PhilD
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Posts posted by PhilD
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I am a resident of Bath and find it a bit tricky to recommend restaurants. There is a lot of choice but most of them are simply OK rather than great.
For pubs: my solid dependable option is The White Hart in Widcombe (just at the back of the station), it is good if not spectaculars, with lots of fresh seasonal specials. The King William (London Road) is pretty good, I ate my best pub meal in Bath here, but had less success more recently. The Garricks Head (behind the theatre) which is OK, but the service was a bit dippy. Close by is The Gasgoyne opposite the theatre) which has quite a good restaurant upstairs, it is trendy so can fill up with parties of young people, although the food is fine. One I have yet to try is The Richmond Arms (Richmond Place), it won best dining competition in the local style magazine, if you are heading to Lansdowne Crescent this isn't much further but is a hike from town. Most pubs need a booking - given the lack of quality most locals will book a few days in advance to secure a table.
Freckles, pleasant restaurants are even more tricky, the one we return to the most is Casanis (Saville Row), it produces reasonable provencal food in a nice setting near the centre of town. The Olive Tree has a good reputation but we have yet to try it. The best is The Bath Priory but that is Michelin starred, the menu was a bit weird, but a change of executive chef (to Michael Caines), with the UK Masterchef winner (from 2008) James Nathan will also be in the kitchen so it will be the one to watch. Finally The Dower House in the Royal Cresent may be one to try but I have only sampled the food at a festival rather than eaten there - it was good. I will update the list as we try more.
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We are staying at Villa Soro. Glad to hear your recommendation, many people tried to steer me to the Maria Cristina.
We also stayed there and it was good. As Salty says it is also great for the bars in the Gros area (short walk), when we stayed they had a good list of the recommended bars.
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SAN SEBASTIAN:
- I am at a crossroads and believe I have to make a choice between Akelare and Etxebarri for a lunch
I have eaten at Akelare, but not Etxebarri. I would head for Etxebarri because I am not in a rush to head back to Akelare, and Etxebarri has a novel approach you won't find anywhere else.
However, if I only had one choice it would be Mugaritz because I believe it is far better than Arzak and Akelare.
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that presentation & menu looks very anthony's -esque.....
Which makes Anthony's lack of a star seem very odd. Unfortunately haven't tried Anthony's so can't say if one is better than the other. But given my experience at Casamia, Michelin can't be accused of only recognising traditional French, and, to my knowledge it has almost come from nowhere, so no "waiting to see if it survives" delay.
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I had read quite a number of positive reviews and comments about this suburban restaurant in Bristol. The award of it's first Michelin star in the '09 guide prompted me to book.
The restaurant is in Westbury-on-Trym which is about a 15 to 20 minute, or £12 to £15 cab ride, from Bristol Temple Meads station. It has quite an intriguing history, opening as a traditional suburban trattoria by Paco and Susan 10 years ago, and now with Susan and Paco running FOH with their two young sons Jonray and Peter cooking extremely good Fat Duck/El Bulli inspired food. Would this be a good piece of marketing spin, but a bad restaurant?
It is a good restaurant - one we will return to. It truly has a family run atmosphere, Susan and Paco are beaming about the Michelin star and are clearly proud of their boys. The room is text book trattoria with garish pictures of medieval European cities, wrought iron work and exposed beam. This is offset by very plain table settings, a minimalist menu and smartly dressed black clad waiting staff. It feels real - not the result of a makeover from a design consultancy.
At lunch on Saturday we had a choice of a short set menu or a six course tasting menu, IIRC the set menu was £20 for three courses, whilst the tasting menu was £30, or £45 including wine. We went for the six courses and wine. I started with a glass of Palo Cortado to go with the amuse of good olives and little pappadums filled with shaved parmesan, walnut dust, and a cube of quince paste. The wine list has a good selection of sherry as Paco is Spanish (I didn't ask why he had started a Trattoria) and sherry has a strong link with Bristol, in-fact the first two wine pairings on the menu are also sherries.
Bread is home made and served with a quenelle of what seems to be "whipped butter" - I have had this in the US a few times and do prefer a good hunk of real butter...!
