In a bid to see what I’m missing out on in my region (albeit a bit too far north for me to head out for dinner) I had a look at the menus on their website.  I was very interested to see that they have a specific vegetarian menu, and joy upon joy, no mention of risotto or goats cheese tart.  Full marks for creativity.  However, I can only assume that it’s quite a fancy schmancy place - I can think of no other reason to charge £15.50 for a caramlised onion tart with carrots and potatoes.  I could make a comment about the mark up on a few veg, but I won’t….

And how can they justify charging an extra pound for the same desserts at dinner as they serve at lunchtime?  How does that work?  Do they give you a pound’s worth more in the evening?

Anyway, I’m aware that having never been there I shouldn’t pass judgement.  The food should speak for itself and who knows, one day I may venture north to try it.

It may just have been a mixture of bad menu choices and bad service, but I guess when you put a restaurant on a pedestal it’s only a matter of time before it falls off.  (Can a restaurant fall off something?!).  Don’t get me wrong, it won’t put me off going back, and my fellow diners had no complaints.  Just me.  Typical.

My starter of warm smoked mackerel coated in grain mustard with potato salad was particularly disappointing.  The potato salad wasn’t really salad, it was just cubes of cold boiled potato, some of which were still raw in the middle.  A few tiny cubes of red pepper were chucked over it to make it look pretty but in my book that’s not salad.   The mackerel was nice enough, but I couldn’t really pick up on the mustard at all.

And then it all went downhill for me.  I  decided to try a pizza.  The logic of the argument was, we can have pizza at home any time (and we frequently do - in our house Friday night is pizza night!), but if anyone should be able to make fantastic pizza, surely Osteria could?  So I ordered a Capriciosa without the ham - which left mozzarella, olives, artichokes and anchovies.  I’d seen several pizzas go past our table that looked enormous, their crusty brown edges just peeping over the large plates.  A huge wheel of yumminess.

But when mine arrived, it came with the ham I had requested be left off.  And not just a bit of ham, it seemed to be a whole pig.  So they took it back to make a new one.  Always a disaster in my opinion as you then have to sit and watch your friends eat.  (Although the bits I tasted of those plates within my reach were all good). 

We heard some arguing in the distance, obviously the waiter and the chef disagreeing over my order.  And then when my pizza (finally) arrived it was noticably smaller than those I’d seen go past, and a little flabby round the edges.  My guess is they’d made it smaller so it cooked quicker so I wasn’t left for too long without my order, but in addition it seemed they’d also whisked it out of the oven just that bit too soon.  No crispy edges, the cheese just past the point of melting.  To be honest, I’d rather have waited a bit longer and had a proper job.  And the result was that I was underwhelmed.  A feeling I don’t like to have in Osteria’s, it’s very disconcerting.  I’ve had just as good a pizza at Pizza Express.  I expected more and was left wanting. 

I was somewhat comforted by a magnificent sticky toffee pudding with ice cream, but again let down by the fact they’d run out of peppermint tea.  Not much to ask but surely they do stock checks and make sure they’ve got enough of everything?  Was there a sudden run on peppermint tea?!

At the end of the day, I’m willing to put this down to poor menu choice (I’ll stick to the meat or pasta next time, always reliable).  And also to the order mix up.  I noticed there were more non-Italian waiting staff than there used to be, I wonder if that makes a difference?  In the end we felt we were sufficiently recompensed by the fact that the four gin & tonics we’d ordered at the bar never made it to our bill.  I had asked for these to go on our table, and asked the girl at the bar whether I should let anyone know and she said no.  So quite how she was going to get our drinks on the bill I don’t know, but that is their loss and more than made up for the bad experience.

I’ve been told that Mauro himself is back in the kitchen.  Whether it makes much difference to what is already good food I don’t know but I hope I’ll get an opportunity to be more impressed in the future.  After all, this is my favourite restaurant and round these parts, independent venues of this quality are hard to come by.

Which brings me to the Village Hotel in Leeds, one of a chain of many.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t bother blogging about a hotel, particularly one chosen more for its bed than its catering, but our food experience there was so astounding (and not in a good way) that I couldn’t leave it without comment.

We had one of those awkward few hours ‘between parties’ to fill when we arrived.  We’d left a 2-year old’s afternoon birthday party with cake and triangular sandwiches, to drive over to Leeds to attend a 40th with all the alcoholic refreshment that involves.  Having checked in, we were too late to join some friends for a curry but too early to get ready to go out.  The receptionist told us the restaurant was very busy, if not fully booked.  So we decided to order some room service to ‘line our stomachs’ in readiness for the many drinks to come. We weren’t expecting much, just some inoffensive pasta and a veggie burger.

