The Dairy

On Tuesday evening for my birthday dinner, my mum took me to The Dairy in Clapham. The restaurant was buzzing with people, and the low-key décor made for a relaxing atmosphere. The staff were very friendly, and I'd heard that they have a kitchen garden on the roof, so I was expecting great things.

I really liked the menu: it's split up into Snacks, Garden, Sea, Land, and Sweet, reflecting seasonal ingredients highlighted under each category. The idea is to order several of the very reasonably-priced starter size portions, and so try lots of different flavour combinations.

Bread is a good judge of a great restaurant, and The Dairy certainly passed that test. A mini sourdough loaf arrived at our table in a little hemp bag, along with butter served on rocks. Having spent the past few months trying to master the time-consuming art of sourdough baking myself, I could appreciate a great boule. Combined with intensely-flavoured seaweed butter, it was very moreish - we had to ask for another loaf!

This 'rustic' approach to presentation was exercised with great effect - each dish came with a different plate which complimented it both visually and texturally. Potted salmon came with Guinness soda bread on a diamond-shaped stone. The fish was absolutely wonderful, fresh and delicate, supported well by the bread.

My favourite Garden dishes were asparagus & hen egg, and pea & sorrel. The asparagus had a good bite, and were delicious with the creamy smoked custard and oozing hen egg. Then, a fantastically rich pea purée was served with sorrel ice, crunchy crumbs and jellies for an interesting mix of texture and temperature.

From the 'Sea', monkfish was perfectly cooked and served with crunchy radishes and chutney. The octopus was also lovely, with soft fennel, broad beans and a flavoursome broth.

Pudding was equally exceptional: Gariguette strawberries came with vanilla whey and cheesecake ice cream for a sweet treat, and apricots were drizzled with home-made honey (they keep bees on the roof!) and sprinkled with honeycumb for a crunchy contrast to the soft flesh of the fruit.

With stunning presentation, the best seasonal ingredients, and the creative Robin Gill as chef in the kitchen, The Dairy must be one of the best local restaurants - even worth a trip if you're not in Clapham. I'll certainly be returning, especially to try the new dishes next season!

H. Forman & Son

This morning I went to visit the legendary H. Forman & Son Smokehouse, just a stone's throw (or should that be discus?) from the new Olympic Stadium for the London 2012 Olympics.

It was very interesting to see the smoked salmon being produced using the traditional methods and skills that Lance Forman's great grandfather, Harry Forman, would have used over a century ago, in 1905.

Lance is very passionate about smoked salmon, and is on a mission to rid the world of bad 'smoked salmon', the poorly produced, often old and too smokey 'smoked salmon' that lines supermarket shelves. The secret to great smoked salmon he says, is being able to taste the freshness of the fish.

All the fish arrives to the smokehouse within 48 hours, where it is filleted before being salted and stringed ready for hanging, all by hand. Smoked salmon was originally just a means of preserving the fish, and this is achieved by removing the moisture. The salting and hanging makes the water drip out of the fish, drying it out - it is this drying process which is often missed, but is crucial to a great smoked salmon.

The salmon is dry smoked in oak smoke for a light smoky taste, before being carved by hand and packed, or sold as beautiful full sides of salmon.

It is, without doubt, the best smoked salmon I've ever tasted, with a very delicate smoke so that the full freshness of the fish can be appreciated. 

Dinner - Heston Blumenthal

I've been begging my mum for ages to take me to Dinner, Heston's latest restaurant which focuses on British dishes that have been inspired by cuisine and food concepts originally dating from the 19th or even the 16th century. Finally, as an end-of-Christmas-holidays-back-to-school-and-exams-treat, we went for lunch today!

It was a wonderful setting in the very grand Mandarin Oriental Hotel, but once I entered the restaurant, it could only be Heston: a floating pineapple inset into the wall above the reception, and jelly-mould-shaped lights were pretty wacky, but it was great to be able to see directly into the kitchen from our table (even if that did mean seeing the pigs' ears being prepared as we awaited our dessert!).

The humorously named "Green Goblin" cocktail that I tried had a great fresh aroma, made with lychee and kiwi juice and a touch of maple syrup for an uplifting sweetness.

To start, I had a lemon salad (supposedly influenced by a recipe from c.1730) with goat's curd, buckler sorrel and raisins. I really liked the pickled lemon segments, which had the distinctive sour taste of lemon (something I love - when people serve lemon slices with fish, I tend to suck the lemon dry while no one's looking!) and a tangy bite from the sliver of rind that contrasted well with the goat's curd in both flavour and texture. The dish looked lovely with different coloured leaves drifting about making it almost resemble a garden floor.

I then tried what seemed like a bizarre concoction to me: a crab 'brioche', made with crab-infused butter and custard, lending it a soft bread-like texture and a subtle flavour of crab. It was actually very tasty, served with a white crab meat mayonnaise and a delicious, clean flavoured cucumber ketchup.

For mains, I had cured salmon (c.1670). The fish was very delicate, and the leaves of flesh peeled away pleasingly. The top of the salmon was caramelised, which added a nice crunch and barbecue-like flavour to the fish. The artichokes were tasty (even though I'm not a big fan of them) although I found the beetroot a little hard. Nonetheless, the kidney-bean-coloured beetroot sauce was very flavoursome, with a great vinegar kick.

For dessert I had an indulgently buttery sweet 'loaf' ( c.1630 ) made from orange, which was covered in crispy caramel that added a lovely sweetness, but had a soft, spongy inside which was very orangey and yummy. The mandarin and thyme sorbet was delicious, with a not-too-strong acidity and clean finish. 

It was a fantastic lunch, with very friendly and talkative staff, who really knew the dishes inside-out and seemed to take a real pleasure in presenting them in all their glory. And trust me, they deserve that glory!

Chocolate Festival and Meza

I had a fun day yesterday, starting at the Chocolate Festival at the Southbank. It's on until Sunday in the square behind the Royal Festival Hall, and there's some great chocolate to taste and buy along with some interesting talks from the people behind the chocolate.

I popped along to do a quick shift behind Original Beans' stall, explaining what I knew about the origins of the bars, the rare Porcelena cocoa beans (named after its white appearance similar to that of porcelain), and the inspiring ethos - a bar plants a tree! It was great fun, and I enjoyed meeting people who knew and were interested in finding out about chocolate. Just before the event started to wind down for the evening, I popped round to have a peek at the other stalls and tried Damien Allsop's mini egg which had a delicious salty caramel filling. He's a great chocolatier who's speciality is water-based ganache, and I love his raspberry chocopop with crackling space dust!

Then, in the evening we visited The Modern Pantry Pop-up at Meza, where I enjoyed the fresh and exciting cooking of Anna Hansen. The menu was really interesting, and everything sounded sensational. I opted for the salmon sashimi to start. The organic fish was so fresh and had a lovely clean taste, and the dressing made from truffled umeboshi, which is a sour fruit, wonderfully complimented and accented the citrus yuzu (a Japanese fruit) and the texture of the crunchy flying fish roe (or tobiko) was great.

For mains I tried the roast butternut squash, tofu and leek filled inari (pouches made from an omelette-like mixture), with crispy walnuts and wild rice, and a salty miso broth. It was a very earthy dish, quite different from my starter, and it had a great rustic sense, but was also highly voluptuous, with a deep aroma and soft-hard textures.

Finally to finish I had the salted coconut tapioca with a green tea and chocolate mouse, with mango, passion fruit and a coconut wafer. I'm not completely sure why I chose this, because I'm not a great fan of green tea, but I liked the crunchy passion fruit with the sweet coconut, and the crispy wafer.

All in all a delightful day, and a delicious meal!