Dinner at the Shiori, 15th May

On Friday night, we made our second visit to the Shiori, a kaiseki restaurant near Queensway. This post will mostly be photographic, since the great thing about going to the Shiori is that the photos practically take themselves and not even I can screw them up. For more comprehensive notes on our first visit, see here.

It's such a soothing space. The daily grind is completely shut out behind those screens.

We had managed to persuade D to join us since he's fond of Japanese food. As before, we went for the works i.e. the biggest tasting menu with accompanying sake tasting.

ok, I did manage to screw this photo up, but it's the only one I have of the sake list

It's a tiny restaurant and I found myself distracted by the presence of Nigella at the table next to ours, having a work-related conversation with her dining companion. As the general atmosphere is quite hushed and reverent, we could hear every word and there was significant temptation to join in on more than one occasion. After she'd left, I said something to Hitomi, who runs the front of house, who told us that she's a regular and frequently brings famous friends along. But I didn't get the impression that Hitomi was bothered by any of that kind of thing. Everyone gets treated equally at the Shiori.

And so, on to the food and drink.

I'm not completely sure if this was actually a sake - it was very lemony, almost like a limoncello but without the cloying sweetness. Very refreshing, and just what we needed at the start of the meal.

This was incredibly finely sliced yam, "showing off Chef's knife skills" said Hitomi (a.k.a Chef's proud wife).

This was some bonito.

A lovely eggy custard thing "with seasonal vegetables" which we were asked to guess. I remember that one of them turned out to be lotus root. G said he'd like this for breakfast every day.

Sashimi garden. The fish is such high quality, and the scallop was particularly memorable.

Nigella didn't eat her flower. "Is that wrong of me?" she asked. I wasn't sure whether to either, but G advised me to do so. I regretted it actually - it was very pungent.

Scorpion-fish with a strange celery-like fibrous vegetable. The fish was delicious, and served warm.

Abalone and sea-cucumber. Apparently the sea-cucumber is a great delicacy!

This baby peach in a pool of peach jelly was an absolute highlight. Who knew such things existed? Seriously, it was like going to heaven.

And now, the main course! The main part was salmon, rice and peas, with miso soup and pickled cucumber and ginger. I loved the pickles in particular.

Black sesame ice cream for me...

... while G went for cherry blossom sorbet, which made him very happy.

Plum wine.

And finally, a little bean curd sweetmeat (at the risk of sounding like G's father) and a bowl of the most intense green tea. This photo doesn't quite capture the colour, which was a vibrant green like watercress soup. Hitomi told us that it would make us all younger. Certainly it felt rather medicinal.

I haven't provided a running commentary on the sakes, as I didn't want to sit there making notes, but as usual when she poured them, Hitomi told us a little bit about each one. And, as before, we particularly enjoyed the Dassai Junmai Daiginjo 50. D spotted that there is a sake takeaway list which we must check out next time. And we mustn't wait too long before going back! G was tempted to move his office to the neighbourhood so that he could go there for lunch every day. I definitely think an annual pilgrimage is a necessity. This place is an absolute treasure.

SPNS dinner, 12th May

On Tuesday night, it was over to the Savile Club for the next instalment of the Chronicles of the Swiss Pinot Noir Society. I arrived to find a wedding party coming down the stairs but elbowed them out of the way of them as nothing was getting between me and a much-needed glass of fizz. T and I found D waiting for us in the bar extension sandpit and decided to crack on, with G and P joining us a few minutes later.

"Two from New Mexico" announced D with a flourish, and the look on T's face was priceless.

The first was a Brut from the Gruet winery. This surprised us all, I think, except perhaps D and G who had tasted it previously. There was something unusual about it, and I remain unclear about the grape varieties being used. Some doubted that grapes were involved, as opposed to, say, cactus. It was certainly interesting to try: pleasant, floral and light, and it improved with time in the ice bucket.

After the straight Brut, we moved on to the Brut Rose, from the same establishment. If anything, this was even weirder. It wasn't quite as bad as the "badly-dissolved paracetamol" Romanian pink fizz that T famously inflicted on us a few years ago, but nevertheless it produced interesting facial expressions all round. P made a comment along the lines of "this is what happens when you let the primary school make wine on their day out". I don't think any of us really liked it, with the possible exception of D whose comment in the book is carefully neutral.

We moved upstairs to the dining room, which was very busy. G had provided this Bernkastler Doctor 1985. It was a beautiful colour.

Diesel and meths were detected on the nose, which fortunately dissipated fairly quickly. It was drunk with some pleasure but the consensus was that it was elderly and past its best. We remembered a previous occasion when we'd drunk a similar 2009 wine too young - the notes are here. Maybe next time we'll get it right! G and T had a starter of scallops and black pudding risotto which apparently went very well with it, and petitions are being made to have this put on the menu as a regular feature, which I'd welcome as I was quite envious.

P had provided two reds: a 1994 cabernet sauvignon from Durney Vineyards in California, and a 1997 Chateau La Grave Figeac. The Durney Vineyards wine was the highlight of the evening - fully mature but not over the hill, with dark, ripe blackcurrant fruit. Nobody had a bad word to say about it, except perhaps regret that we were drinking P's penultimate bottle. P told us that this winery had a bad vintage the year after (if I was paying attention) and closed, but it seems to have been resurrected in the form of Heller Estate Organic Vineyards.

The Chateau La Grave Figeac was very pleasant, well-integrated, medium-weight and approachable, drinking nicely. It just didn't excite quite as much as the Durney Vineyards. Possibly this is because it was primarily merlot, whereas I'm a cab sauv kinda girl myself.

It's hard to see in this terrible photo, but the Durney is on the left and is slightly darker than the claret on the right.

With the cheese course, we moved on to my contribution, Le Vin de Francois 2010. This is a South African red which I was given by a colleague. It seemed to be quite prestigious judging from my internet seaches, so I'd saved it for this occasion. However, to be honest, it wasn't my cup of tea at all. It was 14.5% alcohol and one of those big new world blockbusters that to me just tastes like a hangover in a glass - completely lacking in subtlety. Others were kinder and descibed it as "jammy" and "gooey". It went all right with the cheese, I suppose, but it wasn't a patch on what had gone before.

Finally, we had this Eiswein 1998 from Weingut Hafner in Austria, made from pinot noir grapes, which was T's contribution for the evening. This was well-received - it was a great dessert wine with sweetness and finesse, and a very long finish. T had brought along two half bottles but only one of them was drunk, as the evening had gone on for some time and we were practically being kicked out of the dining room at that point. I've taken custody of the other half and will bring it along on another occasion, as it certainly seemed that there was no rush.

All in all, another fascinating evening and thanks to everyone for sharing your interesting and in some cases lovely wines with us!