This time last week, I'd never been to a restaurant with a Michelin star. Now I've been to two. First there was
Une Table Au Sud in Marseille on Friday night. The occassion was a small family holiday to mark my parents' 60th birthdays. The food was really nice, I had a Milkshake de Bouillabaisse (Fish Milkshake!), followed by Sea Bass, and then Chestnut and Black Truffle ice cream (plus various canapes and sweets). It was great!
Then last night I went with Liv to
The Old Vicarage for her birthday. The food here was another league above Une Table Au Sud. If the restaurant was in France, it would probably have been awarded two Michelin stars, not one. The food is seasonal, mostly local (they grow their own veg on site for example) and tastes amazing. Canapes, followed by Poached fish in brocolli sauce with a beetroot foam for 1st course, Brill with langoustine and truffle mash for the 2nd course, Whitby Cod with caviar, mussels, polenta and a champagne sauce for the 3rd course, and then passion fruit souffle, banana sorbet and lemon creme brulle for dessert. And all that was just my meal! Liv's was equally fabulous. If you live in Sheffield, you should really try and go. The food was great, the service was impeccible and the vicarage building was really nice. I never thought I'd be a fan of formal fine dining, but it was a really great evening.
It hasn't just Michelin starred restaurants; my brother and I also took my parents to
Le Miramar in Marseille, apparantly one of the best places to try the dish native to the city:
Bouillabaisse. This is basically a fish stew, yet a really indulgent one. The fish is cooked in a rich saffron infused broth, which is then served as soup for the starter. This comes with crostini which you rub garlic into. You then spread onto it a bright yellow Aoli based sauce before dropping into the soup. After that, the fish is served in more of the broth. I lost track of how much fish there was in there, but I was absolutely stuffed and couldn't finish the dessert.
My foodie travels aren't over yet. On London this weekend I'll be trying out
Ooze - Britains first risotto bar. Now obviously the risotto won't be as good as mine, that goes without saying! But I can't wait none the less.
Food is brilliant! Je t'aime le food, innit!
Labels: food
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 3:42 PM
I've decided to post an
update to a recipe I came up with almost exactly one year ago. You may recall a couple of months ago I said I was stopping my
organic box delivery from Beanies. Well, I changed my mind; in the end I decided to just reduce the amount I had delivered, and that is working out really well. They did however send me another cauliflower last week, but thanks to all the experimenting with the stuff last year and all the cooking practise I've had over the last twelve months, I'm quite happy to find one on my door step these days.
Here's the refined recipe (quite a few servings from this):
Ingredients:
2 tbsp Olive Oil
25g butter
2 banana shallots
150ml white wine
1 Cauliflower
2 pints vegetable stock (preferably home made, or bought fresh)
600g butter beans (one and a half cans)
200ml double cream
MethodThinly chop the shallots.
Heat the olive oil in a large pot on a medium heat.
Add the butter.
When the butter has fizzed its last, add the shallots.
Constantly stir the shallots until very soft, 4-5 minutes.
Add the wine, and reduce.
Add the cauliflower, and stir to coat well with the existing ingredients.
Add the vegetable stock and bring to the boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the butter beans and continue to simmer for another 5 minutes.
Transfer to food processor and blend until very smooth.
Transfer back to pot over medium heat and stir in the cream, then season to taste.
Serve with chunky croutons.
For the croutons:
Ingredients2 slices of thick bread - I used the crusts of Warburtons Seeded Batch.
t tbsp olive oil
1 knob of butter
1 tsp thinly chopped thyme
Method
Heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
Cut the bread up in thick chunks.
Heat the oil in a sauté pan over a medium heat.
Add the butter.
Add the bread, reduce to a low heat and coat the chunks in the oil/butter.
Sprinkle on the thyme and fry gently for 3-4 minutes.
Transfer to a baking tray and bake until crisp throughout. I can't remember how long this took, probably around 15 minutes. You could just fry them of course, but I figured that baking them meant I didn't have to tend the frying pan for ages. You could even be all healthy and not fry at all, and just bake, but I've never tried that method.
Labels: coutons, food, organic, soup
Monday, February 12, 2007 10:13 PM
Rach has put up a web site where you can purchase the
cards, gifts and accessories that she makes. She has a real flair for design, and is constantly churning out cool things, such as the ton of soap she made a few years back. I've already gone and bought myself some
handmade greetings cards and a new
notebook. Well done Rach!
Labels: rachel simons design handmade gifts
10:04 PM
Poor
Phil. He seems to be under the impression nobody took a photo of him sleeping at my
whisky tasting.
How wrong he is! One day I am going to publish a book of him sleeping at parties.
The evening was fun, some really nice drams were drunk, and remarkably I avoided a hangover.
The rest of the photos are here.
Labels: whisky drunk phil sleeping
9:21 PM
