BS: Restaurant Reviews

Subject: BS: Far Out Restaurant Reviews
From: KarenH
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 07:12 AM

Today's Guardian newspaper (17th August '18) has a restaurant review by Grace Dent whose click-bait heading includes the phrase 'casually orgasmic'.

This, believe it or not, is a description of a pasta dish offered at the establishment in question.

What other 'far out' restautant reviews, whether praise or put-down, have Mudcatters encountered? And can they provide a short quotation followed by the writer, source and date?

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Raggytash
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 07:34 AM

Could someone please ban critics, whether restaurant, film, book, music, I cannot abide any of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 08:14 AM

I thought Jilly Goolden once described a wine as like dancing barefoot through summer meadows. But it was a long time ago and I cannot find a source to confirm that!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 08:22 AM

BTW - Does Grace Dent insist the pasta must be al dente? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 09:29 AM

I didn't much like Michael Winner. He always judged a good meal as 'historic'. Pretentious twit!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: gillymor
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 09:39 AM

I've been burned by restaurant critics so many times that I no longer pay attention to them. I find the info I get on Yelp helps me make much better decisions. Off topic but it feels good to vent.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 09:58 AM

Jilly Goolden

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Raggytash
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 10:20 AM

As an example, there is a pub in the town where I live in Ireland where the landlord, to my mind, can only be described as an ill mannered, brutish thug. I have witnessed him being very violent to seemingly innocence drinkers, literally throwing them through doors without opening them. I would never recommend the bar to anyone, nor would a majority of the locals.

However on Tripadvisor, despite 10% of the reviews echoing my sentiments, there are a good number of glowing reports of how good and kind he was.

So, who you believe, me or the other people?

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 10:20 AM

Thanks for that Jon - Brilliant :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 10:30 AM

I don't like restauants.. give me a greasy caff or canteen any day..

or preferably a takeaway at home...

Can't stand the stuffy too warm discomfort,
having to dress smart in uncomfortable clothes
that are bound to end up stained with at least small spatters and drips of sauce or gravy,
polite inane conversations with people you have little in common with,
obsequious waiters who keep demanding verbal reassurance that all is good...
[being called "sir" when I was 19 put me off waiter servility for life..]
.. and the rip off bills that are the equivalent of a good guitar FX pedal or microphone...

stuff all that middle class nonsense...

All I want to do is enjoy good food in comfort in peace and quiet,
with no talking...

My wife thinks I am a grumpy unsociable old bastard..
she's happy wasting good money on meals & wine out with 'the girls [mostly late 50s and 60s]'
2 or 3 times a month...
I pity the the young waiters after the 'girls' have polished off their 3rd bottle of wine...

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: leeneia
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 11:46 AM

I wouldn't want to be a restaurant critic. Imagine dining at a place and knowing that a wrong phrase from you, a snide phrase a bit too strong, would cost the staff their jobs and destroy the owner's hopes. It would really get to me after a while.

Perhaps these silly descriptions are a way of defusing the strain. They say, "Don't take my review too seriously!"

My city doesn't have a restaurant critic, and I don't miss one.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 11:56 AM

Thanks to the internet we are all restaurant and pub critics now...

In theory that democratises the process...???

The reality is the amusement of reading endless petty spiteful reviews from complete knobheads...

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 01:59 PM

Restaurant critics seem to be regular targets in modern murder mysteries and police procedurals on television. Just sayin'.

In Under the Tuscan Sun Frances Mayes' memoir, she talks about food a lot, though it is most often cooked in private homes. I don't remember the context for the dessert, but (paraphrasing) she described a pear baked in wine as so delicious that one should eat it in private.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 03:17 PM

Raggy, on Tripadvisor, I always read all the one and two star reviews before going. Only if there seem to be special circumstances, e.g. change of ownership, or someone not catering for a particular type of customer such as vegans, will I consider reading the others and then possibly going.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 17 Aug 18 - 03:46 PM

My sister loves going to very posh and expensive restaurants up in Scotland. She knows all the weird and wonderful foods that I've never heard of. (asafoetida, quinoa, hummus etc)

I never feel quite at home in such places.

