"And then... and then... then we can make THE WHOLE OF LONDON OUT OF CAKE for dessert! The London Eye, Big Ben, the Gherkin... we could just stick a big gherkin in the cake! Hell, YEAH!"

It started halfway through a conversation on the 29th floor of Millbank Tower when myself and Chris had had several spoonfuls of Cointreau caviar in a variety of alcoholic suspensions. The canapes at this Cointreau molecular mixology event were in themselves uninspiring - but we were inspired (or drunk, it's one or the other for Team Londonist) and we interrupted ourselves to start planning our London landscape three course meal. Because Chris is Food & Drink editor for Londonist and I'm editor with prior food & drink interests. And we can't do anything without referencing a few handfuls of London things.

Here is the menu I made Chris write in his notebook as I jumped up and down, spilled Cointreaupolitans over myself and shouted things like "different toppings AND different bases: naan, roti, bagels... scones... river Thames marked out in achovies..."

Starter: Tricolore Tricolore Salad (cold course) - three salads of three colours
Main course: Four Borough platter - representing four boroughs of London in salt beef and pickle (Golders Green), char siu and steamed bak choi (Chinatown), kofte kebabs and fresh raita (Brick Lane), jerk chicken and plaintains / palm hearts or sweet potato wedges (Brixton)
Dessert: Sweet polenta and almond Telecom Towers

We had sobered up by the time we settled on this menu and had thankfully abandoned the Four Boroughs pizza idea. Though it will have its day. Some day. Perhaps when Pizza Express need a new culinary miracle to revive its menu, Londonist will be there to push the Four Boroughs pizza on to the public. It would have clotted cream, salt beef and fried plaintains on it. Mmmmm!

We went shopping on the morning of Nom, Nom, Nom and were overwhelmed by all the good and wonderful things in the farmers' market and then lost it slightly in Waitrose. Our already ambitious menu was beginning to look... bloated. That little shiny patch in the lower right hand corner is the stainless steel preparation surface that was our allotted area for the day. That's how much of the surface was left after we had unpacked all our goods. That's how seriously we took the shopping part of the contest.

But it was a pleasure to be in the very serious cooking environment of the Cookery school, surrounded by clean, empty surfaces in everyone else's areas, enormous collections of sharp knives, chopping boards, mixing bowls that we were free to use with reckless-within-the-confines of Health & Safety abandon.

Chris was a willing, able and gentlemanly helpmate and even though I am more used to cooking on my own, it turned out to be a very happy, if rather intense afternoon working side by side at the chopping boards and work surfaces. In fact, it was a bit like this:

And at the end, we had about nine different dishes to present to the judges. Our hope was to

1) create a meal that had every flavour of London in it

2) attempt to assault the judges with enough food for them to find something they liked and give us loads of points

3) use up all the stuff we bought, because we bought a lot of stuff and it was all worthy of being included somewhere on the plate

I was worried I might have to eventually choose between quantity or quality but as most of the things we were cooking happened to be things I trust myself to cook quite well, we ended up going for huge quantities of quality cooking. It was supposed to be a three course meal for four people. We managed to make close enough for six courses for five platoons.

There was no room for the jar of pickled herrings though. Which, in hindsight, is just as well.

It got a bit mad when things had marinaded long enough and we had to get everything into the oven then onto the plate. At one point, we had a tray of raw cake mix, two big pieces of pork on skewers for char siu, jerk chicken drumsticks and a pan of sweet potato wedges all simultaneously on the way to the oven. There was a bit of shouting. I was walking back and forth to the sinks at the back of the room, up to the elbow in bright red char siu marinade, hands held aloft as I dodged around the other cooks who all looked like they were crafting beautiful meals out of delicate, fragrant, pretty things. Meanwhile, I looked and felt like a surgeon striding out grimly after a particularly tricky triple heart bypass. Chris was beginning to look like the patient.

And then...

And then it was all over. The plates disappeared upstairs to be judged. I watched as the Leaning Tower of Polenta and Almond Telecoms wobbled its way to the next floor and prayed the Cointreau flavoured marmalade would stop it from toppling over before it was looked at. I listened out for the cries of "ooh!" and "aaah!" as our amazing technicolour salad starter entered the room. [There was no "ooh!" or "aah!"] I held my breath and mentally apologised for the complete lack of space to manouevre on the plate for the main course - we had four meals on it after all and getting a knife and fork in there wasn't going to be easy. Still, we stuck by our original aims and had come up with a very London, and indeed, Londonist meal - full of endless variety, lots of different flavours and drenched in the magic ingredient: one heck of a lot of enthusiasm for food, London and food in London. We hope you can taste it too.

Note: this is the final plate half full. Yes, it is only half full at this point. Clockwise from the orange things, it goes sweet potato wedges, char siu on the skewer, two minced lamb kofte, fresh mint and cucumber raita, tabbouleh salad with haloumi cheese. The jerk chicken and bak choi are missing. Tasty, yes? Very Londonist, no?

The Food 2.0 project: nom, nom, nom was a great success and sitting down to eat with everyone at the end was an amazing privilege: we had the chance to witness with our own eyes and tastebuds what the foodie blogging community is capable of. Everyone can indeed walk the walk as well as talk the talk. We look forward to the next event, and this time... we'll make London themed cocktails too. Thanks to the organisers and to the Cookery School!

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