Tartare

Review: Juliet, Stroud

I really love the bit of the Cotswolds around Stroud and Nailsworth. Stunningly beautiful valleys full of all manner of tiny villages and abandoned industry, swallowed by wilderness. Far fewer tourists than the chocolate box villages further north and yet far more interesting! If I were to live in the Cotswolds, I’d pick this part. …

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Counter 71

Review: Counter 71, Shoreditch

Wow there are a lot of fine dining options out east these days. Shoreditch and Hackney are now huge hotspots for splash-out meals, perhaps shaped by cheaper rents while still being pretty accessible on the tube and train network? The latest we tried was Counter 71, where as the name suggests, all the covers are …

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Town

Review: TOWN, Covent Garden

I’d say TOWN is a pretty good candidate for meal of the year already. Combination of superb food, lovely setting and really excellent service. The interior is wonderful, lots of clean curves giving something of a 60’s modernist retro vibe but with all the furnishing and other decor carrying a burgundy and baked earth colour …

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Fish and chips

Review: The Wensleydale Heifer, Wensleydale

I like the decor at the Wensleydale Heifer. It’s cheerfully bright and unashamedly personal: they like the things they like, and that’s how they’ve decorated. No attempt to design for an expected demographic or conjure up a particular aesthetic. Except I guess that “cheerfully individual” is an aesthetic in itself? Anyway, the cheerful individuality and …

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Sunday roast

Review: The Aysgarth Falls Hotel, Aysgarth

This was a Sunday roast, albeit in the evening, the Aysgarth Hotel being one of those places that just does nothing but the roast right through Sunday. On the other hand, being one of the few places actually serving dinners on a Sunday evening in the middle of the Dales, it’s handy to know! The …

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Review: Juliet, StroudReview: Counter 71, ShoreditchReview: TOWN, Covent GardenReview: The Wensleydale Heifer, WensleydaleReview: The Aysgarth Falls Hotel, Aysgarth

Review: Stravaigin, Glasgow

Categories:

Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

27 March 2013

One of the many corners of Stravaigin
Sassenach bloggers and critics seem to only cross the border with their sights on Edinburgh, drawn by the passel of well known chefs doing their thing in Scotland’s capital. So in the spirit of adventure I thought I’d look for good eats in Scotland’s second city.

Stravaigin is a bar and restaurant rambling over several rooms, outfitted in gnarly eccentricity: it’s a hipster highland lodge on a high street in a handsome and bohemian patch of Glasgow. I like it immediately, even before being handed a menu that has me praying the food is as good as it reads. Local produce, unusual elements, powerful flavours, plenty of spice, it might have been written for me.

Stravaigin like to challenge with their food. Shortly after the horsemeat scandal broke into a canter they put their own (quite deliberate) horsemeat lasagne on the menu. They half-feared animal rights activists would picket the door, but on the night all 120 portions sold out within ninety minutes of opening.

This was a smashing plate of food, I'd have it often
Alas, it was a one-off. Instead I start with poached monkfish liver and a preserved lemon relish. See? This was unashamedly powerful, beautifully poached too. And I can report that eight hours later the taste is still with me. Maureen’s ox tongue was even better. The tongue was delicious on its own, but the pairing with a vividly amber puree of carrot and liquorice was brilliant. And the liquorice was not a subtle nudge, it was a bang of liquorice on top of the melting tongue.

Mains. Pan-roasted coley on a smoked haddock risotto on a cauliflower puree. The accompaniments were smashing, but the powerfully good chunk of coley was the star. Slivers of raw red chillies might have been nudged to one side by some, but for me they added star-bursts of excitement to a cosy dish. Maureen’s massaman curry duck leg was very good, with glutinous rice and a Thai salad. It told a story of someone who has actually been to Thailand and understood how this food should be done, rather than just read about it.

