Harters

A quick Google tells me you're right. I like London Road, not least for being literally just up the road (even though it's firmly in "footballers wives" territory). I knew they'd had a woman chef but hadnt made the connection.

I'll be interested to hear your take on it, Marc. Very different cuisine to yours, of course (and I'm looking forward to visiting you again - probably December). As an aside, Chris mentioned last night that Mary-Ellen McTague is leaving. Story is reported today by Manchester Confidential, she's off to open her own place in Prestwich. She was formerly sous-chef (and "development chef") at the Fat Duck.

You can see why Chris Johnson’s Italian-flavoured restaurant won the 2008/9 Good Food Guide “Readers Restaurant of the Year”. It’s a small stylish place suitable for a celebration meal but with sufficient informality for a mid-week dinner. Chris is an old-fashioned “mine host” who welcomes customers with a complimentary dry sherry or (genuinely) freshly squeezed orange juice. From then, to the handshake on leaving, you are left in no doubt that this is his gaff. There are a number of discount deals to be had, either through newspaper offers or by Ramsons own “loyalty card” and, midweek, dinner centres around a shortish menu. Five courses are offered – appetiser, first course, main, cheese and dessert. £40 buys you three courses; additional ones add £7 each. There are four or five choices at each course. With only one of us drinking alcohol these days, wine choices by the glass are often pretty limited. But not at Ramsons. Chris will open any bottle from his pretty extensive list and charge you 20% of bottle price per glass. My wife left it to him to choose her a white, red and a dessert wine. Pretty good choices, she reports, although not spectacular, except for the dessert wine – Brachetto – red, sweet and fizzy – an upmarket Lambrusco if you like. An amuse of smoked salmon blinis were, as always, a nice introduction to a meal. Appetisers were scallops and crab. Good scallops, quickly seared with a little celeriac puree and saffron sauce – a belter of a dish. Similarly, crab with a quenelle of avocado mousse was well flavoured, although a couple of discs of “wild rocket jelly” added nothing, but green, to the plate. We favourably contrasted this food to crab and scallop dishes we’d recently eaten at Northcote. First courses were very fixed in the Italian style. Risotto with lemon and samphire – a light fresh dish with the samphire adding a bit of texture. Pumpkin and mascarpone tortellini was, on the other hand, soothingly rich, a few deep fried sage leaves and a drizzle of lemon oil perking it up still further. At this point, main course vegetables or salad are brought to you as a separate course. We’d chosen veg – a bowl of carrots, cauliflower, green beans – simply prepared and tasting very much of themselves. On to the mains. Loin of jersey beef, horseradish mash and caramelised shallots. What’s not to like, particularly with the mash having had a good dollop of horseradish? The other plate – loin of St Asaph lamb, cooked to just medium, came with a small and very unctuous piece of long cooked breast (this was the star for me), onion puree and a little of the roasting juices. Pre-dessert was a lovely and classic lemon posset – rich and sharp. Panna cotta with apricot puree was light and just set. Roasted apricots formed the other dish – their sweetness contrasting interestingly (and successfully) with a salt shortbread and almond cream. Service had been spot on throughout from Chris and his young staff. In the kitchen Abdulla “Nas” Naseem had turned out consistently good and enjoyable food. The bill, with drinks and coffee, came to a very reasonable £125. This is a place well worth visiting and you probably need to get along there sooner rather than later – Chris is nearly 70 and must be thinking of hanging up his corkscrew at some point.

I currently have a Beko fridge (width was a decider in this choice) and a Hotpoint freezer. But you'll find manufacturers offer split fridge/freezer options. Usually 50/50, 60/40 or 70/30%.

Didsbury - southern suburb of Manchester. Decent butcher, fishmonger, very good cheese shop. deli with caff, wine merchant; independent off-licence with excellent beer selection; couple of greengrocers (albeit not brilliant), couple of decent eateries alongside the chains; a few "proper" pubs (including one doing a gut-busting ploughmans cheese/pate/pie lunch. Oh, and a first floor place understood to be a brothel (not even making the pretence of being a massage parlour). What more could a community want?

