http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food/food-reviews/17-must-have-kitchen-spices/articleshow/10267643.cms

http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/01/23/55440/

E

January 2012

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/recipes/9037965/Celebrate-Burns-Night-and-Rabindranath-Tagore-anniversary-with-indian-haggis.html

I actually like to combine the inside of a haggis with black pudding and reheat it with a mash potato topping a la cottage pie.

E

January 2011

Address: Inkpen Common, Inkpen, RG17 9QR

Telephone: 01488 668325

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

Date of visit: 26 January 2012

Costs:  Set lunch: £19.95 for 2 courses, £13.95 for 3 courses. Most a la carte dishes between £10-£15  and you get free bread with both butter and an oil and vinegar dip.

Wines and beer: Amazing wine list. Most expensive wine is under £20. The house champagne is £21. West Berkshire Brewery and Doombar.  Guest beer from £3 a pint.

Likes and dislikes: Clean tables, cheap and decent food. Pity about the location – miles from anywhere unless you live locally.

Cuisine: Traditional pub food.

Summary:

I have been trying to eat here for a while. Unfortunately, it is firstly a longish drive and secondly, they are closed on a Monday and Tuesday lunch.

The Crown and Garter is listed in Sawdays’, The Good Pub Guide (Which) and AA’s pub guide. Although Inkpen is in the middle of a really rural location, the roads from A4 and Hungerford are good.

The inside of the pub is modern – more like a farmhouse  – with a pub side and a restaurant.

The a la menu is short – fish cakes, trio of game, grazing boards, fish and chips etc. There is a set luch with 4 courses to choose from – several designed for vegetarians.

I went for the set lunch. To start with I had the pheasant sausage in a mushroom sauce. This came as a skinless sausage with a very loose texture, like an over boiled frankfurter. The mushrooms were a medley in a brown sauce. It was nice but the texture was too loose for me.

Next I had the smoke haddock. This came in an au gratin dish with three whirls of mash potatoes on the side – cooked in the au gratin dish. The haddock was cooked just right and it came in a cheese sauce with wilted spinach.  The Old Boy (£3.50) from West Berkshire Brewery was a decent pint.

As I was leaving, three toffee nose young solicitors turned up. You can tell by their uniform: blue denim jeans and a tweed jacket with an open neck shirt. What tells them apart is that they have a handkerchief in their top pocket. I first came across one of Mr Dewhurst’s sons dressed like this. (Please note that although Top Gear presenters dress like this, they do not have handkerchief in their top pocket. As soon as they start speaking, you can hear it : the plummy accent, the constant use of words like Yeah and Fantastic – by the way, superb which was heavily in use in the 80s is no longer fashionable. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not against them but I just found the dress code amusing. Another interesting fact is that they mainly drink halves and will have a large glass of wine with their meal but not a bottle.

For a food point of view, this is an extremely decent place for plain old fashion cooking.

E

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16659349

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January 2012

Location: High Street, Milton, Cambridge , CB24 6DF

Web site: www.lion-lamb.co.uk (URL not in use)

Telephone number: 01223 860 202

Date of visit: 19/1/12

Approx. cost per head:

Comments on wine list/beer:

Media link:

Review:

It will never cease to amaze me why people who so clearly despise the human race go into the hospitality industry.
The lion & Lamb is locally infamous for having the rudest most hateful landlady in the county, if not the country.
My place of work have now vetoed this pub because any sane person does not work hard all week to spend their money somewhere in which you are made to feel you are nothing more than a terrible nuisance to miserable landlady.
If you visit the area  there are plenty more pubs close to this, even one opposite, and so I would suggest avoiding this one like the plague. What would you miss if you choose not to go here? Stodgy greasy food slapped down in front of you with a snarl & terrible wine – that’s all.
I have witnessed customers being spoken to & treated terribly on several occasions and have also had some of the same treatment myself. The customer in the Lion & Lamb is a fly to be swatted and nothing more.
Avoid this place!!!

R

Address:  1 Station Parade, Uxbridge Road, Ealing Common, London W5 3LD

Transport: Opposite Ealing Common Station. Parking near the shops gives you one hour – enough to eat your sushi – without the need to resort to paid parking outside the Ramada

Telephone: 020 88963175

Website: www.atariya.co.uk

Date of visit: 19 January 2012

Costs: You will get enough to eat for £20 or less.

Wines and beer:  Asahi, Kirin available at £3. Sake and wine available

Likes and dislikes: straight forward no frill sushi. Fresh fish with excellent rice.

Cuisine: Japanese (sushi and sashimi)

Summary:

This is a new restaurant that has taken over Sushi Haro’s premise just under a year ago. I think that the previous owners must have retired. Heston Blumenthal apparently was a fan of Sushi Haro so I can’t imagine that Sushi Haro went out of business.

The inside is nearly identical including the pictures and clock. The main difference being the chefs. Instead of the owner and his wife, there are now two sushi chefs and a waitress. Similar to Sushi Haro, they do nothing but different types of sushi and shashimi – no noodles or tempura here.

