I revamped my food photography portfolio for 2011 with a series of images that were taken completely inside the various restaurants that I had visited throughout 2009 and 2010. You might even recognise some dishes in these photographs.

The photographs are presented entirely in portrait orientation, and all are based on the 8×10 frame, as opposed to the 8x11ish full-frame that the 35mm format offers. I’ve done so because I feel that the 8×10 frame emphasises food very well, it’s shorter and a more logical frame to me… plus it fits an A4 page very well.

I also keep a number of photography related articles on my portfolio site – like using a Leica M9 to shoot food for instance – so please feel free to pay a visit to kangphoto.com if you like my food photography (or just like staring at food photos in general) and please keep me in mind if you have a photography job to carry out. Especially if you are a restaurant.

OK SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION OVER..

kangphoto.com

London is blessed with many a handsome weekend market, all of which are worth a visit. The beauty is that food is sometimes incidental, at Broadway for instance, antiques and boutiques have their rightful stalls in the market as well. It makes for a wonderful atmosphere, a blend of interesting people brushing up against one another, perfect grounds to be on the look out for the photogenic.

Broadway Market is also host to a pioneering agent, namely Banhmi11, which proudly advertised their Time Out endorsement as a large banner drawn across the entire front of the shop. Sadly, I didn’t get the chance to try their Vietnamese baguettes, the op-la-di steaks, a massive queue overran the shop, looks like Time Out’s endorsement really worked out. I ran out of patience anyway.

I have been following the blog of a Japanese baker who sells her sweet things at the Saturday market, and I was on the look out for her, but sadly, myopia ensured that I would miss her stall completely… but I blame that on hunger.

Eventually I settled for my first experience of Viet baguettes at Caphevn. I think I ordered the five pork, which was… alright, and perhaps overhyped. I washed it down with what I thought was good iced coffee. The better half indulged in a nice portion of German sausages, while I mulled over getting the mushrooms on toast, and pies from F.Cooke.

Unfortunately, most of the savoury stuff along the main street looked overly yawn, so I wandered into the off-shoot section that was quite empty, but filled with stalls that sold antiques instead.

That was when I stumbled upon an Argentinean couple with their kids, quite happily smoking rib eye steaks for their superb steak sandwich, smothered in their home-made salsa. I didn’t get a photograph, but you need to look out for this dude. He’s got a silver goatie, fairly large fella, and his sign read £5 Rib-eye steak sandwich.. and it was the best thing I had at Broadway Market… ironically, not quite inside the market.

I shot this exclusively on a Leica M6 with a 35mm Summilux attached, and I think it was exposed on Kodak GOLD 200.

I’m not sure what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, but if you do happen to pop down, look out for Vic (who is a coffee consultant who’s had a hand at most of the best coffee shops in town, such as Tapped and Packed for example) at Climpsons and sons, for a cup of coffee.

Broadway Market is located in Hackney, East London, and runs from London Fields to Regent’s Canal and opens from 9am to 5pm on Saturdays.

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I’ve always thought about upgrading (or downgrading depending on where you stand) the photography on this blog to film-based rather than digital, but after visiting 300 or so restaurants with the Nikon D700, it’s hard to it put. Digital is just so, easy you know, snap and pap, quick and (relatively) unobtrusive, and one can mess around with the image in the computer to one heart’s content. But you know film has that distinctive look, the cinematic signature, the big screen gloss which you are probably familiar with, everytime you visit the cinema.

So it was the last sunny Friday in September, and I decided to take my FM2n and two rolls of Kodak Portra. Roughly 72 exposures, fully manual, completely mechanical (that means no battery required) and made in 1983. Yes, as old as me. As per usual, I was in the acquiescent company of my partner in crime, Marcus Aurelius, imported from China.

I am indebted to the exuberant Jennifer Joyce, who told me about this neat little gem. Amongst my many personal projects, I’ve been helping the intrepid food writer with her digital real estate…. Which is nearing completion, so I will show it you folks soon enough.

Tosa is a well-regarded yakitori specialist, based in Hammersmith (or Stamford Brook I should say), and a secondary outpost in East Finchley. Yeah I know, the most obvious competitor is Bincho in Soho (formerly Oxo Tower) whom are the other practitioners of smoking birds over charcoal. The difference is perhaps Bincho’s minimum 2 skewers per order rule which thankfully it doesn’t apply in Tosa.

I wanted to present a holistic angle on the menu (an excuse for being a fat bastard) so opted to try abit of everything. The menu is arranged by style of cooking (Grilled, fried, raw, etc) and are all to-share plates, no main courses.

Sushi & sashimi

Raw turbot muscle sashimi, £8.

Yes, I was intrigued by the description as well. This particular species swim in British waters, and if I’m to be frank, it’s not a looker, even amongst fish. Easily identified, as it is large and flat, usually brown or sometimes slate grey, and fetches really hefty prices (the fishmonger at Queen’s Park’s Sunday market don’t sell ‘em cheap). Studying the pattern of the sashimi, I wondered if the ‘muscle’ Tosa refer to, are the fins which line the periphery of the fish. Biology aside, the texture was interesting to say the least, rubbery and a little oily (if memory serves) , the fish is quite mild in flavour, so it was easy to eat. Lively stuff.

Unagi Nigiri, £2.20 each.

‘Course, I don’t expect great sushi at Tosa, but I thought it was mostly above average, the rice was abit clammy, but it had good vinegary flavours, and the unagi if abit cold, was of a good quality.

Tosa roll, the chef’s special, £4.60

If it’s good enough to be the chef’s special, I best order it. The maki was stuffed with avocado and cucumber and shiso and wrapped with thin slices of raw salmon. The result was something cleansing, fragrant and fresh. I enjoyed it.

Deep fried oyster maki, £6.

Finally, some deep fried oysters, onion and cucumber rolled into an outside maki. Yeah not bad.

From the grill

Asparamaki, £2.20 each.

The first of the skwers, grilled asparagus & pork belly. The first impressions were that it was it was juicier and smokier and just generally, better cooked than Bincho, where I found the kushiyaki to be pretty horrendous.

Uzura, £1.60

More good news, in the form of mini quail eggs infused with smoke from the charcoal grill. Speaking of which, the decor is basic at best, the bar table which overlooks the robata is tiny, and the tables in the windowless backroom, is seriously devoid of oxygen, and just drab. If we’re still locked in comparison, I would say Bincho wins hands down for atmosphere. Food-wise, Tosa is in the lead.

Torikawa, £1.90

Ah, Yakitori time. This is the crispy chicken skin, which were actually more like sizzling fat globules than actually straight up grilled skin. Abit of fat is nice, but this might be a tad too much. In this instance, Bincho’s chicken skin wins on that basis that it’s leaner and meaner.

Shisomaki (the round ones), £2.30 each and Yakitori, £1.70 each.

The round ones are the shisomaki, that’s shiso leaves and pork loin, and they are really amazing. Smoky grilled pork – dripping, wet and juicy – with a touch of fragrance from the shiso, beautiful stuff.

As for the yakitori, which is plain grilled chicken (I think it was thigh), it was juicy, well-seasoned and smothered in a lovely soy based sauce that carried a hint of sweet to it. Better than Bincho.

The shiso and pork loin skewer up close.

Feeling a little indulgent with the film camera, I thought these were great. The skewer, I mean.

Sakekama, £5.50.

Salmon cheek, grilled with salt, grated radish and served with wedge of lemon. Probably the best of the lot, and like the rest of the grilled stuff, it was heavily seasoned, oily and juicy and oozed smoky perfection. Massive portions too, as good as grilled salmon can get.

So… how’s the film photography so far? More natural colours?

The bill came to £57.08, so we paid £28 each, which includes the price of two glasses of Calpico. Excellent value for money and beautiful food all round. In fact it was so agreeable, I went back a week later for dinner, taking my colleague with me, who agreed with the goodness of the skewers. We also opted for sake, served on in a cedar box (like Bincho) and which came with a pinch of salt. Interesting. By the way, Tosa offers 15% discount vouchers as a promotion on their website, something you will no doubt take advantage of when you visit. I suspect that Tosa (like Bincho) is perfect for solo dining, quiet school nights, and for those who simply want to watch the man turn skewers on his grill, except that Toas are better at the meat flipping. Shame they don’t do chicken oysters however, but you can get really good ones at Bincho. Aside from that, I heartily recommend the trek out West.

My Bincho review for comparison sake.

The Gist of It

Tosa
Japanese, £25pp
332 King Street, Hammersmith, W6 0RR.
Tel: 020 8748 0002
Tube: Stamford Brook

Grilled : Time Out London , Randomness Guide to London ; Will Eat for Money

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Yes, the food festival that features some of London’s more famous and not-so-famous restaurants, popped up this weekend at Regent’s Park under rather dreary skies. Of course I was there. I spent 100 crowns, that’s fifty quid. Oh yeah baby. Lots of photographs after the jump.

Switch to Fullscreen Slideshow Mode.

It was a case of scoffing, sleb chef spotting and getting our hands on as many free hand outs as we could. The event was to celebrate and showcase our capital’s dining scene, there were many instantly recognizable names and abit like cherry picking vineyards to visit in wine country. With my ‘roving editor’ Marcus, we circled out the restaurant stands which we wanted to try. I’ll keep the chatter minimal on this one…

(if you are reading this before the 20th of June, there are still tickets floating about¹…)

£10 buys you a book of 20 crowns at the Taste Bank, follow the green jeans…

Fino

The first stop was to Fino for their Cochifrito suckling pig, judged² to be the 2nd best dish of the event.

