birds of a feather: pheasant masterclass at jamie oliver HQ

It’s not often I get the opportunity to meet a culinary legend. 

Well, I say that. 

I bumped into Antonio Carluccio in the kitchen garden of Lainston House Hotel this summer. And I’ve sipped pisco sours with Raymond Blanc after he turned up at London Cocktail Club on a night I happened to be painting the town. It seems the stars do align occasionally. That, or I can sniff out an A-list chef like a bloodhound.

An event held at Jamie Oliver HQ near Old Street allowed me to add another of my all time favourites to this list; Gennaro Contaldo. About as southern Italian in the flesh as Vito Corleone eating a linguine vongole in the shadow of Vesuvius. Complete with a brown leather jacket and slicked back hair. Which is exactly what I hoped for; a wonderful character and a genuinely very nice man.

As were the two other professionals present, Andy Appleton (Head Chef at Fifteen in Cornwall) and Jon Rotheram (Head Chef at Fifteen in London and a close friend of fellow Essex boy, Jamie). All kindly giving up a few hours to share their skills and expertise, and feed a bunch of food bloggers for the evening.

The topic for the cook-off was pheasant, with a from-gun-to-table masterclass to help us get under the skin of this bird. Each chef walked us through their take on how to turn this underused, dark and gamey meat into a plate of something glorious.

Gennaro was up first and with all the impassioned gesticulation and inflected musical tone of words one could hope from such a character, deftly butchered the breasts of a partly feathered shimmering green pheasant. He spoke of the dark lean meat with much affection, shared stories of hunts and foraging, and while doing so prepared a very simple dish.

Into the meat he pressed slithers of garlic, sprigs of rosemary, a long slice of chilli, and seasoned. Cooked briefly in a pan (de-glazed with wine after) until still pink in the centre, it was juicy, aromatic and wonderfully Italian. With this he served a very complimentary patate arraganate; thinly sliced potatoes layered with oregano, basil, red onions, cherry tomatoes, a little white wine and baked covered in the oven for around 45 minutes.

Jon's offering used the meat to create a very British dish. His own sausages took centre stage; made with sixty per cent smoked pheasant and forty percent pork, complete with pork back fat and seasoning, we were told it was a recipe perfected after several attempts. And one he has nailed. Served with wilted kale, slow roasted onions, quince, crispy game chips, and sitting a top a pool of bread sauce, it sang all the notes of a hearty and comforting winter dish.

Andy returned to Italian influences with a caponata using some of my favourite ingredients (and incidentally no aubergine as is typical to the dish) to accompany pheasant that had been slowly pan-frying.

Diced roasted squash was combined with onion, celery, fennel, chestnuts, cherry tomatoes, thyme and lightly pickled raisins that had been steeped in red wine vinegar. Cooked out until softened and well acquainted, it had a rich autumnal glow and was topped with the sliced golden brown bird.

Game isn't something people tend to tackle too often. The unfamiliar can be daunting, and the meat can require a little more effort to source. There is then the challenge of what to do with it. 

I recall a day from my university years when my partner and I were presented with a fully feathered pheasant from a farmer friend of his parents. We de-robed it, took a knife to it, and cooked it the only way we could think of; in a roasting tray shoved in the oven. It came out dry and tough and was a huge disappointment.

To avoid any such circumstances for when you do locate some fine ingredients, it would be wise to take a look at the Jamie Oliver game recipes for some inspiration beyond roasting it to a second death. If you locate seasonal game and treat it a way that makes it shine, it's hard to eat a better meat at this time of year.

A huge thanks to all involved in organising this event; it was (as usual), a quite wonderful evening.

Afiyet olsun.

soft bread rolls with ham and truffle mustard - recipe

When I find myself hankering for a specific item of food, there is little point trying to occupy my mind with much else until the desire has been fulfilled. Great bread fresh out of the oven, lacquered with a knob of melting butter, topped with a quality deep meaty filling and a slick of mustard, and you have have something close to what my daydreams are made of.

Paul Hollywood has a great recipe for barm cakes (originating from the Northwest) in How to Bake which I've used here, the bread more widely recognised as baps, flour rolls, soft rolls, and so on. They’re compact, hold a filling well and provide more bite than usual loaf bread whilst still remaining soft.

To finish the rolls I’ve stuffed them with quality cured ham, chopped capers and a dollop of indulgence in the form of Maille black truffle and Chablis mustard. Think of a whisp of heat coupled with the unmistakable presence of truffle, creating an unparalleled pairing with the rest of the porky and piquant goodness.

