Dragon Castle, Elephant and Castle

I've said it before and I'll say it again, dim sum is one of the genuine - and depressingly rare - gourmet bargains of London. Yesterday at Dragon Castle, a cavernous and clattering space on the otherwise bleak Walworth Road, six of us worked our way through 26 individual plates of dim sum, as well as three huge servings of roast pork, roast duck and stir-fry beef in black bean sauce, washed down with a beer or two. The bill came to about £20 a head. Even if the food hadn't been universally tasty and enjoyable (it was) or the service smart and timely (it was, aside from a strange reluctance to bring us water), you still wouldn't have much to complain about at just over £2 per exquisitely constructed plate of bitesize loveliness.


Sometimes I wonder how these dim sum joints make any money at all, considering the time and skill that must go into their creations. Steamed prawn and chive dumplings, ethereally translucent and containing crunchy fresh veg; delicately steamed siu mai, meticulously uniform, with more fresh prawn flavour; char sui buns, impossibly fluffy and containing a heady filling of smokey pig; there is someone in the kitchens at Dragon Castle with years and years of experience studiously checking each and every dish and making sure they all arrive at the table piping hot. And then they charge £2 each for them. It's madness.


Even the slightly more off-piste selections managed to impress. Chicken feet were carefully boned and served cold in a tomato-chilli sauce which brought to mind Spanish calamari tapas. Tripe, also served cold, matched the moreish texture of perfectly cooked meat with a fragrant dressing, and slices of turnip paste was ever so slightly crispy on the outside and gooey and flavoursome within.


By the time the larger plates of roasted protein arrived, we were reaching capacity, but the sight of the perfectly browned duck and colourful stack of beef and black bean was too good to resist. The duck in particular had an almost overwhelming intensity of flavour, and an unbeatable combination of crispy skin and moist flesh. I just about managed to stuff a single slice of char sui (pork) into my mouth before my stomach surrendered and I was forced to admit defeat. Others managed desserts of mango pudding and sago - I have no idea how.



My enjoyment of, and gratitude towards the generosity of places like Dragon Castle is tempered only with the memory of hideous, sloppily presented meals I've suffered elsewhere for far more money. It's baffling how restaurants with such a different concept of value can exist side by side in the same city. Compare, for example, the array of superbly constructed treats shown above with this plate of tasteless grey gunge masquerading as 'Duck in tomato sauce' at Polpo:


Yes, it's a terrible photo but it really did taste as bad as it looks. From Dragon Castle we wobbled home uncomfortably distended and not much worse off financially, sated and happy. At Polpo we spent more money per head and left so hungry we had to stop for ribs and chicken wings at Bodean's on the way home - I'm not kidding.

So I hope it's not too dull to leave yet another near-perfect score to yet another Asian restaurant, but that's just the way things seem to be working out these days. As much as I like a solid British gastropub or French bistro, the fact is that in terms of sheer value for money it's always the Asian places (well, at least Chinese, Pakistani, Indian and Vietnamese) that consistently offer the best deals. At Dragon Castle you will find a large menu of exquisitely prepared dim sum, served in pleasant surroundings, and costing a pittance. What's not to like?

9/10

Gourmet San, Bethnal Green

If you are a vegetarian in London you really don't often have cause to complain about dining options. Of course that's the kind of presumptuous, blanket statement that's very easy to make as a carnivore, but really - even aside from the 100% vegetarian places (of which there are a healthy smattering), the vast majority of other restaurants could be considered vegetarian-friendly, where non meat-eaters could happily consume a good proportion of the menu and the dishes containing animal protein are clearly marked. There are, of course, plenty of restaurants that could be accused of being vegetarian-unfriendly, where the veggie options are meagre and uninteresting, and where animal fats lurk in the most unlikely corners (I'm thinking here particularly of St. John and its gastropubby disciples). And then, right at extreme end of the scale, where vegetarians are not so much discouraged as shown a metaphorical middle finger in the form of a menu that contains animal product in almost every single dish, there is Gourmet San.


