Pre-lockdown return to TFT

 We had booked into The French Table later in the month for our anniversary, but with the news of the lockdown I rushed to see if we could get in ahead of time. Normally they are closed on Tuesdays, but when I rang they said that exceptionally they would be open, so gleefully I booked us in.

After the usual temperature checks we were shown in to our table. It was pretty busy again, with the upstairs room being used too - others must have had the same sort of idea.  We had suspicions that not all the other tables were from one household, but one can't be sure.  We ordered our usual Viognier at £28 and settled down to choose between the 5-course tasting menu or the a la carte.  We've always done the tasting before, as it is not much more expensive, but this time we opted not to.

That meant I could choose the special starter - a marmite of mussels and cod, with broccoli and celery under a puff pastry top. It looked very impressive - bigger than I expected with beautifully browned pastry. Inside the contents were swimming in a delicious yellow (saffron?) sauce - plentiful and tasty. B chose the crispy tempura prawns and plaice, which was very good - large prawns, plaice full of flavour.  We'd turned down the roasted hispi cabbage with soya and ginger dressing, but it appeared at the table next us, looking very impressive - and collapsing dramatically when attacked. 

After some discussion about the difference between the terrine of rabbit, ham hock and foie gras on the a la carte and the ballotine of the same things on the tasting menu (and why they had different recommended wines), we turned to our mains.  After some dithering, B had chosen the pork belly with salsify, hazelnuts and hazelnut puree. The meat was topped with an intricate and delicate pommes dauphine web, and there was also a pork croquette to accompany it.  She thought it was very good, though the hazelnut puree was a bit redundant.  

I'd gone for the roast lamb, which turned out to be three round slices, glazed with rosemary sauce. It came with spatzle (German egg noodles - I had to look that up), some cavelo nero and a few rather chewy strands of greenery.  Both dishes score very high marks again.  There had been an option of a side order of vegetables which we had declined - at other tables they looked like huge portions. 

I was pretty full, but B pressed on to order a mille-feuille with poached figs and pistachio ice cream. The cream with the mille-feuille was infused with Earl Grey, and the three layers of pastry very crisp and flavourful.

Service was a bit less chatty this time - they were busy and the PPE doesn't make for intimacy. We discussed whether a straight 3-courses was a better option than the tasting (it didn't come with an amuse bouche), and decided there wasn't much to choose between them. Larger portions make the a la carte a more recognisable lunch, but the tastings have always been well judged in their portion sizes too. With 12.5% service and a second bottle of wine, the bill was £136. Not cheap, but we won't be eating out for the next month (at least) so well worth doing.  

Maple Road tapas

Surbiton Farmers' Market re-opened last Saturday, so we went along to check it out. It was fairly busy even at 12, with a new one-way system to help with distancing. We found some interesting stalls, notably one selling game - the Madras wild boar sausages were amazing. Also good were steak and kidney pies from another stall, and the chorizo bread from The French Tarte. 

Right by the exit is Gordon Bennett!, which is open lunchtime at the weekend only, so we took the opportunity to call in.  The waiter recognised my name (from the Track and Trace) as Welsh - he was from Dolgellau - and persuaded us to have a bottle rather than two glasses.  They do a Brunch menu up till 1pm, but then change the menu to a tapas-based one. It looked very interesting so we resolved to come back the following week.

This we duly did. The place was nearly empty, so not having booked wasn't an issue. If this was a typical Saturday crowd, the it's not surprising they don't open for lunch during the week. We were greeted by a very jovial chap, who brought the bottle of Slovenian sauvignon blanc (£22.75) quickly enough. Turned out that he was Nepalese. They recommended 2/3 dishes per person, so we chose 5 altogether, 3 fish and meat.  Our waiter tried to upsell us some fries, but when we resisted persuaded us to have some padron peppers. They are clearly trained in upselling! 

My compatriot brought the food, attractively presented in a variety of dishes - rounded triangle plates, hot-plate, tin bowls and a small kilner jar.  The soft-shell crab with Asian slaw was good, with enough crab flavour breaking through the batter. Prawns (5) wrapped in filo pastry I thought should have had a chilli dipping sauce, but B enjoyed them. The crayfish and avocado escabeche - in the kilner jar - was excellent. On the meat front we had steak bulgogi - slices of steak in a sweet sauce - which was much better than it sounded; and duck croquettes (also 5)with a plum sauce, which were very meaty indeed. Only one of the peppers, out of a large collection, proved to be at all spicy.  

We cleared all the plates, and resisted the waiter's attempt to sell us dessert. The one we fancied was "off" anyway. So we just settled for a second bottle. 

