Telephone number: 01545 561 844

Website: www.treath.co.uk

Date of visit: www.traeth.co.uk

Approximate cost per head: Two courses around £20 plus.

Comments on wine list/beer: Excellent wine list – short and good value.

Likes and dislikes: Everything good, however, I prefer my raw meat in smaller bits

Cuisine: Modern British, Steak and seafood restaurant

Previous review: 19 August 2010

Summary:

Another visit to what I considered to be one of the best steakhouse in GB. Well, I have eaten in steakhouses around the world especially in the US – Prime, Mortens, Sparks, Hy’s etc, so I believe that I am allowed to make this judgement.

The menu and wine list have slightly changed, Chef Nige Jones still there.

Lat year they had a 1999 Ch Musar (Lebanon) at under £20 a bottle. http://www.chateaumusar.com.lb/english/home.aspx

This year they have a 2006 Graves at £24.50 – the most expensive red on the list. We had a bottle – excellent wine.

Now onto the food.

Steak tartare and most of the cuts (hanger, sirloin etc) are still on the menu – the most expensive is the veal T bone at just over £21. The rest are all priced at under £20 including chips.

The fish selection was also very good. Turbot was on the menu but they ran out and skate wing with black butter was offered as a substitute. All the meat and fish are now sourced from sustainable stock, traceable source etc.

My friend had the crab spaghetti ( £13.95) which was highly rated.

I went for my usual steak tartare (£12.75) with french fries and a side salad (£3.50). However to my horror Chef Jones has changed the recipe. Instead of minced or chopped meat, you now have julienne. Still taste very nice but it doesn’t work from a digestion point of view as you have to really chew the meat or its stays in you stomach for hours like a very rare steak.

The chips were first class.

Later when Chef Jones was doing his round, I told him that I preferred my steak tartare minced or better still – coarsely chopped.

I also picked up a rumour that this could be Chef Jones’s last season at the Treath. Well, if you are in the area, go and have a steak with a decent bottle of wine.

E

Telephone number: 01545 561844

Website: www.traeth.co.uk

Date of visit: Twice during August 2010

Approximate cost per head: main course around £10 for lunch, Steak menu around £20.

Comments on wine list/beer: Pretty good and small list. The Ch Musar at £19.50 is a tremendous buy.

Summary:

During August, I went twice on different weeks.

The restaurant now opens from 8am till late. The view from the balcony over the harbour is as good as it gets. Go there for a drink as the Penwig (next door) can get very busy.

On both occasions, the food was still  good but the service was a bit poor.

Lets start with the lunch: we ordered the linguine with crab (£9.00), burger (£9.00) and lemon sole (£9.50) and a bottle of Gavi (£17). Two of us ordered the linguine but only one bowl turned up. We also ordered the large grazing plate to share as a starter but the small one turned up. Throughout the meal I tried to order a beer and had to remind the waiter twice before the beer turned up.

On the night we went for dinner, we ordered the steak tartare and the duck. The duck was slightly on the tough side but quite tasty. Again, I tried to order a beer but they keep forgetting to bring it. Mind you, when I complained, the waitress from New Zealand was very charming about it.

I don’t know – I didn’t ask – if they offer steak over lunch because the waiter/waitress keep referring to the lunch menu on the blackboard. My recommendations are that they should offer the small rump steak and small tartar steak over lunch and the serving staff should write things down and not rush from job to job without completing the initial order.

E

Telephone number: 01491 641 282

Website: www.thefivehorseshoes.co.uk

Date of visit: 27 July 2010

Approximate cost per head: Around £20 for 2 courses

Comments on wine list/beer: Brakspear (£3 a pint of ordinary). Wines list is simple but good on French and reasonably priced

Summary:

This pub is in the middle of nowhere. It is impossible to come across it by accident. In fact, you have to go out of your way to look for it.

It is sited down a single track road off  B480 at Stoner. Although the address is Maidensgrove, you actually go pass Maidensgrove and aim for Upper Maidensgrove.

