Summer in London for me invariably means going to A Taste of London in Regents Park. My friend and I have been regular attendees at this four-day food festival since it kicked off in 2004. Usually we go to one of the evening sessions for dinner with our husbands.
This year we ditched our husbands for a lunch instead. In all honesty, our husbands were cramping our style. They would show up late from work and then insist on having only burgers, such as the foie gras burger from Opera Tavern. Drinks were limited to beer and conversation to complaining about work. Boring.
For this year’s A Taste of London, the weather was pretty good – occasional glimpses of sun were spotted. Definitely better than previous years where on occasion it has bucketed down with rain. It is an English summer after all.
All that intermittent sunshine called for drinks!
We skipped the Bloody Mary class at the Ketel One Vodka Bloody Mary workshop and went straight to the drink. Who wants to learn when I’ve ditched the family and have a free sunny afternoon? Certainly not moi.
Then there was the Havana Club who wanted to teach you how to make mojitos. What’s up with all this learning? Just give me the drink, for heaven’s sake.
What would summer in England be without Pimms? Just another rainy day.
Let’s not forget Lovo – a new drink I tried for the first time which is coconut water mixed with vodka. It was delicious and low in calories. My kind of combination.
I also loved the Lychee Cooler (Grey Goose, Lychee juice and coconut milk) from SushiSamba.
Just in case you thought all we did was drink, we also nibbled our way through a delicious sampling of food from some of London’s best restaurants. There was the pulled pork sausage roll from Chop Shop, crusted prawns from the Modern Pantry, roast duck and mantou bun from Chai Wu, and bacon-wrapped dates and manchego cheese from Duck & Waffle.
The Spanish restaurant Ametsa with Arzak Instruction loves their Iberico ham so much they gave it a bread pillow. All ham should be so lucky, but then not all ham is served up by a one Michelin star restaurant.
This picture I tweeted about the black cod and crayfish dumplings from Roka won a prize. Fortune favours the tipsy and gluttonous.
Congratulations @justgo_places1 You won a prize! You’ll be one of the first to sample our Kaitetsu cocktail pairing menu! #TasteRoka
— Roka Aldwych (@RokaAldwych) June 19, 2015
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