Sunday 25 January 2015

Great cookery classes at L'atelier des Chefs



Love cooking and eating? Then you'll love the cooking classes at L'atelier des Chefs. There are a variety of classes, and they cater for individuals, groups, corporate events. So whether you're there to hone your own skills, or there to do 'team building', there's a class for you.




I recently went to two classes - pasta making ('fresh pasta') and steak cookery ('cook the perfect steak') - and both were great fun! Good times were had and the food tasted great.

The Chef was a great teacher. It's not easy to look after a class of (around 10) strangers, but he struck the balance well - friendly, helpful, patient and informative.

The Chef giving us a demo of the pasta machine.

The pasta class involved making the pasta dough from scratch, rolling it out, turning it into tortellini and ravioli, making the filling and the sauce.  The class took about two hours but the time went by real quick. We then finished the night by eating our own food - tasty! This was the result...


My second class involved cooking the perfect steak...and making a cheesecake. As with the pasta class, everything was cooked from scratch, including the potatoes, garlic butter, caramel and piping the cheese. While it was not the most technically demanding course, it was still great fun and the results were excellent - both dishes tasted excellent. Best steak in London that night? Maybe!



Hopefully it won't be long before I get to go to another class. They have a 'knife skills' class and I've recently acquired a rather sharp Japanese knife from Kataba, and I'd like to be able to get the most out of it. Watch this space...



Tuesday 6 January 2015

Eat Tokyo - Holborn, London

Eat Tokyo was recommended to me as a place for decent yet affordable Japanese food and sushi.  I've since been to Eat Tokyo a couple of times and I have to say that that description is accurate in my opinion.  Both times have been busy, so other diners must agree!


My group and I ordered a mixture of sushi, sashimi and cooked Japanese food to get a good taste of what's on offer. 

The mixed sashimi platter was fresh and nicely presented, though the actual raw fish head may put off some diners (not me!).



I ordered a bento box with tempura prawns and vegetables as my main dish. The tempura was crispy, salad fresh, and the rice filling.  This was accompanied with sushi with fried prawn in the middle - so tasty!


It's no surprise that Eat Tokyo has won sushi awards before (most recently at the Eat Japan Sushi Awards 2013).  I'll definitely be visiting again at some point in 2015!

Eat Tokyo on Urbanspoon