And here's March - a busy month

Davy’s winebars were running their annual tasting at the Vintners Hall at Southwark Bridge – so that had to be done!  Emerging around 2pm, we decide to walk back towards Borough Market for some lunch, and fall into an old favourite Black and Blue for some sustaining meaty protein.  We’ve been here several times, and the organisation has expanded into a small chain of six restaurants including the lovely wine bar Archduke at Waterloo.

This time of day the place is not too busy, so we get served pretty quickly. A bottle of ES Vino Malbec from Argentina (£28) seems the right thing to top up our earlier intake.

B has chargrilled garlic king prawns to start – lovely, great garlic hit. I go for the chicken satay, which was also good. But then disaster. We’ve ordered the Cote de Boeuf for 2 (600g) medium rare – when it comes it is inedible – all sinew.  We struggle with it for a while (accepting that we might not be in the most sensitive critical state!) but have to give in. The waiter, seeing we’ve left most of it, asks if there was a problem and we explain – and to their credit, without any fuss, they simply remove the price from the bill (given that this was £36, that’s no small deal).

So, an unsuccessful experience, well handled - £51 for wine and starters.
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Later in the month, we have a Sunday clear so wander up to the South Croydon strip of restaurants – the “Restaurant Quarter” as the council likes to call it – to try a fairly new brasserie with the unusual name of YUMN (Arabic for “welcome” apparently).  As it’s a Sunday they are only doing their set Brunch menu, which is not normally our thing.  But it sounds quite interesting so we decide to give it a go.

It’s quite a big place, but the front section is given over to the buffet. Despite quite a few people being in, there’s not a great deal of atmosphere – and a very weary old “easy listening” soundtrack.

There’s a first course of soup – this time it’s cream of cauliflower. B decides to pass, but I go for it. It does what it says on the tin – it’s creamy and cauliflower; nice bread too.

Next up is the “market table”. Now this is pretty impressive. Loads of seafood, from dressed crab, prawns several ways, smoked salmon, poached salmon, mussels, potted shrimp, potted mackerel – take what you want. Also duck rillettes, chicken liver pate, salads and breads.  This is practically a meal in itself.

There’s about half a dozen options for main course, including of course Sunday roast with all the trimmings. B chooses the burger, while I go for the steak frites.  The burger is fine, but nothing special – nice chips. The steak however is an impressive piece of sirloin, cooked medium rare as requested, a significant dish in its own right.

With a bottle and a couple of glasses of a very acceptable Merlot (£17 a bottle), the bill comes to a very reasonable £98 (before service).  We’ll certainly go again, maybe to try the normal menu – but as a family Sunday brunch it’s a winner.
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We’re meeting S for dinner, and the chosen venue is Spitalfields.  We’ve arranged to meet in Bedales first – a sister bar to the one in Borough Market.  We are early so we manage to bag a table near the back, which is lucky as the place fills up quickly – one girl just having one cup of coffee and using the wi-fi is eventually asked to leave.  Nice spot, though not as much character as its sister in Borough Market.

For dinner we are booked into Blixen (crap website!), which B has read a good review about by John Walsh in the Independent.   It’s very busy and buzzy – a good atmosphere. Our table is perhaps rather too close to the kitchen, with the noise from that – the beautiful people are out front.

We order a bottle of house white – Cortese from Italy (£19) and some padron peppers and then decide on food.  S has ox tongue salad to start, the tongue being compressed into very rich croquettes.  B has a squid and chorizo stew, which was very stew-like, with beans – an interestingly and warm different take on the common combination of ingredients. My beef carpaccio is very thin, but an ample portion – very acceptable.

Main courses are Monkfish tail with cauliflower and mussel broth for S (nicely cooked); sea bream  with white beans and  broccoli  for B – a good crispy fillet; and (surprise!) pork belly for me – good and rich, with a crispy mash.  S has a dessert – the bill says it was “cremeux”- but frankly I’ve no recollection! – and we each have a glass of sauternes.

Good service by bright young things.  The total was £140 including service.  Spitalfields has a lot of new restaurants these days, but this is definitely worth a try.

It’s March 31^st, a famous day for excessive stress.  I’m struggling to finish a report we’ve promised for today, haggling with colleagues over two words here and some formatting there.  We finally reach a compromise and I can send it off and breathe again.   B on the other hand is off to the O2 to an Elvis exhibition!

