Oddono's, Dri Dri, Morelli's - Life's Too Short to Eat Bad Ice-Cream

Gelupo

After all the hype of Gelupo , we too dutifully made our way there and got a scoop each. But we didn’t really like it – felt strangely grainy/watery(diluted actually), not creamy enough, didn’t like the slightly odd flavours. And while I was licking away at the runny ice cream, I couldn’t help but think, “Jeez, I wish I had just gone to Oddono’s”.

Gelupo gelato

Gelupo
Soho
7 Archer Street
London,
W1D 7AU
Official website

Oddono’s

Based mainly in the West London area, Oddono’s main outlet and site of operations is on Bute Street just a stone’s throw from the South Kensington tube station. They also have a kiosk in Whiteley’s of Bayswater and in Selfridge’s although the selection is quite limited in those places.

With about a dozen flavours of ice cream and a further half dozen sorbets, the usual suspects are to be found in the gallery in the Bute Street outlet. From the standard fare such as creamy Madagascan vanilla dotted with copious numbers of black specks of vanilla pods to the rich chocolate.

Personally, I prefer the stracciatella and bacio (milk chocolate with hazelnuts) while the PigPig loves the pistachio and my aunt always goes for coffee/ caramel. My uncle meanwhile tends to order an affogatto which is essentially a scoop of vanilla ice cream melting away in one or two shots of espresso.

Affogato - insanely creamy with the ice-cream, it's like drinking coffee flavoured cream.

“Life's too short to eat bad ice cream”, as quoted from the Oddono’s website. Oddono's was our favourite gelateria until...

Oddono's
14 Bute Street,
London
SW7 3EX
Other stores
Official website



Dri Dri

We then got tipped off by a friend that she found Dri Dri serves better gelato than Oddono’s so naturally we went to check it out too (after a particularly disappointing and unfulfilling dessert at Hunan). We went after 10pm so we missed the crowd that is pretty much permanent on Portobello Road on weekends. The shop itself looks incredibly new. In fact, it’s only two months old.

Cutting to the chase, the flavours are pretty standard across gelateria everywhere.

I first tried the straciatella and bacio while my cousin tried pistachio, partly because they’re our favourites and partly to make a direct comparison to Oddono’s. We found the flavours in Dri Dri actually stronger and more intense while it is equally creamy. We also tried crema dri dri (Dri Dri signature flavor based on the traditional Italian Crema with the addition of caramelized sesame), it was ok, and didn't like the sesame bits. Tried biscotto, supposed to be cookies and cream, but it tasted more like caramel.

The PigPig had also tried three sorbets, extra noir chocolate (surprisingly good and creamy), melon and pink grapefruit. My cousin and the PigPig found the melon incredibly full of melon flavour (and melon bits) while I just loved the pink grapefruit as it was a beautiful mix of bitter and sweet.

In fact, we enjoyed those flavours so much, we then got another two scoops of strawberry and apricot each. Again, the strawberry was brilliant; it just oozed strawberry essence and had lots of pips. The apricot meanwhile was a bit disappointing as it didn’t really taste of apricot and was quite sour too.

PS. we went back a few days later and the Pigpig loved the yoghurt.

Dri Dri
189 Portobello Road
London
W11 2ED
Official website

Morelli’s

Rounding of the trio of gelateria is Morelli’s which has two outlets in London – Harrod’s and Selfridge’s respectively, the former opening first in 2003 and even offering a bespoke flavour service whereby they can create any flavour a customer chooses with 24 hours notice.

Even on sight, it’s clear that the gelato here is exceedingly soft. It looks just like soft scoop ice cream while it was being scooped into our little sundae cups. I settled for nutella and honey & rose while the PigPig chose mango and ginger & orange. While exceedingly soft and creamy, the flavours seemed slightly artificial somehow and it was too sweet for our tastes.

