Esher Chinese

 We are in Esher for a showing of "The Great Escaper" in the Everyman. Someone had recommended a Japanese place, but that seems to have closed down, so we try the Chinese, the Good Earth. There are other branches in Wandsworth, Knightsbridge and Mill Hill, and a few "Express" outlets too. 

It's a smart place, with lots of red and gold, some classic Chinese pictures on the walls. Although there is only one other couple in, we are asked if we have a reservation, but then given a nice table in the window overlooking the High Street. The chopsticks are elegant, in fancy wrappers, there is a classy glass tray for dishes in the centre of the table (lazy susans on larger tables) and to B's great amusement we are presented with two little buttons, which when doused in hot water expand into hot towels. 

I'd looked at the menu beforehand, and it seemed quite expensive - £20 for soft-shelled crab starter, £25 for sweet and sour pork. The wine list wasn't so bad, so we settle on the French Viognier at £34. Fortunately though, there is also an express lunch menu at £18.80 for two courses and a range of dim sum dumplings at £5 per portion. 

So we decide on a combination of the two. From the express menu we order lettuce wrapped chicken and spicy lamb with lemongrass, egg-fried rice and vegetables. Dim sum dumplings were scallops, and prawn and chive. I also throw in a Dragon's Whiskers prawns from the starters list. 

The lettuce chicken and Dragon's Whiskers come first. The chopped chicken comes with some vegetables and a tasty sauce (billed as plum sauce, but lighter than that). A bit messy to eat, so the hot towels come in handy. DW is large prawns in shredded pastry, also rather messy, but certainly tasty. The dumplings come next. Scallops are really good; the wrapping is a bit heavy on both, so the chilli sauce is welcome. 

Finally the lamb, rice and vegetables, all served on one beautifully decorated plate on the glass tray; our starter plates have been replaced with smart blue and white bowls and plates. The lamb is good and spicy, with clear chilli flakes in it. The rice has identifiable pieces of scrambled egg, and the good range of vegetables (peppers, carrots, asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms and something that may or may not have been celery) were all fresh and deliciously al dente.  

Unusually for us we treat ourselves to a dessert. Harking back to many years ago we order the toffee bananas. These are gorgeously crispy with sesame seeds; B reckons we should have had ice cream with them, and tells the couple at the next table, who duly order that and agree.

The waiter has been smiley and helpful without intruding; wine glasses topped up efficiently. The place is quite large, but has filled up a little while we were there. No background music.  

With a second bottle of wine, the bill goes up to a bit over £130 - with an odd 13% service charge. That's fine, but I imagine an evening meal from the main menu would be much more. Admittedly, the portions do seem to be quite large from what we saw at other tables, but I think our lunch deal worked pretty well. If the Japanese doesn't open up again, we will probably go back. 

Well-known Brasserie and venerable old Indian

 We were arranging to meet up with M&L in central London, but were met with a challenge - M wanted somewhere where they served draught lager. This turned out to be harder to find than I expected. Most places do bottled lager, but those that serve draught tend to call themselves "gastropubs" and have very limited and uninteresting menus. Something of a class thing going on here perhaps. 

Eventually, I found Tutton's, the well-known brasserie in Covent Garden, who offer a Staropramen, Czech lager.   It's a lovely sunny day, so there are many people sitting out on the terrace, but we have a table inside, in a corner near open windows, which was good. Less good was the time it took them to come across to take drinks orders. (Admittedly, after the first time, they got better).  As well as M's lager, we ordered a Cape Heights SA Sauvignon Blanc at £33. 

For starter's, both M and B had the crispy poached egg with mushrooms and peas. It's quite an impressive dish, runny inside but with a well-coloured batter outside. My beef carpaccio was OK, a little small, while L's warm beetroot salad was multi-coloured, but apparently not that special.

As we start the second course, we order another round of drinks. M's lager comes all fizzy and strange. It turns out it was the end of the barrel, so they do offer to change it, and it comes back later much better. The menu for mains was not extensive, but we each found something of interest. M had fish and chips (could have gone to a gastropub) and L had what she felt to be a disappointing pork belly, which had no crispy crackling. But B's seafood risotto was a full dish and my salmon trout nicely roasted. 

Ordering more drinks, the draught lager is now "off", so M resorts to bottled lager after all. We had told them that it was M's birthday so he got a free dessert, choosing salted caramel and dark chocolate tart. I keep him company with a mango and vanilla creme brulee. 

M generously offered to pay, so I don't know the exact bill, but I would imagine it would have been around £250.  For really very central London, not bad really, if hardly ground-breaking. There were a lot of Americans in, with their cruise ships numbers on their chests, so it's obviously on the well-known beaten track. After the initial lapse, the waitress was very smiley and helpful, and the atmosphere welcoming. A good place to take undemanding out-of-towners.  

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 There are some places which are just "institutions", having been around for so long. The India Club in Aldwych is one such. But sadly it closed its doors for the final time today, with re-development of the block finally having been approved. Apparently, early versions of the place have been going for 70 years as an outpost of the Indian High Commission and - it is claimed - hosting important visitors such as Nehru. Our ex-Home Office group used to make it a regular venue for a meal after the Varsity Match and we calculated that we must first have visited some 46 years ago. 

It's not what you would call salubrious or Michelin-quality. Its claim to fame was its authentic home-cooked Indian classics.  The restaurant is up a winding old staircase on the second floor, and features formica tables. It must have had an update over the years, because these are no longer screwed to the floor. The bar is one floor down (it used to be that you had to go down to order all your drinks, but now they do have drinks service at the table too). This has some lovely old prints and photos, but little in the way of plush furnishings. 

