fabienpe

And they now have been awarded!

I went there end November and decided to stay in the hotel for the night. Reception is very welcoming. The room we had was decorated in a flourish style and spacious with a beautiful view on the park. Because they only have twelve rooms, the waiters remember quickly who the customers are and you can forget about all the little bills (lunch, tea, etc.) and other such details which tend to pollute a stay by bringing you back too frequently to the harsh reality. Well you do get the total at the very end though. Not cheap for sure! The overall atmosphere is very relaxing and quiet and the customers seem to be mainly young couple coming for a romantic week-end in the Dartmoor National Park or elderly people. We had a light lunch in one of the lounges. Despite the rather informal setting, the service was fully attentive and we got all the tableware we would have had in a dining room. I had a Jerusalem artichoke soup with some bread. Bread was terrific: nice crust, light ‘mie’ and warm. Soup really good. Thankfully for dinner we were sitting in a room where a party had booked a large table. This created a bit of animation in the otherwise glacially quiet dining room (couple whispering so other tables cannot hear). Service was attentive and the sommelier very helpful at recommending suitable wines by the glass for our courses. Now, I must say I’m not a great wine expert so he could have brought anything and given any wonderful description this would have been probably just the same to me – I like or I dislike that’s it :-( As for water they offer still or sparkling water from their spring. Anyway. Food. I had not had foie gras for a while and decided to try the millefeuille of foie gras. Imagine layer of turnip, toped with seared liver, toped apple, toped etc. you get the idea. This small lukewarm tower was surrounded by some meat glaze and baby onions and mushroom. I don’t remember the exact details because my main focus was the liver: homeopathic taste of foie gras and grainy texture similar to calf liver. Very disappointing indeed. I had asked for a small extra course of turbot. Beautifully cooked (medium, still firm). Serve with beans (peeled) and other little balls of veg. Classic. For the main I got some venison. Extremely tender. Server with cabbage, pork belly, chestnut purée and other standard garnishes. Nice jus. Very good. Cheese trolley had about twenty cheeses. Mostly British. Waiter was knowledgeable but really had a problem with cutting or spooning them (not enough space and did not really know where to put the dirty cutlery). He was new I think. Dessert: none of the dessert really appealed to me. Usual apple tart, trio of chocolate, crème brulée, etc.

Midsummer House was completely refurbished during the August break. The decor is now much simpler and dominants of beige, grey and white. Beautiful stone floor. Very comfortable cream leather seats. New tableware: Bernardaud, Ercuis, Riedel. See pictures at: http://www.localsecrets.com/currentoffers.cfm?id=30 The makes the overall experience even more enjoyable. I personally really like the food there as it has the robust foundation of mastered classic French food with touches of the molecular gastronomy trends. There’s nothing more irritating than a full MG dinner where one has the impression to be a guinea pig. Daniel Clifford balances the best of both worlds very well indeed. Fabien

This is odd. Now few weeks ago I've booked (by telephone) GF for lunch in Dec (dinner was full already) and they told me to re-confirm 2 days before. They asked for a phone number but not for a fax number (i gave the number of my brother who lives in Paris). What information did they ask you when you booked apart your name?

Don't you think this marketing coup has somehow destroyed the reputation of Beaujolais wines? There are some great beaujolais village wines but Duboeuf stuff is a disgrace!

Who's Puck? What's interesting is that at a time when French chefs are being criticised heavily for not innovating enough (lot of debates in the French press recently after the New York Times made Adria the best chef in the World + conference organised by R Blanc in Oxford this year) more than half the chefs listed in this list are from the other side of the Channel! There is still some hope ;-) F

Salad of semi-dried tomatoes, three flavours, tomato syrup Serves 6 as Appetizer. 14 ripe tomatoes mozzarela 3 garlic cloves 2 shallots olive oil 6 small basil leaves basil 25 cl balsamic vinegar Semi-dried tomato petals - Peel the tomates (dive them few seconds in boiling water and refresh them immediately). Cut them in 4 quarters. Separate the seeds and the inside from the meaty outside. You should have four 'petal' of tomato per tomato. Keep the waster, seeds and inside meat in a ball. - Place the 56 petals (you'll only need 54) on an oiled baking tray. Dry gently for 2 to 3 hours around 100°C. - With one garlic clove, prepare 6 garlic chips that you can cook gently in oil in the oven at the same time as the tomatoes. The chips should be crispy. Tomato sirup - Put the left over of the tomatoes (water, seeds, etc.) in a blender. Strain. Add a bit of sugar. Reduce down the liquid in a pot over low heat until slightly sirupy. Balsamic glaze - Reduce down the balsamic vinegar over low heat (it should not boil) until sirupy. Assembling 1/2 When the tomatoes have dried and cooled down. - Finely chop the rest of the garlic. - Prepare 6 small shallots rings. Chop the rest of the shallots. - Julienne de basil a thin as you can. - Cut the mozzarella in in small 18 rectagles (about 3 mm thick) and slightly smaller than a tomato petal. - Line up six tomato petals. Cover with julienne of basil. Cover with another tomato petal. Keep in air tight box in a fridge. Do the same with chopped garlic and chopped shallots. Allow to cool down for at least an hour. - Keep the other petals (you should have 20) in the fridge. Assembling 2/2 Before serving. - Line up 18 petal. Top with a rectangle of mozarella each. Top with the other flavoured petals. - Paint the plates with tomato sirup, balsamic vinegar glaze and olive oil. - Dispose one flavoured tomato petal pile of each flavour on each plate. So each plate has one with basil, one with shallots and one with garlic. Fleur de sel.Decorate each pile with a smal basil leave, a shallot ring and garlic chip accordingly. Keywords: Appetizer, Vegetarian, Easy ( RG610 )

