Friday 29 January 2016

The Eight Belles - Bletchley

Before I start this review I would like to make it very clear that there was a lot of things I liked at The Eight Belles. The atmosphere, the décor and even the menu (after I had decrypted it’s cunning and hidden design).


 The pub is, first and foremost a pub and I really liked that. It’s honest and certainly not pretentious in any way, with a 1940’s design it nods to Bletchley Park (which is only a few minutes walk away) with appreciation for it’s place in the town and it’s place in history. The staff were enthusiastic and our waitress worked hard to ensure we were happy which as it turned out, was a harder job than she had probably expected.

A Sunday menu of three starters, four mains and three puds all looked very appealing, I love a limited menu because it means the chef has the time and opportunity to put everything they've got into making each plate the best it can be. As expected, The Child shunned the childrens menu as she preferred the look of the squid starter while Mrs P and I had the roast lamb and beef respectively.


The squid was not crispy but it was cooked through and The Child made short work of it, only slowing down when it became ‘too spicy’, I paid no heed to this however as I know she can take down a shake of Tabasco when she wants to and put it down to the fact that she simply didn’t want any more lettuce. You’ll have to get up earlier than that my girl if you want to get one past me.

Our mains were slightly more problematic though as Mrs P’s Lamb was dry, chewy in parts and half her plate had been dedicated to a massive splodge of straight-from-the-jar vinegary mint sauce – Mrs P does not like mint sauce. Luckily, she had also been provided with a cutesy little jug of gravy which our waitress refilled for her very swiftly.





My beef had the somewhat opposite problem as it had been described as ‘very rare’ which it certainly was – no trade description act problems there, and so I had no issues with getting to grips with a very generous portion of what was essentially rare ribeye, it was a bit cold if I’m being critical but the gravy sorted that out and the veg was fine if a little one dimensional. However, most telling I'm afraid is that a roast lives or dies on the strength of it’s roast potatoes and unfortunately these were just too soggy to be anything other than adequate.

But it was the puddings that really let the Eight Belles down, well that and the 90's house music that was bizarrely powering through the PA system. Here was the first look at my chocolate torte and Mrs P's chocolate trench cake.



I feel bad for the kitchen here because I hope that these dishes were not what they would normally serve. If I'm wrong though... well, everyone has to earn a living somehow. The cake was so dry that it literally crumbled to dust every time a fork went near it and the only thing keeping it looking like a cake was the icing.  The torte on the other hand was so solid that it actually shattered as I tried to cut it, but quite apart from the super chilled top (and not in a fashionable 'Netflix 'n' chill' kind of a way*), the thickness of the base would have been issue enough on it's own, I mean look at the size of it!! We complained and were offered the alternative pudding but with two of the three options being problematic we didn't hold out a huge amount of hope and politely declined the offer.


So we paid up and left, beatboxing our way out and digging the phat and phunky beats all the while thinking about the positives; the decor, the atmosphere and the enthusiasm versus the negatives; ... well no need to go over it again.

So in conclusion, if you are looking for a honest, decent pub that can do you a generous portion of grub on the side, then The Eight Belles is a good bet, particularly with the unique ambience it's created. But I'm afraid it can't quite hold it's own against the growing number of other pubs that are dotted around when it comes to getting your hands on a good Sunday lunch.

@eightbellsmk
www.eightbellesbletchley.co.uk



*Yeah, I'm down with the kids.**

** Not really, I heard that on First Dates and still have no idea what it means. Mrs P tells me that I can't even say 'down with the kids' any more. God I feel old.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Akasaka - Wolverton

I think it's fairly safe to say Sushi certainly isn't for everyone. It’s not too much a problem for The Child though as we’ve previously seen and I've been itching to get her into Akasaka for ages. I've seen a few of my local foodie friends coming, going, then coming back to Akasaka with rave things to say about the menu so needless to say that I was very intrigued to see how a Japanese restaurant could survive in and around Milton Keynes being in such welcome and individual contrast to the usual style of eats we have around here.


A smallish room, I spent time appreciating the decor while the The Child simply studied the menu ravenously - I liked the clean lines of the place setting, seen here with my Jasmine tea pot (not for the left handers among us).


To get the full sushi experience, we decided to enjoy the delights of a Bento box and so chose two of the three options available with plenty of unpronounceable names and promises of previously unknown delights. You certainly get a lot for your set price lunch money:



All this plus miso soup shown here with a light brown dipping sauce of unknown (but tasty) origin.


