Piazza by Anthony, the Corn Exchange, Leeds
A few years ago young Anthony Flinn came home to his Northern roots after a stint at El Bulli and opened a restaurant in the centre of the city. Praises were heaped upon him and before you could say “langoustine foam”, Leeds was riddled with Anthony outlets. Now he retains the original restaurant and operates a brasserie-style eating outlet on the lower level of the old Corn Exchange, flanked by delis selling cheese and charcuterie, chocolate and baked goods. There is a patisserie café in the Victoria Quarter and he will cater for your wedding as well. So I was intrigued to sample some of his grub and recently spent an evening at Piazza by Anthony.
Which brings me to my first gripe. Why “piazza”? The basement of a building, even one open to a glass roof on a sunny evening, isn’t a piazza. A piazza is a square where the buzz of urban life is all around you and to be pedantic, it’s in Italy. A cavernous, empty restaurant, silent apart from the hushed whispers of diners reeling in shock at the bill, just doesn’t cut it. The food isn’t Italian either. The whole thing is a mystery.
The other mystery is why the place is still open. The night we ate there it was like the Marie Celeste but without the added interest of being on a boat. One other table was occupied and I really don’t know why, unless it was their first time as well.
Let’s start with the positives. Firstly, the venue itself is fantastic – light, spacious, and with a vaulted transparent roof above which has the feel of a cathedral – and it’s round. I’m not sure why I said “firstly” because there isn’t a secondly. Everything else goes downhill after that.
I will list the negatives in brief, because thinking about how much I paid makes me depressed, so I don’t want to linger on it. The menu is boring. There is hardly anything on it that you want to eat. This is probably a good thing, because when two of us found something we wanted to eat, they only had one of it. The waiter also began by telling us what they didn’t have, which is pretty unusual at six o’ clock in the evening in an empty restaurant. Service is terrible, though the waiters have a kind of jolliness that smacks of desperation – or farce. The prices are too high for what arrives on the plate. And the food is mediocre. (I have never been to El Bulli but I know bull when I am paying for it.)
A couple of us started off by sharing the charcuterie and cheese platter (“with bread baked in our bakery”) and at £8.95 I expected something fairly substantial. The words “charcuterie” and “platter” used in conjunction (along with the price) conjure up a feeling of generosity, an expectation of heaped servings of porky deliciousness to share out and gloat over. What arrived was a small plate with three slices of somewhat dry posh bread, three slivers of cheese and an artfully arranged fan of cold meat and salami on one side, filled out with rabbit food on the other. I think the meat might have been lovely but the wisps provided were just enough to suggest this without being able to confirm it. We had to cut the bread in half, ditto the cheese and meats, and I was so hungry afterwards that I was looking speculatively at the waiter’s leg.
Main courses sounded anything but interesting so I asked said waiter (leg intact) what he could recommend. He told me that he couldn’t recommend anything as waiters weren’t allowed to taste the food. We all looked gobsmacked at this and my jaw actually dropped. Two of us then opted for the pork chop with apple dauphinoise (£11.95), for the waiter to then return with the news that only one pork chop remained in the kitchen. So I switched to a sirloin steak for £15.95, which came with four tiny roasted cherry tomatoes. And nothing else. So I was glad I had ordered chips even though they cost an extra three quid. The steak was well-done and I had asked for it medium rare. I didn’t send it back in case they didn’t have another. I didn’t manage to taste the ham hock risotto to my right, but it looked watery and unpleasant and the person eating it was unimpressed. The pork chop across the table looked all right but uninspiring.
By this time I was exhausted at having to track down a waiter every time we wanted anything. They were all lurking in the bar area, laughing and joking, which reminded me of the nurses chattering at the nursing station in the hospital whilst my mother was dying alone on a side ward. We didn’t order a pudding as we had come to our senses by then, and I was looking forward to going home and making cheese on toast.
Verdict: value for money - 0/10; service - 2/10; quality of food - 2/10.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
French leave – or is that leftovers?
The Marquis de Tomberlaine, Champeaux
I have eaten here before, with friends, and enjoyed the food though we had been disappointed that the mist had spoiled the wonderful view of the bay of Mont St Michel. So on a beautifully sunny Sunday lunchtime it seemed the perfect weather to have a meal overlooking the bay. But as a friend of mine is fond of remarking, that was another frog kissed. Or another Frog kissed, given the location.
The restaurant was packed, which is usually a good sign. No-one had any food, which was not. Especially as it was 1 p.m. Normally I find the service in France to be efficient but we sat for ten minutes without the offer of a drink or being given a menu. (We should have left then whilst we were winning.) Finally I managed to bring down a passing waitress with a tackle and we got a couple of kirs. Then we managed to get a menu by much the same means. At the table next to us on my right were a pair of formidable French ladies of a certain age who did not have a menu and had been there longer than us. There was much tutting from mesdames, which sounds a lot more condemnatory when done in French, which had the desired effect of making menus appear.
The windows were wide open to let in some fresh air and the deafening noise and fumes from many passing motorbikes thundering by on the coast road outside. Mont St Michel was invisible behind a haze of what appeared to be smog. The lovely old dining room had been redecorated so as to strip out any vestige of its history apart from the massive fireplace, which looked to be holding up the end wall and had been grudgingly retained.
There was a lot of flitting around of waitresses in an ineffectual way, up and down the packed tables. They brought cutlery of different kinds, then changed plates and place settings, and generally looked very active and stressed whilst not achieving very much. Finally we managed to get one to take the order. After a good twenty minutes, a starter appeared on the other side of the table from me which looked OK (but which was so unmemorable that I can’t remember it) but made me feel glad that I had chosen the fish soup. Which did not arrive. Eventually a large lady in very tight trousers emerged from the direction of the kitchen, breathing heavily and bearing a large copper pan with a ladle sticking out of it. She stopped at my side and grabbed the handle of the ladle purposefully, then looked at my place setting. No bowl. There was another barrage of tutting from my right and mesdames and I exchanged shakes of the head. They still had no food.
Finally I had fish soup. It was good, but not great, and barely hot. The rouille was fine, but unremarkable, as was the gruyere. What a palaver for not very much. Next door’s food had arrived but it was tasted and then tutted at. We all gobbled up our starters and tried to fill up on bread, which was a good thing as it was nearly an hour before any of us got any more food.
