Birthday celebration weekend in Chester and the Wirral

 After celebrating my 70th with friends at the Oxo Tower on the day, we are heading up North to see my brother and the rest of his clan. Due to diaries, we can't all get together on one day, so instead we have two successive lunches.

We travel up to Chester on the Friday and meet up with G&S at The Botanist near the cathedral. I'm a bit reluctant at first as the live music downstairs was very loud, and the stairs to the first floor restaurant looked rather steep. But the others were already there, so we head on up to join them. 

The music is much more manageable up here - guitar and keyboards, quite good. It's a very quirky space, with lots of side rooms. Our table had a view downstairs of the cocktail bar. I had tried to book in here for lunch on Saturday, but they said they didn't have room, which seems surprising. 

The menu is also quirky, featuring its "Famous Hanging Kebabs". B chooses the Thai Red Prawn with coconut rice, while I go for the lamb kofte and fries. G&S go for the 3 kebab sharing option, prawn, kofte and chicken. This comes with a pile of chips and some coleslaw.

Our kebabs come on a single blade, with a sauce that you could pour through some holes at the top so that it drips down over the food. B and S agree that the prawn kebabs are very good, the spiciness building as you went on. The others are good too - a fun experience.

The desserts are also unusual featuring chocolate chip dough. We decide to go for the sharing option served with strawberries and marshmallows, ice cream, crumb and popping candy plant pot. The presentation of this is fantastic too, a multi-layered basket with the dough in a hot skillet at the bottom.

B and I share a bottle and a couple of glasses of Chilean SB, while S has a South African Shiraz and G Timothy Taylor Landlord.  Service has been good and friendly, happy to take photos of us. G&S insist on paying so I don't know how much it was, but I think that  for such a good evening it was probably well worth it.

Saturday lunchtime, we are meeting B's and A's families at The Yard, literally next door to our hotel. With G&S that makes 13 of us.  B had quite a tough time making the arrangements, and when we get shown downstairs to our table it's only laid up for 12. The waitress was under the impression it had been booked for 17 and then revised down - which was never the case. Anyway, by squeezing tables together, they do manage to arrange to add another place. 

We had had to choose our food in advance, which is never ideal, but those arrangements did work well, with the right food coming out promptly. However, choosing drinks was more problematic, as they had to re-stock - no Guinness, neither of our first two choices of red wine available, and later they had run out of coffee beans!  And they had been slow to take drinks orders, as they were serving a 40th birthday group nearby.

The food, however, was said to be good by everyone.  I had black pudding with boiled egg in a crispy wrapping and spicy chutney, B had chicken salad, which came with jalapeno peppers and was on the large side. Other choices included bruschetta of salmon, gammon terrine with quail's egg, onion soup, and breads with hummus etc. 

For main course I had seafood pasta - 4 prawns, several clams - while B went for sea bass on pea risotto. Both were lovely. Others had steaks, cod, chicken and three other different  pastas. 

Several people were choosing desserts - chocolate pots, ice cream, sticky toffee pudding - so I decide to have an affogato: ice cream, espresso and amaretto. Very indulgent. 

We'd had a couple of bottles of Grillo, and a third choice Nero D'Avolo. No dishes were more than £25, so overall it was a very reasonable price. 

In the evening we head to Sleepy Panda for a Chinese.  There are just two other people in there, and it was all rather dark. Nonetheless we take a seat and order. Some prawn crackers are delivered. We start with some dim sum: prawn dumpling, pork dumpling. For mains we have crispy beef chilli birds nest - deep-fried beef, tasting just of chilli sauce, in a crispy edible basket - and mixed seafood hot pot. The latter just has a couple of prawns and a lot of yellowy parcels. When we ask it seems these are Japanese tofu, or cheese tofu. Not unpleasant but not seafood. 

With one bottle of Chilean SB and 10% service this comes to £78. Service has been fine, but it's not somewhere I'd recommend.  

On Sunday we get a taxi to the Wirral, The Ship in Parkgate. There we are seeing E's family - just E&E and three of the kids, plus close friends A&J - 11 in all. G&S booked us into a private room in the centre of the restaurant. It's very pleasant because it has windows to look out on the rest of the place, so it is light and not remote-feeling or corporate. 

Drinks service is very swift - we are into our first bottle of SB, a Pato Torronte from Chile - before the others arrive. For some reason, the specialities are Czech dishes, so I decide to go with both. The starter is Smazeny Syr - deep-fried camembert with cranberry and dill. Very nice but especially Czech really. The main course is Hovezi Gulas - beef goulash with dumplings and pickled red onion, inexplicably billed as "light bites". The beef was tasty, but I couldn't get half-way through just one of the dumplings. 

B goes for the wild mushrooms on toast, which I'd also been considering. There's a good mix of mushrooms in a creamy sauce together with a truffle parmesan crisp. Her main course is blade of beef, more like pulled beef in red wine gravy. 

