Toasted

Stop taking toast for granted and please give him a big kiss on his buttery lips when you next meet. Toast is probably my best friend, we have breakfast together most mornings, we never talk, we just enjoy the moment.

This basic form of cooking transforms one of the most wonderful pieces of food, a slice of bread, and intensifies it’s flavour through caramelising the carbohydrate sugars on its surface. Even cheap shitty supermarket bread can be turned into something delicious. The other aspect that changes through the toasting process is the texture of the bread, it becomes crispy, and if the slice is thick enough you will still have the soft bready crumb in the centre.

When toasting bread I like to push the caramelisation to a maximum, but obviously never stepping into the realm of burning. Burning is bad.  Because the bread is drying out slightly, you get a crispier texture, but I never want to dry my toast out completely, as it will verge on feeling stale in my mouth, I want it soft in the middle. To gain this result you need an intense high heat and a pop up toaster is probably the best man for the job. An oven grill is good, but it can give an uneven browning, which pisses me off.

When I have Marmite, probably my preferred spread, it is important to apply the butter whist the toast is still very hot and then the Marmite straight after the butter, this method mixes the Marmite into the melted butter and gives a well distributed spreading of both components. Otherwise the bread can become fragile from soaking up the butter and it can break up. My hand normally hovers over the toaster ready to pounce on the piping hot slices, with my plate, knife and butter at the ready. Obviously keep your butter and Marmite out of the fridge; this will make it much easier to spread. Once the spreading is done I like to eat my toast straight away, while it’s still warm, and whilst standing up looking out of the window to my balcony door. The morning river view is nearly as delightful as the salty Marmite butter dripping down my chin. Maybe I'll have one more slice!

Corny Flakes

When I was a teenager my brother and I would consume massive amounts of corn flakes, usually a bowl or two for breakfast and always a bowl on our return from school. Sometimes I had them with a bit of honey or a drizzle of golden syrup, but mainly with a sprinkling of granulated sugar and of course a big splash of chilled milk, preferably full fat. In the good old days I remember the milk man delivering bottles of non-homoginised whole milk with the fat separated at the top of the bottle. In the winter when opening the front door to retrieve the bottles I'd see that a Robin had sometimes pecked through the bottle top to get to the cream, but I didn't mind, I just loved the privilege of pressing the foil lid down to release it from the top of the glass bottle neck. But the real treat came when I got to pour the sweet milk all over my corn flakes with little lumps of cream sitting in the top of my bowl along side those toasted flakes of golden corn. 

My mother, on occasion, tried to fob us off with supermarket home brand corn flakes and even transferred the substandard yellow flakes into a Kellogg's box. It never worked. Mainly because in the nineties cheap cornflakes were a different colour and had a softer texture, Kellogg's were darker, more orangey and had a crispy bite (today there isn't a huge difference between Kellogg's and the supermarkets). With the corn flakes being so crispy I had a technique to soften them up, I used the back of my spoon to push down every flake in the bowl so it was submerged in the delicious, icy cold milk. This was such a ritual that my mother's friends called me the pie maker, as I spent rather a long time on this process. It was only after I made this pie (personally I think it resembled more of a pudding than a pie) that I would gently sprinkle the sugar over the top, but because I'd used my spoon to dunk the flakes during the pie making process, it was sodden with milk and the sugar would stick to the spoon, so I had to submerge it under the milk to release the sugary mess that coated it (I probably should have used a second spoon for the sugar). Only then I could devour my corn flake pie and afterwards bring the bowl rim up to my mouth to drink the sugary sweet milk that remained at the bottom. My mother would say "manners make a man", my response to this, bearing in mind I'd just created a disgusting noise from slurping down the milk, was a gigantic belch. To this day I still get a kick out of trying to shock my mother, usually with the word CUNT!

Observing

Hello you big bunch of piss kidneys. Check out some stuff that happened in the food world this month, or rather, this year.

Click on the orange thing. It's not a mobile phone award.

It's better than me regurgitating words out of my anus. That's what happens if you eat too much Alphabetti Spaghetti. Now fuck off and read some stuff from this middle class, slightly left of centre news paper. 

Seriously, it's great to see a local restaurant win the reader's award. I still haven't been to The Seahorse although I did review their fish and chips.

