Love Bites at Noma: Part One

Love Bites recently had a very exciting thing happen; I was invited to take a reservation at Noma, one of the most talked about, curiously fascinating restaurants of the last few years.  Noma is located in Copenhagen, Denmark and has been the number one restaurant in the world for three years running (2010-2012) out of eight years of being on 'The List' (http://www.theworlds50best.com/list/1-50-winners/noma/). It is currently ranked number 2 in 2013 on this list to restaurant El Celler de Can Roca, in Girona, Spain (meeh never heard of it!). 

When booking my trip to Copenhagen in November 2013 as a gift to my good friend Katie for her 30th birthday I decided to see if there were any reservations left for Noma for the weekend in January we were going. Of course there wasn't but there was an option to put ones name down on the waiting list. 'What have I got to lose?' I thought, so name and contact number went down and was soon to be forgotten.  On Tuesday 7th January the week that we were going to Copenhagen, I received a phone call from a strange number. I do not know what posessed me to answer it as I am not one to usually answer random calls or blocked numbers, so the fact that I was at work, getting a call from a strange number and deciding to answer it was against all my normal proceedings in such situations.  I answered and heard a foreign voice unveiling that they were calling from Noma.... and my eyes grew to the size of oranges! The lady on the end of the line advised a table had become availabe and as I was on the waiting list she wanted to know if I wanted to take the booking. Oh my days!!!! Was this actually  happening?!! This was totally unexpected and I started freaking out... I didn't know how much the restaurant would be, both Katie and I were feeling very poor after the festive season, and I needed to check with Adam and Katie if they were keen before I  volunteer us for a foodie adventure but also potentially a bankrupt situation. I frantically asked the caller a few questions, found out the cost of the meal (1,600 Danish Krone each for 20 courses) - not bad I thought however having no idea what the Danish Krone was to the Pound she quickly advised about £180 there or about. Not wanting to lose the reservation I asked her to send me the confirmation but that I needed to check with my other diners to see if they would be available. I immediately ran down to Katie's desk and proceeded to tell her the tale of the recent event, I was so excited I was shaking. My whole body felt giddy with excitement and my nerve endings were tingly. This was for real. Katie was keen, Adam was keen and due to a bit of financial shuffling the reservation was officially confirmed. Love Bites was going to Noma!

We discussed items of food we were not inclined to eat during the taxi ride on the way to the restaurant, my items being insects, and fish heads, Katie's being liver, and Adam was down for whatever. After seeing a documentary last year of Noma creating its first pop-up restaurant at Claridges Hotel over the Olympic period in London, I had some idea of what to expect from the restaurant itself. I had an inkling insects would be involved (eeek!), and lots of fresh earthy type dishes, not my usual choice of food but hey this was a once in a lifetime experience so I was going to be eating what ever was on my plate or 20 plates! 

We were driven through the city centre and across one of the bridges to Christenholm, where Noma is located on the wharf in a warehouse type building, far away from prying eyes and providing the ideal base for creating foodie masterpieces.

After getting the obligatory photo for Love Bites outside the restaurant we were welcomed at the front door not just by the Maitre'd but also by a handful of chefs which was rather exciting. They were full of smiles with hands behind their backs as our layers were taken and we were guided to our table. On entering the restaurant I was intriuged by the environment. The decor had a very earthy, rustic feel to it with its grey wooden beams,  light grey wooden panelled floors, concrete walls and black wooden tables and chairs. Some chairs were draped with an animal fur throw and simple candles and foliage in plain white vases decorated the tables. The decor was simple, but inviting and to some extent warming, the colour scheme neutral and calming creating an intriguingly suave atmosphere.

