Lime House Café (and Welbeck Farm Shop), Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire

I've been planning a visit to the Welbeck Estate ever since I discovered it was the home of Stichelton. I struggle to find some of my favourite cheeses outside London, so when I found out that the cheese I love perhaps more than any other is made less than an hour away from home it was only a matter of time before I made the trip.

Friday was the day. I was in Nottingham for work and it's not too much of a detour off the M1 on the way home. Welbeck is one of those great big whopping country estates that's been turned over to tourism, a slightly less famous Chatsworth if you like (perhaps because it's half way between Mansfield and Worksop rather than in the middle of the Peak District). There's an art gallery, a school of artisan food, a working farm, a garden centre, a café and a very good farm shop, of which more later.

After a visit to the farm shop to pick up a few goodies I stopped off at the café for a quick afternoon tea.

A fat scone (£2.25) was fresh and light, and came served with very good raspberry jam. A pot of good tea was a reasonable £1.35. I didn't have anything else, but the sandwiches arriving on other tables looked excellent.

The room is also lovely, a spacious, airy modern conversion of a building that formerly housed part of a Victorian gasworks. The staff were nice too.

First impressions of what I've bought from the farm shop are also very good. I have a lovely looking piece of beef, a bulb of smoked garlic and some cheese. The cheese selection is exemplary, as you'd expect when it's all sourced from the Kings of British cheese at Neal's Yard.

I don't think it'll be long before I start thinking of reasons to visit Worksop more often.


8/10

Welbeck Estate
Worksop
Nottinghamshire
S80 3LL


http://www.harleygallery.co.uk/index.php?pg_id=20

http://www.welbeck.co.uk/experience/visit/farm-shop/home

Larb / Laab / Lahb / Larp / Laap

Don't worry I haven't gone mad. The title of this post does make sense. Larb is a Laotian or Isarn (Northeastern Thai) meat salad that you'll probably have seen on Thai restaurant menus spelled in any of the various ways listed above. It's all down to the difficulties of transliterating Thai or Lao script into the Roman alphabet.

Linguistic challenges aside, laab is a wonderful dish that I've been meaning to try and make for some time. It's got all the best qualities of Thai food, the strong yet balanced tastes, the spice, the freshness, the herbal fragrance. And it's a salad made from meat. Just about any meat can be used by the way, though chicken is most common.

Rather bizarrely it was turkey that spurred me into action. Yes, turkey as in Christmas turkey. Morrison's was selling packs of diced turkey thigh at a ridiculously low price, so I bought some thinking there must be something good I could cook with it. More out of hope than expectation to be honest.

Then I thought about lahb. The turkey meat would work well chopped into very small pieces and cooked very briefly, no chance for it go tough or stringy. The flavour would also suit, meaty enough to standard up to the strong seasoning and still lend something to the dish.

I'm not going to recreate the recipe in full here, because the one I used can be found here on the She Simmers blog which I've found to be an excellent resource for Thai food info and recipes since I discovered it a while back. It was this blog's author who kindly translated the Thai Aroy Dee menu for me.

I deviated a little from the original recipe, using spring onions in place of shallots, the turkey in place of chicken and missing out the galangal powder. Apart from that and halving each ingredient for a smaller batch it was faithful.

I also had a go at making the toasted rice powder, but had to cheat and use basmati rice in place of Thai sticky rice. It was still worth it though, perfectly simple to do and the final dish had a subtle but distinctive nutty flavour in the background.

The resulting salad was a great success. The first taste gives the forward freshness and fragrance of the herbs which then gives way to salty, sour and spicy, all assertive but balanced. The savour of the meat and toasty rice flavour round things out nicely.

I served mine with rice as a main dish, but its probably more commonly served alone as a starter or a side dish, scooped up with lettuce leaves.

I'll make this again and will probably change just one thing. I should have chopped the meat a little bit finer, you don't want mince but some of my chunks were a little too hefty and went a bit chewy as the meat cooled.

Philo's, West Bridgford, Nottingham

I wasn't supposed to be having lunch here. I was supposed to be going to Nando's with my sister. Nando's you say? Yes. I like Nando's. Crispy, charred skinned chicken with hot sauce. What's not to like? The sides are crap though.

Anyway now I've got that confession off my chest I didn't make it to Nando's. The M1 intervened and spoiled my plans. A two and a half hour drive to Nottingham and a cancelled lunch later I still needed to eat, and West Bridgford is handier for work than Nottingham city centre.

Philo's looked like the pick of the casual coffee shops in town, and lunch there turned out pretty well despite the lack of spicy chicken.

A big wedge of frittata was moist, light and well seasoned and the salad was properly dressed. Not sure what the little grape buttons were doing though, but they didn't harm anyone.

£3.75 for the frittata and salad meal, prompt service and good coffee too. Philo's is a nice little place.

7/10

22 Tudor Square
West Bridgford
Notts
NG2 6BT

Town Hall Tavern, Leeds

Saturday was one of those great days when everything goes to plan. Even better than that, it was one of those days when the plan lives up to expectations.

