Another Food Blog

Lunch was at Osteria dell’Angolo in Marsham Street.  I liked the sound of the Italian spiced meats to begin the meal (see above), while my companion went for the day’s special beef carpaccio (below).

Both were excellent, as was the grilled swordfish (not shown) we both chose for the main course.  It was lightly and perfectly done and was moist and tender.  We drank a Gavi wine from the Piedmont area of Italy, made primarily with the Cortese grape.  It was quite dry, fruity and acidic, with an attractive straw colour to it.

London’s Oxo Tower is so called because the word “Oxo,” the popular beef stock cube, is written in the brickwork of the building.  It changed hands long ago, and there is now a Harvey Nicholls brasserie on the eighth floor.  The view is spectacular as you see the London skyline across the river and watch it gradually lighting up.  I was at dinner there with 7 sixth-formers (the final two years at secondary school, equivalent to grades 11 and 12).  We were all served with a glass of Prosecco at the outset, which met with general approval.

I began with prosciutto “San Daniele”, with fig, truffle scented honey, gorgonzola pannacotta and hazelnuts.  It was fantastic, and looked it, too.  For the main course I chose Harissa spiced pink lamb rump with pomegranate almond cous cous, chorizo tagine and romesco sauce.  The lamb was superbly tender and tasty, and the chorizo was excellent, too.

For dessert I ordered poached pear with ginger bread and vanilla custard, but I was too full to eat any of it.  However, with 7 teenagers at a table, nothing gets wasted.  We drank a rather nice Australian pinot gris called Innocent Bystander and talked about philosophy, history and the politics of liberty.

Lunching at the Balls Brothers wine bar on Buckingham Palace Road, I spotted grilled salmon with poached egg on the menu.  It came with a potato and herb rissole.  This place is one of the few that get a properly poached egg still soft in the middle and still hot to your table.  It was an appetizing plateful.

My lunch companion had the celebrated beer battered fish and chunky chips with that excellent minted pea purée alongside.  And we drank a Wide River South African chenin blanc.

Jamie’s Italian in Cambridge does not take bookings, so you take your chances.  They said a wait of 45 minutes, which another corrected to one hour, but I guessed it would be faster than that, so we waited.  It’s quite a pleasant bar, and we whiled away the time drinking a carafe of their chardonnay di Puglia, unoaked, organic, 12 percent and quite peachy.  After just over 30 minutes our buzzer went off and we were shown to a table.  We began with the chargrilled ciabatta rubbed with garlic, drizzled with olive oil and topped with tomatoes, basil & creamy ricotta, which we ate between us.  Then I ordered the rosé veal Parmigiana, a pan-fried tender veal chop stuffed with salumi, parmesan and breadcrumbs served with a flash cooked tomato, basil and garlic sauce.  I’ve had this before and loved it.  With it we drank a carafe of their red organic Sangiovese Terre di Chieti Arbruzzo, 12 percent and fruity.  This was a nice meal, and worth waiting for.

Back in Cambridge again after the delights of Nice, I had dinner at Cote on Bridge Street.  They wouldn’t take a booking, but always keep a table or two in case someone’s booking was mislaid, and I got lucky.  I began with their mushroom feuillete, a delicious concoction of puff pastry and a creamy mushroom-laden sauce.

For a main course I ordered their leg of duck on a bed of sautéed savoy cabbage and bacon lardons and a thyme and veal jus.  Very tasty it was, and I’ve come to like their house red, Legarde, which I drank with it.

Five of us went to dinner at Le Maison de Marie just off Nice’s Rue Massena, near the square.  We’d been before, two years ago.  That was in late May, but we were still able to dine outside comfortably, sheltered by a screen from the wind, and with patio heaters to help.

I began with the deep fried goat’s cheese sand mushrooms.  The two tastes didn’t really interact, but it was quite nice to change from one to the other occasionally to clear the palate.

One of us had the warm octopus salad, while the sea scallops carpaccio with argan oil looked pretty good.  I think I ate that one last time.

For my main course I ordered the grilled swordfish with clams done in the Provence style.  Both elements tasted superb, and the potatoes were nice, too.

Desserts featured a trio of crèmes brulées, and an amazing-looking tiramisu banane chocolat, which we were told tasted as good as it looked.

We drank Provence rosé, of course, and afterwards adjourned to the street tables at Divino’s in Dalpozzo Street to smoke some Nicaraguan cigars with our cognac.

A group of us went to Le Quai in the old Market Place just below the castle that separates the promenade from the harbour.  Their ‘formule’ (set menu) looked pretty good, so we all had variations on it.  There was a choice between 3 items for each of the three courses.

I began with the beignets of courgette and aubergine, which were as delicious as ever.  I chose the chicken main course, which was quite tasty, and then went on to the creme brulée to finish with.  It was satisfyingly crisp on top and creamy below.  Yet another pretty classy meal.

The desserts at Les Corsaires sounded so good that we all decided to finish off the meal in style.  I ordered the crème brulee, which came with blobs of whipped cream, nuts, and a decorative swirl of butterscotch sauce.  It was very good, with a nice balance of sugar crust and creamy interior.

One of us had the apple crumble, which came similarly decorated.  It met with approval, though it was described as “very filling.”

The most tempting of the lot was probably the mousse de chocolate.  It had the whipped cream garni, but with a raspberry sauce instead of butterscotch.  It was suitably and mouth-meltingly oozy as it was opened.  This turned out to be quite a spectacular lunch…

A group of 5 of us caught the train for Villefranche from Nice.  After a quick look round the 14th Century little Church of St Peter, whose walls and ceiling were magnificently adorned by Jean Cocteau in the 1950s, we went for lunch to Les Corsaires, where I often go.  This time I ordered the tapas selection called Les Sirenes.  It was very good, though the mixture was curious.  There was tandoori chicken, fried squid rings, tomatoes with mozzarella, corn chips and a hot dip.  There were things that looked like sausages but had potato in them, and the prize went to the chorizo deep-fried in batter.  That was really yummy.

Of the other dishes, I thought the winner was the duck with gnocchi.  The duck, cooked pink, was superbly tasty, and the gnocchi were cooked just right and full of flavour.  There were desserts to follow, but more about those later.  We drank the house rose wine with the food, and found it was as good as we remembered…