The Restaurant Show: Adnams Ale and Drink Pairing

In search of the perfect demonstration for how to pair food with drinks, Jess and I explored the art of pairing beer with food. Interesting territory. Whilst the demonstration from Adnams itself was perfectly fine, it wasn’t terribly inspiring. Pairing their brilliantly refreshing eco-friendly new beer with crab seemed a bit strange to me. Chorizo and cheese worked far better.

I am really interested in the science of pairing different food with drinks. I wish I had been invited to the recent sherry evening with Heston Blumenthal that Chris from the Londonist has been getting very excited about. It’s a fascinating area to work in. I just feel that Adnams could have done a more interesting job in explaining why their choice of cheese, crab and chorizo work with their beers. But maybe the publicans that surrounded us didn’t really care.

The highlight came on my return to the office. Adnams sent me a crate of their beer having won a competition for simply putting my business card in their pot! I love it when I get lucky! So I am now the very proud owner of 12 bottles of some of the most interesting beer on the market: East Green Carbon Neutral Beer. All the bottles are lighter than normal and are made with very locally grown hops in the most green and efficient machinery known to man!

The Restaurant Show: Luscombe Drinks

Just a quick note to say that the guys at Luscombe are brilliant. Not only do their drinks taste brilliant, but in many ways they look even better! Plus they tend to be served at the best places such as Riverford Farm where we first spotted them. Their firey ginger beer is brilliant. We’re really interested in their cocktail list. I’ve tried their cool ginger beer with some Courvoisier cognac and it’s pretty special.

I also tried their Sicilian Lemonade which is brilliant. As is their raspberry lemonade. So tasty. And such cool packaging. Apparently they are about to be stocked in Harrods and are gaining some brilliant distribution. Good luck!

And better still the lovely lady on the stand had read my review from the Real Food Festival! How fun.

The Restaurant Show: Mrs Tees

You know how when you learn a new word you are guaranteed to hear it non stop for next week or so. Coincidence is a strange thing. And I am sure there must be some sort of sociological mumbo jumbo to explain it.

It happened to me last week. On Monday Ed told me a story about how his Dad had just come back from a brilliant trip to a BnB in the New Forest. It’s run by a brilliant woman called Mrs Tees who is one of the leading mycologists (and exotic mushroom supplier) in the country. She is the only person in the UK to have a license to forage for mushrooms in the New Forest. She’s been to court several times and has won each and every time. Just google her. It’s amazing! But it gets better. Her husband used to be Jimi Hendrix’s manager. Never a dull moment.

Her BnB looks brilliant. It’s completely built around mushrooms. You can attend mushroom seminars, go on mushroom masterclasses, walks and tours before coming back for a charming 3 course mushroom extravaganza. Awesome. Probably my idea of mini break heaven!

So, roll forward 24 hours. Jess and I were pottering around the restaurant show trying to find a chef to come up with some food pairings for Courvoisier. We were chatting about food and I told Jess the story in the paragraphs above. Just as I was talking about the mushroom seminars and 3 course mushroom dinner we stumbled across a stand selling mushrooms from the New Forest. Shock, of all shocks, there was Mrs Tees herself! A living legend!

We had a wonderful chat about all things fungal. I guess it’s a bit like talking about football with Arsene Wenger! (Can you tell I’m writing this with Match of the Day on in the background?!) Mrs Tees told me a slightly strange story, which I almost certainly misunderstood, about how the best mushrooms grow by the road side because the enjoy feeding off the diesel fumes! I don’t know that much about mushrooms… but I have met enough mcyologists to know that they are nothing if not brilliantly eccentric!

I can’t wait to take Cowie to Mrs Tees’s BnB. If it’s anywhere near as charming as Mrs Tees is, we’re in for a fungal treat!

Brockwell Park: Lambeth Country Fair

I must admit, I thought the idea of going to the Lambeth Country Fair was a joke. A warped joke to make us all get mugged and just drive around the destitute South Circular for a whole Sunday as a way of reminding me of the endless traffic jams that greet the hockey season.

As we drove past the entrance by mistake for the forth time we noticed a sign with Tom PB’s smiley face on it praising Olley’s restaurant for being one of Tom’s top 5 fish and chip shops in London. At this point things started to pick up!

We eventually parked and set about exploring. Any hint of dount evaporated as soon as my nose picked up that magnetic whiff of jerk chicken. Plumes of spicy smoke wafted over the park as countless stalls grilled up the same food! The first stall we visited was even using environmentally friendlt charcoal from Croydon of all places. Apparently it is much better for the environment. Or so the Observer says.

But probably more important was the fact that they were cooking with organic chicken – Hugh your campaign is working after all!

The only draw back inevitably was the price. With only a fiver in my pocket and some shrapnel this was going to have to a Country Fair on the cheap.

But it was only a matter of moments before my eye was almost wrenched out of their sockets by the sign of all signs: Carnivorous Plants for sale.

At last… a solution to our greenfly problem at work. Within seconds I had bought a man eating. Sorry green fly eating plant for our chilli plants. The only downside is that is has similar dietary requirements to an anaemic, celiac with a lactose intolerance and a small issue with solids. Fussy doesn’t even come close!

Our Wahaca chillies are going to be so pleased when the meet their new friend! And those greenfly are going to extinct.

Having shelled out most of my money on essentials such as carnivorous plants it left only a few coins for lunch. So we went for some jerk chicken from the stall with the longest queue. Apart from the dried out skin, fragments of sharp bone and questionable meat it was delicious. I sort of wish I had an extra few quid to get the organic stuff at the top of the post. But this was probably more authentic. I would have felt a bit like someone with their own VIP toilet at Glastonbury.

Aside from the man eating plants, choke worthy jerk chicken, drug deals, petting zoo and falconry demonstration the best thing was definitely the plant tent. Lots of lovely plants and then to top it all… a vegetable competition. The highlight was definitely these very impressive red onions. From now on I am always going to present my onions on disks of toilet roll tubing. Genius! This is what makes Britain great.

As a collection of hooded black youths were frogmarched out of the fair by 12 stab proof vested policemen, a couple of queer chaps were presenting the prizes for the best vegetables in Lambeth. If you want a snapshot of Britain you could have found it in the plant tent at the Lambeth Country Fair!