Cute.  Adorable.  Chic. Trendy.  Retro. All these words are perfec for the Primrose Bakery shop in Covent Garden.  Just look at the cute cupcake decal in the window!

Whenever I hear people talking about cupcakes in London, which seems to be cupcake central for the UK, the name Primrose Bakery always comes up.  So, when Dave invited me along to see Star Wars: A Musical Journey—wonderful, wonderful music, even for a non-fan like me—I managed to sweeten the deal by insisting on visiting Primrose Bakery.

The Primrose Bakery story is a simple and familiar one… two mums, Martha Swift and Lisa Thomas, started out baking cupcakes for their childrens birthday parties and then in 2004 began supplying them to their local deli, Melrose and Morgan.  Things snowballed, as they are wont to do, and they set up shop in Primrose Hill and began supplying to Selfridges food hall, Fortnum and Mason, Tom’s Deli, Fresh & Wild, and Liberty.  A second shop in Covent Garden opened a couple of years later.

The bakery is utterly charming.  From the cupcake decal on the window to the ceramic cake stands displaying pastel-iced cupcakes and the retro sugar dispensers on the cafe tables, everything is cupcake-cute.  I really appreciated that there were tables—tea and coffee, also available—as the atmosphere in the shop is so sweet that I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to linger.  Of course, you can also have your cupcakes wrapped up to take away…

As we visited over Easter, there were plenty of Easter-themed cupcakes on display.  After dithering over the stands and display case for a few minutes, I decided on a rose cupcake for myself and a mocha cupcake for Dave and settled down at one of the little retro tables.

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Picture courtesy of Kellogg’s

A few weeks ago I was completely bemused to receive a large box from a courier. I puzzled over it for a while—had I won a competition? was it a late birthday present from someone?—until I noticed it was addressed to me at A Spoonful of Sugar. And then everything clicked into place.

I’d received an email from Kellogg’s asking if I would be interested in tasting their new muesli and as I am a complete sucker for breakfast cereals, I said yes, expecting to receive a few tiny hotel-breakfast sized samples.  I had completely forgotten about it until this behemoth of a parcel arrived.  That’s an awful lot of packaging for a few sample packets, I thought, as I ripped into it and discovered…

…a charming hamper, with rope handles and little hasp clasp that reminded me instantly of a pirate’s treasure chest.  Inside nestled four full-size packs of Nature’s Pleasure as well as a gorgeous wooden cereal bowl and an exceedingly shiny spoon.  How very lovely.

According to the blurb on the packets, Kellogg’s Nature’s Pleasure is a baked muesli: whole grains (wheat, oats, barley) are tossed with raw cane sugar, honey and sunflower oil and baked.  To my mind, it is more of a granola than a muesli due to the baking, but this is the tiniest of quibbles.

It is very clear from the packaging that Kellogg’s are aiming this at health-conscious consumers and while this product isn’t organic, it could well tempt customers who are.  Every ingredient listed on the packaging is recognisable and natural, which is both refreshing and reassuring.

Nature’s Pleasure comes in four delicious flavours: Almond, Pecan & Cashews; Apple & Blackcurrant; Cherry & Raspberry and Almond, Pecan & Raisin.

Almond, Pecan & Cashews
This was my least favourite flavour, however, both Dave and Lucas loved it so I was more than happy to gift the box to them.  I like my cashews to be very salty, very sweet or both—honey-roasted cashews, anyone?—so this was doomed to failure for my tastebuds.  It was packed with nuts and very crunchy, so perfect for any nut-lovers you know.

Apple & Blackcurrant
The first flavour that I tried, and still my favourite.  I love fruit in my muesli and granola, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed here.  There were tons of freeze-dried apple pieces and loads of juicy little blackcurrants.  I loved the hint of spice on the grains which really enhanced the sweetness of the fruit, but I wouldn’t complain if they decided to double up on the spices.  A seriously great cereal!

Cherry & Raspberry
My second-favourite flavour.  It is full of the most gorgeous dried cherries and little freeze-dried raspberries which turn the milk a pretty shade of pink—I’m still a kid at heart!  The tartness of the raspberries balanced out the sweet cherries and the whole thing was just pretty awesome.  I’d be happy to have this on alternate days with the apple and blackcurrant…

Almonds, Pecans & Raisins
The combination of sweet, juicy raisins and nuts made this variation much more interesting (and tasty) than the Almond Pecans & Cashews.  A good bridging point between very fruity muesli and very nutty muesli, in my opinion.  Well worth a second bowl!

