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Showing posts with label gourmet society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gourmet society. Show all posts
Friday, 3 July 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Cafe Rouge
Café Rouge
51 St Giles St
Oxford
OX1 3LU
With a fantastic 50% off the food bill with the Gourmet Society, we couldn't wait to dine at Café Rouge.
Having had fantastic steak and roast chicken here before, the discount is difficult to ignore.
Café Rouge is a nation-wide chain serving (faux?) French food - mostly steak, chicken, and fish, grilled or roasted. Faily generic, but in Oxford it is done very well. It's about the only place in Oxford one can find a steak cooked to order, rather than uniformly grey.
The highlight is usually the dessert menu.
My duo of seafood (crab mayonnaise, and smoked salmon) was somewhat disappointing. The salmon was marvellous, but the crab was scant and mayonnaise overpowering.
A chose the daily special of escargot served one of three ways (with spinach, or garlic butter, or goat's cheese). The garlic butter was delicious, and snails tender and flavourful but without the earthy stink that they sometimes have.
We asked the waiter the provenance of the snails, and after several iterations he got it out of chef that they were sent alive from France and not frozen as we had assumed.
A's seabass with spinach was served possibly poached. The skin was certainly flaccid, with no sign of crispness. The fish was cooked nicely though, with good flavour. It was just a shame that the crisp skin, usually the highlight of seabass, was left out.
My marinated bavette steak was delicious. Recommended by our flamboyant (Brazillian) waiter, it came with excellent frites, and served rare (or as near as possible) as requested. When ordering, we asked what bavette was, not being familiar with the term. After some confusion, our waitre rubs his tummy and declares 'the belly!' And indeed it was - a trimmed piece of thin skirt steak marinated in oil, garlic, spices and wine, and grilled rare. Slightly chewy but with an intense flavour of beef and the marinade, this is definitely one of the better steaks I've recently had.
A couldn't resist the trio of desserts: lemon tart, rum baba and chocolate truffle torte. The lemon tart was perfectly light with a zesty flavour, and topped with brulée sugar. The rum baba lacked rum - rather it was watered down for the English I expect, and the chocolate truffle torte was decadent and heavenly.
The damage: with 50% off the food bill, and a bottle of wine, dinner for the two of us came to a meagre £41.72 - a ridiculous amount. Even with tipping our fantastic waiter heavily, we walked away from a delicious three course meal barely scathed. Paying full price, the bill would be £70-80 for two. Still excellent for the quality of food here.
51 St Giles St
Oxford
OX1 3LU
With a fantastic 50% off the food bill with the Gourmet Society, we couldn't wait to dine at Café Rouge.
Having had fantastic steak and roast chicken here before, the discount is difficult to ignore.
Café Rouge is a nation-wide chain serving (faux?) French food - mostly steak, chicken, and fish, grilled or roasted. Faily generic, but in Oxford it is done very well. It's about the only place in Oxford one can find a steak cooked to order, rather than uniformly grey.
The highlight is usually the dessert menu.
My duo of seafood (crab mayonnaise, and smoked salmon) was somewhat disappointing. The salmon was marvellous, but the crab was scant and mayonnaise overpowering.
A chose the daily special of escargot served one of three ways (with spinach, or garlic butter, or goat's cheese). The garlic butter was delicious, and snails tender and flavourful but without the earthy stink that they sometimes have.
We asked the waiter the provenance of the snails, and after several iterations he got it out of chef that they were sent alive from France and not frozen as we had assumed.
A's seabass with spinach was served possibly poached. The skin was certainly flaccid, with no sign of crispness. The fish was cooked nicely though, with good flavour. It was just a shame that the crisp skin, usually the highlight of seabass, was left out.
My marinated bavette steak was delicious. Recommended by our flamboyant (Brazillian) waiter, it came with excellent frites, and served rare (or as near as possible) as requested. When ordering, we asked what bavette was, not being familiar with the term. After some confusion, our waitre rubs his tummy and declares 'the belly!' And indeed it was - a trimmed piece of thin skirt steak marinated in oil, garlic, spices and wine, and grilled rare. Slightly chewy but with an intense flavour of beef and the marinade, this is definitely one of the better steaks I've recently had.
