Hassans!

Broad Street
Oxford



Frequent revellers leaving the KA. Or last minute Finals crammers leaving the Bod late can often be seen orbiting Hassan's kebab van on Broad Street.

Undergoing a makeover, and returning proudly with a huge, shiny pimped out van this Trinity term, Hassans now boasts 'gourmet cuisine' in enormous lettering, as well as its new name: 'Chez Hassan'.



The grills are so shiny!


Allowing three people to work without constantly getting in each other's way, the new van is a triumph to 2am munchy preparation.



The burgers are as bad as they always were, but the runny egg (yes, they cooked the egg beautifully!) with greasy pattie stuffed into a bun is to die for, after too many Old Rosies.

A return to Guest Night at New

New College
Oxford



Having raved about our steak at a guest night in a previous post, we took the leap and signed up for the end of term dinner - promising to be a fancy affair.

New was going 'Japanese' with the above menu promising... well... probably too much.



Condiment platters arrive: sweet chili sauce, gari (pickled ginger), and little fish filled with soy sauce.



First up, H's vegetarian platter. Vegetable tempura in the far distance (pumpkin, we think), vege maki roll, rice topped with half a quail's egg, cucumber and gari.



Non-vegetarians were served the above: prawn tempura, prawn sushi, smoked salmon, cucumber roll and what we think is a tuna maki rolled in shredded nori.

The rice was hard and bland, while the fish was... oddly flavourless. The attempt at tempura was admirable, but was probably closer to fish & chips batter.



An unplanned middle course arrived: vegetarian soup. Surprising, as college are known to cut costs where ever possible, so unannounced courses tend not to occur. It turns out that they probably had dishwater that they needed to dispose, and we were the recipients. A medley of random vegetables combined with shiitaki mushroom stems (tougher than jerky, and much less tasty) came in a thin vegetal broth that was most likely made from boiling carrot together with cabbage. Totally inedible.



The main course of tonkatsu, yakituri [sic] and rice. What can I say? the rice is of the Uncle Ben variety - bland and hard, and as no sauce-based food was served, impossible to swallow. The 'yakitori' was just grilled chicken with no sauce, and no seasoning. Chewy, bland, hard. The tonkatsu was more similar to a poorly executed schnitzel - no real complaints, but again dry and bland, although it was about all that we could eat.



The vegetarian option - an udon casserole (heaven help the man who thought of that idea) was declared a mess. Gloopy noodles sat in essentially the same mix that had previously been served as soup, topped with an egg. As H doesn't like egg, this was pretty much declared inedible as well.



The side servings of boiled pumpkin and spinach added some texture, and (thank goodness) a tiny amount of moisture to the meal.



Dessert turned out to be a surprisingly edible 'cheesecake', which was in fact more like a baked cottage cheese mix topped with a lychee.



Served with mango sauce (read: canned mango pulp), it was surprisingly good.

All in all, this was worse than the first effort documented here. For £17 per head, this is not good eats.

New College Guest Night - revisited

New College
Oxford



In our previous installment on Guest Night at New College, your reviewers panned the ability of Chef to construct a cohesive dish, and his total lack in common sense in sticking foie gras into lumpy mashed potato.



We return once more to sample what an Oxford college can provide.



A very pretty salmon starter appeared, capped with toast and paired with a baby leaf salad. Certainly an improvement upon last time, with the salmon tasting mild and creamy, balanced well by a herb dressing and a slight sharpness from the green leaves.



Mostly mild, the salad was comprised of fancy lettuces and baby spinach, but the occasional rocket leaf added some zing.



Curiously, the High Table was always served almost table-side, by a portable service unit. Did their mains get cold quicker than ours, necessitating this stainless steel display of culinary dexterity? Who knows. In our opinion, it just added clanking racket to the already bustling hall.



High Table, cloaked in darkness - could they see what they were eating?



Steak and mash - redux.



This time the mash was much creamier, although still slightly heavy. Served as an imperfect quenelles still indicated a rushed service. No real complaints, as Chef would need to plate almost 150 servings simultaneously - something few restaurants would wish to attempt.



The steak this time immediately caught our attention. Rather than the flaccid, grey splodge of the previous visit, this filet mignon was pert, caramalised, and crusted nicely with aromatic spices that at once suffused our senses in the most pleasant way.



Served atop sauteed cabbage and green beans with a simple jus, it was all done to the internal temperature to decide whether or not this meal would be sublime.





Look at that delicious spice crust. A mix of fennel, cumin and coriander seeds, the steak tasted faintly of anise mingled with the musk of cumin, which, usually served with lamb was a heady addition accentuating the meaty taste of the beef.



The vegetarian option was similar, replacing the steak with a crusted, stuffed, portabello mushroom.



Which was declared competent, but still just a mushroom, by our vegetarian friend H.



Yes! Finally, somebody left a bit of pinkness in my steak!



Absolutely brilliant - a medium to medium rare steak is certainly something I can sink my teeth into. Left to rest, the juices had redistributed. Combined with the flavours of the spices, this made for a wonderful morsel.



All washed down with a bottle of Bordeaux we had brought back from Paris.



And followed by a berry mousse topped with a tuille.



A wondered whether Chef was having a mushroom themed dinner, as the entree was also presented in this fashion. Who knows?

