Test Space Kitchen, Leeds

Being a novice to food events that don't take place in restaurants, I was unsure what to expect from TestSpace: Kitchen however the description however gave a few clues;

"a special Victorian menu created by local food writer and blogger Mike Wallis, expert food forager Mina Said and the award winning Sunshine Bakery: involving de-constructed whole hog, giant Eton mess, pastry covered fruit, loaned pineapples, local foraged food and more"

My first thoughts are that it would be a bit like Heston's Feasts so I paid the bargain price of £10 and went along.
Test Space carries out pop up events across Leeds in various venues promoting local talent, a more detailed description can be read here: Test Space. The venue for their first pop up kitchen was the stunning temple works in Holbeck, Leeds.

Temple Works, Leeds

The event was hosted in the back of Temple Works, in quite a small room for the amount of people, again this was different than I what I expected, I was expecting a warehouse sized room. The size of the room wasn't a bad thing however, it made the atmosphere more intimate and a little bit magical with the eerie surroundings and the anticipated arrival of the food.

We arrived at about 7pm and were informed that food would be about an hour, due to the food being cooked off site and transported in, we were kept informed at regular intervals about its progress but no one seemed to mind the wait due to the many new people to get to know and the menu to drool over.

The appearance of the pigs head coming through the door heralded the arrival of the meal and it was swiftly set up in the adjacent room. It was literally a feast for the eyes and mouth as you can see from the picture.

Plate after plate of several versions of pig including ham, pork belly, pork loin stew alongside various game birds and a couple of options for the Veggies. Each version of pork was beautifully cooked, juicy and flavoursome, the sauce of the stew was particularly good. A special thanks to Mike Wallis for creating this amazing feast and for Mina Said for foraging some of the ingredients.

After the main plus seconds and also after a couple of us decided to pick at parts of the pigs head, including the ears and cheek (interesting but nothing i would recommend, we also drew the line at the snout), the pudding was served and its probably a good thing it was served it when it was, due it being there on arrival and looking increasingly like it was going to collapse.

The dessert was a giant Eton Mess plus Eton Mess cupcakes made by David Bennet of the glorious Sunshine Bakery in Chapel Allerton. It was a fine pudding, tooth meltingly sweet meringue with cream and delicious strawberries, I also attempted to take a cupcake home but succumbed to temptation and ate it long before i left.
After the meal, SlowFoodYorks gave a short, interesting presentation about the slow food movement before a local musician played an acoustic guitar set.
Overall it was a brilliant night, fine food, excellent company and superb atmosphere. Roll on the next one.

Links to people mentioned in this post:

David Bennet/Sunshine Bakery: http://www.sunshinebakeryleeds.co.uk/
Mike Wallis: http://twitter.com/nalsa, http://mtw101.blogspot.com/
Mina Said: http://www.leedsguide.co.uk/review/feature/food-for-free-foraging-walks/14808
Test Space: http://www.testspaceleeds.com/
SlowFoodYorks: http://www.slowfoodnorthyorkshire.com/

Jamie's Italian, Leeds

On a pleasant bank holiday evening, me and the Other Half decided to go somewhere new for a meal, we had a couple of ideas in mind but being a bank holiday they were shut. After wandering round town pondering our options we noticed that Jamie's Italian was open and lacked the usual epic queue outside so we thought we might as well give it ago. I had read some quite negative reviews about the place but went in with an open mind anyway.
On arrival we were told there would be about a twenty minute wait and were invited to the bar to wait, we ordered a 500ml cafare of wine each at just under £10 per carafe, I thought this was reasonable value considering the wine prices of some places.
After a short while we were shown to our seat and greeted by our very friendly waitress who informed us that certain items such as the burger had sold out (this was 8 o clock) fortunately these were not dishes we planned on ordering. We ordered the Meat Antipasti plank for two consisting of; Meats - fennel salami, pistachio mortadella, Schiacciata piccante, Cheese - buffalo mozzarella and pecorino. Pickles - green chillies, gata olives and green capers and a crunchy salad of shaved root veg with chili, mint and lemon.The starter was quite impressive served on an plank of wood balanced on two tins of Italian tomatoes, the meats were very good especially combined with the creaminess of the mozzarella and the tang of the lemon and mint salad.