Ginger parfait, prune ice cream, wine reduction
My pudding was a sharply squishy baked lemon curd with bright marscapone ice cream and lemon dust; refreshing finish, prettily plated. Maureen’s ginger parfait and prune ice cream were two great components that didn’t really share one plate very well, though a red wine reduction was a surprising pudding element that went beautifully with the parfait.

And we’re done. Three courses of exciting food, very well cooked and presented, for around £24. Better yet, my own choices were off the three course lunch menu – a stunning £15 bargain. Look, if you’re off on that long weekend break to the Highlands you have to drive past Glasgow anyway*. Stravaigin is just off the motorway and adds barely ten minutes to the journey time. Do yourself a favour, aye?

Delicious though it is, that stuff repeats on you!

* – and I should hasten to add that Glasgow could occupy a perfectly good weekend break on its own, as I’ve stopped a couple of times before now

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Review: The Pound, Leebotwood

Categories:

Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

16 March 2013

Dining room at The Pound
I’ve driven past The Pound dozens of times without looking twice. Oh, it’s a decent enough looking pub, but it’s right on the busy A49, the main trunk road for the Marches. Both the pub and the little village of Leebotwood that the A-road grinds its way through pass by in a grimy haze without much notice whenever I’m off to Shrewbury, Chester or any points north in Shropshire.

So now I’m left to wonder how many other hidden gems lurk by the side of our busy A-roads, because I just had a really great lunch there at the hands of chef John Williams.

Inside, the pub is much larger and more smartly decorated than its location would ever let you believe. Although there’s plenty of bare wood in evidence, they’ve gone for bright and contemporary rather than ye olde country pubbe. There’s plenty of space, too – I don’t imagine a table with kids would be as disruptive as it can be in some of the cheek-by-jowl gastropubs I’ve been shoe-horned into. On a mid-week lunchtime service was entirely by the lady of the house, quite capable of keeping a half-dozen tables ticking over with a friendly smile.

I want this salmon every day
My starter was a classic chicken liver parfait with crisp toasts and caramelised onion relish. It was a very good specimen, the parfait particularly creamy and rich. Maureen’s starter was even better: a slab of delicious house-smoked salmon with a gingerbread crumb and wasabi mayonnaise. Gingerbread and smoked salmon work beautifully, who knew? It helps that the salmon was some of the best I’ve ever tasted. This dish could have sat comfortably on white linen in most fine dining restaurants.

Not feeling meaty, I picked a twice-baked cheese souffle for main. It was plump, cheesy and very satisfying, intelligently served with a warm ratatouille. Maureen’s burger was a really serious bit of beef, charred outside and pink inside, very hefty. The chilli relish and crisp bacon were good, the accompanying chips were fat and crispy – essentially perfect. Best of all was the bun, a firm brioche with a fine texture, light and soft with a wonderful shining crust. Seems silly to rave about a bun, but there you go.

Splendid ginger cake
My moist ginger cake was fully gingery, with rum and raisin ice cream and a puddle of caramel sauce. Unlike a typical pub sticky-toffee-pud, this cake would have been utterly delicious without any accompaniment. Maureen’s apple crumble was great too, just the right balance of sharp/sweet with a generous amount of apple.

I couldn’t want a better pub lunch. At about £23 for three courses without drinks The Pound undercuts every cardboard-cutout gastropub in the shires and offers up better food than most to boot. Wine by the glass is only £3-£4 though admittedly our choices were ho-hum. Now, if only they could be pursuaded to inch a few miles closer to Ludlow for me…?

No need for this, The Pound is my best bargain meal for a long time

Finally, the burger (because I liked the photo)…
Not kidding, best burger bun I've ever eaten

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Review: The Dysart Arms, Bunbury

Categories:

Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

16 March 2013

The Dysart Arms, the 'library room' I would guess
The Dysart Arms is part of the Brunning & Price chain of pubs, one of those groups that has worked out the gastropub formula and is busily replicating it in 30+ places across the country. Normally I’d pick an independent instead, but Harden’s gave it a thumbs up and we were winding our way home after a long day so picking somewhere with some confidence of success seemed good.

