Antalya

Nottingham remains in the grip of the "big freeze", a cutting easterly wind and the occasional flurry of snow. So naturally on Saturday night the streets were full of shrieking women, exposing yards of puckered blue flesh and clattering on their heels between the heaving pubs and clubs. Bare arms waved from the windows of stretch limos, taunting the groups of t-shirted men who would yell, "GET YER TITS AHT!" after them. I once took a visiting American businessman out on the town on an average Saturday night and he said that he had never seen anything like it, except at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

It was a 40th birthday party that brought us to Antalya, a venerable Turkish restaurant by the new Cornerhouse complex. It's a perfect venue for big groups - loud, friendly and packed to the doors. The staff are efficient and unflustered, manfully taking command whenever decisions are to be made and orders taken and then melting away into the melee. At intervals a young and generously proportioned belly dancer emerged to shimmy amongst the tables.

Antalya is not a great restauarant in the haute cuisine sense and it's not trying to be one either, which makes a refreshing change from some of the more pretentious new eateries in town. They have a simple formula that works - real, traditional, cheap turkish food that reminds people of their holidays and a relaxed environment where you can drink too much without making a fool of yourself.

The food IS good. The mixed mezze starters are varied and generous and my lamb shaslik was perfectly cooked with great crispy chunks of tender, skewered lamb and an eye-wateringly hot chilli dip. Nobody even bothered to consult the winelist and great carafes of house wine were dispatched with gusto. I don't normally eat desserts but at the end of the meal I found that I had walloped a sort of mezze of sweet things like baclava and turkish cakes without even noticing. The Turkish coffee was served as it should be, "Black as night, sweet as love and hot as hell" - according to the tradition. You get a complimentary rose liquor as a digestif.

Antalya allows, even encourages smoking at the table, with ashtrays everywhere. But there weren't many takers and this sort of thing will be history very shortly.

Total cost for the set meal with vast quantities of wine was £22 a head, excellent value

Water in restaurants

Just musing here on the topic of bottled waters. Some restaurants are now refusing to serve tap water and insist that you pay for bottled. I always thought that this was illegal, but apparently, that is not the case. In the case of a restaurant which I visited very recently indeed, the bottled water that arrives, costing £3 for 0.5ltr, is in fact tap water anyway. If your bottle says "Table Water" or "Pure Water" instead of "Mineral Water", then what they mean is "Tap Water". Sometimes it will be straight from the tap and in other cases it may have gone through a reverse osmosis purifier.

I buy reverse osmosis water from the garden centre to water some exotic, lime-intolerant plants of mine. It costs £2.50 for 5 gallons.

The Martin's Arms

Note: I can't find the Martin's Arms website. They used to have one but it seems to have died.

The Martin's Arms is the best pub in England and, obviously therefore, in the World. It's a real pub. A chintzy, stylish, roaring log fires, cricket-on-the-village-green, spinsters-cycling-to-Mass-through-the-morning-mist kind of pub. The bar food is unsurpassable. Try some of their stilton potato cake, with a pint of Old Speckled Hen on summer Sunday lunchtime. The place will be packed of course, but you must get there early and fight for a table.

Once again, the instinct for a bargain had brought us out of town with the Times newspaper, "Eat Out For a Fiver (Actually a Tenner) Deal". I suppose these deals are supposed to offer a taster which will bring you back to sample the full a-la-carte offering. There can't be much profit in it for the restaurant, even if you upgrade to a dessert for an extra fiver.

We went tonight, on a frosty February Monday night and to be honest the welcome was a touch frosty as well. Our waitress made it quite clear how grievously she had been inconvenienced by our arrival and after leaving us to find our own table (and then moving us to another one) she left us alone to get our own drinks from the bar. Perhaps they were short-staffed, but the place was pretty much empty and she remained a brooding, malevolent presence all evening.