Antipasti Plank

 For our mains we ordered the parpadelle meatballs and the mushroom panzerotti. There was quite a wait between the starter and the main but the waitress apologised for our wait and promised our food would arrive shortly which it did. Each dish was made with fresh pasta but I wasn't especially convinced by my choice (meatballs). I was expecting a rich tomato dish or a very herby dish and received neither, the meatballs were nothing special either, however the mushroom dish was very flavoursome and I wished I had ordered that dish. (as an avid meat eater its a rare occasion when I wish that I had ordered a veggie option instead of a meat option). We declined a dessert and I opted to sample their coffee, I was given the option of hot or cold milk with my americano, ( i like my coffee black but it is nice to be given this temperature option if i didn't) the coffee was strong and well made and a good end to the meal.

Parpadelle Meatballs

The final bill came to around the £35 mark (minus the wine) which we thought was good value considering the name above the door.

I would recommend a visit to this place but I wouldn't recommend the meatball pasta dish, try it for yourself but go early because I have walked past this place many a time at around half 7 - 8 and witnessed a very large queue out of the door due to their 'no reservations' policy.

Jamie's Italian Website
35 Park Row,
Leeds,
West Yorkshire
LS1 5JL
0113 322 5400

Tamarind, London

 For our last day, we wanted somewhere a bit different especially for a Sunday meal. Having heard good things about Tamarind, I checked out the website for menus and prices, I originally looked at the pre-theatre menu, 3 courses for £25 but then I noticed an offers page and found the Sunday Lunch menu offer running through August and September, buy one Sunday Lunch at £32 and get the second one free. A Michelin Star meal for £16 each, too good to be true surely but we went ahead and booked it.


The Restaurant
Tamarind is located in Mayfair, it is a one Michelin Star Indian restaurant. The kitchen is run by Alfred Pasad, the youngest Indian chef to receive a Michelin Star. The dining room is located underground but is wide and very spacious. decorated in cream, burnished copper and gold. We were a little late, again because of those damned underground cancellations, but the friendly receptionist was assured us it wasn't a problem. We were shown to our seats and given the menus to browse.

The Menu
having already decided to go for the lunch menu we picked our options and looked at the drinks list. I ordered a glass of red and pretty much regretted it throughout the meal, not because of the quality of the wine, it was very good, but because it's an Indian meal and in my opinion red wine and Indian food is not a good combination but ah well. The Other Half had more sense and ordered one of their non alcoholic cocktails, which was very refreshing.
The waiter came over to take our orders and we told him we were ordering from the Lunch menu, this caused a slight bit of confusion as he began to take the menus away without us telling him our orders, he then told us it was a tasting menu and all we had to do was sit back and eat. We started to a get a little nervous at this point considering the last time we went to an Indian restaurant we couldn't walk for a good month due to the shear amount of food eaten and a Michelin star tasting menu for £16 hmm.

Sunday Lunch Menu
Starter
Spiced Chickpeas and crispy potato with sweetened yogurt, tamarind chutney and pomegranate.
Crispy Fried Fish with gram flour, chili, curry leaves and lime.
Tandoor grilled ground lamb kebab with saffron, mint, chili, cheese and red onion on mint chutney.

Main
Diced lamb with baby potato in browned onion, tomato and spices.
Chicken with fenugreek leaves in onion tomato, cumin, garlic and red chili.
Served with
Cup mushroom and peas in a sauce of onion, tomato chili and cashew nut.
Cauliflower and peppers tossed with tomato cumin and spices.
Yellow lentils with mustard, turmeric, tamarind and curry leaves.
Basmati rice
Naan

Dessert
Warm vermicelli pudding.
Honey and saffron ice cream.