The camembert was a popular choice. Others included chorizo croquettes, parsnip soup with Bombay butter, a gooey mackerel pate and some bread and oils. 

There were roasts on the Sunday menu - we had chicken, beef topside and forestiere Wellington. Also mushroom risottos and seabass. 

Desserts included limoncello tiramisu, raspberry ice cream, brownies and sticky toffee pudding.  Also a cheese board. 

Finally someone had kindly arranged for a birthday cake for me - not the full 70 candles fortunately!

Again a very reasonable bill (10% service, 4 bottles of wine and various beers and soft drinks). And very good, efficient and friendly service.  

Later, back in Chester, we cross the road and fetch up in Gate of India.  We get a very nice booth; warm feeling throughout. Overwhelming choice on the menu. Papadums come with a huge array of dips, including three types of hot lime pickle. We have a lamb tikka and a meat samosa to start.

These are followed up with chicken dhansak, prawn jalfrezi and pilau rice. Both the lamb and the chicken were in slices rather than chunks, but both were tasty. The prawn dish was seriously hot 

Total came to £95 including service and a bottle of very nice Burgundy. 

Catching up!

Catching up – Dec/Jan

Meeting up with S, he chooses the one Italian option as opposed to four French ones.  This is Caraffini on Lower Sloane Street. There is an outside terrace, but that’s not suitable in December.

Inside is pretty much full. We get directed to a table, crammed in by a wine bucket, already full of other people’s wine. B complains, and reluctantly they do move it further away. And also we get our own wine bucket on the table for the Grillo at £38!

We say yes bread and olives, and then move on to starters. S has sardines, which look good; B has some odd pork rolls and I have prawns in garlic and chilli. For mains S has a very pink calves liver, B has scampi with asparagus, and I have lemon veal.

We go for some desserts – S had panna cotto and I have sgroppino (lemon sorbet, vodka and champagne).

Service has been good after the initial contretemps. As well as a second bottle of Grillo, we also a Barbera d’Alba at £48. 12.5% service takes to £340, but it has all been good.

 

We are staying at a hotel near St Pancras before an early start on a train to Bruges for Christmas. Having looked at the options, we settle on Supawan, a Thai place on the Caledonian Road. It’s pretty busy, so we get put into a smallish table sitting at 90 degrees. The décor is very unusual – not cliché Thai.

We order some prawn crackers while we order (large portion), along with Viognier at £35. For starters, we have grilled prawns on Betel leaves, with loads of tasty trimmings, ordering the extra portion as suggested to take it to two each. Excellent. Along with the inevitable soft-shell crab, quite meaty.

Main courses are stir-fried king prawns with lemongrass and garlic, and a spicy minced chicken dish, supported by a mound of jasmine rice.

All very good, with friendly service, but the prices did mount up. With a second bottle and 12.5% service we get up to £170, which seems a lot for a Thai.

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We meet up with E and J in Covent Garden for a visit to SushiSamba, and start off with edamame beans. The wine list escalates alarmingly – I manage to find a Verminto for £49. We have a round of jumbo prawns, tuna ceviche, and soft shell crab roll. The J wants to order the trio of meats - rib-eye, chorizo, filet mignon – “Churrasco del Rio Grande”.  E has the mushroom dish.

We later have a bottle of red chosen by J who is insisting on paying, so I don’t know how much the bill came to – it won’t have been cheap.

Before heading off to Paris for a few days, we treat ourselves to a late lunch at Mem’s, our newish place locally. They do a 2 course fixed price lunch for £43, which like its predecessor has a limited range of dishes.

We’re offered canape drinks and an amuse bouche, both very nice. Their house Chenin Blanc is a very reasonable £28 a bottle.

I have the duck rillette (solid) and treat myself to a surf and turf for a £15 supplement. The “surf” is two large tiger prawns.  B has Bluefin Tuna tartare followed by venison loin.

I have a couple of glasses of Malbec (not so reasonable at £15 each), while B has another glass of Chenin.

All in all, £190 including 12.5% service, which has been fine – we are the only ones in there most of the time.

 

Meeting up with P&M. P wanted to go to the new Battersea Power station complex, so after some research we settled on Brindisa. It’s not as attractive a venue as the one in Richmond, though sitting outside in the summer it might be better.

We are there first, so get the better view. We order a white Rioja (Veltiver) for £36, which goes down well. B and I order the garlic prawns, chicken with mojo rojo (a red sauce from the Canaries), chorizo on toast with pepper and rocket (excellent) and Iberico pork cheeks with chocolate and rioja (very tender, but got cold quickly). P&M add more prawns, tortilla and patatas bravas. We also have bread.

We move on to a couple of desserts. P has the ice cream, while I go for the almond tart.

Four bottles in all, a slightly cheeky 13.5% service (it’s not been great) and that takes us just shy of £300 for the four of us. Not expensive, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

 

Before the theatre, we’ve chosen a Vietnamese place in Garrick Street called Com Viet. It’s nearly full on the ground floor, but we get a table by the window. There is a larger room downstairs, but they were still turning people away.

