Guerilla Cuisine

We came. He cooked. We ate.

Yesterday, in a small West London flat kitted out with all the necessary accoutrements (portable deep fryer, family-sized rice pot, halogen stove top, a mini blowtorch), a HackerKitchen took place.

In a town where a pint at the pub is la mode and eating out or throwing dinner parties can be expensive, HackerKitchen captures and combines the spirit of dining out in the informal atmosphere of someone’s home. And it helps that Chef Hacker can cook too, a veritable blur around his tiny kitchen as he manipulated the deep fryer, chopped veggies, skewered meat and seared fish with a blowtorch. And he somehow found the time to make sure our glasses were well filled and the music (Mogwai, classical, an aboriginal Taiwanese singer) kept playing. As well as managing to squeeze in explanations about the various dishes he was preparing, and general chat.

Ingredients (taking into account any dietary requirements) were sourced and purchased on the day of the HackerKitchen and cooked up in front of and served, beautifully presented, to salivating guests. The caramelised sweeet potato dessert did not quite pan out as expected – the caramel was too dark and bitter – but this only added to the charmingly informal nature of it all.

What we enjoyed:

tempura – aubergine, sweet potato (with soya sauce and grated daikon radish)

lamb and leek skewers (grilled with cumin)

tuna nigiri (mackeral base seared by blowtorch instead of the usual rice)

chinese herb soup (lamb stock)

mapo tofu

sticky ginger and chicken rice

eng chai (stir fried)

caramelised sweet potato

baozhong tea – one of Taiwan’s most famous teas; a lightly oxidised Oolong tea; smell and taste evokes images of green grass, the countryside, freshness and nature. From the host’s region.

kaoliang, a Taiwanese liquor + chilli pickled in oil made from tea leaves.

Verdict: The slightly shambolic nature of a dinner party in a cramped West London flat (ie. “Oh don’t worry; I’m happy to eat out of a shoe – we don’t have enough plates!), great food and a host passionate about his food and willing to talk at great length about his ingredients and the dishes, made for a fabulously enjoyable evening. If only more guerilla action throughout the world was taken in the name of food and flowers.