14 crowns. We agreed. Fatty, melty, a cracking crackling, smothered by a thick and syrupy sauce with hints of mint. Fino is on my list now.

Smiles..

Laduree macarons.

Le Gavroche

Oh yeah, Gastronomical Royalty. Michel Roux Jr (chef) and Silvano Giraldin (manager), the leadership of two michelin starred Le Gav³.

40 crowns or twenty squids: Lobster cocktail, with summer truffle and tomato jelly. Entirely indulgent, four large slices, lots of chunky lobster meat, iceberg lettuce, the jelly was a little bitter… in hindsight this felt like a waste of money, there wasn’t real invention involved, and I could’ve done with some hot buttered brioche. Still, can’t go wrong with fresh lobster and truffle. Le Gav is still very high on my list.

Checking the Taste map.

Feeding the missus.

The Sake no Hana stand…. Alan Yau’s showing I suppose, nothing really caught my eye. The Japanese presence which intrigued me was Dinings.

Vic – Coffee Maestro, oh he really is. He’s all over town, a coffee consultant (if my info is accurate), he is in and out of Tapped and Packed alot right now, he knows his brew, if you ever spot him, tell him Mark said hello.

Dinings

You might recall me raving about Dinings⁴ last year, a Japanese restaurant opened by ex-Nobu talent Tomonari Chiba. Naturally I was excited to visit their stand at this event.

Seabass carpaccio with ponzu jelly and truffle, 8 crowns. Yeah this hit the spot, peppery, citrusy, the fragrance of truffle, the oiliness of fish and an explosion of flavours. Their ponzu-truffle jelly is Dinings’ USP. They put it on their seared wagyu nigiri at the restaurant and it is equally amazing. Shades of Nobu, but mybe just a tad sexier in my humble opinion.

Seared Wagyu sushi with foie gras. 12 Crowns. The wagyu gently blowtorched, cut very thick, with a syrupy soya sauce concoction drizzled over it. I know some say foie gras doesn’t work with rice, but I thought it was masterfully executed here. The brawny wagyu, fragrantly bovine, a real wow-factor, it tasted lively and the sweet soya sauce managing to balance against the potency of the foie gras. Loved it too.

I think a revisit to Dinings is imminent. Not everything at the restaurant is spot-on, but their truffle-ponzu sushi are really out of this world.

The Patara stand.

Girls of British Airways. Yeah…black and white.

L’Anima

Here we are, super heavyweight Italian outfit, L’Anima⁵. I am overdue a visit, and what a slick operation, one could almost sense the jive from the kitchen team. Theirs must be one of the hottest tables in London right now. They are shutting for expansion works in August, and re-opening a month after, I think I might visit in July.

Rabbit Siciliana, 8 Crowns.

Wahey, and that’s the man himself, Francesco Mazzei with iron chef Judy Joo…! She is radiant by the way…we couldn’t take our eyes off her… Note the well-positioned halos.

Odette’s

You know Bryn Williams⁶ right? His turbot, oxtail, cockles and samphire dish (representative of Wales) was the winning dish from the 1st GBM series and became one of the dishes for the Queen’s birthday bash a few years ago. He did have it on the Taste menu, but we were ten minutes late, it was served at 1.30pm, and they sold out…

…so I went for the mint, pea and Welsh rack of Lamb instead, 8 crowns. It was superb. Delicate sweet peas, and an equally delicately cooked lamb chop, juicy. Bryn trained at Le Gav, was last at Galvin at Windows and now owns Odette’s. Oh yeah definitely on my list. The turbot will not elude for much longer.

Ansley working his magic…

Modern Pantry

I must say, I know very little about Modern Pantry save for that its head chef Anna Hansen⁷ trained under the eponymous Fergus Henderson. Her chermoula baked trout, quinoa, tomatillo,preserved lemon salad was judged to be the 3rd best of the event. No doubt after this event, I have placed Modern Pantry on my list, will visit the restaurant in the coming weeks.

I was intrigued by the items on show at Taste, I can’t even place the style of cuisine, which appears to be a kind of super fusion, the best of around the world foods. Tamarind marinated miso onglet steak, tumeric, and curry leaf besan chips, 10 crowns. I’m not sure about this one, the hanger steak, rare, was excellent but the rest of the spices left it a tad too bitter. I appreciated the spiciness however, but I couldn’t say it impressed.

Still, I am intrigued by her food, it reads very well indeed, and would be interesting to see how it translates in a restaurant.

Trinity

This south London restaurant⁸ has a cult-like following, whilst the restaurant itself keeps a pretty low profile, Adam Byatt’s name is whispered by food lovers regularly, and I am quite embarrassed to say that I have yet to visit Trinity. That will soon change, of course.

Pig’s trotters, toasted poilane, fried quail egg, sauce gribiche and crackling, 12 crowns. Judged to be the best of the event, and I can see why it won, I thought it was exquisite. A whippy, mustardy white sauce, superiorly intense crackling and sweet onion tasting trotters. With a milky yolk on the toast, it was a superb congealing mess that felt abit like breakfast. Apart from the Fino suckling pig, this was definitely the most memorable from the event. It definitely wowed. Pickled gherkings (I think) helped to cut through the strength of the dish. Sweet, flossy, salty creamy. Trinity is definitely on my list now. I really want to go.

Bea’s of Bloomsbury

Introducing the new face of Bea’s… just kidding that’s Tehbus⁹.

This is Bea¹⁰.

And these are her awesome cupcakes. The cakes are moist and spongy, the icing buttery and decadent. I am way overdue a visit, and I keep promising to show up for tea and cakes but I keep missing out. I will make it there before 2010 is over…

Finally then, Mark indulging…

….and here’s my favourite snap of the event.

We also had Gary Rhodes’ baked egg tart but I didn’t think it was worth highlighting. The raisin sauce was good, but the tart was too cold, no Marcus Wareing.

Yeah it was fun, how could it not be? An afternoon’s worth of eating, drinking and people watching. There were some great food on show, I have been alerted to certain restaurants I previously didn’t think too much about, and I believe most restaurants will have come away enhancing their reputation after this event.

See you again in Taste 2011.

See the fullscreen slideshow for further highlights or view the full set of photographs on flickr.

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Atari-Ya are primarily fishmongers who specialise in importing sashimi-grade fish and are said to supply some of the highest profile Japanese restaurants in London, including Umu and Nobu. They also own sushi-bars. Do they keep the best for themselves? Let’s find out.

Who doesn’t love sushi. It’s the perfect food isn’t it? Low in fat, high in protein, delicious, dare I say it is the pinnacle of umami. The quintessential refined way of eating. Those who have been following my musings since the beginning days will know my pure and unadulterated love for Sushi Hiro – a modest sushi bar in Ealing Common whose fans include Heston Blumenthal – it is afterall my most visited sushi place in all of London. So much so that I’ve actually subconsciously stopped searching for ‘better’ alternatives in town (ok there’s Dinings, but more for fanciness rather than traditional fare, not a patch on Hiro). Until now. There are reports¹ which suggests Sushi Hiro has changed hands for the worst (as of writing), and the quality of the end product has dwindled. I say end product since the same source praised the quality of fish, citing its ‘freshness’. I’ll be visiting Hiro soon to confirm this. It’s only a fifteen minute journey after all, I am secretly hoping that the same Itamae will still be behind the bar to greet me….

It had jolted me into realising that maybe it’s time to find alternatives, and it certainly helps to stumble across other sushi loving Londoners doing the same such as GT’s Chirashi quest² and Charmaine’s sushi recommendations³.

With sushi so dependent on produce, it seemed logical to start with one of the premier fish importers in town. We already know that Atari-ya supply some of the capital’s priciest restaurants, they are self-professed ‘tuna specialists’. It is also said that Sushi Hiro get their supplies from Atari-Ya. The company is seemingly expanding their London operations, there are already four retail shops dotted around town, and now three restaurants, one in Hendon, one behind Selfridges and this one located on Fairfax road in Swiss Cottage.

We arrived as they opened at 6pm on a Sunday night, the restaurant looking brand spanking new. I think it opened in late March⁴, staff perky, young and hardly able to speak English, which always lends an air of authenticity to the outfit.

As expected, the menu is about as utilitarian as they come, run-of-the-mill sushi and sashimi choices form one page, the next are a selection of grilled/pan-fried meat, vegetables and fish (including fried and breaded pork (tonkatsu) as well as oysters). There are no bento or meat-based donburi, although noodles are served with soba and udon as choices. I was with a table of four, the better half and her parents.

Black cod miso, £10

A good slither of the fish made famous (and probably inching closer to the endangered list..) by Chef Matsuhisa (Read Nobu), half the portion at a Nobu restaurant, but at third of the price…which makes it…cheaper. A recipe that has been rampantly adopted by many a Japanese-Peruvian imitator in London, but often fail to emulate the slimy, buttery, oily and just ever-so-undercooked texture the sablefish is best known for. I thought it was well-executed, the flesh was flaky, the skin was oily, well-seasoned, aromatic though it was not as fragrant nor as potent as the original Nobu recipe, a good imitation nonetheless. I almost always try the black cod miso whenever I visit Japanese restaurants, most never match the exactness of Nobu, and I still stand by that view, it is worth every bit the £29 asking price. But for £10, this is pretty good.

