Staying at the Drayton Court Hotel I went for dinner. Despite not being available the last time I had dinner at the hotel, this time the special, crab and mussel tagliolini was available. I thought it was a starter, but the staff behind the bar didn’t think it was. It was described on the menu as crab and mussel tagliolini with razor clams, brown shrimp, glazed old Winchester cheese, purple sprouting broccoli, and chive.
When it arrived, it was obviously a starter portion and it wasn’t tagliolini, it was tagliatelle again. Tagliolini is a type of ribbon pasta, long like spaghetti, roughly 2–3 mm wide, similar to tagliatelle, but thin like capellini.
It was an interesting dish, the pasta was well cooked, I could taste and see some of the seafood, but it didn’t feel that individual seafood stood out very much. I think the purple sprouting broccoli was either missing or heavily ground down!
Overall, it was a nice starter, but I do think it was rather overpriced for what it was.
Staying at the Drayton Court Hotel I went for dinner and I really wasn’t sure what to have. I did quite fancy the crab pasta starter on the specials list, but it was unavailable. Looking over the starters I decided to have the fish tacos. As I wasn’t having pasta for a starter I went with the pasta special for my main course.
This was described as a wild boar and roasted tomato ragout, served with pappardelle pasta, pecorino, and truffle oil. This sounded rather nice.
The dish arrived.
Well, the pasta wasn’t pappardelle, this was tagliatelle. Well not the end of the world. There was a substantial amount of cheese on top. As for the ragout, well I was expecting a strong flavoured ragout. However it was rather bland, quite dry, and disappointing. I couldn’t taste the truffle oil either.
I was staying in Berlin in December, for a few days attending a conference. The last time I had been to Germany was in 1985 staying for a couple of days in Munich on the way back from a camp in Yugoslavia. This was my first visit to Berlin and the first visit to a unified Germany. I was staying at the NH Collection Mitte ‘Checkpoint Charlie” in the heart of what was East Berlin. I had various meals and snacks while I was there in Berlin.
I did feel a little guilty going to an Italian restaurant while staying in Germany, but when you realise that Vapiano is a German restaurant franchise company headquartered in Cologne. The chain’s restaurants offer Italian food adhering to the fast-casual principle, it certainly has some German food credentials.
The service was simple, in that you ordered from a screen, took a buzzer, and then collected your food from the kitchen. Looking over the menu, I initially decided I wouldn’t have pasta or pizza, but would probably go with a risotto.
I did though look over the pasta menu, I liked the idea of choosing your own type of pasta, and it was fresh pasta. So, I changed my mind and went with the Filetto di Manzo e Rucola, or Beef Fillet and Rocket.
The menu could be accessed in English, so the description of Rinderfilet, Weißwein, Karotten, Zucchini, Champignons, Lauchzwiebeln, Zwiebeln, Rucola, could be translated to beef fillet, white wine, carrots, zucchini, mushrooms, spring onions, onions, rocket.Saw I could add “brot” for free, so I did. Well, my Grade 4 CSE German comes in handy when I remember that ‘brot’ is German for bread and it was a free extra to my food.
When my buzzer buzzed, I went to the kitchen to collect my food. The dish looked great.
It also tasted great. It was fresh and delicious. The steak was tender and I liked the addition of the rocket to the dish. The rest of the ingredients in the dish added to the flavours and textures.
I really enjoyed the pasta dish. The bread was nice as well.
Though I had intended to have the Bruschetta as a starter, because of the process of ordering through a screen meant that the Bruschetta and the pasta arrived at the same time. The Bruschetta was toasted bread with fresh tomatoes, onion, and rocket.
It was a great combination of textures and flavours. The tomato was nice, fresh, and it was well seasoned.
Tasty. Though another time I think I would order my starter first and then order the main course.
I was staying in Berlin in December, for a few days attending a conference. The last time I had been to Germany was in 1985 staying for a couple of days in Munich on the way back from a camp in Yugoslavia. This was my first visit to Berlin and the first visit to a unified Germany. I was staying at the NH Collection Mitte ‘Checkpoint Charlie” in the heart of what was East Berlin. I had various meals and snacks while I was there in Berlin.
I did feel a little guilty going to an Italian restaurant while staying in Germany, but when you realise that Vapiano is a German restaurant franchise company headquartered in Cologne. The chain’s restaurants offer Italian food adhering to the fast-casual principle, it certainly has some German food credentials.