The restaurant/pub is listed in several guides including Sawday’s and Harden’s – so I thought that I would check it out.

Outside the pub are an array of wooden tables – well spaced apart. Inside there are 2 bars and a restaurant.

The menu is pretty British and Countryside. There is venison and steak on the menu – a single pager. I went for the doorstop sandwich (£7.50) – I asked for smoked ham but am sure that I got roast pork instead.

The sandwich came as two halves of multigrain bread stuffed with salad and meat. The sandwich was served on a wooden board with a side salad of undressed continental leaves. You also get a bowl of chips.

The chips must be one of the best thick cut chips I have ever eaten. They were crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. They were not broken down on the edge through over boiling like triple cooked chips.

I noticed that they were also advertising pizza from the wood burning oven – only available at weekends.

I have to admit that I was impressed and will soon be back to test out the pizza and the main menu.

I will also take this opportunity to warn you about the road – it is very narrow and dangerous when it’s dark.

E

Click on the link again

Telephone number: 01628 482277

Website: www.thehandandflowers.co.uk

Date of visit: 8 May 2010

Approximate cost per head: Approx £40 for 3 courses

Comments on wine list/beer: Excellent list.

Summary:

I have been here on 4 separate occasions during lunch time. I thought that it is time to test out their evening performance.

To start with, the place was packed and on some tables, they managed 2 sittings. I was told that their busiest night is Saturday.

Lets start with the positives: the bread is as good as ever and is served ward. You get  the complimentary deep fried whitebaits which were excellent – in fact, I have had this on every visit. So it does not change. Service was good.

On the negative side, the chips were not as crisp as they normally are. The description on the menu is also not 100% accurate. However, these were minor faults.

We had a mixture of starters, salmon tartar, mouls, omelette with smoke haddock. The omelette was in fact the famous Arnold Bennet omelette (invented in the Savoy Grill for the great man) served in a small frying pan. It was pretty filling and was as expected. The moules  were served with a Guinness foam – we were warned about this – I am not sure this works as it add a bitterness to the sweet mussels cooked as moules a la marinier. The salmon tartar turned out to be a salmon mousse sitting on a bed of finely chopped raw salmon mixed with vegetables – much like a mirepoix. In fact there was more mousse than raw salmon.

For main courses, we had the fillet steak, braised shin of beef, pork loin and plaice. The shin of beef was covered in a heavily reduced gelatinous dark sauce and shelled broad beans. The meat fell apart when I touched it with a fork. The steaks were given top marks except that it was done British style – the rare turned out to be medium and medium became well done. The fish and pork also went down well with the side order of “selection of vegetables”.

All these were washed down with two bottles of wine – Abarino (£38.20) and Faugeres (£59). Both wines were excellent.

For desert we had crème brulee and chocolate tart. The came brulee came in a bowl the size of a Chinese rice bowl and the chocolate tart was a wonderful invention. The base was a piece of biscuit. On top of this was a runny chocolate mousse encaed in dark chocolate. This was the covered by layers of chocolates – dark, white, milk and in it sat a white chocolate malted ice cream. Deserts were £8 each.

For 7 the bill came to just over £385 (incl service charge). It was a  pretty good meal for just over £50 a head including booze.

E

PS They do not serve their famous fish and chips on a Saturday night.

Telephone number: 01491575755

Website: http://www.thebottleandglassinn.com/

Date of visit: 7 May 2010

Approximate cost per head:  Nearly all main meals under £10 except sea bass at £12.95 and steak at £17.95

Comments on wine list/beer: Didn’t see a wine list, wines available by the glass, Breakspear £3 a pint

Summary:

I used to come here on a regular basis in the mid 70s when I was a postgrad at Reading University.

In those days, they did scampi and chips and steak and chips – both under a fiver and significantly better than those served at Berni Inns.

Alias, Berni Inn is no more although the next generation of cheap steakhouses- Beefeaters – are still around.

