I received a very nice reply from Beth Heath re the parking problems at this year’s festival.

According to Beth, the problem this year was caused by their inability to hire their “normal” field from a local farmer.They were relying on Council parking which became overwhelmed.

For next year, they will hire a larger field further out of town. She signed off the letter by saying that they can only learn from customer feedback. They also refunded my booking fees.

Since they are being reasonable about it, I shall give them a bit of promotion for their forth coming events:

Spring festival (beer, bangers, bread and classic cars) on 7th and 8th May 2011 and
Ludlow food festival, 9-11 September 2010

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Address: Manor Road, Teddington, Middx TW11 8BG

Telephone number: 0208 977 6333

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

Date of visit: 29 September 2010

Approximate costs per head: Set lunch (Tue-Sat) £14 for 2 Courses, £16 for 3 courses. A la Carte: starters up to £8, main courses up to £18.50. Sides £3.25

Comments on wine list/beer: Normal London prices. A somewhat short list at around £30 for a average bottle.

Summary:

The restaurant benefits from a large car park by the front door. The building is very modern and is decorated in black and white. I had lunch here some 6 months ago sitting 2 tables away from “Adam”, the male actor in BT’s adverts.

The building is very well designed. As you want in, there is a very modern looking bar with leather arm chairs. Black and white pictures of Hollywood Greats (mostly dead) from the Gatty Gallery adorned the walls – available for sale. The restaurant is a large conservatory over looking Teddington Lock. Upstairs there is a function room with a balcony.

The set lunch is good value for money – £14 for 2 good size courses. There were 5 of us (4 adults and a baby). I am only saying this because the tables are well spaced apart and is ideal for prams etc.

The starters on offer were soup, grilled squid and stir fry Thai beef. We had the squid and Thai beef. The squid were two skewers of peppers and squid over some salad leaves whilst the stir fry was served in a large bowl. The person who had the stir fry enjoyed the stir fry even though it was on the hot side for him.

For main course, the menu offered Thai curry, sirloin steak and sea bream. The sea bream and sirloin attracted a £7 surcharge. The curry came on a plate with several side dishes of extras including rice. The steaks were about 6 ounces in size and were served with fat chips, green beans and béarnaise sauce (Chef Neve trained under Anton Mossiman). The food were very nice. The only strange thing was the béarnaise sauce which was a hollandaise sauce with chopped tarragon. The fat chips were excellent, crisp and light on the outside and fluffy mash on the inside.

One of us had the continental cheese afterwards (no surcharge!) as part of the set lunch.. The plate came with red and white grapes and 3 decent chunks of Brie, Gorgonzola, and Tom.

We washed the meal down with a bottle of Ayala Champagne (£50). A 2009 Albarino (£30) and a 2006 Bordeaux (£34). There was a 12.5% service charge on everything and bread and olives were £3 a serving.

My conclusion is that this place is reasonably priced and the set lunch is great value for money. The wines were probably around 300% in terms of mark up but the wine list is not very inspiring. Perhaps the owner/chef (Ray Neve) would like to consider changing his supplier. I am certainly happy to offer consultancy at a nominal charge.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/ark-of-taste-the-flavour-savers-2092250.html

Is this real or a sales gimmick?

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Sept 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/sep/28/consider-spam

I have to confess, I like spam especially fried spam.

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Sept 2010

Book Review

Cured by Lindy Wildsmith. ISBN 978-1-906417-41-3. £30.

Lindy Wildsmith runs The Chef’s Room Cookery School in Wales and teaches regularly with Franco Taruschio (ex The Walnut Tree),

This book covers everything: salted, spiced & marinated, dried, smoked, potted, pickled to raw. It covers steak tatare, bottarga, stock fish etc There is even a recipe for pickled walnuts – something that I have failed to find so far.

Here are 3 excellent recipes from the book

Pickled Walnut
To test for readiness, simply plunge a hefty needle into the walnut. If there is no resistance, the walnut is ready for pickling.

Wear rubber gloves as walnuts emit a black stain.

Make brine by bring 4 litres of water and 500g of salt to the boil. Make sure all the salt is dissolved.

Trim whole walnut top and bottom, cover with cold brine (in a plastic bucket) for 4 days.

Drain and spread on trays exposed to the air until the walnuts turn black.

Put walnuts into sterilized jars. Top up with cold spiced vinegar. Seal jars and leave in a dark for at least a month before opening. This will keep for a year.

To make spiced vinegar, mix 1 litre of malt vinegar with 25 g of pickling spice. Heat in a bane marie until the water boils. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Filter when cold.

Salmon Ceviche with roots and ginger

Sprinkle salt over thinly sliced salmon (3g of salt per 75g of salmon – portion). After 30 seconds squeeze half a lime over each portion of fish , mix, and leave for another 30 seconds.

Pour away all the liquid , cover with chopped stem ginger (10g per portion) and julienne of raw root vegetables (30g of mouli, turnip or kohirabi). Drizzle with wasabi dressing.

Wasabi dressing – mix half a teaspoon of wasabi paste with 20ml mirin, a few drops of soy sauce and half a tablespoon of olive oil.