The tables and chairs were an assortment of old wooden furniture, giving the place a rather dark pubby feel - the menu seems a bit surprising for such a place. The only negative point was the background music, which was both a little too loud and an odd mix of poor covers and ambient jazz. 

The bill came to £83. We were pleasantly full, and had enjoyed everything, so that was pretty good value. Clearly going to become a regular weekend haunt, though Surbiton is coming up trumps with its interesting range of options.  

Chinese in Thames Ditton

It's been some time since we've been out for a Chinese meal. There weren't any good places around Purley, and London has been off limits. Now, after spotting it on a few walks, we are to try Han Fu, in Thames Ditton.  We exchanged emails about bookings, and eventually settled on 7.30pm on a Wednesday. It's a bit of a walk so we needed to be sure the weather was OK. 

As we arrive we see there are a couple of Chinese ladies sitting at the window table. It turns out they were there for take-away. Otherwise there are no other customers in the place. We get shown to a nice enough table - surrounded by perspex screens, it surprisingly feels like a very personal space. 

After a little confusion about Cab Sauv vs Sauv Blanc, we get our wine at £18. The young waitress admits she's only been there are couple of weeks. She brings free prawn crackers and chilli sauce.

The menu is interesting with a range of house special dishes. There are the usual staples too.   So we start with pork dumplings and king prawns in salt and pepper. The dumplings are big, gloopy, with a slight peppery tang. The prawns are also large, with a light batter and good chilli sauce. 

For mains we've ordered pepper chicken and dry-pot beef, supported by Singapore noodles. The head waitress checks that we like hot food!  Both dishes come covered in red chillies - but at least they are easily identified and put to one side. The pepper chicken is a bit dry, with (as you'd expect) peppercorns. The dry pot beef, despite its name, is more moist and tender. Both are tasty. The noodles come filled with ample shrimps and chicken pieces. 

There have been no other eat-in customers, though there has been a reasonable stream of people coming in for take-aways.  But we haven't been rushed through our meal - as Chinese places can tend to do - and the two waitresses have joined us for a lively chat at the end. Decor is simple - "Surbiton grey". Portions have been generous, enough for us to have a doggy-bag. I have it for lunch a couple of days later, and it is still very good.  With a second bottle of wine, and a genuine at discretion tip, it comes to £83. Very good indeed. We'll be back. 

Two more places in Surbiton

 We'd got into a routine of Saturday being "curry night" at home, including some very nice ones from Cook!  But this week we decide to try The Gurkha Kitchen at the Ferry, a local pub.  We'd been in for a drink once before, and it seemed like a place full of locals. It's an odd combination of drinkers' pub and tables laid up smartly surrounded by semi-luminous paintings of Nepal. 

This time the proportion of smartly laid-up tables is higher and all of them duly fill up, though the small number of local drinkers are making most of the noise, at least until they move outside.  The house Shiraz at £18 is very reasonable, and they bring complimentary pappadums and pickles. 

The menu is very wide-ranging, with lots of unusual Nepalese dishes. After a little thought, we choose the special platter to share as our starter.  This comprises two large portions of chicken tandoori, some chicken tikka, one tandoori king prawn and lamb sekuwa - grilled lamb pieces.  It's very tasty, and not at all dry as I might have expected. There is a subtle kick to the lamb and to the tikka, and all the chicken has good flavour. 

For mains we have "Everest Lamb", which is in a thick garlic and ginger sauce, and a very attractively presented "Fewa prawn", which four butterflied king prawns in a lobster-shade tomato, yogurt and chilli sauce. Both dishes are very good, though the lamb, despite being "slow-cooked" is a little on the chewy side.  We also order a black dhal (a B favourite), which is a bit disappointing - I even wonder whether they'd given us the ordinary dhal instead - and mushroom rice. 

With a second bottle - most of which we take away - the bill comes to £83 without service charge. Service has been very efficient and as friendly as you can be when masked up. There has been a nice warm vibe to the place, and the dining tables have been full throughout with a second round of diners. Certainly worth another try to experiment with the wide range of unfamiliar dishes.

At the bottom of our road is the Thames Ditton Marina, which is home a new bar/restaurant called Hideaway, a new venture related to No 97 and Cento Uno in Maple Road. It's in a gorgeous location, with a terrace right alongside the river. We'd been a couple of times for drinks, and it's been very pleasant and welcoming. The menu didn't look especially appealing at lunchtime - more brunch than anything - but the evening was more a "small plates", tapas-style option. 

