London Oyster Tasting, Oyster Festival & SO Much More

Oyster Tasting, Rabbit Terrine & Terrific Steak. And Foie Gras and Crème Caramel. And More.

London is falling back in love with oysters. Of course, there have always been individuals here who have been willing to hunt down a regular supply and pay for the privilege. But the new wave of interest in oysters goes beyond the generic and is reaching out for the plethora of scents and flavours that are produced by the oysters’ species, environment and the season you're eating them in, and this is making oysters a more accessible treat. I can't tell you what good news this discovery is for me, having recently moved to London from France, especially as the current interest is focussed on UK-produced specimens.

As part of their Oyster Festival (November 2011 – April 2012), Boisdale and Wright Brothers teamed up to host the Oyster Tasting Championships 2011. A panel of epicurean judges picked six winners, including three native and three rock:

Rock Category
Gold – Poole, Dorset supplied by Dorset Oysters
Silver – Maldon Rock supplied by Maldon Oysters
Bronze – Portland supplied by Fleet Oyster Farm, Dorset

Native Category
Gold – Loch Ryan supplied by Rossmore Oysters
Silver – Duchy of Cornwall supplied by Wright Brothers
Bronze – Maldon supplied by Maldon Oysters


Native oysters at Boisdale


For the duration of the festival all Boisdale restaurants and Wright Brothers Soho are serving all six winners on Boisdale’s ‘Six Medal Plate’, so oyster lovers - or anyone who is curious - can enjoy a tasting session of their own. It’s the only way to fully appreciate the differences between each variety. They are also half price from 5-6pm Monday to Friday during the festival.

This will take us a little further along the way towards oysters becoming commonplace and therefore more accessible for everyone (cheaper). Not that I want to devalue the wonderous oyster or its farmer - but a booming mainstream industry would fund itself nicely.

Anyway, I went to try the platter of winners at Boisdales in Canary Wharf, and had a great time. The only drawback as an oyster-explorer was that we weren’t able to establish which oyster was which. Boisdale & Wright Brothers, can your chefs supply labels? I’ll gladly go back and try them again, possibly on multiple occasions, if my oysters came labelled. I want to not only taste the difference but learn which one tastes of what, please.

Way More Than Just Oysters

For me, an oyster-tasting session is extremely exciting in itself.

Foie gras is also enough to animate me, and ditto top-notch steak. So, I was quite overwhelmed by consuming the following menu at Boisdales, after the oysters:

Generous slice of foie gras (sadly a bit over-cooked for my taste but nice to have anyway) with a truly fantastic rabbit terrine, containing all sorts of perfectly placed surprises, like pistachios and fruit.

Wonderful rare filet steak and trimmings – can’t remember the trimmings as the steak stole the show, just as it should.

Delicious (if inappropriate after such a heavy meal) crème caramel with a rich chantilly.

Each course was served with a well-matched wine, starting with champagne with nibbles and finishing up on sauternes with dessert.

Re-discovering French Markets

One of the reasons I moved to France and one of the things I still enjoy most about life here is the markets. Having written about them several times before, and been to them hundreds of times, I found myself assuming that people have had enough of reading about them. But each visit to the market is different, and if I hadn’t been going to French markets all this time, I would still want to read about them!

So…

This morning was frozen and frosty as I drove to the market. There were some wisps of mist, but I could tell that it wouldn’t be long before the sun broke through with full force.

I hadn’t intended to buy anything at the market; I just needed to get a card from a shop. But then I decided to do some market-watching and enjoy a chocolatine (the southern word for ‘pain au chocolat’) with a milky coffee. I bought my buttery chocolatine from a fantastic bakery in a market square (there are a number of market squares in Périgueux), sat outside the café next door, and ordered my coffee.

By now, the sun had indeed broken through, and I had to take my coat off. Bright blue skies and hot sun in February – after heavy frost in the morning – love it!

I tore off a piece of flakey, gooey chocolatine and dipped it in my coffee. As I put it in my mouth and looked up, I noticed that the couple on the next table were ordering glasses of muscadet. ‘How nice’, I thought.

