Flying | Eating | Sleeping

Castello, Windsor

You know that dreadful combination of anger and self-loathing that overwhelms you after you’ve willingly embarked on a course of action which you know is going to end badly? No? Try eating out in Windsor – it’ll soon become familiar.

I’ve said before that Windsor is a culinary wasteland, catering only to coachloads of tourists who’ve been told that British food is bad and so have no expectations of being served anything other than expensive filth. Antony Worral Thompson’s Windsor Grill used to be decent and reliable, but standards there seem to be falling at an alarming rate – each of the last few visits has been more disappointing than the last. Misugo is still good, but is also expensive.

Knowing all of this, any thoughts of heading out for lunch in Windsor should have been quashed as soon as they entered my head, but my resolve had been undermined by a five am start, followed by two hours of rowing, with only a flapjack to eat. So it was that we ventured into the centre of Windsor, already, in early November, beseiged by Christmas shoppers. A circuit of the town revealed people lining up for tables at all of the usual chains – despite the cold, even the outdoor tables at Carluccio’s were all occupied. An enquiry at Zizzi’s revealed we would have to wait at least half an hour before we could even order a pizza, so we continued walking.

Near the entrance to Windsor Castle, the very epicentre of tourist idiocy, there are a couple of cobbled streets lined with independent restaurants. Given that high-season for Christmas shopping coincides with low-season for tourists, there was no wait for any of the options at this end of town.

Essentially, there was a choice of an Italian, a Greek and a “Gurkha Bar”. If memory serves, the Gurkha Bar was a curry house, but the proprietors are clearly hoping to capitalise on the sterling work of Joanna Lumley. Anyway, not being in the mood for Indian food, we were left with a choice of the Italian or the Greek. Although the husband assured me that we’d had a mediocre dinner there once before, I couldn’t recall having eaten at the Italian; as I have vivid memories of a bad meal at the Greek option, the Italian, Castello, seemed like the safest choice.

Of course, this was nonsense. The safest choice, indeed, the only choice, should have been walking to Waitrose and buying food to prepare ourselves at home.

This restaurant is clearly catering only for passing visitors from far away lands and has utterly no interest in securing any sort of repeat business. The food is outrageously bad.

We ordered a starter of calamari to share. This arrived as a single mass of thick, Post Office issue, rubber bands, stuck together with a greasy and crumbling batter, accompanied by tartar sauce.

A pasta from the specials board, tortelloni stuffed with Gorganzola and walnuts, was a disaster. The pasta had been boiled for so long that the tortelloni were falling apart, the stuffing was unpleasant and the whole dish was drowning in a sea of sweet (certainly bottled) tomato sauce; it looked like some mutant form of wonton soup.

Avoid at all costs.

 

Brazz, Taunton

This was a surprise.  Looking online for somewhere to grab lunch in Taunton, we came across Brazz, one of the restaurants at The Castle Hotel in Taunton.

First impressions were not fantastic - the hotel seems to be completely hidden from our sat-nav system, so there was a good ten minutes of driving in circles, catching glimpses of the building but unable to access it.  Once parked and inside, expactations sank as we took in the extraordinary decor; Brazz is a proper throwback to the 1980s, complete with chrome and a selection of ceramic oddities hanging on the walls.

Any concerns were quashed as soon as the food started arriving.  A starter of duck parfait with toasted brioche and cumerland sauce was lovely.

As we had a large dinner planned, I orered a child's portion of fish and chips as a main.  The chips were pretty poor, but the fish was fantastic, perfectly cooked in a great, light and crispy, batter.

Orwell's, Shiplake

Intrigued by a post from The Henley Traveller, we headed to Orwell's for lunch with Friends last Sunday.

Without exaggeration, it was one of the best meals we've eaten all year.  The food was excellent, the service was great - nobody had a bad word to say about the experience and they charge less than £25 for three courses.

Apologies in advance - even by my low standards, these photos are poor.

The menu offers a selection of fish delivered fresh from Brixham, most of which were sampled by the table during the course of the meal.  I started with the salt and pepper squid with choizo and tomato fondue - I'd have happily eaten a second serving.

While the rest of the table ordered a variety of lobsters and other seafood, I went old-schoold Sunday lunch for the main and took the roast topside of Highland Angus.  The beef was not only cooked to perfection, but served up in ludicrously generous portions.  The accompaniments were also excellent - particualrly the roast potatoes.

Desserts vanished too soon to be caught on camera and while my hot cherry Bakewell was delicious, I can't deny that the other half's coconut creme brule is the thing to order.

Orwell's is, admittedly, a little out of the way for Londonners, but for those if us west of the M25 its great news - fantastic food at a sensible price.

The Commonwealth Kitchen, London

Or Searcy's at The Commonwealth Club, or whatever else this venue may be calling itself.

