ajnicholls
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Posts posted by ajnicholls
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I am so in the wrong job!!!
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I think ITV's choice of MPW for this series of Hell's Kitchen has been inspired. He came across as a true natural and an inspiration. Miles and miles and miles better than any previous series and made me wish I'd been around in the days of Harveys.
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I enjoyed an extremely high quality dinner at La Becasse on Saturday night. They were experiencing their busiest weekend since opening; unsurprising as it was the middle of the Ludlow Food Festival.
I'm still a little unsure as to my feelings to the dining room. The place is still beautiful - it would be hard not to be, and the stone walls and wood panneling from Hibiscus' days remain. However, they've added a purple carpet that makes the whole place seem a little small. It does seem more formal than Hibiscus.
They have extended the restaurant slightly, with room for another three tables. A courtyard area has been cleared for pre-dinner drinks and they are planning to turn an upstairs room into a champagne bar. Anyway, onto the food.
Canapes were home-cured olives, a chicken satay thing, which was well spiced with the peanut sauce inside, a salmon mousse with roe and cheese sable biscuits. All very nice. The appetiser was a celeriac veloute with curry, that although being served at the temperature of molten lava, was lovely once you could safely drink it.
We both opted for the menu gourmand, eager to try as many of the dishes as we could. The menu had changed the day before, with Will Holland, the head chef, wanting to make the best of the start of the game season.
The first course was the only disappointment. A ballotine of organic salmon, poached for an hour at 45 degrees, was served on a base of puy lentils, beetroot and horseradish foam. Sadly, there was no salmon flavour and the horseradish lacked any punch. Lentils were good though
Next up was a game terrine with brioche. This really was fantastic. Huge pieces of venison, rabbit and some other stuff made up a rich terrine, finished with liver and cornichons. The accompanying madeira jelly and brioche made up this amazing dish.
A somewhat left-field dish next on what is otherwise a quite French menu, was a Thai-style nage with sea bream, scallop tortellini and coriander. This was Thai spicing of the highest caliber. The scallop was delicately poached and still beautifully firm and sweet.
The highlight of the menu for me was the main course of pancetta-wrapped venson loin, served with beetroot, whimberry sauce and fondant potato. A rich sauce added to the sublime combinations of flavours. The venison was the right side of pink and beautifully tender. This runs a close second to the amazing things David Everitt-Matthias does with venison at Le Champignon Sauvage. I could have eaten this all day.
Pre-dessert was a slightly pointless apple crumble in a shot glass. Nice but didn't show what the restaurant was capable of.
For dessert, my girlfriend opted for the liqourice panna cotta with carrot sorbet and I went for a chocolate ganache with praline sabayon with tonka bean ice cream. These were both excellent and showed some real inventiveness.
The food is of an extremely high standard and easily 1-star cooking. Everything about the place says "we want a star" (they have the face cloths to dry your hands on in the toilets, that seems to be mandatory for Michelin) and I don't doubt that they will achieve this in next year's guide. This is very much Will Holland's menu and apparently Alan Murchison has only been there for 3 or 4 days since opening. My only slight concern is pricing. They've set their stall very high for a new restaurant and the wine list has pretty much bugger all under £30.
I do wish them extremely well and as Lee says, the lunch menu is very good value. I will return and it is pleasing that Claude and Claire's old place is in good hands.
Adam
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Totally agree re. wine mark ups. 2006 Cloudy Bay SB is £75, yet is £15 in Croydon House of Fraser and they must be making a little on that.
Cloudy Bay is without doubt the most over-rated wine on the planet and not even worth the £15
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Le Champignon Sauvage is surely an example of somewhere with a genuinely interesting wine list that doesn't even enter the obscene mark-up territory of other starred establishments. So it can be done!
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Just thought I'd mention the Heston Blumenthal ice cream stall that's been in Manchester throughout the festival that has been running here. Finally made it down there yesterday. 3 "chilled summer treats" on offer.
The first was a pea sorbet with mint gel, mint granita, peanut brittle and dried bacon. Served in a cornet, it was amazingly sweet and retained all the essence of fresh garden peas. Really very impressed.
