Les Deux Salons

A Garlic Lover's Dream

There seems to be a constant stream of new restaurants opening in our fair capital and it can sometimes take a while to get around to visiting the ones you fancy. Last October when Anthony Demetre and Will Smith (not of Fresh Prince fame) opened their latest offering, Les Deux Salons, I was living and working in Bristol so I added this new brasserie to my ever expanding wish list.

Happily a couple of weeks back I got to visit Les Deux Salons for dinner on the evening of my birthday, a treat from Glen, who I will, from now on, refer to as 'the boy'.

My first thoughts on entering was how very, very Parisian the decor and atmosphere was. The black and white marbled floor, cosy leather seating, and low-hanging crystal style lighting. Not to mention that it was early on a Monday evening, around 730pm and the place was filled with diners, chatter and a general happy buzz - I was suitably impressed.

The waitress (not French) brought over some delicious, crusty bread, took our wine (a Loire Muscadet - dry, crisp, lovely) and water order and left us to ponder over the menu. I'd been for the unexpected afternoon tea at Bea's of Bloomsbury (see previous post) that day where I'd scoffed a plentiful selection of goodies so faced a dilemma - starter or dessert.

Both menus had tempting offerings which made me virtually salivate so I decided to go for a starter and hope that I'd be able to squeeze in a dessert at the end of the meal.

I chose to try the brandade, something I'd heard about but never tried. This is generally a combination of salt cod and olive oil with either bread or potatoes. In this case it was with mashed potato, sauteed squid and an interesting and clever parsley cromesqui.

This was the kind of food you could just imagine tucking into when feeling a bit low, truly a comfort dish served in a small, round ceramic dish. It was soft and very well seasoned mash potato with the squid and cod mixed in, both adding a salty deliciousness and with a huge hit of garlic. Alone this would have been quite tasty. But the essential item which elevated this dish to something wonderful was the cromesqui. A cromesqui is croquette-like, a small ball in breadcrumbs which acts as a container for a liquid - in this case parsley in a luminous greeny butter. As I cut into this little delight the vibrant green liquid oozed out over the brandade, it was a real treat for the eyes before the mouth. It gave the dish a new dimension and what was before tasty, became delicious.

The boy went for the Herefordshire Snail and Bacon pie, having never tried snails and being curious. It was a pot pie with a lovely, flaky puff pastry lid. The filling was in a creamy whitish sauce with yet more garlic. The snails were tender and almost the texture of a wild mushroom and like a mushroom they absorbed all of the flavours of the sauce like a sponge and were gorgeously flavoursome.. The pie went down well with the boy but personally I found that overall the sauce was a little too overpoweringly garlicy for me.

For mains the boy chose young chicken with lemon and garlic, which I complained was a boring order. However as is so often the case, this simplest of orders was actually very tasty indeed. Moist, well seasoned and flavourful chicken with a deliciously crispy skin.

I opted for the roast saddle of rabbit and was so, so glad I did - it was just exquisite. Wrapped in a cured ham and stuffed with a mixture of rabbit offal in what was almost a pate consistency, the combination put me in momentary food heaven every time I took a bite. The three different elements of the dish just worked perfectly.

The rabbit came with spring chard, which had been just wilted in a salty garlic butter, and a carrot puree. I'm not overly keen on purees - while I still have my teeth in tact I really prefer food that can be chewed, however this admittedly had a nice sweetness to it which complemented the dish well as a whole - just a shame about the texture.

We ordered dauphinoise potatoes as a side, because apparently I am unable to enter a French restaurant without ordering them, and the boy couldn't resist ordering some chips - both were good.

Unfortunately after this I couldn't have even squeezed in a chocolate, let alone a full dessert. I was gutted, but there's always next time.

We both enjoyed the meal, the food was of a very good quality, cooked well and also presented beautifully. We sadly took the lingering smell of excessive garlic away with us, but I guess this is to be expected when eating French food. Like it's sister restaurants Arbutus and Wild Honey, Les Deux Salons is good value for a restaurant so well positioned in the West End, just off of Covent Garden. The meal was around the £85 for two courses each and a bottle of wine.

It's well worth a visit and the type of place where you could go for a celebration, a quick bite or a long-drawn out meal. I imagine this is one brasserie that is here to stay.

http://www.lesdeuxsalons.co.uk/

Afternoon Tea on a Budget

Bea's of Bloomsbury
Last week my best friend, Larni and I celebrated becoming another year older (she is a whole three days younger than me) with a week-long marathon of fun and frolics. This tradition began 11 years ago and we are reluctant to give it up. This time around we found that food and alcohol featured highly, as did the fabulous West End show Legally Blonde and yet more alcohol.

We naturally celebrated with our own family and group of friends too, but our first treat, was just for the two of us and just about sums us up together - Champagne Afternoon Tea - in other words an afternoon of cakes and sweet things with a good glug full of bubbles - perfect.

It has to be noted that we were actually planning on doing outdoorsy, sight-seeing activities, mainly visiting the Tower of London, but good old England in June let us down and on the morning as the rain came and came we wondered what to do instead. Afternoon tea was suggested but I was doubtful we would find a slot anywhere, early, being so last-minute, and I didn't want to go for a late sitting as I was booked in to eat at Les Deux Salons on the evening.

