Chinese in Thames Ditton

It's been some time since we've been out for a Chinese meal. There weren't any good places around Purley, and London has been off limits. Now, after spotting it on a few walks, we are to try Han Fu, in Thames Ditton.  We exchanged emails about bookings, and eventually settled on 7.30pm on a Wednesday. It's a bit of a walk so we needed to be sure the weather was OK. 

As we arrive we see there are a couple of Chinese ladies sitting at the window table. It turns out they were there for take-away. Otherwise there are no other customers in the place. We get shown to a nice enough table - surrounded by perspex screens, it surprisingly feels like a very personal space. 

After a little confusion about Cab Sauv vs Sauv Blanc, we get our wine at £18. The young waitress admits she's only been there are couple of weeks. She brings free prawn crackers and chilli sauce.

The menu is interesting with a range of house special dishes. There are the usual staples too.   So we start with pork dumplings and king prawns in salt and pepper. The dumplings are big, gloopy, with a slight peppery tang. The prawns are also large, with a light batter and good chilli sauce. 

For mains we've ordered pepper chicken and dry-pot beef, supported by Singapore noodles. The head waitress checks that we like hot food!  Both dishes come covered in red chillies - but at least they are easily identified and put to one side. The pepper chicken is a bit dry, with (as you'd expect) peppercorns. The dry pot beef, despite its name, is more moist and tender. Both are tasty. The noodles come filled with ample shrimps and chicken pieces. 

There have been no other eat-in customers, though there has been a reasonable stream of people coming in for take-aways.  But we haven't been rushed through our meal - as Chinese places can tend to do - and the two waitresses have joined us for a lively chat at the end. Decor is simple - "Surbiton grey". Portions have been generous, enough for us to have a doggy-bag. I have it for lunch a couple of days later, and it is still very good.  With a second bottle of wine, and a genuine at discretion tip, it comes to £83. Very good indeed. We'll be back. 

Two more places in Surbiton

 We'd got into a routine of Saturday being "curry night" at home, including some very nice ones from Cook!  But this week we decide to try The Gurkha Kitchen at the Ferry, a local pub.  We'd been in for a drink once before, and it seemed like a place full of locals. It's an odd combination of drinkers' pub and tables laid up smartly surrounded by semi-luminous paintings of Nepal. 

This time the proportion of smartly laid-up tables is higher and all of them duly fill up, though the small number of local drinkers are making most of the noise, at least until they move outside.  The house Shiraz at £18 is very reasonable, and they bring complimentary pappadums and pickles. 

The menu is very wide-ranging, with lots of unusual Nepalese dishes. After a little thought, we choose the special platter to share as our starter.  This comprises two large portions of chicken tandoori, some chicken tikka, one tandoori king prawn and lamb sekuwa - grilled lamb pieces.  It's very tasty, and not at all dry as I might have expected. There is a subtle kick to the lamb and to the tikka, and all the chicken has good flavour. 

For mains we have "Everest Lamb", which is in a thick garlic and ginger sauce, and a very attractively presented "Fewa prawn", which four butterflied king prawns in a lobster-shade tomato, yogurt and chilli sauce. Both dishes are very good, though the lamb, despite being "slow-cooked" is a little on the chewy side.  We also order a black dhal (a B favourite), which is a bit disappointing - I even wonder whether they'd given us the ordinary dhal instead - and mushroom rice. 

With a second bottle - most of which we take away - the bill comes to £83 without service charge. Service has been very efficient and as friendly as you can be when masked up. There has been a nice warm vibe to the place, and the dining tables have been full throughout with a second round of diners. Certainly worth another try to experiment with the wide range of unfamiliar dishes.

At the bottom of our road is the Thames Ditton Marina, which is home a new bar/restaurant called Hideaway, a new venture related to No 97 and Cento Uno in Maple Road. It's in a gorgeous location, with a terrace right alongside the river. We'd been a couple of times for drinks, and it's been very pleasant and welcoming. The menu didn't look especially appealing at lunchtime - more brunch than anything - but the evening was more a "small plates", tapas-style option. 

I've emailed and left a voice message to book a table, but no reply as late as 5pm. They are shut on Monday and Tuesday lunchtime, so that's just about understandable. So I ring again and get a rather harassed response - they can't do 7.30 pm but could do 8 pm. They can't guarantee seats on the terrace either - first come first served. It's been a lovely warm day, but we are warned to bring something to wrap up with as it gets cold (here by the river). 

