Various - Nottingham
A weekend of grotesque indulgence
Well I suppose it was bound to happen after my last post eulogising the standard of contemporary British cusine. I went out to eat three times in a single weekend and was disappointed three times in a row. Perhaps I was a bit jaded after a week's gastro-cruising abord the Anjodi in the south of France. If you want to see what this is like, watch Rick Stein's French Odyssey on BBC2 tomorrow, but as you can imagine I stuffed myself senseless.
Lunch at World Service on Saturday was dismal. I had the baby plaice (Can this be legal? If you want an insight into the insanity of EU fishing policy then I heartily recommend "Trawler" by Redmond O'Hanlon). The plaice was cooked plainly in flour and came with an absurd brown sauce which to be honest tasted exactly like gravy. Not the wonderful gravy that we make for our Sunday roast at home but the appalling, sludgy, school dinner gravy of yesteryear. I can't imagine what must have gone wrong, World Service is normally so reliable.
Dinner at Punchinello's (Punchinello's does not have a website) was very mediocre. They have been in business forever and have only recently changed their formula in an attempt to bring themselves into the 21st century. The food is basically the same but they make more of an effort to arrange it artfully on the plate and they drizzle the sauce over it instead of drowning it. These days when I order a side salad I expect something more than a few pieces of veg, chopped up on a plate. I can do that myself so I expect the restaurant to add a bit of value to the process. But that is all you get at Punchinello's - though my steak was nicely done, rare as ordered.
They forgot to bill us for two bottles of wine and for some reason I had a sudden attack of morality and told them so. In recognition of our honesty they only charged us for one bottle though the waiter felt the need to add that they were clearing the cellar out anyway and would have been glad to get rid of it. Thanks a lot.
On Sunday we headed into town for brunch, our number having grown to five. Fat Cat was half full, mainly with spaced-out twenty-somethings gabbing on their mobiles, drinking lager and smoking fags like there was no tomorrow. I ordered a steak brunch - the perfect hangover cure. The "steak" was actually a piece of shoe-leather, frazzled to a crisp but topped with a nicely runny fried egg. They redeemed themselves with the cheesecake desert which was a genuine in-house production and which was truly excellent.
Now I need a month of blameless vegetarian abstinence.
Well I suppose it was bound to happen after my last post eulogising the standard of contemporary British cusine. I went out to eat three times in a single weekend and was disappointed three times in a row. Perhaps I was a bit jaded after a week's gastro-cruising abord the Anjodi in the south of France. If you want to see what this is like, watch Rick Stein's French Odyssey on BBC2 tomorrow, but as you can imagine I stuffed myself senseless.
Lunch at World Service on Saturday was dismal. I had the baby plaice (Can this be legal? If you want an insight into the insanity of EU fishing policy then I heartily recommend "Trawler" by Redmond O'Hanlon). The plaice was cooked plainly in flour and came with an absurd brown sauce which to be honest tasted exactly like gravy. Not the wonderful gravy that we make for our Sunday roast at home but the appalling, sludgy, school dinner gravy of yesteryear. I can't imagine what must have gone wrong, World Service is normally so reliable.
Dinner at Punchinello's (Punchinello's does not have a website) was very mediocre. They have been in business forever and have only recently changed their formula in an attempt to bring themselves into the 21st century. The food is basically the same but they make more of an effort to arrange it artfully on the plate and they drizzle the sauce over it instead of drowning it. These days when I order a side salad I expect something more than a few pieces of veg, chopped up on a plate. I can do that myself so I expect the restaurant to add a bit of value to the process. But that is all you get at Punchinello's - though my steak was nicely done, rare as ordered.
They forgot to bill us for two bottles of wine and for some reason I had a sudden attack of morality and told them so. In recognition of our honesty they only charged us for one bottle though the waiter felt the need to add that they were clearing the cellar out anyway and would have been glad to get rid of it. Thanks a lot.
On Sunday we headed into town for brunch, our number having grown to five. Fat Cat was half full, mainly with spaced-out twenty-somethings gabbing on their mobiles, drinking lager and smoking fags like there was no tomorrow. I ordered a steak brunch - the perfect hangover cure. The "steak" was actually a piece of shoe-leather, frazzled to a crisp but topped with a nicely runny fried egg. They redeemed themselves with the cheesecake desert which was a genuine in-house production and which was truly excellent.
Now I need a month of blameless vegetarian abstinence.
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