Tim Ho Wan, Mong Kok: Stressed Sum.

Rain washes down the windscreen. The cloudy, darkened skies forcing the afternoon traffic to dance the immobile jiggle of halogen lamps. As we inched closer toward Mong Kok, I piped up and said to the taxi driver : “You can stop here …I think”. He threw a disconcerting gaze into the rear view mirror. Holding his stare, he acknowledged my naive tourist sense of direction with the slightest of nods. The silence was palpable. His cold, dead pan demeanor indicated an explosive character only simmering underneath. The traffic eases ahead, he engages the first gear, and off the car pounces toward the curb. Above us in great neon heavens read “Pho”. And other chinese characters. “$24″ He said. Rather curiously, taxi doors in Hong Kong are equipped with self-opening hydraulic mechanisms which (we gather) are controlled by an eject button near the driver. We were now in Mong Kok. Every other shop sold either bicycles or air-operated BB guns or both. Streets were named after vegetables and it is this part of HK which holds the not so coveted reputation as the world’s most densely populated area of land. Talk about the atmosphere, this IS the HK Cinema-look, from the Young & Dangerous franchise to WKW’s only surrender to linear storytelling in As Tears go by. I savoured it as a life experience and really it was only fitting that

Chez Bruce : The Old Guard.

… I write to you as I lie on the blackened brown beach in Brunei. It overlooks the oil rigs just off the coast that fuels the economy of this tiny Sultanate on the Northeast coast of Borneo Island, and behind me, my parents’ backyard. Happy new year LDN. I am technically still on my xmas vacation which is just spilling over into the new year. Did I mention the equatorial climate mean that it’s a sunny 30C every day? What better way to break the 2012 bubble than to recount a November 2011 visit at a true London institution and a destination restaurant. Yup after nearly four years of hot air, I finally made it to Chez Bruce in Wandsworth. In my often narrow and simplistic view of the shadowy powers which have molded our idea of the template for london posh dining, I see two power players whose influence reaches across an association of restaurants. Glorious chefs have passed through these kitchens at some point in their career, and in a way, these breeding grounds are the bedrock for the progression of high cooking. On one end of the stick, we have zen master Phil Howard with his double-macarooned lair – The Square. This is of course a story that is written to death about, since Brett Graham trained with Phil in the beginning days before they spun

The Sportsman: Genuine Article.

This is what you see when you arrive at The Sportsman. Perhaps this is the secret to the good cooking since this is also the view from Stephen Harris’ kitchen. I’m sure you must have heard about this place by now, quite literally every blog and hack with the vaguest interest in food, in this country has written and raved about this michelin starred restaurant. It is one amongst a very rare collection of restaurants which commands near unanimous appeal, and as such, it is often regarded as the very best this country has to offer. The original gastropub began life when Stephen sat through a revelatory meal at Chez Nico way back in ’92, which then became his inspiration to bring the slickness of high cooking to a more accessible setting. In the subsequent years, Stephen set about unravelling the mysteries of macaroon winning ways by visiting the nation’s darling restauranteurs of the era including MPW and GR until one fine November day in 1999, he decided to buy an isolated pub nestled between the English coast on one side and rolling fields of grazing sheep on the other. He crafted a brand new kind of experience that sought to marry cutting edge decadence with a wedge of the English seaside. Boy, did he managed that and then some. Today, he holds a Michelin star, the restaurant is constantly

North Road: Smoke gets in your eyes.

I have never been to Denmark, with the way things are going with the rise and rise of Rene Redzepi, it looks like it will be a long while before I contemplate the Copenhagen trip. It doesn’t mean I’m not curious (obviously I am), you can already picture a Chinese guy perched over the dinner table, reluctant to eat anything till he has papped the dishes to death. All this sudden appreciation for Nordic food in the media is extraordinary. It’s still very new to us, for starters, Nordic cuisine is universally lumped together as an umbrella cuisine covering everything that includes Swedish, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian. Honestly, I do not know the differences between the respective cuisines. It just seems a little weird that all the fervent attention on Nordic cuisine hasn’t translated to a more comprehensive coverage, it’s like lumping Chinese in with Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and calling it Oriental. Then again definitions might be moot when observing the high end stuff because they hardly anything like the traditional cuisines they have sprung from. And it always looks good. Take for instance Maemo in Oslo – this stuff looks awesome, but nothing like what I ate when I spent some months in Haugesund, a coastal outpost of yatchs and rich kids awash with Norwegian oil money. What I ate was markedly unexotic. Crayfish, giant lobsters, sunflower seeds with

