Gary Marshall

The clocks change, the nights draw in, it's becoming colder, all good news That can only mean it's time to start visiting the star again! A few trips were planned but on the basis that i drive up and mrs marshall drives back a fair amount of goodwill is required on her behalf and they got scrapped but last saturday we made our way up to harome for a spot of lunch. I have mentioned before it's quite dark inside the star, very atmospheric but as i clattered through the door temporarliy blinded i nearly took out Jaquie Pern as i stumbled over a stool but disaster was averted and i soon found my usual spot on the right hand side of the bar, near the fire. I am a creature of habit. There's a daily menu hand written menu and a specials board too, the specials looked more comprehensive than previous visits and from the board i had a watercress & goats cheese soup with avocado beignets and a gloucester old spot casserole with pear and ginger and a tarragon risotto. Sarah had her usual the 'posh' ploughmans. The soup was good, the goats cheese incorporated into the soup, sometimes they leave it in chunks and the beignets added interest. The old spot casserole was huge chunks of long cooked pork with a pot of very unctous tarragion risotto. As they are two of my favourites i was very happy with this little pot! I got veg with it in the form of potatoes, red cabbage and beans all served in individual copper pots but they were superfluous, the casserole bu itslef was substantial enough. Sarah's ploughmans came on the usual mousey thompson platter and consisted of pork pie, thickly carved ham, cheeses comte, montgomerys etc and salad leaves, it always looks very tempting! I had to stop myself from ordering the selection of star deserts in minature, was very close to the montgomery cheddar rarebit and finally settled on 2 cheeses from the board, a montgomery cheddar and a mrs bell's blue, both were sizable chunks, but i manfully struggled through, with a glass of port helping them down! Wines were a glass of sauvignon to kick off then a bottle of Chateau Auris, cuvee prestige (£18.95). A very nice corbiere from a chateau owned by leeds restaurateur guy laval of la grillade. I have drunk gallons of this stuff over the years and it is a very quaffable wine, the cuvee prestige a little more refined. A cafetiere of coffee accompanied by their home made chocs and fudge rounded the lunch off, bill was £63. I will be back again soon..... cheers gary

or if you don't want to walk.... www.nisbets.com full catering mail order service, very prompt delivery and have most things in stock. cheers gary

glad tony snr is correcting the erroneous molecular gastronomy tag. that's not where there at, and as i've mentioned before there's no science kit in his kitchen. the tools of tony's trade are ' a hot oven, cold fridge and sharp knives'. cheers gary

i think that is the first negative report i have ever read on hibiscus. i have just had a text from bapi who has enjoyed 3 consecutive meals there culminating in lunch today he seems in happily ensconced in the church, as expected. I can assure you in my experience Hibiscus is definitely a 2 star restaurant and on track for 3. 2 sides to every story, i don't think claire and claude would react like that without some form of provocation, even if you were doing it unintentionally and your comments were misinterpreted. sorry that you had a bad time, but it won't put me off. can't image what they'd have to say to bapi to stop him from going! gary

Its a panel of judges headed up by Jennifer Sharpe who edits the Harpers Restaurant guide. I don't know who served on the panel however. ← ahhh, met her, explains a lot Although predictably i will support Anthony's i just think it was a wasted opportunity to recognise either Tony or Nathan and give them some free publicity/bit of a boost. Instead they give it to heston who with 3 stars, really doesn't need it (big splash unrelated to harpers in telegraph also today), and (must resist urge to be repetitive but....) hasn't changed his tasting menu in aeons! cheers gary

anthony's and the black pig was robbed! was it a public vote or a panel of judges that decided the awards? gary

a la pharmacy?

