FEBRUARY

 Though not quite as full-on as January, February was also a busy month, especially when you allow for us having a week away in France.

First up was a visit to the cinema in Esher, which entailed a lunch at the Giggling Squid. Like other branches, this is decorated over-the-top with artificial blossom. The Esher branch is fairly large, and as usual wasn't very busy.

We order the standard South African Chenin Blanc at £28, together with some of their Thai prawn crackers (so much better than Chinese ones). We have a range of small bites (the different menus can make this a little complicated, as some are smaller than others). These are "tall husband's favourite" (also known as one bite salmon), prawn and chicken dumplings (typical dim sum), a new favourite crispy mushrooms, chicken laab and beef laab (two dry spiced dishes). Then we have a seafood stew (squid, mussels, sea bass, prawns) with tom yum rice  (fried rice with galangal - not really worth it). 

All very enjoyable, and with an extra glass each comes in at £140.

A couple of days later we are meeting S and L. S chose a smart Italian place in a rather remote part of Belgravia - Il Pampero - because she had a voucher for 50% off food.  It's part of a hotel called The Hari, so we go to their cocktail bar first. 

Back down in the restaurant it's fairly quiet. The staff are quite attentive and bring our Chenin Blanc (£42) quite quickly. I start with the beef carpaccio, which is a good size and comes with parmesan slices. B simply has the padron peppers, which were a bit ordinary. I struggle to find something I want for main - seabass was a possibility - and end up with the fritto misto - whitebait, squid, prawns, courgettes. It's another large portion, but the problem with it all being deep-fried is that it all tastes the same, so I don't manage to finish it. B has the chicken Milanese which is, as so often, rather dry and uninteresting. Not good choices really. 

The 50% offer saves us over £90, but the total still comes to £345. That does include 3 bottles of wine,3 glasses of house white and 3 cocktails, as well as the now common 13.5% service. It amounts to £50 a head for food, which is not bad, but we won't be going back. 

The following Saturday we are out in the wilds of Essex at Finchingfield (look it up), where B's niece and partner have just bought a house. We go on out early evening to their local Italian, Zafra, more or less just across the road.  It's only a small place and it is very nearly full, but we manage to squeeze in. Front of house is very welcoming, and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. 

I start with the mussels - a sizeable bowl, with rough bread. They are in a good wine sauce, which I mop up with the bread. B doesn't have a starter. For main I order the venison marsala. This is a solid hunk of meat, with a strong flavour, cooked medium rare and covered in a good wine sauce. B has the linguine marinara - seabass, haddock, mussels, prawns, smoked salmon. It's a massive dish - tasty, light tomato sauce - and predictably B doesn't come close to finishing it. They are very happy to box it up for us to take it away. 

Three bottles of wine at a very reasonable £28, plus a modest 10%, means the bill comes to just shy of £200 - a remarkably good value, convenient place. We would be there every week. 

Later that week we are at our favourite place - Chez Bruce at Wandsworth Common - with M&G and C.  It's pretty busy for a Tuesday, but not full. We settle in with the parmesan biscuits, and find a reasonably priced bottle of French Vermintino at £45 from a scary wine list (though they do have a South African SB at £38 and a Viognier at £55).   

To start I have the lobster and prawn raviolo, which comes with brown shrimps and a bisque sauce. This is surprisingly light and clean, excellent. B's choice of tuna sashimi has passion fruit and avocado with jalapeno cutting through.  My main course is roast duck breast, supplemented by a duck pie. The flavours do contrast but it's maybe not the most inspired dish. B's roast cod is also fairly standard, though perfectly executed.  Desserts are a must, so I have my usual crème brûlée , to my mind the epitome of crème brûlées - a wide flat dish giving a better ratio of brûlée to creme; good vanilla in the creme.  B has a blood orange sorbet - light and sharp. Truffle chocolates also arrive. 

Not sure how many bottles or beers we got through but a total of £105 each including service was very good for such a meal. 

One Friday we are meeting up with "Safari" D, so are heading over to near her to the Mute Swan opposite Hampton Court. The restaurant is upstairs, up a spiral staircase, though there is a proper set of stairs at the back.  It's a Brunning and Price pub, so a bit better than the average.  There are only two other table in, one of which has a child that wants to run around, which is a bit annoying. We push the boat out and order the Viognier at £33, when there are cheaper Chilean SB and SA Chenin. 

