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Showing posts with label lamb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lamb. Show all posts
Friday, 3 July 2009
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Oxford farmers' market
Farmers' market
Gloucester Green
alternate Thursdays every month
Apostrophy madness aside, the market is a great place to buy fresh meat from farmers, giving better choice than the usual weekly Wednesday market, and with a few interesting stalls that outstrips the usually excellent covered market.
The hog roast man is usually there, and aside from excellent roast pork baps, he also sells fresh bacon and pork ribs.
Fresh soup is always to be had.
Local ales.
Masses of crackling: the hog will usually come to 200-250 portion.
This lady sells amazing goats' cheese. Garlic, herb, pepper, it's all excellent.
Small batch farm-made dairy products.
Not being a sucker for meaningless adjectives like 'farm made', these cheeses spoke for themselves. The smoked cheddar was singularly outstanding.
The pork man (one of many) sells excellent tongue.
Blue veined brie.
By 12 noon the doughnuts have all sold out.
The mushroom man sells interesting varieties: shiitaki, shimeiji, oyster and the best giant portobellos we've tasted.
We took home one of the cute little punnets of beets. Watch this space for our beet-growing antics!
All sorts of vegetables I never thought to grow at home: including sweetcorn!
This man sells brilliant mutton, and also game when in season as well as grain-fed duck, smoked chicken and also venison.
Mmm, smallgoods...
Little Whittenham lamb, as well as beef from a local farm every alternate market.
The breads aren't my favourite: I prefer our local baker at Gatineau.
Gloucester Green
alternate Thursdays every month
Apostrophy madness aside, the market is a great place to buy fresh meat from farmers, giving better choice than the usual weekly Wednesday market, and with a few interesting stalls that outstrips the usually excellent covered market.
The hog roast man is usually there, and aside from excellent roast pork baps, he also sells fresh bacon and pork ribs.
Fresh soup is always to be had.
Local ales.
Masses of crackling: the hog will usually come to 200-250 portion.
This lady sells amazing goats' cheese. Garlic, herb, pepper, it's all excellent.
Small batch farm-made dairy products.
Not being a sucker for meaningless adjectives like 'farm made', these cheeses spoke for themselves. The smoked cheddar was singularly outstanding.
The pork man (one of many) sells excellent tongue.
Blue veined brie.
By 12 noon the doughnuts have all sold out.
The mushroom man sells interesting varieties: shiitaki, shimeiji, oyster and the best giant portobellos we've tasted.
We took home one of the cute little punnets of beets. Watch this space for our beet-growing antics!
All sorts of vegetables I never thought to grow at home: including sweetcorn!
This man sells brilliant mutton, and also game when in season as well as grain-fed duck, smoked chicken and also venison.
Mmm, smallgoods...
Little Whittenham lamb, as well as beef from a local farm every alternate market.
The breads aren't my favourite: I prefer our local baker at Gatineau.
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).
Browns
Browns
5-11 Woodstock Rd
Oxford, OX2 6HA
Brown's a chain throughout England, and is one of the more upstanding establishments in Oxford, catering to the well heeled populance in search of cooling cocktails on a summer evening, and also the occasional student dressed in the Sunday best, rescued from the usual college gruel by a visiting parent. Not quite as old fuddy-duddy as the Old Parsonage, Browns nevertheless commands a relatively high position in Oxford cuisine, with a price tag to match.
Your intrepid reporter went for a leisurely Friday lunch with four friends in tow. Ordering was fairly swift, without the usual dithering about what to pick.
MH's chicken schnitzel with poached egg was fairly well received, although the chicken was somewhat dry - a recurring theme during the lunch. The egg was perfectly poached, and at just over a tenner, not a bad dish.
L's pappardelle with chicken was... well, dry. The pasta was nice with a tiny bit of bite, but the chicken pieces had been wrung of all juice.
E's chicken baguette arrived with brilliant frites, but was, again, dry. Not one to complain, E seemed content with the whole package.
It looks moist, but it didn't quite deliver.
Y-M's slow braised belly of pork came on a veritable mountain of mash - not to be attempted by the faint of stomach. This was the only dish to pass without negative comment.
Creamed spinach came smothered in fat. Not the most pleasant sight to behold, unless you're training for a heart attack.
The main quibble: my rack of lamb with potato dauphinoise: raw lamb and crunchy potato.
At first glance, it looks fine, although the lamb has been cut in a peculiar way, with uneven bones and somewhat ragged meat.