‘Certainly madam, it’ll be 30-40 minutes.’  Fine, no problem.  We sat and read the paper, watched the football on TV, unpacked, etc.  After an hour we rang again.  They’d lost the order.  If we still wanted it we were told it would take 20 minutes.  Fair enough, but we pointed out we were due to go out in 30 minutes.  We were offered the chance to be ‘fast tracked’ through the restaurant but that didn’t really solve the problem.  So in the end they offered to rustle up some cheese sandwiches for us on the house, which they duly did.

I’m not quite sure how to describe how tasteless the sandwiches were but it was a good job they were free.  Imagine the blandest of bland cheddar, then imagine it many times more bland than that…and then more so.  It was like eating slightly softened candle wax but with less flavour.  We resorted to adding the mayonnaise sachets to try and add flavour.  I couldn’t even bring myself to finish mine.  And the crisps to go with it, although of the posh beetroot/carrot/parsnip variety, were obviously the ends of a few half finished packets - all those dusty bits and broken pieces you lick up at the end with the tip of a finger.

So it filled a hole, and was just enough to soak up the odd drink (or several) that we managed to dispose of that evening.  Thankfully we managed to just avoid hangover territory, which was a blessing, as we then had breakfast to deal with.

It was impressively bad.  Having been told breakfast was 9am to 11am but to avoid 10am as this was the busiest time, we aimed for 9.30am.  There was already a queue when we got there.  After half an hour!  On reflection I think the issue is the restaurant area simply isn’t big enough to cope.  Not enough tables.  Bizarrely they used a side area with about six tables as an overflow waiting area when the queue got too big.  Er…why not use these tables to… I don’t know…eat at?

The queuing turned out to be the best bit.  We were eventually seated at a corner table.  With a great view of the waitress station, of piles of dirty plates waiting to be removed, carriers of dirty cutlery, and a constant stream of waitresses scraping slops into an open bin.  Nice.

Then there was the cutlery and crockery on our table.  I don’t think I picked up anything that was clean.  I changed a dirty spoon at the waitress station for a clean one (so it had its uses).  The milk jug - dirty.  Coffee cup - dirty.  Plate from the serving station - dried egg.

And then the food.  If someone had offered me that room service cheese sandwich I would have gratefully accepted.  It may have been the first time I have involuntarily screwed up my face when tasting something - the scrambled egg was tasteless and wetly rubbery.  I decided to get a fried egg instead, on seeing a fresh batch arrive.  They looked good.  On closer inspection, H & I both decided that scraping off the top layer of raw egg white was probably best before we tried to eat them.  Mmmm.  H’s ‘cooked tomato’ was also totally uncooked.  The remainder of the cooked breakfast that we tried - beans, mushrooms and fried potatoes - was ok thankfully.  And H’s yoghurt/cereal/fruit combo looked healthy.  But if it wasn’t for the fact we’d already paid for the breakfast with our room, neither of us would have bothered.

We made full use of our hotel ‘prize draw’ comment card when we checked out - hopefully we won’t win the top prize of a weekend break at their hotel.  I don’t think we’ll be checking back in in a hurry and if we do, it will be room only.   Thankfully, the next couple of 40th parties are close enough to home to not need a hotel - or breakfast.

This story however, made my jaw drop.  The family in this story, all obese, claim their size is genetic.  They claim they ‘don’t have time’ to diet, that fruit and veg is too expensive, and they ‘don’t know how’ to lose weight. 

So, they can’t fit in a couple of walks round the block every day in between all that TV viewing?  They can’t swap that weekly litre of wine for some cartons of fruit juice (for probably less money)?  They can’t swap their chips for jacket spuds, or their cereal (I bet it’s cornflakes) for muesli, or even contemplate trying any other fruit after deeming pears a no-go as they ‘taste funny’?  They can’t use some tins of beans as weights to lift each day to burn off some calories (ie no money needed to join a gym)? 

I fail to see how they can’t know how to tackle their weight problems given they watch TV literally all day.  How many programmes must they have seen about weight loss/exercise?!  Yes, I can take that it’s genetic to a point, and yes maybe they all tend to the large size, we’re all different and some people are bigger than others.  Not obese, bigger. But to actually not even attempt to help yourself whilst being happy to live on benefits for the rest of your life in front of the TV because you’re too big/ill to work is unbelievable. 

I don’t know what the answer is.  Obviously better education as they have no idea how to eat well.  But again, they’ll have seen all that on the TV they’ve watched religiously all day every day.  You can’t help people who won’t help themselves.

I should say, by the way, that there are plenty of people who are struggling with weight issues, but at least they’re trying, by eating healthily and taking some exercise.  But to sit around and moan about it and not make some easy lifestyle changes, for health reasons if not for immediate weight loss, astounds me.

