Gourmet Chick turns two

Today I am celebrating Gourmet Chick's second birthday. Two years ago I first decided to stop annoying my friends by talking obsessively about food and instead transfer my obsession to the internet. In that time I have learnt a lot about food, eaten some amazing meals and travelled to some brilliant foodie destinations.

As I did last year I have included my yearly statistics below in the interests of transparency and for those of you who like knowing those sort of things. I have hit over 20,000 page views a month for the first time this month which is over double the same time last year. Big thanks to the sites who have been supportive of Gourmet Chick and directed traffic my way. The ones who have provided the most traffic are listed below. The most thanks go though to all the people who regularly read Gourmet Chick. It is always great to get your comments and thanks for spending some time on this little patch of the internet.



1. Urbanspoon
This aggregrator of restaurant reviews does a great job in my book by putting user and blogger reviews right up there next to the critics. Their London blog leader board is also always amusing to watch as blogs randomly soar up and down the ratings for what seems to be no apparent reason.

2. London-Eating
This user review site features one blog post for each restaurant and Gourmet Chick has been lucky enough to get featured a few times.

3. American in London
My go-to-guide for foodie travel - if I have a trip planned, chances are Alice has already been there and written it all up. Incisive writing style and a very authorative resource particularly when it comes to Chinese and French restaurants.

4. Londonelicious

One of the original London food blogs and still one of the best (going strong after six years). Krista's reviews are pithy and no-nonsense. This is a girl who knows her stuff.

5. Catty Life
A fellow Australian in London whose fun blog displays her obsessions for Byron Burgers and matcha powder.

6. Maison Cupcake
A great resource for bakers, Sarah is a domestic goddess with more recipes and tips than you will probably know what to do with. She is also the queen of macarons - brave woman!

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in reading Gourmet Chick turns One, or my first post (how embarassing!).

Bob Bob Ricard

Every restaurant should have a push for champagne button. No make, that every house. Sadly though there is only one place in London with push for champagne buttons, Bob Bob Ricards in Soho. The buttons aren't the only unusual thing about this eccentric restaurant. Rumoured to feature the most expensive restaurant fit out in London, the interior is seriously luxurious and just a bit whacky. The walls are covered in plush blue paper, the waiters are nattily attired in pink outfits and the whole place is monogrammed to within an inch of its life. It's a diner on speed or a restaurant that has fallen down Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole. Love it or hate it (and I loved it) you can't say Bob Bob Ricard is boring.

The famous buttons in each booth

A little behind the rest of London, I ate at Bob Bob Ricard's for the first time last week with a host of other food and drink obsessed people as part of a London Food and Drink Bloggers meet up. Surely this crowd was most restauranters worst nightmare but the staff at Bob Bob Ricards looked after us with care and just a little bit of pizzazz. We started with Bob Bob Ricard's signature pink rhubarb gin and tonic (£7.50), a seriously good drink. The saying is that gin is a depressant for one in three but there was nothing depressing about this peachy flavoured concoction.

Ox tounge in aspic

The menu itself is more Russian than you find in Russia. It is a check list of luxury ingredients and time consuming preparation featuring aspic, truffles, veal and quails eggs. Bob Bob Ricards is clearly ignoring all those rules about margins in the restaurant business. Aspic, impressive as it may be is not one of my favourite things in the world so I can't say I loved the pre starter of jellied ox tounge with creamed horse radish (£7.50) although I did appreciate the quivering, glistening glory of it. I preferred the accompanying short of vodka Imperia which was served chilled at minus 18 degrees.

Russian salad was more up my alley, with lots of cream, potatoes and (this being Bob Bob Ricard) topped with black truffles. Incredibly luxurious the earthy flavour of the truffles shone in this dish. Too add to how over the top nature of the dish it was served with Kauffman vodka, a vodka so smooth that when you swallowed the drink it was like drinking water rather than the burn of vodka.

Veal Holstein

A main of tender, breaded veal (£21.50) was served with quails eggs, yet more truffle in the mashed potatoes and a rich, intensley reduced sauce that was hidden underneath the veal. I thought that was a theatrical dish but it had nothing on the dessert called "chocolate glory" (£8.75)which was a chocolate sphere which disintegrated when hot chocolate was poured onto it to reveal chocolate mousse, a chocolate brownie and passionfruit orange jelly. It was incredibly spectacular and also totally overwhelming to the extent I could only eat about half of it. This is one to order and share between the table not to try to consume alone. Dessert was matched with a glasss of honey sweet Sauternes from Bordeaux (£11.75). Special mention should be made of the wine list which features many wines and champagnes at minimal mark ups. The wine list cleverly highlights the price at Bob Bob Ricards in comparison to other London restaurants. One champagne was 140 per cent more expensive elsewhere!

