Dehesa, Soho

How Dehesa has, until now, completely missed my radar I'm not sure as it is so completely and utterly 'me'. Apart from anything else, it's been there FIVE years for goodness sake. I've been to sister restaurant Opera Tavern and loved it, I adore Spanish tapas and its not exactly rare that I'm out and about around Soho so this counts as a major oversight. Anyway, feeble excuses aside, it was brand new to me.

I woke up on my birthday knowing that if only one thing were to happen that day (other than getting another year older) then it had to be that I would eat croquetas. There is just something about that crispy breaded outer being the last bastion standing between me and a hot, oozy centre that gets me all of a tizz every time. Cue Google quest for decent Spanish tapas around the Oxford Circus area.  It ended up being a toss up between Dehesa and Copito so if anyone's been to Copito and had a good time, do share!

So back to Dehesa. I have to admit to having been a weeny bit suspicious of combined Italian/ Spanish tapas but the menu is just too delicious to hold that thought for too long. I was also completely wrong; Spanish and Italian together can be a wonderful thing. We attacked the bar snack side of the menu first for something to nibble on whilst contemplating the altogether more detailed tapas options over a glass of cava.

Both the pork and chorizo terrine and the chorizo & guindilla pate had sold out so I will have to go back for those another day.

First to arrive were padron peppers, quails eggs and pork rillions. Sitting somewhere on the pork spectrum between scratchings and well done pork belly,  rillions are meaty little morsels that just oooze terroir. I am fully aware of just how pretentious that last sentence sounds but its true, the flesh is so flavoursome that you can just picture happy pigs running around the countryside snuffling out acorns. Padron peppers were lightly charred to release the pungent bittersweet flavour and salted to a tang.  Quail's eggs were, well, quail's eggs albeit left in half a shell which, whilst pretty, was also a bit fiddly.  Special mention has to go to the smoked paprika salt for dipping the eggs. Simple, inspired and sooo being copied next time I have friends over.

Dehesa itself is a laid back but bustling kinda place, lots of high chairs at long tables and some comfy chairs at lower round tables, cleverly built into the round windows so that you have excellent opportunities for people watching both inside and out. On one side the bar staff are doling out the wine or mixing up drinks whilst in the far corner is the fun bit; a huge pata negra ham sits waiting for the chef to carve off little salty slices on a preparation area next to the dumb waiter so you can see all the dishes appearing as if by magic from the kitchen.

The croquetas on this particular occasion were of the cornish crab and prawn variety served with a crustacean aioli. The aioli had amazing depth of flavour, like a much reduced lobster bisque in mayonnaise form. The velvety seafood sauce was complemented by a dash of saffron flavour binding the crab meat in the croqueta itself. If I hadn't had a dinner ahead of me that evening I could have sat there all afternoon eating plate after plate washed down by endless cava.

Grilled chorizo with smoked aubergine puree wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing dish to come out from the kitchen but it was bursting with flavour, the mellow smokiness of the roast aubergine cuddling up to the paprika packed chorizo in a glorious comfort food hug.

A dish of pork belly and rosemary scented cannellini beans was well executed with a nice amount of crunch on the pork skin. For me it was very rich and greasy (not a criticism when it comes to pork belly....) and whilst the cannellini beans were nice and very definitely of the rosemary variety,  I would have liked something to cut that grease just a little bit more. Last of all came the beetroot and taleggio gratin with egg, migas and truffle dressing; bright pink in colour and tangy with powerful taleggio. I hope I'm not showing my ignorance in admitting that I did have to google "migas" but it apparently means "crumbs". As you can see below, it seemed to be more like a caramelised pickled onion but whatever it was I liked it, adding bite to the very creamy, rich gratin.   Not the most super truffly dish I've ever tasted but pretty darn good nonetheless.

Other dishes that imminently need to be a part of my life include the courgette flowers with Monte Enebro and honey, the jamon iberico de bellota with Ermesenda toast and the octopus a la plancha with chickpeas, piquillo peppers, spinach and gremolata. I defy anyone other than the most hardened vegan to read that sentence without admitting to even just a hint of salivation.

Would I go back? Definitely. Its not somewhere you'd go for a special occasion but its great for a catch up over a decent bottle of wine with a friend or a pitstop when shopping. Best of all you can also reserve some of the tables in advance thereby avoiding the dreaded Soho curse. 

Dehesa

25 Ganton Street, London W1F 9BP

020 7494 4170

Spring Clean: Bistro Blitz Part Deux

Continuing last week's spring clean and the series of bistro type venues I've failed spectacularly to blog until now, here are some more. I've noticed a correlation of reason for not having blogged earlier; bistros tend to be quite dark which leads to rubbish photos. Prepare yourselves for a series of hideous overly yellow and slightly grainy images. Sorry!


