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.

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.

Cafe Opium

Cafe Opium
67-69 George Street
Oxford

Having reviewed Cafe Opium here for yum cha, and here for noodle soup, this will be a brief roundup of a late, quick and delicious dinner.



Sizzling beef with black pepper. Savoury, tender, not at all authentic Chinese, but very good anyway.



Black pepper pork with rice. Cheap and filling. Nothing wrong except lacking in some authenticity. Basic stir fry with gravy over rice.



Mushroom duck with rice.



Kung Po chicken, I think.



Not sure how this was, but the neon sauce doesn't bode well.



My shui zhu rou (literally boiled beef) was delicious. Served poached in a chili broth with veges on the bottom of the bowl, it lacked the litres of fiery chili oil used in China (I kid you not, it is meant to be drowned in oil), but had a very good flavour.



The perfect accompaniment to plain rice.



Satay beef with rice (?).



Roast duck on rice. I've only had duck at Cafe Opium once, and it was very salty and not terribly crisp. In their defence it was about 11.30pm and I wasn't the most sober I'd ever been. This particular version looked very nice.



The damage: £7 for a main dish with rice. Not bad, not great, but most of the mains were delicious and were quickly gobbled up.

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).

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.