A lot of money for not a lot!

We should have known things were going to well in Nottingham, on our last evening in the city and with a train to catch by 9pm, we decided to follow an Observer recommendation and try Sinatra’s, which has been recommended by the Observer previously winning an award in their yearly Food Awards.

Sinatra’s looked like a large ‘Picher and Piano’ type wine bar bistro, and we were seated at a table laid nicely but with no linen and only paper napkins. We ordered a white wine (I can’t remember the grape) and were offered a jug of tap water (which I always like), so far so good.

However, the dishes we had chosen had all sold out, so emergency rethink was needed.

For starters I ordered the beef carpaccio and hubby ordered the seafood risotto to be served with a poached egg, my beef carpaccio came as two small slices of rare beef that had been seared (as far as I understand it carpaccio is wafer thin raw beef) and at over £7.00 for the dish would have liked to have seen a few more slices, hubby’s risotto was lovely with a nutty bite and a perfectly cooked poached egg.

For mains I had ordered the assiette of seafood, which was a chipolata size piece of cod wrapped in proscuttio, a small sea bass fillet and a spoonful of risotto about the same size hubby had for his starter, for £18.00 not an impressive amount, and the flavours did nothing to make up for the lack of food. Hubby had chosen the duck served with potato puree and a spring roll, he ordered his duck pink, it came well cooked and dry, and the potato puree was great a nice sharp taste to go with his unfortunately tasteless and dry dish, and the spring roll was fantastic stuffed with duck in a filo pastry roll.

The meal came to an astounding £70.00 + for minimal food and effort, we were not happy and left promptly after paying the bill.

this is a pub?

Although nothing could beat French Living for the amazing food we had a fantastic lunch in what appeared from the outside to be a little local boozer, the Keane’s Head.

Inside the single room bar is light and airy, and the bar maid very friendly, they offer around six changing ales as well as draft Belgian beers and specialist lagers. We entered with no intention to eat but the menu claimed to be a modern mix of Italian and English cooking and the meals we had seen go past persuaded us to give it a go.

We were drinking to recent award winning Pale harvest from local micro brewery Castle Rock, it had just one best bitter at the GBBF 2007. To go with this I chose the sandwich of the day, mortadello with red pesto and mozzarella bake on onion bread, it was served with a generous and interesting side salad with a nice mustard dressing, it has got to be the freshest tasting and most interesting pub sandwich ever offered, it was perfect for lunch light but full of flavour from the red pesto and mortadello. Hubby ordered a made to order scotch egg served with mustard mayonnaise. It came hot sliced in two with a tub of whole grain mustard mayonnaise, the sausage meat was full of flavour and the crust nice and crisp, the only improvement we could suggest it that the egg could be served with a slightly sift yolk, as this yolk had a slight blue to the edges as you often see on boiled eggs that haven’t been rapidly cooled. However, this was an amazing scotch egg and a revelation to eat with a good pint of bitter.

The scotch egg was a reasonable £3.50 ish, and my sandwich was around the same.

heaven is a place in nottingham

Saturday evening in Nottingham and we had spent most of the day looking at the restaurants available, seemed that Nottingham wasn’t short of a restaurant or two. We chose to try French Living, a café and shop by day and basement restaurant by night.

Entry to the restaurant is via a steep spiral staircase, when we entered the cellar room we were greeted by a friendly 'bon soir' and we asked if they had a table for two available, after checking whether we had booked or not (we hadn’t) the waiter offered us a choice of various tables for two, we chose one near the entrance so we could food and people watch all at the same time; after we were seated the restaurant quickly filled up, i recommend booking or getting there early to ensure a table.

The first bottle of wine we ordered was a very smooth drinking sauvignon blanc, the restaurant offered a selection of set menu offers or a total al a carte option, all of the options sounded fantastic but it didn’t take us to long to decide. Hubby went for foie gras served in two ways (as a parfait and pan seared) and for his main course rare fillet steak, I chose tuna fillet seared on one side served with a fantastic dressing and for main I chose duck breast served with a preserved raspberry sauce.