High Road Brasserie: Chiswick

This was a work outing which always makes it harder to keep notes, even on a mobile you look like you're rudely texting away. I felt it was worth a mention though as the meal we had was actually rather nice in a plain simple, traditional-brasserie-food-done-well kind of vein. Between us we had a brilliantly ooozy, cheesy and horrifically calorific French onion soup which almost made me regret my choice but not quite, some scallops with pea shoots (a touch overdone but not so far into the rubber category that they had reached inedible) the highlight starter for me was the twice baked gruyere soufflé- light and fluffy with a deep cheesy flavour and nice crunchy outer. Served with a chive butter sauce in a little jug on the side, at £7 it was reasonable value.

Meat is all sourced from well known West London butcher, Macken Bros so is of excellent quality. The garlic butter served on top of the steak was more herb than garlic for my tastes but over the years I seem to have become immune to levels of garlic in combination with cow so its probably just fine.

In all honesty you're probably not going to travel across London to dine here, especially not on the basis of their rather underwhelming website. That said it's a definite contender as a good quality Chiswick meal that can compete alongside Sam's Brasserie on the nights when you can't afford nearby La Trompette. Does what it says on the tin. Doesn't over promise and doesn't over deliver but is just good.

High Road Brasserie
162-166 Chiswick High Rd , W4 1PR
020 8742 7474




Le Cercle: Knightsbridge

Hidden away just off Sloane Street on what, at first glance, looks like a residential street, Le Cercle is just a climb down a staircase into a cavernous basement restaurant.

The menu is a combination of classical French with what can, at best, be called experimental additions. Despite my predilection for anything porcine I have to admit that "crispy pork and melting tuna" sounds like a pretty horrific concoction and not one I'd be willing to spend £6.00 on to try and prove myself wrong. Duck "chocobar" sounds very interesting and could either be a triumph or a disaster and nothing in between but didn't make the cut on this occasion. What did, however was the mini duck burger from the 'grignotages' list which, despite being "mini" was definitely worth its £4.50.  A warm brioche bun gave way to crunchy lettuce and a rich well seasoned duck finish.  I'd like to see a full size one on the main course list. A "winter salad" was essentially veg that you would eat with a roast, but raw. The dressing added to it was nice but it struck me as an undercooked side dish rather than a dish in itself.

There is a definite leaning towards bringing the sweet into what should really be savoury dishes. Sometimes this works other times it doesn't.  An example of when it doesn't is the juniper macaron served with the braised and seared venison & vanilla oil mash. The venison was a beautiful piece of meat cooked wonderfully well but it was totally overpowered by dessert- sweet mash, the vanilla reminding me of a creme patissiere, then topped off with a juniper macaron. It was a nice macaron and would have been welcomed with open arms as a petit four but with roast venison? No thanks.  Duck creme brulee with lemon pearls and cardamom crust was another one that sounded more like it belonged at the end of a menu than in the middle.

I have to admit that I wasn't paying full attention to my dining companion's main course. I *think* it was a sea bass with roast choucroute and spiced wine sauce but I'm not 100% sure. He seemed quite pleased with it though and it did look pretty on the plate.

Melting middle chocolate pudding and a citron tart were both very well made and delicious leaving the meal on a definite high. The chef clearly has a sweet tooth and is most at home with excellent desserts.

Charging us for an entire bottle of dessert wine instead of a glass was, I am absolutely sure, just an accidental oversight but unfortunately one that we only picked up on once the transaction had gone through and I understand the resulting refund took a couple of weeks which is unfortunate.

I did try to go back a couple of weeks later with my parents and booked a 9pm table. I got a phone call a couple of days before from the manager telling me that I was the only table booked in that evening and "although we'd happily open perhaps could I think of ....? Would I like to possibly not....? Maybe it would be a bit quiet....... ".  So what you're trying to say is that you don't want to cancel my table but would quite like me to cancel? Fair enough. We ended up at the Wolseley. Good swap.

I have to admit I've gone off Le Cercle somewhat since they subsquently sent me an email newsletter in which they proudly boasted of their appearance in the first episode of the new series of Made in Chelsea in the same breath as Pippa Middleton having name checked them somewhere. Not sure these are the sort of credentials that a restaurant linked to Club Gascon should look for but hey ho.... 

The atmosphere in the restaurant is relaxed and the service pretty good. Prices are very reasonable for the style of restaurant and the location in Knightsbridge/Chelsea. It's not going to knock your socks off but, provided you're not ultra fussy, it won't disappoint. All in all a nice evening out but mainly down to the company rather than the food and restaurant experience and with a plethora of other great places to try I probably won't be back. I see that they are offering various voucher deals or cut price offers on certain websites and it would be worth a try on a deal but I wouldn't pay full price for it again.

