The Olive Grove, Cambridge. Satisfactory Greek lunch in quiet surroundings

30th July 2015
A trip to visit our friends in Cambridge included a lunch stop at this recommended Greek Restaurant. It is a short walk off the main college/museum drag of Cambridge, near the town shopping centre, and is an unassuming sort of place which on the day we went, in the middle of the tourist season only had a few lunch clients. It may get busy at nights, and there are lots of reviews on TripAdvisor.
They have a web site on http://the-olivegrove.co.uk/ which explains that they have been a finalist in a food awards competition. This is very definitely Greek rather than Cypriot or Turkish and is reflected in the food and decor. When we were there, we witnessed a consignment of kitchen supplies arrive, and it confirmed that they are using imported or locally Greek produced ingredients. Who would have thought that haloumi comes in a big tin?
We decided to opt for the set two course lunch menu at £12.95. I had a look at the main menu, and think that it is a bit more expensive than I would expect to pay in a local north London Cypriot restaurant, but may be they cannot be compared. I cannot speak as to the authenticity of the cuisine, but it seemed Greek enough.
For starter I chose Tigania (spicy pork bites,onions,oregano,peppers & white wine)

This was a bit like a mini pork stew, and I would not rate it as particularly spicy, but it was tasty and hot enough scoring an 8.1 on the CHOF scale. I would guess that there is no such thing as really hot food in Greece, so that may have been a very authentic part of the experience.

For main I chose Kontosouvli 

(hand made pork neck skewer, pitta nest served with  fresh chips & tzatziki)

As you can see this is not exactly as described on the menu in that there is no pitta nest and the fresh chips were sauté potatoes and there appears to be some bulgar under the salad. It was hot enough also at about an 8 and tasted fine, but the meat was a bit fatty and gristly and not everything was edible. As you can see the portion size is adequate, but not generous. There is a lot of attention to appearance which you do not get in Cypriot restaurants typically.

The restaurant was mildly pretentious making a big thing out of being a finalist is in the food competition (but not revealing the final placing). It was the better side of ok, but I am a tough judge of this kind of food having been the victim of some mega meze's

Broughton Arms, Balterley; traditional inn serving standard pub dinners in good style.

Wednesday, 22nd July 2015
I put the day in my header, because for a mid-week local inn-turned-restaurant, this was packed with enthusiastic locals. I did not get the chance to look in at lunchtime to find out if it was more like a pub, but this was so packed with diners at tables in the evening, that there was no room for drinkers, and no where I could see where they might be hidden. So my first word of advice is if you want to go there, book a table (which being foreigners to the area, we had).
According to the web site on https://broughtonarmsatbalterley.wordpress.com/about/ (not sure why it is an https address) it is on the Cheshire/Staffordshire border near the village of Weston. There is little local competition except for a hotel conference center and another pub about two or three miles away. The web site is a little strange as the home page is the set menus for functions, but if you dig, all the information is there. I chose this place on the basis of good tripadvisor reviews, which by and large were supported by my visit.
The place looks half traditional, half country pub restaurant cliche. Whilst this is not intended to be a negative comment, it is exactly what you would expect except for the lack of locals drinking at night. Food service stops at 2100, so do not go there late.
The menu for the restaurant is shown on the web site under the heading 'bar menu', presumably because seating is in the bar, and you order your meal at the bar. Drink also comes from the bar at pub prices. The menu is pretty predictable and fairly extensive.
For starter I had the garlic mushrooms.

I am guessing based on their uniformity, that they were not hand made on the premises. Nevertheless, they were numerous, fairly tasty, hot at at CHOF of 8.2 and came with a tartare sauce.

For main course I had steak and kidney pie.

As you can see this is a big portion with chips, and could have been home made. There was probably more steak than kidney and it was a hearty meal at a superlative temperature scoring a 9.5 on the scale. There were also accompanying vegetables which are out of shot.

For desert, I shared a creme brulee

This tasted very eggy and as if it had not been prepared in a big batch for consumption over a period of time. The top had been flamed recently.

There is no pretention factor for this establishment. It appears to be very popular with the older generation of locals and is clearly the place to come. It is exactly what it says on the box, and there were absolutely no surprises. It was middle of the road pricing, and a meal for two with a small cider and glass of wine came to about £50. Things shut down early, and by about 9 the place was emptying out. This is an ideal place to come if you are at the Wychwood Park Venue and want to eat somewhere else.

