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. 

Some recent visits

 ESHER TAPAS BAR

We get the bus into Esher to visit Don Luis, a fairly new tapas bar. We have been there once before, but that was very early days. When we arrive at 2pm there is only one other table occupied. so we get a nice table by the window.

Wines are not cheap, so we go for the house white, Espeto Blanco, at £24.  As well as tapas, they do paella and steaks. We choose the paella mixta, but since this will take a while, precede it with a few tapas - sourdough with a really sharp ali-oli, squid tentacles, hot and crispy and a quite light chorizo tortilla. All very acceptable. The paella when it comes is a huge portion, mainly featuring chicken and mussels, though there are a couple of large prawns and a surprising amount of squid.  We fail to get through it, but they happily bring a pot for us to transfer the remains. 

Very chatty waiter - they're not busy. With second bottle this comes to £124 (including 12.5%). Worth a visit.

WARWICK

We have decided to break our journey to Wirral with the night in Warwick. We're staying at the Warwick Arms which is nice enough but nothing special.  It is central though, so it's easy for us to walk into the market square for a late lunch. We sit outside in the sun at the Tilted Wig. The menu looks interesting and we choose between the fish board or prawns, squid and ham croquettes, finally going for the latter.

I go in to order to find they don't have any more ham croquettes, so revert to the fish platter at £17. The Chilean SB is £17 too. We notice dishes coming out to other tables are quite large, and indeed our platter doesn't disappoint. There's chilli and garlic prawns, a pile of squid, a big dish full of whitebait, and several slices of smoked salmon.  These are accompanied by an interesting salad and several slices of attractive herby bread (which we don't touch as we're going out to dinner).  Very good value indeed.

I have booked us into 7 Square for dinner. We wander by to check on location and see it's attached to a wine bar - looks quite nice. We are shown in to a rather dull looking back room, with cheap looking tables. There's some interesting trompe d'oeil wall painting, merging into actual pictures. 

Looking at the menu, I wonder why on earth I'd booked here. It's a very limited choice of heavy-sauced French dishes. We choose a Muscat Viognier at £24, which is fine. B decides against a starter, and I have the goat's cheese bruschetta.  This is very good, with peppers, and excellent bread.

For main B has duck a l'orange. There are several slices of pink duck, but the sauce is too much. I order my rump steak medium-rare. It's a big thick chunk of steak, too tough to get through. So I ask for it to be cooked more, which does make it more tolerable, but again it is drenched in sauce - peppercorn.  Overall a disappointing experience for £100. 

BURNT TRUFFLE

We've been to the Burnt Truffle in Heswall before. It's a place for special occasions, so for this first meeting up with G&S since 2019 is a good place to go. 

It's quite a short menu, so it turns out that the girls order the same things, and G and I also have the same. 

Starters were a gorgeous terrine.

And a slightly more ordinary sea trout.

Mains were cod loin - excellent - and an equally good large portion of roast pork

Service is friendly and slick without being intrusive.  Total bill (several bottles of Viognier at £27) comes to a substantial £300 for 4, including tips, but it does feel like it was well worth it. 

PARKGATE

Lunch at The Ship in Parkgate is a last-minute decision. We'd gone in for a drink and to look at its refurbishment - including a lovely upstairs terrace.

Bur unfortunately it is a bit too chilly to sit up there. Instead we have a nice table in the window downstairs.  After last night's dinner we only want snacks so choose from the starters menu - potted salmon with sauce gribiche, and five spiced wild mushroom and water chestnut pancakes. Both VG. G&S have wild boar sausage roll and haddock arancini. 

Out and about again

 As things return towards normal, we started getting out and about and meeting up with friends.  Here’s a few places we’ve been recently.

 Naturally Chinese

This local Chinese has been on our “to-do” list for some time, but it didn’t re-open last summer, doing a refurbishment instead. We planned to go after the farmer’s market, but as it was raining we gave that a miss and just turned up around 12.30.  The place was empty apart from the team eating their lunch, but nonetheless we were asked whether we had booked. We were given a small table for 2, and were a little irritated that later arrivals were shown to nicer, larger tables.

