An "authentic" disaster and two old faithfuls

We’re off to see Eddie Izzard at the Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus, and have decided we fancy trying somewhere new, preferably Chinese.  Ba Shan in Romilly Street has kept coming up on Opentable, with special offers of 25% off food, so we decide to give that a go.

We’re slightly late for our 6pm booking, and the place seems very busy pre-theatre on a Friday. After just a short wait, we’re taken through the maze-like arrangement of rooms to our table in a small room of just 12 covers.  Everyone else in there is Chinese, which makes us optimistic – one table has the remains of a huge fish which they had clearly enjoyed.

We’d read about the menu from the “Revolutionary Cookbook” and about the Hunanese cuisine of chillies, chillies and more chillies. So we’re less surprised to see photos of Chairman Mao adorning the walls, though other décor is attractively classical Chinese. His exhortations are scattered through the menu too, though there’s no sign of his Little Red Book. There’s a rough and ready feel to the place, but that’s fine for a quick meal.

We order food and a bottle of South African Chenin Blanc at £22.  Our “fish-fragrant prawns” arrives very promptly – slightly odd, flabby, possibly reconstituted, deep-fried prawns with a fiery chilli dipping sauce.  We’ve finished these before the pork dumplings arrive (having been sent back by the table next to us). This is a good portion of 8 or so dumplings, slippery and messy, but with a good herbal fragrance  - no chillies.

The range of choice of mains was impressive, if somewhat bizarre.  We have settled on “bamboo-fragrant chicken” and Dry-wok twice cooked pork, with some plain steamed rice.  It’s then that we realise that “authentic” is not a synonym for “good”.

The chicken dish arrives literally covered in dried red chillies. We’re OK with that, sifting through to find the meat, and burning our mouths only a little bit. But the chicken, when you got to it, was tough and chewy, very small pieces no doubt extracted from dubious regions of the bird. Revolutionary fervour would be needed to enjoy that one.

The pork dish had slightly fewer chillies, but was every bit as spicy. Another “authentic” dish of predominantly fat on thin slivers of tasteless pork. Nothing as bourgeois as edible meat.

We surrendered. The capitalist running dogs were defeated. Less resistance than even paper tigers.

OK, the Chinese punters seemed to be enjoying themselves, slurping their way through their even more strange-looking dishes and shouting orders to the waitresses in Mandarin (I’m guessing here). So it’s not without atmosphere.   The waitress has in fact been fairly attentive, given that half the time she wasn’t in the room.

The 25% off was duly administered without question (a saving of £10) and a standard 12.5% service charge applied, bringing the total (with two extra glasses of wine) to just £73.  You’d struggle to get a meal for that price elsewhere in this area – and boy did we struggle.

Two old favourites came up trumps however.  Friends took us back to Chez Bruce to celebrate B’s birthday – the lunchtime menu there is most impressive, a wide range of excellent dishes to choose from for each course, at a very modest price. And a manageable wine list too.  My selections were brill sashimi to start (brill indeed, fresh, light with a hit of wasabi on the side) and duck cassoulet for main course – deeply rich, warming mix of duck done three ways.  Thank you guys!

And for my birthday we returned to our local Brasserie Vacherin for a late lunch. Service here can be variable, but on this occasion it was fine, though we weren’t in any rush.  The “aromatic and luscious” Viognier from Languedoc was £24.50.  B had the Atlantic prawns smothered in garlic to start – a good sized portion, while I had tuna tartare. For mains we stayed with the fishy theme and had fillet of seabass (grilled, good and meaty) and supreme of hake with mussels in a very light tomato sauce (rich and flavoursome). And to celebrate we share a lovely crepe suzettes.  A second bottle, some sparkling water and chips, plus 12.5% service take the total to £117, so just over £50 for the food, very good value.

Disappointing Boxing Day lunch

It’s Boxing Day and we’ve booked to go back to The Rendezvous in Westerham for lunch.  We’d been on Boxing Day a couple of times, four or five years ago, so we’re quite looking forward to it.  And when we’re able to find a parking spot really close by, we’re in a really positive mood.

It’s a very attractive place, with lots of light from the big windows, clearly French but without being clichéd. There are about 4 or 5 other couples in when we arrive – all of whom turn to stare at us as if we were aliens!  We have between us halved the average age in the room – yes, even us! -  and this seems to be an unwelcome intrusion!  God knows what would happen if a 25-year old strayed in.

We are given a nice table by the window, where I can watch the excitements of Westerham pass by – two dog-walkers in an hour. The table is quite small, cluttered with cutlery glasses, a Xmas table setting and the basket of bread – hardly room for the wine and water.   The bread is lovely, pain rustique-style, auguring well for the set meal to come (at a very reasonable £25 a head on Boxing Day).  The wine list is on the pricey side, but we manage to find a Picpoul Pinet Clos Isabelle for £24.

B orders the scallops (supplement £3) to start, while I go for the mushroom risotto.  This comes nicely dressed with pesto and parmesan slices. But from here it goes downhill – we’ve both ordered the roast pheasant for main course – big mistake!   When we came a few years back, D had ordered the pheasant and remarked “it wasn’t very gamey” – when we sympathised she said “No, I don’t like it gamey!”.   Well, this time made up for it. Both our portions were dry, tough and with a harsh tang. The roasted root vegetables did nothing to lift it, and we both had to leave it half-eaten.

No comment from the waitress, presuming I guess that our teeth weren’t up to it.  Dessert was a little better – a crème brulée, was tasty but not bruléed enough; the ice hockey puck of Christmas pudding was lighter than it looked, but nothing special.

The place has filled up while we’re there, with a few other tables of people under 80. But it’s not what you’d call “buzzy”!   There’s a cover charge of £1.50 each (worth it for the bread I suppose, but only a 10% service charge, which for Boxing Day is impressive, making the total just £92.  But such a disappointment.