As luck would have it, I had noticed a few days previously something on Twitter about Bea's of Bloomsbury doing Afternoon Tea, so I called, and we were in. I've long been a fan of Bea's, having previously worked just off of Theobalds Row, where the original resides, so I was quite keen to try out the newer addition to the family in the new shopping centre at St Pauls, One New Change.

I was delighted to find the decor modern, quirky and stylish. There was a brown theme throughout with the odd splashes of colour, and the ceiling was adorned with various lampshades in the guise of teapots, ingenius.

Many visits to the original had been on seriously stressed out days when only the thought of a coffee cupcake, a cup of tea and a natter with one of the girls could get me through the day, it almost represented a safe haven for a certain trio of friends, and the friendly staff at this branch with the delicious array of cakes was one of the reasons why we often returned.

I was immediately impressed that the owner of this establishment have clearly kept their staff selection skills up to scratch, the waitress who served us was accomodating, friendly and informative. We ordered our tea and informed her that Larni is a vegetarian, and she immediately went off to check if all of the cakes were veggie-friendly and to change the savoury sandwiches of hers to meat-free.

The sandwiches were actually small sections of crusty, white baguette and mine were a chorizo and cream cheese with a little green leaf. They were lovely, the smokey saltiness of the chorizo was complimented perfectly by the cream cheese.

One small complaint that we had was that actually, the meaty sandwiches were side by side with the veggie ones, to the point that one of them was actually touching the other, while this may seem a trifle point, let's face it if it was an allergy we were talking about, those wouldn't have been placed on the same plate at all, and really I don't think this should be treated differently. However as we were laden down with goodies, we ploughed on, I had the offending sandwich and found it didn't offend me in any way. It was a buffalo mozarella with tomato and a basil pesto - the pesto had seeped into the bread a little and given a magnificent flavour. It was like a little sandwich taste of Italy, lovely.

Next was a plain scone, the original, quintessential part of any respectable afternoon tea. It was lovely, buttery, light and crumbly, had a good moist texture and excellent seasoning so as not to be so sweet, which I often find scones can be. These were lovely with our pot of fresh clotted cream and strawberry jam too. They were however rather large, and I only eat half to make sure I had room for all the other goodies.

Two signature cupcakes were included in the tea, and as I've tried a number of these before, I was pleased to see two that I'd yet to try. One was a vanilla cupcake with a cassis topping, beautiful to look at with a pinky-purpley icing. The other was a chocolate base with a pistachio cream finish which was the minty green you would imagine, side by side they looked so pretty, it was almost a shame to crack into them. Somehow we found the strength though! We halved them both so we could try everything, and found that not only did they look good, they tasted great. The icing on both was immense, the kind where you'd happily stick your finger in and eat a little minus the cake. The cupcakes were both light and fluffy and in keeping with my favourite coffee ones of old.

The top layer of our tea was a selection of brownies and marshmallow. The marshmallow were just for me as these contain gelatine, which our friendly waitress kindly informed us of. They were lovely, the stuff of childhood memories, only better.

The final three treats I've deliberately left till the end - brownies. Those who know me will know I'm not a fan of brownies, I find that whenever I'm confronted by one they tend to lack flavour and be quite dry. I have been known to voice my irritation when they seem to always end up on dessert menus these days in some format too. However I will openly admit defeat where neccessary, and after trying this trio of brownies, I can say that I may be fast converting to the brownie-lover brigade.

The first was a Valrhona, or in other words a rich chocolatey affair, which I can vouch was very, very far from dry. The dark chocolate flavour was lovely and for the first time ever, I was left wanting more. The second was a Belgian Blondie, or in other words my favourite flavour of any cake - white chocolate! It was heavenly. I kept awaiting the moment where I could nod to Larni and say 'See this is why I don't like brownies!'. Perhaps it would come with the final treat - a peanut butter brownie - perhaps not. This was actually my surprise dish of the day, it was incredible. Not only was it not dry, it was creamy, it was chewy, it had a glorious nutty flavour running through the almost caramel like texture with chocolate, this was like food heaven. It reminded me a Snickers bar, but a bite size portion in glorious, wonderful cake format and all in one perfect texture.

On top of all of this wonderful confectionary we had a pot of Jing tea, and to mark the occassion of our birthday a glass of Moet & Chandon - we felt it'd be rude not to.

We both thoroughly enjoyed this very English tradition and it has to be said that if anyone is looking to experience a real Afternoon Tea without the expense of The Ritz and the like, this is a top-notch, quality alternative.

We had the Champagne Afternoon Tea which at £22.50 is very cheap for the capital. However if Champagne is not for you then it is only £15 per person for the standard Afternoon Tea - definitely a bargain.

Bea's of Bloomsbury's is a quirky, sophisticated venue with cakes to die for and great service. I'm hoping to see more of these around the capital, and hope they retain their excellent staffing and high quality food.

One final note: if like Larni and myself you enjoy the Champagne Afternoon Tea at Bea's and find that one glass of bubbles is just not enough, copy our style and pop a few doors along to Searcy's where you can enjoy one of their Champagne cocktails. They have daily deals on, but as we were feeling flamboyantly decadent after our fun afternoon we ignored these and went for a Strawberry Bellini and a classic Kir Royale and both were fantastic.

http://www.beasofbloomsbury.com/

http://www.searcys.co.uk/one-new-change-champagne-bar/home/