Sunday 30 May 2010

BBQ 30th May 2010

Just had a typical British BBQ - spent the whole time dodging showers!

On Friday evening I made up the burgers and left them to give them lots of time for the flavours to infuse.... Yummy!

I did two sorts of burgers; Beef with garlic, basil, red chili and mozzarella. And Lamb with garlic and rosemary.

The beef ones were successful though I think I needed less garlic and more mozzarella - all in all a good result.

The lamb burgers were good, but too much garlic. The rosemary was completely knocked out by the garlic.

Otherwise all good - we had a spicy cous cous with peppers, lemon, chili, garlic and a few odds and sods! And we also had cumbrian sausages, guacamole, lambs lettuce, watercress, granary rolls and a few other bits and bobs. Not a bad effort!

Just about managed to keep out of the rain too.

Davis's Restaurant @ The Yeats Tavern, Drumcliff, Co. Sligo, Ireland


The Darling Wife took me to this restaurant in rural Ireland specialising in local seafood for a birthday treat last year (conveniently it fitted it with a weekend visit to attend the wedding of a schoolfriend).


The wide-ranging menu made selecting rather a tough task but we finally settled upon starters of Irish Oak Smoked Salmon, served with homemade chive pancakes and créme fraiche (for me) and Local Fresh Crab Claws served hot with butter to dip (for the Darling Wife , about which she has frequently reminisced and described as "heavenly").


We both choose a main course of Fillet of Lemon Sole stuffed with fresh crab meat (for the Darling Wife) and prawns (for me), white wine sauce & gratinated cheese. These were excellent although very rich.


We should have stopped there but the Darling Wife had arranged a chocolate brownie (my favourite) with ice-cream and a birthday candle for us to share in lieu of a birthday cake!


We had a wonderful bottle of wine from their extensive wine list though for some reason it escapes me now - probably a Chablis or a Sancerre.




My Rating: 8/10

The Pigs, Edgefield, North Norfolk


Well, here we go. I've been thinking for a while that it was time I started a bit of a blog on my foodie escapades! We (the Darling Wife and I) went to The Pigs at Edgefield a few months back and it was one of the more memorable food experiences we have had.

We had been advised that it was well worth a visit and so we dropped in one evening on the way home from a day in North Norfolk. We were far from disappointed!

The Pigs is a real foodie haven. It won Country Pub of the Year - "Country Life" Awards 2009. All food is made freshly in the kitchens using the best local ingredients that Norfolk has to offer. You can even turn up with locally sourced ingredients and barter for a pint! We were warmly greeted by a busy but enthusiastic barman who having found us a table and supplied us with some great local ale and home-made scratchings, patiently waited while we dribbled our way through the menu.

We started off by sharing "Piggy Pieces" - a tasty homage to some of the best and most often missed bits of the pig, consisting of pigs ear, heart, liver, tongue, spleen and various other offal bits. Yum!

Then, I had the "Three Pigs" with the mustard mash and Darling Wife had the "Rosemary roasted chicken breast". The "Three Pigs" consists of slow cooked belly of pork, smoky bacon beans, apple chutney, black pudding and crackling. This is The Pigs signature dish and what a great statement of all they strive to do! The belly was the best I've ever come across the balance of the salty/smokey beans with the apple chutney was excellent and I don't believe I've tasted better black pudding anywhere. My only complaint was that there was actually too much food and had we planned to have three courses each we would have had to retire halfway through the second act.

Darling Wife's Rosemary roasted chicken breast comes with crispy dry cured bacon, buttered leeks & lemon and thyme mash. She seemed most taken with it, but showed a degree of jealousy for my choice. It seems the chicken was a little less flavoursome than expected, and let down an otherwise excellent dish. The mash was a great success! She felt that perhaps there was a need for more rosemary and that it might work better without the skin.

After managing to fit this lot in we were in no state to try the puds and so we look forward to a return trip to right the situation!

I recommend a visit to their site in order to get the appetite worked up:
http://www.thepigs.org.uk/

My rating: 8/10