Celia Brooks at French & Grace

I had a lovely vegetarian lunch today at French and Grace, where Celia Brooks was serving a special menu as a guest chef. She's written some great recipe books with interesting vegetarian recipes which I'm definitely going to try out some time and will probably take to university!

French and Grace is located in the very cool Brixton Village, which is full of good restaurants with reasonably-priced food and also hosts a few shops.

I really liked these caramelised onion, mushroom and cheddar tarts because the crispy cheese gave them a strong parmesan-like taste and the tartness (pun intended) of the onions made a good combination.

The trio of veg pâtés was stunning. I loved the three vibrant colours, especially of the purple pâté, made with beetroot, walnut and Stilton. I found the Stilton a little overpowering in this one, but the more subtle flavours of broad bean and basil were a hit with me. The brazil nut and garlic pâté was also delicious, with a great nutty flavour.

These gnocchi, made with wild greens, rather than just plain-old potatoes, were amazing. Served with a sage and porcini butter sauce and roasted courgettes, the whole dish was full of lovely deep earthy flavours. The salad of all sorts of different varieties of tomatoes, pomegranate seeds and olives was great. I really liked the olives which had been spice-roasted giving them a soft texture and slightly sweet taste.

The dessert was yummy - raspberry Eton mess: crunchy meringue and a rich, creamy sauce. It was sprinkled with leaves from the Stevia plant - a sweet leaf sometimes processed to be used as a sugar alternative. This, like most of the vegetables used in the meal, had been grown in Celia's allotment, making them all as fresh as possible.

I think I shall have to return to French and Grace another time to try out their street food, which includes delicious-sounding flatbread and hummus wraps as well!

Taste of London

I had a great time at Taste of London yesterday evening, trying an amazing array of dishes on show by many of London's best restaurants. Luckily for me, I was with my mum who knows loads of the chefs so we got treated to a lot of food and I was introduced to the big names!

First, we went to L'Anima, Francesco Mazzei's restaurant. I really enjoyed the burrata with smoked aubergine and red onion jam. The combination of the fresh cheese and aubergine had a wonderfully clean flavour, which reminded me of sushi. I liked how the sharper taste of the jam cut through this, and the hazelnuts added a nice crunch.

Of course, Francesco's 'icon' dish was fantastic - rich wild mushrooms and truffles created a deeply earthy flavour, and were beautiful combined with the delicate fettucine pasta. Alexis Gauthier's truffle risotto was another intense and rich indulgence!

 The lemon zeppola from L'Anima was also very tasty - like a posh doughnut!

These baby squid from Club Gascon were very yummy, with a frothy bisque. I wasn't so keen on the tapioca, but the crispy discs were nice. Club Gascon's chef, Aussignac, won the best dish award for his Marmite Royale and Soldiers - frois gras and Marmite - I suppose you either love it or hate it. As a pescetarian, I didn't actually try it, but my mum (a Marmite-lover) says it was delectable!

This shrimp and haddock kedgeree from Cinammon Club was strange. I really liked the haddock which was very flavoursome, but I wasn't so keen on the rest of the kedgeree. It had a consistency too similar to porridge for my liking, and was a little too fishy.

Probably my favourite dish were these mango and unagi maki from Sake No Hana. They were beautiful maki rolls of eel, which were topped with wonderfully sweet mago slices. Served on a bamboo boat, they not only looked great, but tasted superb too!

I thought this tagliatelle 'pasta', made from squid was very inventive. The taste and texture of the squid really lent itself to playing the role of pasta, and went brilliantly with the lobster jus.

The whole place was full of great-looking and very tasty dishes. We didn't even have time to visit all of the stands!

This year, the festival in Regent's Park is on until Sunday 24th June - see Taste of London's website for details.

There are also taste festivals all around the world, so you can check out http://www.tastefestivals.com/ to find one near you!

Chapter One

I had a great lunch at Chapter One today in celebration of my Grandpa's birthday with my cousins. 

To start, I had a delicious asparagus risotto, which was lovely and creamy - very rich and decadent. For my main course I had pan fried hake, which had a fantastic crispy skin and soft, flavoursome flesh.

I thoroughly enjoyed my dessert - crème brûlée: a huge portion with a velvety vanilla cream and a great crust.

The waiters were very friendly and generous, surprising us with a birthday cake at the end to celebrate the big day!

Hélène Darroze at The Connaught

I had brunch today at The Connaught - Hélène Darroze, whose cuisine is usually inspired by her roots in south-west France, bizarrely was doing an traditional American-style brunch, with dishes ranging from "The Connaught hot dog" to a posh burger.

First off, there was an impressive buffet, with lots of things to choose from. I went for some smoked salmon from a remote Scottish island, which was good but not quite on par with Forman's in my opinion, which is less smoky. I liked the salad of prawns and celery with a bloody Mary dressing, and the buffalo mozzarella and beetroot were refreshing. An interesting concept were these filled brioches - one with milk chocolate, the other with raspberry. I tried the raspberry one, which was delicious - a bit like a doughnut!

