DonPietro, Gants Hill, Essex: Eat fast on Saturday night before the nightclub opens

19 October
A convenient meeting place for a grown up family gathering was deemed to be the Don Pietro Italian restaurant on Cranbrook Road in Gants Hill. This is very close to the Southend Road, and Gants Hill Tube station. It also is a couple of doors down from the Faces night club, which I am told is favoured by Essex youth. For that reason, on a Saturday night, so we were told, the place closed at 10pm for health and safety reasons. There is a more than comprehensive web site at http://www.donpietro.co.uk/ but whoever wrote the code for this page assumes everyone has a wide screen.
At 7pm when we arranged to meet, it was already filling up. This might be due to the special offer of a two course meal for £10 which seemed to be what all the clients wanted. Given that a main meat course from the a-la-carte was £15, it made a lot of sense providing the limited menu (see web page) suited. The place made its money up on drink as a bottle of house plonk, straightforwardly called Vino Rosso (no pretensions here) was £15, and a small cup of coffee was £2.50. Service is reputedly slow and the big thing is that the special deal ownly works if the order reaches the kitchen before 7.30, so no pressure there.
For starter, I had funghi picante (sliced fresh mushrooms in a hot spicy tomato and black olive salsa. Theis was exactly as described. 

This was a decent sized portion as described above, with some bread and was hot scoring a 8.8 on the CHOF scale. This was suprising judging how slow the service was, but perhaps they cooked each dish separately rather than keeping them hanging around. Recommended.

For main course I had the Fegato Venetian (sic), which was a different spelling of the dish I would normally have and was described as Finest Dutch calves liver with sautéed onions, served with potatoes & vegetables

This was not quite what any of us expected, as my researches suggest that the onions should be slowly cooked until soft, and typically it is like a sauce/gravy. This was more like liver and onions. Nevertheless, this was perfectly well cooked tasty and hot, also an 8.8 on the CHOF scale. My wife had beef stroganoff which I tasted and was excellent.

Basically for £10 plus drinks and service, you cannot raise any complaints, and it was hot. I would definitely go back there again, and try something else off the menu, but only if I had the time as service is slow. It has a family feel to it. When we left about 9.30, the drinkers/smokers were spilling out into the street from bars near the nightclub. Three effective looking door men were policing the entrance to Faces. I have no knowledge of these thing but http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2186947/TOWIEs-James-Arg-Argent-tries-head-leaves-nightclub-girls.html

No wonder they close early.

ITSU (Picadilly): eat beautiful

18th October.
After a meeting at Burlington House, we needed somewhere to eat that was convenient, and not a big hit. My wife suggested Itsu, and although we are not great consumers of Japanese food, I was recommended that the noodles had been found to be acceptable in the past.
We were told the place closed at 9.30 pm, and arrived about 8.30, when it was not busy at all. I think it may be a largely lunchtime activity with take out, as some of the dishes are lunchtime only. There is an extensive but possibly slightly pretentious web page at http://www.itsu.com/ and in the restaurants there is a menu with pictures just in case you are still in doubt. No alcohol was in site, just strange soft drinks.
We started with an omega 3 salmon supreme. This is very pretty to start with, and we should have guessed that the salmon was only there in small quantities. I should have photographed this at an earlier stage.

We are not great lovers of Sushi, and I consumed most of this, which was most acceptable, but I think I would have preferred it with some of the green horseradish based condiment, which I could not find. There is a little bottle of soy sauce in the packaging.

For main we both had the chicken with udan noodles in dynamite (not really) broth. This came in a pot to take away, and was tricky to decant in the bowls supplied to us.

This was hot and tasty, with a good helping of chicken. Scored a 8.8 on the CHOF scale. I think a greater selection of sauce condiments could have helped but as I am not a great aficionado of Japanese food, it may have been quite authentic.

For desert we tried the zero fat fro go frozen probiotic yoghurt with blueberries and one with honey cashews

I am a fan of plain yoghurt, and quite liked this. There was probably too much for a single helping with what we had had before. As this is very low calorie (the yoghurt component of the above container was said to be 99 calories) and fat free we could not work out what it was. The nutrition guide says most of it is carbohydrate. You get more than in a similar nutrition-value pot of diet yoghurt from a supermarket, so it must be in the whipping up process. I liked the slightly sweet taste, but not everyone would. Interesting, but I might not make a habit of this. A meal for two excluding drinks came to about £27 eat in. If you come to a branch of Itsu in the half hour before closing, you can buy what they have left in sushi packs for half price if that is what you want to take home with you at 9 in the evening.

