1806 Melbourne

Now with photo.

A quick trawl of the internet suggested that 1806 was the place for drinks in Melbourne. So we went along.
The main drinks list is here but you know how it goes with a decent bar, the menu is just a guideline in order to put them to the test I unleashed my secret weapon, a drink companion who is very particular about the way their Manhattan gets made. This got us a lot of bartender attention straight away. The house rye and the antica formula vermouth are both known to us but they swap orange bitters for a more usual bitters, they garnish with orange peel too. The verdict was a very nice drink but not what we were looking for in a Manhattan. The first round down we decided to ditch the menu entirely and have a go on our house cocktail "the Claridge" (which I need to post about soon as I can't believe I've missed it out) . This seemed to be a bit of a revelation to the bar staff, who were quite taken with it.

I bravely asked where to drink in Sydney (there is apparently a bit of rivalry between the 2 cities, but it seemed pretty insignificant compared to the Manchester/Liverpool one) and they recommended "Eau de vie" which gets a post of its own. Of course it would be rude not to make a return visit to tell them how we got on.

This time we went straight for the menu  I had there back to back Martini which is really 2 drinks a vodka Martini & a gin one. They come ungarnished but with a tray of garnishes for you to add your own. I had to ask for onions though. Also they had the soup dumplings from their food menu, what can be better than a comfortable bar an ice cold Gibson & a plate of soup dumplings ?

Restaurant Sat Bains

Nottingham's only Michelin starred restaurant, Sat is also a molecular chef, so some comparisons with the Fat Duck are inevitable, so I'll deal with the 2 biggies straight off. Sat's menu is a lot more local & seasonal, he also is a bit less multi-sensory/theatrical than Heston. We'd got a package offer, so a

room, champagne on arrival and the 7 course tasting menu. The wine list is huge and roams from pretty reasonable (25-30) to stratospheric. Having had the paired wines at the Fat Duck we did the same here. First up was an amuse bouche from the kitchen of an oyster foam with a pigs head croquette and a smoked haddock one, both were really good. Next was Sat's signature dish of ham, egg & peas. If you don't know this is the only dish that scored a perfect 30 in the great British menu and consists of a slow poached duck egg, peas, pea & mint sorbet and pata negra ham. I've eaten a fair few poached duck eggs, this was glorious. The sorbet tastes incredibly fresh & green and provides a great contrast to the warm duck egg.

Then it was onto the menu proper and an Alsatian white that we ended up killing, that was for the starters and went incredibly with the first, Pork, pears, chicory & monkfish which came with a liquorice sauce. The pork was superbly cooked and the pears which ranged from raw to a pear gel really went with it, the monkfish & liquorice were good together, but might not have needed to be on the same plate as the pork. Next up was Organic salmon with coriander.This was a cube of raw salmon, incredible pickled vegetables where placed on top and covered in an oyster & coriander emulsion. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. 

Next came NG7 2AS, an enigmatically named dish, that turns out to be foraged from with in a mile of the kitchen. If you get to eat it, it probably won't be the same as this. A salad of mainly sorrels with pickled elderberries, textures of crab apple, hazelnuts and a hazelnut  sand. With a glorious horseradish croquette.

For me this was the stand out dish, and it took a while to eat as everything needed to eaten on its own and then in combination.

The "main course" turned up, Yorkshire grouse with blackberries and a home made faggot, paired with a premier cru Burgundy. If the dish was any bigger then it would have been instant gout. Lovely meaty flavours from the (very) rare grouse breast and the beef faggot, complemented incredibly by the deep blackberry sauce and matched to the kind of wine that makes you understand where Jilly Goulden & co are coming from.

Then came "Crossover" a bridge between the main course & dessert. Its a mix of ham, pineapple, maple syrup and Parmesan cheese. Sounds odd but really works. 

The first of the desserts was simply titled "Chocolate" and was a rich chocolate mousse with a thyme & salt caramel and a buttermilk ice cream paired with an Australian muscadet, another standout bit of wine matching. Again well chosen complementary flavours the acidity of the buttermilk cutting through the rich sweetness on the plate, the addition of thyme to caramel provided a pleasant je ne sais quois and is something I think I might give a bit of a try in future.

The final menu course was "Raspberry" which consisted of a dish containing various raspberry things (a granita, a gel, whole berries) dotted with hazelnut meringues, both hard and soft and a lolly of freeze dried raspberries a white chocolate shell and a beetroot ice cream. 