Like pfr, I prefer rather basic cafés or 'greasy spoon' joints.
I expect I'm common as muck!

Our favourite eating place is a SpudULike in the shopping mall in Norwich. I'd give that a good review any day.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: KarenH
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 06:42 AM

Jay Rayner, The Observer, 18th August

"It’s cheese on toast as imagined by the Borgias after they got bored of the orgies and narcotics and wanted some other, more understated way to express their decadence"

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 06:58 AM

Pretentious nonsense, as always.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 09:28 AM

Beware of negative restaurant or hotel reviews, which could have been written by rivals or people who have been utterly unreasonable about a very tiny, easily-resolved issue. It's safe enough to judge a place by reviews if there are lots of them, in the hundreds maybe, and look at the overall pattern of the more recent ones.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 09:49 AM

The last time we were up in Scotland, sis took us to a very expensive Thai restaurant in Edinburgh. It had superb views overlooking Princes Street. She's very generous and kind, and insisted on paying for us all (her two daughters as well)

But we'd never been to a Thai restaurant before. The meals seemed to have blinking flowers scattered all over them, and even our lemonades had petals floating about in the tumblers.

The flavours were strange, and to be honest we ate everything politely but really didn't like any of it.

The bill was eye-watering. All that for flower heads and unidentifiable meat swimming in various weird sauces!

As we came out, we looked longingly at Jimmy Chung's Buffet over near the entrance to Waverley Station. I'd have given anything for even a McDonald's!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 10:26 AM

There was some years ago, a suggestion that some foodie writer's were keen on the idea
of high quality meals served up at affordable prices in barebones self-service eateries...
Get yer tray and plate, dish up yer own dinner, take it to the till, carry it to a table..

Works/student canteen and motorway service station style...

I was fully in support when I heard about it,
but I don't know if the idea got off the ground or survived anywhere...???

But even in such a utilitarian 'restaurant' the food writer's idea of 'afforable'
would still probably exclude most ordinary folks on minimum wages...

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 12:20 PM

Sounds like a S'moresboargourd

Assuming critics have good judgments, good senses, insights and specific accusations of actual factual applications in the information that people assume is correct, we can all feel assured in the profound poetic perceptions of the critic.

The problem is most critics are only posing as old miserable antisocial bastards.


btw , historic usually refers to the freshness of ingredients.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 12:52 PM

I think by 'historic' Winner meant 'a meal so superb one would never forget it' Donuel.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 12:56 PM

..and another thing, I can no longer stay awake after a good feed...
Any restauants providing sofa beds...???

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 02:09 PM

Lots PFR, in that there are many country pubs providing both accommodation and high class food. Try the Good Pub Guide.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 02:28 PM

if a pub meets these conditions, serves a pint of well conditioned real strong draught cider,
and will let me dine in the comfort of my just underpants and a T shirt...

..bliss...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 03:05 PM

I always have a nice nap after dinner pfr. Not in my underpants though!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 03:33 PM

Senofou I forgot to use a SS (:^/) 'sarcastic satire' warning symbol in my previous post.

:^/ are not required in the Mother of all BS thread. :^/

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 04:23 PM

I don't like restauants.. give me a greasy caff or canteen any day..

or preferably a takeaway at home...


I couldn’t be doing with the really formal but didn’t mind getting taken out once in a while for a meal in a local pub.

A couple of other things get in the way now. My appetite can be a bit erratic and I don’t know if I’ll be wanting a full meal booked the day before. And what’s left of my teeth won’t get through everything, certainly not the oriental offerings one of the pubs used* to provide with very crisp veg…

At one point, if we had a family visit, I’d opt to stay in while the rest went out but we’ve not worked out how to get my father out following his fall last year. So dining out as a group is effectively a thing of the past and takeaways are used instead.

