Food hygiene certificates… when the chips are down, do they really matter?

Readers from the UK (which is exactly 25% of you) will, I’m sure, recognise the image above of a food hygiene certificate; introduced by the Food Standards Agency in the last few years. This scoring system is designed to help the public to make informed decisions about where to eat based upon hygiene and cleanliness, as well as the normal quality and service. On paper this is a good idea, forcing certain restaurants to raise their game because this information is now in the public domain and easily accessible on-line.

In my local newspaper a few weeks ago there was a list printed, detailing six take-away restaurants that had failed to score a single point out of five, all had a zero rating. This list was no great surprise, as I was already familiar with a few of these and don’t eat there (take-away or restaurant) because I have visited once and decided not to repeat the experience. This tends to be for two reasons. In the case of a take-away it is because the food has made one of the family (at best) feel ropey or (at worst) made somebody actually sick. For a restaurant the ‘tell’ that I employ is the state of the toilets… if these aren’t clean, I assume that the kitchen won’t be much better; although a restaurant can also have a double-whammy, i.e. somebody was ropey and/or sick and the toilets were disgusting. Reading the article, I was somewhat shocked… my favourite fish & chip shop was listed as a zero rating establishment.

“Well, we can’t eat there again” said Mrs. Stokes, and I instantly agreed with her. I know a few people who religiously look at the food hygiene score before every meal out or before every take-away, which I find a little pointless and have sometimes mocked. However, a zero rating sounds serious, so maybe they were right to check after all. I went on-line and started checking my other favourite places (all scored 4 or 5, incidentally) and then I stopped myself and thought about it… I decided that it doesn’t matter really, depending on what you eat. One of my favourite Chinese restaurants in London was closed down at some point due to a lack of hygiene (and an abundance of rats) but I still go there regularly, in fact I wrote about it a few months ago. And fish & chips, do I really need to worry about that? I typically order the same thing…

Cod, chips and a pickled egg on the side.

The fish and the chips are cooked in a deep fat fryer, so I really don’t think that anything dangerous could survive that intense heat… and if it does I deserve to get whatever ailment it carries. And pickled eggs are surrounded by vinegar their whole lives, another substance in which nothing is likely to survive. I'm going to give the buttered bread and HP Fruity Sauce from home a clean bill of health.

So, there might be a dirty floor (there definitely is) and the work surfaces might benefit from a more frequent clean (again, they definitely could do) but none of this affects my favourite Friday night dinner from my favourite local chippie so I’m not going to stop. I visited for the first time since the newspaper article at the weekend and ordered the usual, giving the server that knowing “I know this place is filthy but the food is great” look. I stopped short of a wink, but I think he got the message!

http://www.harlowstar.co.uk/News/Harlow-news/Eateries-in-Harlow-that-need-urgent-improvements-to-their-food-hygiene-standards-20140111090000.htm

Is it possible to get good food at Disneyland Paris?

Is it possible? No it isn’t, not at all.

My daughter, who has the same relationship with food as her dad (i.e. a glutton), couldn’t even stay awake for most of what we ate! My tip would be to drive 15 – 30 minutes out of the park every night and find a little restaurant for dinner, and whilst out visit a supermarket to buy something to make sandwiches for lunch the next day. If you absolutely have to eat in the park then the buffet restaurants offer the best option. If not quality, then at least they offer quality. The Park Side Diner in Disney’s Hotel New York is the best (least worst) of a bad bunch. Pretty much everything we ate (with very few exceptions) was deserving of a TOTAL STINKER award.

This situation is very annoying, given that (generally speaking) the food at Disney parks in the USA is pretty good. It makes no sense to me that the gastronomic French can’t improve the quality of the food here… scarily, the best meal we had all week was at the Buffalo Grill in Calais on the drive home!

Manolya, Ware

I love a bit of Turkish food, but unfortunately don’t get to have it too often. In fact, I can’t remember eating out at a Turkish restaurant for the whole of 2013. Some ‘friends’ of mine (selfishly) visited this restaurant without me a few months ago, so have been really keen to visit since then.

A few weeks ago that was rectified and it didn’t disappoint at all.

Starter was a standard meze fare with some extra taramasolata and humous. The meze consisted of five elements: hellim (traditional grilled Turkish goat’s cheese), sucuk (grilled beef garlic sausage), borek (deep fried filo pastry wrapped over feta cheese and parsley), mittite kofte (char-grilled minced lamb kofte with onions, parsley and sweet red pepper) and kalamar (squid rings fried and served with tartare sauce). This was all very good but at the time it felt like it was too small a portion, as only one plate arrived (enough for two) between the four of us who were dining. In hindsight this was serendipitous, as the main course was immense.