The first course then arrives "Hot - Cold Lime Gin". Good flavour and a good hot/cold sensation as you drink it:
This is followed by "Wood Pigeon-espresso-almonds" served with a Solera Oloroso-Bodegas Hidalgo. A small piece of meat cooked sous vide, with an Amaretto foam, some crushed almonds and then smear of coffee with coffee powder. I liked bits of the dish, although the coffee had quite a bitter note, however my partner loved it and thought it a great dish. The sherry pairing worked really well:
The next dish was the highlight for me, "Salmon - fennel - mushrooms - Jerusalem artichoke - lemon" served with Amontillado La Concha-Gonzalez Byass. The salmon is silky soft again cooked sous vide, the artichoke puree is intense and the fennel and lemon is soft and translucent, and minced mushrooms and mushroom powder add an interesting contrast. All the flavours work really well together and again the sherry was a great match:
"Roast quail - celery root - grapes - hazelnut" is served with a Dolcetto D'alba 2007, De Forville. Another sous vide preparation (?), intense flavours in the celery puree, counteracted by a soft grape jelly, with the nuts coming in through the crisp nutty biscuit. Overall a good dish complemented by the wine:
We had planned a long lunch, and had skipped breakfast so I was concerned I was going to still be hungry (and thirsty) at the end of the meal so we decided to add a couple of cheese plates and another glass of Dolcetto. I was a little fearful that the late order of the cheese would mean fridge cold specimens, but no, we got four good portions of well kept cheese with excellent biscuits, a runny Somerset brie, Pecorino, a stilton, and a Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire:
Our first dessert is designed to be a transition from sweet to savoury - "Poor mans truffle - apple-turnip risotto" is a apple rice pudding with a turnip foam. It is quite interesting, we didn't get the truffle experience, but the contrast between the turnip and apple does work:
The last dish on the menu is "Deconstructed Tiramisu" with a glass of Aleatico Salice Salantino, Francesco Candido. It was OK, but actually tasted better reconstructed, maybe a bit of style over substance:
We ended with coffee and petit fours. Good coffee and interesting petit fours, a white chocolate sheet with dried olives (which reminded us of one of the chocolates we tried at Anthony's piazza in Leeds) and some intense, soft, lemony, Turkish delight:
Overall a really good meal, fantastic friendly service, a smart/comfortable room, and some creative cooking that generally delivers on flavour. Often attempts to pull of "Molecular Cooking" end in disappointment but the team in the kitchen pull it off with good technique, deep flavours and well thought out flavour combinations. We will return to try the ALC and the extended tasting menu that is available for dinner. The bill for two was £140, which was £90 for two tasting menus including wine, £18 for two cheese plates (we would have been OK with one), £10 for coffee and petite fours and the balance for a few extra glasses of wine and the aperitif.
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still looks very much like a pr coup from little chef, which suprises me as they did come across as borderline incompetent on the tv.
Given the £300k heston spent on popham, there's no way in the current environment they could roll it out in even a fraction of the estate, even if the management were in favour of it.
Agree it was a good PR activity (it worked, I went). But wasn't the £300k Heston's fee for the project, the roll out cost would simply be the cost of refurbing the restaurants and training staff so not another £300K for Heston each time. I would also assume they would already have a a rolling refurb budget and ongoing staff training so the incremental cost may not be that great.....but I take your point about the management. I too will be surprised if they manage capitalise on this.
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Definately not a destination restaurant!! Had the Olympic breakfast at £6.95!! So not cheap.
My local greasy spoon does a better job, at less than a fiver!?
I would stick to your local cafe, mine are all certainly better.
We also went on Saturday as we drove across country to Brighton (from Bath). The car park was full, with quite a number of BMW's and Volvos, compared to the other Little Chefs we passed on-route with fairly empty car parks, the TV exposure and Heston has drawn the punters.
It looked like there was going to be a big wait for a table with lots of people milling around the entrance, however the FOH greeter was really efficirent, took our name and suggested a 10 minute wait. He was spot on. They have a big shared table in the middle of the restaurant that helps them rotate customers.
The decor has been done well, clean lines, a few quirky/fun touches and clear evidence of a well thought out brand - US diner meets the A303. It may be a brand but the overall design and colour schemes (lots of red) felt a lot better, and less corporate than the Costa/McDonalds alternative.
