Livebait, Leeds

FREEBIE ALERT

It's a brave person who takes on a large restaurant in the current economic climate, especially a seafood restaurant in a not particularly prominent location.

Paramount restaurants, the previous owners of Livebait (and other brands) went into administration last year and a start-up group, SBG Restaurants, have now taken on the Leeds and Manchester sites. Although a new company, it appears that SBG is run by people with plenty of experience in the industry, I just hope they're aiming for quality and not the rapid chain expansion that tends to bring about the opposite.

First impressions were good, I liked the cut of their jib when they invited me down to try the new menu. There were none of the subtle (or not so subtle) hints at a favourable review that you sometimes get with this sort of thing, and the menu itself read well too, with just nine starters and nine mains, each of them sounding appetising. According to the website they'll also be seeking Marine Stewardship Council accreditation in the new year.

Of course I accepted the offer, a good seafood restaurant is an asset to any city, so with any luck it'd be good and I'd be able to say positive things about the place. That and I might get to fill my face with shellfish for nowt.

An oyster is always a good test of skill with shellfish. A badly shucked oyster is no fun at all. Gritty, bitty and devoid of juice they can repulse me on the way down, whereas a fat, fresh, properly shucked oyster can be a thing of beauty. 

This one was happily in the latter camp. All the lovely briney juice had been retained and it was plump and cold. With nothing but a squeeze of lemon and a quick chew on the way down it was marvellous.

My starter proper was gazpacho with Whitby crab meat. The soup was great, smooth and bright with a little bite of chilli on the aftertaste. In the unlikely event of a hot summer's day this would be just the thing. The crab was sweet and fresh, but it's delicate taste did get a bit lost in the stronger soup.

AS had the feta cheese, red onion and watermelon salad, also a great summer dish, this time in the tried and tested formula of something cold, sweet and juicy with something salty and savoury (cheese or ham with most fruits I suppose). It worked.

I've eaten plenty of oysters, and quite a lot of crab, but my lobster knowledge is completely lacking. As a consequence you'll have to forgive me for not having a very developed opinion of my lobster thermidor.

The meat was very sweet and mostly tender with the occasional chewier bit. I liked it and thought it worked well with the mustardy sauce and crusty cheese (gruyere or something similar) topping. Being a big fan of fish pie I'm generally in favour of the seafood and cheese combo in certain situations, and this was one of those. The chips, fried to a rustling crispy brown, were tasty but I'd have preferred them cut thinner.

AS had the lamb rump with dauphinoise potatoes, and declared it a success although the meat was perhaps slightly too rare. If you're wondering what the hell she was doing ordering no fish or seafood in a fish and seafood restaurant the annoyance of an allergy is to blame rather than an aversion to the stuff.

My Eton mess was an unexpected highlight. I didn't particularly think much effort would have been made with pudding, but I was wrong. By doing two simple things that many places don't bother with this was an excellent dessert.

Firstly it was made with proper meringue with proper gooey, chewy bits and not the pointless bought in stuff that turns to dust on impact. Secondly it had been recently assembled ensuring that the cream and meringue remained distinct from one another, and not prepped many hours ago and left for everything to soak together into a general sweet mush. Well done.

An affogato was also really very good. Good quality ice cream and a strong espresso. Simple but delicious.

Service was excellent throughout, from Tom the General Manager who looked after us, and from one of the other waitresses. Ok, ok, so this was a complimentary meal and only a handful of other tables were occupied, hardly the most challenging of circumstances in which to look after us, but if they can provide anything like a similar standard at busy times then they're doing very well.

On the prices front, it ain't cheap, but seafood isn't and isn't ever going to be. Once you've got over this fact I'd say the prices at Livebait are probably about right. Starters from £5, mains from £11 through to £35 for a whole lobster, and the wine list has a few bottles for under £20. Our bill would have been around £80 including service, two glasses of a decent Albarino and one of Pinot Noir.

