UK – Page 29 – No Expert …but I know what I like

Harveys Fish Market, Oyster Bar & Restaurant – still not the plaice to go!

Harveys of Ramsgate now has an AA Rosette and a change of chef (or so we were told). We thought we would give it a second chance, and see if our opinion of it differs now from our last rather damming post.

IMG_4105[1] — Harveys Fish Market, Oyster Bar & Restaurant

We ordered the fixed price ‘grazing menu’, (which had a very limited fish selection) 2 courses for £12 (this certainly sounded like a bargain), and a couple of glasses of pretty good wine. We also ordered a portion of their own baked bread which was okay. The starters arrived. Things were looking up as the presentation appeared to be not too bad. My salmon and beetroot with micro greens actually had flavour. Unbalanced but flavour none the less. My companion went for the butternut squash risotto. It also looked good but turned out to be completely lacking in flavour, basically just stodge ….oh dear as we were ready to amend our opinion and eat humble pie.

My main course arrived. Apparently this was a ‘belly of pork’. Well it was like no cut of meat I had ever seen. It looked more like a cross section of spinal column (more cartilage than belly!). Only one word came to mind during this course and that I’m afraid was ‘Repulsive’.

My companions Plaice looked like it had been bitten by a Shark!. It was also over cooked.

When asked if we wanted dessert or coffee we decided to pass and left the restaurant as hungry as we went in.

Instead we had pancakes at Miles Cafe Culture – a genuinely buzzy and quality establishment.

Our visit to Harveys was on a Saturday at lunchtime, only two other tables were occupied, so for ambience we had some background music and a baby crying in the corner. We were also a bit surprised that the fish slab was not in use, to let us see what fresh fish was on offer.

We passed by again in the evening, on the way to Age & Sons, and noticed that the restaurant was barely half full. Which was interesting when compared to the completely full Age & Sons, which attracts exactly the type of clientel that Harveys are trying to target.

How the AA could award Harveys with “The only AA Rosette in Thanet” is beyond me. There are more deserving restaurants in Thanet, such as Age & Sons. It was also disconcerting to read the description of Harveys in toptable, it used words like “steller seafood” and intimated that Celebrity Chef John Burton Race was involved in the cooking. I am pretty sure he is not.

After two visits now, our conclusion was that Harveys would be an ideal candidate for another Celebrity Chefs TV show – Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.

It’s great that so much money has been invested in Ramsgate, which does really need a good fish restaurant. We just don’t feel the investment has been made in the kitchen where it really counts. It’s also good to know we are not alone in our views, as I have spotted a couple of reviews now that use words like “Dire” to describe the food in Harveys. So unless there are some major changes here, Harveys can relax as we won’t be reviewing them again.

UPDATE – November 2009 : Just read Jay Rayners recent review for the Observer, spot on. He was also brave enough to try the Oysters!

UPDATE – July 2010 : See picture below, this is amazing. It looks like they are actually using the negative review in The Observer to market the restaurant.

UPDATE – October 2010 : About time! Harveys is finally closed – RIP please! For more information see post from Isle One.

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Almeida – not just for chocoholics

In celebration of chocolate week, Almeida has joined forces with chocolatier Paul A Young to create a unique three course “chocolate” menu. Each dish being combined with a complementary chocolate. So basically instead of wine matching, it’s chocolate matching!.

The whole concept of a chocolate menu seemed a bit of a gimmick, so I was pleasantly surprised just how serious this food was.

The meal began well with a very nice goats cheese appetizer/canapé. Then I had a stunning foie gras dish (described as pan fried foie gras, chocolate and orange – 64% Dominican Republic chocolate with a balance of sweetness and a delicate nutty, smoky taste.) I thought this dish was very subtle with great flavour combinations.

For my next course I went with the pork (braised suckling pig, creamed savoy – with Paul A Young’s Ras el hanout spiced chocolate), again it was a dish that was beautifully complimented by the almost savory chocolate sauce. We even asked the waiter for the recipe and to his credit he went out of his way to get it for us.

One of my chocoholic companions decided to forgo the main course and have two desserts instead. No problem, they just provided him with a “jumbo” sized dessert as the main course. For the rest of us, there was a choice between two desserts. A chocolate souffle that was not so well received and a stunning dessert called Chocolate 3 ways, which included some lovely fudge.

Normal Size Dessert - Chocolate 3 Ways — Normal Size Dessert – Chocolate 3 ways

On the wine front to match the chocolate theme, we went for a rather nice Portuguese red.

P141009_20.48 — 2006 Duas Quintas Branco, Ram os Pinto, Douro, Portugal

The only low mark here related to the wine service where the waitress kept overfilling glasses, which meant that the wine was not evenly distributed and forced us to get a second bottle to make up the short fall. (We would have gone for a second bottle anyway, but would have preferred to do it in our own time).

