Town Mill

On Sunday we went for lunch at the new River Cottage Canteen in Plymouth, well I should call it a restaurant, not a canteen. It's based in the Royal William Yard which was the main naval victualling depot or in common tongue;  storage house for food and booze. The Royal William Yard should be the perfect setting for restaurants and boozers due to it's history, but it does have a bleak atmosphere, a little like a prison.

Anyway, we had a poor lunch which was mainly ruined by an aggressive tattooed American waitress who was basically a bit of a prick. But the food was just a bit lame. We also felt ripped off (£3 for a pathetic pot of cabbage, seriously, fuck off!). The look of the restaurant is rather good and it has a wood fired oven for all to see and get aroused. It's still not worth a visit and the Canteen in Axminster is better.

The head baker at Town Mill scoffing a scone

(always a good sign to see staff eating their own food)

So we made a swift exit without pudding or coffee because  we knew there was a Town Mill Bakery around the corner and we'd heard good things. At first this cafe/bakery was a little confusing as everything is so relaxed. Just find a seat. Grab a chopping board and help your self to the selection of baked goods which are on a stretched table top. Walk over to the barista and order your coffee (this is the only service you will receive). Sit. Scoff and reach for a mug hanging from above your head and help yourself to bottled tap water in the fridge or you can get a pressed Somerset apple juice.  Watch the head baker work away as you are surrounded by sacks of Shipton Mill flour on palettes (a fork lift probably drives straight in and dumps them there). When you've finished wolfing down your chosen delights, walk up to till and list what you had to some guy on an iPad and he'll calculate your bill. This form of honesty will obviously be exploited at some point, but I'm sure this will be a rare occasion. This honesty does feel great. Nothing is hidden from the customers, so when you pay for the food you should hide nothing from them.


Oh and I tried a seriously good Eccles cake and the best scone in the world, perfect texture and served with the most delicious jam & butter. Cakes and coffee are around £2 and everything else is under £5, which is amazing as the ingredients are of such high quality, the flavour is there (although the coffee wasn't very good), you get the theatre of the food being made in front of you and the place has a buzzy atmos, which is great to pick you up after a less than average lunch at River Cuntage.


Check out there blog, it has some great writing - http://townmillbakery.wordpress.com/


I like the one about Porn & Food.


If you want to visit a land of giant focaccia pizzas, enormous victoria sponges and scones the size of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's ego, then you must go. 


(Sorry Hugh, I'm just kidding, nothing personal, I know your a nice guy, but your such an easy target).

Cornered

I've just had a sexy romantic meal with my Müller Corner (Blueberry). I remember when these beasts were let loose in our supermarkets in the late 80s and people went wild for the pointess act of adding your own fruit compote, so much fun, like those crisps with a packet of salt. You were a cool kid if you had either of these in your lunch box. But if Müller really want to cash in, all they need to do is make a mini version. Sorry the cynic in me is taking over. But people really are stupid cunts. Mini Cheddars, mini Mars bars, mini Jaffa cakes = massive cunts.


Anyway I was one of those stupid cunts who lapped up the USP of the yogurt's quirkily designed pot. I fucking loved them. But it's been a while, am I still a fan?

So a I lit a glade scented candle and made this a real CHD, as those people* thought Corner yogurts were a little on the posh side. I was actually a little nervous as I was reunited with this old friend, like meeting up with an old girlfriend, if one can imagine that situation. As expected we were both a little shy to begin with, so I gently peeled back the foil and slowly licked the yogurt off her lid, a friendly greeting to break the ice. It tasted good. So straight to foreplay I went, and began spooning the Blueberry compote into the yogurt and created some flirtatious marbling. So sexy. Then we just went for it. You can imagine the rest.




* We all know who those people are!

