Pass the whelks

I’ve just got back from a visit to Rungis – the world’s biggest fresh produce market just outside of Paris. I was there writing an article for Yes Chef magazine and in the company of four esteemed chefs – the legendary Pierre Koffman, Pascal Proyart, Mark Jordan and James Dugal. Just in case you’re picturing something similar to Borough Market, I’ll put it into context for you: Rungis is 232 hectares in size – bigger than the state of Monaco.

Some fish at Rungis

Little squids

The night before our tour of the market (which was to start at 3am) we went for supper at the age-old fish restaurant A La Maree at the edge of the market. It’s a jovial, fast-paced sort of a place that always delivers on quality, cooking with produce from the market, which is of course, only of the highest quality.

A La Maree fish restaurant at Rungis market

While we waited for our food I watched as people tucked in to sky-high plateu de fruits de mers and it brought back memories of childhood when I used to sit, whining next to my parents to throw me scraps from their platters. And that, my friends, is when I first fell in love with whelks, or sea snails, as they’re also known.

My mother being a little more protective of her side of the plateu than my dad (he no doubt had the lion’s share anyway), it was usually him that was more of a soft target for some fishy offcuts. And he used to give me whelks. Not being the most elegant-looking of the marine gastropod molluscs, I wasn’t sure at first, but once I’d tried one of the creamy, minerally snails dipped in some proper French mayonnaise, I was a convert.

Anyway, back to A La Maree – I started with six exquisite escargot in Roquefort, which were absolutely delicious and came in handy little pots which I subsequently dipped my baguette in. Across from me Pascal and Pierre were tucking into a bowl of said whelks. On seeing that I wasn’t averse to eating slimy creatures from shells, Pierre kindly offered me one, which I ravished with such an expression of joy, that after that he just kept placing them on my plate.

Yummy escargot and Roquefort

Pierre Koffman, Pascal Proyart and some nameless oysters

It’s not everyday you share whelks with Pierre Koffman, but what really struck me was quite how surprised him and Pascal were by me enjoying them. “It’s so wonderful to see a young girl such as yourself enjoying sea snails,” said Pascal. I’d never really thought about it before, but now I do, perhaps I am in the minority. What about you, dear readers, do you like to indulge in the wonders of whelks? Or do you know any lovely whelkish recipes? Share them with me.

Blooming Brilliant: meeting April Bloomfield

And, like a hungry child to a mother’s teet, I managed to sniff out what I’m pretty sure is one of the hottest restaurants in New York – The John Dory. I’d heard a lot about its chef April Bloomfield before the trip, perhaps because she’s British, and is one in that rare breed of female and Michelin starred chefs.

The open kitchen at the John Dory

Bloomfield won a star for her first opening The Spotted Pig, perhaps New York’s first successful gastropub, where she endeared New Yorkers with her relaxed environment and well executed, British-inspired fare. Since opening her second restaurant The John Dory in Manhattan’s Meatpacking district, she’s been lavished with praise – including a five star review from our very own AA Gill, who described the food at the fish restaurant as “cod-fisted, fishy-fingered food, made with panache and a big mouth”. So of course, I was dying to meet the woman herself, and that’s exactly what I did.

“It’s exciting opening a new restaurant,” she says from her perch at the dining bar at the John Dory (the counters are perspex filled with glinting fake fish). “You get to do things differently, improve on your first one and it’s nice because I had so many people who were coming up though the ranks at the Spotted Pig. It was great to be able to transfer them into another project and see them grow and blossom into bigger and better things.” There’s a definite American twang to her voice – she harks from Birmingham but you wouldn’t know it – it’s the neutral voice of someone who left their hometown long ago.

April Bloomfield at the John Dory, holding a John Dory

So I’m intrigued to know how she came to find herself opening a restaurant in this wonderful city. She tells me about working at the River Café in London with Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers for quite a long time, and feeling ready for “a different experience”. “I knew that I couldn’t go any further at the River Café – I was already their sous chef, I was already writing menus and doing all the ordering and I felt like I couldn’t go any further up the ladder.” So when she heard via a friend that Jamie Oliver was recruiting a chef to open a restaurant on behalf of New York band manager-turned-restaurateur Ken Friedman (who, it tells us here, used to manage the Smiths), she put her name forward.

