Harters

WHEATSHEAF, RABY, WIRRAL My thanks to MaLO and Pearclove for mentioning this place on another thread as a possible lunch spot. Village pub - thatched roof and old beams, coupled with modern furniture and a decent array of real ales. Lot's of seating and I'd reckon this is an eating, not drinking, sort of place. Definitely not "gastro", the lunch menu are pub classics. Steak pie; ham/free range egg/chips; salads; sandwiches - that sort of thing. And, based on the look of passing plates, done very well. There's short specials board which had some interesting stuff. For example, a rarebit made from a very tangy cheese and one of the guest beers, a bitter called Rhode Island Red (brewed on Wirral). Mrs H had this as her main, after a well dressed salad with shreds of good quality ham mixed through. She also had a pint of the bitter and declared it a good un. Greedy bugger that I am, I had the rarebit as a starter, followed by a lemon and thyme grilled chicken baguette (which was underwhelming). "Fat chips" were not good - but they never are , are they?. Worth it just for the rarebit!

Thanks. Always interested in stuff just off the motorway. We're heading to the Lakes in early October. Mrs H is retiring at the end of September and we're having an overnighter at Sharrow Bay to celebrate. Which sounds like I need to organise a couple of lunches. Perhaps something lightish on the way up, (as I wouldnt want to spoil the appetite for dinner) but "the business" next day. Punchbowl was obviosuly in the frame but all thoughts greatly appreciated. J

Must agree in return, David. When stuck I do find it easier to search the BBC website (or the equivalent UKTV one).

I would struggle without my various Nigel Slaters; Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall's "Meat Cookery" and, ahem, Delia's "Complete Cookery Course". Of the more specialist ones, Claudia Roden's "New Book of Middle Eastern Food" is THE book I use for my favourite cuisine. The rest of the collection are pretty much shelf fillers, which get nothing more than a very occasional outing at best (for example, I don't think I've ever cooked anything from a Nigella Lawson book).

I know I'm not far off the free bus pass, but I'm not that old, FFS.

Since my earlier post, a friend (who is fan of the restaurant and hotel) mentions she took her elderly mother for afternoon tea as a birthday present. Service was poor and quantity/selection miserly - one cake each and a couple of small sandwiches. In her view (and mine) a rip-off at eighteen quid.

The current edition of the Royal Horticultural Society's magazine, The Garden, has a feature on the Star's kitchen garden. It mentions that there is a twenty seater dining table in the garden and you can eat a special menu there, reflecting what's growing. Sounds fun - anyone tried it?

A pal mentions a place in Reading, although I've no personal experience (wrong end of the country). It gets a reasonable write-up in Harden's Guide London Street Brasserie Monday dinner I'd suggest Tayyabs for Pakistani food or one of the various Lebanese places on or just off the Edgeware Road (the are various branches of the Maroush mini-chain). Personal experience here.

ART HOUSE, ALNWICK I’d been quite well-disposed towards the Art House until I got home and did a quick Google. Its flyer offers this quote: “The Art House is one elegant restaurant. Class oozes from the walls and furniture and luckily from the menu as well.” The quote was, allegedly from “Eating Out” magazine. The Google not only failed to find such a magazine but turned up the quote in a restaurant review from the Northumberland Gazette in 2007. Presumably the restaurant owners thought it was better publicity to quote from a fictitious journal than a real local newspaper. I’m no longer well disposed to them. Before that, I’d had a gripe about this small first floor place. It wasn’t the artwork that adorns the walls and is for sale. And it certainly wasnt the food. It was the decidedly dippy service throughout the meal. Perhaps it was just the two kids who were front of house but they really were clueless. The sandwich boards on the street, and the exterior advertising promise local organic food but there’s nothing of these provenance declarations once you open the menu. I was a tad suspicious about that them but now I know they have a tendency to tell porkies, I don’t believe a word of it. That said, the food is non too bad in what is a pretty dismal area of the country for good eating. Lamb koftas were nicely spiced with coriander and a good kick from chilli – they were softened by a yoghurt, mint and cucumber dip and a few well dressed leaves. A main of sea bass, stir fried veg and noodles sounded as though it was going to be oriental but had real eastern flavourings. In fact, it seemed to little added flavouring at all. It left me wondering if I was eating bass with noodles, or bass with pasta, if you see what I mean. Bass was a good flavour, although the skin could have crispier for my taste. On the other side, a simple but very ample plate of smoked salmon. A very smoky cure cutting through the richness of the fish. A few prawns in Marie Rose added nothing. The main of rib-eye was Ok but unremarkable. Only one of us managed dessert – a chocolate fudge cake, enhanced further by a good dark chocolate sauce. I enjoyed this a lot. Cost, with a couple of drinks and tip - £70.