My main course was lamb cooked two ways – which turned out to mean, both badly. A couple of tiny cutlets were flanked by some messy bits of leg steak, thrown onto the plate anyhow. It looked like roadkill but roadkill would have been a lot cheaper and probably not as salty. Though come to think of it, winter roadkill would have grit salt on it. Maybe it was roadkill after all. At any rate, some of it was completely raw in the middle and bloody, and other bits were grey and overcooked. It was greasy and pretty much inedible. Served with it, and with all the main courses, was a horrible concoction of mashed potatoes wrapped in overcooked courgette slices. This looked and tasted like leftovers that someone had made a valiant attempt to disguise.
Mesdames had ordered the same main course as me. This time the tutting reached a crescendo and the waitress was called. The ladies gesticulated at their plates, where the roadkill was congealing slowly. This was not restaurant food, they would never serve such bad food at home, it was a disgrace, far too salty, badly cooked. They spoke sadly, with shaking heads, taking it in turns – one would explain the horridness of the food whilst the other would tut. The waitress stood miserably in front of them, muttering apologies. I left almost all of my plateful and told the waitress that it was inedible and oversalted. Mesdames tutted in agreement. The large lady in the tight trousers could be seen to glance nervously at our little corner as she puffed about the room.
Mesdames had chocolate mousse for pudding, and cleared the plate with a minimum of tutting. I had ice cream, based on the assumption that it would be bought in and therefore edible.
It was almost 4 pm when we left and we passed on coffee, having neglected to bring any pyjamas. I paid the bill with my Marks and Spencer credit card to get a few points on it and at least make myself feel that the experience was not entirely negative – at the equivalent of over 80 quid, I might be able to buy some French knickers to remind me never to go there again. There was no apology or offer of discount.
Verdict: value for money - 0/10; service - 0/10; quality of food - 1/10.
I have eaten here before, with friends, and enjoyed the food though we had been disappointed that the mist had spoiled the wonderful view of the bay of Mont St Michel. So on a beautifully sunny Sunday lunchtime it seemed the perfect weather to have a meal overlooking the bay. But as a friend of mine is fond of remarking, that was another frog kissed. Or another Frog kissed, given the location.
The restaurant was packed, which is usually a good sign. No-one had any food, which was not. Especially as it was 1 p.m. Normally I find the service in France to be efficient but we sat for ten minutes without the offer of a drink or being given a menu. (We should have left then whilst we were winning.) Finally I managed to bring down a passing waitress with a tackle and we got a couple of kirs. Then we managed to get a menu by much the same means. At the table next to us on my right were a pair of formidable French ladies of a certain age who did not have a menu and had been there longer than us. There was much tutting from mesdames, which sounds a lot more condemnatory when done in French, which had the desired effect of making menus appear.
The windows were wide open to let in some fresh air and the deafening noise and fumes from many passing motorbikes thundering by on the coast road outside. Mont St Michel was invisible behind a haze of what appeared to be smog. The lovely old dining room had been redecorated so as to strip out any vestige of its history apart from the massive fireplace, which looked to be holding up the end wall and had been grudgingly retained.
There was a lot of flitting around of waitresses in an ineffectual way, up and down the packed tables. They brought cutlery of different kinds, then changed plates and place settings, and generally looked very active and stressed whilst not achieving very much. Finally we managed to get one to take the order. After a good twenty minutes, a starter appeared on the other side of the table from me which looked OK (but which was so unmemorable that I can’t remember it) but made me feel glad that I had chosen the fish soup. Which did not arrive. Eventually a large lady in very tight trousers emerged from the direction of the kitchen, breathing heavily and bearing a large copper pan with a ladle sticking out of it. She stopped at my side and grabbed the handle of the ladle purposefully, then looked at my place setting. No bowl. There was another barrage of tutting from my right and mesdames and I exchanged shakes of the head. They still had no food.
Finally I had fish soup. It was good, but not great, and barely hot. The rouille was fine, but unremarkable, as was the gruyere. What a palaver for not very much. Next door’s food had arrived but it was tasted and then tutted at. We all gobbled up our starters and tried to fill up on bread, which was a good thing as it was nearly an hour before any of us got any more food.
My main course was lamb cooked two ways – which turned out to mean, both badly. A couple of tiny cutlets were flanked by some messy bits of leg steak, thrown onto the plate anyhow. It looked like roadkill but roadkill would have been a lot cheaper and probably not as salty. Though come to think of it, winter roadkill would have grit salt on it. Maybe it was roadkill after all. At any rate, some of it was completely raw in the middle and bloody, and other bits were grey and overcooked. It was greasy and pretty much inedible. Served with it, and with all the main courses, was a horrible concoction of mashed potatoes wrapped in overcooked courgette slices. This looked and tasted like leftovers that someone had made a valiant attempt to disguise.
Mesdames had ordered the same main course as me. This time the tutting reached a crescendo and the waitress was called. The ladies gesticulated at their plates, where the roadkill was congealing slowly. This was not restaurant food, they would never serve such bad food at home, it was a disgrace, far too salty, badly cooked. They spoke sadly, with shaking heads, taking it in turns – one would explain the horridness of the food whilst the other would tut. The waitress stood miserably in front of them, muttering apologies. I left almost all of my plateful and told the waitress that it was inedible and oversalted. Mesdames tutted in agreement. The large lady in the tight trousers could be seen to glance nervously at our little corner as she puffed about the room.
Mesdames had chocolate mousse for pudding, and cleared the plate with a minimum of tutting. I had ice cream, based on the assumption that it would be bought in and therefore edible.
It was almost 4 pm when we left and we passed on coffee, having neglected to bring any pyjamas. I paid the bill with my Marks and Spencer credit card to get a few points on it and at least make myself feel that the experience was not entirely negative – at the equivalent of over 80 quid, I might be able to buy some French knickers to remind me never to go there again. There was no apology or offer of discount.
Verdict: value for money - 0/10; service - 0/10; quality of food - 1/10.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Recent roundup
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Tourist trap on the Cote du Nacre?
