Taste of London!
Taste London 2011 at Regents Park
This past Friday my husband and I went to the Taste of London food festival. We contemplated whether to attend given the usual British summer rain. That said, we made an executive decision to get the tickets, come rain or shine. Rain it was! For those that are unfamiliar with the festival, it is a half day affair nearby to us in beautiful Regents Park. It gives the opportunity to taste various sample dishes from some of the best (Michelin starred) restaurants in London.
Although this was my first Taste of London experience, but not my first food festival in London, I had some expectations. Overall, I enjoyed it and can definitely see the attraction for meat eaters: as expected, it was not very vegetarian friendly for the actual food tasting experience. However, outside of the paid-for tasting, we did manage to get stuffed with endless samples of cheeses, breads, biscuits, spreads, oils, sauces, desserts, and drinks. The food experience would have been much better had it not rained and the need for my winter coat and poncho! Thankfully, the rain halted for a good while and were able to get through all stalls.
Garlic spread tasting….
Breads made from spelt flour…
Zacher Torte – they tried to recreate the famous one from Vienna! Wonderful memories…
I would say the highlight of the festival was meeting and seeing all the famous chefs that I have seen on TV and have often tried to cook their recipes. We saw Michel Roux Jr, Marcus Wareing, Atul Kochhar, Eric Lanlard, Gennaro Contaldo and probably trod on the toes of other renowned chefs that I did not recognise.
The person I was most excited to see and have a chance to chat with was Eric Lanlard, a Master Pâtissier. Watch his show “Baking Mad with Eric Lanlard” on Channel 4. At the festival, we chanced upon his only appearance over the weekend: he was doing a demonstration of an Upside-down Berry Sponge. It was great to see him at work first-hand and pick up some baking tips. At the end of his demo, my husband pushed me behind the kitchen stage to meet him. When we spoke, I shared my baking experiences with his recipes and how I would like to be part of this show one day! 🙂 He is looking for Bake Clubs for the next series so do get in touch if you would like to join me in setting one up in the London area.
Eric making the Upside-down Berry Sponge
The finished Upside-down Berry Sponge..yum! We wanted to see if we could taste it, but only realised after we left the demonstration!
My moment of fame!
I have made some of his fabulous desserts for family and friends and each time have had such great success. I have found that his recipes always demand a lot of eggs but they do always deliver in taste and texture so why question a Master Pâtissier. So far I have made a Genoise Sponge and Lemon Meringue cupcakes.
I made these cupcakes for a family picnic and were a huge this. You can find this recipe here.
I made this for a special family gathering, a six layer Genoise Sponge, great summer cake. I definitely need to improve on my decorating skills, but the taste was there! 🙂 You can find the recipe here.
Another great chef that we met was Atul Kocchar, a famous Indian Chef that runs Benares. Thankfully in this Michelin-starred sample menu, they had a vegetarian option! The paneer roll was tasty and it was gone in seconds (partly due to the size):
We ended our tour of the Taste for London by taking an interactive survey from British Airways. This group was conducting a study on how our sense of smell is affected at high altitudes. Apparently, our sense of smell is cut down by 30% and that’s was causes us to think that food served on airplanes is bland, when in reality it’s not. They were proving this by engaging us on various smell test. For those that did not see it on Channel4, British Airways have worked with Heston Blumenthal to increase the taste perception on planes by spraying chemicals during meal times. (In my experience, Air India do the opposite by spraying air neutralisers to counteract the tons of pickles that are in people’s hand luggage!)
Summary
As a passionate foodie, since moving to England I have been fortunate enough to go to the many food markets that pop up in London from time to time as well as a couple of the large food shows. Quite often each time you end up coming across the same stalls selling high quality, local and tasty (but somewhat overpriced) products that are actually available in my local Waitrose.
Taste of London is a fantastic concept for those that want to sample a variety of dishes from over 20 Michelin-starred restaurants for the price of a sit-down meal at just one of those restaurants. I would definitely recommend it for meat or fish eaters but unlike other shows, you do really miss out being a vegetarian.
VegDelights 