The Buffet

For anyone who has stayed in a Hotel, they will have encountered the delights of a Hotel Buffet. The buffet is an ingenious system used for catering on a mass scale, it causes a social awkwardness and requires a type of international etiquette, although nobody knows the actual rules. I think it's a game and the British would certainly loose at this sport, falling at the first hurdle. They go straight for the lovely looking bread and load up on the carbs, they then proceed to overload their plates with everything, I mean everything, mixing all food items and piling it as high as possible. So wrong. But the Germans are far more cunning, they select the prime cuts of cold meats and cheeses (the expensive ingredients) as all the dishes on the hot plates are normally made from leftovers. This is where you find the Brits, scoffing away like pigs at a troth with the great British mentality of 'eat as much as you can'.

But despite your nationality, the Buffet is defiantly a spectator sport, so you must get a good table with a clear enough view to see the players. Sit back and enjoy, not the food, the fun and frolics!

Obviously to watch the game of the buffet, you must get involved and actually eat something, but first you must do the walk of shame with an empty plate and begin the loading of unidentified matter. Breakfast is always easier that dinner, but on both occasions may I suggest at least one lap of the circuit. This warm up lap will enable you to suss everything out, a second lap will enable you to plan a menu in your head and then with a rolling start you can hit the floor running. If you are staying at a hotel for a few nights then you will easily sniff out the truffles when foraging the buffet forest.

Good luck.

BEER

Got this line up from Piers in Whistle Wines. So Piers' Beers look really good, but we only tasted the Little Creatures Pale Ale 5.2% (From Western Australia). As kirk (AKA Kunty Kirk) just mentioned 'the taste of Lychee is really apparent in this superb pale ale'. We are gonna smash in the rest this evening. Cant wait, especially for the O'Hanlons, apparently is the same as Thomas Hardy Ale - I mentioned it earlier this year - Click me


The other beers in the lineup include:

• O’Hanlons Brewers Special Reserve 2010 Vintage 12.9% www.ohanlonsbeer.com (They are based just outside Exeter)
•  Anchor Brewing Co - Liberty Ale 5.9% & the Anchor Steam Beer 4.8% (These are from San Francisco)
• Goose Island Honker’s Ale 4.3% (From Chicago)
• Vedett Extra White 4.7% www.vedett.com (From Belgium)

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We are off to the butchers now to get a big brisket and cook this - Jamie Oliver Recipe


Lovely.

Duralex

Recently I've been getting obsessed with idea of physical objects out-living me. Not sure if this is about realising my own mortality or substituting objects for having stupid cunt kids. Probably a bit of both. I like the idea of passing things onto another generation, creating a bit of history and replenishing the antique trade with new stock. We tend to break at least 1 glass every few weeks in my house, but never the invincible Duralex.

Just read this article about the company and you'll be convinced this glass is the way forward or backwards and you'll probably want to fuck it sideways - Have a sexy read!

If you can't be bothered here is a quote from the designer of the Duralex Picardie glass (pictured) -

"The upper part of the side is smooth surfaced and curves gently outwards at the part that goes into your mouth, as if to encourage the liquid on its way. The rounded edge of the lip of the glass is especially comfortable against your lips because, for durability, the glass is comparatively thick. But the glass has just the right weight, and the feel of the ridges between the flutings makes it seem thinner and more delicate than it actually is..."  - Patrick Taylor 

What makes these glasses so bloody good is their versatility. They are tough enough to handle boiling water, so great for all kinds of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. They work as a beaker for water with your meal, a tumbler for a fine single malt whisky, a shot of vodka, swigging icy cold beer on a hot day or sipping a hearty Côtes du Rhône by the fire on a cold winters evening. Due to their longevity these glasses are sustainable, so they save the planet without costing the Earth. At around 70p each the kids can play catch with them for all I care, not that I have any stupid fucking cunt kids, but if I did, I wouldn't mind and maybe that's the point. Get it? 


I don't.

Princi

Style over substance? Form over function? All fur coat and no knickers?

In some respect yes. But still, Princi delivered one of the best breakfasts I've ever had.