Sushi Bar Atari-Ya is a chain with restaurants in Swiss Cottage and Hendon – my Jewish and Muslim friends tell me that sushi is fit for both  kosher and halal diets as it fulfils all the requirements and there is no need to kill the fish in a special way. They also operate a take away in James Street.

Once you sit down, you will know that this is serious sushi with trained Japanese Chefs. There is a senior chef who will cut the fish and a sous chef who does the rolling for maki sushi.

You can get a set meal for around £20. I went for the piece by piece menu. Most are priced around £2-4. I had salmon (£2.20), yellow tail (£2.0), tuna (£1.80), flying fish roe (£2.20) and crab roll (£3.20). Ok, crab and roe is not kosher or hahal.

The fish here is good. The wasabi excellent and the rice just right – slightly vinegary with a hint of sweetness and of course, the rice is both sticky and can be separated into grains with a chewy bite. Excellent place!

E

Address: Knowl Hill (A4), Berkshire RG10 9UU

Telephone: 01628 823262

Website: www.theolddevil.com

Date of visit: 16 January 2012

Costs: Around £20 for 2 courses

Wines and beer: Windsor and Eaton, Rebellion (Marlow). £3.50 a pint

Likes and dislikes: Ultra large portions, very homely. Cooking is good but ingredients need to improve. Clean tables.

Cuisine: Traditional Pub cuisine

Summary:

I haven’t been to The Old Devil for a few years. A friend of mine told me that it is under new management and the food has improved. The menu is traditional Pub menu – mixed grill, shepherd’s pie, fish and chips, grilled sea bass, chicken madras etc..

Well the place certainly has had a makeover, it’s now all tables dotted leather settees. When I talked to the owners I realised that they have been here for nearly 5 years.

I started off with a prawn cocktail – haven’t had one for decades  then suddenly, it’s my second this year. It was came in something like an extra large rice bowl. The bottom was piled with iceberg lettuce. On top of this is probably half a packet of prawns with a very nice rose marie sauce. You also get a fancy cut strawberry and half a lemon also decoratively cut. There were enough for 2 normal size servings – compared with The Bull. At £6.95, it was a meal in itself.

I then had the sausages and mash (£9.95). This was another massive plate. You get three sausages, mash, peas and about half a litre of thick gravy. Again, this was enough for 2. Unfortunately, the sausages were of the poorer quality – the 80% meat ones like Walls and Richmond. The rest was good.

My advice: reduce the size of the portion, put the price up , improve the ingredients and this place will easily take on The Bird in Hand (across the road). By the way, the beer was well kept.

E

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/dining/reviews/wines-of-the-canary-islands-review.html?_r=1&ref=dining

I have to admit, I didn’t even knew that they have a wine industry.

E

January 2012

Address: Old Raglan Road, Abergavenny, Wales NP7 9AA. (On B4598 off A40)

Telephone number: 01873 854220

Website: www.Thehardwick.co.uk

Date of visit: 7 January 2012

Last visit (published date): 17 Aug 2010

Likes and dislikes: All the favourites are available as pasrt of the Sunday set lunch – excellent approached. Do they have to charge for bread?

Approximate cost per head:  Around £20. Set lunch available at £18.50 for 2 courses and £23.50 for 3 courses.

Cuisine: Nearly haute cuisine – modern European

Comments on wine list/beer: Otley. Fairly serious wine list at around 300% mark up – A 2008 Albarino was priced at £29 whilst a 2006 Chateau Neuf du Pape was priced at £68.50. Certain wines were available by the glass or half bottle.

Summary:

I was in Wales for a birthday party and decided to have lunch with a friend in The Hardwick before the journey back into England.

The only slot they could offer me was a 12.00 slot. They were otherwise fully booked.

The Hardwick has now finished with the new extension – a bar area. It was full of leather settees. There are now 3 dining rooms – one small, one medium and a large sun lounge.

On Sunday, they offer a set lunch with choices. It was £22 for 2 courses and £28 for three courses. Bread was extra.

The wine list was as extensive as before with plenty of wines close to £100. At the lower end, it was in the £20s.

I started with ravioli with ricotta, spinach and roasted pumpkin followed by roast pork. M ordered roast beef. I ordered  a bottle of I’ntruse  2008 – an Italian blend. This was a very drinkable wine.

The ravioli was 2 large ones filled with the ricotta and spinach mixture with the roast red butternut squash dotted round the plate. It came with a butter sauce, very nice and very visual.

For main course, the roast pork came with whole fried chicory. The pork was pink – have we eradicated tape worms? Unfortunately, I developed a mild tummy ache and couldn’t eat a thing. M’s roast beef was very pink and it was warm rather than hot. It came with roast potatoes, a huge Yorkshire pud and cabbage.

Although I was in distress, M didn’t lose her appetite and went on to have a dessert – rice pudding. This was served with ice cream and poached pear.

The waitress offered the wrap up my lunch for me. I later had it that evening at home. The re-cooked pork was no longer pink and it was very nice.

Hardwick is a top act in South Wales. Its brochure now claims that Michele Roux Jr has declared that this is his favourite restaurant in Wales. I think that the chef (Terry Stevens) trained under Marco Pierre White, so he is not a Roux protégée.

e