Kellogg’s Nature’s Pleasure will be on sale from April from most major supermarkets.

Giveaway time!

Are you tempted by Kellogg’s Nature’s Pleasure? Fancy trying some before it hits the shops? The lovely people at Kellogg’s are offering one fabulous Nature’s Pleasure hamper (as described above) to a lucky A Spoonful of Sugar reader. (Can only be shipped within the United Kingdom—sorry, international readers!)

To win this fantastic and seriously yummy prize, all you have to do do is comment (with a valid email address) and say that you would like to be entered into the draw. A name will be drawn, at random, out of a hat and the lucky winner will be contacted by email.

The competition is for United Kingdom residents only and ends midnight BST (British Summer Time) on the 19th of April 2009.

Last Saturday, before the world went white, Dave and I dined at Gidleigh Park in Devon to celebrate my birthday.  I’ve been an admirer of Michael Caines for many years and was thrilled to have an opportunity to try his food.

Now, just saying ‘in Devon’ doesn’t give you any concept of just how off the beaten track the hotel is.  This is by far the most remote restaurant that I’ve ever visited and I was profoundly grateful that (a) Dave was happy to drive, (b) has night-vision that a rabbit would be proud of, and (c) nerves of steel, as the little B-roads we crawled along were not fun.  High hedgerows blot out the moon and you just pray that there are no crazy drivers out and about… I can totally see why Gidleigh Park have their own helipad.  (I highly recommend using it if you have the moolah.)

By the time we saw the comforting twinkle of lights at the top of the hill, we were more than ready for dinner.  Perhaps this is why the charming staff at Gidleigh Park settle you in a comfortably appointed lounge, next to a roaring fire as soon as you arrive?  It’s hard to feel stressed-out in such beautiful surroundings…

We sipped drinks and settled down to choose between the classic and seasonal tasting menus, all nice and cosy in the warmth while the wind howled outside.  As the name suggests, the classic tasting menu consists of Michael’s more classically-orientated dishes, with a heavy French bias.  The seasonal menu changes weekly and takes its influences from world cuisine. As tempted as I was by a couple of dishes on the classic menu, the seasonal menu was much more my ‘thing’, so we went with that. And in a further treat, I also opted to have the wine flight for the tasting menu. (Wine flight always sounds terribly pretentious, doesn’t it?)

Before we move on to the individual dishes, I must apologise for the quality of the photographs. The lighting in the dining room was very soft and very low—not at all conducive to photography without flash. Hopefully you’ll get the general idea…

Tartar of marinated tuna, soused turnip and beetroot, wasabi cream, honey and soy vinaigrette with an accompanying glass of Sharpham 2006 Estate Selection, a local English wine.  The light, crisp citrus-scented wine was the perfect complement for such a light and fresh pre-starter.  This was a dish of beautifully contrasting and balanced flavours and it all disappeared far too quickly.

The starter of warm pigeon salad with apples, hazelnuts and roasted foie gras was absolutely delicious and very seasonal.  The pigeon breast was cooked perfectly and was moist and bursting with flavour.  (I always like to order pigeon when I eat out as it’s just such a small and fiddly bird to work with.  It always tastes much better when someone else has slaved over it!)  The pigeon was well able to stand up to the big, gorgeous flavour of the roasted foie gras which was meltingly tender.  The sweet crunch of green apple and toasted hazelnuts—the best hazelnuts I have ever tasted—really brought the dish together and it was a huge hit with both of us.

The wine pairing of Carolina White 2005 from the Jakoncic Family Vineyard in Slovakia was just amazing.  I adored this wine, immediately dubbing it my ‘new best friend’.  Golden, honeyed and with a rich scent of raisins, it melded so well with the rich dish.  I’ll definitely be investing in a bottle or two of this gorgeous, gorgeous wine.

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This weekend, Birmingham was invaded by thousands of comics fans, all flocking to the Birmingham International Comics Show, us included.  Would Birmingham survive? Stay tuned, true believers!