On this evidence I'd definitely return to Livebait and spend my own money. Of course it's hard to tell with a freebie but they have a good team who seem to be doing things the right way, and I'd be very surprised if it didn't turn out to be consistently better than the obvious competition. Give it a try.

11-15 Wharf Street
Leeds
LS2 7EH


http://www.livebaitleeds.com/

Holland's Pies

FREEBIE ALERT

There's not much need for the freebie alert this time, as I'm not going to say anything very complimentary.

Holland's offered to send me a bag full of pies to review. Yes, yes I know they're hardly a gourmet brand. I know they sell them in supermarkets and they're probably cheap and nasty and horrid and full of unpleasant ingredients (to be fair, their website suggests otherwise. Make of that what you will). But really, who cares? Free pies right? I love pies.

From time to time I love a bargain basement pie too. A posh pie isn't always what you need. I used to have a borderline addiction to Gregg's for starters, and you can't beat a chicken balti pie at the football. The gist of it was this: was there any chance of me turning down a bag full of free pies that might just turn out to be nice? No.

Steak pie first. This was ok. The 'unique, golden shortcrust pastry' didn't seem particularly unique to me. It was thin but rather solid and tasteless. Not unpleasant it just passed me by without leaving much of an impression. You'll find the same stuff encasing all of the pies in the range.

The filling wasn't bad. There were a few good chunks of tender-ish meat (more than you'll find in a Greggs steak bake by way of comparison) in a fairly tasty but overly gloopy (too much flour at a guess) gravy. I ate it with mushy peas from a tin which were delicious of course.

 
A day or two later I ate the vegetarian joker in the pack, the cheese and onion pie. I really didn't like this one. The filling wasn't anywhere near cheesy enough, like they'd made a cheese sauce with a cornflour and margarine base and not very much mild cheddar. It left a weird coating on my teeth, as if I'd been slurping wallpaper paste through a straw. Not good. Horrid really.

The meat pie was better, more like a pork pie in style this one. The filling was of solid meat, pork and beef apparently, which had quite a pleasing slightly coarse texture. It tasted ok, but primarily of salt and pepper. I tried to ignore the scary quantity of fat that leached out of it during cooking though. Better on the baking tray than inside me I suppose.

In summary, I've eaten worse. I didn't get round to trying several others, which can now be found languishing in the depths of my freezer. I doubt they'll see the light of day unless I'm desperate and hungover.


http://www.hollandspies.co.uk/

Brown's, Leeds

FREEBIE ALERT

I'm not about to enter the debate about whether dining at chain restaurants is a good thing, or a bad thing, or morally despicable, or not-what-a-self-declared-food-obsessive should do, or whatever. I might enter that debate, but not right now, suffice to say the following:

Do I eat at chain restaurants? Yes, from time to time. Some are better than others. I enjoyed a meal at Brown's a few years ago so was happy to accept this freebie.

Don't I prefer worthier, independent restaurants? Yes, on the whole. On average they're better and worth supporting over some corporate behemoth. But there's no hard and fast rule. Some independently run restaurants are crap. Some chains have committed staff who care, and sometimes serve decent food. Move along.

Brown's, in the Light, is a big place. Both restaurant and bar, it was bustling on a Friday night. Noisy, but not so loud you couldn't hold a conversation in the dining area. The two of us sat in a comfy corner booth with a good view of the entire room.

The menu is fairly extensive, covering grills, fish, pasta dishes and various other bits and pieces. There's also a specials board which included plenty of seasonal produce, welcome in a chain restaurant as they don't often bother with that sort of thing.

The starters were both very good. I opted for the seasonal choice and had grilled asparagus with prosciutto, a poached egg and hollandaise. The asparagus was tender and not at all woody and the egg was accurately poached with a properly runny yolk.

Across the table the mushroom feuilleté proved popular. That would be a puff pastry mushroom pie in case you were wondering. The mushrooms had loads of savoury flavour which was offset nicely by some caramelised pickled onions that were dotted around the plate.

