Richard Mascall's Weblog

Eating at Al-Fayed's

As mentioned before when we went on the London Duck, the IBM Club organises events which retired IBMers can attend, together with partners. Today we went to have an all-you-can-eat buffet at Harrods. The cost is highly subsidised by the Club but the drinks were not. So at £10 a glass (yes, really), we avoided the wine.

James Stacks Up

There does not seem to have been much time for cooking anything special lately but yesterday I made one of the quicker puddings from my much-loved James Martin Desserts book I have used many times before.

This time it was a Raspberry Stack, with discs of puff pastry separated by raspberries, mascarpone cream, and double cream set in a pool of raspberry sauce. Delicious.

Lunch Near Nelson

Lunch yesterday was at the Albannach in Trafalgar Square, a smart place Pam found through the Top Table website which allowed us to buy the food at half-price.

The restaurant has a Scottish theme which meant that haggis was available, for example, and whisky was involved in several of the puddings. The serving staff wore kilts while there was a lifesize illuminated paper deer.  It was not as tacky as this all sounds - quite the opposite, in fact.

After we both had the excellent mushroom and leek tart, Pam opted for the Swordfish Steak while I went for the Buccleuch pork chop, with caramelised apples & sage. These were both rather tasty without being that memorable. Then for pudding Pam had the rhubarb crumble, which was perfectly acceptable and I had the chocolate pot, which was small, smooth, and intense.

The service was very friendly, and we had a table on the first floor overlooking a Gaudi-like balcony onto the bar area below. The atmosphere suffered a little because of the rather large number of empty tables but we would happily return again … at least while the food was half-price !

Celebrating Without the Birthday Girl

It was our friend Paula's birthday yesterday but we were unable to see her so instead we went out with her mother, Beryl, for lunch at one of her favourite haunts : Galicia's, in South Croydon. We were last there for Beryl's 80th.

Needless to say the lunch would have been enjoyable anyway because of the company but the food also was excellent. They do a fixed price offer, where one can choose two items from a long list of tapas and of course when there are several of you it is possible to share out everyone's choices. We augmented the set offer with puddings and a bottle of wine so it took us quite a time to finish.  As you can see from the photo, it was a bit windy outside but the temperature reached 21º, the hottest so far this year.

We don't know how much Paula enjoyed her birthday but we certainly did.

Chocolate Cake for Easter

I made another cake from my cake book yesterday : a very basic chocolate cake but for me the butter icing on top and in the middle makes it rather tasty.

Remembering Rene Again

Today saw our annual Rene Memorial Lunch day, when between 30 and 40 of Pam's relatives have a get-together in memory of Pam's mother, Rene.

Last year we were at the Duke's Head in Wallington but this time we switched to another Young's pub, the Chequers at Walton-on-the-Hill. This had the advantage of a car park and easier access from the M25 plus the room itself was more atmospheric and spacious.

The food was a little disappointing, with my roast beef being rather on the tough side and my bread-and-butter pudding rather uninspiring. My soup was delicious, to be fair. In any case, the object was not to have a memorable culinary experience but to catch up with other members of the family, most of whom we had not seen since last year.

We took some display boards in on which we pinned many old photographs which stimulated lots of reminiscences.

Another Martin Classic Recipe

I have had little time recently to have a go at cooking anything but today I tried another recipe from James Martin's Desserts book (see here for a previous attempt). It was for a lemon meringue pie.

This turned out fairly well, if a little on the sweet side. I was as slow as ever over my pastry preparation, I overcooked the lemon mixture (James uses four lemons and six yolks compared to Delia's two and three respectively), and I was a little clumsy piping the meringue mixture. But the blowtorching seemed to work reasonably well.

Stunning Value at Tentazioni

I have mentioned the meals arranged by my former colleague Mike, for example at Chez Bruce. The next one he is organising is on a date I cannot make so instead I went there yesterday with Pam. The place is an Italian restaurant called Tentazioni's and is in Bermondsey.

The decor was smart and modern in design with well spaced out tables and most attractive abstract colourful paintings. Although friendly, the service was, shall we say, not over-hurried but then neither were we. One of my personal non-food restaurant comparisons is the loo and I must say it passed the Molton Brown test (ie. it had some), although having said that I think some investment in the other facilities might be called for.

But of course the food is the most important factor and Tantazioni's scored highly here. I had the Pumpkin Tortelloni Butter and Thyme, followed by Stew Rabbit Fillet with Mash Potatoes, and finished with their Traditional Tiramisú, although I should have said it was much too special a tiramisu to be called traditional. Pam had Taleggio Timbale served with Spatzley, followed by Grilled Fillet of Sea Bass served with Mixed Salad, and finally Mixed Ice Cream with Italian Biscuits.