Hotel St George, Ouistreham Riva Bella, France
Ferryports are one of the most depressing places in the world. Before the Pope had second thoughts about limbo, and declared that his predecessor had been wrong to assume its existence, I was convinced that the Afterlife's eternal waiting room was like nothing so much as a cross-channel ferryport. Hours of waiting on plastic chairs inside a comfortless and barren hanger of a building, or squirming on the car seat in the dark as everyone else's line of cars moves and yours stays put - that's being in limbo, without a doubt.
So everyone who is consigned to this not-quite purgatorial experience on a regular basis searches for a crumb or two of comfort, by way of some gastronomic compensation. After trying all of the sad and pallid excuses for restaurants clustered round the main car park just before the Brittany Ferries terminal, Pollyanna ventured slightly further into Riva Bella-land and tried the St George.
The night was cold, rainy and Riva Bella itself - the little resort that seems to be invisible to Brits but well-patronised by the French - shuts early. So well before the 7.15 p.m. restaurant opening time, we were huddled in the hotel's tiny bar, squinting at French fashion magazines in the semi-darkness and listening to the screeching of the St George aviary. Roast parrokeet anyone? Yes, please, served 'a point' and silent if possible. A white powder puff was hurtling across the floor and occasionally yapping at the birds, clearly of the mind that saignant or even bleu would do, if only for a bit of peace and quiet.
A member of staff in some form of fancy dress commented gaily - in French - that it was "Noah's Ark in here". Which reminded me of the episode of Fawlty Towers where the hamster beloved by the kitchen staff turns out to be a large and well-fed rat....
Finally allowed into the restaurant, I discover it to be quite empty and utterly silent. An amuse bouche of slivers of what appeared to be gravadlax was delicious, though it would have been nice to have had the wine served with it, and not to have had to wait for a small bread roll until I had almost expired with hunger....though I must admit that it was freshly baked and delicious.
A starter of fish soup was adequate but served lukewarm and the pitiful portion of rouille and cheese - shared between two as well - was a disappointment.
The piece of beef I had chosen as a main course was perfectly cooked (by which I mean it was 'a point' French-style, i.e., medium rare to a Brit). It was tender, flavoursome, everything a piece of beef should be...but it cried out for a more suitable friend on the plate that a large and rather stodgy disc of mashed potato. (In fact, closer scrutiny of them menu revealed several other mains served "Parmentier" i.e., with some mashed spud. Easy on the kitchen, not great on the plate.) There were no other vegetables, and indeed one begins to believe that the mounds of fresh produce piled high in the markets every day are being somehow transformed into something quite different to food....models of Tracy Island perhaps, or the Palace of Versailles made entirely out of root veg.? Has no-one told them about five portions a day? Anyone eating out on a regular basis in France would be lucky to manage five portions in a fortnight.
Come back, haricots verts, all is forgiven. At one point you were ubiquitous, now you are conspicuous by your absence.
I should have mentioned earlier that the staff at the St George speak no English but that the menu is in French with English translations. So when I had ordered the Fondant au Chocolat I had glanced at the translation, as a fondant in France used to be something quite different from the hot pudding which is now almost a cliche in England. (Though the first time I ever ate one, was at the now-defunct and much-mourned Auberge du Pont au Bray, and extremely good it was too.)
I was reassured to see the English words "molten chocolate cake" and ordered it accordingly. I was also heartened by the insistence of the staff that we ordered our desserts at the start of the meal, as a hot chocolate fondant is obviously cooked to order. When it arrived, however, it was the disappointing but traditionally cold (as in icy cold, bring out the Sensodyne) slab of solid mousse. What a blow! And a swizz as well, so that I was at pains to point out to the staff that using words like "molten" of an extremely cold pud might led to heated arguments, or even worse.
They reacted with supercilious sneers - this was a fondant, Madame, no doubt about it, whatever drivel had been written en Anglais, not their responsibility at all.
Fuming, I ate it, feeling like bursting into tears.
The total bill, for two people, including two Kirs and a bottle of Beaujolias Villages, came to 107 euros. (Earlier in the week the ever-reliable Relais de la Poste at St Hilaire du Harcouet has produced another exceptional lunch with a plat du jour of succulent roast smoked pork, as part of the set three-course meal for 14 euros.)
Verdict: value for money - 3/10 service - 2/10 quality of food - 4/10 (for the beef)
Ferryports are one of the most depressing places in the world. Before the Pope had second thoughts about limbo, and declared that his predecessor had been wrong to assume its existence, I was convinced that the Afterlife's eternal waiting room was like nothing so much as a cross-channel ferryport. Hours of waiting on plastic chairs inside a comfortless and barren hanger of a building, or squirming on the car seat in the dark as everyone else's line of cars moves and yours stays put - that's being in limbo, without a doubt.
So everyone who is consigned to this not-quite purgatorial experience on a regular basis searches for a crumb or two of comfort, by way of some gastronomic compensation. After trying all of the sad and pallid excuses for restaurants clustered round the main car park just before the Brittany Ferries terminal, Pollyanna ventured slightly further into Riva Bella-land and tried the St George.
The night was cold, rainy and Riva Bella itself - the little resort that seems to be invisible to Brits but well-patronised by the French - shuts early. So well before the 7.15 p.m. restaurant opening time, we were huddled in the hotel's tiny bar, squinting at French fashion magazines in the semi-darkness and listening to the screeching of the St George aviary. Roast parrokeet anyone? Yes, please, served 'a point' and silent if possible. A white powder puff was hurtling across the floor and occasionally yapping at the birds, clearly of the mind that saignant or even bleu would do, if only for a bit of peace and quiet.
A member of staff in some form of fancy dress commented gaily - in French - that it was "Noah's Ark in here". Which reminded me of the episode of Fawlty Towers where the hamster beloved by the kitchen staff turns out to be a large and well-fed rat....
Finally allowed into the restaurant, I discover it to be quite empty and utterly silent. An amuse bouche of slivers of what appeared to be gravadlax was delicious, though it would have been nice to have had the wine served with it, and not to have had to wait for a small bread roll until I had almost expired with hunger....though I must admit that it was freshly baked and delicious.