There's no-one seated inside when we arrive, and outside looks pretty full. But we do get shown to a table for 3 outside, though it's not directly overlooking the river and more by the marina. We order the house white Trebbiano at £23 - having been stung by £32 for SB on a previous visit - which arrives promptly. As we mull over the menu, the manager comes out and asks us if we would mind moving as he now has a table for 2 by the river, and he has a group of 3 just arrived. Fine by us. It's a lovely spot as the light fades and ghostly lit boats drift by. 

We order 5 dishes, which are going to be a struggle to fit on the small table. It's not a huge menu, so the decisions aren't too hard - just 12 proper dishes. Garlic prawns was always going to be a choice - this version comes with roasted corn as well as the garlic and chilli, which are quite modestly represented. Crispy cod comes with a tomato sauce slapped across it, and is a bit limp and uninteresting.  The lamb skewer is fine, if a bit small, with the peri chicken livers being the best of the bunch - not heavily sauced as they often are, but with a neat hit of chilli in the peri-peri sauce.  The final selection was courgette fritter which comes, not like Italian zucchini fritti, but in a great wodge of fried, grated vegetable - quite good though. 

The setting remains super, and it doesn't get too cold. We are a bit distracted by a guy alone at the next table who wants to share his problems with us, but eventually he orders food too (burger and chips) and is then distracted. Service is attentive - and we order a couple more glasses to enjoy the view. Total bill is a reasonable £77 (incl 12.5%) , but although the five dishes have been filling enough, the food itself has been a bit disappointing.  As the nights draw in and the weather turns colder, the setting itself will lose its charm, and unless the menu becomes more interesting we may not want to go then.  The tapas menu would be fine for lunch perhaps, otherwise I fear for their prospects. 

 

Back to our favourite French place

We have a second voucher to use at The French Table, so booked a table – though it had to be in three weeks’ time. Arriving at 1.30pm we are shown to the last available table (downstairs, at least, as they now use the upstairs room for ordinary bookings to make up for social distancing) – clearly it remains a very popular local venue.

We order kir, and then decide which menu to go for – 2-course, 3-course or the £35 5-course tasting. There’s not a lot of different choices on the smaller menus, and if you added vegetables or potatoes the 3-course actually costs more than the tasting, so we go for the latter.  We don’t go for the matching wines at £25 a head though.

 Very tasty, warmed bread comes with our bottle of French Viognier (£28 a bottle), and quite promptly the amuse bouche arrives. This is cucumber gazpacho with pickled strawberry.  Very fresh and light, with truffle oil and just a few pieces of crunchy cucumber to give it a bit of a bite. Served in very attractive sloping bowls.

 The first of the five courses is melon with goats cheese in breadcrumbs and crispy Bayonne ham. It also comes with “white balsamic vinegar ice cream”.  It’s a slightly weird combination, the cheese and ham contrasting with the sweeter melon and ice cream – more like two dishes mixed up together.

 This is followed by a terrine of rabbit and ham hock, apparently with foie gras, though this is not readily identifiable. It’s a very good textured dish, supported by fruit and walnut toast.  The fish dish is hake, with olive oil mash, mushrooms, peas and a lobster sauce. Every item is excellent, and even B finishes her mash. The lobster sauce lifts everything without being too heavy.  The fish is a little too salty though.

 The meat course is pork – a small piece of belly in a rich port sauce, and a pulled pork parcel in filo pastry.  This is quite heavy and we are both now struggling to get through everything. This too is quite salty.

 The dessert is much the same as last time - chocolate “moelleux” with blackberries and blackberry ice cream, though this time without the Crunchie honeycomb. Delicious.

 Very friendly and efficient service again, though still a little thrown by the new routines – we’re more than happy to pour our own wine, but they seemed very pained to let us do it! The clientele is far from diverse – only one table seemed younger than us, all white and prosperous looking!  The bill does mount up, with a second bottle of wine and including the kir, water and 12.5% service, it came to £160. But even though I had a few more criticisms this time, it is an excellent and enjoyable lunch and we'll no doubt be back for a special occasion. 

 

 

Another riverside pub

 We are meeting D who lives over in East Molesley, so we agree to go to the Albany, roughly half-way between us, about a half-hour walk. The pub is right on the river, with plenty of outdoor seating, overlooking Hampton Court's back garden. The sun is shining, there are swans and even a great-crested grebe swimming around, as well as a succession of passing boats, kayaks, paddle-boarders and a punt from the Ditton Skiff and Punting club next door. Idyllic.   

We're shown to a table right by the river and, as the waitress clears it, order some Craggy Range SB from Marlborough - fuller flavour than many.  D arrives and we set to ordering our food, though B once again is unlucky in that her choice of steak salad is not available. This despite several other items already having been "redacted". 

