• 49a Thistle Street, 0131-220 6846, dusit.co.uk. Mon-Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun noon-11pm, average main £15
Dusit Restaurant
Dusit is a Thai restaurant a notch or two above the norm. Situated on quirky Thistle St, it rubs shoulders with champagne bars and designer boutiques. It simply doesn't do disappointing dishes but you'll be most mesmerised if you order anything with scallops, king prawns or monkfish. For meat lovers, some dishes can be ordered with venison, providing a Scottish twist to classic Thai recipes.
• 49a Thistle Street, 0131-220 6846, dusit.co.uk. Mon-Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun noon-11pm, average main £15
• 49a Thistle Street, 0131-220 6846, dusit.co.uk. Mon-Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun noon-11pm, average main £15
Sushiya Restaurant
This small restaurant has been satisfying sushi cravings for as long as I can remember but as its popularity has risen so has the competition for seats. Through the huge front window you'll see diners perched on stools; food competing for space on cramped tables and a sushi chef working his magic at the rear. No wonder Sushiya has a buzz similar restaurants lack. Enjoy a selection of the excellent salmon and tuna sushi, then follow with the delicious soup-based udon (noodles).
• 19 Dalry Road, 0131-313 3222, sushiya.co/. Tues-Sun noon-10.30pm, sushi and noodles £15
• 19 Dalry Road, 0131-313 3222, sushiya.co/. Tues-Sun noon-10.30pm, sushi and noodles £15
Kweilin Restaurant
While its decor is traditional – paintings of China adorn the walls and paper lanterns hang from the ceiling – Kweilin's food is spectacular. The wafer paper prawns are the best I've ever eaten and the eight treasures duck – a breast of braised duck buried deep in various fish and meats – is an all-time favourite. Monkfish, halibut and lobster all make appearances on the seafood-heavy menu. The prices might be a little higher than your average Chinese restaurant but then so is the quality of food.
• 19/21 Dundas St, 0131-557 1875, kweilin.net. Tues-Sun noon-2pm, 5pm-11pm, Fri and Sat until 11.30pm, Sun 5pm-11pm, average main £15
• 19/21 Dundas St, 0131-557 1875, kweilin.net. Tues-Sun noon-2pm, 5pm-11pm, Fri and Sat until 11.30pm, Sun 5pm-11pm, average main £15
Ham Hock Soup Recipes by Angela Hartnett's
This version of a Tuscan bean soup is quite hearty and can certainly be served as a full meal. And it is ideal for eating the next day because the flavour increases.
If you want to cook your own ham hocks, place them in cold water, bring to the boil, then add a carrot, onion, leek and stick of celery (all chopped in half), some thyme and white pepper-corns. Simmer for a couple of hours until you can pick the hocks up and the meat falls from the bone.
Courgettes are at the end of the season, so as we move into autumn, substitute with another vegetable, such as parsnip or pumpkin. To adapt for vegetarians, exclude the ham hock and use vegetable stock or water.
200g ham hock, cooked and shredded
1 litre ham or chicken stock (or use the liquid from cooking the hocks)
2 carrots peeled and sliced into 5mm thickness
1 large onion peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery sliced into 5mm lozenges
1 small leek sliced lengthways and then across
1 courgette sliced lengthways and then across
A tin of cannellini beans drained
50g dried pasta
Olive oil
1 tbsp of chopped flat-leaf parsley
Wash the vegetables. Then in a large pan add the olive oil, carrot, onion, leek and celery season with salt and pepper. Sauté for five minutes until they start to soften but without any colour.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then add the pasta and cut courgettes. Cook the pasta as per packet instructions. When the pasta is done, add the ham-hock and cannellini and bring to the boil to heat them through.
Add the parsley and a dash of olive oil. Serve with grated parmesan.
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If you want to cook your own ham hocks, place them in cold water, bring to the boil, then add a carrot, onion, leek and stick of celery (all chopped in half), some thyme and white pepper-corns. Simmer for a couple of hours until you can pick the hocks up and the meat falls from the bone.
Courgettes are at the end of the season, so as we move into autumn, substitute with another vegetable, such as parsnip or pumpkin. To adapt for vegetarians, exclude the ham hock and use vegetable stock or water.