* It is still possible to get the oriental menu for a group for takeaway or dine in but you need to know the owners and arrange the choices of meals a few days in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Aug 18 - 04:36 PM

We had a good local big old pub/hotel, an easy walk from my mum's house
that did reasonable Sunday Dinners...

But like too many local older protected building pubs and hotels,
[in a matter of a few short years]
it mysteriouly burnt down...

Soon to be replaced by new commuter homes...

Property speculators should not be allowed to buy matches...

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Charmion
Date: 20 Aug 18 - 09:07 PM

Ah, Sunday dinner! In Canada, that's always cooked and eaten at home, with compulsory attendance by the entire kin-group. I was taken flat aback by the meat-and-two-veg menu served at midday on Sunday at the first Wetherspoon establishment I ever visited, in Woolwich in 2015.

The sliced beef with green peas, potato and Yorkshire pud, all slathered over with brown gravy, looked quite like my grandmother's -- but it sure as shootin' didn't taste like my grandmother's. The beef was solid under the knife and grey in colour, and the peas had a rather alarming Day-Glo look about them. The Yorkshire was rubbery and tough ("elephant's leather" as Stanley Holloway put it), and the gravy had an unforgettable chemical tang. I believe there were also potatoes and carrots on the plate, but after the Yorkshire I just didn't have the heart.

The real objective of the meal for many people -- after getting the belly well lined against a full afternoon of solid drinking -- was obviously dessert. Never have I seen such basins of sticky toffee pudding, which I presume came from a mix confected by the same chemical genius who was responsible for the gravy.

The coffee was okay, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 05:33 AM

I kind of like restaurant reviews. For instance, one led me to a London pub hidden up a hill. It served real comfort food - delicious salt-marsh mutton, falling-off-the-fork tender, in a juicy sauce, with perfect mashed potatoes. Another in London, I got mussels and chips (moules marinière on the menu) and a glass of chardonnay: rib-stickers that enabled me to go and get my plane home in calm and dignity after a particularly upsetting visit.

I was cautious of our new local cafe (full of hipsters rather than locals, at first) until the reviews drove me to go in and try their coffee (superb) and I gradually moved on to their absolutely delicious lunches. Still haven't tried the place 100 metres or so up the road with the Michelin nod - it's never open at the times I'm hungry. And a couple of neighbours (whose word-of-mouth reviews I pay attention to) found it a bit meh.

I have a Michelin app (better for France than à l'étranger) that will often recommend good cheap places in Paris that serve nice workingman's food like lamb with lentils and that smoked-cod-mashed-potatoes dish beloved of schoolchildren, brandade de morue.

But really the only way to judge restaurant food is "is it better than I'd cook at home?" - or at the very least "is it as good as I'd cook at home?"

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 11:48 AM

I've just looked up our village pub on TripAdvisor. Apparently it's a 'gastropub'! Very good reviews and a Certificate of Excellence. Average score 4.5 out of 5.

We've never entered its portals. But they serve coffee every Friday morning, which might be good for a natter.

Our little village shop also does teas and cakes to eat in their little cafe or outside under their big sun umbrellas.
It's nice when a village has places for socialising.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 03:45 PM

One of the things that makes cafes really successful is bike racks outside, oddly enough.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 03:57 PM

In the gap between degree and post grad, I moved to London and signed on to a temp employment agency...

The best job they gave me was lorry driver's mate.
He was a grumpy old bugger who made it clear he had no respect for education,
or liking for student lefties..
But every morning after driving out the depot
first thing he'd do was take me to a variety of his favourite outer London greasy caffs
for full English breakfast...

He'd natter with his old road mates, moaning about the long haired student he'd been lumbered with,
I'd put up with being the butt of their cruel humour,
and dig into proper grown up working man's grub...