Good fish and chips for lunch at PINNACLES in SEAHOUSES. Light crisp batter on the cod. Freshly cooked chips. Decent helping of mushy peas. Bread and butter and a mug of tea. £8. On the opposite side of the road, is Neptunes. A prime example of how not to do fish and chips. Another good lunch at the JOLLY FISHERMAN in CRASTER. Crab sandwich. Bowl of chips - cooked perfectly - in dripping. Mrs H had a good pint of Black Sheep. Great views out ot sea. We also went to THE SHIP at LOW NEWTON You have to book to get a table for dinner. We didnt know that - not least as the website makes no mention of it. And it's a pub. We had a brief conversation with the guy behind the bar. "Can we eat at one of the tables outside then?" "We havnt got any more food." "Can we book for tomorrow night , then?" "Tomorrow, we only have the simple menu." "What's on the simple menu, then?" "Ploughman's and kippers". "Fuck you, then". OK, I made the last bit up but I was distinctly unthrilled. We did stop for a drink. They have their own micro-brewery next door. Mrs H had a half. She said it was lifeless. Fuck them again, then.

We stayed in Bamburgh and ate twice at the Victoria Hotel, which seemed best of a bad lot. My advice is only do this if desperate! You can eat in the bar or in what is laughingly called the Brasserie, where three courses will set you back £25. The bar is the better value offering decent pub grub at around eight quid for mains. Mrs H had a perfectly decent quiche & salad and I had braised beef with mash. Difficult to fault for what it was. Much easier to fault is the Brasserie. Tomato and basil soup tasted of salt. Smoked haddock fishcake tasted of little. Pork fillet with dauphinoise potatoes was OK. "Cajun" spiced rib-eye was a hotch potch of flavours - none of them working. You might wonder why I ordered it but then you hadnt seen the other dismal offerings. Best bit for both of us was the bowl of mixed veg that was also served. Ice cream was also dismal and a lemon tart, suitably lemony, was let down by soggy pastry. There's also an Italian restaurant in the village which would win the national "fewest toppings on a pizza" competition.

Well, we had a good week. Relaxing, nice cottage, reasonably good weather. Food uninspiring but neither of us died or were given the shits. By a fair margin, the best dinner was at the TREE HOUSE at Alnwick Garden. It only opens in the evening on three or four nights but is well worth a visit if in the area: We went to the Tree House twice, but only once to eat. The first time was during the day as part of a visit of the Garden. It was full of posses of school children and those seven year olds have no fear of the rope bridges that form part of the route around the tree house. Me, I needed a change of underpants. The second visit was on one of the evenings when it turns itself into a “proper” restaurant. Decorations and furnishings are, to say the least, idiosyncratic and entirely within the concept that the Tree House is, erm, a treehouse. The menu is broadly “modern European” and the weather was just warm enough for us to read through it outside over an aperitif in amongst the tree branches. A very promising start was made with the offer of several good breads, including, feta & ham, roasted spring onion & garlic, seeded and roasted red pepper. Soup of the day was tomato and lentil and was delicious – the taste of both main ingredients coming through. This was followed by lamb rump, cooked perfectly to pink. It came with carrot mash, roasted fennel, red wine sauce. Good dish. I started with a smoked haddock risotto. The fish smoked just down the road at Seahouses and it had a superb smoky flavour. The rice was tasty enough but was overly claggy, so it could be moulded in a ring. Topped with a poached egg, this really worked and I enjoyed it – but it wasn’t risotto. My main of monkfish wrapped in pancetta also nodded towards Italy. It’s a dish I always enjoy and this was no exception. It sat on crushed peas flavoured with sage. There was also a splodge of tapenade which did work with the blander flavours. My wife’s dessert was a rhubarb crème brulee, accompanied by a shot glass of rhubarb jelly. Brulee was good, jelly was a fiddle to try and eat. A shot glass also featured on my dessert plate. It contained a blueberry smoothie and was a totally unnecessary accompaniment to a vanilla cheesecake, topped with a great lemon and mead curd, made locally. Equally unnecessary was the quenelle of double cream. Less is more! In spite of these quibbles, this was far and away the best meal we had during our week in the Alnwick area. More info on other places in subsequent posts. John

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his Great British Menu dishes now appear on the dinner menu. And Mrs H is taking me for my birthday in August - but the hotpot isnt on the tasting menu (I may have to ask for swapsies).

