March 3: squeezing limes at Maiyango

Foodie photos of the day

By Matt Wright

A regular feature in Great Food Leicestershire & Rutland magazine is ‘Your Dream Dish’, where a reader names their ideal meal and Maiyango’s head chef Phil Sharpe cooks it up. It’s a great feature to photograph as Phil is totally passionate about what he’s doing and always gives out some useful tips (today I learnt you should never order fish on a Monday because fishermen don’t fish on Sundays). Also, the reader and I get to eat the food after he’s cooked it!

Here, Joanne Grew from Kenilworth is working with Phil to create an aromatic Thai fish curry. The smell and flavour of Phil’s Thai curry sauce were awesome and transported me straight to South East Asia, where I’ve done a bit of travelling. The sauce was really complex, with masses of flavours coming through.

Thanks to Joanne and Phil for a great (and very tasty) afternoon. As a way of saying thanks for taking part, Joanne will enjoy a free meal for two at Maiyango. The full feature will appear in the May/June issue (out May 6, 2011). If you’d like to take part in this feature, drop me a line at matthew.wright@greatfoodleics.co.uk

With Phil at the helm creating fantastic flavours and all sorts of chutneys and sauces, Leicester’s Hotel Maiyango is an essential destination for foodies. And be sure to try one of their cocktails.