Three in May

As we are going to the Sunday Times Vintage Wine Festival at Old Billingsgate, I do some research in advance on places to eat afterwards.  We now have the Gourmet card which gives money off in various places (mainly the chains), so I look at what is nearby on their list, and come up with Ember in Pudding Lane.

We arrive a little ahead of or 3pm booking, and descend into the basement bar/restaurant.  It’s an odd style – they claim it echoes the Great Fire! – more sleazy than swanky. There are still quite a few people in finishing off lunch (well, it was Friday) -  mainly City types. In a small alcove there is a group of four or five – definitely a space for assignations. At another table, three out of four men are in pink shirts and contrasting ties – the other (the mark?) in a dark blue suit. 

The menu is “East Asian fusion”.  Quite a substantial range.   The wine list is a little scary, with nothing under £30 – we go for the Colombard-Sauvignon from Horgelus in Côte de Gascogne at £31.  After over 50 tastings, one bottle is going to be enough!!

We start with the sesame squid with a sweet paprika mayonnaise – this is an excellently cooked dish, with just enough batter and enough bite. With that we have a prawn and coconut ceviche, with lemongrass and a good chilli hit, and a chorizo and prawn gyoza. Following up, there’s an Indonesian beef rendang, which is rich and spicy as it should be. And a luscious Waygu Koji (mushroom) that is just melt in your mouth.  Plus some jasmine rice.

The service is fine – unobtrusive and efficient – without being friendly.  Our 50%-off food offer saves us £29, so the total (with 12.5% service) comes to £75. We may not have had our most sensitive palettes at work (!), but that seemed like very good value for the interesting food and venue. At full price, we might have thought differently.

 

Meeting up with M&G, and C&G, we’re off to Duck and Rice in Berwick Street, right by the market. The restaurant is up a tight spiral staircase (there’s a bar downstairs), and we are seated right at the back – it’s a little cramped and dark.

We order some wine and sparkling water – a Sauvignon from Touraine at £30 and an Argentinian Malbec (La Colonia) at £32.  The waitress is a little dippy – she pours the wine as if she has never done it before, with the smallest amount for tasting you can imagine. She’s even nervous about pouring the water, having brought a bottle of still first.

We decide to order starters first, and then order mains once we’ve had those – that seems to be a challenging concept for our hostess.  There’s a “monthly specials” list, as well as the standards, but this seems to have passed her by – she gets very confused about anything we order off that.  Luckily, most dishes come with three portions, so cutting these in half means everyone gets a taste of everything.

First to arrive, after the edamame beans, are the venison puffs and the pan-fried pork gyoza. The puffs, though small, are delicious. The gyoza come with a frilly fried surround, but are a little gooey, they could have been fried a bit more. The crispy prawn rolls, looking like Shredded Wheat, come with a tasty mayonnaise and the salt&pepper squid with a chilli dip – both very good. Then there are the jasmine tea-soaked rib bau (bun) – the rib is nice, but the bun a bit too much – and a serviceable vegetable spring roll.

Returning to the menu, we order main dishes, again to share. Duck and Rice had to be one. M fancied kimchi pork, as she’d never tried it. B went for wasabi prawn, G2 kung po chicken and I ordered the chicken claypot but that was “off”, so ended up with the crispy shredded beef.  G1 thought that was enough protein so ordered Gai Lan, an oriental broccoli. We then had a debate about how much rice to order – the kimchi pork came with rice as did the duck and rice (obvs). Dippy suggested that the egg fried rice bowls were small, so we ordered two – we didn’t need that many.

Favourites were the kung po chicken, which had a dense flavour and was quite spicy with caramelised red chillies, followed by the kimchi pork and the wasabi prawns. The duck was OK but the shredded beef was, as so often I think, not that interesting.

In all we had 3 bottles of Sauvignon, plus a couple more glasses and some coffees. Just over £300 for 6 of us was pretty fair.

 

 Down to Lymington to meet up with J&E, S&B. We’re booked into Pebble Beach at Barton-on-Sea, which J and B claim we’d been to before, but I don’t recall at all. It’s a lovely sunny day, and we are glad to sit by the door to the terrace, rather than actually outside in the heat.

Most of the others aren’t drinking much, so it’s down to B and me to get through the Kleine Kalze Chenin Blanc  (£21.50).

E has the set 3-course menu at £24.50: smoked salmon, followed by chicken breast and then ice creams. The rest of us go a la carte. Our choices were king scallops (excellent) and beef carpaccio (fine). Others included Breton fish soup with rouille (deemed to be good), and goat’s cheese curd.

Our mains were lemon sole – a neat portion, nicely done – and stir-fried prawns and monkfish in oyster sauce, which was rather too dominant and salty.  J ordered skate wing with “mussel nage”, which turned out to her disappointment be flakes of skate buried under a mound of mussels and clams in a salty soup. B2’s fish and chips (with extra mushy peas) and S’s mussels were both well-received.

Desserts were a chocolate fondant  (hot and gooey, with honeycomb ice cream, and a cheese selection (at £15.40 a bit pricey).  Afterwards we sit outside on the terrace with splendid views of the sea, the Isle of Wight and the Needles. On such a lovely day, it’s a great place to be. We have some more wine and coffees – though I’ve just noticed they forgot to charge us for those!

The service was friendly and efficient and the atmosphere smart without being stuffy. Total for 6 (two bottles of wine, but excluding the extra wine and coffee) was £224. Despite the skate that is excellent value in such a scenic location. Highly recommended.