Of course, and feel free to call me a snob, if I’d known that Brunning & Price were owned by The Restaurant Group, who also run Frankie & Benny’s, Chiquitos and Garfunkels, I might have been more tempted to pick a local indie. Hey-ho, we learn as we go. At least I can say that I ate and reviewed before finding out.

The ambiance is one thing they’ve got right, a handful of linked rooms kept cosy and characterful with plenty of original looking features and a grand library giving the main dining room style. This is not the identikit decor of a Garfunkels. The service is friendly, generally good. The menu had me worried even before ordering: sixteen mains? That’s not usually a good sign.

Pork belly, pig cheek, and baby food croquette
My starter, a pigeon breast salad, was well done. The pigeon was raw cured and ate beautifully. The stickily dressed salad added good flavours of chestnut and cranberry. Maureen’s “crab bon-bons” were dense and the crab uncrabby, with a zingy Thai-style sauce from the bottle-of-sweet-chilli-sauce school of UK Thai cooking.

My pork main was a big plate of pig. The belly was okay, a big confit slab with too much unrendered fat left. Pig cheek was a good texture but under-seasoned, and the “black pudding croquette” was soggy sage stuffing in breadcrumbs with the odd crumb of black pudding to show willing. Maureen’s salt-and-pepper squid salad was four big rubber rings coated in a powerful spicy pepper, tossed into a mixed salad with some bits of grapefruit. It was definitely ho-hum.

That is a sad, sad bread and butter pudding
Gastropub puds ought to have fixed things, but their sticky toffee pudding was unloving with not enough sauce and the bread-and-butter pudding had absolutely no colour on top, it was just a hefty lump with a sticky apricot sauce that looked like… well, I’ll leave it to the photo.

None of our meal at The Dysart was inedible, but none of it was very good either (pigeon excepted). I’ve had better specimens of every other dish within the last six months. There’s a place for chain pubs, I’ve got no problem with Wetherspoons and co. turning out microwaved Brake Bros grub for those who only have a tenner to spend on a meal out. But if Brunning & Price want to charge the same as good independent gastropubs (£24 three courses without drinks) for what is generally very dull fodder, then I’ve got no time for them.

I bet octopii would make great chefs

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Review: The Oak, Notting Hill

Categories:

London, Pubs

11 March 2013

Octopus carpaccio in the atmospherically lit Oak
The Oak. It sounds like a pub, but it’s actually a casual Italian restaurant on Westbourne Park Road. Don’t come expecting sausage and mash or a pint of Guinness.

Instead expect rustic stripped-back tables decked with candles packed into the shell of a handsome looking old boozer. The atmosphere even on a Tuesday in February is good, buzzy without becoming annoying. The cosy atmos extended to it being too dark for decent photos, as you can see. Oh, and there’s a no reservations policy, so Saturday evenings might be tricky.

I had a brief grump at the outset; despite being the first punters to arrive we somehow found ourselves seated at a table barely big enough for four in front of the breezy door. Don’t get me wrong, our greeter allowed us to choose, but there were bizarrely only two of twenty tables set for a party of four and she certainly drew the line at the suggestion that we might shove together two small tables in a more comfy looking corner. Bah. Grump over, service was otherwise swift and friendly.

Chicory is hands-down my favourite salad, well used here
Padron peppers with paprika salt were jolly moorish, as was garlic bread. Maureen’s starter of octopus carpaccio was a great opener, perfect polpo and perfectly dressed. My own salad of chicory, walnuts and blue cheese was satisfying, dosed with truffle oil and honey it was a spiffy enough marriage of flavours and textures that I’m gonna add it to my lunch repertoire back in the kitchen. Our friends were equally enthusiastic.