There felt like there was a hive of activity between the diners, and the chefs / waiters. I say this as the chefs themselves would bring out each dish and present it to you with a nice air of enthusiasm and intrigue to what they were serving you. The kitchen was situated at the entrance to the restaurant in between the actual restaurant and the wine bar in the following room. You could watch the chefs prepare the final step of the meals to be served which made quite a fascinating but fun experience and a  more informal atmosphere which is nice. We were informed by the Maitre'd that there is also another kitchen above the visable restaurant in which a whole other dozen of chefs are doing the pre-preparing of the food (moreso the bits they don't think we need to see!) which was equally fascinating.

Back at our table, after engulfing the surroundings and buzz, the Maitre'd began by informing us on how the evening would play out; we would be dining on 20 courses throughout the evening, a selection of dishes for appetisers would be served at quite a fast pace and at a more slower speed the  main events would be unveiled. With that our Noma experience began....

Stay tuned for Part Two of Love Bites Noma experience with a gallery of pictures in the following post.

Decor images thanks to http://spacecph.dk/project/noma/

LoveBites in Lisbon

Almost six months ago (I know a really delayed post - apologies!) Adam and I embarked on a trip to Lisbon in Portugal for a long weekend.  After a days worth of research (we booked this only a week in advance) I had found that Portugal was obviously very famous for its seafood, sweet pastry treats and red wine, all culinary delights I like to dabble in. I had found a couple of great reviews on dining in Lisbon and noted these particular restaurants in my travel notebook. We soon arrived in search of sun and beach and found ourselves in a hotel a little on the outskirts of the city centre, rather a long walk or a cheap €5 taxi ride which we tended to do most times.

We arrived mid afternoon and the first thing I devoured was an ice cold Sagres beer straight from the tap. Its light, smooth and refreshingly cold flavour made it an ideal beer for me and needless to say I had a good few more of these on this trip. We then went for a bit of a wander (this time we actually walked to the city centre) and settled in to a tourist trap restaurant close to the Ministry of Justice where we dined on Sangria and a Portuguese antipasti as the skies clouded over and bucketed down for a short while. After a good few euros later we decided to head back to the hotel and regroup for our evening outing.  We chose to dine in one of the restaurants I had looked up on our first night as I had read quite a few good reviews on this one and even the hotel staff were enthusiastic about our chosen venue for the evening - Sacremento in the Chiado district.

We arrived a little too early for our meal at 9pm and were seated in the smoking bar lounge area (the Portuguese follow the same tradition for most of the Mediterranean by eating rather late). On entering the restaurant I had the feeling that we were entering into an exclusive. Our coats were taken by the welcoming waiter, the lightening was suitably dimmed, the diners were dressed in all sorts from casual jeans to some very short mini dresses and the cocktail list looked dreamy. We made good friends with the bar tender and downed another Sagres whilst we waited perusing the surroundings of our venue.    The ceilings were low in the lounge bar and separated by ancient archways that looked like they had been restored. After further research in the menu I read that Sacramento is actually housed in the restored ruins of the Valadares Palace which was built in the eighteenth century. This combined with the fuchsia pink, deep red and brown colour scheme and candles creating some mood lightening made for an enticing and romantic evening.

The restaurant offers a modern approach to Portuguese cuisine and there was plenty on the menu we wanted to try. After ordering we saw our neighbours getting what seemed like special treatment - they had a waiter deboning a suckling pig shank immaculately with a spoon and fork and placing the meat perfectly on the bed of spinach. After oogling at this culinary show we were immensely disappointed we did not get this for our choices! However we were not so disappointed once our own food arrived. We shared garlic prawns to start which were rich in garlic and heavily oiled. I then had a delicious plump cod kebab with grilled zucchini and cherry tomatoes served on a bed of luscious fluffy potato mash. The cod was thick and melted in my mouth, combined with the juicy tomatoes and mash it made for a perfect dish. Adam chose a roasted duck leg with a rice and vegetable rosti. He was a bit disappointed in his chosen dish (especially after seeing our neighbours!) as his rosti and duck were a bit dry. Needless to say after this and a lovely bottle of Portuguese red we were rather full from our days eating activities and decided to call it a night prior to dessert.  Our experience of Sacramento was exactly what we were after. Great attentive service, great decor and mostly delicious food and a great start to our holiday.

