Baked rice and duck

Review: Asador 44, Cardiff

The food scene in Wales has improved beyond measure over the last decade, with the charge led (I would argue) by Ynyshir on the fine dining front. It sometimes feels like half the best places to eat in Wales are headed by alumni. That aside, Cardiff itself has also burgeoned with good eats; The Plate …

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Scallop roe hash browns

Review: Heaneys, Cardiff

Heaneys is a handsome, friendly, comfortable and capable fine dining restaurant in the nice Pontcanna suburb of Cardiff. Thirty minutes walk, or a ten minute taxi ride on a rainy December night, from the Castle. We went with the long tasting menu, because ’tis the season to over-indulge after all! And a beef fat old …

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Pheasant

Review: Crispin, Clapham

We moved to Clapham five years ago, and the only small independent restaurant that critics and bloggers were ever bothered with – the Dairy – immediately closed. Roll on five years, and we’ve now got Crispin at Studio Voltaire, the third or fourth outpost of this lil’ bunch of small plate places. Let’s hope they …

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Shepherd's pie

Review: Cinnamon Bazaar, Covent Garden

Can I write a fair review here? We met up at Cinnamon Bazaar with friends, six of us for a sociable dinner a few weeks before Christmas (though close enough for all the decorations to be up in the streets and the festive menus to be popping up in the restaurants). So perhaps my mind …

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Edamame at Drunken Lobster

Review: Drunken Lobster, Ventnor

The Isle of Wight needs a bridge. How else am I to get over more regularly for good food? Looks to me that the Solent at its narrowest point is only a bit longer than the Isle of Skye bridge, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Loads more people live on and visit Wight than …

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Review: Asador 44, CardiffReview: Heaneys, CardiffReview: Crispin, ClaphamReview: Cinnamon Bazaar, Covent GardenReview: Drunken Lobster, Ventnor

Review: The Mail Room, Ludlow (Part 2)

Categories:

Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

29 June 2012

Tian of crab, padded out with crayfish, in broth of nothing with pea shoots
Well, I said I’d go back and give them another shot. It’s a good month later, and to cut to the chase the story is just the same: good dining room, friendly service, hit-and-miss food. Looks like chef got a big box of pea shoots in his organic food box this week too, as we had them on pretty much every dish. Don’t believe me? Check the photos.

I’m not actually a natural born critic. Having met and liked the owners, and seeing the potential, I really want to spend this review trying to suggest things they might fix because I do hope that The Mail Room succeeds and thrives. But that would be stupendously pompous of me, with absolutely no qualification to advise on food beyond having eaten out at a lot of good restaurants. Perhaps I have nothing to worry about: they were full on a rainy Thursday night. We came with my parents, who were happy to join in the assessment of the food, although that did prevent me from offering any serious comment when the owner came by to ask whether our meal had been good.

That risotto. Surely the shape is wrong? And pea shoots
Breads were slow to arrive but good, with unusual flavours of curry and cranberry on offer. In different rolls, I hasten to add. My starter of char-grilled haloumi was a bit heavy on the charring, tasting uncomfortably like that bit of veg that drops between the slats on the barbecue but you rescue anyway. Otherwise a simple and nicely balanced plate with a gooey chilli jam and a scatter of broad beans. Maureen’s crab tian was odd in temperature; the tian still almost fridge cold while the Thai style broth was warm. And if it’s a crab tian, why was it stuffed with crayfish tails? More of a shame was the lack of any flavour or punch in the broth whatsoever, a reminder of the lack of seasoning last outing. On a positive note, my mum had the ravioli this time and declared it good (I noticed more than one ravioli on the plate this time) while a hearty mushroom soup was also liked.

For main course I had ox-tail, properly cooked and served with some sticky salsify, possibly braised in red wine. This was a nice looking plate of decent food, just like my pork from last time. And just like last time, Maureen picked the duffer. Claggy was the only adjective for that risotto. I would rather use it for plastering walls than eating. The rice was still grainy, and I might argue with the title of “wild mushroom” risotto as we could only find domestic mushrooms and could only taste a heavy splash of truffle oil. The tempura asparagus on top was okay, but needed seasoning. My mum enjoyed the

Some oxtail and salsify. With, why not, some pea shoots
pork dish I enjoyed last time, so consistency there, and my dad enjoyed half a Cornish lobster although he also found fault with the risotto lurking beneath.