 I start with garlic prawns, half-a-dozen with ciabatta, but not strongly garlic and no chilli. B has scallops (three), pan-seared with n'duja jam - very good. My main course is shredded duck ramen with gyoza,   The gyoza is good, but the duck doesn't have a lot of flavour, especially as it is dunked in the broth. B has the "light bite" crispy beef salad - in fact it's a large dish, that B enjoys and is last to finish.  D and I share a portion of waffle with honeycomb ice cream (and an extra scoop of ice cream). 

With three bottles, it's a bit over £90 a head - not expensive I suppose but not sure it was great value. 

Then the next week, as a deferred Valentine's Day treat, we get a taxi over to Teddington. The idea had been go to M&S food first, but as it's raining we head straight to Bar Estilo, a favourite tapas bar. We are seated towards the back at a nice table and good cushions. We order the white Rioja at £27, and some garlic bread with chorizo to keep us going while we decide. The bread is always good - a big round, thin slice of chorizo on each of two pieces of toast with plenty of garlic.

We quite fancy paella, so order a small portion of the house one, with chunky chorizo, chicken, prawns, several mussels and squid. In the same part of the menu, under "seasonal specials" there is an interesting sounding Persian chicken, with spice raisins and almonds, so we give that a go. It's different, but doesn't really excite. And of course inevitably the sizzling hot gambas pil-pil, and their nice baked mushrooms.  Unusually for us, we are tempted by the ice cream with Pedro Ximenez sherry - actually we order a full glass rather than just the shot.  

With a second bottle and service this comes to £121, very good value. Always a nice experience there. 

Before we go off on holiday, we decide to treat ourselves to a late lunch at Allegros.  Our regular wine here is a fairly standard Italian SB at £26.  I order bruschetta to start - two huge pieces of toast with loads of finely chopped topping - not a modest starter at all. B has the starter version of their king prawns with ginger, which also comes with a whopping piece of bread to soak the sauce up with. 

For main course, I order tuna steak off the specials board. Another large portion, nicely cooked, surrounded by far too much veg. B has the risotto pescatora (instead of her usual spaghetti marinara!) which also is good. 

After we finish off the second bottle and pay the very reasonable £128 bill, we are offered limoncello to finish - very good. 

Back from holiday, we decide to continue the vibe and go for a late lunch. Renas, a Turkish bar/restaurant has been open a little over a year, but B has resisted all my attempts to try it. Today for some reason she decides to give it a go. 

It's a big place with not many people in (perhaps not very surprising for 3pm). We are shown into the main restaurant room with a nice table by the window.  There is a Turkish feel to the place, but it's not over the top.  We start with a bottle of Viognier at £32 (though there are cheaper wines), then decide what to order. It's an extensive menu, including a lot of vegetarian. 

Passing over the long list of dips and salads, we opt for hot starters: spicy sausage (sucuk) and lamb liver (unusually foregoing the garlic prawns). The sausage is very interesting - big slices with big tomatoes. The lamb liver is fine, but not as sticky as you get in some tapas bars. 

We skip past the grills (kebabs and koftes) and the pasta (including seafood linguine) and turn to house specialities. Ginger chicken comes with a creamy sauce and rice and is really quite gingery. Lamb Tandir is chunks of tender lamb on a smear of garlicky aubergine sauce - also with rice. Good sized portions. There are stuffed pide breads, and fish and seafood too. 

It's been a very enjoyable meal - a new regular haunt probably, as it's nearer than some, it would suit a vegetarian and there's plenty of choice. Two bottles takes it to £139, but you could easily get away with less.  

A busy January

 We start off January with a trip back to Cafe Murano in Covent Garden, with the 131 gang, including K and E.  We are shown to a good-sized table for the 7 of us down the back of the restaurant. After a little delay, we manage to catch the waiter's eye for some wine, but they get the idea after that.

I have the rigatoni with fennel sausage to start - very full of flavour, and quite a good size. B has sea bream crudo, which she is very pleased with.  My main course chicken Milanese is typically large and despite the lemon, rather dry. B has halibut and beans, but she's not impressed with that.  

Service has been very good, affable. The bill including service comes to just over £600, including 5 bottles of wine. 

A few days later we are celebrating B's birthday, just the two of us in Kingston.  We had planned on going to Giggling Squid, but for some reason it was closed so we ended up at Sanxia again.  It's quite quiet today, with only one other table in, but they sit us quite close to them to create some atmosphere.

We have our usual seafood dim sum platter, with pork dumplings, and sesame wrapped prawns. Excellent as always. We follow up with "General Tso’s" chicken - quite spicy - plus asparagus and scallops (good al dente asparagus) and jasmine rice. With two bottles (though we take half of one away) this comes to £136. 