I see it was the "leftovers" one. Enjoyed Jay's review greatly. Always good to see him out in the sticks and I think they're often more fun when he's slagging off somewhere. I note the Rajput's entry in Harden's mention, along with addictive curries of which should customer "beware", there are "unusual" other dishes. I think "unusual" is the key word here. J

Priceless. Thanks for one of the best chuckles I've had whilst a member here. John

SHEPHERD'S CROOK, CROWELL, OXFORDSHIRE Yet another of my motorway finds from www.5minutesaway.com. This one off Junction 6 of the M40. A village pub, half of which is set out for drinking , the other half for eating. There was a short menu of the usual suspects by way of sandwiches and I was tempted by the "fish & chips butty" with tartare sauce. Amongst the light meals (mercifully not "lite bites"), was ham, egg & chips of which I'd seen mention in an online review as being a fine example. But, as often, it was the handful of items on the specials board that had the interest. Smoked haddock with a blue cheese rarebit topping, some dressed salad and a few new potatoes. The topping could have overpowered by the smokiness of the fish stood up to it well and it really was a mouthfull packed with flavour. There appeared to be a good range of beers and the landlord carefully explained to another customer what each was like. A note of caution, however, in rip-off soft drink prices. My pint of line and soda cost £3. Yes, three bleeding quid! The pub is a couple of miles from the motorway towards Princes Risborough. There's also a pretty decent place if you turn the other way from the junction. Look out for the sign to Lewknor, only a few hundred yards down the road. The Leathern Bottle is another village pub, doing a reasonable array of pub classics, together with quite a good looking specials board. I only had a sandwich on a previous trip - but it was a nicely cooked chicken breast, with some salad and mayo on a crisp baguette.

Dougal's advice to contact the Environmental Health Department for which ever local authority you're going to live in is the best way forward. Many aspects are interpretative rather than specified and it will be a good idea to have the Environmental Health Officer on your side from the outset. Chatting to traders at my local farmers market, many clearly operate from domestic premises and, presumably, their local EHOs take a common sense approach.

We’d booked a one night gourmet break (it's my birthday today and this was Mrs H's pressie, along with the new Rick Stein book which I presume she's going to want me to cook from). £360 gets you a very luxurious room, breakfast, pre-dinner canapés with a half bottle of champagne and the five course gourmet meal. We upgraded our food to take the tasting menu. As might be expected, Nigel Howarth’s contributions to the recent Great British Menu series feature. His hotpot dish, however, didn’t feature on the tasting menu but we made a special request to have it. This was not a problem to the hotel. Nothing is a problem to the hotel. The service, both from hotel and restaurant staff, is faultless – efficient and unobtrusive, yet friendly. The care taken by the staff was first shown in the lounge as we sipped our drinks and nibbled canapés. One of the managers came to check that we were having the tasting menu and then presented us with our own individual cards. I say individual and I mean individual, in that my wife’s differed from mine in that she’d previously notified the restaurant that she cannot eat egg. The changes to the “standard” dish were confirmed to her as well. Good start. The first starter was the Great British Menu duck dish. A pot with a bottom layer of duck jelly, topped with chicken mousse and a final topping of a broad bean puree. Alongside a little packet of duck scratchings and a couple of slices of duck ham. The contents of the pot tasted lighter than I expected from watching the TV and, of course, tasted more of chicken and broad bean than duck. There was good bread that was offered throughout the meal. Second starter of beef tartare, carpaccio of cauliflower and a cauliflower cream. This was OK – a bit underwhelming in itself. However, on a separate plate, a slice of toast topped with marrowbone and capers made up for any insipidness. This was flavour overload – soft marrow, salty caper, crunchy toast. Tomato consommé came next. And this was the first really stand-out dish. A very clear consommé, tasting just of tomato as you hope tomato will taste. In the bottom of the bowl, some herbs and what is described as “tomato caviar” (in fact, little balls of tomato jelly, coloured black with squid ink). Another TV dish – Muncaster crab salad, egg (although not for my wife) with English mustard mayo. Little to be said here – it was crab and egg salad with mayo. The final introductory dish was the one that worked least well. Marinated scallops, sliced very thin, with a scattering of pea and broad bean. The dressing was ginger based and completely overpowered whatever delicate flavour the scallops may have had. It just meant they were just some “white stuff” in the bottom of the bowl. The Lancashire hot pot then arrived. As mentioned earlier, we’d made a special request for this. The “standard” main course would have been a small slice of lamb loin, which fitted with the tasting menu. As it was, we were now eating a substantial meal. But needs must – this was a great dish. Although great care must have been taken to source the ingredients and even greater care to cook them, this was a Lancashire hotpot my mother would have recognised. It had not been cheffed about with. Just top quality meat, crispy potatoes, good stock. Alongside, some baby leeks and carrots. Working much less well was the pickled red cabbage which, like an earlier dish, had seen a heavy hand with the spicing – this time with cloves. And that brought us to dessert – summer pudding and Lancashire cheese ice cream. As with the judging on the Great British Menu, we weren’t keen on the ice cream. It had neither a taste of cheese nor the “luxury taste” of good ice cream. It was just odd. But I still ate mine and most of my wife’s. But the summer pudding was spot on for taste – packed with currants giving the much needed sharpness. We had coffee and petits fours back in the lounge. The meal was a bit of the curate’s egg – the consommé and the hotpot being standout “WOW” dishes; others being “less than WOW”. As part of an overnight package, this was an enjoyable meal. But, in truth, I’m not sure how I would felt if I’d just gone for dinner and paid the £75 asking price.

