Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.[1]
So someone[2] came up with the ... interesting idea of eating four lunches in four days. Not really all that radical, I was probably going to manage that somehow, but we[3] had lunch in nice places each day for the bank holiday weekend. I may never eat again. After dinner.
Friday - The Fishes
It all started on Friday with lunch at The Fishes before some very middle aged home shopping in Habitat.
The Fishes is a pub with a long garden down to the river in Hinksey Village. It also has a very nice terrace, a menu with interesting food and the ability to order picnic baskets of food and take them to the end of the garden and pretend to picnic. We did not picnic, we terraced in the sun.
Food was:
T: Pea, leek, smoked haddock pancake with gruyere and mustard sauce; dark chocolate and salted caramel ice cream
S: Caesar salad, chocolate ice cream sundae
L: Fishcakes, Sautéed Spinach & Lemon Crème Fraîche; lemon sorbet and blood orange sorbet
M: Aberdeenshire minute steak and chips (fries, obviously)
M&S had pints (these were no ordinary pints, they were...), I had a glass of white wine, and then we shopped. All perfectly sensible.
Saturday - The Magdalen Arms
So on the way back on Friday I booked the Magdalen Arms[4] for Saturday. Former bad pub and pool hall turned food pub. With nice food and some outside restaurant tables at the back.
T: Purple (Damson) G&T; Ham hock terrine and toast, chips and garlic mayo; lemon polenta cake; A dark dessert wine whose name I forget.
S: Duck confit with lentils; chocolate and hazelnut cake.
L: Homemade Lemonade; Cod with a mountain of aoli and things; Damson bakewell tart and Amontillado.
M: Moules marinere; chips and garlic mayo; Pedro Ximinez
Practically sensible and we could walk there.
Sunday - The White Hart
In Fyfield, near Kingston Bagpuss. The White Hart has been nice in many incarnations and was very nice in the current one. Booked by triskellian and we sat outside in the garden. Hurray for a sunny bank holiday weekend.
Starters...
Everybody sensible: Goats Cheese souffle with wild garlic sauce
M: Gravadlax with marinated cucumber
Main...
Everybody sensible: Roast belly pork with a crackling stick of fighting
L: Salmon and caper fish cakes with real chips.
Dessert:
T&S: Chocolate tart-thingie with salted caramel ice cream
L: Sticky toffee pudding with date goo and vanilla ice cream.
M: Nothing. Again.
Nom.
M&S drank more pints and I ordered a practically London price glass of Petit Chablis.
It is possible that cheese souffle was the nicest food in quite some time.
It must have been a sensible plan, I used the word several times during the description.
Monday - Gee's
Well we had to eat in somewhere that wasn't a pub at some point :-) Booked Monday morning by metame because he forgot to on Sunday. We didn't sit outside but that's okay because Gee's is a giant conservatory.
Starters...
T: Chicken liver and bacon salad.
M: Asparagus soup
L&S: Salmon rillette and melba toast
Everyone:
Pollock and anchovy caper[5]
Afters...
S: Chocolate brownie and espresso
T: Rhubarb tart and tea
L: Long coffee in one of those individual cafetieres
M: Espresso and no dessert *again*
M&T&L all drank a bottle of Chardonnay Viognier.
Really by this point in the plan we had given up on sensible :-)
[1] Orson Welles according to the internet but sometimes it is wrong.
[2] smiorgan. Clearly.
[3] Yay, footnotes. I like footnotes. Ahem. Myself, metame, triskellian and smiorgan
[4] That website has been 'coming soon' for at least the last year.
[5] Coming soon the Anchovy caper recipe book, the murder mystery and the role-playing game.
We are so not doing that again next weekend.
Friday - The Fishes
It all started on Friday with lunch at The Fishes before some very middle aged home shopping in Habitat.
The Fishes is a pub with a long garden down to the river in Hinksey Village. It also has a very nice terrace, a menu with interesting food and the ability to order picnic baskets of food and take them to the end of the garden and pretend to picnic. We did not picnic, we terraced in the sun.
Food was:
T: Pea, leek, smoked haddock pancake with gruyere and mustard sauce; dark chocolate and salted caramel ice cream
S: Caesar salad, chocolate ice cream sundae
L: Fishcakes, Sautéed Spinach & Lemon Crème Fraîche; lemon sorbet and blood orange sorbet
M: Aberdeenshire minute steak and chips (fries, obviously)
M&S had pints (these were no ordinary pints, they were...), I had a glass of white wine, and then we shopped. All perfectly sensible.
Saturday - The Magdalen Arms
So on the way back on Friday I booked the Magdalen Arms[4] for Saturday. Former bad pub and pool hall turned food pub. With nice food and some outside restaurant tables at the back.
T: Purple (Damson) G&T; Ham hock terrine and toast, chips and garlic mayo; lemon polenta cake; A dark dessert wine whose name I forget.
S: Duck confit with lentils; chocolate and hazelnut cake.
L: Homemade Lemonade; Cod with a mountain of aoli and things; Damson bakewell tart and Amontillado.
M: Moules marinere; chips and garlic mayo; Pedro Ximinez
Practically sensible and we could walk there.
Sunday - The White Hart
In Fyfield, near Kingston Bagpuss. The White Hart has been nice in many incarnations and was very nice in the current one. Booked by triskellian and we sat outside in the garden. Hurray for a sunny bank holiday weekend.
Starters...
Everybody sensible: Goats Cheese souffle with wild garlic sauce
M: Gravadlax with marinated cucumber
Main...
Everybody sensible: Roast belly pork with a crackling stick of fighting
L: Salmon and caper fish cakes with real chips.
Dessert:
T&S: Chocolate tart-thingie with salted caramel ice cream
L: Sticky toffee pudding with date goo and vanilla ice cream.
M: Nothing. Again.
Nom.
M&S drank more pints and I ordered a practically London price glass of Petit Chablis.
It is possible that cheese souffle was the nicest food in quite some time.
It must have been a sensible plan, I used the word several times during the description.
Monday - Gee's
Well we had to eat in somewhere that wasn't a pub at some point :-) Booked Monday morning by metame because he forgot to on Sunday. We didn't sit outside but that's okay because Gee's is a giant conservatory.
Starters...
T: Chicken liver and bacon salad.
M: Asparagus soup
L&S: Salmon rillette and melba toast
Everyone:
Pollock and anchovy caper[5]
Afters...
S: Chocolate brownie and espresso
T: Rhubarb tart and tea
L: Long coffee in one of those individual cafetieres
M: Espresso and no dessert *again*
M&T&L all drank a bottle of Chardonnay Viognier.
Really by this point in the plan we had given up on sensible :-)
[1] Orson Welles according to the internet but sometimes it is wrong.
[2] smiorgan. Clearly.
[3] Yay, footnotes. I like footnotes. Ahem. Myself, metame, triskellian and smiorgan
[4] That website has been 'coming soon' for at least the last year.
[5] Coming soon the Anchovy caper recipe book, the murder mystery and the role-playing game.
We are so not doing that again next weekend.