A starter of fish soup was adequate but served lukewarm and the pitiful portion of rouille and cheese - shared between two as well - was a disappointment.
The piece of beef I had chosen as a main course was perfectly cooked (by which I mean it was 'a point' French-style, i.e., medium rare to a Brit). It was tender, flavoursome, everything a piece of beef should be...but it cried out for a more suitable friend on the plate that a large and rather stodgy disc of mashed potato. (In fact, closer scrutiny of them menu revealed several other mains served "Parmentier" i.e., with some mashed spud. Easy on the kitchen, not great on the plate.) There were no other vegetables, and indeed one begins to believe that the mounds of fresh produce piled high in the markets every day are being somehow transformed into something quite different to food....models of Tracy Island perhaps, or the Palace of Versailles made entirely out of root veg.? Has no-one told them about five portions a day? Anyone eating out on a regular basis in France would be lucky to manage five portions in a fortnight.
Come back, haricots verts, all is forgiven. At one point you were ubiquitous, now you are conspicuous by your absence.
I should have mentioned earlier that the staff at the St George speak no English but that the menu is in French with English translations. So when I had ordered the Fondant au Chocolat I had glanced at the translation, as a fondant in France used to be something quite different from the hot pudding which is now almost a cliche in England. (Though the first time I ever ate one, was at the now-defunct and much-mourned Auberge du Pont au Bray, and extremely good it was too.)
I was reassured to see the English words "molten chocolate cake" and ordered it accordingly. I was also heartened by the insistence of the staff that we ordered our desserts at the start of the meal, as a hot chocolate fondant is obviously cooked to order. When it arrived, however, it was the disappointing but traditionally cold (as in icy cold, bring out the Sensodyne) slab of solid mousse. What a blow! And a swizz as well, so that I was at pains to point out to the staff that using words like "molten" of an extremely cold pud might led to heated arguments, or even worse.
They reacted with supercilious sneers - this was a fondant, Madame, no doubt about it, whatever drivel had been written en Anglais, not their responsibility at all.
Fuming, I ate it, feeling like bursting into tears.
The total bill, for two people, including two Kirs and a bottle of Beaujolias Villages, came to 107 euros. (Earlier in the week the ever-reliable Relais de la Poste at St Hilaire du Harcouet has produced another exceptional lunch with a plat du jour of succulent roast smoked pork, as part of the set three-course meal for 14 euros.)
Verdict: value for money - 3/10 service - 2/10 quality of food - 4/10 (for the beef)
Monday, September 21, 2009
Put that in your snap tin? No thanks!
September 2009
The George and Dragon, Wentworth, South Yorkshire
This is a smashing little pub in an historic estate village (the estate in question belonging to the Wentworth family) but unfortunately whoever is responsible for the catering has decided to embrace the kind of pretentiousness that makes Polyanna's blood boil (and perfectly illustrates that fine word butter no parsnips). I make no attempt to reproduce the descriptions of the food (written up on blackboards above the bar) but if I say that someone had clearly decided to have a go at South Yorkshire 'fusion' it may give some indication of what was to come.
I had lunch here with a couple of friends, one of whom happened to be out celebrating his 90th birthday. Not having an enormous appetite, he passed on the starters but I decided I could manage a bowl of vegetable soup and his son could not resist the lure of wild mushrooms in a creamy sauce on toasted brioche. The soup came with some kind of dark brown slobber running in zigzags across the top, and was thick enough to use as wallpaper paste. Which it largely resembled. Or rather, wallpaper paste with salt in it. If I had been a vegetarian I would have worried about the dark brown stuff as well, but as it was, I just worried that I would have to eat some of the enormous bowlful, if only to show willing.
The wild mushrooms were said to be excellent. As we had waited over half an hour for them and the soup, I was glad, but Birthday Boy was ready to eat a scabby donkey by this time. When the mains finally came (and only after I pursued the waitress to ask where they were), we had been waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes and Son of Birthday Boy was driving and could not have another pint. Which was a problem as he had ordered pork medallions on Thai potato salad (no, seriously) with a sweet chilli sauce. And the chilli sauce was hot. Even the dragon would have thought it was hot. It was light-blue-touchpaper-and-retire hot. Which would have been nice to know for those who are of faint heart when it comes to chilli. What the potato salad idea was all about was a mystery, especially as the spuds in question were also hot (by which I mean not cold, as in 'salad').
BB had gammon and egg, which arrived with the egg sitting on top of "pea puree" which in turn completely covered the (gristly) piece of gammon. We had seen this on the menu and thought it was a joke, but someone in the kitchen must have had a warped sense of humour. There was a bowl of chips that would have fed St George for a week, even after a particularly hard stint of slaying.
My beer-battered fish was so ordinary that it made me wish I had opted for one of the other jokes on the blackboards, just to have a laugh, but by now we were all desperate to get home before Son of BB spontaneously combusted. We could not have ordered a pudding in any case, as we had not brought our pyjamas.
I wanted to go into the kitchen and say, "Look here, this is a pub. A pub, right? So whose idea is it to serve up fourth-rate restaurant food of the weirdest kind, and muck up pub standards like gammon and egg? Not to mention make the punters wait this length of time for it." But anyone who could devise that menu and put posh mushy peas under a fried egg has got to be too bonkers to approach, especially as there would have been sharp implements about.
The bill came to over fifty quid, with three glasses of wine, and two pints of beer.
Verdict: value for money - 3/10 service - 0/10 quality of food - 2/10 (for the mushrooms)
The George and Dragon, Wentworth, South Yorkshire
This is a smashing little pub in an historic estate village (the estate in question belonging to the Wentworth family) but unfortunately whoever is responsible for the catering has decided to embrace the kind of pretentiousness that makes Polyanna's blood boil (and perfectly illustrates that fine word butter no parsnips). I make no attempt to reproduce the descriptions of the food (written up on blackboards above the bar) but if I say that someone had clearly decided to have a go at South Yorkshire 'fusion' it may give some indication of what was to come.
