Top Ten Créme Brulées in London

Regular readers will know that MTV boyfriend is a man of habits. If he sees certain dishes on a restaurant menu it takes him an almost super human feat of will power to order anything different. I am the opposite and like ordering whatever appears to be weird and wonderful. However MTV boyfriend's ordering tactics prove to be very useful when trying to size one restaurant up against another. After all you should compare apples with apples right? Or in this case, créme brulée with créme brulée. Here is the definitive list of MTV boyfriends ranking of créme brulée in London. Of course a list like this is never finished and I will endeavour to update it regularly when a new créme brulée hits the top ten.

1. Smiths of Smithfield

MTV boyfriend rates the créme brulée here as the best in London. It was perfectly caramalised on top so that the the surface was thick but still breakable with a good hit of the spoon. The créme brulée had been caramalised immediately before being brought to the table so the heat from the blow torch or grill had warmed the créme brulée throughout. It had a silky smooth taste and was served with a lemon flavoured biscuit as an accompaniment.

2. Coq d'argent

At this classic French restaurant the créme brulée has a great vanilla bean flavour and a smooth and luxurious texture. It nearly took the crown but was just pipped at the post.

3. Giaconda Dining Room

If you can get a booking in this tiny hole in the wall restaurant you are doing well. The créme brulée is a golden caramel on top with a subtle lemon flavour inside. MTV declared this créme brulée as very close to perfection.

4. Village East

The créme brulée is actually called the "village brulee" here but despite the name it is a pretty classic take on the créme brulée. MTV boyfriend declared it very good indeed.

5. The Larder

The créme brulée at The Larder is excellent with a nice thick coating of caramel on top which gives a satisfying thwack when hit with a spoon.

6. The Oak

Créme brulée is "thyme infused" and served with a strawberry and raspberry coulis. Tasty and interesting but MTV boyfriend's view is don't mess around with the classics like créme brulée too much.

7. Chez Bruce

The créme brulée has a slightly burnished caramel topping and a lovely silky smooth texture but disappointingly was served stone cold with not even a residue of heat from the caramelisation process. Not a bad effort but you expect perfection at these prices.

8. Idlewild

The créme brulée is topped with tiny blueberries. Quite well cooked but on the small side.

9. Bloody French

Créme brulée is decent enough but on our visit had been reheated rather than caramlised prior to serving. I think the French would disapprove.

10. Rapscallion

The Rapscallion's créme brulée was a disaster. It wasn't set properly so it resembled runny custard with a floating caramel top. A disgrace to créme brulée everywhere.

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my fool proof recipe for making your own créme brulée.

The Royal Saxon

I must be back in London. Queues out the door on a Friday and Saturday night for a bar/restaurant? No, I'm still in Melbourne but I'm eating at Royal Saxon the oh so cool venture from the people who brought Melbourne The Public House and the Albert Park Hotel. My friend Sophie works around the corner from Royal Saxon and is already a big fan even if it is painful to get in on a weekend. The place looks amazing, no money has been spared by architects Six Degrees to create a multi levelled space with a lofty warehouse vibe. Inside and outisde is cleverly mixed with the bar area opening out into a paved courtyard where the focus is a beautiful old Moreton bay fig which was apparently transplanted at great cost to Royal Saxon.

The menus serve as placemats as well and are packed with exactly the type of things that you want to eat once you have had a few drinks. The food is Italian and features antipasti made for nibbling at and more substantial fare such as pizzas, risottos and pastas almost designed for soaking up alcohol. Napkins are cheery red and white striped tea towels all the better for trying to remove pasta sauce from your shirt.

From the antipasti section of the menu, crispy zucchini flowers ($14) are served dipped in a light tempura like batter alongside crisp sage leaves and slices of lemon. Doused in lemon juice it is light, refreshing bar food with a twist. The proscuitto pizza ($16) is thin based with a rectangular shape and arrives on a serving board. The dough is slightly charred and elastic and the pizza topped with silky folds of prosciutto, mushrooms, sprigs of thyme and fontina cheese.

Royal Saxon is a more of a bar than a restaurant so there are extensive beer, wine and cocktail menus with over ten beers on tap including boutique offerings such as White Rabbit and Pipsqueak cider. Good food, good drinks, a "we are so busy that we don't take bookings policy" and lots of beautiful people, I'm starting to see why this place is so popular.