For starters we have soft shell crab (OK) and something called Com Viet Cha. This is minced pork and prawns, with mint and coriander leaves, that you wrap in dipped rice paper, which resembles a condom. Very messy, but the fresh herbs make it very tasty.

Mains are stewed pork belly (rather fatty to my taste, but B likes it) and wok-tossed duck breast with lemongrass and chilli. There a lot of wok-tossed options, a few seabass ones and not much else to choose from.

We have a bottle and two glasses of NZ SB (£51 together) – total £115 with 12.5% service.

B was pleased with it, but I thought the pork was a downside.

 

  

Sardinian in Victoria

 We are meeting T&K for the first time this year, and as they had liked Olivomare previously they suggest we went to the parent place, Olivo, also in Victoria.  As before, we meet up in the Lord Lucan pub, Plumber's Arms then take the short stroll to Eccleston Street.

We had been there many, many years ago, when the decor featured an internal tent, pastel walls and stencils. Now it is super-modern: black and lumpy like Lego bricks.  It remains a small place, with perhaps 50 covers and is pretty much full when we arrive at 1.30pm. 

The menu has many overlaps with its fishy offspring, and the wine list is the same, so we choose the Sardinian white Karmis again - still the cheapest on the native list at £34.50, only £1 more than when we went two years ago. 

Bread arrives - a mix of the carta da musica and good baguette style.  The menu has a tempting mix of interesting starters, pastas and meat and fish.   K has the small linguine with suckling pig with garlic and chilli - a modest amount of pasta with what she says is a very tasty rich sauce. T has the octopus stew he had at the other restaurant, which he too is pleased with - spicy and tender.  B's starter is Sardinian prosciutto with lots of char-grilled fennel - really full flavoured meat. I choose the white crabmeat salad with spicy dressing - very fresh and light.

B and K have the same main course - veal escalope with sauteed spinach. The large pieces of meat are presented rolled up and standing vertically - quite dramatic. But B isn't impressed, finding it tough as shoe soles. She does manage to eat it all though. T has the sweetbreads ("animelle") with ham and green beans. He is very pleased with that, though it seems he doesn't like beans as he passes most of them to K. I have the most expensive thing on the menu, sliced beef entrecote with spicy broccoli, which is very good - served on the rare side of medium/rare the meat is melt in the mouth and flavourful, while the broccoli is al dente with a good chilli kick. We also have a portion of deep-fried courgettes which gets polished off rapidly.

B and I are tempted to have a dessert - "Sebada" - a traditional Sardinian dish of crunchy, crispy deeply fried pastry filled with cheese and dipped in honey - lovely, surprisingly light. T&K go with a chocolate cake that looks rather heavy.

Service has been friendly and efficient without being intrusive. When serving the second bottle, the waiter said he had better put a couple more in the fridge - quite right! (Though we only have three in fact). Service charge is a whopping 15% - £50 - taking the total to £390 for the four of us. That seems a lot - I had enjoyed it but B less so. 

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).

 

 

Kingston Thai and Sardinian fish place at Victoria

 After a shopping spree in John Lewis, we head to the river in Kingston for a late lunch. We decide on Busaba, a Thai place. We have been there before, but not recently.  There are workmen outside, and only a couple of other people in the place, so we get a seat at the window. 

From a short wine list we choose Cullinan View, a chenin from SA, at £27. The menu is quite interesting, but B spots that the single bowls are a lunchtime offer at £11 each so we decide to go for one of those each. B chooses chilli prawns with rice, coriander and Thai basil. I have Chicken Pad Thai. We also order edamame beans with chilli flakes and a som tam - green papaya, dried shrimp, cherry tomato, peanut and chilli.

B is really taken with her prawn dish. There are 6 good sized prawns, and the rice is good and spicy and flavourful. My Pad Thai is good too, less punchy, mainly soy sauce flavoured so a little salty, but plenty of chicken too. The salad could blow your head off - the waitress had warned us. 

With a couple more glasses of wine, the bill manages to get up to £87, despite service at only 10%. Service has been efficient and friendly, but it was quiet mid-afternoon. Very pleasant lunch.

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We have arranged to meet up with T&K, though decided to delay it a week because of rail strikes (even though they were in the end suspended). I'd been indecisive about where to go, offering them a choice of 9 places! Out of these, they went for Olivomare, a Sardinian fish restaurant just a stone's throw from Victoria station, which was one we had never visited. This is part of a small group of restaurants around Belgravia, headed by Olivo, that we went to many moons ago. It's interesting to note how coming out this side of the station puts you in a different world from the Vauxhall Bridge Road side. 

We meet first on the pub next door, The Plumber's Arms. Apparently, this is renowned for being the place Lord Lucan's wife ran into screaming and covered in blood, accusing him of trying to murder her and having killed the nanny.  A coincidence, as it had just been claimed that an AI facial recognition system had identified him in Australia.

