Last week I had a brief stay in the British capital and although the weather was not that nice as during my last trip, my dining experiences were not less exciting. The first night I went out to one Michelin star Indian restaurant Benares . Unfortunately, the dishes on the menu sounded much more impressive than they tasted and looked on the plate. Also, even if the place was beautiful, it was too dark for my amateurish food pictures... (Since I’ve started writing this blog I became much more pragmatic about my dining choices. Every time I go out I face a dilemma, will there be enough light for my food pictures? Well, this time there was no. Good light is an enemy of fashionable places :))
My first dish was "crisp soft shell crab with spicy squid and
Peruvian potato salad with passion fruit dressing". The whole crab was
fried in batter and I don't remember anything stimulating about it... I
also don’t remember the Peruvian potato… It was hidden somewhere under
the fried crab… The main course I had was sea bass in coconut sauce. It
was ok, but nothing special either. The skin on the fish created some
kind of pretentiousness but I don’t think that skin on the fish is a
great idea when the fish is swimming in the sauce. Too messy!
To make things short, more I eat out in « gastronomic Indian »
restaurants (Tabla in NY , Tamarind and Benares in London), more I
start to think that some cuisines just simply don’t go together with
the gastronomic concept. I’ve tried so many Indian restaurants in
Europe and in the USA (I won’t hide- I love Indian food) and my
favorite by far are the ones which cook simple traditional Indian. (So
are the Italian restaurants by the way. The best Italian restaurants I
have ever been are very rustic.)Some cuisines are made to be authentic
and when the chefs try to «Frenchize » their food and make it more « creative », often it doesn’t really work and becomes slightly ridiculous…
Next - Sketch Gallery by Pierre Gagnaire