I had my back to the café, tables on either side, the market stalls and covered market a few metres in front of me. Directly opposite was a stall selling mainly oysters – all different varieties and sizes – along with a few other shellfish. The oyster-seller was opening oysters, the liquid pouring out of each one – and putting them directly on a big platter. Even as I was eating my sweet breakfast, my mouth started watering for oysters.

Other stalls were selling bread baked in a wood-fired oven, garden produce, farm eggs, cheeses, sausages, chickens with their gizzards displayed, skinned rabbits, huge bunches of seasonal herbs, rotisserie chicken dripping tasty goodness onto roast potatoes, black puddings, foie gras, plaits of garlic, flowers, olives…. And much, much more. And times that by about 20, for each medieval square and cobbled alley packed with stalls, among the limestone walls of the old town.

The oyster man had filled his platter. I wondered whether it was a display or maybe he was offering free tasters that I could take advantage of. But as he walked towards me with the mound of oysters, he veered to the right and put it down in front of the couple drinking muscadet. I was quite overwhelmed with feelings of happiness, love for French culture, respect and jealousy. How brilliant that you can sit in a café and order wine, then have a plate of opened oysters delivered from the specialist stall opposite! And at 11:30 am! 11:30 is unusually early for lunch, but people do tend to relax their strict midday lunch custom for market day.

This event reawakened me to how there’s always something new to discover at the market, some new tradition, food or way of doing things. I never get tired of it. I thought, ‘I want to share this with everyone, but I don’t suppose they’d be that interested anymore’. That’s when I realised I had made subconscious assumptions about my readers, when actually they might really enjoy hearing more about the markets. Do you? Shall I keep giving you these anecdotes, or have you had enough?

A friend joined the oyster couple, and started tucking in with them. I had finished my breakfast and needed to get on, but before heading for the car, I was compelled to buy myself 6 oysters. The man gave me 7 and they cost me €4.

I drove home with the window down, feeling the heat of the sun and smelling the start of spring. But as I pulled up at home, the warm, sunny weather we have had for a week started to change, and some dark clouds started welling up around me.

Inside, I stoked up the fire, poured a glass of white wine, and began opening my oyster treasures. I took Tabasco, the pepper grinder, my plate of oysters, a wedge of lemon and my glass of wine into the lounge, and had myself an oyster picnic in front of the fire. Love market days.

Christmas 'Fruits de Mer' Frenzy

For our Christmas Eve meal, we had the most massive fruits de mer ever in the world. I doubt I’ll remember everything, but I’ll give it a go: Prawns, smoked prawns, home-dressed crab, potted shrimps, steamed mussels, oysters, clams, land snails with garlic and parsley butter, scallops cooked with breadcrumbs and herbs, shallot vinegar, homemade mayonnaise …and chips.

Palavas-Les-Flots, Near Montpellier

My birthday treat! My companion and I drove the 6 hours from my place down to the little seaside fishing town of Palavas-Les-Flots.

On the day itself, we had champagne on the beach, followed by lunch of oysters for me, lobster for him, followed by more champagne on the beach. After all that, we needed a nap, but not before we had reserved a late table on the port for my birthday supper of fruits de mer (seafood platter).




Unfortunately, we woke up at the time of our booking, and my companion takes AGES to get ready for anything. An hour later, we emerged to look for somewhere to eat, but everywhere had stopped serving. Thankfully, we found a little café that was closing up but still serving, and had a delicious meal of tender, tasty steak and chips.

We had fruits de mer for lunch one day, instead.



Montpellier is minutes up the road from Palavas, and we happened to visit on Pride Carnival day. Such a cosmopolitan, buzzing place, and very refreshing after the rural South-West. It was like Brighton but with hot sun.

Oyster Farming Village & Steak, South-West France

I got to France for the last weekend in August, and went on a road trip to the beach for a mate's birthday celebration. A big load friends that go waaay back got together for a couple of days of sun, sea, camping, booze, oysters, steak and booze. It was iconic.

