review Archives - Page 54 of 57

June 12, 2011

Summerhouse Steak

Out of all my local pubs and eateries, coffee shops aside, I have probably been to the Summerhouse more than any other.

A few years ago it went through a phase of poor quality and a lack of imagination, but on a more recent visit, the magic seemed to be back. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a gastropub or a magnet for foodies, this is a pub that sells pub food. It’s of decent value and my experience recently is that it is also of decent quality.

One of the nice things about the menu, are the specials, and though these disappeared a few years ago, they have been back on the menu now for a while. The main menu alongside the traditional pub fare has a few things that raised my eyebrows. Kerlan Cod, a cod loin covered in a Keralan sauce made with coconut milk, mussels, spinach, green chilli, mustard seeds and curry leaves. Greek Lamb, tender lamb with cherry tomatoes, raisins, aubergine and black olives in a red wine and mint sauce, served with cous cous.

On a recent visit, though tempted by the specials, I in the end opted for the ribeye steak with chips. A very traditional pub meal and one that really shouldn’t be a problem for any decent pub kitchen.

Well so how was it?

I asked for my steak to be cooked rare, and it was cooked just how I like it, medium-rare. It was a good steak and was quite tender. The chips were crispy on the outside and fluffy in the inside. These were traditional chips, no french fries here (though I do prefer fries). The mushroom was grilled, as was the tomato and worked well. The peas were peas and nothing special there.

I got what I ordered, it was cooked well.

Alongside my steak I had a pint of Marston’s Pedigree, there is a wider choice of beers in the bar area, and you could have one of those if you wanted.

As for the service, it was just right, not too intrusive and there just when you needed it. That is quite a challenge, sometimes the service can be too “in your face” which is a style that has come over from America, that doesn’t always work too well here in Blighty, or you have the other extreme, where you can never find a member of the waiting team when you need them.

Overall we enjoyed our experience and food and will be going again. It’s as though the magic has returned to the Summerhouse.

May 23, 2011

Conference Dining

I don’t go to as many conferences as people often think, but I do probably photograph my food at most of them…

Recently I was attending a review meeting at Aston University and we had dinner the night before at the Aston Business School. Unlike a lot of conference dinners we had a choice, which is always nice. Also not only a choice, but we could choose on the night. Normally choice is either completely limited to a single choice, or if there is a choice you have to make that choice weeks in advance. I’m not a fan of that as often what tickles my fancy weeks ago, is not what I want to eat on the night! So having the choice on the evening I am eating is a real treat.

For my starter I went with the warm tartlet of chorizo, mushrooms and roasted shallots.

In other words a quiche! It was quite tasty and very nice. It was well presented too.

For the main dish, I went with the slow cooked blade of beef with a bourguignon sauce, served with dauphinoise potatoes and green beans.

The beef was very tender and was full of flavour. I would have liked more sauce, as in places the beef was a little dry. The potatoes were great and the beans were beans.

I was tempted by the other dishes on the menu, the slow braised shoulder of Moroccan lamb with North African cous cous when it arrived on the table looked really nice.

The cassoulet of beans with Gorgonzola polenta and roasted aubergine also looked great.

What was nice was that there were two vegetarian options, most times you have the single choice of a mushroom risotto.

So what about to finish with, well I am a sucker for cheese and biscuits and went with that.

Very nice, even with the large amount of celery, which I never eat. I did feel that if you provide four biscuits it would be nice to have at least four pieces of cheese. I felt short-changed with the cheese, it needed more cheese, or more different cheeses.

Must mention the excellent service, any place which has a table of twenty as we did and know who ordered what is a real bonus. The food came out and was served to the correct people. So much nicer than someone holding out a dish and calling out “who ordered the fish?”

Overall it was a really nice meal, nice to have a choice, cooked well, great service and nice surroundings.

May 11, 2011

Grazing at the Piano

Down on the canalside in Birmingham there are quite a few places to go and eat, all (I think) are chains. On this occasion on the recommendation of the friend I was with, we ventured into the Pitcher & Piano. I have never been there before, seeing it more as a bar rather than a place to go and eat.

Even though it was an early May evening it was nice enough to sit outside. I often prefer not to sit outside, not that I don’t like sitting outside, on the contrary I really like it. However since the 2007 smoking ban, most outside eating areas have become the place where the smokers go, and sorry smoking and eating is something that doesn’t work for me. However it wasn’t too bad and no smokers were close. So we decided to eat outside. Considering this was early May, I was impressed by how pleasant it was. Usually it can be quite cold in May in the evening, but we were lucky the weather was nice.

Persuing the menu there were some nice things, I was initially tempted by a burger, but after some deliberation I went with the grazing menu. Lots of nice things, but even with all that choice I went with two things I like, things that I cook at home, things I seem to always order; I went with chicken wings and calamari, to go with it a side order of skinny fries.

The Cajun chicken wings were whole wings and to be honest were some of the best wings I have had out to eat for a long time. Not over-cooked, tender and with the right amount of spice, well maybe a little too spicy, but the sour cream served with them helped to cool the heat.

