Eat Like Ushi

I've owned Ottolenghi's much reputed vegetarian cookbook Plenty for a while. Admittedly although I've read the recipes and salivated over the pictures of healthiness, I've never had the audacity to try to cook them. I suppose after I visit the restaurant itself, I may be more inspired to try. It is on to-eat list for London, but just haven't got around to it just yet.

For those who don't know, Ottolenghi in London is meant to be a haven for vegetarians. Given the price of quality meat and seafood around here, I'm not surprised there are a lot of vegetarians to be catered for. I thought they would likely cater for other particular eaters and so when a friend from Melbourne with gluten-free preferences came, I discovered Ottolenghi's spinoff restaurant Nopi was very well reputed for the gluten-free mob.

We ate in the downstairs communal table section, which I highly recommend. It is a much more social space great for casual encounters, and allows vision of the open kitchen. Upstairs looks much more formal-restaurant/date-night which is fine if that is what you want.

We tried a variety of dishes from the dedicated gluten-free menu (which works out to be about 75% of the starters and nearly all the mains), selecting 6 share plates in a Middle-Eastern-inspired tapas meal:

- Roasted Aubergine, Feta, Pomegranate (really excellent mix of flavours and textures - smoked aubergine, salty creamy feta, sweet pomegranate and crunchy pine nuts)
- Purple Beetroot, Raw Golden Beetroot, Candy Beetroot, Labneh (sweet selection of beetroot, simply prepared)
- Organic Prawns, Kohlrabi, Bacon Sauerkraut, Jalapeno (great quality prawns with nice herbs, the sauerkraut was pretty ordinary)
- Roasted Hake, Chickpea Puree, Mussels (fish texture was good, flavours didn't stand out)
- Twice-cooked Baby Chicken, Lemon Myrtle Salt, Chilli Sauce (very SE Asian inspired combination of flavours, delicious)
- Grilled Pork Tenderloin, Peanut Mango Acar, Picked Pomelo (medium-rare pork had marvellous texture, the rest sounds nice but didn't have much impact)

Overall the meal was very tasty and outlined the skillful cooking working within a particular gourmet box, in this case gluten-free but also would well cater for vegetarians. A little pricey for the serving size, but quality ingredients cooked well always come with cost.

Next time I would order any of the vegetable starters as they all sound sensational. Sweet Potato, Figs & Goat's Cheese and Valdeon Cheesecake, Pickled Beetroot, Truffle Honey and Roasted Green, Purple, White Cauliflower, Ricotta, Golden Raisins are just some of the others I didn't get to try. Supplement these with some seafood or meat starters that take your fancy, eat downstairs in the communal area and wash it down with a Lychee & Grapefruit Spritzer like I did.