Kitchen Rat: It's a cracker; Making a mountain out of... tofu

It’s a cracker

Café Rouge’s latest marketing ploy has seen the creation of a cheese-themed hotel room in London’s Camden Town, with fromage fans entering a ballot to win a night’s stay. It has teamed up with an aparthotel to offer prize winners a stay that will include a cheese hotline delivery service and a mini-bar stacked with cheese and wine. There is no word on whether the ‘lucky’ winners will be sleeping on a Port Salut pillow on a Manchego mattress, but this rat certainly knows the room it’ll be nibbling into the next time it hits the capital’s centre of alternative culture.

Making a mountain out of… tofu

Richard Corrigan didn’t mince his words when discussing Veganuary, or ‘vegan January’ on Ireland’s The Late Late Show last week. During a grilling from host Ryan Tubridy, the no-nonsense chef provided his perspective on the phenomenon, saying: “Every paper, every magazine, I’m hearing about vegan January, just coming at me like a big, big mountain. The only mountain I want to see is sirloins and fillets.” The view wasn’t a great surprise for a chef who adds a bone marrow crumb to the mash at new site Daffodil Mulligan, but he may find he gets a bit of a roasting from any diners brave enough to head in for some braised kale on toast or crispy polenta with tofu mayonnaise.

Stayin’ alive

Hats off to Premier Inn, which has installed lifesaving defibrillators in all 800 of its hotels. It’s a worthwhile move, if you ask this rat. Whenever I make an appearance in the kitchen, or even a bedroom for that matter, anyone who sees me looks like they’re about to have a heart attack.