Russian cuisine is not my favourite style of food, but I loved Bob Bob Ricard for its eccentricity, incredible attention to the finer things in life and for its sheer difference to every other restaurant in London. What a treat and what a trip.

Essentials

Details: 1 Upper James Street, Soho W1F 9DF (Ph 020 3145 1000) Tube: Oxford Circus

Damage: Pricey. We had a set menu of £35 a head which was great value but if you order a la carte the prices add up.

9/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my review of Polpo which is across the road from Bob Bob Ricard and a very different restaurant. Otherwise you can read about my meal at one of Russia's top restaurants in St Petersburg (more aspic on the menu!).

Goldfish City

Goldfish City is a pretty strange name for a restaurant. The name comes from the original Goldfish restaurant in Hampstead, the city version which is right near bank station has carried on the naming tradition. There are some goldfish in a tank near the entrance, but thankfully the menu itself is goldfish free. While it may not feature everyones favourite pet fish, the menu is otherwise pretty broad covering Chinese food from many different regions of China, food from other areas of Asia such as Malaysia and quite a few Anglicised, fusion takes on Chinese food.

Mocha ribs

Mocha ribs (£13) were a case in point. It was the dish of the night, and the restauarant's speciality, but you can't really call ribs covered in a thick, glossy sauce which tasted of chocolate and coffee typical fare in a Chinese restaurant. What you can say is that like the old fast food advertising slogan, they were "finger lickin' good" to the extent that MTV boyfriend and I were literally licking the dark, toffee sauce from our fingers. Some of the other fusion style dishes were not quite so successful, the prawns with mango sauce were coated with a great thin and crisp tempura batter but were doused with a thick, flourescent orange mango sauce that was too sickly sweet and overwhelming. Similarly, pan fried duck breast with mango was actually a great flavour combination but the duck was unfortunately overcooked and the duck meat was a rubbery light brown which defied pleasure.

Broccoli and wild mushrooms

Much better was our starter of soft shell crab salad (£8.50). Tender pieces of crab were coated with a light batter, served with salad leaves and a sweet chilli dressing. Calamari was coated in the same batter and topped with finely diced chillis which added the perfect amount of kick to the dish. The steamed fillet of Chilean sea bass was thick and meaty with pearly, translucent flesh. I really enjoyed the texture and clean taste which was so different to the typical sea bass that is served in London's restaurants. Vegetables of wild mushroom and broccoli with a gentle oyster sauce were vibrant and supple.

Chilean sea bass

It is early days still at Goldfish City and so the dining room complete with stained glass windows adorned with goldfish was rather empty and lacking in atmosphere on my Friday night visit. The lack of buzz was compensated for in part by the service which was excellent, in particular our waiter Denzel who looked after all the tables in his area with care and skill. Despite a few dishes that were more whacky than inspired, the general quality of the food is bound to attract more and more city diners.

Essentials

Details: 46 Gresham Street, City, EC2V 7AY (Ph 020 7726 030) Tube: Bank

Damage: Reasonable

7/10

Gourmet Chick was a guest of Goldfish City

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my review of the nearyby 40 I 30 or if you are looking for Chinese food try Kai.

Gourmet Chick Sponsors - Kitchen's Top Talent

Gourmet Chick sponsors this week is Kitchen's Top Talent. The competition is a nationwide search to find Britain's top talent in the kitchens, but we are not talking cooking talent here but rather singing and dancing. The website for the competition, which offers hospitality staff the chance to win £1,000, features entries from staff at The Cinnamon Kitchen and the restaurant at St Pauls. They are all competing for public votes for the most talented kitchen.

You can check it out here and vote for your favourite video.

Courgettes with Parmesan Crackling (New Urban Farmer)

Over a year ago I responded to a call for help from Celia Brooks Brown who was busy writing a gardening and cook book called New Urban Farmer and needed some help testing the recipes in the book. The recipes I tested were all great - although I think some of the feedback I gave to Celia was that one of the recipes would be good with chicken or bacon, not realising that the book was going to be vegetarian (whoops!). The book has now been published and there is a lovely acknowledgment in the back to me and lots of the other bloggers who helped test recipes.

The book

Celia wrote the book based on her experiences cultivating and cooking from an allotment in London. It's a really great book if you are interested in growing some of your own food and shows that you don't need to live in the countryside or even have a garden. The focus is mainly on the gardening side of things and personally I would probably have preferred a few more recipes, but one thing I can say is all the recipes work well - they have after all been extensively tested. To give you a taster for the book I did a short interview with Celia and also tried out one of the recipes I originally tested, the courgettes with Parmesan crackling.

