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.
