Flor was one of those places that was just unexpected and a joy to find twelve months ago! The food, the choons and the vibe?! FANTASTIC! Our day started with a visit to the moniker art fair in Chelsea. It was our first time visiting, massive s/o to my good mate Folarin for the heads up! Varied selections of art and artists. Plus, I managed to find a piece which Neal liked and when I tell you, it was a mission to purchase it because Neal too nosy for his own good! Nonetheless, managed to get a moment alone at the stand and cop the painting, thank heavens it was for delivery cos there was no way I would have gotten that past Neal.
Dins dins was in Flor, which is in the borough street market area and as I have mentioned before, one of our fave places to go. it is a wine bar, restaurant and bakery. When i learned about this I was a like err… too much going on in this space but honestly, it was fine. We were seated by the window which was perfect as I like to people watch, plus, I don’t recall if we had a booking but Ed (host with the most) did a ting!!!
In true fashion of small plates, you order a little bit of this, and a little bit of that right? and that is exactly how it went down. We had a few plates that were just so good and to be honest quite unexpected. Take the sourdough bread; it was sourdough flat bread with hedgehog mushrooms & borettane onion. Now the onion already put me off (just because I don’t do onions) but Neal loved it, plus, having the whole lot to himself filled him with glee!
The Coppa di zuglio – cured meat was perfect. Not too dry, salty and moist enough to want to have a second helping. The Mutton ‘tonnato’? now this was good. It was pieces, well strips of aged lamb, mayo and capers. How on earth Chef Jamie knew the flavours will work? I don’t know but they worked! Boi did they work.. ti was flavourful and intensely good!
When I read ‘crudités, sesame’ on the menu, not going to lie, I had no clue what it could be, no clue at all. It was the most unexpected dish ever. What in the world are Crudités? Well these are traditional French appetisers consisting of sliced or whole raw vegetables served with a dipping sauce (at Flor it’s Sesame). I am not a big fan of French cuisine, yeah, i am still petty about our Le Millenaire experience however, thank heavens for non-French Chef’s who put a better (in my opinion) spin on French food, like Petrus! Right back to Chef Jamie’s crudités, it was a plate of chunky slices of raw vegetables- cucumber, parsnip, radish, served with the most gorgeous tasting sesame in olive oil, herbs and spices. You might be thinking this is like having humus and carrot sticks type thing, that is correct! You won’t be far off but let me say this – YOUR CARROT AND HUMUS WILL NOT TASTE LIKE THIS! The vegetables were fresh and crunchy. I love a good crunchy piece of vegetable! But the sesame sauce? Listen! it was just yummy! Like lick the bowl yummy!
Another equally surprising dish, was the scarlet prawns, orange yuzu kosho. Usually prawn dishes are in like an aioli sauce, batter and in most cases headless. Well the prawns here came in 2 parts – the head and the rest in an orange yuzu kosho (a type of Japanese chili paste). Does the head of a prawn have any meat and how do you eat it? You might be wondering… well, you suck on it to get the meat and juices lol! The burrata, beans, peach, fennel blossoms was just as surprising. Hidden in this gold dish was mozzarella as well as granola! Making it yummy with extra bite and sweetness from the pear – delish!
The Hake brandade and peppers was essentially an unconventional looking fish pie; think tapas style full of flavour that tasted so good! We enjoyed these dishes with a bottle of Grillo Verde orange wine! Yes Ed, he came through with it!
Yes Chef Jamie, I was indeed very happy eating at your establishment!
Cheers
Ndidi