http://www.vancouversun.com/life/food/Waste+bits+when+cooking/5720585/story.html

Well, here is the Canadian version of Fergus Henderson.The only problem is getting the bits. In Reading, my friend Tony Hayward (Vicars and Sons) can supply anything (fresh) that can be sold legally e.g. You can’t buy calf brains any more because of mad cows disease. The only way you can get it is to import frozen ones from France. My latest fad is Jacobs Ladder – the short ribs that require slow cooking. Its lean – once you have skimmed off the fat – and tasty.

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Non 2011

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/11/16/street-food-in-thailand/

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Nov 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/sep/05/londons-asian-supermarkets

see also my selection under links.

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Nov 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/nov/18/gourmet-salt-seasoned-cooks-know-its-place

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Nov 2011

Address: 355 Reading Road, Winnersh, Berkshire RG41 5LR

Telephone: 0118  978 4529

Website: www.the-refectory.co.uk

Date of visit: 17 November 2011

Costs: Main courses from under £10.

Wines and beer: Ringwood £3.45 a pint. Average wine list with bottles under £20

Likes and dislikes: Not sure about the place and food.

Cuisine: British and Italian

Summary:

The Pheasant is sited opposite Sainsbury on the main Winnersh / Wokingham Road. The car park is behind the pub

I had a meal here in the 70s and never been back. I can’t even remember what was wrong.

After a visit to my dentist, I was running out of time for  lunch  and I remembered t hat my friend  “M” recently told me that the place has been taken over by an Italian couple. As The Pheasant was 5 minutes drive away, I went for it.

I arrived at 1.45 and surveyed the menu outside the pub. Two young men on their way out told me that the food is very good. So, I went in.

Although, the Pub is still called The Pheasant, the restaurant part is called Roberto & Luana’s Refectory. Roberto was walking about the Pub in a black shirt. He looked a little bit like Heston Blumenthal but spoke with an Italian accent.

The inside still looked like a pub out of the 60s. Ringwood was on tap, so I had a pint – pretty good.

I then ordered the ribeye burger (£8.95) as recommended by the barman.

Looking over the menu, there were very few Italian dishes. However, they seemed to be big on bruchettas – several versions- here. They did have a Tuscan Stew for under £14. Sunday roasts are under £10.

The burger was a proper burger in a seasame seeded bun. There was a pile of chips and a salad with it. The salad was very continental with radicchio. Both the salad and the chips get top marks. The burger was a different story. The bun was good but the meat was a classical piece of quarter pounder, previously frozen. The meat was overcooked and the texture was too fine – in short, it was awful.

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Address: High Street, East Hendred, Oxon OX12 8JY

Telephone number:  01235 833320

Website: www.eystonarms.co.uk

Date of visit: 16 November 2011

Price guide:  Sandwiches £5, lunch special £12, starters from around £7,  fillet steak £24.90
£27.50,

Comments on wine and beer: Wines available by the glass from under £4, wines by the bottle from £19.95 to £80 plus. London Pride £ 3.59 a
pint

Likes and dislikes: Food is good but slightly pricy. Beer and wines (at least 300% mark up) are on the expensive side.

Cuisine: British

Summary:

According to Sawday’s, the pub has been in the hands of the same family since the 15^th Century. They also make everything from
pasta to bread on site.

The inside is fairly normal for a pub several centuries old – exposed beams, stone and tiled floor. I guessed that it had been extended
several times as the toilets and the kitchen end of the dining room looked like it was built in the later period of 1900s.

On the day I went, there were 3 tables occupied at my end of the dining room. The other two tables were occupied by middle age women that
can’t stop talking. One talked whilst the other one ate. Worst still, they all spoke loudly. My lunch was ruined from the moment I sat down.

The menu was simple and quite interesting. It consisted of the usual vegetarian, salad, steak and fish.

I settled for the £12 special lunch – one course. I ordered minute steak with stringy chips and a side order of green beans with shallots.

