CHEF SANDWICH

Food Banks And What The West Could Learn From Asian Cooking

2013-06-16T16:10:00.000-07:00

There is a lot of talk about obesity and healthy eating in the West. There is also a lot of talk about rising food prices, food banks, unemployment, benefits cuts and other austerity measures sparking dubious claims from millionaire, silver-spooned Tories that they could survive on £53 a week, while maintaining a reasonably nutritious and varied diet.

Now comes the news that a staggering 500,000 people in the UK - the seventh richest country in the world, it’s worth remembering - are relying on food banks to survive as welfare cuts bite and food prices continue to rise (having already soared by 35% over the past five years, far outstripping wage increases).

And the way things are going, it’s only likely to get worse. As John Harris wrote this week in The Guardian about the growing use of food banks in Britain, there is a perception that “hunger is something that happens only to the poor and unfortunate overseas. It’s now here: outside everyone’s door, gnawing away, ruining lives.”

Overseas places like Cambodia, for instance, where I am currently working. A third-world country ranked as one of the poorest in the world, where many villagers struggle to get by on less than $2 a day.

There is no doubt that even the poorest Britons live a much better life than the poorest Cambodians. But it makes sense that the hundreds of thousands of Britons now struggling with “destitution, hardship, and hunger on a large scale”, as key poverty charities warn, could learn a thing or two from SE Asia’s most vulnerable - who for years have had to cope with extreme hunger, and have become skilled at getting the most out of the little food they have.

A good start would be removing the ‘meat and two veg’ mantra and embracing an Asian diet and Asian cooking techniques - none more so than the wok: an extremely versatile cooking pot that can be used to fry, steam, and braise, and is very useful for serving up tasty, nutritious food on a tight budget.

Asian cooking, in general, uses more fish and has a higher ratio of vegetables per serving - and vegetables are often overlooked in the meat-obsessed West as an excellent way to naturally boost flavour. Likewise, wok cooking uses little oil, making it healthier. It’s also blindingly quick - meaning it takes less of a chunk out of gas or electricity bills. And I say this without sarcasm or irony in these days where you can’t switch on the telly without hearing the word sustainability - something that may help save the planet.

As food and fuel become more scarce, populations grow, and climate change pushes up temperatures and leads to more flooding, making traditional staples like rice less and less of a staple, people will be forced to eat less meat and more vegetables, fruit, and perhaps insects - which happen to be a very good source of protein and nourishment. It’s unavoidable - there aren’t enough resources to go round as it is.

People in the West could do themselves a lot of favours if they simply ate less, and saw meat as less of a main ingredient and more of a flavouring, as it is in SE Asia. When I arrived in Cambodia in 2011, I tipped the airport scales at a whopping and technically obese 93kg. I’m now 77kg, and feel a lot better for it.

Yes, I miss meat feasts and dirty kebabs. But after a while your stomach and appetite changes, it takes less food to fill your belly, and the endless discussions about double cheese burgers and monstrous steaks leave you frankly bored, if not a little disgusted, by the gluttony so often espoused on foodie havens like Twitter.

Read any interview with someone surviving on food aid in the US or Europe and they will say the same thing - that they have been forced to abandon, or heavily cut down on, meat for cheaper ingredients like pasta, rice, noodles, pulses, cereals, and vegetables.

Over the next few blogs, I’m going to post a few recipes I’ve picked up on my travels through SE Asia - not gourmet meals, far from it, but delicious all the same. They are meals that can be made in minutes and are extremely cheap to make.

It’s one of the many things people in the West could learn from the far flung East, along with swapping toilet paper for bum guns, the importance of families and spirituality, and being less obsessed with celebrity, to name but a few.

The first is a dish that comes from a great Chinese-Cambodian street food stall in Phnom Penh. It’s called char trey cor compong (fried tinned fish). Doesn’t sound great does it, but it’s a wonderful meal. All you need is a tin of mackerel in tomato sauce (or tinned pilchards or sardines), tomato ketchup (tuk peng pong - the Hong Kong influence in the dish), onions, chillies, rice, and a few minutes with a wok.

CHAR TREY COR COMPONG

(serves 2)

400g tin of mackerel in tomato sauce

1 large or two medium onions

3 tablespoons tomato ketchup

2 spring onions

1 teaspoon fish sauce

Salt, Pepper, Sugar

Juice of two limes

Two red bird eye chillies

1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

As with all wok dishes, it’s important to prep the ingredients first - the best cooks over here say 90% of the cooking is done on the chopping board, and 10% in the wok. But they also say the blacker the wok, the better the chef, so knife skills are very good by that stage.

Open the tinned mackerel, and carefully fork out the fish and put on a plate. Half fill the tin with water, and using a wooden spoon scrape up the tomato sauce from the sides and bottom. Chop the onion in half, then finely slice. Cut the white part of each spring onion into two pieces, then finely chop the green part to use as a garnish. Finely slice the chillies and put in a small saucer or dipping bowl. Cut the limes into six pieces, and squeeze each piece into a bowl.

Heat the wok over a high flame until the metal begins to smoke, then add the vegetable oil. Toss in the sliced onion, and stir continuously with the wooden spoon until the onion is soft but not browned - this will take about two minutes. Then throw in the liquid from the tin, and the spring onion whites, and boil for a minute.

Add the ketchup, lime juice, and fish sauce, and boil for another 30 seconds, topping up with a little more water if necessary, until you have a sauce about the thickness of double cream. Add salt, sugar, and ground black pepper to taste.

Turn off the flame and put the fish in the wok, and cover with the sauce. Put the lid on the wok and then leave for a minute. The fish should be warmed through but not hot. Tip the fish on to a flat serving dish and scatter with the spring onion greens (the stall uses chopped Chinese chives as a garnish - so use those if you’re lucky enough to have them). Serve with sticky rice and the saucer of chopped chillies.

MORE: Eating Duck Embryos And Cow Guts

:: My new, bestselling food book Down And Out In South East Asia is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Jamie Oliver’s Twitter Account Hacked With Bogus Diet Adverts

2013-06-06T05:38:00.000-07:00

Overweight healthy eating guru Jamie Oliver has had his Twitter account hacked with an advert for a diet fad that claims users can lose “23lbs of belly fat in one month”.

The celebrity cook tweeted a series of links to a bogus woman’s health magazine advertising the weight-shedding benefits of something called the Garcinia Cambogia bean diet.

His fans quickly noticed the hack, and minutes later Oliver deleted the messages, which said: “Lose 22lbs. of fffat in 29 days” followed by a link.

Oliver then sent out a tweet to his 3.3 million followers, saying: “Whoa sorry guys looks like i got hacked!! Sorry to all looking in to it now. JOXX”

Others used the opportunity to poke fun at the TV cook, with Luke Lewis writing: “Jamie Oliver's tweets are more lucid than usual this morning.”

An hour later, and without any apparent irony, Oliver then sent out a Twitter message to his fans plugging a new “naughty, filthy” chocolate cake for one of his many restaurant chains.

“Help me guys I'm Just about to put this chocolate cake on a menu for Jamies italian & its a really painfully good naughty filthy elegant chocolate dish what can I call it ???

“It's gotta be simple but a bit slutty any ideas ? I want a naughty play of death by chocolate ... Chocolate ???? Any ideas greatly appreciated and don't hold back I think it deserves to be a big rude love #jamie xxx”.

What a waste of a golden opportunity though, as chef Neil Rankin put it - breaking into Oliver’s Twitter account and just posting spam.

Restaurant Conman Jailed For Putting Pubic Hair In Curry

2013-06-05T12:42:00.002-07:00

I've often found it incredible the lengths some people will go to get a free drink or meal. When I started my first job working behind a bar, I was warned about a customer who was renowned for trying to cadge free pints.

He was known all around the village where I grew up. A huge, button-eyed man with the longest eyebrows I've ever seen. He always wore a grubby tweed jacket covered in fag burns, and spoke with a wonderfully-rehearsed Woosterian accent.

On my first night, he pulled up in his invalid carriage and ordered a pint of real ale. He sniffed it, held it up to the light like a real ale enthusiast in a fisherman's jumper, then turned his back to the bar briefly and downed half the pint.

He turned back with foam on his nose and a look of absolute horror on his face, coughing and spluttering, and pointing at the now cloudy pint, and demanded another one. He pulled the stunt again, but this time I spotted him dropping in a pinch of flour from his pocket.

But it was small beer compared with the fraudster jailed today for trying to get a free curry from the Jamal Indian restaurant in Middlesbrough - by doctoring his lamb bhuna with pubic hair.