We visit in its final week, and the queue is amazing. You could only book for 6 or more, and sadly we are just 5, so we have to put our name on the list, notify them when we had all assembled, and just wait in the bar, drinking Cobra and Kingfisher. 

After about an hour and a half, we are finally summoned upstairs, to quite a good table by the window. Understandably, they are only doing the set menus, though we do manage to order extra chilli bhajis, one of our traditional favourites that blow your head off.  Otherwise it's standard fare of poppadums and pickles, onion bhaji, samosa, butter chicken, chana masala, dhal and mounds of rice. All for £22 including service - the beers were probably about the same. Pretty slick service meant that we were through our meal in an hour.

It is sad to see it go, though we were pleased to have stuck it out and managed to get in before the final close.  You can't recreate history like this.  

 

Smart fish restaurant in Richmond

 An offshoot of its parent in Mayfair, Scott's Richmond opened in September last year. We'd heard some good things about it, so decided to push the boat out and give it a try. 

As the weather was looking OK, I decided to book outdoors on the Terrace. The choice of times was very limited, nothing between 12.45 and 3.30, so I went for the earlier time. Conscious of their strict sounding late-arrival policy, I was glad our bus delivered us to Richmond in good time. Part of the restaurant's appeal was its view over the river, so we walked along the riverside path from the bridge - only to find ourselves far down river without having seen the restaurant. After some hasty discussions, we retraced our steps and found it on the corner near the main Riverside steps - it just didn't have a river-level frontage.

We are taken in, up four flights to the Terrace, to be given an excellent table by the veranda, directly overlooking the river. Down below are swans, geese and to our surprise two herons, which we spend a lot of our time watching. The weather is ideal - warm and sunny, but with a breeze and not too hot. They do have heaters and awnings so they can perhaps deal with less good weather too. A light background track of American songbook and other easy listening plays gently (thank goodness). 

B is fascinated by the staff's dress code. We'd been greeted at the door by a black guy in a cream suit with a Panama hat - very New Orleans jazz. The reception desk staff had boring green suits. Our waiter, Vinnie, wore a smart Burgundy waistcoat and bow tie, while over-seeing the proceedings was a head waiter looking like Lurch in a really odd Burgundy suit. There seemed to be other waiters in green waistcoats, and the minions (inevitably young women) delivering bread were in dull green tunics. The head honcho, dressed in a dark blue suit and pale pink tie, smarmed his way round some of the tables (not ours) looking more like a junior Tory minister.  But nonetheless Vinnie was welcoming, friendly and lightly amusing. The service even extended to providing some diners with sunglasses and sunscreen. 

Unsurprisingly, the wine list goes up quite quickly. There is an Argentinian Torrontes for £44 and a Spanish Macabeo for £36, but I select the Rioja Verdejo at £48. There were also French rosés at £48. 

The menu is pretty wide-ranging, and there is a selection of specials - halibut (£40), oysters and lobster roll (which was quite popular). I pass over the oysters and caviar quite quickly, and though B does suggest a couple of tempura fried oysters we just go straight to starters. B unusually decides against the scallops, and instead has baked spiced crab, presented attractively in the shell. From the first mouthful she is sold. It is indeed delicious, a good hit of chilli, but with the crab flavour coming through.  That allows me to choose the scallops, seared in their shell with Thai green butter. These are excellent too, though much less spicy than B's crab. 

For main course B has the char-griddled tiger prawns (which are also available as a starter). These are also spiced, coming with jalapeno and tamarind. Deemed very good but a bit "cotton-wool", suggesting they were frozen, all eight of them were nonetheless polished off without trouble. My fillet of hake, with romesco sauce and salsa verde, was excellently cooked with a crisp thin layer of skin and very flaky fish.  We had both been tempted by the monkfish and tiger prawn masala, but thought that the sauce might have been too overwhelming - it looked good on another table though.

We also had some very good fries (at Vinnie's prompting) and a tomato salad, which included some very sweet (in both senses) yellow tomatoes.  The fried aubergine with tamarind yoghurt at another table also looked amazing.

We opted not to have desserts. Cinnamon doughnuts appeared elsewhere and we quickly despatched. 

All the other tables on the Terrace had been occupied, some had a second sitting. One table moved inside for their dessert, maybe asked to do so as new people arrived soon after. There was no pressure on us to move though. So the booking window seemed justified, rather than perverse as it had seemed to me at the time.

After a second bottle, and two bottles of Eira sparkling water, I tried to guess what the bill would be. Inexpensive was not what I expected. And it wasn't. It did come in under £250, with 13.5% service which seems to be increasingly common. Scott's is part of the Caprice group, so I guess it's no surprise that it has the same service policy as the Ivy.

Value for money? Well it is a lot. The excellent table on the Terrace in good weather was a big plus - maybe without that we might not have felt so well-disposed. I did look in on the main dining room as we left - it was elegant and imposing, but few tables had a river view. So definitely one only for very special occasions - or when someone else is paying!

Japanese in Soho

 We've arranged to meet up with T&K for lunch and decided upon Robata, a Japanese in Old Compton Street. It features grills as much as sushi, to suits us better.  Then a tube strike is announced, so we decide instead go to La Gamba, as it's within reach of Waterloo.  But the strike is called off, so we revert to Plan A.

We meet for a drink beforehand at the French House just round the corner. This throw-back place is full of character and charm - but for its prices, where anything other than the house wine is £36 a bottle.

The style of the restaurant is modern cafe, with lots of stools and high tables. Fortunately, our table is not one of those. There's a rather odd motto in neon on the wall, something like "I used to love you but now I love sake". 

The staff are friendly and smiley. We order the Chilean SB (£30), which is delivered promptly. We also order a dish of spicy edamame beans (other options are available) while we select from the lengthy menu. This is amazing - not just a few sprinkles of chilli on top, but a deep and dense sauce that really sets your a-tingling. A very good omen of what it to come. 