This is the serving before I had touched it: the ragged cut marks done the rack were performed in the kitchen. The piece to the left was twice as thick as the piece to the right, and the other pieces on the plate were equally irregular. I managed to eat the piece on the right, but the fatter piece on the left came out raw and cold inside, with only marginal grilling penetrating no more than a millimetre of the surface.
Doesn't that look like someone has had a go at my lunch already? So I send back the dish, as it was a thick round of totally raw lamb, and 25 minutes later - after my table had finished eating - I receive the following:
Mysteriously, my four two-bone 'racks' had turned into four very thin lamb chops. The photo doesn't adequately demonstrate how small and thin the pieces were. Upon asking our waiter, I was informed that these were the same pieces of lamb I had sent back (but obviously sans the piece I had cut open to reveal cold meat), reheated and served a second time. The manager came, and told me a contrary story: that on the first plate I had been given 'extra' as the pieces were rather small, and that this is the standard serving. Not a satisfactory answer by any stretch of the imagination.
As a compromise we were offered a free dessert, and the side dishes (chips, and creamed spinach) taken off the bill. L had the Pimms jelly, which although sounding interesting turned out to be a foul tasting blob of rubber. Real rubber would probably have tasted better.
I opted for a cheese board as my freebie, to share with the table.
Grapes with yellowing ends.
Wilting celery, and an extremely watery 'balsamic onion chutney' - that rather resembled bisto gravy gone wrong - were served with some severely under ripe cheeses.
The damage: Around £12-15 each for a main dish, with good service and abysmal food. I would not go back again, despite the gesture to remove some of the items from the bill.
5-11 Woodstock Rd
Oxford, OX2 6HA
Brown's a chain throughout England, and is one of the more upstanding establishments in Oxford, catering to the well heeled populance in search of cooling cocktails on a summer evening, and also the occasional student dressed in the Sunday best, rescued from the usual college gruel by a visiting parent. Not quite as old fuddy-duddy as the Old Parsonage, Browns nevertheless commands a relatively high position in Oxford cuisine, with a price tag to match.
Your intrepid reporter went for a leisurely Friday lunch with four friends in tow. Ordering was fairly swift, without the usual dithering about what to pick.
MH's chicken schnitzel with poached egg was fairly well received, although the chicken was somewhat dry - a recurring theme during the lunch. The egg was perfectly poached, and at just over a tenner, not a bad dish.
L's pappardelle with chicken was... well, dry. The pasta was nice with a tiny bit of bite, but the chicken pieces had been wrung of all juice.
E's chicken baguette arrived with brilliant frites, but was, again, dry. Not one to complain, E seemed content with the whole package.
It looks moist, but it didn't quite deliver.
Y-M's slow braised belly of pork came on a veritable mountain of mash - not to be attempted by the faint of stomach. This was the only dish to pass without negative comment.
Creamed spinach came smothered in fat. Not the most pleasant sight to behold, unless you're training for a heart attack.
The main quibble: my rack of lamb with potato dauphinoise: raw lamb and crunchy potato.
At first glance, it looks fine, although the lamb has been cut in a peculiar way, with uneven bones and somewhat ragged meat.
This is the serving before I had touched it: the ragged cut marks done the rack were performed in the kitchen. The piece to the left was twice as thick as the piece to the right, and the other pieces on the plate were equally irregular. I managed to eat the piece on the right, but the fatter piece on the left came out raw and cold inside, with only marginal grilling penetrating no more than a millimetre of the surface.
Doesn't that look like someone has had a go at my lunch already? So I send back the dish, as it was a thick round of totally raw lamb, and 25 minutes later - after my table had finished eating - I receive the following:
Mysteriously, my four two-bone 'racks' had turned into four very thin lamb chops. The photo doesn't adequately demonstrate how small and thin the pieces were. Upon asking our waiter, I was informed that these were the same pieces of lamb I had sent back (but obviously sans the piece I had cut open to reveal cold meat), reheated and served a second time. The manager came, and told me a contrary story: that on the first plate I had been given 'extra' as the pieces were rather small, and that this is the standard serving. Not a satisfactory answer by any stretch of the imagination.
As a compromise we were offered a free dessert, and the side dishes (chips, and creamed spinach) taken off the bill. L had the Pimms jelly, which although sounding interesting turned out to be a foul tasting blob of rubber. Real rubber would probably have tasted better.
I opted for a cheese board as my freebie, to share with the table.
Grapes with yellowing ends.
Wilting celery, and an extremely watery 'balsamic onion chutney' - that rather resembled bisto gravy gone wrong - were served with some severely under ripe cheeses.
The damage: Around £12-15 each for a main dish, with good service and abysmal food. I would not go back again, despite the gesture to remove some of the items from the bill.
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