“He [Friedman] phoned me and asked if I wanted to come to New York, and I was very blasé about the whole thing,” she laughs. “ I was like, “well, you know, yeah” – and two weeks later I was on a plane to New York for a whirlwind weekend of cooking, drinking and meeting Mario Batali. I got the thumbs up from Mario and they offered me the job and I took it, and I’m glad I took it.” And so am I. Without seeming to trivialise things, the starter ‘oyster pan roast’ which I eat that evening during my meal at the restaurant turns out to be the best thing I ate in New York, and possibly one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in my life. And you know how I feel about oysters.

The DELICIOUS oyster pan roast

It doesn’t come cheap mind. An oyster pan roast starter will set you back $19 – but believe me it’s worth every cent. Excuse me while I rhapsodise: The miraculous concoction (pictured above) comes in a little bowl, the thin, pale broth looking unassuming with a dash of olive oil and pinch of cayenne pepper floating on top. But the first slurp packs a punch so rich in flavour, so headily delicious that you’ll be gulping the dregs straight from the bowl before you know it.

The broth’s flavour comes from cream, shallots, white wine and lemon and is incredibly intense – the soft, lilac grey oysters minerally and bursting with freshness. It comes with a little crostini spread with sea urchin butter – an ingenious salty substance that brings the straight-from-the-sea element that’s lost with the cooked oysters back into the dish. It’s incredible. I’m going to have to leave it there, even though I have much more to say (and more quotes from Bloomfield) – otherwise this will be a tome rather than blogpost. Bloomfield was delightful – she’s opening another restaurant in NYC called the Breslin shortly – I just wish she’d open one in old Blighty.

Vodka pizza is genius

I know I promised write ups on Ducasse and the John Dory, and they’re coming – but I had to show you this first. Ever heard of vodka pizza? Look at this:

A lip-smackingly good slice of pizza from Pomodoro, NYC

Have you had a good look? Savour it, every moment of it, because unless you plan on making the trip over to the other side of the pond any time soon, this is about as close as your going to get to one superior slice of pizza. We came across the joyfully cheap and cheerful Pomodoro pizza on Spring Street in Little Italy, when we’d worked up an appetite wandering the streets in search of somewhere that did pizza by the slice. They weren’t as plentiful as we were expecting, with many of the streets lined with more up-market trattorias – but we wanted the sliced variety rather than the served-on-a-square-plate-with-some-rocket-leaves sort.

And we got it here, along with pretty nonchalant service and nasty lager. But the point was it was incredibly thin and crispy, with chewy, stringy, creamy mozarella and moist with just the right amount of olive oil and herbs. The real wow factor came from the extra tangy kick of the vodka that the restaurant uses in its tomato sauce. I’d never had vodka sauce before, hell – I’d never even heard of it – but I whole-heartedly reccommend it. A slice here set us back about six dollars or less. Delish! Food Network has got a pretty good recipe for it here if you fancy trying it out at home.

Special report: A New York food and drink odyssey Part 1

I’m back from my virgin voyage to New York with Gemma and I’ve got an announcement: I’ve become rather fond of cocktails. Now, I’ve always liked a little drink, but NYC seems to have converted me from an avid wine drinker to a cocktail queen, and what started off as living the SATC cliché (it had to happen) has turned into something of a love affair. Funny that, because when I worked in Leeds it didn’t matter how many mixology workshops I was invited to (and trust me as ‘nightlife editor’ there were many), I just didn’t catch the bug.

A cosmo at the New York Palace

It must have been swigging them as the sun set on the roof terrace of the Gansevoort hotel in Meatpackers. Or maybe it was the near-neat measures at Max Fish bar on the lower east side. Actually, thinking about it, it was probably the lychee martini I had at Gilt Bar (of, so I’m told, Gossip Girl fame) in the New York Palace… Who knows. All I know is that the only thing that’s kept me from mourning my return to the big smoke too devastatingly has been a trusty supply of Lea and Perrins, tomato juice and Smirnoff.
Now to the food.  Well, for five days not too long ago, Fiftyfourfoodmiles became Threethousandfourhundredandsixtyfoodmiles and it did so with gusto. It started well, with some very tasty afternoon tea in first class on the plane courtesy of BA (I did a feature on plane food recently for Yes Chef! magazine – so part of the job to test out the goods). A glass of champagne washed  the tasty finger sandwiches down nicely and the scones really were impressive – crumbling and fluffy and unlike anything I’ve ever eaten on a plane.

