London Food Detective

A cheesy night at GAIL's Artisan Bakery

Bread and cheese.  Two of my favourite food stuffs, with me being an unashamed food snob when it comes to decent bread.  In fact, I think you can often judge how good a restaurant is likely to be based on the quality of bread they serve.

So, when I got an invite to attend a tasting evening pairing different breads from GAIL's and cheeses from Paxton & Whitfield I jumped at the chance.

The selection of breads we were served.

The idea of the evening was simple, Emma from GAIL's and Rhuaridh from Paxton & Whitfield talked us through the various breads and cheeses they had picked for us and then we had to decide which combinations were our favourites.

A serious task and one I wanted to do a thorough job with, so (in the interests of research) I ate about a kilo of cheese and a couple of loafs!

 

 

 

 

The two cheese platters to choose from.

Most of the breads were varieties of sourdough and varied from a couple of simple types to ones with fruit/veg in.  Emma explained all the loaves are baked fresh everyday and are hand kneaded by their bakers.

The fruit breads at the top, cracker in the middle and sourdoughs at the bottom.

I thought the milder cheeses such as the delicious, creamy Cerney goats cheese and the St Felicien worked best on the plainer sourdough, while the more pungent cheeses such as the Gorgonzola Dulce and Highland Blue went well with the fruit bread such as the currant & cherry and apricot & hazlenut sourdoughs.

The thin, crunchy, seeded crackers provided a good alternative to the bread and went with most of the cheeses.

As usual, my favourite cheese was a Comte, though this was a bit younger (about 6 months old) and not as strongly flavoured as others I have had.

We were given a potato and rosemary loaf and an olive sourdough to take home and try and these were possibly my two favourite breads overall.

The potato and rosemary was excellent toasted with lashings of melted butter (I've had about five slices over the weekend!) and the olive sourdough was packed with big, juicy black and green olives that gave it bags of flavour.

The bread at GAIL's isn't cheap at £2.25-£2.99 per loaf, but the quality can't be faulted.  It would be ideal if you are looking to impress for a dinner party or just want to treat yourself to something a bit special and a class above most other breads.

Camino: Eating the whole menu!

I recently visited Camino as a paying customer and had it in my list of reviews to do in the coming weeks. However, before getting chance to write it up I received an invite to attend their training session for the staff of their new branch opening in Westferry.

As I'd enjoyed my meal there a few weeks ago I jumped at the chance, even if it did mean taking a long lunch from work and having to work into the evening!

The tasting was hosted by Nacho, the Head Chef and he talked us through the menu, answering any questions that the five bloggers or new staff had.

Now, it would be a bit much to review every single dish on the menu, so instead I've picked out some highs and occasional lows from each section.

Meats & Cold Cuts

 First up was a fabulous selection of cold cuts and cheese. We received them on individual plates, but Nacho also brought out a board showing how they'd be presented in the restaurant.

A selection of cold cuts & cheese

Highs:

The Jamon Iberico, which had been cured for 36 months, was superb. It had an intense, heavy, nutty flavour (from the acorns that the pigs feast on) and wasn't too salty. The slithers of ham just melted in the mouth.

Lomo Iberico was was the fattiest of the salamis, but none the worse for it. The fat just dissolved in the mouth leaving little morsels of cured meat to enjoy.

Manchego cheese. I can sometime find manchego a bit bland, but this was a lot stronger than most I'd had. Matured for 8 months it had a nutty flavour to it that worked perfectly with the sweet quince.

Lows:

Compared to the other cheeses the Tetilla was a little bland and unmemorable.

Salads & Vegetables

Next up was a range of salads and vegetable accompaniments.

My two favourite salads: the artichoke on the left and the fab figs on the right

Highs:

Fig, Mahon cheese and ham salad was wonderful. The figs were wrapped in ham and contained a small cube of cheese. They had been grilled and the sweet figs, melted cheese and salty ham was a fantastic combination. It came served with some mixed leaves and a sherry vinegar dressing, but it's the figs that stick in the memory. Nacho explained that this dish is only on the menu for a short time as figs are only in season for a couple of months.

Grilled artichoke, red and yellow peppers, green beans and tomatoes on a bed of cracked wheat was an unusual combination that worked surprisingly well.

Sauteed piquillo peppers in white wine and garlic is a favourite of mine and this was a good version. The peppers were soft, sweet and delicious.

Smoked cod and orange and the pimientos
 

Lows:

For me, the orange overpowered the delicate smoked cod in a salad which also contained black olive, red onion and new potatoes.

Everyone else loved the pimientos de padron (little green peppers with sea salt), but I found them slightly bitter and too salty. They are a bit of an acquired taste and weren't for me.

Fish

A selection of seafood dishes

I'm not a massive fish lover, so I didn't over indulge on these courses (I was saving myself for the meat still to come) and my favourites were all the shellfish dishes.

The crisp fried baby squid had a light crunchy batter, was not at all chewy (which often happens), and came served with a light, creamy alioli.

