Rocca - Dulwich Village

My Sister and (probably soon to be) brother-in-law, live in Dulwich. They like it, I like it. Yay. But it is bollock-shrivingly expensive to live there. Boo.

We visited them recently with the Child plus further young family member in tow, and we were treated to a proper lovely dinner at Rocca. When they heard that we would have two young-uns, apparently the in-laws agreed on only one choice to offer us and so it was that we set off to visit the Dulwich branch of this hot ticket Italian restaurant.

It's true that I'm a proper sucker for simple done simply and Rocca followed that principle excellently. In fact, we were having so much fun that I didn't manage to take any photos past my own plate but there is a run down of the menu that we made ourselves fat on:

sharing platter (for two) a selection of cured meats and cheese, served with pizza bread (we increased this to four plus small people)
pescatore fresh clams, wild mussels, a touch of chilli (mine)

risotto cuttlefish, white cornish crab butter

tortelloni ricotta & sun-dried tomato filling (Mrs P's)
margherita mozzarella, tomato, basil 

The atmosphere was loud, boisterous and totally family orientated. When we visited, there were plenty of other children at tables throughout the plain but solid interior. The open kitchen and the pizza oven looking out over the front door treating you as you come in. As we waited for our table, I was very pleased to see the mahoosive chunks of parmesan lying in wait to be generously applied when requested; the signs were all there, I started to get excited. 

The pescatore was simply too good to miss, I mean look at it:

The clams were huge, plump and juicy. The pasta, freshly made and cooked with bite, the Child took one look and started to tuck in and I had to take drastic measures to save anything at all! The views around the table all remarked in the same way - although without all the juicy clams.

The puds were just as good, although I decided to forgo pudding and I asked the waiter my killer question: Where is your Lemoncello kept? So many restaurants have fallen at this hurdle, 'the fridge', is the most common answer, or most crushingly; 'behind the bar'. Both of these negate any desire I may have to try the sweet, lemon nector. But not at Rocca. At Rocca, not only did I hear the joyous, heaven sent response: 'in the freezer, of course', but also because they knew the importance of that question, the Lemoncello was supplied copiously and for gratis. Yet another reason to love this place, as if I needed more.

http://www.roccarestaurants.com/index.htm

Beardmore - Glasgow Airport UPDATED

It is a universal truth that Airports, in general, are soulless places that suck the life from you as you wait for hours to queue and then sit for hours in a small seat pretending to be asleep so you don't have to talk to the person next to you*. But do airports also have to take each and every opportunity to drive a greedy wedge between you and your cash? Whatever happened to Duty-Free? You used to be able to trust that your holiday really did start once you got through security.

Unfortunately, these days I can see through this devastating lie. Travelling out of London usually hides a certain high price point because, well, it might be international but it is still London. However I was subjected to a perfect example of bad corporate ethos when I visited Glasgow Airport this week.

In Glasgow airport you have several choices of eatery. Cafe's abound alongside Frankie and Bennies and a Wetherspoons, all of which may well have been better than Beardmore which we chose because of it's alleged 'local' connections. If local means 'stick another couple of quid on for the privilege' in Scotland, then it certainly lived up to its reputation. two pints of (poor) Beardmore ale for £11 anyone? Let me put that another way, that's over FIVE POUNDS A PINT in a city that has the worst drinking problem in the UK. I can only draw two conclusions: either Glasgow is filled with millionaire tramps, or Beardmore is ripping the piss something chronic.

The food didn't fare much better:

This was my 'homemade' lamb burger. Homemade? Really? Perfectly bland with a massive slice from a gigantic mutant tomato which had to be removed for fear of washing away the whole burger and giving me a third arm. I could at least taste the lamb, onion and a bit of coriander, but it was just too chewy, too sweet and too expensive. The brioche bun continued in the same theme and I was forced to find solace in the chips. Thankfully, Beardmore didn't fail me with the deep fried part of the meal but if you get bad chips in Glasgow then you know something is really wrong. These were crispy and fluffy made with their jackets still on. Were they pre-frozen? Probably, but in situations like this you are thankful for small mercies. Next time I'll stick with the national chains... which is a real shame.

