Restaurant Gordon Ramsay located on Royal Hospital Road is a
three-star Michelin restaurant. It is
where we decided to spend our second last evening in London dining at one of
the world’s most famous restaurants. The
front of the restaurant is very plain and we actually had to ask a local as to
the whereabouts of this place. There is
only a small sign located on the side of the door that lets you know that you
are at this famous restaurant.
Once inside this “house” as I would like to call it, you are
led down a dark hallway. Inside the dining
room area, there was about 12 tables altogether, 10 waiters waiting to serve
you and 14 chefs inside the kitchen ready to make your food. After getting our names we were seated at our
table and served with beverages.
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| Artichoke Parmesan Cheese Truffle Bun |
What I noticed the most was the ten waiters there were constantly
moving and watching you.
Even going to
the washroom garnered an escort from one of the staff members.
They were by your table and were always by
your side in case you needed any assistance.
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| Salmon Roe Wrap with
Seaweed |
Tonight there were the prestige and the seasonal inspiration
menus that one could choose from.
Please
note that the content of these menus change periodically so what we had to
choose from may be quite different from what you might get to order from.
One was more expensive than the other one so
we decided to go with two of the prestige menus and two of the inspirational
menus.
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| Quail Egg with Pudding |
For appetizers, we went with the Salmon Roe Wrap with
Seaweed, Quail Egg with Pudding, Green Pea Mousse with Cottage Cheese and the
Artichoke Parmesan Cheese Truffle Bun.
For entrees we went with the Poached Scottish Lobster Tail with Lardo Di
Colonnata, Vegetables a la Grecque and Coral Vuinaigrette, Suckling Pig, Breese
Pigeon with Grilled Polenta, Smoked Ventreche, Braised Shallots and Dates, and
the Deep Fried Scallops from the Isle of Skye.
For dessert, we chose the Cheese Trolley, the Mango Jasmine and Passion
Fruit Juice, Agen Prune Crème Brulee, the Chocolate Cigar, Lemonade Parfait
with Honey, Bergamot and Sheep’s Milk Yogurt Sorbet, and the Caramelized Tarte
Tartin of Apple.
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| Green Pea Mousse with Cottage Cheese |
We were first greeted with the Salmon Roe Wrap with
Seaweed.
This delicacy was basically
fresh salmon wrapped with seaweed that was topped off with a bit of red roe on
top.
Many of us have had sushi before
but this dish was quite different.
The
fish was very fresh and the seaweed was not exactly the type of seaweed found
wrapped around a piece of sushi.
It’s
difficult to describe it but this dish was extremely refreshing and very
tasty.
The seaweed was slightly
different and not exactly the same type where we find wrapped around a piece of
sushi.
The roe was nice and large and
burst with flavor when biting into them.
It was definitely an excellent starter to
start off the meal.
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| Deep Fried Scallops from the Isle of Skye |
The Quail Egg with Pudding arrived next. They were four eggs lined up beautifully in a
tray and each one looked great. I’m not
a huge fan of eggs but there was no way I was going to turn down this
opportunity. As one takes a bite into
this rather small egg, one doesn’t really taste much of the egg. Most of the flavor of this dish was in my
mind from a small amount pudding that contained mostly a meat sausage mix and
from the fried breadcrumb that had surrounded the egg. The entire egg almost melts in your mouth as
you are chewing it making it another fantastic appetizer to start off
with.
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| Poached Scottish Lobster Tail with Lardo Di
Colonnata |
The Green Pea Mousse with Cottage Cheese arrived next and
that too was amazing.
The peas with the
cottage cheese were blended very smoothly and were placed at the bottom of the
cup.
Small amounts of fresh vegetables
were then placed on top of it.
What you
have here folks was a masterpiece.
This
was the best salad I have ever had.
The
smoothness of the mix was smoother than the texture of a pea puree in a baby
food jar. Nothing else can come close to this salad.
I absolutely loved this and if all my salads
were made this way, I would have no trouble eating my vegetables every day.
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| Suckling Pig |
The Artichoke Parmesan Cheese Truffle Bun arrived next. With a small piece of artichoke placed on top
of the truffle bun, the bun although looking rather unexciting was anything but
unexciting. Adding a touch of cheese to
the whole bun brought all the parts together and actually made this a very
delightful bun to have. Honestly I
thought it was very creative for the chef to create such a dish. Separately, all the ingredients of this dish were
rather boring, however by putting it altogether in such a fashion, it really
brought this dish out to the forefront.
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| Breese
Pigeon with Grilled Polenta |
The Lobster Tail looked great on presentation as the waiter
placed it on our table.
We took a bite
and I can tell you this was one of the most extraordinary pieces of lobster
tail meat that I have ever eaten.
Surrounded by a Lardo Di Colonnata which incidentally is a piece of pork
lard sprinkled with herb and aged for at least 6 months in white piece of marble
from the Alps Mountains, this dish was virtually unreal in taste.
It provided a beautifully tasty salted
lobster tail meat.
The meat was very
tender and very fresh.
The saltiness of
the lobster was rather different but different in a wonderful way in that it
was one of the best lobster tails I had ever tasted.
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| Cheese Trolley |
I had actually ordered the Suckling Pig as my entrée.
There were five pieces of pork on this plate,
all with different ingredients and make.
The center-piece was the crispy belly.
Now I know most people especially in the Asian culture would be
wondering what is so special about this piece of crispy belly and truthfully I
actually don’t know the answer to that question.
The crispy piece contained a layer of soft
meat underneath the crispy layer as well a small layer of fat between the
crispy skin and meat and the overall taste and crispiness were comparable to
the suckling pig here in Canada, I could not find a major difference between
the two.