The following Saturday we meet up with E&J, M&L at Sushisamba in Covent Garden. It's a sumptuous venue, covered in both real and fake plants and an elaborate bar. Our table is fairly near the bar, so we are hopeful for good service. But it takes a while to order some wine. The wine list is a bit steep, the cheapest white on offer being a French Viognier at £53; the red from Duoro at £59.

The menu is unfamiliar to M&L, so they sensibly opt for the set menu at £90. Set menus are only available for 2 or more people; E wants the vegetarian version and this causes some discussion, but eventually they agree as M&L have a set as well. Both versions are very well received - lots of dishes, and not too much raw fish. 

B and I, and J share choices from the a la carte: edamame beans; samba roll - soft shell crab, rock shrimp tempura (vg), churrasco Rio Grande (fillet, chorizo, rib eye), black cod (also vg). With some beers, sake and probably four bottles, this all comes to £760.  Not cheap but very enjoyable even for those who wouldn't normally choose Japanese. 

The next week we are back at Cafe Murano again, this time with K&C and A. I have beef carpaccio to start, while B has sea bream crudo again.  I've chosen the rigatoni with fennel sausage again, but as a main course portion - too big really. B has calamari which she isn't impressed by. She also has a lemon polenta cake, as somewhere to put her birthday candle. Total this time is £487.

The following Saturday is a farmers' market day. Instead of our usual Japanese, we decide to return to Allegros, a basic Italian.  It's quite busy, but with a clear Surbiton demographic. The house Sauvignon is £28 and arrives promptly. 

For starters, B has the king prawns with ginger (good but messy!) and I have a huge bowl of mussels, done simply in white wine. I order the calves liver and bacon for main, but ask for it with sauteed potatoes instead of mash. This causes some confusion, because the mash comes with spinach, which I can't have with the saute - shame. Again a big portion, salty but tasty. B's main is her usual risotto pescatora, which she always enjoys. We also order the butterscotch sundae which B has had each time - very decadent. £130 with a second bottle.

The following week we are off to a show at the Palladium. I have a short list of places nearby, but we just go in to Aqua Nueva which is just opposite the theatre, along with its sister Japanese Aqua Kyoto. 

You enter into a dark, undecorated hall where a large guy mans an austere desk. He directs us to the lift to the 5th floor where the restaurants are. We're greeted up here and guided through the bar area of the Japanese down another dark corridor to the tapas bar. 

There's hardly anyone else in here (it is early I suppose), though a group of about 10 get shown to a private room. It's so dimly lit that it is hard to see anything, even when the waiter lights the slim and stylish, though largely ineffectual, electric candle. 

It's a complex wine list - we opt for CARE, a garnacha from from Aragon at £48. For tapas, first up is Iberian ham, which is very good, well dry and a Catalan cheese.  This comes on a trolley and is served up with some ceremony - topped with Almond praline, pine nuts, vanilla salt, and olive oil. But the cheese itself is lovely, soft and creamy, slightly sweet - it would make a good dessert.  Next come black seafood croquettes (just a vague fishy taste) and a very good spicy chorizo lollipop.

Then we have two slightly larger plates - a gambas al ajillo (6) and patcharan duck (less good). With a couple of glasses of Verdejo at £16 and a whopping 15% service charge, this takes the total to a little over £200. 

The following day we are up in Theydon Bois, then back again - a long day, so we head off to our local pub-restaurant, the Ferry/Gurkha Kitchen, a Nepalese place. We've been here so often that we pretty much know in advance what we are going to order.  

So we start with the pork momo (dumplings), followed up by the king prawn curry (not that spicy, quite gloopy), chilli chicken (quite hot and dry), garlic mushrooms, lemon rice. With two bottles of Australian Shiraz (delivered almost as soon as we walk in the door) this comes to £85, to which we add £10 service. 

Meeting up with S, we are going back to Sticky Mango in Waterloo, on the site of RSJ's where we used to go with him and H. It's a fabulously OTT place with masses of fake cherry blossom. We order a bottle of French Viognier/Chardonnay at £30 and some sparkling water.  We also order some prawn and sesame crackers, but these take ages to arrive.

For a starter, S orders the chicken and coconut soup with lemongrass - a huge steaming bowl, but he determinedly ploughs his way through it. B has the Vietnamese scallops, prettily displayed in their shells and tasting really good. I chose the Malaysian chicken curry puffs, which were surprisingly light. 

