MY APRIL POP UP RESTAURANTS

My next pop up restaurant takes place this Saturday for 36 guests who managed to get tickets before it sold out a couple of weeks ago. However, I've got two dates in April that still have tickets available, so wanted to let you know about them in case you want to come!

First off is Saturday 2nd April at Angie's Little Food Shop in Chiswick, where I'm hosting a Sipsmith themed dinner. I'm using something to do with Sipsmith in each course - their lovely gin that's made a stone's throw from my venue to cure the fish for the starter; no alcohol per se in the main, but I am using a lot of the botanicals that Sipsmith use to make their gin, to cure the goat meat; and for pudding I'm topping my tart yet creamy sweet lemon possets with a jelly made with Sipsmith's sloe gin. And of course there'll be Sipsmith cocktails to start. As always, if you want to come but can't or don't eat anything on the menu just let me know when you book and I can send you alternate options. The full menu for the 2nd is:

Sparkling welcome cocktail made with Sipsmith gin

 

Sipsmith gin cured trout served on samphire with homemade bread

 

Goat marinated in Sipsmith botanicals, including lemon peel, orange peel, juniper berries, almonds and coriander seed, on a bed of pearl barley and spring onion, with purple sprouting broccoli and watercress salad

 

Rhubarb and lemon posset topped with sloe gin and lemon jelly, rhubarb jam, lemon shortbreads

 

British cheeseboard, homemade salted biscuits, chutney

 

Sipsmith fruit pastilles, teapigs tea or coffee 

 

Tickets are available here and are £40 for four courses, a cocktail and homemade fruit pastilles and tea or coffee. The evening is bring your own booze, and I can recommend wine pairings for the menu. Everything is made from scratch by me, and past evenings have been lots of fun. Sheerluxe have recently recommended my pop ups and my very lovely guests have left me some lovely reviews:

 

"A wonderful evening - a warm welcome on a miserable winter evening to a convivial setting, delicious food. The menu was seasonal and professionally crafted to exploit flavours. The dishes were well presented, and generous. Rosie and her staff host a great evening. (The warm spiced chocolate truffles tipped off a top evening!)"

 

"A thoroughly enjoyable evening. Warm and friendly host, fantastic food and very generous portions. Great value for money, would go again."

 

"So so good. Everything about this pop up restaurant is superb. I can't wait to go again and hopefully I'll convince a few others to go with me. The food was delicious, full of complex flavours yet subtle and pure, great textures, beautifully cooked. The venue was lovely, it had a great atmosphere (lovely crockery) - the set up was absolutely conducive to striking up conversation with new people. The booking process was seamless. The chef was very professional and relaxed - my allergies/intolerances (boo) did not phase her one bit. So highly recommended."

 

My next event after the 2nd is a long, lazy lunch on Saturday 9th April at Barts in Kensington. The menu is inspired by the idea of brunch running in to lunch, so I'm using the classic brunch ingredient salmon to make the starter; smokey, sticky pulled pork for mains served with fresh, vibrant sides; and a sweet and creamy posset for pudding with puff pastry rhubarb dipping soldiers. Barts are making cocktails to go with my menu, though there's also beer, wine and soft drinks available if you prefer. The full lunch menu for 9th April is:

  

Smoked salmon mousse with samphire, spring onions and watercress, homemade bread, whipped butter

 

24 hour cooked pork shoulder marinated in homemade BBQ sauce, warm jersey royal potato salad, root veg "naked" coleslaw, raw apple chutney

 

Lemon posset with rhubarb puff dipping soldiers

 

British cheeseboard, homemade biscuits, apple & rhubarb chutney

 

Homemade boozy chocolate truffles

 

Tickets for lunch at Barts are £36 a head and available here. Again - if you want to come but don't like or can't something on the menu I can make alternatives, just leave a comment when booking.

 

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WHERE TO EAT - KYOTO, JAPAN

Wow, Japan feels like a long time ago! I only got back five weeks ago but it seems far longer ago than that. I've already done one post focusing on the actual reason I was there - sake - but I also want to tell you about all the incredible food we ate out there, in case you're planning a trip.

