insidecatering.co.uk

Bentleys and Burgers

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 08:51:09 +0000

It’s not every day we turn up to an event venue of this calibre; with Bentley Continental Supersports, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Rolls Royce, Lamborghinis, Daimlers, Maserati and the odd Porsche on the forecourt you know this is one serious venue. We were at Broughtons Bentley dealership in Byfleet, Surrey, to cater at its ‘Convertible Weekend’. With many well-heeled clients booked in, the expectation was high and we had to deliver at the highest level.

A posh BBQ it was and the handmade flame-grilled steak burgers with rocket, Lancashire cheddar, Colman’s mustard and Heinz ketchup were an absolute hit to the 110 visiting guests. The rain came and went but the atmosphere was buzzing, especially when the Lamborghini started its engine. I have never been much of a petrol head but today was different, and to quote a new owner of a £98k Ferrari, “These burgers are the Bentley Continental Supersports of the food world”… he didn’t want to swap one for his new car though!!

All “Up” in the Downs

admin — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:25:00 +0000

Dear Paul

I would not hesitate to recommend Inside Catering to any organisation. Our first ever South Downs National Park Celebration Event took place on the 23rd of March 2012 with a high profile that could not afford error; Paul filled us with confidence from our initial meeting and it became clear that he is more than a caterer as he advised us on logistics, lighting, decor etc and became a part of the project team. He grasped the ethos and constraints within which we were operating and made our lives easier by dealing with local sourcing of the food and wine thus alleviating us of the politics so that we could concentrate on our bit.

Our initial quotation was excellent and Paul delivered on budget; Inside were also very flexible with our financial procedures. Paul and his well presented and professional team delivered everything and more than we had expected.

Emails of thanks and commendation have not been few and much credit goes to Inside for helping us deliver a slick event. I am sure you will have similar success working with Inside Catering – I look forward to working with them again in the future.

I am happy to be contacted directly should you require further information.

Regards
Mark ****
External Funding Co-ordinator
South Downs National Park Authority

I Do!

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:11:02 +0000

In a beautiful barn in the stunning countryside outside Petersfield, on March 10 Paul, Sara and Vicky were joined in the kitchen by the newest member of the crew, Jane’s daughter Molly. A day of spectacular fun followed as everything was made by hand, from the smallest canapés to the full three-course sumptuous wedding breakfast. With all of us allocated stations in the kitchen, the production line got underway and Paul even allowed the radio to be on which meant we got to hear the delightful accompanying braying of Donkey (Vicky) in the corner while we worked!!

Molly waited with baited breath for her canapé Yorkshire puddings to rise – her first time making them under the gentle tuition of Chef Man Paulo and she was delighted when the beautifully risen, fluffy Yorkshires emerged from the oven. Vicky was on the Dauphinois potatoes and the Welsh Rarebit soufflé canapés, followed by a real treat of individually poaching 34 eggs, while Sara veg prepped and then moved onto making and griddling 100 potato cakes – not at all a laboured process given she could only fit six on said griddle at one time – followed by the portioning and griddling, on same griddle, the tuna for the Salad Nicoise! Meanwhile Paul operated on the chicken to give it the polished French trim, made the Chablis jus and kept the kitchen and front of house team on track so we were ready for service well on time.

It helps that the team works so well together, manoeuvring with ease round each other despite the slightly snug working conditions and Molly enjoyed the banter and fun atmosphere that prevailed even with Sara’s grumpy face that seemed to have arrived on site with her!

The bride and groom arrived to the sound of the bagpipes and there followed the canapés - Welsh Rarebit soufflé with red onion marmalade and crispy sage, Bangers and mash in the Yorkshire pudding and Slow Roast Tamworth Pork Belly on potato cake with apple sauce.

An hour-and-a-half later was the wedding breakfast which kicked off with a choice of a deconstructed Salad Nicoise or a Goat’s cheese and red onion tartlet. Mains were a surf and turf – steak and crevettes with handcut chips – or the chicken on Dauphinois potatoes with the Chablis jus. There was a mixed salad and oven roasted veg on each table to accompany the main.

The dessert was in the form of an old fashioned sweet shop, with Mr Whippy ice cream machine, cakes and everything anyone with a sweet tooth could dream of.

Her initiation into the chef work left Molly with crippled hands after peeling so many potatoes but she loved the experience nevertheless. Sara and Vicky worked hard and were on spectacular form as usual. Paul got a well-deserved round of applause for the spectacular cuisine once again, even managing to include his beloved ‘drama’ of barbecuing the crevettes and steaks in front of the guests, and Jane welled up when presented with a bouquet to thank her for her hard work.

