andrewstevenson.com: the blog

The Hole in the Wall, Little Wilbraham, Cambridgeshire

2012-02-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

Somewhere near the middle of nowhere, in a featureless, flat East Anglian landscape, this village pub and its kitchen is now in the hands of Alex Rushmer, who made the finals of, but didn't win the amateur version of Masterchef a year or two ago. He was in the kitchen during lunchtime service today. He did an oh-so-casual walkpast my table to pretend to look at something by the bar: no doubt the front of house manager had alerted him to unknown fat bloke, in a suit, dining alone, and he probably wanted to check I wasn't one of the known tyre-men.

Inside The Hole in the Wall, it's a small, traditional country pub, with lots of beams, exposed wood and open fires. A bit on the dark side, maybe, but I suppose that adds to the atmosphere. I understand they have a separate restaurant room, which may be different.

A carafe of good tapwater is automatically brought to the table: no upselling of bottled water here. I also had a nice pint of local IPA, which seemed well kept.

It's an interesting menu: nothing extraordinary, but all very appealing. As well as the à la carte, from which I chose, they had a 2-2-2 set lunch menu, from which they were doing a roaring trade in rather good looking chicken pot pies.

Good, home-made bread came first: a tomato foccaccia that was more like a flat bread, but still good, excellent treacle soda bread and a really good sourdough.

Bread - served on the end of a case of 1975 Brane Cantenac!

tempura gurnard fillet (pea soup)

I started with tempura gurnard with pea soup. Nice gurnard, crisp batter. Really good soup, even if it's not exactly British pea season. It seemed a bit of an odd combination initially, until fish, chips and mushy peas flashed into my mind. No chip element, but that would have probably been too much in a starter.

telmara farm duck breast (potato terrine, red cabbage, pickled cucumber and spiced tobacco caramel)

Main course was a bit less successful, but not to the point of needing to raise an issue. Duck breast with red cabbage, pickled cucumber, tobacco caramel (definitely more caramel than a gastrique) and potato terrine (i.e. slices of pommes Anna, roasted). Overall conception was great, the combination of red cabbage and pickled cucumber won me over, but the duck had an uncrisped, and therefore pretty inedible skin and, while it was nicely medium-rare, it felt like it had spent just a bit too long in the waterbath, with the slight tendency to pappiness that goes with that. I asked at the end of the meal how the duck was cooked and was assured that it was not done sous vide. I'm not convinced: it had all the hallmarks. But overall a good dish.

Cambridge burnt cream with doughnuts and coffee sorbet

The meal ended on a very high note with a faultless Cambridge burnt cream, with a nice thin brûlée crust, that would have been great on its own. But it was elevated by three really superlative, light, fluffy, just-warm doughnuts, and an excellent coffee sorbet. The sorbet was probably superfluous, but the joy of making your own custard doughnuts by dunking the doughnuts in the custard really put a smile on my face.

The first cup of espresso was bad. I asked the manager to taste it to see if that's how it should be as, after all, it could just have been a blend of beans I really disliked. After a few moments, he brought another, much better espresso, and knocked both off the bill, thanking me for drawing it to his attention, as he now knew the waitress needed more training.

With coffee, came a small antique tin of petits fours: an indifferent and over-cold white chocolate/coconut truffle, a superb pate de fruits and what looked like a caramel that I didn't get round to.

Service was a bit mixed. Senior staff were excellent; junior (eastern European?) seemed to find it hard to engage with customers

Kayal Restaurant, Leicester: Keralan cuisine

2012-02-23T08:59:00.001-08:00

I'm not a huge fan of the majority of Indian restaurants and takeaways in Britain: it always seems to be one base sauce for everything and pretty heavy food. So, when I saw on one of the Hairy Bikers programmes about an authentic Keralan restaurant in Leicester, my interest was piqued. Then, finding myself in Leicester overnight, Kayal was the obvious choice, and fortunately just down the road from my hotel, the excellent Mercure Grand Hotel.

This is a very different Indian restaurant, if indeed you can call it an Indian restaurant at all. It looks quite different: there are no flock wallpapers, and if anything it looks more like a vegetarian, wholefood restaurant like Cranks used to be, with lots of wood on the walls. Oh, and a Royal Enfield motorcycle propping up the bar.

The menu is quite different too: there was virtually nothing I recognised. As expected, there was a lot more fish and seafood than usually found in British Indian restaurants, though I veered towards some of the more street food style dishes, as they seemed to me the most unusual, and broke away from the meat or fish with sauce norm.

It wasn't easy to choose just a few dishes: I had to forego battered potato, aubergine and banana dishes, for example, which made me wish I was here as part of a larger group that could order everything to share.

Uzhunnu Vada

My first dish were some Uzhunnu Vada: delicately spiced doughnuts, made with gram flour. These were great: freshly fried, with a nice crunch on the outside and light and fluffy inside. Light, delicate, fragrant spicy flavours in a doughnut: sounds a winner, and it won me over. Very light and the best way I can think of describing them is as a dahl favoured doughnut with a bit of the Russian roulette of padron peppers. The vada came with a lentil sambar and two coconut chutneys: one made with red chillis, the other with green chillies. I thought the sambar was a little too close in flavour to the vada to thrill me much, but the two coconut chutneys were remarkably moreish.

Chicken puffs

An odd feature of the menu was that some dishes are called by their Keralan names, while others have English names. This was described simply as Chicken Puffs. I wonder why there's this linguistic dichotomy? It can't be that this is their own Leicester invention, as the menu described it as "one of the most attracting [sic] snacks from the village bakeries." They are small puff pastry rolls filled with chicken. Unfortunately, in complete contrast to the vada, this was seriously let down by not being cooked to order: the pasty was soggy, which did absolutely nothing for it in my view. The chicken filling was good, again with beautiful, delicate spicing, but it was never going to overcome the soggy pastry. This came with the same two coconut chutneys, and a small salad, based around red cabbage.