We started our tour with three days in Kyoto, which I fell in love with. It's a beautiful city and we ate at a huge variety of places there, from some of the top restaurants, to cheap but incredible ramen bars where you order from a screen then wait in line til there's a seat for you to eat at. In fact, that's the first place we ate when we landed. Tired, a little grumpy and really just wanting a shower at the hotel and a strong coffee we were instead whisked off to Sugari where I had the best ramen I've ever tried. It's a tiny little restaurant, and once you've ordered from said screen (which luckily our tour leader did for us as it's all in Japanese) you take a ticket and wait out the back in a little courtyard until there's space at the long bar inside for you. The ramen costs between £6 and £9 depending on what size you choose. I had the "small" motsu ramen made with pork broth and guts, bonito soup and yuzu noodles. I'd said before the trip that the only thing on my 'don't eat' list was tripe (assuming we wouldn't come across Heinz baked beans which are the other item that make up my list) but was convinced to try the grilled pork guts ramen and I'm so glad I did. There were only a few pieces of meat in the broth, that's served separately from the cold made-in-house noodles, and they were delicious. The broth itself was rich and creamy, and the yuzu tang on the noodles balanced this out perfectly. Highly recommended if you're in Kyoto. The queue moves quickly and it's 100% worth the wait, and I really liked sitting at the bar watching the chefs do their thing.

 

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BLANCHETTE, SOHO

It's so good when I finally get round to visiting a restaurant that I've been meaning to go to for ages and it lives up to the high expectations I had of it - always a relief....!! Emily and I went to check out the cutesy little French restaurant Blanchette, in Soho, that I'd heard so many good things about but still hadn't got round to going to. Blanchette is a French bistro on D'Arblay Street that's beautifully romantic/lit by candlelight/awful for photos and serves up small French family dishes alongside charcuterie, cheeses and excellent French wines. You're encouraged to order for the table and share dishes, though there were so many utterly delicious plates, I really wanted to eat all of some of them myself!

We started with one of their signature dishes - crispy frog legs with Bois Budran sauce - whole frog legs that had been breaded and deep fried, which were actually a little tricky to eat. As the leg is whole, it's still on the bone. I'm not sure if we tackled them wrong, but we both ended up with mouthfuls of frog leg meat and bone. Not our favourite but luckily not a sign of things to come as the rest of the plates of food that came out were spot on.

 

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COCKTAILS and DRINKS

Whether you fancy a glass of wine at home or heading into central London for a cocktail or three, I've got some great recommendations for you.

First let's talk cocktails. This week is the annual cocktail event Cocktails in the City, taking place from Thursday 10th - Saturday 12th March at One Mayfair. The three nights will see 20 world-renowned bars serving cocktails in this stunning four floor building, where there's also a rooftop BBQ. You can experience so many different drinks and bars without having to leave the building! There's live music, masterclasses and a liquid nitrogen bar. Tickets are £15 and include one cocktail. If you want to drink more cocktails (of course you do), then they're all £7.50 on the night.

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THE BALCON, ST JAMES

There's something about eating in a hotel restaurant that I love. It feels grand and luxurious (when done right), especially when said restaurant is on Pall Mall in the grade II listed Sofitel London St James. I picked Lucy up from a Jensen's masterclass in Bermondsey where we jumped in an uber and headed to central to check out the new menu at The Balcon. In charge of the kitchen is Matt Greenwood, who's worked at some of my favourites including Smokehouse, Caravan and Providores before he joined The Balcon in December 2015 where he's created a menu with a real fusion of global influences. The room itself is beautiful, with double height ceilings, grand columns and lots of marble, which we admired from our table on the raised area overlooking the rest of the diners in the brasserie style restaurant. 

We kicked things off with a glass of bubbles and starters to share - seared mackerel with falafel, sumac yoghurt and confit tomatoes; and grilled scallops, boudin noir and apple croquette and carrot pickle. Both were lovely - the fish in both was perfectly cooked, I liked the moisture balance in the mackerel dish with the oiliness of the fish working well with the falafel, though the sumac was barely discernible. The apple went excellently with the scallops - clean plates all round.

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SAKE TOUR OF JAPAN

Until last month I'd never been to Asia. I've travelled around a lot of Europe and a few places beyond but had never made it that far East. Then an email landed in my inbox at the beginning of January inviting me on a sake tour of Japan three weeks later, so off I went.