For main, S has the duck fried rice, with a duck egg, which looks rather brown; he has a bak choy along with that. He gets through this solidly too, despite the large starter. B chose the miso glazed black cod, which she enjoys though it is not as good as the Sushisamba one. My choice is gochujang pork belly which is a large portion of very glazed pork. We also have some jasmine rice. 

We have seen a fancy dessert at other tables, so ask for that. It turns out to be their signature dish - sticky mango. It comes with a sort of fluffed up topping which they pour a sauce over and it then collapses. Underneath is mango, mango ice cream and sticky black rice - very good. 

With two bottles of wine and a normal 12.5% we get up to £240, which is very reasonable for the three of us.

Finally at the end of the month, on my birthday, we go into Esher, to Starling a relatively new place. It got its Michelin star within about 6 months. It's a warm, dark-wood place, with tables quite close together. We are welcomed as a birthday group and shown to a table which has a Happy Birthday card on it. It's quite full and we have tables either side of us, but it's not not too loud. 

The wine list goes up sharply, so we just settle on the house Italian at £45 and also have some sparkling water. 

For starter, B has the steak tartare with deep fried boiled egg. It's a splendid dish, peppery and the egg is perfectly cooked. My starter is a crab tart - this has very cheesy pastry, good fresh crab and good decoration.

The main course choices are rather more limited - just three plus various steaks. I have Dover sole veronique which comes as three curls of fish and sauce together with a light sauce and peeled grapes - good but a simpler fillet might have been better. B chooses the pork tenderloin. The main meat is fairly ordinary, but the accompanying pork cheek is very good.

Finally, I have a creme brulee, hoping for a candle, that doesn't come. It is served in a wider bowl, so there is a good brulee to creme ratio. 

Service has been fairly slick (glasses topped up properly), and with a second bottle we get to £250 including 12.5% service charge. It's not a huge price for a very good meal, though the overall experience is not really one that leaves us feeling we need to rush back. 

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Fatt Pundit

 We are meeting up with E and J, and they have suggested the Fatt Pundit in Berwick Street, having previously been to the one in Maiden Lane.  The unusual name apparently reflects their Indo-Chinese heritage, with Fatt being a common surname and Pundit meaning scholar. 
We are meeting on a Saturday at 1pm, so it's no surprise the small restaurant is busy when we arrive. They have to move some people around to accommodate us. It's a very functional, grey place, but the head waiter is a larger than life figure brightening the place up. The turn-round in tables is quite rapid, meaning that it swings from full and noisy to nearly empty quite quickly - but everyone seems to be having a good time. 

E is vegetarian, so from the limited choice of starters we focus on the momo dumplings - a vegetable one for her (very green ones containing spinach and courgettes), while rest of us share the chicken, beef and goat ones, which conveniently come as 3 portions each. The goat is interesting, the beef really quite spicy. 

We follow this up with chilly prawns and soft shell crab, Manchurian chicken and chilly venison, with burnt ginger rice. E has deep-fried okra and chilly paneer, despite the waiter pushing the crackling spinach because she thinks that the sweet yogurt, date and place sauce and pomegranate will be too sweet. 

The prawns are excellent - could have had a second portion. They are spicy but with a warm, smooth sauce. The crab is a very pretty example - a lightly battered, visibly whole crab with plenty of meat on it. The meat dishes are less special but still pretty good. E's okra is a big portion, very similar to zuchini fritti in Italian restaurants. 

E&J like their desserts, so we have a sizzling chocolate brownie and something called a Lady Kenny to share. The brownie comes a hot plate and is topped with ice cream - super - while the other dish (origins of its name vary online and may or may not have something to do with the first Viceroy's wife's name) is a sort of gulab juman - good but not special. 

We were drinking Vinho Verde at a modest £28 a bottle; J has a couple of cocktails. The bill comes to £338 including service, which is pretty fair for an interesting meal in this part of town. We may well try out the Maiden Lane branch sometime. 

Theo Randall

 When we were researching where to go for my birthday, B was taken with the idea of Theo Randall at the Hotel Intercontinental at Marble Arch. In the end we decided against because the private room looked rather corporate. But she remained interested, and recently spotted the Cucina Italiano.

So when we needed somewhere to meet S for lunch, she returned to the idea. We had a few transport problems, so S arrived first, but we weren't too far behind. The restaurant is a big room with a central big green banquette. Not many people in on a Tuesday lunchtime, so very little atmosphere. Minimal decoration, soft jazz, bright lighting, low ceiling. 