I'm not complaining of course - I had a quite wonderful meal here and can't wait to go back - but this is a restaurant that lists a dish as 'Dry-fried French beans with olive oil' and serves it scattered in pork fat. Their attitude seems to be that there are very few plates of food that can't be improved by the addition of pig, and it's a philosophy I also happen to hold very close to my heart. The beans, by the way, were extraordinarily good, the little black slivers of olive both seasoning and spicing up the crunchy beans, and the pork fat adding a mouthwatering silky richness.


Rather than attempting to construct any kind of balanced meal (I think the staff would have laughed in my face if I'd have asked for a salad), we surrendered to the temptations of the Pork Page (37 pork dishes on one page of the menu) and ordered first a plate of fried pork intestines. Liberally scattered with Szechuan peppers and dried red chilli, this was a challenging plate of food even before you got your head round the fact you were eating pig's colon. But once you become accustomed to the initial startling heat and numbness of the peppercorns, this was great fun - the sliced loops of intestine had been breaded and fried like calamari, and had a lovely texture and piggy flavour.


Next to arrive was my favourite dish of the evening - ox tongue and tripe in chilli sauce. The textures were fantastic - especially from the tripe, which was just firm enough and with that unique honeycomb structure - but the flavours were even more impressive, deep and meaty and perfectly balanced with just enough chilli. I really can't fault this dish at all - even the fact it was served cold seemed to enhance rather than subdue the overall effect. Beautiful.


A portion of pigs trotters in brown sauce initially seemed incredibly generous until you realised that most of it was gristle and cartilage. But what meat there was fell off the bone easily, and the flavours of the rich brown sauce shone. Not my favourite dish, but certainly unusual, and there's something satisfyingly primal about tearing pig skin off huge, chunky bones with your teeth.


A massive bowl of chilli beef had another startling dose of Szechuan peppers and the rich, red broth fizzed and burned in the mouth. All sorts of cuts of cow had been used in this dish, and diving into it was like pulling out prizes from a tombola. It was very soon drained dry.


BBQ lamb skewers were another candidate for best dish. Perfectly tender, superbly spiced and with just enough juicy fat to add flavour without being overwhelming, the fact they were being favourably compared with those sold at Tayyabs should tell you how good these tasted.


Oh, and @hollowlegs ordered plate of aubergine too. I'm sure she enjoyed it.


What's important to remember about Gourmet San is that although some plates of food disappeared faster than others, there was simply nothing that was less than very good - an extraordinary achievement considering the size of the menu and range of dishes on offer. And although the final bill wasn't exactly what you could call super-budget, at little more than £20 a head for extremely generous portions and service that was way more friendly and efficient than it had any right to be, I'll call it a bargain. Szechuan cuisine, at its best, always has the potential for sheer visceral, seat-of-your-pants, sweating, screaming, burning, hilarious, joyous dining. And Gourmet San does Szechuan cuisine better than most.

9/10

Cheese of the Month - Redesdale

In common, I'm sure, with many other borderline-autistic foodies, I obsessively crave the new, the rare and the unique. In restaurants I will gravitate towards the more unusual ingredients and preparations, in bars I will order a pint of whichever looks the most likely to be shocking and/or disgusting, and I very rarely say no to any mysterious dark spirit placed in front of me at the end of a long night. These compulsions frequently end in disaster, of course, but that's not the point - for every deep-fried bull's testicle or raw rabbits brains there's that tantalising chance I may discover something really wonderful. And even if I don't, at least I can say I ate raw brains. Breaks the ice at parties.


When it comes to cheese, though, something rather strange has happened - I have become a creature of habit. After spending a couple of years working my way around the spread at Hamish Johnson, I seem to have whittled down my preferences to the same 3 or 4 usual suspects that I pick up nearly every time I visit - an Epoisses, a Roquefort, a Spanish goat's and perhaps some sort of hard Spanish mountain cheese. I know I like them, they work together well on a cheeseboard and I'm never disappointed. It's all rather tragically predictable. So last week, mindful of the effort I usually make to "eat local", especially regarding beef, I made the conscious decision to purchase a board of 100% British cheeses to accompany an autumn barbecue. And amongst them was a lovely little sheep's cheese called Redesdale.