Our second day in Lisbon we departed on a day trip to Sintra to visit the magical Pena Palace. Here in Sintra we wandered the tiny pavement streets and here we were introduced to travesseiros, a special pastry of Sintra. These little sweet treats involved a long rectangular shaped pastry injected with an egg and almond custard, and covered in sugar. Despite struggling to get into the bag of our travesseiro we were rather taken with these tasty treats and almost succumbed to getting another one!

Our next culinary experience involved a local restaurant in the countryside en route back to the coast. Here we were surrounded by Iberico Pork legs hanging from the ceiling. We were dining with some Brazilian travellers who advised us we should pay extra to try the shaved pork (much like what we know of parma ham or prosciutto) and melon. This was one of the highlights of the trip - having never tried shaved ham and melon before both Adam and I were completely blown away. This black pig had the most amazing smoked flavour and melted in your mouth. Combined with the juiciness of the melon, the sweet and savoury flavours complimented each other and swelled with succulence in your mouth. We seriously could not get enough of this and vowed to try this again in other Mediterranean countries!! Adam went on to try a and I had a locally caught and cooked piece of cod. This was the biggest cod fillet I had seen, grilled in garlic butter and garnished with fresh parsley and lemons. I stupidly started with the smaller end of the fish and by the time I got to the best part I couldn't even finish it! Must to my immense disappointment. Unfortunately I did not take photos of this meal due to dining with strangers (I did not want to embarrass Adam!) however I did manage to get a few snaps of the pig legs dropping from the ceiling.

One of the other specialities of Lisbon is the Patris de Belem. These tasty morsels are a traditional sweet treat derived from the early nineteenth century during the Liberal Revolution when someone from the monasteries that were being shut down offered to sell these sweet pastries to make some money. These pastries became so popular they are now sold in a resident shop that started in 1837 and is still running to this day as an attraction for both locals and tourists.  The pastries are round custard tarts grilled so the top of the custard has a ever so slight crunchy film on the top and then sprinkled with icing sugar. These pastries are so good that we certainly went back up for more! And definitely worth the 20 minute train journey from Lisbon city centre.

The next restaurant chosen for dinner Largo (also in the Chaido district) did not live up to the reviews I had read. This place sounded amazing, with creative fine dining, good reviews and to top it off it had a fish tank in the wall filled with jellyfish! Unfortunately when we arrived we were seated in the mezzanine (disappointingly not near the jellyfish). We were placed in the middle table of two other couples, one old and one young, the scene felt a bit awkward to say the least. There wasn't many places to look other than the people to your left and right as you were seated so close to both of them. We found the service to be inattentive, we were left waiting for our bottle of wine and sparkling water for almost ten minutes, and we could clearly see other tables getting better service than us. The food was uneventful as well, the highlight of the meal being probably being Adam's main dish which I am even struggling to remember now whilst looking at my pictures.

We settled on two savoury courses and a dessert to share. I went for a very thin unexciting pumpkin soup garnished with crostini, chives and the tiniest amount of pancetta, followed by a bland yellowy saffron risotto with two scallops garnished with caviar. I am a fan of risotto and this one was cooked well however the whole dish together felt like Goldilocks porridge gone wrong. Adam's starter sounded plain but was a bit more interesting, a linguine watery pesto with three maybe four 'tiger' prawns which definitely had the roar taken out of them. He followed with what I believe is a pork dish with a barley, chickpea, mushroom and bacon broth. We both remember this being tasty, the flavours and the textures complementing each other nicely.  The dessert I think was a salted caramel cream with some type of chocolate cheesecake or pud? Clearly wasn't good enough for me to remember that well. For a restaurant that had good reviews I am sad to say the overall experience felt plain and expensive, and was absolutely nothing compared to Sacramento which was so good we ended up going again the following night!