Lee Tyers, 40, from Yarm, was caught on CCTV putting his hands down his trousers as he sat in the restaurant and then garnishing his food.

He told staff he'd found the hair in his food in a bid to get out of paying his £39.55 bill.

Restaurant owner Jamal Chowdhury told the court he'd known Tyers for 18 years, but was owed £110 for unpaid meals.

The crook told staff he had cash to pay, before he and a friend ordered two lamb bhunas, pilau rice, naan bread, lager, a chapati and a shish kebab.

The pair ate most of their food, and then Tyers complained to a waiter about finding pubic hair in his bhuna. They then left the curry house without paying.

Mr Chowdhury told Teesside Magistrates' Court: "I told him all the staff have black hair and this is brown - it’s not our hair."

Tyers was found guilty of false representation and jailed for two weeks and ordered to pay £39.55 compensation.

MORE: Why You Should Never Send Back Food In A Restaurant

Why Michael Pollan Is Wrong About Sending Back Steaks In Restaurants

2013-05-29T07:20:00.001-07:00

I like American journalist and current media darling Michael Pollan, and the simple approach to food he advocates. In this era of wall-to-wall cooking shows, where former supermodels can do a couple of years at catering school and emerge as celebrity chefs teaching the nation to bake while older, far more experienced cooks are left on the shelf, it’s a breath of fresh air.

A well-researched, beautifully-written breath of fresh air that may motivate even the laziest, crisp-munching foodie to turn off the telly and actually cook a meal themselves, rather than wondering who’s going to be knocked out next, or tweeting about how James Martin looks like an owl in a Noel Gallagher wig, and can’t read the autocue (alright, I was guilty of that one).

I love Pollan’s advice about how we should all eat out less and cook for ourselves. I like his proselytising about how we should be less greedy, and eat more plants. I like his simple guidelines for eating - “It’s not food if it arrived through the window of your car”. I like the tales of his cookery experiments in his new book Cooked - a book being feted on both sides of the Atlantic as some sort of born again Bible in this age of unnecessarily-fussy recipes and long-run-out-of-ideas food programmes about building giant mince pies for bemused Greggs-goers in the centre of Birmingham.

But there is one thing he is very wrong about - and that is his views on ordering well done steaks in restaurants. On first sight, Pollan seems to be on to something. He urges us to ensure the quality of the meat - provided you like your steak well done or medium-well, and not a bloody hunk of seared flesh like most people - by ordering it rare, and then, and this is the cunning bit, sending it back to be cooked more.

That way, he says, you can guarantee the quality, and perhaps in these horsian days, the provenance of the meat. The logic being that devious chefs will try to pass off the nastiest pieces by serving it to the idiots who ask for their steaks well done, or ‘ruined’ in chefs’ cant.

There is truth in this. I’ve worked in restaurants where gnarly, green-tinged, everyone-has-a-sniff, about-to-go-in-staff-food steaks are reserved for customers who favour cremated meat. And it’s not just because it’s easier to get away with - it’s disgust. You see, chefs hate overcooking meat. “Fucking plebs!” they’ll be ranting as three orders for well done come in on table one. There is no chance to showcase their semi-mythical cooking talents if the meat is grey, and dry as Gandhi’s sandal.

But there is something chefs hate much more than having to ruin a lovely piece of meat, and that’s the humiliation, dented pride, and battered ego of having food sent back to the kitchen. It causes uproar. The restaurant is afraid to relay the message to the head chef, and the lowly commis in the brigade will make sideways glances and snigger. “Big bollocks has fucked up!” they’ll be thinking.

As revenge, I’ve seen chefs take a beautiful piece of returned steak and throw it in the deep-fat fryer until it’s well done, such is the disdain for people who hand back their beloved food. And I’ve heard of, and seen, far worse incidents.

On one occasion, I was working in a gastropub in Cornwall when an eye fillet came back. The chef ranted and slammed plates on the pass, and ran around the kitchen for a few minutes finding fault with everything, and quickly trying to pass off his perceived negligence by bullying the lower ranks while the steak sat there on the pass, oozing blood and greyish gobs of juice.

He then picked up the steak, pulled down his trousers, and wiped his arse with it. I apologise if you’re eating at this point, but I’m using it as an example of what can happen when you hand food back to a kitchen. And it’s not just steaks, of course. Troublesome customers may be munching through their just-returned salad oblivious to the saliva, or worse, in the chef’s special sauce, or the bogey hidden in the leaves, or the urine in the mussels etc etc.

I learned a lot in the time I spent cooking in restaurants, not least that I had a huge amount to learn, and that being able to throw a decent dinner party, or prepare a deep, deep pudding for Egg and Toad in a TV studio, is absolutely no use in preparing you for the rigours of a professional kitchen. All bright-eyed amateurs discover the same - that they are about as useful to the tattooed bunch of leather-fingered limpet berries around them as a snooze button on a smoke alarm.

But one thing I did learn is never hand food back. It’s just not worth it. The thought of what might be in there, what your soup might have been doctored with, will more than take away any enjoyment of the meal. Whenever a waiter asks how my meal is, I always mumble some platitude even if it’s fucking awful. And if it’s great, I let them know that too. But I never send food back to a kitchen. Never!

Pollan is right about the ability to see the quality of a steak if it’s rare, and how overcooking covers up a multitude of sins. But the trust he puts in the deranged characters you often find in kitchens is a touch naive. I hope his steaks, or those of his readers, never come back matted with sweat and other horrors that weren’t there on first arrival, but returning food to guarantee its quality is ludicrous advice.

:: My new, bestselling food book Down And Out In South East Asia is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Recipe Errors And Other Local Newspaper Howlers

2013-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

My first newspaper job was writing a recipe column for a weekly paper. I used to make up the 100-word introductory flannel, talking about stews that dated back to Chaucer, the aphrodisiacal qualities of nettle soup, and dishes named after made-up minstrels.

For Newbury Pork Chops, I’d written: “This traditional country recipe dates back to a time when only the fattest and most succulent pork would be used. Newbury pigs were taken through the woods to sniff out truffles, and some chefs would add one or two to enrich the flavour...”

I had no idea whether there were even any truffles in Newbury. About the only thing I knew about the place was it had a racecourse. But it all went horribly wrong when I went travelling to South America. I’d written up the recipes beforehand, and each week my mother sent one in.

But I got held up in Colombia and ran out of recipes. My mother covered for me for a while, dutifully copying out recipes from cookbooks, until she did one for chocolate cake and the editor got calls from readers saying their cakes had come out “as flat as kipper’s piss”.

It turned out she had forgotten to put the eggs in.

But as mistakes go, it was a minor one compared with this one in a local newspaper in the US - which goes to show even the most tried-and-tested recipes should never be set in stone...

But then at least the howler wasn’t on the front page...

Cambodian Food: Eating Duck Embryos And Cow Guts

2013-05-28T06:44:00.001-07:00

I met a woman in the sea who works as a marketing manager for Hyundai and eats for a living. By that I mean she takes rich Asian clients around the culinary hotspots of Phnom Penh to give them a good feed and persuade them to buy land-gouging equipment.

“I know all the best places - it’s my job,” Alin said, before quickly spotting a shadow in the water and asking me if there were sharks in Cambodia.

She offered to show me a tiny, family-run joint that serves the best Khmer chicken curry in the capital, and another cheap place that only sells duck soup, and the best street food stall for fertilised duck eggs, and a restaurant that specialises in offal with prahok sauce, and a number of other places I’ve forgotten about because by now I was looking for sharks too.

I met her a week later after catching a bus from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh. She picked me up on her moped outside the Central Market and we headed off to a smart area of BKK1 to eat cow guts. It was at a type of restaurant known in Khmer as pu ko tuk prahok (cow stomach with prahok sauce).

It was Saturday night and the place was rammed. There were people sat around on mopeds watching every chopstick, and waiting for tables to clear, and still more people kept arriving. We sat down on a wooden bench next to a cook barbecuing steak, and joined the queue. Not that there was a queue, or line, if you speak Ameringlish - people dived in if you weren’t quick enough.

Ten minutes later we were perched on two seats opposite an old Cambodian man who was merrily stuffing himself with intestines and cans of ABC - a hideously-strong local stout. He smiled as we sat down and Alin ordered away.

