Abersoch, Gwynedd

[Harters]

PORTH TOCYN HOTEL

Round these parts, we call Abersoch "Wilmslow on Sea". It's not intended as a compliment. And whilst the number of "flash motors" suggest that the fur coat and no knickers brigade is certainly around, there's been no development of decent eateries.

I was last in Abersoch in 1967 as a spotty teenager. By then the Porth Tocyn had already been in the Good Food Guide for 10 years and has kept its slot ever since. It now rates a Cooking 4 which, on the basis of our dinner, is pushing it. Much as we wanted to really enjoy; much as we tried to really enjoy, there were just too many gaps.

It isn’t as though the service is lousy. It isn’t. It’s friendly and, although not the sharpest you’ll ever come across, gets the job done. It isn’t for a want of generosity. It isn’t that the menu doesn’t read well. It’s just the food doesn’t hit the mark in terms of taste.

The Porth Tocyn has an absolutely cracking location overlooking the bay. Rabbits bound about the gardens. It is, frankly, just lovely. But we got no sense of them being welcoming to customers. Here’s how we started when announcing our presence. “Hello, we’ve got a reservation, name of Hartley”. “What time is that for?” “8 o’clock”. Then, without any hint of irony “Is that for tonight?” And three times during the evening, there seemed to be a need for a member of staff to check our names.

Starter #1 was an OK assembly job. A disc of flaky pastry, topped with wilted spinach and a small mackerel fillet, finished with a scattering of olives and anchovies (at least the menu said there would be anchovies, but there was no sign of them). Dish would have been improved if the fish skin had been crisped up rather than being left flabby.

Starter #2, described as a crab tian, topped with salmon ceviche and encircled with pickled cucumber and confit tomato. At least that’s how the menu described this light and pleasant enough dish. Although whether the words tian, ceviche, pickled and confit had any recognisable place here is another matter.

My main of lemon sole was a tasteless mush of “white stuff” on the plate. It might have been lifted by the “lemon hollandaise” (isn’t the “lemon” superfluous when describing hollandaise?) – if only there had been any significant lemon flavour to this otherwise yellow gloop. The accompaniments of crushed new potatoes, asparagus mousse and samphire were, by far, the best things on the plate.

Halibut fillet sat in a “bouillabaisse”. Or, at least, it sat in a thin and fairly flavourless stock along with a few bits of indeterminate white fish. Halibut itself was very good – a large portion of good flavour and perfectly cooked. An accompanying tiger prawn also tasted fine but was messy to eat, covered as it was in a thin white sauce that was passed off as aioli. A finger bowl would have been handy. As would a larger portion of the saffron rice which amounted to only a tablespoon.

I’d mentioned a generosity. It had started with the cheesy biscuits served with the aperitifs. It continued with the offer of a jug of water for the table – no upselling of bottled stuff. And it continued on with the cheese which is offered as an alternative to dessert (as is a savoury – in this case Scotch Woodcock). Cheese is laid out on a separate table and you are invited to help yourself. A good selection of English & Welsh products here – a Cheshire, smoked Lancashire, Blacksticks Blue, a Stilton and a couple of offerings from the Snowdonia Cheese Co. There’s biscuits, celery, chutney and wide range of fruit.

Coffee and petit fours are also help yourself in the lounge. Good coffee. Nice sweet nibbles. It has cost £40 plus drinks which, if the mains had been better, would have been quite good value. But they weren’t, so it wasn’t.

[Harters]

DINING ROOM, HIGH STREET

Only open six weeks, it shares its eponymous space, doubling as the breakfast room for the B & B which is the main occupier of the building. It could be a disaster but, under separate (and obviously very competent) management, there’s no sense that this is anything other than a nice little bistro that you’d love to have near wherever you live. It deserves every success.

With only about 20 covers, it is not going to get ahead of the husband and wife team who run it. He cooks, She does everything else. Between them, they have damn good menu, offering about five choices at each course, with three courses setting you back around £25.

Scotch eggs are now almost classic bistro fayre and, here, a smoked haddock version was a delight. Real smokiness in the fish, an egg just cooked leaving the yolk perfect for dunking the asparagus soldiers. There’s an intent to try maintain some seasonality and, whilst the Scotch Egg looks set to be a favourite for the menu, there will soon be a new spin to the dish once the asparagus season is finished.

