Arroz negro coming up!

Review: Sabor, Mayfair

After a couple of false starts, we finally got around to eating at Sabor and I’m very glad we did! Showing up at 12 on a weekday turns out to be just fine now, whereas I think there was more queuing a couple of years back when Sabor was the exciting new kid on the …

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Morteau sausage

Review: The Garden Cafe, Waterloo

When it opened a few years back, the Garden Museum Cafe was voted “Best museum restaurant in the world” – a high accolade. Of course, in part that’s because museums haven’t often been known for their food offerings. The theory certainly always seemed to be: if you’ve got a captive audience, why not milk them …

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Stracchiatella

Review: The Barbary Next Door, Covent Garden

Stopping in at The Barbary Next Door for an early dinner pre-theatre, we found a stripped-back little corridor with about eight seats at the kitchen counter and four facing the wall. They’ve not messed around with any kind of design aesthetic, the vibe is just a hole-in-the-wall bar/kitchen that you might find somewhere in the …

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Cuttlefish

Review: Rockfish, Brixham

There are more than a dozen Rockfish restaurants along the Devon and Dorset coast, a successful little chain by anyone’s standard, and the one at Brixham in Devon was the first and is the place where most of their fish are landed. The dining room does have a bit of a chain vibe, anonymous rows …

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Loaded crab nachos

Review: The Club House, West Bexington

Palaver! We decided to stop at Hive Beach Cafe – one of our favourite spots on the coast – for a seafood lunch on the way home from Devon. Then, kablooie, one of the tyres on the car went pop. We ended up in a lay-by off the A35 waiting for the AA man. Who …

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Review: Sabor, MayfairReview: The Garden Cafe, WaterlooReview: The Barbary Next Door, Covent GardenReview: Rockfish, BrixhamReview: The Club House, West Bexington

Review: The Felin Fach Griffin, Brecon

Categories:

Michelin, Pubs, Rest of UK, Restaurant Reviews

1 July 2012

This little otter is from Chile, as we didn't get a photo of the Wye one
We saw an otter while kayaking on the River Wye, just downstream from the little town of Hay-on-Wye. This was the high point of our weekend treat on the river which began with a good supper and a cosy night’s sleep at the Felin Fach Griffin, near Brecon. Which isn’t to say that our stay at the Griffin wasn’t also a high point, it’s just that otters are a particular passion with us and to see one in broad daylight on an English river is rarer than spotting chicken fajitas on the menu at Le Gavroche.

Those interested in otters and wildlife could check out my blog from our year of travelling around the world in search of wildlife, during which we saw six species of otter and brought our tally up to eleven of the world’s thirteen species. Those more interested in a good meal in the shadow of the Brecon Beacons should read on instead…

Simple plate: sublime salami, gorgeous goat curds
For my starter I opted for little wild mushroom risotto fritters, delicious with plenty of gooeyness still in the risotto in spite of their deep-frying and accompanied with roast and pureed turnip of all things. It was a very original and tasty dish. Maureen had a plate of wild boar salami (from the nearby Black Mountain Smokery) and goat curd with an apple and sage pesto. As a demonstration of culinary technique this was just an assembly of ingredients, but the salami and curds were individually delicious and in combination orgasmic.

Maureen’s duck main was well cooked as was the oniony risotto beneath but the dish as a whole felt quite heavy and lacked any particular element that sang. Hearty, I’d call it. My pork was a deliciously toothsome piece, with a pungent garlic mash and a good “bouguignon” gravy of mushrooms, bacon and pickled onions. I’d have gone for

Duck on a sweetly onion-y risotto
slightly less robustly pickled onions myself, but it was a very good plate of food. My pudding of passion fruit mousse was a delicious mess of textures with a very light and accomplished mousse as the core, while Maureen’s chocolate torte was lovely.

All in all, a really accomplished pub dinner. We stayed the night and I can report the rooms comfy and restful with top quality tea things; just like their sister pub, The Gurnard’s Head in Cornwall. As a place to stay while exploring the Welsh borders, I wouldn’t hesitate to point you at the Griffin. Food-wise, it’s jolly good but probably not quite exciting enough to be a destination in its own right.

The danger with walking your griffin is that you may have an unscheduled flight

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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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