I've emailed and left a voice message to book a table, but no reply as late as 5pm. They are shut on Monday and Tuesday lunchtime, so that's just about understandable. So I ring again and get a rather harassed response - they can't do 7.30 pm but could do 8 pm. They can't guarantee seats on the terrace either - first come first served. It's been a lovely warm day, but we are warned to bring something to wrap up with as it gets cold (here by the river). 

There's no-one seated inside when we arrive, and outside looks pretty full. But we do get shown to a table for 3 outside, though it's not directly overlooking the river and more by the marina. We order the house white Trebbiano at £23 - having been stung by £32 for SB on a previous visit - which arrives promptly. As we mull over the menu, the manager comes out and asks us if we would mind moving as he now has a table for 2 by the river, and he has a group of 3 just arrived. Fine by us. It's a lovely spot as the light fades and ghostly lit boats drift by. 

We order 5 dishes, which are going to be a struggle to fit on the small table. It's not a huge menu, so the decisions aren't too hard - just 12 proper dishes. Garlic prawns was always going to be a choice - this version comes with roasted corn as well as the garlic and chilli, which are quite modestly represented. Crispy cod comes with a tomato sauce slapped across it, and is a bit limp and uninteresting.  The lamb skewer is fine, if a bit small, with the peri chicken livers being the best of the bunch - not heavily sauced as they often are, but with a neat hit of chilli in the peri-peri sauce.  The final selection was courgette fritter which comes, not like Italian zucchini fritti, but in a great wodge of fried, grated vegetable - quite good though. 

The setting remains super, and it doesn't get too cold. We are a bit distracted by a guy alone at the next table who wants to share his problems with us, but eventually he orders food too (burger and chips) and is then distracted. Service is attentive - and we order a couple more glasses to enjoy the view. Total bill is a reasonable £77 (incl 12.5%) , but although the five dishes have been filling enough, the food itself has been a bit disappointing.  As the nights draw in and the weather turns colder, the setting itself will lose its charm, and unless the menu becomes more interesting we may not want to go then.  The tapas menu would be fine for lunch perhaps, otherwise I fear for their prospects. 

 

Back to our favourite French place

We have a second voucher to use at The French Table, so booked a table – though it had to be in three weeks’ time. Arriving at 1.30pm we are shown to the last available table (downstairs, at least, as they now use the upstairs room for ordinary bookings to make up for social distancing) – clearly it remains a very popular local venue.

We order kir, and then decide which menu to go for – 2-course, 3-course or the £35 5-course tasting. There’s not a lot of different choices on the smaller menus, and if you added vegetables or potatoes the 3-course actually costs more than the tasting, so we go for the latter.  We don’t go for the matching wines at £25 a head though.

 Very tasty, warmed bread comes with our bottle of French Viognier (£28 a bottle), and quite promptly the amuse bouche arrives. This is cucumber gazpacho with pickled strawberry.  Very fresh and light, with truffle oil and just a few pieces of crunchy cucumber to give it a bit of a bite. Served in very attractive sloping bowls.

 The first of the five courses is melon with goats cheese in breadcrumbs and crispy Bayonne ham. It also comes with “white balsamic vinegar ice cream”.  It’s a slightly weird combination, the cheese and ham contrasting with the sweeter melon and ice cream – more like two dishes mixed up together.

 This is followed by a terrine of rabbit and ham hock, apparently with foie gras, though this is not readily identifiable. It’s a very good textured dish, supported by fruit and walnut toast.  The fish dish is hake, with olive oil mash, mushrooms, peas and a lobster sauce. Every item is excellent, and even B finishes her mash. The lobster sauce lifts everything without being too heavy.  The fish is a little too salty though.

 The meat course is pork – a small piece of belly in a rich port sauce, and a pulled pork parcel in filo pastry.  This is quite heavy and we are both now struggling to get through everything. This too is quite salty.

 The dessert is much the same as last time - chocolate “moelleux” with blackberries and blackberry ice cream, though this time without the Crunchie honeycomb. Delicious.

 Very friendly and efficient service again, though still a little thrown by the new routines – we’re more than happy to pour our own wine, but they seemed very pained to let us do it! The clientele is far from diverse – only one table seemed younger than us, all white and prosperous looking!  The bill does mount up, with a second bottle of wine and including the kir, water and 12.5% service, it came to £160. But even though I had a few more criticisms this time, it is an excellent and enjoyable lunch and we'll no doubt be back for a special occasion. 

 

 

Another riverside pub

 We are meeting D who lives over in East Molesley, so we agree to go to the Albany, roughly half-way between us, about a half-hour walk. The pub is right on the river, with plenty of outdoor seating, overlooking Hampton Court's back garden. The sun is shining, there are swans and even a great-crested grebe swimming around, as well as a succession of passing boats, kayaks, paddle-boarders and a punt from the Ditton Skiff and Punting club next door. Idyllic.   

