Café de Mort - Remember A Charity

Well, I am still here. A week or so has passed and I am still here. And you know what? I knew I would pretty much handle anything that Café de Mort could throw at me. Fugu Sashimi? Pah, I thrive on tetrodotoxin. Kluwak nut pasta? I take hydrogen cyanide with my tea. Ghost Naga? I keep a supply in the shower for a bit of a scrub down; nothing beats a bit of a tingle first thing in the morning to enliven the senses. Stings a bit when I go for a wee afterwards but yeehaw, bring it on. Nah, I scoff at Café de Mort, a pop-up organised by Remember A Charity. Was that really the worst you could do? Ha!

Actually, I forgot all about the Snake wine. Oh dear god, the S s sss sss nake wine *shakely wipes brow with handkerchief*

OK, we'll come to that in a minute.

So yes, I found myself wandering around the dark, dank environs of a church crypt last week faced with the prospect of sampling one of the deadliest menus known to man and I have to admit, I was grateful for the prandial fizz and absinthe to steady the nerves before sitting down. You might think that a hallucinatory dalliance with the Green Fairy is the last thing you should be doing when standing in a mouldering, crumbling, brick-lined cavern; which not so long ago housed hundreds of putrefying, decaying, mummified bodies. But it helped a great deal. Besides, I had a lovely chat with great-nanny Alice.

Of course, being enveloped within this rather morbid atmosphere was precisely the point for holding a pop up in a crypt in the first place. The main verve and thrust of the Remember a Charity campaign is to encourage people to consider leaving money to a charity in their will. Standing in a place, where many souls were once laid to rest, certainly focused the mind and made you contemplate what should happen when one finally shuffles off their mortal coil. Wills, in my experience, can be messy affairs; so perhaps it is best to leave most of your wedge to a worthwhile cause, rather than have it split members of the family. I know I should sort out one of my own and think about leaving a portion to charity, not that I've accumulated much cash so far mind. Still, I thought about all of this quite solemnly, whilst staring, wide-eyed at a curious stain on the floor.

Thankfully, this existential musing over mortality didn't last long, as we were sat quite promptly to face the prospect of self-poisoning. Which is a bit of a paradox but there you go. The menu created by food writer Matt Day and executed by chef Errol Defoe, though purposefully intimidating, was actually quite harmless and quite delicious. Led by the aforementioned Fugu, that famous pufferfish dish where one mistimed slip of the tako hiki by an inexperienced hand could leave you brown bread, the food was fun, quirky and very enjoyable to eat. Curried Ackee Pattie with Ghost Chilli delivered just the slightest burn so chef must have been sparing. The Kluwak nut pasta with False Morels was intensely savoury. Macaroons (huge) with unpasteurized bitter Almond Cream and Elderberry Coulis were sticky and sweet. And the Peanut, Cacoa and Nutmeg Sweetbreads delivered a crunchy hit of soothing theobromine at the end.

The accompanying drinks were a touch on the hit and miss side, as some of the mixology spiralled slightly out of control but I did really enjoy the Bloody Hell Mary, made with poitin. Probably because I am one sixteenth Irish or something. But the Snake Wine..............

Yes, we need to talk about snake wine. Now, as I claimed at the start, I sort of pride myself on being able to ingest anything. There is nothing I won't try but if I never, ever have to take just the merest sip of snake wine ever, ever again, then that is absolutely fine by me. Because it is disgusting. With a capital D. Apparently, it is the sort of the drink that helps refresh the lead in your pencil, if you get my meaning.

However, I don't believe any of it

What I do believe is that somewhere, in a small village in Vietnam, there is a group of small, elderly men who regularly take a thick, brown piss in this enormous vat. It is then left to ferment and steep and coagulate and then gets watered down and syphoned off into ornamental bottles. A rotting snake and a scorpion gets thrown into the bottle for good measure, to add a certain mysticism and then it gets sold off to unsuspecting punters in the West. And these old guys are laughing. I can picture them now and I can see their bright, toothless smiles, wide open and full of mischievous joy, that people have bought into their cure for erectile dysfunction.

Ugh.

That aside, I really enjoyed myself in the company of others last week and I am only too glad to help promote the spread of wealth once we become worm food. Or get shot into space. Or whatever. And I would like to thank Dogs Trust for sponsoring my place at the table. Dogs are for life naturally, but they could also do with help from folk who enter the afterlife.

