Easy Peasy... Vietnamesey?

Cooking up a typhoon...

Christmas Day 2014 I opened up a pug Christmas card (of course) from the other half to discover a cooking class for 2 at Jamie Oliver's Recipease. I was excited. I guess he got the hint after I said 'Oh I want to go there!' every time we walked past. (living in Notting Hill at the time, it was quite a few!)

Recipease offers quite a number of different classes from Indian to Mexican to bread making to knife skills and everything in between. We opted for the Vietnamese Street Food for something a little different... and maybe we were feeling the need to be a little 'healthy' at the time...

So early on a Saturday evening we headed to Notting Hill excited for what we would be cooking then eating in a matter of hours.

On the menu was:

• Pork balls (more like triangular pyramid)
• Summer rolls
• Beef pho
• Dipping sauce

The session we took was a 'bring a friend and get £5 off' deal which meant that each board/cooking station was shared by a couple. With 14 stations this meant a total of 28 people which made things a little on the squishy side. So make sure you go with someone you really like!

Starting with a glass of prosecco each, the lesson kicked off with a demonstration for the first, part of the second and fourth item on the list then sent off to our work stations to get on with it. All the ingredients in their necessary quantities are laid out so there's no need to worry about remembering exact measurements etc. We were lucky in that our recipes were relatively easy (chop everything into slivers and mix together) but I would hope a bit more guidance would be given to more difficult ones. (you do get a copy of the recipes sent to you via email after the class so you can recreate at home if wanted!)

While our pork balls are put on the fry we regroup once again for our final demonstration of the summer roll assemblage then a discussion of the beef pho. Due to the nature of the beef pho stock there would not have been enough time to make this from scratch so we are left to assemble the bowl and present to the teacher for her to provide the stock.

Once everything is cooked, assembled and done you then take a seat and enjoy your meal together! Was it all tasty? I would say the pork balls were the favourite having the most flavour but the summer rolls were a nice fresh flavour to cut through any grease/heaviness.

My thoughts overall?

• Though fun, I'm not sure I came away with any great new skills or recipes I couldn't find online. Not sure it was worth us spending £45 each for the class? 
• It was a little rushed/slapped together as there weren't enough utensils for every couple nor did we have all the ingredients we needed. This could have just been the one off but not only had we sat down to enjoy our meal for 5mins when I turned around and all the work stations were already half converted for the Mexican class due to start in a few minutes.
• I'd be willing to give it another go but maybe go for their '2 for 1 Tuesdays' which means a total spend of £51 rather than £90!

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Recipease can be found at:

92-94 Notting Hill Gate
London W11 3QB
T: 020 3375 5398

E: hello@recipease.com

Opening hours:
Mon - Sat: 8am - 10pm
Sun: 9am - 9pm