The London Fatty Goes Global (Partially)

8 cities later and 7 kilos heavier, London Fatty has finally returned to share her musings with the masses. While slowly (yet surely) inching closer and closer to emulate this pen-name rather than it remain a metaphorical one, I have enjoyed many sights, flights and nights abroad.

I shall try and share only the best (and worst) of some of the places I have been over the last few months. There are two things that are pretty clear from my travels: Virgin Atlantic is officially an awful airline and I urge people to not make the same judgement that I did; assuming Virgin is far superior in all spheres when compared to the flailing British Airways. However, after testing both (on long-haul trips to the US) I can confirm that British Airways has in fact buckled up and improved everything, from food to service to timekeeping. I shan’t go into intricate details of my Virgin horrors, however I can mention my experience with the awfully rude hostesses, one of whom casually picked up my spider inhabited salad and flung down a new one. I had absolutely no words for this, especially given that I am a severe arachnophobiac.

The second observation I have made over the last few months, is that all 7 of the kilos gained over the last few months was the pure result of my American visits. Food is a big thing with me and even huger for the American market. Multiple flavours and variants of each product, shelves stacked high with E-numbers, preservatives, sugars and colourings that one would crave for. I strongly believe that the trans fats in the foods gave me my ultimate high. I was in tune with the chirpy American citizen, wishing everyone a good day and having cheerful conversations with random people on the road. As a Brit, I can tell you that isn't normal. When someone even utters those four words ('Please pass the paper') to a stranger on the tube, heads turn to view this absolutely shocking exchange between two strangers. It’s like an invasion of personal space to be approached by a complete stranger for anything more than the time.

Ibiza, Forte dei Marmi, Istanbul, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami & finally New York. One can only imagine the rollercoaster ride of palate preferences from city to city.

After some 'constructive' criticism from several 'concerned' readers, I have been advised to reduce the length of my violent outbursts on certain topics, and to keep a post brief for a change.

Ibiza - one can't really expect to go there with the prospect of earth and palate-shattering meals. Firstly, you go there to lie on a beach or a yacht partially naked, displaying a sculpted body that has been fed solely leaves, water & champagne. Secondly, by evening, the masses are usually too drunk to appreciate any food placed in front of them. When under the influence of 16 jaegerbombs, a quarter of a bottle of vodka and several glasses of Dom, one can take a stale roll of bread & appreciate it as much as a large pizza. (This was my experience in Ibiza as well as in Forte dei Marmi where after-dark restaurants literally served you the most delicious crap one could ever taste). Aside from the culinary aspect, this commonly misunderstood island was as delightful as always. Despite what Kevin & Perry showed us, 10 years ago, I can confidently confirm that I have never come across anything that they did during that film.

The debaucherous Twiga

Forte dei Marmi - my ultimate annual holiday destination, with London Skinny (she is identical to me, however lacks the same enthusiasm for food). This gorgeous coastal destination has everything one could ever wish for: unbelievable food, beautiful people, perfect climate, and jaw-dropping surroundings. While the Tuscan fare is always impeccable (try our favourite: Maito's. The Maito Pasta is the ultimate), as is the wine, the beach clubs provide the ideal setting for a chilled out day. Notable ones: Orsa Maggiore and Twiga Beach (owned by ex-F1 legend Flavio Briatore).

Spectacular views from the Kempinski

Istanbul - absolutely stunning city, so rich with culture. While I am unable to recommend any notable eateries (as I was there for a wedding), I can affirm that most of the restaurants serve the freshest fish. One evening when I did have the opportunity to dine outside a hotel, I was lucky enough to miss a fish whacking me in the face (as an old Turkish guy did his fishing on the bridge above the outdoor restaurant). One a side note, the Kempinski Palace has views of the Bosphorus that will keep you mesmerised. 

Notable US experiences

Los Angeles

Best Hotel: The Beverly Wilshire – this hotel, infamously known as the Pretty Woman hotel, is everything one could ever dream of. Prime location, swish surroundings, a luxurious house car & impeccable service is just the start. Be sure to visit the hotel, even if just for a drink as you will surely spot a celebrity or… Piers Morgan.

9500 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90212, United States (800) 421-4354

Best for Breakfast: The Farm – aptly named, The Farm delivers a hearty and wholesome breakfast where even the toast under your eggs has been sliced from a loaf fresh out of the oven. (439 North Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, United States. (310) 273-5578)

 

Garlic for dessert too!?!

Significant Eateries: The Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel – super cool molecular gastronomy where no effort has been spared even with the cocktails and desserts. The venue is impressively vibed out.  www.thebazaar.com

The Stinking Rose – This family friendly restaurant has a menu piled high with dishes unsuitable for the Cullens. Wear the hat shaped in a garlic bulb for the duration of your meal & get rewarded. www.thestinkingrose.com

(NB – LA people tend to eat early so make sure you don’t make dinner bookings past 8.30pm!)

