Dinner at Jesmond Dene House Hotel - 15/02/12

Tegan had booked Jesmond Dene House for her 21^st birthday back in early January. We’d been checking the menu every week since, trying to decide what we might have to eat. It all sounded incredible so expectation was high. I think we spend half our lives looking at menus. We’re definitely what you’d call ‘foodaholics’. Jesmond Dene House has been awarded three AA Rosettes. It’s a pricey establishment, pricier than some Michelin stared restaurants, hence why we hadn’t yet been there. It’s the kind of place you save for special occasions which this obviously was.

We began our evening with a pre-dinner drink in the old fashioned lounge. Tegan and I both had a cocktail named ‘Flirtini’. It consisted of Grey Goose vodka, Cointreau, strawberry liqueur, pineapple juice and Deutz Brut champagne. It was sweet but right up our street.  After ordering, we were shown through to our table which was a large round table at the top of the main restaurant. The first thing I spotted was a cheese trolley which caused a great deal of excitement. I just love cheese trolleys.

Once sat we were served a selection of home-made breads which included; rye bread, plain white baguette and sun-dried tomato and mozzarella. These were served with anchovy butter. I couldn’t decide whether I liked it or not. For me it was quite salty. Shortly after this an amuse bouche arrived. It was a glass pot filled with smooth and creamy chicken liver and foie gras parfait on top of which sat a thin layer of blood orange jelly.

For starters; Tegan, Anne and Laurence ordered the seared veal sweetbreads with Iberian Morcilla sausage, apple and sage. These were just delicious. The sweetbreads were silky and soft and had been lightly battered. The sausage was slightly spiced and complemented the sweetbreads without overpowering them. Rhydian ordered the east coast cockle and clam risotto with Laphroaig single malt whisky sauce and Caroline ordered, off of the House Menu, the salad of smoked duck with fig and blood orange. Richard and I ordered the Kielder venison carpaccio with pickled plums, beetroot and horseradish cream. I was surprised by how much carpaccio there was. It was nice and thin with a very delicate flavour. The plums and beetroot provided a little sweetness and the horseradish cream added a mild kick. There was a sprinkling of chopped hazelnut which added a nutty flavour as well as a little texture. I got that dreaded little thing called food envy again and wished I had ordered the sweetbreads as they were the best starter out of the four on our table.

For mains; Anne, Laurence and Rhydian ordered Tim Oliver’s belted Galloway beef fillet with fine beans, mushroom and truffle puree, Lardo di Colonnata and Perigord sauce. Tegan ordered native lobster with potato gnocchi, lobster tortellini, confit fennel and lobster bisque. Caroline ordered the confit shoulder of pork with crushed swede, shittake mushrooms and tonka bean foam. Tegan’s Dad ordered a starter of the Northumberland corned beef hash with home-made ketchup and truffle egg. I got to try everyone’s and they were all sensational. The beef was the show-stopper for me though. It was incredibly tender and the mushroom and truffle puree was beyond beautiful.  I ordered the New Moore Farm veal loin with parsley root, grapes, walnuts and watercress. The veal was lovely and pink and just melted in the mouth. As well as being whole roasted parsnip’s there was a smooth and creamy parsnip puree. The grapes tasted like they’d been soaked in wine and lots of it and the walnuts gave the dish a flavourful crunch. Café 21 serves walnuts with a venison dish of theirs and it’s amazing. It’s good to see walnuts being used in savoury dishes, not just sweet. The jus was beautifully rich which coincided with the richness of the veal.

After ordering pudding a pre-dessert of lemon and chocolate cheesecake appeared which was served in a shot glass. This got my sweet taste buds racing big style!

