Excellent article on beer, ale and larger.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/feb/23/beer-myths-ale-lager-stout

In fact, this week’s section on food (Guardian.co.uk) is excellent

There also a great recipie on ham and pea croquetas, fish farming etc

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink

The Times online (times.co.uk) also have a few interesting articles but some of the links don’t work.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/

Eddie February 2010

Address: 196 Stanley Road, Teddington, TW11 8UE

Telephone number: 0208 977 8679

Website: www.imperialchinalondon.co.uk

Date of visit:  15 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: From around £20 per head.

Comments on wine list/beer: Not bad for a Chinese restaurant. Most priced around £20

Summary:

This is the “sister” restaurant of China Palace in Reading. The menu and décor is nearly identical.

We went on the “2^nd day of the First month” according top the lunar calendar.

It’s a medium size restaurant – smaller than the one in Reading – with ample space between the tables. There are several big round tables which could seat 12 persons. They have another room at the back for private parties and as a over mspill on a Sunday.

For drinks, we had tiger beer and a bottle of petit chablis (£26.50). I was told that the wine is ok – I was driving.

As its Chinese new year, we ordered two dishes from the chinese new year menu, the rest were from the a la carte.

On the menu was something called golden lobster. I was informed that its sauté lobster with egg. I asked for it to be changed to sauté lobster with ginger and spring onion sauce. The waiter informed me that it was not possible to order items NOT on the menu. Just then, my friend Billy turned up.

Billy is the owner of China Palace, Furama and Salt and Vinegar (fish and chips) in Reading and part owner of Imperial China. Billy soon corrected this minor problem and we had our ginger and spring onion lobster which was excellent. It must have been over a kilo in weight. The probability of Billy being there was 0.1 as he is normally in resident at China Palace.

We also had, steamed sea bass, squid with spicy salt (garlic, chilli), golden fried chicken, Singapore fried noodles, beef ho fun, mange tout in black bean sauce.

The singapore noodles were spot on. Normally, it’s slightly wet because the chef adds curry sauce instead of curry powder – I prefer the dry version. The chicken was a little bit on the salty side. The sea bass was very fresh and the sauce light rather than heavy. The squid was 10/10 – soft, chewy but not rubbery.

For desert, we ordered toffee apple and banana with ice cream. I never understood why it’s called toffee apple/banana. It’s essentially battered deep fried fruit in a crispy caramelised sugar coating – I thought that toffee is supposed to be semi-hard.

At the end of the meal, Billy introduced us to Simon – the executive chef and part owner. Simon informed me that (next time) I should ask for him if I wanted to order off the menu,

So if want to order off the menu ask for Billy (China Palace) and Simon (Imperial China). They will accommodate you.

The whole meal including service came to just under £180 – lobster was £32 and sea bass was £35 – for 4. This is not cheap but it is top class authentic Chinese cooking.

By the way, parking is on the street and there are all sorts of restrictions. So come on a Sunday or after 6.30pm on any other days.

Kung Hai Fat Choy!

Eddie

P.S. When I got back to my friend’s house, their baby sitter had a chinese take away from round the corner – we should have taken back a doggy bag for them!

Address: 21 Great Windmill Street, London W1D 7LB

Telephone number: 0207 437 2745

Website: N/A. The melati  site on the web belongs to the other melati restaurant

Date of visit:  22 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: A la carte £20-£30. Set meal (pre-theatre) for around £10

Comments on wine list/beer: Very basic, stick to tiger beer

Summary:

This restaurant has been around for 30 years. They serve South East Asian food (Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore). The food tends to be on the spicy side.

Do not confuse this with the more “modern” and “pricier” Melati in Peter Street. They are not related.

The restaurant is arranged over 3 floors and is fairly cramped. When you enter you will be greeted by Jackie (the owne). You can’t miss her as she is always in a blue blouse whilst others are in black.

Ono of the most interesting and useless fact about Melati is that a lot of dishes are priced around £7.50 to £7.95 – starters and main course. These could be the owner’s lucky numbers!

They do a fantastic Chilli Crab which is not on the menu. There are usually 3 portions per day so the advice is to pre-order.

On the day we went, we had sate, Indonesian soup (soto madura), fried chicken with chilli and garlic (ayam bawang putih), nasi goreng and chow kway tew. The whole meal was washed down with several bottles of tiger beer and bill was £57 including service.

The soup was pleasant and tasted like a mild tom yum. Very lemony but no chillies. The chow kway tew and nasi goreng were mildly sweet as they use ketchup manis – sweet Indonesian soy sauce. Both were very pleasant.

Now the chicken fried with garlic and chilli is what I always order. It is a fantastic dish with crispy chicken blended with “hot” chilli slices and loads and loads of fried “dry” garlic which has also gone crispy. It is slightly on the oily side but it is a dish to die for.

Melati is not haute cuisine and the food is not presented in a “pictorial” manner but its good honest SE Asia food – very similar to “street food”. I have been coming here for 25 years and will continue to do so.