Natural Wine

I'm supposedly cutting out booze until Christmas, but I'm still on the wagon and just trying desperately not to fall off, so I'm basically holding on to this old vehicle with one hand while clutching a bottle in the other, the road is steep and very bumpy indeed. I also feel this uncontrollable wagon is long overdue an MOT, so lets hope the wheels don't come off.

Bourgueil Cuvee Venus 2010

So, again I'm plugging Whistle Wines, but it's the only place to unplug natural wines in the South West and luckily I work next door to it. So yes, Whistle Wines does a fine selection of these amazing natural wines and I'm ploughing my way through them like an organic farmer on a Lamborghini tractor. 

There are many meanings to the term Natural Wine, for example the grapes could be grown organically or bio-dynamicly, there could be no added sulphites, sugar or yeast. It's all open to whatever the wine maker wants and the labelling isn't really certified. It's all a load of hippie bollocks really, but I'm certainly interested in the idea of consuming a product that's real, alive and not full of chemicals.

The yeast normally comes off the skin of the grape, but it can come from anywhere (sweat from the grape picker's hands, the air, the wildlife, the equipment), as long as its not an inoculated yeast (cultivated yeast). Often bakers create a sourdough starter for their bread by using grapes in the starter batter, actually sourdough bread is a perfect analogy to use when describing natural wines which contain wild yeasts, as their characteristics bear a resemblance and they act in a similar manner during production. The wine will take on the taste of that yeast and really develop a unique flavour belonging to that vineyard, but when I say belonging, I mean 'on loan', as the following year those yeasty flavours will change, as in normal vineyard circumstances, the flavours of the grapes change, depending on the sunshine, the rainfall, the temperature of that particular year. But the yeast flavour goes far deeper than the other changeable influences. This yeast flavour is ingrained with a barbed hook and no wine blending is going to shift that.

I know wine does change, but I mean it really changes with natural wines, in an out of control fashion like this wagon I'm riding. And this is my point, it's exciting, it's inconsistent, it is a product that really comes from a particular region.

These wines have now started to come into fashion with London restaurants like Elliot's,  Duck Soup, Brawn and Green Man & French Horn (anywhere connected to Ed Wilson & Oli Barker). Also events like the Natural Wine Fair, RAW and the Real Wine Fair have really taken off in the last couple years.

Vino di Anna Jeudi 15

Both white and reds are fantastic as natural wines, but the whites do tend to be more on the interesting side and can taste a bit like cider. The reds tend to taste like very high quality wines and seem to come without the attachment of a hangover (could be to do with the lack of sulphites). A few weeks ago I sampled an Italian Red by Anna Martens called Vino di Anna Jeudi 15 (pictured above). This wine had a very interesting nose, almost like it had absorbed the sulphurous gases emitted from Mount Etna, similar to the essence of a photographic dark room, but I love that smell. The taste was of quality, deep berry and a peppery back ground. Quite simply a very good wine. 

Lard des Choix

Whist riding my wagon, other highlights along the road have been the Lard des Choix(Grenache)Blanc 2010, appley and would be great with fish and the Dard & Ribo Saint Joseph 2009 which was as good as it's price tag (£25). But my Voyage dans la lune has been the Bourgueil Cuvee Bon Heure 2011 (Below)and the 2010 version Bourgueil Cuvee Venus. This company has some amazing branding and display a French sense of humour that I've not seen before. I just love the way this wine works and how the producers have got the bollocks to make wine that is so different. 

Bourgueil Cuvee Bon Heure 2012

If you can find some natural wine, then do try it, but remember it's not like normal wine and will be very different, you may not like the taste at first, it may give you the shits, it really must be drank with food (although you can get pissed on it) and it will cost a couple quid more than the usual wine. But it is special and it is in short supply, as it can never be mass produced for the mainstream and maybe that's why I love it so much, it feels like I have some ownership over the product and it's just for a select few who really appreciate it. A bit like a rare 7 inch vinyl record that has a limited run of 100 copies and will never be released on MP3 to download from iTunes, as this wine will never reach the supermarket shelves to be guzzled by the Gannets on a three for £10 special offer. Drinking this wine buys you a ticket to jump on my wine wagon and take a fabulous trip to the moon, whist looking down on all those cunts who are afraid to try something new. Well the Gannets can all fuck off and carry on swigging their JP. Chenet. More fuel for me on my road trip of life.

