Advice To Chefs - Don't Experiment On Your Customers

Whilst I appreciate that chefs need to be innovative and that, in this age of aggressive Ramsay style chef celebrities, every chef wants to be a star.

May I remind you that customers don't all want snail flavoured sorbets served over dry ice. Some of us just want a nice meal that is consistent with the basic rules of good cooking, namely:

1 The meal is served on a plate, not in a jar or on a plank or piece of slate.

2 There is sufficient food on the plate.

3 The food is not drowned in some over priced reduction/jus.

4 The meat is tender, and does not have the consistency of a boiled cows udder.

5 Salt and pepper is on the table, and customers aren't made to feel guilty for using it.

6 The vegetables are actually cooked, broccoli etc is not meant to be crunchy!

In other words please remember you are cooking for customers, who are not laboratory mice to be experimented with!

Your ego and career need to take second place.

Advice To Chefs Re Food Towers

Whilst it may currently be "on trend" to pile food up upon each other (veg, then meat, then yorkshire etc) and smother it with gravy (aka a "food tower"), it makes the food unappealing and difficult to eat.

In the event that you can't fit it on the plate without piling it up, buy larger plates!

Advice To Chefs - Substance Over Form

Fancy presentation of food may satisfy a chef's ego. However, if the presentation makes it difficult to eat the food then it won't satisfy the diner's appetite.

Substance over form please chefs!

Advice To Chefs Re "Locally Sourced"

Produce bought from your local Aldi is not, strictly speaking, "locally sourced"!

The Demise of The Olympic Breakfast

Little Chef, home of the "Olympic Breakfast", is to shut around 70 of its restaurants and lose around 600 staff.

The attempt to revamp the brand three years ago, using Heston Blumenthal, has not been enough to save the brand in its current form.

Around 90 restaurants are expected to continue to operate, with the roll out of the "drive through" concept continuing.

Shout Out To Aggi and The Team at Nasza

A special shout out and thanks to Aggi and the team at Nasza (22 St James Street, Brighton) for looking after us (Eva, myself and two good friends) so well last night.

The food was great!

My compliments to the chef who produced some excellent pork, dumplings and pirogi.

Additionally, Aggi and her staff went the extra mile to look after us even though we arrived late in the evening.

Nasza is well worth a visit!

Pub With No Name

A jolly gang of four of us dined in Pub With No Name (58 Southover St Brighton) last night.

As the pub's website says:

"Pub With No Name is housed in a rambling building no architect could possibly have designed. You just keep on finding nooks and crannies and interesting places, and another comfy sofa to sit on. Art and photography decorate the walls. And there are screens for sport, too. Upstairs the function room leads onto a split-level beer terrace.


The bar features cask ale, foreign beers and a shots menu, while Rich’s Kitchen provides Mexican food during the week, making way for The Pub With No Name’s famous Sunday lunch."

Lat's night's specials were a "smorgasbord" (yes I know it's the wrong country!) of Spanish Tapas dishes including; cold meats, meat balls, spicy potatoes, tortilla etc etc.

We had every dish from the menu...because we were greedy pigs!

Our conclusion?

Bloody marvellous!

My compliments to chef Rich.

The dishes all arrived within minutes of each other (no tedious wait) and tasted absolutely great.

We were well pleased, well fed and well stuffed.

I have no hesitation at all in recommending Pub With No Name for its food, atmosphere and friendly staff and service.

We shall return!

Shout Out To Chef Craig at The Sir Charles Napier

A special and well deserved shout out to Craig, who is the chef at one our very special local pubs The Sir Charles Napier at 50 Southover Street, Brighton (a place that I wrote about in June this year).

The menu that the pub now offers changes regularly, and uses locally sourced good quality ingredients. Aside from staples such as sausage and mash, burgers and home baked pizzas there are specials such as beef casserole, scampi and fish cakes.

Unlike some chefs, Craig does not throw a hissy fit if a customer turns up just before the kitchen is meant to close (9PM) and stands by his post until the meal is finished (including offering a desert).

I would also make special mention of the fact that if a customer (as we did last night) asks for a couple of sausages as a starter (sans mash) neither the staff nor Craig throws a "wobbly".