The calamari in batter was in strips, very similar to calamari I have had as Pizza Express.

This though was better, a nice crispy batter with tender squid. Really nice.

I also enjoyed the skinny fries.

Overall I enjoyed my grazing experience.

May 2, 2011

Not quite…

A few weeks ago I went to La Tasca in Leeds for meal with some friends. It was a Monday evening, so not the busiest evening to go out. The place was reasonably empty, so expectations were high that things would be good and that we would get some good service….

Well…

Not quite…

Though our waiter was quite enthusiastic about taking our orders for drinks and food, the service we had afterwards left a lot to be desired.

Our initial order of tapas dishes, seemed to take a long time to arrive and when they did, they were warm, as though they had been left somewhere for a while before they arrived at our table. Now I know that authentic tapas are just warm, so it could be argued that they were suppose to be like that… We had ordered two selections of tapas from the menu, and two additional dishes. The second selection arrived just as we were finishing the first. These were hot and straight from the kitchen.

As for the other two dishes, well we had to ask for them, and it would appear that they had gone to a different table! So our final two dishes arrived somewhat later.

So what of the tapas themselves. Well the calamari was nice, fresh with a crunchy batter, but slightly let down by an excessive sprinkling of sea salt. If you brushed that off, then it was quite nice. There was a nice creamy chicken dish that I liked, but no idea what it was or the name. I did like the deep fried anchovies, think of whitebait but with a stronger flavour. Alas this was one of our missing dishes and arrived last and I was quite full at this point. To be honest I enjoyed most of the dishes and they had flavour and texture. Some things were very good, some were good and some I know could be a lot better. For example the “sample” paella dishes are not paella as I know it should be, but then maybe one day, I should just order paella at La Tasca to see what they do with their standard paella. The fritata was okay, but not sure if that was just me, or it’s suppose to be like that! At the end of the day I have had much better tapas dishes from La Tasca and as a result I was slightly disappointed.

However as with any “dining experience” it’s not just about the food (though the food is important) it is also the atmosphere, the ambience and the service.

Well the people I was with were excellent company and I really enjoyed the evening, so from that perspective it was great.

The service on the other hand was, well variable, sometimes good, sometimes downright awful. An example, very few deserts were available as they had run out of vanilla ice cream… Now this was in the centre of Leeds, a Tesco Express was just around the corner, was it really too much effort for someone to get a tub? Well knowing how these chains work I suspect that if they did, there would be hell to pay from senior management over staff using non-standard ingredients. I also guess that they wouldn’t be able to re-claim the cost of the ingredients. Yes processes and guidelines are in place there to make sure the business runs smoothly, but when those processes fail, as in this case the supply of vanilla ice cream, there must be contingency plans in place to give staff the “freedom” to improvise to ensure that the customer can get what they would like. As in our case, so that the customer can get the desert they want without finding out that none are available because the supple chain failed, and procedures stop improvisation (by getting in some ice cream) to fulfill that need.

So I did indeed have a good evening out, the company was excellent, the food was good and yes I would go again to La Tasca, well maybe not in Leeds.

January 15, 2011October 7, 2020

Monte Bianco Pizza

So after a visit to the Bristol Aquarium we headed off to the Bristol Harbourside Pizza Express for lunch.

It’s quite a small Pizza Express so can get crowded. However we had a warm welcome.

After looking over the menu I went with the Mariann Bogdan created new pizza, the Monte Bianco. It was very different to the other pizza on the menu. It consisted of a base, but on top it had chicken, béchamel, fontal cheese, courgettes, red and yellow peppers and garlic oil.

So no tomato.

However I really enjoyed this pizza, it was lighter than a traditional pizza and lots of flavour, to be honest I am not sure if even needed the chicken. I might have replaced the chicken with mushrooms if I was cooking this at home.

November 9, 2010

Have you learnt your lesson yet?

So there I was needing a place to go to lunch. I did actually fancy La Tasca, however they weren’t doing anything like their Tapas for a Tenner deal though they were doing quite a few deals if there were two of you (eat for £12). However I was on my own so that wasn’t going to happen.

I looked round, but didn’t fancy Spud-u-like or Burger King so with time running out, but with a little hesitation I decided to go to Café Rouge.

Now my past experiences with Café Rouge have not been always favourable.

When I went to the branch in Cardiff I said:

Overall I was disappointed with the food and the service, I know Café Rouge is a chain, but in this case the Cardiff branch was a real disappointment.

When I was at one of the Bristol branches I was also not impressed:

They do a very good merguez sausage and it is always very well done, well cooked and nice and spicy. The lentils were quite good too.

However the dish was let down by something as simple as rocket leaves. They were not fresh, old and somewhat manky! A disappointment using not just old rocket leaves, but ones that looked as if they were verging on going off.

Now it’s not always bad news, otherwise I would certainly not have gone again this time. I had a wonderful meal in Brighton a few years ago and I think that’s the reason I keep going back.

So what went wrong this time?

This time the food was up to scratch and I’ll start with that. What I did notice was that the merguez sausage was no longer on the menu, which is a personal favourite.