The Hand & Flowers: Marlow Souffle

Tom Kerridge is an ingloriously talented chef. We both know this guy can cook the pants off of anybody, competition or no competition. I first savoured his brilliant ways when he joined forces with Anthony Demetre at Arbutus for the one-off 10-10-10 event for last year’s London Restaurant Festival. Look I’m a Demetre fan right, and you know I love his michelin winning pigs head terrine, but when placed side by side with Tom’s dishes; we were absolutely blown to bits by the quality of Kerridge’s cooking. His mussels in warm stout was nothing short of edible divinity. Anthony aint no slouch in the kitchen, but we thought Tom’s dishes totally outclassed Anthony’s on that day. A visit to Marlow to Tom’s pub with an overachieving, and michelin starred kitchen was inevitable, obviously, but I had forgotten about it the Marlow trip until I saw the chief on GBM last week, creating his ultimate lobster burger, which in itself, caused quite a stir on twitter. And with the last bank holiday in May, I thought it the perfect opportunity to finally eat at Tom Kerridge HQ. Deep fried whitebait to start. Crispy, warm and juicy on the inside, mmm. The low ceilings, brick walls, solid wooden beams and sturdy wooden tables, grant the pub a genuinely old world, country feel. The room is naturally cavernous, and a little musky and

Deceptively Semplice.

When I think about spending big on meals, where multiple stars are involved, I think French, I think Japanese, I think miniscular gastronomy, water-bathed, raw and beetroot. Rarely does the thought of an expensive Italian meal ever cross my mind anymore these days. I put this down to the recent drive by like-minded restauranteurs in launching the lean and mean, baby River Cafes (and derivatives). As you are well aware, we’ve been loving the revolution in London-Italian dining, feeling the gastropubistro-fatigue. Come on admit it, you can’t get enough of a novel-thick grilled veal chop, dripping in wet bloody juice. Especially if it costs under £20. Yes, the Zuccas, Tinellos, Dock Kitchens, Bocca Di Lupos, Polpos, Tinellos and Trullos are good for Londoners. We have competed with one another in overbooking them to their fullest capacity, and we especially like the much slimmer bottomline, and delicious yet elegant recipes, built around fresh produce, which is the whole crust of Italian cuisine. At last, good Italian food has become democratic. Having said that, there is still a legacy of the old-world, grand but homely Italian restaurants, designated by (quite strictly) by region and the Michelin man, and the pre-crash prices. Give it a go, call L’Anima, or Locatelli or River Cafe or Murano, and then ring any of the above mentioned mid-priced super Italian cucinas. You are likely to secure a

Zafferano : Classic Italian Institution.

If ever there was a restaurant synonymous with the term institution, that restaurant could well be Zafferano. Entering its sixteenth year of service, it is regarded by all of us, as one of the key purveyors of high Italian cuisine, in London. It boasts a fancy postcode, the single macaron from the Bib, as well as about a dozen or so blogposts showering praise upon it. It even has a name – Zafferano for Saffron – that echoes its maturing charm. This restaurant appears to have become impervious to the trendy competition of younger restaurants, yet to establish the sort of loyal patronage that Zafferano has the distinct honour of having. It is about as proper as it gets. As Mr Blyde once put it, Zafferano is indeed an important restaurant not only to indulge yourself, but for a ’rounded’ education in classical Italian cuisine (in London (short of a protracted trip to Italy)) to satisfy one’s experiences in benchmarking what is supposedly the best the cuisine has to offer (in London). This is likely one of the few restaurants to make return visits not for the sake of novelty, but to return because the food is genuinely fantastic. The main man in the hot seat, is the long time head chef Andy Needham who has been with the restaurant (at least to my knowledge) since its beginning days. Previous

Reintroducing Murano by Angela Hartnett

Those of you interested in Angela Hartnett’s (MBE) progression as a chef, rejoiced at the news that she has finally left Gordon Ramsay to make her own name, though truth be told, the charismatic chef has already built a formidable reputation over the years. There are very few – if any – negative reviews written about her restaurants, and she’s my favourite chef on TV. Her years with GRH had led to critical success where she famously won her first Michelin star while at The Connaught in 2004 and then another after just her first year of stewardship at Murano in 2009. My my, how far she has come, since her waiting days with Hans Schweitzer. Following in the steps of Wareing and Atherton, Angela joins – what is now – a rather illustrious Gordon Ramsay alumni. She leaves on good terms, buying out El Gordo’s stake to take the helm at Murano outright, which as far as we know, is to become her sole restaurant venture, as of writing. Practically however, it is business as usual, Murano is still, by Angela Hartnett. Success also means that there will be difficulty in securing a table at either of her restaurants. I had to wait until the 2nd week to secure a table at Murano; the week before, I managed a very late lunch at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant – which

Harwood Arms: West London Pub Galore

No doubt you will have read the multitude of pieces extolling the virtues of this greatest of London pubs. The pub’s shiny Michelin win, was both a surprise and a seal of approval that solidified its status as the epitome of pub grub in London. For the months that followed,

Texture: Deliciously unfamiliar.

What the Michelin man said about London in 2010

La Trompette: Chiswick is Delicious [review]

Sketch, lecture room: food/art. [invite to review]

St John: Where in the world top 50? [Review]

Nahm [Invite]

The Ledbury. Rocketing Stars. [Review]

[Guest Post] A gen.u.ine feasting at Ambassade de L’ile

Arbutus, with Tim and Candice [Review]