My Chicken Liver Parfait tasted authentically home made, but who knows? The accompanying cranberry dressing, a sort of marmalade with whole peppercorns, was really unusual and and wonderfully stimulating. I tried the Roast Pepper and Goats Cheese Bruschetta also, but the subtle, muted flavours could not compete with what came before and I must rely on the testimony of my date, who thought it excellent.

Beer is the new wine, dontcha-know? That's what they say in London apparently. Anyway, I drank draught IPA and Pedigree all night which were both in perfect shape and a great accompaniment to a meaty winter's dinner.

We both went for the Blade of Beef for mains which had been braised to falling-apart tenderness and was accompanied by the obligatory rich, sweet, dark sauce. The veg could have been more inspiring but overall I account it superb value for the £10 of the Times deal. No diddy portions here either and I supped more ale while my date was delighted with her Apple and Almond Tart.

The bill came to a more than reasonable £30, including drinks, and despite what it said on the menu about service-non-compris , my credit card bill came closed, sparing me the embarrassment of tipping the ice-maiden.

Harts

Harts on a Saturday night - packed as usual and deservedly so. Harts (until I re-test Merchant's and Restaurant Sat Bains) is probably the best restaurant in Nottingham. Tim Hart is the man behind the exquisite Hambleton Hall in Rutland and Harts was a worthy successor, transforming the culinary landscape of Nottingham almost overnight and bringing world-class food to the city for the first time. They released a pent-up demand which still sees the restaurant fully booked most weekends and even during the week.

Our party selected the pan fried squid and a warm salad of wood pigeon to start. The squid is an old favourite - so succulent and delicate that I once had it for dessert. How do they do that with squid? So often in lesser restaurants you end up with a plate of un-rolled condoms.

The wood pigeon was dark and tender, perfectly complemented with the pinenut vinaigrette and a suprising remoulade (a sauce with mayonnaise) of celeriac. Unimprovable, really and healthy portions as well.

We cheapskates opted for the least expensive wine on the list, a £15 Pinot Noir because we had just been to see Sideways. Harts really know how to look after their wine and you can't go wrong, whatever you choose.

The main courses, Sea bass, Loin of Venison and Hare Wellington were excellent, if incredibly rich. The venison is served pink, in a sweet juniper sauce - the perfect seasonal accompaniment to a cold winter's day. I didn't try the others but by all accounts they were perfectly cooked.

The service seemed to have lost some of it's polish and verged on the over-attentive. We now have a new policy of nipping this in the bud early on in the meal by demanding the right to pour our own wine and water and at Harts they are happy to leave you in peace.

In stark contrast to La Toque, we were so stuffed after our main course that a dessert was out of the question and we staggered home for coffees.

Total bill has £106 for the three of us.

La Toque

La Toque is probably the best and certainly the most stylish restaurant in Beeston. We went on Tuesday night, clutching our vouchers for the Times Eat Out for £5 promotion. It's actually £10 at La Toque and you get two courses with a glass of house wine. I've eaten there before with this offer and had a great value, excellent meal. They must have been losing money on the deal because this was ridiculous. The starter (scallops) and main courses (monkfish, red mullet or duck) were roughly the same size - miniscule. And they only give you one bread roll. The idea is to get you to upgrade to a dessert which is an extra £5. While the food was interesting, it certainly wasn't up to their usual standard. We felt disinclined to upgrade - we weren't ready for dessert since it seemed like we had hardly even got started. We left and thought about getting some chips on the way home - actually we didn't bother and I made some sandwiches with salami and fresh bread from Sainsbury's.

Welcome

Some time ago I had such a dreadful meal at Sonny's that I came home in a really bad mood and decided to create a website to expose all restaurants who dared to serve up such rubbish. When I awoke with a hangover the next day my anger had abated but I found that I had ordered the domain name EatNottingham.com. The domain sat idle for several months while I thought what to do with it and specifically how to make money from it. Eventually I decided that it would never make any money but I might as well go ahead and do it anyway. Thus, this blog was born. I'm going to use it for restaurant reviews, both good and bad and might even use it like a proper blog if I can be bothered. Feel free to add comments to my reviews if you want to.