Quilon Indian restaurant - London

This post is part of our London March 2014 city-trip

Quilon has one Michelin star and offers a set-lunch menu available everyday. This lunch was to catch up with an old friend, so only a few photos were taken since we were too busy chatting. 

Papadums and selection of chutneys/dips

Starters: Cauliflower chilli fry and pepper shrimps

After the starters, we were offered some Rasam (South Indian soup with tamarind) served in small wine glasses. Our mains were chicken dishes, which were somewhat underwhelming with barely any chicken cubes. Disappointing for such a highly rated restaurant.

Instead of dessert, we picked the delicious masala chai, served with a chocolate.

Compared to the excellent dinner we had at Trishna the previous evening, this meal was quite a disappointment. Oh well, not all South Indian Michelin starred restaurants are created equal...

Quilon
http://www.quilon.co.uk/

Trishna Indian restaurant - London

This post is part of our London March 2014 city-trip 

Trishna Indian restaurant has one Michelin star. After a busy day of shopping, we took a quick walk from Oxford Street to reach Trishna (it's actually less than 10 minutes walk from Selfridges or Bond Street tube station)

We selected their set menu with four courses. Since there were 2 options for each course, we ordered everything on the menu except the plain basmati rice.

Some Papadums and chutneys to whet our appetite

First course:

Haldi chipirones (baby squid, turmeric, fennel seed, samphire, mango ginger)

 

Aloo chat (potato, masala chickpea, tamarind, sweet yoghurt)

Second course

Paneer tikka (paneer, fenugreek leaf, corn, green mango chat)

Duck seekh kebab (green chilli, onion, spiced pineapple chutney)

Third course

Khumb (mushroom) biryani with cucumber black pepper raita
Kori gassi (chicken drumsticks with Mangalorean spices and coconut)
Served with Hyderabadi Dal, Aloo Udaigiri and bread basket

Dessert

Cardamom kheer (with fig and raisin, sprinkled with pistachio)

Chocolate chikki cake (pista-cashew tikki) with a scoop of Peanut Jaggery ice cream

Finally two sweets were brought along with the check, a chocolaty twist on the fennel seeds offered in many Indian restaurants.

 

We loved our dinner at Trishna!


Trishna Restaurant London
http://www.trishnalondon.com/

Kitchen W8 - London

This post is part of our London March 2014 city-trip

Kitchen W8 is a small Michelin starred restaurant in Kensington. We tried their set dinner menu on Friday evening.

 

Here's a corner of the dining room just before it started filling up. The place does get rather noisy once it's full.

As amuse-bouche, we were offered some bit-sized cod fritters.

Afterwards bread (white or brown) were served along with butter.

There were 2 options for each course, so we selected everything on the set menu.

Starters

Velouté of wild garlic with Parmesan dumplings, white asparagus and morels

Caramelised lamb sweetbreads with thinly sliced smoked eel, broad beans, mint and parmesan

Mains

Poached Cornish haddock with seaweed butter, cauliflower, brown shrimps, capers and raisins

Breast and leg of spring chicken with confit cepes, lettuce and peas

Cheese or dessert

Aged Comté with fruit chutney and hazelnut bread

Chocolate pudding with salt caramel ice cream and caramelised banana

Unfortunately there was no mignardise but overall, it was a nice dinner offering very good value for money.

Kitchen W8

http://www.kitchenw8.com

Cheapest Michelin lunch in London at Arbutus

This post is part of our London March 2014 city-trip

Arbutus restaurant in London's Soho offers the most affordable Michelin starred lunch in the UK (if not Europe) with a Plat Du Jour for £10 including a 125ml glass of red or white wine.

The plat du jour on this Friday was: Lamb shoulder kofte, chickpeas and yoghurt. It was served with a glass of red (the only detail provided is that it was a Grenache), bread (white and brown) and butter.

The portion size was good. Overall, the Middle Eastern spices combined with the yogurt quite well and the greens were perfectly crispy. I enjoyed this dish, although I wish the Kofte were slightly warmer.

I do realize that some may take issue with my description of all this as a lunch. True, it's only a main dish without starters or dessert. What you do get is a good portioned dish, bread, wine and complimentary water. Since one can get more slices of bread, you won't leave the restaurant hungry.

