I never intended to be one of those people who finally gets
their blog up and running and then leaves it for months and months. To my one
actual follower (Sister number 2), I apologise. To all the rest of you
freeloaders, if you follow me then you are allowed to complain. Otherwise no.
Like voting.
In my defence, in the last 6 weeks:
· I moved
house
· I was
drunk
· Le
laptop (my incredibly volatile French computer) has taken to shutting itself
down in the middle of things. The technological equivalent of a massive
shrug.
So there, enough. I am fully installed in a nice new pad with
some nice new people (*shout out as promised*) and this is what I have been up
to, food wise, since we last spoke. This is a mega post. You have been
warned.
Rhodes W1
A sunny day off work and a deal on the tasting menu made
Rhodes W1 an obvious choice for a Friday lunch with my lovely friend A, who has
accompanied me to Vienna on these pages and on thousands of other adventures off
the record. There was nothing to lose: if the place was great, we’d have a great
lunch, and if it was bad….well, its a Gary Rhodes restaurant, his hair is
inherently hilarious and the jokes would write themselves. Luckily (or
unluckily) for you, they didn’t have to and I am writing this. The restaurant
is off to the side of the reception of the Cumberland Hotel, Marble Arch. The
lobby was filled with confused tourists, possibly because it looked like an art
gallery, and the restaurant was deathly quiet with that kind of carpet that
totally absorbs noise and is really quite ominous. Ian Fleming describes it
perfectly in Dr No, in the chapter called ‘Mink Lined Prison’, incidentally.
The room itself was expensively beige with lots of sparkly bits which personally
I like (cf. most of my earrings), but thousands wouldn’t.
We started with an amuse bouche of what was essentially
broccoli and stilton soup in a test tube, and absolutely delicious bread with
smoked butter. The menu looked to be fish and veg heavy, so we ordered a nice
Chablis from the very nice French sommelier and got on with it. The
courses appeared as follows:
asparagus and duck egg with truffles
monkfish and seafood paella with
aioli
a deconstructed strawberry cheesecake thing
Everything was beautifully presented and faultless in terms of flavour and execution.
And I suppose that really should be the main thing. But it seems a bit….old
fashioned now, and it was still £60 a head even with the voucher. We were
sitting in an empty dining room full of long table cloths, whispering to each
other (this got louder and more of the ‘stage’ variety as the Chablis went
down), and for that reason alone I can’t imagine that Rhodes W1 will have any
more success than it has had for the past few years. It’s just not really where
I think food is going.
They did have an excellent way of presenting the bill
though:
Brasa
Another lunchtime and a South American asador grill close to
home was on the cards. I have recently joined a members club (there is no
non-asshole way to say that, and believe me I’ve tried) and this restaurant is
underneath it. Underneath that is a pub, so really it’s like a gigantic building
of awesomeness. I decided to check it out with my ‘personal demon’ (his words),
Richard O’Brien. Literally, just imagine Richard O’Brien in your head.
Especially when he’s wearing leopard print and jumping on the spot whilst being
sarcastic to the poor team who’ve only managed to win 5 seconds in the Crystal
Maze by the end of the show.
After a swift sharpener in the form of a couple of vodka/gin
and tonics, for starters Richard had a baby spinach, egg and bacon salad and a
flirtatious exchange with the waitress which ended with him ordering a bottle of
prosecco. I had smoked ham hock with wild garlic and the moral high ground. The
starters were good, but nothing to write home about (hence why this is just
getting published on the internet), and I think they probably detract from the
main event, which is some seriously great meat action. Richard went for the rib
eye with peppercorn sauce, and I had the sirloin with garlic butter. The smoky
flavour of the all-singing, all-dancing special grill was really prominent and
made it a noticeably different way to eat steak, not just a gimmick. We
concluded that the rib eye was the more tender cut but the sirloin had more
flavour, and that they were both great.
I can’t remember what happened next. I think it cost £100 and
Richard had an emotional revelation about the romantic comedy genre and then I
was beaten at chess.
The Boat Race
Strictly speaking, this is not really a food related event,
but off we all trotted to Putney to watch the light blues race to victory for
the first time in years. No matter that it took a man in the water and a broken
oar to make it happen, it happened. GDBO. The huge group of us (me, Richard
O’Brien again and the Lawyer) actually saw much less than anyone on TV, because
we’d made an executive decision to move indoors and prop up the bar at the
crucial point. The afternoon continued in a similarly sensible manner as the
other half of the Dream Team and one of my blonde ex-flatmates arrived to a
chorus of 4 jagerbombs. At some point we went back to Fulham and sat on the roof terrace at Broadway House for an
hour or so filming each other saying stupid things. The Lawyer was drinking
calvados, which is pretty punchy for 4 in the afternoon.
