Welcome to Ask Mario's May 06 Newsletter
I get to eat out a lot in my job as a restaurant writer, so I can agree with Clarissa Hyman in her vivid account of dining alone, Going Solo, that the glamorous image does not always match the hard reality. In addition, when I’m on my travels, I’m always struck by the fact I could be in any part of Britain as far as the menu is concerned: sure the meat or fish might be touted as local, but I rarely come across dishes that are indigenous to the area. I was particularly struck by an anomaly the other day - the northern supermarket chain, Booths, is currently selling Kentish-grown hop shoots. Now I live in Kent and can’t find hop shoots for sale anywhere not even in my local farmers market - the excellent Goods Shed - so I found two items in this month’s newsletter heartening. The recently opened Soul in Derby makes a feature of native specialities like Derbyshire oatcakes on its breakfast menu, while Hilary Armstrong’s report on Leagram’s One Day curd cheese, Curds Away highlights a truly regional product, available only in Lancashire and supported by some of their top restaurants. So, if you want to sample it, head for the Red Rose county and don’t forget to Ask Mario which restaurants to try.
Elizabeth Carter, Editor
Going Solo
There was a time when the words “a table for one, please” would bring on instant hyperventilation, intestinal origami and a paralysing sense of humiliation, terror and loss of dignity rolled into one fat panic-wrapped package labelled SAD. That’s assuming, as a lone woman diner, you can even make it across the threshold...
Read Clarissa Hyman's feature about Going solo dining
Curds Away
There’s a roll call of fine foods known the world over by brand name alone. These iconic global brands work in traditional ways yet offer top quality must-haves for fashionable menus everywhere Valrhona springs to mind for its superb chocolate. In Lancashire, however, these names are as nothing compared to that of the currently ubiquitous Leagram’s One Day Curd.
Hilary Armstrong travels to Lancashire to find out more.
A new Sea Cow in Fulham (London)
This is the third and largest in a small chain of Sydney, Australian-style fish and chip restaurants and takeaways, with branches already established at 37 Lordship Lane, East Dulwich, and 57 Clapham High Street. All fish is delivered daily from the coast or Billingsgate and is cooked to order. In addition to classics, like battered cod and haddock, you can order crab cakes, lemon sole, tiger prawns and barramundi, much of it simply grilled and served with a wedge of lemon. Accompaniments include nice fat chips and, of course, mushy peas, and bread and butter. £50 for 2
Sea Cow, 676 Fulham Road, SW6, tel: 020 7610 8020
Hot and spicy on Frith Street (London)
London and the UK have long lacked a good Sichuan restaurant. When Panda Si Chuen on Old Compton St closed in the late 90s it left a gap in the market. This major new opening, just across Shaftesbury Avenue from Chinatown, brings this exciting, vibrant cuisine to the fore once more. Distinguished by its fiery spiciness, and renowned for its delicious many-layered flavours, real Sichuanese cooking now has a much deserved presence in the capital. The menu lists classic dishes such as Gong Bao chicken with peanuts, fish-fragrant pork slivers (flavoured with pickled chilli, ginger, garlic and spring onions), pock-marked old woman’s beancurd (named after a smallpox-scarred restaurateur), and modern dishes such as fragrant-and-hot prawns, and steamed turbot with salted chillies. A couple of interesting notes: in Sichuan, soup is traditionally taken at the end of the meal, and sweet dishes are not usually served as a separate course in China. About £60 for 2.
Bar Shu, 28 Frith Street, W1, tel: 020 7287 8822
Top Leeds chef takes over York’s Rish (England)
After ten years at Pool Court, Leeds, head chef Jeff Baker is going it alone. He has opened in York with J. Baker’s Bistro Moderne, ‘a contemporary modern bistro with a cosy, informal atmosphere’. In premises vacated by Rish in central Fossgate, Jeff, who was the first chef in Leeds to get a Michelin star which he held for ten years, is offering a good value lunchtime and early evening ‘grazing menu’ with Whitby cod in batter, sausage and beans even a Yorkshire blue cheese sandwich. At dinner he has three courses at £24.50 with pigeon pie with pistachio, red mullet rollmops, lemon sole and chips, steak and roasted roots, butternut squash pasta with black truffle and, to finish, parkin with butterscotch ice cream or warm fig salad. Open Tue-Sat 12noon-2.30pm & 6pm-10pm.