Japan was fascinating - I learnt so much, laughed so hard, ate some of the best food I've tried, saw sights that blew my mind and sampled more sake than I ever thought possible. I've got so much to write about our trip, so will break it down by city over the next couple of weeks on here (we did five cities in eight days!) but today's post is all about the sake.

Sake is the national drink of Japan and has been an integral part of Japanese culture for well over 1,500 years, and according to one video we watched, "makes interactions with others smoother". Sake is a Japanese rice wine made by fermenting rice which has been polished to get rid of the outer bran. Most white rice that we eat has been polished 10% - getting rid of the bran, and leaving 90% of the grain. Rice used in sake making can be polished up to 65%, leaving only 35% of the grain remaining. The rice is polished in a rotating machine with a sharp stone which makes it purer, clearer and more expensive.

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THE POINTER, BRILL

As a country girl at heart my ideal Sunday is spent mooching round the countryside in wellies, dog(s) in tow, working up an appetite for a hearty Sunday roast in a beautiful village pub. And that's exactly what I spent the Sunday after I got back from Japan doing (blog posts on Japan coming next week btw). I'd been sent the press release for a pub called The Pointer, in Brill near Oxford, by a PR I work with, accompanied by her “favourite pig picture ever” and an invite to spend the morning on the farm that produces most of the fruit, vegetables and meat used at The Pointer, where I would then have lunch.

Polly and I jumped on the 3o minute train from Marylebone to Thane and Haddenham Parkway, where we were greeted by Fiona, who along with her husband David, owns and runs the farm, pub and butchers in the village, as well as running a weekly market in Brill where local producers can sell their wares. She whizzed us straight to their farm (which they've grown from what was essentially an extended five acre garden when they bought it, to 150 acres) where we donned some wellies for our guided tour of the land and animals. I’m a massive believer in eating good quality meat (and veg) and it was so refreshing to see how well looked after all their animals were. Fiona and David are absolutely committed to growing chemical free food and rearing animals to the highest welfare standard. They breed cows, sheep, chickens and pigs on the farm that are reared on natural feed and live full, happy, free lives. Some of the animals are bred as show animals and have won many prizes, and others are bred for meat. We saw their Highland cows, Longhorns, Tamworth Kune Kune cross 10 days old piglets, Indian runner ducks, Middle White pigs, Hampshire Down sheep and lambs, a couple of horses and their bee hives!

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COINTREAU CREATIVE CREW £20K GRANT

“All great women of our time achieved great things because they dreamt, dared, and created.

I am Laetitia Casta, and with Cointreau we created the Cointreau Creative Crew to reveal your creativity, in order for you to achieve your dreams.”

 

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THE SHIP TAVERN, HOLBORN

The Ship Tavern isn't somewhere you'd normally find me eating. Hidden away behind Holborn station it's an old fashioned pub (tavern) with a narrow staircase that takes you to a dimly lit restaurant upstairs. I'd looked at the menu online before going (obviously) and the food looked good so decided to try it out after being invited down to check out their offerings. I arrived and was shown to our booth seating for the evening, which was next to a long table full of businessmen, who seemed to be delighting in the presumably company paid for beers they were getting through at some speed. I waited for Georgie to arrive, slightly nervous about what to expect in such an odd setting - heavy curtains hung over the windows and every inch of wood panelled wall space was covered in paintings.

Georgie arrived and I got stuck into a beer, while she was offered one of seven types of tonic water after she asked for tonic and lime. I forget the one she ended up choosing but it was the best tonic water I've tasted.

We decided to share our dishes and things got off to a good start with the starters. The first dish out was trio of mackerel - tartare, grilled and rillette. Each element was really tasty, though it did feel a little like three different dishes on the plate, though that can be expected when ordering a "trio" dish.

 

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FRENCH GOAT'S CHEESE RECIPES PT II

I've written a few recipes using French goat's cheese previously, and today I've got a few more for you. They're all pretty simple, as the cheese is so delicious by itself that I don't want to overcomplicate things. These recipes use three different types of goat's cheese, but they're interchangeable so don't worry too much if you can't find the exact cheese I've used. Any good French goat's cheese will do. 