Beetroot is much loved by the modern/molecular chef as it has a very interesting trick, where its flavour can be flipped between sweet & savoury depending on what it's served with(*). If you know that you can play with it in this dessert. This was teamed with a Sauternes which was probably the most disappointing wine of the night, in so much as it was merely very good, compared with the excellents of the other wines. Finally the richest chocolate brownie I've ever eaten arrived on a small square slate. I managed half of it.

So go, it's highly recommended, staying over in one of the fairly luxurious rooms takes a bit of a sting out of the bill, but you are paying toward the top end of 1 star prices. That said I don't think it can be too long before a second star arrives. The dishes are innovative and very well made, the wines well chosen and the service spot on. There is a 12.5% service charge on the food bill, which is  reasonable at this level.

(*) A high degree of acidity flips the beetroot from beetrooty to blackcurranty. Eating the raspberry chocolate shell to expose the ice cream with in (as shown in the photo) allows you to taste the beetroot ice cream in its vegetable guise. Dipping it into the granita turns it fruity again. 

Burgers

Since my first run of "Perfection burgers" I've been wanting to try a good restaurant burger to compare these too.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found that GBK was coming to town. At last something to measure my burger against, after all Gourmet is in their name. They claim a 100% aberdeen angus beef in the burgers, so it had to be worth a go. Unfortunately whilst the burgers are fine, they aren't great. I was asked how I'd like my burger so said (almost by reflex) "Rare please". Apparently that's not possible, would medium rare do. When the burger came, it was more medium than medium rare. In a nutshell that's what I found wrong with GBK. They go further than most burger providers but they don't go far enough to justify their pricing. The bun comes stacked with stuff, but its mostly salad giving the illusion of height, not a thick burger. Sorry GBK.

To cheer myself up I took a batch of "perfection burgers" along to our neighbour's allotment BBQ. Since they'd just started to harvest the onions it seemed rude not to turn one of them into a good onion relish , pile it on the Burger and enjoy it in the setting sun.

Opium Nottingham

Relax it's a Chinese restaurant.
And a rather a good one too. It used to be quite a high end place, then it vanished and now its been re-incarnated, but the downstairs has been turned into a bar.

We went with the set meal, which started out with a dim-sum sampler. Whilst all three offerings were steamed, they were very good. Since we'd come from a cocktail bar we went with tea, and unusually there are several choices, so I went with the "Superb Pur-eh". I like Pur-eh in general for its earthy taste, it seemed darker in colour than usual, and was perhaps brewed a little strong. When the dim-sum wreckage was cleared away, the waitress noticed the colour & said "Your tea is a little too strong, should I replace it ?" I said yes, and she did. The original was a little strong, but not enough for me to feel like complaining about, so good service there. Good service was the hall mark of our visit, and I'd recommend them on that alone.

The main courses were all generic/Cantonese (which is pretty much par for the course outside of London) but very well done, the lemon chicken well fried & without the cloying taste that comes from cheap sauces. The Prawns were cooked just right having a good bite to them. The fillet steak was lovely, however it is the source of my nitpick. I think a rib-eye or sirlion would have stood up better with the sauce and provided more of a background flavour. That said I can see why they use fillet, so a very minor niggle.

The Dessert menu had some nice options including my favourite Dan tat. Unfortunately I've been really spoilt by some cracking Dan tat in my time, and whilst this was good, it could have been better, still though I think that says more about me & my love of egg tart than the standard of the kitchen.

All in all about 20 pounds a head (you could easily spend more) including tea & dessert. Good service & a nice clean airy dinning room makes it a worthwhile place to visit, I might try & have the pre-theatre menu next time, which looks like it makes an early evening eat out to be well worth while, especially when only Chinese food will do.

Violet cream showdown

On the left (in the case) is the Fortnum & Mason Violet cream on the right Hotel chocolat's offering.

Hotel Chocolat

This is a thin square of violet cream, liberally coated in 72% cocoa solid dark chocolate. The chocolate here is the main event, the violet cream being unfortunately overshadowed by it (the rose creams slightly less so). The fondant has a fairly stiff texture and is pretty much as the box says "scented" with violets. On the whole whilst I happy to eat these I'd rather have something with a bit more punch in the violet.

Fortnum & Mason

This is a more traditional type of cream a good solid block of cream enrobed in dark chocolate (60% cocoa solid this time). For me the balance is better, the chocolate provides the right amount of bitterness to foil the violet cream, which this time has a strong floral flavour. Its more harmonious than the hotel chocolat square with a long tail of rich chocolate and violet after.

Out of these two its the Fortnum & Mason for me, but I'm going to have to try it against the Charbonnel et Walker violet creams, which hold first place in my memory.

The fine art of mixing drinks

This is the title of one of mixology's reference books, its better known as Embury, after the author.