My Tender Loin

A while ago I went to Eyre Brothers and had a marvellous meal. This Iberian restaurant has an incredibly stylish interior, a gutsy contemporary (I hate that word) menu and the best grilled pork fillet in London. The Fino was superb, as was my starter (pictured below). 

Pressed Madeira and Porto marinated duck foie gras; chive  and toasted almonds £12

But it was all about the main, which was this incredible piece of pork. I would suggest it's the restaurant's signature dish and you must try it if you ever go there. On the menu it's described as;

Grilled Fillet of Acorn Fed Ibérico Pig, Marinated with Pimentón, Thyme and Garlic. Served with Patatas Pobres; Oven potatoes with green peppers, onions, garlic and white wine. We would recommend that lean cuts of feral Ibérico pig to be grilled to medium-rare. £21

The texture and flavour of this meat is one of the most amazing things ever to enter the hole in my face. I couldn't stop thinking about this dish and for days and I wondered how to create it or rather, recreate it.

It did take three attempts, the first being a BBQ-ed version which I over-cooked and it didn't gather enough flavour from the marinade (below). 

The next I tried under the grill in the oven, with it wrapped in a bit of foil to keep it moist and to get the flavour deep into the meat, then finished it off out of the foil to get the charred-ness. This also didn't really work, as too much liquid came out of the meat (below).

Both my previous attempts were OK and not bad, just not the same as Eyre Brothers. But the last time I tried it, I nearly got it. It's all about cooking the meat when it's at room temperature and giving it a very long marinade in a bit of oil and a shit load of smoked paprika, thyme & garlic. I used a hot pimentón/paprika rather than a sweet one. I also used a slightly different cooking method to my other two attempts by using a cast-iron griddle pan. The trick is to get the pan smoking hot and I mean white hot. DO NOT OIL THE PAN. If you do, the kitchen will be filled with smoke as the oil will just sit in the grooves of the pan and burn. So the oil in the marinade will be enough to stop the meat sticking. Sear the meat so it's black on the outside and pink in the middle, burning the outside will lock all the moisture into meat, then let the meat relax for 10 minutes or so before slicing into medallions. Then season with a little rock salt, a few drops of lemon juice (or try a little sherry vinegar perhaps) and pour any juices back onto the meat if they come out.

Best served with an appley white wine, a light red or even a Fino sherry. I also made some bead and served it with a green salad. 

Next time I make it, it should be perfected, as I still haven't managed to find Iberian pork tenderloin, never mind some pig fed on acorns. I'm sure in time I can pre-order some special outdoor reared British pork from a local butchers. Obviously buying cheap pork from Morrisons means you're starting on the back foot.

I'm also still thinking about the Padrón peppers I had at Eyre Brothers. Give me a month or two and I'll see if I can nail a good method for cooking these little green monsters.

A-Z Food Guide

You bunch of cunts should probably read this for a round up of what's been going on in the food world.


The Guardian/ Observer's modern food lover's A-Z guide by Thomas Blythe.


Such a massive bag of dicks.

Baxter's Moveable Feast

Yesterday the Lady and I went to Jane Baxter's Moveable Feast. Jane Baxter left Riverford earlier this year and is now writing a book for the fast food restaurant Leon. So for the summer she has been doing these pop up restaurants in amazing locations.

The menu was similar to Riverford, although slightly higher-end ingredients and served in a slightly more homely fashion. Everything was just perfect and faultless on the flavour front and such a contrast to the lousy meal we had at The Jack in the Green earlier this week (5th best Gastro Pub in the UK and 60th best Restaurant, absolute joke, style over substance which seems to be a common occurrence nowadays).

Again this reinforces my argument about stupid fucking presentation. A friend brought this article to my attention recently, I know old Jay Rayner is a bit of a bell-end, but he has a good point. And I'm not gonna get started on Latte Art. I know it shows the milk has the right texture and a heart or rosetta/fern is cool, but the moment some cunt draws a teddybear in my coffee, my dick will kick their anus in the face.

Back to Baxter and her lovely feast, my foul language can now fuck off. The meal was set at Combe Farm Studios near Dittisham and we were supposed to eat outside, but the rain came down like piss from a giant pissy cock, so we ate in a barn conversion, which was fabulous and basically someone's dining room. 