Sea Eel (Anago) Tempura, £6

There were a flurry of enticing daily specials on this visit, this being one of them. Sea eel tempura is a first for me, the crunchy, crispy and powder batter was light. Anago is more mellow, less oily and silkier compared to its fresh water cousin, meaning that went deep-fried, it is as crispy as they come. Though I enjoyed it, I much prefer it if it were served as a nigiri, but that’s just a personal choice. I’ve yet to try anago sashimi which is what the light texture is said to be best for.

Sashimi Platter, £17.40

This should be a dish where Atari-Ya should shine. Boy was it blinding. Tuna, arctic surf clams (Hokkigai), salmon, sea bream and yellowtail. Simply exceptional. The quality of the fish was lively, oily, silky, melt-in-your-mouth, fragrant, everything you expect great sashimi to be. I couldn’t confirm the whereabouts of the fish however, seeing as to how there is a global demand for sashimi grade fish, it could be sourced from anywhere really. I wonder if any of it had passed through Tsukiji fish market at all⁵. I had my niggling issues with it – though this will come across as being superfluous to many – as I thought the sashimi could have done with a bit more flair and deftness, the fish was cut a tad too thick for me. But I suppose this is down to the Itamae’s training and technique, and I am convinced that technique makes up for the difference in premium (at say Umu) when visiting higher end restaurants, given that the quality of fish is equal.

These days, I refrain from using the word ‘fresh’ to define well-prepared and well-selected sashimi grade fish because most sashimi grade fish (except for Tuna) implies that it is pre-frozen (mainly to kill nasties) to -20C⁶ either at source or in-house by the restaurant. Though freezing is merely a small step in a long chain of activities from boat to plate, to ensure ‘the highest grade’ of sashimi for the end customer. To make purely uneducated guesses, I would suppose location, method (eg: long-lining) and the experience of a successful fisherman all count toward ensuring the best catch.

Let’s take tuna as an example being that toro or tuna belly is most prized in the sushi world. There are a plethora of strategies to consider. For example, there is the issue of preserving the carcass once fish is caught and killed, such as bleeding it rapidly to storing just above freezing (to slow the decaying process)⁷. And then there is also the skill of the middlemen, be it a sushi chef or a fish monger to meet with the fishermen and select quality cuts.

Not to labour a topic which deserves a separate discussion altogether, but for now, a NY Times piece on freezing fish inside sushi restaurants⁸.

Chirashi (Sushi Donburi), £10

I think you’ll agree that glancing at the prices versus the portions that Atari-ya is excellent value for money. Chirashi is basically a bowl of sushi rice with a selection of raw (and not so raw) seafood laid on top, it’s a cheaper way to sample a sushi restaurant’s offerings. I liken this dish to a sashimi salad, where the usually discarded bits are turned into a more than edible offering. Of course, this isn’t the case with the chirashi. Anyway, for a tenner this was superb value. Two types of roe (Tobiko and Ikura), a sliced scallop, omelette (tamago), salmon, sweet prawns, tuna, sea bream (I believe) and boiled white crab meat (alot of it). Oh yeah baby. Need I say more?

A selection of Nigiri and Temaki.

Finally then, the nigiri and maki, the acid test. There is no doubt that Atari-Ya are tuna specialist. Look at the ‘marbling’ of the o-toro. The off-pink porcelain-like appearance, it has flavours of fish oil, fatty, buttery, almost beefy and it is ever so fragrant. It melted slowly in the mouth, as it disintegrated I savoured all the flavours. Truly a great piece of fish indeed, and worthy of any Michelin-starred Japanese restaurant in London. £3 each. Affordable. The rest of the nigiri told the same story, turbot (£2.50), tamago (£1.50), Unagi (£1.60 ONLY!), salmon (£1.50) and squid (£1.50), all lively and all exhibited the melt-in-your-mouth sensations. Me being ever so picky, I had my doubts about the rice. It was just a tad too soft, too runny, it was verging on breaking though. It was above average but it wasn’t fragrant enough and it certainly wasn’t the best I’d ever had. The sting of vinegar and an a salty kick was missing from the sushi rice, too subtle, it also felt a little too cold to my tongue, there wasn’t the warmth of a well-rehearsed ‘nirigi te’ of a seasoned Itamae, and the overall experience just did not flatter with starchiness. In my humble opinion, nigiri is one dish where ‘melt-in-your-mouth’ however cliché, best describes the measure of it.

We ordered the spider maki, the prawn tempura maki (with asparagus), the salmon skin maki and the negi toro (tuna belly) maki, they were all fine, only let down ever so slightly by the rice.

I could not confirm the where abouts of the rice used. The gold standard is of course Uonuma Koshihikari⁹ (meaning ‘The Light of Koshi’ and certified preferably) from Niigata Japan, though I’m not sure if Atari-Ya actually sells them. Myself, I use pretty standard stuff, American-grown Nishiki rice¹⁰, when I make sushi at home, though I know that Japan Centre does sell American-grown Koshihikari rice¹¹. I’m not actually sure if any restaurants in London use Japanese Koshihikari, I suspect the higher end restaurants do, Umu or Zuma perhaps, since rice is such an integral part of great sushi.

Seared Turbot £6

This was uncharacteristically tough, our chopsticks were on the verge of cracking trying to break into the fish. Inside, I noted that it was nicely cooked, only ever so slightly under and flaky as ever. We really didn’t enjoy the tough hide though.

Abalone, £6

Yeah, I’m Chinese, and we love abalone, it is a delicacy after all, or what my mum would say is a ‘big occasion’ ingredient. Basically these deep sea creatures are a type of sea snail, they taste it too, what with the rubbery texture. Here, they have used what we call ‘baby abalone’ (I think the black-lip is the official name), being much more abundant and thus significantly more affordable than full-size white abalone, which can be as large as a fist and can command a sterling premium, up to a hundred quid each perhaps.

Yes it was ok. We were a little disappointed with the soup, it wasn’t as aromatic or as intense as we’d like it to be, but it was good. The abalone was nicely cooked.

More abalone..

And this one basted with (what I believe) was teriyaki sauce. The texture of abalone is it’s greatest trait, it needs to be carefully cooked to maintain a rubbery bounciness, yet still be chewable. If one overcooks this, then it becomes edible latex. Fortunately, it was not overcooked in this case.

Seared Razor Clam, Yuzu, £7

The good news never stopped coming. The last dish were gently seared razor clams with a dash of yuzu. It tasted of orange zest drizzled all across the elastic razor clams, apt for summer.

Nearly there….

Hey guys, thanks for the emails and comments regarding the decision¹² to change formats last week. As you can tell, I’ve reverted. A word-limit is limiting at times, I write for the readership in any case, here is an excerpt that changed my mind:

“…stick to your “new media” guns – the whole point of a blog is to be rid of the the shackles of a sub editor who is driven by word count, and for the writer to deliver whatever they feel best expresses their point of view…… as Elvis said to President Nixon: “Sir, your’ve got your show to run and I’ve got mine”.

Thanks Ian.

I ordered one last o-toro nigiri just to be sure. Indeed the fish was excellent. It rivalled my experiences both in London and elsewhere, including Singapore, Sydney and Taipei. Three cities which are sushi mad. The rice just wouldn’t melt in the mouth. It stayed flabby and starchy, I could be spewing rubbish here because while I think it is good, it just wasn’t clinically great. I’ll better articulate it in future posts. In the end, our bill came to £95 or £25 for four, service was at our discretion. It was excellent value, the fish was brilliant, and I am convinced that Atari-Ya are quite possibly the bona-fide tuna specialists in London. There is life after Sushi Hiro afterall¹³. I recommend it whole-heartedly.

The Gist of It

Atari-Ya
£25pp, Japanese.
75 Fairfax Road NW6 4EE
Tube: Swiss Cottage
Tel: 020 7328 5338

More thoughts on Atari-ya: Food Raker ; A girl has to eat ; Charmaine Mok

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The full update to the rankings will be published on Saturday.

There was a time when Gordon Ramsay was the darling of the nation, the once protege who displaced his mentor, then the king of British gastronomy, Marco Pierre White. Like his mentor, he has achieved three stars and so much more. I remember my first brush with Gordon Ramsay food, albeit indirectly. It was on a Singapore Airlines flight to London, Gordon as a consultant for the airline’s menu. I remember being impressed then with his credentials, late thirties and already a qualified genius of his craft. And I still respect Gordon Ramsay for what he has achieved.

Having attained international fame, he went on to build an empire that employes thousands across his multitude of restaurants around the world (12 UK, 2 Oz, 4 US, 5 Europe, 1 Middle East, 1 Asia, 1 Africa). The mind boggles with the commercial rampage, which I guess has contributed to the critical reception today. He has grown to the point where his stars are not a direct result from the flash of his pan per se, least not in the same way as say Francesco Mazzei is vying for one. One wonders if he still cooks in the kitchens of his restaurants. The man’s reputation has been dented, resulting in reports of massive losses incurred over the last few years, and perhaps most damagingly, Claridge’s losing a star. Ah but at the same time, it is precisely why 2010 should be the most exciting of times to dine at a Gordon Ramsay. What will their response be I wonder? Will it be all guns blazing, career on the line fight to win back the fans by rehashing their corporately tainted clinical cooking with a sense of passion, or would they simply fade into obscurity becoming a tired, overly complex franchise, waiting to be unravelled by Richard Caring? Whatever the case, Team Gordon would need to paddle twice if not thrice as hard to avoid sinking the ship which has taken on more than it should.