Arbutus is not a fancy Michelin restaurant, for instance there were no tablecloths. In fact they consider themselves to be a "Contemporary bistro". I found the main dining area quite cosy. Given the time (14:30ish) the other diners were having dessert and coffee.

Here's the bill. Even after adding the service charge, this is still the cheapest Michelin lunch in London.

Why not give Arbutus a try for lunch? Given its proximity to Oxford street, it can be a perfect break from shopping.

Arbutus Restaurant
http://www.arbutusrestaurant.co.uk/

Taku - Cologne, Germany

Taku is located about 20 meters from Cologne's famous dom (cathedral) in the basement of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst. This restaurant offering East Asian cuisine has been awarded one Michelin star.

After walking down the stairs and entering the restaurant, one can see some fish swimming underneath a glass covered floor, creating the illusion of a tiny stream. Being in a basement, the lack of natural light was compensated by lots of white light which made the restaurant rather cold. The acoustics were quite bad; only three tables were occupied during our lunch and we could hear the different conversations.

Some peanuts with lemongrass and roasted coconut to nibble on. Notice the chopsticks on the right and the absence of a proper tablecloth.

Bread selection: Krupuk with chilli flakes, 3 types of bread (peanut, curry and sesame) and butter

Three varieties of butter: sesame, mango and coriander

There were 4 options: lunch @ Taku (from 2 to 4 courses, with two options for each course except dessert), Taku classic (which is a Thai red curry dish), a bento lunch box and sushi.

Amuse-bouche

Bite-sized lamb with vindaloo sauce

 The vegetarian alternative was with pakora instead of the lamb.

Starter

Wild salmon / perilla / cucumber

Gado Gado / peanut / tomato

The peanut sauce was served on the side

Soup

Pepper / coconut / pakoras

Pho Ga / breast and haunch of dove / rice noodles
Uncoiling the 2 noodles was interesting. Good but way too salty.

Main course

Tofu / pumpkin / sesame

The meat main course on the lunch menu was pork neck. The waitress offered as a substitute the red Thai curry with fish and crustaceans, a dish that can be ordered individually for lunch. This turned out to be a big portion. Again too salty to enjoy.

Dessert

There was only one dessert option in the lunch menu: coffee / coconut / pistachio
This was very good ; light and not too sweet.

As mignardise, a  board of pralines was brought to our table. There were  about 13 varieties to choose from. Sake, champagne and passion fruit were especially good.

Overall, despite a few dishes that suffered from too much salt, that was a pleasant meal while visiting the Koln Christmas markets.

Taku
http://www.excelsiorhotelernst.com/en/restaurant-bar/taku.html

L'Air du Temps - Liernu, Belgium

Sunday lunch @ L'Air du Temps by chef Sang-Hoon Degeimbre

We had lunch this Sunday 28 April at two Michelin starred L'Air du Temps. The restaurant has moved to a farm in Liernu this past January, surrounded by fields and with gardens for growing veggies and rare herbs. There are 2 points worth noting about the chef. First, he never received a formal culinary school training; he actually began his career as a sommelier. Second, he is Korean-born, grew up in Belgium and this perhaps explains the Asian influence his cuisine.

The main restaurant building:

Inside the restaurant:

The window view from our table

Table layout

Bienvenue

There was already a super thin flatbread sitting on a piece of rock on our table. Soon after we were seated, some "water" was served, a signature welcome drink of L'Air du Temps.


Le Pain - Bread without yeast, with sesame and onion

L'Eau - Eau parfumée à la tanaisie (Tansy perfumed water) - this was an interesting discovery, although not impressive enough for us to order the water menu called "Nos créations sans alcool".

We selected the surprise April 2013 Genèses menu with 5 courses with matching wines (Nos vins d'envie). As always, She requested a pescetarian menu and the staff was totally fine with this request.

Let's begin our meal, which consisted of 4 snacks, 2 bouchées, 4 savory courses, 1 dessert and mignardises. 