I had lunch here with a couple of friends, one of whom happened to be out celebrating his 90th birthday. Not having an enormous appetite, he passed on the starters but I decided I could manage a bowl of vegetable soup and his son could not resist the lure of wild mushrooms in a creamy sauce on toasted brioche. The soup came with some kind of dark brown slobber running in zigzags across the top, and was thick enough to use as wallpaper paste. Which it largely resembled. Or rather, wallpaper paste with salt in it. If I had been a vegetarian I would have worried about the dark brown stuff as well, but as it was, I just worried that I would have to eat some of the enormous bowlful, if only to show willing.
The wild mushrooms were said to be excellent. As we had waited over half an hour for them and the soup, I was glad, but Birthday Boy was ready to eat a scabby donkey by this time. When the mains finally came (and only after I pursued the waitress to ask where they were), we had been waiting for an hour and fifteen minutes and Son of Birthday Boy was driving and could not have another pint. Which was a problem as he had ordered pork medallions on Thai potato salad (no, seriously) with a sweet chilli sauce. And the chilli sauce was hot. Even the dragon would have thought it was hot. It was light-blue-touchpaper-and-retire hot. Which would have been nice to know for those who are of faint heart when it comes to chilli. What the potato salad idea was all about was a mystery, especially as the spuds in question were also hot (by which I mean not cold, as in 'salad').
BB had gammon and egg, which arrived with the egg sitting on top of "pea puree" which in turn completely covered the (gristly) piece of gammon. We had seen this on the menu and thought it was a joke, but someone in the kitchen must have had a warped sense of humour. There was a bowl of chips that would have fed St George for a week, even after a particularly hard stint of slaying.
My beer-battered fish was so ordinary that it made me wish I had opted for one of the other jokes on the blackboards, just to have a laugh, but by now we were all desperate to get home before Son of BB spontaneously combusted. We could not have ordered a pudding in any case, as we had not brought our pyjamas.
I wanted to go into the kitchen and say, "Look here, this is a pub. A pub, right? So whose idea is it to serve up fourth-rate restaurant food of the weirdest kind, and muck up pub standards like gammon and egg? Not to mention make the punters wait this length of time for it." But anyone who could devise that menu and put posh mushy peas under a fried egg has got to be too bonkers to approach, especially as there would have been sharp implements about.
The bill came to over fifty quid, with three glasses of wine, and two pints of beer.
Verdict: value for money - 3/10 service - 0/10 quality of food - 2/10 (for the mushrooms)
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Catching up time....
August 2009
A miscellany
It's been a long time since I had time to think about eating - or rather, write about it. Moving house is not only stressful but it's time-consuming and leaves no room for anything else. The dust still hasn't settled: I have one slipper, the pyjamas are in a box I haven't unpacked yet and most of my cookery books are yet to be located. The plumbers have left, and I now have hot water, but they will be back in a week (and then I will have no loo!). The electrician will be in residence after that. So in the meantime, I will do a quick roundup of meals eaten - usually in haste - over recent months.
The southernmost reaches of God's Own Country provided a couple of surprises. The George and Dragon, in Mexborough of all places, is a lovely homely pub with a friendly landlord, charming bar staff, good beer and a very acceptable pub food menu with real chips, proper shortcrust pastry pies (and a gravyboat) and a steak that is worth eating. Five minutes up the road in the oddly-spelt Cinamon restaurant in Swinton I ate a surprisingly good Lamb Haandi, which was tender, well-spiced and succulent. The Royal Electric Theatre (a former cinema unpromisingly grim from the outside but light, airy and modern within) offered the golden oldies of the Chinese restaurant world - crispy duck, beef with ginger and spring onions and honey roast pork - cooked and served competently.
Further North, the Black Horse at Asquith also offered proper chips. But their steak and kidney pie was almost inedible, with dry, tough, gristly meat, in gravy so salty that I could feel my blood pressure spiralling upwards with every mouthful. Waiting 35 minutes for a puff-pastry topping on a pre-cooked pie filling was not acceptable either. The sad little side dish of tasteless vegetables had clearly been reheated, and there was not a single spud. The excellent chips, strangely, came with the sandwich ordered by my mother-in-law (who kindly donated them to me). The waitress who served us was clearly trained in the Genghis Khan School of Charm. Definitely one to drive past in future, which is a pity as the views are spectacular and in days past it was a hostelry worth making a detour for.
After years of rural living, the idea of having a restaurant on the doors is a novelty. Brio's at Hornbeam Park, on the outskirts of Harrogate, was a Godsend after a stressful stint of unpacking boxes the day after the move. I had an excellent pizza (with my favourite toppings of ham and artichoke obligingly supplied), some good house wine and swift, friendly service. But how much pleasanter it would have been without the horrible brats at the next table! The father and doting grandparents of these spoilt little horrors allowed them to run amok noisily, climb on the comfy seats in a side area with their dirty feet, and throw food onto the floor, entirely unrebuked. In fact, the whole party simply ignored the hideous children as though they were not their responsibility.
After they had left, the poor waiter had to move the table and chairs to clear up the mess, using a dustpan and brush, and then clean the floor as well. When I commented, he said that they were regular customers who behaved like that on every visit. Come on, restaurant managers, put your collective feet down and refuse to put up with this! Customers like me are going to stop going to restaurants when other people's children make eating out a misery.
Further south, an evening flight meant a late arrival at the Premier Inn in Southampton in the pouring rain. With no desire to get wet feet again (and wearing my only pair of dry socks), I broke the habit of a lifetime and ate in the hotel restaurant. The very helpful waitress assured me that the dauphinois potatoes had been made that very day. Who could resist? (The alternative was boiled new potatoes, presumably cooked by Sir Walter Raleigh, and chips frozen at the last ice age.) Indeed, the dauphinois quite possibly had been made within the past 24 hours, but unfortunately with freshly-prepared wallpaper paste. After possibly the worst steak I have ever attempted to eat, I left a plate that looked as though it had received the loaves and fishes treatment - i.e., there was more left on it than when I started.
Breakfast was a more pleasant experience, which was fortunate as I was so hungry that - as one of my cousins used to say - I could have eaten a scabby donkey. Probably the one I pushed round my plate the night before. The croissants were fresh, crisp and I managed three, though I mourned the lack of anything resembling real jam.