View Gourmet Chick Melbourne in a larger map

Essentials

Details: 545 Church Street, Richmond 3121 (+61 3 9429 5277) Australia

Damage: Pricey

8/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my review of another new opening in Melbourne, Three Bags Full, for new openings in London check out my review of Yalla Yalla.

Three Bags Full

One of the main things I miss about living in Melbourne is brunch. I am on holidays in Melbourne at the moment getting organised for my wedding in a weeks time and have been trying to eat as much brunch as is physically possible. Hopefully my wedding dress will still fit! As well as revisiting old favourites I have been pleased to discover some new brunch hot spots in Melbourne such as Three Bags Full in Abbotsford which has only been open for a few weeks.

Abbotsford local Jo discovered Three Bags Full around the corner from her place and took me and our friend Clare there. The cafe is housed in a brick warehouse building that used to be a hat factory. It is a bright, airy room with high ceilings and polished concrete floors. Seating made out of old street signs is a quirky touch that injects a bit of character and there are lots of great details such as lights made out of coffee cups and vases full of beautiful native flowers. Seating is split between individual tables and a long communal bench which we pulled up a stool at. Complimentary tap water is instantly provided (one of the reasons I love Melbourne cafes) in old Northern Territory draft bottles which is a humorous touch.

Fruit salad

In true Melbourne fashion breakfast is served all day but there is also a separate lunch section of the menu offering salads and baguettes along with a specials board. The food on offer is inventive and playful. Dishes such as sticky black ginger bread with roasted plums and mascarpone ($13.50) walk a fine line between breakfast and dessert. Fruit salad ($9) came in a generous serving topped with greek yoghurt but could have done with the addition of some honey or nuts.

Smoked salmon with pea, fetta and corn fritter

The dish with real wow factor was the cured smoked salmon served folded on top of a pea, fetta and corn fritter with a large wedge of avocado ($15.50). Three Bags Full cures its own salmon and then the fritter is oven baked and served warm. The result is sensational and one of the best brunch dishes I have had.

Three Bags Full takes its coffee seriously as well offering Five Senses coffee and a Clover machine. They have even custom designed two blends especially for the cafe. This attention to detail shows and Jo's latte was perfectly judged. With new cafes such as Three Bags Full opening it seems that brunch in Melbourne is even better than I remembered. Lucky Melburnians.

View Gourmet Chick Melbourne in a larger map

Details

Essentials: 56 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford, Victoria, Australia (Ph +61 3 9421 2732)

Damage: Reasonable

9/10

Links

If you are looking for a Melbourne style brunch in London try the Australian run cafe Lantana.

Crostini with jamon, goats cheese and fig paste (Meals in Heels)

Meals in Heels is a decidedly girly cookbook. The title is probably the first giveaway I suppose. The idea behind the book is food for entertaining. Each recipe includes a section letting you know what you can make ahead, what to do before guests arrive, how to serve the food (down to the type of platter to use) and suggestions for menus or accompaniments. All of this, with the exception of the presentation suggestions which is a bit of overkill is actually quite helpful.

My beef with the book is that there are no photographs, just (admittedly charming) line drawings. I do like an actual photograph as it gives me some idea of what the finished recipe should turn out like. You could say the book is a little sexist as it assumes that females are doing the cooking and entertaining but I did not mind the unashamedly girly emphasis, it gives the cookbook a sense of fun and a bit of character. As for the actual recipes, they are pretty good ranging from canape suggestions for parties to dinner party dishes. The canape suggestions are probably the strongest point as this is a section that is often lacking in a lot of cookbooks. Long live the canape I say.

I tried out this recipe for crostini with jamon, goats cheese and fig paste and it went down a treat as a canape at my Mum's 60th birthday party.

Ingredients

20 thin slices of sourdough baguette

60ml extra virgin olive oil

200g firm goats cheese

200g fig paste or fig jam

5 slices jamon

1 handful wild rocket

Salt and pepper to season

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Place the bread on a baking tray and brush the tops with oil and season with salt and pepper.

