Hotel restaurant disappoints

As a pre-Xmas lunch with B’s old BT friends, we’ve decided to take up the offer of a set lunch for £25 with a champagne cocktail at the Tiger Green restaurant in the Hilton Green Park.  The street outside is full of smart cars with personalised number plates – and indeed as we’re eating a small convoy of two Rolls, a top of the range Mercedes and a Range Rover, each with similar personalised plates, steams by. The hotel entrance is very festive so we’re in a positive frame of mind as we head through the bar to the restaurant (regular readers note: we had had a drink in the pub beforehand!).

It’s one o’clock when we arrive, and there’s only one other table occupied. There’s no-one at the desk to greet us, so we hang around for what seems an age. The nearby tables seem to be laid for breakfast, complete with a set of egg timers for some reason.  There seems to be only person serving and she is taking an order from the other table. Good humour is ebbing fast.

Eventually the five of us are seated at a table for 6, nicely positioned by a window.  We wait again for the menu and wine list. B opts for the house white, a Spanish wine called Airen. Although a little on the sweet side, it’s very acceptable, even at £21 a bottle.   There’s another long wait before they take an order, and a while again before anything arrives – though to be fair there is some nice bread.   The champagne cocktails are good, though B2 and L have opted for soft drinks instead.

The room is classic hotel restaurant – no character or charm to it at all. Very cold and unseasonal despite the decorations at the hotel entrance.

B2 and L order the carrot and coriander soup, while B and S go for the smoked salmon and I have the ham hock “compression”.  The soup (pronounced “soap” by the Eastern European waitress) arrives first, several minutes ahead of the cold dishes for some odd reason. L isn’t impressed, but it’s warming enough to cut through B2’s cold. The smoked salmon looks to be a very small portion in a huge bowl, but actually it is tightly rolled up so there’s more there than it seemed. My ham hock terrine comes with an odd celeriac mousse on top and is very dense and really rather tasty.

The Fawlty Towers service continues as we wait again for our mains. By now the place is filling up, but with people having the afternoon tea – there must be a special offer on that too.

B2 has chicken makhni which comes complete with rice, breads, papadum, chutney and raita, the dishes attractively presented on a wooden board. This too helps with his cold, but otherwise looks pretty ordinary. L and S both have the baked salmon, which seems fine, while B and I opt to pay the £4 supplement to have the chef’s signature dish (so the menu says) of venison loin with chocolate, macadamia nuts, turnip, and spinach gnocchi.  This is impressive – the venison very tender, the chocolate bitter creating a nice sauce.

For dessert L has the apple and blackberry crumble crème brulee, a somewhat weird combination. B2 has the exotic fruit salad which arrives looking more like a knickerbocker glory – but he liked it. S and B both order sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice cream. The waitress returns soon after to say they’d run out of sticky toffee pudding (when only one other table was dining?). B asks to have just the ice cream, and the waitress has to go to check that’s OK, returning to say it was with an air of having done us a great favour.  S opts to go for the bread and butter pudding which I had also chosen.  Now I’m a great fan of bread and butter and pudding, and I have to say - - this was the worst I’ve ever had, I couldn’t get close to finishing it. It had no texture, no flavour and a very thin cream on top.

As there were two non-drinkers and one driver we only had the two bottles of wine. So the total, with 12.5% service, climbs to nearly £200.  Much of the food has been fine, the venison in particular. But the overall experience has been less than special – maybe it’s a typical hotel restaurant – so we won’t be going there again.

Cinnamon Club celebrations

Although TV chef Vivek Singh has opened up cheaper and simpler branches of his Cinnamon empire in Soho and the City, the Cinnamon Club in the old Westminster Library remains my top choice of Indian if we’re celebrating.  So I’m thrilled that H decides to have her 60^th birthday dinner there, and all the gang are joining her.  Then typically at the last minute C&L drop out, and we are 6 instead of 8.  We’re still seated at a table for 8 though, which restricts the conversation a little, but as you may see from photos I’ve posted , we still had a great time.

The charm of the old library still remains, and as it’s a Saturday close to Christmas the place is buzzing and lively. Despite its evident sophistication the place isn’t at all stuffy or formal, just classy.  Inevitably the wine list prices reach dizzying heights, but we manage to find a Bergerac Sec Sauvignon Blanc at £30, and later a Cahors Malbec at £32, both of which were fine.

