Si6n Simon
AS a rule, `fusion' cooking is a synthetic abomination. If you think that's a bit harsh because you really like Vong, I suggest you pop into a newer American import, Asia de Cuba, in the St Martin's Lane hotel in Lon- don. I've never been myself, but I went to the New York original 18 months ago. It is the only restaurant in which I have seen diners openly snorting cocaine from their table tops. The food was even harder to stomach. As my formerly Cuban guest remarked, `Any time they do it better in Cuba, you know you're in trouble.'
However, `fusion', like gemstones too large to set as rings and thick coats of cra- nial hair on men over 60, is to be admired in the rare cases where it occurs naturally. Of course, the term soon loses its meaning if strictly applied, because all culinary idioms are a blend of influences. Escoffier's Guide Culinaire contains recipes from Spain, Latvia, Hungary, Portugal, Russia and elsewhere, as well as `English' recipes such as kedgeree, which is a British fish twist on an Indian dish.
Nevertheless, some cuisines are more than usually diverse. Mauritius is 550 miles to the east of Madagascar, 1,200 miles from Mombasa, 2,900 miles south-west of Sri Lanka and 3,728 miles from Perth. Having long been on the Arab trading routes, the first European visitors were the Portuguese in 1510, followed by the Dutch, who colonised the island at the turn of the 17th century and gave it its name.
Having introduced sugar, slaves, deer, pigs, goats, oxen, dogs and rats, they exter- minated the dodo and the ebony forests, and left in about 1710. Five years later the French arrived. They turned Ile de France, as they renamed it, into a prosperous colony of such strategic irni ortance that the British felt obliged to take it from them. But despite being British from 1810 to 1968, Mauritius remained culturally French. Ethnically the population is 68 per cent Indian, 27 per cent Creole, 3 per cent Chinese and 2 per cent French.
I assume that Sylvain Ho Wing Cheong, the chef-proprietor at Offshore, falls some- where between the two latter stools. He used to cook at Jason's in Maids Vale. I think he's very good. Rick Stein tells a story about being tasked, along with his contemporaries at catering college, with making a fish soup. A Chinese woman achieved far greater full- ness of flavour than any of the rest, which Stein ascribed to an innate sympathy for soup which the poor Anglos did not share. I have a similar feeling about Mr Ho Wing Cheong. I suspect that if I saw `Honey Marinated Salmon Flower — peach avocado flan, salmon petals, roast sesame oil splash' on an explicitly `fusion' menu, I would simply leave. Nor would I normally choose tuna cooked three ways (very briefly griddled, marinated in a balsamic ceviche, and tartared with parsley). This is an extremely tired theme, the ubiquitous vari- ations on which tend to be dull, easy dishes cooked by bored, lazy chefs. To do it well requires little more than to buy good, fresh fish, look after it, add acidic liquids in appropriate quantities and season it prop- erly. These criteria having been satisfied by Mr Ho Wing Cheong, I found myself actu- ally enjoying tuna for a change. How strange that such sublime taste and texture should reside in the flesh of an overgrown mackerel; and that so many of the seared sashimis, ceviches and tartares which infest the modern menu are so flaccid and grey.
Snow White and the Seven Political Dwarves Moreton Bay bugs, sauteed in a piquant citrus sauce, were also well bought, thoughtfully cared for and accurately cooked. The menu termed them 'Queens- land Rock Lobsters', but they are actually what the Australians call yabbies and we refer to as freshwater crayfish. Perhaps the confusion arose because the Americans sometimes call the salt-water version spiny lobster. Anyway, they are very fashionable at the moment, though I can't see the point of importing such things from the other side of the planet when they abound in our own coastal waters. The only difference with the freshwater variety is that you can taste the mud.
A small portion of octopus curry fulfilled its promise to be dark and dry. In general, Mauritian curries share with their modern Anglo-Indian equivalents a propensity towards greater use of fresh tomatoes than is common in the subcontinent. But this dish reminded me much more of the thin, astringent spice-stews of Guyana and the Indo-Caribbean. I doubt one could find the like in any other restaurant in London, which is a shame.
A classical main dish, by contrast, showed that Mr Ho Wing Cheong's cook- ing has depth as well as breadth. A hefty tranche of red emperor had been stuffed with queen scallops, folded, wrapped in spinach and set into what was accurately described as a `bourgeois pave'. A `thyme- tomato jus' (to which last word I do not take fashionable exception, though the hyphen upset me) was pitched at the right level of intensity to lift both the white fish and the molluscs without overpowering either. A clean-tasting concasse was neat without being fiddly.
On the negative side there was a super- fluity — Offshore being on Holland Park Avenue — of rock-star trash (Iggy Pop was being absurd at the next table, dead though he may be); and the restaurant is neither smart — `middlebrow cool on the cheap' would be a better description — nor thronged with happy eaters. Worse, the amuse-gueules seemed to have been bought from BHS, and the base of my wife's lemon tart had not so much been `caramelised' as ossified. I have known tungsten carbide shell-casings more pliant.
It's not cheap either £160 for a couple drinking (or, in our case, failing to drink) two bottles of wine. Not that the latter were deficient. I found the Cape Mentelle Semil- Ion-Sauvignon Blanc (made by the Cloudy Bay people, £27) particularly enjoyable, and less elusive than its more famous New Zealand cousin. But good fish usually comes at a price. And this is good fish, cooked with confidence and feeling across a range from the peasant to the moderately posh. That's still sufficiently unusual in Britain to be ample recommendation.
Offshore, 148 Holland Park Avenue, London W11. tel: 0171 221 6090. Closed on Sunday.
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