Rant over.

I picked up a packet of Fish & Chip flavour. Sounded like a great idea (as opposed to the Cajun Squirrel, which didn’t really float my boat).

I’ve never eaten anything that tastes less like Fish & Chips. I would say that in a blind taste test I would have guessed at Worcestershire Sauce.

How disappointing. But then, I should know better. As Michael Winner would probably say, “it’s just a marketing ploy!”

Update: Strangely, when I burp, it tastes of Fish & Chips.  Disturbing…

After a return visit last night, several points have been deducted for poor service. If I have to wave my menu in the air to get some attention, that’s not good. And to be left waiting so long to order the dessert that we have enough time to change our minds from dessert, to coffees, to ’sod it let’s just get the bill life’s too short to wait this long’ when there are only four tables occupied at the end of an evening, is also pretty poor.

A couple of my dining companions had received the same level of service on previous visits. I don’t think we’ll be rushing back.

Fish pie, a bit of veg and an apple cake.  He’s a modest man at heart…

Tonight I’m making Pad Thai (Delia’s recipe from her veggie cookbook, great recipe, I can recommend it) to see if a liberal dash of chilli will help shift the germs.

When I was ill in hospital a few years ago with what turned out to be glandular fever, I remember being collected by my parents and taken back to their house.  After the absolutely dire hospital food, which I barely touched anyway, my mum’s clear vegetable broth was heaven in a bowl, simple, healing, warming and best of all, made with TLC!

I think it’s the simple things that we love when we’re ill.  Basic, unfussy, comforting in its simplicity.  Maybe there’s a cookbook in that - ‘Food for sickies’ - I’m open to offers… :-)

He wrote to tell me afterwards about what they ate, and sitting here eating my pre-packaged M&S sandwich I’m feeling quite jealous.  Here’s what they had:

Starters: He had carpaccio, with fresh anchovies and parmigano, she had a roast beet salad with nuts.

Main course: He had braised rabbit with mash, and she had tagliatelle ragu.

Dessert: He had lime infused pannacotta with blackberries, and she had gelati (maya lemon, coffee caramel and fig ricotta).

I wonder how I can justify a flight to NY for dinner…. :-)

A week ago I visited Gusto (the Alderley Edge branch).  By chance, I read a review of the restaurant (albeit a different branch) a few days later, and coincidentally the reviewer had the same main course as me.  She hated it.  I loved it.  To be fair, if you’re reviewing a chain, you can’t guarantee the consistency of the cooking.  All I can say is the Gusto in Alderley Edge must be better than Didsbury. 

The dish in question was grilled salmon with crushed potatoes, olives and sun-dried tomato mash.  Her salmon was overcooked, her potato raw, and she deemed the olives and tomatoes ‘random and unnecessary’.  My salmon (which admittedly I usually avoid for the very reason it tends to come overcooked) was beautiful, moist and tasty, the potato was perfect, and I loved the tangy edge that the olives and tomatoes gave it.  Hey ho - can’t please all of the people all of the time.

Actually, I really enjoyed Gusto.  The decor hasn’t changed since it was Est Est Est (which means unless you sit in a booth down the side like we did, you’re sitting in the dark), the acoustics are still terrible, and there’s still an element of Cheshire-setness about it (it is Alderley Edge after all).  But the menu seems much more interesting, including several ‘healthy eating’ options.

I managed to clean the plate three times over.  My beef carpaccio was soft and sweet, contrasting perfectly with the balsamic/onion dressing.  The salmon barely touched the sides it disappeared that fast.  And the blueberry and raspberry mess was so gorgeous I had to guard it vigilantly against my fellow diners, one of whom deemed it ’sexual’…! 

We debated at length about whether the non-alcoholic cocktails we tried were overpriced.  £3 for a glass that was mainly filled with crushed ice.  But then the Honey Dew cocktail did taste delicious - mint, honey and ginger puree, apple juice and lime juice over crushed ice.

Most of the other dishes also went down well.  The salmon fish cakes turned out to be one enormous moulded cake of fish topped with a wave of smoked salmon.  The seafood risotto looked very impressive, with a guard of honour of up-ended mussels standing out proudly from the bowl.  The only disappointment was one ‘healthy’ option - roast chicken, which was unfussy but good, on a bed of puy lentils which were very plain, boiled with no flavouring, which had to be rescued by a healthy slosh of balsamic.

With only one person drinking (a glass of rose merlot, which was very nice), the bill came to about £33 each for three courses and coffees etc.  £1 of this is donated by the restaurant to a Manchester homeless charity. So, would I go back?  Probably.  Would I have gone in the first place if I’d read the other review first?  I hope so.