Soon it became clear that food would be needed imminently.
Luckily, Bodean’s was right across the road and fitted the bill nicely. I have
lived in Fulham for the vast majority of my adult life and have never really
noticed it before. I think this is because a) I’ve never had an insatiable urge
to eat 24 smoked baby back ribs at 5pm before and b) it’s next door to a
building that is constantly being used for money laundering purposes refurbished and
covered in scaffolding. In we went, and were quickly expelled back into the
rainy dusk as they were full. Half an hour and another round later, we tried
again. Success. Shots and ribs were duly ordered. I had a half slab of baby
back ribs, which are from the top of the pig’s ribcage (unlike spare ribs which
are the sides or belly) and a girl beer. The ribs were absolutely delicious but,
as a side point, why the hell does every rib/crab/meat/southern American shack
have to put coleslaw all over everything? Who ever looked at a carrot and
thought ‘this will be delicious if I dip it in sweet mayonnaise’? Anyway,
meanwhile, the Lawyer attacked a Jacob’s Ladder. Do not google this, it’s also a
horror film with some pretty disturbing promo shots. In the context of ribs
it’s a ginormous slab of beef ribs, or ‘short ribs’ for my American readers
(none). Not to be outdone (ever) the Dream Team each ordered, and I quote ‘1/2
a chicken, pulled pork, smoked grilled sausages, coleslaw, fries and onion
rings’. Each. And then they proceeded to race each other to see who could
finish first. On this occasion, Richard O’Brien emerged victorious. I realise I
haven’t talked very much about the food, but rest assured if you have a rib
craving in Fulham, this is where you need to be. As a word of warning, I would
say it’s probably not the place for a hot date, given the mess and the noise and
the chilli fries and the shots and the salt throwing.
Easter Lunch
Garlic roast lamb, new potatoes with mint and lemon, broad
beans with pancetta and some other bits and pieces made by my mother. RIP the
bunnies.
...and finally...
Sister number 4’s first dinner party.
I was more than a little flattered when Sister number 4 (less annoying now) decided to use my champagne and scallop risotto from New Year as the starter for her first ever dinner party. She followed the recipe and it turned out amazingly, so there is now actual proof that at least one of the things I’ve posted on here is a bona fide, tried and tested plate of food. Which is something of a relief. I was lucky enough to be invited / forced to stand in the kitchen and do the mantecare (the bit where you bash the butter into the risotto at the end to make it gloopy) whilst she made sparkling conversation with her guests. I was very (mildly) interested in her choice of main course, because I always think you have to keep it quite protein based after a risotto starter. Well, she’d got it bang on and with a pleasingly 70s twist – meat fondue. ‘Who is this little blood relation with the post modern, ironic sense of humour in her cooking?’, I wondered idly whilst drinking the rest of the champagne and regaling the assembled company (a cat; remember I was still relegated to the kitchen at this point) with my bons mots. And with a quick shake of the head to disperse Proustian reminiscences of the last time I had meat fondue, which was in Paris 5 years ago with my oldest friend who is getting MARRIED this summer, I concentrated on what Sister number 4 was actually doing.
She’d arranged béarnaise sauce, horseradish sauce and a selection of mustards (English, Dijon, grainy…) on the table in cute little pots, and put together a big green salad with a classic French dressing. You might think that peppercorn or garlic butter would be nice sauces too, and they are, but keeping them warm as you cook individual tiny chunks of meat is a nightmare, so I would recommend sticking to the formula of cold sauces. Meanwhile, in a heavy based saucepan on the hob, 1.5 litres of vegetable oil gently reached what I call ‘shimmering point’, which is the temperature where the surface shimmers and if you drop a piece of bread in, it turns into a crouton in about 10 seconds. When I get a thermometer I’ll take the actual temperature and let you know. Armed with fondue forks, Sister number 4 and her little friends crowded round a big plate of chopped fillet of beef, speared the meat onto their forks and dipped them into the oil. I’m afraid it really does need to be fillet, but you don’t actually need that much because people spend so long spearing and cooking that they eat less. The beauty of this is that it’s fun, communal, and a little bit dangerous, which is pretty much the definition of any great dinner party. I would respectfully suggest that it was probably more successful with 17 year olds who don’t drink that much than it would have been with my friends. I imagine we would have just spent the whole night in A&E, which is not the definitely not the definition of a great dinner party.
