Son of St John

[Wilfrid]

This is because France had Baudelaire and the attention of Walter Benjamin while England had Mayhew & Engels.

We now have Peter Ackroyd.  Not fancy enough for you?  And I think you'll find that a flaneur strictly speaking is one who throws pies.  Tati would be a better example than Baudelaire.

I think I'll go for a lie down...

[Gavin Jones]

But I would bet on Peter Ackroyd in a sit-down fight with Steve P.

[Jon Tseng]

oh no not another meal at st john - but what can you say? kitchen was in full swing, fergus was perched in the corner with his mates and with five of us there was plenty of sampling of dishes to be done...

five starters, shared. salt pollack - ie pollack brandade. ox heart - a bit miserly with only two slices, stuffed with classic brit stuff and rimmed with bacon. deep fried plaice cheeks - battered (of course); ultra glam fried fish. bone marrow - of course; good thing it was shared as don't see how one person could knock off the starter portion - it's soooo rich. salted dried pigs liver with radish salad - excellent - hadn't tried this one before but really really good - liver both livery and crunchy but never dry.

main had the veal heart - strips of heart flash-fried - also lentils on the side. very meaty. other mains going round: plaice with monks beard (some kind of grass/green), lambs liver and kidney, chitterlings and chips (chitterlings - as always - a triumph).

for pudding the treacle pudding, blood orange jelly and eccles cake. all discussed before but - man! - dat treacly pudding damn good. toothachingly sweet, juicy, creamy (er, once you smother it in cream). next time am in the bar will see if can get them to bring it out for me. twelve quid for eggs, flour, cream, golden syrup (afterwards looked up recipe in fergus' book) but worth every sugar-sodden crumb.

as ever perfectly executed food, done well. not a single duff dish out of the thirteen scoffed. go.

cheerio

j

[Jinmyo]

Wow. Salted dried pork liver. Never even thought about it before.

And veal heart strips seared. I've only had braised.

Very interesting.

[Jon Tseng]

the liver is in the book too. it works. it's fairly regular on the menu there.

i gather heart is one of those things like squid or abalone - you either have to cook it low and slow or hot and quick. anywhere i between is a recipe for disaster (no pun intended).

cheerio

j

[cabrales]

other mains going round: plaice with monks beard (some kind of grass/green)

Jon -- When you have a chance, what did the monks' beard taste like?  

[Kikujiro]

Had a mixed experience at St John the other night (Friday). I hadn't eaten there for a couple of years, although I do buy bread there a lot. The room was full of people enjoying themselves, including a birthday party next to us that seemed to be going delightedly through a different menu from the rest of us.

My starter -- chicken necks with chicory -- was extremely good. The necks were almost collapsing, more reassuringly meaty than I had feared they might be, with a superb flavour, and very hot, in contrast with the chicory, in a cold salad with almost-caramelised onion. My companion fared less well; his peas in the pod were very fresh, but ... just a huge bowl of raw pods served very abruptly, making for a laborious and repetitive experience, complete, it turned out halfway through, with a rather adorable little slug. The (friendly and well-informed) waitress reacted to the latter in the house style -- 'Oh, look! A little bit of nature!' -- and although she subsequently apologised and offered 'something on the house later on', this subject was forgotten and nothing on the final bill was actually comped.

I then had Middlewhite (not pre-smoked; I checked) with prunes, the most expensive course on the menu I think, and unexceptional. I'm still obsessed with my memory of the acorn-fed pork at Eyre Bros., which wholly eclipsed this dish for me. Friend's brill looked fine.

Puddingwise, if it looks like pannacotta and tastes like pannacotta it is, apparently, buttermilk pudding; but it was a very good version, served with cherries and a fantastic thick slice of ginger biscuit. All in with water, Fleurie and coffee, around 90 quid. As far as local restaurants go, I'll be hitting Eyre Bros. again sooner.

[Andy Lynes]

So the starter was just a bowl of raw peas that you podded yourself? Nothing else? I'm sorry if I'm being dumb here but I can't quite get my head around the idea of that as something anyone would want to eat in a restaurant.

[Kikujiro]

Um, yes, it was. The menu just read 'peas in the pod', not 'huge bowl of raw peas in the pod'. And it wasn't me that ordered it

I did initially find this so unlikely that I wondered whether I was missing the fact that they had been steamed for eight seconds or something. But the slug rather confirmed the rawness of the enterprise.