The restaurant itself is bright and light, and pretty busy. We are offered a choice of tables, one isolated at the back, the other in the middle with others, so we chose that. There is a good buzz to the place, and the clientele fit a rather narrow well-heeled demographic - Prada handbags.

The wine list is pretty varied and quite expensive - house white is £30.50. There is a section on Sardinian wines, so I ask the waitress's help with choosing one of those. She suggests Karmis Vernaccia, at a reasonable £33.50, which is indeed very good. 

The menu is also impressive, with many dishes I would like to try. In the meantime, bread arrives - including the traditional Sardinian thin crispy "musica da carta" or "piano bread". Finally, we make our selections.

K starts with a crab salad - a bright light dish of white crabmeat with radicchio and celery. T's Sardinian baby octopus stew (moscardini) looks hot and steamy and very dense, that comes served with toast. B has steamed mussels with garlic and parsley - very good-sized mussels, "not messed about with", in just a little wine. My carpaccio of tuna, swordfish and small prawns is good, though rather all dominated by the lemon. 

For main course, K pushes the boat out with a lobster, chargrilled. It looks lovely, a very bright red, split open and well-presented - complete with crackers and utensils for the claws, and served with a green salad. T has fritto misto, a dish I rarely choose because it can be so disappointing. His looks excellent, lightly battered, good chunks of fish and prawns.  B chose the chargrilled monkfish fillet with courgettes - an elegantly dressed but smallish looking portion. Very good though.  I order orata - sea bream, because I remember having it in Sicily. They bring it whole to show me and ask whether I'd like it filleted or not - I do bottle out and ask them to do that. It looks like quite a small portion, but it takes me a while to work my way through as it is full of flavour.  

We also order some deep-fried courgettes - lovely little bites - and a tomato and basil salad - brilliant red cherry tomatoes, dressed with a little oil.

We decide against desserts, though I was tempted by the Sardinian cheese fritter drizzled with honey. Service has been very good, delivering what was needed without intruding.

Three bottles of wine, some water and a rather cheeky 15% service charge take the bill to just over £350. It's been a very good meal, up there with Michelin stars if you are a fish lover. But it's probably special occasions only.  

 

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.  

Italian in Coulsdon

After suggesting it a few times, I finally persuade B that we should re-visit our favourite, friendly Italian restaurant, Pulcinella,down in Coulsdon. We get the bus and walk along the street, only to suddenly realise that it is no longer there.  There is a suchi/robata grill place in its stead, but we didn't have our mouths set right for that, so we instead go to the other Italian La Scarpetta.


We have been here before, and it's been fine, but it didn't have the intimacy of Pulcinella, with its specials board. The waiter is friendly enough, and though the place is quiet when we arrive, a couple of other of tables-worth of people to come in.


We have the house white, Trebbiano, at a modest £18 and share a chicken livers starter. This comes on a crostini (o?), with a rich sauce with a fair chilli kick to it. B has scallops in bacon on pesto angel hair pasts. This amounts to the three scallops/bacon pieces and a lot of quite sticky pasta. Tasty but a bit salty was the verdict.


My choice was spaghetti scoglio - mussels, clams and prawns, again in a slightly chilli sauce. Pretty good too, with lots of seafood


The menu had an amazing allergen list, including celery and lupin!  Who puts lupin in food?
With a second bottle of wine, this comes to £74 without service. The waiter has tried hard to be friendly, but suggesting Pulcinella closed three years ago was silly.


We'll maybe try the sushi place next time.

Catching up since July

I’ve been a bit remiss these last months, but here is a quick summary of places visited in the second half of the year. I no longer have all the details of what everyone had, and not all the prices, but I still have the memories!

India Club, Strand:  threatened with closure because of re-development, this throw-back to the 60s/70s was granted a reprieve. It used to be a traditional haunt of our Varsity match group, so we went along to celebrate. The room is basic – though the tables are no longer secured to the floor.  Drinks are obtained from the bar on the floor below – don’t expect anything beyond a Kingfisher or gin. Starters are standards – samosa, onion bhaji, plus a remarkably dangerous chilli bhaji. Mains are also fairly standard - lamb, butter chicken, dhal, aloo sag - but with good portions of rice and breads.  At £30 a head, it’s great fun.

Mar I Terra describes itself as “contemporary Spanish tapas”.  We’ve been before in the evening, but on this lunchtime visit after the Picasso exhibition at the Tate, we sit outside in the garden which is very pleasant.  Chilli prawns, crab-stuffed peppers, chicken livers, chorizo and morcilla with beans, chick peas are all good. Bill (with probably two bottles) comes to £92. Excellent – definitely recommend it if you are in the area. On a second visit in the early evening a couple of months later we have garlic prawns, sardines, chicken livers, beef, beans and jambon, chick peas (£75).

