Come Dine with Sofia and Jerome: A Taste of the Orient. August 14, 2010

This rather great photo was taken by our lovely hosts,

Uncharacteristically late, flustered and still clutching an umbrella despite the sweltering humidity, I found myself swept into a circle of champagne clinking, as I arrived at the third instalment of our Come Dine with Me competition. The bubbly presented in neon pink flutes, perfectly matched our hostess’ dress, and immediately set the tone of what was to be an evening filled with fantastical food, frivolous drink and frequent posing for the camera.

Fia and J, exuded nothing but calm as we took our seats at the beautifully decorated table and examined our elaborate menus with joy, (well…those of us who’d already taken our turns to host the competition were gleeful. The others felt competitive fear. Extreme competitive fear). Being one of the former group, I was astounded by the variety and culinary confidence promised by the 7 course oriental extravaganza promised by the menu. As well as being extensive, the menu was decorated with Chinese symbols, that literally translated into ‘food, glorious, food’ (well, ‘food’, ‘glory’,’ food’ - but you get the idea).

My stomach was rumbling, so thankfully there wasn’t long at all to wait for the first of our three (!!) starters; Vietnamese prawn summer rolls (goi cuon nuoc chan), served with chilli dipping sauce. These entirely reworked my preconception of ‘spring rolls’ and their deep-fried oily nature, as these ‘summer rolls’ were made of rice paper so thin it was almost translucent and didn’t require any cooking (therefore served at room temperature making them an ideally refreshing dish in the unexpectedly warm weather). Cool and crunchy as they were, the flavour was spot on, and accentuated by the kick of a glorious chill sauce (which was also very artistically presented).

 

Our appetites whet, we were soon ready for the second starter of a hot and sour thai soup (tom yam aed), with large chunks of oyster mushroom. These mushrooms were amazing - intensely velvety, soaking up the strong flavours – real lip smacking goodness. The ingredients had been sourced from authentic asian supermarkets, and it showed as each dish was truly singing with flavour. This continued into the third and perhaps my favourite starter (if I had to choose a favourite – I’d loved everything so far), the ‘yum wun sen sai mu’ (a Thai glass noodle salad with pork), served with ‘Bejing Bellini’! I’d worried that post-soup my appetite might not be ready for a third starter but the delicacy of the glass noodles, combined with the meaty juicyness of the minced pork, was heavenly, and we couldn’t help but devour it all.

We were certainly ready for our palate cleanser by this point. But this was no -neutral-and-not-all-that-exciting-sign-of-slight –pretension-palate-cleanser... Oh no: this was a sorbet. A GIN AND TONIC SORBET! What an utterly genius idea (and surely the only way to make a G&T even better)! Served daintily in shot glasses, we raucously demanded more of this heavenly creation! Made with an ice-cream maker this was a wonderfully boozy but refreshing and tangy slush-puppy of a drink. We consumed copious amounts increasing merriment, hilarity and hangovers the next morning.

After some silliness, posing and rapping, it was time for the main course – a Sumatran lamb curry had been promised. Being Indian, my idea of a curry is a distinctly sauce-y affair. But this was entirely different! The lamb had been slow roasted to melt-in-the-mouth perfection and served shredded, without sauce but still juicy. A wondrous concoction when served with pretty mounds of jasmine rice with a star-anise daintily placed on top. Once again, our plates were soon empty as we marvelled at the deliciousness of all we’d eaten so far.

Yet, still there was more! Dessert – Sofia’s speciality – was spectacular! Individual spongy chocolate spongy fondants were served hot, oozing with melting chocolate so intense that the cooling (home made) green tea ice-cream was a real pleasure to eat with it (who doesn’t love the hot/cold dessert combination)? If possible - it tasted even better than it looked.

A pomegranate gin cocktail was followed by yet more G&T sorbet as the evening took a decidedly more hazy boozy turn, complete with much photo-posing, uber-competitive ‘Articulate’, and just as competitive ‘Singstar’. Somewhere amongst the late night singing we took time to record our video diaries and score our hosts on their evening. Whilst I can’t reveal my score just yet, I really truly was astounded at how every single dish was beautifully presented, inventive and most importantly bursting with flavour. I’m really really hoping that they cook for me again…