I went for the fixed price menu, which is very reasonable at £8.50 for two courses, even though the choice is limited to three items for started and mains.

For my starter I went with the Salade de Toulouse – A warm salad of smoked Toulouse sausages sautéed with new potatoes and caramelised onions on a bed of mixed leaves.

This was quite nice, the sausage though was no merguez sausage and I expected a little more flavour from it. The onions and potatoes were cooked just right and the salad was fresh and crisp. I enjoyed it and used some bread to soak up the dressing.

The other two choices were Champignons a la Creme – Chestnut mushrooms cooked in garlic & cream served with French bread and

Salade Niçoise – Classic Niçoise salad with tuna, anchovies, egg, olives, potatoes, French beans and tomatoes with mixed leaves.

For my main course I went with the Poulet et Dauphinoise – Roasted chicken leg with dauphinoise potatoes and thyme jus.

This was also very nice, the chicken was cooked fine, the dauphinoise potatoes had flavour and good texture. The thyme jus was very nice.

The other two choices for the mains were Filet de Colin – Pan fried fillet of hake served on a bed of Ratatouille and Omelette aux Fines Herbes – Fresh herb omelette served with French fries or mixed salad. The fish had run out so it was a choice between chicken and omelette in the end.

So the food was good, what went wrong, why are you not going again?

Well this time the service is what was awful.

When I walked in, the place was quite full, and the waitress did say there would be a 30 minute wait for food, I was fine with that. It just seemed to taken them an inordinately long time to take my order. The first course arrived within 20 minutes which was nice. But then I had a 30 minute wait for the main course! By this time the place was much much emptier. What annoyed me though was that other tables were getting served before me even though they had come in later. In other words I had been forgotten… this was also evidenced by the waitress asking if I had had my main course (with my empty starter plate in front of me).

I normally do tip, however on this occasion I felt that I hadn’t had any service let alone good service.

So next time I think about going to Café Rouge, remind me of this time, oh and that time too….

October 31, 2010October 30, 2020

Surf & Turf

A few months ago I visited the Surf & Turf restaurant in St Ives.

I was looking for a nice meal and having had a look round decided on the Surf & Turf. I went with the signature dish as I do quite like surf and turf.

After a very nice complimentary portion of soup…

…it was onto the main course.

It consisted of half a lobster, a rib eye steak and some giant prawns. Served with salad and new potatoes.

It was all very fresh and did taste good. The steak was cooked to my liking. I did have a hunch that the shellfish wasn’t cooked from raw, which was a pity, but overall a nice dish and reasonably priced at £25.

The surroundings were very pleasant and the staff and service were excellent.

October 16, 2010October 30, 2020

Grilled Trio

In December 2009 I went to a conference in Auckland in New Zealand. I had passed the Harbourside Ocean Bar Grill numerous times on my first few days and really liked the look of the menu. However too often I was eating with friends, or at the conference. I decided on what was my last night in Auckland that I would go and eat there.

Having had a delicious starter of scallops I went for the Grilled Trio for my main course. This was a really interesting dish comprising a trio of grilled fish.

It was like having three separare main courses, which was the reason I chose it as it was difficult to make one choice from the menu.

The three fish were from left to right.

Kingfish, with lemon potato, chorizo and a chermoula butter sauce.

Salmon with spice avocado and salmorejo sauce.

Hapuku served with hummus, pomegranate syrup and crisp onions.

This was a really excellent dish, full of flavour and just the kind of thing I like from a restaurant meal, creativity, flavour and textures.

October 15, 2010October 30, 2020

Northland Scallops

For my starter I went with the Northland Scallops.

Grilled scallops with a pineapple salsa, skordalia and beurre blanc.

Beautifully cooked and presented scallops. Nice accompaniments. Delicious.

September 29, 2010February 5, 2024

Breakfast in Bloomsbury

I had really enjoyed the breakfast I had at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury back in 2008.

It was a splendid affair, and though there was an element of self-service, what was nice was the staff took your cooked breakfast order and brought it to the table.

Beautifully served, it consisted of an excellent meaty sausage, some very nice grilled bacon, a small bowl of baked beans, grilled (and skinned) tomato, mushroom, bubble and squeak, black pudding and egg. You had a choice of eggs (chicken or duck) and cooked to your liking, I had a poached duck’s egg. It was also garnished with lettuce, not sure about the lettuce.

So when I was lucky enough to stay at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury again recently, I was really looking forward to coming down for breakfast.

I wasn’t expecting to get an identical experience, but it was pretty close.

The eggs were cooked well, the sausage was nice, as was the bacon. I liked the grilled mushrooms. The tomato wasn’t as good as before and there was a solitary small hash brown.

Luckily no lettuce, just some parsley.

There was quite a choice of other cooked items as well, such as boiled eggs and kippers.

Along with the cooked breakfast, there was also a (self-service) selection of toast, bread products such as croissant and panettone, fruit, yoghurt, juice, cold meats, cheese and smoked fish.

Excellent service and great food. A good start to the day.