200g ham hock, cooked and shredded
1 litre ham or chicken stock (or use the liquid from cooking the hocks)
2 carrots peeled and sliced into 5mm thickness
1 large onion peeled and chopped
2 sticks of celery sliced into 5mm lozenges
1 small leek sliced lengthways and then across
1 courgette sliced lengthways and then across
A tin of cannellini beans drained
50g dried pasta
Olive oil
1 tbsp of chopped flat-leaf parsley
Wash the vegetables. Then in a large pan add the olive oil, carrot, onion, leek and celery season with salt and pepper. Sauté for five minutes until they start to soften but without any colour.
Pour in the stock and bring to the boil, then add the pasta and cut courgettes. Cook the pasta as per packet instructions. When the pasta is done, add the ham-hock and cannellini and bring to the boil to heat them through.
Add the parsley and a dash of olive oil. Serve with grated parmesan.
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Cut Wolfgang Puck London Review
The Austrian-born Wolfgang Puck is probably the most famous chef in America. He was already a megastar the first time I visited one of his restaurants, Chinois in Santa Monica, in 1993. At that point, Puck was best known for having invented the postmodern pizza at his restaurant Spago; since advanced pizzas seem silly to me, I was expecting Chinois to be silly, too. It wasn't: the tart's boudoir decor was hilariously OTT, but the food was a brilliant early example of fusion cooking. I remember a grilled caramelised pineapple with foie gras (back in the days when I still ate foie gras) that sounded daft but turned out to be revelatory.
Cut
45 Park Lane, London
W1K 1PN
020-7493 4554.
Open all week, lunch noon-3pm, dinner 6-11pm (10.30pm Sun). Meal with drinks and service, from £70 a head upwards.
Now Puck has opened Cut, his first UK restaurant, part of an empire that has expanded to 20 "fine dining" restaurants and dozens of budget outlets. It's in a new hotel called 45 Park Lane, owned by the Dorchester group. The place might be going great guns already: it was hard to tell because I went during London fashion week and the place was heaving with unlovely men and elongated women, all air-kissing and calling each other dollink. Many were carrying goodie bags. Not for the first time, I was left with the feeling that the richer parts of London are an entirely different country.
Cut is Puck's fourth restaurant of that name, the others being in Las Vegas, Beverly Hills and Singapore, which gives you some idea: these places are targeted at the international rich. It is a steakhouse – in theory, an updated, modernised take on the genre, but in practice a fairly straight version, except with a less clubby, men-only feel to the decor. That's a decent idea, except something's gone wrong in the execution and the narrow room gives you an overwhelmingly strong feeling of being in a corridor, or maybe an airport departure lounge – somewhere on the way to somewhere else. It adds to a slightly frantic atmosphere, as does the service – so super-eager that it interrupted our conversation 10 times before I stopped counting. The Man himself was in the restaurant, which may have made the team more hyper. The loud, very unchilled pop music didn't help.
The menu is what you'd expect: starters, salads, side dishes and sauces clustering around Cut's main focus, steak. We had two successful starters. A salad of veal tongue with white beans, artichokes and salsa verde was a light, balanced, unshowy dish, in contrast to the other starter, which was rich, risky and flashy, but also worked: a "flan" of bone marrow with mushroom marmalade and parsley salad. This was only just in balance, with the mushroom's savoury depth rescuing the marrow from oversweetness just in time. The marrow was served in its bones, so don't ask me why it was a "flan".
As for the steak, we tried a "tasting" plate of three little pieces of sirloin – American, British and Australian – at the Park Lane price of £48. They were classic US steakhouse steaks: beautifully cooked, perfectly seasoned, ideally charred, unimprovable in texture. There's a word missing there. Do you spot it? Flavour. The meat had a little, but not nearly enough. The steakaholic friend with me expressed sombre disappointment and felt no need to finish them – quite a strong statement at that price. Slow-cooked Wagyu beef short ribs with puréed cauliflower and curry spicing, meanwhile, was sweet, satisfying, spoon-tender and so apocalyptically rich, I felt peculiar all night. (Maybe Wagyu beef, famous for its fatty marbling, is wrong for also-fatty short ribs.) Pudding was a so-so fried doughnut.
