Quick reports on repeat visits to a couple of restaurants which have given me much pleasure in the past, one last September and the other only days after my first fabulous experience there.
Firstly, lunch at The Oyster Club by Adam Stokes. In Blog 181 I reported an excellent meal of fish charcuterie platter followed by a stupendous roast sole on the bone. So much had I enjoyed myself that I could not fight back the need to revisit these two lovely dishes. Alas both courses were shadows of their former selves. The food at the restaurant is far from cheap which is forgivable if the food measures up to the price. The charcuterie, while being as tasty as before, was served with no generosity - as can be seen in the ‘then’ and ‘now’ photographs above - compared with last year the fish was sliced so thinly that flavour was barely discernible. This was appallingly poor value for £15.
Then the sole with razor clams, grapes and verjus sauce (£34.50). This might be described as a less impressive specimen than that I adored back in 2021 (see ‘then’ and ‘now’ photograph below). The texture of the fish was less firm and the presentation of the dish seemed somewhat disorderly in comparison with the first time I ate it. The fish was certainly tasty and succulent but remarkably unremarkable. There was not the degree of consistency between the two dishes that I should have liked to have enjoyed. My lunch companion and I shared some unremarkable chips which would have been fine had they not cost £2.50p per half dozen and some leeks (with Calcot onion and pancetta) which were ridiculously overpriced for what they were (also £5). Things were not going well.
However we battled on, choosing with a certain amount of thrilled anticipation, to share a tarte tatin served with vanilla ice cream (£24). I failed to photograph the dessert but it was not a happy creation. Instead of slices of apple a large lump was placed in the centre of the pastry which was a little flabby and the whole had not the unctuous stickiness to which I had so looked forward.
There’s little more to say. This had been a meal riven through with disappointment for which we paid a not inconsiderable sum.
As a footnote it’s worth noting that a couple of days afterwards there was a rare tweet from the West Midlands by a Michelin inspector who must have lost his way to Dublin where you would normally expect Michelin inspectors to be enjoying themselves and that individual had clearly been at the Oyster Club shortly after us. From the comment, I must conclude that I chose the wrong dishes. To be fair, my companion had thoroughly enjoyed his starter of whole roasted king prawns with spiced lobster bisque (£18.50).
The next day, again with pleasurable anticipation, I returned to Henley-in-Arden to pay a second visit to Glynn Purnell’s new country version of his former bistro in Newhall Street which is labelled ‘a pub’ but is really a very nice, quite large modern restaurant off a small olde worlde bar (see Blog 230).
While quaffing a couple of the old Ginger’s Bar classic cocktails, I studied the menu and badly needed to relive the joy of consuming the Cheddar custard and sweet and sour tomatoes followed by the Wiltshire pork cutlet but girding up my inner strength I decided I really must try some other dishes and therefore chose a pleasing starter of Atlantic prawns with caviar, little cubes of apple and croutons. Then I chose perhaps slightly over-cooked but generously portioned roast chicken with a lovely side dish of tubetti pasta with a generous covering of pecorino, wild garlic and a deliciously sweet scorched pickled lettuce. Chicken is chicken and this was not the most exciting of chicken dishes I have had but it was very pleasing.
I requested crème caramel for dessert but I was informed that chef was not happy with how they had turned out that evening and with time running short before the next hourly train back to Birmingham I thought it best regretfully to pass on the course and head uphill to Henley Station.
Henley has a lovely old station and is a bit of tourist sight in its own right. It presently has a series of posters on display, one for every station on the line, and the Small Heath Station poster is fun depicting as it does the theme of Peaky Blinders.
The present series of the BBC television programme Great British Menu 2022 has finally come to an end with chefs from Wales, London, Scotland and Northern Ireland winning to cook dishes at the banquet which was this year mainly to indulge a number of BBC luvvies on the occasion of the Corporation’s centenary.
The new panel of judges has been disastrous with the chef Tom Kerridge dominating the other judges with his opinions which are of course a chef’s opinion which, as we know from previous years, is a completely different viewpoint from that of the people who eat the food. While Nisha Katona has made some useful contributions that is something that can not be said of the ninny who is there to tell jokes (and little more of him is expected) and who should go the way of the previous comedian who hosted the programme and was seen for one season and never seen again. Andi Oliver on the other hand has been an excellent host and it was warming to see her great the two previous long-running judges, Oliver Peyton and Matthew Forte, who knew what they were talking about and made watching the programme worthwhile.
It is pleasing to note that the Central region finalist (though an East Midlander), Sally Abé, as runner-up, did prepare food at the banquet in the food of the canapés and pre-desserts and rather good they looked too. She carried out her tasks calmly, charmingly and pleasantly and was it a delight to watch her work surrounded as she was by the broiling gallons of competitive testosterone put out by the male competitors.
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| Sally Abé. |
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