http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/black-pudding-sandwich-2117049.html

Well its more like egg mayo with black pudding!
E
Oct 2010

Address: Birdlip (A417) Gloucester GL4 8LA

Telephone number: 01242 870261

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

Date of visit: 25 October 2010

Approximate cost per head: starters all at £5.25; main course around £12.95; desserts all at £4.25; cheese £4.90

Comments on wine list/beer: Short and very good value wine list. Quite a few wines available by the glass. Bottles priced from £11.45 onwards. They even have a Chablis 1er cru (Les Charmes) at £19.95. Beer is mainly from Gloucestershire – Stonehenge (£2.80), Merlin (£2.80) and a few others.

Summary:

On the A417 (A417 and A419 links M5 and M4), there are 4 pubs along A417 for hungry drivers to stop. Three are visible (Air, Balloon, The Golden Heart and The Highwayman) and one is not (Five Mile House). Five Mile house was reviewed in with top marks on 6th October 2010.

This time, I stopped at The Golden Heart which was listed as Pub of the Year (2009) in The Good Pub Guide.

The building is described as several centuries old suggesting that it was built in the 19th Century.

I entered the building and found a roaring wood fire and a couple of cosy bars. The floors were tiled and the menu was written on a huge blackboard. Typical dishes were liver and bacon, lamb shank, rib eye steak, goulash, steak and kidney pudding etc. All meals came with a choice of vegetables, potatoes or garlic bread.

I ordered the steak and kidney pudding (£12.95) as it has been some years since I ate this.

The food came on a huge plate – the pudding was about 3 x the size of the Fray Bentos tinned steak and kidney pudding – do they still sell it? Then, there was a big pile of chips and a plate of mixed vegetables: peas, carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. The chips were really good, crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. The vegetables still had a bite to it. However, the steak and kidney pudding was disappointing. The pastry outside was fine. The steak pieces were not trimmed enough so one or two pieces of meat still had fat and gristle on it, the kidneys were fine but the gravy within the pudding was thin and weak. In conclusion, not a great pudding but passable.

They also serve sandwiches at around £5 which looked very good.

E

Ok, it can’t be an April Fool’s joke. It is published in October!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/south-korean-warning-on-eating-octopus-heads-2113145.html

E
October 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8087401/Malmesbury-King-named-Best-British-Banger.html

Will try to see what it taste like.

E

PS Are we taking this seriously? Country Life is not known to be a gourmet magazine!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/oct/27/old-ale-beer-history

Interesting.
E
Oct 2010

Sabai Sabai

Location: 25 Woodbridge Road, Moseley, Birmingham B13 8EH

Web site: http://www.sabaisabai-restaurant.co.uk/

Telephone number: 0121 449 4498

Date of visit: 25-10-10

Approx. cost per head: £20

Comments on wine list/beer: fairly standard wine list priced between £11.50 and £25 a bottle

Media link:

Review:

Sabai Sabai is a small gem in the heart of Moseley. The restaurant itself is tiny, seating on 44 people at any one time, but the food is something special.

The menu is extensive and provides a range of dishes which are available with a choice of ‘protein’ – one can select beef, chicken, duck or prawns for the majority of accompaniments. Most dishes also include a high vegetable content, which is surprisingly rare when eating out.

My friends and I are regular customers at Sabai Sabai and are particularly fond of their set menu, which provides a good balance of food. For £20 a head, one can enjoy prawn crackers, followed by a mixed starter of chicken satay, golden bags, sweetcorn fritters and tempura prawns. This is then followed by pad thai, chilli and garlic prawns, green thai chicken curry and fragrant jasmine rice. The portions are extremely generous and it is unusual that we are able to finish our meal.

I have even taken a friend who once lived in Thailand to Sabai Sabai, who, when asked if the food was good for England, replied “that green curry is good for anywhere!”.

The one thing I would say can be disappointing is that when busy, the service can become extremely slow and things such as drinks can be forgotten. However, in my mind the quality of the food more than makes up for the occasional lapse in service.