We both found all the courses visually appealing and most tasty. It was their set menu which included a glass of house wine (in a very smart glass) and coffee and it was for an unbelievably low price given the quality of the food, the surroundings, and the service. (See their website if you want to find out how low.) We shall hopefully be back.

Off With The Duke's Head

I see my friend Nick every two or three months or so when we meet at a pub called the Duke's Head, in Crawley Down. The last time, though, we arrived to find it was shut for refurbishment and so today we were keen to find out if and how it had been improved.

The verdict ? Well, the menu has been extended (I had braised rabbit with some pasta) and the service was as friendly as ever. From the pub's point of view it must have been a success because it was more crowded than we had ever seen it before but this of course from our point of view was a negative. The worst aspect was the change in tables and chairs. If you wanted to sit at a dining room type table, fine. If you wanted to sit in a low comfy chair with low tables, that would have been fine too. But if you wanted to sit on a standard chair with a decent sized table at a reasonable height for eating at, bad luck.

But we found a small table that just about did, so perhaps we should not complain. (Mind you, Nick was not too happy at having to pay £9 for his two medium (175ml) glasses of wine !)

Lunch at The Avenue

Pam spotted a special offer associated with the Byzantium exhibition we went to this morning. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Avenue which is in St James's Street, just five minutes walk away from the Royal Academy. By ringing the restaurant up to book a table we were able to buy exhibition tickets too and the combination was several pounds off what it would have been had we booked separately.

It was our first visit to The Avenue and we were pretty impressed. The place itself was smart, the service was attentive, and the food both looked and tasted good. We had opted just for the two course lunch and I had steak and kidney pudding with shredded cabbage followed by vanilla panna cotta with rhubarb poached in champagne while Pam had crab and whiting fishcakes followed by creme bruleé. A glass of house wine was included in the price and we felt the usual price would still have represented good value.

Too Good To Eat (Almost)

As mentioned previously, Pam received many generous gifts to mark her retirement. Yesterday she received another one : our cleaner, Helen, makes cakes which are a treat for the eye as well as to taste - see here for an example. She made one to mark Pam's retirement which had some most attractive flowers on it. It was delicious too.

Get Done at Getti's ?

The winter get-together of the Black Cat club is always in London (see last year, for example) and for many years has been in Covent Garden. But the husband of my friend Judy is now based in the City and has an allowance to rent a flat which as it happens is in Marylebone High Street. So yesterday the three of us met in an Italian Restaurant called Getti's in the same road.

I was a little apprehensive because some of the online reviews had been less then complimentary, even allowing for the fact that people who are disappointed are more likely to post than those who are delighted.

But our experience was very positive. The food was fine, the atmosphere was relaxed without being too informal, and above all the service could not have been friendlier. My starter was oven baked figs filled with goat’s cheese wrapped in pancetta and served with honey, my main course was pan-fried calf’s liver with pancetta, butter, sage, spinach, and a caramelized red onion chutney, and my pudding was tiramisu (perhaps an unoriginal choice, but tasty all the same). I should have no qualms about returning.

A Voucher To Celebrate

We went out last night (see here for last year's outing at the same time) and took advantage of a "two for £20" offer Youngs pubs are running during this month and next. For the money you get two two course meals plus a bottle of wine.

We went to The Chequers in Walton-on-the-Hill and had a most pleasant time. The meals are snacky rather than culinary masterpieces (my first course was fish cake and my second a burger) but were very tasty all the same. The service was excellent, helped perhaps by the fact there was only one other couple there. Since one of us was driving, we brought the half drunk bottle away with us and finished it off at home.

Cooking Abruzzo Style

Chloé and Moris (see a previous visit) came for lunch today. They gave me a welcome if challenging Christmas present : a book of recipes from Abruzzo, the region of Italy where they are living.

Actually it is more than recipes, having also lots of information about the author's upbringing in the area as well as plenty of snippets describing the background to the meals and the ingredients. Looks like there are going to be some fun times in the kitchen in 2009.

I shall be trying the Semifreddo recipe sooner rather than later because I made one for my brother's visit over Christmas as described in the James Martin Desserts book which was not a total success (see a more successful selection). This might simply be that I served it too frozen so it was more Doppiofreddo rather than Semofreddo !

A Peach of a Pudding

Our very good friends John and Paula gave me (well, Pam actually) a wonderful book for Christmas : Gordon Ramsay's Fast Food. We have loads of cookery books but I have found over the last six months that this one contains many more easy to make yet interesting recipes than most. Today, for example, I made this Baked Ricotta with Caramelized Peaches.

A Cutting Edge Purchase

I do not usually report purchases. But on a food and drink blog I follow (The Black Pudding Club) there was a recommendation regarding some kitchen knives. These impressive sounding three knives were only £9 including postage so I ordered them. They arrived today so I am now looking for excuses to cook something which requires their use.