When you read that a place is a Good Food Guide “cooking 3” and does three courses for £21.50 and throws in a bottle of house wine between the two of you, then you have to get in the car and go give it a try. Unfortunately the wine offer doesn’t run on a Saturday night but that was the only real disappointment of tonight’s meal. It’s a small shop-front place with a few tables on the ground floor and a few more in the cellar. If I have a criticism, then it is that it gets damned hot in the cellar. Serving staff are young, friendly and good at their jobs, keeping a ready eye open for what’s happening on each table. The menu offers half a dozen or so choices at each course and, whilst you can certainly pick a good meal at no extra charge, a goodly number of dishes carry supplements (but usually only a couple of quid). My wife opened the evening with a very reasonably priced glass of house champagne (£5) and we nibbled on some homemade bread and aioli. Then she got stuck in to what was probably the best dish of the night. A disc of well flavoured black pudding sat on another disc of fondant potato, a Granny Smith sauce cutting through the richness. Nothing spectacular here – just good ingredients, cooked well. She followed this with a rump steak, sauté potatoes, the crispiest tastiest onion rings you’ll ever want to find and a peppercorn sauce. Yes, of course it was a bit 1980s, but it was good eating. I had a fishcake to start – good balance of potato and what I think was haddock. The surrounding sauce packed a punch – oil, capers, cornichons, samphire. I liked this. Less successful was my main – British rose veal served with pasta and a tomato sauce. Veal was fine (and I was pleased to see it on a menu); pasta was nicely al dente; sauce was mediocre. A little dish of mixed veg was also served. For dessert I had a vanilla pannacotta which sat on a shortbread. Good dish – the vanilla definitely in evidence. The other dessert was homemade ice cream – vanilla and orange, served with a chocolate sauce – which was pretty good. Espresso was served hot and strong and was a good end to the meal. It had all been worth the 50 minute drive – if it was closer to home, we’d be in there every month.

Ahha. I see the Devonshire hasnt upped its game since I was there in May last year. Service was "leisurely" as was the pacing of dishes coming out of the kitchen. Bread and dessert were awful. Starter was OK. But a main of some of the best lamb I've ever eaten saved the evening.

BEIRUT The name's a bit of a giveaway. It doesnt do curry and is one of the growing number of very welcome additions to the "strip" that serve middle eastern food. A fairly restricted menu means they can concentrate on doing things well and quality is well up there with the likes of Petra and the Cedar Tree. It's well worth trying if you're in the area - but not a place to make much of a trip for. I was on my own for lunch so couldnt give the menu a full bashing. I ordered some pickles as one of my starters and was invited to go the salad bar and fill a plate. So I did. Along with the pickles, I added some olives, moutabal, salad, and a fiery chilli sauce (for me, overly fiery) and got myself a Sprite (Beirut doesnt serve alcohol, BTW). By the time I got back, some flatbread had arrived. Much as I love this region's food, one of the things that pisses me off is that dishes will arrive when whenever the kitchen has cooked them. It doesnt seem to matter if it's a more cafe style of place, like Beirut, or somewhere up-market, like Knightsbridge's Ishbilia. So, my main course arrived while I was still nibbling through the pickles and before my proper starter. I guess it's all about the mezze style of eating, but I wish they wouldnt do it. The main was freikeh with chicken. Freikeh was a new one on me, the menu only saying it was the house speciality. I ordered, then asked what it was I was going to eat. It's a green wheat, that's sun-dried on the stalks. The stalks are then set on fire so the grains take on a roasted smokiness but are not burned. Skill or what? Anyway, it was delicious - in that bland way that basmati rice or a good spud can be delicious - and had pine nuts and herbs stirred through. Texture is a bit similar to pearl barley. And it came with two large roasted chicken joints. Very large. I'd just about scoffed half of it when my starter turned up. Arayes can be excellent or shite. This one was around the "pretty good" mark - fairly flavoursome meat, crisp bread with the right bit of charring. Bill came to £9, which I thought was a cracker of a bargain. Then I waddled off to do some shopping in the asian supermarkets.

Yeah, but I'd been thinking more Wirral than having to schlep back near home

Such a shame. Mrs H & I are in the area (well, Stanlow) on Thursday 9/7 and looking for a late lunch. Where else if not Marc's gaff?