You can find this flavour of the mustard (along with more than 60 new variants) from La Maison Maille Boutique - a beautiful little store situated in the Piccadilly Arcade in the West End, and their first International Boutique which opened this October. This mustard is sold in a stone pot which once empty, you can take back to get refilled.

Soft bread rolls with ham and truffle mustard

Makes 12 - 13 rolls

Rolls

500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

10g salt

40g caster sugar

10g instant yeast

40g unsalted butter, softened

320ml cold water

Filling

Butter

Good quality ham, ham hock, or other quality meat filling 

(enough for as many rolls as you wish to fill)

Capers, chopped

Maille black truffle and Chablis mustard

Put the flour in a large bowl. Add the salt and sugar to one side and the yeast to the other. Add the butter and ¾ of the water, and turn the mixture round with a wooden spoon or your fingers.

Continue to add water a little at a time until you’ve picked up all the flour from the sides of the bowl. You may not need to add all the water, or you may need to add a little more - you want dough that is soft but not soggy. Use the mixture to clean the inside of the bowl, folding the edges into the middle. Keep going until the mixture forms a rough dough.

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Knead for 10 minutes, working through the initial wet stage until the dough starts to form a soft and smooth skin.

When it feels smooth and silky, put into a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover with cling film and leave to rise in a warm place until at least doubled in size. This could take anywhere from 1-3 hrs, depending on how the warm the environment is where you put it.

Tip I use a very low oven for this (circa 25C) but you could put it into a warm airing cupboard if you have one.

Once the dough has risen, tip it out onto a lightly floured surface. Fold it inwards repeatedly until all the air is knocked out and the dough is smooth. 

Divide the dough into 12 or 13 pieces weighing around 70g each. Shape each one into a smooth ball by placing a cage formed by your hand and the table and moving your hand around in a circular motion, rotating the ball rapidly. The shape comes with practice!

Put the rolls onto a heavily floured surface and leave to rest for 30 minutes. Cover them with large upturned bowls to prevent them drying out. Meanwhile prepare your baking trays, you will need three. Line them with non-stick baking parchment or silicone paper.

Once rested, roll out the dough balls, using a floured rolling pin, until they are twice the size of the original diameter. Lift onto the prepared baking trays, spacing them apart to allow room for spreading, and sprinkle with flour.

Put each tray inside a large clean plastic bag and leave to prove for about 1hr until the dough has doubled in size and springs back quickly if you prod it lightly with your finger. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 210C.

Tip You can also use cling film to cover the trays but if so, ensure you’ve left no gaps and enough room for the dough to rise without pressing against the plastic too much.

When the rolls are nicely risen, light and airy, bake them for around 10 minutes only until you’ve achieved the same colour as in the photographs. Leave them to cool a little on the baking trays.

Keep the ones you don't plan to eat straight away in a lidded container once completely cool to keep them soft. For the rest and whilst still warm, cut them in half and allow some butter to melt. Add the mustard, layer the meat and top with some of the chopped capers. What joy.

Afiyet olsun.

ba shan, soho - review

Chinese restaurants get a lot of stick. At least, they do from me. This is because most of them are appalling. 

Greasy piles of substandard meat and carbs swimming in radioactive sauces, slopped onto plates or stuffed into tin vessels, with a side of self-loathing big enough to make you want to drain the MSG directly from your veins. Menus read of generic fried vegetables with a stock protein in a thick sauce, dozens of chow mein options, and a selection of sweet and sour dishes and fried rices; plates of fodder adapted to be blander, thicker and sweeter for the Western palate. This is not what Chinese people eat. 

These routine menu items do nothing to accurately represent the full repertoire of Chinese cuisine: the country is enormous, as is the range of cooking that goes on there. Food is regional and style is distinctive, with influences taken from resources, climate, geography, history, cooking techniques and lifestyle.

The province of Hunan is located in the south-central part of China; a little piece of it can also be found in Soho with the name of Ba Shan above the door. Owned by the people who run the Szechuan sister, Barshu, over the road, it boasts an all Hunanese menu developed with Chinese food expert Fuchsia Dunlop. If your idea of a great meal is having your chops whalloped with fire and flavour, there is little need to entertain the thought of dining anywhere else in town.