The first dish came in the time it took the waiter to walk 20 steps from the wooden boards where the cooks were chopping with blinding speed. It was grilled sirloin steak, served medium-rare and cut into thick slices. It came with bowls of grey prahok sauce (tuk prahok), lemon grass, red chillies, ground peanuts, lime quarters, and a plate of vegetables that she called a “Cambodian salad” - slices of green tomatoes, green bananas, culantro, and raw aubergines.

Then the star dish arrived - cubes of liver, sliced intestines, and strips of tripe, all simmered in beef stock. It was wonderful. We sat there dipping the offal into the cheesy, fermented fish sauce, and then the owner came over to chat to the only white face in there.

He was a rich Cambodian who lived in New Zealand, and his parents had set up the restaurant 20 years ago when the area was a dark ghetto and not the gentrified, boutique-filled strip it is today. He looked on proudly as more Cambodians arrived, waiting for tables to clear.

The next stop was a bustling street food stall outside Orussey Market, near the Olympic Stadium, that Alin said sold the best fertilised duck eggs (balut) in Phnom Penh. They were 18-days-old - the best age, she said. Not too ancient to develop too bony a crunch, and not too young to be beakless.

The eggs had been steamed over a charcoal burner, and were piping hot. We held them with paper napkins as we cracked open the shells and looked at the strange life form inside. I’d tried them before, but hadn’t looked too closely. I’d just shut my eyes, whacked the thing in my mouth, and swallowed as quickly as I could, trying to banish the thought of dark feathers tickling my tonsils, and beak crunching between my teeth. Then I downed a tequila.

This time I was determined to conquer my squeamishness. I sipped the brown liquor from the shell as instructed. It had a curious taste similar to duck stock and was delicious once you allowed yourself to forget about the alien beneath.

Then I spooned out a chunk of embryo head, crowned with feathers, and dipped it in garlic and chilli pickle (again as instructed) - followed by a couple of sprigs of a bitter-tasting herb that Alin called chi bong tia korne (fertilised duck egg herb) - and then another morsel of yellowy-brown foetus.

The unborn chick had a flavour that I found difficult to describe. It tasted a little like scrambled egg and had a soufflé-like texture. Then I crunched on the beak and tried to hide the thought of what I was eating from the rest of my mind.

As soon as I’d finished, Alin pointed to the second egg, and I got to work on that one too. It was far from unpleasant - reflected in the way young couples on surrounding tables were enthusiastically studying each flavour and nodding appreciately.

But it made me realise just how different people’s tastes vary from East to West. There was no way they’d take off as a street food snack in London, however good they tasted. I’d seen the same look on Khmer people’s faces when I’d given them mayonnaise.

:: My new, bestselling food book Down And Out In South East Asia is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Reviews Of Down And Out In South East Asia

2013-05-24T12:10:00.000-07:00

Well, my new book Down And Out In South East Asia has been out for a week or so now, and I’ve been very pleased - not to say hugely relieved - with the reviews so far. Even from people I didn’t pay to write them (I’m joking of course - my ‘marketing budget’ wouldn’t keep Jay Rayner in L’Oreal shampoo for a week).

It’s the sequel to my bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London, and tells the story of how failed chef and hack Lennie Nash sets off to eat his way through SE Asia, with a half-baked plan to buy a restaurant.

Along the way, he encounters a host of weird characters from frazzled bar owners to Walter Mitty CIA agents to seedy sexpats to ice zombies four years over on their visa. The book is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

There is an edited extract on Khmer 440 if you fancy a read - where Nash launches a doner kebab business in Cambodia with mixed results...

But anyway, here are the reviews I’ve had so far...

Chris How: “I loved this book, and it made me slightly ashamed of my own rather pedestrian gustatory experiences in Asia. This is no hippie-dippie 'how I found myself in Asia' travelogue: Alex shows us the darker, grittier side of life in another world, generously spiced with well-researched helpings of real Vietnamese and Cambodian cooking.

“I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Asian food or travel.”

Christian Williams: “Down and Out In South East Asia is a great read from start to finish. It takes you from the grim reality of 'The Hill' with its truly bizarre characters to the food markets of Vietnam and Cambodia, where some of the best eating is to be found.

“Finishing the book made me look into a holiday in South East Asia and I might just do it, but I will be giving 'The Hill' a wide berth.”

Claire: “In Down and Out, would-be chef Lennie navigates a precarious path in his quest to set up his own restaurant in a place in the sun.

“Whilst this travelogue follows the usual backpacker circuit of Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia (the standard destinations for those 'doing Asia'), Down and Out stands out in that it takes you well off of the culinary beaten track and the staple dishes that feature in your Lonely Planet guide food section.

“Your taste buds tingle from the exotic flavours and street foods that Lennie seeks out with sweaty determination, tempting even the most seasoned traveller to want return to take a braver step in their digestive exploration of this part of the world.

“But as always, the longer you stay, the more you see, and Lennie has his mettle tested in this seemingly exotic idyll by its less attractive underbelly made up of a strange collection of misfits who have long since lost their grasp of reality and in some cases, their moral compass, if they ever had one.”

Chippy: “Thankfully it wasn't quite as bleak as 'London and Padstow' (which isn't to say I didn't love that one too). I'm looking forward to Lennie's next adventure.”

Restaurants And The Dangers Of Using Google Translate

2013-05-17T10:22:00.000-07:00

I just heard a rather charming tale about a group of British pensioners who have just returned from a week’s holiday in northern Italy.

One night they went to eat at a small, family-run restaurant in the hills outside Florence. The owner could speak no English, but proudly translated his menu to them using Google Translate.

But it seems he got a trifle carried away after they’d left, and sent them this message to thank them for their custom...

Down And Out In South East Asia

2013-05-02T05:03:00.001-07:00

Well it’s finally done. The book I mean. If you enjoyed my bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London, about cooking in restaurants in the UK and the larger-than-life characters that inhabit them, then hopefully you’ll like the sequel Down And Out In South East Asia.

It sees the return of failed chef and hack Lennie Nash - this time setting off to eat his way through SE Asia, with a half-baked plan to buy a restaurant.

Along the way, Lennie encounters a host of weird characters from frazzled bar owners to Walter Mitty CIA agents to seedy sexpats to ice zombies four years over on their visa.

The book is an adventure story, spiked with a heavy dose of backpacker noir, through the eateries, street food stalls, and hazy bars of Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Anyway, I’d be delighted if you read it. It’s only out as a Kindle book to start with, and costs £1.99 - about the price of half a lager in the UK now, I’m told. Go on, you’ll have a lovely warm glow inside knowing you’ve kept me in noodles for another day...CLICK HERE

All The Rubbish In The Cambodian Sea

2013-03-27T05:12:00.002-07:00

A plastic sheet, a bottle top, a sheet of rubber, a sponge,

A plastic spoon, a thousand straws, scattered across the sand,

A lady’s shoe, a toddler’s shoe - who lost them who would know?

A toothbrush caked in sewer sludge, back from sea to land.

Another wave, this time brings, a bottle of green tea,

No preservatives, no colouring, and yet won’t rot away.

Another sheet, another sponge, wrapped in rope and weed,

Another squid lure smiling, its hook long perished away.

More yellow rope, more neon string, a coconut gleams gold,

Another lighter, a bicycle pedal, grey beneath the sand.

A sheared off lid of gasoline, a lid of Nescafe,

A bottle this time of herbal tea, made in Vietnam.

A lump of wood from a shipwrecked ship, painted toothpaste blue,

A plastic float, another shoe - this time 42.

A pineapple top, more lures and line, how many squid they catch!

A packet of durian crackers, high in iron and crap.

A measuring jug half-filled with sand, another can from Vietnam...

A brother and sister no more than 12, still in their school clothes,

Wash out a bag and walk the beach, collecting bottles and cans.

But they leave the lures, the wooden planks, the lighters, shoes and rope,

The straws, the string, the plastic spoons, the countless plastic cups,

The fishing line, the endless bags - there’s no money in any of those!

Oh what a shame that plastic, isn’t worth its weight in gold...

Chef 'Tried To Kill 10 Kitchen Staff By Poisoning Staff Food'

2013-02-14T23:50:00.002-08:00

A Spanish chef has been charged with trying to poison 10 of his fellow cooks over a six-year period by secretly adding toxic drugs to staff food.

The unnamed 55-year-old assistant cook, who worked at El Lavaderu bar and restaurant in the coastal city of Gijon in northern Spain for seven years, is accused of 14 counts of attempted murder and is being held in custody awaiting trial.

His kitchen colleagues phoned police in October last year when they became suspicious after repeatedly falling ill. The only people at the cider house not to share symptoms were the suspect and his girlfriend, who also worked there.