We choose from the menu divided into raws and sushi; small plates; robata skewers (oddly priced by the piece, but with a minimum of 2); bao buns; and robata large. There are sides and rice, but we decide against these, though the truffle fries did get some attention. 

Soft shell crab (always a favourite) features as a sushi roll or bao bun - we settle on the former, as we will have a beef brisket bun as well.   We have the tuna tartare and beef tataki off this list too.  The soft shell crab roll was good - not as good as a whole crab - the beef came with an interesting sauce, but I thought the tuna was a little dull. 

The karaage - now our favourite Japanese chicken dish - was good and hot, with a moderately spicy sauce - maybe not quite as good as the one in Yatay in Wardour Street we had some time ago but pretty acceptable. We had two types of gyozas - pork and kimchi - the latter also having a kick. 

For skewers we had the scallops (nicely judged, moist but with a crispiness) and the lamb breast (fatty, but very tasty).  And we also plumped for the signature dish of Iberico pork pluma as a "large plate". B had her eye on this from the start - and it was indeed excellent, moist, tender, full of flavour. 

After all this, we decide we haven't had quite enough, so order a prawn tempura roll (which as a sushi roll was not quite what B had expected) and chicken thigh skewer, which was rich and dense. 

With three bottles of wine, and 12.5% service the total comes to £280.  So it's not a cheap option, despite its low-key decor. But the flavours and quality do make it feel like a reasonable price. WE'd go back and happily recommend it to others. 

Surbiton Japanese and Kingston Turkish

 We've now been a few times to The Boat, a Japanese place near Surbiton station. It's little more than a cafe in some ways, but quite attractive in its way. It's become a regular choice after the farmer's market. The walls are decorated with boat-related images, though some are more Nelson-era ships. 

It describes itself as a Sushi and Ramen restaurant, but it does some other things too that they call "kitchen dishes", which is what we have tended to go for.  Typically we order edamame beans, but often choose the seaweed salad instead - this features two types of seaweed, and is very mild. 

Pretty regularly now we go for the karaage, deep-fried chicken served with a spiced-up salad cream. A recent favourite too is prawn katsu, prawns in breadcrumbs with a strange dense soy sauce. This latest time we also had the chicken gyoza and yellowtail tuna. We've recently taken to also ordering an inside out roll dish (rice stuffed with avocado and something) of some kind - soft-shell crab, spicy tuna, or on this latest visit beef. We don't really need it and often end up taking much of it away. The beef was a bit of an odd mix with the other dishes. There is a range of other sushi, nigri and sashimi, but we don't always go for those - the sushi sashimi sets look good though. 

Our wine choice is the Secretary Bird SB from SA at £22.  The staff are very friendly and chatty, and the light jazz background very pleasant. Total of around £75 without service (they prefer cash). Maybe not worth a visit across London in itself, but worth looking up if you're in the area.

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Another local we've now tried a couple of times is Cappadocia, near Kingston station. The Turkish restaurant is a pretty big place, with a take-away joined on. Maybe good for groups. Lots of Turkish-looking people in on both occasions. 

On both occasions we've had the lamb's liver and the acili ezme (a spicy salad) as starters. The liver is very good, dry and tasty; the salad a huge hit of chilli if you're not careful. The first time we tried the Bolu Manti,  meat stuffed dumplings with yoghurt. We were expecting something like a dim sum dumpling, but they were much smaller, so the ratio of meat to dough wrapper much less. OK, but rather heavy without a lot of flavour. This last time we had tiger prawns with garlic instead,

The first time I had the special flamed beef stew  - Testi - as a main. Elaborately presented in a clay pot on a  bed of flaming stones it looks pretty sensational. But the flaming is pointless - it is just a beef stew with red wine, a good sized portion but nothing special. That time B had the prawns as a main course, large ain a good sauce. 

On our second visit B chose the diced lamb on aubergine puree and garlic yoghurt. She found that rather too smoky for her taste.  My diced chicken breast with ginger was better, a thick almost curry-like sauce and good moist meat.  Portions are generally large. They do a range of kebabs as you'd expect and the mixed grill is huge.

Both times we had a bottle of French Viognier at £25. The first time we ordered a second bottle, but they didn't have another so proposed substituting a Chardonnay from the same vineyard - we had a Sauvignon instead. The second time, it was just a couple of glasses of house white.

Service was efficient, fairly friendly head waiter the first time, rather cold chap the second. The first time we had a 20% off food voucher and the bill was £114; the second time without it came to £110.  

A couple of places in Lymington

It's B's uncle E's 94th birthday so something special had to be planned. We had a recommendation from local wine club friends to try Elderflower, a Michelin-starred place down near the front in Lymington. They only do tasting menus (4,5 or 7 courses) which led to some heart-searching as E and son-in-law B like a nice steak. But it was duly booked and we arrived expectanlty.

The table is booked for 6.30pm - apparently only this time and 9.30pm were on offer. Which seems odd, as people did drift in over the course of the evening.  When we arrived there was only one other table occupied, but the restaurant was nearly full by the time we left.   We are shown to a nice table for 6 in the window, and feel a good welcoming vibe.

We order a bottle of French Viognier (£40), a glass of rosé and some sparkling water. We have settled on the 5-course menu at £75 a head.  Prior to the courses themselves, we are served with bread and a salmon butter, which is lovely. 

The first course arrives quite quickly - crab and potato mousse topped with caviar nestling in a Jersey Royal. The crab flavour comes through well, not dulled by the potato. Oddly our waiters are wearing gloves, not something I've seen before.