Black Pudding Canapes

Make 24 quenelles out of 150g of black pudding. Roll the quenelle in a very thin slice of pancetta or streaky bacon (similar to pigs in blankets). Bake the rolled quenelles for 20 minutes at 200 degrees centigrade. Cool.

When ready to serve, put the baked quenelles – the crisp bacon or pancetta will make it easier to handle – onto slices of French Baguette. Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 5 minutes. For an interesting alternative, drizzle olive oil on the bread and the smear it with wasabi paste before adding the black pudding.

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The Insider’s Guide to Sake by Philip Harper. ISBN 978-4-7700-2076-5 £9.99

Philip Harper is Japan’s first non-Japanese sake brewing master.

The pocket guide covers a whole range of topics including the brewing process, categories of sake, history of sake, sampling of Japan’s Breweries etc.

I shall list below several interesting facts about sake – taken from his book.

1. Sake is made from rice that has been polished. Brown rice is milled and the resulting white rice is then polished. The further the rice is polished, the finer the flavour of the resulting sake. Premium sake is made from rice polished to 70% and further. Rice koji (fungus) is also added.
2. Sake is evaluated as a balance of 5 flavours: Sweet, Dry, Bitter, Sour/acidic and Astringent (similar to strong green tea or tannin in red wine)
3. Sake can range from very dry to very sweet and can also be anything from a fragment and refreshing taste to a full flavour.
4. Sake can be categorised by raw material, how it is brewed and how it is processed after brewing.
5. Raw Material : Junmaishu (only rice and koji is used), Honjozo (brewer’s alcohol is added to the basic sake) and Ginjoshu (specially brewed – 60% plus polished rice and special methods). At 50% polished it is called daiginjo.
6. Brewing methods: high speed (sokujo) or classical (kimoto). The classic approach takes twice as long to make sake. This is similar to starting the “mother” in sour dough.
7. Final treatment : sake can be diluted or undiluted (Genshu). The undiluted can come in around 20o% alcohol whilst the dilsted version comes in at around 15% alcohol. The finished product can also be pasteurised or unpasteurised (nama –zake). The pasteurisation kills off the koji and gives the sake a longer bottle life but also “tames the taste”.
8. Please note that the US is now a major producer of sake. Most of the sake you buy from a supermarket is made in the US which is not premium and do not follow the Japanese classifications.

For more details, read the book.

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Sept 2010

Address: B480, Cuxham, Nr Watlington, Oxon OX49 5NF

Telephone number: 01491 614 151

Website: http:// www.thehalf-moon.com

Date of visit: 25 September, 2010

Approximate cost per head: Approx £20 for 2 courses

Comments on wine list/beer: Brakspears on tap (£3.10 a pint), simple wine list, most available by the glass, Western and Oxford Gold cider etc

Summary:
This is another dining pub in the middle of no where but highly recommended by several guides.The Pub is sited on a proper B road so it is wide enough for 2 cars all the way.

Upon arrival, I noticed an oldish Morgan and a very old MG 2 seater (decades before MGB GT) in the car park.

The building is thatched and comprises of 3 inter joining rooms with low beams.

I was served drinks at the bar and was asked to sit down – they will come and take the order at the table. Some 15 minutes later, I went back to the bar order some home cooked pork scratching (£2.00) and a packet of home cooked crisp (£1.50) as I was starving. Again, they didn’t want to take the order at the bar and the waitress will be along soon.

She did turn up within the next 5 minutes and took my order of 2 starters – ducks heart on toast and whitebait. These came within 5 minutes and I was out of the pub within the hour.

Whilst I was waiting for the waitress, I looked around and noticed that a banker, his wife, their four children and his German in-laws were having lunch. All the males (including the children – they all look under 10, very well behaved) wore lounge suits and ties. The women were also formally attired. The in-laws, the wife and the children all spoke German to each other but the conversation is in English with the father. From the conversation, I gathered that they were not going to a wedding or a funeral. Well, I am glad to see that some people have standards. The other day I walked pass a wedding (held at the Shangnai – an event place) in Reading. Some of the young males (age 10-25) have their shirts hanging out under the suit and the knotted ties were all loose exposing a shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

Back to the food. The ducks hearts (£6.50) came on a piece of toast with blobs of gravy – I am sure that it is gravy and not balsamic vinegar – on the toast and on the plate surrounding the toast. The hearts were great and were not over cooked. The toast was a bit anaemic.

The whitebait (£7.00) came in a home made paper cup on a wooden board, There was a wonderful mini salad of cress and sprouting beans (not dressed) as well as a tub of home made mayonnaise. I rate this as amongst one of the best around as it was moist and crispy – the other places being The Hand and Flower (Jan 26 and Feb 19, 2010) and the Five Mile House (Oct 6th 2009).

