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Time to catch up....April 2011

It seems like a very long time since I updated this blog and I have eaten an awful lot of meals since then. I have also been working like a maniac, which has stopped me from writing them up. So here is a quick update….

Cibo, Summertown, Oxford

I ate here on a rainy night in what should have been early spring, but was more like late winter. It was early evening but there was a buzzy atmosphere and a few diners who were obviously regulars. My table had an excellent view of the pizza oven and what came out of it looked pretty good, so I opted for that and a glass of the house red. The pizza was as good as I have had anywhere (including Italy) – crisp thin base, well-flavoured tomato sauce and generous shavings of prosciutto, with a scattering of artichokes. The salad I ordered would have been lovely of someone had remembered to dry the leaves before putting them in the bowl – there was a pool of water in the bottom. I don’t remember what I paid but it seemed very reasonable.

The following night I went into town and ate the Dine with Wine menu at Brasserie Blanc. This was phenomenal value for money, especially as I ordered a glass of champagne for a miniscule extra amount, then topped it off with a glass of house red. Lovely well-flavoured broth, chunky vegetables and fresh bread a butter, followed by meltingly tender casseroled beef with an extra portion of (rather boring) creamed leeks. This little lot came to less than twenty-five quid and I left a happy woman.

The third night I didn’t fare so well – it was back to Summertown (I was staying there and my feet were sore by the end of the third day!) where I went into Portobello just because I liked the look of it. I had a perfectly respectable slice of terrine which would have been fine if there had been another two slices of it. Then I opted for the steak, with bearnaise sauce. This too a while coming and when it arrived, it was perfectly cooked (medium rare) but was cold – in contrast to the bowl of fries, which were hot. It was so cold, in fact, that I sent it back. The fresh steak came and was fine – but by then I had lost my fries, having piled most of them onto the previous plate, which had been whisked away. Did I want more? You bet I did – but did I want to wait while they were cooked, by which time the steak would be cold again. I left feeling disgruntled, especially as the bill was considerably more than I had paid at M. Blanc’s place.

Over the past couple of months I have dropped in on the Bistrot Pierre in Harrogate a few times, not least because the staff are cheery and helpful and the early bird menu is good value. But regretfully I shan’t be dropping in any more mainly because the place is so inconsistent in the quality of its meat. Now, Desperate Dan I ain’t, but I am an unrepentant carnivore and these days there is no excuse for poor quality beef, in particular. The first time I went to BP I had the steak and my companion, as they say in the ghastly local newspaper food reviews, had the same. His bit of beef was lovely – tender, perfectly cooked, a toothsome morsel all round. Mine was supposed to be the same (we had ordered identically) but looked totally different – a thick lump of what looked like topside rather than rump, which the knife simply made no impression on. I wrestled with it until I managed to saw through a piece and found it was impossible to chew. I sent it back and got a new one that was the real thing.

I assumed that there had been a mix-up in the kitchen and someone had mistaken the beef for the bourguignon for a bit of steak (OK, no chef worth his salt would do that, but let’s given them the benefit). A fortnight later, we go again and this time I had the bourguignon itself –and lurking amongst the tender chunks of succulent beef was another slab of dry, tough shoe leather. How bizarre. The third time, I was the lucky one but my poor friend had a piece of steak that was tender at one end and tough at the other. So we have called it a day….I have no idea what is going on in the kitchen there, but perhaps they are recycling the sous chef’s trainers when they get low on beef.

