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.

E
Sept 2010

Address: 8-9 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, OX1 2EW. Between Oxford Town Centre and Railway Station

Telephone number: 01865 202888

Website: N/A

Date of visit: 22 September, 2010

Approximate cost per head: For lunch, you can get away with less than £10. Maybe £20-£30 in the evening depending on what you ordered.

Comments on wine list/beer: Didn’t see a wine list but I assume it exist. Tiger is £3.40 a bottle

Summary:

I went there whilst I was in Oxford because of a great review by Giles Coren in The Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/giles_coren/article6809248.ece

He mentioned that they had a great Shanghainese Chef and the owner used to own Opium Den on George Street.

Lets get a few non food issues out of the way:

- This place has done well out of the review, it is moving to bigger premises in George Street later this year. There are 2 copies of the review within the restaurant. One on the window facing the street and one on the way to the loo.
- According to Giles, the owner used to own the Opium Den. However, there were several promotional posters (in Chinese) in the restaurant promoting the Opium Den, so may be the links with Opium Den are still there.
- The dark wood furnishing is remarkably similar to the Opium Den.

Now, onto the food. The place advertises Shanghainese and Szechwan cooking as well as Mongolian Grill. The Mongolian Grill is a very large heated griddle. You go to a buffet table, take you selection of shreds of meat, vegetables and noodles. The chef then stir fries it on the griddle for you. The restaurant charges £5.50 for the first plateful and £4 for seconds.

The place was half full when I entered at 1.30. The clientele were mainly Chinese students.

I was offered two menus as I sat down. There was a lunch menu offering dim sum (from £3 a dish) and various rice and noodles for around £6 a dish or bowl. The main menu that promotes set meals, the Mongolian Grill as well as the a la carte dishes.

I have to say that menu was not particularly Shanghainese or Szechwan. In fact I am not aware of an autrhentic Shanghainese restaurant in the UK. Most of the dishes were Cantonese. I then looked at the dim sum menu and they were all standard items – 90% Cantonese. For example, onion cake or pancake is a must menu item in Shanghainese restaurants, another one is eels. They are not on offer here.

I had pork and vegetable dumplings, wok tip dumplings (pot stickers), beef brisket, vegetable spring roll, shanghai dumplings – shao loong pao.

The pork and vegetable dumplings (£3.50) were essentially pao dough pan fried with a mixed minced pork and Chinese cabbage filling. This was fine. The vegetarian spring rolls (£3.00) were as they should be and it was served with a sweet chilli dip.

The wok tip (£3.50) were ok but were covered in sesame seeds – a first for me world wide and I have eaten quite a few of them. The base of the pot stickers could have been crisper. The shao long pao (3.50) had exactly the same filling as the wok tip and no soup or stock inside the dumpling. It’s the soup that makes these dumplings famous. What was also disappointing was that the wok tip and shao loong pao were served with a black vinegar that had no ginger in it. Traditionally these items are served with a slightly sweet vinegar with shreds of ginger in it.

Next came the five spice beef brisket (£8.00). This was cubes of tender beef in a sauce. The dish was served hot. Traditionally this should be served cold in aspic, sliced up like brawn.

With 2 Tiger Beers and service, the bill came to £28.80. Not cheap but not pricy.

My conclusion is that the food is all right but it is not 100% authentic and certainly, the menu is dominated by Cantonese dishes not Shanghainese dishes.

I am off to New York in mid October. I shall certainly visit an authentic shanghainese restaurant.

Giles, may I suggest that you go to Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York or Vancouver and try out a proper Shanghainese restaurant. The food is very different from Sojo. There is a shanghainese restaurant in Kuala Lumpur but I do not recommend it. This is not an invitation, so, please don’t send me the bill.

E

PS. So Jo means burning wine, a type of hash spirit in China.

PPS I am sure that you all know that chop suey is an american invention. Did you know that crispy duck is a british bastardisation of the original dish. In China, it is a salty duck deep fried. No pancake, no hoisin sauce.

Address: Toot Baldon, Oxford, OX44 9NG

Telephone number: 01865 340001

Website: www.themoleinn.com

Date of visit: 28 February 2010

Approximate cost per head for 2 courses: £20

Comments on wine list/beer: Hook Norton and a very reasonable wine list with plenty under £20 a bottle

Summary:

This place is in the middle of nowhere. You have to leave a B road to go onto “undefined roads” to get to this pub.

When you get to Toot Baldon, carry straight on with the common on your right. Unfortunately, I followed my sat nev that suggested that I turn right at the common. After driving over terrain that requires a proper 4X4 not suvs, I ended up in someone’s garden in the dark. I had to retrace my route back onto the “main” road.

When you finally get there, you will find a delightful pub with a large car park.

The outside of the pub has a fine looking out door dining area and I can visualise that it will be very nice when the sun shines.

Inside is a smallish drinking area attached to a large well lit dining room.

My friends have been waiting for a significant period whilst I was exploring the “terrain”.

Now, please note that this pub host a Jazz Sunday  lunch at the end of every month. I assumed that it was packed out as some items on the menu were sold out that evening.

.

We had the confit of duck, sea bass, roast pork and the 28 day steak.

I would like to point out that the menu carries a paragraph on where they source their meats etc. There was a great write up about the organic chicken but I could not find a chicken dish on the a la carte menu.

The confit was pronounced as very salty. Confit is one of those dishes that you can over do it with salt and sometimes the quatre epices. The temperature of the confit would also determine the final texture. Overall, this dish was not judges to be good. The roast port was my choice and I liked it very much but it was served with a Yorkshire pud and  no crackling. The vegetables that came with it were enough to feed 3 people.

The other dishes were judged to very good but there was a complete lack of vegetables with it. The cod was lined with a thin layer of  spinach and sat on a bed of mash whilst the steak was served with a bowl of chips and a slice of tomato and a few leaves. We should have ordered sides but we were not warned by the waitress.

For desert, we ordered the bread and butter pudding which was served with Bird’s Custard. When we enquired as to why it was so special (custard0, we were told that most of their customers prefer packet (powder) custard rather than home made custard. I was told that it was very good. Another diner had the chocolate and orange mousse. It was also very good.

Starters were under £7 or under £13 (two sizes) and main courses were from £12 to £17.95. Deserts were  £6.95

Our conclusion was that we would definitely come back but not on the evening after the jazz lunch.

Eddie