Food 'n' Drink |

Edinburgh’s Wedgwood has been named the best new UK restaurant outside of London by Hardens in its 2010 restaurant guide.

The winners were chosen after a survey that included around 8,000 diners. Hardens also reviews around 1,850 restaurants in all of Britain’s major cities before listing its top choices.

Wedgwood is run by Paul Wedgwood and is found in the Old Town of Edinburgh.  It received the Remy Martin VSOP over the restaurants of Turners in Birmingham, Sam’s in Brighton, The Fish House in Chilgrove, West Sussex, and Vatika in Southampton.

Co-editor of the guide, Peter Harden, said that it was only appropriate that Wedgwood received the award given that Edinburgh has become the best city in the UK for top end dining followed by London.  This is due to the fact that it offers a traditional dining experience that is of the top quality.

Also receiving notice from the dining guide was Ludlow’s Mr. Underhill, which was honoured with the Remy Martin XO Excellence Award for showing consistency and all round excellence for a long period of time.  Although the owners of Mr. Underhill retired last year they placed the restaurant on the market with the same name.

Runners up for the same award were Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, Northcote in Langho, Lancashire, The Waterside Inn in Bray, and Gildleigh Park in Chagford, Devon.

Also praised in the guide was the mid market Italian chain run by Jamie Oliver as a great contribution to the world of dining.

The Southbank’s Chocolate Festival returns this Easter with even more attractions and special activities, running from Friday 26 until Sunday 28 March. Included in the event will be an afternoon (Friday 26 March from 2-7pm) of demonstrations by top pastry chefs from some of the best five star hotels and renowned restaurants in the capital using Valrhona products in their chocolate infused recipes.

The chefs will include Valrhona’s own pastry chef Andrew Gravett, Abel Vieilleville from Skylon restaurant, Tal Hausen head pastry chef at The Lanesborough, Johannes Bonin executive pastry chef Connaught Hotel and Mourad Khiat The Berkeley’s head pastry chef. BBC Master Chef winner Steven Wallis will also be using Valrhona chocolate for his demonstration of courgette flower tempura & duck salad with dark chocolate vinegrate on Saturday 27 March at 1pm. All demonstrations will take place in the main marquee.

Pastry chefs will also join master chocolatiers to create a beautiful display of sculptures made entirley from chocolate. Visitors can see this at Festival Riverside Level 1 entrance in the Royal Festival Hall. It will be open for the public on the days of the festival, from 10am – 11pm.

The Festival will also feature dozens of stalls, all individually focused on one area of the delicious world of chocolate as well as a range of workshops, tasting talks, demonstrations and book signings. Exhibitors include Best British Chocolatier William Curley, Damian Allsop and Paul Wayne Gregory, as well as chocolate companies like Rococo and Hotel Chocolat.

Following on from the huge success of their Little Yellow Cook Book, with over 10,000 downloads, Maroque have produced a new Little Orange Cook Book which is full of new and inspiring recipes for those looking to entertin with a  Moroccan theme.  Maroque is the UK’s largest supplier of specialist Moroccan and Middle Eastern ingredients, including four types of couscous, herbs, spices and spice mixes, argan oil, Moroccan olive oil, rose water, pomegranate molasses, wild rose jam, and the list goes on.  Including such dishes such as melt in your mouth sensation of cumin scented crumbles, and the spicy aroma of winter fruits in ginger sauce to the complexity of fish with dried limes, there are some suitably lovely recipes featured.

As we approach Valentines Day, imagine a romantic meal for two, the air perfumed with the heady scent of orange blossom, the silky smoky taste of Zaalouk, Morocco’s aphrodisiac spice, Ras el hanout infused lamb, and twinkling candlelight from an array of little lamps. Or a sizzling summer barbeque with enticing kebabs subtly spiced with flavours of the Middle East, and lively salads to awaken the palate served on jewel coloured Moroccan platters.

The book is the brainchild of Julie Woodard, Maroque’s owner and founder.  She “I was so excited at the success of my Little Yellow Cook Book that I am delighted to release this next instalment. Moroccan food to me is wonderful, as it appeals to all the senses, the visual delight of jewelled rice, the zing of tomato and harissa sauce, the aroma of argan oil drizzled over warm peppers, all enhance the whole cooking and dining experience. In this latest volume I hope you will join me as I continue my journey in the fascinating world of Moroccan, Middle Eastern and Persian cooking. I have had so much pleasure creating, experimenting, cooking and of course eating these dishes, I hope you will enjoy them too.”

The Little Orange Cook Book is available for free download for free from the Maroque web site.