Eva and I had a great meal last night, kicking off with two excellent smoked pork sausages on a leaf salad (to share), then beef casserole with mash for myself and scampi with mash for Eva. Craig was so worried that Eva wanted mash instead of chips, that he made a special salad as well for her, in case it wasn't enough.

We were even offered a desert (apple strudel), which we shared, well past kitchen closing time.

The food is great, the portions decent and the staff and atmosphere are warm and welcoming.

Go there and try it for yourself!

The Sir Charles Napier

My compliments to the Sir Charles Napier pub of Southover Street on their recently expanded food menu.

Alongside their homemade pizzas (genuinely homemade) and locally sourced sausages and mash (a very nice dish), they have added a variety of hamburgers and a Rogan Josh curry with rice and garlic bread.

I had the Rogan Josh last night, and it was pretty decent in both taste and portion size. Eva had the Carne Misti pizza (tomato, Mozzarella, Parma Ham, pepperoni, spiced beef, spiced pork), the topping of which was flavoursome and generous sitting atop a light base (a welcome change from the stodgy rubber like creations of other establishments).

The pub itself is very friendly and has a lot of character in the true "traditional English pub style".

It is well worth a visit.

The Royal Wedding Trifle (aka The Royal Trifle)

Following on from the recipe for the Unbaked Chocolate Biscuit Cake (similar to the one being served at the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton) that I featured on this site a few days ago, here is a version of the Heston Blumenthal Royal Wedding Trifle (soon to be sold by Waitrose under the name of The Royal Trifle).

Ingredients

- Between 1/2 - 1 pint of double cream (note: the amount of cream depends on how rich you like your Royal Trifle)
- A teaspoon of saffron (crushed to a fine powder)
- 1lb of strawberries (destalked and halved)
- 1 vanilla pod split lengthways
- 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
- 3 tablespoon of kirsch
- A packet of Amaretti biscuits (crumbled, not crushed)
- A slug of brandy (Heston uses Marc de Champagne)
- 6-8 large meringues (broken roughly)
- a few rose petals (washed thoroughly, make sure also they have never had chemicals sprayed on them)
- Dried strawberries
- Caramel almonds

Method

- Mix the saffron into the cream, and leave in the fridge overnight to infuse

- The next day heat a heavy frying pan, add the vanilla pod and heat for 20 seconds

- Add the strawberries and heat for another 30 seconds

- Add the sugar and gently fold into the strawberries with a large spoon. Heat until the sugar dissolves, then add the kirsch and heat for another 30 seconds.

- Remove the vanilla pod

- Remove the mixture from the pan and place in a clean container. Leave to cool, then place in the fridge to chill for 2-3 hours

- Place the strawberry compote (for that is what the above has made) into a suitable glass trifle serving bowl

- Add the slug of brandy to the biscuits and allow to soak for 10 minutes

- Add the soaked biscuits to the strawberry compote

- Whip the cream until it is stiff and spoon onto the top of the compote

- Pile the broken meringues on top of the cream

- Scatter the dried strawberries, almonds and rose petals on top

Voila!

Note: if you want to vary the look of the Royal Trifle, then do not mix the biscuits with the compote; instead spoon the whipped cream on top of the compote, then scatter the biscuits over the cream before topping off with the meringues.

The "look" of the Royal Trifle is very much up to the artistic licence of the chef!

Don't forget to visit Accountants Can Cook which contains anecdotes of my travels around the world, together with 120 of my favourite recipes amassed during 40 years of travelling, eating and cooking.

The Townhouse Kemptown

Restaurant

The Townhouse
81-82 St James St
Kemptown
Brighton
BN2 1PA

Tel: 01273 693216

Website The Townhouse

Overview

Eva and popped into The Townhouse in Kemptown the other day for an impromptu lunch.

The Townhouse is relatively new, and is both a bar and restaurant.

It offers contemporary British food (cooked by a head chef who hails from The Dorchester) in a relaxed atmosphere.

Ambience

The Townhouse is a cheerful and bright venue, it has "rustic" wooden tables and brick faced walls. Aside from a dining area, it has a lounge bar and a piano room where you can sit around the Baby Grand Piano on bar stools while drinking!

Menu

The menu offers a good selection of British cuisine including; smoked haddock, roasted cod, crab, steak, rack of lamb and belly of pork.

