Last week I received an email asking wether I’d like to come along to the lounge at Kota Kai in Porthleven to watch the first night of Jude Kereama’s appearance on The Great British Menu. I, of course, said yes straight away (even before I was told about the champagne and canapés!) Jude is the Chef Patron of Kota and Kota Kai in the village next to where I grew up and is, for the second time, appearing on The Great British Menu in the Southwest rounds.
Kota and Kota Kai are firm favourites in the family repertoire of restaurants we go to (though lately I seem to only be invited to the very end of the meal as taxi) so I was very excited to be there and talk to the chef behind so many great evenings.
The invitation stated that Jude was an ‘all round nice guy’ and from what I saw it’s a pretty accurate description – from ensuring our glasses were always topped up (unfortunately as driver mine was with water) and talking about how nervous he was to be watching himself with everyone (apparently the first day wasn’t his best) you just knew he was a genuine, nice guy. Which made me really hope that his first day wasn’t as bad as he was making out. My friend and I tried to guess what could have happened, but when we had a sneaky look all his fingers were still there – so we decided it couldn’t have been that bad.
Before, and during, the show we were treated to, what can only be described as a parade of canapés (and thanks to the super friendly staff I managed to get pictures of the full plates – and first taste!)
As I have a memory like a sieve I have to write down notes to remember what I ate. My notes next to the Lamb Shoulder nuggets were ‘Hell yeah’. They were awesome!
And can we stop for a moment and appreciate these scollops on a spoon! What a great idea – it kept the sauce from spilling all over the plate and made you taste everything together. And now its making me hungry… take me back.
I have to say my favourite was the duck liver parfait & fig chutney, though the sushi was to die for and I enjoyed an oyster for the first time (not particularly gracefully, however).
Tempura oyster with wasabi tartar was everything and more I hoped it would be and I’d recommend you go out and try one even if you’re not sure about oysters (I didn’t check if they’re on the menu in Kota Kai – bad blogger).
I’m not going to spoil any of the show for you (I’d highly recommend you watch it if you haven’t already) except to say I think they missed a trick when introducing Jude, we see him eating Lobster in the harbour and cooking in the kitchen but nowhere do you get to see how close the two really are, less than 50 meters.
Whilst we settled down to watch there was a lovely atmosphere – with cheering pretty much every time Jude came on screen and especially when he got his score. I didn’t think he did badly and will be watching to see if he makes it into the final. Fingers crossed!
I’d just like to say thank you to Debs the guys at Kota for inviting me along. This was a great evening and I hope makes for interesting reading as a slightly different post from normal.
#Dontforgetthelotuscrisps
Cornish Food Baby 
We were so pleased you came! Debs
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