More songs about chocolate and girls...
Well no actually, but a couple of reviews of Leeds eateries.
Sam's Chop House is the Leeds offshoot of the famous Manchester food pub. The Manchester version has consistently served me the second-best roast beef I've ever had (the best ever being at the Durham Ox at Crayke - go there), although it was a while before I noticed they'd launched a Leeds branch, in the heart of the legal/financial district.
Sam's is unashamedly blokey and nouveau-old-fashioned. It aims at an atmosphere somewhere between gentlemen's club and high-class Victorian boozer. It's not somewhere for formal fine dining; it's somewhere that seems very busy early evening with post-work drinkers and gets a nice steady trade of diners later on. There's a reasonable range of beers, including a rather good house bitter and a surprisingly palatable house lager and a couple of decent and regularly changing guests, and a surprisingly good and well-priced wine list.
But you're not here because it's a pub - you're here for food, preferably of the serious, solid, English comfort food variety. They take this kind of stuff very seriously and price it well - with portions that are just right.
On my first visit a few months ago I had their special 'North Indian' chicken curry as a bar meal, for about six quid. It was everything you could ask for - fairly mild, complex spicing in a smooth sauce, a timbale of nicely cooked rice, good quality meat, and went down very well with the house lager. A cut above the vast majority of pub food. But I looked at the rest of the menu and decided I'd be back.
Last night I dropped in on the way home from work (it's only a couple of minutes from the station), and the place surpassed the Manchester branch in my estimation.
My starter was a generous portion of potted Morecambe Bay shrimp with thick, brown toast. The tastes worked together beautifully - an excellent mix of the taste of the sea and the natural sweetness of the shrimp with the butter and herbs on some excellent bread. Tradition doesn't get much better. At least not until the main course.
They pride themselves on their corned beef hash and I had to try it as if done properly it's one of the finest comfort food dishes out there. And Sam's is exemplary, served in a big, thick cake of home made corned beef (of the Irish/American style), shredded and mixed with sauteed potatoes and topped with a couple of rashers of gorgeously salty dry-cure bacon (and a poached egg, but I don't like eggs, so had mine without). All this needs is salt, pepper and a proper bottle of HP sauce, which was provided as a matter of course. This is died-and-gone-to-heaven stuff, ultra-simple, but brilliantly executed. The portion size is such that when it arrives I thought I'll never get near finishing it... but I did.
Chaophraya is a blingtastic Thai restaurant just round the corner from Leeds station. Since I've been working in West Yorkshire I seem to have been dropping in there every few months and it's always been very good but 'safe' - the food has been superbly presented and prepared but has maybe lacked that little bit of oomph that tips it over into the sublime. They managed that the other week.
I started (as I often do there) with moo yang (skewered marinated grilled pork) which was as tender and sweet/spicy as expected. So far so good - then on to the main course. I was on a bit of a carnivorous kick and decided I'd have an old favourite that I'd never eaten at that particular restaurant, weeping tiger. Chaophraya's version is rather different to other interpretations of the dish. As well as liberally coating the steak in peppercorns, fish sauce, soy etc. and serving it with a thermonuclear crushed fresh chilli sauce, Chaophraya present you with the (extremely high quality sirloin) steak sliced and still rare on a sizzler and liberally coat it at the table in a thick dark sauce that seems to have sweet dark soy (along the lines of an Indonesian kecap manis), more fish sauce, and various other good things. This caramelises and creates lots of beautiful little burnt bits that are exploding with 'umami', the fifth taste, which combines beautifully with the steak's own hit of it. And then you get the chilli sauce which turns all your taste receptors up to about 15 on a scale of 10... I needed the jasmine rice to cool down. And to cover with all the little bits of debris on the sizzler when I'd finished the steak. Dude, they got one very very clean plate back.
The roasted green banana with ice cream wasn't bad either, but how do you follow near-perfection?
Sam's Chop House is the Leeds offshoot of the famous Manchester food pub. The Manchester version has consistently served me the second-best roast beef I've ever had (the best ever being at the Durham Ox at Crayke - go there), although it was a while before I noticed they'd launched a Leeds branch, in the heart of the legal/financial district.
Sam's is unashamedly blokey and nouveau-old-fashioned. It aims at an atmosphere somewhere between gentlemen's club and high-class Victorian boozer. It's not somewhere for formal fine dining; it's somewhere that seems very busy early evening with post-work drinkers and gets a nice steady trade of diners later on. There's a reasonable range of beers, including a rather good house bitter and a surprisingly palatable house lager and a couple of decent and regularly changing guests, and a surprisingly good and well-priced wine list.
But you're not here because it's a pub - you're here for food, preferably of the serious, solid, English comfort food variety. They take this kind of stuff very seriously and price it well - with portions that are just right.
On my first visit a few months ago I had their special 'North Indian' chicken curry as a bar meal, for about six quid. It was everything you could ask for - fairly mild, complex spicing in a smooth sauce, a timbale of nicely cooked rice, good quality meat, and went down very well with the house lager. A cut above the vast majority of pub food. But I looked at the rest of the menu and decided I'd be back.
Last night I dropped in on the way home from work (it's only a couple of minutes from the station), and the place surpassed the Manchester branch in my estimation.
My starter was a generous portion of potted Morecambe Bay shrimp with thick, brown toast. The tastes worked together beautifully - an excellent mix of the taste of the sea and the natural sweetness of the shrimp with the butter and herbs on some excellent bread. Tradition doesn't get much better. At least not until the main course.
They pride themselves on their corned beef hash and I had to try it as if done properly it's one of the finest comfort food dishes out there. And Sam's is exemplary, served in a big, thick cake of home made corned beef (of the Irish/American style), shredded and mixed with sauteed potatoes and topped with a couple of rashers of gorgeously salty dry-cure bacon (and a poached egg, but I don't like eggs, so had mine without). All this needs is salt, pepper and a proper bottle of HP sauce, which was provided as a matter of course. This is died-and-gone-to-heaven stuff, ultra-simple, but brilliantly executed. The portion size is such that when it arrives I thought I'll never get near finishing it... but I did.
Chaophraya is a blingtastic Thai restaurant just round the corner from Leeds station. Since I've been working in West Yorkshire I seem to have been dropping in there every few months and it's always been very good but 'safe' - the food has been superbly presented and prepared but has maybe lacked that little bit of oomph that tips it over into the sublime. They managed that the other week.
I started (as I often do there) with moo yang (skewered marinated grilled pork) which was as tender and sweet/spicy as expected. So far so good - then on to the main course. I was on a bit of a carnivorous kick and decided I'd have an old favourite that I'd never eaten at that particular restaurant, weeping tiger. Chaophraya's version is rather different to other interpretations of the dish. As well as liberally coating the steak in peppercorns, fish sauce, soy etc. and serving it with a thermonuclear crushed fresh chilli sauce, Chaophraya present you with the (extremely high quality sirloin) steak sliced and still rare on a sizzler and liberally coat it at the table in a thick dark sauce that seems to have sweet dark soy (along the lines of an Indonesian kecap manis), more fish sauce, and various other good things. This caramelises and creates lots of beautiful little burnt bits that are exploding with 'umami', the fifth taste, which combines beautifully with the steak's own hit of it. And then you get the chilli sauce which turns all your taste receptors up to about 15 on a scale of 10... I needed the jasmine rice to cool down. And to cover with all the little bits of debris on the sizzler when I'd finished the steak. Dude, they got one very very clean plate back.
The roasted green banana with ice cream wasn't bad either, but how do you follow near-perfection?