That night it poured with rain again and after plodding round Southampton in search of anything more appealing than a kebab shop, a helpful passer-by told me that something resembling a restaurant quarter could be found on Oxford Street, and gave me directions. And so it proved, as the street concerned was almost continental in its dedication to food. After much indecision, I ate at Oxfords - which seemed to be buzzing with happy diners and had a jolly, bistro-type atmosphere.
As usual, when the starter arrived I felt that an invisible short straw had somehow been shoved into my soggy little hand. Surely anyone can produce a decent bruschetta which after all, is little more than tomatoes on toast? These tomatoes were lava-hot and soggy, with that total absence of flavour that only the British seem to be able to achieve. The belly pork that followed was reasonable enough, being tender and moist, with a genuinely crispy layer of cracking on top. But what idiot decided that it should be served on a mound of potatoes and cabbage, with not a drop of gravy or any other kind of lubrication to help it down? The glass of wine I had ordered had to be re-ordered, twice. It only arrived finally after I had almost brought the waitress down with a flying tackle as she passed my table, en route to flirting with the party of blokes at the next one.
The next morning, I looked forward to breakfast only to find that the croissants were dry, hard and were obviously left over from the day before.
Sometimes it's hard to be Pollyanna.
A miscellany
It's been a long time since I had time to think about eating - or rather, write about it. Moving house is not only stressful but it's time-consuming and leaves no room for anything else. The dust still hasn't settled: I have one slipper, the pyjamas are in a box I haven't unpacked yet and most of my cookery books are yet to be located. The plumbers have left, and I now have hot water, but they will be back in a week (and then I will have no loo!). The electrician will be in residence after that. So in the meantime, I will do a quick roundup of meals eaten - usually in haste - over recent months.
The southernmost reaches of God's Own Country provided a couple of surprises. The George and Dragon, in Mexborough of all places, is a lovely homely pub with a friendly landlord, charming bar staff, good beer and a very acceptable pub food menu with real chips, proper shortcrust pastry pies (and a gravyboat) and a steak that is worth eating. Five minutes up the road in the oddly-spelt Cinamon restaurant in Swinton I ate a surprisingly good Lamb Haandi, which was tender, well-spiced and succulent. The Royal Electric Theatre (a former cinema unpromisingly grim from the outside but light, airy and modern within) offered the golden oldies of the Chinese restaurant world - crispy duck, beef with ginger and spring onions and honey roast pork - cooked and served competently.
Further North, the Black Horse at Asquith also offered proper chips. But their steak and kidney pie was almost inedible, with dry, tough, gristly meat, in gravy so salty that I could feel my blood pressure spiralling upwards with every mouthful. Waiting 35 minutes for a puff-pastry topping on a pre-cooked pie filling was not acceptable either. The sad little side dish of tasteless vegetables had clearly been reheated, and there was not a single spud. The excellent chips, strangely, came with the sandwich ordered by my mother-in-law (who kindly donated them to me). The waitress who served us was clearly trained in the Genghis Khan School of Charm. Definitely one to drive past in future, which is a pity as the views are spectacular and in days past it was a hostelry worth making a detour for.
After years of rural living, the idea of having a restaurant on the doors is a novelty. Brio's at Hornbeam Park, on the outskirts of Harrogate, was a Godsend after a stressful stint of unpacking boxes the day after the move. I had an excellent pizza (with my favourite toppings of ham and artichoke obligingly supplied), some good house wine and swift, friendly service. But how much pleasanter it would have been without the horrible brats at the next table! The father and doting grandparents of these spoilt little horrors allowed them to run amok noisily, climb on the comfy seats in a side area with their dirty feet, and throw food onto the floor, entirely unrebuked. In fact, the whole party simply ignored the hideous children as though they were not their responsibility.
After they had left, the poor waiter had to move the table and chairs to clear up the mess, using a dustpan and brush, and then clean the floor as well. When I commented, he said that they were regular customers who behaved like that on every visit. Come on, restaurant managers, put your collective feet down and refuse to put up with this! Customers like me are going to stop going to restaurants when other people's children make eating out a misery.
Further south, an evening flight meant a late arrival at the Premier Inn in Southampton in the pouring rain. With no desire to get wet feet again (and wearing my only pair of dry socks), I broke the habit of a lifetime and ate in the hotel restaurant. The very helpful waitress assured me that the dauphinois potatoes had been made that very day. Who could resist? (The alternative was boiled new potatoes, presumably cooked by Sir Walter Raleigh, and chips frozen at the last ice age.) Indeed, the dauphinois quite possibly had been made within the past 24 hours, but unfortunately with freshly-prepared wallpaper paste. After possibly the worst steak I have ever attempted to eat, I left a plate that looked as though it had received the loaves and fishes treatment - i.e., there was more left on it than when I started.
Breakfast was a more pleasant experience, which was fortunate as I was so hungry that - as one of my cousins used to say - I could have eaten a scabby donkey. Probably the one I pushed round my plate the night before. The croissants were fresh, crisp and I managed three, though I mourned the lack of anything resembling real jam.
That night it poured with rain again and after plodding round Southampton in search of anything more appealing than a kebab shop, a helpful passer-by told me that something resembling a restaurant quarter could be found on Oxford Street, and gave me directions. And so it proved, as the street concerned was almost continental in its dedication to food. After much indecision, I ate at Oxfords - which seemed to be buzzing with happy diners and had a jolly, bistro-type atmosphere.
As usual, when the starter arrived I felt that an invisible short straw had somehow been shoved into my soggy little hand. Surely anyone can produce a decent bruschetta which after all, is little more than tomatoes on toast? These tomatoes were lava-hot and soggy, with that total absence of flavour that only the British seem to be able to achieve. The belly pork that followed was reasonable enough, being tender and moist, with a genuinely crispy layer of cracking on top. But what idiot decided that it should be served on a mound of potatoes and cabbage, with not a drop of gravy or any other kind of lubrication to help it down? The glass of wine I had ordered had to be re-ordered, twice. It only arrived finally after I had almost brought the waitress down with a flying tackle as she passed my table, en route to flirting with the party of blokes at the next one.
The next morning, I looked forward to breakfast only to find that the croissants were dry, hard and were obviously left over from the day before.