Morelli's
Knightsbridge
87–135 Brompton Road
Knightsbridge
London,
SW1X 7XL
Other stores
Official website

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L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon** (Menu Decouverte)

We had covered this place before but essentially the summary of that review is:

• Has the name of Joel Robuchon behind it
• 2 Michelin stars
• We tried the ala carte menu and was generally disappointed

I wasn’t particularly keen to eat here again but 1) we were here tonight for the tasting menu and my friends had a good experience with it and 2) it wasn’t my choice anyway. Our table of 8 were seated in the L’Atelier section (ground floor, trendy looking counter around the chef’s cooking area, some slightly uncomfortable seats and tables on the sides) instead of the La Cuisine section (more traditional restaurant section) as the latter was closed that day.

We all had the tasting menu and some of us also had the matching wines as well for an extra £40. For an extra £80, one can get the Prestige matching wines instead (from what I can tell, Prestige means more of the wines come from France). Being a lightweight, the PigPig and I shared the matching wines. Also, I’m by no means an expert on wine, so bear with me in my descriptions below.

““Royale” of foie gras, port reduction and parmesan foam”. The first course listed on the menu was an amuse-bouche. It had a layer of foie gras mousse at the bottom followed by a thin but strong tasting layer of tart port and topped by the slightly salty cheese. I thought the whole combination of flavours was really good but it was quite a rich start, albeit a fitting introduction for the rest of the meal. Perhaps the only criticism of this was the lack of a textural element.

No matching wine for this course.

“Caviar served on a bed of crab meat and lobster jelly”.

Similar to above, this course was essentially a pile of mushy stuff but on this occasion I honestly didn’t care about the lack of a crunchy bit simply because it tasted so good. The briny saltiness of the caviar really meshed well with the sweetness of the crab while the lobster added even more richness. One of the few times I took my time to really enjoy something.

“‘O Rosal’, Terra Gauda, Riad Baixas, Spain, 2008”. The sharpness of the wine contrasted quite well with the rich caviar and helped to clear the palate.

“Green asparagus cappuccino, cream chives and golden croutons”. Another rich creamy course, the soup was fairly well seasoned but lacked any real sparkle for me. The chives didn’t really make an effect as well while I felt the croutons were a bit on the chewy side.

“Feherburgundi, Weninger, Sopron, Hungary, 2007”. This was actually a really drinkable white wine which had a nice balance of dryness and sweetness with a fruity tone.

“Caramelised scallop served with kumquat emulsion”. I was really disappointed by this course. Although the scallop was expertly cooked to leave the middle slightly raw, it didn’t have any of the natural scallop sweetness. I think grilling the scallop would have been better too. The kumquat sauce also was a bit too sour for my liking.

“Ovilos Biblia Chora, Pangeon, Greece, 2008”. If I recall correctly, I didn’t like this much as I thought it was a too oaky.

“Seared duck foie gras served with white peaches and hazelnuts”. A pretty good quality albeit small piece of foie gras, this soft delectable fatty slice was cooked well and the sweet glaze was great too. As always, a sweet fruity component works well with the rich meat while the nuts added both flavour and crunchy texture.

“Brumiere, Pacherenc, South West France, 2007”. A sweet wine but not as intense as a muscat or port, probably more similar in sweetness levels to an eiswein. I liked it, even though I’m no big fan of dessert wines in general, while the PigPig naturally loved it.

“Pan fried fillet of red mullet, pissaladiere and sauce vierge”. The delicately flavoured fish wasn’t paired particularly well with the slightly bitter olive paste on the light pastry crust under the fish for me. Nobody in our table was particularly impressed by this dish.

“Cotes du Luberon Rose “Tradition” Chateau Val Joanis, Rhone Valley, France, 2008”. Honestly can’t remember much about this wine now, but I think it was fairly pleasing to drink.

“Free range quail stuffed with foie gras and truffle mashed potatoes”. Now the last time we ate, we ordered this dish from the ala carte section and I ate the thigh part, leaving the drumstick bit for the PigPig not knowing that only the thigh had the foie gras stuffing; she wasn’t pleased then, especially when I told her how great it was. It was just as good this time as well with the quail merely being a vehicle to carry forward the taste of the sweetish glaze and the foie gras inside.

The mash had a very generous shaving of truffles over it as well as mixed into it although I don’t think it really added much to an already awesome mash. As I mentioned in the previous review, we were told the mash had pretty much only two ingredients – butter and potato – and it really shows as it was an incredibly rich and creamy. We were all well pleased that we were given some extra mash potato on the side as well.

