Author: jamesclay

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Burrito and a Beer

Needing a quick dinner and not wanting to spend a fortune and wanting to try somewhere different. I decided that it was time to go to Chiquitos. I have been there before, but that was years ago. Not been recently as generally when I go to where my local one is, I have the children with me and they aren’t fans of mexican food (at the moment), we go to Bella Italia or Frankie and Bennys.

As I was on my own, then I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and see what it was like now.

They had a special offer of a burrito and a beer for just £7.99.

Well lets go with that then. I decided to go with the pulled pork option.

Service was really quick and even though I was having the “special offer” I also got the complementary tortilla chips.

The burrito when it arrived, certainly looked interesting.

I am not sure I would have presented it in that way, I think I might have preferred the sour cream, guacamole and salsa to be served separately.

I think I would have also preferred it to be “freshly made” rather than as I think it was, just heated through. I may be wrong on that.

Overall it was very nice and quite tasty. Spicy but not too spicy.

I will probably go back and try something different another time.

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Giardiniera

Of all the pizza places available, the one I go to most has to be Pizza Express. I do enjoy their pizzas and the atmosphere (depending on where and when you go) is nice. I’ve generally had excellent service too, which is always a plus and is one of the reasons I make return visits.

On my latest visit there for lunch… well another reason I quite like Pizza Express is that they do Tesco Clubcard Deals, so I can get a meal for “free”, which means I can justify lunch there now and again. As I was saying, on my latest visit there for lunch I went for their classic Giardiniera pizza. It comes with artichokes, mushrooms, red peppers, santos tomatoes, courgettes, olives, garlic oil, tomato & pesto base.

The pizza base was good, tasted fresh, was crusty on the outside and soft inside. There was a decent amount of toppings without going over the top. There is a (and is it a small) window between not enough toppings on a pizza and too much. The topping shouldn’t overpower the pizza and as a result turn the pizza into a plate for toppings, whereas the actual pizza itself is the important part of eating pizza. The toppings are there to enhance and add a little something to the pizza eating experience, they are not the reason for eating pizza in itself.

Another reason that I like Pizza Express, it still has that Italian feel to the place, you don’t get “stuffed crusts” and all that, you get at other places I could mention.

I suppose my only criticism of the place is that I feel the starters could be better.

Overall I enjoyed my pizza, it was enjoyable and the service was excellent.

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Italian Inspired Bistro Box

Italian Bistro BoxA new concept from Sainsburys has been a series of Bistro boxes. The ones I have seen are Italian, Spanish and Greek. I went for the Italian.

It contains a pasta and pesto salad with pine nuts, crunchy focaccia, milano salami, sun dried tomatoes with mozzarella and rocket. You also get a balsamic vinaigrette.

Overall it was really quite nice for lunch, a good combination of textures, flavours and colours. My only real complaint was that it was quite salty, but then Italian food can be quite salty anyhow! What was I expecting?

So was it value for money? Well at £4 I think it was a tad pricey. However even if I bought the items individually, it would probably be about the same price for similar quantities. Interested enough to try out the Greek and Spanish versions.

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Liking Mackerel

Mackerel

Decided to cook some mackerel for the first time in years. I’ve not had a huge amount of success cooking mackerel in the past, so have avoided it and gone for other types of fish.

After eating out recently at Café Rouge and having a very nice piece of mackerel there, decided that I would get some myself at some point and cook it.

So having bought some salmon for the rest of the family I also bought a fillet of mackerel.

I prepared the mackerel, though it was almost prepared by the fishmonger, it still had some bones in, so I removed that. The mackerel was then coated in seasoned flour. In my heavy frying pan I heated up a splash of olive oil and a knob of butter. With the butter bubbling I added the floured mackerel fillets. Once they were nearly cooked I added pink peppercorns and chopped parsley. They were stirred through and cooked for another minute.

I placed the mackerel fillets onto a plate and poured the butter, peppercorns and parsley over the them.

