The First and Last opened last year in Cambridge in the premises that used to be The Cricketers, reverting to the name of the original pub in that location. I've been a couple of times but for some reason haven't blogged about it yet. The menu contains both pub grub (things like burgers, fish&chips etc. cooked to a high standard) and dishes you ( Read more... )

After my light lunch, I fancied a nice piece of meat for dinner. I'm pretty confident in cooking steak my usual way (fast sear and then finished in a low oven) but I wanted to try the method Heston Blumenthal demonstrated in his last TV seriesThe steak had quite a chunk of fat on one end so I cut that off, chopped it up and rendered it on a low/ ( Read more... )

Last night I bought a pack of salmon fillets at the supermarket (from the saucy fish co.) because I needed something quick for dinner. The first fillet I pan-fried and had some leftover mediterranean couscous with it. Perfect quick evening meal ( Read more... )

On Saturday I finally had the chance to go back to Tuddenham Mill near Newmarket. My first visit was brilliant but in the evening the lighting is so low you can't really appreciate the prettiness of the food and we only ate a la carte so deciding what to have was really hard. So this time I went for lunch on a bright spring day and had an 8-course ( Read more... )

My butcher had nice pork tenderloin portions so I picked up one and they also had cooking chorizo and morcilla (Spanish black pudding) which I thought would go well with it. I also picked up potatoes and sprouting broccoli from Les Ward across the court and my shopping was done ( Read more... )

In my previous "baking" post, I mentioned I'd try making a savoury tart with the shop-bought, ready-rolled puff pastry I bought Saturday (JusRol ( Read more... )

For my overnight stay I had more or less randomly picked a hotel just down the road from The Hampshire Hog, a "pub and pantry" I had been wanting to visit for while as I know the owner Ed on twitter and had heard good things about their food. Breakfast wasn't included in my stay so rather than subjecting myself to chain hotel fare, I walked five ( Read more... )

For my birthday I usually treat myself to a new gadget or some camera equipment but as I didn't need anything this year, I decided to visit a few more restaurants than usual. On my actual birthday I went with a group of friends to Alimentum in Cambridge who treated me to a tasting menu of new dishes. I've written extensively about Alimentum's food ( Read more... )

I first had a taste of Russell Bateman's food when he provided the main for the Tommy's charity dinner at Alimentum last year and since then I'd been wanting to visit Colette's the restaurant he heads up at The Grove hotel in Watford. After a series of public transport failings (half an hour for a bus, signal failure outside Cambridge), I made it ( Read more... )

They had some reasonable looking monkfish at the fishmonger's so I picked up a piece. I filleted it, cut the fillets into chunks and marinaded them in pimenton and olive oil for a while. While the fish was marinading I made a sort of romesco sauce from a red pepper and some cherry tomatoes cooked down in olive oil with tomato paste, pimenton, ( Read more... )