The wine list, like much else here, reminds you why Park Lane is so expensive in Monopoly. OK, it's a restaurant for rich people, but does there really have to be so insultingly small a range of choices below an already steep £40? I suppose that's the whole point of Planet Rich: it's refreshingly free of people who fuss about what things cost. I overheard the restaurant manager tell one potential customer that you could have dinner "from £65 to £70, but we're finding that the average spend is £120 a head". Look at it the way Mr Micawber would: by not going to Cut, two of you can save £240.
{source}
Cut
45 Park Lane, London
W1K 1PN
020-7493 4554.
Open all week, lunch noon-3pm, dinner 6-11pm (10.30pm Sun). Meal with drinks and service, from £70 a head upwards.
Now Puck has opened Cut, his first UK restaurant, part of an empire that has expanded to 20 "fine dining" restaurants and dozens of budget outlets. It's in a new hotel called 45 Park Lane, owned by the Dorchester group. The place might be going great guns already: it was hard to tell because I went during London fashion week and the place was heaving with unlovely men and elongated women, all air-kissing and calling each other dollink. Many were carrying goodie bags. Not for the first time, I was left with the feeling that the richer parts of London are an entirely different country.
Cut is Puck's fourth restaurant of that name, the others being in Las Vegas, Beverly Hills and Singapore, which gives you some idea: these places are targeted at the international rich. It is a steakhouse – in theory, an updated, modernised take on the genre, but in practice a fairly straight version, except with a less clubby, men-only feel to the decor. That's a decent idea, except something's gone wrong in the execution and the narrow room gives you an overwhelmingly strong feeling of being in a corridor, or maybe an airport departure lounge – somewhere on the way to somewhere else. It adds to a slightly frantic atmosphere, as does the service – so super-eager that it interrupted our conversation 10 times before I stopped counting. The Man himself was in the restaurant, which may have made the team more hyper. The loud, very unchilled pop music didn't help.
The menu is what you'd expect: starters, salads, side dishes and sauces clustering around Cut's main focus, steak. We had two successful starters. A salad of veal tongue with white beans, artichokes and salsa verde was a light, balanced, unshowy dish, in contrast to the other starter, which was rich, risky and flashy, but also worked: a "flan" of bone marrow with mushroom marmalade and parsley salad. This was only just in balance, with the mushroom's savoury depth rescuing the marrow from oversweetness just in time. The marrow was served in its bones, so don't ask me why it was a "flan".
As for the steak, we tried a "tasting" plate of three little pieces of sirloin – American, British and Australian – at the Park Lane price of £48. They were classic US steakhouse steaks: beautifully cooked, perfectly seasoned, ideally charred, unimprovable in texture. There's a word missing there. Do you spot it? Flavour. The meat had a little, but not nearly enough. The steakaholic friend with me expressed sombre disappointment and felt no need to finish them – quite a strong statement at that price. Slow-cooked Wagyu beef short ribs with puréed cauliflower and curry spicing, meanwhile, was sweet, satisfying, spoon-tender and so apocalyptically rich, I felt peculiar all night. (Maybe Wagyu beef, famous for its fatty marbling, is wrong for also-fatty short ribs.) Pudding was a so-so fried doughnut.
The wine list, like much else here, reminds you why Park Lane is so expensive in Monopoly. OK, it's a restaurant for rich people, but does there really have to be so insultingly small a range of choices below an already steep £40? I suppose that's the whole point of Planet Rich: it's refreshingly free of people who fuss about what things cost. I overheard the restaurant manager tell one potential customer that you could have dinner "from £65 to £70, but we're finding that the average spend is £120 a head". Look at it the way Mr Micawber would: by not going to Cut, two of you can save £240.
{source}
Wedgwood Restaurant
When this restaurant opened four years ago it sent out a clear message that on Edinburgh's touristy Royal Mile you could still find seriously good restaurants with seriously interesting menus. Many a business in this historic location would be tempted to bask in their success; maybe put their feet up and watch the tourist money roll in. Not Wedgwood; its pigeon served with haggis, neeps and tatties is as unusual as it is delicious. Try to avoid being seated downstairs, as the natural light of the street-level dining room is where you will enjoy this inventive and innovative experience the most.