““Vendimia Seleccionada” Bodega Resalte, Ribera Del Duero, Spain, 2007”. Err, I think this was alright as well.

Now after all the savoury dishes were doled out, we were offered a chance to go and enjoy our desserts up on the terrace. Seeing as it was a rather nice summer’s evening we decided to take up their offer although the cynical me was wondering if it was because they wanted the table for the next seating.

“Francois’s duo of desserts”. The first bit was a blood orange sorbet with a white chocolate coating (yes I’m aware it’s orange coloured). I’ve never had a sorbet popsicle before, much less paired with chocolate, but it actually turned out pretty well and the chocolate was a good match with the slightly bitter yet sweet sorbet. We were told that there were pop rocks inside but it must’ve fizzled out because we didn’t detect any.

The second dessert was a chocolate mousse with white chocolate ice cream topped with what I think was oreo shavings. All in all pretty nice without being overly sweet or rich and the addition of little balls of chocolate (like mini Maltesers) at the bottom added some nice crunch. The Pigpig didn't like the chocolate mousse as it was served at room temperature - not her kind of dessert.

At this point we were offered tea or coffee. I chose the latter and received a great strong cup which I thoroughly enjoyed then but then didn’t manage to sleep till 3am. My other companions had either mint or jasmine tea and seemed fairly happy as well. We were waiting for the petit four to come out but they never materialized!

Altogether, the bill came up to about £1300 for the 8 of us having tasting menus and 3 people having additional wine pairings as well as a few bottles of still water which worked out to be about £160 each (we just split the bill 8 ways even though not everyone had wine). The Pigpig found the wine portions quite small. Service was prompt and efficient and the waiters were quite enthusiastic in their job and explaining the dishes to us.

Food – 7.5
Service – 6.0
Atmosphere – 4.0
Value – 5.0

Out of all the degustations we’ve been to so far this is probably the most underwhelming of them all. Although some courses were really good, a couple were quite disappointing. Considering the name behind the restaurant and the two Michelin stars, we expected a little bit more than what we received.

Best bit: the caviarrrrrr.
Worst bit: the missing petit four =(
Extra bit: while sitting out on the terrace eating a popsicle is nice, there’s no beating the Waterside Inn’s conservatory for having coffee, petit four and just generally relaxing with friends after a big heavy dinner.

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
13-15 West Street,
London,
WC2H 9NE
Tel: +44(0)207 010 8600
Official website

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Guinness Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

I saw.

I dreamt.

I made it the very next day.

This Guinness chocolate cake recipe is very similar to Nigella's version which I made almost a year ago and loved. It was really dark, rich, moist and the slight hint of malty flavour was quite unique and unforgettable. When I saw Donna Hay's version with peanut butter frosting at the urban baker, I couldn't get it out of my mind! Love chocolate, love peanut butter and the cake with Guinness?

nom nom love.

I made some slight changes here and there. Replaced some of the cocoa powder with melted dark chocolate as 1/2 cup of cocoa powder was all I got. This made it even richer. Used crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth as I like to bite into the nuts.

Ingredients: 9 x 4" loaf
Adapted from Donna Hay magazine issue 50
For Guinness chocolate cake batter:

• 1 cup Guinness stout
• 250g unsalted butter
• 50g Belgian dark chocolate - coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder - sifted
• 2 cups caster sugar
• 150ml sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbs pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda

For frosting:

• 130g icing/ confectioners sugar
• 230g peanut butter (I used crunchy)
• 80g unsalted butter - softened at room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (I used Elmlea Double)

Directions:
For Guinness chocolate cake batter:

• Preheat the oven to 160°C.
• Lightly grease a 9 x 4" loaf pan and line with parchment.
• Gently heat Guinness Stout, butter and dark chocolate in a saucepan until butter and chocolate is melted. Remove from heat.
• Whisk in cocoa powder and sugar.
• In a clean mixing bowl, beat together sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract.
• Add the sour cream mixture into the Guinness mixture and mix until well combined.
• Sift together plain flour and baking soda, mix this into Guinness chocolate mixture until well combined.
• Pour batter into the lined cake pan and bake for 1 hr 20 mins (mine was done in only 1 hr 10 mins) or until done. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick in the middle, should come out clean if done. Cool cake on rack.

