Monday 28 March 2011

East Lodge, Derbyshire - Restaurant Review

East Lodge, Rowsley, Derbyshire
http://www.eastlodge.com/

East Lodge had the honour of hosting a lunch on Saturday in celebration of my Grandfather-in-law’s (does such a title exist?) 90th birthday. First impressions were that it was an attractive building with nice grounds. We were warmly greeted and shown to the conservatory where we joined the rest of our party, had an aperitif and perused the menus.

We decided against starters - the rather hopelessly laid out menu failed to make it clear that a starter was even an option. Between the seven of us we ordered one fish and chips, one beef fillet, three steak and kidney pies and two turkey breasts which were poached and seared “a la plancha” which came with a fried sage and onion sandwich, fondant potatoes and braised celery. I opted for the turkey, though it was not without fear that they may think my choice influenced by the appalling advert with Marco Pierre White and Martin Kemp which can currently be seen on TVs irritating viewers around the country.

We were invited into our private dining room just before the food arrived. We weren’t aware we were to have use of a private dining room, and while it got a few ‘oohs’ and ‘isn’t this nice’s from our party I am actually not a fan of the private dining room experience.  I am people watcher, and am endlessly interested in what other tables order and how they respond to their experience, I like seeing the staff in action and getting a proper ‘feel’ for the place.  And every time I have been in a private room I have found that the waiting staff have underestimated the speed at which I can drain a wine glass, so I have often been left to stare woefully at my empty glass hoping someone will come check on us, East Lodge was no different.

The food arrived and first impression on my dish: ‘weird, they are using my slate placemats as a plate, what’s the bloody point in that?’ and then slightly sad that my fondant potato was so very teeny. The ‘fried sage and onion sandwich’ which I was very intrigued to sample turned out to be a small disc of baguette with some stuffing on it.  Tasty yes, but I had hoped for something more inspired. The turkey was very moist, the teeny fondant potato and celery complimented the dish well, as did the elaborately swirled sauce (somebody has been watching too much Masterchef).

It didn’t seem appropriate for me to taste the entire table’s food but I did steal a forkful of the lovely fiancés beef which was very tasty and perfectly met the request of being cooked medium-rare. 
For dessert we had one Gateau Marjolaine (layers of hazelnut meringue with vanilla, chocolate and praline butter cream), one bakled Alaska “flambé” and five chocolate fondants. The chocolate fondants were all cooked to perfection as I expected, just the right amount of ooze. Judging by the contented noises coming from across the table seems the other desserts were good too. We followed dessert with a birthday cake and coffees. The cake was very tasty, the coffee not as strong as I like.

Unfortunately, the mean portion size was not limited to the fondant potato, I felt all of us would have preferred 50% more grub for our buck. I appreciate it is meant to be fine dining but if you order a pie, you want a proper sized pie, damnit.

The food was very good but unadventurous, the service was very friendly and polite. A pleasant place that was very well suited to a 90th birthday lunch but I wouldn’t return with a younger crowd.  The coffee rather sums up the feel of the place, very pleasant, with good flavour but lacking balls. 

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And I should say a big thank you to the lovely in-laws for picking up the bill, thank you lovely in-laws, you are most lovely xx

Thursday 24 March 2011

Over the top cupcake decoration - a rant

BBC Good Food blog in which I rant about the trend for excessive decoration on cupcakes is now live.. and I seem to have annoyed a few cupcake makers
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/blog/537-cake-decorating/

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Faking it

Faking it - pretending to like certain foods

Imagine you at some sort of social function, your host is eagerly offering you a beautifully presented tray of handmade appetisers and announces with a smile that they are black pudding croquettes.  However you cannot stand black pudding. You have a split second to decide your response; you can go either for the bold 'thanks but no thanks' and risk offending your host, or quickly gobble one down through a false smile.

Sometimes there is no choice I'm afraid; you'll just have to eat up. Not many of us will be honoured with an invitation to tea with the queen, but if you are I strongly recommend not rejecting a cucumber sandwich. And you would have to be quite a horrid person indeed to send back food at a wedding.

Some foods are easier to reject than others. I don't imagine anyone would bat an eyelid if your hated food was say, bananas but it seems there are certain foods that we (especially us foodie types) are supposed to like. Top of my list is caviar. I'm not convinced that anyone really likes caviar. A quick poll among friends and family
(both those who share my love of food and those who don't give two hoots) proved general confusion about why it is meant to be so great. Olives are a close second; I'm not a fan but they seem to be a ubiquitous appetiser in all mid-range restaurants.