2. Bake for 5-6 minutes or until toasted but not too hard. You want crisp but not chewy. This step can be done up to 2 days ahead and the crostini stored in an airtight container.

3. Slice the goats cheese into 20 pieces, place on the crostini and top with fig paste. Slice each piece of jamon into four, place on the crostini and top with a rocket leaf.

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in some of my other cookbook reviews of The Eagle Cookbook and The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

Thanks to Murdoch Books who sent me a copy of Meals in Heels to review.

Wahaca

Oaxaca is obviously too difficult for Londoners to pronounce. That's why Thomasina Miers called her Mexican restaurant Wahaca which is the phonetic pronunciation of Oaxaca, Mexico's culinary capital. It's a clever little nod to those in the know about Mexican cuisine. Everything about the place is rather clever, the decor of hot bright colours and a boho chic collection of tomato tins and crates, the emphasis on "so hot right now" street food, even the communal tables capture the zeitgeist.

There is a no bookings policy so it is best to get to Wahaca early although they do let you put your name down, take a beeper and head to a pub around the corner to wait your turn (a much better option than the overcrowded bar area). The menu offers much more varied options than the mainly refried beans, chicken and rice that I dined on in Mexico, in fact there is hardly a refried bean in sight which makes me think this is an Anglo version of Mexican food, or perhaps a rich mans version of Mexican food. I'm not complaining though I was sick to death of refried beans by the time I left Mexico.

Put off by the queues and perhaps the hype, I had never actually been to Wahaca until the other week when I had dinner with MTV boyfriend and our friends Anna and Nick. We were all starving and Mexican street food is the sort of food that is best if it is served quickly, luckily for us our food arrives in a flash. We barely have time to sip on our cheladas of beer served in a glass rimmed with lime and salt before we were tucking in. Of the tacos, pork pibil tacos (£3.85) were earthy and moist while vegetable tacos (£3.25) were a little gluey. Huitlacoche quesadillas (£3.95) sounded more exotic than what they were, toasted flour tortillas stuffed with corn and mushrooms, a better bet were the potato and chorizo quesadillas (£3.95) but then everything is better with chorizo right? Guacamole served with tortilla chips (£3.25) was tasteless and gloopy, lacking the familiar kick of lime which usually lifts this dish from being simply mashed avocado.

Wahaca is Mexican for the masses. I've had much better Mexican at Crazy Homie's and Taqueria. That said, it's a fun place to eat, service is speedy and the churros are sensational. Served so hot that they burn your fingers these long doughnut like pieces of hot sugary dough match perfectly with the creamy chocolate sauce. They might even be better than the churros I had in Mexico. Who knows about Oaxaca though, never been as it was too hard to say.

Essentials

Details: 66 Chandos Place, Covent Garden WC2N4HG (Ph 020 7240 1883) Tube: Covent Garden

Damage: Such a bargain my mother would approve

5/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in reading my reviews of another London Mexican restaurant, Taqueria, or about the cooking course I did in Mexico.

How to make Chinese dumplings

My friend Jetsetting Joyce who is a superstar cook has kindly agreed to share her dumpling recipe with Gourmet Chick readers in honour of Chinese New Year on 14 February this year. Thanks Joyce.

For me dumpling making is always a happy social occasion. So gather your family and friends around, sit around the kitchen table and pitch in to deftly wrap armies of won tons. For simplicity and speed I like my won tons scooped straight out of the pot and served with chilli and sesame oil, maybe with a sprinkling of finely chopped spring onion. You can also have the won tons in a broth and I’ve given you the recipe here.

Won tons ready to be cooked

Won ton soup (serves 6)

Won tons

250g green prawns

80g (1/2 cup) peeled water chestnuts. Personally I love my filling extra crunchy so I add double the amount of water chestnuts.

250g (9 oz) lean minced pork

3 ½ tablespoons light soy sauce

3 ½ tablespoons Shaoxing rice wine

1 ½ teaspoons roasted sesame oil

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon grated ginger

1 ½ tablespoons cornflour (cornstarch)

30 square wonton egg wrappers. You buy these frozen, either white or yellow.