The menu is interesting, and there were quite a few dishes that tempted me. Every second person seemed to be ordering the beef cheeks and mash and from a distance they looked fine. I also saw a really good looking suet pudding head to a table, not certain what it was as I couldn't recall it on the menu. They also had a specials board with a Veggie pie and a belly pork dish.
We both had the small breakfast, and a pot of tea. Overall the breakfast was perfectly acceptable, the sausage and bacon were fine, not "ginger pig" standard but definately a notch above many on offer. They are struggling with the pressure, and it took 25 minutes for our food to arrive, however it was all very freshly cooked. Service is quite good, I could see the "Heston" training, with staff keeping us informed of progress and genuinly asking if we enjoyed the food, they still seem a little uncomfortable doing it but it is a pretty good start.
OK I could get a better at my local greasy spoon, but equally I would get worse from 9 out of 10 random greasy spoons. I could also cook a better breakfast, but didn't want the hassle of setting up the calor gas stove and hauling the camping chairs out of the boot. The point of Littler Chef is that it is a roadside eaterie, I don't have a local cafe on the A303 and a detour into a town is going to be a hassle and will be a lottery of greasy spoons and/or pubs. So how does it stack up against the direct competition? Well compared to Costa/Burger King/Starbucks/McDonalds/Pret/M&S I would say it is pretty good. It isn't perfect but it is a far better option than the chains we currently have. If they spread this concept and continued to execute it well I think it would be a good addition to the roadside and a reasonable refuelling stop on a long journey.
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How do you pronounce "Deuchars"?
Easily after 4 or 5 of them...!
I think I went for "Duke argh's" - it seemed to work.
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Definately open on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year, both the new and old sections seemed full (as were the function rooms). We ate in both, as we asked to be moved because the old section was far to hot.
I actually think they work really well together with the new bar acting as a natural bridge between the two. I enjoyed eating in both sections, although I felt the food actually worked a bit better in the newer setting - but that could simply have been the heat from from a thermo nuclear radiator that was next to our table. It is nice to have the choice.
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We have just had a good Saturday dinner at Blanch House.
The menu was interesting with some great touches - the celery sorbet with the cheese course is an example. Food is well cooked, modern British, and the menu is well priced for the standard of food. Service was very good, friendly and knowledgeable. The room is almost pure white and very Brighton.
The bar is reputedly one of the towns best cocktail bars - I am far from an expert but my Negroni was great.
Well worth a visit - good for a smart dinner on Saturday before a Sunday lunch at Due South.
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I think my sympathies are with M. Bosi, after all doesn't he cook a menu of his choosing everyday i.e. the 6 course tasting menu...?
Therefore isn't it rude to mail him and suggest that you deserve something better. I assume he already believes he is delivering his best via the aforementioned tasting menu.
Certainly the daily tasting menu is of his choosing. But clearly, what my friend was asking for was a situation where Bosi had carte blanche to cook whatever he pleases (and, for that matter, charge however much he pleases), an extended, more spontaneous menu. Surely you'll admit that if you've not asked for (or simply been offered) such a menu before, or at least read about it. I don't think it's at all uncommon, at least among the crowd that reads forums like eGullet.
Also, nowhere did he suggest that we deserved anything. This is the hospitality industry -- it never hurts to ask.
OK a reasonable request but that wasn't how the mail was worded. If you had recognised he already did a tasting menu, and then asked if he could do a special "no expense spared" menu to show off all his talent and creativity on your one visit, then I suspect you may have got a better response.
You mail -"if you would like to cook us a menu of your choosing. Whether this includes traditional Lyonnaise cooking or more modern dishes, or both" - reads like a request for a tasting menu and the implication is that you don't know he already does one. If I read it like that maybe he did.
Fault on both sides?
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Besides the differentiation between "decent in the immediate neighborhood" and "worth travelling across town" is the judgement of whether a restaurant is worth a visitor's precious time, i.e., one evening out of a visit.I was simply trying to put the restaurant into context, If I lived around the corner I would be happy to go on a regular basis. It simply wasn't special enough to make trip.If you had three days then no, but if you have three weeks then yes.
