Soho Food Feast 2013

I wrote last year about the Soho Food Feast, the inspired fundraiser for the Soho Parish Primary School. Yesterday, it was on again. After the success of last year's, this one was on a larger scale. The entry tickets were £15, not £4, and they are running it over both days of the weekend. But food tokens were still £2, the sun shone again and the array of food on offer was again impressive. Although we stuck to a really delicious dry prosecco from The French House this year because the delicious Milk & Honey mojitos went up from £7.50 to £10...

They sold a lot more tickets this year too.

My first port of call was the cook book swap table - the nine hardback books I culled from my stash were weighing me down a bit. As the table had only two books on it before I arrived I think they were quite glad to see me! And I very determinedly left without taking another book.

Then, after a circuit of the tent to plan our campaign, we hit the food. Last year's only disappointment for Penny was that the majority of vendors had done a pork dish. This year there wasn't a lot of pork but loads of seafood. Everything from burgers to pot-stickers to chocolate caramel tart looked and smelt very good.

First dish of the day - delicious fish dog from Hix. Fried to order by charming young men, a sustainable coley fillet, minted mushy peas and a choice of ketchup or tartare sauce

Burnt chilli chicken with masala mashed potatoes from Cinnamon Soho. Absolutely delicious. Next time I make a curry I am serving it with spicy mash.

Angela Hartnett did another cooking demonstration. Very funny and a joy to watch someone cook so deftly.

She made a girolle, broad bean and pea ragu pasta

St John sold out of their famous doughnuts very quickly. The queue for their ox heart buns wasn't quite so long... It's nose-to-tail fortnight but ox heart didn't appeal

Delicious, firey and sharp seabass and sweet potato ceviche from Ceviche

Fresh, milky mozzarella and tomato salad from Natoora

Duck, watermelon and pickled ginger salad from The Ivy. The watermelon had been sitting, cut, for a bit too long but I think freshly done this would be an unbeatable dish.

As a final savoury dish Penny had Mahon cheese from Brindisa, served with tomato jam...

... while I had a roast beef and horseradish manchet from Quo Vadis. It was beautifully balanced and darling Jeremy Lee did a wonderful job of selling it to me but I was a little bit too full to totally appreciate a carby treat at this point.

I'd been carefully keeping back a final token for Gelupo ice cream. But then it turned out they were charging two tokens for an ice cream cone, so I had to scuttle off and buy another. The ricotta gelato with sour cherry swirl was well worth it.