Saturday 19 April 2014

Michelin starred restaurant lives up to its reputation

I’m meeting C for lunch at Chez Bruce, the Michelin-starred restaurant by Wandsworth Common, looking forward to it immensely as I’ve always fancied going there. It’s a lovely sunny day, and the place looks a picture with its pretty window-boxes and elegant design.  Inside it is light and airy, less than half-full at 12.30 on a Thursday.


We order from the set menu (£27.50 for three courses), though with 7 or 8 choices per course, it feels more like a full a la carte.  C isn’t drinking so I go for a carafe of the house white, a Vermentino, from  Pays d’Oc,  which at £11.50 a half bottle is pretty reasonable. As you might expect the wine list goes up to some serious heights but it also has several wines at £30 or less, so your wallet is not necessarily that challenged.

We’re offered a parmesan crisp and then some lovely bread – we both have walnut. The service is alert and attentive, friendly without being intrusive – all it should be.
Starters arrive in decent time – though as we were chatting so much I may not have been paying full attention to the timing.  C has an asparagus and pea parcel with herb vinaigrette and mascarpone. This is deemed to be very good, very fresh and springlike, the parcel being a light pancake.  My salmon sashimi comes with a couple of prawn dim sum and ginger – bright, fresh, sharp.
The restaurant is filling up more now – a good mix of age ranges, a young family, middle-aged ladies who lunch, an older couple and some business types. All seem relaxed and enjoying themselves, as are we.

C’s main course is cod with truffle mash, cabbage, mushrooms and bacon. Perfectly cooked and attractively presented, this is another seasonally appropriate dish –and much approved of.  I’ve chosen the lamb tagine and kofta. The presentation of this is something of a surprise. The tagine is a ring of meat served with harissa aubergine (super) on the main plate; the kofta and bulgar wheat arrive in a separate dish for some reason.  But regardless of this idiosyncrasy, it all tastes wonderful, a mix of textures and flavours that makes each mouthful interesting.
As always when it’s available I choose the crème brûlée. I’m challenged to define what makes an excellent crème brûlée – this seems to be it. First it’s in a wide shallow dish, rather than a ramekin, making the ratio of brûlée to crème much better. Second it’s piping hot. And third it has a good hit of vanilla – and no messy fruit.
C’s dessert seems to be the one less than perfect note -  coconut panna cotta with mango salad, lychee sorbet and lime. It’s a bit of a mess, both of style and flavours, nothing individually wrong of course, but not a great synthesis.  So thank goodness there’s room for improvement!

It’s been a super lunch, and at less than £80 for two excellent value. It’s the sort of place that makes you feel at one with the world, so when back out in the sunshine I take a leisurely and relaxed stroll around the common, watching the ducks. Must go back soon.

Friday 18 April 2014

Hampton Court bistro – new incarnation


We’re meeting D for lunch in Hampton Court and have yet to decide exactly where.  So we take a look at the menu for the Mitre first (we went there back in July).  The riverside terrace is still closed after the floods and the restaurant menu doesn’t look that special. So we turn our attention to the Mute Swan, now occupying the space where Blubeckers used to be.
Their website describes it as 'English-dining-pub-meets-wine-bar', whatever that means.  We sit in the downstairs “bar” ( as opposed to the tablecloths upstairs), which is all stripped pine and eclectic chairs.  They’ve moved the bar to the other side of the room from before, but the central spiral staircase to the restaurant  and loos is still there.

There are specials on the board – mains, bar snacks (interesting-sounding, with black pudding scotch eggs),  wines and beers (a good range for real ale drinkers).  Service is very attentive, so we get “quick wine” – a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc at £18 – and have to send them away a couple of times before ordering food because we’re gossiping too much.
When I do go to the bar to order, I decide to move on to a French Marsanne Viognier at £19. For starters, D has the chicken liver pate with an odd-sounding rhubarb, apple and ginger chutney. This came as two good-sized slices of coarse pate,  and D thought the chutney was fine. B has seared  scallops with chorizo chips, with some mushy sauce – tasty, well-cooked scallops. My choice is the char sui pork belly which comes with pickled ginger salad. This is served as three attractively displayed chunks of meat surrounded by sauce and salad – very good.

The main course options are a combination of pub classics such as sausage and mash, steaks, and haddock and chips, and some more adventurous dishes like calves liver “saltimbocca”, spicy Vietnamese king prawn and rice noodle salad and open vegetable samosa.   D plays safe with smoked haddock and salmon fishcakes and a side order of mixed vegetables (a rather tedious standard selection).  OK but nothing special.  B goes for the prawn salad which comes with toasted cashew nuts, lime and chilli dressing – very nice, good-sized prawns, with some flavour, crispy noodles and interesting salad.  My five-spiced duck from the specials menu, also came with ginger (well, I like it) but was otherwise rather dry and uninteresting.
We finish off sharing a pudding plate of chocolate and hazelnut tart, salted caramel ice cream, lemon and passion fruit meringue and orange polenta cake, which was the highlight.  It seems we had 3 bottles of Viognier, taking the bill to a tad over £150. Service has been very friendly and attentive, so it was generally a pleasant lunch – maybe not one to win awards, but fine if you’re in the area. (It seems I said much the same about Blubeckers!).

Monday 14 April 2014

Karaoke restaurant in Horseferry Road


We’d been looking for a good Chinese around Victoria for a while, and apart from the expensive options of Grand Imperial at the Grosvenor Hotel, and Ken Lo in Ebury Street, we’d only found A Wong in Wilton Road. So when Google came up with Firecracker in Horseferry Road I thought we’d give it a try.
A Friday night seems convenient, so we head down to the less interesting end of Horseferry Rd, populated mainly with government offices and the hospital. Firecracker is downstairs, and although we are a little early, I’m daunted by the fact there’s no other punters in there – just family.  We’re shown through towards the back and seated at a pleasant enough table. 

The menu is fairly extensive so while we peruse it, we get some edamame beans with sea salt and spicy Thai crackers to go with the bottle of Argentinian Merlot (£19.50) and some Jasmine tea. As you can tell already this is not strictly a Chinese restaurant, but more an oriental fusion place.
Gradually we begin to realise that behind the glass partitions around us are a number of private rooms, which begin to fill up.  In one is clearly a hen party, a second seems to be a birthday party, and a third room fills up with people in Japanese-style fancy dress.  There are display screens in each, and only slowly do I realise that these are not some evening working sessions, but in fact karaoke.  The rooms are well soundproofed, but occasionally as the doors are opened we get a blast of the music from inside – though not enough to make an X-factor judgement.
From the long list of “small plates” and “dim sum” as starters,  we have a scallop siu mai dumpling – which is tasty but a little sticky – and a chicken and kimchi (pickle) gyoza parcel, which is pretty good.   There are loads of other options that appealed too, so maybe going in a group would give you chance to sample more options.

The main restaurant is starting to fill up a bit now too, mainly with couples, but it never gets all that full.

First choice of mains is a ribeye beef in black pepper sauce served in a hot stone pot.  This is a lovely dish, presented so well; melting beef, spicy sauce, green beans and mushrooms. To go with that we have the garlic chilli prawns. These grilled king prawns with garlic and chilli flakes are a little flabby and tasteless, certainly not a match for the beef. To support these mains we have a duck crispy noodle with beansprouts – a reasonable amount of tasty duck in amongst the carbs.
Service is friendly and attentive and the food comes in good time, especially as we are being entertained by the karaoke rooms.  With a couple more glasses of Merlot, the bill comes to £88, perhaps a little high for the food, but fine if you factor in location and experience.