Looking through the photos on my phone I found the below:

Now, while I appreciate that giving people access to a knife just before boarding a plane is an action that must be risk assessed in the current day and age. However, I would hope that the powers that be recognise that a person needs more functionality in their cutlery than the combination of a chopstick and spork.


Beardmore Bar and Restaurant


*Or is that just me? 

Beer Can Chicken

Did I mention that Mrs. P and I like Jamie Oliver? Well, there we were, watching the latest series when all of a sudden, a chicken appears with a can of beer up the bum. Mr Oliver then proceeded to make a few claims about this method of cooking; for example, it keeps the bird 'mega juicy', and 'fills the meat with beery goodness'. OK so I may be guilty of paraphrasing the mockney geezer here, but it is true that Jamie was caught on camera extolling the virtues of this unusual cooking method.

In fact, I had heard of this type of recipe a year or so ago as it's been around the American BBQ circuit for a while and though it is usually cooked on a smoker, Mrs. P's imagination was fired by the sight of such a beast and I was instructed to go forth and insert.

And insert I did. A dry rub was created and rubbed, the beer was opened and drank and the chicken orifice was stretched and prepared. I'll just let that mental image sink in for a little bit while you look at this picture.

The process was simple - rub on the rub, drink most of the beer but leave about an inch in the bottom of the can then inject the can into the chicken and balance the whole damn thing on a tray. Then stick it in the oven for between one and a half to two hours depending on the size of the thing.

I'll leave you to do it yourself to make up your own mind as to the end result but Mrs. P and I differ slightly in our views. Personally I didn't see any advantage to the beer - but Mrs. P was rather impressed. One thing is for sure - it creates a talking point on the dinner table!

Dry rub - I make no apologies for the volume of sugar in this. Mrs P likes it sweet and I had reason to encourage Mrs P to enjoy the sweetness.

A lot of brown sugar
Some mollasses sugar
A bit of smoked paprika
Some cumin
A good mix of celery salt

Job done.

Jamie’s Italian - Milton Keynes

I like a good bit of Jamie. It’s true that the cheeky chappy,  Laandon geezer personality does grate after a while but there have been very few recipes which have turned out badly. In fact it is his most simple that usually turn out to be the most effective. His type of food is, generally speaking, my kind of food and that’s quite hard to admit because to align myself so much with a ‘celebrity’ chef isn’t very fashionable. But then again, one look and I don’t think anyone could ever accuse me of being fashionable.

Mrs P and I enjoy Jamie’s Italian for several reasons; the most important of which (past the frequently changing menu) is that it’s very child orientated, which for a decent quality high street chain is rare (by which I discount the oceans of culinary sink holes which vie for your hard-earned by claiming they are 'family friendly' by virtue of the fact that they offer a rusty slide in a nettle strewn garden or a BBQ sauce stained picture of a courgette dressed as a cowboy and a couple of broken colouring pencils). Secondly, Jamie's offers large and small plates of the same dishes, this is a great way to have a quick lunch or a decent dinner and is something which I sincerely hope that other establishments follow. It's true that his Italian restaurant vision is a full frontal barrage of Jamie’s television persona, even down to the ‘pucka’ cocktails or the ‘wicked’ specials board. But I encourage you all to look past this, then fight your way through the blatant money grabbing, corporate sell out shop section (you honestly don’t need a set of Jamie’s Italian napkins) and finally please try to ignore the ever-so-slightly-too-happy waiting staff and concentrate on the food.

Speaking of which, I hear you shout at your retina, LCD, OLED or perhaps VGA screens, what did you eat this time?!? Well, feast your eyes on this bad boy:

Sea bass with mussels and tomato, as well as a little bit of chilli, garlic, lemon and capers. Fish on the bone isn’t for everyone and there were a fair few bones to contend with on this occasion but the end result is a beautiful, moist taste of the Mediterranean. The tomatoes were sweet and juicy and they sat nicely alongside the mussels, although Mrs P. and the Child stole three of the little gems before I had a chance to defend my plate.