Soup

1.5 litres (6 cups) chicken stock

450g English spinach, bok choi/pak choy or gai lan (Chinese broccoli)

2 spring onions, green part only, finely chopped

Placing the prawn mixture in the wrapper

1. Peel and devein the prawns. Place in a tea towel and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. If you don’t do this the filling will be watery and may affect the texture of the skin.

2. Mince the prawns to a coarse paste using a sharp knife or in a food processor.

3. Blanch the water chestnuts in boiling water for 1 minute, then refresh in cold water. Drain, pat dry and roughly chop.

4. Place the prawns, water chestnuts, pork, 2 teaspoons of soy sauce, 2 teaspoons of Shaoxing rice wine, 1/2 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon sesame oil, black pepper, ginger and cornflour in a mixing bowl. Stir vigorously to combine.

5. In a small bowl, mix a little cornflour with water to make a watery paste. Prepare a tray dusted with cornflour.

6. Place a teaspoon of filling in the centre of each won ton wrapper. This is where opinion diverges as there are many different ways to wrap a won ton. I’ll show you two ways – the tortellini method and the pretty grandma-sitting-with-her-legs-crossed method, which is what

my family prefers.

Step one of the tortellini method

a. Dip your finger in the cornflour mixture and brush all the edges. Fold the wrapper in half, then bring the two folded corners together and press firmly.

Step two of the tortellini method

b. Dip you finger in the cornflour mixture and brush all the edges. Bring two opposite corners of the wrapper together to form a triangle. Take the other two corners, bring them towards the centre, twist the corners away from each other and dab some more mixture to hold the two ‘legs’ in place. She’ll then sit up pertly on the cornflour dusted tray.

Grandma sitting with her legs crossed method

7. If you’re not cooking these immediately, cover the tray with a damp tea towel so the pastry doesn’t dry out. To cook, bring a saucepan of water to the boil. Cook the won tons, covered, for 5-6 minutes until they have risen to the surface (be careful they don’t stick to the pan). Using a wire sieve/slotted spoon, carefully remove the won tons and divide them among six bowls.

8. If you’re having soup, place the stock in a saucepan with the remaining soy sauce, rice wine, salt and sesame oil and bring to boil. Add the greens and cook until just wilted. Pour the hot stock and vegetables over the won tons and sprinkle with spring onion.

Completed dumplings (sans soup)

Adapted from The Food of China: A Journey for Food Lovers.

Jetsetting Joyce is Chinese-Australian, a keen cook and writes and edits two blogs - MEL: HOT OR NOT The decisive guide to Melbourne and BNE: HOT OR NOT The decisive guide to Brisbane. The blogs review restaurants, bars, shops, culture, events and everything in between for locals and visitors to Melbourne and Brisbane. You can also follow Joyce on Twitter. Joyce's brilliant recipes will be featuring again on Gourmet Chick while I am on my honeymoon in a few weeks time.

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in this step by step guide on how to make scotch eggs. If reading about dumplings has put you in the mood for dim sum you can read this review of Yauatcha in London.

Gourmet Giveaway

And the winner of the Valentines day gourmet giveaway for an Interflora breakfast in bed is The Blonde who won by random number generation by virtue of being the 21st comment. The winner has been contacted and hopefully breakfast in bed should be winging its way to them shortly.

The Bull and Butcher (Gourmet Chick in Oxfordshire)

One vintage bus, one gastro pub, twenty two girls and too many bottles of champagne to count. That was my hen's day. I am getting married shortly so my lovely friends Alice, Prue and Georgie organised a day out. They promised no strippers or penis straws and delivered. After a champagne breakfast we headed off in our bus through the countryside to The Bull and Butcher in the charming village of Turville near Henley-on-Thames.

Fish and chips

This beautiful Tudor style pub is packed to the gills with character and characters. It serves simple pub food and has a wide range of real ales on taps although to be honest we mainly stuck to the wine list. They offer a three course menu for 22. A good starting point is the French onion soup, a simmering bowl of dark liquid made from onions caramalised to the point of sweetness. The soup was so rich that I couldn't finish it which is a real rarity. Another option was a slice of pale pink chicken liver parfait which was served with slices of toast and onion jam. This was a gutsy parfait bursting with robust flavour.