Next was a chocolate-wine slushicle with Millionaire's shortbread. Served as a giant ice-pop, it was a frozen red wine and chocolate ice. The flavours came through beautifully. Iw was served with an unbelievably rich slice of Millionaire's shortbread. The caramel was salted and extremely gooey. The shortbread, made with olive oil, melted in the mouth. This was topped off with sea salt and gold leaf.
The final one was a vanilla and strawberry sundae with olive and leather. The ice-cream was beautiful; a really rich vanilla ice-cream that was as good as any I've ever come across. The sundae was layered with strawberries, strawberry sauce and a Kalamata olive and extract of leather sauce. In all honesty, I couldn't make out the leather, which may have been a result of the heavy drinking session the night before. The black olive flavour, however was a revelation. It balanced the sweetness of the other ingredients and made for a remarkable ice cream.
The stall was remarkably busy, considering it was pissing it down, as it has been for the whole duration of the Manchester Festival. People seemed genuinely interested and it seems to have been a success. Considering each one was £5, it shows an interest in Heston's cuisine is alive and well in Manchester.
Adam
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Flicked through it in Harvey Nichols. Quality of journalism is dire and the Heston Blumenthal article's been written a thousand times before. If this makes it to a second edition, it'll be a miracle.
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Booked at the place you recommended to me in Ludlow
and also got a table at La Becasse for the Saturday. They are booking up quick for that weekend (unsurprisingly), which can't be bad for a place that hasn't opened yet! -
Just booked for the food festival so will be hoping to go then!
Adam
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So that means that the already very limited 8000 seats available per season is gonna go down in the future years.
Bugger
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Dinner at the Fat Duck
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Ithaca is supposed to be a "Pan-Asian" restaurant, which will no doubt be another awful concept fusion place. The emphasis on everything I've seen about it has been on the bar and the VIP room for footballer's wives. Being bankrolled by Arnie Hira, who runs Oddyssey in Altrincham.
Can't say that I'm sad to see Cocoa Rooms shut. Never have I seen such a pretentious bar.
Adam
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I wish I could eat at the Fat Duck regularly enough to not be classed as a "tourist"! I've only been once - I live in Manchester and the trip cost about £250 per person after you factor in a hotel etc.
Going to the Fat Duck was somewhere I'd been extremely excited about, looking forward to and knew alot about. Although the ALC is supposed to be superb, I wanted to try the dishes that I'd read so much about, both here and in the press. I don't see why ordering the tasting menu makes me an inferior patron. And if it does, frankly, I don't care. From speaking to the maitre'd, he said around 90% of people order the tasting menu. Are we all wrong? The Fat Duck offers one of the most unique dining experiences anywhere in the world. The dishes that got the press coverage and likely the reason why it got 3 stars are down to the tasting menu.
Undoubtably, in some restaurants, the tasting/degustation/whatever pretentious name they come up for it, doesn't offer the best that the restaurant can do. However, in places like Hibiscus, where Claude Bosi changes his menu on a daily basis, none of which bar the foie gras ice cream, were on the ALC when I went, make ordering these things interesting and surprizing. I like not knowing what I'm getting every so often. Juniper in Altringham is another case in point, for providing an interesting, frequently changing, tasting menu.
As an aside, the Michelin guide was created to provide people with information about restaurants when they are travelling. 3* rating, to quote them "Exceptional cuisine and worth the journey". Therefore, if that's the reason why you go to a restaurant, doesn't that make us all "tourists"?
Adam
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They heavily criticised Atul Kochhar for the same thing the previous week. Anyone know when this was filmed, as most people seem to be using out of season products that were probably in season when it was filmed?
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The dishes the Fat Duck is famous for are all on the tasting menu. It's the reason why the vast majority of people know about and visit the restaurant.
Saying that tasting menus are the poorly informed tourist's choice is, frankly, bollocks.
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Mark Hix won; the judges said it was extremely close and felt that Mark's menu was more daring and interesting. Michael Caines was criticised for using apples (out of season) and for being a bit too French in style.