Having already selected a soft, washed-rind cheese (what else but Stinking Bishop) and a creamy Stilton (Cropwell Bishop, review coming soon), I was after something harder and cleaner of texture to provide a happy medium between the other two. The staff at Hamish Johnston first steered me towards something called Berkswell, from Warwickshire, but I wasn't that impressed - it was quite bland and needed something to lift it above its straightforward texture. But Redesdale, from Northumberland Cheeses, was much more interesting. Just the right side of waxy, with a nice acidy tang to balance the dense, sweet flesh, it was impossibly easy to eat. I think it took the four of us barely ten minutes to cut it right back to the rind.

Thanks to a quick Google, I can report that Mark Robertson has been making Redesdale at his farm in the Rede Valley since 1984, and over the years it's gathered quite a collection of prizes. All richly deserved, of course, and as I've mentioned it was definitely a hit on my cheeseboard, but I have two issues with Northumberland Cheeses. Firstly all their offerings seem to be pasteurised, which probably makes them easier to deal with (and export) but I've begun to really notice the lack of that deep, farmy flavour from a pasteurised product. I'd really like to try an unpasteurised Redesdale - I'm sure it would be even nicer. Secondly, and less forgiveably, they in common with some other otherwise reputable small-scale producers, seem to have a bizarre compulsion to bring out special "flavoured" editions of their flagship product. As well as displaying a worrying lack of confidence in the cheese itself, it reeks of lazy opportunism to add (bleugh) apricot or (aargh) garlic instead of expanding your range in more inventive ways. After all, why go to the expense and effort of creating a new cheese if you can just chop up some cherries into the one you've already got?

That minor rant aside, there's no reason why anyone wouldn't enjoy the unblemished and un-meddled-with Redesdale sheep's cheese. Ignoring for a moment any of the more esoteric varieties from Northumberland Cheeses, this definitely stands up in its own right as an interesting and moreish member of a cheeseboard. I do warn you though, if I ever see a kiwi-flavoured Stinking Bishop or a galangal-infused Stichelton, I'm starting a campaign.

7/10

Polpo, Soho

Purely in terms of a concept perfectly pitched to the jaded, trend-chasing diners of London, Polpo appears to have everything going for it. You've tried tapas before, sure, haven't we all. But what's this - Italian "tapas", based on a Venetian bacaro - bitesize (often literally) portions of Italian food, each little more than a couple of quid and presented with a shockingly reasonable Italian wine list. The room is romantically lit (ie. you can barely see your hand in front of your face) but whereas in other restaurants this only serves to annoy, in Polpo it seems to fit with the clandestine Venetian style, like you've discovered a hidden gem of a bar near St. Mark's Square. You almost expect to hear the gentle lapping of the canals beneath the buzz of the crowd. Polpo has everything going for it, then. Everything that is, apart from the food.


First to disappoint were the arancini, deep-fried risotto balls. Bland in colour and taste, these weren't so much under seasoned as completely un-seasoned, and were like eating wet plaster of Paris. My crostini of chicken livers was just a slice of toasted baguette with what for all the world could pass as a supermarket paté - uniformly smooth, timid of flavour. And I wasn't just unlucky - the other crostini had similarly poor feedback from my friends at the table last night, a "horrible" cheap black olive in particular spoiling an otherwise OK salt fish and polenta offering.


The larger dishes were similarly cack-handed. Octopus salad had the opposite problem of the arancini, being unpleasantly salty; pork belly with raddicchio and hazelnuts had some fine flavours but the inedibly chewy rind on the meat itself was distracting; slow-roast duck with tomatoes was boring, under seasoned yet again and with none of the flavoursome fat that duck can offer; only a dish of cuttlefish cooked in ink was worth the asking price - rich in flavour and balanced with a pleasant tang of the sea.

By this point we were becoming thoroughly dispirited but ploughed on gamely through another handful of boring dishes. Mussels and clams were yet again under seasoned, not very fresh, and a good half of the mussels were closed (albeit smashed apart). Turnip tops flavoured with chilli and garlic were not bad I suppose but at nearly £5 for the bit of the turnip (hardly an expensive vegetable anyway) you normally throw away is extracting the Michael somewhat. And I have here in my notes "Fennel, bobby beans, cobnuts" but can't for the life of me remember eating it. Which probably tells you all you need to know.


