Thursday, 3 July 2014

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.