there is a high probability of you meeting bapi and rosie on that basis. Don't think they've got into the merchant house, but have practically taken up residence at hibiscus for the rest of the week! if he's not there he'll be in church. (the pub at the top of the hill ) cheers gary

whilst plotting my next trip to paris, obviously this place is of interest, despite worries of what will happen to it when the masses descends i note it is already in the 2004 time out paris guide, which has been out months now! (with a very positive rec, naturally!) cheers gary

not used them but www.gourmetontour.com does schools in provence. cheers gary

A very similar incident at my mum's last year when she swapped prawn cocktail for salmon. Going to in-laws this year, in all my 34 years i have never had christmas dinner away from home. As long as i get the traditional christmas drinks at the pub i might survive it! cheers gary

on cover of the caterer today, nice article, no doubt on line at caterer-online.com at some point. cheers gary

'tis true i have the willpower of a gnat when it comes to anthony's/no3 but it seems rude not to frequent them when they're on the doorstep gary

interview with tom aikens in the times section 2 today. gary

'somehow' i ended up back at anthony's yesterday. my friend suddenly decided he 'needed' to go and despite trying to persuade him to wait until friday he was adamant that he had to go. i was more than happy to have the venison again and the pumpkin ravioli (with parkin too) mini toffee apples and spice marscapone. another happy looking punter was Terry Durrack so expect a review from him soon. waiting time is now 8 weeks for saturday, 4 for fridays! cheers gary

What's Horchata though? ←

The menu has just arrived through the interweb so here goes.... We arrived at Anthony's at 1pm and rather than waiting in the bar went straight to our table and got stuck in! we weren't sure what to expect, on a previous visit olga had mentioned a few dishes that we would be trying and tony snr cryptically just said 'they'll look after you' and indeed they did..... First up the 'cocktail' amuse.... Passion Fruit, Tabbacco, Coffee, Bourbon: This presented in a shot glass, smelt strongly of passion fruit but tasted of tobacco and leather, nb in a good way! certainly a conversation piece! *** Jacketless Potato: if there's a dish i expect to see on my travels in other restaurants it is this, always slightly different each time but still essentially a light crisp coating holding in perfect vanilla mash. It tends to go all over your chin, but hey, who cares? this dish is the daddy of the amuse world. *** Yeast and Pine Veloute: I had this before and it's and unusual dish, it polarised opinion, to me it's a dish about texture and it has a strange mouth feel, didn't do much for me and others actively disliked it, which is unusual. *** Red Mullet , Langoustines, Horchata: back on song here though, a little piece of mullet, the langoustines and the horchata 'soup' poured on top as discussed previously, with two mini potato fondants ie 1 cm cylinder mini! a lovely dish. *** Home Made Black Pudding, Roasted Salmon Cheeks, Mango: Who hoo! yet more vanilla mash and, considering these were tasting portions a generous chunk of black pud on top, home made with pork belly, apple juice and a few other tweaks then roasted. The salmon cheeks are more unctous than salmon fillet and presented on a little skewer with shredded mango. What reads like a car crash of flavours certainly doesn't taste like it! *** Snipe, Foie Gras, Artichoke Caramel: A bit of game as 'tis the season, Tony is very keen on being as seasonal as possible, something i don't think you'd naturally expect from a cutting edge restaurant like this, tony snr was very keen to get this point across when discussing the menu with diners, and rightly so. the snipe was very rare and tender and there was quite a bit of foie around too, the artichoke caramel providing a good textural crunch to the smoothness of the foie and snipe. *** Monkfish, Baby Octopus, Enoki Salad: this was confited monfish with 'tentacles' ok baby octupus, and enoki salad the raw mushrooms with a fantastically piquant shallot-y dressing *** Roasted Venison, Carpaccio Venison, Fresh Dates: i think collectively we viewed this the high point. The roast vension a cylinder of fillet seared on the outside then pink in the middle, rested properly as not a drop of excess blood, the carpaccio a translucent 'sheet' on the plate with a strip of foie next to it from memory, i need my pictures! but this is on the ALC and i recommend highly you try it. *** we slotted in a cheese course too, a couple of selctions to share the usual suspects were there stinking bishop, mrs bells, ingleston and cotherstone from memory, with the pickled celery/chilli/pumpkin seed accompaniment, oh and the mini loaves are now even mini-er specifically for the cheese, very dinky. *** Strawberry Grapes Sorbet: another new on, a grape that tastes like a strawberry, interesting! *** Apple and Mascarpone Mousse, Toffee Apple :now i remember the toffee apple, a minature apple covered in caramel and inividually wrapped and on a stick! there were a few other treats on the plate, one of which was fantastic but , errr i thought it was the fig dish off the alc but it appears not! *** we retired to the bar for coffee and chocs and also a little glass of tiger milk (?)with 'gingerbread men' -well it is local produce, there's a greggs bakers next door! they liquidise them with the milk, to make a gingery light drink. service as usual was precise and friendly from olga, although we didn't drink as much as usual so she was relieved from constant wine refills! then followed our 'usual' post meal discussion with tony snr over an assortment of calva's, ports before the cleaning them out of the eminently drinkable raspberry beers. My friends had to head back down south on the 18.40 train to kx, but seeing as mrs marshall was away i hung around to see how the place was on an evening with periodic top-ups of raspberry beer . Virtually all the diners were repeat, the tony snr menu run-down now appears to be a highlight of the experience, the whole operation seems very slick and organised and Holly runs the bar with aplomb way beyond her years. Considering the special menus, extra cheese, bottle of champagne, bottle riesling, 2 chorey les beaune, digestifs all round (more than once i think), 9 raspberry beers (!), water and 10% service, £101 a head was money very well spent. i think i might go back again

