487. 2025 Great British Menu Dishes At Hampton Manor.

 

  I was pleased to grab a suddenly available, last minute ticket for an exciting event hosted by David Taylor at Hampton Manor which brought together the four chefs of the Central and East region in the 2025 Great British Menu (see Blogs 467 and 468) competition screened by BBC. We will recall that Taylor was the first chef to be eliminated on the first day of the competition when three chefs - Taylor, Thom Bateman and Harry Davenport from East Anglia - all tied with the same number of points and Taylor’s somewhat lacklustre but subtly sophisticated canapé which had proven to be the least liked by chef-judge Tommy Banks led to his early departure from the competition.

  We will also recall that East Midlander Sally Abé went on to win a place at the banquet itself and scored a perfect 40/40 points for her starter course, Nursed Back To Health, which celebrated Florence Nightingale who spent some of her childhood in Derbyshire and that she also tied in first place of the main course with another perfect 40 points with a venison dish, Eat the Rich, but lost out after much discussion to a chef from London.

  And so to the fine evening of 8 June 2025 when ordinary food lovers had the chance to not only see and have described some of the notable dishes which were served by the chefs in the heats of the Central and East region in the BBC programme but also also to smell them  and taste them. 

  I arrived rather early at Hampton Manor and started off the evening in the comfortable, homely hotel bar sipping a very pleasing Grapefruit Collins and then was shown my way to the outside area where a Nyetimber reception was being held and where the first of the canapés was served - an excellent, full flavoured salmon and cucumber crumpet topped by a generous helping of Exmoor caviar prepared by chef Harry Kirkpatrick. 

  Then into the dining room for the two remaining canapés - Sally Abé’s coronation crab crumpet where, sadly, I neither got the flavour of crab nor the true taste of coronation sauce and Thom Bateman’s very tasty Staffordshire cheese custard and salt baked beetroot tart with black garlic ketchup.

  Then the host for the evening, James Hill, Hampton Manor’s managing director, introduced the evening to the eighty or so guests (roughly the same number as those attending the BBC’s banquet) and then interviewed Sally Abé so that she could describe her dish to her diners who were full of enthusiastic anticipation. The first course was an obligatory vegetarian dish in the Great British Menu and at the banquet Abé scored a perfect 40 with it. And, served by the chefs who mingled with the diners, it was delicious. The dish, as reported above, was Nursed back to health - a lovely, clear onion and seaweed consommé with a small roast potato full of punchy Brixton Blue cheese and the hit of black truffle served with the most fabulous little brioche loaf ever presented in an English restaurant, gorgeously glutinous and sticky with its yeast extract glaze. This was a very memorable dish and it is not surprising that it went down so well with GBM judges. 

    Next came the fish course and Harry Kirkpatrick delivered a wonderful Cornish brill Wellington with a leek and brown shrimp mousse betwixt the fish and the excellent pastry. The fish was beautifully cooked inside its casing and had a full bodied and distinctive flavour which made it very moreish. The brill was served with a generous amount of sauce fleurette (Hollandaise enriched with cream, (crème fleurette)) which made the plate look rather rustic though it was so pleasing to have a generous helping of sauce rather than the little smears that usually appear on fine dining plates. I think that this was my favourite dish of this particular banquet. 

  In contrast, I am afraid to admit that I found Thom Bateman’s Origin of Species, which celebrates Shrewsbury’s Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by linking the dish to the evolution of the domestic pig from the wild boar, somewhat problematical and unenjoyable. The dish presented slow cooked wild boar collar which, for me was too dry in texture, with barbecued Mangalitsa loin glazed in black garlic and honey; the latter had a fair degree of chew to it and felt claggy in the mouth. The pickled walnut ketchup had a zing to it but the potato terrine cooked with Mangalitsa pork fat was too salty though it was admirably crispy and crunchy and would have been delightful were there less sodium chloride discernible. There were sticks of apple which gave a little comfort though more might have helped the pig go down and more sauce may also have helped matters.