One last thing though. I have to say that I was most disappointed that Gregg Wallace, the face and patron of this latest campaign, wasn't there himself on the second evening of the pop-up, as I was looking forward to meeting him. But perhaps after undergoing the rigours and stresses of testing and tasting such a deadly menu, he needed the well deserved rest. After all, he has lost a lot of weight and has been looking decidedly peaky lately. Get well soon Gregg!

Remember a charity in your will

 Fugu Sashimi with Ponzu

 Curried Ackee Pattie with Ghost Chilli

 Kluwak nut pasta with False Morels

 Macaroons, unpasteurized bitter Almond Cream and Elderberry Coulis

 Peanut, Cacao and Nutmeg Sweetbreads

Hole where the last occupants tried to break out

He's deid!

Disgusting

Stir Wars - The Photos

I was supposed to be publishing a witty little post about a lovely lunch I had with my good wife at Pizarro on Food Urchin today. But due to unforeseen circumstances and possible human error, the farking piece which I spent lots of time farking writing, wrangling and rambling over seems to have farking deleted itself causing much untold grief and farking apoplexy. FOR FARKING FARKS SAKE!

Thank God there were no cats around to kick when that happened this morning.*

So by way of composing the blogging equivalent of a test card (please do not adjust your sets) I have decided to put up some lovely photos from the charity Stir Wars event wot I was involved with at the start of the month and to give some long overdue thanks to our sponsors.

The night, though stressful in parts, was a roaring success. Well everyone who came to dine, dress up and exercise their grey matter over a very tough Star Wars quiz (courtesy of Big Spud) seemed to have a good time. But then again, front of house Jedi Masters, Osh and Phil from The Ship did keep everyone well plied with booze. All in all we managed to raise £1600 for Make A Wish Foundation which is an excellent achievement and may well prompt the Stir Wars crew to do another night in the not so distance future. Although next time it might come in the form of Indiana Jones tribute. Monkeys brains anyone?

For the record, my most memorable and personal moment of the evening came when a real life and slightly rotund Darth Vader came striding into Tsuru with a bevvy of Stormtroopers. At that precise moment, the little boy inside, the one who cherished his VHS copies of the original trilogy, all taped at Christmas, who used to spend hours in the garden re-enacting the final Ewok assault on Endor and who used to jump about the sofas in the living room with a home-made, cardboard and ultimately flimsy light saber, well, he did a little wee of excitement in his y-fronts.

As for when the deep fat fryer which died on him during service, well he shit his pants when that happened.

Big thanks go to all these sponsors and donors, without their help, we could not have made the night happen.

And an extra big thanks to the official Stir Wars photographer, Ozzy............I have forgotten your surname........for taking some most excellent pictures of the evening and for letting me replicate them here.

(There are more here btw.)































* I have not and never would, ever kick a cat in anger or frustration. Maybe a chinchila but never a cat.

Delicious by DS5 with Tim Anderson

Gone In 60 Seconds

Temptation is seductive mistress and she can appear in many guises and just lately, she seems to be appearing a lot in my life. And I am not just talking about an alluring packet of chocolate digestives that lies in wait, on the shelf, ready to spring whenever you open the cupboard. Or about the leg of roast chicken that beckons to you, coyly, amidst the soft, yellow glow of the fridge in the midnight hour. This is not Nigella. No, I am talking about inducement of solicitous kind, the sort of temptation that will get you into trouble, big trouble, enough to get you banged up. So, with that in mind, I am truly grateful to the PR girl from Citroën for snatching the keys away from me last week because I would have done it, I would have pinched their brand new shiny DS5 and screeched it off the drive, off into the sunset, never to be seen again. But thankfully that didn't happen. All because my driving license is just out of date and some Suzy sharp eyes spotted it just in time. Sh*t.

What the hell am I going on about?

Well, last week I was invited to attend a preview lunch in opulent Dulwich as Citroën are to be proud sponsors of charitable pop up restaurant called Delicious by DS5 and the main man at the helm will none other than Tim Anderson, winner of BBC MasterChef 2011. The premise is that Tim and his cohorts will present a five course menu based upon the five senses at a secret location in trendy Shoreditch and tickets for the event will cost a paltry five pounds. And from there on, all profits will go towards Fareshare, a very worthwhile charity that aims to fight food poverty in this country and educate nutrition by redistributing surplus food which, inexcusably, often heads for landfill sites. And naturally, Citroën are launching their brand new car, the aforementioned DS5 in conjunction with the whole shebang, which brings me neatly back to the 'incident'.