Cooking the courgettes with parmesan crackling

Interview with Celia Brooks Brown

What inspired you to write the New Urban Farmer?

I had been writing a blog for The Times online for three years (since the second year of cultivating the plot) and I really enjoyed cataloguing my experience. Also, I found most gardening books to be rather dry and difficult to absorb for a beginner, so I set out to write something engaging and mouthwatering and that had a gritty, urban edge to it rather than being yet another depiction of a rural idyll.

What are your tips for "urban farmers" who don't have an allotment and have to rely on a windowbox?

Just about anything can be grown in containers outdoors, with a few exceptions, like rhubarb and Jerusalem artichokes. Even a small windowbox is fine for growing all sorts of herbs, lettuces, baby greens like chard, pakchoi and mustard, and edible flowers. These can also be grown on a surface inside a sunny window.

How did you come up with the recipes for the book?

The recipes were mostly inspired by having an abundance of produce and having to constantly come up with ideas for using it! Sometimes it was spontaneous invention. Some I developed as variations on classics, like Jeweled Cauliflower Pilao and Smoky Gazpacho. My Rhubarb and Lentil Curry was inspired by a recipe from blogger Lizzy Mabbot's dad who makes a meat curry with rhubarb - I decided the sharpness of rhubarb would work well with lentils, so I played around with it til I got it right. Ideas come from all over the place - even dreams!

What was it like getting feedback from food bloggers testing your recipes?

Getting food bloggers to test recipes and give feedback was absolutely brilliant. There are so many enthusiastic cooks out there and I was overwhelmed with their enthusiasm and willingness to take the time not only to cook the recipes, but to write me back with constructive feedback. I simply sent out a few tweets asking if anyone wanted to test my recipes, and got dozens of replies which led to some really valuable analysis. With my previous cookbooks it was always a real chore to farm out the recipes for testing.

What should urban farmers be planting now?

The sowing season is starting to wane a bit from August onwards, but one can continue planting a plethora of quick growing crops including baby leaves and lettuces, pak choi, mustard greens, choi sum, spring cabbages, radishes, rocket, spinach and spring onions.

Celia's recipe for Courgettes with Parmesan crackling

2 medium courgettes (zucchinis)

1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Mixed salad leaves

50g walnuts chopped

75g Parmesan grated

2 tbsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

The finished dish

1. Heat a non stick frying pan over a medium heat. Place the courgettes in a bowl and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar making sure they are coated on boath sides.

2. Place the courgettes in the hot, dry pan (save the remaining vinegar in the bowl) making sure there is some space between the slices.

3. Sprinkle with half the grated Parmesan. Wait until it starts to look golden and crusty then turn the courgettes making sure to scrape up the cheese from the pan.

4. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the courgettes and let it get crusty again before removing the pan from the heat.

5. Mix the oil with the leftover vinegar to make a dressing. Arrange the salad leaves on plates, place the courgettes and Parmesan "crackling" on top and then the walnuts and dressing. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves two as a light lunch.

Gourmet Chick received a review copy of New Urban Farmer.

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my review of Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi or my review of Movida Rustica.

Gourmet Giveaway - Godiva Chocolates

I lived in Belgium for six months when I was at university and managed to gain a fair amount of weight from all that beer, fritten and of course chocolate. Chocolate is a national obsession in Belgium and it is was a common occurrence for one of my slim Belgian house mates to tuck into toast with chocolate spread on it for breakfast.

Fresh strawberries dipped in chocolate

I try to limit my chocolate consumption to after breakfast these days but my resolve may be broken by the close proximity of the tiny Godiva shop in Fenchurch street to my work. The chocolates in the shop contain some all year favourites like their best selling hazelnut chocolate and seasonal ranges. In summer time they make the most incredible "chocolate kebabs" of strawberries dipped in Godiva chocolate and threaded on a skewer (£5.25). In Winter, look out for rich, creamy Godiva hot chocolate drinks. For those amongst you who have a Belgian like addiction to chocolate, Godiva also does a luxury chocolate spread to put on your toast in the mornings.

Chocolates on offer at Godiva

Godiva invited me down to the shop to test out some chocolates and just so I don't look greedy they are also going to send a box of their seasonal summer range of chocolates worth £24.33 to a lucky Gourmet Chick reader. As usual, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment below.