So we agree to rendezvous at Waterloo at Cabin, the Corney and Barrow winebar on the upper level – much recommended, if a tad pricey. I’m in the doghouse for ignoring what B wants to do, so I Ieave the choice of restaurant to her.  And after many times criticising it for being too expensive for what it is, she goes for Ping Pong, a branch of the dim sum chain on the Southbank.

When we arrive it’s busy – a 20 minute wait. There’s a bar upstairs so we decide to wait it out with a £20 bottle of Chilean SB –with fancy technology to alert you when your table is free, and staff to back it up. In fact, it’s much less than 20 minutes when they call us down to a shared table – two pleasant young ladies and a rather earnest trio (2M, 1F – relationship uncertain).

We order a fairly standard combination of dishes: edamame beans, 4 fried dishes (Vietnamese rice paper rolls, beef and chilli parcels, soft shell crab and an odd Shanghai chicken dish), and 4 steamed ones (crab and prawn – brilliant, scallop and shitake, chicken and garlic and a very weird spinach beef fillet dumpling).  

After that we still have room so we get a second chicken and garlic, a duck spring roll and a beef gyoza dumpling.

Service has been fine – though we were bit miffed that the two ladies who ordered after us got some of their food first, and the edamame beans took a while to arrive. It’s a buzzy and fun place, and we’re really enjoying ourselves until I realise that we are probably at least 20 years older than anyone else in there!   We have two more glasses of wine.......

Total £96 including service – fine for the Southbank, far more than you’d pay for similar in Chinatown.

A couple of days in Brussels

A COUPLE OF DAYS IN BRUSSELS

We’re combining business with pleasure and staying a couple of nights in Brussels at the end of November.  It’s too early for the Christmas market, but there is a buzz to the place as preparations are under way in the Grand Place and all around.

We’ve arrived mid-afternoon and grabbed a taxi from the station.  Our hotel is clearly not one of the most-renowned however, as the driver clearly has little idea of where he’s going, and ends up dropping us near the Bourse, when we need to be right the other side of the centre. So we’re not in the best of moods on arriving at Hotel Mozart.  Close to the Grand Place, in the street of the giros”, this is a surreal place – all Moroccan tiles, and windy corridors, and a bedroom complete with a pole in the middle of it!  Somewhat regretting the “value” option!

We go out for a wander around – a vin chaude by the Manneken Pis,  free chocolates and a good value coupe of champagne in the Galleries Royales, and a beer in the Espagne de Roy in the Grand Place.

For dinner we have booked into Restaurant Vincent in Rue des Dominicains (just off the tourist strip) for 9pm – recommended in several guides and reviews.  The place is packed, buzzy, lively, with a couple of separate rooms, but our booking is recognised and we’re shown straight to our table. Tables are basic and very close together, so it’s not what you’d call grand – but perfectly fine.  The striking feature though is the decorative tiling on the walls. At one end there is a depiction of a small fishing boat struggling in the waves, with an old pecheur in a blue smock struggling with the sails.  On other walls are ducks and rural scenes – all very splendid.

Vincent has a reputation for its flambéed steak, though there’s an extensive range of seafood starters and fish dishes too.  So we decide to go large and order the double angus fillet, preceded by shrimp croquettes. A bottle of Brouilly at €32 seems a reasonable accompaniment.

The croquettes are excellent. We’re sharing, one each, but there is plenty of flavour here and not too heavy a potato base.  All around people are having a good time, with large plates of food appearing all over.  Service is very friendly and jolly.  Our meat is duly served up to the team at the flambé dish in the centre (we had thought it might be done at the table, but it isn’t that far away), and arrives with a tidy portion of frites. Full of flavour and texture, and cooked just bloody, it’s a beautifully executed piece of meat.

We look at desserts for interest, but are then tempted in by the Crepe Vincent.  This is fruity and sharp, crisp and juicy – a revelation.  So we’re happy bunnies when we set off back to our weird hotel, having just €122 on such a splendid meal.
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Breakfast at the Hotel Mozart is also an experience.  After following a maze of signs around the first floor, one emerges back on the ground floor, apparently next door to the hotel entrance.  There’s a bizarre copper dome over the bar area – which only comes to make sense when later in the day I see the breakfast room has been converted back into a Lebanese restaurant!  Breakfast itself, to be fair, is a simple but fresh combination of baguette and croissant, with strong coffee and fresh juice.

