AKA …where Kang spent most of his moolah this year. The time has come to reflect on what’s been yet another crazy year of restaurant collecting. Just when I thought the burgeoning number of openings in 2010 were overwhelming, 2011 came and smashed 2010 out of the park. There was literally something new to try every week. There’s more diversity than ever from this year’s round of openings and non-openings with ‘street food’ coming of age and the no booking policy becoming the norm. I think eating out is still expected to be a special occasion, but now it’s done more regularly, more spontaneously with less formality and with costs spread out across more meals. With that, I think it’s fair to say that 2011 is the year that ‘fine dining’ died and came back to life as a caricature of itself. This was epitomised with the baffling 2nd update to the Bib in the fall (or I should say, releasing 2012′s revision six months ahead of schedule). It has only done damage to the credibility of their vaunted macaroons. Looking at what’s coming in the pipeline, 2012 looks to only build on the momentum of 2011. At this rate, one wonders if there will be a point where we will hit critical mass. Maybe shitty restaurants will become extinct, someday, who knows. I think its safe to say that
Released to the wild in May 2011. Read version2 and version1. I love food blogs for the personality behind them, and for its ever-evolving nature. However keeping up with the frequent updates can be overwhelming for new readers who simply want a summary of the best recommendations. So I wrote this page down for their benefit, mainly places I love and would revisit. Think of this as a condensed version of all the critical moments in my discovery. No guide is ever definitive, and this one is far from it. It is alive and it will change as the landscape of food. I hope that you will find this a pleasant introduction to the world of London dining. The Scene. May 2011 Boy it’s been a while since my last update. That last time was in August 2010, and by gosh, so much has happened since. Which is probably the entire point of any guide, in that it is and should be as dynamic whatever flavour of the seasons are. I for one, am currently going through a routine weekend craving for steak burritos. This year, we’ve had a number of great openings, and many (if not all) of which are worth a pop. Some are on this list obviously. Lately, I’ve gone off the idea of collecting experiences that are in the Michelin guide, not to say that it’s
It’s that wonderful time of the month again to take a sneak peek at the Top 20 food blogs, as according to the good people at Wikio. The photograph above was taken at Queen’s Park Farmers Market, on a rather pleasant Sunday morning. 1 Maison Cupcake 2 Fuss Free Flavours 3 meemalee’s kitchen 4 Cheese and Biscuits 5 Hollow Legs 6 The Pink Whisk 7 Food Stories 8 Chocolate Log Blog 9 The English Can Cook 10 Fresh from the oven 11 eat like a girl 12 youngandfoodish 13 London Eater 14 Cook Sister! 15 Chocablog 16 www.Prepped.co.uk 17 Belleau Kitchen 18 Chocolate Teapot 19 a rather unusual chinaman 20 Essex Eating Ranking made by Wikio.co.uk
At the half way mark of 2010, we have witnessed a number of new restaurant openings in London which has brought a sleuth of choice to the discerning diner. Yet, many more are anticipated to open as we hurl toward the second half of the year. I went to some of the new opens and thought it was fitting to compile a list about what’s coming and what’s already here. Fellow London Eaters, For what it’s worth, I think Capello should stay on, he is one of the World’s best afterall, if he can’t get the job done, then who else? So there are more convincing choices in the London dining scene this year, than ever before now. Even though new restaurants open all the time, the last few months has felt abit like an extended blockbuster extravaganza. Week after week, wave after wave of gushing reviews. I’m not sure if it is a step up in frequency or that the talent pool has been upped, or merely that media (both new and old) are simply covering more ground. Regardless, amongst the new comers are certain gems that have dazzled customers. So I hope you find this list useful, where I’ve visited, I’ve linked it to my write-up, otherwise, I’ve linked out to a representative review, and if you’re looking to ride the trendwaves, I’m sure one of these restaurants
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
In the last few weeks, I embarked on a hugely carnivorous adventure to sample some of London’s serious purveyors of the bovine to bring you this mini-guide to London’s most well-hung. By far my favourite newsletter to put out yet. LondonEater presents The Steak Issue
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
Sir Joshua Reynolds, the 18th century painter held the view that defining good art required standardisation and classification. He argued in one of his discourses on art that general beauty makes more sense than particularities because it was rational and because that’s how the human mind operates
Tapas Brindisa official site 18 Southwark St Southwark, SE1 9 £7 Tapas Brindisa, brindisa, brindisa. Yeah, they’re on to their third one now, perhaps the most respected name in Spanish food, ‘Brindis’ is ‘to make a toast’. Something I tell everybody, Spanish is my favourite cuisine, and I was more than happy to have finally made the trip to ‘brindis’ at their borough market kitchen
Happy Chinese New Year folks, it is the year of the majestic fire breathing dragon. If you’re...
Yay, I visited the world’s very first 3 Michelin starred Chinese restaurant. First things...
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AKA …where Kang spent most of his moolah this year. The time has come to reflect on...
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My food writing invariably boils down to a caricature of self-indulgent cliched hyperbole or...
Damn it, he’s done it again. (He being the elusive blurryman with the fire red scarf, and...