Rack of lamb with cardamome and roasted pepper stuffed with olive-oil mashed potatoes Serves 6 as Main Dish. Lamb 2 single racks of lamb (2 bones per serving) with fat 30 cardamome pods Stuffed peppers 2 red peppers (3 lobes each) 500 g potatoes (for mashed potatoes) 10 cl milk 10 cl olive oil 6 black olives, stone removed, finely chopped Sauce 2 kg lamb bones 5 l water 1 veal's (or pig's) trotter 2 carrots, washed and unpeeled, cut into 1cm pieces 2 onions cut into 1cm pieces 2 large ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped 3 cardamome pods Most of the preparation can be done the day before. Sauce - Prepare a demi-glace with the lamb bones: - Roast the bones for about an hour in a hot oven. Add the carrots and onions. Roast for another half hour. Bones and vegetable should be brown but not burned. - Pour the bones and vegetables in a large pot of cold water. Pour hot water in the roasting pan and rub the bottom to melt all solidified juices and pour in the stock pot. Do not salt until the very end, that is when the stock has been reduced down to glace de viande. - Simmer for an hour removing scum frequently. Add the tomatoes and 5 cardamome pods. Simmer slowly for another 5-10 hours by adding water and scumming if needed. - Strain the liquid. Return to a clean pot and boil down to three quarters. Let cool down and remove solidified fat. - Return to a clean pot and boil, strain again and boil down until you get a syruppy dark liquid. Salt. Lamb - Extract the black seeds from the cardamome pods. You can put the shell into the stock. - For each rack, trim the fat from the top of the rack leaving the fat on the meat part but removing the fat on the bones. Try to keep one large rectangular sheet fat per rack. Remove excess of fat so the the rectangle of fat is thin and has roughly the same thickness. Keep the two rectangles in the fridge. - Continue the trimming and scrapping around the bones to have clean bones above the "eye". Make two sets of parallel incisions in the fat covering the meat, each set crossing each other. - Cut the racks into 3 pieces each: 2 bones per serving. Cover the top and sides of the lamb chops with cardamome seed and reserve in the fridge until used. Crispy skin - Salt the rectangles of lamb fat and place them between two baking sheets. Put a heavy oven proof weight on top. Cook in the oven around 150°C for about 2 hours (checking time to time and removing excess of liquid fat). The fat should have a golden colour and should be crispy. - When still warm, slice 6 pieces of the same size and shape. Stuffed peppers - Gently boil the unpeeled potatoes in salted water 20 to 30 minutes. When cooked drain them immediately. Peel the potatoes and mash them. Add the oil and the warm milk. Salt. Dry the mash in a pot with thick bottom, mixing thouroughly with wood spoon. Add chopped olives. Reserve. - Grill the full peppers to burn their skin but without cooking them fully. Cut them along the lobes and peel them. - Stuff each lobe with mashed potatoes. Put each of them on a small piece of foil. Finish - Warm the plates. - Pre-heat oven and re-heat stuffed peppers at medium temperature. Keep in a warm place. Increase oven temperature to maximum. - Pan fry the lamb chops quickly to give them a nice colour on each side but without cooking them (about 30 seconds on the meaty sides and 1-2 minute on the skin side). Arrange the chops in an oven tray. The pan frying can be done before your guests arrive. - Reheat the the sauce. - Cook the lamb chops for about 12 minutes. Let them rest 5 minutes in a warm place while you're preparing the plates. - On each warm plate: put one stuffed pepper; sauce the plate. Cut each roasted lamb chop into two pieces and place them on the plates (pink inside top). Add some fleur de sel on the meat. Add a warm crispy skin/fat on the side of the meat. Keywords: Main Dish, Lamb, Easy ( RG609 )