You see for the first part of the proceedings, the assembled bloggers had to go off on a scavenger hunt around Dulwich to bring back ingredients for two of the dishes we were going to sample, ubiquitously named Aromas of Syrah and Taste of Beef. Now the concept of scavenging in Dulwich is probably a bit of a misnomer, especially as the crib sheet said we had to find a delicatessen and a farm shop, although I am sure the bins in the village are full of fine fare. And we had to do this using a map and our very own DS5 to drive. The keys were handed over to me and then I paused. I did just mention 10 minutes earlier that I shouldn't be driving because my licence was just out of date and could therefore cause a severe lapse on the insurance policy. But once I squeezed into the soft, leather driving seat and took a look around at all the fancy gizmos and gadgets surrounding me, I suddenly became convinced that everything would be ok. 'It would be very unlikely that I will ever have an accident,' I said to myself, in a monotone voice and so I clicked the automatic into DRIVE.

And then tap, tap, tap, there she stood, the PR girl, like a blonde angel of mercy, politely asking me to get out of the car and into the passenger seat, because she was going to be driving.

Which was quite embarrassing really. Sh*t.

Thankfully, once we had collected our ingredients, the rest of the day went without any further hitches and it was a pleasure to spend some time in the company of Tim and partnering chef Sujan Sarkar, helping out in the kitchen and learning about some of the concepts behind the menu for the pop up. As you might expect from someone who has endured a competition that doesn't get tougher than this, Tim had quite a few tricks up his sleeve and it was interesting to see the processes employed first hand. I definitely think that Tim's aim of delivering a multi-sensual experience is going to pay off. And because there is a certain element of surprise behind all of this, I am slightly loathed to describe the dishes we sampled in detail. However, I can say the beef or the 'tasting' course, delivers an intense umami hit and that dessert or the 'aroma' course is a clever deconstruction of the flavours and characteristics of Syrah wine.

To find out more about the pop up, which will be open to members of the public from Wednesday 16th to Saturday 20th May and to be in with a chance of getting a place at the table, you need to register your interest at Citroën's Facebook page here. To be frank, five squids for five courses is a steal so this is going to be a hot ticket. Remember, it is also for a very good cause so I for one, am hoping that I will make the ballot to get a seat.

Because I really want a second chance at nicking a DS5.

Tim and Sujan

Gizmos

Scavenging with Doreen from Tasty Fever!.....................pffft.

Tim pouring

Tim smoking

Taste of Beef

Smoke gets in your eyes

Aromas of Syrah

Gone In erm 10 Seconds

Stir Wars Is Coming

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a young(ish) man found himself staring at a computer monitor, listlessly watching the rolling feed of a popular social meeja website when suddenly out of the blue, a tweet leapt from the screen which immediately captured his nerdish imagination.

"There's a Mos Eisley pop up??? A Star Wars Supper Club?? Where? WHERE??", he furiously tapped away.

Yet apparently, as is often the case, the young(ish) man got his wires completely crossed. There was no such thing but Gail Doggett, the originator of the mistaken tweet, responded by saying "Hey but that's not a bad idea." And then into action sprung a flurry of conversation which propelled the concept forward via a freefall spiral of enthusiasm, goading and games of 'chicken'. Within 10 minutes or so, a council of Jedi Knights was formed and suddenly Stir Wars: a Night at the Death Star Cantina was born, a charity event that would a) hopefully raise some money for a good cause and b) indulge our geeky fantasies of eating tauntaun whilst dressed as Boba Fett.

But like I said, that was a long time ago and the night of feeding 40 fellow fans has come around around rather quickly. Too quickly possibly, the menu has yet to be final, finally, finalised. Although it will be up very soon, promise. However, one thing I can tell you is that it will be fun. A great night in fact. Tauntaun will definitely be served up. Baby bantha ribs too. Han Solo may or may not appear in time for dessert, it really does depend upon whether the team can free him successfully from carbonite. But Darth Vader is definitely showing up with some Stormtroopers in tow. Will he be giving us a cooking masterclass, showing how to make his classic Penne alla Arrabiatta? Mind you, he looks like he's pretty crap in the kitchen if you ask me. But don't tell him I said tha........................arrrrgghhh death grip!!! ACK!! THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE!!................*chokes*.......................*dies*


Stir Wars: a Night at the Death Star Cantina will be held at Tsuru, Bishopsgate on May 5th, 2012.

There are FOUR tickets left. WE HAVE NOW SOLD OUT

May the Force be with you.