• 267 Canongate, 0131-558 8737, wedgwoodtherestaurant.co.uk. Mon-Sat noon-3pm, dinner from 6pm, Sun 12.30pm-3pm, dinner from 6pm, average main £20
• 267 Canongate, 0131-558 8737, wedgwoodtherestaurant.co.uk. Mon-Sat noon-3pm, dinner from 6pm, Sun 12.30pm-3pm, dinner from 6pm, average main £20
Mark Addy Salford Restaurant-review by John Lanchester
A common complaint about pubs that focus on food is that they aren't sufficiently pub-like. I think it's safe to say that nobody in Salford has ever said that about the Mark Addy. This canalside boozer opened in 1981 on the site of a former ferry landing stage and waiting room. (Just to clear something up straight away, it's named after a Victorian municipal hero, not after the likable tubby one from The Full Monty.) It has a narrow exterior on the waterside, and inside it's long, low, dark and manky – the website says they finished a full renovation in 2009, which makes you wonder what it must have been like before. Not that the Mark Addy has an air of menace or anything – it just hasn't been primped and floofed, and there is still a serious clientele of drinkers. On our way one Saturday evening, we passed two blokes heading for the stairs in that particular state of total, glassy-faced, marinated pissedness you get only from drinking steadily all afternoon. But there was also an oldster looking at flights on a laptop and a hen party using champagne to rinse down a meal before going on the lash. A nice urban mix.
The Mark Addy
Stanley Street, Salford
M3 5EJ
0161-832 4080
Open all week, lunch Mon-Fri, noon-3pm, dinner 5-9m, Sat noon-10pm, Sun noon-6pm. Meal with drinks and service, from £50 for two.
For the food, you go up the far end, past the bar area. A laminated plastic menu arrives and you're transported to the world of Robert Owen Brown, "executive chef" of the Mark Addy and a fully-signed-up member of the retro English culinary revival. The menu doesn't say "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough", because it doesn't need to – the list of bar snacks does that. Pickled eggs, pork scratchings and Spam fritters. Spam fritters! Now that is hardcore. I was tempted to order them out of nostalgia, until I remembered how nasty they were first time around.
The menu proper is noticeably good value, with starters from under a fiver, mains from under a tenner and a range of sandwiches bigger than the average diner's head. It's an engaging combination: ordinary, pub-like pub with dead serious cooking. It's a particular kind of cooking, but if you like Fergus Henderson's menus, you'll like Owen Brown's: steak and cow heel pie (which sounds like something Desperate Dan might go for), Welsh rarebit, toad in the hole.
Having liked the place and the idea, I found I didn't like the food quite as much as I wanted to. The problem was the execution, which verged on the rough and ready. Devilled kidneys is a nice thing to see on a list of starters, but the outcome was both too chewy and too bloody, and came dumped on a thick slice of white bread – a real flavour-neutraliser. I also liked the thinking behind reinventing prawn cocktail using signal crayfish (an evil American invader), and the bloody mary sauce, as a version on sauce marie rose, was a nice twist, but again it was a bit bland and coarse on the plate, served with brown shrimps and lots of lettuce. Delicacy isn't a virtue in the kitchen, but precision is, and it was sometimes lacking here.
Still, the flavours are present, and in a big way. Hogget is year-old mutton, which in an ideal world has the tenderness of lamb and the stronger taste of older sheep. The roast hogget here was a hefty dish, served with an enormous amount of thyme in the sauce, and glazed root vegetables. There was something sticky and gloopy about the plateful, but it had immense impact. Crown of pigeon again had lots of flavour, but it was outshone by the huge accompanying portion of very high-quality black pudding. I love black pudding, but it's tricky to make it the star of a dish.
Puddings, a strength of the English kitchen, are a strength of the Mark Addy, too. Eccles cake was made with beautifully light flaky pastry and a really kicky sweet filling, set off by cool, acidic Lancashire cheese. I think Fergus Henderson resuscitated this combination, and this take on it was a blinder. Warm treacle tart had the perfect texture, resistant but not over-dense, and the lemon and thyme ice-cream with it was another clever off-sweet juxtaposition. A fine ending to a good pub meal, though you sense Owen Brown is capable of the next level up, if he could be bothered.
{source}
The Mark Addy
Stanley Street, Salford
M3 5EJ
0161-832 4080
Open all week, lunch Mon-Fri, noon-3pm, dinner 5-9m, Sat noon-10pm, Sun noon-6pm. Meal with drinks and service, from £50 for two.
