Address: 26 The Forbury, Reading Rg1 3EJ

Telephone: 0118 527 770

Website: http://www.theforburyhotel.co.uk/

Date of visit: 1 February 2012

Costs: Set lunch £15 for 2 courses, £15 for 3 courses. A la carte: around £30 for 2 courses

Wines and beer: Longish wine list but most wines (except champagne) between £30-£60. Nothing stands out as good or bad value.

Likes and dislikes: Very modern restaurant under Reading’s most expensive hotel.

Cuisine: Modern European

Summary:

Cerise is the house restaurant of The Forbury Hotel.

The building was once a  court house. It is a majestic building unlike the current court house sited on top of Marks and Spencer in Friar Street.

The inside has been thoroughly modernised – about 10 years ago – with the reception and a foyer dotted with settees upon entry. The rest of the ground floor has been turned into meeting rooms. Parking (garage) is via the back of the hotel.

I was meeting my ex-colleagues for lunch.

Cerise – housed in the basement – offered a value for money set lunch. This was surprising as  the rooms –which did not have air con – starts at around £200 per night .

The set lunch offered several choices. I had crab cake followed by vegetable risotto. Both were nicely presented as well as decent size portioned. The crab cake was golf ball size, nesting on a bed of celeriac with a few streaks of green sauces on the edge of the plate. The cake was full of crab and not potato – top marks.

The risotto was bits of green vegetable with rice cooked just right. It wasn’t all that flavoursome – this suggested that the stock was a bit light. Maybe it is because it was because the stock was vegetable and not meat! A few mushrooms would have added more umami to the taste.

The others had the pavie of fish. This was a nice tower of shell and white fish at the end of an oblong plate with streaks of green and orange sauce across the rest of the plate. I assume that it was all right because the food was all devoured.

The tables were well spaced apart and there were also a lot of self contained areas. This is definitely a good place for a business lunch – reasonable food and prices, discrete sitting and little noise. As some of my ex-colleagues were still working, we didn’t have wine. I had a look at the list – nearly all grape type generic wines at around £30-£60 a bottle.

An interesting fact is that the waitresses all wore synchronised nail vanish – it was a black streak across the front with glitter on it. Well ………….

E

Location: 43-45 Oxford Rd, Reading, RG17QG

Web site: http://www.chinapalacereading.com/

Telephone number: 0118 959 6683

Previous report:  27 October 2011

New visit: 31 January 2012

Approx. cost per head: £15 plus

Cuisine: Chinese – Cantonese

Likes and dislikes: Probably one of the the best authentic Cantonese restaurant in the UK if you stick to the dim sum and main a la carte menu. Avoid the all you can eat and set meals.

Beers and wines: £3.20 for Tiger and Tsing Tao. Mediocre wine list.

Cuisine: mainly cantonese chinese food.

Summary:

China Palace always has special dishes on offer for the Chinese New Year and the subsequent weeks.

I thought that I should try it.

In fact special 2 menus are on offer – all written in Chinese. You need to ask for it if you are non Chinese and get it translated. The “New Year” menu has a dozen dishes all in good luck and rhyming words. For example eight in Chinese has a very close sound to “make” as in “fat” (make/eight) choi (money). One of the dishes on the menu was East West in harmony which in fact is Tong Pao meat. This is Chairman Mao’s favourite dish. It is belly of pork marinated in a sugar and soy mixture then steamed over a long time until the meat nearly falls apart. This was priced at £16.50. In fact all the dishes on this menu are around £20. It was excellent.  You get four large pieces of pork with broccoli. It was worth risking a heart attack to eat this. The other dishes on this menu were various seafood and to my surprise, a few elaborate vegetables dishes.

I also ordered the sweet and sour fish fillets. Cantonese call this koo loo. This was from the other special menu. This was cooked more Chinese style than the a la carte version – less fruity, less sugar and vinegar. On this menu, you can get eels etc.

In total we ordered 3 dishes ((plus salt and pepper squid) and the usual dry fried ho fun. In total the bill came to nearly £65 – with only 2 tiger beers – for 2 people.

If you want to try these special dishes – very different from the usual crispy duck, chow mein etc, you will need to go soon. The menu is only on offer for a maximum of 4 weeks – depending on demand – in the evening.