I have to admit I’ve just started drooling again just thinking about the starters. Hubby’s foie gras was amazing, I didn’t try his parfait, but he thought it was rich and smooth, but it was the pan fried foie gras that blew both of us away, it was served rare in the middle, and when you ate a piece it literally exploded with it’s rich buttery taste, hubby said he would have been happy with just this and that the parfait just added to the fantastic starter, my tuna came rare with one quickly seared side I am a big fan of raw tuna from eating sashimi, but this light searing seemed to accentuate the flavour and the dressing just helped, we were in heaven with the starters and we didn’t think it could get much better.

One thing that had attracted us to French Living was that it stated on its menu that it would cook steaks, blue, rare or medium at most; we thought this boded well for the red meat that we ordered.

We ordered a fantastic rose to go with the main courses, we knew that theoretically we should go for red but neither of us fancied it, specially not hubby who is only just coming round to the wonders of red wine.

The main course both came with gratin dauphinois that were almost bitter with the garlic, it was such fantastic taste compared to the normal grease riddled potatoes passed of as grain dauphinois, and roasted vegetable cocktail a fantastic mix of seasonal vegetables, the courgettes were fantastic. So the mains were going well even before got to the meat, and I don’t know which one to mention first, but my duck wins, it came rare – the fat was perfectly cooked and the flesh was rare and melt in the mouth, it was a complete revelation I had never had such tender and tasty duck, the hubby was almost struck dumb, next to beef duck has got to be one of his favourites; it was also one of the most generous portions of duck I’ve ever seen, it was fantastic; and hubby’s steak was perfectly cooked rare and tender, he regretted not ordering it blue as the meat was such good quality. The mains were perfect as were the starters.

Although, fit to burst the desserts were calling to us, hubby went for his idea of heaven a two chocolate mousse that was incredibly light but a great contrast of dark and white chocolate; I went of the crème brulee which was the best I have ever eaten rich and thick and wonderfully creamy with a fantastic vanilla kick, the crispy sugar topping was wafer thin and the bitter toffee taste worked so well. We decided to have a glass of desert wine each with pudding, but the wine was so nice we went on to order a bottle to share.

The waiters were fantastic, the food was wonderful and I can’t wait to get back up to Nottingham to eat there again.

The bill is a bit hazy but I think it was around £100.

Every city should have one........

So for our anniversary we had a last minute dash up to Nottingham for the weekend, we knew nothing about the place, just that we could get a B&B for under £50 and the return train tickets were £17 each.

After wandering around Nottingham for the morning enjoying all the nice pubs and looking at a lot of mouth watering menus for the evening meal, we thought it might be a good idea to eat some lunch. But deciding on a restaurant for the two of us takes a long time and as time dragged on we noticed a world buffet restaurant that offered Chinese, Indian, Italian and some other styles as well for £8 per head which we thought we could try.

The restaurant was laid out nicely with the tables laid with cutlery, wine glasses and napkins, unlike a lot of buffet restaurants. The waitress took our wine order and then returned to show us around the buffet and explain what we needed to do, thinking this was a bit unusual we followed her down into the food area as she explained that we could have stir fries, pasta or pizzas cooked to order, as well as the normal buffet dishes.

We started off by trying the selection of starters, Chinese crab claws, tandoori chicken, mini spring rolls and much more, all of which were nice and fresh and tasted as if they hadn’t been sitting around for ages; the hubby was smitten by the ready made pizza available and tempted by the made to order option but as this was lunch as we were going out for dinner later decided not to risk it, and tucked into the Indian selection with gusto only to stop to complain about the lack of flavour and spice to the chicken bhuna (but that was his only complaint), I succumbed to the made to order stir fry, you select your vegetables and then pass it to the chef and pick what fish or meat you would like added and noodles if you fancy it, I went for lots of veggies with squid and prawn, it was bought over to the table when cooked and it was nice but a bit swamped in what tasted like oyster sauce (which I hadn’t asked for) would have preferred it a bit less swamped but it was still good; I risked going up for some salads whilst hubby got busy with the ice cream, one of many desert options including a chocolate fountain; my salad was a potato salad and was a nice end to the lunch.

The bill came to £30, and we both enjoyed the experience, we would love it if somewhere so reasonable, friendly and tasty could move down to Birmingham, it would solve the eating out with work issue in one swoop.