This Pétrus is not the old Pétrus because technically speaking, Pétrus still exists today, at the Berkeley hotel. Its chef – Marcus Wareing – still runs the restaurant today (unsurprisingly rechristening it Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley) and about the only change is in name, and maybe Wareing’s feelings toward his former mentor. It was a very public separation between master and apprentice, once the dynamic duo spearheading the British gastrocrown, but which turned into bitter rivalry. The name belongs to Gordon Ramsay and he had always vowed to re-open another Pétrus. The day is now. This rebirth of sorts coincides with so many things derailing in Ramsay’s empire at the moment, one does wonder if it is indeed the right move to add even more to his plate. He is backed into a corner now, and somehow I get the feeling that he is fighting back, and getting back to the real reason why he is in the business of cooking – to cook great food. As an observer, I view Pétrus as a key battle. A must-win. No surprise then, that all the best members of the Ramsay’s council have assembled to re-ignite the brand. Jean-Philippe Susilovic leads the front of house with his recognisable charm, and of course Mark Askew – Executive chef of Ramsay’s empire – is in charge of overseeing proceedings in the kitchens.

Saturday lunch in the cordial company of Oliver, Magnus and David. As you would expect from Gordon Ramsay restaurants, a flurry of complimentary amuse bouches were the first order of the day.

Appetizers came in the form of popcorns, and the amuse bouche was a warm onion veloute to grease the palate. As one would expect, the room has an understated allure. The centre-piece of the restaurant is a tubular glass design which doubles as a wine storage unit. Red velvet is plastered across the walls, reminiscent of the Berkeley restaurant, save for a distinct lack of leather. Large windows on either side pour in heaps of sunshine. For wine, we chose an 2007 Austrian White. Made from a blend of riesling and pinot blanc (if I am not mistaken), a lighter style with citrus hints (which I thought tasted like a fluttery orange zest) and a sizzling acidity that gently massaged the tip of my tongue.

As it was lunch service, my dining companions chose the amazingly affordable set lunch, three courses for £25, the price includes two choices from the set menu, and pudding is picked from the a la carte as well as all the accompanying freebies. I went for the a la carte, £55, because I’m greedy.

Starters : Roasted langoustine tails with watercress soup and confit potato

The crustaceans were served naked at first, and I noticed the exquisite bronze colour, as well as it’s efficient styling. The waitress then poured out the watercress, masterfully avoiding any drops on the shellfish, just like the old Petrus then. As expected, the soup carried the distinct peppery edge of watercress, herby and spicy as it went down. The langoustines were fresh, juicy and had a muscular bite to it – incredibly sweet, and which balanced well against the lively soup. Effortlessly easy to digest, I liked this.

Main courses : Roasted beef fillet with braised shin, baked celeriac and Barolo sauce

For my mains, it was a toss up between the beef or the baked lobster, but since I had already had a seafood starter, I opted for the bovine. I asked for it medium rare, and it was cooked perfectly so, oh yes, very well cooked piece of meat – the juices well retained as every bite was soaking wet. As it was fillet, what it lacked in natural flavour was made up for with the accompanying components. Firstly, a densely braised shin of beef, delicately soft with a syrupy caramelised sauce, and on the side a well whipped, if slightly blasé choice of celeraic puree. The red wine sauce seemed a little too runny, it looked as if olive oil was left in the mix as well for effect. Well cooked but it was a little boring. Not quite world beating.

And so that was that, at intermission, much appreciated freebies came our way in the form of a mini faux ice cream cone, with a tiny scoop of lemon and mascarpone – it was amazingly zesty, real palate cleanser this was.

To finish, I went for the coffee soup with a hazelnut financier.

And we have a winner. Warm coffee, richly aromatic, against a beautiful backdrop of superb hazelnut ice cream and the crunch of the wafer. The hazelnut ice cream in particularly was accomplished. I loved this.

Petit fours were a selection of chocolate and almonds, as well as a theatrical frozen lollipop served with sublimating dry ice – a bracing finish.

Our bill came to £361, that’s four £25 set lunches, two bottles of wine, four glasses of aperitifs, two desert wines, 2 coffees and my £55 ala carte. The full whack would have set me back £65 for five courses. Reasonable if pricy, however not prohibitively so as the £25 set lunch is admittedly affordable. I was under no illusions. As soon as I finished licking the last drops of my coffee soup, I was convinced that Gordon Ramsay was going to win another star. It is the right timing to open after all, nearly ten months for the inspectors to make up their mind. The space was luxurious, the service a finely balanced act of personable professionalism (would you expect otherwise from J-P?), an affordable wine list and food impossibly prepared to the highest order. Mr Susilovic gave us a tour of the kitchen before we left, and while there, we met the head chef Sean Burbidge… as well as Mark Askew, whom I was told would be spending more time at Petrus than at No.68 over the next few months. A three starred chef overseeing the kitchen, no wonder food was so clinical. There could not be a better time to visit Pétrus than in its incubating months.

In spite of this, I still had my reservations about the restaurant, particularly its future. What troubled me was not because there was anything wrong with the food, in fact far from it. As I said, food was exceptionally cooked, if not perfectly so. And therein was the problem : Formula. Let’s face it, Michelin restaurants – even if it is a set of hazy criteria – can be hazily identified. Like his mentor, Gordon has perfected this road to stardom, and the question is do we really need yet another? It was the quintessential michelin-standard meal. Unimpressionable, impersonal and dare I say out of date. I’d eaten this several times before, oft replicated style of haute cuisine that at some point, one has to wonder – enough with the ponce man, surprise me won’t you. I’m not a hater, I’m just calling it as I see it. With the saturation of food media (and blogs), I fear that the average restaurant collector (that would be me) is a much more enlightened man. I feel that Gordon Ramsay’s fluffy French food has lost its competitive sheen, and perhaps this might be the reason for his recent financial woes. In the face of younger, hungrier chefs such as Mazzei, Van de Horst and to a certain extend Loubet sharing the same base of customers in London, I’m not sure Gordon’s brand has the power to hold my attention anymore. The aforementioned chefs just seem to deliver with so much more clarity, and for those in the know, the impending arrival of Nuno Mendes’ Viajante in the trendier, edgier East End. This was a chance for the Ramsay team to reboot the brand, and take the opportunity to expand their repertoire and to bring a new dynamic to the ever changing landscape of restaurants in London. Instead a safer route was chosen, too much was too familiar. Has Gordon Ramsay still got it? If you like the traditional idea of wining and dining, then yes of course he does, Mark Askew does have three michelin stars after all. Here’s the kicker: I would happily spend £25 for the prudent elegance, but I would not be compelled to spend another £55 at Pétrus. Prix Fixe anyone?

Note: Have a look on Magnus’ flickr stream to see what the set lunch looks like. There are reports that the price of the set lunch is not going to stay at £25 for long.

The Gist of it

Petrus official site £65 ala carte ; £25 set lunch
1 Kinnerton Street SW1X 8EA
Tel: 020 7592 1609
Tube: Knightsbridge

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It has been at least a year since I last visited Great Queen Street, a restaurant which I frequented in 2008. Still signage-free and firmly offline, the low profile hasn’t kept No.32 from becoming the establishment it is today. Owned by chef/writer Tom Norrington-Davies, he has made 32 a name for its nameless self by serving slick food with a decidedly British feel, revered all around and critically acclaimed, and I love it too. Afterall, I thought their crabs on toast was the very best thing I ate in 2008.

Oh you know me, I harbour distaste for ponce even though I am guilty of appreciating the pretension which has enabled restaurants to suck my wallet dry, at times anyway. If you are reading this, there is a good chance you will already have eaten at Great Queen Street. You would have probably enjoyed reading the flurry of reviews spinning new angles on the bare-bones, no-shit policy at GQS. High end British bistro food, once a novelty in these parts, is now in abundance. Every other pub out there is now a gastropub, or wants to be one. Speaking of pubs, I’ve just learnt that my local – The Prince Regent – had packed it in recently. Strong competition from Byron perhaps. A sign that it’s time for me to uproot from West London maybe. I have been looking into artist studios, you know Sam Taylor-Wood style, flooding natural light from large windows, mandatory. If you have leads, let me know would you.

I had never visited on a Sunday, mainly because it never used to open on Sundays, and when it did, it was always difficult to secure a table. It is the perfect venue for family gatherings, and GQS have family-portioned feasts positioned to cater to this crowd on weekends. If I never went to Goodman, I would be more impressed with their Hereford Rib roast. The shop front is still as unassuming as ever, and the burgundian sheen maintaining a majestic lustre. Tumblers seemed smaller than I remembered, though the Beaujolais are still as bitterly jammy as I remembered them. Slurp. One of their major features of course, is that daily menu – like a box of chocolates, you know what to expect, but there are always surprises. Hereford steaks, roast chicken, terrines and hearty soups largely unchanged from previous iterations. It feels a little like a lottery, was I going to see samphire or crabs on toast this time around? I didn’t hold my breath, both were missing. Service is still something I admire at GQS. A bunch of cool kids in grey t-shirts and jeans and striped aprons. Serving with an air of maturity, a major laid back attitude, just so cool. GQS exudes a sort of atmosphere that makes one feel like a secret agent. Yeah I’m MI6, my over achieving imagination says. So our waiter was American, dare I say a New Yorker, oh hell I’m hopeless with identifying American accents anyway, he welcomed us and read out the specials. I forgot! GQS specials, I raised my head to the chalk board just outside the kitchen. Shows how long since my last visit.

