I love the London Festaurant Festival: Gauthier Soho

Gauthier soho is one of the newer Michelin starred restaurants in Soho and in terms of ambience, in my opinion, it is one of the best.

From the moment you ring the door bell to gain access you feel like you have entered a really exclusive club, the staff are exactly what you would expect, efficient, knowledgeable and slightly reserved.

The dining room is small and cosy but there only a few well spaced tables adding to that exclusive feel and private dining like experience.

The festival menu had a good selection and there were generous amuse bouches provided in between the courses.

I settled on scallops while my girlfriend went for the lobster ravioli. We followed this with sea bass and duck marget. The food itself was all stunningly arranged and beautifully cooked. My scallops were some of the best I have ever tasted, I would recommend what my girlfriend ordered but it was so good she was in no mood for sharing!

As ever a very helpful sommelier was on hand to recommend some excellent accompanying wines for this.

I would have to say this is probably my favourite fine dining experience to date and I am already thinking that it would be really good to drop in and try the taste of winter seven course menu which is available for 70 pounds at present.

I love the London Restaurant Festival: review of L'escargot

Apparently a lot of London restaurants have pulled together a set of special offers and special menus in honour of London Restaurant Festival, and not being one to turn down a really good offer my partner booked us a couple of nights out at restaurants we'd been meaning to go to for a while.

L'escargot is part of Marco Pierre White's WhiteStarLines group and is to be found nestled on Greek Street in London's lively Soho. The restaurant itself feels fairly classic, well appointed and modern, however in some places the tables are a little closer together than I have seen in any other Michelin starred restaurant, my partner and I felt occasionally like we were sharing a table with a small group of people sitting next to us (this was also disappointing because it was a Monday night and there were a fair number of spare tables dotted around).

Getting over the seating arrangements the festival menu was a couple of courses for 25 quid, which is pretty good value in a place where an a la carte main course will set you back in the region of 20 pounds. I started on the Tian of Trout while my girlfriend carried on her recent fois gras thing by having the ham hock filled with the delicacy and served with a brioche. My trout was excellent, however the ham hock was a little short of fois gras for my partners taste

For main course I had the duck which was excellent, crispy skinned and in a wonderful sauce, My girlfriend decided to go for the bream which was excellently cooked and

For accompaniment we did the usual when faced with a monumental wine list, panicked and asked the sommelier, he was really great, giving us some good advice, we ended up ignoring the currenttrend of pairing a dessert wine with the fois gras and instead settled on a bottle of Chablis (from one of the minor appelations) to go with the trout, Fois gras and Bream and a glass of very nice red (which I forget) to go with my duck.

All in all it was a good experience and I really enjoyed my meal which unlike some other places doing special set menus had very generous portion sizes and gave a really good view of the menu, I think the only minor issues were the table layout and the fact that my partner was disappointed with her starter.

Recipe: Turkey meatballs in tomato sauce

I am still trying to be healthy and in that vein I have found myself cooking with a lot of turkey recently. My latest recipe attempt was to create turkey meatballs in a tomato sauce served on wholewheat pasta for me and my girlfriend.

I put a thick slice of wholemeal bread, cut the crusts off and then gave it a quick whizz in the blender. I then put these crumbs on a baking tray and placed them in oven at a heat of 100 degrees for 15 minutes.

While these were in the oven I finely chopped quarter of a red onion, half a chilli and a clove of garlic. I also chopped some fresh coriander (and if I had some I would have thrown in some fresh basil and oregano for good measure, instead I put in the dried variety). These all went into a mixing bowl with 250 grams of extra lean minced turkey breast and the now dried out bread crumbs. I also seasoned this mix with ground black pepper and some sea salt adding a splash of milk and some olive oil to help the binding. I then formed these into 10 balls the size of table tennis balls, I put these on a foil covered baking tray under a medium grill while I prepared the tomato sauce (you should probably turn them after 5 minutes and leave them under for no longer than 10).

The tomato sauce is a pretty standard affair, fry a base of the rest of the onion, a red pepper, finely chopped, a clove of garlic, a stick of celery and some chilli in a pressure cooker or frying pan (which has a lid, that will be used later). After a few minutes turn the heat down adding some chopped mushrooms, a tin of chopped tomatoes, some tomato puree, a squirt of tomato sauce and a splash of Worcester sauce, after about 5 minutes of letting that bubble get the meat balls from under the grill and carefully (without breaking them up) mix them into the sauce, cover with the lid and leave to cook.

At this point I usually put the spaghetti into cook, for this I used wholemeal as that is what I had in the cupboard but any spaghetti will do.

Ingredients:
250g Lean Turkey mince
1 Thick slice of wholemeal bread (with crusts removed)
50 ml of milk
Chopped Coriander, Basil and Oregano
Chopped chilli
Chopped Garlic
1 Red onion
1 Red capsicum pepper
Wholemeal Spaghetti.