Proceedings get kicked off with a “pre-starter”  - a light potato based snack.  Three of the group have the chicken breast to start – barbecued with a pineapple salsa.  Other selections were partridge breast  char-grilled with onion raita,  and mushroom galauti  (traditionally a minced lamb dish from the Awadhi cuisine of Lucknow, Google tells me, but here done with mushrooms instead)with tandoori Portobello mushroom.  I have the tandoori cod with mango puree – excellent.

We’re similarly limited in our choice of main courses, with three going for the tandoori prawns, which do come with a zingy curry sauce.  Two others had lamb saddle, and I have the red deer saddle. The deer was sensational – tender, spiced with cumin and cinnamon in a light gravy and accompanied by pickled baby root vegetables. We also have some breads and black lentils – again lovely, dense and rich.

As we’d told them it was H’s birthday,  they then arrive with a small “birthday plate” of of cake and ice cream, and a free glass of Franciacorta, an Italian sparkling, very generous. We’ve had three bottles of the Bergerac and just one of the Malbec, plus some water, taking the bill, with the inevitable 12.5% service charge, up to £415, or about £70 a head. So not somewhere to substitute for your local curry house, but a great place to celebrate.

October in brief

For a tapas near Waterloo try Meson Don Felipe. It’s a long-time stalwart with classic Spanish design with lots of high stools, and in the evening can get very busy. But at lunchtime after a visit to the Imperial War Museum, five of us were able to get one of the few ordinary tables without a problem.  We had the usual sort of mix of meatballs, chorizo, garlic prawns, chicken skewer, tortilla and salad, plus some excellent tuna croquettes and grilled sardines. A reliable and reasonably priced set of dishes.

If you’re in Cambridge, the Galleria Restaurant by Magdalene Bridge is an attractive place to go. Three of us booked in for a Friday evening  - though it wasn’t really all that busy. For starters we had smoked duck breast, which came cantaloupe melon and wasabi/soy dressing; a small king prawn salad, fresh with Thai dressing; and some olives with cardamom and paprika. Mains were monkfish fillets with prawns in a coconut milk sauce, Moroccan chicken fillet with couscous and tuna steak off the specials menu, all above par. The Spanish SB was not that great so we changed to a Chilean Viognier for the second bottle. £120 for 3 was pretty fair value.

For Sunday brunch in Cambridge we went to Bistro du Vin, part of the expanding Hotel du Vin chain. The set lunch was £24.95 for the soup (cauliflower, very rich), seafood and charcuterie buffet (a commendable selection with great stuffed chillies and excellent bread, kept frequently replenished), choice of main and a dessert. For mains we had the smoked haddock with hash brown and poached egg, roast turkey and steak and ale pie.  Desserts were the Bistro coupe (vanilla and pistachio with chocolate sauce), crème brulee (just 6/10 but then I am fussy about it) and a cheese board, which was a little mean but tasty. Two bottles of £25 Tabali Viognier and service brought the total to £145. Maybe not as successful as we’d hoped, but pretty good.

Six of us tried Hix in Brewer St for their special set menu lunch – 2 courses for £19.50, Chilean SB at £23.50 and Montepulciano at £23, so pretty reasonably priced. Unfortunately, despite its huge reputation it wasn’t a great hit with most of us. The schnitzel was very dry, nothing as good at The Wolsely. My seafood soup was good and the pheasant curry was interesting, but the others were unimpressed with theirs.

 

Upmarket Thai in Victoria

It’s S’s birthday, so we meet up at The Grosvenor for cocktails before heading to find L at the Mango Tree, at Grosvenor Place.  For a Thai restaurant it is remarkably restrained, modern and low-key. Maybe some oriental music around, but no other obvious national references.

We’ve booked through OpenTable to get a 50% off food offer.  This turns out to be less than it appears, as the “signature dishes” (about 60% of the menu) are only 25% off, and the offer doesn’t cover side dishes at all.  It’s not a good way to put you in the mood for a special evening out.

So we decide to forget all about the offer and just choose what we want.  Starters are a seafood tempura, prawns in tom yum sauce with garlic and chilli, a crab dish off the special fish menu and a prawn, pomelo and coconut snack. All very good indeed – clean, sharp flavours and fresh ingredients.

