Category Archives: Publication

Books Not Just For Cooks

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on BespokeRSVP on 18th June 2012:

I recently read a very inspirational essay in defense of food writing; on how it fulfills us, and not just at the table. Its touching prose inspired me to capture something other than just restaurant reviews on The Bespoke Black Book. So from this month onwards, I will be doing a small round up of food books past, present and future. And as it’s the first of such round ups, it’s apt to start with some books by fellow food writers.

A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell

The first book from food writer and editor of Waitrose Kitchen William Sitwell is a foray into the history of food. “A History of Food in 100 Recipes”, as the disclaimer in the introduction says, does not actually contain precisely 100 recipes. Rather, it’s a narrative on food, its cooking and its heroes, through the ages and across cultures; with a whole lot of recipes thrown in for good measure. There are plenty of things to chew over, beginning with Ancient Egyptian bread and finishing at Dinner’s Meat Fruit.

Food Britannia by Andrew Webb

Published last year, “Food Britannia” is a bible and directory of local food across Britain. The author, Andrew Webb, has not only taken a journey around the country but also through the history behind the food and the stories of the producers. You will find entries on everything from Afro-Caribbean food to Yorkshire tea. Aside from being a fantastic read and excellent source of reference, it has also most recently won Food Book of the Year at the Guild of Food Writers Awards.

Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop

Having trained as a chef in Sichuan, China, Fuchsia Dunlop knows a thing or two about Chinese food. Indeed I have spoken to restaurateurs in China who knew Dunlop by reputation. So it’s really no surprise when she recently won the James Beard Award for Food Culture and Travel. Her latest book, “Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking”, is an exploration of Chinese ingredients, with photo-glossary, and simple ways to cook them. No longer is Chinese food a mystery.

Heston’s Dinner by an insider

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on Jancis Robinson on 16th June 2012:

Something tells me that Qin Xie (or is it Xie Qin?) knows quite a bit about the kitchens of Dinner, Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant in London’s Mandarin Oriental…JR

Buttered crab loaf, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

When dining in London, and particularly in affluent areas like Knightsbridge, you expect to pay above the average for your meal. The location of the restaurant alone dictates much of the price, and that’s before you’ve factored in the ingredients, the service or the chef. Yet there is one particular restaurant which I’ve found surprising value in: Dinner by Heston Blumenthal.

First, let me put up my hand and say I haven’t actually eaten there as a guest yet. Instead, I’ve been fortunate enough to taste the majority of the menu as a stagiaire and seen the intricacies behind their creation.

Guided by Blumenthal’s reputation at the Fat Duck, you might think what sets Dinner apart from other restaurants is its employment of molecular gastronomy. Not so – it’s really a modern interpretation of age-old recipes, done with Blumenthal precision.

Take Meat Fruit for example, it’s possibly the most popular thing on the menu in terms of both column inches and numbers sold. What’s not on the menu under ‘mandarin, chicken liver parfait & grilled bread’ is the metamorphosis of foie gras, chicken liver, shallot reduction and eggs, amongst other ingredients, into that pristine tangerine. From start to finish, the two-day process takes the raw ingredients through the Thermomix, the temperature and humidity-controlled oven, the blast chiller, the flash freezer and more; and each step is dictated by a precise time and temperature.

Even more strenuous, perhaps, is the exercise which takes whole cucumbers to their fluid gel state. The gel uses only juice from the green peel, combined with gellan powder, processed via the Thermomix and put through a chinoise multiple times. Every batch is rigorously taste tested for flavour, colour as well as consistency – even a slight graininess to the texture, say from the mixture not being allowed to rest for long enough, would mean starting the whole operation from scratch. The result, I am told by Canadian chef Kimberley Hernandez, is ‘the smoothest fluid gel you will find anywhere and certainly better than anything you can find in North America’.