A first class afternoon tea

One of our first, and best foodie experiences after landing was breakfast at Prime Burger. We’d been wondering around like a couple of crazies, dazed by the heat (it was upwards of 27 degrees c), jet lagged and hungry when we stumbled upon this New York institution, between Madison and Fifth. Though it didn’t look like much from the outside, when we got a little bit closer we noticed that the glass door was plastered in press clippings and it looked promising.  Going inside was like setting foot into 1960s New York (it had its last refurb in ‘65) and it offers some of the friendliest service we encountered.

Inside Prime Burger

Yo can read the gory details of our delicious French toast encounter here in a special dispatch on London Review of Breakfasts, and here’s a tasty pic:

French toast at Prime Burger

On our second day, knowing that we were heading to Ducasse’s Adour (more about that later) for supper we decided to have a light lunch. That was the plan, but then we found ourselves in Bryant Park, a popular lunch spot among New Yorkers who were all sitting on the provided chairs, drenched in sun, dining on sandwiches, salad boxes and seemingly endless packed lunches.

We wanted in, so we scoured the surrounding streets until we found Zeytinz Fine Food Market, which was teeming with locals exhausting its selection of hot and cold foods (including everything from burritos to dim sum) and never-ending salad bar. This was a serial luncher’s dream. Shelves bulging with pastries, bread, bagels, vegetables, fruit – counters laden with sushi, soups, pies, curries, noodles. It was almost like New York’s wonderfully diverse food offering distilled into one shop. This is what I got:

Lunch in Bryant Park from Zeytinz food market

And so we sat, soaking up sun and chatter of Manhattan’s finest – stuffing our faces with vineleaves, broccoli and sugar snaps in sesame oil, Caesar salad, juicy, sweet tomatoes – Gemma’s exact words were “every tomato is a joy in my mouth” until it was all gone, and the thought of Adour’s tasting menu was more than our tummies could handle. In the next report: supper at Adour, brunch at Pastis, plus, when I met Michelin starred Brit chef April Bloomfield at The John Dory…

Clicking along with Allegra… (well, my mum did)

A bizarre phone call from my parents last night as they tried to find Allegra McEvedy on Twitter. It doesn’t look like she is on there, but @guardianfood is.

My mum had decided to have a go at the Guardian’s click-along with Allegra, so bought the ingredients and this was the result…

Allegra's spice-rubbed pork escalope with coconutty sweet potatoes

 

Sadly, I don’t live near enough to get to theirs in time for tea.  

Mum said she didn’t have time to comment on the Guardian site so I’m making sure it gets its online fame here. 

The idea is that you follow the blog-post with other users, adding comments as Allegra updates the blog with step-by-step instructions. Then everyone shares their photos via the comments and the Word of Mouth Flickr group. I’m also informed by @guardianfood that a gallery will be put together. 

I’d quite like to join in next time (would bring a whole new meaning to family mealtimes): but can the updates come via Twitter please? That way I won’t have to keep refreshing the page. Also Rosie tells me she has a problem if she joins in: she’s not on wireless internet so can’t put her laptop in the kitchen…

Meat packing in Clapham – a culinary crime wave

I just saw a man fill his sports jacket with sirloin steak. I only noticed him because he was making a creaking sound as he walked past. I was queuing to pay for my eggs at the Sainsbury’s Local in Clapham South, which is frankly the last place you’d expect to encounter a ‘real life member of the British criminal underclass’.

It’s normally just full of people that who like accountancy, ‘banter’ and playing rugby. And Antipodeans, and grown women matching that timeless fashion combo of pyjamas with Ugg boots. But there he was – baseball cap, trainers and a hoodie full of beef – apparently trying to justify to the wily cashier why he’d been caught with a meaty vest.

A steak not dissimilar to one that nearly got stolen

“That’s all I’ve got!” he shrieked as the small, but remarkably unfazed man extracted yet another packet of premium British beef fillet from his coat. Then he legged it. “This happens all the time,” sighed the lady scanning my items. “How much was it this time, Dev?”