As Dave was going to the pre-show launch party–by which you may as well infer booze-up–to hobnob with artists and writers galore, he let me pick the restaurant for dinner on Friday night before the party.  (Lucas and I snored the night away at the hotel instead.  Oh yeah… I know how to party.)

I had wanted to eat at Purnell’s, but they’re not keen on children in the restaurant (unlike Le Manoir, The Fat Duck or Restaurant Gordon Ramsay), so I checked out some parenting websites for recommendations.  Netmums came up trumps with their recommendation of Bank as a ‘grown-up yet child-friendly’ restaurant.

Bank is situated in the cosmopolitan Brindlyplace area of Birmingham.  The area heaves with bars and restaurants giving it a lively buzz.  Bank occupies the ground floor of the Deloitte & Touche building and thus attracts a young, lively, corporate crowd.  The heavily mirrored and glazed interior design reflects (no pun intended) their customers well and there are great views overlooking the canals.

We arrived at the beginning of evening service and thus were seated quickly with a highchair brought out for Lucas, who promptly started flirting with our waitress.  His shameless flirting only got worse when she brought us our menus and some very good bread.  The ciabatta was nice and chewy and the wholmeal was really well flavoured.  We happily slathered some very nice salted butter over each slice as we perused the menu.

The menu at Bank is eclectic to say the least.  Arabic, French, Greek, Italian, British, Chinese and Thai dishes all sit happily alongside each other on the menu, with the focus on bold flavours rather than any particular cuisine.

We all shared a mezze platter as our starter: Olives, flat bread, humous, falafel, tzatziki, sweet pepper and aubergine relish, tabbouleh, savoury Greek pastries & baby red peppers filled with feta.

Mezze platter

This was very good.  The stuffed baby red peppers, in particular, were amazing!  Like little flavour bombs in the mouth… so sweet, slightly firey, and with lovely creaminess from the feta to cool your mouth down.  Very yummy.  The olives were excellent–such a shame that Dave doesn’t like olives, so I shared one or two with Lucas.  His first olives!  (He prefers green to black, if you were curious.)  The falafel were sweet and deliciously nutty, but alas I lost most of mine to a certain wee man who had decided it was the tastiest thing ever.  The older Lucas gets, the more his tastebuds align with mine.  Which is great in one way, and frustrating in that I can never eat a meal without half of it being pinched!!

For our main courses, Dave opted for the seared scallops with black pudding, garlic mash & a white wine sauce while I played it slightly lighter with crispy duck with Chinese greens, sesame & honey dressing.

Seared scallops, black pudding and garlic mash

Roving reporter Dave, all the way over on the other side of the table, reported that this dish was as fabulous as it looked.  I would have loved to have tasted it, but Lucas was busy tasting it for Daddy.  He loved his first taste of scallops!  I know scallops and black pudding is a bit over-done these days, but when it is done well–and I’m told this was done very well–it’s fabulous.

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It was love at first sight when I saw the mound of magenta pods, streaked with trails of cream, on Farrington’s stand at the Bristol Organic Food Festival.  Borlotti beans! I squeaked with delight and received some very odd looks from the other shoppers around me.  I make no apologies for my excitement, though… I’ve been a bean-lover for years but I’ve never had the opportunity to eat fresh beans, other than the very British sort.  So as I sifted through the bean mountain, searching for the plumpest, prettiest pods, I pondered what to do with my newest treasure.  Pasta e fagoli?  Some sort of stew?  Italian-style beans on toast?

Nothing seemed quite right until I remembered one of my newest books.  (I am trying, really really trying, not to buy any more cookbooks until the New Year.  Believe me, it’s been tough.)  In My Favourite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell (from Petersham Nurseries) there is a whole chapter of bean recipes, which is one of the reasons my eyes lit up when I spotted the book in Waterstones.

I loved the concept of Skye’s first book, but I found it rather inaccessible and to this day I haven’t cooked from it.  However, upon flicking through her newest effort, I found myself wishing that the book came with more than four bookmarks.  I want, desperately want in fact, to make so many things from this book.  The roast halibut with preserved lemon and crème fraiche sauce is screaming out to be made— and I’m not much of a fish-lover —cherry cordial, blood oranges with warm honey and rosemary, squash and tomato curry with lime and coconut, pickled pumpkin with burrata, apple ice-cream with toasted cobnuts and caramel sauce…  I’m practically listing every recipe from the book, so I’ll stop here.  Suffice to say that this book is crammed with wonderful recipes that are accessible to the home cook.  Both in terms of ingredients and technique.