There followed the kitchen clean down as well as the prep of enough chips to feed the wedding party in the evening, the cake was cut and we were on our way home for a well-deserved glass of wine!

Bubbles and Black Tie

admin — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:41:31 +0000

On February 4 the team arrived at an exquisitely decorated private marquee for 150 guests in Woking.

The very high-end black tie affair commenced with delicious Veuve Clicquot Vintage 2002 bubbles, a speech from the local dignitary, followed by a selection of mouth-watering canapés – Welsh rarebit soufflés in crisp tartlets, red onion marmalade and crispy sage; wild mushroom tarts drizzled with truffle oil and sea salt; Mini Eggs Benedict Royale with smoked salmon, hollandaise and chives on a muffin; Roast Tamworth pork belly on a potato cake with apple sauce; Bangers & mash consisting of Cumberland sausages with a creamed shallot-scented potato mousseline,

There followed a splendid three-course feast. To begin it was smoked salmon parfait with toasted olive bread and rocket. A delightful grilled British rib-eye with mustard fondant potato, grilled piccolo tomatoes, panache of root vegetables and a merlot reduction followed and the banquet had a suitably triumphant finale of lemon cheesecake with muscovado sugar snaps and raspberry mousse.

A spectacular band rounded the evening off nicely with guests enjoying the music and drinks. All the guests were very complimentary and a few business cards were dished out at the end.

Say no more!!!

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:08:37 +0000

Hi Paul

Another great reference for you!

Subject: RE: Wedding caterer
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 16:40:31 +0000

Hi Verity

No probs at all – yes we hired Paul for our wedding catering in June last year and we were really impressed with him, he did a great job on both fronts – food was delicious and the service spot on. We had a hog roast and salads and also canapes for 115 and we ate the whole pig it was good! I would definitely recommend him and in fact my cousin is now booking him for her wedding of the back of mine.

Good luck with the planning and hope you have a fantastic wedding day!

Louise
> Subject: Wedding caterer
> From:
> Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 15:54:42 +0000
> To:
>
> Hi Louise
>
> I hope you don’t mind me contacting you but Paul from inside catering gave me your email as a reference as we are looking at using him for our wedding. I was hoping you could let me know how the food and service for your day was?
>
> Many thanks!
> Verity
>
> Sent from my iPhone

Bellinis and Blinis in Kensington

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:15:14 +0000

It was a long drive into Kensington with the usual Friday night hell-on-earth traffic thanks to the M3, M25 & M4. Tonight’s adventure was a corporate canapé party with plenty of self back-slapping city folk. With mango Bellinis and champagne for arrival drinks then superb canapés prepared by the legendary head chef and bottle washer Paul, he treated them to Welsh rarebit soufflés in crisp tartlets, red onion marmalade and crispy sage, wild mushroom tarts drizzled with truffle oil and sea salt, mini eggs Benedict Royale with smoked salmon, hollandaise and chives on a muffin, Roast Tamworth pork belly on a potato cake with apple sauce and Bangers & mash – Cumberland sausages with a creamed shallot scented potato Mousseline. After all the ‘chaps’ had descended into the cold we packed up and readied for the return journey, thankfully traffic-jam free.

2012 – and so it begins

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:20:53 +0000

Inside Catering’s 2012 began on Jan 7 in possibly one of our most glamorous and well-equipped ‘field kitchens’ to-date. In fact there was no field involved – a fully equipped working kitchen was the order of the day with, who would believe it, hot running water and a dish washer as an added luxury – what a treat!

A dinner for 60 for Farnham Cricket Club was the event and the menu was a true delight – a most delicious heart-warming winter broth to start, followed by delicately seasoned moist chicken breast accompanied by a parsnip mash, seasonal veg and a Chablis sauce – in this case I will allow the head of Chef Extraordinaire Boss-man Paulo to inflate as it was possibly the most divine sauce I have ever tasted! So delicious in fact that Donkey and I couldn’t get enough but thankfully there was plenty. These sumptuous first two courses were followed by a rich chocolate tart with creme fraiche, so once more a successful event.

The usual team was on site – Paulo, Donkey, Harold and me Chewie. The now traditional fun and frolics were had and so the team’s adventures have begun for another year – bring it on!

Taste of Christmas 2011

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:16:53 +0000

So we were back in the van once again this time heading to the feat that is Taste of Christmas at Excel. I do not use the word feat lightly – the queues at this event are phenomenal, well for our stand anyway! Just so you can grasp the enormity of the said event, once Mr Boss had done the statistics he was able to ascertain that our service and turnaround rate was one customer every 16 seconds for 19 hours of service with only three chefs and three FOH staff! Three long days plus one day setting up the stand means even less food for us than at previous events – there is literally no time to eat and the Travelodge menu was beyond gross, although Paulo and Donkey did brave it one evening only, shock horror, to be severely disappointed. Mind you this can only be a bonus in the run-up to Christmas as we all returned super svelte!

