A Proper Taste of London

London's Regent Park transformed into giant picnic area

Daughter Number Two and I went to Taste of London last night. It's a food extravaganza, similar to those in other cities. Except that this one was London. Some of the best restaurants in the world were showcasing the best efforts of their famous chefs at this giant picnic in Regent's Park.

Of course I wouldn't be caught dead at many of London's best restaurants, and not just because I can't afford them. The more you pay for a meal, I've discovered, the more unlikely it is to be vegan.

So, with the caveat that I was unlikely to find anything remotely vegan, I ventured forth, camera in hand. It helped that I had VIP tickets from British Airways, one of the sponsors of the event. That allowed us to jump the queue and have a free glass of champagne inside the VIP lounge (as well as avoid the rain). We also had a pocket full of crowns—the paper money exchanged for drinks and tidbits at the event. Most items cost between 6 and 10 crowns, the equivalent of £3-5. That wasn't a bad deal, until we ended the evening with 2 crowns (£1) left over, and nothing to spend it on. Since it's impossible to buy single crowns, we resigned ourselves to losing out on our "hard-earned cash"—when we got there, we played a scratch off card and won 10 crowns—but then my daughter noticed an Alsatian beer stand offering a glass of beer for 2 crowns. We happily chugged it down, awarding Meteor Beer the "Best Deal Award" at Taste of London.

The thing is, Taste of London is really all about drinking. I'm pretty sure there was more alcohol served than food. Even much of the food was actually alcohol in disguise—like the Champagne slush we enjoyed, or the chilled strawberry and Champagne soup. Get the idea?

Not that either of us are complaining. We got to taste Georgian wines, sip exotic cocktails, quaff decent beer, and nibble on Champagne infused slush. Fortunately, London's new ban on tube drinking says nothing about being falling down drunk when you get on.

But about the food: To make it easier, we circled all the vegetarian items in the brochure we were given, which listed the participating restaurants and their three offerings. Most of them were dessert, but again, who's complaining?

With a plan in hand, we headed straight for the asparagus dish we'd circled first. It wasn't bad, for cold asparagus, but then it's impossible to serve bad British asparagus. The mayonnaisey sauce was easily avoidable, but then, anyone can boil asparagus and top it off with a lemon slice.

Next, we tried the bean curd from Snazz Sichuan. If that's the best this Chinese restaurant can do, I won't be going back. Of course, I already knew Chinese restaurants in London are disappointing. Maybe it's revenge for Hong Kong.

Fortunately, Café Spice offered something considerably better. I'll quote: "Dahi Batata Saev Mumra Poori: Crispy puffed poories filled with crushed potato seasoned with a trio of chutneys and served sprinkled with roasted puffed rice and chickpea vermicelli". If I were to chose one of the restaurants serving here, I'd go back to this one. In addition to the other awards Cyrus Todiwala, the executive chef at Cafe Spice, has won, I'll give him the Best Vegetarian Taste of London Tidbit award. Those poori easily won out over the asparagus. In fact, I think they were better than the Mai Tai from Appleton Estate Rum.

After that we concentrated on dessert, and a couple of chocolate cakes later, we forswore dessert for drink. I picked up a handy guide to Bordeaux wines, and a few other pieces of info, such as a map of Vienna and a free Delicious magazine (they normally spell their name with a lower-case d, but that looks stupid).

All in all, it wasn't a bad evening out—at about the cost of a West End show, even with the frequent flyer discount BA gave us. If you're a vegan teetotaler, however, you're probably better off buying a bunch of asparagus before the season ends and cooking it yourself. Or saving up for a trip to Cafe Spice for those poori.

More photos below.

The Cafe Spice Namaste booth—I see now I could have bought Cyrus's cookbook.

The British Airways VIP lounge.

A Sacher torte from the Austrian tourist booth, which won the Looks Are Deceiving Award.

 

Champagne slush, with Bramley apple jellies in the bottom.

Appleton Estate's booth, where Mai Tai making is a serious business.

The skies were still bright after 9 p.m., as we sipped our two-crown beer.