“£43.10 worth,” said Dev. “What’s this – a maverick bon viveur turning to crime in the face of the recession and rising meat prices to sate that inevitable red meat craving?”- I hear you foodies ask. It’s a nice image, but it’s unlikely that old beefy was catering for a dinner party. The cashier told me that steak is the favourite among shoplifters at the moment, as they can sell the meaty morsels on at market and make a packet.

So meat is the new currency of the underworld, the centrepiece for a culinary crime wave. I guess it was inevitable that people might try to take advantage of retail stock that has shot up in value lately, but it seems this black market in isn’t limited to the ready-packaged supermarket stuff. Farmers have been reporting a rise in livestock rustling since meat prices went sky high. Scary stuff. What’s next – stuffing our knickers with turbot?

Rip-off merchants and mutant mussels

In the past I’ve been spoiled when it comes to seafood. My career as a hospitality/food journalist so far has seen me treated to a three-Michelin starred seafood feast at Gerald Passedat’s restaurant in Marseilles, eat freshly caught crab and bass at Seymour Tower in Jersey and taste oysters at St Pancras Grand.

Fresh seafood at Seymour Tower

So when it comes to fresh fish and seafood, I’d say I’ve got pretty high expectations. Which is why it was disappointing to find that a small restaurant chain which sells its brand around ‘the finest fish and seafood’ isn’t delivering what it promises.

I went to Livebait in Covent Garden to take advantage of their £15 pounds off offer. Despite the fact that the place was half empty when we got there, it took a good 10-15 minutes for our waitress to take a drink order, which is not just annoying – it’s bad business initiative (I would have drunk twice as much if they hadn’t been so slow on the uptake).

When she eventually did come to take our order she put down a platter of mixed breads with salmon pate and butter. ‘That’s a nice touch,’ I mistakingly thought. Turns out they later tried to charge us a £1.75 ‘cover charge’ for this bread we hadn’t even asked for. Hospitality? I think not.

Aside from that, the food was pretty average – and by no means particularly great. I had a whole crab which was suspiciously watery and lacking that fresh, sweet nuttiness you get with really fresh crab. A side salad of mixed leaves cost a ridiculous £4.36.

It’s pretty obvious that Covent Garden is a tourist-trap and they don’t need to worry abut footfall, but you’d think they’d want to be a bit less blatant about ripping people off. It’s a real shame because I reviewed the Livebait in Leeds a while back and it was very good. Leeds beating London hands-down? Who’d have thought it.

Anyway, a rather better experience came last week at the Stonhouse in Clapham. The pub is owned by the same people who own the Avalon in Clapham South and the Abbeville (both of which also serve good pub grub) and they’ve certainly got it right when it comes to value for money.

I had a kg of moules mariniere (for a bargainous £11.50) and they were finger-licking lovely. Pink, juicy, fresh and swimming in a rich broth of white wine and shallots – though not as flavoursome as they will be in the peak of season. BUT there was one mussel which I couldn’t eat, because… wait for it… it looked like a creepy old man with long eyebrows, sticking his tongue out. Check it out:

mutant mussel - just look at his little face!

Cheap eats – six courses for six quid!

Yeah, yeah, yeah – we’re all getting pretty sick (but not as sick as those folks over at the Fat Duck) of hearing about the recession by now. As a freelance journalist living in London and working through it, I could rattle on for days about the hardship of magazines and papers cutting freelance budgets, the lack of new journalism jobs, and, more importantly, the ever-increasing price of a bottle of wine. But I don’t want to chat about all that – I want to talk about food, of course.

Because even if you’re struggling with the current financial pressures, the fact is, you’ve still got to eat – and people are still eating out. Sure, some restaurants (namely the fine dining places that simply don’t do enough covers to meet their costs) are going down the pan – and it’s incredibly hard for restaurateurs right now, but people are still treating themselves to meals out.

I recently went on Radio Kent’s breakfast show to chat about restaurants coping in the recession and the change in eating habits we’ve been seeing since the credit crunch took a big bite of Blighty’s pie. As we agreed on the show, it’s the clever places which are enticing the customers with great deals and value for money who are coming up trumps.

Brasserie James

Brasserie James, just down my road in Clapham South is a case in point. Craig James, formally head chef at Quaglinos, opened his Brasserie back last summer just on the cusp of the downturn. But he’s still there, serving up high quality British fare, and most nights when I walk past the place it’s pretty full.