What's even more frustrating about my meal last night was how much I was looking forward to it, based on the opinion of many people whose opinions I implicitly trust. It's baffling - perhaps last night the usual chef was ill or otherwise unavailable, as I came away with the distinct impression nobody was tasting any of the food leaving the kitchens - nearly everything was incorrectly seasoned. But still, part of me really wants Polpo to work. Despite everything, it's still a gorgeous little spot for a very reasonably priced drink, and the service and welcome from all the staff was perfectly friendly and professional. Sort out the problems in the kitchen and you're onto a winner. Until then, I'm staying away.

4/10

Brindisa Ham School, Borough Market

Like all the best delicatessens and food shops, the smell of Brindisa's Borough Market outpost is exciting, unmistakeable and arresting. From the impressive rack of cured legs of Spanish ham that crown the carvery emerges a rich, earthy scent of forest mushrooms, wet oak and, of course, the thing that gives these extraordinary animals their unique flavour - acorn. It's a smell that defines Spanish food in the same way that the musk of grease and batter from a chippie does for England or the sweet waft of freshly-baked croissants from a village bakery does for France. It's an evocative and emotional smell, and I don't care if you've never been to Spain or even tasted any cured Spanish ham, you can't fail to be moved by it.

I was in Borough market on a cold dark evening as a guinea pig for Brindisa's new "Ham School" venture. The idea is you pay £65 for an evening tasting, talking about and even having a go at carving some of the world's finest cured pork product, all overseen by Alberto Ambler, the assistant manager. Helping him and providing a live demonstration of how it all should be done was Zac Fingal-Rock Innes, Brindisa's own "Master Carver", who I can personally vouch is incredibly good at his job despite the rather worrying bandage he was sporting on his right hand.


But first, the tasting. Four different hams were presented, ranging from what was modestly described as an 'entry-level' bit of pig, the 14-month cured Jamón de Monroyo Reserva from Aragón. More chewy and less 'melty' than the more expensive varieties, it was nevertheless sweet and moreish, with a subtle nuttiness.

The Jabu Recebo from Huelva was cured for far longer - 2 to 3 years - and therefore had a much more concentrated hit of those earthy forest flavours. It also had a much softer texture, the fat melting in the mouth and combining with the firmer red flesh beautifully. You could immediately tell how the ageing process improves the meat.

My favourite ham of all, the Jamón de la Dehesa de Extremadura Bellota D.O.P., to give it its full title (though referred to by the staff as "The Dehesa"), was just about as perfect a piece of meat as I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It has an unbelievably concentrated and complex flavour, verging on sour, with a deep marmite-y richness and is delightfully melty on the tongue. This was overwhelmingly the most popular ham amongst the other lucky souls invited that evening, and notice also the D.O.P. in the title there - this protects under European law every stage of the production and is the top guarantee of excellence in Iberico hams.

I'm afraid the brilliance of the Dehesa rather pulled the rug from under what Brindisa presumably lined up to be the star of the show - the Joselito Gran Reserva Bellota from Salamanca. Still excellent of course, it probably just had too subtle a mix of flavours to win over my battered, unsophisticated palette. By this time, too, the generous measures of fine La Gitana manzanilla were kicking in and possibly clouding the judgement somewhat. I have written on my rather wobbly tasting notes "Complex, balanced, smooth, woody". Let's leave it at that.


A couple more sherries later Zac bravely offered to show us how to show us how to prepare and carve a brand new leg of ham. The leg was screwed into a large scary-looking wooden brace and the excess fat trimmed off. Next, delicate thin slices of were sliced off horizontally, just a few inches at a time, using a long and thin (and frighteningly sharp) knife. It didn't look easy. But fortified by La Gitana and comforted to some degree by the thick chain mail gloves offered, I dove in.


It was incredibly satisfying to produce these delicate slices of juicy ham, and though my efforts were obviously nowhere near as beautifully produced as Zac's, it was nevertheless great fun to feel such a creative connection between yourself, the animal and the delicious end product. I'm guessing it tasted better for having just been carved too, for although this was merely a 'starter ham' (they weren't stupid enough to let us hack apart a Gran Reserva), I happily wolfed down the slices as soon as the chain mail gloves were off.


