Thai Green Curry To Die For At Patara Berners Street

Name: Patara Berners Street

Where: 5A Berners Street, London, W1T 3LF, http://www.pataralondon.com/restaurant/berners-street/

Cost: Average spend per person is around £45 not including drinks. From the à la carte menu, starters are priced from £9.50 to £14.50, mains from £16.75 to £45. There are two set menus - Patara Pride is £45 per person with soup, and includes 5 starters, 4 mains plus accompanying rice and vegetable sides and dessert. The Patara Platinum is £65 per person for the same number of dishes but featuring some more luxurious items like Wagyu beef, king scallops and black cod. There is also a vegetarian set menu for £40 per person. 

About: Patara Berners Street is the latest London branch of the group, and opened in December 2015.

The Patara Group is known in London as a fine-dining Thai option with a reputation for top quality cooking, and Berners Street joins branches in Oxford Circus, Soho, Knightsbridge, South Kensington and Hampstead, as well as international branches in Bangkok, Beijing and Singapore.

The restaurant is situated just a few metres north of bustling Oxford Street, next to the Berners Tavern in the trendy London Edition Hotel.

It has an über-sleek look, clean and modern if a tad bland, with low level lighting, plain teak tables, green leather seating.

What We Ate: We wanted to choose our own dishes so opted for à la carte rather than the set menus. We started with the Chor Muang (£8) – these were beautifully presented, flower-shaped lilac dumplings filled with caramelised chicken and a peanut and coconut cream. Sweet, savoury and with a light but glutinous pastry casing, I enjoyed these.

Next were the chilli and sea salt calamari (£10.50) seasoned with fresh red chilli, black pepper, spring onion and garlic. As ubiquitous as this dish is in Chinese and southeast Asian restaurants, it is one I can't stop myself from ordering. Patara's version was highly seasoned, crispy and as moreish as it gets.

We then had fresh rolls with battered deep-fried soft shell crab and prawn (£10.25), filled with basil, carrot, mint and roasted peanut, and served with a chilli lime dressing. These were as refreshing as a Vietnamese summer roll, but I could hardly detect any soft shell crab in them, and so at this price point I thought they were not great vfm.

The salad of prawn and crispy beignet (£12.25) was tossed with cashews, mint, lemongrass and shallot, with a roasted chilli dressing. This had some great textures and tasted fresh and zingy, though the dressing was too sweet for my palate. I think of beignets as being balls of deep-fried dough, but what I saw in the salad were crispy little slivers.

Prawn tom yum soup (£9.50) was beautifully presented in a black cast-iron Japanese teapot, with an accompanying pestle and mortar and chilles, so that diners can adjust the heat of the soup to their own taste. The soup combined prawn, shimeji and oyster mushrooms, simmered in a broth of evaporated milk and fish sauce with galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime. This was refreshing, well flavoured and delicious.

And then on to the mains - the curry was a chicken Kieaw Wan (£16.75), made from free-range chicken, aubergine and bamboo shoot in a green curry paste made in-house. The most ubiquitous of Thai dishes, chicken green curry to many signifies Thai cooking at its most popular, and it is a dish I nearly always order. Patara’s had tender chicken in a richly creamy curry with heady Thai basil, green chilli and coconut milk. This was one of the highlights of the meal for me, and beautifully served in a copper pot.

The fish main was a whole lemon sole (£24), filleted and cut into thin slices, served battered and deep-fried over its bones, accompanied by a green mango salad with coconut, chilli, cashews and shallot. I really wanted to love this dish, but like the prawn salad it was a tad too sweet for my liking, and lacked the zinginess, freshness and overall balance I was hoping for.

The main meat dish was one Patara’s signature dishes, and one I have tried before and loved – the coconut braised beef (£16.75). This had meltingly tender slow-braised beef in a lime-coconut cream reduction, finished with mint, lemongrass and coriander; rich, creamy and delicious, and I was very happy to have revisited it at Patara Berners Street.

The king prawn Pad Thai (£19.50) had a couple of whopping shellfish more like lobsters than prawns, and the taste was as good as it gets.

We had a couple of accompaniments including stir-fried morning glory, Thailand's number one green vegetable (£8.95). With chilli, ginger and mushroom sauce, this had a lovely texture and wok-breath.

The riceberry red Thai rice, roasted with sweet coconut water (£7.50), came served in a dinky young coconut shell, and had a lovely nutty flavour.

What We Drank: Patara Signature Cocktails, all with a Thai twist, range from £9.75 to £12. The entry level white wine is a South African Chenin Blanc (£22), with the red being a Shiraz/Cabernet blend from Berton Vineyards, Australia (£22).