Guiseppe’s in Borough High Street has become B’s “go-to” restaurant. We went just the two of us first to research it, then as a group of 6, and then B went again with 4 other ex-colleagues. It’s as  clichéd as an Italian can be, short of candles in Chianti bottles. There are specials on the blackboard and all the traditional dishes you can remember.  Starters have included bresaola, scallops, prawns, calamari. Mains, spaghetti “My Way” (under a photo of Frank), veal Holstein, chicken Milanese with penne arrabiatta.  Good choice of Italian wines; generally around £50-£70 a head. Fine, convenient, but not sophisticated.

Ivy Market Grill . There are loads of Ivy spin-off places now, some of which have had unflatteringly reviews, but I think this in Covent Garden may have been the first one when the original restaurant closed for refurbishment for a while.  We went one lunchtime with S&L, and were sat next to Nicholas Lyndhurst (though he did ask to be moved!).  I had steak tartare followed by sea bass fillets and the bill came to £105 for the two of us. A very good experience. B went back again and that was good too.

Babur Brasserie I have reviewed before, but it remains worth the visit to Honor Oak Park.  Regional dishes feature strongly – this is no ordinary curry house. My meal this time was prawns and gourd to start followed by rabbit. At £106 for two this is good value.

The Oxo Tower Brasserie is a good place for a celebration. This time it was J’s 30^th, and there were 16 of us, on two tables of 8 with good river views. It’s not cheap though, and the wine does make the bill mount up. I had grilled crispy squid followed by chicken breast in a herb sauce and a tart.

Sticks ‘n’ Sushi, Wimbledon has rather less charm than its Covent Garden sister, the room being bigger and more open, with several refectory style tables, but has the same interesting menu and would be a nice reliable place to have on your doorstep. After the usual spicy edamame beans, we had beef tataki, crab croquettes, crudities and miso. Then shrimp rolls, crispy chicken rolls, duck breast and scallop and bacon sticks. With two bottles this is good value for £109

Chez Bruce:   I’ve reported on it several times, but it is still a reliable favourite for a good lunch. The parmesan crisps are still gorgeous and the atmosphere and service top-class. This time I had fishcakes with boquerones, followed by calf’s liver and then a caramel crisp. The set lunch price means this comes to £150 with a good amount of wine (though you have to hunt through the wine list to keep the cost down).

A Wong in Victoria has been around for a while, but though we’ve tried a couple of times we’ve not been able to get into this Michelin starred Chinese. So with S&L we book one evening and take on the challenging menu. It’s hard to decide how much to order, and I think in the end we were a bit conservative  for 4 Choices between us were prawn cracker, crab and prawn fritter;  duck and pancakes, lamb slider; kung pao chicken with peanuts, waygu beef, pork belly, “gold fish” dumplings, abalone, rice. £150 for two with not a lot of wine. Not yet convinced, but worth another try.

Our local tapas bar has been closed for refurbishment, but its sister, Las Fuentes in Selsdon was P&M’s choice for a birthday celebration for around 16 people. B and I had wild boar skewer, kidneys, chorizo, gambas pil pil and mussels. As good as the Purley version, with similar ambience.

After wine tasting we need something to soak up the alcohol, so twice in quick succession we go with T&K to Dim T in Victoria.  Each time we begin with beef wontons, chicken gyoza, edamame beans and various dim sum. The first time we go round again on the dim sum, but on the second visit we move on to firecracker prawns, special chicken stir-fry, chilli beef, pad thai, and Singapore noodles. It’s a big place, so generally no need to book. Coincidentally it cost £80 each time.

My colleagues organise a “round the world” series of lunches and this time we are in Jamaica at Cotton’s, Curtain Rd.   It’s a fairly basic place (though another outlet in Vauxhall is rather smarter) and being a “rum shack” does a good line in cocktails. I have the trio of vegetarian fritters followed by a lunchtime special of oxtail and bean stew with boiled rice. With one cocktail and a modest amount of wine my bill was £25.

Imperial China in Chinatown has become a regular dim sum place. After a wine tasting over in the City, we fetch up and order soft-shell crab followed by steamed king prawns, fillet beef and Singapore noodles. All for £100.

Masala Zone, Covent Garden  is another good place for a celebration, with lots of space and side rooms,  so we fetch up there for our housemate Christmas gathering. The Rajasthani  puppets dangling from the ceiling give it a great atmosphere, and despite the time of year we get good service too. There are 12 of us – any more and you have to have the set menu, but we are allowed to order individually. I have Delhi samosa, followed by Coondapur Duck, black dhal, spinach and steamed rice. With a good amount of wine this is £100 for two.  It would be interesting to try as a couple.

 

January selection

M&S are over visiting as part of the Christmas festivities, and we’ve decided to go out to Obia, the smarter of our two fairly new local Italians. We invite K along as well. It describes itself as “Ristorante, Vinoteca, Bar”, but I think it’s unlikely you’d go in just for a drink, though there is an area with high stools.  There is a garden area too, where you can get snacks like arancini, but obviously we’re not going there on an early January evening.