“Today we have mussels on… and crabs on toast”. YES. Winner, get in Kang. Say no more sir, we want two, please. £7.40 each.

Glorious! Fishy, muddy and the vigorous taste of roe. I think it just might be better three years on. The sourdough toast is puffy soft and it’s inherently acidity compliments the strength of the topping. A squid of lemon brings out the mineral aspect of this dish, it just about leaves an oysters-like aftertaste. I hazard a guess that this is made primarily with brown crab meat, with bits of orange coloured roe – visible through the brown paste – that gives it the wonderful fishiness and graininess as opposed to a citrus clean texture of only just white crab meat. Instant classic, I am so glad that GQS are still doing this. Three thumbs up.

I usually mop up her food but my other half finished her crabs on toast, a good sign, but I could have eaten at least another. Rolling onto the main courses, firstly the Roast Old Spot at £13.80.

The meat is gently roasted, stuffed with a minty paste and had given rise to a perfectly pink, juicily wet and a fragile porcelain texture. I’ve had their middle whites with samphires before, and I have come to the conclusion that GQS know to caress their meat with heat. They deliver the most comfortingly sultry sliced pork in town, I think they’ve got it down to an art form. The best part was of couse the fat. Gently so with fluttery buttery flavours. The beans were probably just for amusement. Another winner. I gobbled up all the fatty bits my other fat daren’t ingest.

I’ve waited long enough to try their minute steak once again, £14.

It has a loving roastiness pulsing through the meat. It is deeply marinated, like a churrasco, salty and intense. While I am a proponent of natural flavours, I think pan-fried marinated beef which is well-executed can be an endearing experiencing, and there is no better example than this one. The excellent horseradish cream is amazingly sharp, it hits the nose straight away and balances so well against the umami from the steak. A sweet vinegary watercress salad and a tinge of bitterness completes this dish. I’ve watched the kitchen cook one of these before. I used to love sitting at the bar closest to the kitchen, and I watched them pan-fry and then bake the steak in the oven. They usually serve it bloody, just the way I love it. Anyway, I distinctly remember a much chunkier cut in 2008, the portions may have shrunk a little, but it is as mouth-watering as when I first had it.

The last piece of the puzzle. Pumpkin ice cream, shortbread. £2.80

I’ve tried most of their puddings, the spiked caramel one is pretty good, but not the best. The best are their home brewed ice cream. Dollops of clotted cream must have been used, it is seriously sticky, thick and takes forever to melt. The ice cream has a honeyed sweetness, and the mushy pumpkin bits add an fibrous root-veg component to the milky tastes. I love it. I first fell in love with their strawberries version, chunky bits frozen into the mix, able bodied and genuine. Italians would be proud of this surely. Served in a frozen tumbler and a shortbread, I suspect a single espresso would have been the perfect finish.

Such simple pleasures, such harmonious execution, how could one not love Great Queen Street. Can I be more gushing? Our bill came to just over fifty quid, service at the discretion of the diner. I shook off all the pound coins I had in my pocket. Not quite enough. The décor may be textbook, but the food is far from it. I think they have gotten better over time, perfecting the gastropub concept and churning out food that looks simple on the surface, but which explodes with complexity. Everything goes down smooth. I wrote this review by design of course, I think this is the strongest three course combo you could have at GQS. Avoid their fish if possible, it’s not nearly as exciting as their meat. Did I mention the aromas? Probably since the kitchen is exposed, the smell of roast and freshly fried chips permeates through the room, breathable grease. Highly recommended, if you’ve never been, pick up the phone now.

The Gist of It

32 Great Queen Street, £30pp
32 Great Queen Street Covent Garden, WC2B 5AA
Tel : 020 7242 0622
Tube : Covent Garden
Reviews elsewhere : SusanLovesFood… London ; The Happiness Project London ; London Food Detective ; Laissez Fare ; Food. By Mark

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This is what food blogging looks like. Today, he is trying an experiment, by training his antiquated film camera on a plate of cheese and fruit all the while bobbing to tunes streamed from the internet to his touch sensitive media device that can also make calls, sometimes. Once he exhausts his roll of C41s, a 19th century design, he will digitise the developed negatives, ready then for digital publishing. Welcome to the 21st century. The freedom and availability of the world wide web has encouraged a whole generation to express themselves and it has given rise to the consummate amateur in a bid to announce his average punter’s opinion to the anyone who cares to listen to the broadcast. And boy, did he shout at the top of his lungs. With the advent of Web 2.0 architecture, it brought cheaper and sleeker tools to this very amateur publisher who sometimes thinks of himself as an independent voice, raging against the very system which had chewed him up for so long. The 21st century has also opened up the world of photography and decoupled the learning curve and the burden of developing costs to endow the end user with more image processing capabilities than ever before. Respect for good light is essentially a thing of the past now, as a sleuth of new cameras, equipped with highly capable digital sensors which can quite literally see in the dark. Now, everybody can be a photographer.

An Introduction

People often ask me what camera I use, often I will say that I shoot with a Nikon D700, but that does not really tell you much about my picture making abilities, because photography is much more than just a choice of camera. You’ve got to think about subject matter, framing, composition, quality of light, direction of light, post processing methods, lens choice, depth of field and so goes the list. All of these decisions impact one another when in pursuit of the perfect exposure. Even if you achieve personal perfection, it is a largely subjective state. A technically perfect image might not be an aesthetically pleasing picture, in which case, it just means it’s a bad photograph, or is it? Subject matter trumps technical quality. While it means that a superstar photog like say, Chase Jarvis will be able to grab startling results with his iPhone (good enough to publish as a photo book) it doesn’t mean that the iPhone is his camera of choice (various accounts suggest that he is also, very much a Nikon man). A camera is a tool which helps to get the job done. The better the tool, the easier and quicker the job can be done. But it is the photographer who makes the photograph, not the image making machine. Once you get your head around to that, you’ll realise that the best camera is actually the one you have on you right now.

Still, that’s the romantic way of looking at a craft, realistically, gear is just as important as skill when it comes to making photographs. If I had my way, I’d shoot with a Hassy 503CWD everyday. If I had my way. But the tension that photographers have with regards to gear/skill is a debate that rages on everyday. Would Dan Winters still be able to make his painterly portraits with a 35mm camera instead of his 8×10 setup? The best camera just simply isn’t good enough, if you have the thirst for achieving perfection in photographs, then it is only natural for your mind wonder about the latest technology floating about in the ether. Sometimes, I think of ‘upgrading’ as a way to buy into technical quality, but never asthetic quality.

And so I thought I would present a little guide to purchasing cameras, in case you ever wondered about the diverse range of products out there which a generation of bloggers might use to create their sumptuous photography. Whether you are a budding food blogger, or just someone wanting to learn abit more about cameras, this guide should prove to be a suitable introduction into the different types of formats available in most consumer driven economies. I’ll try to keep things fun too, let’s begin shall we.

Single Lens Reflex Cameras

Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras are by far the popular choice amongst food bloggers, if not professionals in general, not to mention the weekend Robert Frank wannabes. SLRs have a long history with photo enthusiasts throughout the ages, some of the world’s most well-known photographs have been made with classic SLRs of their time, namely the Nikon F. The way SLRs work are such that you see exactly what the lens sees. I know this seems like an intuitive and obvious design, but you would be surprised at the vast array of camera technologies out there which does not abide by this philosophy, some of which I will speak about later in this guide. In every SLR, lies a mirror box which deflects light from the lens into a glass penta-prism which then bounces the image the lens sees, to the viewfinder and then finally to your eye. From there, you are able to see what the final image looks like, then it is just a matter of framing and focusing before deciding to squeeze the shutter. When that happens, the mirror flips up to allow light to pass through to the shutter, which then opens to allow light to pass through to the film/sensor. When the photograph is exposed, the mirror flips down again. You can usually hear the ‘mirror-slap’ everytime you make an exposure… to some it’s music, to others (like myself) it’s equivalent to cow-fart, we gearheads prefer our cameras to be dead silent, so we can ‘blend-in’. Much of the bulk of an SLR camera is down to this inherent mirror-box/penta-prism design which takes up much of the space inside an SLR, see the large head on the camera? That’s where the penta-prism lives.

You will notice that I have not talked about digital SLRs yet because digital and film SLRs are essential the same design. The way you make the photograph is the same, it is simply that the recording medium, the film, has been interchanged with a digital sensor. SLR designs encompass a wide range of cameras designed to work with a wide range of film sizes, though let’s keep things simple and limit this part of the discussion to just the 35mm format. We’ll leave the larger formats to latter part of this guide. The 35mm format has a 3:2 ratio and it physically measures 36mm x 24mm. You’ll see why this dimension is important in a second.

