{"id":67,"date":"2010-01-22T11:30:05","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T11:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=67"},"modified":"2010-01-22T13:58:01","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T13:58:01","slug":"blurry-pictures-from-the-other-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/?p=67","title":{"rendered":"Blurry Pictures from the Other Foot"},"content":{"rendered":"

After some urging from my mother, I decided to treat myself to a one-last-hurrah type of dinner in London.\u00a0 Now, I know that in a previous post of mine<\/a><\/strong> I commented that most of the food here in England was total rubbish; I still stand by that, but if you’ve got the money to blow (which I really don’t) it is quite possible to have some truly grand gastronomical adventures in the UK.\u00a0 We’ve all heard of The Fat Duck<\/a><\/strong>, after all.<\/p>\n

I started off yesterday by very energetically researching places with tasting menus (to be specific and very precocious, I feel I should mention that my search originally began in French with ‘le menu d\u00e9couverte’).\u00a0 Back in October, when my parents were visiting me for my Oxford graduation we went to L’Atelier de Jo\u00ebl Robuchon<\/a><\/strong> in the West End.\u00a0 The food was excellent — I tried foie gras and Wagyu sliders — but I had desperately wanted to order the tasting menu, an eight-course culinary orgy with items like a Parmesan and port cappucino, caviar, and coriander panna cotta.\u00a0 The thing with tasting menus, though, is that the whole table Must Agree, or the deal’s off.\u00a0 My mother, bless her, is not very adventurous when it comes to food.<\/p>\n

So what better way to get what I want than go alone?\u00a0 I flittered through numerous reviews on the web, a venerable mountain of menus, and felt I had pretty much uncovered every restaurant with le menu<\/em>.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the average price was over one hundred quid, before alcohol (and I refuse to go through a nice dinner without wine!), and my dream of a farewell-to-London dinner was in danger of dying.\u00a0 It was about this time that I stumbled upon L’Autre Pied<\/a><\/strong>, sister restaurant to Pied \u00e0 Terre<\/a><\/strong>, a super pricey two-Michelin star restaurant in the West End.\u00a0 At L’Autre (which yes, literally means ‘the other foot’), reviews said, you experience Michelin-star dining but not the prices.\u00a0 I found this hard to believe, and rung them up for a table for one.<\/p>\n

The decor, first off, was what you’d expect of a generation growing up on Sex in the City.\u00a0 Dark woods and low-level lighting, the ambiance given off by L’Autre was posh and modern (the tables themselves were quite interesting; embedded in the surface was some sort of stone?\u00a0 graphite? placemat), and while no doubt upscale, it refreshingly lacked the stuffiness that a higher-end French restaurant might.\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, though:\u00a0 this isn’t some cheap little bistro (you won’t think you’ve been transported to Paris, for example).\u00a0 It’s uber-chic.<\/p>\n

Now, before I continue I must comment on the service.\u00a0 It was some of the best service I have ever experienced, at least outside of Japan.\u00a0 From the moment you walk in the door you’re treated to ‘sir, sir, sir’ by a very attentive and exceedingly warm staff.\u00a0 It isn’t false courtesy, either — these people seem to enjoy what they’re doing and wanted to make damn sure I was having a good time.\u00a0 The sommelier (or should I say sommelierre?), besides from being disgustingly knowledgeable about the wine, chatted eagerly with me about my Kindle, the server and I talked about Edgar Allan Poe, and, in my bad French, I had a remedial conversation with the ma\u00eetre d’.<\/p>\n

But let’s get to the meat of the post (haha — pun more than likely intended):\u00a0 the food!\u00a0 After sipping some champagne, I very happily signed up for the \u00a355 tasting menu, which consisted of seven courses, and the optional \u00a337 wine selection, which paired six glasses to my food.\u00a0 Basically, for under a one hundred quid, I was getting the culinary kit and kaboodle.\u00a0 I have some pictures, but they’re very, very blurry as I didn’t want to use the flash.<\/p>\n

L’amuse-bouche<\/strong><\/p>\n

A take on the classic egg and soldiers, except… well, better.\u00a0 Celeriac foam and soft-boiled quail’s egg with soldiers made from pumpernickel.\u00a0 I could have bathed in that foam; it was sex on a spoon.\u00a0 When the soft-boiled egg mixed in from under it, the foam took on a texture of a very light, deliciously eggy velout\u00e9.\u00a0 A promising start, if not a little complicated to eat gracefully.<\/p>\n