I'm trying my best to remain polite as I write this, but apologies in advance if this post should deteriorate into a barely coherent rant - seldom has a dining experience left me so angry. Also, lest it be overlooked in the froth, let me state form the outset that the few staff we encountered here were very polite and clearly trying hard with limited tools. With those provisos out of the way, let's talk about the most frustrating meal I've had in London for some time.

Actually, let's not. Let's pause to identify the key issue here - Searcy's apparent belief that the level of staff training they provide to people working their station Champagne bars and museum canteens is appropriate for some vague approximation of fine dining.

The story starts a few months back when one of Keynoir's daily deals was a £50 Commonwealth Kitchen voucher for £25; not somewhere I was itching to visit, or had actually heard of, but close to Waterloo and a chance to try something different. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago; we called Commonwealth Kitchen and had no problem making reservations for this week.

From the first moment, things went badly. A pre-dinner drinks order included one gin martini, slightly more challenging than the standard G&T, but surely commonplace here on the borders of Soho and Westminster? Indeed, the restaurant clearly expects to serve them - it's an identified item within their till system, as evidenced by the receipt. From the table it was clear that the barman had no notion of where to start and the head waitress seemed to be staring in bafflement at what he'd created. Some minutes later we were asked if we'd like ice in the Martini, the negative response clearly unexpected.

Eventually, after we'd ordered food, the drinks appeared. The martini glass was, perhaps, a third full of warm gin with an olive floating in it. After a sip, we suggested to the head waitress that, on second thoughts, a gin and tonic would be perfectly fine and the offending drink was spirited away - only to return five minutes later. I'm going to guess that the enterprising staff had used some sort of smartphone to Google “martini” as the glass was now slightly fuller of cold, if watery, gin. It seemed only sporting to accept the drink after so much effort.

A complimentary amuse-bouche arrived soon after. It was fine, but we were never really sure what it was – I'd guess a small fillet of beef.

My starter was a duck terrine served with some inedible bakery product, curiously fashioned into a spear. The terrine itself was actually pretty tasty. Tasty enough to remind me of something I'd been served at Bar Boulud a few months ago; an unfortunate comparison to start making. A quick glance at Bar Boulud's online menu confirms that there isn't much of a price differential between the two venues – the “what on earth am I paying for” voices started drowning out all the other people living in my head.

The arrival of the main, beef fillet with blade of beef and braised white beans, almost provoked a stroke. It's hard to see from the poor quality photos, but the portion of fillet served was absurdly small. A shame really, because the rising bile ruined a pretty decent dish – the braised beans were excellent and, while the addition of the blade seemed unnecessary, it was a deliciously moreish morsel bulking out the meagre serving of fillet.

There was an inordinate delay between ordering dessert and it's actual appearance, something which the, again charming, head waitress apologised for with a complimentary round of dessert wine. When it arrived my eucalyptus parfait was a disappointment – not really tasting of anything and topped with a round of poor quality chocolate sponge. We'll not dwell on the £7 charged for the other half's plate of half a dozen strawberries.

Together with coffee, a bottle of water and one bottle of wine (£24), this meal topped £120. Booking through Kenynoir meant that I paid only £95.

I could run on for another five hundred words about the many ways that this evening angered me, pointing out the many better places I could have eaten for £60 a head. Instead I'll just say that Searcy's show utter contempt for their staff by not providing the training or support needed and complete disdain for their customers by charging what they do – the beef fillet, in particular, is an affront to decency. 

Le Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham

Intrigued by a post on the, excellent, blog of The Critical Couple, three of us decided that we'd arrange a day trip to Cheltenham and enjoy a long lunch at Le Champignon Sauvage.

Now, while I'm sure none of you have the remotest interest in my medical history, before we begin, I should qualify this post by noting that, after looking forward to the meal for a few weeks, it was gutting to wake up on the big day with what seemed like a filthy cold but transpired to be a rather grim bout of bacterial tonsillitis. We pressed on, accompanied by a doctor who prescribed fortitude and vintage Champagne (excellent advice, even if she is a doctor of history), but it is possible that I might have enjoyed the meal even more if I hadn't been feeling quite so rough.

Medication, as prescribed by an actual doctor.

As we ate many of the same things described I such loving detail (and with excellent pictures) by The Critical Couple, I will refer you to their review for detailed descriptions of the food. However, a few of the dishes were so good as to deserve special mention.

The beef tartare with corned beef and wasabi cream was lovely, the scattering of small pieces of some succulent plant adding an incredible texture.

The main course of lamb was phenomenal. The strip on the left of the photo is pressed lamb belly which then seems to have been toasted or sautéed in semolina crumbs; it was one of the most amazing things I've ever eaten.

I wasn't so taken with my dessert of bergamot parfait with orange jelly and liquorice cream. It was terribly pretty, but it didn't seem to taste of much, although this is more than likely not the case – I refer you back to the earlier paragraph about tonsillitis.

