Ah …Easter weekend. We drove all the way to the Sidmouth coast, to marvel at the bronze cliffs, seagulls and took in other bits of Devon (like Beer) while we were there too. Aside from M.Caines’ iron grip on Exeter dining (We did eat at his restaurant at ABode Exeter, but not worthy of a write-up imho) , we were on the look out for something decidedly local. I couldn’t secure a last minute booking at La Petite Maison nor did we try a Rick Stein chippy, but instead we made time for this well-regarded humble fish & chip shop located on premises at Darts Farm in Topsham. Curiously the farm is a set of modern looking buildings which hosts an Cotswold outdoors shop as well as an AGA outlet. It certainly looks more like the facade of a leisure centre than a traditional farm. Started initially by Roland Dart 40 odd years ago as a small hut selling produce to the locals, it’s now morphed into a major food hub in Devon. I suppose if Wholefoods were to expand their influence, Darts Farm would be the ideal candidate to mount a take-over. Inside, the main shop floor sells local produce, a local (award-winning) butcher and a cider & ale corner. I do regret not picking up a bottle of aged cider brandy! The Fish Shed is very modest, literally
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
Happy Chinese New Year folks, it is the year of the majestic fire breathing dragon. If you’re thinking about children, good luck with your dragon babies. My wishes to you are: 龙马精神, 阖家欢乐, 万事如意. To kick off the new lunar year, we travel to the hidden path within the mountains of Xizhi, Taipei. Where gravity defying monks tend to visiting tourists in between meditations and wu-gung practice. This is not merely a restaurant review. This is retelling of the legend know as …Shi Yang Culture Restaurant. (warning, an overly long prologue below. Scroll to middle-ish to skip to food) Whuppa. No seriously, we had to drive up a mountain to get here, here being Taipei. It was one of the more illuminating meals I’ve had, a kind of a mountain-top cuisine in zen-like surroundings. Take a look at the outside: Talk about restaurants with a view. Forget about those which oversee some of the worlds greatest city harbours, or the world’s greatest city parks, or even those which will overlook our beloved Ol’ Smoke. A birds eye view on human progress may be breathtaking but it is also a reminder of the way man has levelled and desecrated mother nature with our heretical obsession in forcing our electrical wizardry upon the world. In Shi Yang, it couldn’t be further away from the modernity of life as we know it. Here
Yay, I visited the world’s very first 3 Michelin starred Chinese restaurant. First things first, check out the much advertised view from the Four Seasons Hotel restaurant (let’s face it, this is the view that has won it the coveted third star) : Hong Kong has long been considered the gastronomic jewel of South East Asia. It is as much the home of the well-travelled Cantonese cuisine as it is from its birthplace in nearby Guangdong. For the latter half of the 20th century, Hong Kong flourished become a powerful economic beacon – and one of the last bastions of British colonial power – in Asia. Perhaps the greatest gift the Brits gave to the lands which surround the fragrant harbour was free trade. Eventually, Britain’s 99 year lease hold on HK expired in 1997, and as you know China couldn’t wait have custody of their beloved lost port returned to them. Today, Hong Kong still plays the major part of the ‘One Country, Two systems’ structure of governance, which in many respects is in place to preserve HK’s sustained prosperity. I was about 13 when I was last in Hong Kong (my Cantonese never progressing past that time) but my food memories of the city of islands are as fresh steamed fish. Blue-boned ‘swimming’ garoupa, piping hot egg tarts, chewy-bouncy prawn cheung fun and the ‘dissolve-on-first-bite’ char siu buns
Wet, hot, late in the night, an empty street and a full restaurant, ah… bonjour Paris. We arrived in Gare du Nord just after nine at night, taking the Eurostar from St Pancras. It took us a while to find our hotel in Madeleine ( The Le Vignon, a delightful getaway, which I highly commend) but as soon as we dropped our bags, we were back on the Metro again. Our destination was Goncourt, we were out to find the 9th best restaurant in the world. It’s quite impossible to book a table over the phone, so I didn’t bother trying. I opted to turn up with a hope of getting a table for the 2nd sitting after 10pm, and in my opinion, the more appropriate way to eat supper in Paris. We were in luck, a Thursday night, there were only 3 tables ahead of us in the queue, and those from the earlier sitting were just starting to leave. So it appears that getting a table at one of the hottest restaurants in Paris wasn’t so difficult after all. As I stood in line, I got started with two glasses of whatever was available that night – a white and a red Languedoc – while the missus scoped out Le Dauphin next door, surveying its respective queue. We were hedging our bets in deciding which two of Paris&#
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
The last couple of weeks have been particularly damaging on my wallet, so I will use this week as a time out to recall some of my adventures as a ravenous monkey abroad… this one from a recent trip to the teeny township of Haugesund in Norway
There are a a couple of meals from my recent trip to Taiwan which I have decided to upload separately from my Taiwanese cuisine post. This post is on Sonoma Grill, a steakhousei in Taipei. I saw value in discussing about the quality of beef in a location other than London. By quality I mean Prime USDA and Oz Wagyus. The light was good, so I took lots of pictures. If you are into the lunchtime food pornography thing then click on through soldier
Hello folks, I am officially back from my month long vacation, trust you have applied yourselves positively while I’ve been away. My yearly visit to the folks is always enlightening if perspective bending though this is the first time in eight years that I went home in time to celebrate Chinese New Year. I’m carrying alot of holiday weight right now, five kilos to be exact, heavy stuff. Astrologists are predicting a gold rush this year and have interpreted the year of the Metal Tiger to be one made of solid gold. Bling. I had originally intended this post to be the closer to my run of unofficial Chinese New Year write-ups and was suppose to coincide with Chap Go Meh – the fifteenth day of the new Lunar year – the same day which also marks the end of the Chinese New year festival… but other more pressing commitments had ensured a five day delay – building websites still doesn’t quite pay the rent. I had spent most of the time travelling between Brunei, Singapore and Taiwan, the latter was where I decided to spend my money. I have good reason to stuff myself silly and I filled my schedule with pit-stops to restaurants which served something representatively local – like a crash course into the native cuisine. It’s all well and good that we have so many restaurants