For pudding we all ordered different things … heaven! I got to try practically the whole sweet menu. Tegan ordered the milk chocolate, salted caramel and banana sphere which was like the pudding I had at Simpsons in Birmingham. The waiter pours hot sauce over what looks like a solid sphere and the outside just melts away. Laurence ordered the Valrhona chocolate and praline millefeuille with bitter chocolate sorbet and chocolate fondant soufflé. His dessert was a chocoholic’s ecstasy. Anne ordered the baked vanilla custard with fresh blackberries, blackberry soda and hazelnut ice-cream. Caroline ordered the caramelised bread and butter pudding with salted caramel and vanilla ice-cream which was gorgeously moist. Rhydian ordered 5 cheeses from the trolley. Jealous is how I would describe my feelings at this point. As much as I love my cheese, and boy do I love it, I will only have cheese if nothing else on the sweet menu appeals to me and that’s a very rare occurrence. If I have cheese I have it after my sweet. It was excruciatingly painful to watch him choose and eat his cheese. However, my pudding was dazzling and I forgot all about the cheese situation. I ordered the iced lemon and honey parfait (surprise, surprise) with honey comb, lemon sponge and parsnip ice-cream. It was the parsnip ice-cream that sold it for me. The parfait came in the form of a cone which added a nice element to the dessert in terms of presentation. The parsnip ice-cream was amazing as you could really taste the parsnip. My only criticism was that there wasn’t enough of it. I loved the way the lemon sponge, honey comb and pieces of pure honey scattered the plate. All these elements created different textures within the dish as well as complementing the flavours in the parfait itself.

After dessert a stunning chocolate birthday cake, made by the restaurant, was presented to Tegan. However, after five delightful courses we were all to full to have a slice so it was boxed up and we took it home. I had a piece the next day and god it was yummy cake. Like really really really yummy! It was a triple layered dark chocolate cake with two layers of light chocolate mousse in-between the layers of sponge and the whole cake was covered in dark chocolate ganache. It was just incredible but very addictive! I ate it for my lunch for about four days after.  

The food at Jesmond Dene House Hotel didn’t disappoint. The service dissolved towards the end when we were the only table left in the restaurant. Our coffees took what seemed like an age to come. However, overall it was a very pleasant experience and Tegan had a wonderful evening which was the most important thing. The A la Carte menu is expensive but I’d say it’s worth trying at least once. Their House Menu is very reasonable at £25 for two courses and £28 for three courses. This is the menu Caroline ordered off and the food was just as good. If you’re celebrating something special push the boat out and go to Jesmond Dene House Hotel.

Bar Snacks at The Broad Chare - 29/01/12

What better way to brighten up a dull, lazy Sunday than a cheeky visit to The Broad Chare on the quayside for some bar snacks and flavoured beers?

We ordered: cauliflower fritters with curry mayonnaise, deep-fried monkfish cheeks, crispy pig's ears, scotch egg and middlewhite pork crackling with bramely apple sauce. The cauliflower fritters and the scotch egg were my favourite. I have a little bit of an obsession with scotch eggs and The Broad Chare's scotch egg is just bloody sensational!

All of this was washed down with a couple of flavoured beers; cherry and then peach. It was the perfect way to kill a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Dinner at The Ebrington Arms - 20/01/12

I had wanted to try the food at The Ebrington Arms for quite some time. I’d heard good things about it. It was one of the many places on my long list. The executive chef, James Nixon, used to be sous chef at The Horse and Groom. Dad decided we’d go there for dinner the night before I headed back up north to Newcastle.

To start with; Mum had the home-made cauliflower and cumin soup, Dad had the twice baked smoked haddock and mature cheddar soufflé with a crab bisque and Tegan had the hot smoked wild duck breast, confit leg and liver parfait with sauternes jelly. The soufflé was my favourite of the three. It was gorgeously creamy and the bisque wasn’t overly rich which they can sometimes be. I’m becoming a fan of smoked haddock. I had a gorgeous smoked haddock gratin at my Uncle and Aunt’s house the weekend before. I had the seared scallops with pureed shallots and black peppered tangerines. The scallops had been cooked well. The warm, slightly sweet tangerines complemented the delicately sweet scallops and the black pepper gave a little kick. I ended up finishing Mum’s soup as she wasn’t feeling very well. I love cauliflower soup and the cumin gave it a light spice. It was a lovely soup. However, it had been over-heated as it took a long time for it to cool down. It came served in a mini casserole pot which I thought was a bit different and a nice touch.