The big event was a night on the town to celebrate a couple of birthdays and the visit of a friend who emigrated to New Zealand a few years back, the centrepiece of which was an absolute belter of a meal at Red Chilli. You can order a rather large quantity of delicious Sichuan food when there's fourteen of you round the table. Three blog posts about Red Chilli in just a few months is probably overdoing it though, so I'll just say this: it's bloody brilliant.

Lunch earlier in the day was just as successful. After a refurbishment last year the Town Hall Tavern was re-opened as a gastropub (their description) by Timothy Taylor's. The gastropub description is fair in this case, as it's very much a proper pub with good food as opposed to a restaurant in disguise. Drinkers are definitely welcome.

The menu is a standard gastropub sort of affair, pub classics set alongside some more ambitious sounding dishes. There's also a list of pick-n-mix sharing plates all priced at a very reasonable £1.95. It was from this list that I ordered a pig's cheek scotch egg which got things off to a wonderful start.

Oooh this was good. I could eat one (read several) right now. A lovely greaseless crunchy crumb encasing dense shreds of moist, soft flesh and a perfectly cooked, runny yolked quails egg. We ordered nothing more from the snacks menu, but if the rest of it's as good as this an evening of superior Yorkshire tapas and ale is going to be in order very soon.

Ale roasted gammon, sorrel croquettes and wilted greens (£8.95) was equally accomplished. The chef here is obviously a dab hand with the deep fat fryer as the croquettes were as well cooked as the scotch egg. The same crust this time filled with a velvety, slightly oniony (or possibly leeky) potato filling. I couldn't taste the advertised sorrel though, which I suspect is like basil in that it rapidly loses its fragrance when exposed to heat.

The gammon was a thick chunk of porky goodness, not overly salty and a good match with the crunchy/smooth texture contrast and mild flavour of the croquettes. The jug contained a generous quantity of decent gravy presumably made from ham bone stock.

I wasn't quite convinced by the burger across the table, as the patty was a little overcooked. An option on the cooking level would be good as it tasted like good quality meat and would have been far better served pink. Apart from sticking to theme of using Yorkshire produce I also can't see any point in using Wensleydale here. It really isn't a very good burger cheese.

Most of what we ate at the Town Hall Tavern was excellent, and the prices are great for the standard of cooking and presentation. You'd pay a similar price for gammon slung on a plate with frozen chips and frozen peas at many other pubs. I wish they would serve everything on plates here though, the penchant for serving food on anything flat that isn't a plate just irritates me. Maybe that's just me though? But really, why would you want your burger to arrive on a massive chopping board? Why?

Minor gripes aside, I loved it here. The service was good, the food was good and it would be a great little pub to drink in too. I'll be back.

8/10

17 Westgate
Leeds
LS1 2RA

www.townhalltavernleeds.co.uk

Mr Foley's Cask Ale House, Leeds (revisited)

FREEBIE ALERT

I wasn't going to blog about this, but then I thought that seemed a little unfair. I wrote about the handful of other free meals (declared as free of course) I was offered last year, so why not this one?

Tyler, the Chef at Mr Foley's, kindly invited me down to sample his fish and chips. He's been trying out different batter recipes and wanted an enthusiast to offer an opinion. So here it is.

Very good indeed. Crisp light batter, well browned on the exterior but encasing a nicely cooked piece of fish. Not the finest piece of haddock ever but the pub is restricted to certain suppliers by group management, so they can't just go down the market and choose what they like.

The chips, which are triple cooked, are fantastic. A good crunch giving way to lovely fluffy, creamy innards. They're extremely more-ish which is good as portions are generous. A lot of effort goes into triple cooked chips (slice, parboil, drain, cool, fry, drain, cool, fry again, all over the space of some hours) and I'd be surprised if you'll find them anywhere else in Leeds at this price point (this meal costs £7.50).

Also on the plate were garden peas and home-made tartare sauce. The sauce was spot on, delivering a good hit of acidity which is what you need to cut through the fattiness of the batter and chips. I often find home-made tartare sauces to be too creamy with not enough of the vinegary stuff, not so with this.

All in all this is really good pub food, priced reasonably, with all the key components made with care on the premises. You don't get that very often.

Bacon Sandwich Quest

What with it being January, and the television schedules being filled with inspirational personal stories of gallant battles against the bulge (or slightly exploitative nonsense bordering on obese voyeurism depending on your point of view), and this being an Olympic year, and the Olympic year in which the games return to Britain no less, thoughts inevitably turn to sport, and diet, and exercise and suchlike. And bacon. Or at least mine do. I do a bit of exercise and sport and that, but bacon is a far more interesting topic so is what I'm going to focus on.

Bacon sandwiches specifically. I was contemplating the bacon sandwich as I ate my first of 2012. How it's one of the simplest yet one of the finest British dishes. In purest form only two ingredients are necessary, just bacon and bread. Butter, HP sauce, sometimes tomatoes or mushrooms can be welcome but none are pre-requisites.