Next up is pea mousse and ham. That description doesn't really capture it. The pea mousse is squiggles across the plate, with a few peas thrown in. The ham, only small pieces, is strongly smoked with a good flavour.  A smallish course.

The fish course is unusual - skate cheeks. It comes with brown shrimps in a lovely lobster velouté. Skate cheeks were new on me, but they had plenty of flavour and not the challenge of an oversized wing that you often get. 

For the meat course, there is Black Sheep lamb - a goodly sized portion. Served in a rich wine sauce, with some potato and spinach. Mine is slightly on the tough side, but everyone else really enjoys theirs.

Finally there is a trio of desserts. There is a blueberry sorbet, melting in the heat, a strawberry mousse with a very tasty wrapping, and a rather complicated assembly of chocolate mousse and pieces. 

Throughout, the service has been excellent - friendly and informative. And the whole thing was well-paced, neither rushed nor leaving you waiting. We had three bottles of the Viognier and a Vega Douro (also £40) to go with the lamb, so with coffee and water the drinks come to £220 between 6 of us including service

The steak eaters seemed satisfied, and the rest of us were really pleased.

The following day after cruising the market, B and I have lunch at Koh Thai on the High Street. It's a lovely sunny day, so we sit outside in the garden. There's no-one else there when we arrive but soon after two ladies arrive - choosing for some reason to sit at the nearest table to us. 

It's an intriguing menu, so we have some steamed edamame beans while we make our choice. A £26 False Bay SA Chenin goes well. 

In the end we go for 5 starters and one noodle dish, served in two waves. First we had "Thai-namite" battered prawns in a Sriracha mayonnaise - nothing like as spicy as implied, but good prawns. With that came duck rolls, which were excellent - crispy wrapping stuffed full of shredded duck served with Hoisin dipping sauce (which it didn't really need). The third was the crispy beef. I fall for this every time and it is always disappointing, a bit claggy and tough. 

The noodles were spicy seafood udon - prawns and squid. Lovely sauce, good prawns, chewy squid. Some good prawn dim sum and minced chicken in lettuce leaf wraps came with that.  

We had substantially over-ordered, but they were happy enough to decant the remainder into take-away boxes.  The lonely waiter was good enough with the service, if rather distant. Total £123 with two bottles and just 10% service. 

Smart place in Islington

 Meeting up with G, she has suggested we go to Frederick's in Camden Passage in Islington. The outside retains the facade of a Victorian pub, but inside it is quite different. There's a bright modern bar at the front, and then the back of the restaurant opens up into very light and open spaces, with a garden area, something of a Tardis. The walls are whitewashed brick, adorned with large geometric modern art in bold colours. It's all very summery and welcoming. 

We're booked for 1pm, and not surprisingly the place is already pretty busy. There are several side rooms, so I can't tell if it was actually full. Service is pretty attentive, so we get to order our wine and water. The wine list is quite extensive, but there is a French Viognier at £30. G has a Prosecco. 

It's a bit hard to characterise the food as any particular cuisine. "Modern European" perhaps best captures it. The starters list in particular is very attractive - several of our long-term favourites such as salt and pepper squid, tuna tartare and dressed crab. But when it comes down to it, almost inevitably, B has the scallops and I have the beef carpaccio. G has stuffed courgette flower tempura. The large scallops come with balls of very squidgy black pudding and a very appley puree. My carpaccio is large, with an excellent topping of rocket, slices and big chunks of parmesan and a very sharp pickled red onion, all in a tasty but light dressing. G's tempura looks very light too.

I'd struggled with the main course choices a bit more, ending up with halibut, prawn and cauliflower pappardelle in what turned out to be a rich and dominant saffron cream. B was very pleased with her hake - now her go-to fish - which came with samphire and mushrooms. G had lamb rump, which she said was very tender (though she had asked for it to be medium to well-done) with "Israeli couscous" - very small, round yellow grains. 

After a little pause for some people watching - Al Murray, the pub landlord, was in - we had some dessert. G had the pear and almond tart with sorbet which seemed very light. B and I shared a chocolate fondant with pistachio ice-cream - everything you would hope it would be, gooey and rich, cooled by the ice-cream. 

Service has generally been good, though we had the usual twitching when they took the wine away and weren't quite as attentive we might have liked. A second bottle of Viognier and glass of Prosecco took the bill to £270 including service.  At first I thought that was a bit much for a neighbourhood place, but on reflection, this was above average, so it was probably reasonable enough. 

Certainly recommended to anyone in the area, but like some other places recently, probably too far for us to make a special trip there usually.  

Greek in Exmouth Market

 I haven't been to a Greek restaurant for quite a long  time, so I was intrigued to read a review of one by Jay Rayner  and when looking for somewhere to go with S&L we decided this was worth a try. The first challenge was booking a table, because Attica doesn't appear to have a website. Tip: the telephone number for its previous incarnation, Kolossi, still works.

Second, it's quite a long way from the nearest tube station. So we arranged to meet at The Eagle on Farringdon Road, part-way there. This has a well-established reputation for its food, but no-one mentioned that this means that the chef will be chopping herbs at the bar so vigorously that you couldn't hear yourself think. Combined with some loud punters and hard surfaces, this made conversation rather challenging. 

We've booked quite early - 7pm - but the restaurant is already fairly full, and soon they are turning people away. It's quite a small place, brightly done out in white and blue. The menu and wine list are both quite short - we do get an SB for £27. There are some mezze options, but we all choose  individually. From the "while you wait" section we order hummus, tsatsiki and tarama with flat bread, though this takes a while to arrive. 

Our starters arrive before we finish the dips. S chose the halloumi, and L the giant beans (gigantes), while our choice is calamari. The halloumi is very good, the beans interesting and the calamari fine, hot and not rubbery. And again our mains arrive before we have completely finished this course, so we're feeling a bit rushed. 