Steam Bake and Grill at Wychwood Park DeVere Resort, near Crewe: surprisingly good

21st July 2015
We had booked a bargain midweek break through TravelZoo. Amazing value - £99 for two for B and B for two nights, and one three course meal. This is one of a number of resort venues more geared up to conferences and training meeting, and I can only presume they sell off their spare capacity when there is not enough conference trade. I guess July is not a big conference month to spend in Crewe. Crewe is pretty well located for the pottery attractions of Stoke on Trent, and Ironbridge museums.
The restaurant is pretty minimalist, with no table cloths, no bread and I am guessing that all the food is pre-prepared, but I could not say where. The limited menu appearance and speed of service suggests that it is not cooked to order. Nevertheless, it turned out to be the star of this venue in my opinion. I thought I was only getting a two course meal, but it turned out to be three. You can find out more at http://www.deverevenues.co.uk/en/venues/wychwood-park/food-and-drink/ . There is a sort of open plan kitchen to see where the finishing touches are put to dishes. These were clearly the cooks that the management were happy for people to see.

For starter, I had garlic prawns

The dish was served on a weird pice of fake facsimile newspaper. It was well cooked, tasty and scored a 9 on the CHOF scale. A good start.

For main, I had a steak pie with mash, which looks a bit like a self assembly kit. There is a boat of gravy. You get the idea. This again was pretty good and also an 8.5 to 9 on the CHOF scale.

For desert, I chose the mixed chocolate roulade.

A tiny bit mass produced, but good nevertheless.

All in all this was a surprisingly good meal, at a good temperature. It has a minor pretention factor based on the over attention to appearance, but the surroundings and service negated that. We ordered a bottle of wine, but were provided with something other than what we ordered, and were told that this was what they decided to serve instead. I guess the customer is not always right. I gather that the rack rate for this meal without drink and service is £25/head. This is probably a bit overpriced for a TDH meal, but was a good deal as part of our package.

Sunday lunch at Vanbrugh pub restaurant, 91 Colomb St, London SE10 9EZ. Mod satis but only just

28th June 2015
Friends who had been at the Fleetwood Mac concert at the Dome (I still call it that) suggested we meet up for lunch in Greenwich on Sunday. Knowing that the area on Sunday in the summer would be awash with visitors, it was decided to book something. With my list of suggestions rejected, the Vanbrugh was selected on the basis of location and other reviews, which for the most part, excepting Christmas, are favourable. It is a pub restaurant of the current breed, but serves nothing clever, and only mildly pretentious. (I have decided to add in a pretention score to my ratings as pretentious eating is infecting the world in a way less controllable than Ebola).
The place sells itself as a 'local' pub, and in fact based on its location up a side street, you would never pass it unless you meant to. Thus starts part of the conundrum of how do you price food and drink for locals? There is a fairly comprehensive web site at http://thevanbrugh.co.uk/ and the menus are there to see. Interestingly although the web site looks a little old, the menus are still current.
The place is fairly attractive by pub standards with tables to sit at, a restaurant area, and a softer area with big settees and low tables. The restaurant is fairly small, and on Sunday, the food spills out to all available space. The menu and prices are the same inside or without the restaurant. The kitchen looks pretty small, and I guess they did well to cope with the number of covers on Sunday lunchtime (40+, possibly 50) all things considered.

The menu for main roast Sunday lunch is simple with all the usual meats and fried fish and a vegetarian option. Orders are taken at the bar, and paid for in advance (I find that this reduces your leverage if anything goes wrong).

I ordered the roasted pork loin with black pudding, apple sauce and pork jus. I requested that the black pudding be replaced by pork stuffing, which was no problem to them.

As you can see, the pork was a loin chop (note the bone). This has confused people in the past who thought this might be a pork chop, but the bone was a rib. It is difficult to tell if this was pork jus, as the gravy/sauce was quite a dark colour. As there was a bed of red cabbage, it could have gone either way, but others have noted that there is cook confusion about which sauce/gravy/jus to put on. By the time this arrived, I found it unacceptable in temperature, scoring a 6.7 on the CHOF scale in some parts. I am guessing that the 7 meals between us were plated out in the kitchen during a time period, and what ever went on first got cold. Not good. I rejected the meal, and some time late a replacement came (not a reheat), but minus the stuffing. A bit better, at an 8.

