Thrills at Bill’s?

July 29, 2011 1 Comment

Everyone Likes a Freebie!

After a very lubricated Saturday night with two chums, experiencing the ‘oh dear, we’ve ended up in the After Dark club’ moment, a breakfast of fair substance was required the following morning.

There was a unanimous vote for Bill’s as the sun was shining and sitting opposite St. Mary’s Church in the fresh air seemed a good option.

The courtyard was exceedingly busy as would be expected. We found a table, sat down and waited for service. A very personable waiter appeared to take our drinks order, ravenous we were already primed to order our food…full English all round. We sneeked in our breakfast order by the skin of our teeth at approximately two minutes to twelve before breakfast service finished as our waiter told us.

Coffee, Earl Grey and freshly squeezed orange juice duly arrived, which was more than gratefully received. Given our ‘fragile’ state, carborific sustenance was in need urgently! After about twenty minutes and still no arrival of food the tweeters amongst us were doing what comes naturally and miraculously the waiter appeared, however it wasn’t our foodie needy tweets that had summoned the waiter but a natural apology of the tardy service and that a party of 25 had just pipped us at the post for our breakfast order. Now, call me pedantic but one would have thought that passing through our order of three breakfasts ahead of the 25 would have not resulted in our delayed service…but ho hum, it’s Sunday and go with the flow.

Ten more minutes passed and the charming front of house chap appeared at our table apologising for the delay and offered us more beverages and given our arid state that was very welcome.

Hurrah and Hussah…our breakfasts arrived albeit 25 minutes after we had ordered.

Three fully resplendent plates of eggs, bacon, tomato, mushroom etc including apparently ‘bubble & squeek’.

I am fully aware that the proprieter of Bill’s is Antipodean and therefore ‘bubble & squeek’ would not be a staple dish down under. I think that maybe the chefs need to be educated that mash with a wee, and I mean wee, bit of sauteed savoy cabbage dotted within it does not equate to what we in the UK would associate with ‘bubble & squeek’ (I feel a whole new post coming on there)!

That aside, the breakfast was cooked exceedingly well and did the medicinal job it was ordered to do.

Fully sated and now all wilting, discussed our busy schedule for the rest of the day to veg in front of the TV for the German Grand Prix. After our plates were cleared, the exceedingly personable front of house chap effortlessly navigated his way to our table…”so sorry for the delay guys, I hope you enjoyed your breakfast. For the record the bill is squared away”.

We were more than happy to pay for our fayre, it was good, the staff were excellent, the only downfall was the tardiness of the arrival of our breakfast, but it is Sunday and we were chilling.

What a refreshing attitude to service…big brownie points to Bill’s.

Footnote:

My dining partners were @pdmckenzie and @_Andythehat

Filed under Foodie, Reading, UK, Restaurants Tagged with , , , , , ,

Côte du Reading

May 5, 2011 2 Comments

Côte du Reading

After a fabulous weekend of serious alcoholic celebration of the Royal Wedding and the Reading Beer Festival, Sunday proved to be an equally chilled day starting with a full Irish breakfast in O’Neill’s and then a wander around the wonderful waterways and landmarks of Reading in the sunshine.

After a stop off at Copa sitting in the sunshine and having a well deserved Erdinger or two we ambled along the towpath of the Kennet & Avon up towards the Oracle with a bite to eat in mind.

Wandering into The Oracle we stumbled upon Côte which has only been open for a couple of weeks replacing the hideous venue that was Brannigans. The restaurant has a very welcoming frontage and did it’s trick of enticing us in.

We were early birds so it wasn’t very busy but it did enable us to take in the surroundings and decor. Black and tans compliment the vast array of bevelled mirrors lending a very soft art deco feel giving the ground floor a very airy disposition without losing the intimacy that belies that by the carefully positioned covers. Shared sofa seating, banquettes and neatly positioned tables in alcoves and booths add to the charm and atmosphere. It is also certainly somewhere where I would feel just as comfortable dining on my own as when with company, so all you lone diners out there and travelling business folk, fear not.

We were promptly seated and asked what we’d like to drink and ordered a bottle of the house red. Always a good test as to what a restaurant is prepared to lend it’s ‘house’ name to. A complimentary bottle of Côte water arrived in an attractive Côte branded earthenware bottle.

