Bluebird Dining Room

[Matthew Grant]

Dinner at the Bluebird Dining Rooms Saturday night, friendly service, casual atmosphere, trendy crowd of 30 something's. To clarify, this isn't the main restaurant of old, this is the Bluebird Dining Rooms, part of the Members club (I believe) which is now open to the public.

Warm potato drop scones with Cornish crab and Crustacean oil was a pleasant enough start, light drop scones, a few non descript salad leaves with crab meat littered throughout accompanied by a light drizzle of oil around the outside. Good quality crab at room temperature which these days gains you some points.

My main course was Goosnargh Chicken and Penny Bun pie with Trapplements and triple cooked chips which the waiter advised me weren't a copy of the Fat Duck but "inspired by". Translated this dish was a £13 chicken and mushroom pie and chips. Alongside was a strongly flavoured dark jus which had a hint of sweetness (Madeira?). I had no idea what I was meant to do with this, as far as I'm concerned you shouldn't be adding stuff to a pie after it is cooked and the pie was wet enough already. Besides this the sauce was way too overpowering for the disappointingly flavoured pie filling. I asked the waiter what the trapplement was, " A jus" pressed for a little more information I was informed that it was veal stock and chicken stock, not very helpful. Excellent chips. As previously mentioned the chicken was very undistinguished and was woefully under seasoned. I think I briefly glimpsed two pieces of mushroom. I wasn't sure what a Penny bun was but further investigation shows it to be Boletus Edulis, or to you and me a Cep. I couldn't detect any cep flavour in the dish whatsoever. It was more than a bit run of the mill.(Insert Yawn emoticon here)

Desert was an unmitigated disaster. Steamed Treacle pudding with custard. For a start, the plate had a couple of giant thumbprints and the edge of the plate looked and felt a little smeared/dirty. I'd hazard a guess that it had been ineffectively wiped after plating but it didn't endear me to the dish and without company it would have been sent back. The custard was cold, no make that lukewarm, no make that hot. Confused? Me too, some point between plating and serving it had managed to obtain all 3 temperatures. The syrup pudding was an almost solid in the middle, way too dry, pretty unpleasant.

Other tastes that I pinched were of a pea broth(?) very good and a main dish of Lamb Rump, colcannon and Lancashire black peas. This dish seemed to be more successful, this was good news as unwittingly my other 3 dining companions had all ordered the same dish.

I'd be inclined to compare this restaurant to Rhodes in style of cooking and in my opinion it was probably a little better however, this does not make it a great restaurant, maybe I chose my dishes poorly but I wouldn't be in a rush to return.

Edited April 25, 2005 by Matthew Grant (log)

[degusto]

I have eaten a few times in the ”Bluebird Club” as I believe it used to be casually called before. The food was never particularly inspiring and a good expression for it would perhaps be Comfort Food. I have not been any recently so it may have changed even if it from Matthew’s descriptions sounds similar. I seem to remember though that only after they opened the wine prices were quite reasonable and the wine selection was rather remarkable. Is that still the case?

I read in the Tough Cookies book about the triple cooked chips and you no doubt get the impression in that book that the triple cooking is Heston’s discovery. It is not. It is a very old practice. Heston’s more recent use of modern technology to reduce the humidity in the potatoes may be his contribution though, although the need for it may be superfluous in practice with the selection of the best potato variety and considering the relatively little need for keeping the chips crispy indefinitely.

Edited April 25, 2005 by degusto (log)

[Matthew Grant]

Sory, I wasn't paying attention I let my guest choose and I've no idea what we were drinking

[SBonner]

Having dined at all the Conran restaurants; Bluebird is my favourite. Our last trip to London last year was no exception. Paternoster on the other hand was unimpressive and I will not return.

Cheers,

Stephen Bonner

Vancouver

[Andy Lynes]

I read in the Tough Cookies book about the triple cooked chips and you no doubt get the impression in that book that the triple cooking is Heston’s discovery. It is not.

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Pleased see this thread for the triple cooked chips debate.