We're shown to a table right by the river and, as the waitress clears it, order some Craggy Range SB from Marlborough - fuller flavour than many.  D arrives and we set to ordering our food, though B once again is unlucky in that her choice of steak salad is not available. This despite several other items already having been "redacted". 

D has mushroom on a sourdough crumpet to start. Oyster mushrooms and ordinary ones.  B has scallops - three large ones plus a prawn and crabmeat ball ("bonbon") - excellent. My sticky chipotle chicken is good too, really quite spicy.  

The crab and prawn fishcakes that D has are good too (much better than ones I had recently at Hart's Boatyard - the two menus are very similar) and come, after some debate about a side salad, with skinny fries, some of which get shared with the swans. B opted in the end for pork belly (without the optional scallops), which looks a bit heavy but she enjoys. She doesn't eat the mash though.  I have another spicy dish - prawn and crab linguine (clearly there's no shortage of prawns or crab) with plenty of chilli. Quite a zing and more pasta than I can eat.  

B's quite keen for us to share a "pornstar martini Eton mess", but is unlucky again, as that's "off" too. Nothing much else appeals, so we just move on to our third bottle of wine. 

Our waitress has been cheerful and efficient throughout. With the £30 government discount, the total comes to £134 - we leave a £15 tip.  It's not been haute cuisine, but very enjoyable in a lovely setting. A bit too much of a walk to become a regular perhaps, but certainly we'd be happy to go again. 

First Indian in months

 We finally decide to venture out in the evening for our first Indian meal in ages, to one of 4 on Brighton Road, Surbiton. We chose the Red Rose as it looked the smartest.  We're given a table in the window, suitably distant from others - there are three or four other tables occupied.  The decor is what we have to regard as Surbiton standard - pale grey, LEDs spots - with a few Indian images added.  Some light jazz background music. 

Service is very prompt, as we order a bottle of Shiraz and some pappadums. The pappadums come with chutneys including some pink coconut flakes and a very interesting pale green one. Unusually for us at an Indian we decide to order starters - B chooses the starter chicken tikka and have the Goan chilli king prawn. The tikka is quite moist, though benefits from having some of the chutney with it. The three butterflied prawns come with Goan chillies - large, with seeds still in, but not too punchy if you avoid the seeds -a a nice buttery garlic sauce. 

For mains we have ordered tamarind chicken, king prawn lahori, pilau rice, mushrooms bhaji, and bhindi bhaji. These arrive quite quickly too, though to be fair the waiter did ask whether we were ready for them. The chicken tikka comes with a garlic and chilli sauce (Madras hot) as well the sweet/sour tamarind - very good. The prawns are stir-fried with ginger, garlic and peppers - a good sized portion in a  very rich sauce. Mushrooms are sliced with a little garlic, and the bhindi in wedges; pilau rice was less interesting, just some cumin seeds. 

We finish our meal in just an hour, so order a couple more glasses of wine. We ask to take away the remaining couple of pieces of chicken and the vegetables, which they duly organise. The bill is £83 with the gratuity left open to be added on the machine. When the bill is finally printed I see I have managed to leave a 10p tip!  So sheepishly I leave a tenner as well!  

It's been a very enjoyable meal, and certainly worth another visit, though there are the others to try as well. There's also a Nepalese in a pub in the other direction, so we have plenty yet to explore.

Italian in central Surbiton

 We're beginning to explore the restaurant scene in Surbiton and, having spotted an attractive looking place - The Italian Taste - on the main street, decided to book in for lunch.  We get there spot-on 1.30pm and it's pretty much full.  We are given a table near the front window (not directly by it), and menus.  It's nice having a chatty, charming waitress - except that she's being chatty and charming at another table, and it takes ages to flag someone else down to take our drinks order!

House wine is just £17, but we push the boat out with an Orvieto at £24, plus some sparking water - well it is another very hot day. The menu has a good range of interesting starters, pasta dishes priced as starters or mains, plus some classic dishes. We dithered over our choice and had nearly decided when the waitress came over with a Specials board to make things more difficult.  

We share starters - tiger prawns (3) in a garlic and chilli sauce, and a pizza sized garlic bread with mozzarella - covered in raw garlic. Both very good.  For mains, B went with the Dover sole off the specials board, at £31 the most expensive thing available. This came in a very rich butter and onion sauce and was absolutely lovely - "heavenly" she said.  I had thought about the sea bass fillets but as B was having fish, went for the saltimbocca a la Romana instead.  This was rich with a strong sauce, a total contrast from B's.  Good but perhaps not so special.  Both dishes came with half-roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots and beans, but we also ordered a rocket and parmesan salad, as that was more suited to the weather.