Piquant preserved yard-long beans chopped into chewy segments provided an unusual but stellar texture for the vegetable. Stir-fried with stiff boards of salty Chinese bacon and slithers of preserved crisp garlic, it was a piled high plate of spicy and savoury splendour. 

Square slabs of crispy fried tofu with soft middles saturated with black bean sauce squelched between the teeth, the dark viscous extract coating the inside of the mouth with its sloppy fermented pungency. Both plates were furnished with festive chunks of hot green chillies and even hotter red and both had me at their complete mercy - these are precisely the sort of flavour sensations my palate craves for on a daily basis.

A heap of aubergine mush pounded into submission with garlic and sesame presented still in its mortar, and a plate of slippery wood ear fungus, did wonders at pacifying blistering tongues. The glistening quivering dark mushrooms looked freshly hauled from a sea bed; dressed with vinegar, garlic and chillies they were cool, tangy, crunchy and slipped down barely touching the sides.

The restaurant decoration keeps with tradition, with Chinese lanterns, dark wood and walls adorned with images of Chairman Mao. Service was perfectly acceptable; whilst perplexity flashed across the faces of several waiters at the request of additional coriander (a request left unfulfilled - ‘it’s just for decoration, we don’t have any more’), tea was topped up, words were said smiling and despite advance warning of a 1.5hr time limit for the table, we were there for two with no problem. In other words, for a Chinese restaurant, the service was excellent.

The heat from Hunanese cuisine, whilst almost ubiquitous in its presence, is less of the type that leaves a fat tongue hanging out of your mouth in a desperate search for cold lactose. It’s more penetrating than that, permeating through to your core and the very marrow of your bones, leaving a subtle tingling sensation at the corners of your mouth on the way in. I don’t know how they do this, but it’s excellent. 

This is food that doesn’t just pay a visit to your taste buds, it conquers them outright. Planting the flag of flavour firmly into its new found territory to mark its occupation, the food from Ba Shan will leave an impression deep enough that you won’t be able to hold off your next visit for too long.

Liked lots: all of the food; the location
Liked less: was a little quiet at the start, but background music played later on; the menu link on their website is broken (prevents pre-dining anticipation build up)
Good for: authentic, fresh, real, regional Chinese food at good prices; blasting away a cold

My rating: 4/5

Afiyet olsun.

shoryu ramen, regent street - review

The amount of words on a menu are directly proportional to how long it takes to place an order. Too much and blinking eyes struggle to digest what’s on offer while stomach rumblings grow stronger. 

With no less than fourteen ways of ramen to choose from at Shoryu each with lines of text beneath, the first minutes of my maiden visit were filled with the internal anguish of attempting to decipher the differences. It turns out they are mostly the same with one or two additional or held back ingredients to distinguish them; I’m sure this could have been articulated in fewer words.

In a restaurant proud of its Hakata-born Executive Chef cooking up ramen dishes from the region, the inclusion of a ‘Piri Piri Tonkotsu’ in these offerings had the dial on my gimmick-radar twitching. I believe I am correct in thinking Hakata is in Japan, and not Portugal.

Despite these initial shortcomings, the karaka tan tan tonkotsu was presented with all the appeal you would expect from a spicy bowl of hot broth and noodles on a chilly evening. It looked great - cloudy thick white miso stock vibrant from the chiu chow chilli oil, fried mince pork (rather than barbecue pork in most of the others), lemon and garlic. And in fact even more garlic as the bulb fiend within me made full use of the well received pot of cloves complete with crusher at the table.

The stock was fierce and with a level of depth, and with the added cloves would do wonders at blasting any cold into next winter. While I’m the first to appreciate fire in my food, this love wanes when the heat is at the expense of any other flavour: the character from the mushrooms, bean sprouts, spring onion and ginger were suppressed to whimpers, the nitamago egg was lost in the chilli, the nori may as well have been absent, and the pork was at least visually present if little else. 

Satisfying a rumbling stomach it achieved with success, as one would expect a large amount of liquid and noodles to do. But provide insight into the intricate balance of textures and flavours accustomed to a bowl of very good ramen, it did not.

I ate it though, and it certainly wasn’t unpleasant. For what I physically required in that moment (a quick and filling bite pre-theatre), it met my needs. But happiness in the present is shattered by comparison with the past and it was impossible not to do so with my only other ramen venture to date, Tonkotsu. 