Masala Dosa

The Masala Dosa, a sort of paper-thin rice and lentil crepe, defeated my attempts to photograph it in its entirety - it was just too big! The dosa itself was very light, with a gentle crispness, but with enough texture that it didn't just shatter and dissolve. The dosa was filled with crushed potato, onions and peas: once again, beautifully spiced. The same sambar appeared on the side, as had previously appeared with the vada: it worked better this time.

Unnakai

The 1960s style glacé cherry on top of a scoop of unexceptional ice cream marks Unnakai out as a dessert. In fact they are small dumplings made from mashed plantain, coconut, raisins and cashew, and then deep fried. Did I detect a hint of cardamon? Maybe not the lightest of desserts, but very interesting and not too sweet, although the ice cream with its cherry seemed a bit out of place.

A word too for my drink: ganga jamuna, a blend of strawberry and lime juice, which was really rather nice, if an alarming pink colour, its childishness enhanced with a curly straw!

Service was very good, informative and helpful.

This really opened my eyes to Keralan cuisine. It was much more delicate, fragrant and fresh than the UK curry house norm, and - for me - all the better for it.

Jamie's Italian, Oxford

2012-01-15T13:53:00.000-08:00

On a cold Monday evening, I was stood at a bus stop in Oxford waiting for the bus to take me back to the Park & Ride car park. Oxford is the first place I've come across that charges for both parking and riding: most places, where I've used park & ride schemes, you either pay for parking and the bus is free, or the parking is free and you pay for the bus.

Looking at the timetable, I realised I'd just missed the bus and was settling in for lengthy wait when I turned round and saw a dimly lit large room, with tables and chairs, lots of bare, dark wood, and a large bar. Further investigation revealed it to be Jamie's Italian, other branches of which I'd coincidentally heard slated recently.

Could it really be as bad as people made out? I had a long journey ahead of me, and a meal would conveniently take me beyond the West Midlands rush hour.

It's quite a short menu that strolls around Italy (and a burger) with lots of Jamie Oliver cheeky chappy geezer-speak scattered around. It's a refreshing change from the usual Britalian stock-in-trade-menus that dominate so many of the pepper-mill-toting high street Italians. That's a good start. From the greeting onwards, staff were good too.

As I went through the various items I fancied, working out just how greedy I could be, it quickly became apparent that while superficially good value, you could quickly run up a hefty bill. I reined in my enthusiasm, and decided not to go for those dishes (burrata and charcuterie) that relied merely on sourcing.

Chicken Liver Tortellini sounded interesting: even if they're made in a central production kitchen, they're not the bought-in tortellini that are so often found in Britalian pizza-pasta joints. The menu talks the talk, verging into breathy Marks & Spencer this-is-not-just style language: they're not just chicken livers, they're Norfolk Black chicken livers flamed with Vin Santo, sage & pancetta. Yes, well, we'll see.

Sadly, it's just me who will see, as it's so gloomy at my table there are no photographs. Having been impressed with the menu, I was looking forward to the critics being proved wrong. Oh dear.

It looked good. Half a dozen neat tortellini, sage butter, some crispy prosciutto on top. I wasn't impressed by the whole sage leaves. Weirdly, the first tortellino I cut into was empty! The next one wasn't, thankfully. I wouldn't know that it had seen any vin santo, and any pancetta element in the filling was limited, but it was a very good tortellini filling, avoiding the pastiness of virtually all commercial offerings. The pasta was pretty decent, at least until you got to where it had been folded over: there it was really thick, which meant it was undercooked. Very undercooked. Not right. The waitress reacted promptly and said she'd talk to the kitchen and get another dish prepared, properly this time.

It wasn't. This time, there was a crisp sage leaf alongside the prosciutto. The tortellini were mad hot, but still suffered from too thick a sealed edge that hadn't been able to cook through. This was a production error, not a cooking error. The manager came over this time, and took one look at the undercooked pasta, identified by looking at it that it was undercooked, and that it would scarcely be possible to cook it properly without wildly overcooking the rest. He said he'd take it off the bill, and remove it from the menu for the night.

My main course was a very creditable fritto misto. A good selection of fish, all nicely cooked, all nice and fresh. Very clean flavours, nicely seasoned. I liked the tartare sauce too: nice and creamy with good balance. The presentation was a little over the top, however. The pieces of fish were presented on a sheet of brown paper, scrunched so it stood up vertically on one side of the plate. Then, on top of the fish, was a rather towering structure made out of deep-fried angel hair pasta. Certainly visually impressive, but somewhere between difficult and impossible to eat. The nest of crispy pasta also seemed a bit over-seasoned to me. I'd almost given up on it and was moving it aside when I noticed it contained a large prawn: head on, tail on, but otherwise peeled. Again nicely cooked. But I almost missed it amid all the silly crispy pasta.

Fritto misto and sparkling water came to £19.90.

So, overall a bit of a mixed experience, rescued by the excellent service.

A return visit to Vnam Café

2012-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

This is just a quick report of a return visit to Vnam Café on Oldham Road in north Manchester. Everything I said in my previous report still holds.

The setting is basic and easily missed from the street, though I was told they are hoping to do something about that.

I ordered some barbecued quail to start with and the beef pho, though both came together.

Chim Cut Nu'ong: BBQ quail

Six quid buys you three half quails. I've no idea what's in the marinade that the quail must have been in, but it's jolly good. The little bowl I think contained merely salt and pepper, but wasn't really necessary, as the quail was tasty enough in itself. Very juicy meat combined with a bit of char and a slight crisp to the skin. Delicious. Though not a dish for those afraid of bones or of using their fingers.

Pho Bo: Beef noodle soup

Then on to the main event of this quick lunch, the Vietnamese national dish, phô. This is a noodle soup, the star of which should be the stock. My pho was pho bo, apparently the northern Vietnamese version, featuring a beef stock and slices of beef (in the south of Vietnam, pho is apparently more heavily seasoned and features more herbs, greens and chillies). A pile of beansprouts and herbs come separately, along with some rather ferocious sliced chillis. According to the menu, the broth is flavoured with cinammon, cloves, star anise and coriander. I can't say that I could particularly identify them, but, while quite light, it was nicely flavoured and didn't dominate the other ingredients. Initially, I shovelled in most of the beansprouts, herbs and chillis, but it wasn't long before I was fishing out the chillis, as for me, they'd more than done their work and were my making my nose run! Again, this was great value: £6.50 bought a very large bowl that I struggled to finish.