The menu is studded with typical French dishes and enticements. We plumped for a fougasse, which can loosely be described as a French version of focaccia. It was deliciously salty with a delightfully balanced garlicky undercurrent. As well as the fougasse we had the pissaladière flat bread with a covering of caramelised onions and chose the topping of reblochon (I love my cheese!). During our breadfest the staff were attentive but not intrusive by topping up our wine and replacing our water bottle.

Our next course was delivered, with The Chap having the ubiquitous steak & frites and me the ‘Breton’ chicken. The Chap enthused about how perfectly the steak was cooked and how the smokiness achieved from the chargrilling made each mouthful a delight and ready for the next. The Breton chicken is a beautiful corn fed, crispy skinned chargrilled half a chicken. I chose mushroom as my choice of accompanying sauce, which was rich, earthy and dispersed with a wonderful assortment of wild mushrooms…yes, The Chap couldn’t resist dunking his frites in it! The plates weren’t overloaded and the frites delivered in a cheeky little bucket.

Resting and slurping more wine, the decision of to dessert, or not to dessert, arose. The dessert menu has all the typical Gallic offerings from apple tart to crème brûlée. The Chap has a penchant for chocolate (just call him Greg Wallace) and I do like a crème brûlée, which I believe is another good benchmark. So I ‘brûlée’ and The Chap selects the chocolate mousse, only for us to be disappointed when the manager informs us that the mousse is not quite set and chef is not happy to send them out. We’re both pleasantly satisfied though that the kitchen is overseen with pride of the quality of the dishes served, hopefully on every service, so a switch to chocolate fondant is made.

Now call me picky but a cocotte is not a brûlée dish, the clue is in the title. So I was a tad disappointed when my dessert arrived. Being cooked in a cocotte meant that there was too much custard underneath making the dish rather sickly, having said that they were creamy, velvety, guilty spoonfuls of vanilla heaven. The other small critique is that the crunchy, sugary topping was too thin and lacking in the ‘crack & crunch’ satisfaction levels. The chocolate fondant was an airy, light sponge with an unctuous, oozing interior, delectably dark, sweet and slightly bitter which was off set by the happy partner of vanilla ice cream.

Has to be said that we were both suitably sated and at a very reasonable price too.

It is certainly somewhere where you can easily lose time enjoying the variety of choices from the menu or watching the world go by outside with a beer or coffee and maybe a sneaky dessert.

I for one will be going back for more.

www.cote-restaurants.co.uk

Filed under Foodie, Restaurants Tagged with ,

The Ultimate Hairy Dog

June 16, 2010 Leave a comment

Hairy Dogs and all That

(These words were written at Christmas time!)

‘Tis soon the season to be jolly and we will all, well most of us, be nursing a hangover of some magnitude at some point and will be looking for that all important magical cure to bring us back into the land of the living before embarking on the next episode of frivolity and alcohol induced fun.

The answer is surely the ‘hair of the dog’! Of course this comes in many guises dependent on your preference but it has to be said the supreme ‘hair’ is the classic Bloody Mary and you can certainly excuse yourself from being a complete drunk by engaging in this traditional pick me up as it has such medicinal properties.

The basic Bloody Mary is vodka, tomato juice, Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco garnished with a resplendent stick of good old celery. There are of course a plethora of variants to this wonderful pick me up.

So what are the medicinal properties? Well, tomatoes contain lycopene which is known to protect against breast cancer and research has also shown that men eating around eight tomatoes a day have a much lower incidence of prostate cancer. Tomatoes are, furthermore, rich in the protective antioxidant betacarotene, which the body turns into life-prolonging vitamin A, and they have vitamins C and E, essential for a healthy heart, circulation and immune system. The low levels of sodium and high levels of potassium in tomatoes means that they aid in the prevention of high blood pressure and fluid retention.

Hurray! We are being health conscious with every sip we take, but evidently the benefits don’t stop there! Tabasco sauce can increase metabolism and fat-burning ability by up to 25% and should you choose to add a smidge of horseradish to heat things up a bit it acts as a digestive stimulant, fabulous! And lastly, Vodka is perhaps the purest of spirits, and therefore not likely to induce the hangover effects, because who wants another one? It would be a perpetual circle of dogs and hairs otherwise!