They were really nice and I will certainly be cooking mackerel again.

The salmon by the way, I roasted in the oven.

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Espresso in the car…

You just know that I want to get one of these…. Perfect for those long journeys, or when queuing for petrol when there’s a tanker strike on, or as happens way too often the M5 grinds to a halt.

Only €149

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Yo! Sushi Takeaway

There is a huge difference between the sushi you can buy from the supermarket and the fresh stuff that you can buy at Yo Sushi!

Needing a quick meal I decided to get some Yo! Sushi takeout. I went for a Mixed Box and a Meaty Box.

In the Mixed Box, you get 3 sashimi: salmon, tuna, coriander seared tuna. 3 nigiri: salmon, prawn, tamago. 2 iso: crunchy prawn & avocado, YO! roll. 2 cucumber maki.

What I do like about Yo! Sushi is they use fresh raw fish. I really enjoyed the sashimi, fresh succulent and tasty. I sometimes add the pickled ginger and soy sauce. The nigiri were good, solid sticky rice with tasty toppings. Less confident about the tamago sweet omelette but the salmon was very good. I also quite like the small cucumber maki, when accompanied with the ginger and soy is a very tasty treat. Overall there is a really nice selection in the box and probably about right for one.

However as there were two of us we got two boxes, as well as the mixed box, I also picked up the Meaty Box. In this box, you get 2 crispy duck futomaki. 2 spicy chicken katsu iso. 2 seared beef nigiri. 1 spicy chicken salad.

I don’t usually have meat when I have sushi, favouring the fish, so this was a first for me. I though the seared beef nigiri was interesting, but lacked the depth of flavour I was expecting. Whereas the spicy chicken katsu iso was a wonderful combination of tastes and textures. There was also a lot of flavour in the crispy duck futomaki. Though I enjoyed the spicy chicken salad I do think we needed more of it.

Next time I think I might need to add more bulk, maybe some an extra rice or noodle dish. Possibly more salad too.

Overall, though not too expensive at £14 for two, it’s not the cheapest takeaway you can buy, it was delicious, fresh and tasty.

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Hobgoblin

This is a very nice ruby beer. Dark in colour, strong in taste this is a beer to be savoured slowly. A perfect choice for dark winter evenings (even though it’s nearly spring, it is still very nice).

I do like the beers from the Wychwood Brewery and the imagery they use is also clever.

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Black & Beyond

Those who know me, know that I only drink “real” coffee, I’ve recently changed my usual coffee from Percol’s Americano to Percol’s Black & Beyond. This is an increase in strength from 5 to 6.

It’s a strong coffee that is full of flavour. If you like the odd espresso then you’ll probably like a cup of this. However if you prefer a latte then you’ll no doubt find this coffee way too strong.

I generally use this coffee in my cafetiere and certainly gives a kick and is very nice.

You wouldn’t want to have too many cups of this coffee otherwise you’ll have to drag you off the ceiling!

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“Chelsea” Bun

I would be the first person to make the call that what you see in the photograph above is not a true Chelsea Bun.

It was a “Chelsea” Bun from Morrisons. Made from bread it had dried fruit and cinnamon and was topped with a sugar glaze and sugar crystals.

As you can probably guess it wasn’t anything to write home about. It lacked freshness, it was too sugary and the cinnamon was somewhat misplaced and overpowering.

This wasn’t a delight, much more a cloying and unsatisfying experience, one not to be repeated.

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Americano please…

Caffe Nero in Birmingham

Last week, having managed to catch an earlier train and arriving in Birmingham a little earlier than I needed to, I decided to venture to Caffé Nero for a coffee. (and they have free wifi so that’s useful too).

I ordered my usual for Caffé Nero, an americano with cold skimmed milk on the side.

As I have written before, I have found that the coffee at Caffé Nero is pretty consistent, and this one was no exception. A really nice strong, well flavoured coffee.

If can’t find a decent independent, then out of all the chains if I can find one, then I will go to Caffé Nero.