A massive plate of meat! Chicken, pork and lamb with rice and a lovely fresh salad. Even the doner meat was good, which is always a surprise. A very big dish but I couldn’t leave a single bite of this behind, it was just too good. I finished with baklava, which is a favourite of mine.

So, live in Ware? Where? Ware. Go!

manolyaware.com

Sparky’s Roadside Barbecue, 204 NE 1st St, Miami, FL 33131

I’m going to be spending a lot of time in Miami next year and one thing that is really important to me is to find an amazing BBQ restaurant, somewhere I can rely on 100% of the time, somewhere where I can eat at least once a week. I found a local place called Jimmy’s BBQ, which was fine; but that was all that it was: fine. I was really disappointed by this so did a little bit of Google research. Then I found Sparky’s…

This place is listed in the top 2% of restaurants in Miami, of which there are 3,535! It is a short ride away on the Miami Metro Mover, a free-to-ride light rail system with a station that is directly opposite Sparky’s, a very unassuming looking place that you probably wouldn’t give a second look to if you didn’t know it was there.

Inside is more of the same: unassuming, but with a great character and an eclectic mix of customers; suited-and-booted city boys, local workmen and cops. In my experience, any eatery in the USA which attracts cops is worth a try, given that they mostly spend their days driving around looking for the next bite to eat. We sat down and ordered from the super-friendly staff.

I had one of the combo meals: pulled pork, brisket and two sides for $14.75. This was easily amongst the best pulled pork I’ve ever eaten; it was full of flavour and melted in the mouth. The brisket was just as good, much more thinly sliced than I had experienced before, all the better for it. The brisket was beautifully marbled which gave it a fantastic flavour. The sides were both good too, which were fries and coleslaw.

Sparky’s makes its own BBQ sauces, many flavours of them. The classic BBQ sauce is probably the best but all are tasty. We were offered some spicy sauce by one of the staff and whilst these were American spicy (i.e. not very spicy at all) they were incredibly tasty. Alternating between the various sauces available really elevated this dish further still, it just kept on giving.

This was easily enough food for me; however, I had a sudden realisation that I had been in Florida for a week and hadn’t eaten any key lime pie! This was a) quickly rectified and b) a big mistake because I couldn’t move after that.

The combo I ate at Sparky’s Roadside Barbecue is a very deserving SUPER-DISH and somewhere I expect to visit many, many times next year. If a measure of success is how long before you visit a restaurant again, then the fact that we were sitting there less than 24 hours later means it must be very good indeed. Highly recommended.

www.sparkysroadsidebarbecue.com

Jazzing up my taste buds in New Orleans!

I'm lucky in that I get to travel in my job; to the USA, India, Australia and all over Europe. And this week (first the first time) I got to tick one of my genuine 'bucket list' locations : New Orleans, 'the big easy'! This was one of those places that I fell in love with the second I arrived : it was just so cool, and there wasn't nearly as much Katrina damage as I had expected to see so the city appears to be well and truly through the worst of it. We stayed in a hotel on Bourbon Street, right in the thick of it all, and got to visit some very famous and exceptionally good places to eat.

Commander's Palace

This is quite possibly the most famous restaurant in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) and is renowned across the country as the home of great seafood. My starter was a trio of three soups : crab and foie gras (rich and velvety), gumbo (so very, very, very good) and turtle! The latter had to be tried for novelty value and whilst the flavour was good I think it was the naughtiness of eating turtle that made it all the more enjoyable. Main course was rabbit, which was lovely but honestly unremarkable. The side order of crab was better. Dessert was another signature dish : bread and butter pudding soufflé. Divine. Great surroundings, great service and great theatre at the table made for a very enjoyable meal.

www.commanderspalace.com

Café du Monde

Another 'must-do' is this NOLA stalwart. Great coffee and great beignets (doughnuts covered in icing sugar). Straight from the fryer, these were the perfect way to start the day (two days, following a return visit).

www.cafedumonde.com

Steamboat Natchez

I have written before about the fact that boat + food = disappointment and this was no exception, although a long way from the worst boat food in the world. However, a good opportunity to taste a bunch of local specialities. My dad has often waxed lyrical about the merits of catfish, and can now add my voice to this. Great. As was the gumbo, but all else average.