But back to the beans.  A flick of my thumb and the cranberry coloured pod split open and revealed one of Mother Nature’s surprises!  The speckled theme from the pods carried through to the beans, but the colours were reversed–cream speckled with magenta, which reminded me a lot of the marbled eggs that we used to make around Easter-time.  They were so pretty that I had to go and show them to my boys, whereupon Lucas tried to eat one raw.  He’s getting to be quite the little adventurer–I caught him munching on a shallot at the farm shop today.

I didn’t have quite enough fresh beans for the dish, so I supplemented with some quick-soaked beans from the cupboard.  My dried borlotti were very different to the fresh, both in colour–a tan or chestnut colour–and were a lot smaller too.  Still, as I stirred everything together in a big baking dish, I was hopeful.

As the beans cooked, the most amazing smells floated from the kitchen, drawing us all toward the oven.  I had to disappoint Dave and Lucas by telling them that the delicious smells weren’t in fact part of that night’s dinner… the beans were just sharing space in the oven in a fit of environmental efficiency.  When I finally peeled back the tinfoil lid, I discovered that the speckled colours of the beans disappears during cooking, but the flavour made up for that small disappointment.  The dried borlotti fattened up, almost to the size of the fresh but not quite and all of the beans came out gorgeously creamy in texture, bathed in the most amazing green sage and garlic oil.  The sage and garlic intensified the naturally earthy flavour of the beans as well as contributing their own robust flavours and the whole dish barely needed more than a pinch of salt.  After cooling and sitting in the wonderfully flavoured oil overnight they were even better, and as you might expect, the flavour kept on intensifying until they were all gobbled up.  I’ve got to say that the fresh beans were way better than the dried, even though the former were excellent.  Better flavour and creamier texture… these were little beans of joy whenever you encountered one.

I served the beans–on the first day–with some slow-roasted shoulder of lamb, itself liberally strewn with robust herbs and garlic, and Ottolenghi’s broccoli with garlic and chilli.  Yup, loads of garlic.  Lucas gave Nanny an absolutely garlic-laden kiss after all of that!  Good thing she loves garlic almost as much as we do.  Unsurprisingly, Lucas ate the lion’s share of the rest of the beans.  He loves strong flavours and you can’t get much stronger than garlic.  I thought he’d like them, but I was still surprised to have his bowl handed back to me twice with him asking for more beenz.  I think we can call this a definite success.

I’m really looking forward to growing my own borlotti beans next year.  I may not have dug the beds yet–very lazy, I know–but I do have the beans all picked out.  I’m going for the classic Lingua di Fuoco or “tongues of fire” variety, which is, I believe exactly what I bought from Farringtons.  At £5 a kilo, I should save an absolute fortune with a few plants of my own!  Now if only I could succeed at growing garlic and sage, too…

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Before I tell you all about this beautiful bread… check out the all-new look that A Spoonful of Sugar has!  After almost five years of blogging I felt it was about time I splashed out on a professional designer.  So, huge thanks to Teresa from Delicious Design Studio for my gorgeous new look.  What do you guys think?

Also, if you happened to be in Scotland this morning, and if you also happened to be listening to BBC Radio Scotland, then you probably heard me talking to Fred MacAulay & Co about cookbooks.  A big ‘Hello!’ to any listeners who’ve dropped in for a visit.

And so to the bread…

My Italianophile tendencies don’t just encompass present-day Italy. Oh, no… I’ve been entranced by Italy ever since we learned about the Roman Empire at school. For years I used to love trotting out Roman trivia–did you know that the Romans developed and named the concept of camber on roads?

Recently Dave treated me to a copy of Roman Cooking by Mark Grant. This book, although one of my newest, is also in a sense my oldest. It aims to recreate ancient Roman recipes for the modern cook from the rather vague or fragmented recipes that have survived the ages. It makes for fascinating and mouthwatering reading. We’d always been told at school that ancient Romans had decadent–and drunken–feasts, but the actual details of the food were somewhat glossed over. Twenty years later, this book has done a great job of filling in the gaps for me!