All in all, Chef at New has definitely redeemed himself in my books. Having just enjoyed some gorgeous steak in Paris, I could not say that this was the best steak I had eaten for a while, but it is certainly one of the best served to me in the UK - and we eat a lot of steak!

Formal Hall and Guest Night Dinner at New College, Oxford

New College, Oxford, is one of those big, old, academically excellent, and understandably arrogant colleges. Well, not arrogant, but New students certainly understand their place in the pecking order.



Bits of Harry Potter were filmed here, and it is probably one of the few places in the world to be described as new, whilst being over five centuries old.

Formal Hall, in Oxford colleges, tend to mean a served meal, where students are required to dress in academic gowns, and the food is slightly better than usual. In the newer colleges (it's all relative), Formal Hall occurs once a week, and is, indeed, a three course meal a cut above the usual hall servery. In the older colleges, of which New is definitely one, a canteen style meal is served around 630, and a second, formal, sitting at 730. Although this is a served three course meal, the food is identical to the previous sitting, and has had the benefit of being kept warm for an hour longer. Yum.

The entree of carrot and coriander soup was replaced with potato and leek at short notice, apparently, because they ran out. A great start.

Mains were: lamb cassoulet, three bean stack for vegetarians, served with new potatoes and carrots.



The lamb was cooked decently, being tender and still flavourful, but it wasn't cassoulet. It was simply stewed in tomato sauce, with very little depth in flavour, and tasting of little other than tomato. It was quite nice a tomato sauce, mind you, being full of fruit and not at all acidic. The menu had read creamed potatoes, but apparently that had run out as well.



Choux with cream and chocolate.



There was a New and Christ Church crew date on, that night. What that is takes a whole different post to explain. A taster is that we left them as one of the fine young gentlemen swigged lager from his shoe. Public schoolboys, eh?


Guest Night



The following Friday saw us at the New College Guest Night, which is an opportunity for students to invite friends and show off what the college chefs can do. It also coincided with Halloween, and a 'bop' after dinner. The price is also higher, at £10 per head, rather than the usual £4-5 for formal hall dinners.



The menu was promising, although, what on earth is 'foie gras mash'?? Chunks of liver in my mashed potato? Why? Truffles, yum. Almost any spice or herb, yum. Lumps of liver? how does that add taste or texture contrasts that would accentuate the creaminess of the mash?



Dinner began well: the smoked salmon was delicious. Silky, smooth, not at all salty, and refreshingly matched with the cucumber parpadelle, and a very tasty salsa-verde/pesto. The blini was a very odd texture. Not bad, per se, but with no bite at all, it was too mushy for my liking.

The vegetarian entree was half an artichoke, and some sort of mushroom. Our vegetarian friend, HW, didn't like the mushroom, and didn't even realised that the artichoke was indeed that, and merely played with it.



The filet mignon was a devastating disappointment. Being the avid steak lovers that A and I both are, being served boiled meat is a cruel stab in the gut. Even in the dim candle lit great hall, we could see that the meat was at best flaccid and grey, and a quick prod confirmed that they were well-done, killing any appeal that filet mignon might have had.



Parsnip chips were soft and chewy, not a good description for anything listed as a 'chip'. The foie gras mash was, as expected, extremely confusing. My (very very dry) mash had a lump of liver in it, as did A's. I am fairly certain that it was exactly that - liver - not the creamy, buttery goodness that is foie gras. Tasteless, chewy, and an unappetising grey, it failed to impress. The mash itself not only failed because of its dryness, but was also cooling rapidly due to the difficulties in serving 150 steaks simultaneously.

The vegetarian stack, I am told, was fine. What would you expect from a vegetarian?



The dessert was interesting. Tasty, but so oddly executed. The iced lemon parfait tasted beautiful, but was frozen so solid that the entire table was casually guarding plates with their left hand, and surreptitiously prodding gently with their right. Apparent on everybody's faces was the understanding that pushing too hard with a spoon would mean an airborne parfait, showers of raspberry, and certain ignominy.

Good company, flowing wine, silly costumes and the promise of a long party downstairs certainly perked up the evening.



On the way home, we came across the new kebab van to take residence outside the Taylorian entrance to the University Museum, the Ashmoleon. Owned by he same guy who has the healthy meals place in the covered market, this is an attempt at a 'gourmet' burger. More expensive than the usual kebab followed by a good puke, at approximately £3 per burger it was still an affordable deal.



Bah, so many pansy, fruity, vegetarian choices. Tofu steak? That's not a steak! If it didn't suffer, then I'm not eating it. Or something like that.

I had a cheese burger, with gruyere. A chose the steak burger, also served with cheese. My beefburger was unceremoniously smacked on to the hotplate as a ball, and smooshed down by the cook. A very asymmetric patty was formed, and I was certain that it would fall apart. What resulted was a floury bap sandwiched around a delicious beef patty, made from beef!, topped with salad (not brown lettuce), guacamole, salsa, and grilled gruyere. Delicious. Not enough red meat for me, but absolutely delicious.

A's steak burger was made up of very thinly sliced strips of a cheap cut of beef (probably, at best, topside), marinaded in soy sauce and other flavours (possibly worcester sauce, and something sweet). With a selection of sauces, it tasted divine.



If you're in Oxford, and end up turfed out of your favourite local, hunt down this little gem and enjoy a fabulous burger. Just don't get taken in by that vegetarian stuff.