They make their noodles fresh each day with a machine on sight shipped from Japan. Their marinated nitamago egg halves are spectacularly savoury with soft middles. The broth is heavy with the flavour of pig and its disintegrated fat. The menu is brief and clear with just five ramen offerings done very well. Their waiters don’t wear hachimaki headbands. And orders don’t get ‘lost in the kitchen’ arriving 15 minutes later than the rest.

Fire and ice tsukemen had ramen sitting on ice topped with hot smoked salmon, some pork and the halved egg, served with a side bowl of warm wasabi-tonkotsu dipping sauce. Which you know, looked nice. 

While the barbeque pork belly on its own had merit, in the hirata buns it was served with a mayonnaise and an uninspiring pairing of iceberg lettuce and a slice of cucumber. On paper the side of shoryu genki don flirted with its enticing list of components: rice, bbq pork, mentaiko caviar, onsen tamago (first sampled not long ago at Luiz Hara’s excellent Japanese supper club), pickles and seaweed. In reality it was 90% rice, the egg white was undercooked, the caviar was mostly a mass of skin, and the pickles were barely sour. I left most of it.

Part of me wishes I had stuck to the signature shoryu ganso tonkotsu ramen to understand if they get the basics right. To appease this curiosity, and because there are a few people I respect who really quite like this place, I would give it another chance.

When I next fancy ramen, and Tonkotsu is too far.

Liked lots: crushed garlic cloves on tap
Liked less: seated on small stools; nowhere to hang bulky coats; the 'lost order'; too much chilli oil in broth; 
Good for: dinner if you're an Asian student as most of the clientèle seemed to be

My rating: 3/5

Afiyet olsun.

celebrate día de los muertos in london

The dark cold nights of the end of October usually bring with them stories of ghosts and ghouls and kids dressed up in bed sheets knocking on your door for treats. But there is an alternative Mexican way to celebrate the dead, with a little less fear and a little more cheer (and possibly some tequila).

Present to me an excuse to eat good food in celebration of an interesting subject matter in the name of a national holiday, and I’m happy to temporarily entertain religion and even feign an alternative nationality in order to take part in the frivolities. 

The autumnal occurrence in the UK of the much celebrated Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) presents the perfect opportunity to sample an entry from the international world of public holidays and the way in which food almost universally plays a significant role in them.

Between 31st October and 2nd November each year, the living dedicate three days to remembering those close who have passed, celebrating their lives and rejoicing in the memories they have left. A unique version of the Roman Catholic feasts of All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days, the premise of this fiesta is to give the departed the opportunity and means to visit and provisionally party on with those they left behind.

Despite the macabre connotations, this multi-day event traditionally centres around elaborate festivities complete with jubilant music and dancing, decorative costumes and face paint, and plentiful food and drink. 

Altars are built in remembrance and graves are spruced up for the fleeting visitors. Satirical short poems and stories are written and recited, often affectionately ribbing those who have passed in the way only a close friend or relative could. Soft furnishings are set out in homes for souls to rest after arduous journeys from the after world. Warm-blooded participants are entertained by storytelling, dancing and mariachi bands with the noise intended to ‘wake the dead’ and encourage them to swing on by.

The characteristics of the modern festival emerge in the 18th century with original roots reaching as far back as the Aztec era. And as the Aztecs presented gifts of food and drink to sustain their visiting ancestors, Mexicans make ofrendas (offerings) of similar culinary delights. Along with music, flowers and keepsakes, they are used to furnish the home, altars and graves of the deceased to entice them back to earth whilst also providing fuel for their return journey to the afterlife.

It seems the dead have a sweet tooth - that or the still terrestrial Mexicans don’t pass up an opportunity to indulge theirs. 

The offerings include a range of candied items including the well recognised calaveras de azúcar (sugar skulls). Often purchased ready made and decorated by the whole family with coloured frosting, they can also be made from scratch by combining granulated sugar, icing sugar, water, and setting in a mould overnight. 

Pumpkin also makes an appearance on this menu for los muertos, handy as there tends to be a lot of it around at this time of year. Simmered in piloncillo (Mexican unrefined brown sugar), cinnamon and orange zest until tender, they add to the tooth-aching and colourful spread. Pan de muerto (bread of the dead) is a sweet eggy loaf baked into various shapes and often decorated with white frosting to imitate twisted bones. 

Atole is a hot masa (corn flour) based drink, spiced with cinnamon and vanilla and sweetened with more piloncillo - further sugary delights to help wash the rest of them down.