Eddie

Address: 1 Forbury Square, Reading, RG 13BB

Telephone number: 0118 957 4044

Website: www.Forburys.com 

Date of visit:  20 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: set meal (Lunch: £11.95 for 2 courses, £15.95 for 3 courses. Evening: £21 for 3 courses – not available after 7.15 on sat) a la carte about £40 for 3 courses.

Comments on wine list/beer: Really comprehensive and up market list. Good Sommelier (take his recommendations) be prepared to pay £50 plus for a reasonable bottle.

Summary:

This restaurant is now well established as probably the premier place to eat within central Reading. The other place being the Forbury Hotel – not related..

The restaurant is housed in a modern building that also housed the Reading Branch of IOD. The room is modern with tables well spaced apart. The walls are decorated by posters of the label of famous wines. They have a private room – a long table that can sit 20+. During the warmer days, they have outside tables.

Parking is available under the building but entrance is via Albert Square from Kings Road.

The evening we went, we started with a 1999 Rioja Blanco (Vina Gravonia) which was slightly brown in colour because of the age and still tasted very fresh and full of citrus. We then had a bottle of 2000 St Estephe – Le Tour de Pez (£65). Apparently, this is a new wine and is not on the list on the web site. This wine turned out to be an excellent wine and is without doubt the best red wine (less than £100) I had in a restaurant for many years. Forbury’s is famous for its wine list and has won many awards.

There was a choice of bread – white or walnut. The walnut was good but our first serving of it was cold. The second serving was warm. We were given a freebie of cream of orange and carrot soup. The orange taste was light and it worked well.

To start with, some of us had the scallops which were cooked just right – you get 3 scallops served on a black slate with a green pea puree as sauce and a few deep fried black pudding. The others had confit of salmon. This was cooked at probably around 40C as the texture was the same as smoked salmon. I had a taste of the salmon which was like a “rich” smoke salmon without the smoke. The starters were priced at £12 plus.

For main course, we had the chateaubriand with chips (for 2) at £63, venison stew, brill and pig’s trotters, all priced at under £20. By the way, if you like your veg, you will need to side orders in this restaurant.

The brill was pronounced as slightly on the dry side and was one small piece of fish served with small cuts of potatoes, spinach and celery – very nuevo cuisine.

The chateaubriand  (medium) was pronounced as a triumph in both the state of the steak and the chips. One of the diners asked for broccoli instead of peas with her steak and they forgot that – it arrived half way through her meal.

The venison and the pig’s trotters were both served with a heavily reduced sauce. The venison was cooked more rare than pink. The trotter (de-boned) has been on their menu ever since the restaurant came into being. However, it has gone through different transformations. This version with mash potato and mushroom was the best version yet.

For desert, we had the chocolate fondant and the lemon soufflé. All deserts are priced at around £10. All proclaimed that the desert was the best dish yet – I didn’t try any as I am not into deserts.

In all we paid just over £400 (incl service) for 5 and everyone had a good time. Service was excellent without being intrusive. This place has maintained its high standard for many years.

The owner remembered me – although I have not been for at least 2 years. This is probably because when I worked in Reading, I took my whole department  (around 150 people) down there for their Xmas dinner and we rang up a bar bill in excess of £5000 (thank god, the business paid). I have to admit that I was in shock for the next month.

Eddie

PS Guardian/Observer did a review on this place:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/01/forburys-reading-restaurant-review

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7032826.ece

Please note that Times online seems to be having link problems from time to time. You get the dreaded 404 message from time to time.

If you have a problem with the link try

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/

and click on the article.

Eddie

February 2010

Address: 395 Edgeware Road, Cricklewood, London NW2 6LN.

Note, the only way to get to this place is to go north on A5 and take the first left turn after the Murco garage. From the north circular, you have to do a U turn at the Murco Garage or the Shell Garage as there is a central partition at the north circular end of Edgeware Road.

Telephone number: 0208 452 2333

Website: N/A – the wing yip website carries no information on the restaurant

Date of visit:  18 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: From £18 for a set meal for 2. Starters at around £5-8 per dish. Main courses at around £12 plus.

Comments on wine list/beer: Very basic but at a reasonable price

Summary:

This is my second visit.  This time it is for a full blown evening meal.

First of all, this is part of the Wing Yip supermarket empire and it shares the same building. There is a huge car park – above and below ground – sereving the supermarket and the restaurant.

The restaurant is in a single huge room which can easily do over 200 covers. On one side is the usual chinese BBQ stall – ducks, char sui etc. There is some sort of stage along one wall with a golden phoenix and a golden dragon and the word “happiness” in the middle. Further along the wall, they are a number of NUMBERs all with 8s in it. 8 sounds the same as making money. For example 128 sounds the the same as “sure to make money”. This could be the place to eat on Friday 13 but then you will have to travel there.

The menus are confusing as there were 2 different a la carte menus. One has the set meals in it and the rest are similar but not identical – prices are the same – between the 2 menus. Then, there were 2 specials cards and finally, a Chinese New Year Menu in red. On top of this is a “grill meat” sheet – char sui, roast duck etc. Besides the usual “cantonese” fare and crispy duck, there are several dishes not normally found in Soho chinese restaurants.

