food, reviews and of course coffee
I like pasta dishes and this was a quick and easy recipe. I took some linguine pasta and cooked it for ten minutes in boiling water. I never add salt or oil and never have a problem with cooking time, flavour or pasta sticking together.
When the pasta was cooked, I drained and then immediately added a beaten egg, creme frache and grated parmesan cheese. This was then served with a little freshly ground black pepper.
My current favourite place for coffee these days is Caffé Nero, in the main as I really enjoy the coffee. The environment is nice too., tables and chairs or comfy sofas depending on what you want or need to do. Good service too, making sure you get what you want and provided efficiently and quickly. I have had consistently good service from the different branches of Caffé Nero I have been to across the country. The coffee is great, but is quite strong, much stronger than a similar coffee at Starbucks or Costa. However you can ask for a weaker coffee if that is your preference.
Alas there are not as many Nero branches as they are of the other two, but I have managed to find them in most major cities.
I go through phases with houmous, sometimes I like it and buy it on a regular basis and other times I think, nah, no thanks.
I am also pretty conservative when it comes to houmus, I much prefer the plain version and ignore the versions with olives, tomatoes or other added flavourings.
I have made it in the past, using chickpeas, olive oil and unfortunately way too much garlic… as a result I now rely on the version you can buy in the shops.
As for eating it when going out, usually I ignore it.
So are you eating houmus?
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.
At a recent event I was at there was a jar full of sweeties for delegates consisting of Wham and Refreshers chews.
I don’t recall eating Wham chews when I was a kid, but did certainly eat Refreshers.
So grabbed a handful and ate them on the train journey home.
Thoughts?
Way too sweet… though the nostalgia of the sherbet was nice.
Two years ago I wrote up about a visit to a branch of the Soho Coffee Co.
Back then I asked
Let me ask you a question, is it really so difficult in this day and age, for a coffee shop to take coffee orders and then make the coffee?
I also said
Recently I went to the Soho Coffee Co and was frankly appalled by the level of incompetency shown by the six staff behind the counter in undertaking the coffee making and serving process.
I finished off by stating
Anyway as a result it will be sometime (if ever) I go back to the Soho Coffee Co.
Well, here we are two years later and I have never gone back to that branch of the Soho Coffee Co.
Just shows the importance of decent customer service and efficient serving. I have visited many coffee places close to that branch, but have not been back.
So what of other Soho Coffee Co branches, well I did visit one once at a motorway services, but only the once. I do recall that service was okay, but not fantastic!
The thing is for me, I know the staff are poorly paid and overworked, but from what I can see the problem is not staff, but management and the management of systems. If some coffee places can get it right, why can’t all of them get the little things just right.
I will admit that though I normally much prefer to make stuff from fresh, I do use (and sometimes even like) the “easy” packs from the supermarkets. In the past I have talked about Waitrose’s Easy To Cook range and Marks and Spencer’s The Cook Menu. This was the first thing I have had from the Morrison’s version.
To be perfectly honest making chicken fajitas is not exactly difficult and usually I would make my own. The reason for using this pack was a) it’s a little cheaper and easier than buying all the other ingredients separately and having lots left over and b) I didn’t actually buy it, my better half did to save me some time.
It was a very easy dish to cook. Start to cook the chicken, I used my griddle, add the prepared onions and peppers. Heat the flour tortillas in the microwave server with the salsa and sour cream.
It was as it said on the packet, easy.
So what about the flavour?
Well very nice, as it used fresh ingredients, the peppers and onions still had crunch and flavour and the spiced chicken was tender and spicy.
You can buy pre-cooked fajitas from the cook-chill cabinet that you heat in the microwave and they are pretty awful, this in comparison is so much better.
Would I buy it again? Well we did enjoy it, but when I came to cook fajitas again, I bought all fresh ingredients and I made my own guacamole to go with it.
On my way back from Birmingham recently I stopped off at the services to grab a coffee and stretch the legs.
As I walked around the services with WHSmith, Costa, Krispy Kreme, Starbucks, Burger King, KFC… it occurred to me how much motorway service stations have changed. You can also find Waitrose and Marks & Spencers at some too.
Motorway services have become mini malls and tiny high streets with familiar names. Obviously to entice drivers in and with a familiar name probably have the confidence to buy something… It would appear that the more you have heard of something, the more likely you are to buy from it.
It wasn’t that long ago that motorway services were brands in their own right, Granada (that became Moto), Welcome Break and so on… within their confined walls were unknown brands of coffee and fast foods as well as the main “canteen” style cafeteria.
Big brands started to make inroads into the services and these must have worked as now the services are awash with familiar names from the high street.
Of course the same is happening with our local shops, Tesco Metro, Sainsbury Local are now our corner shops and in many cases are on our local high streets (as well as their big edge of town stores).
When our local shopping centre expanded and a rank of smaller shops were made available next to the Morrisons, Boots and Matalan; I know i hoped for an independent baker, butcher and candlestick maker. What we got was Costa, Subway, Dominos and a Sue Ryder charity shop!
The sad thing is that, we in survey after survey, indicate how much we like our local shops and despair when they get “eaten up” by large chains. The reality is that as a society we say one thing and then go and do something else. We like the idea of local and independent store, but prefer to shop at the familiar.
After the last excellent offer in my local Sainsburys I was pleased to see another excellent offer….
I did see a similar ‘bargain” in Tesco, but too many staff around to take a photograph. Once got “told off” in Cabot Circus for taking photographs, so am always a little careful in retail outlets.
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.