G W Fins

Another popular NOLA seafood restaurant, and a SUPER-DISH I will not forget in a hurry! Lobster tail to start, with a mustard mayonnaise dip and a little fondue pot of melted butter. Absolutely divine, a great example of where the sum is greater than the gastronomic parts, this was a to-die-for piece of shellfish! Main course of flounder (stuffed with blue crab and spinach) could only be a disappointment after this starter, as indeed it was. I also liked this place as it is so nearly called Flynn's, so made me think of Tron.

gwfins.com

The Central Grocery

Last of all was as good as anything else eaten in NOLA : a muffaletta. Say what? A big-ass sandwich. This was another city tradition and was great fun. Made fresh by a team of three people in the back of the coolest Italian grocery store this side of Naples. Thin slices of different meats (at least salami, ham and turkey) plus two different types of cheese (mozzarella I could recognize) plus a sort of pimped tapenade. It was this latter ingredient that makes this dish distinctive, a very coarse and impossibly tasty tapenade. My best guess at ingredients : olives (obviously), capers, peppers, pickled carrot, pickled gherkin, pickled cauliflower and chilli. Divine, and a great end to some exciting food.

www.nolacajun.com

I really enjoyed NOLA and would love to visit again for a little more time. The food was mostly excellent and all was served and presented with aplomb. However, I did manage to spend 4 days in 'the big easy' and not eat a single oyster, crawfish or alligator!

McDonald’s Xmas 2013 menu

Special edition meals at fast food joints are something I look forward to, even though 95% of the time they are just not as good as the standard thing I order. Today we had lunch at McDonald's, so I got to try the festive menu : festive deluxe, chicken celebration and the cheese melt dippers.

‘Tis the season to savour our 100% beef patty with all the trimmings, like bacon, cheese, Batavia lettuce, red onions, honey BBQ glaze and smoky peppered mayo, all in a cheese-topped bun.

Firstly, the festive deluxe, which didn't seem to have any Christmas connection whatsoever. Also, it was entirely awful, with soggy lettuce (I don’t know where Batavia is, but they can’t grow lettuce!) and odd-tasting cheese. I also have no idea why peppered mayo is considered festive? This is definitely something I wouldn't order again.

Treat your taste buds to a crispy golden chicken breast fillet with cheese, red onion rings, Batavia lettuce, smooth festive relish and cool mayo, all within a sesame-topped bun.

Secondly, the chicken celebration, which (although not especially Christmassy either) somehow felt more relevant to the season. Poultry instead of red meat was a good start, and at least the sweet chilli sauce was the right colour for cranberry.

The cheese melt dippers were good, as they generally are when McDonald's drag these out from time to time. I would suggest ignoring the festive tomato dip and just going for regular BBQ as the accompaniment. I don't understand why this mozzarella (which, whilst average, does at least taste like a cheese you recognise) can't be used in other burgers? Other than cost, obviously.

Conclusion? Have a Big Mac. If a Big Mac scores 4/5 on the fast-food-burger-for-less-than-a-fiver scale, then the festive deluxe and chicken celebration score 1/5 and 3/5 respectively. For a 5/5 keep going past McDonald's and pull into Burger King for a Whopper instead.

http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/promotions/festive-menu.html

New World, Chinatown, W1D

If you want to enjoy good Chinese you would do well to keep well away from Chinatown. In London that is, as other Chinatown's somehow seem to be somewhat better (Manchester is a great example in the UK). However, for me, there is one shining oasis in a sea of unattractive ducks in steamy restaurant windows.

New World is one of the oldest Chinese restaurants in London, supposedly, and given that the menu hasn't changed for about 50 years I can believe this. It is also one of the very few places in London to still do a trolley dim sum service. We go semi-regularly as a group of friends and a few weeks ago we squeezed in a cheeky visit whilst in Soho for the evening. Some excellent dim sum dishes were selected from the trolley, my favourite being the big pork buns. About 10 dishes were shared between two of us and all were great, except for chicken feet, which I won't be ordering again. No-one should, ever.

OK, so the staff are rude and the restaurant was closed down by the council a few years ago due to a complete lack of hygiene in the kitchen but all that is part of its un-changed, crumbling 1960s charm. In Soho and want a Chinese? Afraid that a Chinatown restaurant will lead to (at best) regular trips to the bathroom? Give New World a go, right by the Chinatown NCP so well placed as part of an afternoon shopping trip.

Go during the day for trolley service dim sum, or during the evening for one of the set meals (No. 5 is my tip) and make sure you have the salt and pepper squid. If you are lucky you'll get a big revolving table, we like to pretend we are there to conduct an illicit business deal of some kind, spinning our offer around the table (like in the first scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom).

newworldlondon.com

Giraffe, Watford (and 48 other locations in the UK)

I’ve visited Giraffe before, at Lakeside, at least five years ago. It was rubbish. So I didn’t go back.

The other day I visited the big, shiny, new Tesco at Watford, where they have a big, shiny, new Giraffe. Tesco acquired the restaurant brand in March this year so that they could fill some of the under-utilised space in larger stores. Smart idea actually, the same applying to the Harris + Hoole coffee shop that Tesco acquired a (non-controlling) stake in.