Vnam Café is unlicensed, so I kept it local and had a can of Vimto! That brought the total cost to £13.50. Excellent value. Good, friendly service too.

At the end of my meal I noticed that staff lunch appeared to be bowls of steaming pho, which is a recommendation in itself.

Christmas lunch menu at Paul Heathcote's The Longridge Restaurant

2011-12-22T10:36:00.000-08:00

The Longridge Restaurant isn't exactly where it all started for Paul Heathcote (previously there had been at least Smithalls at Bolton, Sharrow Bay, the Connaught, and the Broughton Park Hotel near Preston), but it's where he started on his own, collecting two Michelin stars and an empire of restaurants across the north west. The stars went as the empire grew, and then the recession did for the empire, and the business is now wisely retrenched to the two original sites, with two restaurants on the Winckley Square site in Preston and here at the flagship, Longridge Restaurant.

Chris Bell had been doing good work in the kitchen until earlier this year when he was lured back to his native Northern Ireland. Hywel Griffith is now installed as Head Chef and continuing to raise the game at Longridge. I actually went (entirely coincidentally) on his first day, but, although it was a good meal, it seemed unfair to report on it when he'd only walked through the door a few hours previously.

Normally a Christmas lunch menu is not a good one to report on either, but this was good enough, and representative enough to overcome such scruples.

Three courses for £23 is a good deal, and combined with no booze at all due to to fears of random breath testing, it was an extremely good value lunch, especially for the quality.

With the menus, come some impressive canapés: a black olive palmier is jolly good, but entirely in the shade of a parmesan marshmallow.

That marshmallow must be one of the best canapés in the country at the moment: it's as light as air, but packing a rich, savoury, umami-laden flavour. Genius.

It is worth going just to have the marshmallow.

Bread has always been a strong point at Longridge, and continues to be. Dinky little brioches, good wholemeal rolls, but the star is the white roll flavoured with caraway seed, reminiscent of the famous, and highly localised, Goosnargh cakes down the road where the chickens, turkeys etc come from.

The Jerusalem artichoke velouté was a good example, perhaps a little underseasoned/underpowered, with crosnes among the other decorations. It was, however, disappointing that the (soft boiled) quail's egg was cold and I couldn't really detect any tea flavours.

Jerusalem artichoke velouté, lapsang and quail egg

Pressing of local pork sounded like just another terrine, but this was lifted by being fried before being served on a nicely balanced apple sauce. There's something vaguely slutty-American-diner-dive-drive-in about this: rolling belly pork, ham hock and pig's cheek up, frying it and then sprinkling with chorizo. But this was also a nicely refined version of piggy goodness.
When it arrived, I thought it was a bit of a small portion. While it's true that you can never have too much pig on your plate, the portion size was bang on in the context of the meal.

Pressing of local pork: belly, hock, cheek, chorizo and apple sauce

In complete contrast to the multiplicity of pig, the vegetarian starter, a mozzarella and celeriac roulade sounded a bit dull. But this was really good too. This must surely be a Hywel Griffith dish, as it doesn't seem Paul Heathcote's style at all. It's almost strudel-like, but using very thin slices of celeriac instead of strudel pastry. It worked really well, especially with the accompanying broccoli purée and basil oil.

Mozzarella and celeriac roulade, wild mushrooms, broccoli purée and basil oil

Braised oxtail dumpling turned out to be a suet pudding. Most forms of suet pudding are usually substantial, but this one turned the norm on its head, with a very thin crust and lots and lots of meat inside. The meat itself could, perhaps, have been a little more aggressively seasoned, but in combination with the sweet, ultra-smooth (hello, Thermomix) carrot purée and a classic Madeira jus, they got away with it.


Braised oxtail dumplings, carrot purée, roasted shallot and Madeira jus		(doing an impression of Andy Capp)

the interior of the oxtail dumpling

Halibut is not my favourite fish, and this smallish piece of halibut, which suffered a bit from slightly uneven cooking (not quite sure how they managed that), didn't convert me. But that didn't spoil the dish for me as a whole, with the different types of sweetness of the scallop, the shrimps and the onion purée working together with the fish. No problem with seasoning on this dish at all.

Seared halibut, king scallops, onion purée and brown shrimp butter

The traditionalist at the table had the turkey, which was, well, turkey. A tronçon of the breast which really did need more seasoning came with a small pie made with very good short pastry and containing confit of the leg with sage. The sage was a little too dominant, but in the context of the whole dish, the powerful sage and onion of the pie balanced the under-seasoning of the breast.

Homemade Christmas pudding was a good pudding, quite possibly more fruit than pudding and lots of foamy brandy sauce. Again, one for the traditionalist. Not for me. Like all Christmas puddings, a bit too heavy at the end of a meal.

A vanilla parfait, filled with glacé fruit was literally exemplary stuff: an exemplar of its type, showing a confident hand in the pastry section, as did its accompanying mulled wine sorbet, which managed to avoid over-winey-ness or over-spicing. Nothing to complain about with the accompanying cherry purée and jelly, though they somewhat got lost next to the brilliance of the parfait and sorbet.

Vanilla and glacé fruit parfait, mulled wine sorbet, cherry purée and jelly

Rhubarb crumble with custard and mince pie ice cream sounded pretty straightforward, but was rather more involved on the plate. Again, this was a really excellent dish, let down only by the plating, I think. And not even the plating, but rather the plate itself, which just seemed a bit utilitarian and clumsy for what was actually a very refined dish.

Rhubarb crumble, toasted oats, mince pie ice cream and custard

Poached rhubarb, a rhubarb parfait, rhubarb purée with vanilla pannacotta(?) forming the custard. I would happily have taken away a litre of the rather gorgeous mince pie ice-cream. The shard of shortbread in the middle of the plate deserves special menu. Somebody in the kitchen has a really good hand with all sorts of pastry. Ultra-short and buttery, it defied being picked up without breaking.