San Francisco

My Boudin Sandwich

Best Sandwiches: Boudin Sourdough Cafe/Bakery – Possibly the best bread I have eaten. With slices like pillows topped with any fillings you like, this cute bakery is a must. They serve their signature tomato soup inside a hollowed out sourdough loaf. Fresh bread (and potatoes) are my ultimate weaknesses. www.boudinbakery.com

Vegas

Best Pizza: The ‘Hidden Pizza Place’ – this little place is hidden in a dark corridor of the superswish Cosmopolitan Hotel. It actually has no name but is suitably packed regardless. The small area is decorated with whitewashed tiles, vintage pinball game machines, slices lined with checkered greaseproof paper and beer served in red ‘house party’ cups.  The place is standing-only but its understated cool factor is that it is effortlessly good (at $4.50 a slice) and so New York.

Miami

Hot Spots: Delano (art deco hotel with a famous poolside bar lined with cabanas and chairs in the swimming pool. www.delano-hotel.com

Setai Hotel: visit this for its non 'Miami-white-linen' vibe. This sleek asian inspired hotel boasts a courtyard bar and a fusion restaurant. www.thesetai.com

News Café: essential for the purpose of people-watching on South Beach & for the extensive menu. Miami beach - www.newscafe.com

New York

Aureole: one of the top fine dining choices in New York. They have a notable pre-theatre menu which delivers food speedily & also reasonably. www.charliepalmer.com/properties/aureole/ny

I hope to ramble extensively on India and the culinary advances very soon.

As a side note, I have now lost 5 of my worthy & unregrettably gained kilos. 

Zuma as a Zebra (i.e. a Herbivore)

After my not so recent rant on Zuma's 'hard-to-get' reservation policy, I scrambled for a table (well, no not really). My parents wanted to have a nice Zuma dinner and so a little black metal card did its wonders and got us a table sooner than expected (in the week as well as in terms of sitting). The 6.30pm table was slowly changed to 6.45 and then to 7. I arrived at 7.03 on my lonesome and drip-fed my alcoholic tendencies with a large martini. Overpriced mineral water was inevitably brought to the table, with someone topping it up after every sip, to the extent that I wondered whether they received a commission for every bottle of Voss uncapped. I am an advocate of the 'tap not cap' movement. London's water passes all the safety standards and tastes better than most mineral waters anyway. (For those who aren't convinced or are a bit curious, you can check the water quality according to your postcode on the Thames Water website.) The new 'London On Tap' campaign is brilliant and I hope many of the London restaurants participate in it (http://www.londonontap.org/). Aldo Zilli has successfully introduced free fizzy water produced by Thames Water to diners as per the London On Tap campaign. Am guessing this loss of 300% marked-up water will result in over priced roast potatoes. We’ve had our fair share of ‘bottled’ water horrors; from the arrival of already uncapped bottled water (clearly just tap filled in) to the Dasani episode (dishonest selling of water under the pretence that it was ‘mineral water’). My excitement for this ‘tap water’ movement was thwarted by the news that Obama was advised not to risk drinking London tap water, let alone Buckingham Palace's own mineral water.

(NB: An issue I tend to have is to go off on a tangent and have a rant about something loosely related to the initial subject. Topics to avoid when holding conversation with me, for your own benefit, are: benefit fraud, prostitution, hypocrisy (this topic covers a spectrum of subtopics such as religion) and hygiene (tread carefully!). By the end of it, many tend to question my lucidity. I always blame the cheap red.)

Eventually the full party arrived by about 7.20. This is record breaking for our family as we have NEVER managed a dinner before the 8pm mark. The layout of the restaurant is brilliant since it is capacious. They have a full bar area, plus a bar dining area where people can eat informally & have a few drinks, they have the main restaurant seating area plus some private dining rooms which are available to hire for events.  We had a large round table further into the restaurant close to the ‘bar dining’ area and in view of the sushi & robata grill chefs. This dinner was going to be special, for two notable reasons. 1. Never have I had the 'pleasure' of a vegetarian Japanese meal. 2. It was 7.20 and we had to surrender the table 9.30, leaving absolutely no time for dessert. While my appetite was severely disappointed by 7.25 at the prospect of no fish and no dessert, the martini(s) worked their magic and kept me seated (too many would have resulted in otherwise). In charge of ordering, I glanced at the menu and found a very small number of vegetarian dishes available and therefore ordered everything possible in pairs. The food arrived speedily, as sweet potato cooks quicker than seabass, and since they desperately wanted to make sure they get the table back in time. 