B and S both have the king prawn souvlaki, I have lamb souvlaki and L octopus. They are all good sized portions. My lamb is very tasty, not over-cooked, though the prawns look a little dry. 

We don't have dessert, and just two bottles of wine. That brings the bill to £188 without service, which seems about right. The service has been fine (apart from rushed) and the music (if there was any) is subdued, and not overly Greek. But overall, the feeling was a bit "meh". If it were at the end of your road, then you'd probably make a few visits, but it didn't seem worth the effort of crossing town for.  

Rugby weekend in Cardiff

 A guest posting from a regular reader. The contributor's views on the rugby are his own and not necessarily endorsed by Chompers..

My son PS and I are in Cardiff for the Wales v England 2023 Home International.  We have booked dinner at Asador 44 Spanish Grill and wine bar located near the Millennium Stadium.

It's the evening before the game and the restaurant district is buzzing.  We receive a warm welcome and are guided  towards the rear of the restaurant.  Decor is very pleasant and in keeping with a bistro atmosphere

We study the menu - it’s not that extensive possibly as its rugby International weekend but it looks good, although the cost could easily run away.  

Two toro blancos wet our appetites, followed by starters of salchichon iberico ham £7.50 and salmon £9. Both tasty although the ham is round slices and somewhat understated.  It should be round - just that I was expecting something different!

We decide on the aged Pembrokeshire sirloin steak sharing platter at £65.  Celeriac, fries and a beef and rioja sauce accompany.  Rather than a whole bottle, we choose 2 glasses of decent red at £12ea. It's a long weekend! The aged steak about nine 1/4" slices in total is cooked crisp on outside and rare inside. It is deliciously tasty and beautifully tender.  The sauce adds more flavour. Overall the best steak I've had for some time.  The red wine milu roble ribera del duero is excellent.

We opt for sweets: crema catalana, a  Spanish version of creme brulee at £16 accompanied by 2 glasses of Micaela cream desert wine at £10.

The total bill with service  comes to £170. All in all an excellent meal with good attentive service. We recommend Asador for lunch or evenings.

Park House Restaurant and Wine Bar (website unavailable)

 It's Saturday evening and we've just finished watching England beat Wales at the Principality Stadium Cardiff.  Dinner has been booked at the Park House, that purports to be a fine dining restaurant. 

It's a little jaunt from the city centre but not too far away.  On arrival we see what it was in its day: probably a large mansion style  house or more likely hotel.  

We ring the bell at what appears to be the main entrance to the side wondering what's inside.  Decor is very much like a gothic mansion with lots of oak panelling. Hushed silence seems to be the watchword. The atmosphere reminds me of the reading room in a gentlemen’s club.

We are shown upstairs to a large dining room with circular tables.  We are early but note that only one other table in the room is occupied.  Our big round table could seat 6 or more but there's just 2 of us.

The principal waiter appears, welcomes us and talks us through the menu options.  We were considering the 9 course taster but learn that it's not available as a large party upstairs is having it. 

That leaves a 6 course taster or a la carte menu which looks a tad limited but includes several of the same dishes. So we both opt for the taster and wine flight.  We decline the more expensive flight for Icon wines priced at £59.

Service is brisk, delivered by two attentive but quiet waitresses, plus the main waiter who also acts as sommelier.  All very gentile and hushed.  Pin drops come to mind.

We order some sparkling English wine to kick off the evening.  Very nice. 2 x 200ml at £12 ea.

The first course, endive with apple celery walnut chutney duly arrives and our sommelier introduces and explains the first wine he has chosen - classic cuvee Nytimber Sussex.  It's a good match and we both enjoy the somewhat smallish glasses.  

Second course is confit dry aged Pembrokeshire pork belly with apple smoked eel and Lyonnaise onion.  Very tasty and generous but quite rich as it’s belly of pork.  Our wine is 2019 Old Vine Chenin Blanc Olifantsberg, Western Cape SA.  Again very pleasant.  With these flights you always want a second glass...

Third course in fairly quick succession is diver caught Orkney scallop with caper raisin cauliflower and vadouvan - delightful, and perfectly cooked.  Accompanying wine is Australian - 2021 Hen and chicken chardonnay, Larry Cherubino.  Excellent.

Fourth course arrives: dry aged Pembrokeshire beef.  It’s the highlight of the meal for me and deliciously tasty.  2019 Reserve Barossa Shiraz, Berton, Barossa Valley Australia.  An excellent match.  We had beef yesterday despite me thinking Wales is all about lamb!

At this stage there's an optional cheese tasting plate at £12 but we're beginning to sense the beckoning plimsoll line so we both decline.

Next up is the “boiled egg” - to be honest I forget what exactly this is  but recall it's sort of a chocolate fondant thing.

Finally we have Apple Sable Breton blackberry tart with a glass of 2015 Marsanne Cane Cut Tahbilk South Australia to cap it off.  It’s a classic French pudding. By this time we both feel well satisfied. 

The 6 course taster was £59 ea, the flight £35 ea. Plus a bottle of still water at £3.50.  With 12% service and £1.23 carbon free dining (??), the total comes to £243.67. 

For me quite an expensive meal but overall of very satisfying quality and delightful presentation, if not mind blowingly outstanding.  But at £59 for 6 courses very good vfm I think. Excellent service and a very attentive and friendly sommelier.  Nice to know what you're drinking and why. 

A nice round up to a great rugby weekend in Cardiff.

 

Return to No 97

In the year or so since we first went to No 97,  we have been back a couple of times, once in a group of 5 and once on Valentine's Day. Each time was good, but not special, with the emphasis seemingly on the presentation rather than the flavour. 