Adding a cheese course to the three-course lunch menu resulted an enormous quantity of excellent cheese being placed on the table. To be frank – too much cheese. It was all delicious and none of us had the heart to leave much of it, but that meant that we spent the next few hours with dry, salty, mouths, all thoughts of the great food a distant memory. Skip the cheese.

There were also lovely petit-fours, but we were scarcely able to eat any of them after the mountain of dairy produce.

I can only echo the others who suggest that you start booking train tickets and arrange a trip to Cheltenham as soon as possible. I have since had people tell me that they find the room sterile and the atmosphere, well, lacking. Both of these criticisms aren't wholly baseless, but there are plenty of buzzing restaurants in London serving dreadful food. The food at Le Champignon Sauvage really is amongst the best. I'm not sure that it's the “best in Britain”, but it's certainly close and very good value for money. The combination of excellence and price is, I think, only matched by Boath House, but you can't eat there on a day trip form London. 

Spuntino, London

I have serious issues with restaurants which don't take reservations. Serious issues.

When a location seems to actively revel in its no-reservations policy, as Spuntino does with the "no phone, no reservations" strapline, I positively bristle. The implicaton is, surely, that the food being offered is so excellent as to be far more important than my time or trouble?  Oh, if only that there the case at Spuntino.

I didn't wait in any line.  I happened to be walking past at lunchtime and spotted an empty seat in the window, so walked in and took it.

When Spuntino opened, I read as bloggers tweeted in an orgasmic fenzy about the "genius" of being offered a cup of spiced popcorn as they were seated.  The reality is an awkward (to eat out of) mug of stale popcorn dripping in chilli oil; and I mean dripping - it's so greasy as to make wiping your hands between pick-ups essential.

I've heard the truffled egg toast and eggplant fries described as if they were a wonder of the modern age; delights which other restaurants can only dream of offering.  Nonsense.  Don't mis-understand me, they're both tasty and either would seem welcome if, perish the thought, you found yourelf in Soho and a touch, well, over-refreshed, but that's where it ends.  Neither are worth waiting for.  Replace Worcester Sauce with truffle oil in a Welsh rarebit and, hey presto, you've made the truffled egg on toast.  The eggplant fries were kind of amateurish - stuck together with thick, greasy, batter.

For a restaurnt to be worth lining up for, surely it should be offering something that I couldn't knock up in a domestic kitchen after a five minute jaunt around the nearest branch of Waitrose? 

As with #meateasy, I congratulate the proprietors on a PR campaign excellently done, although the majority of London food bloggers seem so easily led that I'm sure I could write the manual on the back of a small box of sheep dip.  Should sheep dip come in boxes, I actually haven't the feintest notion on that score.

The Dragon Palace, London

Having eaten food that ranged from delicious to terrifying, via dull and gruesome, during several visits to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taipei, I'm in the rather odd position of being convinced that the best Chinese food I've ever eaten, certainly the best dim sum, was served by The Dragon Palace in Earls Court.  A few of us went there for a late Saturday lunch and spent most of the rest of the day talking about how bloody amazing the food was.  It's also insanely inexpensive - I've no idea how they do it, is Earls Court really that unfashionable?

The restaurant is almost opposite Earls Court Underground station, so a doddle to reach.  No photos were taken, but the dishes we ordered are detailed below, few of which cost more than £3 per plate.

The roasted pork cheung fun and the pan fried cheung fun with dried shrimp were the two standout dishes.  The pan friend ones, in particular, are out of this world.  Special cheung fun were also excellent.

Paper prawns and the squid cakes are also fantastic, while I could take or leave the turnip cake, but that's probably down to personal perferance.  The Shanghai dumplings were the one thing that I thought were not as good as in, well, Shanghai - the broth seemed too thin.  Steamed prawn dumplings were also something of a let-down, but that's only because the rest of the steamed offerings that we sampled, village dumplings then prawn and chive dumpligs, were so good.

When it arrived, the sticky rice in lotus leaf seemed like one dish too many, but it ended being so tasty that not a grain was left.

Gilbey's, Eton

I take back all I've said previously, there are not only two reasonable places to eat in Windsor.  After two visits to Gilbey's I can safely say that there are three restaurants which won't reduce you to seething frustration.  Actually, Gilbey's is in Eton, but what's a short walk across the Thames between friends?  I mean, if the people of Eton can co-brand both of our railway stations, I can't see how they would grudge us stealing one restaurant.

Both visits were dinner with friends or family, so no photos, but the food has been good on each occasion and is served by peple who are enthusuastic and friendly.  The only negative was a game terrine starter which was served in an absurdly small quantity; when it arrived I thought I was being presented with a complimentary amuse bouche.