The other starter was from a short specials board. A quite retro-looking crayfish cocktail. Rocket provided the greenery; a good helping of crayfish; decent Marie Rose sauce and a few pea shoots on top as garnish.

My wife continued her retro meal with a grilled ribeye of Welsh beef, with a brandy, cream and peppercorn sauce. Sauce was damn good and it reminded us of why it’s a classic – rich and with just the right bite from the pepper. It had a few pickled wild mushrooms on the side which added an almost chutney taste.

My own plate of duck read more of the autumn than early summer with its blackberry sauce and parsnip crisps. But, in the event, it was light and delicious, with the blackberries giving a good sweet/sour flavour cutting the richness of the duck.

A separate bowl of new potatoes, carrot, celery and courgette were well cooked and served unadorned.

Unfortunately, there was no Black Forest gateau to continue the 70s revival and we both went for a rhubarb and elderflower fool. Maybe a touch heavy in texture, but there was a summery lightness to the taste. A layer of rhubarb had been just cooked through, so it retained a slight crunch. This divided us. I thought it added a good texture contrast. Herself wasn’t that keen. On the side was a shot glass of raspberry liqueur which didn’t really add anything but, generally, this was a fab sweet.

Throughout, service had been excellent. It was one of those places where, when you’ve been sat down for five minutes, you just know everything will be OK. Being new, they were keen to know how customers had not only found the restaurant (Google in our case), but seemed genuinely interested in folk’s opinions of the food. I really hope they do well. It’ll be easy in the holiday season – the winter will be the real test.

[Harters]

When you’re on holiday in a small place, you end up eating in places where you’re taking a punt on quality and not always winning. Here’s a couple.

EAST MEETS WEST

Seemingly a bog standard high street curry house. Yet, even on the high street, you expect the food to have some spice – some zing – even if cooking is not very good and spicing is mono-dimensional across the dishes. But not here.

We had sheek kebab & lamb tikka to start. Followed by a vegetable bhuna and a chicken sag. Boring. Bland and boring. No sign of any of the usual South Asian spices. Not unpleasant (apart from the considerable amount of oil or ghee that had been used) just four plates of totally pointless food. It wouldnt last five minutes anywhere else that offered even the smallest competition.

ANGELINA’S

Italian. And very busy. You might say it’s a bog standard high street Italian. A short menu of pizza & pasta supplemented by a “specials” board.

But cooking just wasn’t up to the lowish expectations you might have. A starter of pasta amatriciana is a favourite of mine – but here the overuse of chilli totally overwhelmed any other flavour. I followed that with a T bone (something you don’t see too often these days). It was OK in taste – correctly cooked to medium rare at one side but well done on the other. Careless. Nicely decorated plate though, with rocket and blobs of mustard - a bit 1980s, if you will (but then, that decade is probably set for a revival).

My partner had chosen a seafood dish also from the specials. The waitress returned to say it was “off”. So, herself ordered what proved to be a dismal pizza. Not vile, you understand, just the sort of quality you might pick up at Tesco. Service had been fine and we had no significant complaints, bearing in mind the level at which the restaurant operates.

Now, I wouldn’t normally have posted here about meals like this and do so only because of what happened later, which perhaps raises an interesting subject about the UK dining scene. I had actually originally posted to a touristy review site (one I use mainly when looking for hotels here and abroad) that seemed more appropriate. No problem until I then started getting increasingly bizarre messages from two members of that board both purporting to be the owner of the Italian place. They ripped into me criticising my comments about service and pricing (bizarre – because I hadn’t mentioned anything at all about service or prices) These exchanges culminated with the owner suggesting, snidely, that I was “not what I appear” (no, me neither) and may not have even been in his restaurant. Next thing I know, the board has taken down my mildly critical review of his place but has kept on view my extremely critical review of his competitor's. Presumably it has acted on a spurious and unsubstantiated complaint from the owner that I was somehow "not kosher". Nice deal if you can get it, eh?

First time this sort of thing has ever happened to me. Has anyone else ever been “chased” by an owner in this way?

Edited July 17, 2010 by Harters (log)

[Harters]

In all fairness, I have to report that the said toursity review site (one that might advise you on your trip, so to speak), has now reinstated my review of the Italian place. No word by way of explanation, of course.