Snacking

Cerfeuil tubéreux, Ponzu, Ail Noir

Céléri - Pamplemousse - Salers fumé

Choux rave - Radicchio - Anchois

Chicon - Jambon - Gruyère

Bouchées

Choux fleur - Buratta - Cacahuètes

Oeuf coque - Petit gris (de Namur) - Curcuma

While we were enjoying the second bouchée, oil, butter and salt were brought to our table, followed by bread.

Sicilian olive oil
Fleur de sel d'Angleterre
Beurre fermier - plain and with Yuzu

Bread - some might find the bottom crust too hard and slightly burnt, but we enjoyed it.

Dégustation

Now's the beginning of our 5 courses lunch.

Course 1

Tartare aux couteaux - Veau - Couteau - Bergamote
Accompanied by: Domaine de la Grand Cour Fleurie - Beaujolais - 2010

Course 1 - non-meat


A waiter brought a tree stump board  covered with a glass lid to our table. As he lifted the lid and the steam dissipated, we saw some potatoes resting on some Sphagnum moss.

A few minutes later the potatoes were served:

Pommes de terre cuites à la vapeur
Croustillant faits à base des pelures de pommes de terre
Jus vert à base de Lierre terrestre (ground ivy) et égopode (ground elder)
Fleurs: Tussilage
Feuilles: Lierre terrestre

Course 2

Crème cuite de crevettes grises - Couteaux - Concombre
Accompanied by: O.V.N.I. Objet Viticole Non Identifié J. Mourat - Loire valley - 2012

This dish was barely lukewarm. Perhaps that was the intention, but we would have preferred a warmer broth.

Course 3

Cabillaud - Miso - Crème aigre - Gomasio
Accompanied by: Santorini Argyros - Assyrtiko 2012

Course 4

Agneau de Bellac (Limousin) - Tomates - Bleu - Gingembre
Accompanied by: Chateau Musar Jeune - Bekaa valley  - 2010

What a memorable lamb dish! Plus the beautiful Lebanese red matched the lamb perfectly!

Course 4 - seafood version

Turbot - Coques - Jus vert de shiso et ricotta

Condiment: poivrons rouge, pomme, kimchi et zeste d'orange

Poudre de coraille d'homard

Achillée millefeuille

Desserts

Course 5

MMMMh! Crème catalane - Tonka - Topinambour
Accompanied by: The Madeira Collection 2 - Reserve- dry

Notice the Korean flag! This dessert was good yet, compared to what we had been eating so far,  seemed to be somewhat ordinary. I was hoping to see some more creativity here.

Course 5 - alternative dessert

Carrot-themed dessert

Carottes confites - Mousse au chocolat blanc - Orange - Chips de pommes de terre - Sucre à la coriandre.

Again, no wow factor in this dessert either. For a dessert, it was not sweet enough, the potato chips were to blame. As to the sugar, cardamom would have been a better match than coriander.

What are we to make of these 2 desserts ? While they were slightly underwhelming, we thought that perhaps that was intentional, like in Japanese and Korean restaurants, where the dessert is supposed to be a light sweet ending to the meal as opposed to the heavy desserts in French cuisine.

Mignardises

Sorbet à l'huile d'olive avec un papier de sucre autour (the lollipop)
Caramel pistache-orange (in the foil)
Un Paris-Brest revisité
Guimauve au chocolat (Chocolate marshmallow)
Biscuit (cigare) au chocolat

Verbena infusion served in an East Asian cast iron teapot.

Unlike other Michelin starred restaurants that offer 1-2 extra mignardises along with tea/coffee,  here all we got was some sugars and sweetener served in what resembled a dim sum tray. Perhaps the rock sugar counted as a sweet ? :)

As we were about to leave, a waiter accompanied us to have a look at the kitchen. It was 16:30 by then and the crew was busy plating a couple of desserts and cleaning had begun. Chef Sang-Hoon saw us and walked over to shake our hands and we chatted for a little while.

While one could hope for some improvements on the dessert side, overall this was such a lovely meal by an incredibly talented chef, which was totally worth the hour long car ride from Brussels. This meal was a beautiful exploration of new ingredients, textures and flavors.

L'Air du Temps

Liernu, Belgium
www.airdutemps.be