TASTE, TASTEOLOGY & AEG

Oysters, champagne, wet tables and muddy trainers was my Instagram post that really summer up mine and Lucy's evening at Taste London last Friday. It was all of the above - lots of fun, food and drinks but mud galore, though luckily no actual rain while we were there. I was invited to Taste, the bi-annual food festival, by their lovely sponsors AEG, who've recently made an excellent docu-series I also want to tell you about.

But let's start with Taste. We arrived on the wrong side of Regent's Park but eventually got to the entrance and headed straight to the AEG Take Taste Further cooking arena. I had the choice of a cookery class with Steve Brown or Jeremy Pang. I adore Jeremy, and in fact am hosting my own pop up supper club at his School of Wok in Covent Garden in October, but I've done a few of his classes so we decided to go with Daylesford's Steve Brown. We made a lemon sole with sauce vierge dish, which I basically did nothing for! Lovely Lucy volunteered to follow along with the instructions whilst I passed things and observed with a glass of prosecco - it's nice to have an evening off cooking once in a while! The class was great and the guy that hosts for AEG is so enthusiastic it's hard to not get wrapped up in it all.

 

Once we'd sampled Lucy's fabulous cooking we headed in search of oysters and bubbles, and to say hi to my cousin at Sipsmith.

Then it was off to the Tasteology tent to watch a very condensed version of the docu-series, that they'd cut down from over an hour to about 15 minutes, with a quick chat and a food tasting from featured chef Jozef Youssef between each snippet. It was a great way to get a flavour of the four episodes - Source, Chill, Heat and Experience - and left me wanting to watch them all again.

In need of real food we moved on to get tacos at Mole Taco Bar. Oxtail and pulled pork, which were both good. Then to Hook for our fill of fish, then back to the bar for more drinks. We finished off with tequila from Café Pacifico's stall, and old favourite of mine in Covent Garden where I went with my Dad many years ago, and also spent one of my birthdays in my early 20s, got ID'd and had to send someone all the way back to my flat to get my passport! Anyway, we had a lovely time at Taste (again). Highly recommended if you want to get the chance to sample food from London's top restaurants all in one place, without to having to book tables months in advance. It's a really fun day/evening out. Next one is end of November at Tobacco Dock.

 
A few weeks ago I spent another evening courtesy of AEG, this time at the Andaz Hotel, for the pre-screening of Tasteology. We got to see more of each episode than we did at Taste and I was absolutely fascinated by it. Tasteology is a documentary that deconstructs taste from a new point of view, looking at the science and the experience of food, not just the flavours and ingredients. It features professor of experimental psychology Charles Spence, Instagram star Jacques la Merde, food waste expert Tristram Stuart and many other interesting experts. It's so worth watching, and you find all the episodes here. HUGE thanks to AEG for introducing me to it, now I need to stop talking everyone's ears off about it!!