For the food, you go up the far end, past the bar area. A laminated plastic menu arrives and you're transported to the world of Robert Owen Brown, "executive chef" of the Mark Addy and a fully-signed-up member of the retro English culinary revival. The menu doesn't say "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough", because it doesn't need to – the list of bar snacks does that. Pickled eggs, pork scratchings and Spam fritters. Spam fritters! Now that is hardcore. I was tempted to order them out of nostalgia, until I remembered how nasty they were first time around.
The menu proper is noticeably good value, with starters from under a fiver, mains from under a tenner and a range of sandwiches bigger than the average diner's head. It's an engaging combination: ordinary, pub-like pub with dead serious cooking. It's a particular kind of cooking, but if you like Fergus Henderson's menus, you'll like Owen Brown's: steak and cow heel pie (which sounds like something Desperate Dan might go for), Welsh rarebit, toad in the hole.
Having liked the place and the idea, I found I didn't like the food quite as much as I wanted to. The problem was the execution, which verged on the rough and ready. Devilled kidneys is a nice thing to see on a list of starters, but the outcome was both too chewy and too bloody, and came dumped on a thick slice of white bread – a real flavour-neutraliser. I also liked the thinking behind reinventing prawn cocktail using signal crayfish (an evil American invader), and the bloody mary sauce, as a version on sauce marie rose, was a nice twist, but again it was a bit bland and coarse on the plate, served with brown shrimps and lots of lettuce. Delicacy isn't a virtue in the kitchen, but precision is, and it was sometimes lacking here.
Still, the flavours are present, and in a big way. Hogget is year-old mutton, which in an ideal world has the tenderness of lamb and the stronger taste of older sheep. The roast hogget here was a hefty dish, served with an enormous amount of thyme in the sauce, and glazed root vegetables. There was something sticky and gloopy about the plateful, but it had immense impact. Crown of pigeon again had lots of flavour, but it was outshone by the huge accompanying portion of very high-quality black pudding. I love black pudding, but it's tricky to make it the star of a dish.
Puddings, a strength of the English kitchen, are a strength of the Mark Addy, too. Eccles cake was made with beautifully light flaky pastry and a really kicky sweet filling, set off by cool, acidic Lancashire cheese. I think Fergus Henderson resuscitated this combination, and this take on it was a blinder. Warm treacle tart had the perfect texture, resistant but not over-dense, and the lemon and thyme ice-cream with it was another clever off-sweet juxtaposition. A fine ending to a good pub meal, though you sense Owen Brown is capable of the next level up, if he could be bothered.
{source}
Restaurant review: Mount Fuji, Swindon by John Lanchester
Swindon can be made the basis of a useful and informative word-association test. Say the name of the town to most people and their response is, "Please, God, no!" Mention it to someone with a background in business or economics, however, and they say something different. They say, "Honda." The car company's huge plant here is central to the economics of the area. It produces 600 cars a day, or one every couple of minutes. There's no mistaking the place when you drive past: the factory is a ginormous shed that at night is lit an unearthly blue. It's one of those functional-looking buildings that acquires a certain sublimity by virtue of its sheer size.
Mount Fuji
Stanton House hotel, Stanton Fitzwarren, Swindon, Wiltshire
SN6 7SD
0870 084 1388
Open Fri and Sat evening only. Meal with drinks and service, from £35 a head
A giant Honda plant means many Japanese executives a long way from home needing somewhere to sleep and eat. And many Japanese executives needing somewhere to sleep and eat means the Stanton House hotel, about three minutes down the road from the factory, in a parkland setting that's remarkably calm and quiet given how close it is to the factory action. The hotel has two restaurants, the Rosemary, which has a familiar European setting, and Mount Fuji, which has Japanese-style seating and is open only at weekends.
I went for the Mount Fuji option on the grounds that it would be more fun. That may well be right: the layout of Japanese restaurants, with wood panelling and seating on the floor, is exciting but not scary. You have to take off your shoes (matching socks advisable). I'd been expecting to have to sit crosslegged for the whole meal, and to be needing a winch and some WD-40 to get back on my feet. Luckily, though, the tables have a central space, so you can sit on the floor with your feet beneath them, if so inclined. One or two customers, I noticed, sat crosslegged anyway. Memo to them: nobody likes a show-off.