For my main course, I had macaroni cheese. I was a little shocked to see that all of the main courses had meat in them, but they were very kind and cooked some macaroni without the Bellota ham for me! It was truly scrumptious, with tasty Comté cheese and a crispy gratin - but still managing to be not too heavy.

Dessert was a real treat. The waffle was cooked to order, and topped with whatever I wanted - I opted for the waffle-maker's favourite: a drizzle of maple syrup, a dollop of Chantilly cream, a dusting of icing sugar and a dash of chocolate sauce. Indulgent, oh yes.

Apsleys

Last night I dined at Apsleys, an Italian restaurant at The Lanesborough in Hyde Park Corner. It was created three years ago by Heinz Beck, whose restaurant La Pergola in Rome has three Michelin stars.

First I had poached lobster, which had lots of lovely fresh flavours from the fish to avocado, tomato and bean sprouts which added an interesting taste and texture. It also looked beautiful, with a strange purple garnish which tasted like popcorn!

Then I tried what was called "Fish Crudo" - crudo means 'raw' in Italian, so this was effectively a platter of sashimi, just my sort of thing. The little plates just kept on coming, it was almost overwhelming! There were lots of completely different ways in which the fish was served, one even in a cocktail glass. I particularly liked the sea-bass, which was coated in a crisp cannelloni-shaped crust, on a bed of melon. It actually tasted a bit like seaside scampi. There were three different types of tuna - my favourite was the yellow-fin. I also enjoyed the scallops, which were in a sauce that tasted of white miso paste.

For my main course, I had a fantastic risotto with langoustine carpaccio, continuing the fish theme. The risotto was rich and creamy and the langoustine delicate and flavoursome. The little 'crisps' on top gave a nice, contrasting texture. I've never had a risotto quite like this before.

For dessert, I started with a fruit salad which was full of lovely exotic fruits and served with a great ice cream. The raspberry sauce was delicious with a very intense flavour.

And finally, I had this stunning dessert. The Amadei 'Chuao' chocolate dome, which has an unbelievably rich chocolatey flavour, was accompanied by hibiscus ice cream and berries, and adorned with a beautiful white spiral.

Nahm at Benares

As part of 'Chef Season' at Benares, Atul Kochhar teamed up with David Thompson, the renowned expert in Thai cuisine from Nahm restaurant in Bangkok, to create a shared menu of Thai dishes. I went this evening to check it out ...

We tried David's menu first. I had a 'miang' of lobster - miang is a Thai street dish in which the food is wrapped in a special leaf. Personally, I found this a little too spicy since there was a lot of chilli in it, which overpowered any taste of the sea from the lobster. However, the diverse texture was great with the crunchy leaf against the soft lobster.

My favourite of David's dishes was the 'yam pak', which is a mixed vegetable and fruit salad and was dressed with tamarind, palm sugar and sesame seeds. Again, there was a fantastic range of textures, and this was combined with a lovely sweet and spicy dressing. There were some interesting vegetables used including raw aubergine. The whole dish was lovely and refreshing.

I really liked Atul's paneer with apricot and tamarind chutney. The paneer is an Indian cheese, which was cooked on a tandoor giving it a smoky flavour. This went well with the sweet tamarind chutney.

Also cooked on the tandoor was some trout, which had a great smoky flavour as well. The crispy skin was encrusted with chilli and garlic, and the whole fish was full of complex spicy flavours.

To drink, I had a wonderfully refreshing lassi of blueberry and hibiscus, which was useful to cool off after the hotter dishes. I tried my mum's cocktail made with vodka, ginger and wasabi - it had a real kick!

La Boqueria & Lab G

Today me and my mum went for tapas at La Boqueria for lunch, as a foodie Mother's Day treat! Located on Acre Lane in Brixton, it was just a quick cycle ride for us to get there. It's named after the famous market in Barcelona, and features a section on the menu called "de mercado", which lists the more unusual dishes.

We started off with some "pan con tomate" (bread rubbed with olive oil and garlic, then topped with tomato), which brought us back to idyllic holidays in Spain, where we had it for breakfast every day! These were very light and refreshing.

I really liked one of the day's specials, king prawns sautéed al pil-pil (in a garlic-y sauce), with fresh spinach, which were full of flavour.

I liked these aubergine cannelloni too, which were filled with mushrooms, topped with goats cheese, and then drizzled with balsamic, which brought through a delicious sweet taste.

Another great special was this roast cod, which had a lovely flakey texture, and was served with sweet roast peppers.

We also had some great cheese croquetas, made with manchego and goats cheese, which had a beautiful creamy texture and flavour, with a crispy 'shell'.

A tapas meal wouldn't be complete without calamares. These were quite good and fairly crispy, but not the best I've had - perhaps better eaten by the sea!

For dessert, we shared a tasty "Crema Catalana" - with a crispy caramelised top hiding creamy custard.

After discussing the possibility of flamenco dancing on the perfectly suitable wooden floor with our charming waiter, we headed off the finish the outing with an ice cream at Lab G in Brixton Village. I had the salted caramel and pineapple flavours - the salted caramel is definitely a winner!