Cochin: a good import from East Finchley.

12th October.
We have a cousin who likes to go out for a curry, but we don't want to disappoint him. So this was actually my second visit to Cochin in Finchley pretty much opposite Tesco in Ballards Lane. It moved there from East Finchley a couple of years ago. I have previously mentioned the ideal that if you go somewhere really good, it is possible to be disappointed by a return visit, but this was not the case here. Top notch. There is a fairly helpful website about the south Indian food on http://www.cochinrestaurant.co.uk/index.html which also gives a menu and prices. We went on a Saturday night, when it was fairly busy, but not full. You might get in without a reservation at the weekend.
For starter, I shared a non-vegetarian mixed starter with my wife:

This is a fairly substantial plate with a shami kebab, meat samosa, pieces of cheick tikkah and bits of tandoori chicken. It was hot (8.8 on the CHOF scale) fresh and very spicy and tasty. This is a good portion even for two, and means that you might want to moderate on main courses.

For main course I had the non-vegetarian thali which is a mix of various curries, lentils, raitah, rice and paratha.

Again, attractively presented, very tasty, also a 8.8 in hotness and a good way to get a taste of various things. I guess because they can do a mix like this quite quickly, that there may be vats of the stuff out the back which they heat up. Anyone's guess.

A meal for four with poppadoms and drinks but no desert came to £104, so a little bit more expensive than average, but a very above average meal. Definitely will go back, and now the local better curry house of choice. They serve hot food.

Sharod Barkingside: Indian local eat in beloved by locals with no surprises and free Maltesers

21st September
Barkingside is one of those outer London Suburbs, without a London Postcode, that few have visited, as it not on the way to anywhere of note except Essex.
Sharod is a bit of local institution, and I have eaten there several times with family members living around the area. It is a cosy place, and on Saturday night can become so busy that there is a queue for tables. It is debatable whether it is possible to book a table (probably so), but as there is no useful web based information beyond the location and telephone number, it is assumed that it would be a good idea to call ahead.
Service is always friendly, but can be a bit on the slow side. The menu is completely unremarkable, and the pricing is reasonable average: it is very middle of road and unlikely to disappoint.
I had a sheek kebab to start;

I note from the timing on the photograph that it was about 45 minutes from crossing the threshold to serving.

This was sizzling hot (9.5 on CHOF score) and came with lots of onions. The restaurant always has supplied a plate of free popadoms and pickles while waiting, just to take your mind off things. This was very tasty, but the somewhat red colour was a little suspicious.

For main course I was very boring and had the traditional Indian dish of Chicken Tikka Masala.with rice.

This was hot (CHOF of 8.9 but the hot plate did not get it any higher) but very red. It lacked the nutty/coconut flavour that typifies this dish in many Indian restaurants, and was good but not perfect. Quantities of food are good, and my memory dissuaded me from ordering a Naan bread as well, as this would have been a step too far.

The thing about Sharod is that they always give us a postprandial drink e.g. brandy, a handful of sweets and a box of Maltesers or similar to take home. This gift relationship is good business, and people leave with a smile on their faces.

As to the food, it is average in every respect, but never less than average. It can be very noisy on a Saturday night, especially when both full and with a queue inside. On this occasions, there was a table of gentlemen friends on the adjacent table who may have been graduates of Heythrop College (or may not). They had clearly prefaced their visit with some local lubrication, and had lost all sense of what constituted normal conversational volume. May be this is normal in Barkingside, as this place is a local institution with a solid faithful following, because it is reliable. You get no suprises at the Sharod.