The pastry excellence continued with the petits fours, which were some quite remarkable small mince pies: open tarts with a blob of frangipane on top of the mincemeat. But it's the pastry that took your breath away: it was as thin as paper, yet also remarkably short. My guess is that they were slightly overbaked (the colour of the pastry suggested this) to help them hold up: otherwise, it's quite difficult to understand the engineering, as they shouldn't have been able to hold the filling, let alone hold up to being picked up.

Still room for improvement in the coffee department though. But 'twas ever thus.

Producer recommendation: Wareing's of Tarleton

2011-12-15T04:30:00.000-08:00

There was a time when much of the moss land either side of the Ribble Estuary was given over to market gardening. As a boy, I remember all the greenhouses and fields of crops on Marton Moss near Blackpool. Much of that has gone now, sadly, save for some tomato production.

To the south of the Ribble Estuary, in the area between Penwortham and Southport, the tradition is surviving better, and it is here that Wareing's of Tarleton are based.

I first came across Wareing's at the excellent Hoghton Tower farmers' market, but they attend many markets in the north west, including the new Longridge farmers' market.

For some time, I've moaned that many farmers' markets are dominated not by farmers, but by value-added products (too many sausages and cupcakes!). That's not to denigrate the livestock farms, but stalls like Wareing's are what are needed to balance what's on offer. If high streets, markets and farmers' markets (separately and together) cannot provide a full range of food, then supermarkets are going to win.

So, enough ranting. What do Wareing's do? Well, they are a family firm, established over 100 years ago, with a mixed market garden producing a wide range of fruit and mainly vegetables. The range of produce is excellent and amazing. The first time I came across them, I made the mistake of asking if the lettuces and some other produce was their own. "Everything here is grown by us." I was proudly told. It was also very evident that much of it was freshly dug too.

Their onions are the freshest, juiciest onions I've come across, and it was a real surprise to see them selling garlic too. Garlic, grown between Southport and Preston! There isn't any reason why it shouldn't be grown, but as far as I'm aware, Wareing's are the only ones doing so commercially. It's clear garlic production is on a relatively small scale, as the bulbs on sale have not been cleaned and processed the same way as the imported garlic you'll find everywhere. But it's very fairly priced and has a really good flavour, without being bitter, which was the problem the one time I tried growing my own.

Carrots (orange and purple) are great, and again the freshness shines through. The same goes for chard, lettuce, celery, leeks etc that I've tried. It's nice to see things like purple kale and purple sprouts, alongside their more familiar green cousins.

Do look out for them at farmers' markets. They're just what we need.

Wareing's
Johnsons Farm
Johnson Meanygate
Tarleton
Preston
01772-815629

Cooking a neck of beef

2011-12-09T10:04:00.000-08:00

All animals have necks. The one you're most likely to come across is lamb neck, either as scrag end for hotpot or lamb neck fillets. Pork (pork collar) you may find. Stuffed goose neck is a bit of a classic throughout much of continental Europe, though finding goose necks will be a challenge even for a real butcher.

What is common to all the necks is that they contain muscles that are worked all the time (all that leaning down to eat grass): they are the absolute opposite of fillet/tenderloin. With the exception of properly prepared lamb neck fillets, they all benefit from long, slow cooking, both to make the meat tender and, as importantly, to break down all the connective tissue to give that ever so desirable unctuous feel.

I was inspired to start thinking about beef neck by a post by Matthew Fort on his blog, though I didn't find his final method of serving it (as a sort of rillettes, I think) all that attractive. A good straightforward braise (with the prospect of a gorgeous rich stock/gravy at the end of it) seemed much more appealing.

You need a traditional, independent butcher for cuts like this. If you have a proper butcher who buys whole carcases and breaks them down himself/herself that shouldn't be a problem. Supermarkets and meat retailers, who only get joints that have already been broken down from the carcase simply won't be able to do it for you.

So, the next time I was at the marvellous Roy Porter butcher's shop in Chatburn in Lancashire's Ribble Valley, I asked innocently about the prospect of a piece of beef neck. Roy Porter and his team always seem to rise to the challenge, and after checking that I really did mean a whole neck, and not chuck steak or clod, shopped up as mince or stewing steak, and controlling the rolling of their eyes, they set to taking a neck off, I think, a Dexter carcase and boning it. I was presented with a gorgeous, great hunk of flesh, in excess of six pounds in weight. Just as Matthew Fort says in his piece, there were claret and burgundy coloured muscles within this mound of flesh. I was a little surprised just how lean it was. As you can see there is not exactly a shortage of fat and connective tissue, but it's predominantly lean, pure muscle.

I removed a few small pieces from the major muscles to see how it would respond to quick frying/grilling. Some pieces of meat that we traditionally regard as braising cuts do make good steaks (hanger and skirt for example). Unfortunately, unlike lamb neck fillets which are surprisingly tender, it was immediately evident that these were not suitable for quick cooking.

I did not bother trying to trim the meat at all. The first stage in preparing my dish was to give a liberal coating of, and rubbing in the khmeli suneli spice blend made by the excellent Seasoned Pioneers. This is a blend of Coriander Seeds, Cloves, Cinnamon, Fennel Seeds, Mint, Dill, Savory, Fenugreek and Marigold Petals, apparently based on a Georgian recipe. It's a good, warming blend that doesn't dominate, but quite literally adds a certain je ne sais quoi. (I sometimes use it as a flavouring in wholemeal loaves.)

I melted some dripping in a large pot and added a large onion, cut into quarters. Then around half a pound of bacon bits (the trimmings and ends of bacon that butchers generally sell off cheaply), roughly chopped, and some thyme.

Returning to the meat, I roughly rolled it, though without bothering to tie it, and added it to the pot with some bay leaves. The pot was then topped up with roughly one-third water and two-thirds of a young, fruity red wine.

I brought the liquid up to the boil on the hob and then put it in the oven, pre-heated to 120°C, where it stayed for around six hours. It was cooked and reasonably tender at this point, though could clearly benefit from a little longer.