Brilliant...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Thompson
Date: 23 Aug 18 - 05:04 PM

Ohhh yes. If I'm ever in a new town and looking for a place to eat, I watch out for a bunch of working men loosening their belts anticipatively and licking their lips as they head for the same caff, and I dive in after them. Always works.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: BobL
Date: 24 Aug 18 - 02:51 AM

A friend had a useful trick, especially with Indian restaurants: if the kitchen is accessible, try to walk past it. If your nose tries to drag you back, it's a good sign.

Myself, I follow the somewhat negative method of checking the menu for expressions which don't tell you anything about the product but are just there to sell it. More than two and I'll go elsewhere. Remember, if offered a generous portion of tender oven-baked haricots smothered in a delicious sauce made with sun-ripened tomatoes and exotic spices served on a doorstep of locally-baked bread toasted to perfection, you'll still get beans on toast.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 24 Aug 18 - 06:28 AM

When I was at Uni, towards the end of the summer vacation, I used to hitch-hike alone (imagine doing that nowadays!) down to London from Edinburgh, to get a student flight from London Airport to various places.
I carried a little haversack, and weighing only seven stone and with my long hair in two plaits I must have looked about ten.

Lots of lovely lorry drivers used to stop for me, and they were perfect gentlemen, very avuncular.

As I was as thin as a rake, they'd pull in to a lorry-drivers' cafe, and ply me with a full English breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausages, fried bread, black pudding, baked beans etc) and insist on paying for it.
Tea (in giant-sized mugs) was almost black, you could stand your spoon up in it.
Not once was I in any danger from these blokes. And the food was mouth-watering.

When I go to heaven (if I qualify) there will be one of these greasy-spoon cafes near the gate, and inside will be all those lorry drivers waiting to welcome me!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Bainbo
Date: 25 Aug 18 - 11:53 AM

... we’ve not worked out how to get my father out following his fall last year.

Jon, the Red Cross will lend you a wheelchair, in return for a donation of a few quid. Check your nearest depot.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 12:07 PM

Wonder how you might review this item, seen on a Spanish menu that they had so kindly translated into Spenglish: "omelettes with a choice of feelings". Oh no, back to the casually orgasmic?

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 12:49 PM

Hahaha Tattie! "I'll have grumpy please!"

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 01:21 PM

In an eatery in Rhodes my wife and I ordered 2 different dishes. When they arrived they were identical. One of our sons ordered a 3 egg omelette with ham and potato 3 fried eggs, bacon and chips appeared. It was so funny we didn't complain :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: robomatic
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 02:17 PM

We are having a newspaper crisis which means we don't have local restaurant reviewers earning their pay as such, so I go by word of mouth and Yelp and to a lesser extent Tripadvisor. And of course, the calendar rule as laid out by William Least Heat Moon in "BLue Highways".
It's like movie reviewing, isn't it? That's why Siskel and Ebert lasted so long on television. They had different tastes, so by watching them give their opinions and then disagree with each other you could usually figure out by knowing them and triangulating in a way how you would feel.

I don't get to many high end places but we've got many many ethnic choices in the low/ middle range. If it's a Thai place (of which we've got many), my first visit I will tend to order a Penang curry and a Thai tea. this sets up a means of taste and cost comparison. I usually do a Yelp write-up which means I'll at least glance at the bathroom and parking arrangements. I don't need the waiters to be obsequious or over-polite, it's nice if they show up occasionally.

The better places you want to notice everything. By 'better places' in my terms, they serve fish and chips which in our area often means halibut and chips. Prices go up and taste and manner of cooking become more important. One place serves little blocks of deep-fried crusty and not too fresh halibut and costs about the same as the fillet shaped panko-breaded kind with big scimitar shaped chips. Another place has finger shaped pieces of cod and acceptable skinny chips, and is bottomless!