Le Cercle
1 Wilbraham Pl  Knightsbridge, SW1X 9AE
020 7901 9999

A Spring Clean: Bistro Blitz

Now that there seems to be an occasional hint of sun in the sky (may I not jinx it by saying this) and the daffodils are poking through I decided to have a bit of a spring clean of the old drafts folder. Sure enough, tucked amongst the published posts I found a heap of places that for one reason or another never made it into a full on blog post. Not because they weren't good by any means, more often becuase I got busy and never got round to the full write up. Or that the photos were rubbish and who doesn't like a good photo? So here they are a brief memory dump of some of the more interesting meals I've eaten recently. For some reason most of them seem to feature French/European style bistros so we have a theme.

Colbert, Sloane Square

The unstoppable steam train success that is the Corbin/King duo strikes again? The most recent of the bunch (or should that be brunch) being Colbert, is located in the space that was Oriel in Sloane Square. 

When Oriel closed its doors lots of stories did the rounds about its disappearance, the most widely reported being that the landlord the Earl of Cadogan went to lunch one day and found it so horrid he immediately refused to renew the lease on the basis that the location in prime time Sloane Square is such a good one that anything there will be a success and he at least wanted it to be good. 

Arriving quite late on in the evening with no booking, we were more than happy to sit outside nursing a glass of red wine and watch the world go by until our table was ready. About half an hour later we were fetched and whisked through to the back room. The decor is like the other Rex restaurants in that it is designed to emulate the grand cafes of a time gone by and does this at Colbert with lots of old photos and French adverts. The number of covers in Colbert is quite deceptive due to the winding nature of the restaurant with different rooms but doesn't have the giant feel of Zedel.

It might have been late at night but there are certain breakfast dishes that work at any time of day or night. Eggs benedict is one of them and also, in my experience offers a reliable yardstick to compare restaurants by. H and I therefore just had to share a small portion as a starter. Excellent quality hand carved ham - tick, decent quality hollandaise coating the runny poached egg- tick. No complaints.

I followed it up with steak. Decent meat, nicely executed, decent chips. not Hawksmoor but perfectly pleasant. H went for the cassoulet and I have to admit to having been a bit of a green eyed monster as it was seriously fab. There are few things gastronomically speaking that can be more fulfilling on a chilly rainy night than a good, old fashioned cassoulet. Especially one that contains not only Toulouse sausage but also confit duck.

On their website, Rex restaurants describe Colbert as a "neighbourhood cafe" which I think is doing it a disservice when Zedel is described as a brasserie- this is so much more than a cafe serving a versatile menu, a decent drinks list and would also be very much worth travelling for. I very much hope that Lord Cadogan continues to enjoy the food at Colbert as I would hate to see it disappear

Would I go back? Definitely. I'm keen to try the "Croque Grand Monsieur" which is essentially a pimped up cheese and ham toastie replacing the normal cheese with comte and the ham with bayonne ham. Bring it on!

Colbert

50-52 Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AX;
020 7730 2804

The Wolseley, Piccadilly

Speaking of Corbin and King, the early part of this year also held a long overdue visit to Piccadilly stalwart, The Wolseley. Meeting my parents from a charity event, I came face to face with my father accompanied by a large walking box hovering somewhere just above what appeared to be my mother's legs. It transpired that she had won an unknown star prize in some raffle or tombola type affair which was presented in a giant box. It was therefore with excellent grace and aplomb that the doorman and the maitre d' of the Wolesely greeted our arrival and said cumbersome box was whisked away for storage without even a hint of a raise of an eyebrow. We were whisked to our table in the centre of the main floor giving us excellent people watching potential over our fellow diners.

I've since been told by a friend that Corbyn and King restaurants have very distinct seating hierarchies (this was also reinforced by Marina O'Loughlin's trip to The Delaunay). At the time I had no idea but it seems we lucked out and were sat in what those in the know consider as prime time seats - maybe it had something to do with the box incident, keep 'em where we can see 'em! We were right next to fabulous actress Gina McKee so maybe there's a grain of truth in it. Anyroads, its a good parent dinner place. Nothing too weird or foreign, not too dark with no obtrusive music to muster frowns.

A significant part of the short wait for our food to arrive was spent taking in the architecture and guessing at what its history had been. Parent 1 guessed bank and parent 2 car showroom;  a brief foray into the world of Google and hey presto, you're both right!

I started with the seared scallops, jerusalem artichoke puree and hazelnut oil. Very tasty, pretty and well executed but at £16.50 for a starter portion the serving felt perhaps a little on the stingy side. In contrast Severn & Wye Valley smoked salmon with soda bread was a super generous portion, a whole large dinner plate covered in plain salmon. Not complex perhaps but delicious in its quality and simplicity.