It’s fairly busy when we get there at 7.30pm, with a couple of larger groups, as well as couples. Our table is near the main path through the restaurant, but as we are only 5, we can leave the most affected seat vacant.

The very friendly waiter/maitre d’ comes over and rattles off some of the specials, all of which sound nice. The menu is anyway pretty interesting.  I order the Soave at £19.50, though M has a Moretti on draught, and S a lime and soda.

Three of us have the grilled sardines and fennel off the specials list, while S has buffalo mozzarella. The sardines are very good, nicely marinated, and filleted.

For mains, between us, we have seabass fillets (specials), pan-fried cod with borlotti beans, lamb cutlets and I have pork belly; we also have zucchini fritti, steamed spinach and chips.  My pork belly portion is huge, and I’m not able to finish it, instead taking about half away. It was also a little on the dry side, making it harder to get through.  Others were very pleased with theirs, all with clean plates.

K orders the sorbet and gelati for dessert, and is offered the mince pie gelati as one of her three choices. It genuinely tasted of mince pie – very good. B has the semifreddo, which is covered in gooey toffee sauce and nuts – lovely.

The service has been very friendly and efficient throughout, despite it being quite busy. With a second bottle of Soave, the bill comes to £225 including service, pretty good value we felt. And the whole thing was rounded off with a complimentary glass of limoncello to send us away feeling very good about the place.

 

 

It’s B’s birthday, so first we do the cultural bit – Cezanne portraits at the NPG – and then on to lunch. She’s chosen a simple enough Thai place, actually from the same chain as we went to in Kingston: Busaba Eathai in Panton Street.

We finish the exhibition rather earlier than expected (it’s not that large), and so first repair

The Chandos in St Martin’s Lane. This Sam Smith’s pub has lots of character, with nice wood-panelled booths, and was surprisingly quiet for such a central location. And reasonably priced too.

Then off to lunch.  It’s pretty quiet in here too – there wasn’t really a need to book. The tables in the centre of the room are large (8-seater) sharing ones, but there are some 2’s and 3’s by the windows which is what we choose.

Service is attentive enough, and we have some edamame beans with our Viognier (French - £26) while we decide on the order. To start we have garlic and pepper chicken livers, which are excellent, and “son-in-law” eggs. These are boiled eggs with a coating and a little spice – fine, but not as interesting as they sounded.

Main courses are Asian salmon fillet – a nicely poached slab of fish with a spicy support – and jasmine beef rib – sturdy but comes away from the bone well. Supported by a “Som Tam” salad – seriously spicy.

With a couple of other glasses of wine and service  (JUST 10%!) the bill comes to a little over £100. The way prices go these days in central London that is probably fair, but at over £100 I start to feel the meal should be special, and this was only fine.

 

 

J&G are over from NZ, so we meet up for lunch with them and M&G at Mber in Pudding Lane. It describes itself as “Pan-Asian tapas”.  It’s down in a dark, seductive basement, with enormous metal stanchions. We have been a couple of times before, but after wine-tastings, so this is our first time sober!

We’re sat at a high table with stools in the middle of the restaurant. There are quite a few others in, but there’s no problem with the acoustics. The wine list shoots up pretty rapidly, but I do find a white Rioja at £35 which meets with approval – later we also have a Carignan red at £31.  The range of food choice is extensive, so with there being six of us, we decide to go for the set 6-dish lunch with a couple of add-ons.

First to arrive is the salmon salad – nicely smoked, poached salmon with cos lettuce and edamame beans.  Next the chorizo and prawn gyoza (ordered extra), which are lovely; and then the beef glass noodle salad, which was seriously spicy. These are followed by the satay chicken (vg), soft-shell crab tempura (also vg) and the cha sui pork doughnuts (nice pork but the doughnut is oddly sweet).  Finally the beef rendang curry with rice and pak choi.

That seems to have defeated most of us, but a couple of valiant souls move on to dessert. A Pannetone bread and butter pudding meets with G’s  approval; my peanut butter parfait also gets lots of takers.

In the end we have 4 bottles of the Rioja and 2 of the Carignan. That takes the bill, with 12.5% service, to over £500 for the 6 of us. Clearly, more abstemious people could have got away with less!  So very good value overall.

 

 

Meeting up with S and L, we head to The Escapologist near Seven Dials,  as the girls like to start the evening with a cocktail.  We’re there first and are surprised to find that it is 2-for-1 happy hour, even though it’s a Friday night. The place is busy, and it takes a while to take the order and bring our drinks, by which time S has arrived and can order hers. L arrives late, having got the time wrong, so just shares our drinks. Six cocktails for £35 is pretty good!

Then we’re off to Cinnamon Bazaar: in Maiden Lane. Last time we went the food was excellent, but the service shambolic, so we’re hoping for better this time.  The place is busy and buzzy, but we get help with ordering and our wine (white Rioja at £38 – the prices do go up quickly) quite quickly, so things are looking up.