King prawns were served cold in their shells and were some of the most succulent, sweet prawns I've had.

 
The spectacular looking octopus tentacle

 

I've never had octopus before and was pleasantly surprised by this dish. It was very meaty and tender - not at all rubbery as the appearance would make you think.

Meat

This was the course I was most looking forward to and on my first visit I'd been really impressed by the quality of the meat selection.  Nacho explained that Camino use a two tonne charcoal grill that they imported specially from Bilbao.

Highs:

Iberico black pig shoulder blade was served like steak and came medium rare, which is unusual for pork. It had a lovely char on it from the grill and was super succulent and was a real porky treat.

The rib-eye steak was equally good. It was served very simply with just a bit of olive oil and salt, which let the quality of the beef shine through.

On my first visit, I was also served some really good morcilla. It was served with apples and had a soft, crumbly texture and was some of the best I've had in the UK.

Lamb skewers, chicken skewers and lamb cutlets

Lows:

I like my lamb served rare, so I thought the lamb skewers were a little over-cooked, though the marinade of paprika, chilli, garlic and chilli did provide a good flavour.

Overall:

It was a real pleasure to spend the afternoon grazing through the Camino menu.  Nacho's passion for his food shone through and he answered all our questions enthusiastically and appeared to really value our feedback. I was impressed that he had such a commitment to training his staff, so they understood the food they would be serving.

Camino's food philosophy seems to be to find the best ingredients and serve them in simple, tasty ways and on the whole they do this very well. There aren't too many elaborate flavours or techniques, which allows them to get the food out of the kitchen quickly. It seems to be a winning formula, as when I went on a Thursday evening the place was packed and there was a 45 minute wait for the table.

A Night with Paul A Young: Chocolate Artisan

My name is Craig. I’m 31 and I’m a chocoholic.

However, I’m not planning to go on any 10-steps programme to cure me any time soon and my recent lesson with Paul A Young has only my heightened my love of the sweet stuff.

To say I’ve been excited about Grace and I having a private class with Paul is a bit of an understatement.  We’ve been fans of his chocolate for a while, both bought each other a box of his delights for Christmas and even our recent engagement had a chocolate theme (that’s a story for another time though).

We won the lesson at the Blagger’s Banquet back in October and it’s taken a few months to get a date for the lesson and so we turned up on a cold, wet February night ready to throw ourselves into the experience.

Now I’m sure Paul does a lot of similar classes, tastings etc and you’d think that after a full day’s work the last thing he wanted was to spend four hours giving two amateurs a lesson, but you’d never know it.  From the moment we arrived he was fully engaged, enthusiastic and charming, which made the evening even more memorable.

To begin with we were led to the back of the shop and downstairs to his kitchen.  The sweet smell of melted chocolate was wafting in the air as we went down the stairs and we were confronted with a mountain of Easter Bunnies, six pans of melting chocolate (more of these later) a mound of moulds and the essential raw ingredients to create the goods.

We were given a welcome drink (glass of bubbly for me and a hot chocolate for G), an amazing slice of his new sea salted caramel chocolate brownies and were told to help ourselves to more.  We didn’t need to be asked twice…

The sea-salted caramel brownies were particularly great.

We found out that the evening was to be split in two.

The first bit was all about the process of making chocolate, learning about the business and the raw ingredients used.  

The second part was putting into practice what we’d just learnt and making Easter eggs and chocolate bunnies.

Chocolate Tasting Guide

There are three main varieties of cocoa bean:

Cirollo – the Rolls Royce of beans. Premium, expensive and widely sought after.

Trinitario – widely used, aromatic with robust flavour.

Forestero – the beans used by the big manufacturers.  Blended with premium cocoa beans by smaller producers.

Within each variety there are subtleties of flavour, depending on the origin of the bean (a Madagascan bean will taste very different from a South American one) and how it has been roasted.

The Valrohna couverture chocolate, the different varieties, the melted couverture and cocoa butter

The beans are made in to ‘couverture’, which is a combination of beans, cocoa butter and sugar.  Paul’s kitchen is full of bags of this (you can even buy this in the shop if you want), which he uses to make his chocolates.

He then took us on a journey starting at 34% caramel milk chocolate up to 100%.  The difference in taste between two similar percentage beans is remarkable. Apparently it’s the quality and origin of the bean and not the % that makes the difference.

Paul treated us to some new chocolate that he’d just imported from Mast Brothers in New York (check out their cool packaging), which was like no chocolate I’ve ever tasted.  It was smooth, fruity and utterly delectable.  Paul is about to become the UK’s first and only stockist and I’d urge any chocolate connoisseur to try some.