A couldn't resist the trio of desserts: lemon tart, rum baba and chocolate truffle torte. The lemon tart was perfectly light with a zesty flavour, and topped with brulée sugar. The rum baba lacked rum - rather it was watered down for the English I expect, and the chocolate truffle torte was decadent and heavenly.
The damage: with 50% off the food bill, and a bottle of wine, dinner for the two of us came to a meagre £41.72 - a ridiculous amount. Even with tipping our fantastic waiter heavily, we walked away from a delicious three course meal barely scathed. Paying full price, the bill would be £70-80 for two. Still excellent for the quality of food here.
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Xi'an
Xi'an
197 Banbury Rd
Oxford, OX2 7AR
My very first restaurant meal in Oxford was Xi'an. Arriving in 2003 as a bright eyed and bushy tailed postgraduate fresher, my family and I went for a quick Chinese meal at Xi'an. Totally unimpressed and slightly aghast at the Oxford prices for generic food, I didn't have the heart to return till 2005, when hungry and out of sorts, a friend and I went to the only Chinese in Summertown. That was almost a half decade ago, and some friends and I decided to investigate Xi'an again.
Showy shelves full of empty bottles. From the higher end Cloudy Bay whites, to the masses of Dom Perignon, to the sake:
To show the opulence of the restaurateur? The clientele? No idea. These wines weren't even on the menu!
The well-stocked bar. Because there's nowhere better than a Chinese restaurant for cocktails!
Ubiquitous prawn crackers served with the menu. Nothing to fault as they were crisp and dry - not at all greasy.
Flowers of rice-puff.
More than one bottle of 'Kiwi Cuvee' was consumed, and spilt, that night.
We settle for everybody's favourite: set menu C with extra prawn cracker. What's on the menu? who knows.
Mixed entrees of vegetarian spring rolls, sticky ribs, chicken wings and 'C' weed. Not bad, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not, but at least it was fairly tasty and filling, without the usual quantities of grease, despite being deep fried dishes.
Next up: lettuce wraps with pork filling. Very nice, in fact. My evening was definitely looking up.
Trimmings for the duck. Can one eat out in Britain without the crispy duck?
Mmmm, deep fried to oblivion, the duck was surprisingly moist on the inside, with a great crispy texture.
Sweet sauce.
Pancakes
Shredded and yum.
A attacked the remnants of a wing. Minimum duck and maximum crisp. Yumm-o.
The mains turned out to be highly disappointing. The lo-han (meaning monk's) duck was just a medley of vegetables (hence reference to monk) with pieces of pre-cooked duck. Stringy duck with what is meant to be a vegetarian dish. Confusing.
At least I love the little straw mushrooms. Tinned, but I do love them so.
Fairly standard fried rice.
Some sort of chicken. I think it was described as Sichuan, but was more akin to Jamie Oliver cooking Chinese than anything I've seen in China.
Or maybe it was meant to be sweet and sour. Who knows.
The only vegetable dish was the deep fried vegetables. Crisp batter, but also soggy with oil, this was a far cry from the impeccable deep frying we'd seen earlier. Maybe chef was outside, scratching himself, and the waitress had to make this herself.
Beef (or was it meant to be lamb?) in a bird's nest: the meat was so thin, fried and chewy that it was impossible to tell what was in there. Possibly it was all batter - I do not know. The sauce was sickly sweet, possibly left over from the ribs earlier, and the nest was a dense, jaw breaking mound of noodles rather than a wispy potato or vermicelli creation.
Don't order it, you will regret it in the morning.
There were a couple of other totally forgettable, and definitely non-Chinese dishes. Everything was greasy, sickly, sweet and sticky. Unfortunately a full glass of wine was sent racing across the table to land all over me, and my genial photo-journalistic mood was spoiled by the loss of my salvation to the evening.