Our second experience of Sacramento was still very good - the waiter remembered us from the night before last and invited us to try some of his gin cocktails much to our liking. To be honest the desserts of crème brulee and a lemony spongy type traditional Portuguese thing were nothing to go on about. The mussels to start with in white wine were soft and with a good kick of sauce. But the best part of the meal was the long awaited pork shank. We had advised the waiter we were intrigued to see the spoon and fork trick once again and we were not disappointed, the red wine flowed the pork was devoured and good times were had.

Our first experience of Portugal was a gooden. I am a sucker for their beer, red wine, sweet pastries, seafood and pork. We had some great meals and some not so great meals, the food varied in price but was mostly reasonable. Overall it was an experience we thoroughly enjoyed and I look forward to exploring more culinary specialities that Portugal has to offer in the near future.

Foodies Festival Battersea Park

During a weekend in London in mid August a group of us descended upon Battersea Park in search of the Foodies Festival. We were celebrating a good friend of mine Georgina's birthday and unfortunately the weather was not holding out, but this did not dampen our spirits as we perused the smorgasbord of food and beverage stalls. The bands were playing, the rain was pouring, the food was being devoured a-plenty and a good ole time was had. From Jamie Oliver's mouth watering pulled pork baguettes to fresh and healthy sushi wraps, and a of course a birthday cupcake for George; Here are a few snaps from the event which had us eating (and drinking) all day...

Restaurant Review : CHOW (Wellington, New Zealand)

On my recent trip back to New Zealand I was delighted to dine out at Chow, one of my family's favourite restaurants. Chow is a pan-asian fusion cuisine which was one of its kind when it opened in Wellington a few years ago. Its menu consists of healthy sharing plates, small and large and bowls of curries and noodle soups and salads. The food is designed to be shared amongst each other to ensure your group gets a taste of everything on offer.

Chow on a Monday entails an extra special treat : 2 4 1 dishes. This marvellous offer invites one to order a tremendous amount of food for great value for money, so it was a no brainer that on my only Monday in New Zealand, my family and I went and dined at Chow (Woodward Street).

Unfortunately you can't book on Monday's as the restaurant is so busy, that they only take those who have full parties in line. Once our party of 8 arrived we were offered a private back room much to the delight of my parents who had dined in that room once before.  We were comfortably seated in our private booth around a large square table - the ideal sharing spot! Being the Chow regulars my family consider themselves to be it did not take us too long to work out what we wanted to dine on. We settled on 16 dishes, consisting of two of each so ensure we each got a sample: steamed salmon parcels (my favourite), mussel fritters, chicken satay, blue cheese and peanut wontons (a speciality), steamed prawn and pork dumplings, and one of each chicken jungle curry, slow cooked lamb mussaman curry, and two chili beef salads.

My favourite Salmon Parcels

The food always lives up to its reputation at Chow, and this time was no exception. The service can be a bit hit and miss but considering Monday is there busiest night we will forgive them for having to ask a few times for some drinks.  Everything was brought out around the same time and placed in the middle of the table... this is the treats we had on offer:

The food was literally gobbled up within moments. Everyone ravenous and eager to try the next morsel, and me trying to savour every flavour so I could remember this moment for when I head back to the UK. Chow has a unique place in the Wellington and the New Zealand food market. Although I miss the Chow experience immensely and wish it was in London, I do feel it might get gobbled up in the voluptuousness of London's food scene which would take away from its magic.  But that doesn't matter, it makes it all the more special for when us Kiwi's return back home. For now I will dream of the curries full of colour, each dipping sauce intricately flavoured to compliment the item to dip, the salads spiced up with chilli and equally balanced with herby goodness, and the perfect mix of healthy dishes. You really can't fault Chow, it is definitely a resident Wellington haunt that has to be done, for regulars and especially out-of-towners. Go get Chowed!



To check out Chow's menu of Fresh Asian Cuisine click here.