Service

The service was excellent, efficient and friendly. I was even offered a choice of wood or plastic toothpicks (a first!), which shows great attention to detail.

Food

I had the pork belly, which was slow roasted and served with an apple mash and prune jus. I was very impressed with this dish, the pork was a good sized tasty cut/join,t and the crackling was crispy. The mash was not overpowered by the apple, and went well with the meat.

Eva had one of the specials, beef sausages and mash. This was very good, four thick tasty sausages atop a bed of mash served with a gravy.

The meal, which included some quality beers and very large brandies, came to around £40 from memory (I have lost the receipt!).

Overall Opinion

A very enjoyable meal, and I have no hesitation in recommending this venue. We will certainly be returning, this time for dinner.

Green's Bar

Restaurant

Green's Bar
136 Freshfield Road
Brighton
BN2 0BR
Tel: 01273 603473

Website Green's Bar

Overview

Eva and popped into Green's Bar the other week (which is nearby us), to sample the new Italian menu that they have introduced.

Green's is both a bar and restaurant near to Queen's Park, owned and run by Paul Green.

It offers an Italian menu, freshly prepared from locally sourced produce.

Ambience

Green's is a light, bright, airy and cheerful establishment that welcomes both drinkers and diners. It also has a large sunny (in Summer!) south facing garden, that can accommodate up to 70.

Paul offers all of his customers a warm and cheerful welcome.

Menu

The menu offers a decent selection of Italian pastas and pizzas. There are no specific meat (carne) dishes as yet on the menu, which to my view is a shame.

However, the menu includes Lasagne, Bolognese, Carbonara and a variety of pizzas and calzones.

Service

The service (by Paul) was very friendly, cheerful and efficient. We even ended up having a few drinks with him after our meal.

Food

I started with the Lasagne.

This, although not as enormous in portion size as other establishments, was by far the best I have ever tasted when dining out. The dish was rich, smooth and unctuous, it literally melted in my mouth.

I then chose the Bolognese for my main course. This was a decent sized portion of a traditional dish. The beef mince in tomato, mushroom and red wine sauce had body and flavour without being overpowering. The spaghetti was fine, although rather whiter in colour than I am accustomed to seeing.

Eva started with the Tricolore Insalata (beef tomato with mozzarella and avocado). This was a well presented dish, and was by all accounts very pleasant in texture and flavour.

For her main course, Eva chose the Pizza Espanol (tomato, chorizo, mozzarella and peppers). This comes on a thin crust and was, by all accounts excellent; most notably the thin crust actually had flavour, unlike many other places that present pizzas made from a rubber like tasteless substance masquerading as dough.

The bill, which included wine and liqueurs, came to around £60.

Overall Opinion

A very enjoyable meal, and worthwhile visiting (most especially if you live in the Queen's Park/Hanover area, as well run local enterprises should be supported).

We look forward to returning again.

The £110 Cheese Sarnie

Those of you with more money than sense, may care to purchase the £110 cheese sarnie from the Frome Cheese Show in Somerset.

The sandwich is the creation of chef Martin Blunos, and is made with cheddar blended with white truffles and sprinkled with gold dust.

Personally speaking I am not much of a fan of cheese sarnies, most especially if they cost £110!

They are applying for the Guiness Book of Record's for the world's most expensive cheese sandwich. I wonder if they have heaard of the £345 Welsh Rarebit created by Tom Bridge in 2006?

Sir Charles Napier Pub

Sir Charles Napier Pub

My compliments to the Sir Charles Napier pub (50 Southover Street, Brighton tel 0872 148 6009) one of our numerous locals, which is serving top notch sausage and mash.

Eva and I went there last Friday evening for a drink, and to try their sausage and mash.

For a price of £5.95 there is a choice of several meat and vegetarian sausages (locally sourced), three types of mash and even three types of gravy.

For the money you get three good sized sausages atop a pile of homemade (not packet) mash, with a good quality gravy.

First class food and good value.

The pub itself is cosy, and very welcoming.

Aside from sausage and mash, they also serve pizzas, sausage rolls and sausage baps.

Well worth a visit for a drink and a plate of sausage and mash (served until 9PM).

Poncey Food

Poncey Food

The Times reports that Michelin starred chef, Ryan Simpson, has stormed out of his kitchen, at The Goose in Britwell, after being told that his food was "too poncey".