Peppered beef fillet with brandy cream sauce was very nice but also very peppery leaving me happy but kind of envious of my Dad's rib-eye steak which was apparently excellent.

The wine list is not going to be winning any prizes any time soon for either its breadth of choice or its originality but it is adequate.

A coffee eclair for dessert was everything that you would expect from classical European patisserie. Stuffed with cream and a bit fat coffee chocolate worm of icing glistening on the top of the lightest of choux pastries. It lasted about 2 minutes. Max.

Service is good, clearly the staff are very busy which doesn't lend itself to a feeling of a relaxed dining experience but part of the enduring appeal of the Wolseley is its buzzy, classic cafe feel. This is somewhere that people come to see and be seen.  Arguably they have gone a little bit commercial offering Wolseley branded oils and rather pricey pepper grinders for sale on their website but I suppose its not a crime.

I'm terrifically keen to return for breakfast one day although I expect that they will be just as run off their feet then as at any other time of the day. Still by far and away the flagship of the group's collection, The Wolseley looks likely to carry on forever.

The Wolseley
160 Piccadilly  London W1J 9EB
020 7499 6996

 

Soif, Battersea

Various internet and magazine coverage of Soif often describes the style of dishes on offer as 'tapas'. Call me picky or annoying (and you wouldn't be the first) but I have a marked dislike for any 'tapas' that isn't Spanish as it invariably disappoints me. Using the word "tapas" feels completely wrong to describe somewhere that is so completely and utterly Gallic. Everything from the decor of the restaurant to the accent of the ridiculously good looking waiter oozes Frenchness. You get the feeling that only the pesky smoking ban prevents the middle aged Frenchman sat reading a paper at the bar (Le Monde, natch) from exhaling a rising curl of blue Gauloise smoke.

A and I opted for the special, Nduja, a dish of spiced, minced sausage blended with chilli and served with bread with ricotta and rosemary. A small plateful of padron peppers were a good addition at £3.50. Little chargrilled bites of green pepper were crisp with a salt crust, and would have been perhaps too much on their own but were great with the nduja and some slices of saucisse seche. 

We were warned several times by various members of staff that the Nduja was very spicy, we were even told a tale of the very-good-looking-waiter crying after eating it (allegedly not through pure joy). I'm not known for my tolerance of all things spicy so it was bit of a gamble. On the Indian scale of spice, dopiaza is my limit. The one benefit of this "small dish" approach to serving food (nope, still obstinately not using 'tapas') is that you can risk ordering something you might not usually try, or suspect you might not like and its not going to wreck the meal if it turns out to be an inedible dud. Luckily, however, on this occasion our gamble paid off and, far from being a dud, the nduja was a little taste bomb of flavour and spice.

For a place who's name means "thirsty" Soif live up to their moniker with a super extensive wine list, in fact 'list' is a bit of a misnomer I'd go with 'book'. Soif do place a lot of emphasis on natural/bio wines which the cynic in me finds rather annoying but there are plenty of good value and unusual "normal" wines to choose from.

We shared a whole roast quail with salsa romesca for our main course. We accompanied it with a portion of asparagus, duck egg and parmesan wihch was simple but well put together.   The menu changes on a daily basis so I'm keen to go back and give it another go to try out some of the other options. Revisiting their website for a bit of fact checking I got sucked into today's menu and I would definitely be eating whole dressed devon crab and confit duck if I was there today.

The older that I get, the more savoury that my tastes seem to become however when it came to the dessert list I was torn. Two of my all time favourites were right there for the taking. Almond and pear tarte or chocolate in the from of a pot au chocolat? Weighing it up we went for the only sensible option in such very trying circumstances and ordered both.

Almond and pear tart was held together by a buttery, crumby pastry and the almond frangipane not too dry, always a risk. Chocolate pot was supremely chocolatey, utterly smooth and nothing short of delicious.

PS did I mention that the waiter was very good looking?

Soif
27 Battersea Rise, London, SW11 1HG

020 7223 1112

Yauatcha, a Dim Sum Dream

I love dim sum. Juggling slippery har gau with chopsticks, peeling opening bright white springy char sui bao buns to reveal the sticky pork inside, its the stuff dreams are made of. In short I absolutely adore it but being as most Chinese restaurants only serve it during the day when I'm usually squirrelled away in an office somewhere overlooking the M4 I don't often get to eat it. Not many places of any note serve the decent stuff in the evening and last year's debacle that was Ping Pong has made me very wary indeed.  That said J&D were visiting from Liverpool with a craving for dim sum which had to be sated. Cue an outing to Yauatcha.

