Best Eats This Week - Ibérica's Pinchos (London)

Ibérica - the renowned Spanish restaurant group in the UK has launched a new menu exclusive to their beautiful outdoors terrace in Cabot Square.   Designed by three Michelin-starred Executive Chef Nacho Manzana, it features a series of imaginative pinchos along with their usual tapas. 

Notable mentions include their mini Butifarra burger - a thick slice of fatty Catalan sausage meat encased between soft toasted brioche, with sweet and tangy pickled fennel and a sharp mustard mayonnaise. 

Chocolate Arancini, Raspberry Coulis, Chantilly Cream

Chocolate's always a crowd-pleaser.  It's evocative of childhood, of innocent indulgence and simple pleasures.  It's funny when you think about how much consolation a bar of chocolate brings to a child.  My father used to give me chocolate whenever I was sad and I remember vividly that at that precise moment, when the chocolate was handed to me, nothing else mattered.  My watery eyes would dry and I would just be happy.  It was all so uncomplicated.  And this feeling can be carried onto adulthood and maybe that's why chocolate's always so popular as a dessert option in restaurants.  There always needs to be a silly calorific chocolate pudding on the menu -- be it a chocolate fudge cake, a soft-centered fondant or a dark chocolate pie.

Best Eats This Week: YO! Sushi's New #YOLO Dishes

YO! Sushi has changed gears and launched three dishes for the summer that are fantastically fun and exciting. It's the theme of "East meets West" which, yes, has been done to death, but they deserve a good pat on the back for this one.

 The new series of limited edition #yolo dishes will only be on the menu for a few weeks.  These include J-Dog:  Japanese arabiki sausage in a brioche bun topped with spring onions, nori, crunchy shallots, misotchup, teriyaki -- and it comes with a cute little Sriracha keychain.   Flavor and textural sensation and the best thing is you get to have hot sauce on the go at the end of it,  if anything, that's your reason for ordering it.

Potato Latkes

For my exam I need to make fondant potatoes which need to be 5x6cm and 80g in weight.  So after practicing for two hours at home I was left with a dozen perfectly shaped bar-soap potatoes and a kilo of potato trimmings.  Okay, "perfectly shaped" is pushing it but the point is I had too many potatoes.  So came the latkes for breakfast.

Maison Blanc's Summer Range

I love the change of seasons because it inspires the entire food industry to launch new items.  The progression to Summer is a favorite as everyone goes towards lighter, fresher and more colorful food, especially in the UK, as it suffers from winters of achromatic produce and so summer just brings a whole new food scene.

Best Eats This Week - Carlo Rotta Chocolates

Gianduiotti are perhaps the most underrated of chocolates outside of Italy. It’s a genius combination of cocoa and Piedmontese hazelnut paste that was invented in the 1800s in Turin. Think of Nutella and imagine it in the consistency of a chocolate, now imagine a more sophisticated flavor profile with proper cocoa and more hazelnut and no added nonesense. Oh when a gianduiotto is good, it’s simply sublime - and Carlo Rotta is tapping into the London market with his.

Quail, onion puree, hazelnut granola, peas, jus

 Oh man I'm so glad I can finally use some of my culinary school stuff for Happy Belly. It's two birds with one stone. This is actually an exam dish of mine, and I need to make two plates of this plus two plates of a main course dish that involves a dozen different elements in 4 hours.  With setting up and cleaning, I'm in the room for over 4 and a half hours.  An exam for four and a half hours.  You know what my main concern with these things are?  My bladder.  I've got a bladder of an 80-year-old and simply the idea of being restricted the bathroom for that long makes my bladder fill up with nerves.

Guinea Fowl, Sandwich, Charred Corn, Spiced Fennel Puree & Jus

Sometimes in class we get to do a bit of whatever we want.  We're given a list of ingredients and we're told to go wild, and this was that. 

 I can only imagine attempting this at home without 12 different pots and pans and all the equipment and porters washing after you.  Maybe you're luckier than I am, so maybe this is easily achievable at home under an hour. 

Best Eats This Week: Doodle's Dockside Diner (London)

With the sandals on, sunglasses out and skins exposed, it is officially summer in London.  Long gone are the days of requesting a table away from the door in fear of the cold drafts and spending the evening eating potato soup -- for the next three months, The Doodle Bar is collaborating with The Grub Club to bring about a series of weekend alfresco lunches with entertainment.