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.

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.

Monday Morning

On our last day in Shrewsbury we decide not to eat breakfast at the B&B but to try somewhere in town, this turned out to be a great decision. We discovered Poppy's Tea Rooms and both ordered a English breakfast, it came with black pudding, two sausages, two rashers of bacon, grilled tomatos, baked beans, fried potatos, mushrooms, toast, with tea or coffee. It was well cooked and the food was very tasty and portions were very generous, it definitely set us up for the day.

Again, we spent the day sightseeing, until lunch time when we decided that we finally had some room to spare for lunch. We decided to go to Mad Jack's, we had been tempted by the evening menu but had run out of time, so felt that we should give the lunch menu a go. The interior of the restaurant was modern and stylish, with muslin napkins, tables properly laid and very luxiourious toilets. We ordered a bottle of Chenin Blanc and we were offered water, we requested tap water and almost instantly a jug of iced tap water was bought over. The bread came informally on two small chopping boards and offered a choice of ciabatta or seeded granary. Hubby's decided to try the steak, he ordered it rare, and it came char grilled on the outside and then evenly rare throughout, it was served with homemade chips that he swore blind were cooked in dripping; he could find absolutely nothing wrong with his steak and was in heaven by the look of him. I decided to order the lobster and crayfish tart with samphire and salad; I was astonished when it arrived and was a large thick slice of a tart, I had assumed it would be a small dainty dish, and the salad was a generous bowl full. The tart was very delicous but the crayfish and lobster were very spread out within it, so in someways I would have perferred having a smaller tart but with a more concentrated amount of filling. The samphire was delcious and I would have gladly exchanged some of the generous salad for more samphire. In all my meal was delicious and I really enjoyed it, and hubby was verging on having an affair with his steak. The meal came to around £45, which is dear for a lunch but seemed fair in regards to the quality of the ingredients and surroundings.

Sunday - the day of food!

On the Sunday when we were in Shrewsbury we ate breakfast at the Bed and Breakfast, it was an optional £5 each so we decided to give it a go. It was a typical traditional fry up, not to greasey and generous portions and the coffee was very nice. After breakfast we went sight seeing for a bit before getting caught in a heavy downpour about lunch time.

To shelter from the rain we decided to stop for lunch at Bellstone, a restaurant and hotel,http://www.bellstone-hotel.co.uk/, it had a lovely sounding menu including mains, sandwiches, puddings etc. We had a pint of flowers IPA each and ordered sandwiches, I chose the steak and red onion with aioli on sour dough roll and hubby chose the bellstone club on malted granary bread, and to share we ordered vine tomato and red onion salad.

The sandwiches came with a genrous side salad and a bowl of chips each, hubby's club sandwich was generously filled with a tender and juicy chicken breast and nicely smoked bacon, he claimed that it was the nicest club sandwich he ever had; my steak roll was stuffed with steak pieces that were all perfectly cooked (pink in the middle) and was the most tender steak I have ever had on a sandwich, the chips were fresh and the side salad was generous with a lovely honey and mustard dressing on, and the tomato and red onion salad was tasty and fresh and generous in size. The bill came to about £22 which is dear for lunch time, but was definitely worth it as the sandwiches were fantastic and the ale was well kept.

And believe it or not we still had room for dinner in the evening!

For dinner we chose to go to the Cornhouse http://www.cornhouse.co.uk/, the interior of the restaurant was very typical french style cafe/restaurant, plain walls and various ornaments/bottle strewn around, on Sunday it was hosting part of a Shrewsbury wide art festival and was displaying work by local artists on the walls. As we had not booked we poked our heads round to see if they still had a table available, the waiter who greeted us was very friendly and explained that they were very busy at the moment, but did have room, but could not serve us straight away - as it takes the hubby ages to pick his order - we were not very concerned about this, they showed us to the table bought over a basket of bread, a jug of iced tap water (without being requested) and the wine menu. After a short time to read the wine list they came back to take our wine order and bring us the food menus. The menu was brief but delicous sounding and I chose to go for a starter off the specials menu - smoked trout with horseraddish and potato salad, and hubby went for oriental duck salad with hoi sin sauce, for mains I chose the 10oz sirloin steak after checking that it would come properly rare and not verging on medium rare which came with king prawns and homemade chips, and the hubby went for the new season lamb which came with leak and mustard crumble. My smoked trout starter was a wonderful tower of smoked trout balanced on a potato salad, my only quibble would be that I would have liked the horseradish to be a bit stronger - but that is because I adore horseradish! Hubby's duck salad was delicious the duck was warm and tender, the salad generous and the hoi sin sauce tasty but not over powering. The mains came and I was flabbergasted by the size of my steak and that fact that it was perfectly rare throughout the piece, the king prawns were grilled and were verging on overcooked (but only just!) and the homemade chips were sweet and a very generous portion. Hubby's lamb came pink and came with a large bowl of roasted vegatables (courgettes, aubergine, peppers) which was not mentioned on the menu but were perfectly cooked and extremely tasty. My steak was very flavoursome and had a perfect texture and it was massive, the prawns worked perfectly with it, unfortunately the portions were so generous the portion of homemade chips defeated me. Hubby's lamb was flavoursome and the mash matched the lamb perfectly, but again the portions were so generous his vegatables defeated him. We were so full we could not even face the puddings. I forgot to mention that it was live music night and a very talented gentleman with a guitar seranaded that restaurant whilst we were eating. It created a perfect atmosphere to match the wonderful food, a perfect end to a wonderful day. We dawdled in the restaurant getting through two bottles of a great french wine, that had been imported by the local wine merchants, and three glasses of desert wine. The bill in total came to around £90. We are already planning on returning the next time we are in Shrewbury.