So there we go. I didn’t feel like writing this, as I was looking forward to cancelling my last review with a turn-around, but having said I would go back it’d be cowardly to duck it. I do itch to focus on the better dishes, but how can I recommend a place if it’s down to luck whether you enjoy your dinner or merely endure it? I must come back to the pea shoots. Pea shoots scattered on three starters and all main courses (only the soup was spared). That’s not a carefully considered element of a plate, that’s a garnish. Garnishes belong on pub food. I suspect The Mail Room’s chef is stretching himself beyond his comfort zone, which is laudable but only if you consistently succeed. I’ve no plans to return.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the risotto hanging upside-down on the spoon

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Pot roast cauliflower

Categories:

Lunch or supper, One-pot meals, Recipes, Vegetarian

18 June 2012

This is yet another recipe inspired by our lunch at Noma in Copenhagen, although this time it’s probably a more direct translation as I found an article online in which Jay Rayner gets to cook with Rene Redzepi and they make the very same pot roast cauliflower that we enjoyed as one of our twenty courses at lunch. In my interpretation I do away with the pine branches, juniper sprigs and yoghurt whey and go with more comfy flavours of garlic, thyme, anchovy and crème fraiche.

Really, this knocks any other cauliflower dishes into a cocked hat. Sure, that’s a strong boast. Don’t scoff at that boast until you’ve tried it yourself. Oh, and feel free to skip the anchovies if they aren’t your thing.

Pot roast cauliflower, with chorizo and new potatoes

Pot roast cauliflower

1 cauliflower head
75g butter
2 cloves garlic
4 sprigs thyme
1 bay leaf
3 preserved anchovies
1 tbsp crème fraiche
  1. Trim the cauliflower head of all its leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom florets
  2. Get a casserole on a medium-high heat, and once hot add the butter, garlic cloves (peeled and squashed), bay leaf and thyme. The butter will immediately start to brown.
  3. Dip the cauliflower florets in the butter, then up-end it and put the whole cauliflower head in the pot, stalk downwards. Stick the lid on and turn the heat down to fairly low.
  4. After about 15-20 minutes, turn the cauliflower head over. The stalk end should now have some nutty brown colour (and flavour!), so now the florets on top can colour too.
  5. After another 15 minutes check the cauliflower – when it is cooked right through so a knife slips in easily then you can turn off the heat and take it out of the pot
  6. Add the chopped anchovies to the butter and juices in the pot, stir until they dissolve, then add the crème fraiche and stir the sauce together. Strain it through a sieve to get rid of the bits of herb and garlic.
  7. Cut the head in half (for 2 people) or into quarters (as a side portion for 4) and serve with the sauce drizzled over. You won’t be disappointed
Okay, I have been guilty of this. With sprouts for example. I am a sprout evangelist.

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Review: The Butchers Arms, Herefordshire

Categories:

Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

15 June 2012

I’ve just enjoyed a belt-bursting and smile-inducing lunch at the Butchers Arms on the most miserably rainy day of the summer so far. There are few better pleasures on a rainy day than finding yourself somewhere cosy with good food.

Cosy fire at the Butchers Arms, a necessity in England in June
This is the Butchers Arms, Woolhope, Herefordshire. Not to be confused with the Butchers Arms, Eldersfield, Gloucestershire, which is actually only a few miles away and has a similar enough telephone number that the two pubs apparently swap customers on a regular basis; “hello, we’ve got your table of four at 7:30 and they’ve decided to stay here”. Also not to be confused with the Butchers Arms, Preston Bagot, Warwickshire, which is a little further away in distance and about three decades away in gastronomy. Who couldn’t smile at a menu that still lists “parma ham and melon”, or “peeled tiger prawns on iceberg lettuce with marie rose sauce”? Mustn’t get distracted though, it’s Woolhope we’re at.

This is a real country pub in the middle of nowhere, with wooden beams so low that wads of spongy padding are taped in strategic places for the taller visitor, a roaring open fire (in June, lawks, what’s the world coming to when we need a fire in June!) and some marvellous beers on tap. My first moment of joy was in beholding the Hobson’s Mild. I’m surprised to find myself able to say without any hedging that it is my favourite beer in all the world, so the Butchers Arms was off to a flying start.

We shared three starters. Haggis fritters were great, with a batter so crunchy that it would probably still be found crunchy if a plate was dug up in an episode of Time Team in four hundred years. Smoked haddock custard with coronation sauce was luscious, like an amped-up

It really doesn't look like much - you'll have to trust me, this pigeon salad was an eye-opener
kedgeree with the rice left out. The real eye-opener was a salad of celery and apple with pigeon breast, served on big chicory leaves with an orange dressing. At first the tiny lunks of dark pigeon among the pastel-hued salad looked lost and I was skeptical. But the whole dish ate deliciously lightly with the little punch of dense, salty pigeon adding an impact to each mouthful that was unexpected and frankly brilliant.