 

Roast peppers with goat's cheese, pesto and olives

Serves 2

 

8 mini bell peppers (red, yellow and orange)

French goat's cheese log

1 jar marinated mixed olives

1 jar tomato and ricotta pesto

Tbsp capers

Chopped parsley

Bread, to serve

 

Preheat the oven to 200C. Slice the peppers in half, removing the seeds. Add a slice of the goat's cheese to each pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Spread the stuffed peppers out on a baking tray and cook for ten minutes. Add a teaspoon of pesto to each pepper and cook for another five minutes. Remove from the oven and scatter capers and olives over the peppers. Serve with chopped parsley and a thick slice of bread.

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YASHIN OCEAN HOUSE, SOUTH KENSINGTON

Earlier this week I wrote about my favourite Chinese meal in London. And today's post is about my favourite Japanese restaurant in London - Yashin Ocean House. This post was meant to go live while I was actually in Japan last week, but due to a massively heavy schedule out there I didn't get any time to write or work, as I'd thought I would (not a bad thing - just means I'm a bit behind on posting!)
 

I've been to Yashin Ocean House before, once for food and once for drinks before a friend's wedding at the Armenian church round the corner... Yashin is a beautiful restaurant on Old Brompton Road, with a huge oval bar in the middle of the room, and tables dotted round one end of it. They also have a little terrace with outside seats for the warmer months. Yashin merges traditional Japanese techniques with more contemporary cooking ideas and their dishes are absolutely spectacular. I was invited down to sample some of their delights, and headed there just before going to Japan. I wanted to go before Japan so I could see how their food compared to "the real thing". There were lots of parts of the menu that were very similar to the food I ate in Japan and Yashin have the same emphasis on nose to tail cooking as they do in Japan. I love this attitude towards food and wish it was more prevalent in restaurants in London as it's so important to use as much as the fish or animal as possible.

 

A lot of the dishes at Yashin are real wow dishes, and one of the first of those we tried was the sashimi island without soy sauce. The plate of sashimi arrives at the table smoking with dry ice and each of the six types of raw fish is served with a non-soy based jelly or sauce to compliment it - fatty tuna with truffle infused ponzu jelly, prawn with coriander sauce, salmon with tosazu (Japanese vinegar) jelly, yellowtail with kizami wasabi, sea bream with a sweet sauce and rice crackers, and mackerel with grated ginger and chopped chives. I'm a sashimi fan anyway and this platter was my idea of heaven. Each fish and sauce had such a distinct flavour, and I didn't even miss the soy sauce. In Japan they rarely serve soy sauce with sashimi, and I did start to miss it a little there, but it really makes you appreciate the other flavours without having a pot of the salty sauce to dunk your fish in! Thinking about the meal at Yashin now, having been to Japan since, I'm surprised they serve mackerel sashimi. It's one of my favourite fish to eat raw, but I learnt in Tokyo that they never serve raw mackerel in Japan so it's interesting that it's on the menu at such a traditional Japanese restaurant here.

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CHINESE NEW YEAR AT HKK

Chinese New Year may've been yesterday, but you can carry on the celebrations, as the Chinese do, all week and beyond, thanks to HKK's fantastic specially crafted Chinese New Year menu that they're serving at their Michelin star restaurant, near Liverpool Street, until the 20th February.

I've reviewed the tasting menu at HKK before, and was expecting the same menu with little tweaks to add a CNY vibe, but their CNY menu is completely different (bar the duck course) and actually better than the menu I'd had before, in my opinion. To start with, the menu itself is beautiful. Not only does it give you the history of each course, but you're allowed to take it away with you as a memento of the meal you've had there (which is helpful when there are that many courses!)

Having just got back from a sake tour of Japan, I was interested to see that the first drink matched with the menu is a sparkling sake. In fact, the drinks paired throughout the meal are from all around the world - from Japan, to Venezuela, to France - and they all worked fantastically with each course. The cost of the CNY menu is £88 per person for food, plus £48 for the drinks, and I think if you're going to go for it, then definitely get the drinks too. I know it's not cheap, but as a special treat it's definitely worth it.

Course number one of nine (!) is the prosperity platter - a fresh and tasty salad of jellyfish, mouli, seaweed, ginger, leeks, roasted peanuts and crispy salmon skin - that's tossed high in the air for good luck and happiness. This is served with grilled spiced and salted Welsh pork with mustard and a goji berry foam, and a dried oyster sauce and iberico ham dumpling with black moss. All of which get the meal off to the perfect start.

 

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