For frosting:

• Place the sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla in an electric mixer and beat for about 6 mins or until fluffy.
• Add the cream and beat for another 2 minutes.
• Spread peanut butter frosting over cooled cake.

Guinness Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting photography tip:

Photograph this the next day as you get will get a clean cut through the frosting. Notice the frosting smear on the cake in my first picture? The frosting wasn't set enough. The picture above was taken the next day - you get a nice clean cut through the cake and for some reason, the PB frosting was darker in colour which made it look even more tempting!

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Braised Ee Fu Noodles by The Little Teochew

I've been blogging for more than 2 years now, shared 263 recipes and 92 restaurant reviews from the Wild Boar. All this time, it's all about "I and me, we and us", now it's about time for some "yous". So, every now and then, some of my favourite bloggers will be appearing here as Guests on the blog. For now, it's my pleasure to introduce to you my very first guest writer, Ju! Ju is based in Singapore, started cooking when she got her first child and now she's a mother of 3 (still hard to believe) and the author of The Little Teochew! What is a Teochew? Do hop over to her blog to find out all about this fab little Teochew, for more Asian and other home cooking recipes and to gawk at all her drool-worthy pictures. Please welcome Ju to Pig Pig's Corner as she shares her braised ee fu noodles recipe with us! ahh....a dish which reminds me of home...

I still remember when I first started blogging - my photos were laughable and my readership comprised a grand total of 3 people (I, Me and Myself). Pig Pig's Corner was one of the few established bloggers who kindly cast a glance my way, and for that, I will always be grateful. Fast forward 16 months later, and today, I am doing a guest post for them. You can imagine how honoured I feel. Thank you, Ann and Jeff, for this wonderful opportunity. :)

Now, the dish. If you do a quick scour of Pig Pig's Corner, you will see an impressive repertoire of dishes. As I jokingly asked Ann, "What have you NOT cooked?" Eventually, I figured less is more, and decided on a very simple dish - Braised Ee Fu Noodles (伊府面) - something everyone can cook.

I am sure you must have heard of this dish, even if you have never eaten it. It is on the menu of any Chinese restaurant worth its salt, and never fails to appear at wedding banquets.

Of course, you don't need special occasions to make this. It is such a quick and simple dish, you can whip it up any time you feel like having noodles.

Recipe
Braising sauce (mix altogether)

• 2 tbsp oyster sauce (can use vegetarian mushroom sauce to make this dish vegetarian)
• 1/4 tsp dark sauce for colour
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp Hua Tiao Wine (optional but it makes a difference)
• Dash of white pepper (optional)
• 1 cup water

Mushrooms (any variety work well)

• If you are using dried mushrooms, soak them in lukewarm sugar solution (mix 1/2 cup warm water + 1 tsp sugar). When they have plumped up, remove the stalks and slice the caps into slivers.
• If you are using using fresh mushrooms, simply give them a quick wipe with a damp cloth and proceed to remove the remove the stalks and slice the caps.

I used a combination of shiitake and enoki mushrooms for today's dish.

Chives
Traditionally, this dish is cooked with Yellow Chives (韭王/Jiu Wang) and mushrooms. If you are not familiar with Yellow Chives, they are garlic chives that have been grown under cover, without any exposure to direct sunlight. This prevents the leaves from turning green, as the plant’s chlorophyll-absorbing molecules never kick into action. They are considered a Chinese delicacy, and often served alone or paired with another vegetable in a stir-fry.
Information from here.

If you cannot find them, please just use regular green chives. I circled my market and supermarket for an entire week before I spotted them. If they are so difficult to get in Singapore, I reckon it would be mission impossible to find them in Europe or America.

Rinse and cut chives into 1-inch lengths.