The book’s introduction does a great job of introducing Roman Empire cusine to the reader and of comparing it to the cusines of the rest of the Ancient World at that point in time.  It rather shattered my ideas of constant banquets for everyone, and I suddenly recalled that the class system was very much in evidence at that time.  The recipes in Roman Cookery are everyday, common people recipes and it’s quite reassuring to see how well they ate.

The book is divided into familiar chapters: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner at the Bar and Dinner in the Dining Room which reminded me that the ancient Romans were real people.    Breakfast seemed to be porridge of various types, but there was also a rose honey to sweeten things up which intrigued me.  There is a huge variety of breads on offer in the Lunch chapter and also some unusual fried pasta sheets which are a precursor to the lasagne we know today.  There’s plenty of vegetarian recipes, and indeed this might be a great book for a jaded vegetarian, as meat and fish were highly expensive.  Of the meat recipes included, I’m particularly keen on trying the Pork in a sweet wine and fig sauce which sounds incredibly good.  There’s oodles of historical information in the chapter introductions and recipe headers which held my attention nicely, but your mileage may vary on this.

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Among my birthday presents this year was a copy of Gordon Ramsay’s Recipes from a Three-Star Chef. Since then I’ve been sighing longingly over the pictures and only giving the merest of glances to the recipes in the second section of the book—the first half of the book is a photo-documentary of a day in the restaurant, packed with pictures and nuggets of information—as I assumed that everything would be beyond my level of skill.

It’s not often that a cookbook intimidates me, but this one really did. For a start it came complete with a protective silver slipcover, which sets the tone to “posh”. My only other cookbook to have been given such an accolade by its publisher is a hardback copy of Larousse Gastronomique, so I’m sure my brain made a mental association there. Secondly, this book is huge. Is there a category beyond over-size? It’s even bigger than Home Baking by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, which is pretty damn huge. Alas, I fear the impractical size of the book may put many cooks off using it—who has sufficient counter space to leave this book open as they cook?

It is a shame that the book has this level of surface intimidation, as once you dig into it, it is surprisingly accessible. Yes, overall the recipes are complex. But that’s what you want, surely, if you’ve bought the book? This isn’t the Dummies Guide to Michelin Starred Cookery; this is the real deal. However, if you treat each recipe as a collection of smaller recipes—the babystep approach as Flylady would say—then you’ll get along just fine.

As I was so awe-struck with the Pineapple and Coconut soup we had at the restaurant, I decided to make that my first recipe re-creation from the book. I should point out that while the majority of the restaurant’s dishes are in the book, they will be subtly different from what was on the menu. In this case, Pineapple and Coconut soup in the restaurant, and Pineapple and chilli soup with fromage frais foam in the book.)

The soup was incredibly simple. Chunks of fresh pineapple were tossed with some sugar and quickly caramelised lightly in a frying pan. A quick blitz and strain, and there you had it… pineapple soup.

The coconut foam was slightly more involved, but the hardest thing was whisking it up to a foam when I was putting together the dessert. I couldn’t get it quite foamy enough by hand, so pulled out the electric whisk which worked a treat. A nitro siphon, as used in the restaurant, would have been fantastic and even more fun. I think I’d let the foam mixture set a little longer next time so that the structure is stronger when whisked, but I was rather rushed.

The soup really, really did taste like the real thing. The pineapple portion was deliciously sweet and zingy with the slight fizz from the sparkling wine and the much more dramatic snap-bang!-pop from the popping candy. The coconut foam had almost the correct taste and texture, but due to a couple of changes I’d made it wasn’t quite as luxurious as it could have been. I must say that I couldn’t pick out the chilli syrup, but then again… I couldn’t at Gordon’s either, so I was quite satisfied all in all.

Thoughts for next time…

Use full-fat fromage frais, even if it means shopping around. I could only get fat-free which tasted a bit thin. Similarly, coconut cream would be better than coconut milk. (These were my own changes to the recipe, so you can’t blame Gordon for that.)

I need to shop around and find some plain popping candy. The pack that I had—courtesy of my mother-in-law, who for some reason had a packet tucked away in the kitchen—was strawberry flavoured and you could taste that a little. Also, some of the pieces went a little soggy. Not a huge problem by any means… I just like to get things right.