Who knows: maybe they forgot to cook them ...

[Andy Lynes]

No criticism implied of the person that ordered it, but of the restaurant for serving it. I like to taste a few peas whilst I'm podding them, but 3 or 4 is enough for me. It seems a bit cynical to me.

[Kikujiro]

I think you're right.

[tony h]

sounds like they were taking the p

[Scottf]

It's on the web menu

http://www.stjohnrestaurant.co.uk/

[Andy Lynes]

£5.00!!!!!!! What sort of mark up on the wholesale are we talking here then, 1000% maybe?

[Scottf]

Probably similar to the one they're getting on Radishes and butter

[Kikujiro]

All this reminds me: I was thinking of ordering the kohlrabi (£5.50 on the web menu today) and asked how it was done. 'Well,' she said, 'it's not really ... done ... as such. It's served raw. It's very refreshing.' I think she might have said they slice it, or something.

[Scottf]

Are we in general agreement that this is simplicity taken too far, in fact past the borders of rip off?

[Gavin Jones]

Is the potted pig's head as similarly literal and, err, refreshing.

[Jon Tseng]

Well I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to serve peas au natrel, although perhaps there should have been some advance warning. And the slug probably broke several health and safety bylaws

But I see no problem with serving a bowl of peas. After all a perfectly fresh pea is a beautiful thing; if that's how it tastes best seems very suiting to Fergus Henderson's minimalist philosophy to serve it as it is. Very suitably, er, what's the term... idiosyncratic

have a feeling that the mark-up is probably in-line with other stuff there, especially on the offal size. Can't imagine the bowl of chicken necks I've had in the bar cost more than a fraction of the six quid I paid. Ditto the welsh rarebit (er, cheese, worcester sauce, bread, salt & pepper...)

come to thing of it there's all manner of foods which we eat throughly un-mucked about with. caviar, smoked salmon, crudites, sashimi, heck oysters are a great example. so why not peas? what's the difference?

If I had an objection it would be more culinary - fresh peas are notorious for having their sugars break down rapidly after picking (the whole birds-eye-peas-taste-better-than-fresh thing), so unless the peas were picked that day (preferably that afternoon) I'd have thought they'd be better of boiled.

cheerio

j

ps oooh, the feasting option on the website looks yummy!

[Miss J]

I'm not sure what I think of this. IF the peas are PERFECT, the foodie in me would be willing to pay silly money to pod & eat them on the spot just 'cos I'm a Londoner and truly fresh, sweet peas are so hard to get.

On the other hand, I have childhood memories of having to sit & pod for what felt like HOURS during gorgeous, sunny summer days so that my family would have freezer full of peas come winter. So although I'm fond of peas (and who isn't?), I've always felt a tiny bit of residual resentment towards them...

Miss J

[Winot]

The style of the St. John's menu has always amused me as a deliberate rejection of the florid and verbose puffery on menus in more "fashionable" establishments.

I suspect that here the description came first then the dish.

So they're not just peas, they're art.

[Tonyfinch]

£15 for smoked eel and potato salad? Hmmmm

I've had some lovely dishes at St.John and some good times but on my last couple of visits I felt the wheels had come off a bit- rushed service, tepid, ordinary food and presentation that wasn't so much minimalist as slapdash and lacklustre.

I'm not for poncing food up for its own sake but if you're going to make a virtue of plainness then you've got to tread a fine line carefully or else you tip over into pointlessness-and start serving a bowl of peas in the pod. I sense St.John is beginning to cross this line more frequently and is beginning to trade on its style at the expense of its substance.

[macrosan]

If you opened one of the pods, and couldn't find two identical peas, would this be a contravention of the Trade Descriptions Act ?

[Jinmyo]

Scott, thanks for the URL.

I know I'm just reating what others have said but: 5 pounds for raw peas?

I'm aghast. I find Andy's comment that this is cynical to be apt.

[stellabella]

after experiencing the raw peas first-hand, i have to say i rather enjoyed them and consider them to be a nice side addition to the other foods on the menu--a little crunch, a little sweet freshness--a palate cleanser if you will. and the bowl is heaping full. london is expensive, but st john is not unreasonable. it's possible for two people to fill their bellies for £40.

i am intrigued by st john. i want to go back. the eccles cakes were among the most delicious food i have ever eaten. i like the idea of dining on appetizers in the bar.