I'd just been cycling along the Thames with a bunch of gentlemen. From Friday til Sunday morning we'd slept rough under a large Chestnut tree one night and in a barn the next. Although we were dressed in gentleman's attire, we looked a little on the scruffy side and were more than a little wiffy. We also just had a bottle of Prosecco whist on the train to Paddington, great as an aperitif, but maybe not at 9am on a Sunday morning. So we staggered into Claudio Silvestrin's palace smearing our shitty trousers around his immaculate black granite & polished metal and released hell in the toilets, but the burning incense couldn't mask the fury of our burning anuses.

Princi is another concept dreamt up my the master restauranteur Alan Yau, in a collaboration with the Milanese baker Rocco Princi. The concept is simple; exhibit the food, and watch it being cooked in a wood-fired oven for all to see. People love it, it's almost theatre. The interior design was by an other Milanese chap called Claudio Silvestrin, his design almost has dominance over the food.

You may notice the shiny bronze lettering on the business card above, it's deliberate, it matches the bronze sheets which clad the tables and doors in the bakery/restaurant. Every tiny detail has been 'aesthetically' thought about in this place. From the Funktion One sound system delivering audio as clean as the toilets, to the extended counter which breaks through the window and on to the pavement, It all seems a little pointless if the food doesn't match up to Princi's massive shiny bronze bollocks. Well, actually Princi has a big shiny bronze dildo to match its bollocks and tears off the fur coat to produce a sensational orgasm gushing with flavor. Right in the mouth.


Rather than writing in obscure sexual riddles I'll explain why the breakfast was so good. Basically they don't compromise on the quality of the ingredients, apart from the tomato being a bit unripe, which is strange for Italians, the other ingredients included -



Tuscan sausage - meaty, tastes gamey like wild boar.
Tuscan pancetta - thick and smokey.
Cannellini beans with onion & tomato sauce - how baked beans should taste.
Portobello mushroom - big and full of juiciness.
Egg (I had scrambled, you can have  boiled or fried) - rich dark yellow and perfectly cooked. Wish they did poached.
Toast - thick slices of white artisan bread (tasted like sour dough) with perfect crust and soft airy crumb, served with very good butter.
Tomato - not ripe and needed a much longer cooking time.


Coffee - I had a Flat White which was surprisingly good for Italian coffee as they usually use a ton of Robusta bean which makes it taste vile.


Almond Croissant - Bad. Very bad. Had a much better one in Climpson & Sons, great coffee there too.


The Princi Hot Breakfast was £8.50
Coffee was £2.40
An Almond Croissant is £1.80




It may have been the sensation of comfort food after the hobo experience, but most likely it was the excellence of the ingredients that gave my taste buds the contrasting ride to which my balls and anus had that weekend. So despite Princi being a bit poncey, I like it.


Oh and it's pronounced 'Princhy'.

Smörgåsbord

These beauties are a feast for the eyes, and binocular food it ain't. You'll be twitching to have a meal like this once you read my post.

A Smörgåsbord is always open to interpretation, but I like to keep it a little Swedish or at least leaning towards the Scandinavian. This one in particular had some Waitrose Gravlax with a mustard & dill dressing, beet root & goats cheese salad and some minty buttery potatoes.

The advantage of a meal like this is that it give's you an opportunity to rummage through the cupboards and pull everything from a jar of pickled onions to an obscure homemade relish you were given at Christmas. Just dig out some bread & cheese and that does the trick.

Most of the time this food is designed for the indecisive pecking Pigeon or the greedy Gannet. But regardless of what you gather, people will flock around the table in a feeding frenzy. Wine will be guzzled and will lubricate conversation until it becomes a gushing stream of bird song. The chorus will diminish at a similar rate to the scoff as all slip into a food-coma and an inebriated state, until they are ready to fly away and roost for the night.

I was literally LOL-ing myself to death with bird theme. I had to dry my eyes with a Teat-owl. Can someone please tell me to shut my beak.