Oh, the puddings, oh the puddings, let me talk about the puddings. Basically I'm not much of a pudding person and would much rather shove something savoury in my gob over anything sweet. Did I mention the puddings? No. Well we had a choice of three, but we didn't have to choose cos there was enough to eat all three. But actually there was more like five different puddings. Here are three puddings pictured below. Look at the puddings.

Plum, Blueberry & Blackberry crumble, 

Baked Custard

Poached nectarines 

Did you see the puddings? So after three and a half hours of middle class mayhem we left in a comatose state with sedate smiles and bellies bulging. An unforgettable experience. Thanks again Jane.

Nairobi

I just spent two weeks in Nairobi and have been eating my way through a lot of burgers and hanging out with a couple of good friends (We are the Three Wzungu). We cooked food only two of the evenings, one just a simple pasta dish, although it's one of my favourite meals; garlic chilli linguine. The other night was a big ass BBQ.


The first evening, after a death defying taxi ride from the airport (everyone drives like a dick in Kenya and people crash for a laugh), we headed straight to a joint called Brew. This is a bar with an industrial brewery inside and the lager was rather good, nearly as good as Tusker. The food here was pretty good also, this is where I had my first Kenyan burger. We scoffed sitting at a bar which looked straight into the kitchen. This place took down my naive misconception of the Kenyan lifestyle. We smashed in a Negroni or two or three, then we became real Wzungu.


Most of the fruit and veg in Kenya is a bit dogshitpiss apart from the Avocados, so every morning we'd walk down the road to get some from this little community, who basically lived on this bit of grass by the roadside. The Avocados were always perfectly ripe and cost between 10 & 20p each, and that's Mzungu price (what white people pay). At first we served the Avocados on toast with poached eggs, but the eggs turned cold so we ditched them, also we weren't sure on the African policy towards eggy ethics or salmonella. So a smashed up Avo with a bit of lemon, finely sliced chilli, salt, pepper & a big glug of E.V. Olive Oil is all you need. Simply dolloped on a dry piece of toast and the textures & flavours work for me. It doesn't look like an oil painting, but how about I paint you a different picture? There are starving people in Africa! So eat what you're given you bunch of cunts. Ah, I'm just kidding.

Another highlight was an Indian restaurant, Open House, where we went three times. The curry was superb and avoided that greasiness which is so abundant in the UK, but it kept all the complex spice flavours. The last time we went the waiter assumed he could keep our change from the bill, which pissed us off. What a bell-end.


Artcaffe is good for burgers and fuck my baps sideways I noshed off a lot of burgers in my cunty face.


We also had Sushi from Onami and it was ok. It could have been better if we'd done the ordering as we had some pretty basic sashimi. We also had some Teppanyaki on another night which was splendid.


Maxland Grill was the star of the show for me as it was the only authentic Kenyan food I had - Kenyans call it a Nyama choma, basically a BBQ, but without all the marinades & guff. This fiery furnace of a restaurant was smokey and dirty, but the coals kissed the meat in the most wonderful flavour filled manner. Simply raw meat on a plate, but obviously cooked. I mean 'raw' in the naked sense. A sexy naked goat flirting on my plate. So sexy it was fucked to flaming hell and back. I was driven Kuku.


Anyhow I'm starting to bore myself with this post, so you must be Bored to Death (We watched a lot of this).

The Cricket Inn

The Cricket Inn is in the process of being ran out, as yet another of our great pubs gets knocked for six and castrated by it's idiot owners. This crippled eunuch of a pub appears to be a transvestite restaurant with a shit wig.


The table was booked for 8pm and we arrived 20 minutes late. We were told that we had to order straight away to compensate for our lateness. Ok, fair enough. But the cunts didn't take our order until 9pm and our food didn't come until 9:45pm. You get the picture! This isn't going to be a pleasant bit of blogging.


The best bit was when my friend was told he couldn't eat because there weren't any tables available. So my friend said it's fine, I can sit on one of those unreserved tables in the bar area. He was told by the stupid fucking cunt of a waitress, that those tables are only for people who are drinking. My friend replied "well of course we will be drinking, and we'll be eating as well". I do love a bit of rudeness from staff, I find it quite entertaining, but she was just a massive Belliendiot (Bell End Idiot which sounds like Billy Elliot).


