So I bring you a feature on the same week as Edible Reading brought you a (rather excellent) feature. The same thing happened a few weeks back too.
Oooooooooooooooh! Is this just a conspiracy or are we actually the same person? I’ll leave that for you to decide but I like to think that if we are different people then I have the better boobs.
This weekend I was away, sampling some Eastern European delights – I even went to a raw food/vegan restaurant. Seriously. Yes – she’s very, very good looking. No there wasn’t any gravy. Or meat. Or potatoes. Or anything cooked in any format whatsoever. Including the cake.
But a couple of weekends ago I went to a restaurant called Reform Social & Grill in Marylebone (that’s in London for the thicker amongst you).
The more observant amongst you will recognise this as being the place that has a Yorkshire pudding menu – both savoury and sweet.
The savoury option was:
Salt beef, horse radish and water cress
Hot smoked salmon, cream cheese and chives
Tunsworth cheese and truffle
The sweet option was:
Chocolate and caramel yorkie
Sugared yorkie, filled with clotted cream and jam
Banana and custard yorkie
Myself and my sister both decided to go for the sweet option, and have a main course from the menu. We both chose toad in the hole.
Well – what else could we do?!
Tangent time but relatively related for my standards. It’s even about food. The day before I went to London to see how parliament looked and to help decide whether I was going to apply to become a Lord, I went to Peacock Farm in Bracknell. They used to do half-decent food.
My fish and chips were basic, to be unusually polite, but the more interesting dish was my colleague’s pate with French toast. The toast had a similar texture to a brick – totally solid and inedible with human teeth. The waiter did on request bring some stale bread to replace it. Upon complaint, the management explained that it was actually a cruton, however the next time she eats there, she can have a free starter. Woo. I recommend avoiding eating here – or anywhere in Bracknell for that matter.
Unfortunately the Yorkshire pudding for my “toad in the hole” which was actually sausages in a very large Yorkshire pudding, was of a similar texture.
Hard, brittle and difficult to eat, it was one of the worst Yorkshire puddings that I’ve ever been served – despite it looking impressive as it had risen to quite a height. It was almost as if it had been under heat lamps for a couple of days. Even soaking it with the thin, watery gravy didn’t make it any more edible.
Further disappointment was to come. You prefer reading about my disappointment to my joy, don’t you?
I’d asked for a side dish of hand cut chips. Unfortunately it seemed like Jackie Chan has very thin hands as all but one of the chips were side scraps and the one proper chip I was awarded with, I had managed to drop on the floor – it being an upmarket place I decided against subsequently eating it. I really would recommend to the restaurant that they use knives to cut the chips instead of hands, going forwards.
Thankfully, the main meal had two saviours. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaacid house. Can you feel it?
The side dish of green beans cooked in shallot butter was totally excellent. The beans were perfectly cooked and ever so flavoursome in the butter. I need to know how to do this dish.
And the sausages were high quality pork and leek affairs – with no shortage of sausages either, I think maybe 4 near full-length sausages, crammed into the bad yorkie.
Given that we had ordered our sweet in advance and how awful the not toad in the hole toad in the hole was, we were beginning to have significant regrets.
Our fears were misplaced.
The first one that I tackled was the banana and custard yorkie. All these Yorkshire puddings were soft and a touch fluffy – the opposite of the earlier disastes.
Banana and custard really worked well. Clearly it is a classic dessert, the pieces of banana were soft and it was proper homemade custard – none of this powdered carton crap.
I wasn’t quite so keen on the chocolate and caramel yorkie though this is more to do with a slight intolerance of caramel. 10 pints of beer followed by double-dropping ecstasy tablets won’t make me feel sick but a bit of caramel will.
The chocolate was proper dark chocolate so it was quite a tough one to eat. Without a doubt it was good, but just made me a tiny bit queasy.
Finally the clotted cream and jam yorkie was an absolute delight – probably even more of a special treat than the highest quality scone with clotted cream and jam. Every bite was pretty sensational.
This is quite an upmarket establishment specialising in British food. Unfortunately the main meal was poor, and they were very apologetic when I advised what I thought of the meal and if I was just rating on that then it would only get a 3.5 out of 10.
The desserts though I highly recommend if you are in London – it is definitely worth a trip. I’d rate them an 8.5 out of 10 so high praise indeed.
I’ll be back on duty this weekend, all being well, and the random number generator has picked somewhere that has been recommended to me several times so I’m really quite excited about this one.