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)

· 

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.

Hare

I think I had Jugged Hare once as a child, but my mother put me off when she described the recipe.

I was watching Saturday Kitchen whist eating my poached eggs on toast and swigging my Orange juice & pint of tea. During this bland episode, I was somehow inspired to quickly get some good quality meat and cook it very slowly for a Sunday supper.


So off we cycled to Topsham and headed to Darts Farm, where the food hall is seriously good, unfortunately the restaurant is not in the same league (in a bad way).  Darts Farm also boasts a good fish 'n' chip shop, so we grabbed a couple portions of cheeky chips, and watched the Llamas do some spitting. The chips were hand cut potatoes, perfectly cooked, good stuff.


Anyhow, as I passed the butcher's block I saw a rare sight, Hare. Hares are uncommon in our fields never mind in our butchers. This creature was shot on Darts Farm for eating all the strawberries, I had to buy it.


Even the recipes are on the internet were rare, so I turned to Hugh's trusty Meat Book (highly recommended to any carnivore). If you would like to read his version click here.


Like any adventurous cook I never stick to someone else's recipe, so I did my own Oliver's twist.


1 Large Brown Hare
1 Botty Red (Something good, as it is the main liquid in the dish)
2 Large Onions
2 Stock Cubes (I like the Knorr Stock Pots)
2 blocks of dark chocolate  (optional)
1 spoon of red currant jelly (or to taste)
1 handful of Rosemary or Thyme or both
1 handful of Chopped flat leaf Parsley (again, if you want) 


1. Skin and gut the Hare and portion the into pieces (the butcher should do this for you),Soak the Hare in a bottle of seasoned red wine overnight.
2. Drain the wine and put to one side and leave the pieces of Hare to dry for a few minutes.
3. Whist this is happening, sweat off your onions or what ever veg you want to stew.
4. If you like, coat the pieces of meat in flour and fry off in a pan until golden brown.
5. Put the Hare, veg, wine, stock and herbs in a big flame proof pan and cook on a very low heat (120°C) for 5 to 6 hours.
6. If you want a thicker liquid you can add a Beurre manié (roux), but instead I would recommend a reduction by transferring some liquid into a really hot pan and boil away the water. At this point you can add some fruit jelly. I was tempted by a Strawberry jelly due to the Hare's last supper, but stuck to Red Currant, add this to taste.
7. Serve with potatoes (as you like them) and maybe some green veg.
8. I gave mother a call and she came over for some Sunday night scoff.

This meat was something special, other than watching this magnificent animal run riot around a field, I can't think of a better way to enjoy a Hare. Seriously, I gave this animal the upmost respect which it deserved, this is a glorious being so I wasn't going to wolf it down for the sake of hunger, I spent hours understanding how best to cook the meat, gain the best combination of flavours and preparing all the ingredients. I feel it was worth this animal dying for the pleasure myself, and fellow eaters gained from the meal. And if anyone feels my food was unethical in anyway please don't hesitate to get in touch, so we can resolve the matter. The sort of people who disagree with shooting wild animals for food are severely moronic idiots and should spend a bit more time on farms which use intensive methods to rear their livestock. They should also visit an abattoir and see how livestock are slaughtered, then ask the question; was it worth that pig existing for me to enjoy this poorly texured excuse for pork inside my flaccid Richmond sausage?


Or watch this - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2273569508770398194


Vegetarians should just keep walking in their leather shoes and shut the door behind them.

Double Locks

What could be more pleasant than cycling the picturesque path along the Exeter canal on a beautiful summer evening, then to have a spot of supper at the famous Double Locks pub?


Well personally I can think of nothing better. I've had some great times at the Double Locks, it has a huge garden, plenty of seating beside the canal, a volley ball court, a BBQ, lots of local cask beers and sometimes live bands. But, yes there's a but, always a but. The Double just sucks ass. Suck shitty anus. Sucks prolapsed diarrhoea warty anus.


Where do I start. Well the clientele is a good indication on whether something is good or to your taste, the pub on a normal day attracts normal people, dog walkers, cyclists, but on any sunny weekend or bank holiday they come like flies on shit. We all know the sort of people, the sort who get sunburnt and get really shit faced, but these people don't neglect their kids, they just bring them along and shout at them.

http://www.jonathanbriggs.com/photo-blog/the-double-locks-pub-exeter,476,AR.html

Not my picture.

The other big issue with the Double Locks is the food. The lady and I both found the menu so uninspiring we ended up ordering a Jacket Potato. That is on a par with ordering a Panini. The redeeming quality of the pub is it's beer list, but when I went to order a pint of St Austell Tribute, the barrel was empty so I ordered a Bath Ale but that wasn't ready and needed to settle. So it was a pint of Grolsch Blond, which is a massive anticlimax as it turns out to be the same as normal Grolsch larger except it's not 5%, it's 4%, and certainly not a Blonde or White beer. The pub was taken over by Youngs in 2001 and has steadily gone downhill since then. Exeter's City Gate is also owned by Youngs, but always manages to deliver a great range of beers.


For a long time now the Double Locks has always been a rubbish version of the Turf Locks, which is situated just a few more miles down the Exeter canal. There was something about the whole experience that was so depressing, as the sun was going down we couldn't see any sunset and it just got very cold. The pub just felt dead, everyone looked depressed, it would have been more fun if the CHD people were hanging around with there sunburnt bodies, cunt kids and tattoos. The lady at one point said "Is there anything we can do to turn this evening around" and I replied "Yeah, we can turn around, and go home". So we did, and picked up a cheap Tempranillo and some giant cookies from the Co-Op and watched a crap film in bed. Then we both turned around and fell asleep. The End.