The wine list, naturally, soared into the stratosphere, so I settled on a Sicilian Grillo at £43. Quite sharp, but appealing. San Pellegrino sparkling water - £7 a bottle. There was a four course Regional menu with matching wines at £75 a head, and a more reasonable set lunch, but we go for the a la carte. The antipasti and primi courses had some interesting options, but there were only two fish and two meat main courses. 

S started with the insalata mista, which came with goat's cheese. It was a big plate, but not enough cheese, though the tomatoes were good. My carne salata - cured beef with rocket and parmesan - was more modest but very tasty, the beef less aged and having more flavour than most bresaola. B's tuna tartare is also good. Some random bread and tomato bruschetta strangely appears without warning half-way through - good tomatoes. 

For mains, B chooses tagliatelle with prawns that had a good hit of chilli. Both S and I have the roast guinea fowl. This comes stuffed with prosciutto and mascarpone, on a bruschetta (more like fried bread) with greens and mushrooms It's a sensibly sized portion, with well flavoured meat and gravy. (A couple at a nearby table share one portion, but get to pour the gravy over it themselves). We also have a big bowl of deep-fried courgettes. 

S and I have dessert: Amalfi lemon tart for him - good lemon hit, but a bit flabby on the pastry; affogato for me - vanilla seeds in the ice cream, good strong coffee. We then stretch things out with a digestif - amaretto for S and me, a glass of wine for B. The waiter said that they didn't do the Grillo by the glass. but in the end he did, at £14 for 175ml. 

Theo himself comes out to talk to the guinea fowl couple, but doesn't go around the room, though there are only two other table left. Our main waiter was a rather large and unsmiling character, slightly slow to top up glasses. A second waiter - the one who gave us the glass of wine - was rather more smiley and seemed to enjoy his work. 

The bill included service at 13.5%, coming to £350 for 3. Maybe a bit more than we expected, but given the desserts and drinks perhaps not that surprising for such a high profile place.  Perfectly fine food, but not really somewhere I would rush back to.        

Three interesting new places in a busy week

 We find ourselves in Kingston and are heading towards the Giggling Squid, a reliable favourite. As we walk along Charter Quay by the Hogsmill River tributary, we pass a Chinese restaurant which we've never been in because it always looks empty. But today, despite it being a Monday, it is very busy, with several tables occupied by Chinese people.

So we change our minds and decide to give Sanxia Renjia a go. We're shown to a window table with a nice view and quickly order a bottle of French SB at £30. It comes promptly, served by a very smiley waiter.  It is quite a big place, but sectioned off into smaller areas so that it doesn't feel daunting. 

The menu covers both Sichuan and Cantonese cuisines. There's also a substantial dim sum section. The Sichuan section offers several Clay Pot and Dry Pot options, but the aromatic crab with ginger and spring onion from the "Traditional Chinese" list has caught our eye.  Because of this, we decide just to have one starter between us - a pan-fried pork dumpling.  Typically there are three of these, making sharing trickier. They are very lightly fried, but very well-flavoured.

We had asked when ordering whether the crab came whole, and were assured that the kitchen will have cracked it open for us. The main shell with the brown meat had been, but the crab claws and legs hadn't so we had to ask for the crackers to get at the white meat. With the sauce (loads of ginger) on, it all got rather messy, but we were well-supplied with napkins and little moistened towels - the spicy sauce option would be very challenging I imagine. 

Along with the crab we had the cumin lamb (marked "hot and spicy") and fried rice with tobiko, prawns and scallops. The lamb was indeed covered with chilli pieces, but if you avoided those it wasn't too spicy otherwise.  Tobiko it turns out is a golden coloured fish eggs concoction (Wikipedia tells me it is flying fish roe) piled on top of the rice. There were plenty of prawns, but scallops were hard to find, probably cut up very small. 

With a second bottle of wine and 12.5% service (which has been friendly and helpful) the bill comes to £140.  Certainly worth another visit. 

A couple of days later we are meeting up with T&K in town.  T has chosen The Seafood Bar on Dean Street, as he knows some of their Amsterdam branches through his nephew who lives there.  It's a nice bright place, not very busy on a mid-week lunchtime.  We order some wine - a light, fruity Chardonnay at £36 - from the chatty waiter, who introduced himself as Florian. 