We see Pizza Express and Jamie’s Italian in a very similar vein closely followed by Carluccios (although that is a bit more pricey when considered £ for £) and unless the corporate requirements totally overwhelm the dining experience we’ll keep on going back. 

www.jamiesitalian.com

Crabs! We've got crabs!

Hands up whose got crabs? Just us then.

Look at that! It's a lovely crabby shellfish frenzy - and a perfect excuse to show The Child how to handle our crustacious cousins. 

In the spirit of interaction (and the fact that neither I nor Mrs P had done one for a few years), we fired up YouTube and found the following link which was an absolutely great step-by-step guide to dealing with a crab when obtained whole:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPC6gz-wGo

We managed the beast pretty well, it gave up a lot of meat, both white and brown, although The Child couldn't quite understand why we called it brown meat when it was clearly red!

Bashing the shell with a rolling pin was far and away the highlight, but gouging around the head with a chopstick came a gruesome second.

Perhaps a little surprisingly, the resulting crab salad wasn't too popular with either The Child or Mrs P, but I put that down to an afternoon spent elbow deep in shellfish and it's associated ambience which always overtakes the senses when done with as much enthusiasm as is necessary to do such things properly.

Needless to say that with a grind of salt, a good crack of fresh pepper, a flash of lemon, splodge of mayo, and a dusting of cayenne, I hoovered up as much as I could lay my hands on.

Happy days.

Aqua Shard - London

Christmas is coming up fast and for the MK Parkes' that only means one thing. It's time to don our posh frocks and head towards the big smoke for a weekend of fun and food.

Our annual pilgrimmage to London consists of several elements; firstly, the hotel. We don't have a favourite and try to look for a bargain every year, in fact this year was a particularly tedious trawl through the hundreds of offers clammering for our business. We've tried the mega posh (Verta - £350 per night) and the down and dirty (Holiday Inn - £100 per night) depending on how we felt our luck was faring that year, but you better believe that either way I've got to have me a bargain.

Phase two is the show. Mrs P and I love musicals but the Child takes it to a whole different level. When she realises that a musical is in the offing, she reaches some kind of fever pitch that is a true wonder of the modern world. Such is the truely astonishing level of enthusiasm for the stage, in all it's forms, that these days we tend to keep the news secret until the last minute in order to save our own sanity and eardrums. This year, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory got our (very) hard earned cash and while this isn't a musical review blog, I'll just leave you with one word: meh.

Third, is the Christmas Tree decoration which was really the origin of this whole tradition. When the Child was small(er), we found ourselves in Harrods (as you do) and a sudden urge came upon us to buy the only thing we could afford; a bauble as our luxury for that year. The following year, we were keen to re-create the Christmassy feeling we had enjoyed the year before and as such the event as you see it here was born.

Finally, we have the food and as you would expect this is usually where we start. Depending on if we go with a matinee (then dinner), or as we did this year, lunch then evening performance. And lunch, if you hadn't already guessed was on the 31st floor of the tallest building in the EU.
Mrs P and I visited the Aqua restaurant that had opened up in MK in preperation (I think I've lost those photo's). While that was a lovely dinner, Aqua Shard proved a more challenging experience.

The starters ordered between the three of us were: rose County beef, cured wild sea bass and octopus with mackerel.

Mine was the beef and a lovely tartare it was too. the sauce was marked as 'spicy mayonaise' and it delivered a punch that neither Mrs P or the Child could handle. The Scotch Egg was also lovely - gooey and with a crack of salt.

The octopus, and sea bass on the other hand didn't do any of us any favours. You will know that I've eaten my fair share of octopus and so this version, with it's sweet chili sauce and a few bits green just seemed a bit limp and flacid. And not in a good way.