But I took the meat out at this point and left it and the pan to cool overnight. My purpose was to allow the fat which had rendered to set on top of the liquid, to make it easier to skim off the excess fat. After that, the cooking liquid could be brought to the boil and left to simmer for a while to reduce it, reheating the meat in the liquid. If you were serving it all in one go, you should reduce the cooking liquor down to the desired serving consistency at this point. I was going to serve the meat over a couple of days, so initially, I left the cooking liquor as a lighter broth, though it still had a good, rich flavour and texture.

Here's the meat, still steaming, straight out of the pot, ready to "slice" - I put that in inverted commas, as the meat is now so soft and unctuous that it's not easy to slice. You certainly need to cut across the grain.

And here's the inside, showing the layers of different muscles and textures:

I think this is a dish that cries out for a bowl of creamy mash and buttered cabbage.

If you go on to reheat it a few times, the cooking liquor is going to improve in depth, and indeed, if it lasts long enough the very last portions will make a good ragu to serve with pasta.

Vnam Café, Manchester

2011-10-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

This is a small cafe on an unloved and unlovely stretch of Oldham Rd in the no-mans land between Manchester city centre and its suburbs. It's in a small parade of shops opposite the Wing Yip/Glamorous/Postal Depot behemoth. Very conveniently, there is limited parking in on-street bays directly outside.

It looks nothing from the outside and, speeding past in the car, if you even noticed it, you'd probably think it was a takeaway. If you managed a second glance, you might think it was a hairdressers or something. Inside, it's cheap laminate floors and basic, bare tables decorated only with chopsticks and paper napkins, but it's clean and there's a good smell coming from the downstairs kitchen, and, as I enter, the waiter leaps immediately up from the table where he's been chatting.

I'm no expert on Vietnamese food (in fact it's the first time I've had it in over 20 years), but the menu seems to tick most of the boxes I know, with spring rolls, summer rolls, pho, banh xeo, plus a strong line in barbecued meats. Just how authentic it is, I don't know, though I was the only caucasian in the whole time I was there.

The menu is very brief and not without repetition, in that most of the main courses are the starters with rice or noodles added. I rather like that. Both in terms of keeping buying to a minimum and produce fresh (vital in Vietnamese cuisine), and in terms of me always wanting to try at least one more starter.

The food had clean, fresh flavours, but perhaps lacked some of the fragrance I had expected, probably because there weren't the quantity and variety of herbs that I'd associate with Vietnamese cooking.

Summer Rolls (Goi Cuon) were filled with rice, prawns, noodles, carrot, cucumber, lettuce and coriander. They were certainly well filled, but the prawn element was a bit sparse, especially when I realised the prawns had been cut in half lengthways. Unfortunately they seemed to be missing a bit of the zing of flavour that I'd hoped for. But you can't really complain for £3. With the rolls came a dish of very moreish dipping sauce, that seemed to be a sort of combination of satay, fish sauce and chilli. Absolutely delicious, but it seemed out of synch with the summer rolls, which it dominated completely.

Bun Thit Nu'ong was some slivers of barbecued pork that had a nice level of char without being overcooked, on a mass of thin rice noodles that could have done with someone deciding whether they were meant to be hot or cold, as they were neither. On the side were some cucumber, carrot, spring onion, coriander and mint and fish sauce based dipping sauce.

Banh xeo (no picture: the camera battery died at this point) is described as a savoury pancake. It looks like an overcooked, thin egg yolk omelette, but has no eggs in it and is (I learned) a batter made with rice flour and turmeric that is shallow fried in oil. Here it comes filled with beansprouts, more of the halved prawns and pork, with the same salad and dipping sauce that came with the pork.
One disappointing thing was a clump of mint that still had an almighty chunk on inedible stem attached. Am I expecting too great a level of refinement in a basic caff?

Given the good value of the food (£3 for the the summer rolls, £5.50 each for the other two dishes), a small glass of lemonade for £1 seemed a bit dear! (They're unlicenced.)
Not perfect, but good value for £15. I wouldn't make a special journey (from north Lancashire), but would quite like to go back if I'm in the area.

Albert's Shed, Manchester

2011-10-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

Albert's Shed has a lovely canalside setting in the historic Castlefields area of Manchester. Inside, it's as impressive as the setting, with a good, buzzy feel. They have a number of large private dining areas and here I must state the major caveat: I was at Albert's Shed for a large private function with a set menu.

Everyone had pre-ordered, and knowing that this would be a full-scale banqueting meal, I'd selected dishes that I thought would not suffer from being held on the pass and might actually improve by being served up in quantity. Service throughout was good, with the "who's having what" being efficiently managed, though it did rather remind some on my table of the Dad's Army episode where they have to buy fish and chips for the crew of a German U-Boot: "Also, aufpassen! Wer will Fisch?" Except here it was "hands up whose having chicken" etc.

I'd picked mushrooms in a garlic cream sauce and lamb tagine from the menu. I didn't have any great expectations for the food given the circumstances, and they were entirely met. The mushrooms were absolutely fine. Utterly uninspired, but fine. Oyster and I think a few button mushrooms in a very garlicky cream sauce on a piece of toasted baguettish bread.

It was a bit of a surprise when the tagine came out to find that it wasn't a Moroccan inspired stew, but rather a whole lamb shank in a tomato sauce with more than a hint of ketchup to its flavour. I don't know if it was bought-in and just reheated. It was, however, remarkably consistent from plate to plate, which makes me suspicious. Really, if it wasn't bought-in, then it might as well have been.

Apart from a decent camembert, the cheese was all the sorts of cheese with flavours and bits in that I don't like, but that's my taste.

It's curious, but there was nothing actively bad here. It was a menu of limited ambition - rightly limited to what they knew they manage for the numbers.

Looking at the menus on their website, the regular diner will find a menu of more interest, so do not rule it out on my experience on this occasion. I'd like to say I'd like to go again and try it properly, but Castlefields is the other end of town to where I usually am in Manchester (indeed, this is the first time I've been down Castle Street), so it may be some time before I can get round to doing so.