 They advertised dim sum – one of the attractions – but it was quite a limited selection, so we ordered the dim sum platter. This amounted to two pieces each of three different dumplings, prawns, scallops and veg. All fresh tasting and interesting. For main course we went with sizzling lamb and scallops and prawns, supported by Singapore noodles. Good sized portions, all tasty.

 Although several more people arrived, there was little atmosphere, and the décor avoided clichéd Chinese decoration. The bill came to £107 with two bottles of house white.  Worth another visit but perhaps not as exciting as we had hoped.

 Mezzet

Some of my Home Office ex-colleagues organised a break-away lunch at Mezzet in East Molesley (Hampton Court). Ten of us made it along, exploring the attractive little street on the way. The list of cold and hot mezze is quite long so several people chose the selection of mixed mezzes to save time. But B and I decided we would pick and choose. M had recommended the spicy nuts, so chose those. They were quite unlike what you might expect, being finely chopped with a big hit of chilli. We also chose the fig hummus (just hummus with fig in it), chicken livers and lamb sausages. Portions were really quite large so we struggled to finish them and ended up sharing with the others. We had also ordered a prawn provencale, but that wasn’t delivered, which was perhaps just as well.

 The waiter had talked us into a main course too, so we chose to share a mixed grill – chicken, kofta, lamb fillet.  This was a more sensible sized portion. We’d found a reasonably priced white wine, but some people went for Lebanese red, which was a little more pricey. At £132 for the two of us it was good value.

 Oxo Tower

It’s S’s birthday, so with two other couples we’ve arranged to go to the Brasserie at the Oxo Tower on Bank Holiday Saturday evening.  We arrive ahead of time to find S, H&J queuing to go into the bar, which seems very busy. It transpires there are only seats at the bar available, so we decide to go straight on in to the brasserie.

 This too is very busy, with our table being pretty much in the middle of the room. The décor is all hard surface so the acoustics are very harsh, and it is very loud. That’s not helped by our table being alongside the two guitarists, though they do take a break soon after we arrive.  Lots of large groups taking perhaps their first opportunity of meeting up and having a good, noisy time – not a good “setting” if you were still Covid-concerned.

 S orders some wine – Sancerre and a French Cabernet Sauvignon. I didn’t see the wine list, but looking online I’m guessing these were around £50 a bottle – the lower reaches of a frightening list. We’re waiting on the other couple who have been delayed, but get some nice bread in the meantime.

 It’s an intriguing menu, so choosing is a bit tricky. In the end I make the unusual choice of braised beef and oxtail with a Portobello mushroom and Welsh rarebit. It’s hearty flavour but not large; the rarebit gives it a lift. B has the “Josper-roasted” duck breast with rillette and salad.  She thinks this is good too, more delicate and the rillette adding extra flavour. Other choices included grilled goat’s cheese or tiger prawns.

 My main course is roast chicken with fregola and ndjua sauce. Nicely cooked chicken but it did need the spicy sauce to lift it. B was very pleased with her seabass with courgette mash. The other three men all went for red meat: veal T-bone, lamb rump and rib-eye steak. We didn’t make it to desserts.

 With starters at around £14/£15 and mains around £25 the bill came to just under £100 a head. The food probably justified that price, but I felt the experience was a little spoiled by the noise, as it was hard to keep up a conversation, and we were hardly able to speak to the other end of the table at all.

 The French Table

We’ve been showing off TFT to many of our friends but it has been hard to get a table since it re-opened. So when I found a table free I just booked it for 6 people without knowing who would be able to come. We invited M&G, who suggested M&P, who used to live in Surbiton and who knew the restaurant well.

 After some fizz at home, we wandered along and unsurprisingly found it full. Nonetheless we were welcomed warmly. It transpired that M&P knew Madame very well, having held a birthday party there as one their earliest customers 20 years’ ago.  We settled on the 5-course tasting menu quite quickly (everyone at the table has to have it) and ordered our usual Viognier at £28.  A light Burgundy was suggested as a red, but in the end we went with the Nero D’Avola (£24).