The unpleasantness of this place has reached a hight which I have never swallowed in my entire dining experience. I love the fact that our group of friends have never encountered anything quite like this, considering we have eaten in such a wide range of restaurants throughout the world from El Buli to Mac Donald's. This schizophrenic dogshit dive is somewhere in-between, but it's head has gone inside-out through it's own anus whist shitting puke. It has a serious identity issue, which is a shame because it could be a great pub, like the Lamb Inn in Sandford, probably the best pub meal going (picture below).

Shoulder and chump of lamb, fonadant new potatoes, 

shallot puree, spiced lamb jus - £16 from the Lamb Inn

To be completely fair the food was very good at the Cricket Inn and the manager did his best to accommodate a large group of people. They simply have a waitress with an attitude problem beyond her own vagina and she clearly hates her job and is not very good at it. The predominant clientel in this joint (Retired bankers and there wives, both aged about 65) have roughly 10 years left to live so perhaps the proprietors should start thinking more about the long game and be a little more accommodating. 

Sorry, no pictures. These words are all this fucking cunty place are worth and I think I've gone beyond my usual word count. Shit Twats.

I Have An Itch,....

... so I've gotta do some more scratchings. After my last post about snacks I have discovered something English which is actually heading in the right direction. 


It's Friday and after a bloody hard week doing a trade show in London, I was pleased to receive a phone call from the lady saying she's cooking up a Bolo (Spag Bol (Spaghetti Bolognese)). I needed a wine from Piers to wash down the delights of our faux Italian meal. He recommended this - 

Bellamarsilia 2010

And like every time before, Piers' selection was perfect, a Bellamarsilia – Morellino di Scansano DOCG, this cherry red is made for rich gamey flavours and no reason why it wouldn't work with any beefy bolo.

But as I was leaving Whistle Wines, I noticed he had a porky snack. As I looked down my piggy nose at these bags in a basket I questioned my previous comments about the evil scratching which dominate the cardboard hanging behind many bars in this country.

It's time for Mr Porky to shit off and lets see some more of Lord Hamilton's Hogskin.

I'm not saying these snacks are great, although they are pretty good, but  hopefully we're going to vote with our trotters and make a stance towards ousting pig shit piss from our pubs. Lord Hamilton's looks like a new company, and let's hope they get some serious product development and we'll be scoffing these piggy treats in many a pub. I'd like to see a smoked paprika or maybe a freeze dried apple dust amongst the bubbly pig skin. Piggy Scoff.

Americans Snacks.

I'm so proud of being English. But there has been a moment of clarity when it comes to snacks, and I've realised we're just not that great at manufacturing these. This moment came as I scoffed some pork scratching's in the pub the other night, weirdly it was in the Pigs Nose, anyway they were not only grotesquely fatty (nearly half the weight in fat), but lacked flavour. By the way, they were Mr Porky's and he sucks pig prick, but having said that, we're the ones more likely to be eating piggy penis. 

There seems to be a trend with American food at the moment with Old Fashioned cocktails crashing into bars along with various American Bourbons, restaurants like Pitt Cue creating a buzz and big shit going down in the bagged snack department. I've heard legends of crisps cooked in lard, that are only sold within a 70 mile radius from where they are made in Pennsylvania. And I hear Grandma Utz are good. Last weekend I had some of these Pretzel Pieces (picture above) by Snyder's Of Hanover and they really blow any English snack out of the water with a bouncing flavour bomb on your tongue. Remember when Phileas Fogg Tortilla Chips were great? That day may return. I also remember when Burt's Crisps were far more interesting. Perhaps there is a gap in the market to create something special in England. When I say special I don't mean a £5 bag of potato crisps that are cooked in olive oil, because they already exist and are a total bag of shite.


I think someone needs to rip these bags of crappy English snacks a new ass hole, and shit in these newly torn ass holes like a mobile shitter. Then in synchronisation we all need to chuck our shit bags at the faces of Walkers and KP snacks and tell them to grow a pair of bollocks to shove in these shit ridden bags with assholes. Then, perhaps then, they will make a snack which is brave and actually has substance.

Flinglish

This has inspired me!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2012/apr/11/how-to-eat-full-english-breakfast

Staverton Bridge Nursery

Today we decided to take the lovely walk from Dartington to the Staverton Nursery.

