaining and educational. Unfortunately the class took place when London was in the grips of icy wintry weather.

Having braved the snow and ice with a questionable choice of footwear, which got me cursing every two steps, I was very well rewarded. We were welcomed into the class with a glass of Zonin Brut Prosecco, which given the warm embrace of the classroom, was like an injection of summer. As guests slowly trailed in, the hubbub in the class grew.

Nancy Gilchrist MWNancy introduced the format of the evening – there were six dessert wines to try with six matched desserts. There was brioche to cleanse the palate, water for rinsing and we could request a personal spittoon, if we wanted to. We also had a course booklet with notes on all the wines and recipes for all the desserts. It was a case of “you can take it as seriously as you like”, or just enjoy.

First up was a delightfully summery Chiarlo Nivole Moscato d’Asti 2009. At only 5% alcohol, it was the least alcoholic of the wines and also my favourite. It was matched with pomegranate meringues, pomegranate and strawberry compote and sweetened whipped double cream. Nancy suggested tasting the wine in four stages – on its own, with just the meringue, with the meringue and the compote and finally with everything. It was interesting to find that the perceived flavour profile of the wine was changing according to what it was paired with.

Michele Chiarlo Nivole Moscato d'AstiThe wine was very pleasant to drink to begin with and pairing with just the meringue seemed to make little difference. With the compote the contrast was a lot sharper and the wine, although not unpleasant, didn’t taste nearly as nice. When the cream was added though, the natural taste of the wine returned but with a new found richness.

The second wine was Chateau Suduiraut Sauternes 2006 from Waitrose paired with crème brûlée and raspberry coulis. There was a hint of marzipan in the wine which worked particularly well with the caramelised sugar of the crème brûlée. This sweet wine is produced via a very labour intensive process as it’s made from grapes affected by noble rot. The grapes are infected by a special strain of Botrytis which causes them to dry out like raisins. They must be harvested at a particular stage of the infestation to produce the required characteristics in the wine, which means that each vine must be harvested several times by hand. Nancy tells us that this soft and mellow wine would also work well with foie gras or blue cheese.

Tart tatin

Wine number three was the Royal Tokaji 5 puttonyos 2005, which was paired with tarte tatin and Calvados crème anglais. Made with hand picked Aszu berries, the production of this wine is also highly labour intensive. The 5 puttonyos indicates the amount of berries added to the wine and therefore the level of sweetness. As the scale is between 3 and 6, this wine is very sweet.

Next up was an intensely sweet Henriques & Henriques Single Harvest Malmsey Madeira 1998 matched with stollen. Sweetness is definitely a defining characteristic of dessert wines but this one was particularly so. It was very interesting to learn about how Madeira’s distinctive flavour was first discovered as a result of some wines being carried aboard merchant vessels making long journeys across the world. These days, instead of making that long journey, the wine is heated to around 50°C and maintained for some three months. Madeira is a fortified wine which continues to improve with age, is relatively insusceptible to oxidation and will therefore last for a long time.

After that large dose of sugar, it was on to a slightly less sweet wine – the Les Vignerons de Maury, NV Solera 1928 Maury. This is another fortified wine but produced using a Solera process, where new wines are blended with older wines in rotating barrels, which began in 1928. It is a non-vintage wine as, in order for a wine to be deemed a vintage, at least 85% of the bottle must be wine produced from that vintage year. (Port and champagne must be 100%.) The dessert paired to this non-vintage was fig and frangipane tart to match the hint of fig and tobacco in the wine.

Last but not least we had the Bacalhoa Moscatel de Setubal 1999 paired with a chocolate and mocha layered cheesecake to pick up on the hints of coffee.

The evening wound down in the same relaxed manner as it began – guests were able to explore the different combinations of desserts and wines with Nancy on hand to answer any additional questions. For me though, it was a matter of stomping through the snow in an attempt to get home. After all, I now had renewed energy from all the sugar consumed to make the best of my impaired balance.

Leiths runs a series of tasting classes as well as cookery classes. For full details of Leiths’ courses, visit leiths.com

Entertaining with Laurent Perrier

by Qin Xie | 1 Comment

Published on Foodepedia on 7th December 2010:

The Christmas season is definitely upon us with snow descending across the country and the opening of advent calendars. To ease us into the party season, Laurent-Perrier held a little class on the art of entertaining. I was there to enjoy a little champagne and take notes.

The class took place in the Madarin Bar of Mandarin Oriental, the home of Bar Boulud and the soon to open Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Leading the class were David Hesketh MW, MD of Laurent-Perrier UK, and Lucia van der Post, journalist and author of “Things I wish my mother had told me”. The focus was of course champagne and in particular, the selection from Laurent-Perrier.

Laurent-Perrier can trace its history to 1812 when Alphonse Pierlot was trading as A. Pierlot & Cie in Tours-sur-Marne, Champagne, France. He was a cooper and bottler before turning his hand to making champagnes. When he died in 1881, the company was bestowed to his cellar master Eugene Laurent who ran the Champagne House with his wife Mathilde-Emilie Perrier. It wasn’t until 1887, when Laurent passed away and Perrier took over the running of the company, that the brand Veuve Laurent-Perrier & Cie was established. The brand has since gone from strength to strength before being acquired by the Nonancourt family in 1939.

Today, the House of Laurent-Perrier is the fourth largest champagne brand in the world and remains a family owned business with members of the Nonancourt family on its Management Board.

But back to the evening and learning about the art of entertaining. As the guests gathered at the bar, Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle was served in classic champagne flutes and matched to savoury canapés. There was quite a selection, from wild mushroom risotto to roulade of Fois Gras, but the pan-fried scallops with parsnip purée and Alsace bacon and the smoked salmon with caviar on toasted Brioche were particularly excellent.

David Hesketh MWAfter a short while of mingling, the party retired to an alcove of the bar to enjoy more champagne and to learn more about selecting champagnes for different occasions from David Hesketh before being entertained by Lucia van der Post with anecdotes and suggestions on the finer points of hosting etiquette. After yet more champagne, the evening winds down with a selection of sweet canapés including a very moreish praline and raisin feuillîte.

So here is what you need to know:

  • To open a bottle of champagne, you should first release the cork from the foil and its wire cage, minimising the agitation to the bottle. Then hold the bottle at a slight incline, with the cork in one hand and the base of the bottle in the other, gently twist the bottle to ease the cork out. Ideally the sound should be a hiss rather than a pop as it means more bubbles are retained in the champagne itself.
  • A champagne flute should always be used. The correct way to pour is to first fill to 1/3 of the glass before topping up to ¾ full. This allows the guests to appreciate the aroma from the champagne before enjoying the taste.
  • For a bigger party, it’s usually best to select a non vintage. It goes well with most canapés and will facilitate ease of conversation, adding a sense of occasion without imposition. Hesketh suggests the Laurent-Perrier Brut NV or the Ultra Brut for those calorie conscious.
  • For smaller parties of discerning guests, you want a vintage. There’s more depth of flavour and complexity of aroma – the sort of drink that you might enjoy and discuss. Hesketh suggests vintages from the 90s, in particular, 1996 and 2000 from Laurent-Perrier.
  • For special occasion or Christmas lunch, you want something with real complexity. Heskeths suggests the multi-vintage Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle – it even has its own special pewter holder.
  • For those romantic occasions, there’s always a rosé. Hesketh suggests the Laurent-Perrier Cuvée Rose Brut.

Experience Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle yourself at the Mandarin Bar, available by the glass at £35. It is also available with its specially designed holder from Harrods and Selfridges at £350rrp. A selection of Laurent-Perrier Champagnes is available across the country from Laithwaites.co.uk.