The summer chocolate box on offer

Remember:

1. Only one comment per person.

2. I need to be able to contact you if you win, so if you don't have a blog with contact details please leave your email address in the comments or email it to me at missgourmetchick[at]gmail[dot]com.

3. Entrants must be located in the UK (sorry) but can be any age.

4. A winner will be chosen randomly using random.org by 5pm UK time on Thursday 29 July.

5. The winner will be announced on Gourmet Chick on Friday 30 July.

Good luck.

COMPETITION CLOSED

Garden and Grill

In my search for the holy grail of Thai restaurants, Garden and Grill has all the makings of being the one. It serves cheap and cheerful Thai food. It has a great outdoor terrace overlooking Portobello road in Notting Hill (with heaters for Winter). What's more it does BYO - a real rarity in London. I really thought this might be the time when my search through London might have come to an end. Unfortunately, the food on offer is just not very good.

Pinky in blanket

Curious as to what it was, we ordered the "Pinky in blanket" to begin (£5). A handful of prawns arrived, wrapped in rice paper that has been deep fried and served with a slightly spicy sweet chilli sauce. Despite the strange name these were not a bad take on the more traditional spring roll. However, from here things went down hill. Pad Thai (£7.95) is one of my favourite Thai dishes, and when it is made correctly, the balance between the sweetness of the sugar, the acidity of the lime and the bitterness of the fish sauce creates an incredibly moreish dish. Sadly, Garden and Grill's version of Pad Thai had over dosed on the sugar and the noodles were gluggy rather than pliant.

Pad Thai

The most disappointing dish was the Thai beef salad which was a totally inappropriate name for the slab of beef that arrived on my plate with a tiny portion of lettuce. Not quite the slivers of rare beef and delicately dressed plate of leaves I was expecting. The beef was tough, monotonous and bizarrely it was even served with small boiled potatoes which did not seem very Thai at all.

Thai beef salad - not so much salad as just beef

Garden and Grill has so much going for it, but the fact the food does not pass muster means that it is one to avoid. Sure the prices are fairly cheap, but this doesn't have to mean poor quality - just look at the excellent and bargain priced Vietnamese restaurants on Kingsland road. My search continues.

Essentials

Details: 253a Portobello road, Notting Hill W11 1LR (Ph 020 7313 6511) Tube: Ladbroke Grove

Damage: Reasonable

3/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in my review of Market Thai which is just opposite Garden and Grill, or my favourite Thai so far in London, Patara Thai.

The Old Hat Club

One of the great thing about supper clubs is getting to peek inside other peoples houses. Sadly, attending a Sunday lunch at The Old Hat Club in Angel will just leave you with total real estate envy. That Old Victorian terrace. The huge, shiny kitchen. The beautiful back garden. The pizza oven. Yes, you heard me they even have a huge wood fired pizza oven in the garden. The club certainly took advantage of the oven throughout the meal, and as soon as we arrived we were served served piping hot swirls of pastry and black pudding sprinkled with Parmesan as we stood in the garden and chatted. The drink of choice for the day was Prosecco Riccardo who supplied the drinks for the supper club that day. The club teamed our wood fired oven nibbles with cocktails made from prosecco, strawberries and hint of fiery black pepper.

Black pudding pastry

This was only the second time The Old Hat Club had been run, but there was clearly an experienced team in the kitchen. After cocktails and chat we were seated for the first course of scrowlers. Scrowlers is what the Cornish call sardines and as these were Cornish sardines, that was what we called them. Plus we just liked saying the word scrowler. They were big meaty sardines with a faint smoky smell from being roasted in the wood fired oven. Stuffed with herbs and served on tomato bruschetta this dish was really Mediterranean with a fresh, summery feel to it. The accompanying Riccardo Prosecco Vino Tranquilo tasted of pears and was served in wine glasses as it was bubble free. This was a real favourite of mine and proved to be a really interesting drink, almost a cross between a wine and a prosecco.

Scrowlers on toast

As The Old Hat Club is a Sunday supper club, what could be better on a Sunday than a roast. The roast on offer was pork belly that had been slow cooked in milk and a tarragon sauce Italian style and then scorched under the grill to crisp up the crackling. It was served with a puree of butternut squash which had been slow cooked in the wood oven and acted as a sweet foil to the pork and some fantastic crisp and fluffy goose fat roasted potatoes. The only thing that let the dish down slightly was the crackling was a bit too crackly and erred on the side of burnt rather than crisp.