The place had almost emptied out by 2.15pm, so the background music was more noticeable - Frank, Dean and Bing singing the classics as slowly as they could. We did eventually get the chatty waitress - the other one had been friendly and welcoming too. 

We had a second bottle of Orvieto - and of water. And some complimentary limoncello.  It being a Wednesday we get the £10 a head reduction from Rishi; service is just 10%, though quite reasonably charged on the total before the discount.  That made the total up to £115, very good value indeed; and could have managed to spend a lot less. Definitely worth another visit.  

Riverside pub in Thames Ditton

It's forecast to be a nice day, so we book a table at Ye Olde Swan, a Greene king pub in Thames Ditton.  It's a bit of a walk - 20 to 25 mins - so we don't want to be turned away when we get there.  With loads of seating outside, distancing is not a problem, and we get to choose where to sit. We go for a table overlooking the river, right by the little (private) bridge across to the island.  

It's pretty idyllic, with the views to the island, the Canada geese, ducks, swans (and cygnet), and eventually a heron - though the geese see him off. Plenty of boats pootling up and down the channel (the main stream of the river is visible beyond), some deciding to moor up for lunch. 

We have the squid to start - curly-whirly bits with a chilli dipping sauce, quite spicy, cooked well.  For mains, B ordered the seabass fillet and scallops risotto - but it's "off". That means there aren't seabass fillets for the Caesar salad either, so she has the chicken Caesar  The chicken doesn't look that great but isn't as dry as it appears. Good sauce and nice anchovies.  I have the steak and ale pie with chips. This is a proper pastry pie, with a rich and tasty sauce. Sadly, though, you have to fish hard to find any actual meat.  Chips are good and hot. 

We have a couple of bottles of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.  Total bill just £72.  So, pretty average pub food, but a splendid setting on a lovely day.   As we leave we see there is a whole strip of tables down at water-level, ideal for boaters. 

Chompers of Surbiton opens for business!

Now we have completed our move to Surbiton (Long Ditton, actually), it’s been suggested by a couple of readers that I should rename the blog. So welcome to the first posting on Chompers of Surbiton!

Since restrictions on pubs and restaurants were lifted, we’ve managed two lunches out, and discovered the pleasures of sitting in the sunshine outside our local, the City Arms, watching the wildlife in the marina – heron, great crested grebe, as well as more common birds, and some huge fish.

Our first lunch was back to Hart’s Boatyard.  They had arranged a one-way system, with hand sanitizer at the door. Tables were well spaced out, and the upstairs area out of action, so the number of people they could seat was much reduced.  Most tables were occupied, but we had asked for one overlooking the river, so we had a very nice view, though it was a little darker downstairs than the at upstairs tables we’d had before.

Their menu was reduced, but still there was an interesting range.  We ordered tempura squid and crab arancini to start, and a bottle of Sunlight Sauvignon Blanc. Thankfully, the waitress pointed out to us that the Sunlight was low alcohol, so we went for Tokumara New Zealand SB instead.

We seemed to wait quite a while for our food, and when it came, they brought the main courses, rather than the starters. They took these away, and the starters appeared soon after.  The squid was cooked nicely, but the batter was a little dull, with no sign of the Szechuan peppercorns. But the chilli and red pepper in the arancini made up for that with quite a good kick in a full flavoured ball.

We ordered a second bottle to go with the mains, which arrived after a sufficient pause to make one think they had been re-cooked. B had more crab in her linguine, with king prawns and chorizo. The chilli in this was prominent too, though in identifiable pieces you could avoid if you wished. I had chicken Milanese with fries with some nice garnish of parmesan, rocket, pine nuts and aioli.

We passed on desserts, feeling full on our first meal out in months.  With service – friendly, recovering well from the mistake – and the two bottles, this came to £108, good value for some interesting food.

 

When restaurants were allowed to open on 6^th July, we tried to book for lunch at The French Table – but the first day we could get was 22^nd.  That was just about a month after we moved in, so it seemed a suitable date.  Our previous visit had been back in October when we had been very impressed, and we had twice been thwarted – on my birthday when no trains were running, and on the day we completed on the house, when lockdown started. We had bought a couple of gift vouchers during lockdown to help with cashflow and hoping that they would survive. So we were very much looking forward to it – and we were not disappointed.