Andrew Pern at The Freemasons

2011-10-30T09:51:00.000-07:00

On 25th October 2011, Andrew Pern of the renowned Star at Harome in north east Yorkshire came over to the Ribble Valley to launch game week at the Freemasons at Wiswell, home for the last few years to the elevated cuisine of young chef Steve Smith, with a menu of game in the style of The Star at Harome.

I think the first thing to say is that this is not a review of The Freemasons at Wiswell, nor of the Star at Harome. (You can read my review of the Star at Harome by clicking here.) While they're far from uncommon, guest chef nights like this never show either the restaurant or the guesting chef at their best. It needs an incredibly strong kitchen brigade to adapt to a new boss for the night, cooking unfamiliar food, often in unfamiliar ways. Here, Andrew Pern was, I believe, on his own with the backup only of Steve Smith's brigade, none of his own.

For that reason, I'm often in two minds about such events. You don't see the best. You are not getting the experience of the guest chef's restaurant. Invariably, they're also always very slow to get started. On the one hand, this can be the result of the kitchen simply needing longer to get up to speed, but also, as kickoff approaches, there's schmoozing to be done.

Sadly, despite some excellent food, the most remarkable thing that lingers in the memory about this meal was the slowness of service. Billed as a 7 for 7.30 start, we were seated promptly, and were able to review the really good menu, which was - to be honest - what really attracted us to the evening, rather than it being Andrew Pern per se. Though it is, of course, an indicator of how attractive Pern's menus are.

£75 (wine-pairings another £30 for those not driving)

Canapés came out in several waves, with a complimentary glass of 2008 Juvé y Camps Rosé Cava, that was a little too like fizzy, watery Ribena for my taste.

The canapés were good, rather than great: the best were the shot glasses of "Bullshot" - a deeply flavoured consommé with a real kick of presumably vodka. I couldn't quite work out whether it was a game consommé base or beef, as unfortunately I couldn't drink too much of it, due to driving.

Carpaccio of deer and mallard sausage roll

A carpaccio of deer and smoked trout with a fennel and apple remoulade was a really good combination, which I very much enjoyed, but it was marred by the over thick oat(?) biscuit on which it was served, which really did nothing apart from sap flavour from the venison and remoulade. As these were seated canapés, it really didn't need anything to support it. The mallard and mixed peel sausage rolls were tasty enough, but in the shadow of the carpaccio.

The starter was the punning "Salade Pérnigourdine" of Red-legged Partridge, Autumn Truffles and Locally Foraged Wild Mushrooms, Sticky Game Syrup

Salade Pérnigourdine

A generous portion, with both a breast and a confit (or at least well-roast) leg of partridge with a goodly number of chanterelles and a fried quails egg. Although there was just one slice of truffle, its aroma was immediately noticeable when the plates were brought to the table, and unusually also carried a good flavour. The leg was lovely, with a good deep flavour. The breast on my plate was cooked distinctly rare, so much so that I think somebody had forgotten to turn it during the cooking process: the fillet was almost a bit of partridge sashimi. Other plates had much better cooked (well, actually cooked) breasts, so this was obviously a kitchen error. I seriously thought about sending it back, but a) I'm tough and b) we'd waited so long for this first course to arrive, I didn't want to risk delaying service still further. Despite being so undercooked, I thought it was still a good flavour and overall I really enjoyed this dish: a clever combination and a clever name. And I say that as somebody who finds most puns severely groan-worthy.

Not sending my partridge back was clearly a good decision, as the delay for the next course was really far too long. Even more surprising given that it was a dish that merely required plating, with no (further) cooking required.

Terrine of smoked pheasant, savoy cabbage and beetroot with walnut and quince dressing

The terrine was billed as Home Smoked Harome Shot Pheasant with Savoy Cabbage and Beetroot, Walnut and Quince Dressing. The Savoy cabbage wasn't especially evident, in contrast to the two beetroots which I felt rather dominated the terrine. Separating the pheasant out, it was nicely, gently cooked, very subtly smoked. Unusually for a smoked bird, it greatly benefited from a bit of salt. I think if the amount of beetroot had been halved, then this would have been a much better dish. I have to admit that I didn't really get the "dressing" - pieces of quince and walnut do not make a dressing in my mind.

Yet another long wait for the next course, and again a rather puzzling delay, as it was essentially a soup, though, assuming it wasn't water-bathed, the slice of pigeon breast in each demitasse would have to be cooked à la minute.


Chestnut and lentil soup

The menu described this as Wood Pigeon, Chestnut and Lentil Broth with Sourdough Bread. I really enjoyed this, though its billing with Wood Pigeon headlining rather disingenuously overestimated the importance of the pigeon in the dish. It is also worth mentioning that the cutlery provided for this course was a small teaspoon: the slice of pigeon was just a bit big for a single mouthful. I am increasingly irritated by chefs who do not properly consider how a dish is eaten at table by customers, though this was very far from the worst example of this sort of mismatch I've come across.
The pigeon was perfectly cooked, and very tender. The broth was utterly gorgeous: deeply flavoured with a rich, velvety texture, thankfully avoiding the grainy-floury texture that chestnuts can sometimes lend to dishes like this.

Now we really noticed the delay. We had started at 7.30 and when we looked at our watches, we saw it was gone 10:20 and we were still waiting for main courses. Fortunately in a rural setting like Wiswell (a tiny village in the Ribble Valley), nobody is reliant on public transport: in a more urban setting, I think a number of diners might have started to become rather nervous by this point. I'm also not convinced that it's appropriate on a Tuesday night, when most people have to be at work in the morning.

Anyway, when it arrived, we got some beautiful venison, in less convincing company: Fallow Deer - Roast Saddle with Homemade Juniper Sausage, Wensleydale-creamed Cavolo Nero, Baked Plum 'Tatin', Green Ginger Wine Juices. From the description alone, you can tell that this is not 'less is more' dish.