My wife wanted two starters rather than a roast main. She ordered the curried mussels and the thai beef salad. Only the latter made it to the table, and when asked we were told that as the mussels were a new menu item, they had not made it from the epos system to the kitchen. However, they managed to make it on to the bill, so I think this was so much BS. In the event, the starter salad was so large, that another dish was not needed. We did get our money back, reluctantly.

So all in all, whilst the food was fine once we had it the way we wanted it, it was all a bit slapdash, in that my food was not hot enough for me (I guess the locals are not so fussy), and the ordering was too chaotic considering the shortness of the menu and that we ordered before it got busy. For the prices they charge for a straightforward Sunday Roast, this should have been better. It was expensive, with main course roast costing between £13 to £18.  This is a back street in Greenwich, not a tourist hot spot, and the cooking and food are run of the mill.

The drinks were also a bit on the expensive side for a pub. A large glass of house white wine was £8 and my half of (very nice draft Suffolk) cider was £3.50. Just as well there was no service charge in the pub, but there is 10% if you eat the same meal in the restaurant.

So not pub grub as we know it, and it is lucky that most of their clients are local and tolerate the slap dash approach.

New Curry Centre, Station Road, Barnet. Competent Local Curry House but not a treat.

22nd May 2015
A mate wanted to go out with us for a cheap and cheerful meal on a Friday night. Nothing special, and rather than go back to the Shapla in Barnet, I thought we would try something new, based on reviews from TripAdvisor. There is no web site, but several reviews on local eating sites. The New Curry Centre, despite its somewhat banal name, ticks the boxes, and most of the reviews are better than ok, and it seems to have a fan club.
It is located down a main road off the Great North Road near the Barnet Odeon. In the evening, it is possible to park near, but the Fire Station opposite means that some of the road must be kept clear. There is a somewhat intriguing takeaway menu claiming that the place is top rated by Barnet Council, but from the graphics I think this is the food hygiene rather than the culinary opinions of the council. There is no apparent regional specialisation and the place is a jack of all trades with a comprehensive menu.
The interior is unremarkable, and while some of commented that the seating is uncomfortable, I cannot say we had any problems.
For starter I had the Shamee Kebab which is the flat fried version of the sheek kebab.

Whilst it might have a slightly uninspiring appearance, it was hot at an 8.7 on the CHOF scale and very tasty. Substantial portion.

For main I had the tandoori mixed grill

This was also fresh and hot, and entirely competent. The food was good but probably the best that can be said is that it is competent local curry at a fair price. One of us was underwhelmed by the cooking and indicated that he would not be making this the curry house of choice, but I found absolutely no fault, but on the other hand there was nothing special. Service was competent and the bill was very fair. A meal for two including beer would probably come to about £35 or less depending on how much you splashed out. They charged for poppadoms, and half the price of the Bayleaf. 

I would go back there again, but more for a routine meal than a treat.

Antepliler, Green Lanes. A step beyond kebabs.

21 May 2015.
Hello to all my readers in Ukraine, where apparently most of my hits in the last month have come from. I can only assume it is the inherent interest in the cuisine of North London.
My daughter now lives in Haringey, and no visit to her will be complete without a visit to one of the Turkish restaurants of Green Lane, where the two sides of Cyprus have been united without the help of the EU.
This was a recommendation and hit the spot. There is a web site on http://www.anteplilerrestaurant.com/main/  and various pictures and bits of the menu can be found, and an explanation that this is Silk Route food, and has a cosmopolitan background.
The restaurant evolved from a bakery and now has branches. In fact you can find them baking in the window, and I can only assume that wonderfully fresh flatbread were baked on premises.
The inside is modern hard surfaces, and on a Thursday evening when we went, it became full and noisy. It is large, so you might not need a reservation. There is an extensive and varied menu which you can find on the web site.At our table was salad, bread and yoghourt and chilli dip.
We decided to share starters, and this gave a good variety between 4

Sahanda Pastirmali eggs fried in a pan, with Turkish stlye air cured beef: unusual and tasty

Antep Kofte (Antep Speciality) small lamb koftes on a bed of creamy strained yoghurt with spinach & spices. Difficult to show just how small they were, but look at the fork.