Roast pork belly

To finish there was a Moroccan citrus tart with frozen yoghurt. There was quite a delay before this arrived but the tart was smooth and light with just enough acidic tang from the citrus to keep things interesting. This was paired with Riccardo Cartizze a creamy and dry prosecco which is made with the most precious grapes in the region, grown on land that is worth over €1m. If your view of prosecco is as champagnes poor cousin, this could be the drink to change your mind. As a little parting gift we received ginger and cherry florentine biscuits. Of course they never made it home.

Moroccan tart

I was sad to leave The Old Hat Club and return to my flat which seemed a little small given it does not have either a garden or a wood fired pizza oven (I am very deprived clearly!) The club is a welcome addition to the London supper club scene and is the perfect place for a leisurely Sunday lunch. At £30 and free corkage it is pretty well priced in comparison to other supper clubs were you have to pay for corkage. The only downside was slow service but given that we were all there for a leisurely Sunday lunch anyway, it didn't really affect our enjoyment of the afternoon.

Essentials

Details: Undisclosed location, Angel, London (Tube: Angel)

Damage: Reasonable - £30 and no corkage

7/10

Gourmet Chick was a guest of Prosecco Riccardo. Other bloggers in attendance included The London Foodie, Vintage Macaron, The Wine Sleuth, The Scrag End and Eat Like a Girl. Thanks to Intoxicating Prose for his organisation.

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in other supper club reviews, The Underground Restaurant in Kilburn or my visit to the grand father of all supper clubs run by Jim Haynes in Paris.

Courvoisier's The Complete History of Food with Bompass and Parr

Spoiler alert! If you are going to The Complete History of Food, do not read on. Given it is sold out (of course - how very London), however I am tipping lots of people are not able to make it and so want to read all about it.

The first room where we were diagnosed

Was it art, was it theatre, was it just a giant drinkathon? I'm still not sure - all I know was that it was truly fabulous. Bompass and Parr have taken over an amazing mansion in Belgravia for a few days and kitted out each level to represent a different period in the history of food. Standing in a darkened, wood panelled room on the ground floor we were each assessed by a white coated man. "Hmm" he said, staring at me "Calm demeanour, rosy cheeks, slim build, I think you are choleric". My medicine was to be matched food and a cocktail from the medieval period. We entered a room filled with water, swimming with eels and walked a gang plant to enter a boat. I could almost swear the boat was rocking but perhaps that was just the effect of my rose water cocktail teamed with a white wine, caper and artichoke snack from Saf.

Gauthier's take on Ferrero Rochers

From here we ascended slowly in a rickety lift to the rooftop and the future. Alexis Gauthier had made the nibbles, amazing balls of foie gras surrounding a port reduction and covered in crunchy almonds and gold leaf. They looked exactly like a Ferrero Rocher but tasted oh so different. This was teamed with a champagne cocktail. Then it was time for a little break from eating and drinking in the 1950's lounge room where we watched tv and played with our "scratch and sniff" TV dinner card. For exercise we bounced into the huge inflatable stomach in the next room, at first glance it looked like a standard bouncy castle but it was actually an "inflatable installation".

Roof top bar

Our main meal was served in Victorian times seated in a huge Iguana, reminiscent of the dinasour sculptures at Crystal Palace. Created by Bistrotheque, pink and tender duck confit was teamed with puy lentils, cubes of beetroot and a black champagne sauce, giving the classic dish a modern twist. Our duck was paired with my favourite drink of the night, a summer punch of Corvoisier with green tea, apple juice and elderflower cordial. I always did think I was perhaps born in the wrong time period.

Duck confit

The grand finale was the Renaissance dessert banquet complete with a model of the Gherkin building made out of biscuits and a giant rotating cake which acted as a display for what else but jelly. This was Bompass and Parr after all, there had to be jelly at some stage. It was also served with a posset of whale vomit, yes really, the posset was made from ambergris and it was delicious. The matching drink was Courvoisier XO which was a bit much by itself given I am more a cocktail sort of girl than a hard liquor lover.

Delicious, delightful, witty, boozy and just a little bit bonkers. You may still be slightly hungry when you leave, as this event is more about the drinks than the food. That doesn't matter though, as you won't be able to stop talking about The Complete History of Food.

The jelly and whale sperm finale

Essentials

Details: Belgrave Square, Belgravia SW1X, Tube: Hyde Park Corner

Damage: £25 a ticket - pretty reasonable in my view

9/10

Gourmet Chick was a guest of Courvoisier and Bompass & Parr

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in other gourmet events in London like Taste of London or The Real Food festival.

Gourmet Giveaway

Update - the winner of the Gourmet Giveaway for an Amazon voucher for £50 is American in London, drawn by using random.org by virtue of being the tenth comment. Congratulations American in London!