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[OK, Spring isn't around the corner either, but it is worth the trip as it is a far, far superior restaurant. For what is is worth both restaurants are approx 9 metro stops from where I lived on line 12.
Phil,disregarding transportation issues,as you know eating is subjective.The fun is trying different ones and having a wonderful experience in the process.
Jadis ,when i went was really very enjoyable.When i go next time ,who knows.
Actually ,as I went solo. they placed me in a hidden corner,so I kept refering to them that i was the one in Siberia
Pierre - I agree, and I also think it is dangerous to judge a restaurant on only one visit. Restaurants are subjective, we have different tastes, we visit restaurants in different moods, and we all have different backgrounds that shape our expectations. If I still lived in Paris I may have gone back to Jadis again.
However, both my wife and I were underwhelmed given the advance publicity - it was quite a disappointment as we had really looked forward to it and had booked it far in advance based on the great early reviews.
I don't understand why anyone thinks I had a transport "issue". I was simply trying to put the restaurant into context, If I lived around the corner I would be happy to go on a regular basis. It simply wasn't special enough to make trip.
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Perhaps the biggest measure of your displeasure is the fact that you found Spring, in the middle of the 9th, an easy address from your home which we gather was near Gaya in the 7th, while Jadis is a 10 minute ride on the 39 bus or the metro.
Margaret - you misinterpreted what I said. If Jadis was just around the corner, fine. But it isn't. It wasn't worth the journey even if it had only been 10 mins on a bus or metro. Door to door it was approx 30 mins - it is quite a walk from Convention metro.
OK, Spring isn't around the corner either, but it is worth the trip as it is a far, far superior restaurant. For what is is worth both restaurants are approx 9 metro stops from where I lived on line 12.
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His cooking is sophisticated and somewhat creative.The result is mouth watering.
I ate at Jadis on a Saturday night just before Christmas. It was OK, with some potential, but at the moment it is the sort of restaurant I would visit if it was around the corner not in the depths of the 15eme.
I started with a rabbit pate en croute which was quite good although quite a thin slice, my partner had a mushroom and snail vol-a-vont which was a good size and she really enjoyed. For mains I had the blanquet of veal served in the Jadis way - a plate of boiled vegetables with the veal and sauce on the side. A good depth of flavour in the veal, but with really boring vegetables - reminded me of school dinners. My partner had trout on a bed of green mashed potatoes (cresson?) which was OK.
Desserts were the real low point, I had a riz-au-lait which had a very sweet coulis on the top - reminiscent of a pre-made rice dessert from the supermarket. My partner had a radical ile flottante which was like a green muffin in custard - weird. I think he needs a pastry chef.
Service was perfunctory, we seemed to be the only tourists in a packed restaurant that turned the tables once, probably 40+ covers. The bill was €94 including an €18 burgundy (they had run out of the Givry and it was OK) and Evian.
I used to love Guillaume's food at Gaya which used to be our local when we lived in Paris. Were my expectations too high? Or maybe we hit too early in its evolution, or bracketed it with some unfair competition (Spring and Le Cinq the previous days). In fact our lunch at Le Comptoir the next days was far better and more enjoyable.
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My black pudding was over-dry,
Gary - do you need to have a word with Andrew? That is two of us who found the black pudding signature dish dry
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crispy poached egg
Please explain, I have never come across this before.
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Why not? Come on, spill the beans.... Does the winner get to spent the night with Ms Bond perhaps?!!!
More from the Kitchen Rat site:
There's a few old faces, a few new and (hoorah?) no Jenny Bond sticking her nose around about the kitchen with inane, grin-fixed questions. Instead there's the equally attractive past winners Sat Bains and Jason Atherton presenting.
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I didn't read any presumption into the initial missive. The sender specifically states that no special treatment was expected (or deserved), but that an off-menu arrangement would be appreciated if the chef was so inclined.
I know many chefs who would take this request as a compliment.
Without knowing this chef's disposition, I see no way in which the sender could have foreseen such a surly and crass reaction. Certainly, Bosi's response doesn't seem to have been intended for the sender's eyes. But the fact that it did get misdirected does not make me sympathetic to Bosi, especially given the email's contents.