My main course was beef brisket with veg, and I got exactly what I should expect at a proper pub; a generous portion of an extremely well-cooked specimen of brisket in a sweet and meaty braising gravy with plain veg cooked al dente. Maureen’s main was nettle arancini served on a mushroom sauce with asparagus and it was delicious in every way. One of the things I enjoyed most about our meal at the Butchers Arms was the originality of the menu; there was nothing in the way of “gastropub staples” about it, Stephen Bull is definitely a chef who doesn’t need to follow fads or formulae.

Nettle arancini, very nice too
We couldn’t leave without pudding (although it turned out that with pudding on top of all the other generous portions we almost couldn’t leave). Bread and butter pudding made with brioche and marmalade was good, although I must admit to preferring it more browned. My choice was apple crumble posset. See? Did you ever hear of a posset that wasn’t lemon? Well, this was deliciously fresh and I could easily have had two. If only I hadn’t been so stuffed that I could barely manage the last mouthful.

To cut a long story short, if you find yourself in need of a good meal near Hereford then you should be making a bee-line for the Butchers Arms. Granted, rather a rambling bee-line down picturesque lanes. It’s one of those rare places that simply could not have any detractors. If you’re a fan of hearty plates of unfussy food with big flavours then that’s just what you’ll get, but someone who likes looking for uncommon combinations and simply gifted cooking will be in hog heaven too.

I've no idea whether there's a Butchers Arms in Wales

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TripAdvisor gives me indigestion

Categories:

General Articles

8 June 2012

On one level, TripAdvisor is a useful tool that has made the world a smaller and easier place to travel around. “Proper” travellers will grumble that it’s taken all the romance and adventure out of a journey to the far side of the world, but they’re welcome to not use it. I like to stay somewhere that other people agree offers clean rooms, friendly service, a sensible price and perhaps is unique or beautiful as a bonus.

But if I’m looking for a place to eat in a strange city? I wouldn’t touch TripAdvisor with a barge pole.

It seems that crowd sourcing works pretty well for identifying good accommodation, but not good dining. This is because people (approximately) agree what is good in a hotel, but tastes and preferences in dining out cover a huge spectrum.

Take The Chilli Pickle. It’s a brilliant restaurant in Brighton serving contemporary Indian cooking; colourful, inventive and singing with spice. It is undoubtedly one of the top five restaurants in the city but comes in a disappointing 28th on TripAdvisor. Checking some of the poor reviews reveals a pattern:

THIS ISN’T INDIAN FOOD! this is the worst Indian meal I’ve had in my life. food is served in a metal tray, metal glasses and jugs…

Gosh, you mean like they do in India? Or how about this gem from another reviewer:

call me old fashioned but when I go for a Indian I like to be served by Indians… the worse thing was not seeing anything on the menu that I recognised apart from the popadoms.

Yes, and when I go for fish and chips I like to be served by a fisherman. The common thread in a whole bunch of reviews is people visiting the Chilli Pickle in the hope of a good ol’ Ruby Murray and being thrown by uncomfortably authentic food.

Slurping chai at The Chilli Pickle
The opposite problem is worse; very average or truly dire places bubbling to the top of the pile due to the overenthusiastic reviews of those for whom Frankie & Benny’s is the gold standard of deliciousness. I find this a lot travelling, especially in towns without much tourist infrastructure. Most reviews would be from backpackers (I’m inferring) and many times we followed rave reviews squealing about “the bestest meal I’ve ever had ever” or “their pizzas are the best in the world and I eat pizza all the time” only to find ourselves staring at a miserable plate of tourist-oriented crap and wishing we’d chosen a restaurant using the time-honoured principle of go-where-the-locals-are-eating. If this is your idea of the best pizza in the world then I’d suggest that up until now what you’ve actually been eating is pizza boxes.

But of course, I’m a raging foodie and I’d always prefer to sit on a bench in a back alley and eat a bowl of spicy fish-head curry with dubious things floating in it than sit in an air-conditioned tourist trap eating spaghetti bolognese as interpreted by a chef who has only ever seen a photo of it in the Bumper Book of Food Tourists Like. So my own rave review of a little local joint might just as easily lead a hapless family of four from Basingstoke to a horrible dining experience where nothing seems remotely edible. They’d give the place a 1 on TripAdvisor, no question.

And thus TripAdvisor averages everything out and you’re left with no certainty that the Top 10 restaurants in Santiago actually represents anything like the top ten restaurants in Santiago.