Embury wasn't involved with the drinks trade in any proffessional way, but he knew what he liked & understood how to make a cocktail. He lived through prohibition & that has influenced the writing, the 50+ yrs of marketing that have taken place have had an influence on what we drink & how it differs from Embury's time.

Tequila is given very short shrift, and the margarita is absent from the 6 basic cocktails with the no longer popular/drunk "Jack rose" taking its place. He's a very opinionated writer, but it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the book but if you like creamy sweet cocktails, don't look for them here. This is all about cold,sharp drinks to stimulate the appetite, and although he is at pains to point out it's not a recipe book, several of the pages will have any civilized person reaching for the shaker & the cocktail cabinet.

Perhaps the most useful thing to take away is his formula for a sour-type cocktail which is 1:2:8 or
1 part sweet
2 parts sour
8 parts base spirit

He is very vocal about what counts as a base spirit, its a high quality, high proof alcohol. There are no generics here, its topshelf all the way (he is quite dissmissive of vodka & other neutral grain alcohols) because as he rightly points out that's the main body of what you are drinking. (the other explanation is that he drank through prohibition and had enough low quality liqour to last several lifetimes).

If you can manage the didactic style(unlike some other authors Embury's opinions tend to be part of his charm) and find a copy(this seems to be the hard part) then if you have the slightest interest in cocktails you will want to read this book.

His musings on "The Old Fashioned" are quite a handy guide to making a good drink, several bar-tenders I've met on my travels could do with reading them and thinking before pushing their concoctions on unwary drinkers.

The house of bols

I happened on the house of bols experience by accident whilst looking for a cafe after visiting the Rijksmuseum.

What they offer is a cocktail/genever experience, since bols are one of those companies who have become linked to a product (Blue curacao) I figured it might be interesting to take a look.

It was a pretty quiet day when I visited, which meant I could spend as long as I liked over the exhibits. Most of it is given over to interactive stuff, some in the first room linked to history snippets from lucas bols and the items in the central display case (I missed out on the mixed manhatten in a cocktail shaker product, I don't know how). Just after this come their signature "dutch house" minatures, that are made for KLM, apparently there is quite a collectors market for them.

Much more involving though are the exhibits about the senses, we whiled away a fairly happy time in this bit, trying to guess liquers & generally having a bit of fun. After this they try to sell you their 1820 genever, what do you expect ? It's a distillery experience after all (I've nothing against the 1820 at all, but I make very few genever cocktails, its too sweet to substitute for ordinary (london/dry) gin).

Your ticket includes a cocktail at their bar. This is pretty impressive, they have a set of touch screens that guide you to a cocktail that you might like and then prints out the recipe for you to hand to their bartender. The machines are quite useful since they allow to make as many choices as you want and happily spit out numerous recipes. The bartender however will only make one.

The bartender (at least the one I met) is a pretty knowledgable chap an on a slow thrusday was more than happy to spend time discussing booze (and recommending places to drink). He mixed 2 good cocktails, a holland house and a butterscotch.

Sorry about the lighting, the mirrors somewhat confused the primitive brain in my camera.











I eventually tore myself away from the bar, only to be confronted with the shop. And what a shop, ok there is a lot of branded stuff, but there is also a shelf full of books, including many classics (and a couple of scarily priced originals), of course my wallet only just survived, and was on triage for a while.

My experience was great, I'd happily go back and it represented reasonable Value for Money, but then there were maybe 20 people in the "experience" whilst I was there, it might not stack up so well when its full. I'm also a big cocktail fan, so there was a lot of stuff I found intriguing. I'd recommend it, but remember its all about booze.

Consider the oyster

Whilst fact checking for my edit on oysters I kept comming across the book whose title graces this edit. I'm rather glad I did as it's a splendid little book ranging from the life of an oyster to what to drink whilst eating them. It's studded with recipes too though several will need deep pockets & a measure of gastronomic bravery. The book is well written in a conversational style and the author loves her oysters. I'm not sure I'm ready for oyster stew just yet (it's incredibley rich & none of the ingredients are cheap ) but some of the simpler hot oyster recipes are very tempting indeed. You may be an oyster lover or not, but if food writing interests you in any way you really ought to track down this book. Who knows it may even tempt you into sea food and that oddest of molluscs the oyster.

Pi Chorlton

Pi shop is a studenty cafe bar in chorlton, Serving a range of beers and of course pie.