Trillin has some good quotes, Jay, although I can't imagine how you're going to work into a review "Anybody caught selling macrame in public should be dyed a natural color and hung out to dry." Have a good hols. John

In which city of which country, please?

Good quality (but bleeding' expensive) butcher in nearby Alderley Edge. It is a "thing" for local places to mention they use his meat.

Oh, I'm glad to hear the ploughman's is back on offer. It's been missing for over 12 months. Whilst keeping it local, they used to vary the offerings now & again. Best bet was always when they had the selection of Bourne's Cheshire.

Yes, I understand you don't want to go to Ashton to eat. And, yes, I understand particularly not for an Indian vegetarian caff. But, if you're in the area, you really must go and give it a try. Before I retired I worked in Ashton and used to do my south asian food shopping at the ASM supermarket on Oldham Road. Lily's is newish and occupies a corner of the supermarket. It was mentioned on a flyer for ASM so I went to have a look. A very good range of veggie dishes on the menu but I went with the thali for £6.99. I got an onion bhaji. Two curries - one potato and coriander, the other mainly spinach with a good blast of chili. There was a thick daal. And an indeterminate green liquid with bits of tomato and another blast of heat. Carbs came in the form of rice, a pappad and a couple of chappatis. A small dessert - gulab jamun. And a glass of salt lassi. Cracking value. It's mainly South Indian and Gujarati food - so bhel puri and the like amongst the starters and I saw dosas going past that looked like they would rival the offerings at Rusholme's Punjab Tandoori.

A great disappointment, I know - but Nutter is his real name. Whereas Harters was coined by my father in law, in similar vein to Aggers and Johnners. I now use it on all discussion boards except one, where I use my real name of Sharon Karensky.

This year’s north west “readers’ favourite” restaurant for the Good Food Guide. I’m unsure how a place gets nominated as a candidate for this or, more to the point, how votes are collected. Judging by the “thank you” posters in the place, I rather suspect the restaurant does a lot of lobbying of its customers and, being a big place, can lobby a lot of people. That said, many customers will be very happy eating there, as we were. This is not cutting edge gastronomy but minor celeb. chef Andrew Nutter cooks good food at very reasonable prices in what could be a magnificent building – but isn’t. Wolstenholme Hall was built in the mid-19th century, probably for some local cotton magnate and spent the early part of the 20th century as a TB hospital. I don’t know its later use but the place now looks like one of the those 1980s pub internal refits that are entirely unsympathetic to the original building. But it’s still a place you could happily go for a celebration dinner or somewhere to take your great-aunt if she was planning to rewrite her will. On entering, you come to a bar area reminiscent of a large boozer on the edge of a city centre which has, so far, escaped demolition. You’re shown to a table where you’re promised someone will take a drinks order. In their own time. There was a similar wait for menus. Getting on for twenty minutes had now passed. Menus arrive and we decide to go with the six course “surprise” menu – a good deal at £36 even if one course is coffee and petit fours. Front-of-house staff continued to be pretty clueless with a further delay in taking a wine order. Eventually a couple of canapés arrived – a mushroom flamiche and a “thai style chicken en croute”. Good mushroomy flavour on the flamiche. Chicken was chicken and the green gloop over it tasted of nothing in particular. And “en croute” does not mean stuck on a bit of bread. Things bucked up considerably once we got into the dining room, both in service levels and food quality. A tomato and sweet potato soup was excellent. A rich tomato flavour with the sweet potato adding to the sweetness of the tomato as well as providing the thickening. There were bread rolls – one with rosemary, the other topped with caraway seeds. The first starter was a fine piece of hake, cooked just past translucent. Skin could have been crispier, though. It sat on a pea and lemon couscous with a roast pepper and pineapple dressing. We weren’t convinced by the pineapple. Good dish other than this. Oddly, the second starter was also a fish course. The fillet of brill was, erm, brill. “Thai style” cropped again in the description of the coriander and lemon rice. And there was a coconut flavoured sauce which brought it all together quite well. Main was a couple of slices of Tabley Brook beef fillet – well hung, very flavoursome and cooked rare. Alongside some caramelised red cabbage and a ramekin of underseasoned potato gratin . It’s mains like this that’ll have had folk voting for Nutters in their droves. The choice then is cheese or dessert. We had a plate of each and shared. Cheese brought slices of five English and one French cheese – ranging from a disappointingly bland Kirkhams Lancashire, through a couple of blue Devon cheeses, to Stinking Bishop. The dessert plate also brought a selection – apple & almond frangipane; whimberry cheesecake (ohhh, this was good), blueberry ice cream, lemon posset and a strawberry tart. Good coffee and underwhelming petit fours rounded off a very pleasant evening. Leaving aside the nonsense of the bar area, service in the restaurant itself had been good with dishes being explained to us by staff who seemed to know what they were about. Food costs had been £72; drinks and tip pushed this to £100 – which still made it one of the best value evenings we’ve had in a while.