We kicked off proceedings with a couple of Patara Signature cocktails. The Hendrick's Sour (£10), blended gin with lime juice and cucumber, garnished with fresh coriander. The Sake Popping Boba (£11.50) featured sake shaken with Jack Daniel's, St Germain elderflower liqueur, honey and jasmine tea. 

With the meal itself, we shared a bottle of Alsatian Pinot Blanc 2014, from Dopff (£26). With apple and melon flavours, this was a nicely rounded wine with enough richness to balance the spicy food. It was also surprisingly well priced.

Likes: A perfect meal for me here would include Pad Thai, chilli and sea salt calamari, coconut braised beef and morning glory. The restaurant is well located close to Soho and London’s theatreland. 

Dislikes: A couple of dishes were unbalanced - a tad too sweet, and lacking in freshness or acidity.

Verdict: Berners Street is a great addition to the Patara collection of fine-dining Thai restaurants in central London. The coconut braised beef and chicken green curry are to die for, and I would very happily return for them. Recommended.  

Top Notch Dim Sum, Champers and Cocktails - My Kind of Sunday Lunch at Hakkasan Hanway Place

Name: Hakkasan Hanway Place (Dim Sum Sunday)

Where: 8 Hanway Place, London, W1T 1 HD, 
http://hakkasan.com/locations/hakkasan-hanway-place/

Cost: Dim Sum Sunday menus at Hakkasan Hanway Place are priced at £58 (‘Signature’ menu including ½ bottle of Champagne plus 2 cocktails per person) and £48 (Classic and Vegetarian menus – includes no Champagne, but offers unlimited Taiwanese tea plus 1 cocktail). The food offering is the same between the two non-vegetarian menus, the only difference being the drinks.

About: Regular readers will know I've long been a fan of Hakkasan's dim sum, so I was chuffed to return to try their new Dim Sum Sunday Signature menu, launched in October 2015.

Served from midday until 6.45pm, Hakkasan’s ‘Signature’ set menu includes a pre- and a post- dinner cocktail, and a ½ bottle of Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV Champagne per person. The food menu features a salad starter, a range of 8 different dim sum (4 steamed and 4 baked/fried), two main courses with an accompanying vegetable dish and fried rice and a dessert. For the Sunday dim sum service, the restaurant employs a DJ who selects a range of lounge- style music well suited to the day after a late Saturday night.

What We Ate: The menu started with a refreshing salad of crispy duck served with pomelo, pine nuts, shallot and a mix of green leaves and cress. Seasoned with a sweet and lightly tart dressing, with warm slivers of duck meat, it made for a delicious start to our meal.

Next up was the dim sum. This included the steamed morsels har gau (shrimp dumplings), scallop shumai, Chinese chive dumplings (a personal favourite), and duck and yam bean dumplings. The pastry was light and delicate as only top quality dim sum are. They were freshly made using great ingredients, and well seasoned.

Equally good were the roast and baked dim sum which included royal king crab and truffle roll, a sumptuous buttery baked venison puff, smoked duck and pumpkin puff in a beautiful pumpkin-shaped pastry case, and golden radish with crab meat pastry.

For our mains, there were two – a delectable lettuce wrap of finely cubed seafood and water chestnut in XO sauce, and also a stir-fry of black pepper rib eye beef with an unctuous merlot sauce. The beef, a Hakkasan signature dish, was meltingly tender and very richly flavoured and as good as I remember from when I first tried a few years ago.

To accompany we had a platter of tender green asparagus, with ginger and spring-onion fried rice.

For dessert, we opted for the apple tatin, with vanilla ice cream, caramel and calvados. I love serving a traditional French tarte tatin at my supperclub, but Hakkasan’s version was something else.  With the lightest of pastry topped with layer after layer of fine caramelized apple slivers, this was a very refined interpretation of a French classic.

The Jivara Bomb was another beautiful dessert combining a praline of hazelnut encased in rice crispies and topped with a warm milk chocolate sauce.

What We Drank: We were chuffed to meet the charming Jefferson Coltro, a fellow Brazilian and Hakkasan’s head bartender, during our visit. Jefferson took his time explaining to us, the various cocktails on the menu (all alcoholic options are priced at £12.50) and below are some of his suggestions.

The Morello Collins blended cherry, almond, Tanquery No. 10 gin, lemon and Peychaud's bitters, and was light and refreshing. The Hakushu Crush had a bracing combination of one of my favourite fruits, the kumquat, with Japanese yuzu, Suntory Hakushu 12 year old whisky, Drambuie, ginger and cardamom bitters. I really enjoyed this cocktail, generously laced with whisky and some wonderful citrus notes.