E

PS Reading is now a pain to park. Meters everywhere. Its 8am to 8pm, 7 days a weeks. They have also taken away the single yellow lines. It all meters or double yellow lines

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Address: Inkpen Common, Inkpen, RG17 9QR

Telephone: 01488 668325

Website: http://www.crownandgarter.co.uk/

Date of visit: 26 January 2012

Costs:  Set lunch: £19.95 for 2 courses, £13.95 for 3 courses. Most a la carte dishes between £10-£15  and you get free bread with both butter and an oil and vinegar dip.

Wines and beer: Amazing wine list. Most expensive wine is under £20. The house champagne is £21. West Berkshire Brewery and Doombar.  Guest beer from £3 a pint.

Likes and dislikes: Clean tables, cheap and decent food. Pity about the location – miles from anywhere unless you live locally.

Cuisine: Traditional pub food.

Summary:

I have been trying to eat here for a while. Unfortunately, it is firstly a longish drive and secondly, they are closed on a Monday and Tuesday lunch.

The Crown and Garter is listed in Sawdays’, The Good Pub Guide (Which) and AA’s pub guide. Although Inkpen is in the middle of a really rural location, the roads from A4 and Hungerford are good.

The inside of the pub is modern – more like a farmhouse  – with a pub side and a restaurant.

The a la menu is short – fish cakes, trio of game, grazing boards, fish and chips etc. There is a set luch with 4 courses to choose from – several designed for vegetarians.

I went for the set lunch. To start with I had the pheasant sausage in a mushroom sauce. This came as a skinless sausage with a very loose texture, like an over boiled frankfurter. The mushrooms were a medley in a brown sauce. It was nice but the texture was too loose for me.

Next I had the smoke haddock. This came in an au gratin dish with three whirls of mash potatoes on the side – cooked in the au gratin dish. The haddock was cooked just right and it came in a cheese sauce with wilted spinach.  The Old Boy (£3.50) from West Berkshire Brewery was a decent pint.

As I was leaving, three toffee nose young solicitors turned up. You can tell by their uniform: blue denim jeans and a tweed jacket with an open neck shirt. What tells them apart is that they have a handkerchief in their top pocket. I first came across one of Mr Dewhurst’s sons dressed like this. (Please note that although Top Gear presenters dress like this, they do not have handkerchief in their top pocket. As soon as they start speaking, you can hear it : the plummy accent, the constant use of words like Yeah and Fantastic – by the way, superb which was heavily in use in the 80s is no longer fashionable. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not against them but I just found the dress code amusing. Another interesting fact is that they mainly drink halves and will have a large glass of wine with their meal but not a bottle.

For a food point of view, this is an extremely decent place for plain old fashion cooking.

E

Location: High Street, Milton, Cambridge , CB24 6DF

Web site: www.lion-lamb.co.uk (URL not in use)

Telephone number: 01223 860 202

Date of visit: 19/1/12

Approx. cost per head:

Comments on wine list/beer:

Media link:

Review:

It will never cease to amaze me why people who so clearly despise the human race go into the hospitality industry.
The lion & Lamb is locally infamous for having the rudest most hateful landlady in the county, if not the country.
My place of work have now vetoed this pub because any sane person does not work hard all week to spend their money somewhere in which you are made to feel you are nothing more than a terrible nuisance to miserable landlady.
If you visit the area  there are plenty more pubs close to this, even one opposite, and so I would suggest avoiding this one like the plague. What would you miss if you choose not to go here? Stodgy greasy food slapped down in front of you with a snarl & terrible wine – that’s all.
I have witnessed customers being spoken to & treated terribly on several occasions and have also had some of the same treatment myself. The customer in the Lion & Lamb is a fly to be swatted and nothing more.
Avoid this place!!!

R

Address:  1 Station Parade, Uxbridge Road, Ealing Common, London W5 3LD

Transport: Opposite Ealing Common Station. Parking near the shops gives you one hour – enough to eat your sushi – without the need to resort to paid parking outside the Ramada

Telephone: 020 88963175

Website: www.atariya.co.uk

Date of visit: 19 January 2012

Costs: You will get enough to eat for £20 or less.