The menu is quite remarkable. As well as several kinds of oyster, there are loads of permutations of fresh seafood - Fruits de Mer, Mixed Grill, Combinations, Plateau - and a few other dishes from the Plancha.   B has seabass ceviche to start, which she raves over. She follows up with a Plateau - crevettes, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel rillettes, poached salmon, seafood salad. Unsurprisingly, she can't finish that. I have clams with white wine, garlic and cream sauce to start. This is a big warming bowl in a sauce commonly linked with mussels. My main course was gambas, grilled with salsa verde and chilli - have a dozen of them.  Full of flavour, with the chilli being quite subtle. 

T&K have scallops with mushrooms and chorizo and tempura oysters, in attractive shells, to start. Both looked very good. Their mains were a massive fruits de mer and filleted lemon sole. We also have some truffled chips, plain chips and mixed salad. 

We have three bottles of wine in all; service is an unusual 11.5%, making the total £326 for 4.  Definitely a good place for seafood lovers. 

Finally, on Friday evening we meet up with S&L. They like their cocktails, so we go first to Blind Spot at St Martin's Hotel. They have a range called "Spin the Globe" - unusual combinations named after various cities. A particularly odd one is called Kingston (Jamaica) which includes Guinness but comes out transparent. When we ask about this, we're told that the coconut juice combines with the stout to make it clear - very odd.

Then we walk up St Martin's Lane to Gilgamesh which S had booked because she'd received a 50% off food offer.   Named after the Sumerian king/demi-god, it describes itself as "pan-Asian".  By coincidence, I was catching up on the Observer the day before only to find a Jay Rayner review of the place - he clearly didn't like it at all! 

Admittedly, the headline "It's a weird trip" is accurate enough. We were shown downstairs to a corner table where the decor is relief depictions of Sumerian scenes. As it's quite early, there aren't many other people in as yet so they accommodate our request to turn the music down (Sade and ambient music), apart from two rather severe looking heavies at a large table nearby. 

Ignoring Rayner's comments, we press on with the prawn crackers - both white Chinese and brown Thai versions - and a rather good salsa.  We'd checked the wine list in advance and managed to find a Spanish Macabeo/SB for £38 - after that it gets scary. 

For starters, we had the cocktail glass full of popcorn shrimp (which was great), soft shell crab (quite meaty), a rich duck, watermelon and cashew nut salad and a couple of steamed dumplings off the dim sum list. 

For main, B and I share a deliciously tender "shaking beef" fillet chunks and a baked seabass fillet. S's Thai green chicken curry was a bit ordinary, but L's beef rendang with roti was also really good - a serious kick to it.  We also has some jasmine rice and pak choi. 

Desserts followed - Asian banana crumble and chocolate fondant (very gooey). 

Part way through the meal, the room started to fill up. Six or seven very scantily dressed young women joined the heavies' table. Several other tables had an older man surrounded by younger women - though I suppose that was true of our table too, though the dress code was very different!  And as I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for the others  to come back from the loo, more young ladies in impossibly short skirts were coming down the stairs.

We had 3 bottles of wine and service was 12.5%. The discount offer saved us £100, leaving the total at a very reasonable £260 for 4. Even at full price it was worth it for the experience!

Birthday celebration weekend in Chester and the Wirral

 After celebrating my 70th with friends at the Oxo Tower on the day, we are heading up North to see my brother and the rest of his clan. Due to diaries, we can't all get together on one day, so instead we have two successive lunches.

We travel up to Chester on the Friday and meet up with G&S at The Botanist near the cathedral. I'm a bit reluctant at first as the live music downstairs was very loud, and the stairs to the first floor restaurant looked rather steep. But the others were already there, so we head on up to join them. 

The music is much more manageable up here - guitar and keyboards, quite good. It's a very quirky space, with lots of side rooms. Our table had a view downstairs of the cocktail bar. I had tried to book in here for lunch on Saturday, but they said they didn't have room, which seems surprising. 

The menu is also quirky, featuring its "Famous Hanging Kebabs". B chooses the Thai Red Prawn with coconut rice, while I go for the lamb kofte and fries. G&S go for the 3 kebab sharing option, prawn, kofte and chicken. This comes with a pile of chips and some coleslaw.

Our kebabs come on a single blade, with a sauce that you could pour through some holes at the top so that it drips down over the food. B and S agree that the prawn kebabs are very good, the spiciness building as you went on. The others are good too - a fun experience.

The desserts are also unusual featuring chocolate chip dough. We decide to go for the sharing option served with strawberries and marshmallows, ice cream, crumb and popping candy plant pot. The presentation of this is fantastic too, a multi-layered basket with the dough in a hot skillet at the bottom.