Jefferson Coltro recommended a third cocktail which we found hard to resist - the Amer l'Orange. Made with Grey Goose l'orange vodka, Amer Picon (a French aperitif combining orange, quinine and cinchona and genetian), lemon, cinnamon and cranberry – a magnificent cocktail, it had a good hit of alcohol with bittersweet citrus flavours. I loved it. The menu also includes 1/2 bottle of Louis Roederer per person, and as there were two of us, we shared a full bottle!

With our desserts we had two other cocktails - the Mayahuelo was made from Del Maguey Vida mescal tequila, Antica Formula vermouth, apricot brandy, almond syrup and lime. Strong, smoky and flavourful, this was a great cocktail to finish our meal. The Charantais Toddy, ordered to accompany the tarte tatin, was served warm, combining Hennessy Fine de Cognac with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon, it sent us into the chill November late afternoon with a soothing glow.

Likes: Dim sum of the highest quality, stunningly presented, cool vibe courtesy of the resident DJ, great cocktails, generous Louis Roederer Champagne offering. Excellent value.

Dislikes: None.

Verdict: The Dim Sum Sunday Signature menu at Hakkasan offers excellent Chinese fine dining at one of the most glamorous venues in London. A personal favourite, and at £58 including two cocktails and half a bottle of Louis Roederer Champagne per person thrown in, as well as plenty of delicious food, it is probably the best value for money menu in London right now. I can’t wait to return. Very highly recommended.

Gigi's - A Preview from The London Foodie Tipster!

Name: Gigi's

Where: 22 Woodstock Street, Mayfair, London W1C 2AR
www.gigismayfair.com

Cost: Starters are priced from £8.50 to £15.00, with pasta dishes from £14.00 to £27.00, mains from £19.50 to £36, and side dishes at £4.50. Two or three course set lunch menus are £22 or £25 (Mon to Fri, 12 - 3pm). These change weekly, and include vegetarian options.  Cocktails range from £8.50 to £11.50.

About: Opened in September 2014, this Italian restaurant headed by the Neapolitan chef Ivan Simeoli, previously of Club Gascon and The Wallace, is tucked away at the end of a tiny enclave off Oxford Street that could easily be missed.

Gigi's is an elegant spot, on which it seems no money has been spared, with classic parquet floors, plush green velvet seating, chandeliers and a magnificent cocktail bar.

I could not fail to notice that on the evening we were there, all the waiting staff were Russian. On further investigation, it turns out that the restaurant is Russian owned, which might explain the staffing, and the huge sums that appear to have been spent on the decor. It also claims to have  served the world's most expensive cocktail at £9000 a pop.

What We Ate: It is rare in a restaurant for me to find that I want to order many items from the menu, but this was an issue at Gigi's, and choosing was difficult. After much deliberation, we decided to start our meal with the roasted octopus with borlotti beans and flamed onion broth (£11.50). I love the combination of seafood and beans, and here the octopus was excellent, with a deliciously char-grilled flavour and sweetness from the onions, and surprisingly was even more tender than the accompanying beans.

The vitello carpaccio tonnato (£13.50) is one of Italy's most popular regional specialties  from Turin. Gigi's take on this Italian classic, dotted with leaves of radicchio and sorrel, was superb, with finely cut rare veal, and a light and creamy fresh tuna mayonnaise. Having enjoyed this dish on a number of occasions in Italy, I can safely state that Gigi's was the best I have eaten to date.

The ravioli with Amalfi lemon and buffalo ricotta (£14.00), from the pasta section, had a heady citrus aroma, and a rich buttery sauce. A refined, beautifully presented dish, it transported me straight back to my last visit to Sorrento (reviewed here).

The pappardelle Zafferano with ossobuco and sage butter (£19.50), had freshly made, paper thin pasta, nearly as wide as lasagne. Served with veal and bone-marrow, this was rich, sweet and full of flavour. The chef had substituted the more traditional risotto with freshly made pasta, which worked a treat.

The salt marsh English lamb, with heritage carrots, sheep's milk and crunchy shallots (£24) was in my opinion the star of the meal. Tender and full of flavour, and with a magnificent, highly concentrated jus, it was exquisite both to the eye and the palate.
  

The White Park rib eye beef was served medium rare, with turnip tops and mustard (£36). Richly flavoured and well presented, this was also very good, although compared with the lamb, it did not fare so well in flavour or value for money.

For dessert, we opted for the Ivan Simeoli's interpretation of tiramisu (£7.50). A delectable deconstruction of an overfamiliar classic, this featured chocolate tuile, coffee meringue and a coffee parfait.

