13.08.08: Out to Wild Honey

For His birthday, we had a lovely day of wandering the alternately sunny and blustery West End, then headed to Wild Honey, which is hands-down Our fave special occasion restaurant in London.
Above, She started with fresh Dorset crab prepared both alone and in a rich paté, with a salad of young peas and shoots. Those papery slices that I thought must be courgette were the thinnest Bramley apple sheets ever, and the little avo-coloured mound was yet another preparation of peas, puréed I believe with mint.

He plumped for the smoked eel, turnips and roast apricot purée.

She was eyeing up the main course He coveted, so She graciously defaulted to the roast Elwy Valley lamb, young market vegetables, fennel and garlic. Fun fact: that little potato-looking pillow is the fennel, hosting a tiny pool of mint sauce.

Meanwhile, he chose the saddle of rabbit, lacquered shoulder 'pie', wild mushrooms and figs, oh my.
For a grand finish, We shared the warm black cherry clafoutis with custard and a couple of cheeses selected by our server (we trusted her, she was terribly capable and Dutch-looking), which arrived with a supremely noteworthy pool of - you guessed it - wild honey.

SHE SAYS: All the pea preparations on my salad plate were breathtakingly fresh and redolent of newly turned earth spiked with lemon - esp the shoots. The crab was perfectly moist and subtle, and even more of a treat when offset by an apple sliver.

Now, I admit I was not excited when ordering my main course, but I needn't have hesitated. It was the best lamb I've ever had for its perfect preparation and light juices.The puréed fennel was fun and intensely aniseed in taste - I'm guessing it was creamed raw. I took my time over every bite of veg and chop, enjoying the cosy ambiance of the room and peeking at the dishes on the tables near us.

Dessert was not stunning, though good - I thought our clafoutis quite dry even with a puddle of custard to help rehydrate. Could be I was just too disappointed they weren't serving the wild honey ice cream, which I had last year. However, the slick of honey that arrived with our veiny blue and nose-tingling harder cheeses set my world to rights: it was delightfully deep, dark and almost bitter. Had I been at home I would have licked the plate.

HE SAYS: I really like me some smoked eel, whenever we are in Amsterdam I eat plenty from the little street stalls located all over the city. This variety, although larger then Dutch eels, still had that familiar rich smokey intensity and not too slimy texture I was after. The roast apricot purée worked very well to offset the eel with fresh fruitiness - a pairing which seemed odd but worked very well, especially with the turnips, which helped round off the plate with their ever so slightly sweet and mustardy counternotes.

The rabbit was surprisingly small in quantity but rich and satisfying in flavour. Again the sweetness of the fruit, this time figs, really helped to add balance to the salty, gamey qualities of the meat and the wild mushrooms.

I think I enjoyed the pudding a little more then She did, but then again I did pour over more then my fair share of the lovely, velvety custard over the tarty and vanilla-infused flan-like pie. Well, it was my birthday after all.

24. 05.08: Eurovision sushi extravaganza

They prepared a sushi dinner to remember for an evening of very forgettable entertainment. My oh my, but this was a new level of dinner, inspired by Sushi Day and Kittee's recent caterpillar rolls*: He made roast eel oshizushi ('box' sushi) layered with sumeshi (seasoned rice), a decadent mix of real crab, crab stick, mayo and sriracha sauce, plus avo and a touch of wasabi before the crowning glory of eel with eel sauce, toasted sesame seeds and green onion.

And that was just one delicacy on the menu!

She prepared an eel, cucumber, and avo roll; veggie inside-out roll with avo, green onion, cress and toasted sesame seeds; and a roll with crab mix, cucumber and cress. All stacked out with sumeshi, course.

HE SAYS: mmmm, sushi...It was with some trepidation that I picked up the sushi press, the most important of tools to make oshizushi. I shouldn't've been nervous as it was not only fun but also very easy to replicate our Ninja Eel roll that we used to devour back in the day. It probably helps that before we attempted this task we took a photo of a tuna variation to study and inspect on one of our last visits to our fave sushi restaurant before we left New Orleans.

The mix of real crab/fake crab and mayo was very moreish and I found myself licking the bowl for any remaining goodness after layering it into the press. The eel was also spot-on as far as authentic taste goes, so delicious it is beyond words. She made the rolls with passion and precision, and they came out tasting and looking superb - especially enjoyed the veggie roll, which was a fresh and tasty palate cleanser after the indulgent eel with sweet eel sauce. We will have to try this again soon as we are now confident of producing fantastic sushi, miles better then anything we've experienced at any restaurant or grocery store on these shores, at least.

SHE SAYS: This was all stunningly delicious and simple to make - if the sumeshi was made ahead of time, you could even easily whip up a few California rolls and so on for dinner on a weeknight. (Sumeshi's easy to make but has to cool before it's, ahem, ready to roll). Seriously, being able to make such gorgeous little parcels that tasted so incredibly right made me v. happy, indeed.

The eel oshizushi was so perfect in texture and taste - sweet, spicy, soft, salty, roasty - I literally had to close my eyes with almost very bite to savour it. My veggie rolls were spot-on, too - only thing missing was asparagus, I knew there was something else, but couldn't tell 'til I tasted it. Eel roll and crab-mix roll continued the carnival parade of sushi excellence.

We've been wanting to make oshizushi for so long now, and even though He found the holy grail of a box tool many moons ago, we held back because we couldn't find flying fish roe (those little beads of orange goodness you get in most rolls and on top of oshiz. at Ninja). Then He tracked down some frozen roast eel in Chinatown to motivate us, but we felt a little afraid of it - was it the right kind? Would it be...icky? but oh no baby, you pop it in the oven for 15 mins and you get a big, flat slice of heaven.

Just so's you know...of course we had leftovers. As amazing as it all was, we couldn't possibly finish!

*Kittee is a sophisticated, dedicated vegan and in no way would her blog ever inspire our choice of eel as a sushi filling. Her purty vegan caterpillar rolls simply reminded us we needed to get on with some sushi-makin'.