We meet later for a beer in the Galleries, and then do a little shopping. We call in Cirio, a splendidly old-style bar near the Bourse for a glass and some charcuterie, before deciding to stop for a light lunch. We’re trying the Danish Tavern – an unimpressive bar near the church, but it’s handy.  I have try the local speciality, Waterzooi Poularde, a sort of chicken soup with substantial portions of meat and root vegetables.  It’s an ideal warmer for a cold day. B just has the bacon and mushroom omelette (rather than mussels, which had been the point of choosing this place!!).  It’s all fine, full of shoppers, and with a loopy waiter who revels in teasing his colleagues. €42 with one bottle of rose.

This evening, we’ve decided to go for La Marmiton, at the corner of the Galleries and Rue de Bouchers.   It’s very nearly full, but we’re lucky to get a table. It’s another cosy place, a little classier perhaps, but still relaxed.  There’s a quiet Brit couple one side of us, and a group of 4 excitable, smartly dressed young things the other – Eastern European we think.   We order a bottle of French Sauvignon (@ €22), and I have the foie gras to start.  For mains, I have the Sole Ostendaise (with asparagus) and B steak tartare. We indulge a second bottle, so this all some to €113.

Day 3 and our train is not till late, so we decide to do some shopping up on Avenue Louise this morning.  A little way, there is a small lane down to some other smart shops, and rather oddly sitting by a grassy patch, an old building called the Green House.  In summer there must be seating outside as well.  It’s just noon, so we call in, to see several shoppers in already. Plus a couple of regulars chatting to the staff.  It’s a strange, but elegant style – colonial wood and teas.  We’re not eating but the dishes that do emerge look and smell interesting, and the range of choice includes some very unusual orientally-inspired dishes too – probably worth a try another time.

We walk back into town, and then on to St Catherine’s to find somewhere for lunch.  Several places were recommended the reviews, but we struggle to choose one.  When we do, the kitchen has closed. So too the next one, though they were doing fruits de mer standing up outside. So sadly we head back to the Grand Place, and choose one of the places in the tourist drag – La Porte de Bruxelles.  It’s indistinguishable from several others along the street, and transpires to be a sister place to the one across the way. So much so in fact, that all the meals are cooked over there and brought over, and the waiters are a bit grumpy at being in the second place.  It doesn’t have a great deal of charm, but it is fairly busy, and warm.   The food however does make up for things.  B has grilled garlic gambas – six huge prawns, in a liberal and enthusiastic garlic sauce, cooked gently and lightly.  I have the tomato stuffed with crevettes – a beast of a dish, with crevettes in a sauce with a little kick to it. Main courses were mussels frites for B (at last) and monkfish with leeks for me.  Both really good.  The second bottle of Sauvignon racked the price up to €149 which seemed a bit much for somewhere with little style, but the food was pretty good.

Borough market steak-house

We’ve been having a culture day at the Damien Hirst exhibition at Tate Modern – pretty strange, though the butterfly pictures are attractive. Naturally, we then have a glass upstairs in the bar, which has splendid views over to St Paul’s.  Well, it does as first, but when the rain comes, it’s impossible to see across the river except when highlighted by lightning striking the Old Bailey. That puts paid to the idea of a gentle stroll along the Southbank, so in a lull we hurry back towards London Bridge.

At the edge of Borough Market we call in at Black and Blue, an excellent steak-house. You can’t miss it – it has a huge model cow on the roof! It’s more or less the middle of the afternoon, so fairly quiet, so we get to sit in a booth, rather than slightly small standard tables.  It’s a nice room for a steak-house; light and airy rather than dark and warm, and the waitresses are very lively and attentive. B&B is now a small chain of seven restaurants in the smarter parts of London.

To start we have garlic king prawns – huge and succulent – and foie gras mousse, which comes with a sweetish brioche bread.  We share the cote de boeuf (600g) for main, served nicely rare on a wooden board with a few leaves as decoration, and a pot of very creditable chips. It’s a tidy piece of meat which we struggle to get through, and end up with a “doggy bag” to enjoy the following day.  The wine list offers several Malbecs and other Argentinian reds, but quite quickly goes up in price – we settle for a Tilia Malbec at £26.  The bill comes to a reasonably good value £85 – good if you like your steak.