The Sir Charles Napier - Updated

50 Southover Street
Brighton
East Sussex
BN2 9UE

Tel: 01273 601 413

Since my last mention of the Sir Charles Napier, in July 2012, the pub has changed hands and changed chef.

A belated, but warm welcome to Landlord Daniel and Chef Lee who took over in Q3 2012.

I am happy to state that the ambiance, warm welcoming atmosphere of the pub and food served is still of a high standard.

Lee's menu, which includes fish, steak, pies etc changes on a regular basis. However, one staple that is his trade mark is the most excellent steamed bacon pudding (cubes of bacon wrapped within a suet pudding) served with crushed potatoes and vegetables. A most excellent dish, tasty, hearty and warming; ideal for these cold winter days!

Also of particular merit are the chicken goujons served with a lightly spicy sauce.

Local pubs, when they are well run deserve to be supported by the local communities which they serve. The Sir Charles Napier is one such pub; go there for a drink and meal, you won't be disappointed!

Burger Off!

The next time you are unwise enough to buy a ready made burgers, pies, curries etc from a supermarket, make sure that you are 100% certain which hapless animal was slaughtered to provide the meat for the product.

The BBC reports that horse DNA has been found in some beefburgers being sold in UK and Irish supermarkets, the Republic of Ireland's food safety authority (FSAI) has said.

The FSAI said the meat came from two processing plants in Ireland, Liffey Meats and Silvercrest Foods, and the Dalepak Hambleton plant in Yorkshire.

It said there was no risk to health.

The burgers were on sale in Tesco and Iceland in the UK and Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland they were on sale in Dunnes Stores, Lidl and Aldi.

The FSAI said the retailers stated that they were removing all implicated batches of the burgers.

A total of 27 products were analysed, with 10 of them containing horse DNA and 23 containing pig DNA.

Horsemeat accounted for approximately 29% of the meat content in one sample from Tesco.

In addition, 31 beef meal products, including cottage pie, beef curry pie and lasagne, were analysed, of which 21 tested positive for pig DNA.

KFC Battered By Chicken Brain/Kidney Photo

A picture of a chicken brain/kidney found in a KFC meal in Colchester, and posted on the Facebook account of Ibrahim Langoo, has gone viral and undone millions of dollars of advertising spend by KFC over the last few months.

As ever, one bad impression of an eatery can override many good ones.

Happy World Egg Day!

Today is World Egg Day (apparently always on the second Friday of October).

World Egg Day is promoted by the International Egg Commission to raise global awareness about the role of eggs in people’s diets.

Gobi Reneges On Its Deal

The Telegraph reports that Gobi, a Mongolian restaurant in Brighton, has reneged on its "all you can eat" deal for two of its regular customers (which the manager referred to a "pigs") and banned them for life:

"George Dalmon, a former rugby player, and his friend Andy Miles were banned from all-you-can-eat restaurant, Gobi, In Brighton, after the manager branded them "a couple of pigs".

The men would each eat five bowls of stir-fry during their regular meals at the Mongolian barbecue, which invites guests to create their own dishes from the buffet.

Diners are told they can request meals "as many times as you wish" for £12.

The manager, who did not want to be named, said the two friends were eating him out of business. He said: "Basically they just come in and pig out. We have put up with them for two years but I've had enough.

"They are in such a hurry to beat everyone to the food they spoil everything. We are supposed to be a buffet but they eat everything out of the bowls before people can get there. We just can't keep doing this."

He said diners drank only water and never paid the optional service charge. He added: "We are not a charity, we're a business. It's our restaurant and we can tell people not to come back if we don't want them to."

But Mr Dalmon, 26, said the restaurant should honour its promotion. He said: "They've only got small bowls and you can't get enough in there so we always go back for more.

"We've been eating there for a couple of years then suddenly the owner came to our table in front of all the customers and went absolutely mental. He said we were a couple of pigs and we were banned for life. I couldn't believe it."

When I was a student many years ago, my chums and I would go to one of Edinburgh's most excellent "all you can eat" carveries; where we stuffed our faces for less than a fiver each.

The manager of that that particular carvery regarded our appetites and regular custom as a badge of pride for the staff and chef, and welcomed us on very visit.