Simpson, his kitchen and waiting staff quit after the owner said that his menu was unsuitable for local diners. The restaurant has closed.

Why employ a Michelin quality chef in the first place then?

Engineering a walk out is a neat way to avoid paying redundancy though.

World's Top Restaurant Closes For Two Years

World's Top Restaurant Closes For Two Years

Ferran Adria, the chef at El Bulli restaurant in Spain, has announced at Madrid Fusion (an internationally culinary conference) that El Bulli will close for two years in 2012 and 2013 giving him a chance to take a sabbatical.

El Bulli has been repeatedly voted the world's best restaurant (measuring the quality of restaurants is a somewhat inexact science, I would say). It serves up "experimental" cuisines such as, turtle dove with blackberry caviar and duck foie gras candies.

Tables for its six month annual season sell out in just one day.

The Setting Sun Brighton

The Setting Sun Brighton

1 Windmill Street,
Brighton,
BN2 0GN

0872 148 6119

Eva and I regularly dine in this fine gastro pub, not only because it is a mere two minutes walk from our home, but because the food is excellent.

The Setting Sun is more of a wine bar/bistro rather than "pub" in the strictest sense of the word. It has light wood flooring, large leather sofas, bistro style wooden tables, a conservatory and a patio that affords stunning views of Brighton (if you can find seat there in the summer).

The atmosphere is often lively, yet cosy and intimate (each table has a candle).

The menu, chalked up on a blackboard, changes with the season and currently includes; soup, sausage and mash, fish and chips, burgers, chicken in a cream and mushroom sauce and pumpkin risotto etc.

The staff are friendly and very cheerful, they even manage to put up with me!

The chef is a real find, her food is excellent, and the pub will be lose a real asset if she ever leaves.

All in all an excellent place for a bistro meal, usually (with a bottle of wine) it will not set you back more than £40 for two.

Well worth visiting!

Gordon Ramsay Loses FD

Gordon Ramsay Loses FD

Gordon Ramsay is "terminating" the appointment of his Chief Financial Officer, Nick Fletcher, at a number of his companies.

The documents for "terminating appointment" were filed at Companies House last week.

However, Fletcher is still director at five companies, three of which are overdue for filing company information.

Sadly the more "celebrity" a chef attracts, it seems the more time he/she has to devote to business matters rather than food.

The Customer, Not The Chef, Is King

The beleaguered celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay, has relearned an old maxim that the customer (not the celebrity chef) is king.

He was at one stage advised to file for bankruptcy, as profits fell from £3M to less than £400K.

He told Fox News:

"Heading out of global economic downturn has been tough but for me it has also been a breath of fresh air.

The industry was getting far too arrogant, they weren't respecting customers enough and they forgot the customers were king.

Customers just disappeared. Those that were in the restaurants weren't drinking wine. All were on tap water.

Then we had a huge downturn, Monday to Thursday. Your staff costs are the same, your running costs are the same. It was a nightmare."

Ramsay's Rip Off

Ramsay's Rip Off

The Mail reporst that:

"Gordon Ramsay is serving customers ready-meals which are prepared in a London 'food factory' and sold with a mark-up of 586 per cent, it emerged today.

Dishes such as pork belly, coq au vin, braised pig cheeks and orange and bitter chocolate tart are prepared in bulk and then transported in plastic bags by unmarked vans to several of his restaurants across London.

The celebrity chef - who runs London’s only three Michelin-starred restaurant - uses the central kitchen, near railway arches and a council estate in Clapham, to provide food for his three gastropubs and Foxtrot Oscar, his bistro in Chelsea.
The Narrow in Limehouse, the Warrington in Maida Vale and the Devonshire in Chiswick are also supplied by the food factory."

The article goes on to note that:

Fishcakes are sold by the central supplier for £1.92 are then priced at as much as £11.25 in the gastropubs - a mark-up of 586 per cent. Diners pay £3.50 for sausage rolls that cost 75p.

Somewhat ironic for the chef who was once quoted as saying:

"My food hell is any ready meal. It’s so easy to prepare a quick meal using fresh produce but people still resort to ready meals that all taste exactly the same."

Whilst the food may be perfectly decent and tasty, the rip off mark up is disgraceful. Diners should vote with their feet and boycott these places.