Nine Paul A Young Chocolate Facts

1. The majority of the couverture chocolate Paul uses is from Valrhona.
2. Paul is 100% artisan (the only one in London) and doesn’t use any machinery in producing his chocolates.
3. Paul is an honorary member of the Academy of Chocolate.
4. He only uses Billington’s sugar.
5. Cocoa butter is the most expensive ingredient.
6. He can sell over 20 litres of hot chocolate on a busy Saturday!
7. He only buys ingredients from ethically sound producers.
8. He enjoys the occasional non-premium chocolate, but made us promise not to tell anyone…
9. We’re both from the North East and even went to the same dodgy nightclub when we were younger!

On to the making

Now on to the fun part as we got to ‘temper’ our choice of chocolate and make and decorate an Easter Egg and chocolate bunnies.

Tempering is the process of cooling the melted chocolate to the right temperature for it to set properly in the mould.  If it is too hot or cold then it won’t set properly and will need re-doing.

Tempering the chocolate. Paul uses wallpaper scrapers!

Paul uses a big slab of marble to temper on.  The chocolate is poured on to the slab and then manoeuvred and manipulated around to cool it.  It is then added back into the pot and mixed around until it is almost body temperature and just starting to set.

Tools of job. Paul showed us how to do it with great speed and dexterity and then it was our turn.

Grace went first and did a surprisingly good job and kept it all on the table without too much trouble.  I was another story all together and Paul had to rescue me a couple of times to stop rivers of viscous chocolate splodging on the floor.  

Making a mess!

However it was good fun (though surprisingly hard work) and I managed to do it without too much chocolate going missing in action.

Once the tempered chocolate was poured into the moulds we had to scrape the table top down and were able to munch on the still warm chocolate. Delicious.

Decorating the eggs

Next up was decorating and sealing our eggs. We created piping bags and filled them with melted chocolate and I created a variety of unusual patterns on my egg.

The final part in the kitchen was looking at the flavours store, which Paul uses to create and develop his fabulously chocolate creations.

It was then getting close to leave and we made our way back upstairs into the main shop to wrap what we had made. 

Paul gave us a signed copy of his award winning chocolate book, took a photo of us with our bounty and gave us an extra box of chocolates (with a large helping of our favourite sea salted caramels) just in case we hadn’t quite had enough!

All in all, we had an amazing four hours experience, which will stay with us for a long time.  It was even better than we expected.  It was a real privilege to spend time with one of the best chocolate makers in the world and even better to know that it also helped to raise money for a great cause.

Rodizio Rico, Islington

Twitter Summary Review:

Unlimited meat feast with salad buffet.  Great for groups. Buzzing atmosphere. Ideal for blood thirsty carnivores! 

 Full review:

I needed cheering up. 

The trip to Rodizio was planned as a celebratory meal to toast Everton's F.A. Cup success, but sadly it wasn't to be.  Instead, I turned to Plan B: drown my sorrows and eat until I couldn't move.  After a couple of hours and half a cow later I'd succeeded.

We had a table for six booked for 9.00pm and were sat near the window.  The menus don't really need looking at as there are only really two options: meat (£20.50) or vegetarian (£15.50).  Everyone went for the meat.

Whilst we waited for our drinks order to be taken, the sense of anticipation was rising as my mouth salivated at the skewers of meat the waiters were carving and giving out to each diner.

After 20 minutes, I couldn't wait any longer and so I went up to the buffet and helped myself to a plate.  The buffet looked pretty good with a decent selection of items, but to be honest, i'd come for the meat and didn't want to stuff my plate with salad and so I (like the rest of the lads) opted for only a couple of token bits.  The girls were a bit more sensible and went for a plate full of salad and reported that it was good.

 

Back in our seats we waited.  The first two waiters ran out of meat before reaching us, but it didn't take long before a variety of meat was being presented to us.

The list of meat was impressive:

• Fillet, ribs and sirloin of beef
• Pork fillet and ribs
• Chicken Wings
• Lamb
• Sausage (a Toulouse style one and a smoked louzna-like one)

Most of the beef and lamb was served rare (some maybe a little too rare bordering on raw at times), but it was juicy, succulent and decent quality.

My favourite was a fantastic piece of pork fillet, that was beautifully moist and full of flavour. The  beef fillet was equally good.

The only disappointment were the ribs.  I thought the marinade was bland and the rib meat was tough. That said it was a minor blip and the rest of the meal made up for it.

 

The place was packed and it made for a lively atmosphere.  The waiters serving the meat were friendly and chatty and we never had to wait too long for the next skewer to come along.  They had to come regularly as it's fair to say that the four lads in the party all had healthy, bordering on gluttonous, appetites!

Rodizio Rico will never be haute-cuisine and it's nothing more than a conveyor belt of meat, but that said sometimes simple is good.  As an unabashed carnivore I really liked the place.  It's got an informal and lively atmosphere and it's ideal for groups and celebrations.  Overall i'd recommend it - just leave the vegetarians at home...

How i'd improve it

• We weren't sure what meats were available and due to be coming.  A chalk board listing the evening's selections or even a simple list on the table that you could keep track of what you've had so far would have been good.
• A better introduction to how it works - we weren't sure if we were meant to just go and help ourselves to the buffet or wait to be brought plates.