Fish and chips are raised a notch above the usual pub fare thanks to a light beer batter, decent crispy yet fluffy chips and some creamy mushy peas. It was a little bit of fried food heaven. Alternatively, thick and juicy pork and leek sausages served on a fluffy cloud of mash also delivered the goods. It couldn't all be brilliant of course and my chocolate fondant pudding for dessert was overcooked so the chocolate sauce was still mainly solid rather than liquid. Let's just say that minor quibble did not stop me eating the whole thing.

This was not affected pub grub, it was the real deal. The service was outright friendly and I think the Bull and Butcher is worth a trip whether you are with 22 of your dearest friends or not.

Essentials

Details: Turville, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, England R696QU (Ph 01491 638 283)Damage: Reasonable

8/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in some of my other reviews of country pubs in England like the Miller of Mansfield and The Queen's Head.

Gourmet Giveaway - Valentines Breakfast in Bed

So Valentines day is rolling around again. I think you know my views on the subject - overpriced, overhyped and designed to make singletons feel miserable. From a food lovers point of view it is impossible to get a booking at a decent restaurant and if you do, many restaurants hike their prices and put on special Valentines day set menus. That said, I don't like to ignore Valentines day entirely (hint, hint, MTV boyfriend). Last year, MTV boyfriend and I went out for breakfast instead. You can go one better this year and enter this competition to win Valentines Day breakfast in bed.

The lovely people of Interflora, well known for their Valentines day flowers also do hampers for a perfect breakfast in bed. The hamper contains:

- a stained white wooden breakfast tray;

- a bottle of Buck's fizz;
- 4 butter croissants,

- mini jars of raspberry conserve and marmalade;

- Scottish smoked salmon;

- coffee;

- Duchy's Originals teabags; and

- two champagne flutes (total hamper worth £29.99).

You can win it by just leaving a comment below before 5pm on 12 February 2010. To enter you must be 18+ and must be a UK resident due to the nature of the prize. A winner will be drawn using the random website and announced that same day.

COMPETITION NOW CLOSED AND WINNER ANNOUNCED

Pork, sage and apple sausage rolls

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery right? That's why I couldn't resist making these pork, sage and apple sausage rolls that I spotted on LexEat a month or so ago. There is nothing better than a homemade sausage roll and they are always infinitely superior to the store bought versions. The recipe I usually make is fairly plain with just pork mince, onions, breadcrumbs and a little bit of seasoning in the filling. When I read Lex's recipe with its additions of sage, beer and apple my mouth started to water and I couldn't wait to try them. Of course I could not cope with leaving the recipe alone entirely so I kept in the diced onion from my recipe just to add a little more flavour. The result was truly delicious. Thanks Lex!

The finished product

Ingredients

500g puff pastry (the equivalent of 3 sheets or 2 rolls)

Plain flour for dusting

1 egg lightly beaten

Filling

500g pork mince

50g fresh breadcrumbs

1/2 onion finely diced

50ml real ale

6 fresh sage leaves finely chopped (plus around 30 smaller sage leaves for decorating)

1 apple, cored and grated

Salt and pepper to season

I made these at my Mum's house which was such a treat as she had a wealth of beautiful fresh sage growing in the garden

1. Mix all the filling ingredients with your hands (with the exception of the sage leaves for decorating), season and leave to chill for 30 mins.

2. Roll out the pastry onto a lightly floured surface and cut into lengths which are about 10 cm x 30cm. If you are using sheets of pastry cut the pastry sheets in half.

3. Shape the sausage filling into long logs and place it in the middle of each piece of pastry.

4. Brush the edges of the pastry with the egg and then roll the pastry over to enclose the sausage mixture and press the edges to seal. Chill for 30 min.

5. Cut each log into sausage roll size, small for party size sausage rolls like the ones I made or you could make long sausage rolls for a lunch time snack.

6. Brush each sausage roll with the remaining egg and top with a sage leaf.

7. Preheat the oven to 220C and cook the sausage rolls for 15- 20 mins or until golden. Serve immediately or let them cool and pop in the freezer ready to be reheated for about 10 mins in the oven when you need them.

Makes around 30 small sausage rolls or 10 large sausage rolls.

