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Name of restaurant or pub: Harbourmaster
Location: Pen Cei, Aberaeron, Wales SA46 0BT
Web site: http://www.harbour-master.com
Date of visit: 19 August 2009
Approx. cost per head: £25
Comments on wine list/beer: Very reasonable from around £15 onwards
Review:
Went there with a couple of Welsh friends. The first thing to notice is that this is a Welsh speaking area. The menu is bilingual. The great JPR Williams and Jimmy Carter had been spotted there recently.
The restaurant is very spacious so you are not going to hear the conversations from the next tables unless you concentrated. The food is mainly modern European – no Welsh Speciality except for the local ingredients. Steaks, lobsters and chicken are the main offerings on the day when I went. The Welsh beef was excellent – I didn’t know that they farmed beef in Wales.
The bar offered decent beers and snacks and there are several bedrooms. They have their own car park.
Eddie – eddie@bottlesandcooks.com
Name of market or shop: W M Vicars and Sons (Butcher)
Location: West St., Reading, RG1 1TT
Public transport/parking: Town centre stop for all buses or park in any of the car parks
Web site: none
Date of visit: 22 September 2009, re-visited nearly every week
Media link:
Review:
I have been buying from them for nearly 40 years. Its the retail outlet of the Vicars game empire – owned by Alan Hayworth. They suppy most of the top end restaurants around Reading. They also have a pie and pub outlet (another review) in Sweeney Todd.
The shop is mainly manned by Peter and Jimmy. Besides the usual stuff, they have boiler chicken and from time to time kid and mutton. They can get nearly any cuts or type of meat under the sun – they even managed to get me some Bresse Chicken and a pigs bladder to cook it in a Paul Bucouse recipe).
Try the Orkney Gold (beef). They also have a wole range of interesting sausages.
12 November:
They have a good range of game in. Also, try the wild boar. They are now taking orders for Xmas – free range turkey, goose etc.
If you want cooked ham, go to Sweeney Todd.
Eddie – eddie@bottlesandcooks.com
Name of restaurant or pub: Hobgloblin
Location: 2 Broad St, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 2BH
Date of visit: 23/9/2009
Comments on wine list/beer: Constant change of real ales and ciders
Review:
This is not a pub to take your first date. It is a real ale paradise. The landlord and his assaociates behind the bar know their stuff. There is a constant change of guest ales – I have had milds from Swansea there. The walls and ceilings are covered in beer mats and the furniture should have been part of a giant bonfire 10 years ago. They don’t serve meals – crisps and peanuts are available.
Eddie, eddie@bottlesandcooks.com
Damian Stafford asks: are there any Hispanic restaurants in London or the south east that you’d particularly recommend?
Eddie replies:
This is a difficult one. What do you mean by Hispanic? Do you mean Central American and Mexican – Tacos, Burritos etc. Most of them are actually Tex Mex and are not authentic. Wacha in Covent Garden is ok.
If you mean South American, it boils down to Cuban, Argentinean and Brazilian.
Argentina is well served by El Gaucho – a chain of expensive up market steak houses. Re Brazilian, try Rodizio Rico on Upper St in Islington, its a meat eater’s paradise. Re Cuban, try La Bodeguita del Medio in Kensington.
Personally, I like the Brazilian. It’s not easy to get in!
Martin Wilson asks: what would you say is Mike Robinson’s signature dish?
Eddie replies: the answer is game especially all forms of Venison which he shoots with Alan Hayward on Alan’s farm – they are free range.
Hello. We shall begin publishing in this section just as soon as we start receiving your questions on any matters epicurean. All questions are both welcome and encouraged. Please click here to ask Eddie …
Name of restaurant or pub: The Fat Duck
Location: Bray, near Maidenhead
Web site: http://www.fatduck.co.uk/
Date of visit: 9 September 2009
Approx. cost per head: £130
Comments on wine list/beer: Very comprehensive. Under £50 to 000s.
Review:
The Fat Duck only does one menu @ £130 per head. Wine to accompany the meal is another £90. But, what a meal. The chap is a magician. You are neither hungry or bloated after 13 courses.
The meal started with the now “compulsory” sorbet “cooked” in liquid nitrogen at the table.
This was followed by an array of dishes which was great visually as well as delicately flavoured.
The infamous sound of the sea (complete with iPods) was very tasty with “sand” made from tapioca and aiguilles. The sound did nothing for me.
The mock turtle tea was a “gold foil” wrapped stock cube. Hot water was poured into a cup from a Japanese cast iron kettle and you watch it dissolved in front of you swimming in gold foil.
Enough, you need to go to appreciate this. I have been 3 times (over 5 years) and this was definitely something special. It’s now a show!
Eddie, eddie@bottlesandcooks.com
The Light of Bengal started out who-knows how many years ago as a take-away and has done very well in Winchester, a city which is surprisingly poorly-served by high quality places to eat. A few years ago it opened a modest dining room which is well-frequented by devotees although not to the extent that one has to book. Last year I spent quite a bit of time in India. Returning home from that trip is the only time I’ve not craved to eat our national dish immediately on returning to these shores. But for every other return home, and many, many other meals, the Light of Bengal does the trick every time, serving splendid and authentic dishes—they have on a couple of occasions prepared food to order when my partner I and have ordered off the menu—to all those lucky enough to drop in for a take-away or to sit in the (far too) modest dining room and enjoy not only the wonderful food but also the very friendly service. I tend not to like “fancy” restaurants. This is my favourite place to eat in Winchester. (Damian Stafford, d@staffordnet.org.uk)
The Black Boy (1 Wharf Hill, Winchester, SO23 9NP) is my favourite pub in Winchester and comes highly recommended. It has a splendidly eccentric decor and atmosphere and sells the Hopback Brewery’s Summer Lightning, which my friend Jim and I agree has distinctly hallucinogenic qualities. (Damian Stafford – d@staffordnet.org.uk)