For main; Mum and Dad had the braised belly of old spot pork with black pudding mash, crackling, curly kale and cider gravy and Tegan had the ballotine of Loch Duart salmon with wilted spinach, baby beetroot and chive butter sauce. Both dishes were good, I do love salmon and beetroot, but I particularly liked the belly pork, it wasn’t overly fatty. I liked it so much that I polished off Mum’s for her as she couldn’t finish it. Sometimes I really don’t know where I put it. I should weigh about twenty stone. I just can’t see good food go to waste. I had the local loin of venison wellington with fondant potato, Jerusalem artichoke puree, baby onions and cranberry jus. It really was an exquisite dish. The venison was beautifully pink and flavoursome. The Jerusalem artichoke puree complemented the venison wonderfully. The only disappointment for me was that as lovely as the jus was I couldn’t really taste the cranberry.

For pudding; Dad ordered the chocolate soufflé pancake with grand marnier custard, Tegan ordered the lemon meringue, angelica and lemon sorbet and I ordered the walnut and honey tart with malted barley ice cream. The chocolate soufflé pancake was really disappointing. Tegan’s pudding was nice, really zesty and refreshing. Mine was probably the nicest out of the three.

The food at The Ebrington Arms was good but I wasn’t over-whelmed by it. I’m not in any rush to go back. The Horse and Groom remains my favourite dining pub. 

Lunch at Caffe Corleone - 20/01/12

A friend had told me about Caffe Corleone in Leamington Spa a long time ago. It’s a quirky little Italian Café situated on Regent Street. I decided to take Tegan there for lunch as we’d been shopping in Leamington. We sat upstairs on a tiny little table. Everything about the café is tiny, so if you like cosy, Café Corleone is ideal. The café has a charm about it due to its mish-mash décor. There’s a big old fashioned coffee machine situated next to the stair case, an old fashioned sink, old food filled jars sit on the shelves and lots of retro pictures hang on the walls. The cutlery sits in old marmalade tins whilst the sugar sits in old golden syrup tins. A lot of the seating is old wooden benches, some of which bizarrely have no view. It’s all a bit topsy turvy but that’s what gives it its character. There is a constant flow of people which gives the café bags of atmosphere.

We only wanted something small as we were out for dinner with my parents that evening. We ordered two paninis and shared them. We ordered a Sicilian sausage, sun-blushed tomato, red onion and mozzarella panini and a goat’s cheese, smoked ham and red onion marmalade panini. The goat’s cheese one was my favourite. The paninis were served in a wooden basket lined with a 'Caffe Corleone' newspaper with a little salad and a handful of crisps. They were really tasty!

Caffe Corleone is a lovely little place to visit for a quick lunch-time snack if you’re out and about in Leamington. 

Dinner at Tailors in Warwick - 19/01/12

A friend had recommended I try Tailors in Warwick as he knows a chef who works there. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that he bought this wonderful little restaurant to my attention. Tailors is situated in Warwick’s marketplace. Its name derives from the fact that the building used to be a gentleman’s tailor shop. It’s a tiny restaurant. However, it adds something to the experience. By glancing at the menu you can see how passionate Dan and Mark (the chefs who own Tailors) are about food.  The combinations they use make you stop and think mid-drool. They take traditional dishes to a different dimension. For example their starters include; sliced oak smoked salmon with poached scrambled eggs, pineapple foam and liquorice and cheddar cheese spaghetti with fig and almond bolognese and garlic bread? I love to be intrigued by a menu and the menu at Tailors certainly intrigued me. They offer a choice of menus; a la carte, menu of the week, vegetarian menu and a taster menu. It didn’t take Tegan and I very long to decide what we wanted to eat.

After we had ordered a little amuse bouche appeared alongside a selection of home-made breads. The amuse bouche was a white bean veloute served in an espresso cup. The veloute was gorgeous; warm, rich and creamy, just what we needed to warm us up on a cold and miserable January evening.

Tegan and I both had our eyes on the same starters so we decided to share. We chose pan-roasted King scallops with pears, deep fried sausage roll and home-made brown sauce and confit rabbit and butternut squash cannelloni with date puree, onion foam and garlic crisps. Both dishes looked incredible when they arrived. I love this type of food because you can see the amount of work that’s gone into it. It’s art on a plate. The scallops were big, juicy and perfectly cooked. The deep fried sausage roll was deliciously light and crisp which contrasted to the soft scallops. The sweetness of the pear cut through the slightly salty scallops and the brown sauce was more sweet than vinegary. I would never think to combine scallops with a sausage roll. It sounds quite ludicrous but it was absolutely wonderful both flavour and texture wise. The cannelloni was a clever little dish. The butternut squash formed the cannelloni and created great colour within the dish, something pasta would not have done. There were three pieces of cannelloni and on each piece sat a raw brussel sprout leaf. You had the delicate yet dominant gamey flavour of the rabbit combined with the delightfully sweet date puree. It was delicious.