Paper anniversary............

As it was our wedding anniversary on last Friday and neither of us had arranged anything, we thought we would head up to the local curry house to figure out what we should do with our weekend to celebrate.

Bangla Lounge opened in Harborne just under two years ago replacing what we have been reliably told was a terrible curry house called Café Chilli. It is up a little alley way just next to Mai Thai off the Harborne High Street.

I have to say now that we are frequent visitors to the restaurant, drawn back due to the great food, the cheap prices, and the friendly staff. We walked through the door on a Friday night that was already proving busy and ushered to what we consider to be our regular table. The waiters pull the chairs back for you and then place the napkin on your lap, quite a nice touch for a back street restaurant; I must also point out now that they use linen napkins and linen on the tables which is always a plus sign to me.

We ordered a nice chenin blanc from South Africa at a very reasonable £8.75 (if you’re on a tighter budget the house wine is £7.95 for 752cl or £9.95 for a one litre bottle), and ordered a poppadom each, these come fresh and warm with a selection of mint sauce, onion salad and what tastes like a home-made mango chutney. To start we went for a sharing selection dish of tandoori lamb, chicken and the largest king prawns I’ve ever seen in an Indian Restaurant (although, to call Bangla an Indian restaurant is incorrect the cuisine is Bangladeshi) the starter comes with a side salad and selection of sauces on the plate and at £6.95 you receive a very generous portion. The meats are tender and full of flavour, the lamb chops come pink.

For main courses I chose the Sea bass tawa with extra King prawns, this comes served on a flat style frying pan with a thick rich sweetish sauce, imagine a mix between a pathia and a massala, it was sweet and nicely spiced with just the hint of chilli, the prawns and fish nicely firm and their flavours come through the sauce. Hubby went of a chicken jalfrazi which extra everything, I think it was coriander, tomatoes, onions and probably chillies. He loved it. We shared a lemon and coriander rice, which is fantastically lemony with matches the dishes so well, and the coriander is so refreshing, we also shared a red onion and coriander naan and a batura bread (not on the menu but if you ask they’ll make you anything), we were also given a complimentary side dish of spiced potatoes, tasted like toasted coriander and cumin seeds really gutsy favour.

As it is impossible eat a desert after that much food we decided to have a whiskey each, my step-father is very much into his single malts and recommends a great one that they keep for him, so we set about trying to find it, after hubby had discovered to the bottle we had a generous double each, a great way to finish the meal.

In total for the meal, two bottles of wine and those two double single malts the bill came to £44.50, as well as the complimentary bottle of champagne they gave us to celebrate our anniversary.

In my mind Bangla is the best Indian/curry house in Birmingham.

Another okay chain?

Opinion has been divided in the Eardley household ever since a café rouge opened on the High Street, replacing the over priced rather depressing looking etc etc, which had replaced the superb California Pizza. I’ve only eaten at café rouge a handful of times, and that was normally because it was two for one and cheap – but the last time me and the hubby had tried it, it was in Brindley Place during the Birmingham Jazz festival, and we tried it mainly for the out door seating near the Jazz; and it was terrible, wrong and bad food, surly staff and over priced everything, and I swore never to return. But, hubby wanted to give Harborne’s newest establishment a go, and since he was paying couldn’t really say no!

The restaurant has been decorated to look like every other café rouge, but some how manages to work in this building, it’s much better then its previous incarnations grey colour scheme! The windows at the front of the restaurant can been pulled back letting in a nice burst of fresh air, luckily on a Sunday evening , when we went, the traffic outside is quite minimal.

The menu is obviously a standard menu offered at all café rouges, and I suspect the specials proudly displayed on a board outside of the restaurant as the same as well.

When we entered the restaurant we were warmly greeted by the staff and shown to a nice booth, strangely for a nearly empty restaurant we were seated next to a reserved table (?) wouldn’t it have made more sense to spread us out?

We ordered a sauvignon blanc and perused the menu, hubby chose smoked haddock wrapped in a pancake and topped with cheese for his starter, and I rather boringly went for the bread crumbled camembert with cranberry sauce. I was rather disappointed when my started turned out to be two miniature camemberts which was not how it was described on the menu at all, hubby’s pancake bake was great lovely and smooth, would be great as a comfort dish on a cold night.