Gilbey's are very keen on promoting English wine, some of which they seem to grow themselves.  They're very proud of an English spaking wine the make - the first glass was intresting, but ordering a bottle is a mistake; it soon becomes sickly sweet.

I've read a couple of online reviews that complain about the small and cramped room with only a few tables, ignore this.  There is a very small dining area on the street, but also a large area to the rear, complete with conservatory and outdoor space.  On both visits we've been given a choice.  I'd take the conservatory, the front area is charming, but problematic if there are loud people on one of the other tables.

Boath House Hotel, Nairn

I've been meaning to write up our stay at Boath House Hotel since last October and, having been thwarted for so many months by a, seemingly endless, busy spell at work, would normally just forget the whole business.  Boath Hose, however, deserves, at the very least, an honorbale mention.

To start with, the accomodation and setting are beautiful.  The location, near Nairn, is about twenty minutes from the centre of Inverness and less than ten minutes from Inverness airport.  The service is also excellent, with all the staff enthusiastic and, apparently, happy to be working there.

Best of all though is the food.  It's bloody marvellous, probably the best we ate in all of 2010.  As the meal took place more than six months ago, I'm not going to pretend that I recall every detail; there are no photos as I'm not a huge fan of whipping a camera out during a dinner, but I did make a note of what we selected from the dinner menu:

• Onion squash soup
• Foie Gras
• Oysters with kohlrabi and lemon-thyme ice cream
• Roe deer
• Cheese
• Chocolate fondant.

Much of the produce comes from the hotel's own kitchen garden and each course was beautifully prepared and presented.  The whole experience feels very much like a visit to Le Manoir, although at a, slightly, less intimidating cost and without the seemingly endless parade of staff members discretely lurking in corners and anticipating your every whim.

Overall, an wonderful experience that, given the quality, felt like value for money.  Considering the ease of access from Inverness Airport, this is surely the ideal place to head for those who might want to escape London for a relaxing night or two.

Yo! Sushi, Paddington Station, London

Back in 1997, when Sushi was virtually unavailable in Edinburgh, I read a review of Yo! Sushi's first restaurant, on London's Poland Street, and pretty much thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever heard of.  Months later, I was in London and spent far more than I could afford picking plates off the conveyor belt.  A few years later, Yo! opened a, now closed, branch in Edinburgh, which I continued to visit far more than was financially sensible.  When I moved to London, I used to frequent their branch near County Hall each time I passed through Waterloo.

Fast forward to 2007 and I found myself spending a lot of time waiting for trains at Paddington.  Occasionally, if I had mis-judged the Underground and missed a train, I'd pass the 30 minutes at Yo! Sushi's counter on the main concourse.  The selection of food on offer was steadily deteriorating by that point, sashimi was a rarity on the belt and there seemed to be a lot more cooked food, slowly stewing in its own condensation under plastic domes.  Granted, you can order from the large menu, but that's not really the quick solution I'm looking for in a time-sensitive environment, as railway stations surely are.

Finally, about 18 months ago, I swore I'd never return.  The food was awful and the whole facility was visibly filthy and smelled terribly of old fish.

Sadly, time does soften one's resolve.  Last night, having just missed a train and starving after a long day, I thought I'd give Yo! Sushi another go - after all, it does look to have been refurbished, maybe things would have improved?

Huge mistake.

I invite you to spend two minutes watching the video below...

 

Before we talk about the food, I'd draw your attention to the dried, long-ignored, splash of spilled sauce which  starts in the bottom-right of the screen and drifts upwards.  This wasn't an isolated instance of dirt, I had selected what I thought was one of the cleaner spots - the whole place still looks unsanitary and the odd smell of old fish is still hanging in the air; it almost smells like canned tuna or salmon.

Now let's mention the food, or lack of it.  I know it was near the end of the day, but the restaurant is either open, and offering a reasonable selection, or it's closed.  There was not a single raw fish or vegetable item on offer, far less the sashimi that used to be common.  Instead, the belt carried a grim selection of fried rice, katsu, tempura and meat dishes that were now stone cold.

I picked up the "Katsu Selection" (prawn and chicken katsu with pumpkin korroke), there are multiple examples of the dish in the video, the first one passing at 0:38.  A prawn, half a pumpkin korroke and 50mm² of chicken katsu, all cold, all greasy and all for an incredible £5.

The spicy chicken inside out roll tasted only of cold fried chicken.  Assuming that fresh-made dishes would be edible, I ordered a spicy tuna handroll.  Miraculously, the nori was soggy and wet by the time the roll had been carried the three metres from the cook to my seat.  The rice was still warm, while something that looked and tasted similar to sweet chilli sauce was dripping out the bottom of the cone.  Just hideous, I couldn't eat more than two bites.

All together, three dishes, with a glass of water, came in at £12.50.

I'm not sure what more to say other than "never again".  Really this time, never again.