My reservations about the quality of the food were wiped out with the arrival of the starter, crispy battered fish, flaky and perfectly cooked, the lamb was juicy and beautifully flavoured, balanced out with the mint chutney, the chickpeas were very soothing, cleansing the palate ready for the main.
Shortly afterward the main arrived, well the buffet arrived. Dish after dish was arranged on our table wafting cloud after cloud of fragrances over us. Each dish had clean well balanced flavours that were easily recognisable and not over powered by another flavour. The rice was perfectly cooked, fluffy and light and the warm golden naans were delicious, from our viewpoint we could see into the kitchen where a chef was making them. My only complaint was the lamb was a touch dry but the fragrant tomato sauce made up for this.
The dessert was a good end to the meal sweet, creamy vermicelli pudding with a delicious honey ice cream (the lack of picture is because I ate it then remembered I needed a picture).

Passionfruit cocktail

Starters

Mains

Service
Service was good, having stated above about arriving late, the waiting staff were friendly and helpful, the sommelier was a bit over enthusiastic but nothing too drastic.

Overall
Some of the best Indian food you will eat and an absolute bargain of a Sunday lunch offer.

Tamarind Restaurant
20 Queen Street,
Mayfair
London,
W1J 5PR
020 7629 3561

Nearest Underground Station: Green Park

Petrus, London

Having visited a couple of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants previously, we debated about whether or not to visit his latest opening but having checked out the reasonably priced lunch menu we decided to give it a try. This Petrus is the second version, The original was located at the Berkeley Hotel which is now Marcus Wareing's restaurant. This one is also located in Knightsbridge just a short walk away from the Berkeley.

The Restaurant
The restaurant is very open, styled with claret, silver and cream colours. sofas form a small waiting area at the front of the restaurant. In the centre of the restaurant is the wine celler/storage, a huge glass tube containing all the wines of the restaurant. visually impressive. Contained in this cellar is the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever come across on a wine list, a magnum (1.5 litres) of 1961 Petrus, at the wallet melting price of £49.500, we ordered a bottle each to get us started (if only). This is quite an epic mark up considering if you were to buy this bottle off a wine supplier it would set you back at around £15-16,000. The service charge for the bottle alone is around £6.000. For those of you are not Bill Gates there are glasses of wine at around £5+.

Menu
We went for the lunch menu of £25 per person. I ordered pressed foie gras and confit duck with carrot chutney and salad to start. For my main I ordered hanger steak with green beans, shallots and red wine jus. for my dessert I opted for roast fennel creme brulee with mango. First impressions of the food were that they were larger portions than what I was expecting. The starter was exceptionally rich but very very tasty, it was served with Melba toast and was a good combination of textures and flavours with the crunch of the carrot and toast with the buttery smoothness of duck and foie gras. The 'hanger' cut of steak is a recent discovery of mine and was quite happy to see it on the menu as I had been wanting to try this particular cut of beef. the hanger steak is taken from the diapraghm of the cow and located near the kidneys, it is usually known as the butchers steak as they would keep it for themselves instead of selling it. The steak was very deeply flavoured, much more 'beefy', for want of a better word, than cuts such as the fillet or sirloin, it was also a little more chewy than a fillet cut. The main overall was like a posh Sunday roast which was a nice change, a bit of relief from the intricately designed food of the previous restaurants. The dessert was a nice end to the meal, a light creme brulee with hints of fennel running through it served with refreshing mango sauce, prior to the dessert we each received a little brandy snap cone filled with lemon marscapone, very tasty. Our meal was finished off with coffee, mini bars of dark chocolate and chocolate covered almonds, the remainder were boxed up for us to take away.