Yelp garners a lot of action, including some self-interested reviews due to locality, vengeance, and employees. There's a local place that has regular local patronage and gets 5 stars. It's friendly, but the food isn't too good. There's a place (not local) I went to, very pretentious. I had a horrible experience there, on every level. Uncomfortable seating, noisy, over-attentive waiter, overpriced food. Since it was a family 'occasion' I held my tongue and giving vent on Yelp was a satisfactory way to vent. I then noticed that the place got poor reviews like mine AND glowing reviews, it seemed to be a focus of 1s, 2s and 5s (on a scale of five). I've since checked out other places with similar wild swings, and if I consider eating at one of those I go with a fallback plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Will Fly
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 02:31 PM

I'm just coming to the end of a fortnight in France: three days in Chartres, a week with the whole family in a huge converted farmhouse near La Rochelle, one night in Tours, two nights in Rouen (where I'm writing this), and one night in Le Touquet tomorrow.

The meals- oh, the meals! Fantastic cooking, from a 1 Michelin star restaurant in Chartres to a side street restaurant in Tours. All excellent in their own way. My son drove me to Cognac for a birthday treat last Friday, and we feasted on grilled cuttlefish in a shady restaurant on the banks of the Charente. My wife and I had lunch in Rouen today, at a place called "Le 6ieme Sens" (where we've been before), and had a meal for 44 Euros each which was exquisite and full of fantastic flavours, in a beautiful setting, and with immaculate service.

The French know how to cook. They know how to present their food and how to organise their restaurant. To be a waiter in France is to know all about food and how to deal with customers in a friendly but not obsequious way.

Now, the point is that I discovered many (not all) of these restaurants from reviews on Trip Advisor. So they do have a useful function.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: MikeL2
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 02:45 PM

Hi

When we were in Scotland my I earned a large bonus. So I treated my wife in a "Posh" hotel which the locals told us was fantastic. It was great and during dinner an American guy came to the next table. He was well drunk but not a nuisance, In fact he was very humerous. He was waited on by the staff , including the Owner and was treated as if he were somebody famous, In talking to us he told us he was a food journalist for American hotels and was reviewing British hotels.

He was making notes during his meal as he was plied regularly with booze ,mostly Scotch whisky.

I don't know what his reviews were like cos as we left him he was in ano state to do anything.

What a life eh???

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 03:22 PM

That would be a good ruse to ensure excellent standards of food and service wouldn't it? Take out a large notebook and make copious entries, then photograph the food at every turn. They'd be running in circles to serve you with the very best on offer!

We usually go by local recommendation. There are one or two super places in Norfolk which people talk about (a certain fish and chips shop in Wells-Next-The-Sea for example)

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:08 PM

Another Spanish experience, where the menu was NOT translated but my rudimentary Spanish assumed it was something to do with eggs. What I got was a greyish mess, closely resembling a cowpat: turns out it was a black pudding omelette. not exactly to my taste: ended up swapping dishes with my husband, who, being of an agricultural background, could stomach cowpats!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 18 - 06:25 PM

In the little bar in the town square of Canjáyar in Andalucía, you can choose from several tapas with your morning coffee or glass of red, one of which, the owner's pride and joy, is huevos sorpresa. It's a perfectly poached egg in a bap, the "surprise" being a slab of the lovely local black pudding (morcilla). Utterly delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: MikeL2
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 11:23 AM

Hi Sen

It's interesting that you thought about the guy being a phony,

We talked about it and wondered if it was a scam. I don't think it was but wouldn't it have been great if it was ??

Talking of fish and chips, we are off to North Yorkshire for a couple of weeks. We will make at least one visit to Whitby where you are spoiled for choice for chippies.

Yes I know the Folk Week will be over but we couldn't get in where we wanted to go.

OOOOOOh I can smell them now !!

Regards

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jos
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 11:57 AM

With all the fuss being made recently about plastic straws (which seemed such an improvement on the easily flattened, soggy paper ones through which we used to try to drink our school milk), I was reminded of a little bar near the bullring in Barcelona where the drinks were served with a straw made of ... straw.

(But I haven't drunk anything through a straw for many, many years, now.)

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 01:09 PM

Good morcilla is fantastic stuff, a bit sweeter than Bury black pudding, and with almonds through it. Best I have had was at Bodegon Tamanca, in La Palma in the Canary Islands.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 02:25 PM

Hello there Mike!