We started with crispy sea weed (deep fried greens with sugar and scallop powder), prawn toast and spring rolls. They were all ok but the prawn toasts were a bit thin on the filling – could be what they sell in the supermarket freezer.

Next, we had roast belly of pork and char sui, dow mew (mange tout greens or pea shoots), salt and pepper fish, chicken in black bean sauce, steak in peking sauce, paper wrapped porkchops with fermented bean curd, egg fried rice and chicken chow mein.

Lets take the dishes one at a time. On the up side were the chow mein – could be slightly crispier, fried rice and the dow mew – fresh and served with a garlicky sauce.The steak in Peking sauce which is essentially a sweet and sour sauce without the sour (vinegar) was excellent – bang on in terms of the quality of the meat and sauce.

The char sui and roast belly of park were ok. However, the salt and pepper/chilli fish was as good as it comes – succulent pieces of fish fried in batter then stir fried with onions, chilli and salt.

On the down side, the worst was the pork chop in fermented bean curd – my unusual dish. Now, most people do not realise that fermented bean curd is an ingredient in the making of char sui. The bean curd reacts with high heat and turns into a sort of burnt caramel coating which tastes completely different from the original uncooked fermented bean curd (tast like cheese that has gone off). Unfortunately, instead of wrapping each pork piece in its own envelope of greaseproof paper and deep frying it – the traditional approach, the whole lot was wrapped in a single sheet of paper and baked. So, you get a saucy anaemic version rather than the char sui effect as the temperature was not high enough.

Next, the chicken in black bean sauce had fairly strong shreds of chilli in it but very few black beans. This is probably because they used bottled black bean sauce rather than the actual beans. All bottled black bean sauces are more sugary, more runny than the traditional black bean sauce made from actual beans – you should not be able to pour this sauce.

The meal came to around £170 with a bottle of Chablis (£28) and several bottles of tiger beer.

On the whole its not bad – especially, the ease of parking. But, its not at the top end of the market in terms of cooking.

In my first survey, I had the dim sum which were fine. 

Eddie

Address: 126 West Street, Marlow, SL7 2BP

Telephone number: 01628 482277

Website: www.thehandandflowers.co.uk

Date of visit: 18 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: £10 plus. A la Carte around £20 for a main course.

Comments on wine list/beer: Very extensive and expensive. House wine OK

Summary:

This is the second visit within a month  to verify the cooking as it’s a michelin star pub.

Last time I had a carafe of basic Rioja at £12 for 250ml which I thought was over priced. This time, we had the red (£17) suggested on the fixed price menu. It was a 2007 Grenache Shiraz. I have had this “new mix” before from Octavia and was surprised that it worked. This time, the wine had a higher percentage of Grenache than Shiraz. On the menu it was described as fruity with a hint of animal……….I had never come across a wine with the word animal in it – I had to have it. It was quite drinkable and they were right, there was a hint of “game” in it.

We stuck to the fixed price menu – £10 for 2 courses (weekday lunch only). The place was full on a Thursday lunch time and nearly everyone had the fixed price menu.

On offer as starters was parsnip soup or pork pie with piccalilli. For second course, comfits of ling with lentils or venison stew with mash potato.

The pork pie was home made and came as a thick slice. It was full of prime meat – not off cuts – and there were blocks of ham within it. It was very good and the home made piccalilli was very mild not sharp. Prior to this, we were given a basket of home made bread and some deep fried whitebait. The bread was warm and the whitebait crisp and moist. Both excellent as was last time.

For main course, we had the venison and ling. I did nit taste the ling but my friends said it was very good. The venison was served in a mini frying pan and had prime cuts – possibly fillet – in it with no visible fat. It came with a sauce which was not over reduced.

We ordered sides with the meal (all at £4): cauliflower cheese, spring green and the famous chips. The cauli was fine but nothing special. The greens were cut into large leaves and were cooked perfectly – still with a bite. The chips which I raved on last time were not as good this time. They were more like tripe cooked chips and they were over salted – why do they do this? Nothing else tasted over seasoned.

The service was a bit slow between courses – as we had the set lunch and nearly everyone else also had the set lunch, I wonder if the kitchen staffs are over stretched when they are at capacity?

On the whole, it was a very good meal and this is possibly the best value lunch around but then AWT also offers £10 for 2 courses at his pub and there are two other very good (untested by me) restaurants in Marlow – Vanilla Pod and The Lost Soul.

Eddie

This is a good article especially the bit re beaujolais and large US wine companies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/18/gallo-hoodwinked-fake-wine-not-surprising

Eddie

February 2010

Well, if you like New Zealand wine, read on

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/wine/7249279/Jonathan-Rays-top-10-Kiwi-wines.html

Eddie

February 2010

Here is an article on how to get your hands on really fresh fish in South Kensington, Bermondsey, Blackheath (all farmers market)

Most fish are caught on a Friday -notification by email on a Friday night. Pick up on a saturday or sunday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/7244670/The-freshest-of-south-coast-fish.html

Eddie

February 2010