It will be impossible for me to give you a full detailed list of what was consumed that evening, since this dinner did happen a few weeks ago. However, the notable favourites of this herbivorous occasion were noted: the steamed Sesame Infused Spinach, anything off the robata grill (plates of the Asparagus with Wafu Sauce were rapidly consumed by my sister, Goggles) and the tofu. The disappointments were: sushi (nothing spectacular, they could do a lot more- such as finding a substitute achieving the same ‘dotty crunch’ as salmon roe or experimenting with more than enoki mushrooms and avocado) and the salad (felt very unsubstantial and I’m not a fan of the leaves & fruit combination). Predictably, despite having masses of food left over, everyone still felt unsatisfied. On a conclusive note: a Japanese meal as a vegetarian is more of an ‘appetite builder’ or ‘palette warmer’. An aperitif before the extravaganza! What would I choose for my vegetarian extravaganza? Hakkasan, of course! (This too was done under the strict rule of veggie-ism. My verdict to follow shortly)

Being a Roka addict, I would revisit Zuma, without Mum in tow, to sample all the dishes. I suspect all will be pretty identical to Roka, since the interior is too, however it is on my ‘To-Eat list’ still. The absence of dessert depressed my martini high, especially as I was hoping to sample their fondant.

To The Point (for the hungry):

Food: 6 (It was pretty good and had a decent selection of veggie dishes. However, I would have liked to see more in there to create some substance and weight for the average veggie diner. Sushi selection was a bit weak too)

Cocktails: 9 (I feel that this category should have been added a lot earlier on. I had a fruity martini which tasted like Jell-O. The list was long & filled with innovative mixes.)

Service: 9 (Minus my water grievance, service was more than conscientious. The waiter recommended dishes, told us when we were ordering too much and looked almost as deflated as me at the prospect of no dessert) 

Ambience: 7 (Huge space, simple décor, lots of suits around. Like the fact that there is no issue with tables being too close together. Slick and buzzy)

I am unsure as to what the total bill was, but I am pretty certain that at least 65% of it attributes to alcoholic beverages though. 

Zuma / 5 Raphael Street, SW7 1DL / T: +44 (0)20 7584 1010 / www.zumarestaurant.com

I could do with Tom in MY kitchen...

I've always thought about the Chelsea Flower Show but have never had the intense urge to book tickets and make myself go. What for exactly? I am a hay fever sufferer and therefore flowers = the enemy. When I told a friend I was going to the Flower Show, he retorted 'KILL THEM ALL'. Strangely enough this behaviour and reaction reminds me of the concept of a child assassin, like in the movie Hanna. A sweet 10 year old child with blonde hair is the epitome of youth and innocence. But instead, she's irony with a gun. Adults find themselves wanting to kill this child off instead of pinching her cheeks and handing her a balloon. The world has become increasingly confusing and equally deceptive!

While my planned visit to the Chelsea Flower Show was purely to accompany a special aunt who was to visit London, events changed and I ended up having to blackmail a few friends to make one of them come with me. The concept of the Show is too timid for me and would have been enjoyable with my aunt who has a passion for flowers & nature. However, the article in The Times that morning got me a little excited with pictures of Gwennie & Helen Mirren posing seductively with a Venus Fly Trap-ish flower. Maybe it would be quite cool? 

While walking through the gates, I rummaged through my bag and quickly popped two anti-histamines in desperation, hoping that they would finally work. (Pollen has become a bit too potent these days) My friend, Cousin It* observed that we were, by far, the youngest people there. Earlier that day, I had mentioned I was visiting the Flower Show to some work colleagues, when a 40-something colleague quipped “Don't ya have to be over 60 to go”. I chuckled and said “No, don't be silly! It’s ever so trendy”. While approaching the bag-check, I hoped he was wrong. Cousin It managed to round up an unwarranted fan club within the bag-check clerks who all did a privacy breaching visual x-ray, making it almost unnecessary to hand over our handbags. Once through the gates, the second observation we made is that there were no alcohol stands!! How could one walk around on a warm day admiring nature's finest sans Pimm's? Cousin It settled for some ice cream and also asked the ice cream lady to reconfirm this absence of alcohol. The 'Seriously Chocolate' was so pale, it looked convincingly like Vanilla. The taste followed suit and I craved Belgian Choc Häagen-Dazs. So once we did make it through to the flowers, we did have a good time. Some of the competition gardens were impressive, with tiny river-like features, ponds, exotic flowers and use of lighting.

Sky Garden by Diarmuid Gavin (not fully suspended as yet)

The garden I had read the most about was Diarmuid Gavin's floating garden, which was a pod suspended 82ft in the air by a crane, providing magnificent views. The pod itself didn't look very impressive and the concept seemed a bit 'show-offy' and unattainable. I thought the whole point of the Chelsea Flower Show was to provide landscapers and home-owners alike with ideas and models to work with for themselves and for projects. Would a crane be a sustainable piece of equipment to use in the long run?! I believe he did win the Gold in the end though. This Avatar inspired ‘Sky Garden’ was imaginative, but didn't really do much for me. (Plus I heard some awful comments from the crowd too- some a bit too rude to mention. The elderly can get feisty.) 