The atmosphere is reminiscent of a Dutch "brown cafe", that comfortable relaxing buzz with customers coming & going rather than settling by a TV to watch sport. (This was last night, in Manchester, United were playing CSK Moscow, if they were going to show sport, it would have been then). The beer menu is nicely laid out, by country, with spirits, non-alcholoic drinks and so on at the back. Austria and Belgium have the biggest sections, and oddly Holland is not represented at all (This could be due to the Dutch habit of keeping their best stuff to themselves). Since I was driving no beer for me.

The other main event is PIE, these come with a choice of sides and a little jug of gravy. Sides are a small selection, with Mash & Mushy peas leading the pack. The pies themselves are from Pieminister an award winning Pie maker (who it has to be said I normally pass over for Lime tree pantry, but thats mainly to do with size). Pieminster say their pastry is one of the things that makes them special, and they're right. No puff pastry hats here, these are proper crusted pies. Mum and I tried to disect the pastry, but beyond short crust & flakey it wasn't succesful. Inside are the fillings, some of which are quite novel such as the "Heidi" a vegetarian pie in which goats cheese plays a large part. I went for steak & kidney, after all if they can't get that right...

No such worries, its a rich pie with an ale gravy, and just the right amount too, its not going to flood the plate when you cut into it, neither is it going to leave you with dry crust. The mash was smooth (Smoother than I really like) and creamy, the board said it was made with local desiree potatoes, I find it hard to argue that it wasn't. The jug of gravy on the side was a great touch, we are all different in our gravy tastes (I like to add none) and the dished plate allowed for you to swamp everything, if thats the way your tastes run.

Its not the biggest of places and it seems reasonably popular so if you like beer or pies go along and try (quick before the 2010 good beer guide comes out). Oh and the largers ? Well if its in a bottle they'll do you an off-sale, so now I have the record holding Samiclaus beer to try, that though ought to wait till the 6/12/??
But fear not, I'll report on it here

Iberico- world tapas

Iberico is an upscale tapas restaurant in Nottingham. They offer Spanish tapas and world tapas. They won awards and are part of the well regarded "world service" group.

One thing they make a song & dance about is their cheese & charcuterie menu. Now I'm not a cheese lover, so I can't comment on that part, ham & pork however I do know. They have a fabulous selection, right at the top (at a heftyish 13 pounds) is the ibreico black foot jamon. Its aged air dried ham from spain, using free range pigs fed on acorns, it is very tasty & always worth having as a treat, so I planned to order it. That was before I saw a new addition to the menu. Beedham's pork shoulder. Beedham's is a multi-award winning butcher nearby, I don't go there often as I have a different butcher, who has his own cows. I like to meet my steak before I eat it (I'm sentimental like that), this however seemed to good to miss. The ham was served in translucent slivers on a large wooden plater, it was sweet, light, wonderful  ham.  Not  quite the  pinnacle the iberico is but very good value indeed.

As its tapas I tend to stay to the Spanish  side of the menu  as the squid  (with  lime  salt  &  a  garlic aoli) is a must ,  some  crunchy  patas  bravas,  the  slow  roast  pork  belly  and a swordfish  carpaccio  rounded  out the  rest.  The  pork  had a proper crunchy crackle and then melted in the mouth. The swordfish carpaccio was another newcomer, paper thin slices of swordfish served in a vinegared oil dressing, with a light spicing (corriander & red peppercorns were there).

Dessert was a fabulous chilled ginger syrup cake with buttermilk ice cream. The acidity of the ice cream taking the edge of the syrup and bits of crystalized ginger livening up the sweet cake.

All in all a great night and at 50 pounds for two including drinks & service a mostly affordable(*) treat.

* they do a ten pound set lunch, which has been voted the cities best, against some stiff competition.

Masterclass review

Off I went to the cocktail masterclass. Whilst I tried to limit my expectations, masterclass was stretching it a little. There was the usual flakey history of cocktails (prohibition blah blah blah) a quick rundown of equipment and then we sailed into mixing. We were making a house/signature cocktail of the venue, the "Basil grandé".

Basically it's 2 grand marnier 1 chambord 1cranberry, muddled with fresh strawberries & basil. Not hugely complicated but covering the basics of muddling, shaking. It's not a bad cocktail but to sweet for me (a fruity girly drink TBH).

Unfortunately the guy's presenting wasn't upto much, the music in the bar needed turning down & the organization needed to be improved. As far as I was concerned I got very little out of it, other than making a cocktail that wasn't particularly to my taste. However I did get to make it from behind the bar which was an interesting experience.

Overall for a free event you got a reasonable bargin, a free cocktail and a personable bar-tender to guide you through. Cocktail masterclass ? No, but a simple introduction to modern cocktails.


-- Posted from my iPhone