So what’s his secret? Well, I’d be tempted to say his respect for ingredients and instinctive way with food for the most part, but I think his success might also have something to do with his miraculous six course tasting menus.

That’s right – a six course tasting menu. Six courses for six quid, on a Monday and Tuesday night. There’s no choice involved – you just sit down, order a carafe of rather good wine (or tap water if you’re really tight) and enjoy a theatre of James’ culinary flair. I went recently and the place was packed out, which is not surprising given that the food he was serving was perfectly cooked.

Pumpkin and caraway soup, tuna fillet with white bean salad, chicken breast on rosti potato and home made bread all featured, and though the portions were modest, they were no less substantial than some of the portions you’d expect from Brasserie James’ more fine dining contemporaries.

‘But how,’ I hear you cry, ‘can anyone in his right mind serve food at those prices and hope to make a profit?’ Good question, but my betting is that once James has got bums on seats at his mercy, they’ll soon be booking more tables to try the lovely a la carte offerings.

So if, like me, you’re struggling to maintain your penchant for a good restaurant meal, while your finances melt away like a slug in salt, look no further than Brasserie James. It’s got some rather bargainous set menus too…

Food for Friends reviewed – a guest post for Kang

An extra 50 squid would be just lovely right now (would justify that LoveFilm membership) so if you like this post please pop over to Kang’s LondonEater blog and vote for it on March 11 (Wednesday). Kang asked his fellow foodie bloggers to supply him with a bit of blog material while he was on holiday. Cheers for posting it, Kang! 

Review: Food for Friends
17-18 Prince Albert Street, Brighton, BN1 1HF, 01273 202 310.

Brighton is an undeniably good place to be a vegetarian: it doesn’t make you a social leper; in fact as a meat eater you often find yourself in the minority in pub-table conversation.

Not surprising then, that Brighton (which now boasts nationally acclaimed veggie spots such as Terre à Terre, for example) was a suitable place to open Food for Friends – the city’s first vegetarian eatery – in 1981; a time when ‘I’m vegetarian’ provoked ‘a what?’ rather than ‘what kind?’ from people. Lactose / gluten-intolerant weren’t common phrases in those days of yore.

But, Food for Friends, as a restaurant name? For an old cynic like me it forces an eyebrow skywards. Its name is telling me that my experience will be joyous, wholesome, filled with laughter as my close-knit group of friends and I (yes we’ve had our downtimes! Yes, we’ve had our clashes and rivalries and love-disasters! But we’re through that!) raise a toast to our little cluster of amicable and honest companionship.

Yup. But what if one (hypothetically speaking) comes to FfF with a soon-to-be ex boyfriend, in a last ditch attempt to rescue the relationship? What if one comes to FfF with one’s estranged father who has never expressed any attempt to be involved in one’s life until now? It wouldn’t so much be Food for Friends then, would it?

I like the restaurant to provide good food, good service and good atmosphere but not to dictate my good experience in terms of the company I choose to keep.

Nonetheless, I’d heard good things from my colleagues and friends about the place so I decided to take (well, be taken by) my parents (the estranged father thing was hypothetical – my own life ain’t half so interesting) on their recent visit to Brighton.

So, one point down for the name. But on picking up the phone, that’s when the plus points starting stacking up in FfF’s favour. First point: person-on-other-end is chatty and friendly on the phone, despite the last minute booking on a Friday evening. No Beatles references when I give my first name. My cynical eyebrow starts drooping.

Second point: the restaurant exudes warmth. As we pull up to its doors (in a taxi! It’s with my parents and the walk Hove-to-Brighton was a bit much to subject them to after a long day at work and an hour and half drive, complete with traffic jam) the logic behind its corner location in the Lanes is clear. Inviting light spills out from the windows and we want to be inside. So in we go.

Coats helpfully taken, we peruse the menu and time is given as we make slow choices. I remember that it’s from my parents I learnt the habit of ordering something different from the other diners – we hastily changes choices as we discover that someone else is going for the original selection.

For my mum, vegetarian eating can be tricky. While she often cooks vegetarian (Moosewood is her bible) she doesn’t like detests mushrooms, and doesn’t much care for tomato dominated dishes. But she’s getting extremely excited by her choice of butternut squash filo parcel.