The sea bass was presented to the Child and she had a fair go but she was inevitably defeated by the bland, souless plate of transparent fish slices. The Child is not interested in how nice a plate looks, she knows, and tells you pretty quickly, if it tastes nice and needless to say, this was not the best way to introduce her to sushi. The horseradish meringue was a bit weird though, I thought I wouldn't like it but after the first one I got into it; the sweet, heat, crunchy, chewy blobs really floated my boat. In fact we suspected that all the starters were probably cold/raw or both, a difficult sell we all concluded.

For mains we went for lamb and pigeon while the Child played it safe with chicken and mash.

Mine was the pigeon and while there could be no doubt that the portions could have done with a bit more, well more, the pigeon was cooked rare as per my request (although why anyone would want it any other way is beyond me), and was very pleasant. Nothing spectacular but both Mrs P and the Child signaled their approval and there was enough sauce to go around and the splodges, drips and other unnecesserily small nuggets of poncyness were pockets of flavour within every forkful. The lamb was, again, nice enough. Mrs P was happy with her choice of soft, yealding meat with crunchy fat, seasoned well with some proper veg. Point to note - the Child took her own picture.

We decided not to hit up puddings after words with the manager gave us a few customer service issues. Dirty floors, tables, cutlery and menus just left a very amateur taste in our mouths. I hope this is not their normal state of affairs, indeed, the manager was at pains to describe how he was at least five members of staff down on his usual level of service. At a charge of 150 quid for lunch for two and a half people and a couple of drinks, it is looking at some serious competition and after our 'discussion' the manager knocked off the starters and obligitory service charge which brought the whole thing in under a tonne. However, even then I would suggest Aqua Shard is attempting to cash in on a certain type of clientele; you know, the type that has more money than tastebuds and buys their Christmas decorations at Harrods...  

Aqua Shard

The Greenman and French Horn - Leicester Square, London

Picture the scene; 

Mrs P: we're going out with my brother on Saturday. I need you to book a restaurant.

Me: umm OK. Any more details?

Mrs P: I need you to book a restaurant.

Me: right, I've done it. How do you fancy...

Mrs P: not that one.

So, as you can imagine, I was stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Fortunately, I had a secret weapon up my sleeve; the Timeout top 50. Unfortunately, they were all booked. Literally, all of them.

From what I read, the Greenman and French Horn is owned by a chef who also owns an entry in the aforementioned top 50 and I'm sure a fully paid up member of the tosseratti could tell you who that was. Well, if you want to know then you can bloody well look it up yourself.

On to the Food Porn!!

The menu was modern French Brazzerie style and I started with brown shrimp with celery. Mmm, it was lovely, I've had brown shrimp in France before but there the little buggers come shells, head and all. Here, after being 'chefed', they were still lovely and buttery. The celery had been lightly poached and the cheesey topping was nice and light but didn't take away from the small shrimp shaped stars.

Main was clams. Big, juicy, clams. Big, juicy, slippery, I should stop now. Needless to say, they really were delicious. Butter, wine, bacon and natural ozone made the sauce unmissable, however, what certainly was missed was a great hunk of bread. An almost criminal omission.

Mrs P had mussels, which were tasty but missed out on my slightly obsessive food photography habit. What was caught was my sister-in-law's partridge, claw and all. That was also pretty good, the step mushrooms were nice and earthy and I did push the interpersonal boundaries by inviting myself to her plate more than once, but that's allowed right? Right? In fact, the four of us couldn't find anything much wrong with the menu as a whole. Perhaps it was a little poncy but you can't blame them for that, posh Brazzerie is a concept that certainly has it's place.

My only gripe is that the wine menu is entirely and exclusively French. While I vaguely know my arse from my elbow when it comes to a bottle of vino, this list stumped me and when I asked the waiter for advice, what followed didn't fill me with confidence as he flicked through the pages to seemingly pick something at random. The end result was pleasant enough but I couldn't help but feel we could have done better.

£43 per person with three courses for four including drinks is pretty bloody good for just off Leicester Square. We were all well fed and had (almost) no complaint. This one is certainly going on the list for future return visits.

www.greenmanfrenchhorn.co