  Then to David Taylor’s contribution. There was what the irritating Scottish comedienne Susan Calman called “the prepooding pooding” in the single series in which she hosted the programme. In this case the ppp was titled A Light In Darkest England and paid tribute to those who had suffered serious physical consequences caused by their work in the match production industry in the Victorian era. It was pleasant enough and did the refreshing job that it was meant to do but it did not seem to have the pizzazz that might have been needed to have enthused the GBM judges - it was a redcurrant compôte with a crème fraiche sorbet with rhubarb root oil and chocolate matchsticks which would not have added much to the dessert apart from fitting in with the theme and being nice little pieces of inoffensive chocolate.

  The dessert proper was titled For Robert and clearly held a lot of meaning for David Taylor and it probably hurt him that by being eliminated in the first day of the GBM regional round he had not had an opportunity to present the dish to the viewing public. The dish celebrated the charity work of a boy with terminal cancer who had produced beaded bracelets to sell in support of another boy who was a friend of his and who also had the same diagnosis; hence the title.

  The dessert took the form of a trifle, and who would be unhappy about that?, the various layers of which were in the kind boy’s favourite colours. Thus there was a blackcurrant leaf sponge, exhilarating blackcurrant jelly, raspberry cream, apricot custard and a gorgeously tasty blueberry cream. The trifle was served with a barbecued pineapple fruit kebab but I can not comment on it as the waiters failed to serve it to our part of the table.

  Afterwards, the four chefs came and sat on the stage in front of the diners who were able to ask questions. Unfortunately I was unable to stay to the end of it all but I left having been very happy to experience some of the dishes from this year’s Great British Menu and interested to gain an impression of what the dishes tasted like rather than just seeing them on the television.

486. Simpsons x Land.

 

  I have dined at Land, where the Chef Patron is Adrian Luck who opened it in the Great Western Arcade in 2019. a couple of times (see Blog 180) and came away on both occasions satisfied enough but with the feeling that something was missing. I wasn’t totally convinced that an all vegetarian meal, especially when it is made up of five or six courses, is the full job.

  Simpsons offers an alternative vegetarian menu which, in the past, has been recognised as one of the best in the country. So the question clearly was, “Will input from Simpsons to Land’s offering convince me that I should be visiting a vegetarian restaurant more often?” And an evening of a Simpsons x Land collaboration might just answer that question. 

  And by the end of the evening I had my answer.

  The evening started with 2 amuses gueules - one was a rather fine pea purée tartlet clearly straight out of Luke Tipping’s kitchen and the second some tasty, spicy, crispy tempura ‘herbs’ with some tempura attached to them, their flavour derived presumably from the furikake condiment and sesame used in their preparation, They looked scruffy and had the appearance of the chef casting around for something to provide as an opening snack at a mildly exotic barbecue.

  After the reassuring and memorable bread and butter that Simpsons provides to its diners on to the starters. Tipping’s contributation was a quite fabulous plate of what on the menu were described as Evesham tomatoes although they were described as Isle Of Wight tomatoes by the waiter. They were accompanied by a herb salad and were full of delightful sweetness. Then Land’s starter which might better have been its main course - a very toothsome and authentic-tasting massaman curry containing salt baked pineapple, peanuts giving it a satay element and nicely cooked jasmine rice.  This was quite delicious and as enjoyable an example of this curry as one might find in an authentic Thai restaurant. The absence of meat mattered not at all and everything was looking grand.

   Sitting by the long window it was easy to look out on to Simpsons’ pleasing garden, refreshed after some much needed rain, and feel that all was well with the world. Simpsons’ contribution to the main course pairing was its familiar, highly enjoyable heritage beetroot dish with its various presentations of the vegetable nicely complemented with a hit of wasabi. It looked as elegant as any beetroot dish might ever look. 

