Bite Me!

I've just spent a very pleasant evening wandering round the Taste of London festival in Regent's Park, made all the more pleasant by the fact that the tickets were given to me, and I love free things!  It's relatively small for a food festival, and its USP is the number of star London restaurants (including Le Gavroche, Benares and Yauatcha, to name but three) that come to show off their cooking for a fraction of the price you'd normally pay.  Of course, I was poring over the menus all day to try and decide what to sample; sadly (although understandably) there was very little vegetarian fare on offer, which at least made it easier to choose what I wanted.

Firstly I made a beeline for Salt Yard's courgette flowers stuffed with goats cheese and drizzled with honey.  "Flowers" was perhaps a slight misnomer as you only received one, but that one was utterly delicious.

Next up was Yautcha's vegetarian dim sum platter, which was, as expected, perfect:

And I finished off with a little thai bite of rice vermicelli with tamerind sauce (tasted like rice cakes mixed with rice krispie cakes, most odd) followed by my favourite summer drink of all, a lychee cocktail.

Of course, you don't have to pay for everything you eat - the most fun we had was wandering around all the stalls, trying a dip of chilli sauce here and a piece of baklava there.  It's entirely possible to get quite tipsy on your way round too; after two (paid for) cocktails, and samples of Welsh wine, honey rum, rose champagne and toffee vodka I was feeling distinctly fuzzy in the head. 

One peculiarity of Taste of London is that it has its own currency - most of the stallholders will also accept normal money, but if you want to eat the restaurant dishes you have to buy Crowns (in the form of vouchers) which are readily available from various points around the festival.  I'm not sure why they set it up this way, but it could be an attempt to confuse you about how much you're actually spending. 

Taste of London is good fun, and I enjoyed my visit.  But - and this is a bit but - it is not a cheap day out.  That courgette flower dish above cost 10 crowns, which is the equivalent of five pounds.  FIVE POUNDS.  That seems like a hell of a lot to me.  Add on another couple of little courses and the normal entrance fee of £26 and you're easily heading towards the £50 mark without even thinking about it.  Just to place that into perspective, for £48 you could go to Le Gavroche for a three-course set lunch including wine, water and coffee.  I know which I'd rather do.