The usual ‘backstage’ entertainment was quick to begin! The usual jobsworths who make these events incredibly awkward for exhibitors were prolifically visible as always, which meant KP John and chef de partie Charlie had a thrilling if not sweaty time relaying all the stock off the van by hand one morning as trolleys are not allowed on the floor. I think their day was made by the amount of stock that needed moving – two hours later and they were back in the kitchen!

The beauty of these events is the team spirit only gets stronger the more you do – you learn each other’s moods, although any negative one is few and far between bar Larry having a small diva moment one morning – and coming to work feels more like a jolly with very good friends. Some probably struggle to reach this level of contentment in their personal lives but if you achieve this in your employment then surely you can ask for little more.

From a poly tunnel to dining room

admin — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:06:36 +0000

Three months in production and design we were ready to serve 300 very hungry gardeners. Gavin Jones Plantation in Addlestone was responsible for the latest challenge – turning one of the poly tunnels that usually houses many of the fine specimens of trees and shrubs into a glamorous dining room complete with chandeliers, a jazz band and special effect lighting on the trees. The usual suspects were around being Chewie and Donkey, and Harold breezed in at some point. One thing to mention is a big thank you t Vicky for peeling one carrot an hour, The onsite management were to be my service team – interesting would be a bold term? With plates and soup all over the place Chef (me) had to retain order in the kitchen and with a few suitably choice words we were back on track. 300 plated Christmas lunches and Christmas puddings later it was 4.30 and lots of wobbly gardeners were making their way into the frosty night as we pulled the rig down and supped wine; well not me as I was driving but Chewie managed to work her way through her usual bottle or two. A merry time was had!

À la prochaine fois to Sara and thank you for all your hard work over the summer; ) – looking forward to next year’s campaign!!

MasterChef 2011

admin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:00:07 +0000

As far as I’m concerned there should only be one 6.30 in the day and it should definitely be the start of cocktail hour rather than breaking dawn. However, when it is the departure time for our Masterchef weekend the even more appalling 5.30am alarm barely needs to beep as I am leaping out of bed in anticipation.
Clothes thrown on, the suitcase and other bags – which the boss man still struggles to understand are necessary for three days away – are being loaded into the van and me, Mr Boss and Donkey are trundling down the road towards Olympia, London. I would say there is a slight feeling of trepidation of the long, busy days ahead but no it’s all excitement mingled with Mr Boss’ traffic tempers and early morning road rage!
A small preview of how we roll on these work trips is that on the journey in to the big city I am applying fake tan to my legs – one has to look good behind the Roast stand
In fact we all know that our usual nutritious diets will be abandoned in the chaos of serving almost 3,000 customers. It sounds a tough gig doesn’t it – are you beginning to understand why it is one of the many events in our yearly calendar that is greeted with such excitement?
Another small clarification I must make is that our team all have nicknames – Donkey is not actually an ass with long ears and big teeth but a lovely brunette called Vicky, thus named as she has the delightful job of trundling all over London to pick things up; Mr Boss – not that we would ever expand his head enough to call him this – is indeed Paul McIntyre, otherwise known in the team as Paulo; Harold is in fact a lady named Jane but with the surname Steptoe, need I say more; there is me, whose nickname is Chewie from the way I yawn apparently and not thankfully because I have excessive body or facial hair, and then there is Larry, otherwise known as Lawrence Keough, supposedly a celebrity chef!
All congregated and ready for action, we assemble before the stand for the annual team photo before the ‘work’ commences. And by work I mean breakfast and then wait for the mania to begin. With an estimated 45,000 footfall over the weekend we know the restaurant experience, where we are situated, gets hit hard; combine that with the delicious menu of pork belly and root vegetable mash, sirloin steak and straw fries and Laverstoke Buffalo mozzarella with figs we are going to be busy.
However, regardless of the long hours on your feet and seemingly never-ending queue, the ribaldry and raucous behaviour in the kitchen, thankfully most of the time out of sight of the customers, keeps spirits high and the team in excessive good cheer.
You often wonder if the chef programmes on the TV are true to life or whether they are slightly dramatised – believe me you haven’t seen anything yet! I think on the basis of my experience on these types of events, it must be almost compulsory for professionals in the kitchens to have at least one screw loose or many but the lunacy backstage does not impact on the quality of food produced and therefore it works.