B and I share a bottle and a couple of glasses of Chilean SB, while S has a South African Shiraz and G Timothy Taylor Landlord.  Service has been good and friendly, happy to take photos of us. G&S insist on paying so I don't know how much it was, but I think that  for such a good evening it was probably well worth it.

Saturday lunchtime, we are meeting B's and A's families at The Yard, literally next door to our hotel. With G&S that makes 13 of us.  B had quite a tough time making the arrangements, and when we get shown downstairs to our table it's only laid up for 12. The waitress was under the impression it had been booked for 17 and then revised down - which was never the case. Anyway, by squeezing tables together, they do manage to arrange to add another place. 

We had had to choose our food in advance, which is never ideal, but those arrangements did work well, with the right food coming out promptly. However, choosing drinks was more problematic, as they had to re-stock - no Guinness, neither of our first two choices of red wine available, and later they had run out of coffee beans!  And they had been slow to take drinks orders, as they were serving a 40th birthday group nearby.

The food, however, was said to be good by everyone.  I had black pudding with boiled egg in a crispy wrapping and spicy chutney, B had chicken salad, which came with jalapeno peppers and was on the large side. Other choices included bruschetta of salmon, gammon terrine with quail's egg, onion soup, and breads with hummus etc. 

For main course I had seafood pasta - 4 prawns, several clams - while B went for sea bass on pea risotto. Both were lovely. Others had steaks, cod, chicken and three other different  pastas. 

Several people were choosing desserts - chocolate pots, ice cream, sticky toffee pudding - so I decide to have an affogato: ice cream, espresso and amaretto. Very indulgent. 

We'd had a couple of bottles of Grillo, and a third choice Nero D'Avolo. No dishes were more than £25, so overall it was a very reasonable price. 

In the evening we head to Sleepy Panda for a Chinese.  There are just two other people in there, and it was all rather dark. Nonetheless we take a seat and order. Some prawn crackers are delivered. We start with some dim sum: prawn dumpling, pork dumpling. For mains we have crispy beef chilli birds nest - deep-fried beef, tasting just of chilli sauce, in a crispy edible basket - and mixed seafood hot pot. The latter just has a couple of prawns and a lot of yellowy parcels. When we ask it seems these are Japanese tofu, or cheese tofu. Not unpleasant but not seafood. 

With one bottle of Chilean SB and 10% service this comes to £78. Service has been fine, but it's not somewhere I'd recommend.  

On Sunday we get a taxi to the Wirral, The Ship in Parkgate. There we are seeing E's family - just E&E and three of the kids, plus close friends A&J - 11 in all. G&S booked us into a private room in the centre of the restaurant. It's very pleasant because it has windows to look out on the rest of the place, so it is light and not remote-feeling or corporate. 

Drinks service is very swift - we are into our first bottle of SB, a Pato Torronte from Chile - before the others arrive. For some reason, the specialities are Czech dishes, so I decide to go with both. The starter is Smazeny Syr - deep-fried camembert with cranberry and dill. Very nice but especially Czech really. The main course is Hovezi Gulas - beef goulash with dumplings and pickled red onion, inexplicably billed as "light bites". The beef was tasty, but I couldn't get half-way through just one of the dumplings. 

B goes for the wild mushrooms on toast, which I'd also been considering. There's a good mix of mushrooms in a creamy sauce together with a truffle parmesan crisp. Her main course is blade of beef, more like pulled beef in red wine gravy. 

The camembert was a popular choice. Others included chorizo croquettes, parsnip soup with Bombay butter, a gooey mackerel pate and some bread and oils. 

There were roasts on the Sunday menu - we had chicken, beef topside and forestiere Wellington. Also mushroom risottos and seabass. 

Desserts included limoncello tiramisu, raspberry ice cream, brownies and sticky toffee pudding.  Also a cheese board. 

Finally someone had kindly arranged for a birthday cake for me - not the full 70 candles fortunately!

Again a very reasonable bill (10% service, 4 bottles of wine and various beers and soft drinks). And very good, efficient and friendly service.  

Later, back in Chester, we cross the road and fetch up in Gate of India.  We get a very nice booth; warm feeling throughout. Overwhelming choice on the menu. Papadums come with a huge array of dips, including three types of hot lime pickle. We have a lamb tikka and a meat samosa to start.

These are followed up with chicken dhansak, prawn jalfrezi and pilau rice. Both the lamb and the chicken were in slices rather than chunks, but both were tasty. The prawn dish was seriously hot 

Total came to £95 including service and a bottle of very nice Burgundy. 

Catching up!

