I've been looking forward to attending the Taste of London Food Festival for a few years now but unfortunately I've always been out of the country due to work and had to miss it. This year I've made it my mission to attend and I've even been lucky enough to endure a tasting of what's to come for 2012.
A couple of weeks ago, I went on a 'food safari' with the Taste of London team. This basically entailed trying three different dishes from three different restaurants including, Spice Market, Aurelia and Pollen Street Social. Luckily for me I had never been to any of the above so it was a great way of trying some places on my 'go to' list, with the added bonus of having the opportunity to meet the executive chefs at each location.
For starters we began at Spice Market where we dined on black pepper shrimp with sun dried pineapple prepared by executive chef, Peter Lloyd. He recommended we eat the shrimp with the pineapple at the same time to counter balance the spices and sweetness of both ingredients. It was a brilliant recommendation and the dish was packed full of exotic flavour, perfect for any lover of spice.
[At Taste of London Spice Market will be serving: Black Pepper Shrimp, Jicama, Pea Shoots, Sun Dried Pineapple. Spiced chicken samosas, coriander yoghurt. Roast Cod with Malaysian Chilli Sauce Thai Basil. Chilli & Raspberry Sorbet].
For mains we popped over to Aurelia (a new favourite restaurant of mine), where we enjoyed the lentil salad which was seasoned to perfection with orange and mint. It was a very refreshing dish, totally moreish and actually quite filling.
[At Taste of London Aurelia will be serving: Aurelia porchetta with homemade pickles. Lentils salad with orange and mint. Tortilla- truffle, chorizo and vegetarian (three different tortilla every day).]
Dessert is always a special part of any meal and when we headed over to Pollen Street Social (which is the first restaurant in London to have a standalone dessert bar), I knew we were in for a treat. For our final dish of the food safari I had to leave my comfort zone and try something a little different. We were served compressed English strawberries, frozen wild strawberries with strawberry and beetroot sorbet, burnt basil meringue and a lemon balm and basil purée.
Normally I would never consider most of those ingredients to be in a dessert dish, but this is the amazing thing about food tastings, you're open to so many new flavours and combinations and this one worked perfectly. I especially loved the meringue, it literally melts in your mouth.
[At Taste of London Pollen Street Social will be serving: Crab salad, avocado puree and sweetcorn mousse. Slow-cooked ox cheek, apple pomme purée and braised turnip. White chocolate and coconut Panna cotta, mango, kaffir lime, pineapple, pistachio oil.]
Taste of London will begin on June 21st until June 24th at London's Regent's Park. For more info visit the site.