Located amongst the fabric shops and farmer's market on the corner of Berwick and Broadwick in prime time Soho, Yauatcha does stand out somewhat from its surroundings like a bright blue fish tank.  Once inside the building is divided into two, the upstairs being a more casual tearoom with an absolutely gorgeous patisserie display. Heading down some neon blue lit stairs into the dark cavernous basement beneath feels a little bit Star Trek at first. The downstairs dining room resembles the flotation pool in a posh spa; twinkling fairy lights in the ceiling and tanks of tropical fish around the bar with flickering faux candles embedded in the gold tiled walls. The early evening chill out dance music adds to this feeling. Nothing wrong with this per se, very relaxing indeed but just a little um... unusual.  As the evening went on the music went uptempo to become slightly more discoey (is that even a word?) - well you know what I mean.

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Alan Yau's restaurants generally. Wagamama clearly has a place in the world of chain, fast food dining and was pioneering when it first emerged but I never seem to find myself eating there these days. Sake no Hana was a bit of a disaster from start to finish (tried in my pre blog days otherwise it would have been a corker) whereas Hakkasan I found very pleasant but clearly in a completely different league to the others in the Yau stable. Despite having been sold in 2008, Yauatcha still bears the hallmarks of the Yau dynasty with its contemporary but classic spin on oriental cuisine.

 

The cocktail list is pretty varied and versatile with various options leaping out at me. Between us we sampled a few my favourite of which was the Golden Aster martini conjured together from bourbon, sweet vermouth, aperol and lemon chilli syrup. Warm and spicy but just light enough to still be refreshing.

The chilli martini, lychee martini and the citrus martini (gin, vodka, limoncello, passionfruit, grapefruit & orange juice) all also hit the spot and there were plenty of other options on the list I'd be keen to try on a return fixture.

At £9.80 each cocktails are pretty reasonable compared to many other Soho hangouts and complex enough to feel like they have earned their keep.

Venison puffs were first to step up to the plate encased with buttery, sesame topped flaky pastry concealing a hot, gelatinous gravy soaked gloop of sweet seasoned tender venison. I had thought at first that they might be overly dry due to the amount of pastry but in hindsight they had done well to keep the pastry so crunchy with the amount of lovely filling.

Char sui buns were equally gorgeous in their filling and generous too. Just like the ones that you get everywhere else but kind of 'supercharged'!

Crispy duck rolls were big fat cylinders absolutely stuffed to the gills with shredded duck meat, thin cucumber and spring onion strips snug inside a crispy but not overly greasy casing. By far and away the best duck rolls I've ever had. The hoi sin sauce was, well, like normal hoi sin sauce but complaints there.

Chilli squid with oatmeal was springy without being rubbery whilst maintaining a crunch on the outside. Yes, oatmeal might be a rather unusual ingredient for chilli squid and could be classed as a cheating a bit were you to be of a grouchy disposition but it was very good. Just enough chilli heat to tickle your taste buds and salty enough to get the juices flowing without having you reaching for the water

Almond fish cakes were unusual, the filling was almost quite rubbery in texture like thai fish cakes but then coated in  crunchy almond outer casing before being fried. They had a lovely fragrant flavour further enhanced by a light but tangy orange blossom type dipping sauce.

 
Pork and prawn shui mai are hardly innovative but this rendition of an old favourite was extremely well executed. Too many shui mai I have had recently have an overly meaty flavour to them but these were perfectly balanced between prawn and pork and well seasoned.

This brings me on to one of the criticisms levelled at Yauatcha out there in cyberspace which is that many of the dim sum dishes are nothing new or imaginative but then again what would dim sum be without har gau, shui mai or char sui bao? If anything it is harder to impress with your version of something classic than it is to impress with something new.

Next time I'm definitely going to be trying the lobster dumpling with tobiko caviar and the blue swimmer crab shui mai, I got too full to order them this time unfortunately!

Poached peking spicy chicken dumplings were little sticky pockets of flavour, plenty of coriander then a warm surge of spice in the accompanying broth.

One of the indisputable stars of the show was the platter of jasmine tea smoked ribs, a main course option at around £12. Although covered in a very sweet and sticky (but utterly lovely) barbecue sauce, the soft smoky tea flavour of the meat itself was clearly distinguishable.

Mongolian venison with red pepper, potato and onion in a thick butter and black pepper sauce was possibly the most tender venison I have ever eaten. At one point we were left scraping the sauce off just to check it was slices of meat and not mince patties underneath it was that soft. Gentle game flavour just coming through the sweet but peppery sauce.

Every bite that we took whilst at Yauatcha was absolutely beyond criticism.