Officers tested plates used for staff meals and found traces of calcium cyanamide, a potent chemical used to treat chronic alcoholism, the Daily Telegraph reported. It causes sickness and palpitations if mixed with alcohol and can have fatal results if taken long-term.

They are also re-examining the death of the former head chef who died from a heart attack in May 2011, and may exhume his body to see if there are traces of calcium cyanamide.

The previous owner also suffered a heart attack before selling the premises last year, and his wife suffered mysterious bouts of ill-heath. Both recovered after leaving the business.

Another chef has been to hospital three times over the last year and several other kitchen workers have frequently called in sick.

Police said they suspected "rancour" was the motive after reports there had been frequent arguments in the kitchen.

The current owner, Florentino Pérez, told Europa Press he also suffered from the poisonings but never imagined the suspect was responsible.

"People loved him," he said, adding that the chef had been involved in a number of charities in the city. He confirmed the suspect, who suffered from alcoholism, was fired a month before he was arrested, but said that was due to a slump in business.

Gordon Ramsay Caught Lying About His Three Michelin Stars

2013-02-12T11:16:00.000-08:00

Gordon Ramsay has been caught telling pork pies again after announcing he is to close his flagship restaurant for a revamp in a bid to keep his three Michelin stars.

The celebrity chef told American food magazine Bon Appétit he’d had a conference call with bosses of the French tyre guide on Friday to tell them that Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, would be shut for two months for “an amazing new refurb”.

He said: “I think every five years at that level, to reposition yourself is important. We’ve got three Michelin stars, the longest time a British restaurant has had three Michelin stars. So every five years, it needs to be moved up.

“Because you get criticised easily. ‘Well, it’s not worth three stars anymore, he’s cashing in, he’s never there’ - all those kinds of things. So you gotta silence those critics by constantly reinventing.”

Reinventing? Perhaps it’s the truth the notoriously slippery chef is talking about in the taped interview. Because his restaurant in Royal Hospital Road has not held three stars the longest in Britain. Far from it. That honour is held by The Waterside Inn, in Bray, Berkshire, which has had three gongs since 1985 - a piffling 16 years before Ramsay got his.

Ramsay, 45, is right about one thing. He has had a lot of criticism for not being behind the stoves of his restaurants and for spreading himself too thin in his pursuit for world domination. Not least from some of his former lieutenants who emerged blinking from the shadow of his large posterior to open restaurants in their own name, without having the constant gall of Ramsay taking credit for their hard work while lounging around in the California sunshine.

But what has that got to do with a new paintjob and a bit of interior design? Is he so sick of the decor in his 45-seater eatery, if he can still remember where it is, that he can’t stand being there? Will the wonderful revamp mean he will spend more time sweating in his flagship kitchen, run by head chef Clare Smyth for the past six years, rather than parading himself in front of American TV audiences like a painted horse and playing MonkeyTennis? Unlikely if his past performances are anything to go by.

And how does a splash of sage green “silence critics” who accuse him of cashing in? Ramsay - who has just opened two new eateries in Las Vegas, Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill and Gordon Ramsay BurGR (GR, geddit?) and is to launch a London restaurant with David Beckham - has been cashing in and embellishing the past ever since he was in short trousers.

First, with his lie about having played first-team football for Glasgow Rangers, before his career was cut short by an injury, creating the myth of the tragically injured football star who re-invented himself as a chef. And secondly with his TV fame and the dark PR arts he uses to keep his name in (and out) of the newspapers.

As he goes on to say in the interview: “It (cooking) is a tough business. A very tough, demanding business. And it’s slightly Machiavellian in that you need to be strong, especially at this level.”

Slightly Machiavellian? I think Niccolo would have been proud. Perhaps he should say longest in the world in the next US interview, and say he was soccer captain for Manchester United. After all, it’s important to keep constantly reinventing.

:: Gordon Ramsay: A Cut Above The Rest?
:: From Ramsay To Rourke
:: Go Easy On The Ham Ramsay!
:: The Night The Roux Brothers Had Bread Rolls Hurled At Them
:: What's Next For Gordon Ramsay? Monkey Tennis?

Sushi Chef Faces 67 Years In Jail For Selling Endangered Whale Meat

2013-02-03T06:36:00.000-08:00

A head chef faces up to 67 years in jail after he was allegedly caught in an undercover sting selling illegal whale meat at a trendy sushi restaurant in California.

Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 48, from Culver City, is accused of nine counts of conspiracy to import and sell endangered Sei whale meat from 2007 to 2010, a violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Another chef, Susumu Ueda, 39, from Lawndale, and the restaurant’s parent company, Typhoon Restaurant Inc, have also been charged. Ueda faces up to 10 years' jail, and Typhoon a fine of up to £800,000.

The now-closed Hump restaurant was allegedly filmed by the team behind Oscar-winning documentary The Cove, which features covert scenes of the barbaric annual dolphin hunt in Japan (see trailer below).

One of the activists had been tipped off by friends in the music industry that whale meat was being served at the £200 a head restaurant in Santa Monica. They went along there with hidden cameras during the Academy Awards ceremony in 2010, and say they were given thick, pink slices of whale on the omakase menu, where chefs choose a selection of dishes for customers to try.

In the footage, the waitress can be heard calling the meat “whale”. It was also referred to by its Japanese name, kujira. The pair put the £40 dish in a bag and sent it off for DNA analysis to the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University.

Scientists confirmed it was Sei whale, which are endangered but hunted in the North Pacific under a controversial Japanese programme that allows the killing of up to 1,000 whales a year under the guise of scientific research.

Police then carried out their own undercover operation and broke up the alleged smuggling operation. According to court papers, staff said the meat came from the boot of a Mercedes parked outside the restaurant.

Many top sushi restaurants serve unusual fish imported from Japan, and whale meat is often found in Tokyo markets. But campaigners said they had never heard of it being served in an American restaurant.

The Hump – apparently named after the aviation slang name for the Himalayas rather than the type of whale it (allegedly) sold - closed soon after the scandal.

On its website, bosses described the omakase menu as a “culinary adventure…created for you unlike any that you have previously experienced!” They added: “If you are truly adventurous (and have NO allergic or religious restrictions), we request that you leave yourself in our hands.”

Given there are only 54,000 Sei whales left in the world, it was a pity they didn’t mention ethical and ecological reasons as well.

Pork Found In ‘Halal’ Meat Served To Muslim Prisoners

2013-02-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

Muslim inmates have been unwittingly eating pork in the latest scandal to hit Britain’s tainted food industry.

Prison pasties and pies labelled as Halal - where meat is slaughtered by hand and blessed by the person doing the killing - contained traces of pig DNA, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed.

Both the FSA and Ministry of Justice initially refused to name the UK supplier, but it has now emerged it was 3663 - a leading wholesale food distributor to 60,000 British restaurants, hotels and catering firms.

Under Islamic law, Muslims are strictly forbidden to eat pork, and Justice minister Jeremy Wright said the incident was "absolutely unacceptable" and prison bosses were investigating "as a matter of urgency".

A spokesman for 3663 said the company was "shocked" to find five of its Halal beef pastry products contained pork and they had been immediately withdrawn from sale.

He said they had been supplied to prisons and nowhere else, and had come from McColgan Quality Foods Limited, a Northern Ireland-based company accredited by the Halal Food Authority.

"This is a wholly unacceptable situation and one that we deeply regret," the spokesman added.

He said 3663 - the numbers corresponding to the letters “FOOD” on a telephone number pad - carried out the tests after initially fearing the five products may have contained horsemeat. Instead they contained pork.

It comes after beef burgers sold by Burger King and some supermarket chains were found to contain horsemeat. An extra value burger flogged by Tesco contained nearly a third horsemeat, leading the retail giant to give full-page apologies in national newspapers.

The Ministry of Justice said the results of the tests became known on Thursday. It has not been disclosed how long inmates have been eating the pork-tainted products for.

A spokesman said: "All prisons have been informed about this very regrettable incident and we reported this issue to the Food Standards Agency immediately."

The FSA is now investigating whether the contaminated meat pies - which were labelled and served as Halal - were distributed more widely across the UK.

Editor of the Muslim News, Ahmed Versi, said the development was disturbing.

"This is very serious because no Muslim would ever eat pork meat - anything to do with pork - and it must be very distressing for those in prison who have been given this meat to realise they may have been eating food which was contaminated with pig," he told the BBC.

COMMENT: People have a right to know what food they are eating, and retailers and suppliers have a duty to describe their products correctly, and should not be allowed to cut corners by secretly padding out food with cheaper meats to boost profits.