One morning, feeling hungover, we cycled in the fresh morning sun to an oyster farming village, made up of lots of tiny wooden houses, with sand-filled alleyways serving as streets. After exploring the nooks, and chatting to locals, we settled at a seaside restaurant that serves only oysters and wine. My 25 or so oysters went down such a treat. After them and a few glasses of crisp white, my hangover was much more manageable, and the beating sun was calling me to the white sand beach for a nap.




One evening, we cycled through the pine woodland of the Landes national park, to go to the outdoor steak-and-chips restaurant that is a regular beach stop-off for a few of us. 20 round a long table, we were served a selection of different barbecued steaks that had been cut off the carcass just before going on the grill.




Thick, juicy, full of flavour, tender and very rare - everyone loved it! It's so refreshing to be with a big bunch of people, including a lot of Brits, with no-one being fussy about eating beef or the level of cookedness. We just ordered steak and chips for everyone, and let Fred (owner and chef at Chez Fred) do what he does so well.



After putting away my own body weight in meat, chips, ice-cream, wine and cognac, the cycle home in the dark, through woodland, on a narrow path, with no proper lights was a challenge. I wobbled around, couldn't manage to cycle in a straight line, squealed a few times and might have had a tiny tantrum, but I was glad of the ride (and sober) by the time we got back to the campsite.

The food and setting for those couple of days were heavenly, but the best thing was catching up with so many good friends. :)

Elderberry Wine and Friends, South-West France

Not really cuisine from the far corners of the planet, but definitely a gastronomic triumph, and some might find it adventurous...

My best mate Perry's been cosying up for autumn and having some culinary adventures in his own kitchen in France, with the help of wood-burners (yes, plural) and Unglum the cat (whose fave food is tomatoes, by the way). Italian heart stew, pizza dough flatbreads puffed up over a barbecue for kebabs, Moroccan meatball and egg stew, blood sausage omelet and freshly-collected oysters have been some of the mouth-watering delights on the menu over the last couple of weeks.

This is the elderberry wine the dude's been working on for two months, after collecting the berries in his garden. Perry carefully completed each stage exactly by the book, to avoid the risk of his precious potion turning to vinegar instead of alcohol. Success! It was all worth it. Now he has litres and litres of potent, fruity wine to get through. Lucky he's got good friends to help him out! See tasting notes below.

The beautiful results of weeks of careful work.


"It tastes really fruity, but not in a dodgy way, a bit like really weak ribena, but it smells wonderful. I think it should become amazing, because everything I've read says it should be undrinkable before Christmas at the earliest - maybe it's just my vin de table standards! It is certainly pretty strong even at this early stage - all I had was the glass in the picture and I really felt the effect strongly as you can probably tell from my email." - Perry Lancaster

Filipino Food Challenge

Pirran enjoyed all sorts of cuisine in the Philippines. Here's what he had to say on Skype.
Pirran D: had korean last night - kimchi etc (remember me explaining that the other day?) - well with it came these delightful little things - dried whitebait style fish, v pungent and crunchy, but coated with chilli flakes and sugar - went very well with the meal. looking forward to suckling pig on a stick, which is apparently a delicacy here.
Gemma Driver: was wondering wen i'd get my 1st update!
Pirran D: went to an amazing buffet at the shangri la hotel. it was ridic. unbelievable. i gorged myself. oysters, smoked mussels, sushi, dim sum, peking duck, pork head, chicken feet, tempura, massive crabs and shrimp
then i started getting a bit full, so missed the main course out and had 3 desert rounds instead, including thai and filipino style stuff like agar agar, beans in syrup, purple yam. oh - forgot to say - fermented duck embryo is a speciality here. i shall try to try and report back.

Well, he did. "It looked f$$$ing rank! But I obviously couldn't not try it. It didn't taste too bad, but I couldn't finish it, just coz it looked so disgusting." Watch the video, of Pirran eating balut, Filipino duck embryo street snack delicacy, straight from the shell. Unfortunately for Pirran, this particular one was not fermented. Ah well, next time...