D has mushroom on a sourdough crumpet to start. Oyster mushrooms and ordinary ones.  B has scallops - three large ones plus a prawn and crabmeat ball ("bonbon") - excellent. My sticky chipotle chicken is good too, really quite spicy.  

The crab and prawn fishcakes that D has are good too (much better than ones I had recently at Hart's Boatyard - the two menus are very similar) and come, after some debate about a side salad, with skinny fries, some of which get shared with the swans. B opted in the end for pork belly (without the optional scallops), which looks a bit heavy but she enjoys. She doesn't eat the mash though.  I have another spicy dish - prawn and crab linguine (clearly there's no shortage of prawns or crab) with plenty of chilli. Quite a zing and more pasta than I can eat.  

B's quite keen for us to share a "pornstar martini Eton mess", but is unlucky again, as that's "off" too. Nothing much else appeals, so we just move on to our third bottle of wine. 

Our waitress has been cheerful and efficient throughout. With the £30 government discount, the total comes to £134 - we leave a £15 tip.  It's not been haute cuisine, but very enjoyable in a lovely setting. A bit too much of a walk to become a regular perhaps, but certainly we'd be happy to go again. 

First Indian in months

 We finally decide to venture out in the evening for our first Indian meal in ages, to one of 4 on Brighton Road, Surbiton. We chose the Red Rose as it looked the smartest.  We're given a table in the window, suitably distant from others - there are three or four other tables occupied.  The decor is what we have to regard as Surbiton standard - pale grey, LEDs spots - with a few Indian images added.  Some light jazz background music. 

Service is very prompt, as we order a bottle of Shiraz and some pappadums. The pappadums come with chutneys including some pink coconut flakes and a very interesting pale green one. Unusually for us at an Indian we decide to order starters - B chooses the starter chicken tikka and have the Goan chilli king prawn. The tikka is quite moist, though benefits from having some of the chutney with it. The three butterflied prawns come with Goan chillies - large, with seeds still in, but not too punchy if you avoid the seeds -a a nice buttery garlic sauce. 

For mains we have ordered tamarind chicken, king prawn lahori, pilau rice, mushrooms bhaji, and bhindi bhaji. These arrive quite quickly too, though to be fair the waiter did ask whether we were ready for them. The chicken tikka comes with a garlic and chilli sauce (Madras hot) as well the sweet/sour tamarind - very good. The prawns are stir-fried with ginger, garlic and peppers - a good sized portion in a  very rich sauce. Mushrooms are sliced with a little garlic, and the bhindi in wedges; pilau rice was less interesting, just some cumin seeds. 

We finish our meal in just an hour, so order a couple more glasses of wine. We ask to take away the remaining couple of pieces of chicken and the vegetables, which they duly organise. The bill is £83 with the gratuity left open to be added on the machine. When the bill is finally printed I see I have managed to leave a 10p tip!  So sheepishly I leave a tenner as well!  

It's been a very enjoyable meal, and certainly worth another visit, though there are the others to try as well. There's also a Nepalese in a pub in the other direction, so we have plenty yet to explore.

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.  

Riverside pub in Thames Ditton

It's forecast to be a nice day, so we book a table at Ye Olde Swan, a Greene king pub in Thames Ditton.  It's a bit of a walk - 20 to 25 mins - so we don't want to be turned away when we get there.  With loads of seating outside, distancing is not a problem, and we get to choose where to sit. We go for a table overlooking the river, right by the little (private) bridge across to the island.  

It's pretty idyllic, with the views to the island, the Canada geese, ducks, swans (and cygnet), and eventually a heron - though the geese see him off. Plenty of boats pootling up and down the channel (the main stream of the river is visible beyond), some deciding to moor up for lunch. 

We have the squid to start - curly-whirly bits with a chilli dipping sauce, quite spicy, cooked well.  For mains, B ordered the seabass fillet and scallops risotto - but it's "off". That means there aren't seabass fillets for the Caesar salad either, so she has the chicken Caesar  The chicken doesn't look that great but isn't as dry as it appears. Good sauce and nice anchovies.  I have the steak and ale pie with chips. This is a proper pastry pie, with a rich and tasty sauce. Sadly, though, you have to fish hard to find any actual meat.  Chips are good and hot. 

We have a couple of bottles of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.  Total bill just £72.  So, pretty average pub food, but a splendid setting on a lovely day.   As we leave we see there is a whole strip of tables down at water-level, ideal for boaters.