So, onto the cost of this escapade. I really, really dislike the practice of many Parisian restaurants (and a fair dose of New York ones too) of not putting any prices on their website. This insistence of sharing a menu but no costs is one that smacks of arrogance and a sense of "if you have to ask the price you can't afford us". It's rare that this happens in London but I was disappointed to see that Yauatcha's website is one of those unforgiving places, this implied to me that I was in for an exercise in rampant wallet bashing.  Totally unnecessarily so as well since prices, although higher than your average Gerard Street eaterie, are not that bad. Most dim sum dishes are around £7 and desserts around £8. Considering I called at 3pm for a 6.30pm table on a Friday night Yauatcha are not super-fully-booked, maybe not being so recalcitrant on the published price front might attract more punters?

We ordered at least 7 dim sum dishes, a couple of mains and multiple cocktails and left stuffed to the gills and a bill of £140 between three; less than I've paid per head in Ping Pong in the days before it turned into Pong Pong.

The big remaining question is whether it deserves that Michelin star? The food is undoubtedly an excellent example of its kind, definitely a notch above most other dim sum places. That said, I don't think it is as good an experience overall as Hakkasan and is not what I would traditionally categorise as a Michelin starred one.  Chopsticks are snap-yourself wooden jobs and napkins are paper and presentation is nothing incredible. It's always hard to make a comparison across different cuisines, but the type of experience that you get at somewhere like Chez Bruce, Dinner by HB, Joel Robuchon or any number of other "fine dining" (I hate that phrase!) venues leaves you feeling much more special than you do here.  

Quite a few people online had pilloried the service at Yauatcha referring to it variously as 'dreadful'and 'cold' but this wasn't my experience. Ok, it wasn't top notch service wise (I did have to chase for soy sauce and some other bits) but it was far from the bad experience I had steeled myself for.

So a couple of niggles around the overall visit but one thing I couldn't fault at all was the food and ultimately isn't that what we're there for? Would I go again? Yes definitely. Excellent for pre theatre or casual catching up with friends but probably not what you're looking for on a romantic night out or special dinner. Having missed out on dessert I can't wait to go back soon and sample the delights of the tea room.

Yautacha

15-17 Broadwick Street.
Soho, London, W1F 0DL
+44 (0) 20 7494 8888

Kit Kat Japanese Style

Kit Kats are Kit Kats right? Like Coca Cola and McDonald's fries, they are the same the whole world over. Except in Japan. Different flavours are launched on a regional basis. Sure, we have the current spate of flavours in the UK but by including mint, orange and hazelnut they are hardly pushing gastronomic boundaries flavour wise. I had heard tell of the unusual flavour phenomenon found only in the land of the rising sun and wanted to explore it however on my first visit, despite hunting high and low, I was only able to find two "weird" version of Kit Kats in the form of green tea and secondly cinnamon. 

Much more success on visit two. I arrived home with a suitcase full of varieties including strawberry, blueberry cheesecake, wasabi, brown sugar syrup, green tea and cherry blossom, strawberry cheesecake and rum & raisin. 

Apparently the reason behind the success of the humble Kit Kat relates to its meaning in Japanese. Phonetically it sounds like 'kitto katsu' which roughly means 'good luck to you!' Kit Kats are therefore offered as good luck tokens. The Japanese also have a tradition of taking cakes or sweets to people that they are visiting when embarking on a journey. Therefore, by making different Kit Kats limited edition to certain regions they attract a certain collectability.

After putting together a small panel of expert chocolate eaters (aka work colleagues) each flavour was scientifically contemplated and compared (aka wolfed down at coffee break time) especially for this post.


Wasabi was a little disappointing. It had a gentle horseradish type smell on the nose but was less exciting on the palate. Having tried Lindt wasabi chocolate which has a decent kick to it, I had expected a local Japanese version to, if anything, pack even more punch. On the contrary it was predominantly white chocolate with a slight hint of wasabi. Kit Kat flavour fail....

Second up was strawberry cheesecake. This one wasn't so great either in all honesty. Covered in white chocolate with only a slight strawberry flavour, it seemed as though the cloying white chocolate just masked the flavour.

Rum and raisin. This is possibly the one that I had been looking forward to the most and it didn't disappoint, a really distinct rum flavour pervaded throughout and was actually properly yummy, I'd be up for trying to persuade Nestle to do this one in the UK. Would have been better covered in milk chocolate than dark chocolate though. That said one of the samplers disliked this one the most.

Brown Sugar Syrup I'm not sure that I even know what brown sugar syrup is? I'm guessing that its something approximating treacle as that's what I got an olfactory blast of when I opened the packaging. Tasted something like treacle in porridge all in all though probably due to having been coated in that damned white chocolate again. Rather overly sweet, If it had been dipped in dark chocolate it would have been really rather lovely, shame. 

Matcha Green Tea  This remains one of my favourite flavours and tastes exactly like proper powdered matcha tea. The lurid green chocolate is quite alarming at first but all part of the fun...

