Monday 30 January 2012

The Anchor & Hope, Southwark

I have frequented The Anchor and Hope on The Cut in Southwark on many occasions, usually linked to a trip to the Old or Young Vic. On Saturday, no theatrical experience awaited, however it was an ideal halfway point for our group to meet, half of whom originated SW and the other half SE. I arrive at the venue first, on time it must be stated, at 7pm, that being the time we agreed to meet. I figure that will be a good time given that the theatre crowd should soon be about to shuffle off in search of culture and it should still be early enough before the drinkers arrive. Theoretically then, I consider it to be an ideal window of opportunity.

The place is packed when I arrive but with an eagle eye I spot folks depart and commandeer a table for our group in the bar area. At that point, I receive a text telling me that two of the group are running half an hour late, and soon after another from the other two telling me they shall be leaving their home promptly.  I think this is called living my life according to other people’s schedules.
Fortunately I have the wisdom to order a bottle of house red to keep me going. This is needed as groups come over to me and ask if I’m sitting there by myself and if they could sit at the rest of the table. I must have the look of a drinker who heads out to knock back a bottle of vino on a Saturday. I consider making them my new best friends but decide against it. Eventually the others join the group and we settle in.
Now I’m a fan of The Anchor and Hope. The bar and restaurant are divided into two distinct sections. Tables are packed tightly together, in particular in the bar. The toilets are smartly located through the restaurant to tempt customers with the delights on offer in the restaurant.

Some of the plates are made for 2 or 3 people to share – like the pheasant pie or rib of beef. As I go to the toilet I notice a group in the restaurant who had ordered the slow cooked lamb shoulder. The lamb was falling off the bone. It looked delicious. I had to stop salivating and continue to the lavatories or else run the risk of eviction for strange behaviour.
At our table, I order the English lop which was cooked like boar and served with mashed potatoes. I had to ask what English lop actually is and am informed that it’s a kind of pork. It was served like a stew. The cuts of meat were lean and tasty and served in a gravy along with soft mashed potatoes. I was pleased with my selection.
My friend ordered the roast wood pigeon served with semolina gnocchi and braised chicory.  I tasted the pigeon and it was delicious. The gnocchi was a good accompaniment for the pigeon. It was the first time I had seen semolina on a menu and it was the first time I tasted a gnocchi made from semolina and it worked well with the pigeon. The chicory, especially considering it’s in season at the moment was a good idea from the chef.
The final selection was the potato and ardrahan pie served with salad. It was only four months ago when I found out that Ardrahan was a cheese emanating from Co. Cork in Ireland, having found out when it appeared on the menu at Magdalen (a very nice restaurant) near London Bridge. It was advertised as a cheese from Cork and I argued that surely it should be from Galway given the village of the same name in Galway. With the assistance of Google I determined that it was indeed from Cork and quite a popular cheese it is too, if one enjoys cheese. Two at our table ordered the pie. The vegetarian was not particularly impressed, stating that it was pretty stodgy as one might expect from a pie and lacked imagination. The other guy was of the opinion that it was nice, but not exactly earth shattering.
So, two out of three of the mains were consisdered to be excellent and one mediocre. My advice then is to stick to the meat dishes where the restaurant excels and demonstrates imagination. Bear in mind that no reservations are taken at the restaurant, there will most likely then be a wait for a table considering it gets busy, and also considering your (my) friends might be up to an hour late in turning up. But it’s worth it (the food that is), especially if you’re a carnivore and enjoy eating produce in season. A bottle of drinkable house red is £15, and main courses are around the £15 mark.
Anchor & Hope on Urbanspoon