Chez Chez Bruce

Back in October, I described here about a visit to the sister restaurant to Chez Bruce - well, today I had lunch in the original. It was again organised by Mike, but this time there were over 20 of us which arguably was rather too many. But needless to say the food and wine were as wonderful as ever.

I had :

Chilled pea and mint soup with a goat's cheese quenelle

Gressingham duck breast with savoy cabbage, lentils, and spiced jus

Apricot and almond tart with vanilla ice cream

Shields Up : Tasty Drink Approaching

At the Brewery Museum we visited on Saturday, there is a micro-brewery producing White Shield Worthington, the beer I used to drink at my local back in the late 60s, the Tudor Rose in Old Coulsdon, as I described here.

We brought a case home from the museum and now I have sampled some : delicious !

Eating With The Dinosaurs

Every other year, Pam's Institute hosts a dinner to which members take partners, customers, and their partners. This year the venue was the Central Hall at the Natural History Museum. The room's dazzling centrepiece is a huge dinosaur skeleton suspended from the ceiling. I sat under its tail which was rather different. The lighting, both of the dinosaur and the backlighting of the balustrades, was a rather effective red. The atmosphere combined with the tasty food, delicious wine, unobtrusive service, and most interesting guests, made for a memorable evening.

An Excess of Tart

10 eggs, 8 lemons, and 380g sugar are supposed to go into a 20cm diameter lemon tart, according to the recipe in James Martin's Desserts book. I found on making it at the weekend that there simply was not enough space to take more than half that but perhaps that just means my pastry case was too shallow. Anyway, it gave me another chance to use my blow-torch (see here for a previous recipe from the book) and the taste was out of this world - thank you James.

It's Pasta Joke

Chloé, the daughter of our friends John and Paula, sent us some multicoloured pasta from her home in Italy so I cooked it today, making a mushroom sauce to go over it. Delicious, if I say so myself !

Dr Who Among The Dead

I visited Brompton Cemetery this morning, en route to meeting Pam and our walking friend Chris for lunch. There are thousands of graves here in its 16 hectares, dating from 1840 up to the present day. There were all sorts of stone memorials. Some of these were quite grand although they did not reach the heights of ostentation we have seen in Latin American cemeteries (for example, La Recoleta in Buenos Aires).

There were a number of stone angels, which made me immediately think of the best Dr Who episode in season 3 last year : "Blink".

Afterwards I met the other two in a restaurant called "As Greek As It Gets". This was very smart, with an attractive menu as well as friendly service. My main course, a pastitsio, was rather disappointing but all the other eight courses we had between us were excellent. My only other complaint was that the background music was rather too much in the foreground.

Black Cat Lunch In London

Another lunch yesterday, this time preceded by a trip to the Serpentine Gallery, near the Albert Memorial (pictured), where I saw a small art exhibition by Anthony McCall. This was a set of three rooms, each in total darkness apart from a projector which was showing a simple loop or similar graphic on the far wall. But the trick was that there was also a Haze Machine, so the light between the projector and the image formed a 3D object floating in the air. To step inside these objects was quite an experience.

My next port of call was the Royal Geographic Society which is currently hosting an exhibition of 20-25 photos from Scott's final expedition to Antarctica. These were blown up and accompanied by explanatory text.

En route down Exhibition Road, I called in at what I know as the Geology Museum. Despite the attempts to make it more suitable for school-children, there are still quite a lot of interesting items on view. For example, I had not realised that 99% of the Earth's crust is made up of just 8 elements. (Can you name them ?) Next, I passed the Natural History Museum where they are recovering from the ice skating over the Christmas period.

Finally to lunch itself, with my Black Cat friends Judy and Richard from IBM days. (See here for a report of our last get-together.) As usual at this time of year, we visited the Cafe du Jardin, where the food is tasty and the service unrushed. Indeed, we feel we have not been successful unless we are the last ones to leave. Click on the photo for a larger version of my interesting pud.

India Dining In Warlingham

A year ago we decided we should go along to a local reastaurant, India Dining, once a fortnight. How many times did we get there ? Zero. There always seemed to be some reason not to go. But we managed to get along yesterday evening. And very tasty the meal was too.

I had the South India Style stir fry of lamb as a starter and my main course was the Delhi style chicken curry.

Topping La Trompette

A bit of a special lunch yesterday in the La Trompette restaurant, which has the same management as the wonderful Chez Bruce that I have now visited several times. It was arranged by my old friend Mike from IBM days. I first met Mike at an IBM do in Blenheim Palace back in 1983.

Croissants for Pudding

Another James Martin pudding today (see here for the previous one). It was his version of Bread and Butter Pudding, made with croissants rather than bread and butter. It also had white chocolate and brandy in (the recipe said whisky but we didn't have any) and you can guess how wonderful it tasted.

It also gave me the chance to use my new blowtorch, bought especially because so many of his recipes seem to require the use of one.