I’ll definitely be making this recipe again and taking further forays into the book as a whole. Sure, there are some things that I’ll shy away from—there’s no way that I’d ever actually cook lobster at home, delicious as it is—but I really do feel that this is an accessible and achievable cookbook for the keen amateur home cook.

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Photograph © riverstation.

Today we had Sunday lunch at riverstation in Bristol with Dave’s friend John and his blushing bride-to-be, Rosie. Having been there before and thoroughly enjoyed both food and atmosphere, we were looking forward to a fabulous lunch.

Alas, it didn’t quite go to plan.

I’d reserved a table downstairs in the bar+kitchen for us as it was supposed to be wheelchair accessible–there is no lift at riverstation, so the restaurant menu will be served downstairs in these situations–and I’m really not sure how two-steps down constitutes wheelchair accessible, but there you go. It was a good thing that Rosie was having a good day and could manage without her chair. Still, we had a nice table overlooking the river which kept Lucas happily occupied by boat-spotting for most of the meal.

The restaurant was busy with families having brunch as well as the proper Sunday lunch crowd, so I could put up with a modicum of slow service due to that. It took about 15 minutes for our food and drink orders to be taken, which is verging upon excessively slow.

Our starters arrived about an hour later which was appalling. A senior waiter did come downstairs to explain to us that due to printer problems our check didn’t go up in the kitchen, but I would have expected the staff to have noticed long before then that we hadn’t had our starters, even though we were being awkward and ordering from the restaurant menu while sitting in the bar+kitchen. By this point, I’m ashamed to say, we’d resorted to stealing sharing the snacks that Lucas had brought in his backpack.

My risotto of broad beans and mascarpone with sauteed girolle mushrooms was disappointing. It was under-seasoned and was so dry that it might as well have been a pilaf. I suspect that the chef was very rushed and forgot (a) the seasoning and (b) the mascarpone that should have been added. The broad beans were surprisingly good though, despite their incredible size. In all honesty, I should have sent it back, but I was so grateful to see food that I would have eaten anything.

Dave’s warm salad of baby chorizo, potato, spinach and a soft poached egg was executed very well on the other hand. The tiny chorizo sausages were packed with flavour and as the potatoes had been bathing in all the lovely oily juices they were equally flavoursome. The poached egg was apparently perfect, too. No wonder Lucas turned up his nose as my starter in favour of Daddy’s…

The main courses arrived much more swiftly than the starters to our relief. Dave and John both had the rare roast topside of beef, roast potatoes, beetroot and red wine jus while Rosie and I both opted for the roast lamb leg ‘noisette’ with marinated arroccina beans with red chard and salsa verde. My lamb was perfectly cooked. So succulent and beautifully pink in the middle. The marinated arroccina beans turned out to be posh baked beans–we think that arroccina is probably haricot beans but mistranslated into Italian–which were a huge hit with Lucas. He feasted upon my beans and Dave’s beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding. My red chard–the main reason I chose the dish–was interesting and tasty. The leaf part was very similar to spinach but the stalk was more bitter. I quite liked it, especially as it was dressed with plenty of garlic, and I’m tempted to plant some chard next year if I ever get my proper veg patch going.

Due to the earlier problems with the starters, our waiter informed us that puddings were on the house which was a nice way of making things up to us. Three of us opted for the chocolate St Emilion, creme fraiche and red fruit coulis and Dave had the baked American cheesecake with passion fruit sauce. Alas, the waiter came back a few minutes later, full of apologies, and said that the St Emilion was sold out. Much woe. Instead he offered us a chocolate terrine which was similar in texture. Having never had a St Emilion, I have no idea if this was an accurate description, however the terrine was darkly delicious. Its texture was very dense and perhaps a little bit more solid than the clotted cream that I asked for my slice to be served with. A lot of very good chocolate was used to make this terrine and Lucas and I were very happy with it. Oh yes, our junior foodie was all over the terrine. Daddy’s cheesecake was all very nice, but his eyes were firmly fixed on all three slices of terrine. All grumbling and fidgeting stopped–it was a very long lunch for such a little boy–as he shared my terrine and by the time we were done he was wearing a big, chocolatey grin. Bye-bye chocolate, he said as I scraped my plate clean.

Due to the service problems our lunch took over three hours. The last time I spent so long over lunch was at Gordon Ramsay’s and that was the tasting menu. I even caught Dave pointing out to John and Rosie that it took me less time to give birth to Lucas (and he was huge)!