The damage: around £15 per head for bad set menu, or around £20 for a more expensive but no better set menu. Best to just avoid this place like the plague in the first place. As an aside: Xi'an accepts the Gourmet Society card. Avoid it anyway.
197 Banbury Rd
Oxford, OX2 7AR
My very first restaurant meal in Oxford was Xi'an. Arriving in 2003 as a bright eyed and bushy tailed postgraduate fresher, my family and I went for a quick Chinese meal at Xi'an. Totally unimpressed and slightly aghast at the Oxford prices for generic food, I didn't have the heart to return till 2005, when hungry and out of sorts, a friend and I went to the only Chinese in Summertown. That was almost a half decade ago, and some friends and I decided to investigate Xi'an again.
Showy shelves full of empty bottles. From the higher end Cloudy Bay whites, to the masses of Dom Perignon, to the sake:
To show the opulence of the restaurateur? The clientele? No idea. These wines weren't even on the menu!
The well-stocked bar. Because there's nowhere better than a Chinese restaurant for cocktails!
Ubiquitous prawn crackers served with the menu. Nothing to fault as they were crisp and dry - not at all greasy.
Flowers of rice-puff.
More than one bottle of 'Kiwi Cuvee' was consumed, and spilt, that night.
We settle for everybody's favourite: set menu C with extra prawn cracker. What's on the menu? who knows.
Mixed entrees of vegetarian spring rolls, sticky ribs, chicken wings and 'C' weed. Not bad, if you're into that sort of thing. I'm not, but at least it was fairly tasty and filling, without the usual quantities of grease, despite being deep fried dishes.
Next up: lettuce wraps with pork filling. Very nice, in fact. My evening was definitely looking up.
Trimmings for the duck. Can one eat out in Britain without the crispy duck?
Mmmm, deep fried to oblivion, the duck was surprisingly moist on the inside, with a great crispy texture.
Sweet sauce.
Pancakes
Shredded and yum.
A attacked the remnants of a wing. Minimum duck and maximum crisp. Yumm-o.
The mains turned out to be highly disappointing. The lo-han (meaning monk's) duck was just a medley of vegetables (hence reference to monk) with pieces of pre-cooked duck. Stringy duck with what is meant to be a vegetarian dish. Confusing.
At least I love the little straw mushrooms. Tinned, but I do love them so.
Fairly standard fried rice.
Some sort of chicken. I think it was described as Sichuan, but was more akin to Jamie Oliver cooking Chinese than anything I've seen in China.
Or maybe it was meant to be sweet and sour. Who knows.
The only vegetable dish was the deep fried vegetables. Crisp batter, but also soggy with oil, this was a far cry from the impeccable deep frying we'd seen earlier. Maybe chef was outside, scratching himself, and the waitress had to make this herself.
Beef (or was it meant to be lamb?) in a bird's nest: the meat was so thin, fried and chewy that it was impossible to tell what was in there. Possibly it was all batter - I do not know. The sauce was sickly sweet, possibly left over from the ribs earlier, and the nest was a dense, jaw breaking mound of noodles rather than a wispy potato or vermicelli creation.
Don't order it, you will regret it in the morning.
There were a couple of other totally forgettable, and definitely non-Chinese dishes. Everything was greasy, sickly, sweet and sticky. Unfortunately a full glass of wine was sent racing across the table to land all over me, and my genial photo-journalistic mood was spoiled by the loss of my salvation to the evening.
The damage: around £15 per head for bad set menu, or around £20 for a more expensive but no better set menu. Best to just avoid this place like the plague in the first place. As an aside: Xi'an accepts the Gourmet Society card. Avoid it anyway.
Friday, 15 May 2009
The Mitre
The Mitre
17 High Street Oxford
Oxford, OX1 4AQ
The Mitre is one of the Beefeater chains of pubs, 'specialising' in their grill. True to their Beefeater name, the menu boasts a host of deep fried food (usually involving mushrooms or onion) and beef, chicken, lamb and burgers cooked every which way possible.