This hangout is a little bit fluffy and cutesy with it's vintage crockery and silver cutlery, but the cakes are far from the pink cup cakes that I expected. The cakes were serious, full of flavour, moist and big. My Chocolate & Almond cake was perfectly bitter, as chocolate cake should be. The coffee was less than average, but I think this is pretty much my opinion on all coffee that's not Monmouth, Climpson or Allpress. So to normal people the coffee will be fine, but for pretentious pricks like me, beware. If you like good tea, they use a loose leaf from the Canton Tea Company, which is rather good.

I'm glad to see that stupid Cath Kidston-Esque cakes, which lack substance and character, are really on the way out. So cunts like the Humming Bird Bakery can simply shove their pretty little cup cakes up their pretty pink bleached anuses. Because that's all they're good for.

The same goes for Rachel Khoo, with her stupid fucking little restaurant. I wish programmes like this would stop projecting such a fake reality.

Pubs

I love the pub. A watering hole for social outcasts with nowhere else to go and it's the nearest thing they have to a family. Obviously the pub is a great place to hang out with your friends, but I do like those people who go to the pub on their own and join a club with all the other outcasts.


"Because the finest people that I've ever met are in pubs"


Oliver Reed.

A few years ago the smoking ban started and pubs began dropping off the map like lung cancer victims. So they've adapted in a Darwinian manner, survival of the fittest perhaps. Pubs need money to run, not fast legs. But you get the idea. Landlords have tried to get people to bring their kids in, serving coffee, attempting to become a gastro pub, quizzes, showcasing live music, live football, but unfortunately they feel less alive than ever. A sorry state indeed. A desperate state. But I'm sure when the dust settles, pubs will find there customers again. Not that I disagree with the smoking ban, I just want pubs to find their identity rather than having multi personalities to suit every customer's needs.


There are still some alright pubs knocking around, The Hour Glass, The Nobody Inn, The Bay Horse, these are my locals or regular hangouts. But all of them display elements of the above.




A particularly good example of a bad pub is The Cott Inn (Dartington).  I worked in this pub about 12 years ago and in 1996 it won some prestigious award like Pub of the Year, then it was all down hill. I definitely have a soft spot for the Cott Inn and I'd heard the food was now great again. But it really wasn't.


I ordered a bottle of Malbec (Aires Andinos) as we had beef on the mind, and it delivered, good stuff. But they suddenly sold out of the Braised Blade of Beef we desired. So my lady had a Sirloin and I had Fish 'n' Chips with the red wine! The steak was a complete embarrassment to cowkind. I think my main beef with the Cott is their over fancy menu with under fancy food. They described the tomato, which came with the steak, as "confit tomato', what ever the fuck that is. Maybe a tomato slowly cooked in its own oily juice? It turned out to be half a cheap tomato with a green bit of garlic and a sprig of thyme placed on top. Utter guff. But in contrast to other pubs I've eaten in recently, it was a real let down. In the week I had a Ribeye Steak from the Hour Glass (Exeter), near perfection.

So my Cod and Chips, probably not the best choice in a so called fancy pub, but I did find the menu really hard work. It came with half my chips in a mock newspaper cone (using The F.T. which is actually quite funny) and the rest scattered on the plate for my tiny, over cooked bit of cod to sit on. My bland Mushy peas and highly acidic Tartare sauce served in little glass bowls, totally gutts. To be fair the chips were OK, but the ultimate disapointment was the cheap Tomato Sauce and Mayonaise. When a pub is serving that standard of condiments it is a bad foundation to work on. Mayonnaise is very easy to make from scratch, so why buy in cheap catering mayo?


The Beer Engine (Near Exeter) serves real mayonnaise and the waiting staff almost apologised when then brought it out, and said "just to warn you, it tastes different to normal mayonnaise". 


What next? "I'm sorry we ran out of Bisto, so we knocked up some beef stock from veal bones, I hope that's OK!".



I don't like to review an eatery until I've scoffed there a few times. But I don't want to go back to the Cott for food, maybe a pint, but not dinner. 


Just a quick note. I had a pretty good Sunday Roast in the Dartmoor Lodge today and I'll go back. The Cott probably do a Sunday Confit Dinner. They really are a bunch of confit bell-ends, simmered in their own piss vinegar. Piss 'n' Chips.