Next up I chose pasta from the specials board, tagliatelle with smoked haddock, peas and broad beans in a cream sauce. The portion was enormous so I couldn't finish it, but what I had I enjoyed. The pasta was cooked just right, the peas and beans both tasted fresh and bright and the haddock was undyed and not too salty.

A main of belly pork was also declared a success, the meat succulent as it should be. The crackling was poor though, as it was completely rock solid. I liked the accompanying sweet potato dauphinoise too.

We shared a tarte tatin for pudding, which came with good quality vanilla ice cream. The main problem with it was that it wasn't a tarte tatin. You can't cut corners with a tarte tatin by assembling a disc of pastry and some cooked apples then pouring caramel sauce over them. That's not a tarte tatin.

We drank a bottle of Sancerre, a bone dry, minerally, very quaffable white. That was one of the more expensive bottles on the list but there are plenty available for under twenty quid. Service throughout was excellent, efficient and friendly.

Would I return and spend my own money at Brown's? Yes, two of three courses were pretty good, and the service and atmosphere pleasant. With so many good independents on my 'to do' list I doubt I ever will though. Prices are maybe a little steep, with starters around £5-8 and mains £10-18.


Browns Bar & Brasserie Leeds
The Light
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 8EQ

http://www.browns-restaurants.co.uk/locations/leeds/

La Rocas, Wakefield

FREEBIE ALERT

I rarely dine out in Wakefield even though that's where I actually live, as it's in such close proximity I never think twice about heading straight into Leeds. That's not to say I wouldn't eat out in Wakefield more often if I found a few places I liked. With that thought in mind an invitation to La Rocas for a night of free tapas sounded like fun.

A small group of six of us went along on Friday and got to sample a fair amount of the menu. We were looked after by Craig (apologies if I have his name wrong, I think it was Craig) who was in charge of front of house for the evening. There was no introduction or little talk from the owners as seems to be the case at many blogger events, but that didn't bother me. It's probably a little ungrateful but I often don't really care about the restaurateurs ethos and vision, I just want to know whether his chefs can cook me a great meal.

I'd love to be able to say we had a great meal, but sadly I'd be lying. Everything we ate was mediocre at best, and some of the dishes were really not very nice at all.

On the plus side, everything on a couple of mixed cold platters was ok, and of the tapas dishes the potatoes were nicely cooked and the pork ribs tender and meaty. Dense, dry meatballs and a jambalaya with overcooked, mushy rice were really a bit grim though.

After dinner we were invited up to the bar to sample a few cocktails. A Long Island iced tea was pretty good, but some of the others contained far too much blue stuff for my taste. Never trust blue food. Or drinks.

The cocktails were a fun end to a night in good company, and we were well looked after by Craig. Thanks to La Rocas for the invitation, I'm just sorry I can't be more positive about the food.


18 Wood Street
Wakefield
West Yorkshire
WF1 2ED

http://www.larocas.co.uk/

1875 Restaurant, Menston

FREEBIE ALERT

On Tuesday night I went along to a bloggers event at 1875 restaurant over in Menston. The night was promoted as an authentic Indian masterclass, so given my obsession with Indian food this wasn't an opportunity I was likely to pass up.

Proprietor Manjinder Singh Sarai led the introductions and talked us through the idea behind the restaurant. It's a fairly straightforward premise; serve proper Indian food as you might find in India, and only employ Indian chefs who've been trained in upmarket establishments in India (the Taj hotel group).

The general idea is to do something different to your average Anglo-Indian restaurant that's run by Pakistanis or Bangladeshis and serves dishes invented in Birmingham and Glasgow. Manjinder even went so far as to claim that 1875 is the most authentically Indian restaurant in the North of England. I'm sure there are other claimants to that title (Hansa's and Prashad perhaps?) but there really aren't that many places breaking the mould.