Duck and Foie Gras

Hanger Steak

Creme Brulee

Service
The service was excellent, due to several underground lines being closed, it took over an hour to get across London, making us 20 minutes late, the staff were accommodating and told us not to worry as we stumbled in slightly sweaty. The restaurant manager for those of you who watch Hells Kitchen USA is Jean-Philippe Susilovic who was very friendly, charming and informative.

Overall
Good food, good service. If you want to try a Ramsay restaurant or two I would recommend trying this one first due to the good value lunch menu before trying his flagship restaurant at Royal Hospital Road or his restaurant at Claridges.

Petrus Restaurant
1 Kinnerton Street
Knightsbridge
London
SW1X 8EA
020 7592 1609

Nearest Underground Station : Hyde Park Corner

Hibiscus, London

 Hibiscus is a French 2 Michelin Star restaurant located on Maddox Street,London. run by Chef Claude Bosi, the restaurant relocated from Ludlow, Shropshire to its current London location.

The Restaurant
The restaurant is located down a little street near Hamley's Toy Store, it is quite unobtrusive and if you were not paying attention you could easily walk right past it without noticing. The atmosphere is very informal and rather loud compared with the more formal serenity of Marcus Wareing's restaurant. The restaurant is decorated in a very minimalist way, simple beige colours with various art pieces around the restaurant.
Menu
We were shown to our seat and given the menus to browse, a small ceramic dish was brought over containing olives to nibble on whilst reading the menu. The Other Half finished these off as I cant stand them. We went for the lunch offer of 3 courses, a glass of wine and after dinner chocolates for £38 per person. I opted for a starter of lobster and salmon on leeks with a pea puree, a main of chicken with foie gras and dessert of raspberry sorbet on a white peach salad with pistachio ice cream. The lobster dish was delicately flavoured with the salmon and lobster complimenting each other with neither flavour overpowering. The main was three large pieces of chicken rolled with foie gras, a very very rich dish with an interesting complimenting texture of the beans. The dessert was very refreshing with perfectly ripe juicy white peaches with sharpness of the raspberry sorbet. The pistachio ice cream seemed to be an after thought served on a dish alongside, it was however very good. My personal highlight of the meal was the amuse bouche, a small goblet was brought over containing a watermelon and pineapple cocktail, we were informed to take a few sips and then shot the rest. We did as instructed and experienced an amazing flavour sensation. the pineapple juice was contained in little capsules, I presume made from a technique using calcium chloride and sodium aliginate to form a sturdy bubble of liquid. each bubble exploded releasing little flashes of pineapple combined with the watermelon, amazing.

Lobster

Chicken

Raspberry Sorbet

Service
The service was very good, the sommelier was very knowledgeable considering he looked very young and the waiting staff were very well informed of each dish to answer any questions.

Overall
Excellent french food with a slightly modern touch and quite a good lunch offer for a 2 Michelin starred restaurant.

Hibiscus Restaurant
29 Maddox Street,
London,
W1S 2PA
020 7629 2999
Nearest Underground Station: Oxford Circus

Carthage ,Covent Garden, London

On the hunt for somewhere cheap but decent on our first night, we headed for Covent Garden to have a wander around. After doing a lap of the main area we ventured down a street just off the piazza. We spotted a little Mediterranean restaurant  with a starter and main offer for £10, the place seemed reasonably busy so taking this as a good sign we went in. 

The place was small and decorated in a middle eastern Arabian nights theme and had only one waiter who was doing everything from serving, clearing away and taking orders. I ordered a Sicilian sausage with tomato dip for my starter followed by lamb tagine, the Other Half ordered falafal and lamb moussaka.
The starters arrived quickly, arriving in a little lift from the kitchen, as you can see from the picture it was a bowl of delicately flavoured tomato sauce with chopped pieces of Sicilian sausage, it was very tasty and I could have quite happily finished another few bowls. The main arrived shortly afterwards, a large tagine consisting of lamb, vegetables, chickpeas and sauce. The vegetables were nothing special and seemed to be there just to bulk the dish up, the lamb however was beautifully cooked, still pink in the middle and falling apart, swimming, or more like drowning considering the amount, in a tasty meaty sauce which I had to request a spoon to finish off as it seemed a shame to waste.