Bordeaux Fete Le Vin (Gourmet Chick in France)

You could call it good timing or you could call it a total fluke. Whatever you call it the fact that my trip to Bordeaux coincided with the Bordeaux Fete Le Vin (which is only held once every two years) was a very good thing. The French could teach most countries a few things about food and wine festivals. For a start, the price instead of being eye-watering, was very accessible. If you paid €15 you got a wine glass in a little carrier to wear around your neck and vouchers which entitled you to 12 different tastings of wine and one water tasting. An interesting ratio!

Freshly shucked oysters for free

This was incredibly good value for money as each tasting was basically a full glass of wine, and a lot of it was wine that is not necessarily cheap. What's more if you didn't want to pay for tastings you could still access the festival and wander around without having to part with a single Euro. The festival was based in the city of Bordeaux, with tents were set up along the banks of the Garonne river representing the different regions in Bordeaux. We wandered between tents discovering that wine in Bordeaux was not limited to red (they make a lot of white and rose as well) and learning about the different terroir and styles from the different

areas of Bordeaux.

The jambon truck - also free!

Meanwhile we snacked on oysters, freshly shucked and provided totally free by a team of volunteers. There was also a jambon truck which may just be one of the most fantastic things I have ever come across. Jambon was carved off one of several legs displayed in the truck and once again was compeltely free. If you kept wandering the festival joined up with Bordeaux's weekly organic market, Marche de Quais, which is held every Sunday morning. Here we feasted on fresh seafood brochettes and shopped for beautifully presented cheeses. We had such a good time that we are already planning our visit back for two years time.

Amazingly presented cheeses

Details:

Bordeaux Fete Le Vin is held once every two years in late June at Quai des Chartrons on the banks of the Garonne river in Bordeaux, France.

Marche de Quais can be found every Sunday morning at Quai des Chartrons on the banks of the Garonne river in Bordeaux, France.

The cheese plate

Gourmet Travel Tips

If you go to Bordeaux you must stay at Chateau Bellevue which is set amongst the vines in the little village of Plasac. It is out of the city of Bordeaux and a good half an hour from the airport but the extra travel time is worth it to stay in such an amazing property. From the contemporary art on the walls, to the perfectly restored sandstone exterior to the swimming pool overlooking the vines this is the sort of bed and breakfast you dream about when you leave. The owner, Petra, was also very helpful with tips for wine tasting, restaurants and markets. I cannot recommend staying here enough. Prices from €130 a room per night, including breakfast.

Details: 4 Lu Vit Bellevue, F33390 Plassac, Bordeaux, France (Ph +33 642 75 94 95)

Links

If you like reading this you might be interested in this post on Bordeaux more generally or for more adventures in France check out this post on Aix en Provence.

40 I 30

Journalists are told not to use terms like "breath taking" as how often does something actually take your breath away? I've found a place where the phrase rings true though. Upon surfacing from the lifts to the restaurant 40/30 and the bar at the top of the Gherkin you really are left momentarily forgetting to breathe in and out. First of all there is the architectural wonder that is the Lord Foster designed Gherkin with its steel sloping supports that curve into a tip that you stand under and sip champagne. Then, there are the sensational panoramic views across London from the O2 stadium, to Tower Bridge to the winding Thames and Houses of Parliament it is all there laid out like a lego land.

Amuse bouche

Views like these don't come cheaply, the only way to access 40/30 is through a whopping £750 a year membership fee, or by a more circuitous route of knowing someone who works in the building. Workers from the Gherkin are allowed to bring guests and bypass the private membership requirement which is good news for those of us without a spare £750 lying around. Rumour has it you can also blag your way in, just remember to bring photo id for the security guards and be prepared to have your belongings x-rayed by an airport style machine.

The restaurant has a modern, distinctly corporate feel to it with shiny black floors and black leather chairs that could have come straight from an office meeting room a few floors below. You could call it minimalist but I am sure the main incentive is keeping things neutral to focus on the amazing views. This is fine dining and tables are laid with linen while a bowl of tiny radishes, asparagus and cherry tomatoes with olive tapenade is one of several amuse bouches. As soon as we finish nibbling the tender but tiny asparagus spears our second amuse bouche arrives, a tiny blini topped with a quenelle of smoked salmon and surrounded by even tinier cubes of cucumber and artistic splodges of oil which will serve some more than others.