The miso soup was light and unmistakably miso-eske. Miso has, what I consider to be, an acquired taste and while I finished mine off, The Child took a couple of mouthfuls and pushed it aside before jumping into her Bento.

She loved the gyoza, nigiri and the rolls (we asked to replace the standard avocado filling with cucumber) and couldn’t get enough of the fish balls or the fried chicken. The Child wasn’t sure about the seaweed salad but I thought it was really tasty and after a couple of flakes of ginger she decided against it.

As we were working our way around each section, we decided that the chicken balls were; ‘super, mega tasty’, followed by the sushi proper; ‘good, especially with the sauce’, the gyoza; ‘crunchy and meaty at the same time’ and the salmon slices; ‘as soft as my skin’ which, in my opinion, is as perfectly soft as you would ever want salmon to be.

Towards the end of the meal as more people had come in and bigger plates started coming out of the kitchen, we started to see other interesting rice and noodle dishes sweeping past, The Child and I had a (very) brief discussion about if we would like to come back to try them. It was an unqualified agreement between us, especially when the bill came out at a nicely affordable £25.

Finally, after scoffing down the last of her cucumber rolls dipped in the mysterious brown dipping sauce, she shared the following piece of zen-like wisdom with me which was (not surprisingly when considered to The Child's usual standard of conversation), totally unconnected to what we were actually eating:

‘Daddy, I love sushi, I really do. But I draw the line at the pink fish eggs which is strange because I normally love pink.’

Wise words my girl, wise words.


Monday 11 January 2016

The Bell and Bear - Emberton

I've been to The Bell and Bear before and I liked it so much that for my birthday, Mrs P took me back for steak night. It was still awesome.










We got a steak and half a bottle of wine for 20 quid which basically meant that, as it was my birthday and Mrs P was driving, I got a bottle of wine with my dinner. Happy days.

In fact I got so happy that I couldn't help but tell the bloke on the next door table that this was one hellova epic ribeye, yes it was. I met him again afterwards in the bar and it turns out that he's the head chef's dad... so that was a lucky co-incidence.

As a whole meal, there were small things that could have been better but really who cares?! A steak like that is a thing of absolute beauty and delivered with such consummate deliciousness that, (along with the bottle of wine, on your birthday, with your wife and a dram of good whiskey for afters) it should be considered to be an honour to eat it. I even forgot to ask where the steaks came from but I'm sure it was a sustainably responsible and higher welfare source because that's the kind of guys that The Bell & Bear are.  If you get the chance, I suggest you take it because like I said; awesome.




Tuesday 5 January 2016

The Smoke Pit - Northampton

Christmas has come and gone for another year. We’ve all eaten too much, drunk too much and even I in my, lets face it, already fairly rotund state almost started the New Year with an ‘meh’ approach to meal times.

I say ‘almost’, because as some of you may know (and not just the stalker-ey ones) it is also my birthday at this time of year and so there was nothing for it but to attack the Christmas and New Year over-indulgence head on with meat, meat and more meat. I’ll worry about the details like living into my Seventies later.



This is The Smoke Pit, another in a clutch of American and BBQ joints I’ve managed to experience recently and one which Mrs P and some very good friends of mine (Hello Mr and Mrs Johnston) thought I may enjoy. It’s true, I love a good BBQ, I could hardly go to Memphis In May and not be a bit of a fan so I was really looking forward to having another local crack at BBQ.

Certainly The Smoke Pit has it’s atmosphere and ambience right, from the fantastic cleaver door handles to the pop art covered walls and the jar/mug/glass jobs that the cocktails come in, the place looks and feels great. We walked in through a little bar area with comfy seats and some bar stools which look like a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.







My watermelon cocktail was really tasty and went down very quickly, perhaps a little too quickly. The following craft beer (sourced from a Scandinavian brewery for some odd reason), was also tasty and settled me down nicely, even though it wasn't served in a tulip glass. There was a round of milkshakes too which the ladies (and Mr Johnston) enjoyed immensely. Ever the cider drinking man, Mr Johnston was also tempted by a bottle of Northamptonshire's best Drink of the Year from Saxby's Cider. Yes, I've had it and yes, it's lush. 

We started, rather foolishly as it turns out, with the starters, I had nachos simply because I thought it would be good to compare with my previous nacho adventures and my dining guests were confident they could help me finish them off. Mrs P ordered off menu and asked for the crispy prawns as a starter and around the table we also asked for the half pound of buffalo wings and the scallops.