B decides we should go there again after the farmer's market, which goes on outside. She booked a table, but in fact there is plenty of room when arrive. Others do arrive later though. This time we are in the main restaurant on the ground floor, a nice enough room, but with rather strange plastic flowers over the bar ("counter"). 

As usual there is a limited choice of three options per course, one of which is vegetarian. After an amuse bouche of cod roe on crackers, B has the spiced gin cured salmon to start. This is quite a thick slab, more like sashimi. Typically beautiful, but very tasty indeed. My starter is lamb loin, half-a-dozen slices, with aubergine caviar. This is stunning. It is so tender and moist with really great flavour. Both dishes appeared to be small, but are so full of taste that we savour them and find they are plenty. The vegetarian starter was "virtual" ravioli - not sure what that was!

B's main was chicken breast, which I always think is a waste of a choice when eating out. This comes with a truffle "bitter ball", shredded chicken I think. Both elements are really good, the chicken also flavourful. My main is the sea bass, apparently with crab bouillabaisse, though I didn't notice that. "Saffron potatoes" turns out to be one delicate disc. At first I think the fish is more interesting than usual, but as I go on it seems rather too "fishy", not the delicate taste of sea bass you usually expect.  Again the presentation is delicate and wonderful.  We also have the lettuce, speck and boiled egg salad. This is quite a contrast. A big mass of leaves, meat and egg slapped together in a bowl with a heavy dressing. It looked like it had been prepared in a totally different kitchen. 

Dessert is either cheese for a supplement or a dark chocolate tart with popcorn and "Guinness", so we have one of those to share, with a "pop-tini" (vodka, coffee liqueur and popcorn syrup) to complement it. We just ordered one drink, thinking you would pour it over the tart, but the charming waiter insists on bringing us one each, in elegant glasses. It is a lovely, powerful drink. The tart itself looks fantastic with the popcorn on top, and is good bitter flavour, The "Guinness" is a small pot of chocolate mousse with cream on top. 

As I mentioned, the waiter has been very friendly, helpful and generous. The background music is quite low, late 60s classics with the occasional foray into early 70s. We had two bottles of their cheapest wine, a fruity Verdejo, at £28 each. Sparkling water is free. So at £27 for two courses and £32 for three, the bill comes to £140, good value, especially if like the table next to us you are Instagramming every dish. 

Three recent excursions

 We're meeting up with T&K again, and after some deliberation have settled on El Pirata Mayfair, off Piccadilly, near Shepherd Market. We'd been a couple of times before, but it seems we also went with them after a wine-tasting - which we have no recollection of!

It's very busy again, and I give my name for the booking - only for T to point out he booked it, so is described by the waiter as "the fantastic Mr S" - but we are lucky to be shown to a table by the window. Even downstairs is pretty full - it is very lively. We do manage to flag down a waiter to order some wine - B and I have an SB "Inurrieta Blanco" (£31) while they have a red Tarima Organico (£30). 

We explore the menu and eventually settle on nine dishes plus some bread. In the end, the chipironnes (grilled baby squid with chickpeas stew) is "off",  First to arrive was the plate of 8 anchovies - only T and I tuck into those,  These were soon followed by the two croquettes dishes - ham and chicken - and the asparagus. Croquettes are fine, if not special, but the asparagus with tomato and manchego is really nicely cooked al dente. Next were the mussels and chorizo (small pieces) and two portions of gambas pil-pil (inevitably). Both really good - nicely charred garlic with the pil-pil. Garlic chicken and chorizo in red wine round off the order. The chorizo is good, but the garlic chicken a little dull, in a rather dark sauce. 

After a little pause, we order some more gambas and a plate of cheese, and re-order the bread which hadn't arrived. There are four different cheeses in the selection and it comes with quince jelly and little breadsticks. The garlic dip with the bread is also good. With this we have a second bottle of the red. 

Service is the increasingly common 13.5%. But they didn't charge us for the bread. So we end up with a total of £216. The waiters have been jolly and service pretty good for such a busy lunchtime. Very good lunch.

After a shopping trip to Kingston we head to a Vietnamese restaurant B had spotted online - Pho. This is part of a chain, with a dozen or so in and around London and others across the country.  When we get there - about 2pm on a Saturday - the place is heaving and it's not clear that we'll get a table. As the waitress goes to look, a small group comes in behind us and asks if we have a reservation, as they do. Well, you'll still have to wait. 

We get a table towards the back of the restaurant, near the back window, so quite pleasant. It takes a little while to flag down a waitress to order wine, but it comes fairly quickly after that - a French Viognier at £22.50. There's a very interesting range of starters on the menu - we order the pork meatballs, seafood spring roll and mango salad. But the mango salad is "off" so we have crispy squid instead.  We also order prawn crackers to keep us going.

The meatballs are very tasty, with lemongrass, and the peanut sauce we choose to have with it has a subtle kick that creeps up on you. The squid, as is often the case, is good while still hot, but looses its appeal a bit after that. They are small pieces, nicely cooked in thin batter, not at all rubbery, though I would have preferred garlic in the mayonnaise rather than lime. The spring roll accompanied by Vietnamese fish sauce is the least interesting despite apparently having king prawn and crab in it. The crackers don't appear at first, then the waitress tells us that they were hunting the store-room for sweet chilli sauce to go with them. Shortly later, the chef comes to tell us and the lads at the table next to us that they didn't have the sauce, but offered us a choice of ones he could do. The others choose the sriracha one, so we go with that too. It is very spicy indeed. 

The main course menu is dominated - appropriately enough - by pho dishes, though there are a few stir fries and curries too. B chooses the house version with prawns, chicken and steak, while I go for the steak and garlic one.  They are big steaming bowls of broth with loads of noodles, plus herbs to add to taste, to be eaten messily with chopsticks and a bamboo spoon. Not one for a first date.  The broth is excellent, and there is plenty of protein in both, though a couple of the pieces of steak in mine are rather tough. Far too many noodles to stand a chance of getting through them. 

