Chefs Day Out- Nacho.

Nacho is my Spanish mate who used to work with me at Zuma, he's only been in London for about a year and hasn't really seen much of London's food scene, other than the 2 restaurants that he has worked in. So as his 'Best English Mate', I feel that it is my duty to show him about town. Last trip we went to Yautcha, which seemed to have suffered since being sold by Alan Yau, so he wasn't impressed and started telling me how it was so much easier to get a Michelin Star in England than it is in Spain, bla bla bla bla! Anyway, so this time I took him to, in my opinion, London's best 1* restaurant, Tom Aikens. It wasn't a bad meal, we shared a good bottle of Merlot and had the 5 (8 with the extras) course lunch tasting menu (£49), I just strongly believe that sometimes less is more, and adding loads of petals, cresses, jellies, foams, etc doesn't always better a dish, the food looked amazing but the flavours were not there (well for me at least), I would rather that there be more enthuses on the flavours rather than the presentation, a few of the dishes were overpowered by silly garnishes or by other ingredients on the plate, like the smocked salmon and grapefruit or the Foir Gras with black currents, but all in all it was a fairly good lunch and Nacho was impressed!

Plenty More Cod in the Sea.

Below is an interesting article which I have simply copied from a London newspaper.


Cod and Chips could become a more regular sight on our dinner table following reports of rising stocks of the fish. Numbers in the Barents Sea, off Norway, are at their highest for 60 years, say the Institute of Marine Research in Norway. There could even be too many, leading to the risk of cannibalism as their food source dwindles, claim some Norwegian fishermen. Many tonnes of the fish taken from the Barents Sea end up in Britain, although few British fishermen operate there. The turnaround following years of decline came after the Norwegian and Russian Governments last week agreed a 16% increase in the area's cod quota next year, from 607 000 tonnes to 703 000 tonnes. However, stocks of Cod in the North Sea remain in a 'precarious state', warned Bernie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fisherman's Federation. The North Sea Cod quota is just 28 000 tonnes each year.


I guess that what the above article is saying is that we should be buying our cod from Norwegian and Russian Fishermen. And as we are in the state that we are in with the extremely low Cod population around our shores, I don't think that this is such a bad idea. There simply isn't enough fish around our coast to feed our population and the sooner we realise this the better. In fact NOT buying British will actually benefit us in the long run, and help to sustain our ever declining fish stocks.
With the world getting smaller, and it becoming increasingly easier to import produce from around the Globe, I think that there is no problem with importing from sustainable sources where ever in the World this may be.
I also believe that 'fresh is best', but there is a place on the market for frozen fish, for example, if you are going to deep fry fish, I don't think that it is essential that is hasn't previously been frozen, I guarantee that every tempura prawn sold in London tonight will have at some point been frozen, as the type used in every Japanese restaurant that I know, are from Israel or India, and are therefore obviously frozen in order to stay fresh on the trip to the UK.

Nearly Finished Freddies Jam!

My Mums 50th birthday last weekend, so me and my 3 sisters took her to the Ritz for dinner and then to the Theatre (old people like that sort of thing! Ha ha). They all stayed over at mine (yer, that's me, the misses, my mum and 3 sisters, all in a 1 bed roomed flat), imaging the mess, 5 women getting ready for a night out!!!!!!And only 1 mirror!
Anyway, the next morning we had a Champagne breakfast, which included (among other things) croissants and Jam, the jam Fred made for me, they loved it, so much that I had to hide it!

Chefs Night in- Dobbie.

Gettin so bored with all this free time, broke as well cooking all me mates dinner!
This time was Dobbies (Hunter gathering partner in crime and senior chef at Nahm) turn! He is a but chubby and likes his food! So I cooked him a real hearty Oxtail dish, which contained a whole bottle of red wine (not one of Freddies) the juice of 2oranges,a Cinnamon stick,a single star anise, onions, red and yellow peppers and olive cheeks, Kind of 'Alla Moroccan' in French! I served it with some cous cous and a cold green bean and sesame seed salad, simply dressed with fresh lemon juice and olive oil. He loved it and reckons he will cook for me next time! Yer, I'll believe that when I see it!

The 5th Season!

On my travles to Ascot yesterday, I discovered that South West trains have discovered a new season!

Royal Ascot!

An amazing day today. A few days after my disappointing attempt at the Chef of the Year competition, I bumped into the organiser, he saw that I was still really gutted as I had put allot of effort into that day (5 months of work in fact!), he asked me where did I think that I slipped up and I was honest and said that I cooked the wrong type of dish and didn't really know what the judges were looking for! He said that it would be good for me to see a competition from a judges point of view, and invited me to 'shadow judge' (basically follow a judge about all day and ask him questions, see what he is looking for, seek advice, etc) at a competition being held at Ascot! How kind of him! So a few weeks later, I slipped on my best shoes and off to Ascot I headed.
It was a really educational experience, being 'the other side of the fence', not feeling all of that pressure, just walking around tasting, tasting, tasting.
I was Shadow judge for the executive head chef of Claridges, he was really help full and full of use full advice, as he judges competitions all the time. I realised how so so so, important the taste of the food is to a judge, they are not to interested in fancy garnishes that take all day to prepare, all they want to see is great technique, flavours and seasoning, I know that this sounds really obvious but when you compete in a competition, you always find yourself concentration on the less important things! I discovered that to a judge, presentation is about 25%, obviously a dish needs to be tidy, and taste is about 75%, most people would think it 50 50! But if you think about it, if a dish looks bad but tastes great, you are more likely to score it higher than if it looks great but tastes terrible! I learned that the judges are looking for the simple things done well, fairly obvious, just competitors tend to loose their heads in the heat of the moment!

Freddie the Wine Buff!

Feddie is mates with a supplier of wine, based in Italy and has started selling bottles for him in London , Fred receives 1 euro for every bottle he sells (mmmmm, worth it!), he bought a bottle of Red along to mine the other night, was really good.