Bo Selecta

Bo Selecta

I promised you a run down on The Most Exciting Meal I Have Eaten All Year, so here it is. After reading a glowing review in The Sunday Times Magazine by AA Gill of a new London restaurant, I knew I had to go. After hastily booking a table for two on my Birthday, I then read every review I could find, and was thrilled and terrified in equal measure by everything I read. 'eye wateringly expensive' was a phrase that cropped up again and again, but I still believed the food would be worth it. So, on the 4th March 2013 (after purchasing a leather biker jacket and new scarf so I felt like I'd fit in somewhere trendy - God I'm getting old) at 1pm, Diesel and I strolled into Bo London, the first UK restaurant of the chef Alvin Leung ('Demon Chef' - his words, not mine), according to many, the 'Chinese Heston Blumenthal'.

http://bolondonrestaurant.com/

To say it was quiet would be an understatement. I'm not sure if it was the prices or the fact it was a Monday lunch time, but it didn't matter. There was some classic disco house playing in the background, and anyway, I was too excited about the food. There was us, one other table of two, and another couple who strolled in pissed when we were about half way through. They ate some stuff, spent a lot of time outside smoking between courses, and got through a few cocktails and a bottle of wine. If I can afford to be so nonchalant when dining out at 'eye wateringly expensive' restaurants at some point in the future, I'll be a very happy (and probably very unhealthy) lady. Lucky bastards.

Other Couple No 2 were on their fourth course as we started our first, and we echoed every gasp of surprise and giggle, a little bit like an emotional Mexican wave, but with more cutlery. I booked this place expecting the food to be a bit mental, and I wasn't disappointed. I was especially happy when I realised that we could have the same menu that AA Gill had. From the start, everything was surprising, exciting, a bit strange at times, a bit bizarre at times, but always delicious. Probably half of my joy came from having 11 courses at lunch, but then I am a bit of a pleb.

The Menu

Course 1: Dead Garden. Inside a pretty little bamboo box came the lightest avocado mousse I have ever tasted (it basically collapsed as soon as you touched it), covered with a dust made from morel mushrooms, a sprinkling of ginger dust, and dried enoki mushroom 'trees'. It wasn't a taste sensation like the first time you taste foie gras, but it was tasty, and it certainly had a novelty factor. God knows what sort of equipment they have in that kitchen.

Course 2: Bed and Breakfast: Presented on a beautiful little silver tree, two soft centred smoked quails eggs in a basket made out of fried taro root topped with caviar. Very tasty, but if I'm honest, I liked it because it reminded me of fried bread and fried eggs. The caviar did add a certain 'I don't know what' that you tend not to get in a greasy spoon though.

Course 3: Cloud. Unbelievably exciting, if only because it was the first thing I have ever been served on a bowl full of liquid nitrogen. The bubbling smoke was scented with rose water, the mackerel was AMAZING (I won't go into how much I love raw mackerel, as I have done at least 3 times previously), the pickled ginger added the right amount of sweet/sharp/spicy, and the grey ponzo foam was a stroke of genius 'to represent the British weather', as we were reliably informed by our French waitress. Thankfully, even I am a bit above taking comments about the British weather personally, and anyway were having far too much fun.

Course 4: Foie Gras. A huge piece, pan fried to perfection, on a bed of puffed rice noodles, with a few bits of red pepper and the most amazing sauce, made according to an old family recipe from the Chef's wife 'Abby', containing white miso and Chinese wine, and probably a number of other things. It was my favourite course, and the most hilarious. We were instructed to eat it with our hands, which reminded me of that Chinese Takeaway favourite 'Yuk Sung'. Every other time I have eaten Foie Gras in a restaurant it is prepared and served with a certain amount of gravitas, usually accompanies by something equally as expensive or refined (Bing Cherries, hazelnuts, fillet steak etc.) The novelty of eating a piece of it wrapped in an iceberg lettuce leaf BY HAND still makes me smile.

Course 5: Scallop. Just the one, with a barely there foam that left just a whiff of pea in your mouth, perfectly cooked, with jolo (no idea) and something crispy. It was delicious.

Course 6: Steak and Kidney. Steamed dim sum, filled with meaty steak and kidney (cut extra fine so there were no unpleasant chewy bits) and topped with more caviar to replace the oysters that were contained therein, back in the day when oysters were cheap and St Paul's was the tallest building in London. Now I don't like steak and Kidney (pudding or pie), but this was very good, and very clever. A steamed pudding to a steamed dumpling isn't a massive leap, but it does require thought and skill.

Course 7: Suckling Pig. Far and away the most beautiful dish, but the most disappointing for me. The flavours worked very well together (although the vanilla apple was a bit too vanilla and sweet and overtook the taste of the pork) and I loved the shavings of sweet poached pears, but the pork was really very chewy. which made for some very pregnant pauses in our conversation as we got through it. Great crackling though.

Course 8. Bai Jui. Essentially parfait (to quote Donkey from Shrek 'Everybody like parfait!'), with some caramel and some passion fruit honeycomb, all very light and delicious. I would have been happy with the honeycomb alone - it was a revelation. Flavoured Honey comb? We're a long way from home now Tonto.

Course 9. Coconut. A perfect Crème Brulee with some lovely sharp cherries hiding at the bottom of it. A master class in the most basic custard pudding. Perfect texture, perfect sweetness, perfectly thin and crisp caramel top.

Course 10: Petit Dim Sum. Macaroons which tasted just like err, macaroons (they were flavoured but by this point we were a bottle of wine down and drinking a glass of Chinese Ice wine which I was much more excited about) and some other little chocolate things which I nudged across the table towards Diesel (no noses were involved).

Course 11: Sex on The Beach. This is where it really got interesting. This course was optional and cost an additional £8, with all proceeds going to The Aids Foundation. That's all you're told - no descriptions, not details, nothing. This arrived:

Yes, that is a condom, albeit a condom made out of strawberry gelatine. And whilst that might look like...the stuff that you would expect to find in a used condom, it is in fact condensed milk. That there it is lying on is a beach made of honeycomb biscuit sand, underneath which was another mousse of something or other, and next to it is an shell made of (milk?) ice cream. It WAS delicious, and we didn't spill a drop(!), but for novelty/taste/hilarity this gets the prize for My Favourite Dish 2013 (Previous year's winners include 'Meat Fruit' at Dinner and the Cheese Soufflé at Le Gavroche). I'd go again for this alone. Which is interesting, as when we asked someone what the usual reaction from customers is on being served this, we were told that half of the people who had chosen it told them it had ruined their whole evening, and left at great haste. We were definitely in the other camp. I can't say I'm surprised that this is a dish that polarises people and I certainly couldn't imagine explaining it to my parents, but surely that's half the point. Most sadly, I think this is one that I won't ever be able to recreate at home (It would make for an interesting Saturday afternoon and subsequent post though).

The service was as you would expect from somewhere charging £100 for a set lunch menu, the restaurant itself is comfortable, elegant and very cool, everything we ate had clearly taken a lot of time and effort to put together (and was worth it, mostly), and if this isn't a restaurant hell bent on getting stars of the Michelin variety then I don't know what is. In fact, if by the end of 2013 they don't have one, I'll eat my hat, or another one of those strawberry love gloves. God knows I won't need much encouragement.