Passionate about Soufflé

Earlier this year Pam and I watched the James Martin TV Series on "Desserts", subsequently treating ourselves to the associated book. Today I made one of the recipes : the Passion Fruit Soufflé.

Delicious !

Pret-a-Portea at The Berkeley

Earlier in the summer we attended a lunch in celebration of the 80th birthday of our friends' mother, Beryl. Yesterday we went out with her for tea at the Berkeley in Knightsbridge. If this sounds special, it was.

They do a variety of teas and sandwiches, as you would expect, but their unique extra is that the cakes are inspired by the catwalk. They tasted as good as they looked - click on the photos for larger versions and notice your mouth watering.

Great Time at Galicia's

Pam and I went out for a most enjoyable meal at the Galicia restaurant in South Croydon yesterday. It was in celebration of Beryl's 80th birthday and a superb time was had by all.

The photos may be viewed by clicking on the image towards the bottom of the left-hand column on this page (assuming you know the password). Beryl had a request played on Radio 2 earlier in the day -

click on the image at the bottom of the lefthand column to hear it.

Dining with The Old Boys

The Old Whitgiftian Association holds dinners each year for those who left Whitgift in a given ten years. This means one gets an invite every four years or so - in my case I went in 2003 and once again yesterday. There were only about three from my specific year, 1967, but since this was the first of the ten years I was on the top table, along with a master who taught me during his 37 years at the school.

He was a Dick Glynne-Jones, an English teacher who once called me a "Yank" for rhyming the first syllable of lieutenant with "two". He told me some fascinating stories about the Masters' cricket team which revealed a side of their personalities that had been quite hidden from me sitting behind a desk.

The speaker was His Honour John Boggis QC, a circuit judge nowadays but in my day simply someone in the year behind me at school. He told a story about how he had thrown out a case where the accused had taken a policeman's helmet and tried to hide it under his pullover. When stopped by another policeman, he claimed the bulge was explained by his pregnancy.

Post Restaurant

It was Pam's uncle's birthday recently and he treated us, along with some other members of the family, to a meal at Post, Tony Tobin's new restaurant in Banstead.

Now we didn't go to the restaurant proper but ate in the lively brasserie downstairs. It was very enjoyable, with the food more than making up for the wine waiter bringing a bottle of wine that (a) had already been opened and (b) was warm enough to do the washing up in.

What A Sweet Cake

Our cleaner, Helen, made this superb cake the other day - what a shame to eat it !

Black Cats Eating

The 2007 London meeting of the Black Cat Club (so called because all three of its members own, or have owned, a black cat) met on Thursday at its usual venue, the Cafe du Jardin restaurant in Covent Garden.

We have been meeting there to have lunch for over fifteen years now. The other two members are former colleagues from IBM, Richard and Judy (with no TV connection at all). The occasion was as enjoyable as always, although for me it was definitely down to the company rather than the food. Actually, that is a bit unfair since I should have known better than to choose ostrich for my main course since I think I had the same two or three years ago and failed to appreciate it then. My starter of chicken livers was full of interesting flavours while my pudding of a white chocolate torte makes my mouth water now just thinking about it.

Nobody Cares What You Ate For Lunch

This is the title of a book I recently bought. See here for comments on Amazon. It is a set of 100 ideas designed to make a blog more interesting (it's never too late, is it ?). I am reading just a couple of suggestions every day and am up to number 10.

Just to go against the spirit of the title, today I had crab omelette for lunch. The venue was the Bow Wine Vaults.

My companion was Chris, my Best Man back in 1973 and a fellow maths student back in University days. He had reserved a table in the bar area where we were all jammed very close together but the service was excellent and the food delicious.

Anyone For A Piece Of Cake ?

Since I am the only person in this house who enjoys Christmas Cake, this season's effort will not be finished for another week or two, despite my best efforts to eat a slice at any opportunity. So normally the idea of making another cake would not arise. But fortunately we had a little get-together this teatime for local LibDem members and I decided to have a go at one of my favourite cakes, a cherry and almond loaf.

Was it a success ? Well I enjoyed it but, to be honest, no-one demanded I gave them the recipe.

Lunch at the Galvin Bistrot

I had lunch yesterday with some former work colleagues at the Galvin Bistrot de Luxe in Baker Street. We started at 1330 and left around 1630. What a delicious meal it was. As we started the place was packed and noisy but as the afternoon progressed the numbers thinned out and it became much quieter. The food prices seemed very low for the high quality served, but as always the alcohol consumed pushed the final bill way up.

I had the smoked duck salad to start and a Chocolate Marquise to finish, both of which being superb. My main course was the pot pheasant which to me was accompanied by a little too much chorizo or something of that nature, although no doubt others would have loved it. Everyone else's plates seemed to contain most attractive offerings too.

I should love to go back there soon.