J. Bakers Bistro Moderne, 7 Fossgate, York, tel: 01904 622688
www.jbakers.co.uk/k
Some local Soul in Derby (England)
The owner of Derby’s newest restaurant runs two successful delicatessens and now offers local produce and seasonal ingredients (some from farms as little as 15 miles away) to diners in a setting that’s simple and quite understated. The menu features dishes like hot smoked salmon with baby broad beans and spinach salad, then pan fried breast of duck with grilled radicchio and a rhubarb sauce, with Seville Orange marmalade bread and butter pudding with thick Derbyshire cream for afters. Lighter bites are available at lunch – omelettes filled with smoked ham and Mrs Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese, say, or paninis, pasta and salads, while at breakfast you can tuck into goodies like Howarth's Gold award black pudding, filled hot Derbyshire oatcake wraps, or dry-cure bacon, grilled tomato and organic Somerset brie. About £20 for 2 (lunch), £50 for 2 (dinner). Cafe and Deli open Mon-Fri 7.30am-6.30pm, Sat 8.15am-6.30pm, Sun 10.30am-2pm. Restaurant Thur-Sat 6.30pm to 11pm, Sun10.30 am to 3pm
Soul, 26-28 Green Lane, Derby, tel: 01332 346989
The UK’s Top Tea Place 2006 (England)
Hazelmere Café and Bakery, voted as Top Tea Place of the Year 2006 by Tea Guild inspectors, stands in an attractive parade of Victorian shops opposite the town’s ornamental gardens. On one side is a shop selling mouthwatering cakes and pastries, and on the other, a pretty, brightly decorated tearoom where you can indulge in sensational moist chocolate and orange slice as well as a pot of one of a range of carefully selected high quality teas.
Hazelmere Café and Bakery, 1 Yewbarrow Terrace, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria
tel: 01539 532972
Recent Closures
Paris, The Mailbox, Birmingham has become a Strada restaurant.
The River House, Skippool Creek, Thornton-le-Fylde, a quirky favourite of ours in the Blackpool area, has shut its doors for good.
Sonny’s, Carlton Street, Nottingham has very sadly closed. The original in Church Road, Barnes, London SW13, however, is happily still with us.
St Davids’ new space-age refectory (Wales)
A breath of new life has been injected into the Grade 1 listed medieval St Mary’s Hall, next to the cathedral, with the opening of the Refectory. Under the same ownership as Café @ All Saints, Hereford, and The Place Below, London, the food is of similar high quality and home made. Typical dishes are fresh mackerel with lemon pickle, roast potatoes and rocket or shoulder of Pembrokeshire lamb with roast aubergine, haricot beans and flatbread, as well as sandwiches filled with Solva crab or rare roast Welsh beef, and cakes such as chocolate and Guinness, and lemon and almond tart. Children are well catered for, too, with half-size portions, high chairs and colouring sheets and crayons.
The Refectory at St Davids, St Davids Cathedral, St Davids, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, tel: 01437 721760
A wee spot of class by the Firth of Forth (Scotland)
Craig Wood formerly of Edinburgh’s Hallion, Martin Wishart, and the Airds Hotel, has launched this small, brightly-decorated, informal restaurant and offers a menu of modern European food with the occasional Asian twist. Typical dishes include starters such as spiced pork belly with crisp vegetables, salad and chilli and lime yogurt; and crab, wasabi and spring onion fishcake with rocket salad and coriander salsa. Mains might include confit of rabbit leg with potato galette, truffled leeks and morel jus, and pan-fried seabass with boulangère potatoes and braised fennel. About £50 for 2.
Wee Restaurant, 17 Main Street, North Queensferry, Fife, tel: 01383 616263
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