THE KOFF

Playing a very rapid catch-up on the legend of the Koff, me and the Merchandiser of Doom booked ourselves a table at his not so new return to le capital Anglais at the Berkley hotel in Knightsbridge. Battling against some properly inclement weather on our way through Mayfair we arrived more thankful of the opportunity to thaw rather than dine. We did manage to awaken our senses to our surroundings and i have to say I was suitably impressed, albeit with rather low expectations. I'm not to keen on the whole hotel restaurant thing. I generally see these ventures as an unfortunate endorsement of soft print magnolia walls and shiny plastic cornices by celebrity chefs that should and would know better - if they ever set foot on the premises. Anyway, the Berkley basement restaurant in question was coloured a very close relation of beige but the spacing and lighting worked to create what was admittedly a very relaxed and convivial mood.
Now the food. We received a bread basket and curious pastry offering by way of an amuse bousch. I went for the latter first off. Absolute yuck and very much not amused. The abhorrence in question consisted of a horribly greasy puff pastry base with a smear of tasteless red onion goop on the top. Sure, it was edible enough to make it down my throat but it would have been better placed on the heat lamp lit shelves of Percy Ingle (or a bin) rather than being served in a supposedly French restaurant. What next? Gristly Cornish pasties? Siv-voo-play! And the bread? I won't carry on but we're talking a semi-baked selection pack of continental mini pan from Makros. In both counts, we could have done without and skipped straight to the first course.

I had ordered a dish of smoked eel with tender leeks. This is where we began to get back on course. Rounds of green leek shoots and white hearts had been set in a patterned terrine-like presentation centre plate. Three nuggets of eel had been relegated to underneath this and for good measure we had a few orange spots dotted around the plate as you do. Oh, and not forgetting the four spicy cashew nuts. A fairly bizarre visual piece all in all but very much providing relief from the previous doh balls-up. Taste wise, it wasn't quite hitting the mark, the eel not being fatty enough, but we were finally on the move.

Merchandiser of Doom faired much better than I with a dish that was straight forward but impressed with a creative flair - snails & garlic mash where the snails had been sunk, sans shell, in a ramekin filled with a garlic potato puree so creamy it served as sauce. A tasteless fart of green foam, presumably parsley, decorated the very top to make it clear that this was modern cooking. The flavours (fart withstanding) were wonderfully intense, easy to grasp and unctious.

Now, the real reason we were venturing this far from our eastern fringe comfort zone was, of course, to sample Mr Koffman's signature dish, the fabled pig's trotters. I had actually studied and considered the rest of the menu but could not justify any other dish when we came to order. Boy, would I have kicked myself if I had. The sight of this beast alone was feast enough to fill and amaze. I was presented with a foot yes but also the attached leg reaching up to the knee almost. As for the trotter, gone was the expected porcine hoofs and instead I found myself staring down at a series of very child-like toes. I would assume that these little pinkies are normally tucked inside their toughened cartilage shoes and it's only after quite a rough series of proddings and boilings that they reveal themselves. I once performed a similar operation on a ram's skull I purchased on ebay (for ornamental, not oral purposes). After multiple soakings in caustic soda I was quite surprised when the outer layer of the horns fell off to reveal, well, more bone underneath. I do hope that wasn't the method used on my dish. And then the skin. Well, it looked like the sticky, heat scolded flesh from a horror movie burns victim. Er, but in a good way. And this was all that had been used from the foot - the skin, the outer sheath.

The insides had been replaced by more offal wonderment, sweetbreads specifically, and then these held within a morel flecked baked souffle. Truly what a masterpiece of presentation and the macabre. But enough of this waffle, was it fit to eat and swallow? Truly delicious of course with a wonderful intensity of flavour, richness and even distinction of texture. A super reduced sticky jus and puree perfect potato compliment all this. I have to admit that I couldn't quite get myself to hoover up all blubbery strips of the trotter skin although I promise this was for fear of my clogging my viscera rather than fear of the food itself - it combined beautifully with the other components on my fork. Heart exploding concerns aside, I could have easily finished the other three feet of my delicious porcine companion. But, at the very least, that would have ended the night and we had one more course outstanding.

Pressing the mental buttons necessary to activate my expandable dessert stomach I took a look at the sweets menu. Again the choice was a no-brainer (I'm not talking about offal this one time) - hands down cremé brulee. This doesn't require quite so much lyrical masturbation as a you don't fuck with a cremé brulee, it is what it is and you like it or you leave it. This one delivered as expected to complete the stomach bung started by the eel and pig's trotter. One point of interest was the dish it was served in - exceedingly shallow but wide. This cleverly served up more crunch on the surface to give better contrast with the cremé caramel below. It also mercifully emptied out as I was about to fall off my chair. There was not any further room for adventure either inside or out so with the necessary re-mortgaging (fairly reasonable I have to say) we rolled away home with no slight concern for lack of body heat or insulation.