Tosokchon (Seoul)

Had an 8 hour stopover in Seoul on the way to
Ulan Bator, Mongolia and was eager to try a quaint
local restaurant which had a reputation for
an incredible Chicken Broth.
After a quick sauna and Swedish massage
for the weary muscles at the Hyatt's impressive
spa facilities, I was ready to go.

Toshoksen is famous in Seoul and the constant queue
outside is evidence of that. Apparently even the
President has to wait and it was the same with
a food internet sensation such as myself (at the time of writing we have
1 follower, 7 hits on the site and no viewers outside our immediate family).

Finding it was difficult enough. I wasn't sure if the taxi driver
didn't appreciate that a foreigner was headed to one of Korea's
culinary secrets or if he ate his wife's kim chi every night and just didn't
know any better. After much frustration and after passing the same temple
three times I was dropped off outside a small side street buried amongst
the Seoul urban sprawl.

Obviously no one spoke English but I managed to get a seat on the floor after
a brief wait in line. Looking around I was the only foreigner and my Asian blood
did nothing to help me blend in. I realised I had no clue what to order or how to eat it...
luckily the menu is three items long.

1) Chicken stew with ginseng
2) Laquer chicken stew with ginseng (?)
3) Spicy braised chicken with potatoes



The chicken stew is the famous one so after much
pointing and gesticulating and ridicule from
the other diners, a delicious smelling bowl arrived.
I couldn't quite place the taste, but the sauce had
ginseng, pine nuts, garlic, sunflower seeds,
wild onion and a few other ingredients
I couldn't figure out.

Under the soup was a whole delicious and extremely
tender chicken stuffed with rice, ginseng and chestnuts.
The chicken melted off the bone and the soup gets better and better
the deeper you get as all the ingredients blend and
the stuffing in the chicken disperses and soaks in the soup.

A truly delicious broth, extremely unique to the Koren peninsula
in a unique local setting.















Head for the Dongdaemun night market afterwards.
8 Louis Vuitton socks for $5?
Who cares if the brand name is spelled wrong...


Rating:

Food - 8/10
Service - 7/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Value - 10/10

Bill for 2 - £25

85-1 Chebu-dong, Jongro-gu, Seoul, South Korea
02-737-7444

A-Maze-ing?

A pity lunch...which is a sad state of affairs for another institution from the Gordon Ramsey stable. We saw an advertisement on lastminute.com and had to see how desperate things were getting here if you needed to advertise spare capacity to the dregs of society (yes we were also there looking for discount airfare). However, the location at the heart of Mayfair impressed as did the sheer size of the restaurant which is split into two parts. The design was cool, although appealing to Brits more than Continentals we feel. The place though, was indeed half empty for lunch, so we didn't expect much from the food.

The menu though, was surprisingly inventive and lunch menus shockingly cheap - 3 courses for £30. This equals to a course of Michelin star food for less than a few lamb kebabs at Maroush at 4am! My finance profession has trained me in the art of financial astuteness so of course I took 3 courses for £30 and then overpaid for two additional a la carte choices.

My first choice was an eel and foie gras emulsion which was unique as I'd never experiences this combination before, but unfortunately the consistency of both didn't mesh so the tastes were quite independent.

The next course, a pigeon with sweet corn risotto was remarkably better with the sweetcorn risotto a clear winner. The pigeon was cooked just right and complemented the sweet corn perfectly.

Next came the lamb which was salted perfectly. The best course of the 5 and one of the best lambs I've had in a long time. The chef has clearly mastered the art of sauce making as each dish was perfectly complemented.

I followed up the lamb with some salmon which was ok, but nothing special.

Desert though was great with a very unique pistacho cake surrounded by rasberries and rasberry sorbet and emulsion.

The organization of Maze really stood out, displaying the efficiency of a well drilled Wehrmacht regiment with waiters standing to attention holding plates until a waitress accompanied them to the eagerly awaiting customers. The food was very good with only a few dishes not fulfilling Michelin standards. It was still odd that the restaurant was still only half full for lunch, but its a good place the bring the other half on the weekend and follow it up with a coffee at a French cafe which plays Arab music oddly loud around the corner to the left and left again halfway to Oxford street. Another good option is to come with a large group of friends and let the champagne flow as there is a very cool bar and vibe although the clientele were more oxford street than bond street.