The photos of the menus aren't terribly good, but rest assured that the menu is a combination of rump, sirloin, ribeye and other meats, cooked to your liking with all the trimmings, priced between £10 and £20 depending on your waist line.
The Mitre also does a generous £9.99 two course special which involves deep fried entrees and grilled mains from a selection of around a dozen options.
My choice on this particular day was the 10oz rib eye grilled rare, of course, served with chips and salad.
Look at that hunk of meat peekabooing behind the salad.
Don't be shy, little steak.
Cut around half an inch thick, the meat was cooked incredibly skillfully, with an even rare texture throughout. The beef itself was disappointing, lacking in real cow-flavour and having rather the taste and slight mealiness of cardboard.
Chicken burger
This is the rump steak served with the set menu. 8oz (I believe), served with five different options for potato (dauphinoise, chipped, mashed, baby or baked), and a plethora of sides, of which YM chose the onion loaf. Somewhat like an unspicy onion bahji, but with more grease and less flavour.
My steak really was cooked rare - an unusual sight in Oxford. Very few places seem to cook an OK steak, and the Mitre happens to be one. Pity about the quality of the beef they use.
Upon asking the waiter how they get the steak so nicely cooked, he told us that it's their special grill, which is kept on all day (how does that help?!), and that the meat is marinated. Bingo. I am guessing cheap, mass consumed beef that isn't hung for flavour, shipped out across Britain to Beefeater pubs everywhere. A pity, because the man behind the grill seems to know what he's doing.
The damage: around £12 for a main, going up to £19 for the half-kilo rib on the bone (highly recommended). Leave you cholesterol counters at home, and let out your belts before eating here. Gourmet society cards accepted here (although there is a LOT of confusion and disinformation about what the discount actually is - this has yet to be resolved. On this occasion, we got 1 free main for each one ordered with a Gourmet Society card).
17 High Street Oxford
Oxford, OX1 4AQ
The Mitre is one of the Beefeater chains of pubs, 'specialising' in their grill. True to their Beefeater name, the menu boasts a host of deep fried food (usually involving mushrooms or onion) and beef, chicken, lamb and burgers cooked every which way possible.
The photos of the menus aren't terribly good, but rest assured that the menu is a combination of rump, sirloin, ribeye and other meats, cooked to your liking with all the trimmings, priced between £10 and £20 depending on your waist line.
The Mitre also does a generous £9.99 two course special which involves deep fried entrees and grilled mains from a selection of around a dozen options.
My choice on this particular day was the 10oz rib eye grilled rare, of course, served with chips and salad.
Look at that hunk of meat peekabooing behind the salad.
Don't be shy, little steak.
Cut around half an inch thick, the meat was cooked incredibly skillfully, with an even rare texture throughout. The beef itself was disappointing, lacking in real cow-flavour and having rather the taste and slight mealiness of cardboard.
Chicken burger
This is the rump steak served with the set menu. 8oz (I believe), served with five different options for potato (dauphinoise, chipped, mashed, baby or baked), and a plethora of sides, of which YM chose the onion loaf. Somewhat like an unspicy onion bahji, but with more grease and less flavour.
My steak really was cooked rare - an unusual sight in Oxford. Very few places seem to cook an OK steak, and the Mitre happens to be one. Pity about the quality of the beef they use.
Upon asking the waiter how they get the steak so nicely cooked, he told us that it's their special grill, which is kept on all day (how does that help?!), and that the meat is marinated. Bingo. I am guessing cheap, mass consumed beef that isn't hung for flavour, shipped out across Britain to Beefeater pubs everywhere. A pity, because the man behind the grill seems to know what he's doing.
The damage: around £12 for a main, going up to £19 for the half-kilo rib on the bone (highly recommended). Leave you cholesterol counters at home, and let out your belts before eating here. Gourmet society cards accepted here (although there is a LOT of confusion and disinformation about what the discount actually is - this has yet to be resolved. On this occasion, we got 1 free main for each one ordered with a Gourmet Society card).
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