The downside to Mount Fuji is that the kitchen is some distance away, attached to the Rosemary restaurant, which offers an à la carte menu, as opposed to Mount Fuji's all-set menu option. It may be that the choice boils down to the fun of Japanese seating versus the more formal setting and better food of the Rosemary. That kitchen distance is hard on things such as tempura, which depend on being served as soon as they're cooked. The Japanese execs at the next table, relaxing in polo shirts after their hard week, were eating sukiyaki, a fondue-type dish that you cook at the table for yourself. They were rinsing it down with pints of Arkell's bitter and seemed to be having a great time.
The rest of the menu is a range of bento boxes, with four options priced from a weirdly specific £25.65 to £35.90. They offer no choice in the mains, and a choice of two starters and two puddings. Many dishes appear in all the bentos, so you have to pay attention to spot the differences, which come down to how much sushi you want, or whether you'd rather have a vegetarian menu. I'd love to be able to report that the food is so good there's no point going to Tokyo, but I can't, because although it's perfectly decent, it is no better than that.
A pre-dinner nibble of jellyfish and sesame seeds with tiny flecks of chilli was delicate and precise and soothing; slow-cooked belly pork laced with mustard was superb. Sushi and sashimi were both excellent, and I'd have been happy to stick to them. Grilled eel with Japanese omelette was very sweet, as were the chicken teriyaki and chicken yakitori. Japanese cooking is fairly sweet anyway, since it contains a lot of mirin; if more sweetening is added, as it often is in home cooking and in restaurants that emulate home cooking, it can go over the top.
Mount Fuji's overall effect is that of a place where the execs go for dinner and a few drinks, rather than to scale culinary heights. That gives it a pleasant and very relaxed feeling, enhanced by the attentive and effective one-woman service. If I ever get to go to a businessmen's chill-out restaurant in Tokyo, I plan to sigh contentedly and say, "This place reminds me of Swindon."
{source}
Mount Fuji
Stanton House hotel, Stanton Fitzwarren, Swindon, Wiltshire
SN6 7SD
0870 084 1388
Open Fri and Sat evening only. Meal with drinks and service, from £35 a head
A giant Honda plant means many Japanese executives a long way from home needing somewhere to sleep and eat. And many Japanese executives needing somewhere to sleep and eat means the Stanton House hotel, about three minutes down the road from the factory, in a parkland setting that's remarkably calm and quiet given how close it is to the factory action. The hotel has two restaurants, the Rosemary, which has a familiar European setting, and Mount Fuji, which has Japanese-style seating and is open only at weekends.
I went for the Mount Fuji option on the grounds that it would be more fun. That may well be right: the layout of Japanese restaurants, with wood panelling and seating on the floor, is exciting but not scary. You have to take off your shoes (matching socks advisable). I'd been expecting to have to sit crosslegged for the whole meal, and to be needing a winch and some WD-40 to get back on my feet. Luckily, though, the tables have a central space, so you can sit on the floor with your feet beneath them, if so inclined. One or two customers, I noticed, sat crosslegged anyway. Memo to them: nobody likes a show-off.
The downside to Mount Fuji is that the kitchen is some distance away, attached to the Rosemary restaurant, which offers an à la carte menu, as opposed to Mount Fuji's all-set menu option. It may be that the choice boils down to the fun of Japanese seating versus the more formal setting and better food of the Rosemary. That kitchen distance is hard on things such as tempura, which depend on being served as soon as they're cooked. The Japanese execs at the next table, relaxing in polo shirts after their hard week, were eating sukiyaki, a fondue-type dish that you cook at the table for yourself. They were rinsing it down with pints of Arkell's bitter and seemed to be having a great time.
The rest of the menu is a range of bento boxes, with four options priced from a weirdly specific £25.65 to £35.90. They offer no choice in the mains, and a choice of two starters and two puddings. Many dishes appear in all the bentos, so you have to pay attention to spot the differences, which come down to how much sushi you want, or whether you'd rather have a vegetarian menu. I'd love to be able to report that the food is so good there's no point going to Tokyo, but I can't, because although it's perfectly decent, it is no better than that.
A pre-dinner nibble of jellyfish and sesame seeds with tiny flecks of chilli was delicate and precise and soothing; slow-cooked belly pork laced with mustard was superb. Sushi and sashimi were both excellent, and I'd have been happy to stick to them. Grilled eel with Japanese omelette was very sweet, as were the chicken teriyaki and chicken yakitori. Japanese cooking is fairly sweet anyway, since it contains a lot of mirin; if more sweetening is added, as it often is in home cooking and in restaurants that emulate home cooking, it can go over the top.