Wines and beer:  Asahi, Kirin available at £3. Sake and wine available

Likes and dislikes: straight forward no frill sushi. Fresh fish with excellent rice.

Cuisine: Japanese (sushi and sashimi)

Summary:

This is a new restaurant that has taken over Sushi Haro’s premise just under a year ago. I think that the previous owners must have retired. Heston Blumenthal apparently was a fan of Sushi Haro so I can’t imagine that Sushi Haro went out of business.

The inside is nearly identical including the pictures and clock. The main difference being the chefs. Instead of the owner and his wife, there are now two sushi chefs and a waitress. Similar to Sushi Haro, they do nothing but different types of sushi and shashimi – no noodles or tempura here.

Sushi Bar Atari-Ya is a chain with restaurants in Swiss Cottage and Hendon – my Jewish and Muslim friends tell me that sushi is fit for both  kosher and halal diets as it fulfils all the requirements and there is no need to kill the fish in a special way. They also operate a take away in James Street.

Once you sit down, you will know that this is serious sushi with trained Japanese Chefs. There is a senior chef who will cut the fish and a sous chef who does the rolling for maki sushi.

You can get a set meal for around £20. I went for the piece by piece menu. Most are priced around £2-4. I had salmon (£2.20), yellow tail (£2.0), tuna (£1.80), flying fish roe (£2.20) and crab roll (£3.20). Ok, crab and roe is not kosher or hahal.

The fish here is good. The wasabi excellent and the rice just right – slightly vinegary with a hint of sweetness and of course, the rice is both sticky and can be separated into grains with a chewy bite. Excellent place!

E

Address: Knowl Hill (A4), Berkshire RG10 9UU

Telephone: 01628 823262

Website: www.theolddevil.com

Date of visit: 16 January 2012

Costs: Around £20 for 2 courses

Wines and beer: Windsor and Eaton, Rebellion (Marlow). £3.50 a pint

Likes and dislikes: Ultra large portions, very homely. Cooking is good but ingredients need to improve. Clean tables.

Cuisine: Traditional Pub cuisine

Summary:

I haven’t been to The Old Devil for a few years. A friend of mine told me that it is under new management and the food has improved. The menu is traditional Pub menu – mixed grill, shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, grilled sea bass, chicken madras etc..

Well the place certainly has had a makeover, it’s now all tables dotted leather settees. When I talked to the owners I realised that they have been here for nearly 5 years.

I started off with a prawn cocktail – haven’t had one for decades  then suddenly, it’s my second this year. It was came in something like an extra large rice bowl. The bottom was piled with iceberg lettuce. On top of this is probably half a packet of prawns with a very nice rose marie sauce. You also get a fancy cut strawberry and half a lemon also decoratively cut. There were enough for 2 normal size servings – compared with The Bull. At £6.95, it was a meal in itself.

I then had the sausages and mash (£9.95). This was another massive plate. You get three sausages, mash, peas and about half a litre of thick gravy. Again, this was enough for 2. Unfortunately, the sausages were of the poorer quality – the 80% meat ones like Walls and Richmond. The rest was good.

My advice: reduce the size of the portion, put the price up , improve the ingredients and this place will easily take on The Bird in Hand (across the road). By the way, the beer was well kept.

E

Address: Old Raglan Road, Abergavenny, Wales NP7 9AA. (On B4598 off A40)

Telephone number: 01873 854220

Website: www.Thehardwick.co.uk

Date of visit: 7 January 2012

Last visit (published date): 17 Aug 2010

Likes and dislikes: All the favourites are available as pasrt of the Sunday set lunch – excellent approached. Do they have to charge for bread?

Approximate cost per head:  Around £20. Set lunch available at £18.50 for 2 courses and £23.50 for 3 courses.

Cuisine: Nearly haute cuisine – modern European

Comments on wine list/beer: Otley. Fairly serious wine list at around 300% mark up – A 2008 Albarino was priced at £29 whilst a 2006 Chateau Neuf du Pape was priced at £68.50. Certain wines were available by the glass or half bottle.

Summary:

I was in Wales for a birthday party and decided to have lunch with a friend in The Hardwick before the journey back into England.

The only slot they could offer me was a 12.00 slot. They were otherwise fully booked.