Ranking:

Food – 7/10

Service – 8/10

Ambiance – 8/10

Value – 8/10

Bill for two £110

10-13 Grosvenor Square
London W1K 6JP
020 7107 0000

Awana - Malaysian restaurant and satay bar

A unique way to sample Malaysian hawker food in the heart of Chelsea. I am always surprised at the ability of Awana to pack out a rather large seating area on nearly any night of the week. As half Singaporean and half Austrian I am a clear authority on all things, but am usually overly critical of restaurants trying to bring South East Asian hawker food to sit down dining customers in Europe. Newton Circus in Singapore works due to the informality and the chaos of the market environment. Awana gives it a commendable shot though and the Murtabak is made on an open space grill beamed around the restaurant on TV screens giving it a somewhat market feel.

The murtabak sajan laut and Kari udang were good although I found the beef rending relatively average. The best way to do it, is order a large variety of things and sample each with absolutely no intention of finishing anything.

A week day restaurant combined well with the hidden speak-easy bar in Chelsea Cloisters called Barts is not a bad way to treat the girlfriend if you can sneak out of the office early enough.

Ranking:

Food - 7/10

Service - 6/10

Ambiance - 6/10

Value - 7/10

Bill for 2 - £85

85 Sloane Avenue, London
SW3 3DX

0207 584 8880

Cecconi's

One of the few restaurants, which the girlfriend and I frequent often and repeatedly. This place is very very Mayfair and very very Milan about this place with the velvet green chairs and large open bar area in the middle of the restaurant where the Cichetti is prepared. The food is homely Italian and the atmosphere warm and jovial. The Cichetti, especially meatballs, here are good as with most things on the menu. Or you could go off-menu and request the truffle pasta, which always seems to be in season here. The chef keeps a few truffles spare. The veal Milanese is also worth a shot and fills up the entire plate. We like the lobster spaghetti is excellent as well.

Reservations are usually needed required here, although a walk in seat at the bar is also an option and probably more atmospheric as you are within earshot of the serious Napoletana curses bellowing out of the kitchen.

This is a great place for brunch as well and the crowd is very Wall Street and Mayfair types although I didn’t see much botox from my last few visits. Jay-Z and Beyonce though were here in the corner....probably ruining the perfectly cooked ravioli with some ludicrously overpriced Krug champagne or some 40 ounce dedicated to the fallen homies of Brooklyn.The pre-pubesent staff at Abercrombie were certainly excited and kept pressing their perfectly manicured (?) faces against the windows, but it got in the way of our bellinis.

Ranking:

Food - 7,5/10

Service - 7,8/10

Ambiance - 8/10

Value - 7/10

Bill for 2 - £120

5a Burlington Gardens
London W1S 3EP

+44 (0)20 7434 1500

Polpetto

A hidden pearl (not sure how hidden it is anymore though, as it's constantly fully booked) in SOHO. Nestled above the French House bar without any sign outside, finding this gem is difficult enough. Getting a seat is even harder in the 28 seat restaurant. The food may be Italian, but the vibe is decidedly Lower East Side Manhattan with exposed brick, black and white photographs and tattooed waitresses. Apparantly the head chef learnt his trade at Boca di Lupo, so I wasn’t surprised to see similar fare on the menu. Try a wide arrangement of Cichetti including the meatballs and Polpetti of course, with prices at only a few pounds a pop. Post Cichetti the chilli and garlic prawns proved a hit, but the signature dish has to the beef filet drizzled with truffle oil sauce which was so fragrant, the room instantly smelled like an Autumn farmer’s market in Avignon once the dish emerged from the kitchen.

The two guys behind this restaurant along with Polpo and the yet to be opened Sputino need to be applauded for their fresh take on dining and their modern interpretation of Italian mainstream fare. London certainly needed a bit of gastronomic edginess West of Shoreditch.

No reservations for dinner, so the lunch option is appealing.