With a second bottle of wine the bill comes to a bit over £100, including 12.5% service. The service has been good despite the unavailability of a couple of things, so I'm happy to fill in the feedback questionnaire at the end. An interesting lunch.

The following week we visit the Cezanne exhibition at Tate Modern. We're quite late so our favourite tapas nearby isn't open and our researches have not been very successful at finding anywhere else interesting. We settle on The Refinery, round the back on Southwark Street. It's a big place, but not very full when we arrive - though the waiter says they were busy earlier and are fully booked this evening. A good place for work groups I'd imagine - they do lots of cocktails. The wine list is fairly varied, but we just order the South African Chenin Blanc at £24. 

B fancies the venison scotch egg, but they don't have that, so we have the salt and pepper squid and the chicken skewers instead. The squid comes as quite a large portion, with lemon mayonnaise this time but it is rather rubbery.  The skewers come with "hot honey" - with a chilli kick - interesting, but rather too sweet. 

Main courses are crispy duck salad for B and chalkstream trout for me plus a side order of "Roman" fries, with parmesan and truffle. The salad is quite large, with a good amount of duck and a wide range of supplements - beansprouts, wonton and peanuts. But it is more crispy than duck. My trout though is very good indeed. Slightly undercooked perhaps, but with a lovely crust and lots of flavour.   

The service has been good and the music I think you might call "technobeat" - not too loud, though I'd guess it would be louder in the evening. We have a nice table by the window, so the feel has been good. Sparkling water and a second bottle of wine, a 50p charity donation and 12.5% service brings the bill to over £120. Probably the least good value of the three, but a reasonable enough option in an area surprisingly short on mid-range places. 

A tapas and an English

 We're going over to Teddington, so I do some research on restaurants there.  The Wharf looks likes it would be nice, overlooking the river. But it's closed on a Tuesday when we will be there. After looking at a few others, I decide on Bar Estilo, a tapas place, because the menu is very extensive.  

We arrive around 2pm - they are open all afternoon, though it closes at 7pm - and there are quite a few people in there, considering it's early in the week. You enter through a pair of heavy curtains, perhaps more French in style, into a large room, with several sections to it, including an empty smarter looking area and a bar.  There's a lot of wrought iron around and the feel is Moorish rather than Spanish. That's reflected in several of the dishes - lamb kofte mezze, and pinchos (skewers) in Moorish spices. Music is mainly a mix of Latin and Spanish (Santana and Rodriguez). 

We're welcomed by a cheeky young waiter who pretends they are fully booked. He keeps up the chatter throughout - saying he couldn't get the duck wrap to rap, only sing. More serious staff are around too.  We order the white Rioja (£26) and some garlic bread with cheese and chorizo to keep us going while we decide what to have.  It's suggested that we between us we order 2 dishes from each of the veggie, meat and fish columns, though the paella at a neighbouring table looks good too. In the end we are a bit more modest.

The bread is lovely. The melted cheese has loads of garlic in it, and a slice of chorizo on top - I'd expected it just to be small pieces mixed in.   Chicken livers is a sizeable dish in a piri-piri sauce, which has a nicely judged kick - clearly there, but too dominant. It's not densely reduced in sherry like the one in Mar y Terra, so is lighter, but it works well. Three lamb skewers are well-cooked through, though the "Moorish spices" aren't very evident.  Prawns pil-pil - always ordered if on the menu - come piping hot and sizzling. Lots of chilli, and garlic slices cooked to brown. The duck wrap is the least impressive - 4 pieces, but not very well filled and a somewhat heavy wrap. The accompanying sweet chilli sauce, however, is not the anonymous gloop you often get, but a good strong hit. We also have a very nice rocket and manchego salad. 

For us, this was plenty, though several other dishes were tempting too.  With a second bottle and a modest 10% service, this comes to just over £100, very good value. Definitely one to consider if you are in the area.

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Meeting up with old friend D at Hampton Court, she has suggested the Mute Swan. next to The Mitre. We have been there some years before, eating downstairs in the bar, but this time we are shown up the iron spiral staircase to a largely empty upstairs dining room. This means we get a choice of tables so can choose one by the window, with something of a view of the Palace. 

More people do arrive later, but it never gets busy and by the time we leave we are almost the only ones still there.  The waiter is attentive - he has nothing else to do - so we get our wine, a £25 Chilean SB quickly. 

B naturally has to have the scallops. Four large ones came with an interesting, slightly spicy sauce and chorizo pieces, which she thought was excellent. D has the chicken liver pate with four thick slices of toast, one of which I happily helped out with to soak up the butter with my garlic and chilli king prawns. All three starters resulted in clear plates. 

For main course, D has the fishcakes - two solid looking pieces with a mound of rocket. B's hake wrapped in proscuitto  is a little dry she says, but a good flavour. My choice of a "light bite" crispy beef salad with cashews is perhaps predictably less successful. There is nothing really wrong with the beef, other than you can't taste much meat in the crispy covering. But the salad is a mass of white cabbage and carrots, pretty tasteless even with a sort of soy sauce dressing and the nuts. It is filling though. We have sides of truffle and parmesan fries - nothing like as good as the Ivy - and a rocket and tomato salad that we don't really need. 

We share a single waffle, caramelised banana and ice cream pudding between us. With three bottles of wine and some water that brings the bill to just over £200 for three of us, including again a modest 10% service. It's been nice enough and fair value, but not somewhere I'd make a beeline for.

Busy week!