For main course we share a pork salad (not as hot or coriandery as we’ve had elsewhere), a jungle chicken curry (supremely fiery), stir-fried beef with oyster sauce,  stir-fried king prawns and crispy deep-fried pork belly. The girls go on to have tropical ice cream and banana pudding.

Service has been friendly (after the initial encounter) and efficient, without being charming. With 4 bottles of £20 SB the full total was £236. The various discounts took off £40, but then 12.5% service added another £30 to bring us back to £226.  But it was a good meal, so maybe on birthdays it’s worth doing.

To, at and from the Wirral

Just a few quick words about some places we came across during a trip up North for my niece’s 40^th birthday party.

Just off the M42/M5 on the way to Stourbridge, turn off for Clent. There you will find the Bell and Cross, at Holy Cross, county dining pub of the year for Worcestershire. It has a fair sized garden, but the weather was a bit iffy so we sat in one of the many little dining rooms, close enough to the open door to get a nice breeze.  B has the skewer of king prawns with chorizo – a nice skewers of 3 prawns and 3 pieces of spicy chorizo; the “Catalan salad” is nothing special, but the garlic dressing is good.  My choice of sticky shredded black bean chicken seems to be missing its pickled ginger (replaced by beansprouts and sliced carrot) and the accompanying “frazzled noodles” are like pieces of Styrofoam and simply make a mess on the table. All served on trendy slate of course.  With some wine and water, this makes it £42. It’s a handy stopping off point for an interesting lunch – not sure what a full evening meal would be like.

At Parkgate on the Wirral is The Ship.  A friendly pub by the riverside, it has a better than average pub menu. G has the lemon chicken stir fry, B has seafood red Thai curry (good) and I have beef rillettes in a “horseradish crust”.  The crust doesn’t really taste of horseradish, so I leave most of that, and the beef is a little dry, so I’m glad to share some of B’s curry sauce.  About £70 for the three of us with wine.

Lunch next day is at Sheldrakes, further up the coast.  As we arrive we can see there is a wedding party gathering, so we are shown upstairs. It’s a gloriously sunny day so we sit outside. The wedding party is gathered outside, and it turns out to be the actual ceremony, not just the reception.  B has the beef, pine nut and parmesan salad – excellent rare beef, and good accompaniments. G really enjoys his scallops and chorizo, while I have the confit duck tian with pineapple and coriander – also good.  For main G just has a duck tortilla wrap, while B and I share the summer paella – chicken, chorizo and mixed seafood. Plenty of protein and masses of rice, really enjoyable in the sunshine.  The service charge is a bizarrely reasonable 7% - never seen that before! So with 2 bottles of SB and a pint of lager the bill comes to £107 for the three of us.

On the way home, having stopped in Bromsgrove with friends overnight, we decide to stop for lunch at the Greyhound, Besselsleigh near Cumnor, outside Oxford.  It’s a very pretty spot, with lovely flower baskets out the front and an extensive garden out back.  We’re just grabbing a quick lunch en route – B has the salmon niçoise salad and I have a (warm) ham hock salad. Both are very good, and with some drinks we pay £45.  The place was heaving (it was a Sunday lunch), but the service at the bar had been excellent and the food arrived very promptly.

A trio of places around Brighton

 We’re heading for Chichester with M&G, but the traffic forecast is bad, so we head off to Petworth instead. We fetch up at the Angel Inn – nothing much to look at from the outside, but a charming maze of rooms and a lovely garden out the back where we decided to sit in the sunshine. It’s very pleasant in the sunshine, and the mock wasp nests do a fair job of keeping the blighters away. Rather firm steel chairs are much improved when we spot the box of cushions we can use.

G has a pint of Hophead, M a soft drink and B and share the house Sauvignon Blanc. We’re only after a light lunch, so B has the shrimp skewer (good), G has fish and chips (huge, with crisp batter, M a chicken and bacon sandwich, while I have starter size paella and a portion of chips. The chips are excellent, and the paella interesting with tasty chorizo.  £62 all in. Definitely one to visit if you’re in the area.

Back in Hove, we go to the Foragers in the evening. It’s an ordinary looking place in a suburban area, and we’ve been warned there’s a DJ playing there this evening. We’re seated in the back about as far away as we can get, and in practice it’s not an issue.  There’s a special offer on the St Veran at £26, so we go for that.