Anyone not gluttonous enough to finish off their hand-carved ham seconds after carving (that would be me, then) had it wrapped up and packed off at home time, so none went to waste. Educational, entertaining and enormous fun, I can't think of anyone that wouldn't enjoy an evening talking about and carving the finest hams in the world (well OK, maybe vegetarians, but they don't deserve to enjoy their evenings anyway). Brindisa Ham School is running every month beginning on 5th November, and comes thoroughly recommended.

Pierre Koffman's Restaurant on the Roof, Selfridges

I'm not normally one to dash to restaurants in their first weeks of opening, but if you want a meal at the Restaurant on the Roof you don't really have much of a choice. Pierre Koffman is cooking here for just less than a month, and the news of his return to the stove after so many years away was greeted with feverish delight and the swift snapping-up of tables by London foodies. But no 'bedding-in' period, no settling down of service, no soft-opening - just 3 Michelin Star food, at £75 a head, from day one. From a temporary kitchen, and with a temporary front-of-house team. Ambitious doesn't even begin to describe it. Could it even be done?


For a time, it seemed my fears were well-founded. Reports from guests in the first week complained of indifferent service, hour-long waits between courses, and uninteresting food. One particular sticking point seemed to be the production or otherwise of the petits fours - the fury unleashed on Twitter when it became apparent some people had received them with their coffees and some hadn't was terrible to behold. But forewarned is forearmed, and I made my way past the statuesque blonde guarding the special Pierre Koffman lift (opposite the Chanel perfumes) vowing to make damn sure I got my petits fours.


Whichever design team is behind the Restaurant on the Roof (and one eagle-eyed member of our party spotted the same antler chandelier used at the Reindeer popup a year or two ago) certainly know how to impress. Down a long, softly-lit corridor lined with white chiffon you go, into a large reception area populated by a mysterious porcelain statue, up some stairs into a baroque-themed bar/waiting area and finally the restaurant itself, a vast white marquee with walls gently shimmering against the late evening London breeze. We were greeted by none other than Claire Koffman, partner of chef, who confessed to being baffled by the "huge number" of young people she'd seen sporting oversized cameras. How times have changed since La Tante Claire....


And so to the food. An amuse of pig's head and celeriac was a dreamy combination of glistening, salty pork and creamy vegetable, perfectly seasoned and bursting with fresh flavours. If this was a sign of things to come, we were in for a treat.



My starter was a special made by Bruno Loubet, Koffman's aide in the kitchens that day. A langoustine bisque, swirled with cream and topped with fresh herbs it definitely looked the part, and brought a heavenly seafood aroma to the table. It also tasted superb, with a silky smooth texture and lovely deep prawniness. Other starters were equally fantastic, such as an earthy bone marrow and snail and a semi-ironic lobster and avocado cocktail.



I have to admit to my heart sinking slightly when my main course of duck arrived. Could they not have found a better way of presenting this dish? It all looked a bit thrown together, with a confusion of sauces and haphazard scattering of weirdly-cut vegetables. Fortunately it tasted a lot better than it looked, the meat being cooked perfectly medium-rare and with an impressive crispy skin. Best of the other main courses on our table wasn't (shock horror!) the Famous Pig's Trotter (though I did try some and you can see what all the fuss is about) but instead a hare cooked three ways - braised shoulder, pan-fried breast and what was presumably the 'other bits of hare' pressed into a terrine. It reminded me, with its bold game-yness, of the Rules grouse. And there can be no higher praise than that.


I think I must have been so bowled over by my dessert of Pain Perdu that I forgot to take a picture of it, so you'll have to take my word that it was perfectly well presented. But the taste was extraordinary - gorgeous flaky pastry and impossibly light eggy filling, and served with a scoop of perfect coconut ice cream. I almost couldn't believe how good this deceptively simple dessert was. Beautiful. Most desserts around the table were equally stunning, particularly a pistachio soufflé, but I was unimpressed that none of the cheeses on the cheese course (£5 supplement) were British, and they had gone with a rather prosaic selection of Roquefort, Epoisses, Camembert and the like. Fine, but not really worth the supplement, and the Epoisses looked like it could have done with being a bit more room temperature.