Sunday 29 January 2012

Skylon, Royal Festival Hall

Having tickets to see Juno and the Paycock at the National Theatre, my friends and I decided to have a pre-theatre meal at the Skylon restaurant on the 3rd floor of the Royal Festival Hall. First and foremost, the location is nice. We were seated by the window to appreciate the view over the Thames. That was about as good as it got however. The food was at best pedestrian.
For my main course I ordered the sea bass. The fish itself was limp and overcooked. It was served with anchovies and potatoes. It’s not that there was anything particularly wrong about the plate, more that there was nothing particularly right about it. The overall impression was that I could, with ease, have cooked a better plate myself.
One of my friends selected the fish cake with salad and tartar sauce. It was a big cake but certainly did not stand out as being particularly innovative or interesting. It was edible, but boring. It tasted fishy but I could neither discern the salmon nor haddock flavours in the cake. It was just unimaginative.
The other party at the table made do with a vegetarian pasta dish, which left such little impression that I don’t have anything to say about it for better or worse.
Desserts were slightly better. The passion fruit cheese cake served with a spoon of passion fruit sorbet was edible. I tasted the sorbet and it was nice. I ordered the crème brulee which was served with two small Madeline’s. The Madeline’s lacked that light texture one appreciates in a good Madeline, while the crème brulee lacked that velvet consistency which a good brulee should have. Indeed, it was quite bitty as though it had not been mixed sufficiently in preparation. The final dessert was the best. It was a crème caramel with mango sorbet and it awakened the taste buds at this stage deadened by the level of mediocrity on offer.

The bill amounted to £83 for two courses for three people along with two coffees and two bottles of water. The water was charged at £4 per bottle. I didn’t get the impression it had been bottled by mermaids hence necessitating such a pricing structure.  We would have ended up with more money in our pocket and better quality food had we just gone to Wagamama’s down the road. Fortunately, the quality on offer at the theatre was substantially greater than the Skylon.  
Skylon on Urbanspoon

Gelato, Covent Garden

The last time I went in search of ice-cream in Covent Garden to sample I got lost. Instead of ending up at Scoop, I ended up at All Saints on Regents Street. Almost two weeks later, I still have no idea how this happened. Instead of spending £3.50 and gaining a couple of hundred calories, I gained a very nice pair of boots and dropped £195 from my bank account. I was happy with this arrangement, with the exception of the exchange of notes for leather. Though the leather brings happiness to my life.
The following week I went in search of ice-cream once more. I started at Scoop just off Endell Street. As I had just finished a swim at the Oasis outdoor heated pool nearby I felt as though I had earned my sugar rush. Now I love tasting gelato. At a 4 day wedding in Rome last summer, I spent one full day traversing the cobbled streets in search of the perfect ice-cream. I was spoilt for choice. In sampling and comparing I like to use coconut and pistachio as my core flavours. At Scoop there was no pistachio on offer so I sampled the coconut. At £3.50 for a small tub it’s certainly pricey. When you consider that Harvey Nichols sell excellent ice-cream at £2 a pop, the difference in price is substantial. The taste and texture of the gelato at Scoop was affected by the coconut pieces in the ice-cream in a positive way. It was quite tasty but I did get an aftertaste which left the impression on me that there were some artificial additives in the ice-cream. There was certainly something not quite right about it.
I continued on my merry way, and just a few blocks due south, another gelato shop can be found on Russell Street. Gelatorino hides its ice-cream in covered vats. The gelato is made on premises. The flavours on offer included pistachio, and it was to this I veered towards. A small scoops costs £3 so again it’s pricey but wow when it appeared from beneath the covered vat it was an impressive sight. The gelato had a brown/green tinge to it, and my goodness it was delicious. It had a velvety texture with pieces of pistachio throughout. Each taste only served to enhance the flavour. As I indulged, an Italian customer arrived into the shop to order his own gelato and converse with the assistant in Italian. The proof of the gelato I suppose is in the Italian.
In the Covent Garden stakes for ice-cream, Gelatorino is the clear winner by a country mile. It’s certainly not cheap, but it is truly excellent.
Scoop Fine Italian Gelato on Urbanspoon Gelatorino on Urbanspoon

Bread Street Kitchen, St. Paul's

Meeting up with my cousin who was working in town for the day near St. Paul’s, I considered the relatively recent creation of Bread Street Kitchen to be a suitable lunch venue to sample. A recent creation of the 11 Michelin Star awardee Gordon Ramsay, I figured it should be pretty decent. I’m a fan of Ramsay’s food ever since I cooked his pork stuffed with pistachio, cumin and apricot, and wrapped in ham. Absolutely divine. As a result, I had expectations regarding his restaurant.
Oh well, how wrong one might be. Let’s start with what was right about the place. Well, the venue is quite nice…I suppose.  Self-styled a lively and exciting bar and restaurant it’s set in a large warehouse type space apparently drawing inspiration from the East London aesthetic. Hhmmmnnn, clearly I should have read the website definition of what it defines itself as before going there. Self proclaiming to be a lively and exciting bar, does not a lively and exciting bar make; and drawing inspiration from the East London aesthetic makes you sound like a total wanker.
Our waiter was a nice and friendly chap. What else was nice about the place? No, that’s it.
I order poussin with chimichurri and burnt lemon. The poussin is a young chicken and it was grilled before being presented with a relatively tasteless chimichurri. I could detect the parsley, oil and possibly oregano; but that was about it. There was very little meat on the chicken, the piece was predominantly bones. It lacked the tenderness that one might expect from a young chicken. I ordered my chicken with a side of roast carrots. These were overcooked and had a sickly sweet taste to them. They were still miles better than the poussin however.