I detest anchovies, I just can't get on with offal and I believe the only thing that should be served 'tartare' is tartare sauce. However, politely reject an offer of these foods and you may find yourself instantly lowered from connoisseur to cretin. And woe betide you if you aren't a fan of cheese; there is a whole course dedicated to the stuff.

I was at a restaurant, nowhere particularly smart, and one of our party refused a glass of wine and instead ordered a rum and coke. Now I do struggle to understand how someone could not enjoy wine, but this girl does not. However she certainly did not deserve the look she received from our waiter. I never knew a single raised eyebrow could spell out 'pleb' so eloquently.

So, a plea. To the dinner party hosts, no black pudding or caviar appetisers please. You know your guests may be less than thrilled, don’t make them pretend, quit showing off and offer something more palatable. To all restaurateurs, please don't fill your menus with the trendy foods of the moment and tell your waiters to stop sneering at clientèle who are brave enough to order what they really want. And stop judging me when I reject your bowl of olives. I'm not a pleb, I just don't like olives.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Prezzo restaurant review

Prezzo

Earlier this week the lovely fiancé and I had both had rather exhausting days and fancied dinner out, nothing special just a cure for hunger and laziness.  Our local Prezzo is a mere five minute walk and seemed to be just what we needed.  It is always a gamble however, going to our local Prezzo.  I have never had a problem with the food, (more of that later) but the service has been so bad at times it has become a local joke. 

One of the good features of Prezzo is that their entire menu is available for take-away, great idea in theory. However I have never successfully managed to order it.  I once phoned up and very politely asked if I could place a take-away order, their response was to bark ‘Not now!’ and then hang up.  On another occasion the response, by comparison was bordering on the verbose: ‘I am sorry we are too busy’.  And heaven forbid you turn up without a reservation, even if it is 6pm on a Monday and the restaurant is half empty, oooh that makes them so grumpy.

Our drinks order was taken swiftly and they offered tap water as well as mineral, very good.  However looking at me like I had just belched in their face when I politely declined olives, not so good. So you get the point, the service is pretty hopeless, on to the food.   We headed straight to main courses, fiancé going for the spicy beef pizza, I wasn’t in the mood for pizza or pasta (yes I know, what the hell was I doing in an Italian then?) so I went for the Ciabatta Milanese (breaded chicken in a ciabatta with cheese and salady stuff) with a side of gratinated potatoes.

We didn’t have to wait long and the pizza arrived looking tasty, the base was just the right thickness and the topping was generous and well seasoned. My ciabatta too, was spot on for a simple dinner, with a generous slathering of garlic mayonnaise (can’t have breaded chicken without garlic mayo, no no no).  But then there was the little dish of unappealing looking chunks of potato in a cheesy mess that I could only presume was supposed to be my gratin.  The potatoes were undercooked and the creamy topping was shockingly bland.  If I am going to order a decadent cheesy creamy gratin I expect to enjoy it, otherwise I might as well be eating calorie laden gruel.  

To end, though both stuffed we shared a vanilla panna cotta with raspberry coulis.  As you can imagine they didn’t look thrilled that we were sharing a dessert, which is a real bug bear of mine.  We were pretty full so either we ordered no dessert or one, be grateful we ordered the one.

So to summarise if you want simple tasty food and are happy to overlook shockingly rude (though strangely swift) service and a bad gratin then its perfectly fine - its never going to be exciting - but it is fine. And being how it is only five minutes away I’m sure we’ll be back soon, at the very least we can be sure to gather some amusing anecdotes on hopeless service.

Friday 18 March 2011

Middle Farm

Middle Farm, East Sussex

Last weekend I had a serious case of writer’s block (yes I know, woe is me, how I do struggle for my art!).  But if there is anything that can snap me out of a woeful mood it is food, cute animals and countryside (in that order). I did some investigations online and found Middle Farm, near Lewes in Sussex. Drawn to the fact it boasts a farm shop, cider and perry store and open farm it sounded like just what I needed.

I’m afraid I do digress to the maturity of a five year old when around cute animals and was seriously excited by the sheep, llamas, chickens, jersey cows etc in the petting zoo.  Indeed I was even enthralled by the rabbits and I have two of those at home.

