Category: review

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Shish Kebab

The first time I went to Caffe Gusto at the Mall I was impressed with the quality of the food and friendly staff, but less impressed with the speed of service.

So when I was in the mood for some lunch and was passing the Mall I was slightly hesitant about going to Caffe Gusto as I was in a bit of a hurry. However I knew I wouldn’t be going to Café Rouge anytime soon.

At Caffe Gusto, it’s a bit like a pub, in that you order your food at the counter, give a table number and then wait for your food.

I ordered the Shish Kebab in Pitta Bread with an Americano.

The coffee was good and I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly the food arrived, and all nice freshly cooked.

The lamb was reasonably tender, nicely cooked and well flavoured. The fries were really nice and the salad was fresh.

Overall I had an excellent meal and was pleased with what I had. I would go again.

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Beignets de Cabillaud

Earlier this week I mentioned the starter I had had at Café Rouge. It was part of the fixed price menu, for my mains I had Beignets de Cabillaud, which is deep fried cod goujons served with French Fries and remoulade sauce.

So it’s fish and chips!

I did enjoy this dish, I liked the fries, the batter was cripsy, the fish had flavour, the sauce was tasty.

I think I should have ordered a salad to go with it, but if the rocket leaves were anything to go by on the starter than maybe it was a good idea I didn’t.

This dish almost made up for the disappointment of the starter.

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Merguez aux Lentilles de Puy

Though I always have reservations about Café Rouge there is one item on the menu that I do like that always tempts me to try the place again, and that is Merguez aux Lentilles de Puy or grilled spicy Merguez sausage on a bed of puy lentils in a ceramy sauce and topped with a rocket salad.

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.

Once more Café Rouge disappoints, I need to learn from this.

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Char-Grilled Feather Steak Florentine

The other week I was at the Solent Hotel & Spa in Fareham. From the outside it was a modern looking hotel just off the motorway. Inside it was well decorated and though they had gone for an “older” look, it did appear to work, and didn’t look tacky as sometimes it does when hotels do this.

The staff in the hotel were professional and friendly and their primary goal appeared to be making sure that my stay was perfect.

Rather than go to the restaurant I went to the bar instead to eat. From the menu, I chose the Char-Grilled Feather Steak Florentine. It is called ‘feather’ due to the unique markings of the meat, it is also known as the ‘butchers or onglet steak’. The steak was served with a spicy tomato sauce and fries.

I wasn’t expecting the dish to look like this though when it arrived!

The steak arrived pre-sliced on a wooden board rather than a plate. The steak was excellent and well flavoured. I also enjoyed the dressing and salad leaves. The spicy tomato sauce was okay, but I didn’t like it that much, nothing wrong with it, more it wasn’t to my taste. The fries were crisp and had flavour.

Overall a delicious steak and a delightful eating experience.

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Oh dear, gone downhill somewhat…

Back in February 2008 I wrote a glowing review of the National Trust Heelis Cafe in Swindon next door to the shopping outlet.

Compared to the food offerings in the shopping outlet, if you are out Swindon way, pop over to the National Trust cafe and enjoy a delicious meal in peaceful and pleasant environment.

We visited the cafe again today and was, well let’s just say the quality has done downhill somewhat in some areas.

There were no childrens’ boxes available at the time of ordering, so rather than wait we ordered the children two sausage baps. The sausages were slightly overdone (probably under the hot lamp for too long) and the baps, well one was toasted and slightly burnt, the other wasn’t even toasted! Why? No idea.

My other half went with the Fidget Pie, well it was a pasty, that came with salad and roast potatoes, no not sure of that combination myself to he honest, it’s not as though we were given a choice. The salad was fine, but the pasty was a little short on filling so consisted mainly of pastry.

I went for a traditional roast beef dinner. At £7.50 I expected to get an excellent home cooked roast beef dinner… well I didn’t.

Yes the potatoes were home roasted, and were roasted and not deep-fried as is often the case in some restaurants, pubs and cafes. The carrots were fine, but the brocolli was limp, having spent too much time under a heat lamp. The beef was a real disappointment, wafer thin slices of cooked beef that had been re-heated in gravy. This is something that cheap catering does, and not something I expected from the  Heelis Cafe. The Yorkshire Pudding looked and tasted like it was heated up in the microwave and to be honest I did wonder if the meal was from the day before (as we did order early at midday) and had just been microwaved. I was expecting a proper carvery and proper slices of roast beef, not the equivalent of a £3.99 meal from a supermarket cafe.

Overall having spent nearly £30 at the cafe I was very very disappointed.

Maybe I should have complained, but it’s not as though anything was wrong, it was just that the quality was nowhere near what I have had in the past from the cafe. I am guessing that they have a new chef. They appeared to also have stock problems, as they had no salmon and no flan either; remember they only have a few things on the menu.

As a result I will probably not visit again, or if I do I would check the menu more carefully before ordering.

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Chargrilled Tuna

I went out for lunch and had a nice piece of chargrilled tuna with vegetables from the café at Sainsburys, which was both delicious and in some ways was also surprising.

Chargrilled Tuna

I wasn’t quite expecting them to do such a good looking and tasty dish. The sauce was nice and the accompanying vegetables was a nice touch.

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SAME Cafe: The restaurant where you pay what you can

Very interesting article from the Denver News on the restuarant where you pay what you can.

SAME has a menu that changes daily but always features food that’s made from scratch and is largely organic. It has tables, chairs, bus bins, plants in the windows and overhead music (usually a mix of classic rock). But there’s one thing SAME doesn’t have: a cash register. There’s no credit-card machine, no change drawer, no receipt book. That’s because SAME doesn’t have prices. Diners come in and order — some ask for just a cup of soup or a small slice of pizza, while others go for a whole meal, maybe even seconds if they’re really hungry — and then pay what they want.

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Ambassadors at Bloomsbury Part One

I was recently up in London and stayed at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. Staying with friends we had the Christmas dinner at the Number Twelve attached restaurant. I started off with the Chestnut Pasta and had the Ribeye steak for my mains.

The home made chestnut pasta was served with seasonal wild mushrooms and a white butter sauce. I did enjoy this dish, the pasta was cooked well and nice selection of mushrooms.

For my mains I had ribeye of 28 day Donald Russell beef, served with celeriac, braised red onion, wild mushrooms and roast potatoes.

ribeye of 28 day Donald Russell beef

The steak was not the best I’ve had, slightly tough and was certainly not full of flavour compared to others I have eaten. The celeriac was nice as was the onions and mushrooms.

Overall I did enjoy both the started and the main course.

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Alba Ristorante Part Five

I was recently lucky enough to go to dinner at the Alba Ristorante in London with some friends., not just once, but enjoyed it enough the first time to go for a second meal. Unlike a lot of Italian restaurants I have been too, the menu here was not full of pasta and pizza, on the contrary it was very different and as a result much more interesting and refreshing.

One of the dishes that a friend ate was the Platessa con Salsa Bianca or Plaice with spinach, “salsa bianca” new potatoes.

Platessa con Salsa Bianca

He said it was excellent and beautifully cooked.