The food is not just checked by the Group Executive Chef Ashley Palmer-Watts at the pass. The impressive attention to detail extends from prep, to pass and finally plate. Watching over my first service in the show kitchen, I spotted two consecutive eggs for the broth of lamb being discarded. Curious, I asked Hernandez what was wrong with them. ‘They weren’t perfect,’ came the response. Seeing that I was lost for words, Hernandez explained that the covering over the yolk has to be even and consistent so that the plate arrives at the table in just the right way – tending to perfection.

The real action, though, takes place in the prep kitchens downstairs, where the distinguishing feature and one of Dinner’s greatest expenses is made – their stocks. Rather than using trimmings and offcuts, as is traditional with stock making, all of the stocks and sauces are made using purposely purchased ingredients. Meticulously prepared by Pip Sandrey using pressure cookers and blast chillers before being filtered and reduced from 40 litres to something like four, the final product could be compared to the finest distillates. And that really is how something which appears so simple on a plate can contain so much flavour.

Order check, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal

Now let us consider the price.

For three courses à la carte and without wine, you will be expected to pay in the region of £60 plus service. This may sound rather steep if you’re used to entire meals costing the same as you might fork out for a main at Dinner, but compared with restaurants in similar areas, £60 isn’t really a price tag worth blinking at. And when you consider the different components of each dish and the processes that produced the results, you realise that it’s not just a plate of food in front of you but rather something much more like art. In that respect, some might say, it’s really rather good value for money. Perhaps that’s part of what prompted me to finally pick up the phone and make that Dinner reservation.

Cooking Dinner

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on the Taste of London blog on 8th June 2012:

There’s little to say about Dinner that hasn’t already been said. Anything remaining from its launch last year has been well and truly covered in the stories surrounding its placing at number 9 in the recent World’s 50 Best Awards – making it the UK’s top restaurants by this measure.

We spoke to journalist, blogger and trainee chef Qin Xie, who has something new to add. She hasn’t just eaten at Dinner, but actually worked in the kitchen for a week. In her words…

After working 9am to 11pm for seven consecutive days, you get a pretty good idea of the whole operation as a stagiaire. Certainly by the end of the week, I was more than impressed.

It wasn’t everything that I expected. Like the kitchen; you’d expect it to be noisy but one comment from Head Chef Ashley Palmer-Watts and the noise is reduced to a bare minimum. The entire operation runs so smoothly that it’s not just the show kitchen that makes an entertaining viewing, rather, the whole thing is theatre. And everything from start to finish is done with finesse.

Behind the scenes, too, is deserving of praise. Fantastic team work aside, there’s support and nurture found everywhere. More senior chefs take the time to show and teach junior chefs. Enthusiastic and talented chefs are always given the opportunity to progress, whether internally or externally – even I was allowed to plate up and send out starters. And they really take the time to care too; every ailment is taken seriously be it a cut, a burn or simply slight dehydration.

But most of all I am impressed by the chefs. How they have so much passion for what they do. How they are so aware of what other chefs are doing and what the press is saying. How they have travelled the world to work in the kitchens of the best restaurants in the world before working at Dinner.

When the time came for me to leave, I was pretty sorry to go. I really felt like I was part of the team. And what a team to be part of. So it really is with my warmest congratulations to Ashley Palmer-Watts and his exemplary team of chefs for winning this year’s highest new entry at number 9. What is there left to do now but wait in eager anticipation for next year’s awards and see what else they can achieve?

June is not just Jubilee

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on BespokeRSVP on 1st June 2012:

Getting caught up in Jubilee fever is inevitable, especially if you live in London. But as Londoners know, there is always something interesting to do in the big smoke. So here are five (food and drink) things you should do in June:

Sample some of the UK’s best produce. The restaurant at The Cadogan hotel has teamed up with some of the best known names in the food industry to bring you Great Taste at The Cadogan. The Great Taste Awards are organised by the Guild of Fine Food every year and is designed to pick out the best speciality food and drink. The current menu, designed by food writer Lucas Hollweg and celebrity chef Thomasina Miers alongside head chef Oliver Lesnik, will run until the end of June. Goat’s cheese and courgette flower, rabbit ravioli and loin and bakewell tart are just some of the things you will find on the menu.