B has smoked salmon to start (very good) while I have chicken livers, which are rich and warming, M&G have a fish mousse and corned beef hash. For mains B has mussels, in a light wine sauce with barely any cream, the way she likes it. My pink roasted duck does what it says on the tin.  The others have roasted chicken and a very nice piece of hake.

We finish off sharing the cheese plate and G and I have a couple of glasses of Malbec. With the 3 bottles of wine that comes to £190, excluding service. A very fine meal for a backwater place.

The following day we brave the wind to walk along the seafront and then turn up to Hove Place in First Avenue. It is nice and sunny though so we take opportunity to sit in the really nice garden – lucky to get a table really. G has a “Long Blonde” (cue predictable jokes), while the rest of us share the Sugar Loaf, NZ Sauvignon Blanc at £22.

We’re still full from yesterday, so we’re only going for snacks – in principle. B has the macaroni cheese, which comes piping hot and nicely browned. B’s crab cakes are unusual in that although they do have a lot of potato in them, it comes in big identifiable chunks which she can easily separate out and leave. I have the pastrami sandwich, which is very chunky and comes with several gherkins. M insists that we share a pork and black pudding scotch egg. This is cricket ball size and when cut open reveals a lovely bright yellow egg which oozes out over the meat covering – excellent. M herself has a platter of lomo, air-dried lamb, cheese and pickles.

With a second bottle and a second pint, the bill comes to £132, maybe not cheap, but a splendid experience. One worth seeking out.

Celeb spotting at the Wolseley

After a visit to the RA, we met up with M&G and C to go the Wolseley.  It’s a big barn of a place with hard surfaces everywhere, so the noise hits you as walk in.  We’re shown to a table up on a mezzanine level at the back, which while it runs the risk of being isolated from the service, is a good sport for celeb spotting. Between us we identify AA Gill, Melvyn Bragg and Michael Parkinson – plus a buxom Brazilian lady who insisted on hugging Parky.

I have the scallops with fennel puree to start – pretty good - and B has the “small” chicken salad – in fact a huge bowl of salad leaves with plenty of tasty chicken. Two other ladies had pea soup, and G had a beetroot salad. All declared themselves happy with those.

We’re drinking the house white, a Bordeaux Semillon/Sauvignon at £19.95, one of just 4 options under £30.  Surprisingly, the bill says we got through 4 bottles of sparkling water and just 3 of white wine – must have been a mistake there I think!  In fact, despite my worries about service, the waiter was very good at topping up wine glasses when needed.

For mains, B had the small tiger prawns which weren’t impressive – very cotton wool. My pork belly was excellent, the crackling crisp but not teeth-threatening.  Schnitzels are their signature dish: G’s Wiener Holstein was huge, while the ladies’ small ones were plenty big enough.  We had some frites and a tomato salad to go with it al, but no desserts.

The bill came to £270 for the 5 of us, including 12.5% service and a £2 per head cover charge (haven’t seen that for some time), but then I think they must have forgotten one bottle of wine. Probably worth it  for the experience, but it’s not somewhere I’d rush back to.

French "tapas" in Soho

Another early evening meal as we are off to Ronnie Scott’s with M&G.  M has read a review by Giles Coren in the Times and is keen to try Blanchette; Jay Rayner in the Observer at liked it too (not always a good sign!).   We arrive first and are shown past the bar area to a smallish corner table. The décor is decisively French, not complete clichés but not far off. Distressed walls, odd cookbooks, distinctive tins and pans with off-beat French brand names.  Music is also French, but low-key so not an issue.

The others arrive and we agree on a bottle of house white, a Pays d’Oc Sauvignon Blanc, at £18.50 notably cheaper than anything else on the list. It’s perfectly fine. The menu is a little complicated – the waitress explains the “concept” to us (I always thought the concept was that they brought you food to eat) – sharing plates again.  There are “snacks”, cheese and charcuterie;  fish, meat and vegetable.  We decide on 2 dishes each, and end up with effectively  4 starters and 4 protein dishes.

There’s not room on the table for all the dishes, but they do come in stages so it works OK.  The crispy frogs legs arrive in a little paper cone, and are good and hot, with the meat coming away easily, the batter light and dry, and a tasty little dipping sauce.  Duck rillettes, although a “snack”, is actually a good sized portion of tasty meat, served with cornichons.  The asparagus (“vegetable”) comes with a creamy cheese dip and a harder gruyere-like cheese, while the coppa ham is ungarnished but full of flavour.  We also have a bag (yes, a bag) of fresh bread – very good it is too.