Sometimes it's hard to be Pollyanna.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Mayfair madness
Corrigan's, Mayfair - a wet Wednesday night in January
I have to confess that I lurked outside the door of Corrigan's for several minutes feeling like a fourth-former waiting outside the head's office for a bollocking. Perhaps it was the carpet on the steps leading up to the restaurant (does someone actually hoover it?), or maybe it was just that the place looked generally too posh and intimidating for a nondescript female of slender means (but not personage).
I took courage from the fact that the night was young (just after 6.30 pm to be precise) and the place deserted, and that in the midst of a credit crunch, surely a few bob would be welcome even from the likes of Wurzel Gummidge. So I sidled in as unobtrusively as possible and requested "a table for one". (I always attempt to utter these words in a tone of ringing confidence, but they invariably seem to emerge in a craven whisper that suggests I am terribly sorry to put them out, and do feel free to sit me down next to the gents' toilet, and prop the door open with the bog brush whilst they are at it.)
The impossibly glamorous blonde girl with the pen and the Bob Cratchit ledger studied the latter gravely and then told me that as long as I was out by nine I could be accommodated. I sneaked a look round the cavernous interior, as yet entirely deserted, and assured her that by 9 p.m. I would be tucked up in bed watching the telly. She tried not to laugh and handed me over to another sublimely soigné individual, who seated me at a perfectly nice table nowhere near a toilet, but next to a lamp with ostrich legs and feathers but no head. I wondered if ostrich featured on the menu.
Numerous waiters wandered round looking supremely efficient and starched to the eyeballs. You only had to glance at the entire staff to know, with certainly, that there was not a single of flake of dandruff between the lot of them. A lovely young French lad made an appearance, all smiles, and I felt I would have been quite happy to adopt him or failing that, coat him in thyme and breadcrumbs and serve him pink.
Just as I began to think I had been transported to Stepford, a few reassuring little cracks appeared. Human beings did work here after all! I had ordered fish soup, and it arrived followed by a plate of undistinguished amuse bouches. When my bouche was already giddy with enjoyment. And when I had almost finished, bread, with some creamy, luscious unsalted butter. Heavenly bread, which was said to be soda bread by one of the Stepford brigade, but was totally unlike the putty-coloured doorstop dished up by my Aunt Julia in County Mayo. This was dark brown and speckled, moist, moreish and possibly more addictive than the stuff people pay good money to shove up their noses. But it should have come earlier. Much earlier.
The fish soup itself was quite simply the best I have ever had, better than the many bowlsful I have polished off in St Malo, Cancale, and various parts of the Brittany coast. It came in a plain white bowl, a rusty-coloured pool of fishy intensity with a depth of crustacean flavours, a crabby, shellfishy concoction to make one give thanks for living on an island. Every spoonful sang in the mouth. With it there was a bowl of garlic mayonnaise and a couple of perfectly golden, crisp slices of toasted French bread (three would have been better). I tried to make it last, I resisted the urge to lift the whole bowl up to mouth level and slurp it down, and I even managed to swallow the shrieks of delight that threatened to emerge after each spoonful. But I failed to curb the idiot grin that spread across my face, a grin that I was completely unaware of until the couple at the next table started to look at me nervously and mutter. In fact, if the Stepfords had carried in George Clooney reclining on a silver salver and clad only in a strategically-placed crouton, I am afraid I would have reached for the crouton and slathered on the last spoonful of mayonnaise.
At this point the man himself (Corrigan, not Clooney) emerged from the kitchen and sat down with a group of people at the table across the room, a picture of bonhomie. Here was the creator of this paragon of soups, a soup I would gladly eat every day of my life and never tire of. I briefly contemplated making an offer of marriage, discounted it immediately and then weighed up the possibility of kidnapping. With a smaller, lighter chef it might have been an option but this man clearly enjoyed his food - as who would not?
The smiling French lad appeared and enquired if everything was all right. I told him that should I ever be on Death Row, this would be my last order the night before the needle. He looked mystified, as well he might, not being aware that plans had almost been afoot to incarcerate his boss and force him to produce fish soup for all eternity to satisfy the appetites of a crazed Polyanna.
With reluctance I turned to my game suet pudding. Not because it was a disappointment but because the fish soup was now but a memory. The pudding was actually a thing of beauty in its own right, but compared with the soup it was like following Jane Austen with Bridget Jones. It was light, and the thin but plump little mound of suet pastry - full of tender morsels of game - sat in a bowl of rich brown gravy. Very nice. The buttered kale was fine. But the urge to sandbag the chef and drag him back to a hidden lair equipped with a fully-fitted kitchen (and an endless supply of conical sieves) was fading. And a good job too. If I had been able to afford the partridge, it might have been next stop Holloway.
I passed on the desserts, fearing not just the calorie content but the possibility of a life of crime.
I drank a glass of Chablis with the soup and one of Minervois with the game pudding.
The bill came to fifty quid, which seemed quite a lot (but then I am a Yorkshirewoman).
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 7/10 (marked down for the bizarre mix-up over the amuse bouches and the bread) quality of food - 9/10 overall (15/10 for the soup or up there with the angels)
Le Boudin Blanc, Shepherd Market - the following night
Busy, buzzing and much less formal than Corrigan's, this place was full to bursting by 7 pm on the Thursday night I ate there. They managed to squeeze me in and I ordered, guess what, fish soup, more to simply reassure myself that the sublime concoction of the previous night really had been that good.
This time the bread arrived smartly, and the soup followed without much of a delay. With it was some not very gutsy rouille, some rather bland gruyere and some croutons, and it was all perfectly OK. The soup was fine, exactly the same standard as I last had in Granville in a restaurant overlooking the harbour. But it did not make me want to jump on the table and do a song and dance routine.
The confit of duck with a chorizo cassoulet was also pretty good, the skin crispy, the duck meltingly tender. There was possibly a little too much of the cassoulet and the beans could have done with an extra half an hour of cooking, but overall it was a toothsome plateful. With a side order of spinach, and a couple of glasses of wine, I ended up with a bill of forty quid, which is probably good value for Mayfair. And the place itself was jolly, with bags of atmosphere and a buzz.