Running a restaurant puts you square in the middle of the hospitality industry. I'm not discounting the fact that many chefs probably do get rather frustrated and annoyed by a cloying public. This just may be a case of "everyone does it, but X was just stupid enough to get caught." So be it. But that doesn't change the fact that Bosi's email was not hospitable.
...but why use his personal email address? What is wrong with ringing up the restaurant and asking the FOH team rather than "invading his privacy"?
I understand asking a chef if it is possible to ensure a signature dish is available can be a good idea (like his sausage roll). But I find it strange to ask a top chef to cook food that he already cooks, after all doesn't his menu already "includes traditional Lyonnaise cooking or more modern dishes, or both". To me the question show a lack of understanding of the restaurant rather than an informed request.
Bosi's mail may not be hospitable, but to me it is understandable.....it would be really good to hear the equivalent Ramsay, MPW or Aikens responses.
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some interesting combo's there, i've heard a few other names mentioned too....
The format last year had an elimination round, IIRC three chefs per region to start.
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I hope you don't find this rude or presumptuous, but we would be delighted if you would like to cook us a menu of your choosing.
I think my sympathies are with M. Bosi, after all doesn't he cook a menu of his choosing everyday i.e. the 6 course tasting menu...?
Therefore isn't it rude to mail him and suggest that you deserve something better. I assume he already believes he is delivering his best via the aforementioned tasting menu.
No wonder he was annoyed.
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It is a very good restaurant. All the elements come together very well. A nice room, good service, fine food and well priced.
Meussel Marinniere was well executed, with the mussels served out of the shells, the Game Salad was fine although I thought the Romesco Sauce dominated the flavours of the birds a bit. My partners Sole with Mushrooms, had intense mushroom flavours. The one weakness was the Steak, Kidney and suet pudding, a great pudding but served swimming in a very sweet sauce.
I mentioned this to the waiter, and then received apologise from three different FOH staff and was comped some dessert wine. Things do go wrong, and a sign of a great restaurant is how they recover, full marks to Corrigan's for this. For dessert we shared the chocolate brownie with sour cherry ice-cream - I could devour this by the litre it was so good.
The bill was £129 for two including a £45 bottle of Burgundy. Very good value for the overall package, the price is about right for the food, although the pricing of the wine list is a bit on the heavy side.
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Went here last nigth for the first time to see if it was worth the hype and sadly I don't think it was.
Paul - I agree with you. We loved the atmosphere in the room, it is full of Australians and has a very Darlinghurst/Chapel Street vibe (this is a good thing). The service was great, and overall our food was OK but not as good as we had hoped.
Foie Gras, Black Pudding and Kidney Beans was a very tasty starter, although the kidney beans seemed to be at odds to the rest of the dish. The Marinaded Salmon was very good, although slightly oversalted.
However, the mains really missed the mark. The Duck Confit had little flavour and tasted greasy (cooked in dripping rather than duck or goose fat?) and the accompanying potatoes were also tasteless and greasy. Steak Tartare was OK, but the ratio of meat to onion was completely wrong, and it had a texture reminiscent of coarse mince from a supermarket. We skipped desserts and simply had chocolate truffles and coffee which was fine.
OK it isn't expensive at £85 for two including £36 worth of booze, but this is pretty basic French bistro cooking and even at these prices it should be better. It is weird it has had so much hype - in Paris most run of the mill cafes would turn out food of a similar standard. I hope we simply hit it on an off night or chose badly, the starters promised so much it was a shame the mains were so lacklustre.
Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons
in United Kingdom & Ireland: Dining
Posted
You can get a pretty decent Michelin one starred meal for £60 a head (including some booze). That seems like a better investment than £50 to watch premier league football, or a night out at Mama Mia (without booze). OK higher quality is higher priced but is it really out of kilter with alternative types of entertainment? A six nations ticket/package, a night at the opera, or top price tickets to someone like Steisand.
Compared to Europe the UK is now a bargain. Even Spain is going to stretch the budget, isn't El Bulli
€180 without wine, in Paris my last lunch at Le Cinq was €85 for the cheap menu (after wine etc we got to close to €400 for two), and mid range places are in the €160 for two range.