For starters we share a crab bonda, watermelon chaat, dahi bhala chaat (lentil dumplings) and crisp whitebait. We’d had the crab (with beetroot) before, but today it seemed rather heavy. The watermelon was both refreshing and spicy. Lentil dumplings were also heavy, but the whitebait were indeed crisp with a good spicy powdered covering.

 Mains are served reasonably promptly despite the full house. We have Tandoori lamb fillet, pork belly with curried yoghurt, Tandoori king prawns, and haddock curry. The lamb was tender and the pork interesting, but the king prawns (though large) were rather ordinary, and the haddock curry not impressive. We had tried to order rice, but the dishes came with some, so we just had a garlic naan and a black dhal in support.

We share a couple of desserts – an excellent kulfi on a stick and chocolate golis, four different flavoured truffles, of which the dark chocolate with chilli was by far the best.

Service was much better than before: timely, cheerful and helpful – clearly the A-Team on tonight. With three bottles of wine the bill comes to a bit over £250 without tip - we left £30. £70 a head is perhaps a bit on the expensive side (to an extent due to the wine), as this time the food wasn’t stand out excellent, just good.

 

The Nova complex at Victoria

Nova at Victoria

The new development, Nova, at Victoria is open with a wide range of new restaurants and bars – and more to come.  So far, I’ve tried three of the restaurants, and had a quick drink in one other deli/bar.

 First, was Greenwood, which I went to with some work colleagues.  It’s almost certainly unique in having a barber’s in the bar!  It says it’s a Sports Lounge, and there is a TV room on the mezzanine, but the main bar is quiet and civilised enough.  The menu is a pretty standard burgers, pizzas and salads - I went for the falafel burger.  This was OK, but not special at £13.

 Then, with B, P&M and C, after the ladies had been round Buckingham Palace, we went to the Rail House Café.  The friendly waiter seats us upstairs at a table with high stools. There is a big downstairs area, and a relaxed-looking outside space with comfy sofas.  The menu is a little odd, more like a brunch menu – two of our party have the trendy smashed avocado on toast with feta, one with extra bacon!  The Freekeh salad (nope, me neither – apparently like bulgar wheat) went down well, also trendy with pomegranate seeds.  B has the yellowfin tuna tartare – small (a starter really), but good with shallots and wasabi. Only I have a “proper” main, seafood noodle. This is full of prawns, mussels and clams, in a spicy noodle sauce – too much for me.  Between us we share two crème brullees for dessert. £170 for 5 people (just 3 bottles of Vermentino at £21 each).

 After lunch we wander round and look in on Sourced, a deli/bar. We get some meats and cheese from the shop and then sit outside with a glass each. Very pleasant.

 Then last week, B and I are going to “5 guys named Moe” at the new pop-up theatre at Marble Arch.  So we decide to have a late lunch/early dinner (“lunner”?) at Aster at Nova. It’s “Nordic/French”; there’s a smart restaurant upstairs but on a weekend lunch we are in the main bar on the ground floor.  It’s quite busy and lively though. We decide on the fish platter and the meat platter. With the fish we get taramasalata, prawns, gravadlax  and smoked fish – “vendace”. The meat is reindeer salami, ham, pork belly crackling,  and a lovely black pudding roll. With a bottle and a couple of glasses of the house white this comes to £73, including 12.5% service.

 

Other recent venues

 Lobos tapas bar on the edge of Borough market. Busy and buzzy, but we get a table by the window overlooking an alleyway. Padron peppers, seafood (prawn, squid and mussels with chilli), chorizo and morcilla (gorgeous smooth black pudding), herb crusted lamb rack and Iberica ham. One bottle and a couple of glasses of Spanish blend (Silga). £93 incl 12.5% service.  Recommended. Also a branch in Frith Street.

 Bone Daddies is chain of Japanese noodle bars, with a speciality of 20 hour pork bone broth dishes. B’s seen the boss on a TV programme, so after Matisse in the Studio at the RA, we toddle along to Peter St in Soho. It’s busy, but we get to perch on high chairs in the window.  Service is brisk, clearly aimed at those on their lunch break. We have soft-shell crab in ginger sauce (lots of meaty crab), and salmon tartar (very sharp, with wasabi), and the TV special Thai green curry ramen with chicken and egg. All very good indeed, but not a relaxing experience – in and out in under an hour, with only time for one bottle of wine.

 Obia is the smarter of two new Italian restaurants in Purley.  We go there with neighbour K one evening. We pass on starters, and go into spaghetti with lobster, king prawns and scallops and chargrilled tuna, accompanied by chips and zucchini fritti.  All VG.  A couple of semifreddo desserts (yummmmm). With two bottles of Soave at £19.50, we get up to £130 for 3 people.