I left Berlin thinking how everything was physically larger. Perhaps the city architects mistook their metric scales for imperial ones. The repeated pattern which cover the major central train stations went on forever and they make St Pancras feel more like Covent Garden. The behemoth of trains which pass through were like one of those in an Elliot Erwitt photograph. Throbbing engines, brushed metal armoured hulls complete, smelly leather seats so large it made me feel like a midget. And that is after negotiated a gap large enough for me to fall through. As I made my way around the city, I couldn’t help but remind myself of Berlin’s history. It was a strange feeling, as if the city had absorbed the decades past into it’s character, especially at Checkpoint Charlie. Once the border security which moderated human traffic in and out of East and West Berlin. Yet at the same time, the city felt young, in that the glass encrusted urban jungle of new Berlin was visibly building itself on top of the auld one
Ask any Taiwanese what their number one to-eat dish is and the answer is likely to be Niu Rou Mian. Originally a Northern Chinese recipe, it eventually made it’s way to Taiwan when millions of Nationalist Mainlanders fled the Middle country to escape Communism (source : Travel in Taiwan). It’s a relatively simple recipe, but that’s also why so many adore it. Niu Rou (beef) Mian (noodles) are slow cooked beef slices (Either sirloin or stewing (braising) beef is used) ; spicy soya sauce (or lighter clear broth ; some vegetables and the all important mian. Today Niu Rou Mian’s popularity is so wide spread and deeply rooted in Taiwan’s gastroculture that there is an annual Beef Noodle Festival with the intent to rubber stamp Taipei as the bona-fide capital of Beef noodles. Speaking of Taipei, the city is like a really large open-air food hall. There is just too much to eat. On almost every other street corner, you’ll likely find mobile kitchen units. These movable street vendors are usually manned by single individuals, selling a savory or sweet snack and with nothing but the loudness of their voice as their main form of advertisement. If there is something you crave, chances are you’ll likely run into a street seller just by walking down the street. With such a wide selection, the problem isn’t finding something ‘authentic’ in the
Hello guys! I am reporting to you live from Taipei, where the rain doesn’t stop and the beef noodles are bouncy. I think my weight has gone up to 80 kgs, I’ve been eating out alot lately, hah, as if I don’t eat out in London. At least my jeans still fit. I wasn’t kidding about the rain – it went on for three days straight before breaking for sunshine. I’ve been totting around three cameras switching between the film and digital Leicas for action street shots, and going to my trusty Nikon for the food ones. As this is my second time in Taipei, I already have a hitlist to..well hit, and what I’ve found so far looks promising
As you know, I am now half way round the other side of the world basking in the sun. It’s been eight years since I left sunny Brunei, and in that time, friends have moved on to the bigger and better, I somehow feel as if I had only just awoken from a long coma, as the world is not the same as I remembered it. I have been catching up with some old friends from high school and I remember the days when Terry was the bonafide babe magnet at St Johns – I mean, girls used professed their love for him in the playground and all, very public. Good times, that was a long time ago. Today, Terrance is the chef/owner of his cafe in our home town, Kuala Belait, aiming to bring a sense of style to the humble town – coffee, elegant puds and a cosy laid back setting. I have much respect for independent cafes and so I thought I’d ask for the opportunity to gain an insight into what it takes to run a cafe
I moan about the speed of my broadband alot. It’s one of these do everything type packages where by the phone line that permits me to connect to the world wide web also serves as a carrier for the TV signal. It’s an incessant system. It gets clogged up very easily during peak hours and hardly ever reaches it’s advertised potential of 8MB, it’s more like 3; 4 when it’s really sunny outside. In this age of want on demand, life could not be slower. Ironic then, I think of my endearing Tiscali box as I sit here in sunny Brunei, in a vain attempt to write an update to this blog by working with a relic from an age long since passed : the 56k modem. I’m not entirely sure of the model, since it’s an internal PCI (are they even called that?) card which is installed on my dad’s machine, which is also an item lined up to be a future artifact in an Electronics museum (if such a place exists). I remember the day when I first introduced myself to the internet. Oh man it was hard. I held my breath every time I dialed up, hoping for a ringing tone, as if I was calling a potential love interest, but more often than not, I was to be disappointed on many occasions with the familiar engaged
So the new site layout is nearly done, whaddoyathink? I really like the full width feature box which runs across the new homepage, it lets me post bigger pictures. Woo hoo. Mad kudos to the designer Tim Gieseking. If you have some feedback (both good and especially bad) please send them in. This’ll be a short one, as I sort out the technical side of things, normal London reviews will resume on Monday. In the meantime, some pictures from a recent trip to Brussels
Negotiating tight side streets past the imposing museums of Les Invalides, I finally found this traditional restaurant with no official website, or little mention elsewhere… oh and it starts at 8pm. Half an hour till eating time, will it be worth the trek
Paris! I went, I ate and I ate even more. Reporting back with all the action from the weekend of excess, we start with this truly French Bistro located in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower
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Ah …Easter weekend. We drove all the way to the Sidmouth coast, to marvel at the bronze...