Yes. You are now a "regular" and, more to the point, one who can gve them constructive criticism. The nature of the response will tell you a lot. J

There’s Italian restaurants. And there’s gastropubs. But I guess Osteria Mauro is an Italian gastropub. I remember it as the Bull’s Head, an unprepossessing pub in the middle of nowhere between Wilmslow and Prestbury (the village of my birth). In it’s dismal past I think it was a Bernie Inn or Chef & Brewer. The food’s improved since then. That’s not surprising as it’s owned and run by the Mauro family who also own Manchester’s Stock and Bollington’s Briscola. The bar area is nice. Comfy seats, stripped woodwork, swiftly bought drinks. The menu reads as a classic Italian restaurant in the UK, with a mix of pizza, pasta and “proper” mains. There was a “specials” blackboard, oddly featuring steak and ale pie with chips. Extra specials were two ravioli starters – always a special feature of Stock. And, as with Stock, fish is big player. The menu has no listings for it, stating only that fish is bought daily. They had quite a large selection and what they propose to do with each is explained to you. We picked at a bowl of olives and another of reasonable bread, which unfortunately arrived with the starters. A starter of grain mustard coated smoked mackerel came with potato salad and some leaf. Fish was very good. Potato salad was straight out of the fridge and, when taste was discernable, it wasn’t too good. Antipasti was a good idea – either allow your server to bring you a plate, or go with the server to the salumeria to pick your own. I went to pick. Good selection of squidy/octopussy things, sardines, assorted veggie stuff. It made up a tasty plateful. My main course was lamb kidneys and mushrooms cooked in marsala, with a butternut squash risotto. Kidneys were well cooked, remaining pink on the inside and very tender. The sauce was rich but a bit gloopy. Risotto was OK, but much “claggier” than a usual risotto – obviously so it could be moulded in a ring. The other main – lamb rump marinated in mint, garlic and chilli and cooked in red wine – came sat on a bed of lentils. It looked very good and the lamb, on the well-done side of the requested pink, still had a reasonably good flavour. The lentils were the best bit of the plate. Desserts were a disappointment. A chocolate and almond cake hardly tasted of either, but did have a good pistachio ice cream with it. Apple and almond crumble was simply unpleasant to eat – a sour apple mix stuffed into a pastry case topped with a few crumbs. Most of it was left. Service had been slower than one might have expected but we hadn’t been in any rush to get anywhere else and it had been friendly and knowledgable. The pricing is hardly bargain basement, with mains approaching £20 in a number of cases – but then the restaurant is in Cheshire’s “Golden Triangle” and, unfortunately it had promised more than it delivered.

It does. I'd missed that bit. J

I caught up with the last three days on iPlayer last night. Much as I want to see more food on TV, I really, really hope that we've seen the last of this turgid programme. From the manufactured "event", through the fake rivalry, to the inconsistent judging, it just pisses me off. For example, I do not understand how a treacle tart, condemned as not summery enough and unsuitable in the heats, can win (much as it looked a cracking treacle tart). And (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) wasnt there something inherently "iffy" about the voting. If I've understood the rules, as explained upthread, this is what should have happened - after the judges voted, the chefs were then ranked 1 - 8 (top chef being 1). A similar ranking process was going to take place after the public vote (top chef being 1). The ranking scores would then be added together - so a chef heading both the judges and punters lists would score 1 + 1 = 2. Etc. So, if the end result was not "iffy", explain how the position of chefs ranked 1 and 2 after the judges vote have their position reversed after the public vote. Surely both have then had rankings of 1 + 2 = 3. A tie. And, talking of possibly "iffy", don't even get me started on the concept of a proper menu that would be served being created by the declared process. Let ask you, having sorted out the starter as being beef, was it conceivable that beef would miraculously find its way onto the main course selection. A virtual fiver says that there was no chance, which means that a fiddle might have had to be done, even if a fiddle wasnt actually done. But, just on a positive note, I understand that Nigel Haworth's dishes will be on Northcote's menu soon (next week?). I do hope they're still there in August when we are booked for an overnight stay.

Coming from a different city and supporting a different City, I fully understand this.

THE BOOT INN, WILLINGTON, Nr KELSALL, CHESHIRE Nothing remotely gastro about this country pub - but it's my default lunch spot when I'm out that way towards Chester. The main menu is a collection of the "usual suspects" for decent pub food - Barnsley chop, fish pie, good sandwiches and the like. The "specials" board normally has some treats, as today - a starter of local asparagus with poached egg. Asparagus was freshness itself and cooked leaving a bit of bite. Unfortunately, egg was overdone leaving it pretty much useless for dunking. Main was a steak & ale pie. Long cooking and very generous portion of meat; the beer coming from Weetwood Brewery, just down the road in Tarporley. Chips were decentish - frozen, of course, but fried to a nice crispy brown.

Phil Seemingly, yes. I've stopped being lazy and looked up the rules. John