Bask in sunshine on the Southbank. At long last, sun and wisps of summer has arrived. What could be better than soaking all those golden rays at the Propstore on the Southbank? Propstore is the National Theatre’s summer pop up, created using props from past productions, and will be running until the end of September. Street food will be served as well as beers, wines and cocktails. It could be the perfect location to sample Sipsmith’s latest gin, the limited edition Summer Cup – it has tea in it!

Go menu-less for cocktails. There’s no time like the present to visit Sanderson Hotel’s Purple Bar and Billiard Room for cocktails. And there are no cocktails quite like it either. That’s because they have dispensed with the menu. Instead, the staff create a cocktail just for you based on what you like and the mood you’re in. I can tell you the Qintini (Belvedere intense, St Germain, Granny Smith apple, rhubarb, grapefruit juice, lemon juice, glucose syrup, egg white) is quite something – fruity, complex and addictive. Some might say, a bit like me.

Eat around London in small bites. The bigger and better Taste of London returns to Regents Park again this year, from the 21st of June until 24th, with a more international theme. As well as demonstrations by British favourites like Jamie Oliver and Michel Roux Jr, superstars on the international culinary scene, David Chang and Wolfgang Puck, are also flying in. Slow cooked pork belly from The Savoy’s River Restaurant, braised beef feather blade by Maze, and Theo Randall’s chocolate cake are just a few of the things you can sample.

Get totally 80s on the river. Chelsea’s 80′s club Maggie’s, is taking their disco, cocktails and a few rotating Rubik’s cube tables to the Henley Royal Regatta for the first time this year. The Maggie’s tent, positioned at the halfway line, will be open for the full five days from 27th June until 1st July. With tribute acts, fireworks displays and the well-heeled Chelsea set, Henley has probably never been more rocking.

Laurent-Perrier Tous Les Sens: A Preview

by Qin Xie | Leave a comment

Published on BespokeRSVP on 25th May 2012:

Laurent Perrier Tous Les Sense at Massimo, The Corinthia, London

Flowers aren’t my thing. It’s all that pollen irritating my hayfever. And all that floral femininity making me feel like I have to be all girly. But flowers on a plate, it just makes me all weak at the knees with glee.

At the Laurent-Perrier Tous Les Sens Masterclass at Taste of London this year, it is all about the flowers. Not just to look at or to smell but also to eat. International florist Ercole Moroni leads the class and guides you through a specially created tasting menu of floral delights. As well as exploring the menu and learning about the different flowers on the plate and on the table, you also get to sample a small flight of Champagnes from Laurent-Perrier.

If the preview at Massimo, The Corinthia, is anything to go by, you will surely be in for a treat. We had dishes inspired by apple blossom, green shiso, wild garlic, courgette flower, jasmine blossom, and elderflower, just to name a few; and by inspired I mean it was on the plate. While we sipped the champagne and tried the food, Moroni talked about why each champagne was chosen to match the menu and how they relate to the flowers. By the end of the meal, even I was warming a little to the bouquet.

Laurent Perrier Tous Les Sense at Massimo, The Corinthia, London

The Tous Les Sens Masterclass menu at Taste of London is slightly different though and has been put together especially for the event by specialist caterers, Urban Caprice. Canapé portions of starter, main and dessert will be paired with Ultra Brut, Grand Siècle and Curvée Rosé respectively, from Champagne Laurent-Perrier.

The starter will be Mottra Osetra caviar, apparently the world’s only truly sustainable caviar, on white toast. The caviar is sustainable and ethical because the sturgeons are massaged to release the roe rather than cut open while still alive. The main course is a Champagne infused risotto with asparagus. And finally the dessert is a white chocolate and strawberry sphere with strawberry mousse, macerated strawberries, rose jelly and crystalised rose petals.