 It has to be said that Land’s main course also looked elegant and promising. The promise was not realised. This was a slab of grilled cauliflower sans the deep cauliflower flavour which for me makes it an exciting item to eat. The cauliflower provided only texture and nothing more though its presentation had been worked on to jazz it up. There was verjuice caviar, the flavour of which was lost in the wild garlic sauce with dashi which itself had little impact on my tastebuds. I felt that you can do all the molecular gastronomy and emulsions you want but a slab of cauliflower is just a slab of cauliflower and it is unlikely to ever be a star in the firmament.

  Simpsons provided a delicious and exciting dessert - two nice mango ravioli tickled by Espelette pepper and a hit of kaffir lime chantilly cream. This was very enjoyable in contrast to the final dessert which was an unremarkable cube of almond cake, a satisfactory sponge with no discernible flavour of almond served with strawberry ice cream and a white chocolate crumb. Regrettably it seemed that this second dessert barely rose above what a competent domestic cook could achieve.

  Luke Tipping has got a grip on producing very fine, delicious vegetarian dishes as part of his repertoire served at Simpsons. It is elegant and tasty and impressive. Land, much loved by the city’s vegetarian/vegan crowd, produces adequate dishes for those who are convinced that fish, meat or fowl are not for them and so Land has its necessary audience though I will not be sitting in the stalls with them.

4 June 2025.

  As a follow up to Blog 485, it’s worth recording that I was invited to join friends for an early evening dinner at the Wildmoor Oak Inn just 4 days after enjoying Sunday lunch there. At the beginning of June the menu has been revised and the pub’s very popular scotch egg has been restored to the list of dishes available. This proved to be a tasty light dish made particularly enjoyable crispy coating around the egg. The accompanying piccalilli was profoundly, addictively piquant and proved impossible not to eat, even that which remained after tge egg itself had been totally consumed.

  Once more, I could not resist the haddock and chips (both of which are some of the finest in the world, I’m sure) which came with an excellent mild tartare sauce, a nice fish and chip shop curry sauce just right for chip dipping and Chef’s very acceptable mushy peas.

  For dessert I chose banoffee parfait which had a good flavour and, I thought, was precisely textured and with it came vanilla ice cream, a salted caramel sauce and dried banana slices which were a little too hard to be enjoyed - better to have used slices of fresh banana.

   One of my fellow diners chose a main course of cheese burger which also came with the pub’s superb chips and pronounced themself well satisfied with their meal apart from the slight feeling that the burger was just a little too salty for their taste.

A lovely location, excellent food and at a very good price. Surely the Wildmoor Inn deserves a Bib Gourmand.

Rating:- 🌞.

5 June 2025.

485. Sunday Lunch At The Wildmoor Oak Inn.

 

  Sunday lunch. The stuff that dreams are made on. Today, to the Wildmoor Oak Inn once more where Head Chef Peter Jackson, brother-in-law of Brad Carter, has raised the bar on real pub food in this neck of the woods and, to add a little spice to the anticipation of it all, it is my first chance to eat from the Sunday lunch menu.

  So, how was it for you dear?

  My Sunday lunch companion chose the starter of spring hummus, mint oil and toast and found it to be both generously portioned and highly enjoyable. I chose the spiced cauliflower and lentil soup which had just the right amount of spiciness, a good texture and, in short, was delicious and accompanied happily by some cheesy toast. Neither of us could resist the main of Aubrey Allen beef rump with all the trimmings. The beef was magnificent - robust toothsome beefiness and tender but just the right amount of bite to it. The roast potatoes were particularly successful - a good crispiness around excellent centres. There was nothing to complain about the great well-like Yorkshire pudding, the vegetables were cooked accurately and the very cheesy cauliflower cheese was better than I have been served in some Michelin-starred restaurants..

  We were both too full to indulge ourselves in a dessert which was regrettable but necessary. This had been a generously portioned, finely cooked, delicious meal served to the table by friendly and busy front of house staff. 

Restaurant guides take note.

Rating:- 🌝

1 June 2025.