Spa town blues

Oxford Street Brasserie, Harrogate

Apropos the last review, these were the very waiting staff. A young lad who was keen to please but seemed unsure of himself, and a women who gave the impression that she couldn't give a toss, quite frankly, are not the best combination for a restaurant with these prices. Suffice to say that a goat's cheese salad was supplied by a caprine so Lilliputian that one almost needed a microscope to find it on the plate. When it arrived (thankfully not on the table setting in front of me) we all had to resist the urge to burst into guffaws - and then tears. No wonder the miniscule bread rolls disappeared instantly (and were not replaced until asked for, repeatedly).
A ham hock terrine (£6.50) was not particularly hammy or in any way memorable (though at least there was more than one mouthful of it). The only starter that was clearly passing muster was a risotto with lobster or some such, and I vaguely remember that it was the most expensive one ordered. My slow-cooked belly pork was OK, but longer cooking still would have rendered out the remaining fat and made the pork more tender. In short, the stuff I cook at home is miles better. And it costs a fraction of the fourteen quid charged here.
The beef fillet at 25 quid was supposed to be served with truffles but they were of the shy and retiring variety, though the beef itself apparently was "tender". Ah, tenderness - we all need some of that. But doesn't a woman expect that bit more at the top end of the market? At 25 pounds for a portion I would have wanted mine to stride out of the sea like Daniel Craig and transport me with delight. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I have lost the will to describe any more of this meal as it was a less than delightful experience and one that I am happy not to revisit (especially when the bill arrived and we spotted a charge of £5.50 for the initial tiny rolls with butter - which was taken off the bill after spluttering indignation).
As the place was almost empty I would have though a bit of cosseting of customers might have been the order of the day but the milk of human kindness is not the USP here. In fairness, part of the problem was that all four diners were accustomed to eating in France, where bread is offered freely (in every sense of the word) and not doled out as though there had been a massive run on the local bread-bank and only shareholders need apply.
Disappointing.

Verdict: value for money - 3/10 service - 4/10 quality of food - 6/10

C'est la vie...en Harrogate

Chez La Vie, Harrogate

I recently tried to explain the name of this restaurant to a French dairy farmer and had to give up in the face of utter mystification. In fact, the name only works for an English-speaker and not very well then. But Chez La Vie itself works pretty well as a restaurant and has become a Harrogate stalwart, never surprising or innovative but utterly reliable. It does a fixed price lunch and early bird menu beloved of those eating on a budget and at £9.50 for two courses and £11.50 for three is as budget as it gets and très bon marché at that.
So I knew what would be on offer on the 'easy lunch' menu - exactly the same as on the 'early bird' and most of the choices have featured on both so long that they might as well be written on tablets of stone. The a la carte is similarly unchanging - this is not the place to come for a seasonally-adjusted tasting menu. If CLV was the only game in town, this could get seriously boring but Harrogate has more restaurants than locals can cope with, and the spare is mopped up by the thriving conference trade.
Dark wood, white tablecloths and baskets of sliced baguette feel very French, even though the excellent bread is accompanied, English style, with little pots of butter. The waiters are French as well, though over the Channel they would never be offering us Pinot Grigio as an aperitif.
My French Onion Soup could have been slightly hotter but nevertheless had been flashed for long enough under a grill so that the gruyere on top was thoroughly melted. The soup was intense, dark and satisfying (though possibly very slightly over-seasoned) and the onions had been cooked long enough to melt into sweetness.
The duck leg that followed was crisp on the outside, richly moist on the inside and falling off the bone. Just what a duck leg is meant to be, the epitome of duck leg, in fact, and though the Madeira sauce it was resting on did not particularly taste of Madeira, it was a good sauce. Maybe not the best sauce to serve with a duck leg, but the only one on offer so I used the last of the bread to mop up the plate.
The real weakness of Chez La Vie is its insistence of serving frozen chips and peas with everything. It is possible to order side dishes and most people do, but this somehow spoils the whole effect of being able to eat two courses for under a tenner - the charm of which gladdens the heart of every Yorkshireman and woman, and to which the lunching classes of Harrogate are by no means immune. Is it impossible to have a few saute potatoes on the side, with perhaps a spoonful of some vegetable morsel that is in season - not boiled like a la Anglaise but messed about with in that way the French have - a puree of carrots, for example, or a gratin of courgettes and tomatoes. But at least CLV would never present its diners with that hideous English invention, the 'selection of vegetables' - the horrible kidney-shaped side dish of steamed vegetables that all taste the same (and why - because they have all been boiled beforehand and are fresh from the microwave) and are fit only for the compost heap.

Verdict - value for money 8/10 service 7/10 quality of food 7/10