The service was simple, in that you ordered from a screen, took a buzzer, and then collected your food from the kitchen. I had started with soup, after finishing that, I then went back to the screen to order some pasta.
I ordered the linguine with beef tenderloin, shrimp, lobster sauce, carrots, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, onions, spring onions, basil, brandy. I liked how you could use the type of pasta in your dish and add extras if needed (such as cheese).
The pasta was perfectly cooked and the rest of the dish was very tasty, though I didn’t really taste the lobster in the lobster sauce.
It was certainly an interesting pasta dish and I enjoyed it. In some ways it was a strange combination of ingredients, though you often have prawns and steak together as a surf and turf. Would I have it again, probably.
This is my recipe for making Bolognese sauce for serving with spaghetti or other pasta.
500g minced beef, I try and get 5% or 10% fat mince, otherwise the end result can be a bit greasy
Splash of olive oil
One onion, diced
One carrot, finely diced. The carrot is there to add some veg to the dish as well as flavour
One red pepper, diced
Handful of mushrooms, chopped
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Knorr beef stockpot
Dried Italian herbs
Tin of tomatoes
Tomato purée
I usually use a big pan for cooking this dish. I heat the pan add the olive oil and then brown off the mince until it is all done. If you have excess fat in the pan then drain the cooked mince and discard the excess oil and fat.
Add the onion, carrot and pepper. You can add extra vegetables at this point, or extra pepper. After a few minutes add the mushrooms.
Once the onion is soft and cooked, add the tin of tomatoes, the herbs, the tomato purée and the balsamic vinegar.
Cook for at least 20 minutes on a low heat, though longer would ensure that the beef is tender.
Serve with spaghetti or a pasta of your choice. Add freshly grated Parmesan to taste.
Iwas out for a meal at Bella Italia at Cribbs Causeway. It’s being a while since I was last here, but I do remember have an excellent meal here back in June 2021. I did notice that Bella Italia at Cabot Circus which has been closed for a while, is now going to be a Bao Burger. I found that branch lacked character and atmosphere, whereas the Cribbs Causeway branch has a little more character and charm. They’ve updated it over the years and though at some time it had a classic Italian trattoria feel to it, today it is slightly more of a Italian inspired funky look.
We had booked, which having arrive, made sense, as the place was rather full. We were given a friendly welcome and we were shown to our table.
I looked over the menu. I didn’t think it was as interesting as it was back in June 2021, but there were some dishes I did like the sound of.In the end I went with the set menu, and I had a starter of Mushroom Crostini, which I enjoyed.
For my main I did initially think about having their new(ish) Pinsa Pizza.
With a bigger, thicker, crispier base, this traditional premium Italian Pinsa is hard to beat
I suspect if they had a white base pizza with mushroom and truffle then I would have gone for that. In the end I decided I would go with a pasta dish and I chose the Pollo Cacciatore – Roast chicken, pancetta, chestnut mushrooms and red onions tossed with pappardelle pasta in a white wine and tomato sauce. I did look at the image on the online menu and liked the look of the dish.
The dish which arrived didn’t quite look like the picture on the online menu!
This is what I received.
This is what the online version looked like.
Having said that the pappardelle pasta was cooked well, and I liked the mushrooms and red onion in the dish. I could have quite easily lost the chicken though. The sauce was tasty and I had some extra parmesan added which enhanced the dish.
Overall I did enjoy my food and I enjoyed all three dishes I had from the set menu. I think after having such an excellent meal back in June 2021, I was a little disappointed. I think that it didn’t help that the dishes I received on my table didn’t reflect what was on the menu. Maybe they shouldn’t publish photographs of the dishes on the website. I probably will visit again at some time.
I was attending a team away day at Ashorne Hill Conference Centre and it was time for dinner. As part of my job I will often attend events and conferences. Sometimes these will be in hotels and other times they are in dedicated conference centres. I usually have lunch, which usually defaults to some kind of buffet lunch. For some events and conferences I stay over and that means having dinner.
So there I was attending an “away day” at the Ashorne Hill Conference Centre near to Leamington Spa. It was a lunchtime to lunchtime event, so there was dinner in the evening. For my starter I went with the smoked salmon on a crumpet, with a poached egg and topped with hollandaise sauce and a chive crumb, which was rather nice.
