Byfords, Holt. 19th June 2008

The Darling Wife has been looking forward to eating at Byfords for months and we were pleased to find time to go.

The restaurant has a delightful ambiance and lots of wonderful character, the building dates back as far as the 15th century in parts and there is a wealth of flint, red-brick and exposed timbers.

Upon arriving one is slightly confusingly directed to the middle of the restaurant to be shown to one's table. We were placed in a bay-window overlooking the square outside, a slight squeeze but a pleasant table.

Quite a good touch is the help-yourself table full of roasted peanuts, olives and breads with oils and balsamic vinegar. However it is not that well placed in the middle of the main thoroughfare of the establishment, and we did struggle to get to the table due to ill mannered fellow diners who were unaware of the custom of queuing!

We ordered a couple of glasses of Adnams Pink Champagne and settled down to choose from the tempting menu. Our champagne appeared with a most welcome jug of iced tap water.

Unfortunately neither of us was really very hungry, so we opted to share a couple of items from the tapas menu; Tempura King Prawns with Rocket and a tartare/mayonnaise sauce, and, Pork Rillette with melba toast.

It did seem to take an age for our tapas to arrive. When it did, we were pleased with the prawns, though the sauce was a little lack-lustre and the Rillette was pleasant tasting and absolutely fine. There were flecks of orange in there, which we initially thought would be apricot, though the flavour and sweetness was undetectable so we then settled on it being carrot. The melba toast was not really toasted, more warmed-through and there were only two rather small slices of baguette, so, a quick trip to the bread table was in order.

After a fairly lengthy wait our main courses arrived. Darling Wife had chosen the Steak and Chips Salad and I ordered a "posh" Parma ham Pizza. This is where it all fell apart.

The Darling Wifes salad didn't go down well, the honey & mustard dressing was not to her liking and too much of the red onion compote. Darling Wife felt that the combination was an unsuccessful concept. And the sauteed potatoes were not terribly flavoursome. It is quite possible that it was simply a poor choice and that it would be a success with some other diners.

My "Posh Pizza" sounded mouthwatering and tempted me away from all the other tasty sounding options. Regrettably it was a complete disaster. We regularly eat in several of the large chains which now cover the nation and I usually choose a Pizza as they are hard to get wrong and can be really enjoyable, never have I had a Pizza as bad as this from any restaurant.

The pizza was described as Parma Ham, Chorizo, Milano Salami, Red Pepper, Italian Ragu, Mozzarella, Rocket on a hand-thrown thin crust authentic pizza base made and baked on-site. This should be a recipe for great success.

I think the chief problem was the ragu. Apart from being heavily laden with red onions (which will never go down well with me!), it was simply too wet. The amount of liquid made the base of the pizza turn into a bit of a goo; the texture was rather off-putting. The ragu also contained large chunks of either courgette or aubergine (hard to tell quite which in the tomato sauce), which while perfectly acceptable ingredients in a ragu, just didn't seem to work. One other thing which surprised me was the chorizo which I expected to be of the smaller-thicker sliced variety, as it was the large thin-sliced pieces were entirely covered by cheese and simply warmed through rather than cooked or crispy.

I don't intend to slate this restaurant. I think it could be a wonderful dining experience, the salad was a poor choice for the Darling Wife and the Pizza was something they ought to redesign. I did notice that the menu allowed one to make one's own pizza using pesto as a base-sauce instead of the ragu - I might go along this route next time. Pizza is hard to get wrong and if national chains can do them really well then so should the likes of Byfords with their undoubtedly superior ingredients and cooks.

Byfords also operate a deli, a cafe, a B&B and do outside catering, looking at their publicity material it all looks lovely, though I did think perhaps they were a little overpriced, even allowing for the fact that North Norfolk tends to be a costly area to stay. I think that this establishment will do well to re-examine the basics of what they offer - they have been lauded with praise, rave reviews and awards for some time, consequently their prices have risen (though the restaurant prices seem to have remained fair) and their standards appear to have slipped.

Overall this is a good establishment, we intend to make a return visit before too long to see if things can be as good as the reputation suggests.

Go to http://www.byfords.org.uk/ for more info.

My rating: 4or5/10

Hare & Tortoise - Brunswick Centre, Bloomsbury. 1st June 2010

Before I begin, I have to admit to not being terribly keen on Japanese food on the whole, consequently I am hard to please when it comes to Japanese restaurants and this may turn out to be more of a whinge about Japanese establishments as a whole.

I find this whenever we eat somewhere like this; service is poor, you sit on benches with strangers, the acoustics are terrible, music is blaring out of some over-exercised p.a. system. Food turns up in an odd order (more on this in a minute), it takes an age to attract the attention of the staff and even settling-up becomes a drawn out affair.

O.K. so, I can accept that there are cultural differences between the way we eat in restaurants in the West and the way they do in Japan, and these have been brought over along with the food to add an air of authenticity. Or, have they? Is it not simply that it is cheaper and perhaps more speedy to expect us to be happy that food arrives at different times and in different orders?

On to the food:
We asked for a glass of tap water each - they seemed surprised when we were not content with receiving just the one glass.

The Darling Wife ordered Sake Sashimi (raw salmon) and Tempura battered Soft Shell Crab, she seemed happy with this (she likes Japanese foods and seems unusually happy to ignore the short-comings). It seems they were supposed to be served together as the crab arrived about four minutes after the Sashimi and was plonked down alongside.

I ordered Ebi Tempura (deep fried prawns with a dashi-based dipping sauce) to be followed by Roast Duck and rice. My prawns arrived about two minutes after the Darling Wife's second batch arrived, they were good (can you go wrong with deep fried prawns - bar over cooking?) but the dipping sauce was totally without flavour (had the menu been more clearly presented I might have noticed another option among the side dishes, for the same, but with sweet chili, which would have been great). The next problem was that my "main course" arrived alongside my "starter" and so had to cool down while I ate the prawns. The duck, was, judging by its appearance, not only roasted, but had been deep-fried. On inspection, I think this happened at the start of the cooking process. The meat was dry and not very flavoursome, it had clearly spent a little time in a marinade as there was a hint of ginger about it. The rice was cooked satisfactorily (if a little over done for my liking, but it was fine), but where was the sauce? I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was only a tea-spoon full of sauce underneath the duck. It did not appear to have any flavour, but there was so little of it; how could one tell?!

It takes an awful lot for me to decline to finish my food, but I was so disappointed and irritated that I handed it over to the Darling Wife when she announced that she was still peckish. I am something of a human dustbin - this was a first!

So, what I want to know is:

1. Why does the ambiance have to be so poor?
2. Why is it so hard to serve both diners with their food at the same time, and in the correct order?
3. Why was my duck and rice so poor?
4. Why is the service so inattentive?

I also wonder why it is that we seem to be happy to accept this poor service? The Darling Wife is usually lightning quick to jump down the throat of restaurant staff if things are not absolutely satisfactory, and it tends to make me squirm with embarrassment. Why, therefore, is she so happy to accept it in these eateries? It is not just the Darling Wife either, it seems she is entirely in the mainstream in having lower expectations of Japanese restaurants than she does of Western restaurants and indeed Thai and Indian too.

Quite baffling!

For info: http://www.hareandtortoise.co.uk/ they have several restaurants around London.

My rating - 2/10 (only because the Darling Wife was contented (which is the main thing!!))