Saddle of fallow deer with juniper sausage

The venison was perfect, and while initially uncertain about the cabbage, I quickly grew to appreciate it in combination with the venison and the sauce. I didn't really detect much of the ginger wine in what seemed to me just a very good stock based sauce, but wasn't overly concerned by that. But the other two elements seriously let down the dish. The juniper "sausage" was a mousseline, presumably chicken, not overly-flavoured with juniper, though that may be down to mine being ... how shall we put this ... hmm ... a little over-browned? The plum tatin should have worked. I'm not sure what the inverted commas around 'Tatin' on the menu were about: it was a tatin. Unfortunately, it had been put in the sauce on the plate, and had been there for sufficently long enough before it came to the table, that it was a baked plum on a very sorry messy of soggy pastry. If they'd left the pastry out, there'd be nothing to complain about, as the plum worked well. Mine wasn't the only plate that went back with a lump of soggy dough on it.

Thankfully, things sped up a little now and at ten past eleven, dessert arrived and took us back to excellence. I'm far from a fan of chocolate desserts (I find them a little heavy at the end of a meal) and whisky is not my drink, so wasn't particularly looking forward to Dark Chocolate and Famous Grouse Whisky Mousse, 'Singing' Johnnie' Sorbet, Hazelnut Peat. But this was very well conceived and executed. The whisky was in the form of a light jelly, the mousse just right, and the sorbet actually just a very good raspberry sorbet. I asked what Singing Johnnies had to do with it, but nobody seemed to know. The peat seemed to be a dark caramel hazelnut brittle, partly ground up, partly a shard on top: it added just the right note of texture without making the dish any heavier.

Coffee was the usual good coffee that the Freemasons produces, though I thought the accompanying pates de fruits could have been a little less set, and contrary to all expectations we actually managed to leave on the same day we arrived.

This was a meal with ups and downs, though the most serious down was the slowness of service. I don't know whether that was the result of a problem in the kitchen, unfamiliarity of the kitchen brigade with the chef and the style of food, or not quite managing to pull off a banquet style service, or some other reason. I can't believe it was by design.

Product Recommendation: The Cumbrian Pig Company

2011-10-25T09:49:00.000-07:00

There are two things you see too much of at farmers' markets in the north west: cupcakes and sausages.

Sausages have long been one of the things that butchers and other meat processors make to use up non-prime cuts that in the last 50 years or so have become much more difficult to sell. So it was naturally with the rise of farmers' markets and direct selling by farms that sausages would be one of the key products. They're also ideal for markets as they are both easy to hand out cooked and sliced to attract customers to your stall, and they make a pretty good impulse purchase. You might think twice about buying a large pork joint, but everybody has room in their fridge and stomach for sausages? They're like the sweeties supermarkets put by the tills.

The odd thing is that there are a lot of farms that seem to sell far more sausages than prime cuts. What happens to all the prime cuts?

The Cumbrian Pig Company is one that seems to deal mainly in sausages. But the difference is that these are extremely good sausages. Unlike many others, I've yet to come across any gristle or other nasty bits in their sausages, and their recipes are notably superior to most other producers I've tried: they always seem to me like tried and tested recipes, rather than some other producers, whose sausages "flavours" often seem to taste like something they knocked up the night before, hoping for the best, but able to rely on there being enough impulse buyers not to need to worry about how they taste. Some of the flavours are also rather interesting too. Whoever comes up with the recipes for Cumbrian Pig's sausages actually has a very good palate.

They have a range of varieties which they told me they rotate. I first came across Cumbrian Pig at the Cartmel Food Market (third Friday of the month) earlier this year, and so far there has been a different range each time I've come across them.

My most recent purchase was some Pork & Five Fruit Marmalade sausages. They were nicely, but not over-seasoned, with a good meaty texture and a very interesting flavour from the marmalade, which gave a nice agrodolce touch.

In the past I've Pork & Red Onion Marmalade, Pork & Damson, Pork and Rhubarb, and some others. Unlike some butchers who shall remain nameless, who have dozens of varieties which all taste them same (ok, yes, I'm talking about Cowman's in Clitheroe), all the Cumbrian Pig sausages I've had have been completely identifiably different.

Most recently, they also had some cured pork belly for sale. These were thick slices (not streaky bacon) which I just roasted as they were: bacon with crackling on! They would have made a good pancetta too.

See their website www.cumbrianpig.com for contact details and where to buy.

I have no connection with them, and this post is made out of admiration of the product, not for gain.

Lunch at L'Enclume

2011-10-22T12:34:00.000-07:00

L'Enclume is famous for its multi-course tasting menus, drawing on very locally sourced and foraged ingredients. They're not cheap, but they are always good value; they're multi-course but are never over-facing.

But sometimes I'm a little short of cash and/or time, which is when one of the less well-known features of this excellent restaurant come in handy: the set table d'hôte lunch at £25 for 3+1 courses (3 advertised, plus an amuse). And you still get the brilliant bread that has had London foodies' tongues wagging at the new sister restaurant, Roganic.

On this occasion, my amuse was a porcelain sack filled with a layer of (cucumber?) jelly, then a very light beetroot mousse, all topped with a buffalo mozzarella snow and some pretty powerful dill flowers. Quite delicate, yet precise flavours, though I wasn't convinced by the texture of the mozzarella snow as it melted on the tongue to that not entirely pleasant mouthfeel that frozen cream has.

The starter proper was one of the best jerusalem artichoke dishes I've ever had. A cream of Ragstone cheese, topped with malt formed the base for cylinders of jerusalem artichoke and some crisps made from the artichoke skin. As ever, it looked beautiful. Though immediately, there's a surprise: it's cold. I can't remember the last time I had cold jerusalem artichoke, and when it was put down on the table, I don't know why, but it looked like the artichoke component was hot, or at least warm! It was a really lovely dish with a perfect balance of flavours. I can't help wondering what it would be like if, say, the skins had been hot. Would that add another dimension, or just spoil it?

Main course was a great piece of hogget (sheep over one year old), with various greenery stuff, including something called ground ivy. Cue slightly alarming moment: isnt' ivy poisonous? No, not this one. According to the usual internet sources of varying authority, it's a hedgerow plant, somehow related to mint that's been used in cheesemaking as an alternative to animal rennet and in brewing as an alternative to hops; though they say it's also poisonous to horses. I'm still alive. Another nice dish.