Now, I assume you are mostly interested in digital rather than film, you want the beef on the latest digital stuff. There are several major brands out there including Pentax, Olympus and Sony who build great consumer SLRs, but most tend to fall in either the Nikon or Canon camp. Why you say? In the film days, the Nikon F was the professional’s choice primarily because of their sleuth of sharp and fast manual lenses. Nikon were also one of the first companies then to build very use-sable wide aperture, wide angle lenses such as the Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS for example – the photo-journalists choice. Eventually, Canon started building their EOS system and today their professional ‘L’ range of lenses have surpassed the Nikon cannon. It doesn’t stop me from buying Nikon though, more on lenses shortly.

In the digital world of SLRs, there are two terms you need to be familiar with : cropped sensors and full frame sensors. The latter is simple : a full frame sensor is equivalent in physical dimensions to a 35mm film negative. This is significant because it allows you to use the lenses as they were originally intended. The size of a film/sensor affects depth of field (how much in front/behind the focus point is in focus) and this is the key factor which compels users to buy into SLR systems : so that you can isolate subjects from the background, by blurring it out. Ironic don’t you think? The more money one spends, the blurrier the photo becomes… The larger the recording medium, the less the depth of field, the more accurate the focusing needs to be, to produce a good exposure. So in short, full frame cameras allow you to nail that striking look, with a higher degree of background blur using the equivalent lens/aperture compared to a cropped frame camera.

So what is the deal with cropped sensors then? Well, a cropped sensor basically means that it is smaller than a 35mm sensor/film. Usually about 1.5 times smaller, it is otherwise known as the APS-C format. The cropped sensor leads to a cropped field of view and changes the way your lens sees things. A 24mm lens is no longer 24mm on APS-C, it becomes a 36mm lens (1.5 x 24mm). The sensor only sees the centre cropped bit of the image projected by the lens and not the entire image which it is capable of projecting. While you lose out on perspective, what you gain is a cheaper camera. A full frame camera will set you back about at least £1800, very few companies make full frame SLRs, three to be exact : Sony, Nikon D700 and Canon. In the cropped sensor world, there is an abundance of choice and they start from as low as 300 quid. If you ask me, a Canon 400D will give you pictures equivalent to the 7D… 90% of the time. The only tangible differences are perhaps down to ruggedness in body construction, ie plastic body versus magnesium alloy.

Coming back to the mirror box conundrum again. The sheer size and noise an SLR camera makes is, in my opinion, it’s biggest problem. Sometimes, I feel like a pap on a dinner table. Try aiming a D3x attached with a 24-70 f.2.8 (plus hood) at someone, I guarantee that the first few seconds of facial expressions will be… interesting.

So here’s my recommendations if you want to buy an SLR system:

Budget You will hardly go wrong with the cheapest SLR choices from all the major manufacturers. There is currently no such thing as a ‘cheap’ full frame camera, so all budget choices are equipped with APS-C CMOS sensors. Sometimes you will find older bodies which utilise CCDs instead, such as the Nikon D40, go for it. The differences should be minor, but I personally prefer CCDs, they make cleaner, less plasticky pictures.

1. Nikon D3000 body only £339
2. Canon EOS 1000D body only £319
3. Sony Alpha A230 body only £329

Mid-range This is a contentious category, I debated as to whether I should include this because I feel that in the digital world, there is no such thing as mid-budget bodies. I have made photographs using a D40 (200quid) and D700 (1700quid) which are at times difficult to tell apart, and that’s comparing a cropped sensor versus a state of the art full frame one. Semi-pro bodies use ‘advanced’ cropped sensors, they build them with better viewfinders, and more rugged shutters as well as a much tougher body. But in terms of the picture making element, the sensor, the differences as I said are slight. Going from a cropped sensor to a full frame is another matter altogether because you gain benefits with regards to a change of perspective and so forth. But if it’s between a high end and low end cropped sensor body, I think it’s really a just matter of personal preference. Oh but they shoot video too…

1. Nikon D300s body only £1100
2. Sony Alpha A550 body only £700
3. Canon 7D body only £1250

Pro. Congratulations. You have money to spend, wow. The best digital 35mm full frame format SLRs money can buy as follows:

1. Nikon D3x 24 megapixels, body only. £4800
2. Canon EOS 5D Mk II 21.1 megapixels, body only. £1600
3. Sony A900 24.6 megapixels, body only. £1900

…. and I shoot with a Nikon D700, body only £1700. Take your pick, if you have 2k to splash, all cameras in this category are awesome. If you fail to make a good photograph, you can’t blame the machine.

You will have noticed that I have only recommended you buy a ‘body only‘ camera. What about the lens? Well first of all, forget about bundled zoom lenses – they suck. Don’t believe what the camera guy says, 18-55mm cheap zooms are just that cheap zooms. There is a reason why pro level £1200 24-70 f2.8 lenses exists, and also the reason why professionals use them. NOW, here’s where the real excitement begins…

The importance of LENSES

There is a rule of thumb when it comes to splurging on system cameras. Save as much as you can on the cheapest body but spend as much as your budget will allow on the lens. Think about it, the lens is the first bit of kit that comes in contact with light. It is also the only physical medium which light must travel through in order to reach the sensor/film. So therefore, the lens then represents the ultimate bottleneck in a picture making machine. Slap a poor lens on a sophisticated full frame camera and you will be depriving the benefits of that detail monster. You might as well buy a cheap cropped frame body. Hence the arguement, lenses : ultimate bottlenecks.

90% of my food photography is shot using just one focal length and one lens. The Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS, fully manual, 1960s design. Hard to believe? It’s true. None of my lenses are longer than 4 inches and long lens envy is a myth. Unless you are a sports photographer needing to nail a portrait shot of Becks from half a mile away, you will not need a 400mm. Traditionally, lenses were made in one focal length only. We call them prime lenses. Lenses which have the ability to change it’s own field of view are known as zooms. You can think of zoom lenses as a bunch of primes lenses in various focal lengths in one neat package. If zooms are so convenient, then why do primes still exist? Well prime lenses are much easier to design which means higher image quality that almost always trumps zooms (save for a few exceptions). And prime lenses have much larger apertures, much larger.

The lens aperture is denoted by it’s f number. The larger the aperture, the smaller the f number and the thinner the depth of field (when shooting at largeaperture/lowfnumber). This leads some photogs to use the expression ‘wide open’ when it comes to creating images with a shallow depth of field. Opening up the aperture, effectively allows you to blur the background out and isolate the subject from the background by keeping only the subject in focus. The quality of the blur is something photogs obsess over early in their hobby, the term which describes the unquantifiable quality of the blurry bits is called ‘Bokeh’. An example is the photograph above, just look at the bokeh (forgive the pun).

With the advent of cropped sensors, you will need to rethink your lens considerations as they will change the FOV of your lenses, reducing the effective FOV in most cases by the factor which I’ve used previously. Hence a 24mm becomes a 36mm and so forth. Let’s try to rationalise the numbers and see if we can categorise lens focal lenghts in 35mm format :

Wide Angle Lenses from 14mm to 35mm They have a wide field of view and they start from around 14mm which is equivalent to 114 degrees. Human vision is about 120 degrees. Normally, wide angles are used by photo-journalists who are close to the action and who want to capture as much information as possible. A 24mm is usually considered ‘wide’ and allows you to capture say the 3/4 of the subject matter standing 1m away from you, guesstimating anyway. A 35mm is ‘semi-wide’, if you shield off your temples with your hands, that’s roughly a 35mm, ok maybe a bit wider.

Lens suggestions
Full Frame : Nikkor 24mm f1.4G , Canon 24mm f1.4L , Nikkor 35mm f1.4 AIS, Zeiss ZF 35mm f2 Distagon T, Canon 35mm f1.4L, Sony 35mm f1.4G SAL-35F14G… and the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8G – stunner.
Cropped Frame … there’s no compelling primes to consider really.

Normal lenses 40mm- 60mm The ultimate normal lens is the classic 50mm. Some say it mimics human vision, and because it is so natural, others think it’s a weird focal length which is not wide enough, nor is it long enough. Either way, the 50mm is one of the least expensive routes into achieving striking bokeh isolating portraits.

Lens suggestions
Full Frame : Nikkor 50mm f1.8 AFD, Canon 50mm f1.2L, Zeiss ZF50mm f1.4 Planar
Cropped Frame: Nikkor 35mm f1.8G DX, Canon 35mm f2.0

Macro Lenses Ah yes, herein lies the true strength of the SLR system : Macro photography. It is one of the few systems which allow 1:1 reproduction and can reveal microscopic worlds. Macro lenses are specially designed for close-up photography, and particularly suited for food. They are extremely well corrected up-close and the closer you get, the more striking the portrait. So. The choices.

Nikkor 60mm f2.8ED , Nikkor 105 f2.8ED VR. -> The latter is superior.
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM
Zeiss 50mm f2.0 Makro Planar

Telephotos These long lenses are primarily used to shoot portraits, longer lenses tend to produce a compression effect which appears to make subjects look slimmer. Not always of course, but say 70% of the time, you’ll find that people look more ‘flattering’ when portraits are shot with telephotos. This is also the reason why wedding photogs lug around huge white lenses. That’s usually a 200 or a 300 f2.8L if I am not mistaken.