 

 

Easter on the Wirral

EASTER ON THE WIRRAL

We’re visiting G&S on the Wirral, and on Easter Sunday we’ve booked to go to the Burnt Truffle in Heswall, along with L.  B had spotted a review of the restaurant some time ago but this was the first time we’d had chance to go and try it out ourselves.  Chef  Gary Usher is also responsible for Sticky Walnut and Hispi near Chester. Burnt Truffle was launched with the help of crowdfunding – the list of backers is on the wall downstairs, including some well-known names.

We are seated upstairs in a corner area which is almost like a private room - apart from the fact that the waiting staff have to pass by to go to the back-room for wine etc. The place is nice and bright with an odd mix of things on the wall – from a poster of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road to a collection of menus from famous restaurants like the French Laundry.  And a long chalked up wine list.

Service is attentive and friendly, though oddly we are told to order wine from the printed list rather than the board, which is a shame because I’d already selected one. Anyway we go with the Viognier from the Northern Rhone at £29.50, and some sparkling elderflower for L.  The beer list looks good too, with bottles from local breweries.

The set lunch menu has five options per course at £22 a head.  Sourdough bread with an excellent truffle and walnut butter arrives first – we’d commented on the attractive loaves on the way in.  After we’ve ordered I comment that despite the restaurant name, there were no truffles in any of the dishes – so we order an extra portion of truffle chips with parmesan flakes.

For starters, three of us, including me, order wood pigeon breast with beetroot fregola (little round balls of pasta from Sardinia made red by the beetroot).  This is fantastic, just melt in the mouth; the beetroot flavour is very subtle and the pasta light. B has the pork cheek and tongue terrine with Armagnac  prune which is firm and full of flavour, while L has cauliflower soup, a rich, creamy bowlful topped with rocket pesto.

For main courses we split three to two. I have the crispy duck leg with cassoulet.  The duck falls away from the bone, and though crispy is not dry.  The cassoulet contains smoked sausage and pieces of ham, and is warming and filling, a fine example. Truffle chips are good too!  B has the grilled seabream with a pale taramasalata and watercress. Sensible size portions too, leaving room for dessert.

 As always if it’s on the menu I then have crème brûlée.  This comes in a shallow dish, so has a good ratio of brûlée to crème, but is not as vanilla flavoured as some (it’s hard to beat Chez Bruce).  B’s dessert is rather unusual: Tonka bean custard with fromage blanc, dark chocolate and hazelnuts. We had to look up what Tonka beans are – South American beans with a flavour similar to vanilla – nothing to do with Tonka toys. It’s an insubstantial, foamy sort of dish, perhaps not their best.  Other dessert choices were chocolate mousse with honeycomb, and sticky toffee pudding with honeycomb ice-cream.

 We’ve had three bottles of the Viognier, so the bill comes to an extremely reasonable £220 for five before tip.  As well as the good food, the atmosphere and timing of service have been excellent, so we come away feeling well pleased.  I’d certainly put Burnt Truffle as a contender for a Michelin star next year.

 

Other Wirral restaurants

On our first night with G&S we go into Parkgate to Britannia Spice the local Indian.  This has a long list of individualistic dishes, as well as the usual permutations.  B and I just have a mixed kebab and chicken chat to start but G&S insist we try their Britannia

Special too – deep-fried chicken tikka with cheese and omelette, interesting but a little strange.  B has some excellent tandoori king prawns for main, while I try the lamb gobi jaipura, with some channa masala, dhal,  mushroom rice and naan.  We also have a couple of bottles of Malbec between us.  Very good at £90 for four, including generous tip.

 Less successful is Gusto in Heswall.  We’ve booked for 8pm and arrive on time, but are told our table is not ready, and to have a  drink in the bar.  After a while, B decides to chase them up and pesters the greeter, who contacts her manager. This does result in a table being made available, fortunately near the entrance. I say fortunately because the place is heaving and loud, and the low ceilings and dark lighting would have it oppressive further in. Even then the table next to us are very loud and seem to be best friends with everyone who passes by.  We have some edamame beans while we choose what to order.  I start with meatballs (fine but unimpressive) and B with a smoked haddock risotto, a sensible small portion.  My main course pork belly is rather dry, and the crackling rather firm; B’s garlic prawns are OK.  £75 for two with wine.

 The last night is back to Parkgate for Chinese at Chow’s Eating House.  Again we have to wait in the bar for the table to be ready, but this is done much more sensitively. And when we are seated, it is at a nice big round table with plenty of space. The waitress intelligently asks at the start whether we’d like to book a taxi for later, as on a Saturday night it will be busy – and in due course the taxi arrives bang on time.  G&S have hot and sour soup to start, while we share pork and prawn dumplings and a duck spring roll.  For main we have Beijing prawns and Szechuan fillet steak; G&S have scallops in a bird’s nest and Beijing chicken. We’d been told Beijing sauce was hot, but it wasn’t too much – the Szechuan was hotter.  All very good and flavoursome, with friendly waitresses - £174 for the four of us with three bottles of Laughing Giraffe Shiraz from South Africa at £19 each.