Green tea and sakura blossom flower. YUM. I was being pretty cynical when I opened this one. After all, the Japanese are bonkers about blossom. Literally everything has a limited edition blossom themed version in the spring, even beer. Cherry blossom is also used widely in Japanese cuisine and has a really delicate pretty flavour that is also quite distinctive so I wasn't hopeful that it would be too faithfully reproduced in chocolate biscuit form but sure enough it was. 

Blueberry Cheesecake-This one came packaged in a very cool Mount Fuji shaped box. Good job it had something going for it as this was my least favourite of all the bars. Didnt taste much of actual blueberries just more of that sticky sweet white chocolate with an indeterminate fruit flavour. I'm soooo over the white chocolate thing now and getting grumpy despite the sugar rush.....

Strawberry. Unlike the cheesecake version, this one was covered in pale pink chocolate and had a more distinctive strawberry flavour although it was that synthetic strawberry taste that you get in bootlaces and medicine.

If we could routinely get them over here I would buy the green tea, the green tea and blossom and the rum & raisin but I wouldn't bother with the rest.  The rest of the tasting panel agreed that they are too sweet even for chocolate lovers. More gimmick then flavour and substance. I love the idea though. If you wanted to give them a whirl and don't know anyone headed to Japan any time soon you can get them on Amazon albeit it at a price!

Little Social

Little Social is the latest venture from Jason Atherton of Pollen Street Social fame and is conveniently located right over the road at 5 Pollen Street. 

Other than the inevitable "foodie" Twitter buzz, the launch of Little Social has been comparatively quiet. When I booked it had no website and the phone line was shared with Pollen St Social (I see a basic website  and menu has now gone up). None of the crazy overhyping seen from some other recent new openings. From my experience I found it rather unfair of Gillian Orr in the Independent to make negative comparisons regarding inaccessibility and overhype with places like Bubbledogs and Balthazar. I called Little Social on a Tuesday and got a Saturday table in the first week of opening without any problem. That's two bonus points above Flat Iron for starters 1) they take reservations and 2) they deign to speak to their customers on the telephone.

It seems that the intention is that Little Social will be a more laid back affair than its Pollen Street sibling and will aim to offer a traditional French bistro style experience. Dangerous perhaps from more than one perspective. We've already had the likes of Giles Coren in the last couple of weeks lambasting Balthazar for transplanting an American interpretation of French casual dining over to London. Dangerous also because simple food is often the easiest to go wrong with. Traditional French bistro fare sounds so easy in theory, steak and chips, ham hock terrine, these are all classic, French basics, but its amazing how one little blip leaves them utterly wrong. Perhaps the reason they are so tricky to get spot on is due to their very simplicity- there is nowhere to hide. One slip up, a soggy chip or a slightly overdone pastry and the whole thing is effectively ruined. 

Cocktails are excellent, original and beautifully served. At around £12-14 each they aren't the cheapest but I guess that's becoming the standard West End price bracket. We tried and liked an "Au Pear" -

(Domaine De Canton ginger liqueur, spiced pear puree & fresh lemon juice topped with champagne served in a champagne glass) and

an "Ever the Diplomat"- (Diplomatico rum, coffee liqueur, house vanilla syrup

and espresso

) Essentially a posh ginger pear bellini and a posh rum espresso martini.                    

The wine list is really very disappointing. We had called ahead and asked about corkage rates as a friend had a bottle of Ch. Palmer that "needed drinking" but were told resolutely that outside bottles are not permitted even to those willing to pay to bring wines that have no comparable offering on the house wine list. Fair enough but if that's your policy then you had better have a damned good wine list and they just don't.  If I'm buying off a restaurant list then I'm not looking for anything fancy but at £29 a bottle the Costiere de Nimes was a little too young and lacking in punch or depth. It didn't even have enough tannin or acidity to promise more in the future. Would be a tenner retail and wouldn't be worth that.

Taking a look at their sparkling offerings and other than a cider the cheapest sparkling is a "Vincent Gaudron 'Vouvray Extra Dry' non vintage" at £9 a glass or a whopping £52 a bottle. I wanted to find out a bit more about this sparkling "NV" Vouvray that is worth charging more than most house champagnes on London wine lists and this is where I came a cropper. There is a Domaine Sylvain Gaudron and there is a Monsieur Vincent Raimbaut who both produce named vintage year sparkling Vouvrays that retail at around £10 - 13 a bottle. There is also one Mr Vincent Gaudron who is manager/trainer of Limoges Football Club who is nothing, to the best of Google's knowledge to do with winemaking. It's also the case that the vast majority of sparkling Vouvray wines do give a vintage year, it is for the most part only those at the very cheapest end of the spectrum (Under £10 retail) that are listed as NV. So I remain completely unsure what you would be getting for your £52 at Little Social and think I would want to before splashing that kind of cash.

