food, reviews and of course coffee
Fancying a salad for lunch I found this Mozzarella, Tomato & Pesto Salad with Rocket & Pine Nuts in Sainsbury’s.
It was quite nice. The pesto wasn’t overpowering, there was enough to cover the pasta and there were ample pine nuts too. The pasta was the right texture, the sunblush tomatoes were nice and the mozzarella was fine.
Overall it was a nice packaged salad and certainly much nicer than a sandwich.
On a recent visit to Pizza Hut I was once more disappointed with the salad bar. Credit to Pizza Hut in that they are currently giving away unlimited salad if you order a main course, so maybe I am been slightly disingenuous as the salads are free.
Yes there was lettuce, but it was iceberg lettuce. Yes there was cucumber, but it was thick chunks rather than slices. No tomatoes though… The coleslaw was okay, however the potato salad lacked texture and bite.
I think part of my disappointment is the result of a memory from the early 1990s when I visited a branch of the Deep Pan Pizza company and on their salad bar they had chicken wings, fresh pineapple slices and a fantastic range of salads.
Of course as Deep Pan Pizza closed in 1998 there is no chance of visiting them again!
I do quite like pasta based salads which are basically can be best described as cold pasta! Though there is a little more work required than just letting cooked pasta going cold…
For this salad I cooked some fusilli pasta twists and after they had cooked, I immersed them in cold water. Iced cold water would be better, but I had no ice, so just plain cold water would do. This is for two reasons, firstly to make the pasta cold, ready for the salad, secondly to stop the cooking process. If you just cooked the pasta an let it go cold, it would go all soggy as it continued to cook after you drained it. So even if you intend to eat your pasta salad later, still plunge it into cold water to stop the cooking process. Just as an aside this is often how restaurants “cook” pasta. They cook the pasta until just about done, before plunging the pasta into ice cold water. They can then finish the cooking of the pasta when needed and it will only take a minute to finish the pasta before adding a sauce.
So with the cooked pasta I added a couple of spoonfuls of basil pesto and some chicken.
Mixed and served.
You could add some fresh basil leaves to up the basil flavour. Another option would be to add some cooked spinach.
I made myself a simple salad, it consisted of some coleslaw. Now in the past I have made my own coleslaw and much prefer it. However this time it was from the shop!
I used some lettuce leaves with green beans, which I dressed with some olive oil and white wine vinegar. To finish off some Jersey Royal new potatoes with a spoonful of mayonnaise.
Simple and delicious.
As my last experience wasn’t too bad, when I needed to get a meal recently I did try Café Rouge one more time.
After my last meal, back then I said:
So despite my reservations I in the end had a good meal, good service and may go again.
One of my main issue (and it would appear I am not alone in this) with Café Rouge is not necessarily with the food, but with the service.
I have had issues with the food so still not entirely confident with the chain.
However there is something I really like about the concept behind Café Rouge, the idea of a French bistro is very appealing and the menu always sounds nice.
So having had a reasonably positive experience last time I felt quite positive about this visit. I did go safe though and I went with the steak I had last time, the Bavette. I did as the menu recommended ordered the steak rare. The Bavette is a flank steak so if cooked medium or well done it will be a tougher than say a sirloin cooked to medium.
So what of the result?
Well it was very nice and the fries were good too. I don’t think it was as good as before, but was still tasty and full of flavour.
Alongside I had a side salad, that was much more than just lettuce. In there was red onion, olives and green beans.
To wash it down, I had a glass of Cotes du Rhone, full bodied and full of fruity flavours.
So what of the service?
Well I think I was lucky in that I went in quite late and the place was quite empty, only three tables with diners. They were also at the end of their meals, whereas mine had just begun. So the waiting staff were basically waiting on me!
Overall, not a too bad an experience, good food and good service; in other words what it should be every time I go to Café Rouge and should be the rule not the exception.
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.
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?
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….
Though as we enter winter, our minds are probably not on barbecues, here’s a reminder about what summer is all about!
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.