All in all, the majority of the food was excellent… when it eventually arrived. And comping us dessert was a good step in the direction of making things right, but I find myself feeling really let down by riverstation. I even caught myself apologising for the restaurant mid-way through the meal, which I think goes some way to show how much I liked it on our previous visit. Now I just have to decide whether to give them another chance…

riverstation
The Grove
Bristol
BS1 4RB

Reservations : 0117 9144434

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kate came down from London for the weekend. Why do we always say “down from London”? I guess “sideways from London” doesn’t quite have that ring to it. However, I digress…

After a relaxing hour or two of comic shopping at Forbidden Planet, we wandered down to the Harbourside to have lunch at The Brasserie, Bordeaux Quay.

I’ve been intrigued by Bordeaux Quay since it opened in 2006. It sounded very… worthy. Collecting rainwater to flush toilets, recycling cooking oil as bio-fuel, and other save-the-planet innovations. Now, I am a big advocate of recycling, but the press releases made it sound as though it would be rather forced down diners throats. However, the food sounded interesting. Local, seasonal, menus changing according to what was available on the day. That I liked.

Bordeaux Quay is situated in the Harbourside area of Bristol. This has been redeveloped and invigorated in recent years and is now–dare I say it–trendy. The Harbourside is also home to two food festivals each year, so it does have foodie credentials. The building itself is worthy of Grand Designs with a beautiful oak staircase forming a focal point amd some light wells which reduce the need for day-time lighting.

I’ve got to say, I was impressed at how child-friendly Bordeaux Quay was. They had decent high-chairs, were happy to offer child-sized portions if required, and happily provided Lucas with a box of crayons and some menus to draw on. (Apparently there is also a buggy park and full baby-changing facilities, so handy for Yummy Mummy Lunches.)

Kate and I settled on the goats cheese, roasted pepper and spring onion tart with a garden salad and Dave opted for pork and herb sausages with mash, cabbage and red onion gravy. Lucas opted for gannetting food from all of our plates.

While we waited for our main courses we snacked on some bread and olives. Much as I hate to criticise restaurants, I do have to observe that while the bread was very good it was rather out of place to serve it with a dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was good, solid English bread (brown and white), close-textured which cried out for some good, salty butter…

I really liked the tart. Short, buttery, crumbly pastry with a succulent layer of roasted red peppers. The goat’s cheese wasn’t lost within the egg custard, but instead turned up as little pockets of sharp-salty goodness. The salad that accompanied it wasn’t particularly exciting, but the produce was all excellent quality. It was certainly festively colourful!

Dave said that his sausages were excellent, as was the mash, but the red onion gravy somehow managed to have no flavour. The onions weren’t caramelised at all which left the gravy looking and tasting rather wishy-washy. It’s interesting that they managed to do the hard stuff right, but fell down on the simple gravy.

Lucas made a very good lunch out of our plates–food tastes way better from our plate rather than his own–but definitely preferred the sausage and mash. He’s getting quite carnivorous as he grows up.

Luckily for Lucas, we all opted for different desserts, so he got plenty of tastes! Kate had the baked chocolate pot with langue du chat. Dave had the apricot and raspberry crumble cake with vanilla cream. And I had the strawberry trifle. Judging from the dip that the conversation took as we ate, everyone was as happy with theirs as I was.

I loved the trifle. The strawberries were so ripe and sweet, and bathed in a coulis made of their pureed brethren. They were topped with an almond sponge, some gorgeously thick custard and finally a billowy layer of whipped cream.

All in all, it was a decent lunch which was reasonably priced. I wouldn’t rush back for a second meal, but if I was in the vicinity and hungry then I’d certainly pop in. I’m still quite keen to check out the main restaurant upstairs, though.

~*~
Jeanne has tagged me for a six things meme. I don’t think I am particularly quirky, so this will probably descend into six things you didn’t know about Ang…

1. I always, always have to clean my glasses before setting off in the car. And I always have the sun visor down, even on dull days. It just feels right that way.

2. I don’t like eggs. Well, let me clarify that. I don’t like boiled, poached, or fried eggs. Anything where you have the remotest possibility of tasting the yolk as a separate thing. Yuck. I do, however, love scrambled eggs, omelettes and anything where eggs are an ingredient rather than the star.