A word on the menu at this stage. Peculiarly given their dedication to proper Indian food, the menu and website describe 1875 as an Anglo-Indian restaurant (which is how I tend to think of all the bog standard curry houses) and go for a sort of 'big up the British Raj' theme. The spiel on the website states that:

'The year is 1875. The British Raj in India is at its highest and Queen Victoria is the first empress to India. The elite-ranking British officers, wherever they are stationed in India, by default got the very best regional authentic Indian food.'

I've no idea whether the bit about the food is true, but I somehow doubt it. If it's true it rather conjures up images of fawning servants (wallahs of various persuasions) fetching and carrying for an enthroned Brit in a military safari suit sipping on a gin and tonic. I'll bet they didn't get the very best regional authentic Indian food, the locals probably kept it for themselves and it was probably too spicy for our Victorian gent anyway. Manjinder did talk about the Anglo-Indian slant, explaining that it's part of differentiating themselves from all of the other Indian restaurants, but it still seems a bit of a strange idea to me.

Slightly dubious empire related theme aside, we were there for the food. If the food is good, then frankly who cares about that other stuff.

Chef Baljit with his spice tin

I'm happy to report that the food was good, some of it very good. For the masterclass part of the evening we donned aprons and attractive blue hairnets and headed to the kitchen with chef Baljit Singh, where we were shown how to make chapattis, naan breads and chicken tikka. It was apparent that everything is cooked from scratch on site as all of the raw ingredients were there; a big tin full of spices including plenty of whole, unground ones, big tubs of minced ginger and garlic, tins of tomatoes and coconut milk, and absolutely no bright red food colouring.

 a morsel of wonderful naan

The breads we cooked were good, the naan a particular highlight. The perfect combination of a light dough resulting in a thin, crisp finish with loads of little charred bubbles.

chicken tikka - fresh from the tandoor

The chicken was also very good, the use of thigh meat a wise choice for flavour and moistness (although the menu actually states that it's chicken breast). I'd love to have my own tandoor to cook food like this at home, but I'd have to spend my entire salary on gas, chicken and marinade ingredients so it's a rather distant fantasy!

from here comes deliciousness - I want one

After the kitchen showcase we returned to the dining room where Manjinder served us a variety of dishes. To start there were chicken samosas and more of the tikka. The samosas were reminiscent of those I used to buy from Mr Riaz' corner shop on Brudenell Road in Hyde Park, which is a big compliment, because they were bloody great.

Next were the vegetable dishes, a mixed vegetable curry that was a little bland for my tastes and a paneer curry that I really enjoyed. The sauce was hot and the paneer creamy and crumbly, not at all like the tasteless rubbery stuff you often get.

Finally we had the meat dishes, a beef masala and a Goan pork vindaloo. The beef masala was good but the vindaloo was excellent, my favourite dish of the evening. The pork (maybe shoulder?) had obviously been cooked long and slow, and fell apart in moist strands. The sauce was intensely flavoured, tangy with a long lingering garlicky aftertaste. Both of the meat curry sauces reminded me in style of those I ate at Delhi Grill earlier in the year, interesting as the chef at 1875 is from Delhi.

the aftermath - note the lack of leftovers

Overall the standard of food was very high, I enjoyed all of it but the vindaloo and naan bread were the highlights. I could happily sit there with a vat of that curry and a pile of breads and just keep on eating. We received excellent service as you'd expect, but if it's anything like as good on a normal night you'll be well looked after. I would gladly return to 1875 and spend my own money on a meal there.

Thanks to Emma at Culture Vultures for organising the event, thanks to the team at 1875, and thanks to everyone else who was there for the great company. You can find some alternative perspectives on the evening, accompanied by some good photos (yes I know mine are rubbish) here and here.

The 1875 Restaurant
Station Road
Menston
Ilkley
West Yorkshire
LS29 6JH

www.the1875.com

Cattle Grid, Leeds

FREEBIE ALERT

That little disclaimer is a first for this blog. Last night I ate rather a lot of food and I didn't pay for any of it. Freebies are a contentious subject amongst bloggers. Some blog away with impunity, accepting anything offered to them and providing positive copy irrespective of quality, whereas at the opposite end of the scale others refuse point blank to countenance the idea, preferring not to risk compromising their independence.