The liquorice sandwich with apple bubbles (£7.50) was very fine, with an intensely flavoured and aromatic apple foam, and a well made hazelnut parfait.

What We Drank: We kicked off with a Silver-tini cocktail - a refreshing concoction of lychees, gin, elderflower cordial, lime and pink champagne (£11.50). Equally good was the Rose Petal Martini, gin-based (Hendricks), but flavoured with rose and voilet liqueurs and lychee puree (£10.50).

With the main course, we had a glass of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo (£7.50 per glass), which was not a great match for the quality of the cooking.

Likes: The salt marsh English lamb was excellent, as was the vitello carpaccio tonnato, and both pasta dishes. Desserts were innovative and skillfully presented. Cocktails were strong and well made. The food menu is in the main well priced for the location.  

Dislikes: None

Verdict: There is some first rate cooking at Gigi's - Ivan Simeoli is a creative and talented chef using fantastic Italian produce to reinvent some of his country's classics. It's early days for Gigi's, and while it tries to find its feet on the London culinary scene, there is some serious cooking at surprisingly reasonable prices to be had. Highly recommended.

Smack Lobster Roll Deli - The Fast-Fine Dining Concept Arrives in London!

Name: Smack Lobster Roll Deli

Address: 26-28 Binney Street, London, W1K 5BN (the website is still under construction - you can follow them on Twitter or Instagram at @smacklobster)

Cost: Lobster rolls from £7 to £9, sides from £3 to £4.80, beers and wines at £4 and lemonade at £2.50.

About: Yesterday saw the press launch of Smack Lobster Roll Deli, the new fast-fine dining concept from the Goodman Restaurant Group, creators of Burger & Lobster.

Smack will be open to the public on the 3rd November 2014 serving a range of signature lobster rolls, ready prepared whole chick lobsters and sides including courgette fries and lobster chowder.

Diners can either take their options away, or eat in the premises. There is a large basement area to dine in. This has been elegantly designed in plain concrete with eye-catching visual projections, wooden stools and bar tables.

I enjoyed a sneak peek of some of Smack’sofferings last night and if this launch event is anything to go by, I heartily recommend a visit.

What We Ate: The lobster rolls were made with a rich, hot brioche, buttered and toasted, they were filled to the brim with large chunks of lobsters in different flavours. All rolls will be priced between £7 and £9 each. The flavours on offer yesterday were:

Chick Lobster Chunks with Garlicky Mayo

Californian – lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado and avocado mayo with lime.

Happy Ending – Japanese mayo, fish sauce, coriander, shredded napa cabbage.

Seven Samurai – tempura lobster, Japanese mayo and cabbage, cucumber, pickled ginger, spring onions and togarashi spice.

Spicy Mexican – spicy mayo, gherkins, lettuce.

The rolls I tried were delicious – the buttered brioche really made a difference here – neither too soft nor too hard, it was a perfect casing for the lobster meat. I also loved the very different flavours of each roll, the menu choices are set to be changed periodically.

The star of the show however in my opinion was their sides – the courgette fries (small £3/large £3.60) were outstandingly good, possibly the best I have ever tried – coated in Japanese panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried, they were crispy and utterly scrumptious. The courgette fries warrant a visit to Smack on their own right!

The Lobster Chowder (small £3.60/large £4.80) was also excellent – the bisque was creamy and bejeweled with large chuncks of lobster. I can’t think of a better winter warmer!

What We Drank: Alcoholic drinks are all on tap and priced at £4.  We started with a 125ml glass of SanMartino Vino Frizzante Bianco (white sparkling wine), which in my opinion was nothing to write home about. Better were the beers options, all served on 2/3 pint glasses - an American “Soundwave West Coast IPA” (5.6%) had wonderful refreshing hoppy flavours, but my favourite was the English “Undercurrent Pale Ale” (4.5%) which went magnificently well with all the rolls we tried. Two other wine options are also available (white - Trebbiano or red - Sangiovese) as well as lemonade (£2.50).

Likes: the lobster rolls were to die for, the buttery brioche was incredible, but it was the courgette fries that really did it for me, they were amazing. Very good value food and drinks menus.

Dislikes: the menu estates that alcoholic drinks are only to be consumed outside the premises. This was not the case at yesterday’s press launch, but if true, I would hope they will sort out their alcohol license pretty soon.

Verdict: Lobster rolls like you have never tried before + the best courgette fries in town, make Smack Lobster Roll Deli a must to any respectable London foodie. Go, go, go before prices are hiked up. Highly recommended.