We arrived a fraction after our 1.30pm booking time to find a waitress at the door expecting us. Stories about “no-shows” at restaurants since they have re-opened are shocking, so perhaps they were concerned.  Welcomed with hand sanitizer and a forehead temperature check, we were then shown into the dining room. They had taken out some tables, but it was still pretty full. We were shown to a lovely table at the back, with the sunlight beaming in from the skylights.

We’d pretty much gone expecting to order the 5-course tasting menu, and looking at it decided to stay with that decision. The lead waitress described their special starter – raw salmon with kimchi – which sounded great, but we still stuck to our guns.

As we ordered the lunch, we also had a kir each, lighter than many, maybe with strawberries rather than framboise. We also opted out of the wine pairing options, and instead chose the Viognier from Pays d’Oc, at £28.  They do have a good range of wines by the glass or 500ml carafe.

Our waitress was struggling a bit with the new rules - delivering cutlery in a basket rather than laying it out, not topping up our wine - but they didn’t bother us.  Home-made bread included cheese, sun-dried tomato and olive.

First up was an extra amuse bouche, strawberry gazpacho.  With half a strawberry floating in it, this was a delicious rich, peppery soup, served in an attractively shaped little bowl. First designated course was scallops with a chorizo crust. This comes served in a dish surrounded by seaweed, which we are sternly warned not to eat – a bit pointless really. But the chorizo gives a really lovely boost to the perfectly cooked scallops.

The second starter is a terrine of duck and ham hock. This came with a sharp piccalilli and lovely walnut bread. Good but perhaps not that unusual.

Fish course is hake, with tomatoes and a chilli pesto.  The balance between the fish and the sauce is excellent, the fish skin being really crispy.  Obviously, in the tasting menu the portion of fish is fairly small, but it’s plenty to get the flavour.

The meat course was guinea fowl – roast breast, and confit leg in a raviole. The contrast between to the two parts of the bird is so interesting.  It comes served on a bed of pearl barley risotto and wild mushrooms in madeira sauce, which is probably the low point of the meal. Although the flavours are rich, the overall effect is rather cloying and salty. Actually, the hake had been pretty salty too.

Finally dessert was chocolate “moelleux” with blackberries, blackberry ice-cream and honeycomb crust (”Crunchie” without the chocolate). The chocolate aroma hit you immediately, before you even touched it. On contact with the spoon, it broke to reveal flowing molten chocolate. Blackberries provided a tart contrast. Lovely.

The full restaurant has buzzed with the contented murmur of comfortably fed diners. Admittedly it was generally a narrow demographic, though the table next us was a family of five.  Background music included Miles Davis, but was very low and unobtrusive. The various waitresses were all charming and friendly, only getting irritated with a walk-in customer who wanted to book a table but didn’t know what day for!  M. Patron and M. Patronne were in evidence, the latter chatting to us at the end – the restaurant had been pretty full since re-opening and not suffered from “no-shows”.

Admittedly the bill at £159 (including a second bottle and 12.5% service) was not cheap.  A place for celebrations and special events rather than a weekly regime, but somewhere wonderful to have within walking distance.

Chez Barbara

It's Easter Saturday, so it has to be Hot Cross Buns. But B has ideas for something special.

Half with Cheddar, tomato and very crispy bacon.  Half with smoked salmon, and egg mayonnaise. Yummy.

Washed down with a £6.99 bottle of Cava from Tesco.

We're saving a fortune not eating out!

Take care everyone!

Huw

Late January

We’re in Kingston, house-hunting, and I’ve found a tapas bar near where we’re looking. So we head down an unattractive road and find the Pottery Bar, well off the beaten track. Not somewhere people just happen upon. And as it’s a mid-week lunch, we’re not surprised to find that, apart from a business meeting going on, we are the only ones in there.

 The drinks list doesn’t include any Spanish wines, so we order the house white Trebbiano at £21.  The menu isn’t especially tapas either. We order steak salad off the specials board (bizarrely itemised as lamb shank on the bill) plus garlic prawns, and chorizo, chick peas and goats cheese, plus some bread with oil and balsamic to keep us going.

 Despite there being no-one else in the food – including the bread – takes an age to arrive.  When it comes the bread is lovely, slightly warm, crusty and a good sized portion, though rather they rather skimped on the oil and vinegar.   The prawns had a hit of chilli along with the garlic, and the chorizo/cheese combination worked well. The salad is a very large portion, with tender steak and nicely dressed leaves.

 The service is friendly, and we chat a bit – the waiter describes one of their dishes as “weird”. We have two more glasses of wine. The bill (with just 10% service) comes to £78. Nice enough place, but probably only if you are in the area - not worth the detour.