The chips came in a good size bowl  and it was excellent. The green beans were also very good – cooked but crunchy. Another plus point was that the chips and beans were not over seasoned.

The steak – good size – still had a bit of pink in the middle despite thye fact that it was only a few mm thick. However, it was quite spicy– I like spicy food but I wasn’t expecting this. I then discovered that the steak was covered with crushed black peppercorns and the Hotel du Paris
butter that came with it also had a touch of hot paprika. By the way, I  researched this and nobody from Escouffer to Bocuse has a beurre  de hotel d’ Paris in their recipe. They all have beurre maitre d’ hotel which of course is just parsley butter. Still, it was a pleasant meal.

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PS Sorry about all the errors in the initial publication. My broadband was down and I had to use an external wifi which kept cutting me off or dropping the bandwidth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/10/mario-batali-hitler-stalin-comparison

See my review of Del Posto and Truffles on 15 october 2019

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Nov 2011

Address: 1 Chesil Street, Winchester, SO23 0HU

Telephone:  01962 851 555

Website: http://www.chesilrectory.co.uk/site/chesil/content-folder/home

Date of visit: 10 November 2011

Costs: Around £25 for two courses. Most starters priced under £7, most main courses under £18. £15.95 for the two course set meal – available during lunch and early evening.

Wines and beer: Decent list at a reasonable mark up.

Likes and dislikes: Food is slightly above average. There are no potatoes on offer as a side dish (£3). They seemed to dislike deep frying as nothing of this nature is on offer. Where are my chips?

Cuisine: Modern British

Summary:

The restaurant is located in a 1450 building on the corner of Chesil Street. Parking is behind in the multi-story (free from 6pm). There are two restaurants with similar scores  listed in the Good Food Guide  in Winchester – The Black Rat and The Chesil Rectory. The Black Rat has recently been awared a Michelin Star.

The inside is divided into rooms – upstairs and downstairs – with exposed black beams. The tables are barewood – no stickiness – with linen napkin. On the night we went, the place was about 40% full – not bad for a wet Thursday night in November.

I went with Damian who designed and manage the Bottles and Cooks site.

We started with two Freedom organic lagers (£3.50) which were pretty good whilst we were looking at the menus. We were offered brown and /or parmesan cheese rolls – both excellent

D chose the smoked haddock soup (£6.50) followed by the pan fried beam (£18.95). I had the mushroom on brioche toast (£6.50), followed by the oxtail and kidney pudding (£17.95).

I had mixed feelings about my dinner. The stockbrige mushroom turned out to be Japanese enoki mushrooms – the ones with a bulb head and long thin stems. This came in a cream sauce and was quite tasty.

The main course was a disappointment. Let’s start with the pudding. It was full of oxtail. I couldn’t taste any kidneys. However it was not over salted as per the ones in The Hind Head (Heston’s pub). I have had 4 puddings there and they were all over salted! The confit root vegetables and garlic fritters were a touch too sweet for me and did not go with the light savoury taste of the oxtail – it would work if the pud came with an intensely reduced sauce. Worst, it came with no potatoes and the menu did not offer any potatoes as sides. The waitress offered me a side of mash potato which was later put down on the bill as broccoli.

As we were in conversation (business) all evening, I never found out what D thought of his food. He did eat it all.

We had a bottle of Italian Brusco di Bambi (£26.95) to wash the meal down. This was the first time in my life that we still have half a bottle of wine left after we finished the main courses. Usually, the wine is finished half way through the main course. There was nothing wrong with the wine.

With 2 coffees, the meal came to just over £90 – service which was pretty good was not included. This is about average for an evening meal for 2 in Southern England. However, I wasn’t all that impressed. May be I chose badly.

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http://www.japancentre.com/recipes/249

You can also use Chinese spring roll skin but not Vietnamese spring roll skin, which is made from rice.

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Nov 2011

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/food/Rice+versatile+Asian+staple/5676824/story.html

Good article.

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Nov 2011