There is little doubt the latest lapse will have offended and distressed high numbers of Muslim prisoners and their families, and will be another serious blow to the British food industry, which already has the stench of Soylent Green surrounding it.

:: Horse Meat Found In Tesco Burgers - Every Little Pony Helps
:: What's Really In Your Lamb Doner Kebab?

Unseen Documents ‘Reveal Michelin’s Cover-Up Over Chef's Suicide’

2013-01-23T23:49:00.000-08:00

The Michelin Guide is in hot water after being accused of hiding its role in the suicide of one of France’s greatest chefs, Bernard Loiseau.

Loiseau was terrified of losing his third Michelin star when he shot himself in the mouth at his home near La Côte d’Or, his gastronomic temple in Burgundy, France, in February 2003. A week before, Michelin's rival the GaultMillau had reduced his rating from 19 to 17 out of 20.

His friend, three-star chef Jacques Lameloise, recounted how Loiseau - whose cuisine eschewed cream, butter, flour and fat, but remained quintessentially French; his signature dish being frogs' legs and garlic purée on a bed of parsley sauce - had told him how much his Michelin rating meant: "He said, 'If I lose a star, I'll kill myself.'"

Loiseau’s death shocked the culinary world and led to the critics themselves facing criticism. They were accused of exercising too much power, toying with the restaurants they assess, and ultimately pushing Loiseau over the edge.

Amid the backlash, the tyre guide kept its head down and left Le Figaro’s restaurant critic Francoise Simon to be a “scapegoat” for his death. He had published an article shortly before Loiseau’s suicide citing Michelin sources as warning his third star was "legitimately under threat".

Michelin denied ever threatening to withdraw a star, which Loiseau’s restaurant ended up keeping. But previously unseen documents suggest Michelin had told him it had serious reservations about his restaurant four months before he shot himself.

Yesterday, L’Express magazine published a confidential note written by the guide’s then British head, Derek Brown, that appears to contradict Michelin’s version of events.

Minutes from his November 2002 meeting with Loiseau and his wife Dominique at his head office recount how Brown left them with little doubt that a star was under threat, and even mentions how shocked the 52-year-old chef was by the news.

“I spoke of our concerns: irregularity, lack of soul, of recent character in the cuisine and readers’ mail that is VERY mixed in terms of quality,” Brown wrote. “Visibly ‘shocked’, [Loiseau] took me seriously. We’ll see.”

Two days later, Mrs Loiseau sent a deeply apologetic letter, promising to get their cuisine “back on track”. Her husband - who she says was a manic depressive “capable of great moments of euphoria and periods of deep anxiety” - apparently never recovered.

Simon said yesterday he felt vindicated because he had merely reported on Michelin’s warning. “Michelin did indeed envisage docking Bernard Loiseau a star. They wanted to pass me off as a killer, while Michelin exempted themselves of any responsibility,” he said. “I was thrown to the dogs, treated as a murderer and still am by some. They needed a scapegoat.”

Brown insisted this week: “There was no threat made to Bernard Loiseau of losing a star at any time. Michelin doesn’t threaten anybody. He asked to see me. People who want to come and talk about their restaurant are very welcome. The idea of telling him about the concerns we had about some of his cooking was in order to give him an opportunity to consider whether he wanted to do something about it, which he did, as it turned out.”

Michael Ellis, the current director of Michelin, told L’Express: “These types of meetings are part of daily life at Michelin. I’m not surprised such a meeting took place. We don’t summon chefs. We only receive ones who wish to see us.”

Restaurant Serves Up £70 Tasting Menu Made With Dirt

2013-01-23T00:28:00.001-08:00

Even before my grandmother’s eyesight went, she wasn’t the cleanest of cooks. Her teacups were always grimy and stained the colour of David Dickinson’s face. The plates she served sandwiches and crisps on were often greasy from some previous opened tin of ham. And the vegetables she pulled from the garden were given a cursory swish under the tap, and were gritty and tasted of soil. “You eat a peck of dirt before you die,” she would always say, dismissing any concerns about hygiene.

I may not have fully appreciated her boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce, and cold platters of crisps and Spam always with an opened tin of sweetcorn on the side, but how ahead of her time she was when it came to garnishing her boiled-to-blithereens vegetables with soil.

Like comedy, they say timing is everything in cooking, and I can only think of the money she could have made if she’d only moved to Japan and opened a fancy French restaurant selling dishes caked in dirt for £70 a pop, like Tokyo’s Ne Quittez Pas.

Of course, this isn’t just any common or garden soil. It’s special black compost from Kanuma and is apparently safe to eat just like fugu. According to Japanese news website Rocketnews24, Ne Quittez Pas’ chef Toshio Tanabe once won a TV cooking competition with his dirt sauce, and from there his soil-infused tasting menu took roots.

The first course is a shot glass of potato starch and dirt soup, dusted with salt around the rim, and topped with a slice of black truffle. “It was divine! There wasn’t a dirty flavour at all. Instead, this simple soup went down smoothly with just a hint of potato flavour,” gushed the reviewer.

Then comes a salad of grilled eggplant, tomato, and turnips with a dressing made from dirt and ground popcorn, followed by “minerals of the sea and minerals of the land” - an aspic jelly made with clams and a top layer of sediment, with dirt risotto, fried sea bass and burdock root.

“With these dishes too, there wasn’t a dirt flavour. I had to wonder what had happened to the characteristic yeasty smell of soil,” said the reviewer, which does beg the question why add the stuff in the first place? But then in a nonsensical, PR-savvy age, where freshly-foraged ants in Kilner jars are all the rage, what the hell do I know?

For pudding, there is dirt ice cream and a dirt gratin, washed down with dirt mint tea which “looked like muddy water (sorry, but it’s true), but the minty taste was bracing.”

“As to why the meal didn’t taste at all of dirt, that is likely due to the dirt itself, which is supplied by a company called Protoleaf. Using coffee grinds and palm fibre, which were previously just thrown away, the company has created a novel and eco-friendly compost,” added the reviewer.

I’m not convinced it will catch on. But if it does, it will bring a certain authenticity to the many “dirty” burgers and other gourmet fast foods doing the rounds in London.

Marco Pierre White Walks Out Of Radio Interview After Being 'Bullied And Insulted'

2013-01-16T23:12:00.002-08:00

So what do we know about the cooking genius and dummy-spitting toy hurler Marco Pierre White? He’s a monster to live with and has a terrible temper, according to at least one of his three ex-wives. He was a notorious bully to his kitchen staff when he actually bothered to cook in his own restaurants, and once made Gordon Ramsay cry (I suppose you can’t blame him for the latter).

He peddles stock cubes for Knorr and regularly appears in adverts proclaiming that adding a meaty crumble to a meal will lift it out of a slough of saporific drudgery - words that would have choked the younger version of White when he won his three Michelin stars, working 18-hour days behind the stove, fuelled by strong espressos, red Marlboros, and regular delves into his ingredient drawer.

And it seems that like all bullying celebrity chefs with monstrous egos - Ramsay, James Martin, Gary Rhodes, and the seemingly mild-mannered, rosy-cheeked Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall etc - he is also very good at dishing it out, but painfully sensitive when it comes to tasting his own medicine.

As happened when White walked out of a radio interview in Australia yesterday after being questioned - in his words “bullied” - about his three ex-wives and his cooking skills. The final straw came during the Triple M Adelaide breakfast show when one of the presenters dubbed the TV chef a “rude prick”.

Dale ‘Louie’ Lewis and co-hosts Warren ‘Warrie’ Tredrea, Jon 'Blakey' Blake, and Ali ‘Ali’ Carle were banned by the Austereo-owned radio station, still cowering from the royal prank call scandal, from playing the interview this morning, but were allowed to discuss the controversial exchange, pre-recorded yesterday.

Lewis, a former Sydney Swans AFL player, incurred the celebrity chef’s wrath after raising the question of White's three failed marriages, asking whether his “first wives” had been “dismissed, for want of a better word, cos they can't cook, or didn't like your cooking?” Lewis then quipped: “Cos if you're the rude prick you come across on TV...I wouldn't be there long either.”

White tried to play down the marriage dig, but took offence at the language. He ended the interview, telling Lewis there was “no need for rudeness” before accepting the presenter's apology. “Rudeness is not having fun when it is at the expense of another person. You're a very rude man. And I hope your mother's not listening to this show today because she would not be proud of her son,” he said.

White told reporters later he was deeply offended by the remarks.