How to make your Bloody Mary. To make a jug of Bloody Mary’s  take a big jug and put loads of ice in it. Mix 1 pint good vodka and an equal amount of chilled tomato juice, or Clamato juice (clams and tomatoes) if you want to be posh! Add a table spoon full of Worcester Sauce. Stir. Then add a squeeze of fresh squeezed lime juice. Stir. Then add small amounts of celery salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper. Keep on stirring and taste it to see how it is doing. If you get it too powerful weaken with more tomato juice, however if it lacks punch add more vodka, duh!

Bloody Mary, great name but where does it originate from? One story is that Fernand Petiot, an American who bartended at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in the ‘20’s, is the famed inventor of the legendary Bloody Mary, that when he mixed tomato juice and vodka, a patron suggested that the drink be named the Bloody Mary, because it was reminiscent of the Bucket of Blood Club in Chicago, and a girl there named Mary.  Another account is that the drink is named after the lovely Bloody Mary herself, Queen Mary I, famous for her persecution of the Protestants.

Whatever the origins of the drink, it quickly became popular back in the US when Petiot began bartending at the St. Regis Hotel, and spiced it up for his classy New York clientele. However, on returning to the US Petiot thought the name Bloody Mary too offensive for his customers so he renamed it a Red Snapper, but soon other barmen were serving Bloody Mary’s so he reverted to its original name!

Lastly, a few Bloody Mary Rules (which I pinched from somewhere else but feel are pretty pertinent):

  • If there’s any debate over whether a Bloody Mary is the appropriate drink to order, it is.
  • If there’s any debate over whether to order a second one, order a second one.
  • Find a barman who makes a good Bloody Mary, return frequently.
  • Eleven a.m. is the perfect time for the first Bloody Mary of the day. Ten is also good. So is nine. And noon. As are all other times of the day.
  • A good Bloody Mary should be hot enough to clear your nasal passages.
  • The single celery stalk is the conventional garnish; an asparagus spear is far classier!
  • Disregard all rules, recipes, suggestions and advice rather than go without!

Happy Hangovers!

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Fishy goings on

March 3, 2010 Leave a comment

I was a naughty girl last night and had fish & chips on a school night after my boy had requested them. I went into a fish & chips shop in Caversham and asked for two haddock and chips:

Chippie: “Sorry, no haddock, only cod”

Me: “Ok, two cod & chips please…is it fresh?”

Chippie: “Yes, it’s freshly cooked”

Me: “Has it been frozen?”

Chippie: “Yes”

Me: “So it’s not fresh then?”

Chippie: “No, you don’t expect us to get daily deliveries of fresh fish do you? We can’t have fresh fish delivered everyday and we couldn’t afford it”

Me: “Well, it would be nice don’t you think?”

Chippie: *shrugs shoulders”

Me: *sigh*

Now I am acutely aware that we don’t live in Reading-on-Sea, however we are blessed with having a fabulous fishmonger in Smelly Alley (Union St), Frosts the Fishmongers and as we know fishmongers are a precious commodity these days and Frosts is the only one around for about 50 miles.

Obviously, this is a bizarre idea *achem*, but why don’t the fish & chip shops in Reading, of which there are a fair few, not form a collective and buy from Frosts, negotiate a deal with them. Not only would this allow them to have a premium product but would allow them not to have a ridiculous price point should they be purchasing direct from a supplier themselves (or god forbid actually visit a fish market!). Re-investing in the local market seems to have been forgotten.

Pinched from Frosts website:

“Why “The Smelly Alley Fish Company”? We’re in a street that has had food shops in it for hundreds of years. In the 1600s it had an open sewer running down its length, so it became known as Smelly Alley. Now there is just one fishmonger, one greengrocer and one butcher, and we are in Reading, Berkshire.

Don’t fall for that old chesnut that fish is best from coastal fishmongers. They don’t have the variety of fish that we do, and what do they do when the fishing boats don’t go out or the weather is too bad for fishing? We are centrally located and can get fish from Newlyn or the Shetlands 12 hours after it has been caught!”

It would be a fishy win win, in my book!

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