Course 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut velout\u00e9 with a mushroom vinaigrette.\u00a0 Now, I’m going to throw it out there and say that I wouldn’t have had an amuse-bouche with a similar texture and then serve this.\u00a0 But this was just… exquisite beyond belief.\u00a0 A gelee of foie gras in the middle of the plate melted away as the velout\u00e9 was poured into the bowl, creating an experience that was strongly artichoke, tempered with the rich earthiness of foie gras.\u00a0 More, please.<\/p>\n

Course 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"I don’t remember the full name of the dish, but it was braised pork belly stuffed with foie gras with some greens and a mango sauce.\u00a0 More foie gras!\u00a0 I was in fatty goose (or did they use duck?\u00a0 I didn’t ask) heaven.\u00a0 The deconstructed nature of the dish made it possible to try everything on its own, but this is really meant to be eaten at once, which makes it a bit annoying to navigate.\u00a0 A huge fan of pork belly, and used to eating it in Japan, I have to admit I was a little surprised that the texture was just shy of melt-in-your-mouth.\u00a0 Quite delicious, but perhaps my least favorite of the evening.<\/p>\n

Course 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roasted cod with baby spinach, ragout of mushroom, and winter truffle foam.\u00a0 This was hands down the star of the evening.\u00a0 I took a bite and almost screamed, “For once, someone in England knows how to cook a fish!”\u00a0 It was deliciously, almost indecently crispy on the outside, and perfectly moist and tender inside.\u00a0 The cod was obviously Super Fresh, because there was not one trace of fishiness.\u00a0 Again, I wanted to bathe in the foam.<\/p>\n

Course 4<\/strong>\"\"\ufeff<\/p>\n

Cornish Lamb with carrot and cumin puree, white asparagus and some vegetables I didn’t recognize (they looked like Kewpie dolls!!), thyme jus.\u00a0 The lamb was sensational (although in all honesty I like mine a little rarer), but unfortunately this is around the time when my body started to say, “Brian, you daft little boy, do not take another bite.”\u00a0 Finishing this course took me some time.<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Course 5<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>The cheese course.\u00a0 Now, let me talk to you about the cheese.\u00a0 I love cheese; it’s a common fact.\u00a0 But this was cheese in excess.\u00a0 This was a cheese platter for three people.\u00a0 From left to right, it was a goat’s milk cheese, brie, a ewe’s milk cheese, a hard cow’s cheese, and then a bleu.\u00a0 I purged halfway through and soldiered on.<\/p>\n

Course 6<\/strong><\/p>\n

The pre-dessert was the goddamn best panna cotta I’ve ever had, a fruity pink explosion littered with meringue debris.\u00a0 I ate this in about 45 seconds.<\/p>\n

Course 7<\/strong><\/p>\n

The actual dessert was a chocolate mousse and hazelnut ice cream.\u00a0 Hahahaa!\u00a0 This one took me a few minutes, as it was so rich, but the port that this was paired with made this dessert a keeper.\u00a0 The chocolate was not overwhelming, and when paired with the hazelnut ice cream, it kind of tasted like you were eating a Ferrero rocher that had nibbled ambrosia and become a god.<\/p>\n

And then, like that, it was over.\u00a0 It was 10:20 pm — I had been there two hours, twenty minutes — and boy, was I full.\u00a0 I had read some reviews that people left hungry, and I’m going to stalk these people on the internet and tell them to get their damn stomachs stapled.\u00a0 I deliberately didn’t eat much early in the day for this dinner, and I’m still<\/em> full over twelve hours later.<\/p>\n

Overall, the food, the service, and especially the price made this one helluva good find.\u00a0 Under one hundred quid for Michelin-quality dining?\u00a0 You can’t beat it.<\/p>\n

(But you know what I should beat?\u00a0 Myself.\u00a0 1300 words is way too long for a blog post.\u00a0 I will exercise more restraint in the future!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After some urging from my mother, I decided to treat myself to a one-last-hurrah type of dinner in London.\u00a0 Now, I know that in a previous post of mine I commented that most of the food here in England was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pechism.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}