Hope you have a lovely time in North Yorkshire. And I'm jealous of all those fish and chips you'll be eating! Enjoy!

There's a chippie in Lenwade (village quite near to ours) which only opens on certain days of the week. The queues are long, but the food is well worth waiting for. Our lovely neighbour goes over there in her car and gets us ours along with hers. (She's a real gem!)

How weird Jos to drink through an actual straw!
I don't much like straws. I like to get my mouth right into a drink (bit like a pig in a trough I suppose!)
But as a child, we used to make that awful gurgling sound with our school milk at the end of the bottle. The teacher used to get very cross, which only made us do it all the more (little blighters).

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Aug 18 - 05:59 PM

A very good thing about Bury black pudding (and I come from Radcliffe, nobbut a cockstride away from Bury) is that it's much lower in fat than many other examples, though you wouldn't know it. I often buy a whole one from Waitrose, where it was on offer for £1.19 last week. I skin it, slice it into oval bits and fry it hotly in butter for a few minutes. Nirvana is obtained if you can get a soft middle with a bit of crisp on the outside. Get it to that point then chuck a couple of eggs in the pan. My God, beat THAT. Put to one side for a minute while you fry a slice of bread in the fat. A breakfast fit for a king, but only justifiable if you have some physical activity coming up later that day.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 03:15 AM

My wife won't have it in the house, I only get it at hotels which serve cooked breakfasts. And though it may say "Bury black pudding" on the breakfast menu, who knows really?

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 03:32 AM

On a rare family gathering we were over-persuaded to go to the Crown in Bray** (because it had better food!).
So I checked the menu. They had a Sunday menu which differed not a jot from Sat or Mon-Fri. And it turned-out to be out of date by the time we were there. Lots of twee names and nothing was just pork or beef. And only one thing I remotely wanted to eat. This is not unusual. So I chose a ploughmans' Lunch and the only thing cooked was the sausage roll and what they put in the meat was not listed (or eaten). Served on wooden platters, which (see below) looked well scrubbed.

I knew what to expect as this was a "Fat Duck" restaurant. To my credit I resisted the temptation to add when ordering "Hold the poison" - I like to be somewhat less predictable. (for those not familiar, it is owned by Heston Blumenthal a celebrity chef who specialises in really bizarre pairings of tastes and one day his clients went down with serious food poisoning)

**the Crown at Bray (twee names throughout) but very presentable and well organised. And pricey. And not the swankiest pub in town - the Roux Brothers own the one by the river.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 03:59 AM

I remember standing on the cliff, next to the "Dracula" church in Whitby, overlooking the river and the town. All I could smell was the combined output from all the chippies!

Eliza, when you were in Scotland, did you ever go to The Ubuquitous Chip in Byres Road? It's almost an institution, having been there many years, and serves wonderful food. We're off to Glasgow (my childhood home) at the end of September, and will be celebrating our wedding anniversary (52 years) with a meal there. Byres Road and the West End in general was pretty spartan in the late 40s and early 50s. Quite different now, with a host of great places to eat.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 05:52 AM

Yes yes Will Fly!!! I remember The Ubiquitous Chip very well indeed!
They served casserole of venison, which I tasted for the first time. It was a bit tough and strong-flavoured, but very nice. Quite a posh place. Many of its customers were Glasgow University lecturers/professors.
(I had a boyfriend who was doing his PhD in Virology, working in a small lab off Byres Road, and it was he who took me to the Ubiquitous Chip.)
There was also a cinema nearby called the Grosvenor. And a posh hotel on the corner with the Great Western Road called the Grosvenor Hotel. He took me to all these places, then I dumped him. Shame really...