“To be honest, I was a bit off balance when it was said to me and I thought why should people get away with this? Why should they be allowed to bully people? It's why I said what I said. What's very sad is this is a radio show where children could be listening and to use that sort of language in front of children is wholly inappropriate.”

If it was for comic purposes, White said “it was scurrilous behaviour.” He added: “This is my third time in Australia in eight months and this is the first time anyone has shown me rudeness or disrespect. I just excused myself and left.”

He added: “To expose listeners and especially children to that kind of language leaves a lot to be desired. I'm not saying I've been a good boy all my life but you get to a stage in your life where you've just got to be corrected. It's called growing up.”

I’m sure the many chefs who suffered in White’s “SAS-style” kitchens, under a constant tyranny of personal abuse and savage aggression, will be amused to hear him complain of being “bullied” and the victim of bad language. Especially the poor chef who was once forced to stand in the corridor all night with his trousers down, telling every waitress that walked past that he had asmall penis. Talk about a case of pot kettle White.

TRANSCRIPT:

DALE LEWIS: Hey mate, married three times, was (sic) the first wives dismissed, for want of a better word, cos they can't cook, or didn't like your cooking? Is that an issue with them?

(Female host giggles)

MARCO: I just think of myself as being a lucky man that I found three women who wanted to marry me.

(More laughing by hosts)

LEWIS: Yeah, cos if you're the rude prick you come across on TV, I wouldn't be there long either. That's just me surmising what I've seen on TV

ALI CARLE: Marco, I wouldn't stand for that

MARCO: All you're doing is giving me insight into you as a person.

LEWIS: (laughing) Now he's analysing me

CARLE: (laughing) He's reading you

LEWIS: He can cook and he's a psychoanalyst

CARLE: Like a book, Marco. Now, you said

MARCO: There's no need for rudeness

LEWIS: No, no, no it was just

MARCO: I think you should say good morning to me, and good bye, because one, I take offense to being called that. I haven't shown you disrespect, I haven't been rude to you. I don't like being called that word. I'm very sorry.

LEWIS: Well, I apologise Marco. I was just trying to have some fun.

MARCO: Your apology is accepted. Rudeness is not having fun when it is at the expense of another person. You're a very rude man. And I hope your mother's not listening to this show today because she would not be proud of her son. Have a nice day, bye bye.

Poems Written In Kitchens: Tintagel Castle

2013-01-16T00:21:00.001-08:00

This is the first of a number of poems I wrote while working in restaurant kitchens in Cornwall, and hallucinating from sleep deprivation. They were scribbled down in a plastic-coated notebook filled with recipes and cooking notes.

Head chefs always told me to never write down recipes unless I’d cooked them myself and knew they worked. I suppose the same should be said for poems, here it is anyway...

Tintagel Castle

See the jackdaws by the castle,

Like ancient chess knights in black,

Peering across the stones they have guarded,

Since the time of Camelot way back.

And if you are searching for King Arthur,

And think Excalibur’s just well hid,

Then have a look in the village gift shop,

Because there’s a plastic one for each kid.

And if it’s Avalon you’re really after,

And your quest is to find the Grail,

Then read all about it in the village gift shop,

But only the jackdaws know the tale.

Because they were here when the walls were scarlet,

With the blood of a thousand knights,

And gouged and gorged as the dead lay dying,

Scattered over the rocks after every fight.

So if you are searching for King Arthur,

And climb through ruins to Merlin’s Cave,

Then look a bit further from the ley lines,

And behold those birds as bold as day.

Because they no longer feast on the flesh of fighters,

Their carrion call is no death knell,

It’s the crumbs of the pasties they’re after,

Which is why they will never tell.

Horse Meat Found In Tesco Burgers - Every Little Pony Helps

2013-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

It says 8 per cent more beef on the Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers box, and promises no artificial preservatives, flavours or colours. But what Tesco doesn’t tell you is the pink slimy patties inside are made up of 29 per cent horse meat.

The supermarket chain says it wants to “apologise sincerely” to customers following the discovery of its Shergar burgers from DNA tests by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI). Tesco lists the, err, mane ingredients on the box as 63 per cent Beef, 10 per cent Onion, which I suppose in fairness might actually be the horse’s name, followed by wheat flour, water, and beef fat.

The meat came from Dalepak Hambleton processing plant in Yorkshire, and two plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods. The burgers were sold by Tesco and Iceland in the UK and Ireland. And Lidl, Dunnes Stores, and Aldi supermarkets in Ireland.

Investigators said 27 burger products were analysed - and 10 contained horse DNA and 23 revealed pig DNA. Another 31 beef ready meals, including cottage pie and lasagne, were tested, and two thirds contained pig DNA.

Professor Alan Reilly, chief executive of the FSAI, said there was no health risk but also no reasonable explanation for horse meat to be found.

"Whilst there is a plausible explanation for the presence of pig DNA in these products due to the fact that meat from different animals is processed in the same meat plants, there is no clear explanation at this time for the presence of horse DNA in products emanating from meat plants that do not use horse meat in their production process," he said.

"In Ireland, it is not in our culture to eat horse meat and therefore, we do not expect to find it in a burger. Likewise, for some religious groups or people who abstain from eating pig meat, the presence of traces of pig DNA is unacceptable."

The FSAI also found traces of horse DNA in batches of raw ingredients, including some imported from the Netherlands and Spain.

Horse meat was found in Tesco Everyday Value Beef Burgers 29.1 per cent; Tesco Beef Quarter Pounders 0.1 per cent; Oakhurst Beef Burgers in Aldi 0.3 per cent; Moordale Quarter Pounders in Lidl 0.1 per cent; Flamehouse Chargrilled Quarter Pounders in Dunnes Stores 0.1 per cent; two varieties of Iceland Quarter Pounders 0.1 per cent.

Retailers said they have now removed the burgers from their shelves and are investigating.

A Tesco spokesman said: "We are working with the authorities in Ireland and the UK, and with the supplier concerned, to urgently understand how this has happened and how to ensure it does not happen again. We will not take any stock from this site until the conclusion and satisfactory resolution of an investigation."

He added: “We understand that many of our customers will be concerned by this news, and we apologise sincerely for any distress. Our customer service team is standing by to answer any questions customers may have.”

It seems Tesco will resort to anything in its unbridled pursuit of profits, and there must be some very long faces in the press office today, all hoping it won't go on furlong, and sales remain stable etc etc.

From Twitter:

@moanup: Just had a Tesco burger, it's given me the trots."
@HylandIan: Think I might give these Tesco 'smoked paddock fishcakes' a miss.
@karlpweb: "Horsemeat in the burgers? That's a bit rum. A bit red rum to be precise. For shame."
@TheRealJackDee: "Nothing about Tesco surprises me. A burger is like Noah's Ark in a bap."
@feintzebra: "What's the difference between a Tesco burger and a McDonald's burger? A Tesco burger will filly you up."

:: MORE: What's really in your doner kebab?

French Restaurant In Hot Water Over Sex And Drugs Parties

2013-01-15T03:28:00.000-08:00

A French restaurant in Catford, south London, faces closure after allegations of customers having sex on the premises, brawling, drug use, and people defecating outside the building.

Le Bourgeois, situated under a block of flats called appropriately enough Eros House, is also said to run a weekly late night adult party called Thick Lick, advertising "male and female performers, exotic dancers, private rooms" and a "birthday special".

"On several occasions I saw finger and hands prints places on the bonnet of my car in a compromising position," one local resident told police.

Other neighbours gave anonymous statements complaining about finding used condoms in the basement, a gun being fired, shouting and screaming, and drug dealing at the venue.

The Met Police have called for Le Bourgeois’ licence to be revoked, and Lewisham Council’s licensing committee will decide the matter on Thursday.

Lewisham East MP Heidi Alexander told reporters she was first contacted about the problems nine months ago.

"People talked about having to clean up faeces from outside the restaurant. They told me there are strippers inside and there are people having sex at the back of the restaurant," she said.

"Given the length of time that these problems have been going on, I do think some serious action needs to be taken."

Quality French Food In A Rough Part Of Town

2013-01-06T06:07:00.000-08:00

We’d been urged not to review Chez Gaston by one or two regulars who loved the place the way it was, and didn’t want it frequented by trolls. But trolls don’t eat real food, we said. They live under bridges in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, feasting on passing, bloated corpses.

But as it turned out, we nearly didn’t find the place anyway. Because, like all great restaurants, it was tucked away in a hard-to-find spot. In this case, a rough neighbourhood with ludicrously random building numbers on Street 15, just off Kandal market, where you wouldn’t even park your moped, let alone expect to find French cooking of such an exceptionally high standard.