For main I had breast of Gressingham duck with confit leg croquettes, red cabbage puree, crème fraiche, glazed chestnuts and crushed parsley root. Tegan had braised shoulder of Lighthorne lamb with sweetbreads, cumin cornbread, poached rhubarb, yoghurt and cucumber. The duck was beautifully pink and ‘melt in the mouth’ tender. The crème fraiche took away some of the richness of the duck whilst the chestnuts added a subtle nutty flavour. The croquettes were made purely from confit duck leg, no potato, and complemented the duck breast superbly, alongside the sweet red cabbage puree. Tegan’s shoulder of lamb looked like a piece of artwork. The presentation was just incredible. The lamb was perfectly cooked, it just fell apart. A cucumber type relish sat on top of the lamb whilst pieces of cucumber jelly had been placed on neat little dollops of poached rhubarb. There were also pieces of crispy rhubarb scattered around the plate. Lamb with rhubarb and cucumber? Really? Trust me … it worked! Duck and cucumber works and so does lamb and cucumber. The cucumber added a refreshing element to the dish. The cucumber jelly was like a palette cleanser whilst the rhubarb added sweetness to the dish. The cumin cornbread was delicious and added texture and the sweetbreads were soft and silky. It was a truly stunning dish.

I was bowled over by the food at this point which left me incredibly excited for pudding. I could have eaten every single pudding. I wish they did a tasting plate! We were recommended to order the ‘Black Forest’ which Tegan ordered and I, stupidly, didn’t. I don’t think I have ever experienced such horrendous ‘sweet’ food envy in all my life. The ‘Black Forest’ was a de-constructed Black Forest Gateaux. Oh … my … goodness, it was absolutely unbelievable! Puddings like that just shouldn’t be allowed to come to an end. It was described as ‘Warm 70% dark chocolate, sour cherries with a kirsch and buttermilk ice-cream’. It came in three wonderful elements. You had a hot chocolate fondant, a tube of dark chocolate which had been filled with cold cherry soup and a scoop of buttermilk ice-cream which had been covered in sour cherries. Every element was just mouth wateringly good. The chocolate wasn’t overly rich, the cherry was gorgeously sweet and the buttermilk ice-cream oozed creaminess. Cherry and chocolate is one of Tegan’s favourite combinations and this dish makes you realise why. If you go to Tailors you MUST have the ‘Black Forest’, you’d be an idiot (like me) not to! My pudding was lovely but it just wasn’t a show stopper like the ‘Black Forest’. Mine was called ‘Pecan’. It was a honey and yoghurt parfait with a pecan sponge, roasted rhubarb and oat granola. If you’ve read any of my reviews before you might already know that I’m a big fan of iced parfaits. Honey and pecan are just such a fine combination, the honey being the dominant flavour in this dish. Whole pieces of pecan sat on top of the flavoured sponge and the oat granola sat neatly around the edge, adding a little crunch to the dish. You had the sweet puréed rhubarb, which the sponge sat on, and pieces of crispy rhubarb. The puréed rhubarb had a little bit of orange in it which gave it its peachy colour. As nice as my pudding may have been I wish I had chosen the ‘Black Forest’. I learnt a lesson that evening … always listen to recommendations!

Tailors offers a truly wonderful dining experience. The food is exceptional and the service was fantastic. Every dish was explained to us when it arrived so we knew exactly what we were eating. I really enjoyed having my memory refreshed as when there are so many elements to a dish you sometimes forget what certain things are. How this little restaurant has not been more recognised I do not know. It is of a similar standard to Simpsons in Birmingham and The Hand and Flowers in Marlow, both of which are Michelin starred. Tailors offers two courses for £29.50 and three courses for £34.50. It’s exceptional value for the standard of food you receive. I’ll definitely be returning soon!