The menu is heavily French influenced with classics like steak tartare and duck and features luxury ingredients such as truffles and champagne. It is divided into a la carte (£39.50 for two courses or £47.50 for three) and a tasting menu for £65. There is currently a reasonably priced special three course menu priced at £35 for three courses so MTV boyfriend and I ended up ordering from a mix of a la carte and the set menu. For lovers of raw meat there is a beef carpaccio and tartare starter on the menu. 40/30 takes great care with plating and most of the dishes are conciously arty. The carpaccio and tartare is emblamatic of this approach, being almost too pretty and perfect to eat. Of course, we do and find the high quality raw meat nicely offset with the tang of balsamic and vinegar and a kick from horseradish.

Beef carpaccio and tartare

The beetroot and goats cheese salad is similarly as pretty as a picture with spheres of goats cheese sandwiched between thin discs of beetroot and topped with pine nuts. This is a little lacking in flavour though and could have doen with a sharper, more acidic dressing. From the mains, the baked fillet of sea trout is also underwhelming. The trout is perfectly cooked and served with a basil crust and salad of rocket, roasted tomato and pepper thats all fine without being transcandental. A better option is the fat baked fillet of sole which is jazzed up with a champagne and truffle veloute and topped with a puffed pastry hat filled with wild mushrooms. I also liked the fact that side dishes were included and each table recieved a bowl of steamed greens and baby new potatoes.

Beetroot and goats cheese salad

The desserts continued on in the French theme with macarons and chocolate fondants on offer. The fruit tart was fresh and summery with its berry topping and soft, crumbly pastry case. It was served with pistachio ice-cream which seemed like a slightly bizarre combination so we asked to change it to plain old vanilla which was no problem. I couldn't go past the amazing cheese trolley though (£6 supplement) which was on a par with the famous Chez Bruce trolley. Unfortunately the waiter serving the cheese displayed a complete lack of knowledge about the cheese which took away from the whole experience. When I asked him where the three different blue cheeses were from he said "I think they are from France". However, this was the only service issue of the night and other than this the service was fairly diligent. After the cheese, a nice end to the meal was the fresh, juicy cherries that arrived in a bowl of ice after our coffees and petit fours.

Baked cod fillet

40/30 is worth eating at for the amazing setting alone. As it is, the food is quite good which is almost a surprise when a restaurant can rest on its laurels thanks to its location. There is nothing here to startle, but importantly, there is nothing really to complain about either. The food looks the part and is almost as impressive in presentation as the building. Still, when you leave it is bound to be the view that you remember, not what you ate.

Essentials
Details: 30 St Mary Axe, Central London EC3A 8EP (Ph 020 7071 5009) Tube - Liverpool Street Damage: Pricey. Our bill came to £160 for the two of us
7/10

Links: If you liked reading this you might be interested in some other rooms with a view in London such as the Tate Modern restaurant and Coq d'Argent.

Dri Dri Gelato

Finally the ice-cream summer we have all been waiting for. Dri Dri Gelato must have the best timing for a shop opening ever. They opened their doors on Portobello road yesterday on what was the hottest day of the year so far in London. When MTV boyfriend and I popped in for a cheeky ice-cream today the queue was starting to go out the door and onto the road.

Hand modelling by MTV boyfriend

The shop front is pretty small and there is no room to really eat in. All the ice-cream is kept in metal counter covered with lids so you can't choose by sight which is a little frustrating but I would hazard a guess this protects the ice-cream more. The ice-cream is made fresh in the shop every day using a process called mantacazione where the ingredients are mixed and at the same time frozen to give it an authentic Italian taste. There are no artificial flavourings, colourings or preservatives. Instead flavouring comes from actually using pistachio from Sicily in the pistachio ice-cream and biscuits from Lugano in the biscotto. But importantly, does it taste any good?

Waffle cones ready to go

Rigorous taste testing by both myself and MTV boyfriend (who is a picky man when it comes to ice-cream) can confirm that Dri Dri's ice-cream is really good. They have actually managed to capture the creamy taste that gelati in Italy has which is far, far removed for the watery, icy stuff that is often passed off as gelati in London. The ice-cream is served in tubs or in crisp, tanned waffle cones. We particularly liked the creamy, almost nutty amaretto flavour and the richness of the biscotto flavour.

Fresh ingredients ready to go

Essentials

Details: 189 Portobello road, Notting Hill W112ED, Tube: Notting Hill Gate or Ladbroke Grove

Damage: £2.90 for a small cone with two scoops

8/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in other treats on Portobello road from Hummingbird Bakery or where to get the best ice-cream in Beirut.