And that was that, a thoroughly accomplished and enjoyable meal and a rather magical evening. We experienced none of the service issues that seemed to have plagued others, and yes, we even received a pretty tray of petits fours in a timely fashion. This doesn't, sadly, appear to be the experience of everyone in the room that evening, more of which I'm sure you'll hear about in the usual places. But I can only report on what happened on our table (the presence of a Guardian journalist perhaps swinging events in our favour), and we honestly had no complaints. If you're lucky enough to have bagged a spot at the Restaurant on the Roof then you should be looking forward to your meal enormously. Just make sure you get your petits fours.

8/10

Bibendum Wine

A few years ago, when I had just moved down to London and was looking for ways to integrate myself into urban high society and shed my provincial skin, I considered going on a wine tasting course. The world of wine and wine appreciation had always seemed glamorous and enigmatic, and the ability of the BBC Food and Drink team to rattle off the name, year and producer of a particular bottle just from a single flamboyant slurp seemed like the kind of party trick I could make use of. After a cursory Google of potential courses though, the idea seemed less appealing - I was worried about the kind of people such a scheme may attract, the £100+ cost seemed a lot for an unknown quantity, and also - mainly - I was petrified of my appalling knowledge of wine becoming public knowledge.


But the idea stayed with me, as did the desire to learn more about this mysterious world. Even without any specialised knowledge of grape varieties or vintage years, a good bottle of wine is still a good bottle of wine, and I made a concerted effort to recognise and remember the ones that brought particular pleasure - a bottle of oaky, smoky '03 Argentinian Mendoza Chardonnay with a starter at the Capital restaurant, a glass of fruity Burgundy with my pigeon at the Square.


Fast forward to a couple of years and a food blog later, and it seems that the decision not to blow a ton on a private wine tasting was, fortunately, the right one. My association with Bibendum, a smart and savvy wine merchants who organise many of their events and tastings via New Media, thus attracting a diverse crowd of bloggers and tweeters, had led me to bunk off work and head to the Saatchi gallery in Chelsea for a full day of wine-related fun. I took part in the world's first live Twitter wine tasting, decided my favourite wine in the world was a Coleccion Vivanco Quatro Varietales 2006, and ended up somewhere around dinnertime in the Champagne room drinking glasses of pink Krug. It was an incredibly fun day, and a fantastic introduction to so many different styles of wines I would never have otherwise had the opportunity to try.

Since then, Bibendum have run a handful of blogger/Twitter tastings at their headquarters in Primrose Hill and each has been more educational and enjoyable than the last. Usually based on wines from a specific country (Italy, Australia, etc.) the most recent was instead organised by grape variety, and took us on a journey from Chardonnay and White Rhone through Rosé and Pinot Noir to full-bodied reds like Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. Highlights for me included a remarkably grapefruity white Burgundy called "St Romain Clos sous la Chateau Domaine des Forges 2006" which coated the mouth with silky, oaky intensity, and a deeply chocolaty and satisfying Cab Sav/Merlot mix from Bordeaux - "Chateau Cantelys Pessac-Leognan 2004". These also happened to be two of the most expensive bottles on offer that evening - I don't know how I do it.

I wish I could say after all this fantastic, free exposure to the world's finest wines that I could hold my own at a professional tasting but alas, I'm still quite a way off yet. I still stand in awe of the guys at Bibendum who seem to be able to identify almost their entire stock by taste and have an encyclopaedic knowledge of producers, vintages and varietals. But some of it is definitely rubbing off - back in July, a few days after the Italian wine evening up in Primrose Hill, I had dinner at Galvin at Windows on Park Lane. For my beef and foie gras main course I asked the sommelier to bring me a glass of something suitable, and was very pleased with myself when I identified it as a Chianti. Not a clue which Chianti, of course, but a Chianti nonetheless. An email from the sommelier a couple of days later, and it turned out to be a "Chianti Classico Le Trame, Podere Le Boncie, 2005". Well, blow me down, if I hadn't actually learned something. And after all, what use is all this new-found knowledge if you can't use it to impress a date?