Taste of London: Regents Park

True to my word here I was off to another Taste Festival. This was Smee's first time and he was ready to enjoy the morsel sampling and freebie grabbing. The recession must've had some sort of impact because every dish seemed to have gone up by 2 Crowns! Wtf... that means less food for meeeeeeeee! :(

It was sunny, sunny, sunny and Smee regretted wearing pants...... errr meaning he should've worn shorts instead. After making our way through the entrance and collecting our menus we shuffled our way around the grounds eyeing the various samples on offer.

I was a little disappointed to see that some of the restaurants which had participated last year simply re-hashed their menu.  Why not offer new gastronomic delights? Poo to you!  In a way it was a good thing because last year I missed out on sampling the sold-out Joel Robuchon's foie gras mini burger.  It was back on for my tummy's desires and off we went to queue for it.  Mmmmm foie gras....The burger was nice as you'd expect but I was a little disappointed that the piece of foie gras was so small.  Look at that thin rectangular slice - I want more liver dammit! 

Sitting pretty nearby to foie gras burger was Quo Vadis with their disturbingly large pieces of steak.  It was truly a cow's nightmare.  All that it meant to Smee was that his mouth started watering.  We sampled the grilled rib of 48 day Hereford beef (....eh?).  It was served with a single chip.  Yes, just ONE chip.  It was an excellent fried chip but still it was just a lonesome chip.  

As if we haven't already consumed enough bovine, our next dish was a serving of carpaccio on rocket from Ristorante Semplice. 

Contemplating what the next dish should be....

No, the man dressed as a tomato - I couldn't eat him.  Although he did have some nice tomato samples on offer.  The jamon leg complete with a hoof.  Mmmmmm... cured meat...

Did I say we had too much meat?  Our next dish was Rhodes Twenty Four's braised beef.  

More contemplating..... 

In the midst of scabbing food samples here and there (hello yummy Fishworks taramasalata and mackerel dips -yum!) Smee also had a crack at winning an apple slicer.  This involved throwing six little beanbags into holes to score a required number of points.  The eight year old kid before Smee managed to win a slicer, so Smee really needed to prove himself.  After missing the first beanbag (!!) it was tense finish that depended heavily on the final throw to win the coveted apple slicer.  I shall pat Smee on the back because I am now the proud owner of the apple slicer!  YAY!

Smee with his parmesan cheese sample.  He actually chipped away at the barrel of cheese to get a 'flake' that was 10 times the size of my own flake and more like the size of a biscuit.

A big leather pig.  I want! I want one!

The Garlic Farm selling all things - you guessed it - garlicky!  Raw garlic has never tasted so good!  Btw, the pic doesn't demonstrate it well, but those fresh garlic bulbs were the size of my fist.

Me and Smee washing our hands on a giant ice block.  Errr ... yeah!

It may not looked like we ate a lot of the signature dishes, but when you're sampling food left, right, centre and stopping anyone who parades past with a food tray, you start feeling a bit heavy.  We still had our Crowns to use and decided to go with the flow of this year's showcase - Thai food.  I'm not a big fan of Thai food and by that I mean, I like eating it but I don't think it's anything particularly special nor exotic.  It's probably because I was fed similar stuff after leaving my mother's womb. However, the sunny weather called for some lighter eating.

Our final five dishes.  Mango Tree's barbecue chicken leg with papaya salad.   

Benja's marinated duck breast with chilli, garlic pepper and basil.  

Busaba Eathai's pandan chicken.  

You can't go anywhere in the UK without eating curry of sorts - Benares' tandoor smoked lamb chop with mint chutney.  Finally for dessert, we returned to Rhodes Twenty Four for their lemon tart with strawberries or in my case - strawberry.  Smee doesn't eat sweet stuff but he managed to eat most of my tart!! 

As per last year, I ruv such food festivals and can't wait to come again!  However in the case of Taste of London I'm not sure when 'again' will be!