Whilst you may (somewhat unsurprisingly) find your offerings untouched by your guests, it's often believed they consume the "spiritual essence" of the food whilst leaving the physical forms intact. This loosely translates to us mortals indulging in a sugar rush once the festivities come to a close. Well, someone’s got to do it.




Let the well-worn Halloween take a backseat this year - instead get your fiesta on and join in some of the Día de los Muertos celebrations taking place about town - olé!

Mestizo 
A special ofrenda altar will be displayed in the restaurant to welcome back the ‘dear departed’, of which you can add photos of those you wish to remember. This coincides with their fifth ‘Festival del Mole’ featuring a special menu of 12 mole sauces and authentic recipes to tuck into.
Available until Saturday 2nd.

Wahaca 
Complimentary tequila for diners visiting on Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd and a special edition Blood Orange Day of the Dead Margarita on offer for £5. Enjoy them amongst the traditional decorations and ofrenda altars in remembrance of famous Mexicans, and you can also get your face painted to embrace the spirit.

Rich Mix 
Screening Mexican horror movies on Saturday 2nd to help get your scream on, along with ‘undead’ DJs and dancers in zombie attire to help get your groove on. Helps if you understand Spanish.
£8/£6, prebook,7.30pm

Day of the Dead Festival 
This four day celebration takes over the Dalston Department Store pop-up venue starting with a good old fashioned party on Friday and following with three days of traditional craft workshops. Learn how to make Aztec flowers, sugar skulls, masks and watch the March of the Dead through London’s streets on Saturday 2nd.
£7/£5.95 per day, prebook

Silent Disco 
Help raise money for next year’s New Cross & Deptford free film festival by attending their Day of the Dead Silent Disco fundraising event. Celebrate at Hill Station Cafe with music, dancing and cocktails in eerie silence. Fitting.
£15.00, prebook, 1 November from 7.30pm

Horniman Museum & Gardens
Head over to this south London museum on the evening of Thursday 7th for carnival processions, film, puppet theatre performances, dance and a tour of the Natural History collection with a focus on bones.
£3, prebook, 7 November from 6-9pm

Afiyet olsun.

school of wok cookery school, covent garden - review

‘Teach a girl to make Chinese steamed buns..’ could be the start to so many great sentences. Pursuits that end in wowing friends with dim sum dinner parties, eating nothing but steamed buns for the rest of your life, and ditching the day job to buy a small cart and compete against the old timers selling them on Newport Court in Chinatown.

Many would argue only one of these to be a realistic aspiration (present company included). But on walking out of School of Wok after six hours of cooking, kneading, rolling, stuffing, pleating and folding, with aching feet, pumped forearms, flour in my hair, and a new appreciation for my favourite dim sum, it felt like they were all possible.

School of Wok is an Oriental and Asian cookery school situated in Covent Garden. Founded and commandeered by Head Chef Jeremy Pang, the school hosts a variety of hands-on classes and corporate events taught by a number of chefs, covering cuisines including Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai and Japanese. Classes range from one hour quick-fire wok lessons to multi-day intensive courses for professionals and topics involve a manner of subjects from knife skills to wine tasting, and street food to sushi making.

After obtaining a university degree in biochemical engineering, entertaining some years in marketing, studying at the world famous Le Cordon Bleu and a stint as a travel journalist around South East Asia, in 2009 Pang followed his dream of opening a cookery school. Initially starting out as lessons taught in people’s homes, School of Wok moved to the centrally located bricks and mortar complete with two state of the art kitchens 18 months ago. 

Lessons teaching skills and techniques that simply do not translate through the written word are of particular interest to me. Videos will go some way in achieving this, but there is no replacing an expert overseeing your work and the back-and-forth of questions and guidance. The full day ‘Steamed Bun Fun’ course taught me things I genuinely don’t believe I could have learnt to the same degree, off my own back.

The morning agenda ensured we worked up the appetite for lunch. Meats that required a long and low cook to enjoy with buns at the end of the day were addressed first following very simple recipes. Seven of us were split into two groups; rich and savoury braised pork belly in fermented tofu, and an Iranian influenced shoulder of lamb with pomegranate, quince and jasmine tea were both prepared and dispatched to the ovens.

Hirata buns (the type found at Yum Bun) are sandwich-like in design, folded in half and destined to be stuffed with a filling. Components consisted of a starter dough to which additional dough was formed and added. The mass was kneaded, rested, manipulated into cylinders, portioned into ping-pong sized balls, rolled into ovals, folded in half over oiled chopsticks, placed in bamboo steamers and left over hot water until they were risen and spongy.

