Invitation for some French Food

I don’t need to tell you about Café Rouge, the French Style Brassiere chain serving up Gallic fare to us Brits, I think we all know about this chain.

An Invitation for some local French Food

We were lucky enough to be invited to the 1^st anniversary party of the Angel branch of Cote a few weeks ago.

It was a great fun night and a chance to meet the guys behind this ever growing chain of French Bistro style neighborhood restaurants.

F is for France @ Le Relais de Venise L'Entrecote

It has been a while now, over two months since our little jaunt through the alphabet in London town. But we’re back.

After many people had been on holidays to Spain, Ecuador, Colombia and Morocco since our last outing back in May. Whilst poor old me hasn’t even left London in all that time. Boo hoo.

So I am making up for it with a quick jaunt across the channel to France. This time to Le Relaise de Venise L’Entrecote for some steak frites in Marylebone.

This place does one thing and one thing only. Steak and chips, and to be honest with the quantity they churn out, they do them very well. Which is pretty bloody surprising as we were there in total for around two hours including queuing time and it was constantly full with a never ending queue churning around the corner.

The sheer volume this restaurant does on an evening is staggering. It’s a good thing that they do one thing and one thing only. I’d hate to work in that kitchen though,  everyday doing the same prep. Make special sauce, blanch chips, cook steaks, dress salad leaves. Yawn yawn yawn. But for the owners its damn good.

I initially suggested this place as a bit of a joke to everyone, as one of our party has a problem deciding on what she wants to eat. I think everyone else got the joke but her, and to top it off she ended up making the final decision. But at least there were desserts for her to ponder over in the end.

So the 6 of us sat down and the only thing to choose was which wine we wanted to drink and how we wanted our steaks cooked. Three chose rare and three medium. All these we were told was in the French style.

To start the meal off, you are provided with a plate of dressed lettuce leaves and walnuts. I’m not a big salad eater in restaurants and this has put me back years. It was pretty dull, wet and not very attractive. If I wasn’t here for the steak this would have made me cry. I’m sure my old chef would have told me to walk if I sent something out looking like that. Not a good start.

Thankfully the main was a hell of a lot better. If you didn’t know you got two portions of the steak and French fries, then you would be seriously saddened by the small portion you received first time round.

My meat was cooked to a perfect French rare, which is how I like it. To be honest I have no idea how the steak really tasted as it came thinly sliced and smothered in their Special Secret Sauce. This closely guarded secret is from what I can understand, made up of chicken livers, thyme, cream and Dijon mustard. Bloody good it was too.

The fries are not bad, not quite as crispy as I would like, but the second set we had delivered to our table by the delightful French waitresses with their ooh so French attitudes, were a lot better.

The only choices you have is on the dessert menu, where a montage of French classic puds live.

We also have a dessertinator in our ranks, who could quite delightfully eat her way through dessert after dessert after dessert. For such a tiny thing she managed to eat a tower of a pud all to herself. For her sins she was slightly hyper afterwards with all that sugar in her veins, we all were not surprised.

All in all Le Relais de Venise is not a bad place to eat. You could do a lot worse, but with a group of friends it is a fun place, and with the queue constantly outside, everyone else is thinks the same as well. 

Koffmann's - A Future Michelin Starred Restaurant

I have many regrets in my life. Most of them I have ignored and refuse to let them out of their little box. But one keeps rearing its ugly head. It is that I wished I had gone into catering when I had the chance at 16 or 17. But I was happy to waste my teenage years away smoking loads of dope and getting stoned everyday. Good times.

This for many years was locked away in a drug filled haze, and when I started travelling I never had the cash to go to decent places to eat. I was however content with truck stops and street food. Something even to this day, are the places I enjoy eating at the most.

But my short stints as a chef in two of London’s finest establishments has made me respect all chefs, that to this day when ever I walk past a kitchen I always thank the chefs, as I know how hard it is to work behind the scenes, and how no gratitude goes their way.

I think this has something to do with my dislike of waiters and waitresses getting all the tip, just because they bring you a plate form A to B, where it is the chefs who are sweating and under stress and totally knackered behind the scenes that do all the hard work to make your evening perfect.

So to be able to be able to eat Pierre Koffmann’s food for a ridiculous amount of money was a chance I was not going to miss. I mean £18 for 2 courses. (Now it is £21.50) There are only a few bargains like this in London, and should not be missed. Trinity is one, and Theo Randall is the other. All are amazing in their own way. I’m sure there are more, but I don’t know of them.

When we told people we were eating at the Berkeley Hotel, everyone was in awe of us, although half of them thought we were eating at Marcus Wearings restaurant. I wish, but as a travel agent, the pay is shit, but the perks are good. Sometimes.

Koffmann’s is as I thought it would be. Elegant, but in a very understated way. There is nothing uptight about this place at all. The service was spot on, everything was done with a smile. I can see the men from Michelin being very happy here.

I knew I was going for the set menu, but I was so tempted to go for Pierre Koffmanns’ signature dish of Braised Pigs Trotters stuffed with sweetbreads and morels. Really tempted just to have that and chill. But the lunchtime set menu was too much of a chance to pass up. This is what had dragged us in here, and until I get a pay rise we would have to stick with it.

For starters we ordered the French onion soup and the game terrine. I’m a sucker for a terrine in any shape or form and this game one was a pure delight to eat. Such a deep gamey flavour that it set my taste buds on fire. The only disappointment were the undressed salad leaves that accompanied it. Was this deliberate to serve some bitter leaves naked with no dressing, or had they been forgotten about and just placed on the plate, alone and naked. Either way it let down a great terrine.

Linas’ French onion soup was creamy, deep and wondrous. It was much creamier than those millions of litres I used to make in that faux French brassiere. The cheese was melted to the point of unxiousness. Really good.

The mains were a superb moist roasted loin of rabbit with black olives, tomato’s and garlic that sung of southern France. A very elegant dish that would see itself on any Michelin starred restaurant menu. Oh, I’m just thinking ahead here.

The other was a simple dish of fricassee chicken, mushrooms and rice. The chicken and rice was pretty simple but perfectly cooked. Lina was not impressed though, she was expecting some magical piece of chicken with some great accompaniment. She is obviously not a fan of rice with French food. I have to admit though it was the best plate of rice I’ve ever tasted. It had been cooked in chicken stock to the point of al dente. Perfect. No denying the talent that Chef Koffmann has in his kitchen. For rice it was pretty bloody good. But as a dish, a little underwhelming.

We skipped pudding, a shame as they had oeuf a la neige caramelise on the menu. I was so tempted to pay the extra but I was very content to bask in the feeling of a great meal. Next time though.

Sitting there with my coffee and nibbling on my madellines I was very happy that Mr Koffmann had decided to come back to London on a permanent basis. Just why did it take him so long?

Even though we opted for the two course menu, we still managed to spend nearly £100. I dread to think what the bill would have been if we’d gone a la carte. Hey ho. It was worth it. Bring on those Michelin stars.