Bottle and Glass’s cuisine has already moved on as they are under new management although the décor and furniture (inside and outside) have stayed nearly the same. There are two bars, the public one has long tables and benches or chairs and there is a sofa in the lounge bar (that’s new!). There are only one set of toilets accessed via the lounge bar.

The menu is a simple one and there is a lunch as well as a supper version. Sandwiches at £4 and all puds also priced at £4. The main courses range from spaghetti bolognese to sausage and mash. I had the fish and chips off the lunch menu priced at £6.60 (£9.50 in the evening).

The fish – a pretty big piece – and chips were excellent. To start with, you get proper french fries not chunky chips. The batter was light and the peas were previously frozen – more and more places are introducing sweetened pea puree or mushy peas. Mushy I like but not the sweetened puree. In fact the Hand and Flowers (Marlow) serves sweetened pea puree with their “famous” fish and chips. You also get pea puree at the St George and Dragon (Wargrave) and The Royal Oak (Paley Street).

It’s certainly worth a visit.

E

Web site: http://www.casaardeleana.com/

Telephone number: +40 (0)264 439 451

Date of visit: 07/04/2010

Approx. cost per head: €10 – very good value

Comments on wine list/beer: Romanian, and rather good

Review:
Casa Ardeleană in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania bills itself as a traditional restaurant and seems to live up to this promise as far as I was able to tell, which wasn’t very far. The decor and atmosphere are rural and no-nonsense respectively.

The starter, a mixed plate of cheeses, meats and salad with chunky bread, and ostensibly for two, fed four of us easily. Particularly nice were the goat’s cheese and, surprisingly, the pork fat (although the deep-fried pork fat was not so delicious!). My Transylvanian friend recommended that the pork fat be eaten with onions, which proved a good combination. As it turns out they really do eat lots of onions and garlic in this neck of the woods.

The above was accompanied by a shot of the local plum brandy which, at 52% proof, is not for the faint-hearted, as well as a very-nice Romanian red, of which more below.

Romania has a lot in common with those other countries in Europe where romance languages are spoken. Wine is produced and drunk in high quantities, digestifs are very popular, and, I am reliably informed, Romania has more types of cheese than France. The Romanian word for thank you—multumesc—is also often replaced by the word “merci” by the locals.

For the main course one of us had a lamb kebab which looked very nice, while the rest of us had beef steak presented on a hot stone. The meat is served quite raw and one simply slices it and waits for it to cook to one’s liking before getting started. I enjoyed this self-cook method, and the meat was of a high quality. This came with various side dishes including mushrooms, chips and a basic salad.

It just so happened that another round of rum brandy was served, as was a second bottle of an excellent local 2007 Pinot Noir. The grapes were from Moldova (the region as opposed to the neighbouring country, the Republic of Moldova, which is historically, ethnically and culturally, yet no longer politically, joined with Romanian Moldova). The provenance of the grapes is clearly important, as it was something my local companion was keen to point out.

The wine went by the splendid name “Immortality Pinot Noir – The Legend of Transylvania”.

There was no room for pudding.

- Damian (d@staffordnet.org.uk)

Telephone number: + (852) 2881 8012

Website: http://www.outback.com.hk/2008/locations/JPPlaza.asp

Date of visit: March 2010

Approximate cost per head for 2 courses: $200+ ($11.30=£1)

Comments on wine list/beer: Moderately expensive mainly Aussie/NZ wine list, try the carafe (125ml) for $80 – buy one get one free before 7pm. The house red was young and pretty acid.

Summary:

This is a chain of steakhouse across HK. The beef is prime US beef not Australian.

Although the front of this branch looked small, it’s pretty deep and would serve over 100 covers. The front also has a bar.

The steaks/ ribs start at $150.

Overall, the service was very slow. The warm bread (a dark ryish bread that was sweet) was produced after the starters arrived – you get a “house soup” or salad with your main course. The wine only arrived with the starter and not before.