 With S&S we return to our favourite, Chez Bruce at Wandsworth Common. As usual, we meet in the nearby pub, The Hope, for a drink first.  Unusually, the pub is packed, with lots of family groups and kids – we don’t normally come on a Sunday. The pub menu looks quite good itself.

 Chez Bruce is busy too, but well-organised. We have a nice table in the window.  Friendly and efficient service as always, with their lovely parmesan biscuits and excellent bread to start.   The other three all have crispy, deep-fried poached egg to start – lovely. I have the trout ceviche, very fresh and clean

 For mains, two (including B of course) have duck breast with foie gras. S has roast cod with mushrooms. After asking about how it’s done, I decide to be adventurous and order the pig’s trotter, despite being a little alarmed at twice being told that the skin will be gelatinous!  It’s stuffed with chicken mousse and chopped sweetbreads – and really tasty. Luckily I start at the right end and don’t come to the tiny bones until the end.

 Desserts are ice cream (including salted caramel), pear, and yoghurt parfait that comes with something akin to polystyrene.

 We have three bottles of Chilean Viognier for £105, some water and a coffee.  The “3 course weekend lunch” is £48.50 – considerably more than what we usually pay mid-week.  But it remains undeniably good.  So the total comes to £340 for the four of us.

 Still house-hunting, but this time in Surbiton, we return to Hart’s Boatyard, our favourite pub by the river.  We get a nice table overlooking the river.  I fail to find our usual Rothschild Viognier on the wine list, so order a Gavi.  But when the waitress comes she has the Viognier – wrong, but right!   B has the steak salad – a regular choice – and I have the pork belly.  This is quite fatty, but it comes with a crispy bacon slice and some rather good pork cheeks. A second bottle of wine takes the bill to £76.

 Then for my birthday, we book a table for lunch at The French Table, also in Surbiton. We’d been once before and had a lovely 5-course set lunch.  We get as far as Clapham Junction to find all the trains from Waterloo cancelled.  We hang around for a bit, as the information board suggests there might soon be a train, but it gets later and later, so eventually we decide to go to Victoria, and I ring to cancel.  Apparently they’d had a lot of cancellations because of the trains – such a shame.

 At Victoria we decide to go the new(ish) branch of Sticks ‘n’ Sushi in the Nova complex. On arrival it doesn’t look very prepossessing, but we are shown upstairs where it is busier, buzzier and more attractive.  The tables are close together though, so we have to fight to hear each other over the job interview next door. We order the Chenin Blanc (£28) and some edamame beans while we work what to have.  We decide to order in two phases – sushi then sticks. So we begin with beef tataki, which comes with a good spicy dip,  crab croquettes that are hot and gooey, and  scallops kataifi topped with roe.  These are closely followed by duck in rice paper (with the same dip) and spicy tuna maki roll with ginger and wasabi.  All very tasty.  Then we order a second bottle and the sticks: scallop and bacon, spicy chicken, and lamb. Again all good - though the second bottle takes a while to arrive.   Good friendly service – the waiter chats to us a bit as we are the last ones in there at 3pm.  Total, including 12.5% service, is £135 – perhaps a bit much for what it was, but then it is my birthday.

JANUARY OLD FAVOURITES

It’s been a busy month so far, and there’s more to come, with visits to Chez Bruce and The French Table planned. Mainly places we’ve been to before – oldies but goldies – so just brief update reports.  

Cinnamon Kitchen

As they have a £25-off offer on in January, we go along to Spitalfields for B’s birthday for a late lunch.  There are not many people in, and those that are generally leave fairly soon after, so there’s not a lot of atmosphere. One stalwart table orders more wine, then desserts and brandies, so we are not entirely alone.

We have shrimp pepper fry and chicken leg tikka to start. The chicken is very dense and almost gamey – very good indeed. The shrimp are more prawn-sized, and quite spicy.  For mains we have Tanjore prawns and, to B’s disgust, Chettinadu-style mutton curry.  But in fact the mutton is rich and tasty, and probably nicer than the rather predictable prawns. The prawns came with rice, so we just order one garlic naan, and inevitably the black lentils.  

With two bottles of Trebbiano – practically the cheapest on the list at £28 each – the total is £120, but with £25 off comes to £95.  Good value definitely – the offer is on until the end of the month.  

Cherwell Boathouse, Oxford

The team is celebrating a successful workshop last year, so we treat ourselves to lunch in Oxford.  There are five of us, and we get a nice table overlooking the river which is bathed in sunshine.  The restaurant is quite busy, but the staff are attentive and helpful – and very French. 