I was really interested to try Giraffe again so ordered something just right : familiar yet somehow a signature special. I chose the kimchi burger. I’m a big fan of Korean food so kimchi is something I’m really keen on. Burgers I’m keen on too, obviously! This was Westernised kimchi but made a great burger, the slaw was fresh and crunchy if not spicy. For a chain restaurant, this was a decent burger, small perhaps but tasty. The fries were also good and dipped in the BBQ sauce they were great.

So, an enjoyable experience and a good lunch for £9.95. Giraffe is being added to that discreet list that includes Nando’s, Wagamama and Pizza Express as the top end, acceptable face of fast (or semi-fast) food.

www.giraffe.net

Thompson @ Darcy’s, St. Albans (twice in two days)

Just like buses, you wait for ages before trying a new restaurant and two turn up at once. Except they are both the same restaurant and they aren’t going anywhere, so more like a bus garage really. Dropping this analogy now. Last week I was entertaining overseas visitors (from Spain and USA respectively) and traditional British fare was the name of the game on both occasions, coincidentally we ended up going to the same place on consecutive nights (neither of which I booked).

This is a solid, renowned restaurant in St. Albans that has just been taken over by a chef named Phil Thompson, who you will not have heard of; however you may have heard of his previous restaurant, Auberge du Lac at Brockett Hall. Here he held a Michelin star and is no doubt hoping to replicate this fine-dining success at Darcy’s.

To start with on the first visit I had the boudin of confit duck leg with smoked duck salad. This was a standout dish for me, I love duck (especially smoked) and this was a divine starter. This was accompanied by a celeriac remoulade and pistachio, equally divine. This is one of those dished that you really want to cut a piece off of so that you can let a friend try it; although I would obviously never, ever do that. A SUPER-DISH for the duck.

Main course was the ubiquitous and can-always-be-relied-upon-to-be-good pork belly. Specifically, a belly of Dingley Dell pork with red wine braised cheek. It was very nice but not at the top of the pork belly score sheet. The cheek was divine, very rich in the thick red wine sauce. The accompanying cauliflower cheese was OK, as was the crackling.

We didn’t make it to dessert. Well, mentally I did and was looking forward to it, but others were tired so we had to cut things short. Fast forward to day two…

I was first to arrive so was phoned by colleagues and asked to order a selection of starters, which I did. There were eight of us eating and seven separate starter dishes so I ordered one of each plus an extra portion of the duck from day one. In a way, this was sort of like ‘X Factor’ or ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ where one dish has been voted through to the next live show, whereas the others didn’t make it to boot camp.

Main course this time was pan roast fillet of sea bream with a thyme confit and savoy cabbage. I’m a big fan of sea bream and this was a lovely dish. However, I have some major beef with this fish dish : after I had polished it off I remembered that it was supposed to be served with a razor clam, which was conspicuous by its absence. I might not have realised if it hadn’t been for the fact that a colleague had the same dish on day one. Cheated.

Dessert was cheese, a perfectly good but pedestrian selection of British cheese, including the (I think) gimmicky Stinking Bishop). The walnut bread was very nice but the homemade chutney was a little disappointing, it seems to me that my expectations are sky high when a chutney is served in a Kilner jar so this made the disappointment more marked.

All in all, great food on both nights. Some average parts to both meals but I’m prepared to overlook these because I enjoyed the starter so much. Well worth a visit.

www.darcysrestaurant.co.uk

Hotel New York, Rotterdam

This is somewhere I have visited before, although the first time was for drinks and bar snacks. I was told by a colleague that the food here was somewhat average, but I liked the atmosphere and history so much that I was determined to give it a proper try. The hotel is located at the end of a wharf, adjacent to the Holland America Line terminal; this hotel has been the first pleg of the journey from the Netherlands to the United States of America for more than 100 years.

Starter was a shared platter, which included all sorts of lovely things : smoked salmon, cured ham, tuna tartare, carpaccio, Greek feta salad and plenty of bread with tapenade. All were lovely, especially the tuna. We also had half a dozen oysters to accompany the starter : two wild French ‘fine de Claire’, two small French ‘papillon’ and two local Dutch oysters. All had different, distinct flavours, the ‘papillon’ in particular I enjoyed.

Main course was simplicity itself, half a lobster (served cold) with bread and mayonnaise. The lobster was of a good size and was very succulent. Served with a portion of chips on the side! Pretentious... moi?

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Dessert was my favourite, a sort of Dutch version of ‘café gourmande’ called the ‘grande dessert’. This included seven separate elements (count them) : mango ice cream, forest fruit macaroon, raspberry ice cream tartlet, tiramisu, lemon cream, fresh fruit, biscuit and whipped cream. All were good, and the mango ice cream in particular was fantastic, as was the tiramisu.

It isn’t often I am genuinely stuffed after a meal but this was one of those occasions. My second time in this surprisingly great city, and my second great meal. 100% success rate for Rotterdam to date!

www.hotelnewyork.nl