3. I can’t resist making shapes out of mashed potato. Luckily now that we have Lucas, I can claim I’m doing it for his amusement!

4. I rarely sit on the sofa. I usually lie down, plonk the laptop beside me and tap away happily.

5. Quirky, quirky, quirky… *drums fingers on table* I hate bad grammar and poor punctuation in signs. (I’m fully aware that there are bound to be grammatical errors in this post, and others. If you feel moved to point them out, I’ll happily correct them!) Recently, I dragged a customer service rep round all the advertising hoardings at our local supermarket to point out the errors. Alas, they’re all still there.

6. Apparently I say “oh wow!” rather a lot. I only discovered this when I noticed that Lucas was also saying “oh wow” and “wowee!!”

I have to nominate six other people, so let me see… Katie, Beth, Lorraine, Erin , Ari and Ivonne.

Dining at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is a real Experience.

We had a very luxurious and rather fabulous lunch there on Monday to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. I will probably use the word luxury and variations thereupon far too much, but it it was such a special meal that I reckon I can get away with it!

The dining room is intimate, but not cramped, and you very quickly relax into your own bubble of luxury to the exclusion of the other diners. The décor was understated rather than opulent, with cream wall panels, some discrete gilt edging, small crystal lights and mirrored pillars.

On the face of it, the restaurant looked far more formal than The Fat Duck, but we quickly realised that it was far less regimented. When the Maitre D’, Jean-Claude Breton, brought our menus and introduced himself, he explained that even though we were both keen to have the Menu Prestige (or tasting menu), the kitchen would be very pleased to substitute dishes or indeed add in others if we wanted to taste even more of the menu. In the end, we both opted to have the Menu Prestige without any amendments. (I’m not sure we could have fitted in any extra courses!)

After ordering, the amuse bouche arrived. It was a palate cleanser of tomato consomme. The crystal clear consomme was poured for us at the table, over a small mound of tomato concasse, slivers of spring onion and some fresh peas. This was delicious. The consomme was intense; think of the smell and taste of the ripest, most delicious tomatoes you’ve ever had, and then imagine drinking all of that wonderful flavour. Got that? Now imagine it being three times better than your imagination… You’re pretty much there.

Next to arrive was our starter of pressed foie gras on a wine jelly, the plate beautifully adorned with pickled vegetables and a slice of toasted brioche (pictured at top of this entry).

I think there were layers of parma ham in the terrine; I wish I’d paid a bit more attention to what the waiter was saying rather than staring at the amazing presentation on the plate! This was everything one could wish for in a foie gras terrine. Rich, smooth, melting as soon as it hit the tongue, but lightened by the jelly and the sharpness of the pickled vegetables.

Rich, yet light, seems to be the hallmark of Ramsay’s recipes.

From there we moved to the Ravioli of lobster, langoustine and salmon with tomato chutney and lobster bisque. I had really been looking forward to this as I’d never had lobster before and I certainly wasn’t disappointed. (Apologies for the dire photograph; this dish is honestly very pretty indeed!) The lobster meat was easily identifiable to me as a new, sweet and surprisingly meaty flavour. If all lobster is that good, then I might be tempted to bring my own snappy friend home to meet its fate in my stockpot.

A fillet of turbot on coriander linguine with citrus sauce was next, and featured another fish I’d never tried before. Turbot seems to be the big thing just now, with most chefs describing it as the “king of fish.” I’m not sure I’d go as far as that, but it was cooked perfectly and did have a lovely flavour. We both loved the citrus sauce which was, I believe, a beurre blanc with the addition of grapefruit. It had a wonderful citrus flavour but none of the acidity of the fruit.

The final savoury course was the Cannon of Cornish lamb with a confit shoulder, ratatouille and thyme jus. This was just perfect. The lamb was so tender and juicy, with its flavour shining through cleanly. I thought the lamb that I’d eaten at Riverstation was incredible, but this was more than a cut above, putting it squarely into the category of the best lamb we’ve ever had.

I loved the baby red pepper stuffed with ratatouille. Now only was it the prettiest plating I’d ever seen of ratatouille, but also the tastiest. As the pepper was so tiny it was incredibly sweet amd succulent. Delicious.

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