Keep opened bottles of wine fresh with Kilner’s new Vacufresh wine stopper. Featuring a clever vacuum pump system that removes air in the bottle, the Vacufresh stopper slows down the oxidisation process, ensuring that your wine will stay fresh for longer.

The Vacufresh wine stopper is compact, easy to store and really simple to use. Just place the bottle of wine on a sturdy flat surface then firmly push the Vacufresh stopper onto the bottle and pump several times until you feel resistance, which means that the remaining air in the bottle has been removed. Then lock in place for long lasting fresher tasting wine without the waste!

The Vacufresh wine stopper retails from just £6.99.

The Food Standards Agency is calling all supermarkets to reduce the amount of contaminates found in their food items after it was released that almost 66% of all the chicken sold at supermarkets contain the bug that is the root of most of Britain’s food poisoning cases.

The contaminate in the chicken is called campylobacter and is responsible for 80 deaths per year and 440,000 illnesses.

The best way to avoid getting food poisoning is to cook chicken thoroughly and to disinfect the areas where chicken is kept.

However, despite this easy advice over the last four years the amount of those who fall ill each year has risen by about 40,000.

Chief executive of FSA, Tim Smith, told the board of agency that he wrote to each of the chief executives of major supermarket chains such as Tesco, Asda, and Sainsbury’s to highlight the concern and ask for their aid in reducing the problem.

Smith stated that now is the time for retailers to change their policies when it comes to purchasing goods that are subject to contamination and that by setting standard policies, purchasing strategies, and specifications in place the amount of campylobacter incidents can be reduced.

For the moment the FSA is asking supermarket officials to attend a March summit that will educate them about how chicken should be properly cleaned.  Before the summit, officials are looking into whether deep freezing or steam cleaning chicken for a brief period before placing it on the shelves will reduce the rates of contamination.

Santa Teresa 1796, the ultra Premium aged rum, produced by the oldest Venezuelan rum distiller, Ron Santa Teresa, will be presented to some of the world’s top musicians at the 2010 Annual GRAMMY Awards to be held in Los Angeles.

Beyoncé, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Green Day and Pink are among the top artists who will be participatig at the Awards and as usual each will be receiving an ‘official talent gift bag’ which will include various luxury items such as In addition to Santa Teresa 1796, the official talent gift bags will include a myriad of luxury items: the bag itself from Victorinox Travel Gear, a Yucycle (the new human-powered vehicle), skin and hair treatments, online shopping cards, spa treatments, sport clubs memberships, gourmet chocolates, headsets and other extravagances, as well as a bottle of Santa Teresa 1796 rum.

Santa Teresa 1796 was launched in 1996 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Hacienda Santa Teresa, and it is the only rum that is totally aged through the ancient Solera method, for centuries the secret of Spain’s sherry and brandy producers, which gives this rum its balanced body and the perfect ageing roundness that makes Santa Teresa 1796 distinctive and inimitable.

The first Ron de Venezuela brand, Ron Santa Teresa, is  an independent Venezuelan family business, employing more than 400 people and known for its community projects, including ‘Project Alcatraz’. This inspiring community initiative gives violent gang members an alternative life to prison. It gives offenders the opportunity to rehabilitate in a program that includes intensive labour, education, work-studies, rugby training, psychological assistance and community service, with the objective of reinserting in to society.

A new survey asked consumers what they think when they enter a supermarket and see organic food on display, the majority answered either chemical free or expensive.

Expensive is true given the fact that organic foods can cost on average from ten percent more than conventional food, up to a massive100% more.

However, chemical free is not a true assumption as even foods that contain the label organic can still be grown with chemicals so long as the chemicals on are the list of approved substances offered by organizations across the UK and Europe.

Most people at major supermarkets who responded the question of organic food explained that the items were not made with pesticides or fertilizers.  In particular, one staff member claimed the food was not genetically modified, while only one was able to answer correctly, stating that organic foods are grown with the use of fewer chemicals.

Even a Soil Association spokesperson stated that organic food items were grown without pesticides before changing their response to a ‘minimal amount’ of pesticides.

Although organic food growers are not trying to scam consumers, some customers still feel a bit let down when they learn that there are still pesticides used on organic foods.

This could be due to the fact that most organic food items do not have labels that explain what organic really means.

For example, a bag of potatoes that were organically grown at a leading UK supermarket has a label that states the produce meets the standards of the EU and UK law.

With undiscerning labels such as these, it is easy to be misled since most consumers are not aware of what the standards actually are.

Finding out is an even larger problem, as  the standards are not available on the Soil Association website, instead only a Consumer Guide to their standards is available, which explains how organic farming is grown, but does not list the approved fertilizers or pesticides that are used.