Waiter! Waiter!

The Sir Charles Napier Menu Offer

I would just like to give one of our very special local pubs The Sir Charles Napier another positive mention.

The menu now offers two main courses for £12 on certain nights.

Eva and I went there last night, and had a splendid meal of a shared bowl of scampi, followed by sausage and mash for Eva whilst I had the gammon with duck eggs and chips.

As always the food, in terms of quality and cooking, was first class.

Chef Craig and his colleague Olivia (who was on duty last night) are a good team, and the Napier is a great place to sample their food.

Advice To Waiters

If you insist on making gestures with your crotch to kitchen staff, then at least do it outwith the view of your customers!

Great Chops At The Sir Charles Napier

My compliments to chef Craig of The Sir Charles Napier at 50 Southover Street, Brighton who sourced and cooked great couple of Barnsley chops last night.

They were tender and tasty.

The gammon steaks and vegetarian cannelloni also went down very well too!

Advice To Chefs Re "Locally Sourced"

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

British Pie Week

Hoorah!

It is British Pie Week!

Here is my recipe for Apple Pie (from my book Accountants Can Cook).

INGREDIENTS
This should serve between 4-6 people.
• 8oz of flour.
• 4oz of butter.
• Approximately 2 tablespoons of water.
• 6 large cooking apples (preferably Bramleys), peeled and sliced.
• 4oz of castor sugar.
• 6 cloves.
• 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.
• The juice of 1 freshly squeezed lemon.
• 1 tablespoon of nutmeg
• 1 beaten egg.

PREPARATION
• As soon as you have peeled and sliced the apples, pour the lemon juice over them ensuring all apples have been in contact with it. This will prevent them going brown.
• Mix the flour and butter together with the water to make a firm dough. Should the mixture need a little more water then add another tablespoon (until the correct consistency is achieved).
• Wrap the dough-ball in cling film and put it into the fridge for 1 hour.
• Cut off one quarter of the dough, and set to one side.
• Roll the larger portion of dough into a circle approximately a ¼ of an inch thick.
• Line an appropriately sized deep pie dish.
• Fill the pie with the apple slices, interspersing with the cloves.
• Sprinkle 3oz of the sugar over the apples.
• Sprinkle the cinnamon over the apples.
• Roll the remainder of the dough into a circle, approximately ¼ of an inch thick.
• Place this on top of the pie.
• Seal the edges and trim the excess.
• Make an incision in the middle, like a cross (this lets the steam out).
• Brush with beaten egg.
• Sprinkle with nutmeg and the remaining sugar.

COOKING
Place in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for approximately 45 minutes. Bake until golden brown.

TIPS
Scrumptious hot or cold. Serve with double cream, ice cream, custard or just on its own.

Grow Your Own Burgers

It seems that researchers in the Netherlands are getting closer to being able to grow meat from stem cells, and fashion the product into something that might resemble a hamburger.

The cost of such a burger, formed from the technology as it now stands, would be around £220K.

However, it is hoped that the technique can be developed to mass produce beef, pork, chicken and lamb in the future.

The objective being, to have a core herd of animals that would be used to provide the stem cells necessary to grow the meat.

The downside of this is that the remaining animals (currently reared for meat production) would die out as they would no longer be deemed necessary for our food supply, and that relying on a core herd would expose the food chain to greater risk of disruption from disease or natural disaster.

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.

Welcome To The New Dynasty!

A riot broke out at New Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant in downtown Montreal, between 3.30 and 4am on New Year's Day.

Chairs were broken across people's backs as diners screamed and threw punches. Bowls of noodles and rice went flying through the air and glass doors were smashed as the waiters ran for cover.

At one point, a young woman in a slinky black dress picked a chair up over her head and tossed it at another party-goer before tipping over a table full of plates.

Happy New Year!

Deep Fried Butter Balls

From the nation that gave you deep fried Mars bars, comes deep fried butter balls.

The is is available at the Fiddler's Elbow in Edinburgh, and consists of frozen balls of butter deep fried in Irn Bru batter.

An alternative variation on that theme is the Braveheart Butter Bomb, in whisky batter.