Meanwhile, I’m getting excited by both mine and my dad’s choices. His – sweet potato and coconut curry and mine – a stuffed portobello mushroom.

Given we’ve splurged on a taxi (parking in Brighton is impossible) we share abottle of red – details of which get forgotten as we gasp at our food – apologies. Point down for reviewer.

We skipped starters and desserts but opted for a basket of perfectly oiled focaccia: eaten to last crumb after my mum meticulously divided the last two pieces – it didn’t come divisible by three.

The mains come well-presented and generous, and in true family tradition we all try each others (my mum shunning my mushroom of course). Her filo crisp on the fork, kissing the juicy squash and crunchy cashews (pronounced csh-sew rhyming with the sneeze-sound, in our family).

Meanwhile my dad’s curry is creamy on its bed of pilaf rice, cooled by the cucumber riata. And me… I slowly and delicately select pieces of meaty mushroom and rich feta and dip them in nutty pesto. I’m savouring.

Wine finished, and meals devoured, I’m losing count of all those positive points. FfF has delivered some truly culinary joy – ‘vegetarian’ as an adjective is redundant. The food is fine food. Enough said.

A couple of gripes – my dad’s glass of wine is poured with sediment; and the waiter seems a little eager to fill our glasses when we’ve only had a few sips and to press another bottle on us (declined). But on the whole, service is good.

So, well-fed, we tumble back out into the cold – my initial scepticism at FfF’s name long forgotten. It’s just as much food for families (and I suppose we are friends too), including those like mine, who like to spend ages choosing, eat each other’s food, pronounce cashew in a weird way, and divide the bread up very very fairly.

We ate:

(to start) a daily selection of breads served with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar: £3.45

(her) filo parcel with roasted butternut, cashew nuts, spinach and caramelised onion on a mandarin and mango salad with mirin and chilli dressing: £10.95

(him) roasted sweet potato, butternut squash, cashew and coconut curry with herbed spinach brown basmati pilaf, cucumber riata and spicy vegetable crisps: £10.95

(me) portobello mushroom stuffed with feta, sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts with sweet potato wedges, fine beans with a pesto sauce topped with creme fraiche: £11.95

Paris food porn

Ok, so I do know that it’s not really in the remit of this blog to keep posting about foreign food experiences (we are 54 food miles) but I just had to say something about my trip to Paris.

Predictably, the trip pretty much centered around food (well why on earth wouldn’t it?) and it was delicious. Of course, every good meal should start with an apperatif, and what better one is there than champagne?

Luckily for me, and my journalist’s wallet, there was a handy little Nicolas very near our lovely Latin Quarter hotel which sold half a bottle of good champagne brut for 11 euros. So we had it on the balcony overlooking the Pantheon:

Champagne a la Pantheon

The amazing thing about Paris is that no matter where you are, be it a run-down street in Pigalle, or a posh avenue in the 7th arrondissement, the chances are you’ll be within about two metres of a boulangerie (translate: cake shop), an artisan chocolatier or a deli of some sort.

I didn’t manage to eat as much as I window shopped, but let’s just say I glimpsed more cakes, macaroons, cheeses, croissants and chocolates in three days than some poor sods see in a lifetime:

Mmmm... pastry and cream...

...and some more

well I couldn't leave out the cheese, could I?

Unquestionably my favourite restaurant of the whole trip was Le Chartier, in Montmarte. We had to queue for about 45 minutes to get in – which normally I’m no good at, but my much-travelled housemate told me it would be worth the wait, and it was.

Queueing to get into Le Chartier

The huge, high ceilinged dining room was bustling with Parisians all picking their way through the honest brasserie fare of escargot, steak and fish, and our waitress was like a modern day culinary Edith Piaf – small, French and fiery.

It’s the kind of place they pack you in, treat you mean and write your food order on your table cloth.

I started with a deliciously simple salad of chicory with Roquefort. The dressing was just incredible. It was the kind of dressing that makes you sit there polishing your plate with French bread. Then I had steak au poivre.

the dining room at Le Chartier

our order

salad avec Roquefort

look at those frites!

We then finished off half a bottle of Buzet, before heading off to the  Sacre Coeur for some much needed ice cream.

Anyone else got some Paris food stories?