Hedone again

So Andy Hayler, a great food blogger (who is from Chiswick too), pointed out that there are 992 foodblogs writing about London, or at least 992 who have signed up for Urbanspoon’s blog list. I don’t pretend to be a regular food blogger but I do LOVE eating out..and taking photos of the food, so I thought I’d join the list 🙂

The last time I booked for Hedone, I ended up being unconscious on the operating table having my retina re-attached at the time I was supposed to be eating. So this time, not that I’m superstitious or anything 🙂 I didn’t book too much in advance just rung up an hour before to get a ‘bar stool’, which I normally where I end up sitting. I chose the 7 course menu, with accompanying wine. I didn’t take photos of everything, but I did take some notes! This is my 4th time eating here, the last time was in February. Even with only a few visits, the maitre’d still remembered me – last time I was there I was reading the Naples guidebook and she came overto ask how my trip had been. For someone who is really bad at faces…this is extremely impressive!

The meal started off with a couple of little bites that were not on the list. There was a little cherry meringue, with fois gras and raw button mushroom slices. Loved the cherry and fois gras combination, the button mushrooms provided an earthy flavour that did not quite gel. Then a tiny cone with mini tuna nicoise salad. That was tasty. The first listed starter was poached oyster with granny smith foam and a violet. This seems to be a standard here. Didn’t take a photo this time, but here’s one I made earlier.

Next up was a cucumber medley – cucumber flan, cucumber sauce and a cucumber granita. Hedone used to serve a unami flan and they seemed to have used this as a base and added the cucumber to it. The sauce carried the pure essence of cucumber and was gorgeous! Next, another staple of the restaurant, which was sweet onion and pear. I could have eaten a lot more of these

On paper, the liquid parmesan ravioli, with onion foam, bits of smoked ham and more sweet onion, was potentially my least favourite, as I don’t really like parmesan, I have no idea how they have liquid cheese that does not burn the tongue! But it worked extremely well,the cheese flavour modified well by the onion. The plate was scraped clean!

The ‘main’ now: venison, beets, radish (and a little more onion). Just great ingredients served lovingly, nothing too clever here.

Then the first of the deserts was a trio of lemon with figs. Lemon sorbet, cream and jelly (or syrup or something). I’d watched all the figs being cut up earlier in the afternoon and seen the care that went into making sure that everyone was perfect. The whole combination was great.