Dessert was one of those not overly sweet desserts that I particularly like and which L'Enclume does so well. Wild blackberries, gently poached, served with a beetroot sorbet, beetroot meringue and an utterly dreamy buttermilk set custard.

Booths new store: Media City, Salford

2011-10-19T12:35:00.000-07:00

I've always been a fan of Booths, the family-owned chain of grocers (ok, supermarkets if you must) based in Preston and with stores across the north-west (and a couple in Yorkshire too). They have a firm policy of local sourcing and support Slow Food and smaller producers. In their Lancaster branch, I once counted fourteen different Lancashire cheeses (not cheeses made in Lancashire, Lancashire cheeses). Remarkable.

So I was very pleased to get an invitation to the launch evening of their latest store at Media City in Salford. I think this is their first venture into Manchester, and, besides the impressive set-up generally, it was interesting to see how Booths had adapted their range to what they see as the rather different market in a big city, and also that of the influx of media types, notably the numerous BBC employees who've been exiled up north. In fact it seemed to me that the second largest group of people attending the launch evening were, to judge from their lanyards, BBC employees. The largest group of people there seemed to me to be all the "suits" from Booths themselves, who were largely hunting in packs, keeping together for safety. It made me think they probably don't get out into the stores much to meet customers!

Indeed, the best thing I overheard all night was a Mr Booth asking another Mr Booth why he kept looking at his watch. Mr Booth was simply wondering "how much longer I have to keep being nice to people"!

A string quartet from the BBC Philharmonic battled bravely against the general hubbub

The Media City branch of Booths has a very airy feel. Look up and it feels a bit industrial, but keep your eyes and well, umm .. eye level, and it feels very modern and open, though not especially large. It is, however, unusually for any sort of supermarket, on two floors. I wonder how that will work: will customers really go up and down stairs (or the lift) to continue their shopping?

The produce on show was all extremely high quality, some even higher quality than I'm accustomed to in Booths, though of course it's entirely natural that they're out to impress. The display of various wild mushrooms in the greengrocery selection particularly caught my eye. Ascrofts were offering some delicious tasters of a sort salad of golden beetroot and lentils that Booths should definitely think about selling ready made.
Some shelves (bakery notably) were still empty, which is entirely reasonable as the store wasn't opening until the next morning. It did make me laugh that some of the empty shelves had stocking plans on them marked "strictly confidential"!! Probably not a good idea to leave them out when you've invited hundreds of members of the public and press.

The fish and meat counters are at the foot of the staircase

Butchery and fishmonger counters were very striking, though not especially large. Lots of beautiful looking fish and especially shellfish, with representatives from Neve's, the Fleetwood-based fishmongers on hand for this event. Thinking back to when Selfridges first opened in Manchester city centre, they too had an impressive fish counter, but that was very quickly cut back before disappearing entirely. It will be interesting to see if Booths can maintain the impressive range they had on show at this launch event.

The meats on display were just as impressive, if not more so. Some beautiful looking National Trust beef, cornfed ducks and chicken from Reg Johnson of Goosnargh, salt marsh lamb, and most notably of all, some amazing-looking British rose veal, of which there were various cuts, all beautifully butchered. Again, I really hope they can keep up these standards. It would also be nice to see the veal being offered in other stores, as it's a meat that isn't at all easy to find, even in our excellent local butchers.

The meat and fish counters seemed a bit small, and clearly stocked with the premium end of their respective produce. I also thought the deli and cheese counters were also quite small, the cheese in particular feeling very cosmopolitan, and indeed Booths' cheese buyer confirmed to me that they had deliberately gone for the higher end here.

Mr Kirkham (of Mrs Kirkham's) behind the cheese counter

By contrast the 'ready meal' fridges seemed to occupy more space proportionately than in other Booths stores. I don't know if that's really the case, though that's how it felt. Interestingly all these fridges have doors to keep down energy consumption, which can only be a good idea.

The BWS (beers, wines, spirits) section is upstairs and definitely felt both larger and more spacious than in many other branches, though interestingly did not seem to have the same really premium wines and champagnes that I've seen in, e.g. the Windermere store, in the past.

The worst thing was actually finding the place. Not a problem if you work at Media City, but until Google Maps and satnavs get updated, it's not obvious. In particular, once you've found it, finding a way into the Booths car park is far from obvious, as it seems protected by more no-entry signs than is surely necessary!

http://www.booths.co.uk

Ten Mile Menu at Parkers Arms, Newton in Bowland

2011-10-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Parkers Arms at Newton is a little gem. A proper pub with a talented chef of (some sort of) French heritage. Virtually everything is locally sourced - very locally for the most part.

At the moment, for mid-week lunches they are celebrating their sourcing policy with a daily changing prix fixe menu in the French tradition of "le menu" - if you found this on a by-way in France, you'd come back saying things like "only in France." It's a three-course, no-choice menu, all produce sourced within ten miles, for £10.

I started with a "Dunsop Egg" - a scotch egg, made with a delicate mousseline of smoked trout from Dunsop Bridge, the geographic centre of the Kingdom, just down the road.

As you can see, the egg itself was just right and the trout worked well. On the side was some soused fennel and a remarkably good home made mayonnaise.

Main course was a ballotine of chicken from local suppliers of chicken to most of the top restaurants in the country, Reg Johnson of Goosnargh.

A beautiful creamy mash, properly cooked root veg. Good roast chicken flavours and a good chicken gravy.

Dessert (no photo) was crème brûlée (runny in the French style) with local damsons in the bottom.

Quite how they do this for a tenner is difficult to fathom, but clearly we need to make full use of it. Must go back very soon!

Welcome

2011-10-18T06:59:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog.

My main website, www.andrewstevenson.com will continue as it is, bringing you wine tasting notes, fuller articles on wine and restaurant reviews.

The content of this blog will naturally develop over time, but I expect it will contain briefer, more immediate reports on all things food and wine.