The Hardwick has now finished with the new extension – a bar area. It was full of leather settees. There are now 3 dining rooms – one small, one medium and a large sun lounge.

On Sunday, they offer a set lunch with choices. It was £22 for 2 courses and £28 for three courses. Bread was extra.

The wine list was as extensive as before with plenty of wines close to £100. At the lower end, it was in the £20s.

I started with ravioli with ricotta, spinach and roasted pumpkin followed by roast pork. M ordered roast beef. I ordered  a bottle of I’ntruse  2008 – an Italian blend. This was a very drinkable wine.

The ravioli was 2 large ones filled with the ricotta and spinach mixture with the roast red butternut squash dotted round the plate. It came with a butter sauce, very nice and very visual.

For main course, the roast pork came with whole fried chicory. The pork was pink – have we eradicated tape worms? Unfortunately, I developed a mild tummy ache and couldn’t eat a thing. M’s roast beef was very pink and it was warm rather than hot. It came with roast potatoes, a huge Yorkshire pud and cabbage.

Although I was in distress, M didn’t lose her appetite and went on to have a dessert – rice pudding. This was served with ice cream and poached pear.

The waitress offered the wrap up my lunch for me. I later had it that evening at home. The re-cooked pork was no longer pink and it was very nice.

Hardwick is a top act in South Wales. Its brochure now claims that Michele Roux Jr has declared that this is his favourite restaurant in Wales. I think that the chef (Terry Stevens) trained under Marco Pierre White, so he is not a Roux protégée.

e

Address: 16 Regent Street, London SW1Y 4PT

Telephone: 020 3405 1222

Website: www.tokurestaurant.co.uk

Date of visit: 9 January 2012

Costs: Around £20 per head

Wines and beer: Several Japanese beers (500ml Asahi  £5.50) and sake (big range and prices). Wines available but they are nearly all down market screw tops.

Likes and dislikes: Clinical, efficient service. Service charge appeared as another food/drink item on the bill. Items are coded so you have no clue what you ordered unless you read the original slip or have a good memory.

Cuisine: Japanese

Summary:

This is a new restaurant opened since Japan Centre moved from The Piccadilly to Lower Regent Street. The “cafe” still operates in the Japan Centre.

The place is packed with Formica (or MDF) tables and chairs like an Ikea showroom. Tables are laid for 4s or 6s. Most of the customers are non Japanese.

I have always wanted to try this place – been opened for a year – as Japan Centre (Acton) wholesales sushi grade fish. I assume that the place will be good for sushi and sashimi.

The menu offers the usual range of noodles and bento rice boxes. You can actually order tapas style at around £8 per dish.

I opted for the sushi set as the people at the other end of my table (for 6) were eating sushi.

The sushi set (£21 – including a nice bowl of miso soup) was an enormous plate of various types of sushi, easily enough for 2 people if you have a normal appetite. Except for the maki rolls, nothing was repeated. You get 6 types of fish (including grilled eel and prawn) on rice (normal sushi) and a whole selection of rolled sushi – chopped egg, fish etc.

The fishes were fine but the rice can be improved – it was a bit soggy and had no taste. Sushi is a great art – takes  years of training in Japan – and is not something anyone can master in a few months. The rice is probably the most difficult part to get right, you are talking about the state of the rice, how vinegary the rice is, the display and the state of the fish. Its not something that Yo Sushi chefs can master and that is why they mainly serve up “maki” or chopped fish rolls. The rice here is above Yo Sushi grade but still poor. The wasabi was also poor – probably came ready mixed and out of a tube.

Looking around, I see that the sushi chef was oriental – was he Japanese? The ramen chef was European – probably Eastern European and most of the serving staff were Chinese.

For £21, you can’t complain as you will probably get half the quantity in a proper Japanese in Soho with a Japanese chef. I recalled that I ate at Sushi Yamada (New York) several years ago. I got about a third of what I got here for $120. I was still hungry when I left but I decided that if I re-ordered the same again, my expenses will look horribly out of place.

As the fish here was good quality, next time,  I’ll go for the sashimi  and have tempura as my carbohydrate.

e

Address: High Street, Crickhowell, Powys  NP8 1BW

Telephone: 01873 810408

Website: http://www.bearhotel.co.uk/

Date of visit: 7 January 2011

Costs:  Mainly under £20 for 2 courses

Wines and beer: Several different including Rev James from just over £3 a pint. Basic wine list.