One man’s meat is another man’s poison and you only have to read the comments below any online article about any aspect of dining out to discover how polarised people’s views are on what makes a “good” restaurant. The pretentious-and-overpriced-gimme-a-big-plate-of-tasty-food brigade are never going to review in the same way as the happy-to-pay-through-the-nose-for-independent-and-authentic brigade. That’s my brigade, by the way. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people simply don’t get so polarised over hotels. Everyone has their own price-point but beyond that, a comfy room, friendly service, good breakfast and a bit of character seems to be the generally agreed formula for a place to stay.

Personally, I find food guides and blogs to be a much better source of restaurant recommendations. The guides are professional and their editors are going to be taking account of the style of food, the price bracket, and putting the restaurant into context against hundreds of others. The food blogger is only writing a food blog because he or she has a genuine interest and passion for food, so no matter which brigade they’re in I’m going to be willing to trust their opinion. Certainly a lot more than the averaged-out opinion of a whole crowd of individuals who may be giving a bitter 1 because some clerical oversight meant that their booking couldn’t be honoured, or giving an over-rated 5 because they all had a great and tipsy night out on gran’s birthday.

Well, obviously I'm in complete agreement with him

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Cod flaps, luverly cod flaps

Categories:

Lunch or supper, Quick meal, Recipes

4 June 2012

I’m a big fan of the recent revival in unusual and old-fashioned cuts of meat. Some of my favourite recipes are slow braised oxtail in mustard, wine braised lamb shanks or sticky slow-cooked pig cheeks. One thing bugs me though. Food writers who alongside their recipes lazily reiterate a view no longer true; that these cuts are not only delicious but also cheap as chips. It’s basic supply and demand; as they become trendy these oddities cease to be quite such a giveaway. Considering the amount of bone in a pack of oxtail or a couple of lamb shanks, these meats don’t look any cheaper to me than a nice rump steak, pound for pound. The same is true in the world of fish: ever since coley started appearing on menus and we realised that it isn’t only good for cats and dogs, the price has nudged up ever closer to haddock. Where are those of us with an adventurous palate and an eye for a bargain to look now?

Cod flaps, get yer lovely cod flaps!
And so we come to cod flaps. Which I’d never heard of before yesterday, but are nevertheless hard not to laugh at. I can’t even find much on the internet about them. That surprised me. The really eye-catching surprise was the price, almost a quarter of the price of cod fillet. Yes, not “25% off” but “25% of”. So I bought a load, and we had them for supper last night and lunch today.

For supper I made a quick Thai-flavoured stir fry with garlic, ginger, chilli, spring onion, lime leaf, fish sauce and lime juice. Good flavour, and the texture of the fish was pretty much as I’d expect from cod, perhaps a little more fatty but certainly holding together and enjoying the dousing in sweet/sour/hot flavours. As an aside (and as a side) I also did a celeriac som tam, another very good though more strongly flavoured swap-in when you can’t get green papaya for your Thai salad.

For lunch today I whizzed up some quick tartare sauce (for which I must thank Delia) and then breaded the last of the flaps in maize meal (aka polenta) for shallow frying and serving with buttered Jersey royals and beans. This was fairly perfect, the flaps being just the right thickness for shallow frying and their slight fattiness keeping them moist in their crisp coating. I commend this as the perfect use for cod flaps.

Go forth to your fishmonger and demand your flaps today!

How's that for a nice looking lunch?

Crispy cod flaps with tartare sauce (serves 2)

4 cod flaps (2 for light lunch)
4-5 tbsp maize meal (polenta)
1 egg
salt and pepper
For the tartare sauce:
1 large egg
½ tsp sea salt
1 small garlic clove, peeled
½ tsp English mustard powder
1 dessert spoon lemon juice
4 cornichons
1 tbsp rinsed & drained capers
1 tbsp flat-leaf parsley
ground black pepper
  1. Make the tartare sauce to Delia’s recipe: put egg, mustard, salt and garlic in a food processor and hit start. Drizzle the oil in sloooowly until it’s all combined into a thick sauce. Add the other ingredients and pulse until they’re all chopped up. You’ll have way too much, but it’ll keep in a jar in the fridge for a week.
  2. Beat an egg, season well with salt and pepper. Pour some medium-grained maize meal out onto a plate.
  3. Dip your flaps (tee-hee) into the egg and then into the maize meal, turning them over a few times until thoroughly coated
  4. Now get a layer of vegetable oil up to a high heat in a big frying pan and shallow fry the flaps for a couple of minutes on each side
  5. Serve with tartare sauce, a sprig of parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. Buttered Jersey royals and some green beans make a good accompaniment.
But what could it be a euphemism for...?

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