My main course, though was rather disappointing. I had gone with the mushroom pasta carbonara.
Though this was a vegetarian dish, I could quite easily see the mushrooms replacing the pancetta or the guanciale. What I didn’t expect was the pasta, that pasta that was used was pasta shells or conchiglie.
Usually with carbonara, spaghetti is the most common pasta, but fettuccine, rigatoni, linguine, or bucatini are also used.
The garlic bread appeared to be made from naan bread!
The dish just didn’t work for me, it didn’t taste right and I didn’t like it (and I usually like pasta).
In the end I returned the dish and had it replaced it with some pork belly, which was much better.
I enjoyed my last visit to Bills on Baker Street in July. So it was with some anticipation we headed there for dinner on a visit to London. Bills has an interesting dining environment, the different branches seem familiar, but different at the same time. The Baker Street branch appears to be smaller than other Bills I have been to.
Upon entering we were given a warm welcome, we had booked, and were shown to our table. One of the things I have found with Bills is that the menu changes quite often, so even though you may think, well I have that next time I visit, sometimes those very things disappear. So it does make, making a choice that little bit harder.
I was expecting to see the set menu we had in July, but it had changed already. It had gone up by two pounds and had lost the steak and chicken dishes we had had back then. So after reviewing what was on the set menu, we looked at the main menu.
While the rest of the table went with steak and chips, I wanted something different.
I was tempted by the chargrilled lamb rump. However having had an outstanding lamb rump in 2018 from the (now sadly closed) Cattle & Co in Euston, I knew I would have high expectations. The menu description of marinated lamb rump steaks I knew I might be disappointed. The sound of the Black & Gold Burger was quite tempting.
Chargrilled beef patty topped with cheese & truffle fondue, 24 carat gold flakes & grated black truffle. Served with rosemary salted fries.
As was the description of the Triple Truffle Shuffle Burger from the specials menu.
Topped with truffle mac & cheese, white truffle oil & dusted with freshly grated truffle. Served with rosemary fries
However I didn’t really fancy a burger, having only had one the other day in Harwell.
In the end I went with a dish I had been tempted to before on previous visits to Bills, which was the Lobster & Seafood Linguine.
Lobster, king prawn & squid in a rich tomato & chilli cream sauce with lemon oil.
The dish was nicely presented.
There was a nice lot of seafood in the pasta dish, which meant as you ate the dish you kept finding prawns, squid and lobster on your fork. Some places I have eaten this kind of dish, you get a meagre amount of seafood. I wasn’t overly impressed with the lobster, which either lacked flavour or was overpowered by the sauce. If it wasn’t there I don’t think I would have missed it, which was a pity.
I did enjoy the dish, I liked the cherry tomatoes with the pasta. Though I think it wouldn’t be something I would order again, if it was still on the menu. It didn’t blow me away.
As for the rest of the table, well they all went with chargrilled 8oz sirloin steak with rosemary fries.
They all enjoyed their dishes, but they did say I cooked a better steak.
Pasta is a quick and easy dish in our house. For a sauce I usually start off making a base of pancetta, onions and pepper in a frying pan. Start off by cooking the pancetta until browning and then add the onions and peppers. When the onions and pepper are softened add sliced mushrooms. As the mushrooms cook add some spinach.
This is the base for a variety of pasta sauces.
Add to freshly cooked pasta with pesto for pesto pasta.
Add a tin of chopped tomatoes (or a carton of passata) for a tomato sauce.
For a creamy sauce, I usually stir in a jar of crème fraîche. I always try and use a quality crème fraîche rather than the standard supermarket own brand.
Add parmesan to taste.
I sometimes cook some mushroom separately and add those as an addition to the pasta.
Back in at the end of November I was in London working and needing lunch, wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for, but after walking around Leather Lane market I made a decision. I decided that I wanted a salad.
I had enjoyed my salad from Birley Sandwiches so joined the queue.
I had a pasta salad with rocket, tomatoes, mozzarella, avocado, croutons and olives.
I do like the way they make the salads fresh to order, they toss the salad in the dressing for you.
When I got back to the office, I put the salad on a plate and tucked in. It was nice, but not as nice as the salads I have had there before. It was a little too salty for me. Maybe it’s time for a change, when I next get a salad.