Another hard day in the interests of research at Anthony's on saturday, arriving at 1pm and leaving about 9pm is about right for lunch methinks! i will post the full menu when i get a copy but suffice to say it was a great lunch, in order to show the progress that he'd made to myself and a few other regulars we enjoyed essentially the newer dishes of the a la carte in small portions. the jacketless potatoes made a welcome one off special appearance and i think collectively the favourite dishes were the fillet of vension with carpaccio and a fantastic fig desert. I will be back again soon to sample these again! without piccies or menu i can't do the meal justice, so will do so later. the menu has now evolved from day one, the only original dishes are the onion risotto and the pork belly cannelloni, everything else has changed, the new third chef appears to have helped take pressure off in the kitchen and allow Tony to concentrate on new dishes again. they are up for a few awards at the moment, and the principal competition appears to be from the black pig, who are close friends so i suspect as long as one of them wins they won't be too concerned! oh, and if you doubt how committed this operation is, how many other restaurants of this standard are open on christmas day offering an extravaganza of specials and never to be repeated dishes?! they are also open new years eve too before taking a well earned break in early Jan. cheers gary

surley you're talking quality/price ratio here, rather than saying de facto the food at tubby's is better than guellers? did you see Jan Moirs review in the saturday telegraph? a more reasoned piece than her unwarranted trashing of 'guellers' last time which focussed more on her perception of the customer base than the food. cheers gary

more than half the chefs listed in this list are from the other side of the Channel! There is still some hope ;-) ←

sounds an interesting evening, i need to get my arse in gear and sort out another table. conversations about anthony's shouldn't grate, it's the new kid on the block but it's not really competition in terms of style or location even. The pressure is on to get the box tree right but i think they genuinely don't want to be city centre restaurateurs anymore, the box tree suits where they are with their family etc and it's the sort of place they can still be there in 20 years time it's not as subject to the vaguaries of fashion like the town centre. as per pluto, despite my limited Ilkley knowledge can't think where else could match the box tree cooking though my friend who lives there said there's some big money being poured into a few places at the mo. cheers gary

whilst it is obviously made of blood, pigs usually, we call it the more paletable 'black pudding'! the heartland for this is Bury, Lancashire. It's certainly available all over the UK . cheers gary

enjoy, and good look with the exam. i will hopefully get there on an evening soon. cheers gary

website appears to be back up and running, menu reads very well.... www.theboxtree.co.uk gary

builders tea is exceptionally strong ie over stewed tea, very dark, but with milk usually with the addition of about 2 tablespoons of sugar for that authentic building site flavour cigarette optional gary