Gourmet Giveaway - £50 Amazon voucher

Gourmet Giveaway this time is an Amazon value for £50. Amazing! Many are the hours I have wasted on Amazon deliberating on what novels or cookbooks to buy. Just leave a comment below and you could have a book (or CD or DVD or whatever) buying bonanza thanks to Discount Codes the restaurant voucher provider.

Some suggestions:

• Skye Gyngell's, My Favourite Ingredients (testing this one out at the moment);
• Yottam Ottolenghi's, Plenty (such a great cook book for everyone especially vegetarian recipes); and
• Ruth Reichl's, Garlic and Sapphires (the best foodie memoir you can read).

Remember:

1. Only one entry per person;
2. Leave a comment to enter, and if you don't have a blog to be contacted on please leave your email in the comment or email me at missgourmetchick[at]gmail[dot]com.
3. Entrants must be located in the UK (sorry) but can be any age.
4. A winner will be chosen randomly using random.org by 5pm UK time at Friday 16 July.
5. The winner will be announced on Gourmet Chick on Saturday 17 July.

Good luck.

COMPETITION CLOSED

Koya

Noisy, messy and certainly not a pretty sight. That was me slurping my way through a bowl of noodles at Koya in Soho. This tiny restaurant is making big waves in the London dining scene simply by specialising in one thing, Japanese udon noodles. Udon noodles are the white, thick meaty looking ones made from wheat. More about them later, for now all you need to know is that the restaurant itself is an austere shrine to the noodle. Almost like a canteen, customers sit side by side on wooden chairs at communal tables. The menu hangs on little wooden tablets hung from the walls which is something you see quite a bit in Japan, along with the curtain marked with Japanese characters which marks the entrance. There is nothing fancy about it, but nothing either to distract from the pursuit of the perfect noodle.

The menu is divided into hot udon noodles in broth, cold udon noodles in hot broth and cold udon noodles in cold sauce - literally oodles of noodles! There are a few non noodle accompaniments as well which are described as "small plates". Of these, I tried out the onsen tamago (£2) which translates as hot spring egg although this egg was poached in its shell and then served cold in a small bowl of dashi stock. The egg was supple and slippery while the stock had a rich flavour to it.

Onsen tamago

The prawn tempura noodles (£9) were served in a large bowl of clear, crisp dashi stock and were topped with a huge, crispy coated prawn. While I was disappointed to only get one prawn, it was a monster and the dashi was a revelation, clear and flavoursome. Famously at Koya, the noodles are made by hand and by foot. That is to say, they are made from scratch each day and part of the process involves kneading the noodles by foot (a technique called ashibumi). This is what gives them their fabulous suppleness and bounce. The wriggly tendencies of the udon noodles means it is almost impossible to eat them quietly and without spraying little bits of dashi stock around, indeed the Japanese happily slurp away noisly at them so there is no shame in joining in (that's what I told myself anyway).

The down side to the great noodles and cheap prices is that no bookings are taken which means it can be difficult to get a table. Queues often stretch out the door and it took me a few attempts to actually manage to eat at Koya. The secret is to get in early, if you are prepared to have lunch at 12.01 you will find an almost empty restaurant, but one that quickly fills up.

Prawn tempura udon noodles

Koya is a great little noodle joint and it is good to see London restaurants start to specialise in particular regional cuisines (like the rise of Sichuan restaurants instead of just Chinese) and in actual dishes like at Koya. This can only mean good things for the quality and authenticity of the food we get to eat.

Essentials

Details: 49 Frith Street, Soho W1D 4SG (Ph 020 7434 4463) Tube: Tottenham Court Road

Damage: Such a bargain my mother would approve

7/10

Links

If you liked reading this you might be interested in a review of a more pricey Japanese restaurant like Roka or if you want to cook Japanese at home try this recipe for beef tataki.

Gourmet Chick featured in Olive magazine

Exciting news. Gourmet Chick has been featured in this month's Olive magazine as blog of the month. They say: "(Gourmet Chick) is an Aussie living in London, and her blog offers a great mix of recipe and restaurant reviews plus coverage of some exciting foodie trips. There are lots of lovely pics to inspire you and appealing recipes such as her lemon and chicken cous cous."

Welcome to any new readers from Olive - leave a comment and say hi or tell me what you think of Gourmet Chick.

To get you started, here are some of my favourite Gourmet Chick posts:

• Review of Launceston Place restaurant in Kensington,
• Review of Chilli Cool in Kings Cross;
• Post on eight cheap eats in Paris;
• How to make scotch eggs; and
• Recipe for the ultimate creme brulee.

And since Olive mentioned it in particular, here's my recipe for lemon and chicken cous cous.

Thanks Olive!