I may refuse to pay my license fee if the BBC don't get rid of Jenny Bond. Christ, I never thought anyone could be a more annoying than Ainsley "percy pepper" Harriott.
Adam
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As for the Relish comment, I heard the same thing. Did you hear it at the Food and Drink Festival launch or did the local press pick up on it
My flatmate works for the parent company and I spoke to the chef at the launch. I laughed out loud!
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I have to agree. The Michelin star talk around Abode has been from places like the Manchester Evening News, and they are not the most discerning. Manchester's restaurant scene doesn't aim towards Michelin and those that have tried couldn't pull it off (Establishment for example)
For those that know Manc, there is a bar/restaurant called Relish. The chef there said he was aspiring to a star. If you've been there, you would know how ludicrous this idea is. This is a place that hammers house music at an ear-bleeding volume and sells burgers.
I concur that the scene here isn't bad, but the fine dining/occasion restaurant is fundamentaly lacking. It is beyond me why. Birmingham and Nottingham can sustain enough trade to have high-end restaurants. There is a sizable business community here and there must be a serious amount of expense-account dining done. This seems to be what keeps a large number of London's Michelin-starred establishments going.
Having Juniper here is fantastic and Paul is a chef of outstanding innovaition. The variety of their menu and the huge number of themed evenings they do is way ahead of anything else in the vecinity. Am I being greedy wanting someone else nearby to do anything half decent? At least we have Red Chilli.......
Adam
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Took my parents to Juniper on Saturday night. It was their first Michelin-starred restaurant, so it was a very new experience to them.
Food was excellent . All had the tasting menu. Too hung over to go through every course at present, but highlights were an excellent carrot and crab soup, which came with a scallop at the bottom, a beautifully cooked lamb dish that came as rump, shoulder and liver and the dessert, a Snickers creme brulee.
My mother, bless her, came out with " I liked the idea, but all this foam is just getting rediculous". It was on all 4 of the first courses. Everything had nuts in it too.
Still by far and away Manchester's best restaurant. Even if it is in Altringham and I had to brave the Metrolink back into the city at 11:00, full of pissed-up 15 year-olds.
Adam
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As usual (and as discussed at length on this forum) this trip cemented my view that the quality in Manchester dining is at the lower end.
One possible bit of good news is that Michael Caines is taking over one of Manchester's hotel-associated restaurants. I know Jay slated ABode in Exeter a while back, but anything approaching fine dining would be welcome in Manchester at present!
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................not one in the same I hope ???
Nope! He's far more skilled a drinksmaker than me. Having said that, I do make a bloody good martini!
OOh, haven't tried that, will do soon as I can. We serve Brooklyn for the simple reason that I love it (we also serve fat rather than thin chips because I prefer them----the true nature of power!!)Where do you work? The Sierra Nevada's amazing stuff, but it is £4 a pint.... More Chelsea prices than Manc!
Adam
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Jenny Bond's constant flirting with Galton Blackiston is starting to make me feel very nauseated!
Adam
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After dinner probably bars in the Northern Quarter -someone has mooted the idea of bars in Deansgate Locks but from previous experience I'm keen to avoid this like the plague.
Don't go anywhere near this hellhole of an area! Full of overdressed arseholes who just want to show how much money they have/how many shots of truly awful flavoured vodka they can drink. The N4 is much more civilised and you can get a decent pint in most of the bars. Highly reccommend the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in Trof. I like Socio, although it is a bit wanky at weekends. Adam, the head barman, is a really good bloke and very knowledgable about cocktails. They can make anything there and beats the bar service at most of the places in town. The one place I forgot to mention for drinking is Mojo, which is a fab place to get very pissed, although it is mayhem at a weekend.
Adam
Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Posted
Finally he has made a good book again. I was dispairing following the truly dire F Word cookbooks. Spent all day reading through it. Beautifully illustrated and followable instructions. Very much in the same vain as Keller's French Laundry book. As you say, food porn of the highest order. And it's only £24 from Amazon.