How I eat rather a lot of them, but not one has featured on the blog. They're almost always eaten at home, or on the hoof. Grabbed from a van on an industrial estate and munched in the car, or picked up from a greasy spoon and eaten at the computer, greasy fingers tainting the keys. This rarely produces enough material for a fully fledged blog post, but the bacon sandwich really is worth celebrating.

A good bacon sandwich beats almost any other food for instant, delicious, satisfying gratification. The perfect blend of tasty, salty meat and soft, doughy carb. Commonly acknowledged as the game-changer for many a lapsed vegetarian, it's the humble bacon butty that lures them back in.

So this year I'm going to be celebrating the bacon sandwich by way of the matrix of bacon. Each and every sandwich I consume (unless I get bored and give up, I make no promises) will be awarded a score out of thirty based on the following criteria.

Bacon (marks out of 10)

Believe it or not, bacon is quite important in bacon sandwiches. Quantity, quality and flavour. How many rashers? How thickly cut? How does it taste? Smoked or unsmoked? Bland or piggy? Too salty? Has it been cooked properly? Is the fat crisp but the meat moist? Is any of it burned or wobbly or foamy? Is it back bacon, or some other cut?

Bread (marks out of 5)

The second most important factor. Is it white? Is it soft? If not then what the hell is it, and is it a viable alternative? Is it a roll or sliced? What is the texture like? Slightly doughy and chewy or more open and airy? Any crusts or crustiness? How large is the bap, barm or roll or how thick is the slice? Is there much in the way of flavour?

Accompaniments (marks out of 5)

There may be none. More likely there will be HP sauce and perhaps butter. If so is the HP HP, or some other sort of brown? If not HP is it an adequate substitute? If the bread is buttered is it actually so, or has it been storked? I will consider tomatoes and mushrooms accompaniments, for the simple reason that I sometimes like them in my bacon sandwich. Anything more and it's no longer a bacon sandwich. The dividing line is whether you'd have the accompaniment on its own in a standalone sandwich. For egg or sausage the answer is yes, for tomatoes or mushrooms no (and if you thought yes then you're shit at breakfast).

Value (marks out of 5)

Value rather than price. There is a crucial difference. Value takes into account the price relative to the quality and size of the sandwich, rather than price alone. If the sarnie only costs a quid but is totally rubbish it won't score highly.

Service (marks out of 5)

It might seem a little strange to award marks for service. It's not something I cover in great detail in restaurant reviews, so why does it matter when scoring a bacon sandwich? It's about the time and the place. Bacon sandwich time is often dark and miserable, often at stupid o'clock in the morning in a corner of some godforsaken industrial estate, often in the midst of a long and tedious drive. Purveyors of porcine goodness can provide a little cheer. A friendly smile, a few warm words, idle chat about the foul weather, it's all worthwhile. I'll also lump the method of packaging into this category. Paper bag? Bag with paper plate? Serviette provided?


So there we have it, marks out of 30. I'll probably post a bacon quest update on a monthly basis, and come December, continued interest on my part permitting, we'll see where I had the best bacon sandwich of 2012. And I might get them a medal or something. In honour of the Olympics.

Safran, Leeds

Safran is one of a handful of Persian restaurants in West Yorkshire. It seems to be well thought of so a few friends and I went to give it a try when we met up between Christmas and New Year.

The menu is almost identical to that in every other Persian restaurant I've been to (which number about four). Think salads and dips with flat bread to start, then either kebabs or stews with buttery rice to follow.

As we were six we ordered everything to share. Two mixed platters of dips and bread followed by a mixed kebab for five plus a bonus kebab to make up the numbers. The dips were a mixed bag, yoghurt with shallots (mast-o-musir) was excellent as was a tomatoey one whose name escapes me.

The hummus wasn't great though, being a little bland with a slightly strange gluey texture. I'm probably a harsh critic when it comes to hummus these days though, having feasted on so much of the good stuff in the Middle East back in October. Everyone else seemed to think it was fine.

The bread, as expected, was outstanding. It always is in Persian restaurants. It's called taftoon, and is sort of like a very thin, light naan with a wonderful bubbled up crust. We ordered more.

The grilled meat was all decent stuff. I didn't get a photo of the super-kebab before the gannets descended, so you'll have to make do with the bonus kebab (we didn't get chips with the rest, we have some decorum). The kebab koobideh, minced lamb and beef, was best as there was plenty of fat in the mix so it was lovely and juicy.

All of the other cuts tasted fine, they were delicately seasoned but ever so slightly overcooked. We ordered extra tomato dip to lubricate things a little, which worked a treat with the meat and the sweet grilled onions that were also included on the platter.

Service was fine throughout, we just had the one waitress who was efficient and not the least bit fazed by our constant demands for bread, and sauces, and dips, and bottle openers, and glasses, and so on. Safran is unlicensed but you can bring your own and they don't charge for corkage. We paid £13 each including a decent tip. I'd like to return to give the stewed dishes a try.


7/10

Safran Persian Restaurant
81 Kirkgate
Leeds
LS2 7DJ

http://www.safranrestaurant.co.uk/