Should indeed be interesting particularly with many chains heavily discounting with "2 for 1" offers. Following the recent press stories, I now always tip in cash in a chain. I also don't see why staff should be penalised in their tips because their employer is discounting - so I tip at "full rate" as though there was not a "2 for 1".

Any other recommendations for the centre of Oxford? I'm just there one night and on my own - casualish place would do nicely.

In a couple of weeks, Mrs H & I are off for our first visit to Red Chili. Now, I know it'll be sacrilege to some - but we won't be ordering the lamb dish. We like a bit of spice but this sounds waaaay to hot for us. I've got as far as thinking Beijing dumplings ( are they a "nibble" or a proper starter?). And I've got as far as the pork belly with preserved cabbage as one main (recommended by a mate and I see Thom mentions it upthread). But what else do you suggest we try - the lamb dish aside, we want to give this our best greedy shot?

Which, keeping on topic, can provide a focus for popping off to a nearby area and having a spot of Sunday lunch somewhere before garden visiting.

Havnt been to Ludlow since Hibiscus left. Definitely some good sausages available - we've been on the Sausage Trail when we've been to the food festival. Available mail order: http://www.theludlowsausage.co.uk/

Cowmans! I knew it was something appropriate sounding.

Isn't there also a very decent butchers in Clitheroe - seem to remember they have a large selection of sausages.

This is a place which, instinctively, you know should be in the Good Food Guide. With equal good instinct, you have to question the 2009 Guide’s Cooking Score 4. Was the inspector being overly generous on his/her visit? Did we pick a bad night? It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that it’s perhaps trying too hard to be all things to all people and missing out in the process. No longer a pub; this is a restaurant with rooms. But it’s an odd place. Furnishings are definitely the oddest factor. One room, presumably the original pub bit, looks like it’s been furnished by a visit to the local junk shop. I doubt whether there is a matching chair. The other room, presumably the original small restaurant, is mainly furnished with uncomfortable looking 1970s style banquettes, no doubt a canny wheeze to squeeze the odd extra bum on seat. This mismatch continues through to the menu which would benefit from simplification and a degree of clarity about cuisine. Certainly the number of items need reducing by a good 50% (perhaps more amongst the mains where fillet steak manages to put in no less than four separate appearances under slightly different guises – or twelve if the various different sauces that you could order with a steak are added in). One menu starter was a “gateau” of Whitby crab and avocado. Yes, it’s one of those places that chuck in a foreign word now and again (like “assiette” and “flambé”). However, avocado was “off” but they could prepare a crab salad for my partner. Well, actually, no they couldn’t. They could prepare some pleasantly dressed leaves and a sort of moussey affair that had no discernable taste of crab. She then had one of the fillet steak dishes. This was “rosettes” of beef (other offerings bring it in “medallions” and “strips” as well as just “steak”). It came, as described, in a brandy, cream and peppercorn sauce. Yep, it was peppered steak ( a 70s classic to go with the 70s style furnishings). Not bad. A tad miserly on the portion, particularly with a price tag of £18.95. I might have fared a bit better. My starter was baked chorizo (or chirozo, as the menu twice had it), scallops, sundried tomato and olive oil. Tasted pretty good and would have been even better with a punchier chorizo. To eat it from its small dish, I was given a teaspoon and cake fork. Cute. Or not. The main was a pot roasted chicken breast with sultanas, pine nuts and a sherry reduction. It’s not often I order chicken but I liked the sound of this and it tasted just as good. Some new potatoes and veg for both of us were in a separate bowl. We both had “melting chocolate pots” as a dessert. A sort of fondant affair but really just melted chocolate with a bit of a crust. This was good. And improved still further by cindertoffee icecream – good toffee flavour. The cinder toffee turned up in the piece along with decent cups of espresso. So, not an awful place. And whoever is in the kitchen has some grasp of what’s what. And they get credit for having a decent array of wines by the glass. But the restaurant was let down by dreary, uncaring and dilatory service throughout. Staff would wander through the room not seeing that plates needed clearing or coffee orders needed taking. And the prime example was when we finally managed to attract the attention of one of three staff to order coffee, to be told “in a couple of minutes” – she was setting the tables for breakfast. It really does piss me off.