The ribeye that I had was quite spicy – it had a dry rub on it. It was medium and was  probably dry aged as there was a  lack of blood. The chips were over salted and the cole slaw was OK.

There is not a lot I can tell you about this place other than its fine for the price, the beef was tender but that’s about it – its neither good nor bad. Go there if you happened to be in the area and is sick of chinese food.

E

Telephone number: 01189722227

Website: N/A

Date of visit:  29 February 2010

Approximate cost per head: From £10

Comments on wine list/beer: Bombadier or Black Sheep, extensive wine list at usual mark up.

Summary:

This is celebrity chef AWT’s pub.

The view from the outside suggests that it an old, slightly run down building – huge puddles in the car park.

On the inside, the pub is divided into two areas, a bar side and a large restaurant in a converted barn with high ceiling. It’s obvious that people come here to eat as the beer is not the attraction.

I sat in the bar side and noticed that there were crumbs on the table – not a good sign as I was first one in through the door at noon.

They operate a set meal and an a la carte. The black boards just tell you that the set meal is different every day but set formula e.g. roast on a Sunday ….They have a 8 for 8 policy which mean that you can have one course from the set  menu at £8 (lunch till 8pm), £10 for 2 courses and £12 for 3 courses.

I opted for the steak tartar on the a la carte menu. You can have this as a starter with melba toast or as a main course with chips (£12.95). I had a pint of black sheep (£3) with it.

The steak came on a plate with a smallish side salad and a bowl of frites cut into aluminates sprinkled with coarse salt. Luckily it was not too salty.

Now, the steak tartar is probably the best I have eaten for a very long time. It was coarsely chopped up instead of minced. They used green peppercorns instead of  capers and it was seasoned right. I did not have “food” poisoning the next day which is also good as steak tartar can be very dodgy as it is based on raw meat with raw egg.

I will have to go back and test out the other dishes as he is famous for his “grilled meat” dishes.

Eddie

PS (14 July 2010)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/7885226/Antony-Worrall-Thompsons-gastropub-given-one-hygiene-star.html

Telephone number: 01635 582017

Website: www.theredhousepub.com

Date of visit: 12 December 2009

Approximate cost per head: £15 – £75

Comments on wine list/beer:  West Berkshire Beer, above average global wine list majoring on non french wines

Summary:

This is another Sawday’s recommended pub.

I was travelling between Newbury and Hungerford when I saw the sign for The Red House so I followed it –I was not looking for it.

First impression was that the garden was well kept – you have to walk through the garden to reach the pub.

The pub has a L shaped bar with a restaurant attached to the L to make it into a U. The walls are painted a maroon red colour.

As soon as I entered, I was met with a waitress who showed me to a table in the pub section – this is a new experience for me in the UK. There is no table cloth in the pub section but you get a proper napkin.

The menu is very interesting with a selection of mini scotch eggs and pies at £2 a portion as a bar snack.

The main menu offers anything from ham egg and chips via lamb shank to fillet steak (£25). In between, there are specialist pies and puddings (around £12) made within the kitchen.

I settled for the scotch eggs to start with, followed by cauliflower au gratin with ham.

Two mini scotch eggs (quail egg) appeared – hot and deep fried. The sausage meat was fine but the egg  yolk  was “hard”. This does not compare with the scotch egg at The Royal Oak (Paley Street – owned by Michael Parkinson and yes, the village is called Paley Street) where the yolk is always runny – I have eaten it on 5 separate occasions and the yolk is always runny.

The Cauliflower au gratin came with a very generous of peas and chips. The chips were very slightly salted.

The overall bill with two pints (waitress service) came to £16.35. The Cauli was £8.95 and the beer was £2.70 a pint.

Overall, it was very good food at a very reasonable price. However, as I was leaving, I was handed a leaflet – apparently, the chef offers a 5 course Chef’s table dinner on the first and third Monday every month at £75 a head – this includes wine with every course. I am tempted.

Eddie