We started by sharing a pig's head and foie gras terrine served with toasted sourdough bread and a prune and green tea relish. This was really delicious, a generous sized portion and worth its circa £11. The pig's head element was really meaty and flavoursome with a generous, thick vein of mi-cuit foie gras running through the centre as well as sweet prune.  The relish was tasty also although any green tea flavour struggled to make itself heard over the fruity prune. A good start.

Bavette- frites is £15 whilst sirloin is £26 and having tried both there is no contest. I actually found the bavette tastier and would have saved nine quid to boot. Good quality meat cooked beautifully. Don't get me wrong the sirloin is also excellent but the bavette is so good its hard to justify the extra to myself for the sirloin.

It was this at this point that we hit our only major stumbling block of the meal. The fries. Sure they look pretty enough, nice and crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside but take a closer look at that picture and you'll see just how much salt was on them. We tossed them to see if it was just on the top but no, throughout these were some very salty chips indeed. The maitre d' did oblige by exchanging them but to be honest the new ones were pretty high on the salt scale too. In addition the house salad was incredibly salty, weird as there was no discernable dressing other than oil on there.

What does deserve a very honourable mention however is the bearnaise sauce. All steaks are offered with the choice of bearnaise or peppercorn sauce and I'm so glad we chose the former (although the latter may be excellent who knows?!)  A wonderfully rich, creamy bearnaise: gelatinous and gloopy enough for a big old blob to grab each chip and coat it in tarragon wonderfulness without dripping off. Superb stuff.

On the non meat side the a la carte offered a roast cod fillet served with cabbage pesto and clams popped on top of some borlotti beans and squid. Definitely the lighter option on the menu but cooked tremendously well (and not too much salt!)

The decor of Little Social is fabulous, very different from its light and airy, modern art smattered older sibling over the road. Here it is all about cosy and warm (which was utterly welcome on a snowy Saturday) Squished elbow to elbow with your neighbour on a leather banquette, warmed by a early 20th c style lamp, you felt as though you could have been in the dining carriage of a Belle Epoque steam train flying through the French countryside.  This sentiment was emphasised by the vintage Michelin roadmaps papering the wall down to the kitchens as well as the Art nouveau style French tourism posters. Clichéd? Maybe slightly, but lovely nonetheless.



21st century take on the old Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité?!

And so to dessert. I love tarte tatin. Apples so slowly roasted in rich, sticky, dark brown caramel that they are teetering on the verge of collapsing into a glorious compote. Topped off with buttery soft pastry just waiting to fall apart in your mouth. This tarte tatin was without any exaggeration THE most perfect specimen I have ever tasted outside of France and definitely the best one in the last decade. The day I visited it was listed on the specials to share for two but I hope beyond all hope that it makes it onto the permanent menu as this tarte would be reason alone enough to return. Served alongside it is a double cream ice cream that is more impactful in the idea of extreme extravagance it represents rather than in flavour. If you are someone that pours liberal amounts of cream on desserts then you would love it.

Presently seemingly ubiquitous on all London menus, rhubarb shows its face at Little Social also. This time in the form of a poached rhubarb Eton mess with rhubarb sorbet. The mouthful that I tried of this dessert was fab. Tangy sorbet just sweet enough not to make your face shiver squished in with crumbs of super sweet meringue. The rhubarb itself lurid pink and poached to perfection. I would normally avoid Eton mess due to it being very creamy but the cream was present only in the form of a scoop of very heavy clotted cream. A bright green mint oil drizzled over the dish made for both a welcome colour and flavour contrast.  

To make up for the salty main course the sommelier very kindly brought us a glass of Riesling Spatlese. Just sweet enough to make it onto the dessert wine list whilst light with a gentle sparkle. Definitely the wine highlight of the meal and usually a reasonable £6.50 a glass.

Although it couldn't be more different in style from Pollen Street Social, service is great in both and both have a clear place in London's myriad of dining styles and options.

In short; sharpen up the drinks list on the price, accuracy and variety fronts, sort the salt levels and Little Social would make a welcome bolthole hidden away just off the shopping madness of weekend Regent Street. Somewhere, in these austere times, that would appear nice enough to clients whilst being sensible and not overly grandiose. That said its not cheap. Two and a bit course lunch came in at £210 for 3- mainly due to the cocktails but nonetheless, eek! yes, by taking a 2 course prix fixe lunch with one glass of house wine you could have come out with a bill of just over £30 with service but you really would have been stinting. Desserts are fanastic and perfect just the way they are. Got the makings of something very good indeed.

Little Social

5 Pollen Street
Mayfair
London
Tel: 0207 870 3730