Having spent at least at hour cooing over the cute creatures, and trying to convince lovely fiancé that we really do need to buy some chickens, we had afternoon tea at the restaurant (very good scones).

We still had the farm shop and the cider/ perry shop to go. The farm shop was very good indeed, particulary impressive were the cheese selection and the meat counter. The cider/ perry shop it transpired was a treasure trove of wall to wall bottles of boozey delights, not just cider and perry.

What did I buy? Duck eggs and hen eggs , bacon (we had a great breakfast the next day), some beautiful smoked venison and a rather handsome cauliflower.  

From the booze shop I bought some cider (Normandy style, the proper way in my opinion), a bottle of elderflower liqueur (to compare with St Germain elderflower liqueur which I am hooked on) a mini bottle for a friend who loves it too. 


I also got and a bottle of beer called Black Death, made by the Fallen Angel brewery company of Sussex. It’s brewed with naga chillies – which we got for a friend of the lovely fiancé who loves all things chilli (he has been known to drink chilli vodka through the eye, why? I cannot explain).

I feel I should recommend the farm as a ‘great family day out’ farm shop for the parents and animals for the children.  But sod the children it’s just a great day out.


Sunday 6 March 2011

Pancakes

Shrove Tuesday or ‘pancake day’ is nearly upon us.  Surely you have noticed,
at this time of year every supermarket feels it necessary to create a stand dedicated to all things pancake – including those bloody ‘batter in a box’ creations.

I don't think we eat enough pancakes in this country, the Americans I imagine eat more than us, but their pancakes are a very different thing all together. The French truly understand pancakes and have the sense, unlike us Brits and them over the pond to give them a variety of names.

When in France ‘pancakes’ are the ultimate fast food on the go, with stalls to be found in many markets. For something sweet, a thin crepe, with just a simple sprinkling of sugar or a spreading of jam and then folded into a triangle and served with a small piece of white paper to protect your hands. Or for something savoury and more robust I have always been partial to a galette saucisse, a pancake made with buckwheat flour and wrapped around a sausage

This Tuesday I will be having savoury stuffed pancakes for the main course (the sensible bit), followed by a decadent dessert of  a table covered with every possible sweet topping to mix and match with yet more pancakes until our little hearts are content.




Savoury:
Ham and mushroom (or just mushroom and more mushroom)
Cheese and leeks
Smoked haddock in a cheesy sauce
Spinach and ricotta

Sweet:
jam, apricot or raspberry are the favourites
cooked apples and calvados
banana and chocolate (put whole squares or chips in and the heat will melt them if you fold it over and its hot from the pan)
Lemon and sugar (Tradition dictates I have at least one ‘proper pancake day pancake’)
The lovely fiancé will no doubt go for his usual uber sugar hit of golden syrup and brown sugar

Should you be having pancakes this Tuesday please do have at least one with merely a good squeeze of lemon and some sugar to adorn it, it seems the ‘proper’ thing to do, in the same way that making American style pancakes seems somehow blasphemous. 

The possible fillings and toppings are almost endless but a few of my favourites-

Tuesday 1 March 2011

Throw together dinner II

Staring into my fridge and kitchen cupboards this evening, hoping inspiration would hit me regarding what to make for dinner, I realised I had many odds and sods and no cohesive meal jumped out at me.

These odds and sods included-
Ricotta cheese
Slices of chorizo
Speck ham
Pesto
Prawns
Peppers (bell, red)
Spinach
Mushrooms
Passata
New potatoes

So, I concluded the best solution was to make a selection of individual dishes, which I loosely claimed to be based upon tapas, thereby allowing me to make lots of bits and bobs that don’t necessarily complement each other but individually taste nice.


On the menu we had:

Prawns with lemon and white wine (I may not have mentioned the white wine in my lists, but rest assured there is always wine in my house)

Crostini/ bruschetta of baguette slices topped with pesto, a sundried tomato per slice and mozzarella

Boiled new potatoes, fried with garlic, chilli and red pepper with a glug of passata and a dash of white wine (ie bastardised patas bravas)

Spinach, mushroom and ricotta with lots of black pepper and a grating of nutmeg (with bread for dunking)

The speck and chorizo I left cold as an optional extra, or to be pretentious, it formed a meat platter.

There is something so satisfying about throwing stuff together without planning. I know I am usually the queen of forward planning but every now and again I do like to test my ability of a good fridge forage.