As I said before, I’m not a fan of telephotos, but if you are obsessed with bokeh, do yourself a favour and invest in either the Nikkor 85mm f1.4 AFD or AIS (the above photo is shot with this), Canon 85mm f1.2L, Zeiss 85mm f1.4 Planar. These are all awesome lenses.

The Rangefinder

Now that we are over the overly long discussion about SLR, lens designs and so forth, lets now move to the other camera systems on the market. Forgive me if I get abit melodramatic in this section, but to me, rangefinders inject magic into photography, these are not mere tools, these are the optical equivalent of wizard wands.

Rangefinders are archaic designs. Popular in the beginning days when 35mm was the then ‘compact camera format’, we’re talking 20′s, 30′s and 40′s folks. Now, only a handful of manufacturers make them, mostly for film only. If you ever shoot rangefinders, I guarantee you will fall in love with the freedom that 35mm brings to the picture making process. Rangefinder cameras are much, much smaller than SLRs mainly because they do not have mirror boxes or pentaprisms. This also means that the photographer does not see what the lens sees. Instead the photographer focuses the image through a ‘rangefinder/viewfinder’ which sits on top of the camera, decoupled from the lens. That is to say that the you would not see what the camera sees, instead the viewfinder is literally just a window through which the photographer sees the world. Bear with me as I try to explain this.

The viewfinder shows framelines for the different focal lengths of the different lenses you snap on. So in other words, you can see what’s coming in and out of the frame. This is useful since it allows the photographer to ‘see the world’ and then choose to cut away which ever detail as he sees fit. Now in the centre of the viewfinder is what is known as the rangefinder mask. This mask shows a split image. When you point the camera at the subject, you need to focus the lens until the two split images align. When they align, the subject is then in focus. That’s right, manual focus only. Rangefinders require a higher degree of commitment from the photographer, but the completely manual nature of the camera does mean that you think about every exposure more and nailing the shot is all the more rewarding. You’ll find that over time, your basic knowledge of photography basics improve with time. You’ll find yourself estimate the intensity of light and you’ll think in stops and handheld shutter speeds, you’ll also build up a mental focal scale as you become adept with estimating focus distance…is it a 1m or 1.3m and so on. You become a ‘better’ photographer. Overtime, you’ll become baffled with the automation of modern SLRs, adjusting aperture, shutter speed and focus manually would be second nature.

Zeiss, Cosina Voigtlander and Leica currently still make film based rangefinders. In history, there has only been three digital models ever made: The Epson RD-1 (out of production) , the Leica M8 (phasing out) and the Leica M9 (the world’s first and only full frame digital rangefinder on the market). When one speaks about rangefinders, usually one is referring to Leica cameras. These legendary cameras are hand made out from their Solms factory in Germany, and the German engineering is so revered and precise that Leica cameras are said to be able to outlive their first owners. There is great mystique attached to Leicas primarily because they have been the camera of choice for so many of the worlds greatest photographers in history, particularly street photographers. Henri Cartier Bresson, William Klein, Robert Capa, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, all Leica men. The romantic idea of roaming the urban jungle with a compact camera and capturing the decisive moment revolves around the Leica. Handling one of these cameras is much like handling a jewel. The smooth shutter release button trips a discreet sound, a barely audible click, the result of the cloth shutter exposing the film – no cowfart of a mirror slap here. The film advance lever is silky smooth, nothing on the market compares, and the bright viewfinder is just breathtaking. Leicas are a joy to use, but more so than anything, Leica lenses are perhaps the most prized of all man-made optical jewels.

Leica lenses are said to produce creamy smooth bokeh, have excellent colour rendition and that they draw images so beautifully, some claim there is an indescribable ‘glow’, an x-factor if you like. This indescribable x-factor comes at a price. As an example, a Leica 35mm f2.0 summicron ASPH will set you back 2000 pounds. That’s Great British Pounds.

The two photos in this section was shot with the Leica M8 mounted with a 35mm f2 ASPH lens. Note the superiorly smooth bokeh, and then look at the overall aesthetic of the picture and then to the colour fidelity – it just produces sharp photos no? Part of the reason is also due to sensor design. Leicas use CCD sensors which do not have anti-aliasing (AA) filters in front of the sensors. The AA filter is a sort of ‘blur filter’ which is designed to minimise what is known as ‘moire’ patterns, artifacts associated with repeated lines and so forth. An AA filter is usually present in digital SLR sensors. The lack of one leads to clearer shots. Couple an AA-less sensor design with the super high-resolution Leica lenses and you have an impressive compact image making machine.

So what’s the catch? Well, for one, Leicas are horribly expenses. A Leica M8 (1.3cropped sensor) costs £2500, the Leica M9 (full frame sensor) costs £4850, and the lenses start at around £1200. Plus, the nearest focusing distance for all Leica lenses is 70cm. My 60mm f2.8 focuses down to 18cm. The picture above is about as close as I can get to the sushi with a 35mm lens. Yes there are macro modifiers which you can fit on to a Leica camera, but even then, it doesnt give you 1:1 reproduction, closer to 0.3x magnification, and the CCD sensors are bad at low light, really bad. I don’t use rangefinders to shoot food, they just cannot get me close enough. In spite of this though, I love shooting with the Leicas, the romantic idea of capturing the streets is too addictive to put down. After all, it is the way I have come to understand the medium : the art of document life today. With Leicas, its all heart, logic goes down the drain, along with your bank balance.

Point and shoots

Compact, sleek, desirable and practical. In the digital world, everybody has a point and shoot. Point and shoots are like rangefinders, without the rangefinder. In the place of an optical viewfinder, the shutter simply keeps itself open so light passes from the lens straight through to the digital sensor. That’s how you get live view on the back of the LCD screen. Remember we spoke about cropped sensors? Well, digital compact sensors are typicaly 4 to 6 times smaller than full frame sensors. The significant reduction in sensor size means a significant reduction in cost and size of the lens, overall camera size and at the expense of also overall image quality. It’s basically taking a 35mm negative and cutting out 80% of the picture. Think about all that information you throw away! The smaller sensors mean higher depth of field for equivalent focal lengths, so shooting at say f2.0 on a point and shoot will give you an equivalent depth of field of say f8 on full frame.

Technology is rapidly catching up these days, and manufacturers are able to pull out even the tiniest detail from the compact sensors. So much so that many foodbloggers have created very accomplished photographs using point and shoot cameras. If I were to invest in a point and shoot, it would have to be the Leica Dlux-4, Titan edition. It features a 1/1.6 sensor, which is about a 4.3 crop and it’s twin brother the Panasonic Lumix LX3 is basically the same camera but without the hefty Leica price tag. £399 vs £500. The other contender is the Canon G11 with a 1/1.7 sensor, a 4.5 crop and retails for around £400. The little brother the Canon S90 is slightly cheaper and smaller, utilises the same sensor, but the former is built more robustly, has a fold-out LCD and has a more versatile lens which focuses down to 1cm compared to the 5cm of the S90. But as I said, if I had to choose, I would get the Dlux4. Helen the World Foodie Guide uses it, and it gives fantastic results.

Large sensored Point and Shoots and EVILs

After about a decade of digital sensor technology, pros lugging around heavy and over expensive gear, fear of being heckled as a pap, photographers are now uniformly crying out for large sensor technology to be squeezed into more compact packages. The premise is simple really, why can’t we make point and shoot cameras with large sensors? Well, we can now. Olympus and Panasonic are at the forefront of the large sensor, compact body philosophy. With the advent of a new sensor format known as micro 4/3, or a sensor with a 2x crop factor, this allows manufacturers to make cameras which rival digital SLRs in image quality. Professionals are already jumping on the bandwagon. Enter the Olympus EP-1 and the EP-2. They fall under the new moniker of ‘EVIL’ cameras or ‘Electronic Viewfinder with Interchangeable Lens’, that are much smaller than SLRs and comparable in size to digital compacts. Think point and shoot, no optical viewfinder and interchangeable lens ala an SLR. The premise is to put even more ‘professional’ imaging power in hands of the hobbyist. My dad’s friend who has been a photo journalist for about 25 years has thus far avoided going digital, until he saw the Olympus. His very first digital camera. And he isn’t alone. Thom Hogan has taken his EP-1 on his photographic journeys. The other player to embrace the m4/3 EVIL bandwagon is Panasonic with their GF-1. Same deal as the Oly EP-1 really, and both cameras are at the forefront of this brand new revolution which is taking the digital photography world by storm. Very soon, the idea of paps lugging overly large cameras will be a thing of the past. Sony and Nikon are both hard and work with their interpretation of EVIL cameras, though their output probably wont be ready till early 2011. There is another player in this large sensor, small body game though : Leica.

photo credit:leica camera

Pictured above is the Leica X1. It is the first point and shoot to utilise a APS-C sensor (in fact, some say the same Sony sensor as used in the Nikon D300). It has a Leica 24mm f2.8 elmarit lens (equivalent to 36mm FOV) and it is hand-built in Germany to a classic finish same as the flagship Leica M rangefinders. Leica lens quality, focuses down to 25cm (for macros), the shutter is completely silent, is great in low light. If I had £1400, this would be my food-blogging camera of choice. Discreet, sleek, unobtrusive and most of all excellent digital image quality. What more could you ask for? £1400 perhaps. There are whispers that other manufacturers are going down this path, so the next few months will be interesting to say the least. About the only other alternative to the X1 is the Sigma DP1 and DP2, but their FOVEON sensors aren’t exactly true 12mp sensors, it’s more like a very high quality 4mp. The future of foodblogging? You decide.