As the clock ticked, and 'Wine O'Clock' approached, we decided it was time to leave. (We also found the Pimm's stand right at the back of the RHS, I'm guessing, to lure spectators into walking through the whole show in order to get to the real prize.) Tom's Kitchen was a short distance away, and I had always been meaning to go there, but for the purpose of Brunch, of course. We got there and luckily got a table, which we had to surrender in an hour due to a booking. The restaurant was quite busy, with the usual Chelsea crowd. The surroundings were very English-Comfort-Foody. Once seated we were presented with menus, which resulted in 15 minutes of confusion between Cousin It and I. So many British favourites to try! As a London Fatty, I tend to pressurise my fellow diner to pick a dish that I would also potentially like to taste so I do get the best of both worlds. I'm sure several people are reading this and thinking of ways to buoy my master-plan... Please don't ruin my fun. Eventually, we chose the Fish & Chips and the Macaroni & Cheese with Truffle (YUM). The waitress seemed to have an odd concept when it came to sizes though. The pastas came in two sizes so when we asked the difference between the two, she curled up her hands to mimic something close to the size of a Vaseline Lip Balm pot and then expanded her hands to hold an imaginary watermelon. Obviously we went for the larger one. However, the sizing posed a trust issue. The waitress was, also, quite pushy when it came to ordering food and drinks. I felt as if I should be ordering a lot more in order to get a smile in return. I stood my ground though and Cousin It smiled enough to make it all bearable.

The food arrived on chunky wooden boards, making the whole experience very 'Country-style' and made the food the prime focus itself. The Macaroni and Cheese was delicious. Everything was perfect. Pasta cooked perfectly, right amount of truffle, and I'm glad it wasn't just truffle oil - I could see all the truffle shavings. The oven crisped cheddar topping wasn't very strong and provided a good textural mix. The Fish & Chips were wonderful too and we were given home-made ketchup along with the tartare. Never before have I enjoyed any ketchup more than Heinz. The fish was in a wonderfully crisp beer-batter coating, but was far smaller than expected. Chips were chunky as they should be. 

Chocolate Hot Pot

The meal was incredibly heavy, especially when teamed up with large glasses of Merlot. But obviously, we couldn't leave without dessert! The menu had so many choices, but we both conceded defeat when we set our eyes on the 'Chocolate Hot Pot'. I have a Chocolate Fondant obsession by the way. Notable favourites to date: 1. China Tang (Yes, I had no idea they would be masters of Fondant) 2. Roka (the Matcha Fondant is unbelievable. The exterior is a bit crusty making it tastier) 3. Blakes Hotel restaurant (both the chocolate desserts are unbelievable. I can put money on the chocolate satisfaction one can gain from a visit). The difference between a traditional Fondant and the Tom Aiken's version is the fact that the latter houses less 'cake' and more chocolate. The portion was pretty large and we struggled to finish it together. (One of the smallest Fondants I have ever had was at Il Baretto - so disappointing.) The ice cream was pistacio but tasted like almonds. It was delectable regardless. 

 

The food was simply too heavy for us to have been able to do starters as well as a dessert each, and this is coming from the London Fatty & her ultimate partner in food crimes.

I would definitely return (and pressurise another person) to order different mains. I would have loved to try the Shepherds Pie or the Sausages and Mash or the Chicken Pie.

To The Point (for the hungry):

Food: 8 (Was simple and wonderfully flawless. I feel for Tom Aikens after his defeat on the Great British Menu but it was because he was trying too hard. The beauty of his food is the simplicity and the revisiting of old British classics. We can't have too much Blumenthal around now can we?! Also was very nice to see Tom walking around the restaurant on a Tuesday during the first dinner sitting. Instils a bit of faith in the food standards)

Service: 6 (Could have been more attentive. Don't like pushy waitresses either. I should be able to go to a restaurant and order just a salad without feeling like they're going to observe a 10-second rule before serving me my tomatoes)

Ambience: 8 (Think it was perfect for the food. Effortless and very 'Mark Wilkinson')

The bill came to about £70 including service & 2 glasses of red. The dishes were about £20 each, which was a bit excessive given the size of the battered fish and the fact that we weren't at Tom Aikens, but at Tom's Kitchen, the more 'casual' offshoot. 

I will have to go back there for Brunch though. 

Tom's Kitchen / 27 Cale Street, SW3 3QP / T: +44 (0)20 7349 0202 / www.tomskitchen.co.uk

*Cousin It is ALL hair. She has Lucious Locks, not all that Adam's Family I guess!