I'm sure that most of us lie somewhere between those extremes. Personally I've never had any fundamental objections to accepting a free meal, but always thought I should set myself a few rules in the event that it ever happened. The rules are:

1) Be honest about it. I'll tell you if I didn't pay for it.
2) Don't give it marks out of ten. I usually rate meals out of ten, but a freebie isn't really a representative experience so I don't think it's fair to compare it directly with meals where I paid the bill.
3) Try to write a fair and balanced review. I try to do that anyway, and feel like I ought to try extra hard if I'm not paying.
4) Don't accept any old offer. The rule of thumb here is 'would I like to try the restaurant/product anyway, and would I be willing to part with my own cash to do so?'

Rules one and two speak for themselves. You'll have to read what follows and decide for yourself whether I've complied with rule three. As for number four, yes I'd have given Cattle Grid a try anyway, but on this occasion I had an ulterior motive. As it was a Blogger's event it was a great opportunity to finally meet some of the people I've been waffling at on Twitter in recent months.

Right, now that's out of the way, on to the review. After arrival, drinks, introductions and so forth we were seated and welcomed to the restaurant by Steve, one of the proprietors of Cattle Grid. Steve then proceeded to deliver a rather long and rambling, unexpectedly frank, seemingly drunken, very sweary, often funny and sometimes tedious speech about all things Cattle Grid. No stone was left unturned, from disparaging comments about other steakhouses (Hawksmoor, Goodman), to the restaurant businesses they would most like to emulate (Pizza Express, Nando's), to the provenance of their produce (mostly British beef, currently from Yorkshire, occasionally Uruguayan) and the difficulties of sourcing reliable, good value beef. By the end of it I was slightly drunk, very hungry and didn't quite know what to make of the place. Better to let the food do the talking.

Ribs to start were the highlight of the meal for me. They were large with plenty of tender meat and doused in sauces that weren't overly sweet. I particularly liked the piri piri variety which were nice and vinegary with a good chilli kick.

The steak was disappointing. I'd ordered the T-bone medium rare, exactly the same as Neil sitting next me, yet somehow they'd manage to cook mine considerably more. It was medium at best, but probably more medium-well. It was overseasoned too, the predominant flavour being salt. The chips were a bit limp and would have benefited from another minute or two in the fryer. The watercress was pointless but then it nearly always is (the proper fiery stuff being very hard to come by for some reason).

Of two sauces we tried the bearnaise was pleasant but the peppercorn was a bit dull (more salty than peppery). A side of onion strings would have made a great beer snack, being deep fried slices of onion, very slightly battered, with about a kilo of salt added. As it was they arrived after everything else was nearly finished (some sort of problem with the fryers) so were mostly left uneaten.

Of the other meals I saw or tried, Rachel's rib-eye was a miles better steak than mine (fair play to Steve, that was what he recommended). It was cooked as requested and had much more flavour. I didn't try Penny's chicken burger, but it was bloody enormous and seemed to contain one topping too many.

The ice-cream I had for pudding was decent quality stuff. Others declared the chocolate brownies to be lovely, the waffles to be boring, and creme brulee tasted nice but was a bit eggy.

All in all a very enjoyable evening, and it was lovely to meet everyone. Thanks to Emma from Culture Vultures for organising it. The food was a bit of a mixed bag though, and the main event, the steak wasn't really up to scratch. I probably wouldn't return to Cattle Grid, except maybe for a few of those ribs.

I haven't read anybody elses write-up of the evening yet, but will add links to them here when I've checked them out.

Edit: Here are some other reviews of the night:
Penny from Bronchia
Katie from Leeds Grub
Elly from The Magic Square Foundation




Waterloo House
Assembly Street
Leeds
LS2 7DE

http://www.cattlegridrestaurant.com