Likes and dislikes: Cosy, old.

Cuisine: Traditional Pub food

Summary:

The Bear Hotel is sited in Crickhowell in The Becons – a walker’s paradise. Although the Inn is approximately 2 centuries old, part of the building dates back to 1400s. The Inn is listed in The Michelin Guide (for accommodation), in The Good Pub Guide (for beer) and in Sawday’s for everything.

I was here for a birthday party of an eminent equine epidemiologist. There were close to 50 of us.

To start with we had black pudding with scallops with a smear of green pea puree. It was exceptional for a banquet food. However, it could do with more oil/sauce as it was quite dry. The pea smear was more for effect than to act as a sauce.

Main course was roast Welsh lamb with roast potatoes, cabbage, carrots and cauliflower. The veg were bit over cooked but still had a bit of a bite – remarkable for a banquet. The lamb was excellent. The potatoes – bit soggy. For dessert, fruit crumble with custard.

Looking at the restaurant menu, it’s all very traditional, steak, sausages, fish and chips, lamb shank etc. The food here are all high energy as most of the clients are serious walkers that will burn off the calories.

After dinner, I started sampling the various bitters (all Welsh) and they were excellent – didn’t have the Rev James.

The next day, breakfast was a serious fry up, eggs, bacon, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread. The coffee was good.

By the way, the rooms were pretty good although I struggled with the radiators.

E

Address: High Street, Lane End, High Wycombe HP14 3JG. Large car park.

Telephone: 01494 882 299

Website: www.grouseandale.com

Date of visit: 6 January 2012

Costs:  Around £20 for 2 courses. Children’s menu available.

Wines and beer: Courage Best at £3.40 a pint. According to the website, they have other beers so I must assume that they rotate their beers

Likes and dislikes: Very good prices and decent food. Clean tables.

Cuisine: British grills

Summary:

This was recommended to me by the General Manager of West Wycombe Shooting Grounds. Apparently, they take their customers and guests there when catering is required. As I was in the area, I decided to give it a go.

To my first surprise, the pub is enormous with huge bar areas and dining rooms. It will easily sit over a hundred. The second shock was that this is a winner (SE region) of some gastro pub competition.

The menu is very much based on steaks and grills. Specials of the day include venison steak or pheasant – pan fried breast and confit of leg. Both priced at £16.

I went for the 28 day aged rump steak (£14.50) and a pint of courage best.

Whilst I was waiting for my meal, the owners turned up and one of them (Joy) started talking to some celebrity (he knew Chris Evans) on the table behind me. I don’t recognise him as I only watch Sky news, movies or sport. Apparently Chris Evans turned up the other day………

The steak was served on a square plate with a small salad, slice of tomato, a field mushroom, several battered onion concoctions, two sliced of steak and a pot of fat chips. As far as fat chips go, this was all right. But, I am not a fan of fat chips. It’s basically boiled potatoes with a skin. I asked for my steak medium and one piece was medium whilst the other was well done. The only way to cook steak is to have a piece at least one inch thick. This was about 1cm. Now onto the onion things, they were fried onions coated in batter and re-fried – absolutely great. The salad was fresh and well dressed.

It was a pretty good meal. I didn’t get round to look at the wine list but most of the wines behind the bar were screw tops. I know that most of the top wines in Australia, NZ and California have moved over to screw tops. In my view, it is only good for low end wines as the plastic cap does not allow the wine to change. So any wines that need maturing – won’t! I experimented with a few bottles of Plumbjack (USA). The 6 bottles I bought in the US were screw tops (about $80 per bottle). I then discovered that Harrods had the same year with corks (£55). I started opening them 5 years ago – side by side – after they have been cellared for over 8 years. There is no doubt that the ones with corks changed – for the better – whilst the screw tops remained the same. By the way, Plumbjack is owned by the mayor (ex) of San Francisco.

On my way out, I discovered that The Bull and Butcher (Turville) and The White Hart at Harwell are both part of the group. The Bull and Butcher was managed by a lady called Ms Botha. She must have sold up.

Well so far so good in 2012. Two decent meals at very good prices!

E