I once accompanied a Skye lassie (flatmate and colleague) down to the Glasgow Western Infirmary on Dumbarton Road as she had acute tonsillitis (could hardly breathe). While waiting in A&E, two drunks covered in blood were wheeled in. They'd been fighting savagely and the Police were accompanying them. I was amused to watch them still fighting as best they could with their fists from their adjoining wheelchairs, foaming at the mouth, shouting and swearing like Rab C Nesbitt. They kept bellowing, "See you? F*** you ya bastard!" at each other. I found this very funny.

Once installed in the hospital,Janet was recovering on a ward after the operation, and while visiting her, I encountered the Steam Beetle Man.
That's the Weegies' name for Pest Control Officer. Janet's bedside locker was swarming with cockroaches (steam beetles), and this chap with a torch came to investigate.

Glasgow was brilliant. I spent most of my time there laughing like a drain!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 07:02 AM

I used to eat in the Ubiquitous Chip regularly 30 years ago. It's unrecognizable now, and not in a good way.

On the other hand, the University Café in Byres Road is just about the same as it was 100 years ago. And the Vietnamese place in Ruthven Lane is good.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 07:07 AM

A very good thing about Bury black pudding [...] is that it's much lower in fat than many other examples, though you wouldn't know it.

For them as needs to know: the only British source of gluten-free black pudding I know of is the butcher in the high street in Haddington, who makes his own and only sells it through his own shop. Most morcilla is gluten-free but's going to be out post-Brexit.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 07:12 AM

Ooooh I love black pudding! But it has to have small lumps of tasty fat in it. And be only lightly cooked so one can taste the blood.
(I'm just off to polish my fangs)

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: KarenH
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 07:53 AM

"It looked like a salad bowl designed for a ruminant with four stomachs."

(Jay Rayner).

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 08:30 AM

Jack, this is the issue that I think hasn't hit home to most people, there will be a serious shortage of quality foods if we do leave the EU without a deal. At the moment you can get Morcilla by mail order from Brindisa. I have a variety of other sources which supply continental foods. I can get Roquefort cheese, Parma and Serrano ham in ALDI. A disruption to supplies will be a serious inconvenience, if not more. Will we have to buy from smugglers? I don't think people can possibly have thought this through.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 09:46 AM

One of Jay's finest, that one, Karen!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 01:25 PM

Aha! Morcilla: that was it, in my omelette/cowpat! And I had thought morcilla was a type of mushroom!
Up here, people seem to favour Stornoway black pudding, but then they will go and put it with such delicacies as scallops: drowns all the flavour of the latter, as did the chorizo chucked all over an otherwise nice sea bass that I had in a posh restaurant in Edinburgh (mothers' day treat, so I couldn't say too much!)

And Sen and Will, the other Glasgow chippie of world renown is the Blue Lagoon, near Central Station: last time there was dusappointing: haddock like boot leather!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Aug 18 - 05:03 PM

Tattie, I wasn't often in the area near Central Station, but I do remember the viaduct there being laughingly called 'The Hieland Man's Umbrella' (Harry Lauder song) as folk from the Highlands and Islands tended to congregate underneath it while waiting to meet up.

In Scotland, fish-and-chips was invariably called a 'fish supper'.
When I was teaching, I often bought a 'white pudding supper' or a 'black pudding supper' for lunch. The lady would always ask, "Salt and sauce hen?" I don't remember vinegar being offered, just brown sauce rather like HP sauce.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Aug 18 - 05:23 AM

The Blue Lagoons all specialized in serving vast quantities of cold grease. The only places I would be less likely to go back to are the Teviot student union in Edinburgh and a Mongolian takeaway in Manchester, both of which gave me food poisoning.

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 Aug 18 - 05:14 PM

Aye, salt'n'sauce is the default in Embra! I usually decline both!

Subject: RE: BS: Restaurant Reviews
From: KarenH
Date: 14 Oct 18 - 05:41 AM

"It’s one long, perfectly lit Jack Vettriano painting, only without the butler randomly holding an umbrella or the undercurrent of faux eroticism"


Not sure I understand the difference between true eroticism and the faux variety. Can any Vettriano experts enlighten me?