Medium Format

photo credit:hassleblad

So now that we have exhausted all the compact camera choices, what else is there? Well, a whole other level, that’s what else. In the grand scheme of things, the 35mm format is tiny. Think about it, it stretches only about 36mm on its longest end – that will never give you real detail and true description. What you need is to capture light on a much bigger canvas. Enter Medium format. Negatives measure to 60mm by 60mm and their digital equivalents are made to similar dimensions. If you want real detail, as I said, the key in is a big sensor. A much bigger one. As far as I know, pros use digital MF, albeit in a controlled studio enviroment to shoot magazine spreads, be it food or fashion. And as far as I know, billboards are mostly shot with digital MF cameras. Hassleblad is the leader of the pack, though there are alternatives such as Mamiya. Personally, this is next level stuff for me, I’ve never touched a MF camera before, but if I do decide, then I want a Hassy 503 CW. It is a true system camera which can be interchanged with a film back or a digital back. It shoots square images. Now if only I had another £10,000 lying around…

Film vs Digital

Beyond medium format, there are large format cameras, we would be stepping back in time to talk about them really, and they slow the photographic process down significantly, and it’s all film based. Real photography. Art photographers mostly use large format film cameras to make their pictures. Andreas Gursky with his grand pictures, repeating patterns, macro social landscape photographs comes to mind, and my personal favourite are Dan Winter’s editorial portraits. Painterly, truly next next level stuff. As good as digital is, I don’t believe film will ever die, and I hope it never dies out because film still has a quality and a character which digital doesn’t quite yet seem to have managed. I feel that film stock produces colours and tone which are smoother, and just more natural. My film of the moment is Kodak Portra 400NC – for neutral colour. Perhaps we need to wait for the ghost in the machine to manisfest. Film is slower than digital, usually daylight balanced and fail in artificial light, much harder to master, but when you nail the exposure on film, it’s special. Ok then a little test, film vs digital. One is shot with a Nikon FM2 with a 50mm f1.4 lens with Fuji 160 film ; the other is shot with a Nikon D90 with a 16-85mm zoom lens set at 36mm. Which is which? Which is better? Does it really matter?

So there is it, a foodbloggers’ guide to cameras. Hopefully I will have piqued your interest in not just cameras, but also photography in general, subtle as it is, they are not the same thing. At the end of the day, having gone through several thousand pounds worth of camera and lenses, I feel that getting bogged down with camera choices did not instantly improve my photography. Everytime I changed systems, I learnt the strengths and weaknesses of the system and adapted to the camera to best draw out it’s potential. But the same problem always presented itself. Was the light good, how shall I compose the image? Is this a good subject to shoot? If so, will it make an enticing photograph? No camera has been able to to take away from the decision making process every time I make an exposure, and I wouldn’t want it to either. I make the photograph, not my camera.

About the Author Kang the photographer is in the business of occasionally creating mouth-watering images for his clients, mostly restaurants. His last commission involved lots of steaming pho and his next project involves shooting plates of fruit, health concious cou-cous and quinoa all to be bathed in a flood of sunshine. He loves food and cameras equally, and his growing photobook collection boasts a copy of “The Animals”. Visit his portfolio at kangphoto.com.

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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.

We had left for Berlin on the weekend of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately, we just missed all the fireworks. I’m terrible with planning trips but luckily the better half had done most (if not all) of the hardwork and managed a nifty setup in Leonardo Hotel which was only into it’s third month of operations at that time. Yes that’s right, even the hotel rooms in Berlin were bigger than usual. It’s a hotel I would recommend since there is a currywurst seller just opposite the restaurant and which seems apt to kick off my little report on Berlin food.

Currywurst – probably Germany’s most popular ‘streetfood’.There were currywursts vendors on most street corners and usually could be had for a euro or two. It is common practice to serve sausages diced and bun-free in Germany. With currywurst, the speciality is the sweet curry ketchup sauce smothered on the sausage with generous lashing of curry powder.

It’s an efficient recipe, one that I really enjoy and just about as good as I remembered it when I was in Hamburg. The sweetness of the ketchup, the aroma of the curry powder and then the seasoned saltiness of the bouncy sausages. I think German sausages are great for their consistent texture and usually rich but pure flavour – of course I am generalising here, but I’ve never had a bad German Wurst, it is their national dish afterall. We ordered some bread rolls and chips as well – the latter of which was crunchy and nutty. Maybe it’s got something to do with German potatoes, but I think German chips taste better than they do over here. We would return to Eckherts’ Currywurst shop several times again throughout this trip to top-up, and that’s not counting the sausages we devoured at the farmer’s market near our hotel as well. Mmmm….. currywurst…

A bellyful of wurst later, what we really need then is a cup of coffee. Walking around the city, we noticed the distinct absence of that American franchise with the green logo. Instead we noted a boxy brown logo virtually at all the major U-bahn stations. It bore the name of one of the more famous Germans in history : Einstein Coffee

So we decided to give it a whirl, twice actually, and it certainly felt like a franchise. I wouldn’t say it was the best coffee I had this side of Europe, but the much more euro-centric setting was alot more appealing than a tired Starbucks.

This photograph is a bit redundant because I’m not entirely sure what to say about it. Except that it’s something which caught my eye while I was in the cafe, especially the red from the coffee machine, it’s just so vibrant. It is a blog post at the end of the day I suppose, yes welcome to my brain.

As the day turned to night, the girls came out to play.

We hit town hoping to soak in abit of that famed German party animal spirit, only to find a relatively sober entertainment district. This is abit of an after fact, apparently we ‘hit town’ a tad too early, as the party doesn’t really start till 3am in the morning. Anyway, I couldn’t wait that long for dinner in any case.

One of the first culinary destinations was Cafe Noe.

It was a cosy little wine bar – there was a wide variety of single glasses including personal favourites Spat Burgunder. Their bite-size only menu seemed more Alsatian than German, baguettes with sliced cheese and fig mustard, duck terrine and French snails. We opted for the most substantial items on the menu including a ‘flammekueche’ as well as ‘blutwurstcanapes’.

This would be my first experience of the tarte flambée which is basically a razor thin pizza base – a recipe from Alsace. A swift trip to Wiki explains that the tarte flambee was created as a way to test wood-fired ovens as the peak temperature of the oven would bake the perfect tarte flambee – A crusty border just burnt by the flames of the fired oven. We ordered toppings of coppa di Parma, sour cream and rocket (9.50 euros). Now, I’m not really the pizza connoisseur as I’ve not actually been to Italy to try an ‘authentic’ pizza (or Alsace in this case), though I enjoyed the squidgy thin base as well as the very smokey charcoaled edges. Even better I thought, were the blutwurstcanape – German black pudding chopped and then made into a sort of bruschetta. It’s more pleasant than a fry up I have to say, it’s more fragrant and alot lighter in flavour.

We are back in Bismarckstraße again, and next door from the currywurst place is a sort of foodhall and supermarket called Rogacki.

Initially I was hesistant to eat here because I wanted to sit down for a meal. The only chairs I saw were for the tables outside the establishment. Inside, it was a green-tiled mess hall with standing tables, no chairs.

Needless to say, the place was packed out. Lots of Germans who didnt speak English. We chose a seafood bar which was seemingly the centrepiece of the hall. Initially we struggled with ordering and in the end resorted to pointing at random menu items when we became ravenous. How could one not feel one’s stomach rumble with the fresh fish sizzling in front of us right?

Here we go, a selection of shellfish, pickled vegetables and parsley for decoration. Sweet, succulent and fulfilling.

The missus opted for a warming fish soup – large chunks of seafood and a glass of zingy german house white.

Touring the foodhall, I feel a little regretful that I didnt attempt to load my suitcase with a small sampling of the smoked fish on offer at Rogacki, ah well, guess I’ll have to visit Berlin again in the near future.

Finally then, one of the last restaurants we hit was Restaurant Oderquelle. You’ll forgive my shallow knowledge of Berlin’s best, so we turned to the interwebs which led us to discover Oderquelle and its good reputation among it’s online patrons.

They specialised in German-Euro Fusion, though honestly I wouldn’t be able to tell. The menu was brief and I chose to order the most exotic items I saw. First up was a hand wash cheese.

Very interesting stuff, the cheese was translucent in appearance and it looked more like a piece of fish than cheese. It didn’t taste much like a dairy product either; It was smoked and seasoned, with a scallop-like flavour. Spring onion garnishings and doused with an weird watery and oily sauce that mixed, very fishy.

For my main, Rump steak with roasted pumpkins, rocket leaves and a cauliflower creamed potato salad. The steak was beautifully rare and needed to be since this was a chunky rump. Good beefy flavours though the real star of the dish was the garnishings – toasty pumpkin sweetness, peppery as it went down. Rustic.

Well, that’s my brief account of my excursions to Europe to expand my culinary palate. I think I barely scratched the surface of gastronomy in Berlin, and Germany for that matter what with this weekend being more of a snapshot more than anything. It’s an interesting destination which doesn’t get the attention it deserves, and for the most part, the people in Berlin treat tourists with respect and we walked away with an impression that people are generally friendly. Wunderbar.

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