Jo

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/8051290/Home-curing-Preserving-a-great-British-tradition.html

This is a great book and goes well beyond what is discussed in this article.

E
Oct 2010

This is mainly about western not oriental dumplings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/oct/26/consider-the-dumpling

E

Address: Kinnersley, Seven Stoke, Worcs WR8 9JR

Telephone number: 01905 371 482

Website: www.royaloakkinnersley.com

Date of visit: 22 October 2010

Price guide: From just over £10

Comments on wine and beer: Wye Valley Bitter (£3). Very basic wine list but really cheap. Top red was Morgan 2007 @ £24.95

Summary:

This pub was listed in Sawdays’s Guide as a well run place with a chef patron and hooky beer on tap. However, within the past year, the place and the beer both changed hands and it is now Wye Valley Beer and a new young chef. I decided to test the place with my friend.

As you enter the building (not old and certainly not new), there are two bars on either side with fairly basic furniture. The barman greeted me as if I was a regular. It was only afterwards that I noticed that he greeted everyone in  the same way.

The lunch menu was very simple and short. We decided that we will have the calamari (£5.50) followed by faggots and mash (£6.50). It was then the barman advised us that the prices were for main course portions and they are on the generous side. We decided to split the calamari and have individual portions of faggots. When the calamari came, it was nice succulent rings, coated with home- made batter and even when the dish was split in two, it was still more generous than any starter size portions that I have ever came across. When the faggots came, it was two huge balls covered in thick onion gravy on a snow white bed of mash potato. Each portion of creamy smooth mash was enough for 2. For readers who are not sure what faggots are, they are offal  minced with meat and covered with  cawl and then roasted. This is real comfort food and very few restaurants would offer it as it is such downmarket food. I tell you what – it was heaven on earth to me.

We had a bottle of Beaujolais between us. The total price including beer was £44.95. How do they make money here? If you go, just remember that the portions are huge.

E

Address: Play Hatch, Reading, RG4 9QU

Telephone number: 0118 9473908

Website: www.the-shoulder-playhatch.co.uk

Date of visit: 21 October 2010

Approximate cost per head: approx £20 for 2 courses

Comments on wine list/beer: Loddon Hullabaloo (£3.05), Green King IPA (£2.95) on tap. A short and interesting wine list. Quite a few bottles under £20.

Summary:

This pub has won several awards. I came here 2 years ago and thought that their signature dish – slow roast shoulder of mutton (£14.75) was ok but nothing special. The truth is that I found slow roast meat with sticky sauce all taste the same including the ones I cook.

This time I am back for lunch.

There is a large car park to the rear of the pub. The entrance is through the garden. There are two comfortable bars and a conservatory inside the pub.

The menu is still dominated by mutton and lamb – you can have lamb burgers (£8.50). In fact, the table next to me had the burgers and they were enormous.

New additions include shepherds pie made with mutton and sweet potatoes. I have to admit that I had an over dose of sweet potatoes when I went to New Zealand in 2005. In NZ, they put sweet potatoes in everything including my chicken madras.

I went for the crab cake (£6.95) which was a new addition to the menu. It came as two qtr pounder burger sized rounds on a plate with a tomato and leaves salad. The salad was excellent, the tomatoes sweet and the dressing spot on. However, the crab cakes were very poor. To start with, it was oven baked so it looks quite light in colour and not dark brown. It was a potato and onion patty with a bit of crab – probably around 20%. Crab cakes need to be about 70% crab for it to work. Best commercials ones are made by Hardy’s.

I supplemented my crab cakes with a bowl of chips. They were freshly cooked; hand cut big chips – the type you get in a fish and chips shop. They were fine.

The portions here are big and you will struggle to get through a 3 course meal.

My total bill including a pint of Hullabaloo came to £12.50

I might be back in another 2 years to see how they get on. The chef and his wife took over the pub in 2000 so it has been 10 years under their management.

E