The Good, The Best and the Big Ugly

I had quite a week of dining out, first the Good, I went to Riverford Field Kitchen for a birthday dinner, which I can say again, the food is consistantly amazing, all about flavour and that joint is still my favourite restaurant. I won't go into it, as I've already said enough here.


Next the Best, I took my Mother to Gidleigh Park (for her birthday) which is, according to the Sunday Times Top Restaurant list, the 3rd best place to stuff your face (Last year it was 1st). This swanky hang out is amazing, nestled in a lush green valley on the edge of Dartmoor, surrounded by some beautiful gardens, apparently there are 6 full time gardeners and the last thing you do here is stuff your face. This was seriously posh, a little on the uncomfortable side for me, but what's the worst that could happen? Well I did slip on my way to the toilet and smash my head on a door frame for all the staff to see. I just laughed and the staff tried not to.

Everything in this place is perfect. All the waiting staff are French, young, good looking and well trained. The building and setting are imaculate. The food looks like a work of art, has flavour to die for and the portions are just right. The only snag is the price. As I sipped my pre dinner drink in the conservatory admiring the view of the gardens, Dartmoor and the crystal clear and perfectly square ice cubes in my Mother's drink, I wondered why Gidleigh are charging 3 times the RRP for their drinks. It's obvious, the stuff I just mentioned costs a lot of money. The cleaning, the 6 gardeners, the well trained waiting staff and those perfect ice cubes. So if you can look past paying £50 for a bottle of Sharpham wine which normally cost around £9, then you should go and have an amazing time. I'm not being sarcastic here. You just need to realise that the drinks are over priced and you need to accept this to enjoy yourself. Also remember you are paying for the experience of drinking that liquid not just the actual liquid. My only criticism is that the drinks should be as special as everything else. Maybe freshly pressed apple juice from local apples, instead of Luscombe bottled juice, which you can buy anywhere. Or some obscure beers from around the world, rather than Hoegaarden and some rare whiskies, rather than the usual line up in your average gastro pub.


Just go and experience something very special. Fuck the cost, and if money is an issue, stop going to the bloody pub or eating out at average restaurants. Just book far in advance as it's always full and wear plenty of Tweed, trust me, lots of Tweed.


And finally the Ugly. I went to Bristol on Saturday to visit some old friends who have moved there recently. Bristol has a good vibe on the food front and I love The Thali Cafe, but the Ikea meatballs I had for lunch were rank. Anyway, the plan was to visit the largest restaurant in the UK, Za Za Bazaar (what a shit name, and quite forgettable) a 700 seater, all you can eat buffet which looks like a Hong Kong back alley, with cuisines from every corner of the globe! Sounds like hell? It was. I read a couple of reviews on it and they were all quite forgiving and the consensus was 'It's not as bad as I thought it would be' or 'It wasn't that bad'.

First we arrived to be turned away because we hadn't booked, in a 700 hundred seater restaurant, with another 300 seats in the bar. I thought they were joking. The place stank of trash, both the sort you see on The Only Way is Essex and the rubbish kind, as we walked past the back kitchens staff chucked what looked like dead bodies into giant dumpsters, rancid fat was in the air. But the worst trashiness was the Essex kind, with stupid door staff and a stupid woman on a desk with a computer checking your table booking and giving you an allocated time slot to 'Eat as much as you can'. Fucking trash. What a contrast to Gidleigh, where we didn't have time to eat desert because we'd been there for 3 hours and had to take the dog for a walk. We were eventually let in and there were plenty of tables, twats, and we looked at lots of depressed people waiting in line to collect their food like they were in prison. Fuck this. We left and went to a nearby place as a last resort and it pretty good. No. 1 Harbourside.

This gaff only has 5 things on the menu, but quality things when compared to that monstrosity we'd just visited. It's hard to get a table, but with perseverance we did it. They'd sold out of Mussels, no wonder as they were only £5. Unfortunately they'd sold out of my second choice, the Lamb, so I settled on the Pork along with a plate of Oysters. First I gulped a couple of pints of Sunrise from the Bristol Beer Factory and then our complementary Soup arrived, I didn't really want it, but everyone gets it, a kind of USP. It was nice, Carrot & Ginger. My main was great and the oysters were good. I sank a couple of sweet  Sipsmith G&T's and we went on our way. Job done.












Oh, and sorry for the Instagrammed photos, it's just a phase and I'll get over it soon.