Other ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly
• 2 to 3 handful beansprouts, heads and tails removed
• 2 dried mounds Ee Fu Noodles (enough for 2 servings)
• 2 to 3 tbsp vegetable oil + 1/4 tsp white sesame oil

1. In a wok, heat vegetable oil and sesame oil. When it is very hot, add in garlic and fry briefly before throwing in the bean sprouts, chives and mushrooms. Stirfry for about 1 minute.
2. Add braising sauce and allow to simmer (about 1 minute). Maintain medium-high heat throughout.
3. Add in Ee Fu noodles, making sure you submerge them in the braising sauce as much as possible. Cover with a lid and let the noodles stew in the sauce for 2 to 3 minutes. Open lid and check for doneness. There should be little or no braising sauce when the dish is done. Do not overcook or the noodles will become soggy. Allow the residual heat to continue cooking the noodles till al dente.
4. Dish up on serving plate and garnish with cut chives or coriander.

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Old Tree 老樹

Hong Kong is a food Mecca, no doubt about that but we also had a lot of great food in Taipei as well. The PigPig happened to come across a forum with some Taiwanese saying that My Old Tree served pretty good authentic Taiwanese fare. When my Taiwanese ex-flatmate (blogger too!) also said it was pretty good, we figured it’s worth a trip to try.

Open daily from 8.30am to 10.30pm everyday, this corner shop is bright airy with lots of window space for people to peer inside. We popped in for Sunday brunch and saw a continuous stream of people coming in to peer at the impressive array of pastries to be found.

Popular Taiwanese pastries like sun biscuit 太陽餅.

We had two set meals which had a large bowl of rice, a soup, some pickled vegetable and the chosen meat. In Taiwan, it was always Japanese sushi-rice used and I think they also used it here but it was slightly undercooked.

Taiwanese Stew Belly Pork with Stew Egg in Soy Sauce 滷肉滷蛋饭. One of our favourite dishes from Taiwan, we ate nearly a bowl of this a day. The diced pork belly here has the perfect mix of fat and meat, is fairly tasty and well seasoned but it’s missing the dark soya sauce here and is a little on the watery side. A thicker denser gravy would have been more desirable. The sweet pickles actually went great with the pork here.

Taiwanese Stir Fried Chicken in Mint, Chilli, Garlic & Black Sesame Oil with Rice (a.k.a. 3 cups chicken) 台式三杯鸡. Another typical Taiwanese dish but something we didn’t get to try on our trip. Cooked with a cup of soya sauce, sesame oil and rice wine each with ginger, garlic and basil for flavourings, this is a simple dish but done well here especially with using deboned chicken legs. The menu mentioned 'mint' but I think it's meant to be basil.

Taiwanese Deep Fried Chicken in Salt & Pepper 盐酥鸡. A popular street food, it is essentially deep fried breaded chicken with liberal dashings of salt and pepper on it. Not too bad here, it felt quite light and not greasy at all but it did make us very thirsty later.

For drinks the PigPig had a custard milk tea 布丁奶茶 which is a bit like having a dessert and drink in one – a standard milky tea with a creme caramel pudding dropped into it. Surprisingly nice. I had a cold longan tea 桂圆茶, it was slightly oversweetened, nonetheless refreshing.

Normally, that would be the end of the food review. But we decided to continue on by taking away some stuff to have for dinner too. We shared some Stir Fried Sate Beef in Gravy with Rice (a.k.a. shacha beef) 沙茶牛肉烩饭 – tenderised beef slices in a shacha based gravy – which was excellent eaten with rice.

Remember the pastries mentioned earlier? Well the PigPig spent the 10 minutes waiting for the shacha beef hovering around the pastry section trying to decide which to get amongst the multitude of savoury and sweet goodies. In the end, I had to go and pick some out myself. So we had a red bean, a peanut butter and a custard filled Mexican bun, all of which were pretty good and they were quite generous with the fillings although the custard was weirdly dry.

From left: peanut bun, custard filled Mexican bun, red bean bun

All the above cost £35 for two of us which actually fed us for the whole day.

Food – 5.0
Service – 5.0
Atmosphere – 5.0
Value – 7.0

Ok so the food was pretty tasty in a completely straightforward no-nonsense approach. We had better examples of lu rou fan in Taiwan but to be fair, everything tastes better while on holiday anyway.

Best bit: the pastries.
Worst bit: undercooked rice is pretty sad.

Old Tree 老樹
Barnet
105 Golders Green Road
Barnet, NW11 8HR
Tel:+44(020)8458 4112

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