Where foodies spent this weekend ….

So why London and why this particular festival? Well as we have mentioned before, for us food is not just about eating or the energy it provides; it’s about what it does to us humans and the societies we live in. We believe it brings us together and makes us happy and what better city than London represents this feeling? and festival such as Taste of London truly embody the very characteristic of food and eating which we want to capture and explore in this community.

For those who don’t know what this festival is all about, I suggest you read on!
The organisers call it a “restaurants” festival where both famous and infamous outlets display their cuisine and sell their sample size portions to general public. You can see big names such as Gordon Ramsey’s Petrus and Le Gavroche to chain restaurants such as Gaucho or even smaller local and traditional places. In addition to the food outlets, there were loads of organisers and cultural exchanges displaying food items and accessories from all over the world. You could find and taste amazing sweets from boutique chocolatier stands or try hot and spicy South American sauces front tons of different kiosks. This weekend, Regents park was the perfect fusion of colours, flavours and cultures.
We met the chefs, like Michel Roux Jr., Angela Malik and Thomasina Miers who make the restaurants worth what they are, experienced some live cooking and joined a few cooking classes (most of them are always over subscribed so for next year please book early!).
However, it didn’t stop there. This festival brought together not only restaurant and famous chefs but also culture and delicacies from all over the world, making it an afternoon well spent for the Meynu team.
So what did we take away from the festival – well we aren’t going to tell you all today but below are some of out picks.

Our favourites: Slow-roast lamb with summer ratatouille and pomme Parisienne from the famous City restaurant Coq d’Argent . We really enjoyed meeting the chef who was wanted to bring the “Gypsy” culture back to eating! We will talk more about the amazing maestro Mickael Weiss in the coming days. This man is worth meeting and reading about.
We suggest you get hold of flavoured rum from St Kitts and try the burgers and BBQ from the London based chef Sebastian La Rocca who id the head at Barbecoa, a Jamie Oliver and Adam Perry Lang collaboration. Being Argentinian, he couldn’t stress more on the quality of meat and the proper way its should cooked. Not to forget the extreme South American flair he possessed which made one of our lady colleagues blush!
Please don’t forget to look up the winner of the festival though – Marmite Royale from Chef Pascal Aussignac of Club Gascon. Don’t forget this is the second year running he has won this award! We weren’t able to try this particular dish (un lucky) this time!
Although we couldn’t meet everyone and couldn’t try everything, we can now be more than sure that when humans come to together to celebrate food, they have the power to take flavours to an extreme and divine level and also discover things which they wouldn’t be able to do in the confined spaces of restaurants.
Last but not the least, we met a very interesting young and quirky entrepreneur names Fatima Fazal who created a practical yet a beautiful and environment friendly cutlery set. It is a heart shaped set which when broken become a pair of forks, knives and spoons. She firmly believes in the concept of sharing and togetherness and argues that her designed product, iHeart This, will put love back into your food. She sounded like one of us! We will talk more about her in upcoming posts as she and her product is not to be missed.
From Meynu, this isn’t the end of it! We talked to hundreds of people and have loads to share with you. So please subscribe to us so we can keep you in touch!
Let explore food and the people behind it together!
Ciao

Written by : Seb @ (www.mey.nu)