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 9/10 quality of food - 8/10
I have to confess that I lurked outside the door of Corrigan's for several minutes feeling like a fourth-former waiting outside the head's office for a bollocking. Perhaps it was the carpet on the steps leading up to the restaurant (does someone actually hoover it?), or maybe it was just that the place looked generally too posh and intimidating for a nondescript female of slender means (but not personage).
I took courage from the fact that the night was young (just after 6.30 pm to be precise) and the place deserted, and that in the midst of a credit crunch, surely a few bob would be welcome even from the likes of Wurzel Gummidge. So I sidled in as unobtrusively as possible and requested "a table for one". (I always attempt to utter these words in a tone of ringing confidence, but they invariably seem to emerge in a craven whisper that suggests I am terribly sorry to put them out, and do feel free to sit me down next to the gents' toilet, and prop the door open with the bog brush whilst they are at it.)
The impossibly glamorous blonde girl with the pen and the Bob Cratchit ledger studied the latter gravely and then told me that as long as I was out by nine I could be accommodated. I sneaked a look round the cavernous interior, as yet entirely deserted, and assured her that by 9 p.m. I would be tucked up in bed watching the telly. She tried not to laugh and handed me over to another sublimely soigné individual, who seated me at a perfectly nice table nowhere near a toilet, but next to a lamp with ostrich legs and feathers but no head. I wondered if ostrich featured on the menu.
Numerous waiters wandered round looking supremely efficient and starched to the eyeballs. You only had to glance at the entire staff to know, with certainly, that there was not a single of flake of dandruff between the lot of them. A lovely young French lad made an appearance, all smiles, and I felt I would have been quite happy to adopt him or failing that, coat him in thyme and breadcrumbs and serve him pink.
Just as I began to think I had been transported to Stepford, a few reassuring little cracks appeared. Human beings did work here after all! I had ordered fish soup, and it arrived followed by a plate of undistinguished amuse bouches. When my bouche was already giddy with enjoyment. And when I had almost finished, bread, with some creamy, luscious unsalted butter. Heavenly bread, which was said to be soda bread by one of the Stepford brigade, but was totally unlike the putty-coloured doorstop dished up by my Aunt Julia in County Mayo. This was dark brown and speckled, moist, moreish and possibly more addictive than the stuff people pay good money to shove up their noses. But it should have come earlier. Much earlier.
The fish soup itself was quite simply the best I have ever had, better than the many bowlsful I have polished off in St Malo, Cancale, and various parts of the Brittany coast. It came in a plain white bowl, a rusty-coloured pool of fishy intensity with a depth of crustacean flavours, a crabby, shellfishy concoction to make one give thanks for living on an island. Every spoonful sang in the mouth. With it there was a bowl of garlic mayonnaise and a couple of perfectly golden, crisp slices of toasted French bread (three would have been better). I tried to make it last, I resisted the urge to lift the whole bowl up to mouth level and slurp it down, and I even managed to swallow the shrieks of delight that threatened to emerge after each spoonful. But I failed to curb the idiot grin that spread across my face, a grin that I was completely unaware of until the couple at the next table started to look at me nervously and mutter. In fact, if the Stepfords had carried in George Clooney reclining on a silver salver and clad only in a strategically-placed crouton, I am afraid I would have reached for the crouton and slathered on the last spoonful of mayonnaise.
At this point the man himself (Corrigan, not Clooney) emerged from the kitchen and sat down with a group of people at the table across the room, a picture of bonhomie. Here was the creator of this paragon of soups, a soup I would gladly eat every day of my life and never tire of. I briefly contemplated making an offer of marriage, discounted it immediately and then weighed up the possibility of kidnapping. With a smaller, lighter chef it might have been an option but this man clearly enjoyed his food - as who would not?
The smiling French lad appeared and enquired if everything was all right. I told him that should I ever be on Death Row, this would be my last order the night before the needle. He looked mystified, as well he might, not being aware that plans had almost been afoot to incarcerate his boss and force him to produce fish soup for all eternity to satisfy the appetites of a crazed Polyanna.
With reluctance I turned to my game suet pudding. Not because it was a disappointment but because the fish soup was now but a memory. The pudding was actually a thing of beauty in its own right, but compared with the soup it was like following Jane Austen with Bridget Jones. It was light, and the thin but plump little mound of suet pastry - full of tender morsels of game - sat in a bowl of rich brown gravy. Very nice. The buttered kale was fine. But the urge to sandbag the chef and drag him back to a hidden lair equipped with a fully-fitted kitchen (and an endless supply of conical sieves) was fading. And a good job too. If I had been able to afford the partridge, it might have been next stop Holloway.
I passed on the desserts, fearing not just the calorie content but the possibility of a life of crime.
I drank a glass of Chablis with the soup and one of Minervois with the game pudding.
The bill came to fifty quid, which seemed quite a lot (but then I am a Yorkshirewoman).
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 7/10 (marked down for the bizarre mix-up over the amuse bouches and the bread) quality of food - 9/10 overall (15/10 for the soup or up there with the angels)
Le Boudin Blanc, Shepherd Market - the following night
Busy, buzzing and much less formal than Corrigan's, this place was full to bursting by 7 pm on the Thursday night I ate there. They managed to squeeze me in and I ordered, guess what, fish soup, more to simply reassure myself that the sublime concoction of the previous night really had been that good.
This time the bread arrived smartly, and the soup followed without much of a delay. With it was some not very gutsy rouille, some rather bland gruyere and some croutons, and it was all perfectly OK. The soup was fine, exactly the same standard as I last had in Granville in a restaurant overlooking the harbour. But it did not make me want to jump on the table and do a song and dance routine.
The confit of duck with a chorizo cassoulet was also pretty good, the skin crispy, the duck meltingly tender. There was possibly a little too much of the cassoulet and the beans could have done with an extra half an hour of cooking, but overall it was a toothsome plateful. With a side order of spinach, and a couple of glasses of wine, I ended up with a bill of forty quid, which is probably good value for Mayfair. And the place itself was jolly, with bags of atmosphere and a buzz.
Verdict: value for money - 8/10 service - 9/10 quality of food - 8/10
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