Other pieces of pork contained
on this plate included the spiced shoulder sausage, the roasted pork loin on
potato, the Turkish Delight and the pork cheek.
My personal favorite was actually the pork cheek.
The texture was very smooth and a little
fatty however because of the softness and sponginess of the pork, it was able
to absorb the sauce on this plate and made the pork extra tasty.
The other pieces were more cooked and hard
and as a result, were a little bit bland compared this dish despite the
surrounding sauce.
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| Mango Jasmine and Passion
Fruit Juice |
The Deep Fried Scallops were I think exactly how Chef Ramsay
would love his scallops. Nice and cooked
on the inside, spongy on contact and enrich in flavor, one could not have tasted
a better scallop. There were 4 scallops
nicely decorated on the plate and as which I am guessing was the cider emulsion. It did not alter the true taste of the
scallops and if anything, it actually brought out the flavor of the scallops
even more. A wonderful seafood dish to
have with the scallops cooked to perfection.
The best meal of the night had to been the Breese
Pigeon. The meat on this pigeon was
almost comparable to the duck two previous nights ago at Ramsay’s other
restaurant. It was soft and tender and
the sauce they used was beautiful. The
smoked ventreche was basically a piece of smoke bacon but placed alongside the
pigeon it really enhanced the overall dish.
The aroma of the shallots made the entire dish mouth watering. The chefs certainly did not disappoint. Like the duck on the previous night, this was
one dish that I would not have mind have a second piece to it as it was
absolutely amazing. It was in my opinion the best entrée of the 4 that we had
ordered that evening.
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| The 5 Cheeses The Waiter Chose |
By the time dessert rolled around we were all pretty full
yet there was no way we were going to turn anything down. They gave us a
complementary drink first which was the Mango, Jasmine and Passion fruit juice which
certainly had created a wow factor in it.
The combination of all those exotic fruits all in one cup gave the drink
a certain zing to it.
We were all very
surprised at how juicy, how exotic yet so spine-tingling this juice was.
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| Chocolate Cigar |
The highlight of the night was the Cheese Trolley and
pending on how you look at it this could have been the highlight or the
lowlight.
The waiters basically roll out
a trolley that contained about 20 different kinds of cheeses.
I made the mistake in letting the waiter
choose the 5 best ones because there were just too many to choose from.
The waiter said he was going to give me the 5
most popular cheeses in that region.
HAHA
BIG MISTAKE!! Three of the five cheeses were outstanding however there were 2
cheeses that I would HIGHLY recommend to you never to try unless you are the
most adventurous people on the planet.
The
waiter placed on my plate a piece of Stinky Bishop and a piece of Brie De
Meaux.
No words could describe the taste
of the cheese.
Both were quite creamy in
texture, the latter was crazy heavy in ammonia.
Just taking a small nibble at them was enough to make you turn
blue.
The best way to describe the taste
was that it was like eating a piece of cheese that had been wrapped in a stinky
dirty wet sock that had been left there moist for the past month.
Enough said!!
Switching gears we had to find a dessert to offset that
cheesy taste. The smoked chocolate cigar dessert was placed on our table which
was dark chocolate rolled up into a cigar.
The chocolate was very sweet, maybe a touch too sweet in my mind however
if you are a lover of dark chocolate, this dessert was for you. With a small scoop of cardamom ice cream as
well, this rich dessert was an absolute life saver especially right after having
that cheesy dessert.
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| Lemonade Parfait
with Honey, Bergamot and Sheep’s Milk Yogurt Sorbet |
My favorite dessert of the night had to have been the
Lemonade Parfait with Honey, Bergamot and Sheep’s Milk Yogurt Sorbet.
The Bergamot was thinly sliced and rolled up
into a cylinder.
It was rich in an
orange-tangy like taste to it and it was yummy!!
I loved the yogurt sorbet since I’m not a
huge fan of yogurt but when made like this, I will certainly eat this yogurt
any day.
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| Agen Prune Crème Brulee |
The Caramelized Tarte Tartin of Apple was very similar to
the apple pie I had 2 nights previous at his other restaurant.
The same type of sweet apple sauce was used
to bring out the flavor of the apple.
This dish was more or less an apple tart made similarly to his apple
pie.
It was very sweet and tasting and a
great alternative if you didn’t want chocolate for the evening.
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| Caramelized Tarte
Tartin of Apple |
Somewhere in there, there was also a coconut soufflé mixed
with chocolate sauce and a small scoop of a sorbet ice cream.
Again similar to the soufflé that was given
to us 2 nights before, the soufflé was equal to its sister’s chef soufflé so no
need to elaborate further other than to say, what another wonderful dessert to
have.
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| Coconut Souffle |
The final complimentary dessert of the evening was The White
Chocolate and Strawberry Ice Cream Spheres mixed with Dry Ice. Place in pot of liquid nitrogen, this ice
cold dessert is one for the ages. The
ice cream is inside this pastry which is then placed in a bowl. Nitrogen is poured in which gives it a smoky
appearance and ice cold taste to it.
This was crazy amazing and a must try for any dessert loving
person.
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| The White
Chocolate and Strawberry Ice Cream Spheres mixed with Dry Ice |
Overall it was a wonderful, wonderful experience.
Service was amazing all night and the head
waiter even brought my friend and I into the back kitchen for a grand tour of
the kitchen so we could watch the chefs make the food.
We met the sous chef for the evening and even
snapped a photo with him.
Yes again it
was a little pricy with the prestige menu roughly $200.00 CDN per person but
who cares.
It was an experience that you
will never ever forget.
Only recommendation,
avoid the Stinky Bishop and you will be A-OK! Thank you to the staff at
Restaurant Gordon Ramsay for having us. It was an amazing evening.
A definite 5++ out of 5 for the evening.
