Taste Festival Regents Park

[Neil_H]

Anyone going? We've got VIP tickets for tomorrow but don't really know what to expect - hopefully some great food.

http://www.tastefestivals.com/london/

website said:

How many Michelin star restaurants can you eat your way round in one day? That’s the challenge that some of the world’s top chefs are setting this year at Taste of London. The sell-out event returns to Regent’s Park this June 18-21 as 40 of the capital’s best restaurants get together to give foodies the gourmet day of their lives. Over four full days of top level feasting, the chefs will dish out their signature hits, debuting new ones and sharing all their kitchen secrets. The time has come to make your reservation at the world’s greatest restaurant festival.

Anyoe been before?

[GavGav]

Yep, went 2 years ago. Went to the Bath one last year.

Fantastic day out for foodies. I'm sure you're already aware, but you get "Crowns" to spend on foods from various restaurants. Most stalls will have dishes for 2, 3 or 4 crowns, so you can try several different outlets. Plenty of small, independent producers selling everything food related - kitchen gadgets, cheese, chutney, ciders, you name it. Everywhere lets you try tasters too. We came back with bags of assorted pates, biscuits, oils, dressings.

Always a few demonstrations too - we saw Gary Rhodes doing Baileys creme brulee. You tend to rub shoulders with some well known chefs.

The VIP pass just seems to get you a glass of bubbly on arrival and a few extra crowns. We were a bit shocked to get kicked out at 4pm (they close 4pm until 5pm for cleaning, restocking etc) and told we had to pay to get back in at 5pm! Luckily Mrs GG has plenty of contacts and a phone call later we slipped back in.

We made a weekend of it - went to the Pigalle Club for dinner in the evening, which I can heartily recommend. If you're in to your food, you should love it.

Let us know how it goes!

[whitechief]

I'm off there tonight with the Mrs. We are doing the Laurent Perrier champagne and sea food tasting and have the VIP thing, whatever that is. I'm really looking forward to it.

[whitechief]

We had a great time , I met Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and had a chat. We both enjoyed some great food, the highlight for me was Atul Kochhar's (met him too) soft shell crab with citrus dressing and his tandoor smoked lamb chops with mint chutney, both delicious.
I had the Wagyu beef and champagne teriyaki from Cocoon and was a bit disappointed in it really I was expecting great things from this beef and it just wasn't great

A total of 36 restaurants represented so plenty of choice, most stalls the food was 8-10 crowns or £4-5 so not outrageous given the quality of cuisine. Lots of cookery demonstrations from top chefs, all in all a good day out

Edited by whitechief on Saturday 20th June 15:37

[grumbledoak]

I've been in the past and enjoyed it. But this year it looked like £25 per head just to walk around, which I thought was excessive. So, we're skipping it.

[Neil_H]

whitechief said:

tandoor smoked lamb chops with mint chutney, both delicious.
I had the Wagyu beef and champagne teriyaki from Cocoon and was a bit disappointed in it really I was expecting great things from this beef and it just wasn't great

We had both of those as well, the lamb chops were excellent! I liked the champagne teriyaki wagyu, but the portion was very, very small. Granted, it was just a taster dish but I'd still expect more than five 10p-sized slices.

The wagyu with ponzu from Dinings was better, and their chilli black cod and prawns were excellent too. Best value was Mango Tree, we had a couple from there which were good dishes and big portions

We also had our bubbly in the BA lounge Great day out.

[prand]

I liked the look of this, but jeez that TV ad is awful. Those quips from old hairy cleft lip going "it'th va best of bwitish" and a couple of punters going "it's terrific fun, mwah mwah!"

I'll keep an eye out for it next year though, see igf I can swing some VIP tix.