Ranking:

Food – 7/10

Service – 7/10

Ambiance – 8/10

Value – 8/10

Bill for two £50

49 Dean Street, W1D 5BG

020 7734 1969

Almada

The “in” place in London over the fall of 2009 with Eva Herzigova and Pamela Anderson sitting at tables close to us. This place was so cool, the number was unlisted and it was allegedly illegally opened without a liquor license and didn’t have any sign outside....just a menacing bouncer. We had to come here I was told by my consistently cutting edge girlfriend....so I wearily went about the process of calling in favours from everyone in town. The seating arrangements are handled personally by the manager and part owner, Carlos Almada and reservations only can be made through his mobile number. I finally managed to convince it out of a good friend of mine, who I promised shamelessly to promote his INCREDIBLE concierge service (http://www.blackcardlondon.com/) and allowed him the use of my kitchen for him to film a cooking program starring himself....and he wasted it by doing a program on using Marmite! (http://dinnerwithpatrick.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2009-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&updated-max=2010-01-01T00%3A00%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=8, scroll down to Dec 06, 2009).

Almada is sexy and cool with a great atmosphere of who’s who in London and I later came back and took a huge table here for my birthday. The Thursday night combination with Almada and Anabels was legendary.....but this was all back in 2009. Approaching 2011, the place re-opened and was half empty with the food just as mediocre as before. The only thing which was consistent was the bulging bill. Much more accommodating to people making a reservation, people should still come here for the experience though, but its lost the luster and mystery which kept it going. Every time we come here we always debate how the rent gets paid, as its prime time Berkeley Square real estate and the brunch restaurant, Automat, above belongs to the same group. Rumours of a members only club on the bottom floor have been swirling for years with the place still looking like a construction site.

Ranking:

Food – 6/10

Service – 6/10

Ambiance – 10/10 (on a good night in 2009)

Value – 4/10

Bill for two £190

33 Dover Street,
Mayfair,
London,
W1S 4NF

Telephone number: You will have to pull a few strings to get that.

Roast

For all my wisened 28 (29) years of existence, I have been an overly harsh critic of British food and probably rightly so, although I respect what the new generation of British chefs have done not only for the country’s culinary culture, but for Europe’s culture as well which was beginning to get a bit too Mediterranean heavy. Although I don’t quite see the working class British housewife putting down the OK Magazine (with Jordan obviously on the cover) and whipping up some nitrogen scrambled eggs for the lads just yet. Ramsey, Rhodes, Oliver and Wareing amongst others are geniuses at what they do, but they just haven’t come to Roast yet I suppose. The location couldn’t be better, being perched above the gastronic temple that is Borough Market....which co-incidently is the astute choice of location for our first date and where my Finnish girlfriend foolishly fell for me. Thank god I didn’t bring her to Roast because she would have turned and headed for the hills.

Nothing is creative on the menu and the options are positively Roman era gruel. A true disappointment. Borough market is a great place to spend the Saturday morning, but try to have lunch amongst the stalls below, or take a walk along the waterfront and eat at the Oxo tower if you have to.

Ranking:

Food – 3/10

Service – 5/10

Ambiance – 8/10

Value – 6/10

Bill for two £80

The Floral Hall,
Stoney Street,
London
SE1 1TL

Cambio de Tercio

Think about all the pasty sunburnt British tourists in Malaga. Cambio de Tercio is about as opposite as you can get from that....in fact, as parallels go, Cambio is probably the hidden restaurant in the small Spanish village that only the locals know about. If the owners cared just a little bit more, the place would be in with a shout for their first Michelin star....it’s that good. The restaurant doesn’t seat many, so reservations are required. Avoid the tasting menu and go a la carte with nearly everything a hit and with innovation consistently surprising us. Try the foie gras which comes in a shot glass and go tapas style throughout the night accompanying your choices with some Iberian wine. The restaurant was Spanish restaurant runner up in Time Out’s Eating and Drinking 2010 guide and has been packed ever since with people travelling across the city to eat here.

We’ve been here several times, with the manager giving us some excellent tips on where to eat in his own country (La Zacaleta in Ibiza for example). Apparently Rafael Nadal eats here when he is in town for Wimbleden, but then again wasn’t that guy born on the streets of Mallorca? If I want a good Albergínies Farcides instead of fine dining, I’ll ask him.