We then finished the meal with coffee and petits fours.

The layout is very well designed with a distinct bar area and a dinning area that consists almost entirely of round tables. I love round tables in a restaurant, they work so well for both groups of two (both dinners can face into the room) and groups of 6 (much more sociable as you can have cross table conversations with everyone). The acoustics were also very good, we could not hear anything from the neighbouring tables.

The bar is worth a visit on it’s own, we mainly indulged in yummy Chocolate Martinis, but there are some other cocktails on the menu that are worth trying. One of the champagne cocktails, “The Morgan” (Morgan’s Spiced rum, gomme syrup, cranberry juice and champagne) was very nice too.

P141009_20.05 — Chocolate Martini at the Almeida

The restaurant has 2 AA Rosettes, which it certainly merits. It is also off course an ideal pre-theatre venue for the Almeida Theatre. I certainly plan to return, even without Chocolate week.

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Chocolate Unwrapped at the May Fair Hotel

To start celebrating chocolate week, I went with my favourite chocolatier to Chocolate Unwrapped at the May Fair Hotel.

We spend a couple of hours at this event, sampling the wares of a few interesting chocolatiers. There was a display of chocolate art and a number of stands. The exhibitors ranged from the lower end of the scale, i.e., high street brands like Thorntons and Hotel Chocolat, right up to the high end bespoke chocolatiers like Paul A Young.

Chocolates can be a bit like wine, once you have tasted the really good stuff there is no going back, or to quote Michel Roux “Once you have discovered the pleasure, richness, complexity and taste sensations of fine chocolate, you will never look at chocolate in the same way”. So sorry Thorntons we walked right passed your stand.

From what we could see, there were two real standouts, they were both relative newcomers in the field.

The first was Paul Wayne Gregory a former sous chef who also gave one of the talks, he is definitely going places with 9 of the chocolates in his selection being award winners. PWG is at the top of his game, he currently provides chocolates to Michelin star chef Gary Rhodes, and his latest addition a rum chocolate is stunning.

Update: I have just tried another one of his chocolates – called “Space Dust”, superb!.

IMGP2449 — PWGs slogan – Indulgence is everything

The other standout was based in Leeds of all places, they were Lauden Chocolates who presented their selection in very simple but elegant transparent boxes. However the presentation alone would not have sold me on them, if they had not got the taste right. Like PWG, they are all about intense flavours, that really work with the chocolate.

As part of my chocolate indulgence weekend I also managed to squeeze in a chocolate martini at 5th View.

P101009_14.08 — Chocolate Martini at 5th View

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Galvin at Windows – Lower prices at a higher altitude

Went to Galvin at Windows for lunch. We tried the set menu at £39.50 (now £45) for 3 courses including coffee, water and half a bottle of wine per person, which was an excellent deal.

Started with a rather lovely mackerel tartar, amusingly presented in a tin. Followed this with Partridge and sweet corn pasta. So far so good. Alas the standards dropped dramatically at dessert – My companion had the Clafoutis which was soggy, she sent it back. My dessert was also not very good, however on the plus side they quickly replaced the soggy dessert with a cheese course and provided two plates so we could share it. This finished of the meal nicely.

So for somewhere a bit special, that does not break the bank, I would recommend the set lunch option here. The views not bad either. The restaurant has 3 AA Rosettes.

UPDATE: March 2010 – Galvin at Windows award 1 Michelin Star

UPDATE: April 2024 – Closed.

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Mint Leaf – deal or no deal?

I really like the Mint Leaf, but it can be expensive for what it is (a mid range Modern Indian restaurant). Fortunately Top table regularly offer 50% discounts on the food, covering a subset of the menu. I did notice however on this visit that the size of the menu had shrunk for the toptable deal, which is a shame.

The food is first rate, we were especially impressed by the delicious Chicken Tikka, the sauce was amazing.

The dessert selection is also good, I especially like the way they recommend matching wines or liqueurs.

Marks out of 10

Food 6.5

Service 6.7

Ambience 6

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Tom Aikens – Downsizing

Readers of our earlier post (Tom Aikens – Flavour, Flavour, Flavour) will have noticed that our only criticism, applied to portion control. It does rather seem that Tom Aikens has had this feedback from a number of customers and has made some changes. Ironically we went here, without having had breakfast, ready for a feast, instead we had a well balanced lunch.

The petit fours also used to be a highlight, and now at lunch time are limited to some Madeline’s and rather tiny chocolates, which might have been ok, if we had not been aware of how spectacular this part of the meal used to be.

We had the Tasting Menu with some stunning matching wines. The lamb course with artichokes was the weakest course, but on the whole the food was superb.