It was Saturday night and the small bistro was nearly empty, but still had bags of atmosphere. A French party was sat at the bar sipping drinks, all laughing before they’d finished a sentence, the soft hum of blues, or was it jazz, in the background.

There was no menu, or English translations – just blackboards on the brothel-red walls, giving the names of bistro classics like oeufs mimosa (devilled eggs), joue de boeuf au vin rouge (braised ox cheeks), and andouillette de Troyes (gloriously stinky sausages made from pork intestines) that a French mayor once famously said politics should be like – smell a little like shit, but not too much.

I loved the place already. It was the very antithesis of pretence and unmitigated poncery. A true bistro, not a brasserie, with simple, hearty meals and a short menu. There were seven wines of the month, and we ordered the 2007 Bordeaux for $17, which was nicely chilled and eminently drinkable. We swigged away as a basket of excellent French bread arrived, quickly followed by our starters of foie gras ($14.50) and escargots de Bourgogne ($7).

The snails were magnificent and cooked in parsley and garlic butter, which when you turned the shells over drooled into a savoury, verdant pool, with bread for the mopping. They were piping hot on a clay dish that looked like a Stone Age egg poacher, and came with an arsenal of curious tools that reminded me of that scene in Marathon Man. “Is it safe?” I don’t know, but it was bloody delicious.

The foie gras was heavenly and a hymn to the pudding-like texture, rich flavour, and oily feel of this decadent, feather-ruffling dish. It came with strips of tomato skin garnish, and two spots of stewed plum and fig puree, the perfect accompaniment to the buttery foie.

The service was excellent, and our Khmer waitress was as knowledgeable and passionate about the food, as she was insistent with her recommendations. And I felt so sorry for her when the comedy moment came, and she knocked over my wine glass, leaving the tablecloth looking like a butcher’s apron. She kept apologising over and over, and the more we made light of it, the more she seemed to despise herself.

My main of onglet a l‘echalotte ($9.50) had come highly recommended by our server – who said it was far superior to the girlie filet de boeuf ($9.50). It’s a ropey-textured cut (skirt steak in English, hanger stake in Ameriglish) from the cow’s kidney area and packed full of offal-like flavour. It was beautifully rare, which it has to be or it gets far too chewy, and was topped with a mountain of sliced shallots fried in the pan juices.

It came with cauliflower, green beans and carrot that were just the right side of crisp, and a tower of gratin dauphinoise that was beautifully creamy if a little under seasoned. The peppercorn sauce was very good, not overly spiced, and with all the richness of a good béarnaise-style base. Whoever was slaving away at the stove – presumably the owner who’d answered the phone and given us directions in French as we padded up and down Street 15 – clearly knew what they were doing.

My friend’s main of magret de canard ($9.50) was wonderful too. He’d asked for medium, and the duck breast came in pale pink slices, with the same vegetable garnish, and was full of gamey flavour. He chose red wine sauce that could have been reduced a tad more to remove the acidity, but was still good.

For afters, our waitress recommended the raw milk camembert ($3.50) – which was beautifully punchy and just starting to grow legs. And the reblochon ($3.50) had a nutty flavour, with a faint, earthy, musky taste of truffles. They were such generous portions, it would cost you more buying them from the swag bag carriers at Lucky Supermarket. Not that you’d get that quality there.

There was nothing pompous about the place at all. The owner, who looked happy and well-oiled, came through after service and shook everyone’s hand with a cheery “bon soir”. He was clutching a mysterious potion, and two saucers with what looked like a marshmallow in each. He poured a few drops in and they sprouted into white sausages. What fiendish trickery and bolts of bedevilment? We both stared.

“It same as thiz,” he said, pointing at the napkin on my lap. We wiped our faces and were engulfed in menthol. He was soon pouring us home-made strawberry vodka that was so thick it could have been happily up-ended without fear of spillage. We then moved on to Calvados, which was the perfect end to a wonderful meal.

We left with a Ready Brek glow, feeling very happy and full. The owner shook our hands again on the way out. “Did you cook the meal?” I asked. “Me! No way! She did,” he said, pointing at a pretty Khmer woman sitting on a moped. We thanked her several times until it became embarrassing. ”I wonder if she’s married,” my friend asked, as we loaded our guns and headed back out into the hood.

Chez Gaston, #76, Street 15, Phnom Penh (Tel: 077 910 945). Meal for two, including drinks and service: $70

Celebrity Chefs’ Farts: The 2013 Food Trend Everyone Missed

2013-01-04T02:56:00.000-08:00

After being bombarded with endless listicles predicting food trends for 2013, I wonder if there’s one that’s been left off? Or let off. And by that, I mean celebrity chefs’ farts. Perhaps sealed in vac-pack bags and poached gently in a sous vide water bath at exactly 37.2C for 37 minutes and then carefully unsealed at the table to be sniffed eagerly while licking a shit-caked brick served by a cook who talks about himself in the third person?

Eau de Heston? Ramsay No.5? And what about an iPod playing the actual sound of the famous chef’s trump that created such a umami-bubbling bouquet as thrill-seeking, trendsetter diners tuck into the food his slaves have cooked in his own name?

I’m joking, of course, but it does give me the opportunity to point out once again how many bullying, megalomaniac, deviant psychos you’ll find in professional kitchens. I wrote about this in my book Down And Out In Padstow And London about the insane characters you find behind the stove and the abuse they regularly inflict on their staff.

But I was still surprised to read about the actions of an apparently fairly well-known American chef who started out on a culinary mission five years ago to fart on every one of his 37 employees - including his accountant - and to chronicle his attacks in some sort of bilious journal, the same way a stalker might keep disturbingly detailed, breathless notes of interactions with victims.

The mystery carrot chopper claims to have had one or two shows on something called the Food Network, which narrows him down to about 100,000 and counting, because everyone’s a celebrity chef now aren’t they. You only have to do a quick news search on Google to find idiots you’ve never heard of donating mince pies they’ve incredibly made themselves - in their own time, and out of the very goodness of their heart - for some charitable cause and a few lines in the local paper.

The chef, who claims to have a restaurant in New York’s Meatpacking District, apparently even has a colour code for the offending farts he forced his employees to inhale, and has recorded his parps in a “rant and rave” section on Craigslist.

In the first strike, inflicted on a lowly kitchen worker on January 21 2008, he says: “It was hot as hell in the kitchen that night, sometimes I like to turn off the air conditioning to give my staff a bit of a stir, it makes their blood flow, their tempers flash, but for some reason, their discomfort turns out better quality food.

“So with all the air off, there is no air flow in our downstairs kitchen, and its small and cramped and really, really fucking hot, even in January. We have our plates in the warmer under our pass, so i was helping my hot apps guy plate a new fungi misti when it happened.

“He had the pan in his right hand, and we both reached to bend over to get the hot plate, i got there first, so he inhaled the entire hot air load that i let roar out of my pants. It was bold, loud, and completely unapologetic...”

He was so delighted, he decided to fart on the rest of his kitchen crew in alphabetical order of their surnames. One by one. And two days ago, his quest was complete.

“I think it took them out of whatever musical they thought they were living in, and made them alive, made them smell, made them want to throw up for a valid reason,” he muses.

“I think all farts should have a color assigned to them, because you know when that one fart comes out and lingers in the air and wont leave, I mean its obvious that is a green fart. Everyone should know this by now, its even documented in cartoons.

“A red fart is a spicy one, probably incurred by some type of spicy ethnic food with a great amount of chilis and onions. A yellow fart, well these are worse on the farter, than they are on the fartee. These are sick farts, the ones that are on the verge of being sharts. Just imagine the fart that comes after downing like gallon of vodka, eating like 5 gyros on st. marks, then bagging a hooker named natasha, who acts like she is from russia etc etc.”

The chef - who describes himself as “definitely known in and around NYC” and brags that he has had “several specials on foodnetwork (sic)” - promises to detail the story of each fart over the next 37 days. Well, he would have done if his odious postings hadn’t already been removed by Craigslist. If his tales are true, let’s hope there were lawyers reading...

Paris Bistro Cooking 6,200 Miles From France

2012-12-24T09:34:00.001-08:00

There is a book called The Art Of Simple French Cookery by Alexander Watt, a notorious gourmet who spent much of his life lounging around in Gallic restaurants, which perfectly captures the essence of the Parisian bistro in the 1950s.