For mains I ordered the special sole limonade (I think that is how it is spelt!) which came with French beans and new potatoes. Hubby went of the rib eye steak with French fried, and ordered a house side salad for us to share. My fish was a whole fish, but minus its head which I find a bit disappointing I would rather the waiter asked whether I wanted to head left on or not, but the flesh was firm, but as it was a lemon sole the flavour of the fish was somewhat overwhelmed by the herb butter served with it, the green beans were firm and the potatoes were very nice and waxy; another issue I had was that this was a whole fish (rather a large one) and I would have appreciated a side plate to put the skeleton on so I would manoeuvre the fish a little bit better. Hubby’s steak was ordered rare as always and it came rare (although edging towards medium at the edges) and the fries were fresh, but still French fries. He has very happy with the steak, but strangely the one dish that merited the most praise was the side salad. The salad came in a large bowl and contained the normal salad ingredients as well as green beans and olives; it had a simple but tasty vinaigrette.
For dessert I chose the tarte tatin which came with a nice vanilla ice cream, the tart was nicely spiced with cinnamon but didn’t over power the apples, hubby didn’t go for a desert choosing instead to try a nice port, unfortunately they didn’t have it, he chose instead a white port which depressingly came as a rather over priced 25ml shot rather then a glass which you would expect.

For a chain restaurant I was happy with the quality of the food and the friendliness of the staff, but as there are so many other restaurants out there to be tried I won’t be rushing back there.

In total for the meal and two bottles of wine the bill was in excess of £80.

More Thai then you can possibly eat..........

What’s better for breakfast then an eat as much as you like Thai buffet, especially with the Mother of all hangovers that me and the hubby had after a friend’s wedding party the day before?

In pain and hungry we wondered in to the city centre towards Thai Edge http://www.thaiedge.co.uk/, a restaurant that we had been meaning to try for ages. They offer a Sunday lunch time buffet for about £13 a head.

We entered the restaurant pretty certain that we wouldn’t get a table – it was so full; and whilst waiting for the waiter to notice us got a good eyeful of the buffet selection. The waiter was unfortunately new, but he was friendly and managed to find us a table. We ordered the house dry wine and a couple of glasses of tap water – the house wine was very drinkable.

On the table was a printed menu explaining the dishes, which appears to change each week. It offered two soups, a selection of starter nibbles, a range of hot dishes, and three salads. To start I went for the tom yam soup, always a favourite of mine, and what impressed me about the soup apart from the dedicated waitress serving it for you, rather then messily serving yourself, was the fact that there was barely any room for the soup around the massive king prawns it was fresh and had a lovely amount of spice to it, very restorative after the heavy drinking the night before. Hubby went for a selection of the nibbly starters, fried chicken bits (not battered and with skin still attached!) tender, fresh and crispy all at the same time, sweet corn cake which was like a fried sweet corn pancake, and some nice samosas and miniature spring rolls, all fresh and enjoyable.

For our second assault on the buffet I chose to try the salads and went for the mixed sea food salad, which was loaded with scallops, king prawns, mussels, crab claws, and white fish it had a crispy clean taste and a lovely chilli hit, the fish salad was very similar but served with coated white fish, and the mango salad with cashew nuts offered fresh slices of mango with a light dressing. Hubby went for the hot dishes, trying the duck with tamarind sauce (which must have been good he went back for a least two more helpings), stir fried fish with ginger and onion which disappeared so quickly of his plate and the buffet that I couldn’t try it, and some very satisfactory massamn curry, he also tried to noodles on the buffet which he thought were sweet but not cloying.

Although stuffed after trying all the salad (and having several helpings of the fantastic seafood salad) I thought I would try the cooked to order pad thai noodles, I ordered them with prawn. They were great a sweet but fresh taste loaded with prawns, a lovely way to finish the meal as we couldn’t face any of puddings.

In total the bill came to around £39 for a great lunch, would again recommend this to anyone after some great Thai food in a relaxed atmosphere on a Sunday lunch time, but would warn them to come early as it is very popular.