The other lunch ordered for the table was the rib burger with a side of chunky fries. Let’s start with the burger. You know there’s something wrong when a burger is left unfinished on the plate. The burger was overcooked and again the quality of the meat was just unacceptable. I spent 10 minutes ranting upon comparison to the burgers you get in Byron just down the road, or at Lucky Chip, or at Hawksmoor for that matter. The burger at Bread Street Kitchen was an insult to the great burgers offered elsewhere in this town. The chunky chips, again crap. I can’t be bothered wasting words on the rubbish that was served up. It makes me want to cry.
The only enjoyable part of the lunch (besides the company of course) was upon ordering tonic water the waiter misheard it for toilet water. With hindsight, it may have been apt to ask if the food had been cooked in the toilet as well. Lunch for two consisting of two non-alcoholic beverages, the two main courses and sides came to £39.45. The pain was all the greater as I picked up the bloody bill. I did not give a tip. This goes down as one of my worst dining experiences in London.   
I’m sure the rent is expensive at One New Change, and there’s the prostitution of a name to get punters through the door; but the food and the bill quite literally took the piss, that being the contents of the aforementioned toilet. A total horse pile of crap.
Bread Street Kitchen on Urbanspoon

Great Queen Street, Holborn

Having asked a foodie friend of mine not too long ago where one might find a decent restaurant in the Holborn area, her reply was dismissive. It’s a desert said she for decent food options. Disappointed was I, but I thought little more of it. That was until a friend told me that he was swinging by London on the road to Iraq from New York and would be in town for a couple of hours, so where could we meet for lunch. Taking a look at the Piccadilly line tube map, I sought out a stop not too far from my work place, within easy reach by bicycle yet not too far from Heathrow. Holborn seemed a suitable compromise, and by compromise I do of course mean it suited me best. Having found a neutral ground, it was to my Michelin guide 2012 I went to for inspiration. It was to Great Queen Street I sought solace, a gastropub originally name given that it’s located on Great Queen Street a stone’s throw from Holborn. It’s a New Bib Gourmand and therefore seemed to be a good option to check out.
Upon arrival and having referred to the menu at the airy venue, I noted that the restaurant is of the same family as The Anchor and Hope in Southwark and The Canton Arms in Vauxhall, two restaurants I rate highly, each serving up hearty winter fodder with lots of root vegetables on offer and plenty of game. The menu at Great Queen Street did not stray far from this winning formula – duck and partridge featured on the lunch menu. I selected the cider ham served with apple and choucroute. When it arrived, I realised choucroute is simply French for sauerkraut. The ham was delicious and was dressed with some mustard. The sauerkraut was tasty and the apple subtle not at all overpowering. I used the bread brought to the table to mop up the soup type gravy. The bread at the table was also very nice.
The other lunch chosen for the table was the pot roast partridge with bacon and quince. The waiter made reference to using fingers to get at the partridge. My friend however, decided to use a knife and fork and quickly the partridge along with some bacon and a chunk of carrot arrives on my plate having flown through the air at speed. I would be embarrassed had I any high expectations of my friends. Fortunately I don’t. The partridge was excellent and the taste set off nicely with the quince and bacon.
To drink I was swayed by the tempting choice of ginger beer made on the premises. Now I love ginger beer – Fentiman’s is my tipple of choice in the ginger beer stakes. However, the ginger beer was disappointing to say the least leaving a very strange aftertaste. And I mean strange in a bad way.
I don’t want this to take away from the lunch however which was excellent. Great quality produce, deliciously cooked, and excellently presented. The desert of Holborn has at least one decent food venue. And at very affordable prices. The mains cost £13.80 and £14.80 respectively, and the unfinished ginger beer £1.90 all before tip. Great Queen Street on Urbanspoon