Kisir (V) bulgur wheat, mixed with freshly chopped tomatoes, spring onions, celery and parsley

with pomegranate sauce dressing

this is main course Ali Nazik (Antep Speciality) braised fillet of lamb and bell peppers mixed with strained yoghurt on a bed of mashed smoked aubergine served with rice. The rice did not appear, and it came with Salad, probably a good idea as it was very rich

This is all very exciting food, served hot, and you can wander over to the open kitchen to see the cooking in place. I would easily award a CHOF of 8 but things did cool quickly. We drank the usual Efes beer. I also tasted some of the grilled meats which were very tender and soft

I would recommend this place, and might chose something a little less challenging next time. Bill for 4 with a beer each, but no desert came to about £80, so very fair. 

Ci vediamo li : out of the ordinary Italian Restaurant in New Barnet

4th April 2015
So the place we wanted to patronise decided to close for Easter, and our friends had been to the backup place a couple of weeks earlier, and a bit of research on tripadvisor revealed a host of positive review for http://see-you-there.co.uk/ . It was agreed that although this was the blind leading the blind, we would give it a go.
The place is a completely unpretentious small shop frontage in Lytton Road in New Barnet, and is surrounded by two Indians, a Greek and a Pizza place. It was possible to park in the road on a holiday Saturday night but might be tricky otherwise. The flags outside gave us the target to aim for. It is a narrow restaurant slice with about 10 or 12 tables, and is a bit minimalist inside. It has an amusing enamel price list from an old Italian Brothel over the tiny bar, but otherwise the appearance is unremarkable and unmemorable.
The web site makes it clear that the food is not old fashioned Italian, and the prices are a bit above average for the area and the wine list is definitely a bit on the expensive side once you get past the house wine which for red is a Nero D'Avolo.
On the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday (which was also included Passover this year), the place was very quiet with a maximum of 3 tables full. Other reviews have remarked that the place seems quiet, and its location down a side street means that it is unlikely to attract passing trade unless you knew that there were other restaurants in the street. It has been there at least since Spring 2011, but you need a minimum number of covers to keep a show on the road. There are other factors which are not helping, but see on.
When you arrive, a glass of Bellini greets you which is a nice touch, and there was a chef's taster, which may have been fried polenta and other stuff: the chef likes polenta.

Another nice taste. Our waiter was  young fresh ruddy faced man, who admitted that he was new to the job (we attract them). There were no other waiting staff that night, but the maitre de/owner was in evidence.

For starter, I chose a sort of bruschetta of chicken liver pate on fried bread. 

What you cannot tell from this picture is that the portion size was quite small. My wife's platter of cold meat was huge. This bruschetta was very interesting to taste, in that the bread, which I had expected to be crispy was in fact quite soft, and reminded me of eggy fried bread/french toast. The taste was very unusual

The menu, which can be found on the web site, and changes a lot, is quite short. I chose the Cervo con Polenta (Venison stew served with polenta and Parmesan cheese) 

The pictures says it all, and it was not quite what I expected. It was supposed to be served with vegetable of the day, but this never appeared, and the spinach I ordered, and came later, came on a pretentious ceramic spoon. The servings are small. The polenta could have been hotter ( a 7 on the CHOF scale), but the meat and spinach were hot enough scoring 8's. The taste was very unusual. We were offered a complementary limoncello after the meal, another nice touch but costing the business little.

Service was a bit slapdash, and things came as a stream rather than altogether, and considering that there were only about 6 other people in the restaurant, it was below expectations. I enjoyed my food here, but my wife thought it was all a bit amateurish. The pricing is well above average, and a bottle of mid-price wine was £27. A meal for four with only one desert and one bottle of wine and 12.5% service added on was £145. I thought that although the food was very good, the overall impression left one with a 'but could have done better' impression. If we needed to take someone to a place with unusual food, this would be it, but it is a bit pricey for a side street in Barnet. There are several other Italian restaurants in the area, so it is a buyers' market. As far as hotness of food was concerned, I thought they could have done better. Clearly the expectation of hot food is mine alone.