Starter

Main

The final bill (including a couple of drinks) came to £31, quite a bargain for the quality and the amount of food and in the centre of London.

Carthage Restaurant
Covent Garden
9 King Street
London
WC2N 8HN

Nearest Underground: Covent Garden

Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley, London

The Berkeley Hotel

Me and the Other Half travel to London, once a year usually, to try out one of the cities highly regarded restaurants. We had saved up for awhile and this time decided to instead of visiting just one restaurant for dinner, we decided to do a couple for lunch. Michelin Star on a budget if you like. Michelin Star lunch menus are usually about a third of the price of dinner making it quite a good deal as you get to sample incredible food for a snip at the usual price.
Our first restaurant was Marcus Wareing's Restaurant at the Berkeley hotel a 2 Michelin Starred Restaurant in Knightsbridge. The restaurant is located at Gordon Ramsay's old Petrus site, after a falling out he kept the name whilst Marcus Wareing remained at the hotel renaming it Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley.

The Restaurant
The restaurant is very well decorated, velvet walls and chairs contrasting with white table settings and flower arrangements. Due to it being in the Berkeley it had quite formal atmosphere and I wonder if this would be different if the location was. Part way though our meal, the 'bonbon' trolley was brought out, a stunning golden trolley/carriage with buckets of mouth-watering truffles with a centre piece of chocolate covered peanut brittle. Me and several other tables were just staring in amazement for several minutes.

The Meal
We quickly chose the Lunch menu at £38 a head for 3 courses before losing our heads and ordering the £95 prestige menu. I ordered chargrilled rabbit with sweetcorn, lime and coriander, Ribble Valley duck breast with pain perdu, beetroot, cherries and horseradish and Custard Tart with plum, crumble ice cream and little meringues with a raspberry filling.
As is the trend with restaurants of this standard, pre course samples were brought out to try; they were crispy fried chicken with mango sauce, an amuse bouche of mushroom soup with truffle foam, (rich, creamy and very morish)  and a pre dessert of mint and rum sorbet, (tangy and very refreshing).
The food was visually stunning as you can see from the pictures, I didn't take a picture of the starter as I was still trying to get the courage to get my phone out to snap away. The main was a confit of rabbit leg, crispy and juicy flesh complemented by the contrasting sweetness of the sweetcorn and the kick of the lime and coriander. The main course was equally as good with delicious hunk of duck breast oozing juices and perfectly cooked. The highlight however was the dessert. since looking at this restaurant's menus while booking, I have wanted to try this dessert. Watchers of the Great British Menu will have seen Marcus cook this custard tart for the Queen herself and she is a very lucky person because of this. it was quite simply out of this world, buttery crispy pastry with wobbling rich creamy custard which literally disintegrated into a wave of custardy wonderness as soon as my mouth was closed, utterly amazing. The meal was finished with the arrival of the aforementioned trolley. My personal favourite from the ones I chose was the rosemary and orange truffle which i can only describe like this; a combination of two strong flavours kicking and screaming for attention before coming together in a big friendly flavoursome hug, delicious.

The Duck (slightly eaten)

Custard Tart *drools*

Service
The service as you would expect was very very good, friendly but not overbearing and very informative about the menu when requested. The service was topped off when I requested, if possible, a signed menu from Marcus. The Maitre'd not only attended to this personally but organised a tour round the kitchen for us as we waited for the menu. My only regret was not asking to see Marcus himself.

Overall
Superb food, superb service, go if only to sample the Custard Tart.

Marcus Wareing Website
Wilton Place
Knightsbridge
London
SW1X 7RL
020 7235 1200

Nearest Underground Station: Hyde Park Corner