View out of Gordon Ramsay Plane Food

I have some rather awesome friends I must say. Ones that share in my love of food and understand when I whip out a camera during a meal without sighing loudly or complaining. One of these friends is the self named “Carbon Debit”, owing the amount of time she spends in the skies traveling and working towards her pilot’s license. So when she went to Gordon Ramsay’s Plane Food restaurant at London’s Heathrow Airport T5 we were all interested to see what she had to say. It’s no secret that Australia is Gordon Ramsay obsessed, which will only be spurred on by his Sydney appearance at the Good Food and Wine Show (where an ebayer sold two tickets and a copy of his book for $350!).

So without further ado, here is what my friend had to say about Gordon Ramsay’s Plane Food.

In one word - lovely!!!

I wasn’t really that hungry because I had a rather large plate of salad for lunch before I left for Heathrow, at around 1pm. I got to Plane Food at around 4:15pm. But I had to have something there, or it would have defeated the object of going to Plane Food.

Their menu was displayed well before the entrance (which is down a corridor) so it was easy to decide whether I could find something I wanted to try despite not being hungry, or not, without feeling bad about looking and walking off.

I spotted a crab and miso salad with purple shiso which sounded rather light and lovely. They also offered a starter size and a main size. Ideal to have a starter sized one under the circumstance. The area is quite spacious and airy, and it is sort of on a ‘balcony’. It’s hard to describe exactly what it’s like, but you can see the floor below you, if you sit nearest to the window, as well as the tarmac area and BA hangars. Tables are not too crammed in, although not so sparse either. The lines are ‘clean’ and there is no chintz in sight. It’s a very pleasant andrelaxing but at the same time not excessively casual atmosphere.

So I walked up to the entrance and was greeted by a bright, friendly but not overpowering girl who showed me to the table. She asked me if I wanted to sit near the window, which I said yes. She helped me put my carry on out of the way as well. She told me that the special was duck in orange sauce. Under a normal circumstance I would definitely have that (perhaps as well as the crab miso salad!), but I was just not hungry enough. Dammit. I shouldn’t have had the salad for lunch.

Although I already had a look at the menu, I did have a bit more look out ofcuriosity. It all looked pretty good. A waiter promptly came up to ask me what I wanted to drink, and I asked about juices. He knew what they had (often not the case in restaurants!), and I ordered a glass of cranberry juice which arrived very promptly.

Crab miso salad with soya beans, cucumber and purple shiso was duly ordered (everything was very efficient there) and I only needed to look out of the window onto the passing BA aeroplanes for a very short time before it arrived.

Crab and Miso salad £9.50

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Working this hard has some benefits. Let me think of one if I try really hard…. oh ok yes weeknight dinners out when I just can’t be bothered cooking and washing up (and I’ve yet to train my husband to do the dishes). So whilst we are housesitting I am taking full advantage of the numerous cheap eats nearby and tonight we’re dining at Chinese Dumpling Noodle House at Kingsford.

My husband is what people call an egg, white on the outside, yellow on the inside. That is to mean that whilst he might look like “white” on the outside, inside he is Chinese for all intents and purposes. And we’ve managed to figure out that not only is he Chinese but he is Northern Chinese. He adores the dumplings and noodle soups associated with this colder Chinese climate much more than anyone else that I know. The place that he asked to be taken to for his birthday is Shanghai Night at Ashfield. So when I gave him a choice of places to go, his finger pointed straight at Chinese Dumpling Noodle House.

We’re early this evening having skived off work a bit early and there are a few tables occupied. We’re issued with out laminated menus (surprisngly new looking) and it looks to be a range of dumplings and hand made noodles as well as other asian food including laksas. We’d been warned to stick to the dumplings and noodles and to reinforce the point, the SMH article featuring Kylie Kwong beams at us from the window where she recommends this particular place for the dumplings and hand made noodles. So we choose the mega dumpling feast - 18 boiled Northern Style dumplings for $7.80; 8 pan fried meat buns $7.80 and a bowl of shredded pork and pickled vegetables with handmade noodles $7.60.

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I love Weddings. It has been 2 years since our wedding and one of the many, many traditions is the Bouquet Toss. Since most of my guests were already already married or older or simply not interested in catching a bouquet (too close to sport) I didn’t think do a Bouquet toss. This beautiful citrus scented cake is an alternative to a Bouquet toss to be served at a Kitchen Tea.

The idea is simple, attach 1 piece of ribbon to the centre bouquet with the rest of the lengths of ribbon unattached. Whoever picks the ribbon attached to the bouquet “Catches the Bouquet”! No clawing or scratching at others or people falling over to catch the elusive bouquet and no boobs falling out of dresses (I’ve seen pics where women jump up to catch the bouquet and their dress doesn’t follow). You can also attach “wishes” or a prize to the ends of the ribbon or even names depending on the age and interest of your guests.

I’m one of those odd people that don’t like fresh oranges cut up (I always bypass the orange pieces served for dessert at Chinese restaurants) but I do love orange in things, especially orange rind. I could’ve, or should have, dusted it with icing sugar but I only thought of that once it was served and cut. You could certainly match the central bouquet with the brides bouquet and ribbon according to the colour theme of the wedding. Yes lads, that’s right, there probably was a colour theme to your wedding, you just didn’t know it

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