All tasted good, with the prawns being a stand out. The scallops were a little odd only by virtue of the two enormous chunks of bread that stood proudly on top. The wings were covered, quite properly, in Franks Red Hot Sauce and were very tasty indeed, although not quite up to Lone Star standard. The nachos were great with a lovely balance of cheese to guac. I liked the salsa although it was a little sweet and I would have preferred more chilli but these are little things and I am sure the majority of punters would just demolish a plate of these with no issues.

For mains I had been prepared for a meaty marathon and so it was.


A Smoke Pit platter for one had brisket, pulled pork, chicken thigh, ribs and a mahoosive sausage. Hefting the sausage alone felt a little daunting and coming off the back of those nachos I began to wonder if I had gone too hard, too fast. Never one to give up without a fight though I soldiered on. The sausage (or ‘hot link’) in fact was one of the better aspects with a warming smoky taste and the pulled pork being very soft but covered in far too much sauce for the pork to really come through. The chicken was good with some nice crispy skin and a beautiful charred flavour that told me all I needed to know about the grill. But I have to say that I didn’t really like the brisket because it was drowned in gravy and it was very difficult to uncover the soft beefiness behind, perhaps due to the lack of a rub which is a problem I believe I’ve mentioned before.

The pickled veg on the side was sweet and a great addition that cut though the heavy sauces with ease. However, most interestingly were the Louisiana style Ribs; my expectations were that they would be deep from the smoke and crusty with flavour and the best measure of that is the smoke ring, the layer of pink colour that forms as the smoke and flavour penetrates into the meat. Here we were almost as white as the driven snow.


The meat itself was soft and yielding and finished really well so I’ve got no complaints about the taste, it was all fine but for a venue that sells itself on a particular type of cooking, I would love to take a closer look at that smoker to see just how much use it's getting…!


The others went for cowpigchicken burger platters and everything was, of course, enormous. The whole table seemed perfectly happy with the various elements and the only comment came from Mrs P who complained her burger was very dry but that wasn’t too much of a problem because she dumped a load of pulled pork on it for lubrication.





We also liked the sides, the tabacco onions in particular (no cigarettes involved of course, its all about the look of the thing) but due to the immense portion sizes, we predictably struggled anything more than a forkful.

Pricing was very fair at £150 for four adults considering the portion sizes and the whole evening was really enjoyable, although to go for the true American BBQ, I would see no harm in perfecting one or two of the cuts and giving the option to cut down on the portions and prices a bit. All being said then, I would certainly talk about and point people towards the ‘Pit for those of you searching for some smoke, grill, BBQ and serious drinks to wash it all down with. It scratches a certain itch that doesn’t come round often but when it does, you need somewhere like The Smoke Pit in your life.

Now, that was the review and you don’t have to read the next bit if you don’t want to but the meal got me thinking about how we eat more generally. It’s really just a bit of a ramble so if you agree, let me know. If you don’t, let me know. Food, just like life, is full if different experiences and opinions but all I want is to be open and show those experiences to as many people as possible.


To finish, I would like to pause for just a moment and talk about the problem of the European-ification of non-European food styles. We in Britain and Europe more widely tend to work on a course based meal system, that is to say there are usually several courses during a meal each bringing a distinctive and different flavour or food type to the meal. At its most basic this could be a simple starter, main and pudding combo and practically every restaurant in the country follows this guideline but it is not unheard of for anyone who watches Masterchef to have several more. Have you ever thought how many other culinary cultures actually do this? I have not had world-wide eating experience, but certainly in an example most suited to this post I have visited many BBQ joints in Memphis and I saw exactly no-one ordering starters because there weren’t any starters on the menu. It’s true that families shared an obese and outrageous amount of food but these were all straight into sharing/main plates.

Similarly with Thai/other eastern food types and in discussions with people whom I hope wouldn’t mislead me on the subject, starters are a westernised influence which they don’t seem to do back at home. So why do we do it? Perhaps we feel short changed unless we can order at least three things, I don’t know, but one thing is for certain; neither I, nor any of my companions finished their dinner at The Smoke Pit and we couldn’t take a pudding either. I may be wrong, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time, and I am happy to be corrected but as the rise of BBQ grows in popularity, I hope that in adopting the excess of American cuisine, we don’t overindulge in what we think that style of food is or should be with the expectation of having such mammoth portion sizes at every step of the meal.