There is a set lunch menu, but only one of our number goes for that, choosing a big hunk of salt beef brisket as his main. The other four of us all have confit of duck leg with cassoulet for our main course.  It’s a large portion – must have been big ducks! – two people ask to take away what they couldn’t eat. The meat falls away from the bone very easily, and the cassoulet is warming, though rather salty. I had had rillettes of pork to start – very firm meat, but not a lot of flavour. Other choices included partridge scotch egg, and haddock and octopus terrine.  

D chooses a Duoro red (Touriga National) at £29.50 – which lasts us all lunch (two people were driving, but even so!).  So the bill works out at £36 a head.  It’s a lovely place, and overall the food was pretty good, but not exemplary.  

Rosa’s Thai

Eleven of us are meeting up because our friend B2 has come down from Wigan to watch the Orient.  So we have booked into the large space of Dim T in Wilton Road, Victoria.  We’ve settled in, got our wine, and are just deciding what to have when the fire alarm goes off. It’s very loud, making conversation almost impossible. The lead waiter tries to do something to shut it off, but can’t.  Eventually our waiter comes over and explains the alarm has been set off in one of the flats above us, and so for safety reasons the gas in the restaurant’s kitchen has been automatically turned off.  All they can do is salads! And we’d have to live with the noise. 

So we decide to go somewhere else, and luckily we can fit in to two adjoining tables at Rosa’s Thai just along the road.  This has a simple café vibe but the waitresses are helpful. The menu is very extensive, with a separate regional menu (Isaan, from North-East Thailand), and a couple of vegan specials.  We have 50/50 prawn and pumpkin crackers while we decide. After much deliberation, I have prawn tom yum soup to start. This has six large prawns in it, and is a really spicy broth. B (on the other table) has deep-fried crispy prawns – five very large prawns.  Starters generally are large.  

For main course I have spicy pork off the Isaan menu, and share some brown rice.  This is marked with two chillies on the menu (max is three) and it is certainly hot. It looks a smallish portion when it arrives, but in fact I can’t eat it all. The pork is a little tough, but the dish is very tasty.  B had the spicy steak salad (also two chillies) which she enjoys.  

We ordered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc at each table along with some Thai beers (including their own-label “Thai PA”).  When we come to order more wine, the SB has run out, so we have Viognier.  That too runs out, so finally we have the Spanish house wine.  The bill comes to £43 a head including service (plus £5 a head for drinks in Dim T).  A more than acceptable substitute that everyone enjoyed. 

Brown Derby

I’ve arranged an afternoon meeting at the Oval, so decide to go along earlier and have lunch nearby at a rather quirky pub on Kennington Park Road, just two minutes from Oval tube.  It’s a little hard to describe – it has two oriental style fans on the ceiling, six leaf-shaped, bamboo “blades” each, gently wafting back and forth; it has a traditional old-style juke box (I don’t know if it works), though Miles Davis is playing on the sound system; there is a big clown-like mask behind the bar; mis-matched tables and chairs, including a child’s set with mushrooms as seats.  

The menu is unusual too. There is an all-day breakfast and a cobb salad with chicken and avocado, but they are the only typical pub dishes. Otherwise the choices are noodles or poke bowls (rice dishes) - I choose the spicy tuna poke bowl.  It’s a large bowl, with plenty of tuna, about a quarter of an avocado, edamame beans, coleslaw and tons of rice which I can’t finish. The tuna is nearly raw, but not that spicy.  With two glasses of SB, this comes to just over £20.  Worth a visit for the setting alone. 
 

We’ve been out and about locally too.  

The Argentinian Los 4 Locos  is always reliable. I have their “gourmet special” menu choosing empanadas and a chicken milanesa. B has her usual rib-eye with (runny) fried eggs.  Both are big portions and we take half way. We have one bottle, then two glasses of their lovely, velvety Tapiz Malbec (that’s £31 + £22). For some reason they are doing a 10% discount deal, that save us nearly £10, making the final total with service about £95.  

We’ve been a couple of times to Tulsi, the quite up-class (for Purley) Indian. The first time we have the usual king prawn dish, but also try a lamb jalfrezi. This is pretty spicy. On the second visit, I try a paneer starter (not a great success) and a lamb rogan josh, while B and K have two different chicken tikka dishes. Both times – as always – the portions are so large we take half away.  

And of course there is the always reliable Las Fuentes tapas bar. Old favourites are the wild boar skewer, gambas pil pil, and kidneys; newer choices are monkfish and prawns croquettes and minced beef “patties” (a bit like empanadas).  Typically if we have two bottles of Rioja, it comes to about £75 (only 10% service charge).