Catching up – Dec/Jan

Meeting up with S, he chooses the one Italian option as opposed to four French ones.  This is Caraffini on Lower Sloane Street. There is an outside terrace, but that’s not suitable in December.

Inside is pretty much full. We get directed to a table, crammed in by a wine bucket, already full of other people’s wine. B complains, and reluctantly they do move it further away. And also we get our own wine bucket on the table for the Grillo at £38!

We say yes bread and olives, and then move on to starters. S has sardines, which look good; B has some odd pork rolls and I have prawns in garlic and chilli. For mains S has a very pink calves liver, B has scampi with asparagus, and I have lemon veal.

We go for some desserts – S had panna cotto and I have sgroppino (lemon sorbet, vodka and champagne).

Service has been good after the initial contretemps. As well as a second bottle of Grillo, we also a Barbera d’Alba at £48. 12.5% service takes to £340, but it has all been good.

 

We are staying at a hotel near St Pancras before an early start on a train to Bruges for Christmas. Having looked at the options, we settle on Supawan, a Thai place on the Caledonian Road. It’s pretty busy, so we get put into a smallish table sitting at 90 degrees. The décor is very unusual – not cliché Thai.

We order some prawn crackers while we order (large portion), along with Viognier at £35. For starters, we have grilled prawns on Betel leaves, with loads of tasty trimmings, ordering the extra portion as suggested to take it to two each. Excellent. Along with the inevitable soft-shell crab, quite meaty.

Main courses are stir-fried king prawns with lemongrass and garlic, and a spicy minced chicken dish, supported by a mound of jasmine rice.

All very good, with friendly service, but the prices did mount up. With a second bottle and 12.5% service we get up to £170, which seems a lot for a Thai.

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We meet up with E and J in Covent Garden for a visit to SushiSamba, and start off with edamame beans. The wine list escalates alarmingly – I manage to find a Vermintino for £49. We have a round of jumbo prawns, tuna ceviche, and soft shell crab roll. The J wants to order the trio of meats - rib-eye, chorizo, filet mignon – “Churrasco del Rio Grande”.  E has the mushroom dish.

We later have a bottle of red chosen by J who is insisting on paying, so I don’t know how much the bill came to – it won’t have been cheap.

Before heading off to Paris for a few days, we treat ourselves to a late lunch at Mem’s, our newish place locally. They do a 2 course fixed price lunch for £43, which like its predecessor has a limited range of dishes.

We’re offered canape drinks and an amuse bouche, both very nice. Their house Chenin Blanc is a very reasonable £28 a bottle.

I have the duck rillette (solid) and treat myself to a surf and turf for a £15 supplement. The “surf” is two large tiger prawns.  B has Bluefin Tuna tartare followed by venison loin.

I have a couple of glasses of Malbec (not so reasonable at £15 each), while B has another glass of Chenin.

All in all, £190 including 12.5% service, which has been fine – we are the only ones in there most of the time.

 

Meeting up with P&M. P wanted to go to the new Battersea Power station complex, so after some research we settled on Brindisa. It’s not as attractive a venue as the one in Richmond, though sitting outside in the summer it might be better.

We are there first, so get the better view. We order a white Rioja (Veltiver) for £36, which goes down well. B and I order the garlic prawns, chicken with mojo rojo (a red sauce from the Canaries), chorizo on toast with pepper and rocket (excellent) and Iberico pork cheeks with chocolate and rioja (very tender, but got cold quickly). P&M add more prawns, tortilla and patatas bravas. We also have bread.

We move on to a couple of desserts. P has the ice cream, while I go for the almond tart.

Four bottles in all, a slightly cheeky 13.5% service (it’s not been great) and that takes us just shy of £300 for the four of us. Not expensive, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

 

Before the theatre, we’ve chosen a Vietnamese place in Garrick Street called Com Viet. It’s nearly full on the ground floor, but we get a table by the window. There is a larger room downstairs, but they were still turning people away.

For starters we have soft shell crab (OK) and something called Com Viet Cha. This is minced pork and prawns, with mint and coriander leaves, that you wrap in dipped rice paper, which resembles a condom. Very messy, but the fresh herbs make it very tasty.

Mains are stewed pork belly (rather fatty to my taste, but B likes it) and wok-tossed duck breast with lemongrass and chilli. There a lot of wok-tossed options, a few seabass ones and not much else to choose from.

We have a bottle and two glasses of NZ SB (£51 together) – total £115 with 12.5% service.

B was pleased with it, but I thought the pork was a downside.