Food Festivals/Events – Page 4 – No Expert …but I know what I like

La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita , the annual Italian festival at the Business Design Centre in Islington is a celebration of all things Italian. Which off course includes Food and Wine.

The ticket price on the door is £16.00, but really this is only an event you would only do if you got free tickets. The layout was not very effective, all the busy stands (the ones giving away food and drink samples) were generally in areas where there was barely space for one row of people – a recipe for instant traffic jams.

The cookery displays in the Teatro del Gusto looked interesting. I was certainly looking forward to attending the one Theo Randall was scheduled to do. The seating was free (accept for the front row, so seemed like an option. No chance! – the small area was packed even before Theo’s session. The people from the earlier session were not moving, paying customers even had to have chairs brought in.

The Wine Academy was another wash out for us. Despite directions, we just could not find where the £5.00 tickets were being sold in time to join the planned session.

No plans to attend next years event.

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Louis Roederer Cristal – bling bling!

A friend who is emigrating to Australia and is loath to pay the 50% tax on importing some of her fine wine collection, had an informal wine tasting. We started with a glass of Champagne Louis Roederer Cristal 2002. The price of this puts it outside most peoples range (mine included), it is a champagne you tend to associate with footballers wife’s and rappers – money no object, all about the bling!. So it was a great experience to try a glass. Wow – it was absolutely stunning, a dry beautifully balanced wine, with a lovely biscuit bouquet. I do not know why but I rather expected this to be over hyped, instead it was undoubtedly the best champagne I have ever had or probably likely to have.

This was followed by a glass of Bollinger Grand Année vintage 1992, another lovely champagne with a distinct nutty flavour. We also had a selection of Penfolds Grange wines. These and the other wines at the tasting are listed above, and I would struggle to find superlatives to describe them. Suffice to say I now feel utterly spoiled. Thank you Rita.

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Chocolate Unwrapped at the May Fair Hotel

To start celebrating chocolate week, I went with my favourite chocolatier to Chocolate Unwrapped at the May Fair Hotel.

We spend a couple of hours at this event, sampling the wares of a few interesting chocolatiers. There was a display of chocolate art and a number of stands. The exhibitors ranged from the lower end of the scale, i.e., high street brands like Thorntons and Hotel Chocolat, right up to the high end bespoke chocolatiers like Paul A Young.

Chocolates can be a bit like wine, once you have tasted the really good stuff there is no going back, or to quote Michel Roux “Once you have discovered the pleasure, richness, complexity and taste sensations of fine chocolate, you will never look at chocolate in the same way”. So sorry Thorntons we walked right passed your stand.

From what we could see, there were two real standouts, they were both relative newcomers in the field.

The first was Paul Wayne Gregory a former sous chef who also gave one of the talks, he is definitely going places with 9 of the chocolates in his selection being award winners. PWG is at the top of his game, he currently provides chocolates to Michelin star chef Gary Rhodes, and his latest addition a rum chocolate is stunning.

Update: I have just tried another one of his chocolates – called “Space Dust”, superb!.

IMGP2449 — PWGs slogan – Indulgence is everything

The other standout was based in Leeds of all places, they were Lauden Chocolates who presented their selection in very simple but elegant transparent boxes. However the presentation alone would not have sold me on them, if they had not got the taste right. Like PWG, they are all about intense flavours, that really work with the chocolate.

As part of my chocolate indulgence weekend I also managed to squeeze in a chocolate martini at 5th View.

P101009_14.08 — Chocolate Martini at 5th View

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Thailand Festival at Secretts

A departure from the normal theme for this post, to cover a food festival rather than a restaurant, the 7th Amazing Thailand Festival at Secretts to be specific.

Secretts farm in Milford, Surrey is a stunning location, especially when the weather is as good as it was today. This is a very well organised and popular event, focusing on both Thai food and culture.

The event included cookery demonstrations from celebrity chef Ob-oom “Mini C” Chutrakul.

The Festival takes place every two years so plenty of notice for the next one.

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