My smoked haddock and saffron risotto was good; deep flavour and the right bite. Maureen enjoyed slices of seared tuna over salad. All the mains were simple dishes, but made with good produce and well cooked. Desserts were a final delicious touch to send us away happy. My semi-freddo was topped with a nutty crunch and paired with slices of poached pear that had been caramelised to a beautiful translucency but still held a juicy bite. Honestly, one of the best pearish things I’ve ever had. Tiramisu was deemed good, as was a simple cheesecake with a crunchy hazelnut base and a sumptuous caramel sauce.

All in all, good tucker for around £30 each before drinks. I couldn’t call it a bargain; this is straight-forward cooking, albeit of quality. But we are on the edge of Notting Hill, after all, and Italian places have a habit of nudging their prices a few quid higher than equivalent British or French joints. Never have worked out why that should be, have you?

Of course they have oaks in Italy - where do you think truffles come from?

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Review: The Swan Inn, Hertfordshire

Categories:

Events and Visits, Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

5 March 2013

The Swan Inn, Denham
I wasn’t sure whether I was going to enjoy the Harry Potter Studio Tour, it’s the kind of thing that could be magic… or very naff. But it was a gift from my sister, and I never look a gift Thestral in the mouth (little Harry Potter humour there!).

In fact it was brilliant, from the genuinely impressive original sets like the Great Hall and the Griffindor Common Room, the fascinating collection of grotesquery in the creature workshop, the astonishing intricacy and beauty of all the schematics and concept art produced long before anyone ever dons a wig or hefts a camera, right through to the frankly awe-inspiring scale model of Hogwarts used as the set for all the outside footage. Even the Butterbeer was good; a sort-of butterscotch soda with a creamy head and a delicate fizz, sweet but (surprisingly) not overly sweet. If it was sold in pubs instead of coke, I might actually order a fizzy drink occasionally.

Conversely, I was expecting The Swan Inn in the bucolic village of Denham to be something fairly special: Les Routiers Dining Pub of the Year for 2011, after all! Okay, so it isn’t really a pub. It’s a restaurant in an old pub that still has a bar, but essentially every table in the place is set up for dining. Lovely oak chairs, cosy fire. Service from the team of young ladies was efficient and friendly, without being particularly personal.

Carpaccio of beef, best dish of the day
My starter of rabbit rissoles was good, with carrots pickled in star anise and a slightly bland sweetcorn puree. It was an inventive and effective combination. Maureen’s beef carpaccio was very good, a light Waldorf salad in the centre being an excellent complement to the melty meat. That’s the highlights out of the way.

Well, the Swan has certainly boldly and unashamedly perfected the English pub lasagne! The beef wasn’t minced, it had been slowly braised then pulled to a sticky shred before being cooked in tomatoey sauce. The cheese on top was cheddar, and there was a scattering of wild mushrooms hiding in there along with chunks of carrot. It worked, in a hearty way. Maureen’s roast beef was a thick chunk of pink meat, but not the most tender nor the most flavoursome roast. Gravy was in short supply, but in other regards this was a huge plateful of food topped with a somewhat stodgy Yorkshire pud.

If an English pub is going to do lasagna, this is how to do it
Our dessert really ought to have been taken off the menu if chef was having such a struggle to make it set. Salt caramel chocolate torte sounded promising, but the chocolate was a milky concoction so un-chocolately it could have been Cadburys, and more like a rapidly melting mousse than a torte. The oozing dollop of sweet pale fudgey caramel on top was left as the only flavour on the plate, with the occasional salt bomb from an errant crystal of Maldon.

Prices were about typical for a home counties gastropub, perhaps £25 for three courses without drinks. There’s a good number of wines by the glass, though neither of the ones we had were particularly great. Hey, if you want a posh pub lunch in one of the odd patches of rusticity inside the M25 then this’ll do fine. I’m just not sure why it would win any awards.

The Torte of Disappointment

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