Rolling out the sausage mixture on the pastry

Links

If you are looking for good party food recipes you might be interested in this recipe for crab croquettes or this recipe for bruschetta.

Aladin

Another meal on Brick lane and another restaurant fail. Sure it's cheap and cheerful but Aladin fails to deliver on flavour. Like all places on Brick lane, touts try to get you inside offering deals, in our case, unlimited poppadums and a promise of two courses for £10. Once inside you almost need to be wearing sunglasses to cope with the red decor accentuated by red lighting. The restaurant boasts that it has been visited by Prince Charles and there is apparently a video of the visit that they can show you on request.

Chicken jalfrezi

The menu covers both Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani dishes. To begin, the poppadums with a rather good zesty lime pickle (50p). Unfortunately the "unlimited" poppadums did not ever materialise and we only managed to have about one poppadum each. Onion bahjis were disappointingly greasy and insipid (£2.75). The tandoori chicken was keenly priced at £2.75 and was on the dry side but had a nice kick to its burnished seasoning.

Onion baji

Aladin is apparently famous for its Balti dishes and there is a whole section of the menu devoted to different variations however when we went to order a Balti we were told these were not available on the deal we had been given. I can only hope then that the Balti are better than the chicken jalfrezi (£5.75). The jalfrezi was mouth searingly spicy, as it should be, but apart from the chilli rush it was hard to ascertain much flavour and the whole thing had a claggy taste to it. The lamb madras (£5.25) was almost as hot as the jalfrezi but this time the culprit was the lamb which was tough. Prince Charles may have given his seal of approval but I wonder what he actually thought of the curry.

Essentials

Details: 132 Brick Lane, Tower Hamlets E16RU (Ph 020 7247 8210) Tube: Liverpool Street/Aldgate East

Damage: Such a bargain even my mother would approve

4/10

Links

If you are looking for a curry on Brick lane, why not try nearby Tayabbs? On Brick lane itself the best option is to have a beigle at Brick Lane Beigle Bake.

Portrait Restaurant

It's certainly a room with a view. That's the first thing you think when you emerge from the lifts to the top floor of the National Portrait Gallery and walk into the Portrait Restaurant. Looking out over the rooftops from Trafalgar Square is a whole new way of looking at London. It's a cracking view as you can't see the Gherkin or the other more modern buildings so it feels almost as if you have stepped back in time. All the better for ogling the cityscape there are two big rows of windows with tables lined up against them to ensure that every seat has a view. The interior is fairly minimalist so as not to distract from what's out the window, pale wooden floors and dark walls creating a blank canvas.

Bread selection

The restaurant is run by Searcy's under the supervision of head chef Katarina Todosijevic. Although Todosijevic is Swedish, then menu is classic British. There is a lot that tempts from guinea fowl to mackerel salad however irritatingly, if you go for lunch you must have two courses for £21.50 rather than being able to simply order one dish. When you order a selection of warm bread arrives presented on a slate with a pat of butter. I am a bit tired of food being served on slate and chopping boards but perhaps I am being churlish. The pick of the main dishes is the lamb shank which is comically huge in size like some sort of dinosaur shank and comes with a garlic puree mash, roasted potatoes and pumpkin.

Roasted tomato and courgette tart

The vegetarian option is not quite as satisfying as the shank. The huge roasted tomato and courgette tart is on the dry side from the many layers of puff pastry although the tomatoes have been roasted until their flavour is incredibly sweet and intense. The tart is served with a side of purple sprouting broccoli which is lovely and buttery but slightly overcooked. Dessert of apple and blueberry crumble is pretty enough to rival the view, served in an individual ramekin with a miniature jug of thick and warm custard.

Lamb shank

The problem with rooms with a view is that they don't really have to try very hard and they will still attract plenty of punters eager to get a birds eye take on London. This seems to be the case at the Portrait Restaurant where the food was uneven at times and service was lacking. Next time I want to sample the spectacular view I might just order a drink at the bar instead.

Essentials

Details: National Portrait Gallery, St Martins Place, WC2H OHE (Ph 020 7312 2490) Tube: Charing Cross/ Leicester Square

Damage: Pricey

6/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my reviews of other rooms with views: the Tate Modern restaurant and Smiths of Smithfield.