2009 Highlights: Masterchef Live
The major foodie event for the Plate Up crew was Masterchef Live at
It’s too big to look around it all in just one day, but you can get a lot done! We focussed on the main floor, centred by the ‘Restaurant Experience’ area – this is a designated square in the centre of the huge exhibition space bordered by market style vending stalls that represent some high quality chefs and restaurants, all serving samplers of their signature dishes from menus limited to around ten choices (or less). We arrived late morning and thought it was time to start lunch, so we headed straight to this central arena and spent our tokens on a variety of cuisines: asian fusion, oriental, traditional roast and other quality British and international style foods.
The food was all good, the stand-out dishes were the smoked haddock chowder (above, top) from Urban Caprice, and the spicy Indian-style dishes from Café Spice Namaste (Goan Prawn Pulao Curry, above mid and Bhael Puri, above). Roast To Go was also very satisfying, though their famous crackling was a bit on the too chewy side (below).
The other downside of the Restaurant experience was the lack of seating, people were sitting on the floor and tripping up diners carrying their samples – surely not a good health-and-safety scenario. There was a VIP dining area, that you could have paid extra for access too, but with the price of the tickets… and the food tokens… and the sampling glass… you would, sort of, expect somewhere to sit! There was the same problem the previous year, so the organisers obviously had not learnt from experience (attention BBC: perhaps more attention to event design would be good as 2009’s event was notably more chaotic and confusing than 2008’s, rather than smoother). In retrospect, one of those lightweight folding chairs that fishermen use would have been a good idea.
The next circle of stalls was mainly the wine vendors and drinks distributors. Only a few were ‘snobby and stand-offish’, and these were not getting much interest from the punters… the rest were lively, friendly and generous with their samples. There were some excellent wines and spirits being promoted, but the most consistently impressive stall in this category has to be the ‘Wines Of Chile’, which were all very good and some were excellent indeed!
In the next circle were other fine food traders demonstrating and selling various products including coffee, pickles, jams, knives, halogen cookers, food magazines, olives, and such. The ‘Flavours of Japan’ speciality stand was particularly interesting with free samples of interesting food and drink - sake and calpis tastings… Calpis? Yes, and it tastes a lot better than it sounds, it’s basically a fermented milk drink, a kind of healthy drinking yogurt that has a very distinctive fresh, almost fruity taste. The stall itself was a feast for the eye with multicoloured packaging with strange graphics ranging from the minimal zen typographic to the big-eyed and gaudy what-is-that-creature brand ‘mascots’. (After closure of the main arena on Saturday evening, the Japanese theme was carried over into a special event, the ‘Eat-Japan Sushi Awards’.)
The bulk of the traders were on the gallery floor, but there was not enough time left to thoroughly enjoy them and we only managed a brisk walk about as they were packing up their wares. There were specialist cheesemakers, preserves and pickles, pastries and cakes, sauces, mushroom specialists, chilli dealers, a few gadget and appliance pushers, organic veg sellers, cordials, teas and coffees.
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