The four main dishes are quite similar, all being uncooked or very rare. The “tartare of the day” is sea trout, with cucumber (quite a lot) and crème fraiche.  Seared tuna is very rare indeed with a great pepper crust;  smoked duck breast salad comes with tomatoes (“heritage” obvs), and the grilled beef rump with onion.   The meat and fish dishes are actually a fair size, so despite the lack of carbs (apart from the bread), and maybe because it was all nearly raw, I end up feeling pretty full.

The three bottles of wine have taken the total to £185 for the four of us; pretty good value, making it a useful place to know. The limited menu means you wouldn’t go that often, but as a one-off it’s very good.

Ceviche at Ceviche

On our way to the theatre we stop for an early dinner at Ceviche, a Peruvian restaurant on Frith Street.  We’ve always liked ceviche and I’d heard of this place a while ago, so it seemed a good chance to try it out. 

Arriving at 5pm, we found the place unsurprisingly pretty quiet. There’s a front bar area and a more usual room behind it, where we were seated. For some reason they insisted on sitting us near the only other people in the place, and as others arrived continued to fill up one side of the room first.  The tables were a reasonable distance apart and it did mean you could rubber-neck what others were having, but it did seem strange – just as well it wasn’t on board a boat!

We started with two Pisco Sours – a traditional Peruvian cocktail – and asked about the size of dishes (sharing plates mean different things to different people) and it was suggested that three each would be reasonable. In the end we ordered two ceviche,  one skewer, a salad and a couple of  “nibbles”. It was fairly modest and there are few carbs on the menu, so it’s probably not the place for hearty eaters.

But what we had was lovely.  The “Don Ceviche” house dish was seabass  in a sharp, lightly chilli sauce  with sweet potatoes and onion.  “Sakura Maru” was cured salmon with satsumas, so a much sweeter dish, but still light and fresh.  The skewer was chicken thighs, always a tasty part of the bird and very moist, served with a pepper jam.

These were complemented well by the quinoa salad with tomatoes (which dominated), avocado and butter beans.  Also good was the asparagus “nibble” in Huancaina sauce – a golden, creamy, slightly spicy sauce, apparently usually used to accompany potatoes, according to Wikipedia – with the asparagus having been griddled and with a good bite.  We also had the wonton fritters stuffed with chicken – nice in themselves but not really a good choice with the rest.

Service was very friendly and helpful, despite the odd seating policy (which didn’t matter so much by the time the place filled up).  With a bottle of unusual white Rioja, the bill came to £90. Certainly worth going to for a light pre-theatre meal – probably less successful as an evening in itself, unless you’re in a group.

 

A few places in Paris

We struck lucky with several good places on a two night stay in Paris:

La Coupe D’Or in Rue St Honoré for lunch: we enjoyed sitting in the sun watching the world go by, while eating a salade perigourdine (duck breast, gizzard, foie gras and mounds of salad) and quiche Lorraine (very eggy with lots of crisp lettuce . Service was fine contrary to many TripAdvisor reviews.

Aux Vieux Paris D’Arcole, Rue Chanoinesse for dinner: an amazing place a stone’s throw from Notre Dame.  Very welcoming host and family, charming old-style dining room. We had the 5-course set menu at €39 – a courgette fritter, foie gras, scallops and duck followed by a tart of some kind. Other tables were in raptures over the chocolate pudding and crème brulée.

Chez Francis, Place d’Alma for lunch (twice): we’d been to this place several times before.  A classic brasserie in a super location overlooking the Eiffel Tower, stunning décor inside and plenty of terrace tables for full meals or snacks.  B had steak tartare (vg but pre-mixed) and I had tuna tatami (also raw), with chips and spinach (which even I thought was super).  Second visit was just a club sandwich - which was huge.

                    

Flottes in Rue Cambon near Concorde/Tuileries for dinner:  another classic brasserie in a good location. Interesting décor in the rear dining room (try to avoid the corridor).  B had the grilled prawns and I had suckling pig.  Very good.

Capucine, in Boulevard des Capucines (Madeleine/Opera).  Another old haunt. More Art Nouveau décor.  Seafood tagliatelle for B and escalope of veal for me. Slightly less exciting perhaps but pretty reliable.