Taste of London

I had a great time at Taste of London yesterday evening, trying an amazing array of dishes on show by many of London's best restaurants. Luckily for me, I was with my mum who knows loads of the chefs so we got treated to a lot of food and I was introduced to the big names!

First, we went to L'Anima, Francesco Mazzei's restaurant. I really enjoyed the burrata with smoked aubergine and red onion jam. The combination of the fresh cheese and aubergine had a wonderfully clean flavour, which reminded me of sushi. I liked how the sharper taste of the jam cut through this, and the hazelnuts added a nice crunch.

Of course, Francesco's 'icon' dish was fantastic - rich wild mushrooms and truffles created a deeply earthy flavour, and were beautiful combined with the delicate fettucine pasta. Alexis Gauthier's truffle risotto was another intense and rich indulgence!

 The lemon zeppola from L'Anima was also very tasty - like a posh doughnut!

These baby squid from Club Gascon were very yummy, with a frothy bisque. I wasn't so keen on the tapioca, but the crispy discs were nice. Club Gascon's chef, Aussignac, won the best dish award for his Marmite Royale and Soldiers - frois gras and Marmite - I suppose you either love it or hate it. As a pescetarian, I didn't actually try it, but my mum (a Marmite-lover) says it was delectable!

This shrimp and haddock kedgeree from Cinammon Club was strange. I really liked the haddock which was very flavoursome, but I wasn't so keen on the rest of the kedgeree. It had a consistency too similar to porridge for my liking, and was a little too fishy.

Probably my favourite dish were these mango and unagi maki from Sake No Hana. They were beautiful maki rolls of eel, which were topped with wonderfully sweet mago slices. Served on a bamboo boat, they not only looked great, but tasted superb too!

I thought this tagliatelle 'pasta', made from squid was very inventive. The taste and texture of the squid really lent itself to playing the role of pasta, and went brilliantly with the lobster jus.

The whole place was full of great-looking and very tasty dishes. We didn't even have time to visit all of the stands!

This year, the festival in Regent's Park is on until Sunday 24th June - see Taste of London's website for details.

There are also taste festivals all around the world, so you can check out http://www.tastefestivals.com/ to find one near you!