Category: salad

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Crayfish & Salmon Salad

The other week I was lucky enough to have dinner at the Mustard Seed Restaurant in Inverness.

For my starter I had what the menu described as the Crayfish tail, smoked salmon and vegetable egg noodle salad with an oriental dressing and roasted sesame seeds.

Now though I think the sesame seeds were missing, it was an interesting combination of oriental and Scottish, the noodles with smoked salmon. The salmon was great, the crayfish tails were okay though the noodle salad was somewhat bland, even with the oriental dressing.

Overall it was nice starter, refreshing and some nice ingredients, but I think it could have been better, though I don’t think that the missing sesame seeds would have been the solution.

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Salad for Lunch

Lunch

I know that a lot of people have salad for lunch as they perceive it to be a healthy option. I generally have salad for lunch as I enjoy eating a nice salad. It’s nice at work that we have salad bars that I can get one from. Sometimes I get one from the local supermarket. Some of the best salads I have had are from small deli type places who make them fresh to order. They’re generally my first choice.

I do like variety in my salad, however I generally draw the line at dried fruit or celery.

From a health perspective a salad such as the one pictured above has a fair bit of fat and salt in it. You can of course avoid all the mayonnaise, dressings and salty stuff and have a much healthier salad, but where’s the fun in that then?

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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….

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Chargrilled Squid with Chorizo Salad

As I have said before when ordering I usually seem to avoid ordering anything that may be too new and go with the familiar, and it was the same with this dish, chargrilled squid and chorizo salad. It was a meal I had in Auckland in New Zealand.

Now unlike many times I have had squid this was made with fresh squid and you certainly could tell the difference.

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Chicken and Avocado Salad

In December 2009 I went to a conference in Auckland in New Zealand. I spent a couple of days after the conference exploring the area around Auckland. I had caught the ferry to Devonport and after climbing Mount Victoria went for some lunch.

I had this really nice salad of chicken and avocado.

The chicken was freshly grilled and served with the avocado, salad and a spicy dressing.

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Italian Salad

Sometimes simple food can be delicious and tasty.

This Italian salad I made for lunch comprises some slices of salami and cold roasted pork loin. I served it with some mixed  lettuce leaves and tomato, with ripped mozzarella dressed with basil leaves, olive oil and vinegar.

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Wild Rocket

Found this at my local Tesco.

It’s a packet of unwashed wild rocket.

Certainly felt a lot fresher than the stuff in bags (and I hope a lot less chemicals too).

Of course the obvious thing to do is not buy the stuff, but grow my own rocket.

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Red Pepper, Basil and Tomato Salad

A nice accompaniment to grilled meats is a salad. This recipe is one of my regular salads and is very simple to make. It consists of lettuce, halved cherry or small tomatoes and thinly sliced pointed red pepper. This time I also added some basil leaves.

I dress the salad with olive oil, white wine vinegar and ground black pepper.

Simple, refreshing with a hint of heat from the pepper (red and black).