MasterChef winner Ping Coombes launches ‘cheap eats’ menu

Coombes told the Standard: “It is important to show that London is full of cheap eats... I am amazed at what London can offer for £20.”

Masterchef winner Ping Coombes is launching a “cheap eats” lunchtime tasting menu to showcase the best dishes of South-East Asia.

The chef, who won the BBC cooking competition in 2014, is now executive chef at the pan-Asian restaurant Chi Kitchen in Oxford Street, which opened 18 months ago.

For London Food Month, she is launching a £20 two-course lunch menu. Diners can pick from the likes of handmade prawn dumplings, chicken satay, salmon sashimi and duck or vegetable spring rolls to start. Szechuan beef, cha bee hoon with chicken — a vermicelli noodle dish — and katsu curry are some of the options for the main course.

A soft drink or tea is included in the price. Of her menu, which will run between 11am and 5pm through June, Coombes said: “It is a selection of the favourites, really. But we are also using it as a time to bring out dishes that are less well known. Our aim is to bring a lot more South-East Asian flavours and dishes to London.”

“Different flavours”: Ping Coombes is the executive chef at Chi Kitchen in Oxford Street
Jeremy Selwyn

The chef said she wanted to show diners that the food of South-East Asia was not “scary”. “You cannot intimidate your customers,” she said. “There is a fine line, as a chef you want to be as daring as possible. You want to try out different things. But ultimately, we have to think about what the customers want. So the dishes are not scary.

“We are trying to make the favourites taste brilliant and use the best of the ingredients and push those who don’t know it.”

​Coombes, who is based in Bath, said she was keen to keep the cost of the menu low. “It is important to show that London is full of cheap eats. I live in the south-west and you wouldn’t believe how expensive the food is. I am amazed at what London can offer for £20.”

The chef said she was keen to be involved in London Food Month. “London is a food heaven,” she said. “People are always looking for something new to eat in London. I think it gives more choice to people to discover restaurants that are not normally on the same old Instagram feeds, or not normally on their horizon. And hopefully they will come to us and think, ‘I have discovered a hidden gem’.”

​Coombes is a regular guest judge on MasterChef and has appeared on the latest series in the past month. She said: “It was just so fun. I love going back, and to be able to go back every year since I won is a real privilege.

“Who doesn’t want to be invited to come and eat? I am actually quite jealous of them [the current contestants] going through that process. It is a lot of fun.

“My whole life, well for four months, was just dedicated to the competition. It is really rare that you can just focus on that one thing. It is a luxury I do not have at the moment.”

The Chi Kitchen London Food Month menu will launch on June 1. Visit chikitchen.co.uk.

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