To slather over them, mayonnaise was made in pairs and flavoured with sesame, lime, garlic and ginger. One half of each team gradually added oil to egg yolk while the other whisked with fever, the thought of an imminent lunch counteracting the lactic acid pain (alternation was imperative).

Jeremy pitched in by rustling up the meat component; slithers of chicken thigh marinated in liquid smoke, sesame oil and soy were coated in corn flour and deep fried. Excess oil was drained and they were then swiftly tossed in a hot wok with garlic and chillies. We eagerly stuffed them into our sweet buns and topped them with a cucumber and carrot pickle.

Post-lunch proceedings saw us taking the skill level up a deep notch. We were to make two closed buns requiring two types of fold, one more difficult than the other; custard buns and char siu bao (that puffed up pillow of porky goodness I adore). 

Fillings for both were ready to use to allow dedicated concentration to the rolling and folding techniques needed to make these a success. The char siu (barbecued pork) comprised of belly cooked in sugar, soy and spices had been finely chopped into a huge soupy bowl of dark and sticky meat. Custard choices were two: coconut, and a beetroot cocoa nib filling - both frozen to allow for easier handling.

We rustled up the dough for both and attempted mastering the precise circular rolling and intricate pleats required for the pork buns; several attempts were made with faux fillings before Jeremy let us lose on the pork. The custard buns were a lot easier; with some swift rotational hand movements the nuggets of frozen custard were soon encased in uniform smooth dough.

Most of us were still full from our lunchtime hiratas and after a well deserved glass of wine, departed with doggy bags crammed with our labours of love; the three types of buns, the slow cooked meats emerging from the oven soft and flaking from the bone, and a pack of all the recipes used that day.

The cost of this full day course which includes lunch and an early dinner is no small change at £150, the higher end of their offerings. But if thought of as an investment in culinary skills and expertise you would be hard pressed to come across elsewhere, it is certainly a treat to consider. 

On the tube home I found my fingers dancing on my lap as they manipulated an imaginary bao. My final thoughts before bed that evening were ‘how the hell do chefs works on their feet all hours of the day?’ and ‘I am determined to own those char siu pleats’. As Jeremy advised, I’ll be throwing together makeshift dough from flour and water and practising in front of the TV until I do.

A huge thanks to Jeremy for exercising such patience, sharing a wealth of knowledge and expertise and for making the day a great experience - it comes highly recommended.

Afiyet olsun.

Note: I was invited as a guest to School of Wok

salon du chocolat, olympia - exhibition

The world’s largest event dedicated to chocolate came to London this weekend for the first time, connecting producing countries, chocolatiers, consumers, and hosting over 60 British and international participants including some well known brands such as Lindt and Godiva.

Salon du chocolat marked the grand finale of Chocolate Week launching with a gala evening on 18th October. It included their renowned chocolate fashion show, associating fashion designers and talented chocolatiers to create couture masterpieces made of the sweet stuff and modelled down a catwalk runway to a backdrop of flash photography.

Throughout the weekend, visitors were treated to activities including demonstrations, talks and interactive workshops from acclaimed chocolatiers and chefs, along with sculptures such as Hotel Chocolat’s life size chocolate cocoa tree and a bathtub full of melted chocolate (occupied by a scantily clad female at one point).

The festival is touring the world so if you missed it in town and happen to be globe trotting over the next few months, here are the dates. It's certainly worth checking out:

Paris Professionnel (Trade Show): 28-30 October 2013, Porte de Versailles, Pavilion 4
Paris Grand Public (Consumer Show): 30 October - 3 November 2013, Porte de Versailles, Pavilion 5
Lyon: 8-11 November 2013, Centre de Congrès - Cité Internationale
Cannes: 23-25 November 2013, Palais des Festivals et des Congrès
Seoul: 16-19 January 2014, Coex
Tokyo: 22-27 January, Isetan-Mitsukoshi & 6 Japanese cities
Brussels: 7-9 February 2014, Tour & Taxis
Marseille: 28 February - 2 March 2014, Parc Chanot
Nantes: February/March 2014, Parc des Expositions de Nantes
Bordeaux: March 2014, Hangar 14
Zurich: 4-6 April 2014, Messe Zürich
Lima: July 2014
New York: November 2014
Lille: November 2014, Lille Grand Palais

I got pretty snap happy as there was a lot of good looking material to photograph - collages below.

Afiyet olsun.