Monday would have been B's mother's 100th birthday so we are marking the occasion with a visit to The Ivy, the original one in West St opposite the Mousetrap. Apparently it has been on the same site since 1917; it has classic stained glass windows from the 1920s, art deco wall lights and a selection of very impressive modern art. It is famed for celebrity spotting, but there weren't any that I could see when we went, just some very earnest discussion between a creative-looking type and an unsmiling group of what I took to be lawyers. Low-volume "American songbook" music is playing in the background. 

Our table is down the far end of the restaurant - quite small, sitting "Greek style" - ie at right angles to each other. The waiter is cheerful and attentive, as we get to order our wine - as you'd expect the wine list is extensive and not cheap. There is a Trebbiano at £29, but otherwise everything is over £40. We order the French Viognier at £46. It arrives quickly, and throughout the waiter is attentive enough to keep our glasses topped up, ensuring we need a second bottle (as if there would be much doubt). 

The menu is quite wide-ranging, with lots of options in the starters that are appealing. It isn't ground-breaking or innovative, but full of classics. The bread - two styles, mini-baguette and a multi-seed roll - comes warm and tempting.  B chooses the ham hock and duck terrine to start, though she'd been thinking of the steak tartare. She's very pleased with that - the duck being a puddle in the middle. I struggled to choose, reluctantly passing on the tuna tartare, duck salad and tempura prawns in favour of bang bang chicken.  This is an excellent version, the peanut sauce with a good kick, the chicken itself juicy and tasty. 

The main course choices are more limited. B chooses the pan-seared halibut with white crab, chilli and lime.  This comes with carnaroli rice, not something we knew, but it turns out to be very creamy, a superior version of risotto arborio rice.  The dish looks very fresh and neat, two fillets of fish perching on top. The crab and chilli however are not very noticeable. She also has the minted peas and buttered broad beans, which are good. 

My choice was roasted Iberico pork chop, which came with chargrilled sweetcorn (not on the cob as advertised thankfully) and celeriac. I also ordered truffle and parmesan fries, which were excellent. The waiter had asked whether I wanted the pork well done, pausing before saying "or pink". I chose pink just as B asked what he recommended - pink. It did come lightly cooked, though not actually pink. Full of flavour with just the right amount of fat.

Although fairly full, we do decide to try desserts. B has the warm dark chocolate fondant with blood orange sorbet. The chocolate oozes beautifully, and the overall effect is very much chocolate orange.   I have to order the vanilla crème brûlée which comes, like at Chez Bruce, in a large flat dish rather than a ramekin, giving a better brûlée to crème ratio.  It's not as vanilla-ary as the CB one though, which remains my all-time favourite. 

We also fell for the truffles chocolates offer - a box of 9 for £18!

Naturally this wasn't cheap, and not helped by a 13.5% service charge. £260, though without the chocolates and with the cheaper wine it could have been a fair bit less. Hard to say whether that was "value for money", but it was all enjoyable and a pleasant experience all round.  It's one way to spend the inheritance. 

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Tuesday, by contrast, I'm meeting a dozen old Home Office colleagues at The Warwick, Pimlico. It calls itself a gastro-pub, but its special offer lunches are priced at £7.50, £11.50 with a pint of Doom Bar. I have the grilled halloumi salad, with a side order of fries (£4) - all the others have mini-fish and chips.

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Wednesday sees us meeting up with P&M back from South Africa, and another ex-BT friend S. We're at Da Mario, a cosy Italian near Covent Garden that we'd been to just once before, many years ago, though B couldn't remember it. Booking for 5 us meant having to pay a £10 a head deposit, but they bring a receipt for that at the start and need no prompting to take it off the bill at the end. The place is full, with a turnover of tables, decorated with photos of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sophia Loren playing with spaghetti, and Rat Pack music playing of the lively buzz of punters. No Chianti bottles with candles though. 

We order the Grillo at £32, ending up drinking 5 bottles plus one Barbera (£37.50). Two bottles of sparkling San Pelligrino.  The choice on the menu is remarkable and all four of us struggle to choose, changing our minds several times, and again when we realised there was a "Today's Specials" list on the last page. Unusually, the dishes are listed in price order. B and P have the scallops - four large ones with a slice of crispy bacon. S has deep-fried prawns, dry and crispy. while M and I have the mussels off the specials list - huge bowls, with light wine sauce and toast. 

P had decided in advance he wanted the tagliata - slices of sirloin medium rare, with rocket and parmesan, plus a side of chunky chips.  S has the veal chop, a plate sized slab of flattened and breaded meat - it's lightly cooked, but he says it doesn't have a lot of flavour. It comes with fried courgettes, and he orders a plate of roast potatoes and some mixed grilled vegetables. B has a main course spaghetti with prawns, another large portion, dripping in sauce. M and I have chosen the same again - saltimbocca a la romana from the specials list, with both of us choosing to have it with roast potatoes rather than the advertised mash. There is a load of potatoes - S didn't need to have ordered any himself. The veal is very tasty in a good sauce with ham. We also ordered a bowl of fried courgettes and a rocket and parmesan salad. Overall, a lot of food!

Despite that, B and P decide to have dessert. B has lemon sorbet, and P affogato (vanilla ice cream with coffee). It seems that there's been a mix-up and one of P's scoops is lemon, and one of B's vanilla. We also get complimentary limoncello or amaretto.  

The total is £510, quite a lot, though it did include all that wine. It's been a very pleasant - and filling - lunch but at over £100 a head it feels a little pricey. 

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Thursday evening we are at the Croydon Wine Club, upstairs at the Spreadeagle. Although still saying it is an "Ale and Pie House", the Fuller's pub no longer has pies on its main menu (there is one on the specials board). B has the haddock and chips, while I have scampi and chips. Too many chips! £26 a head including the wine (brought by the Club).