It was fine cooking – including the crisps and scratching – and I have already forgotten about the 15 minutes wait before they took my order.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/indybest/food-drink/the-50-best-cookbooks-2087571.html

This is a very strange collection (I wonder what her definition of season is?) with some new (Mardhur Jaffrey’s easy curry, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty etc) and a few old classics (Larouse, Claudia Roden’s Middle East Cooking, Julia Child et al on Matering The Art of French Cooking etc) and one or two that could be out of print (Marco Pierre White, Arto der Haroutunian (died in 1987) etc).

There is no place for David Thompson’s Thai Food (highly rated by everyone else) and my all time favourite Stephane Reynould and nothing on Bread and Baking.

I have recently come across 2 excellent books – The inside’s Guide to Sake by Philip Harper (ISBN978-4-7700-2076-50) and Cured by Lindy Wildsmith (ISBN978-1-906417-41-3). I’ll do a write up on these books in the next 2 days.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-ten-best-scotch-whiskies-1488408.html

This is another one of those strange selection from the Independent. They combined normal (Black Label) with Malt. I agree with Lagavaulin and Talisker but what ever happened to Macallan and Springbank?

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Sept 2010

Parking : Various car parks – e.g. Worcester Street, Gloucester Green – in the city or park and ride.

Outdoor Market

Location: Gloucester Street, Oxford, OX1 21BN

Opening time: weekdays 9.00-16.00

This is an open air market full of bric-a brac stalls. There is a small wet fish stall (selling out of the back of a van, 2 large vegetable stalls (standard and not exotic veg) and a small bread stand.

Covered Market

Location: Market Street, Oxford OX1 3D( ? depending on the shop) Market Street is located between Turl Street & Cornmarket Street.

Website: http://www.oxfordcity.co.uk/shops/market/ (history) or

http://www.oxford-covered-market.co.uk/the_shops.html# (shops plan)

Opening Time: 8.50-17.30 (Monday-Saturday) 10.00-16.00 (Sunday until18/12/10)

This is an absolute jewel and has been around since the 18th century. Besides an array of food shops, they have leather goods, hat shops, café etc (see shops plan). Only sad thing is that the deli is now closed. This is a great place to do your food shopping. Only problem is that there is no nearby parking facilities.

Butchers

There are 4 butchers all competing within 20 meters of each other.

John Lyndsey and son: pies, and various meats and sausages.

Hedges 01865 247536: meats and sausages.

David John 01865 249092: meats, sauces, cooked meat, pies and sausages.

M Feller: game, smoked meats and meats.

Bakery

Nash’s Oxford Bakery 01865 242695

Pies, sausage rolls and breads from bloomer to muti seeds. There is a light rye but no dark rye. I was informed that they do sourdough for the weekend.

I bought a pasty each from Nash (£1.30), John Lyndsey (£1.25) and Davis John (large @ £1.90) for a comparative tasting. The inside of these pasties were similar. They all had the requisite beef, potato, onion. They use carrots instead of swede. However, they all used finely minced meat (is this a sign of nasty cuts and left overs?) instead of chunks of steaks. They all tasted similar (not surprised) but the bakery had the better pastry and David John’s was the most mushy inside. Nash’s pasty had nearly 50% potatoes in the filling. The other two had more than 65% meat in the filling.

Best pasties I have tasted to date are still Ann Muller’s

http://www.connexions.co.uk/lizardpasty/index.htm

and the Chough Bakery

http://www.thechoughbakery.co.uk/

They are both available by mail order.

Cheese

The Oxford Cheese Company

Strong on the common British and French cheeses. A nice selection of goat’s cheeses There are also a selection of Oxford ISIS cheeses which is not easy to come by outside Oxford.

Vegetables

McCarthy Brothers 01865 246975

A large vegetable stall selling in season vegetables. I could not see fresh wild mushrooms – they are in season now. However, they sell a selection of dried mushrooms. Unique vegetable available include: cobb nuts and okra (bindi).

Fishmonger

Hayman’s Fishes 01865 242827

The only fish monger in the covered market. Huge “live” crab tanks. Dry salted fish – Chinese and Bacalao , various types of fishes and a large selection of crayfish and tiger prawns. The smoked counter has the usual suspect and eels but no Abroath Smokies. Smoked Haddock is available dyed or un-dyed.

Other interesting food shops

Pieminister – take away or eat in pot pies with peas (or mushy) and mash.

Michele’s Creperie

Ben’s cookies

MoMo’s milkshare – also cakes and cookies

The Cake Shop – serious large cakes and all the extras to go with cake making.

And also – near the station ,

Lung Wah Chong (Chinese and Oriental Supermarket)

Location: 41-42 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EP

Telephone: 01865 790763

Website: http://www.lungwahchong.com/ (not much on this website. Its all about their head office)

This is an oriental supermarket sited next to The Paddyfield Chinese Restaurant and opposite So Jo restaurant.

It is small but seemed to have a bit of everything with quite a few Korean and Japanese food and sauce products. There is a fresh vegetable counter and the shop also operates a travel agency.

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Sept 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/23/gourmet-taco-trucks-los-angeles

Interesting idea.

Re UK’s version

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/british-street-food-real-meals-on-wheels-2066917.html
(Published on Bottles and Cooks 1st Sept 2010)

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Sept 2010