No doubt beginning his day with pastis, moving on to red wine, and then finishing the night on brandy, Watt would gorge himself on bistro classics such as poularde Marie-Louise, boeuf en gelee, rognons a la moutarde, gibelotte de lapin, and always a plate of seasonal cheeses.

The accounts of his “gastronomic peregrinations” are a joy to read, as is his book, Paris Bistro Cookery, which adjoins the back of The Art Of Simple French Cookery like an upside down Siamese twin. As you flick through the pages, you can picture Watt swaying in the doorway of tiny Parisian kitchens, disrupting service as he scrawls into a grease-spattered notebook.

And something tells me he would have approved of La P’tite France, 6,200 miles away in Phnom Penh, and the cooking of its chef-owner Didier. I wasn’t lucky enough to go to his original, much smaller venue, just off the Riverside. But foodies fondly recall it as a typical bistro – friendly, cramped, tables pushed together, noise and tobacco smoke drifting over the cheeseboards. They recall with gluttonous, lip-smacking memories, the splendid simplicity of the dishes – always a severer test of a kitchen’s ability than the fancy stuff.

La P’tite France has since moved to a beautiful villa on Street 306, and people who know tell me the food is even better. But everything comes at a cost – in this case a less chirpy, more formal ambience, they say. So it was with these thoughts and the longing for Gallic classics like confit duck, terrines, and oysters flown in from France, as our tuk tuk arrived at the plush gates and garish pink sign of Didier’s new home.

For 8pm on a Saturday night, business was steady rather than busy, and we chose a table on the patio giving a glimpse of the Khmer chefs in their whites beavering away in the kitchen. Around us sat pudgy, well-dressed French men doing what they do best – discussing food while gorging themselves like foie gras geese to a chorus of ooh la las.

There were specials on the blackboard – including tripe and scallops – but sadly they’d sold out of oysters, which our waiter said arrive every Friday.

The service was smooth and brisk, and a little plate of amuse bouche quickly arrived – two slices of baguette topped with tomato, olive, and melted cheese that were a little ordinary, and certainly not needed considering the enormous portions that followed.

My $5.25 starter of marrow bone gratin with toast and a saucer of fleur de sel was exquisite. The gooey, oozing, fatty, beef shin marrow melted in your mouth and was a reminder – at half the price and far more generous – of the similar signature dish at St John restaurant in London, which food writer Anthony Bourdain claims is the best dish he’s eaten.

My friend’s starter of whelks with garlic mayonnaise ($6.25) was very good too – no trace of grit, and a wonderful, fresh, fossily taste of the sea. But if I were to be properly critical, the garlic should have been chopped much finer, and the aioli was lacking in the richness it should deliver in its perfect form.

Mon Dieu this man knows his onions though. And that view was confirmed by the main courses. Each part was a model of how it should be cooked, with such assurance, such taste, and such old-fashioned virtue.

My $11.50 braised pork shank with cep confit, sitting on a bed of choucroute, and winged by two turned potatoes, was enormous and fell apart as I dug in. It was an exceptional dish and showcased every part of Didier’s cooking skills.

My friend kept uttering appreciative noises as he ate his $12.50 braised lamb shank nestled on creamy flageolet beans, steeped in garlic. It came with a ramekin of fiery Tunisian harissa paste that brought the whole dish alive.

Our bellies bursting, and with the true taste of France dancing on our taste buds, we looked at the dessert menu, boasting dark chocolate mousse, poached pears, tarte tatin et al. But as any French cook will tell you, every good Gallic meal should end with cheese, so we shared a platter ($6.50) that came with a roof-of-the-mouth-etching Roquefort that would have made King Charles VI proud, and certainly the finest French bread – baked daily by Didier and his crew – I can remember having in Asia.

By golly it was an incredible meal. The cooking was sublime, and the only downside was the eagerness of the well-drilled, immaculately-turned-out Khmer waiters to snatch our plates at every opportunity. It’s certainly not a place for night owls or loiterers. By 10pm we were the last table to clear, and felt slightly hurried to vacate that beautiful, rare spot of leafy sanctuary in the steamy streets of Phnom Penh.

The frogmarching, if you will, aside, I’d heartily recommend it to food lovers, and anyone wanting a romantic notion of what it must have been like before French colonialists were finally booted out of Cambodia. A pocket of history, a pocket of gastronomic excellence. It may not have the informal, neighbourhood dive ambience of a true bistro, but I know Watt would have greeted the cooking with appreciate applause.

La P’tite France, #38, Street 306, Phnom Penh, 016 64 26 30. Meal for two, including drinks and service: $65

:: My bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London is available in paperback and Kindle

To read an edited extract published in Caterer and Hotelkeeper Magazine click here...

Comedy In Cambodia

2012-12-24T08:50:00.000-08:00

A comedy review I wrote for Khmer 440...

It was all arranged at the last minute when comic Aidan Killian – who some reviewer had dubbed “Ireland’s answer to Bill Hicks” – visited a friend in Phnom Penh, who got in touch with Khmer 440’s resident poet Ned Kelly, who phoned Donald Trump, and last night’s Comedy Club Cambodia show was borne.

But timing and the secret of great comedy aside, it was always going to be a hard gig to pull off, living up to the brilliance of Glenn Wool last month. And it wasn’t helped by the move of venue from Pontoon to Doors, an uber-trendy tapas and cocktail bar, north of Wat Phnom, even if it did have the same banging tunes from DJ Bree.

But it wasn’t just that. Sometimes, like with Wool, you need a weaker comedian to make the next one look good. And when there’s only one, the pressure is on and you’ve got to perform – or at least hone your material to the audience.

Unfortunately, jokes about the bleakness of austerity-hit Ireland seemed a million miles away from booming Asia. And a comic that ever utters “that deserves a clap” should never get one. To be fair, he wasn’t given the best start, plagued by a dodgy sound system that could barely be heard at the back of the room.

What could be heard at the back of the room was a cacophony of chat that swept over the audience like a humour-poisoning miasma, and your man had to keep prompting the crowd into an amusing barrage of “Hey you at the back – shut the fuck up!”

Continue reading here...

KFC Chickens 'Fed So Many Illegal Hormones They Are Unable To Walk'

2012-12-18T22:28:00.000-08:00

There is a view in Asia that famous fast food brands from the West are subjected to more rigorous food health standards than their Asian competitors. There is apparently a trust among consumers instilled by Colonel Sander’s and Ronald McDonald’s smiling faces, and the premium attached to such brands.

But this reputation has been damaged by Chinese state TV reports that chickens served at KFC and McDonald’s restaurants in China have been fed illegal, toxic drugs and kept under constant lights to make them grow faster, and thereby provide more profits for their unscrupulous producers.

China Central Television’s investigation, which it said was based on a year of undercover reporting, alleged that some of KFC's suppliers in Shandong had given at least 18 kinds of antibiotics to chickens to keep them healthy. The birds also had lights turned on around the clock to make them eat constantly, with a chicken growing from 30g to 3.5kg in just 40 days.

A farmer in Gaomi told CCTV he would also mix a hormone into the feed and the birds would become so fat that some were unable to walk. Another farmer said they had to change antibiotics periodically after chickens developed resistance to the drugs.

They said their chickens were bought by the Liuhe Group, which is based in Qingdao, and reportedly sells 40 tonnes of chicken a month to KFC's Chinese subsidiary. When the chickens were sent to be slaughtered, workers would fabricate records about how they were raised before they were shipped off to KFC’s parent company, Yum Brands, which also owns Pizza Hut.

KFC said it would co-operate with Chinese authorities in investigating the reports and would punish its suppliers harshly if they had fed antiviral drugs and growth hormones to its chickens.

"KFC attaches great importance to the contents of the media report and will actively co-operate with the relevant government departments' investigation," KFC said. "If (we) find out that our suppliers have conducted any illegal activity, (we) will handle it strictly.”

It was an about turn from last month, when a Yum Brands spokesman dismissed as "untrue" reports that some KFC chickens in China were being fed toxic additives.

McDonald's said its chicken and raw materials pass through independent, third-party laboratory tests. "Our chicken products comply with stringent food quality standards and comply with the relevant government standards. Please, everyone, don't worry about eating it," a spokesman for the Golden Arches pleaded.

China has struggled to rein in health violations in its vast food sector despite repeated pledges to deal with the problem. The country has been plagued by news reports of fake cooking oil, tainted milk - and even watermelons that explode from absorbing too much fertiliser.

:: My bestselling food book Down And Out In Padstow And London is available in eBook and paperback.