 We were all chatting when the amuse bouche came along so we missed some of the description – it was basically a pea soup with hazelnuts. First course was charred mackerel with curried cauliflower and a sliver of crispy,   toasted sourdough.  As usual, this was followed by a terrine – this time rabbit, ham and black pudding, with pistachio. The fish course was cod, with some mussels and smoked bacon – made a change from the usual hake. Next up was a trio of pork – fillet, back, and belly – which was quite filling with a rich Madeira sauce.  The meal was rounded off with a chocolate mouelleux with blackberries.   

 All good quality as usual. We decided it scored about an 80% Chez Bruce, the benchmark of French restaurants.  With 5 bottles of wine overall, some water and coffees this came to £75 a head.

 Sichuan Grand

For S’s birthday we are joining a gang over in Stratford, starting with drinks at a cocktail bar at Moxy’s. The restaurant wasn’t very full, some tables of Chinese people, but we were squeezed in to quite a small table, 3 either side and 2 at each end.

 The menu is challenging to say the least. I’ve seen curried whelks and crispy chicken feet on Chinese menus before, but sautéed cow’s aorta was a new one on me! We eventually agreed to have two portions of each of 5 starters: prawn dumpling, pork dumpling, vegetarian spring rolls, crispy squid (excellent when very hot), and pork belly salad (which we were warned would be cold).  Everyone chose their own main course and rice or noodles. We stuck with a fairly traditional fragrant hot king prawns, which were very tasty and a good sized portion; and an unusual-sounding cumin lamb, which wasn’t as interesting as it  sounded, supported by plenty of Singapore noodles. Others had ordered spare ribs, but not been impressed, though when we took home the doggy bag, they were OK we thought.

 We had a few bottles of house white wine. Service was friendly and helpful, and tolerant of our early indecision. Divvying up the bill made it £45 a head, pretty good.

 

Mondello

More birthday celebrations, this time M over in Shenfield. Mondello is a pleasant unfussy place near the station. M had booked earlier in the day, but the place wasn’t full on a Wednesday night.  I ordered scallops to start – three plump ones on a spinach and pancetta sauce. B had mussels, and M seafood linguine. My main course was veal escalope napolitana (black olives, capers) with saute potatoes – quite a strong flavour. B had king prawns with chilli and lemon – 8 big prawns butterflied in their shells, which she couldn’t finish. M had huge slab of steak, rib-eye I think as it had a chunk of bone.  With a couple of bottles of Verdicchio the total bill was £140.  A good local Italian.  

 

Don Luis, Esher (no website yet)

We decide to take a break and get a bus to Esher, to head to this tapas bar we’d seen once before.  It’s a nice sunny day so the two outside tables are occupied by ladies who lunch, the bi-fold doors are open and get a table just inside. Looking at the wine list, it seems to escalate quickly so I just order the house white – in fact I think we got the next one up (a Verdejo), at much the same price (£28).

 The challenge with tapas bars is how many dishes to order. We decide on 4 plus a salad. The garlic and chilli prawns were an automatic choice – there were 8 of them in a sizzling dish of oil and burnt garlic, hot and tasty in both senses. We also went for chipirones – battered baby squid with aioli. These were less successful, being mainly batter and not enough aioli. On the meat side we had the pinchos, lamb skewers. These were excellent – two skewers of three pieces of succulent lamb fillet, with a remoulade sauce making it all look attractive. Also the ham croquettes, which though crispy, didn’t really have enough ham in them. The salad choice was “Heritage” tomatoes and onions. This was a selection of dark red, yellow, cherry and ordinary tomatoes in a dressing with cumin seeds – these gave the dish a very interesting tang.

 With two bottles and 12.5% service we got away with under £110. The chatty manager said they were usually very busy on Thursday to Sunday evenings, though after the LWL left we were the only ones in there for most of the time.  There were lots of other dishes to try, so I expect we will give it a return visit some time.