Foie gras emulsion

Ranking:

Food – 9/10

Service – 10/10

Ambiance – 9/10

Value – 7/10

Bill for two £120

163 Old Brompton Rd
London SW5 0LJ
020 7244 8970

Santa Lucia

Chelsea’s neighbourhood Italian restaurant. The place where the locals and more importantly, the Italian locals go. No tourist guides or fanny packs here. Simple, elegant and good Italian food, served quickly and in a cozy environment. A perfect Sunday evening place, especially well combined with a drink at Brinkley’s across the street after dinner. Try any of the pizzas or the specials....anything really. We have been here maybe 20 times together....the only bad experience was when we stupidly showed up right after Italy was dumped out of a very disappointing world cup campaign and the atmosphere was positively toxic! However, as an Austrian and a Finn, all we know is footballing disappointment, so this was entirely understandable.

Ensure that you sit upstairs however and if the place is packed the pizzeria next door called Friends is also good.

Ranking:

Food – 8/10

Service – 8/10

Ambiance – 8/10

Value – 9/10

Bill for two £40

2 Hollywood Road

London, SW10 9HY

020 7352 8484

Cha Cha Moon

One of our favourite ways to spend the weekends is to lunch in one of many of SOHO’s hidden and unknown restaurants. This time we went mainstream and dined with the masses at Cha Cha Moon....and no one does mainstream better than Alan Yau who also created Wagamama but no longer runs it. The place looks like an Asian cafeteria with an open kitchen and long dining tables. The place just works and was packed even at 15:00. Apparently the place is famous for the noodle soup, which Yau spent months perfecting, so of course we didn’t try any noodle soup. We went for the Singapore Char Kway Tau Teow, an ode to my half Asian roots, spicy duck curry, prawn dumplings, Kai Lan and the fried turnip cakes which was the best of the bunch.

The food suffers from an identity crisis. Described as a Chinese noodle bar, the menu had dishes from all over South East Asia. In reality, it brings Asian “hawker” or stall food to the mainstream London masses who don’t know better....and it does it well at affordable prices.

Ranking:

Food – 6/10

Service – 8/10

Ambiance – 8/10

Value – 9/10

Bill for two £35

15 - 21 Ganton Street
London W1F 9BN
020 7297 9800

Le Gavroche

Ive always been curious about what lies behind the mysterious front entrance of this Mayfair restaurant, plus its two Michelin star rating only stoked the curiousity. Returned home from work on a Friday after a very long week and passed out, only to awaken to the lovely yet impatient girlfriend filing her nails directly over me.....”naaaah, so what are we doing tonight? I really feel like sushi.” I was asked in a heavy Finnish accent. Bleary eyed, I reached for my phone and despite some heavy namedropping was rejected with the intensity my laziness deserved by both Nobus, Umu and Zuma. “Did you try Sumosan?” I was asked, with each vowel heavily accentuated as only the Finns can do. “Id rather eat at Itsu” I responded, nervously glancing at the time slowly approaching 10pm.....Running out of options, I called Le Gavroche expecting a similarly stern rejection. Surprisingly, I got a table seating us in 30 minutes....

Fortunately, having lived in Paris for two years I know and can do French stuffiness with the best of them....so we went counter-stuffiness with the girlfriend going in jeans and killer heals and me throwing on a bright pink sweater with a trendy Aquascutum blazer. Le Gavroche, was as expected, stuffy but the service good and quick with a set of twin 50+ waitresses with dyed red hair that confused the hell out of us. The food was excellent and truly top notch. I had the fish soup which brought back memories from the summer spent in Normandy and she had the scallops. For the main, I had Venison with chocolate sauce which was cooked just right while she had Cod which she described as excellent. For desert, she had the soufflé and I had the cheese plate, which was the only disappointment of the night. The cheeses were too hard, including one of my favourites, Livarot.

All in all, a great last minute save with some fantastic food. Two stars fully deserved, but an ambiance better placed for whispered conversations than racous banter amongst friends. Impressive wine list, however only focused on France and Italy. A Mayfair institution, but one to bring the parents on their yearly dutiful visit to the island.

Ranking:

Food – 9/10

Service – 8/10

Ambiance – 6/10

Value – 6/10

Bill for two £196

43 Upper Brook St
London W1K 7QR
020 7408 0881