Rivington Greenwich: Sunday brunch for the recession proof

15th September
I was due to go on a photowalk in Greenwich, and my family suggested Sunday Brunch in Greenwich at 1115. The suggested Venue was Rivingtons as it ticked most of the boxes for reputation, child friendly, vegetarian tolerant, and location. I am not a bruncher, but because we had to be done and dusted by 1pm, it was the only potential answer.
I am always suprised by the the number of people who don't eat breakfast at home. I know I have a friend in NYC who says that he has never ever cooked in his kitchen and eats 100% of his meals out, but has that culture come to London, or is that the eating of breakfast out is a treat I am not used to? Clearly many others have got past that questioning stage, because it was busy. May be the proximity to the city and Canary Wharf distorts the demography. I could not say with any certainty how many of the diners were Greenwich tourists (of which there are many).
Check out the menu at http://www.rivingtongreenwich.co.uk/_img/pics/pdf_1379626519.pdf .
I decided on the full English as it was breakfast and lunch combined, and the place did not change from the breakfast menu until the noon bell had rung.

This is not greasy spoon breakfast, and it clearly is being presented as if warranted the same care and attention as any other main dish. It was a mixed CHOF with some elements warmer than others but overall it gained a 7.7, with the sausage as an 8.5 as they always retain their heat better. The quality was excellent, and the quantity was sufficient to keep me going until the evening. This is quality breakfast for those with disposable incomes, and clearly they know where to come. I did not know that this was part of a group called Caprice Holdings, and if you check out their web site http://www.caprice-holdings.co.uk/ it will give a clearer idea of the quality of their stable.

Hotel Aranci, Vieste: like stepping back in time (in a good way)

7th September
About 30 years ago, when my children were very small, we went on a package holiday to Lido di Jessolo in northern Italy. It was a favourite seaside venue of many nations, and the hotels were middle of the road, serving middle of the road Italian food to families, and adapting to their particular needs. By modern day standards, it was all very quaint. It was the days before huge attractions and nightclubs and singles bars. Coming to Vieste in 2013 was a bit like stepping back 30 years. It it was not for the fact that the rooms now have flat screen televisions and telephones and free wifi, you might not know. The decor is the same, and for the mostly half board guests, the restaurants could have been a stopped clock. I do not mean this in any derogatory manner, and if fact it brought a bit of joy to my stick-in-the-mud heart that this sort of thing, and the holidays for native families on the beach is still alive and well in some parts of the world.

We dined in the hotel dining room and our 50 British tourists were mingled with other guests and ate the same as them. A four course dinner, with antipasta, pasta, main and desert.
The antipasta came from a hot or cold buffet, and was a huge variety of local style dishes.

The hot was so-so, scoring about a 6.9.

We were more luck with the steaming plates of pasta with seafood served to our table.

The main course was a little less exciting. being a non-descript escaloppe of meat which could have been pork.

However it scored a 7.9 and clearly was of Italian intent.

Breakfasts were in a modern annex of the hotel, and despite a review that had warned is that all that was available is bread and cake, they had run to a more extensive buffet. This was good news and bad news. I have to show this picture of the chafing dish that was used for egg and sausage:

Clearly another example of local project management, with no quality improvement activities during our stay. Suffice it to say, that the food was cold scoring about 2 on the CHOF scale. However they did serve fresh cappuccinos and the bread was excellent. 

As there was nothing but sliced processed cheese on offer, we bought some of our own from a local supermarket which did the trick. We saw other families had brought their own supplementary items into breakfast. It was also quite clear that some of the families were using breakfast as a filled-roll factory and were making their lunches for the beach. The hotel was turning a blind eye to this, but it meant that some of the bread and deli supplies vanished temporarily before re-ups were provided. My wife said the backed apples were excellent.

All in all, for a good old fashioned family hotel experience in a charming town, I would recommend the Hotel Aranci.

Hilton Garden Inn, Matera, Southern Italy

6th September.
I have reviewed this hotel on TripAdvisor, but just a word about the breakfast.
This is a modern looking smart hotel on the outskirts of Materia in Southern Italy. Accepting a party of 50 British tourists clearly was beyond their skill set and project management  After an underwhelming in-house evening meal, we were sequestered off into a separate room for breakfast the following day. As the breakfast area in the main restaurant was empty, this was not understandable. Knowing that food is left hanging around, we arrived at breakfast early.

Even at 6.30 in the morning, this huge vat of scrambled egg was cold. Nul Pointes.

As an eating experience, this hotel had nothing to recommend it. As there is nothing for at least five miles around, unless you have a car, you will not get much in the way of hot food or service. This is no way to treat tourists in an area that needs the trade.