Mount Fuji's overall effect is that of a place where the execs go for dinner and a few drinks, rather than to scale culinary heights. That gives it a pleasant and very relaxed feeling, enhanced by the attentive and effective one-woman service. If I ever get to go to a businessmen's chill-out restaurant in Tokyo, I plan to sigh contentedly and say, "This place reminds me of Swindon."
{source}
Restaurant:Hedone, London W4 – review by John Lanchester
I'm struggling to think of a single other person who has done what the Swede Mikael Jonsson has: moved from running a blog about food to running a restaurant. His lively website, Gastroville, concentrates on restaurant recommendations and chat about ingredients – and, now, some illuminating and funny posts about how hard it is to set up a restaurant of your own. He also had a consultancy advising restaurants on where to buy – sorry, "source" – ingredients. But Jonsson trained as a chef before going to work as a lawyer, and the itch to climb into an apron and get behind the stove has overmastered him: hence the admirable move from commenting and advising to having a go himself.
Hedone
310 Chiswick High Road, London
W4 4HH
02-8747 0377
Open Lunch, Fri & Sat only, 12.30-2.15pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 6.30-10pm. Meal with drinks and service, from £70 a head.
The restaurant is in Chiswick, west London, and is called Hedone after the Greek word that more or less translates as "pleasure" – though the ideas summed up in that single term were complicated and much-debated in Greek philosophy. There's something sweetly serious about naming a restaurant after a difficult-to-pronounce idea in classical Greek ethics. The look of the restaurant is sweetly serious, too: bare brick, and with an open-plan kitchen that's more open-plan than usual, maybe because the counter is so low. I've no idea how chefs get used to that, since I get crotchety if people look on while I boil an egg.
Hedone is a passionately earnest enterprise whose focus and mission derive from the fact that Jonsson is an ingredient obsessive. His cooking is all about getting the very best possible ingredients – in which this country is rich, much richer than it realises – and then emphasising rather than denaturing their flavours. At its best, Hedone does this brilliantly. A starter of mackerel with little gem lettuce had subtle Japanese inflections in the super-fresh fish that were set off by an amazing dressing of sesame oil and white Banyuls vinegar. The next course was even better, an egg slow-cooked and served with pickled girolles that contained a dollop of apricot jam so subtly used that you'd never have guessed what the complex note of just-sweetness was. Grouse came with a sauce of its own offal, and a non-traditional but very interesting bramley apple accompaniment; 55-day aged beef had great flavour but was on the chewy side – that made me like it, because it showed the beef had been cooked in a pan, rather than by the boringly predictable technique of sous-vide – or, as it used to be called, "boil in a bag".
The restaurant's ingredients-first approach leaves things to speak for themselves, which is good, but there are moments when they speak a little quietly. Scallop sashimi with radish and a dollop of squid ink was exquisitely fresh – Hedone really is a masterclass in sourcing – but could have done with a kick of sharpness or acidity. Top-quality lobster and cep coexisted politely on the plate without creating any synergy, much like Lampard and Gerrard in the England midfield. Quetsch, a posh plum, made a delicious tart and came with an ice-cream made out of its pit – a lovely, witty idea, but the ice-cream's faintly almond-like flavour was so subtle, you had to concentrate hard to detect it.
These are high-level criticisms, and Hedone is only going to get better. Part of the honesty of the place is in admitting that it's a work in progress, a fact that the knowledgable and charming staff are happy to discuss. (A work in progress that at dinner charges £50 for four courses or £70 for six.) Jonsson, unlike most ambitious new restaurateurs, has not employed a PR agency and is trying for a slow start in terms of the attention he attracts; he's even restricting the number of covers while he gets Hedone the way he wants it.
At the table next to us, a young man – a chef, I'm guessing – had a quibble about something, and Jonsson came out of the kitchen to talk to him, with visibly stiff body language that suggested he was having to work at keeping his temper. I hope I'm wrong when I say that success may bring some problems of its own, as expectations of Hedone rise and it becomes as well known and perma-busy as it richly deserves to be.
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Hedone
310 Chiswick High Road, London
W4 4HH
02-8747 0377
Open Lunch, Fri & Sat only, 12.30-2.15pm; dinner, Tues-Sat, 6.30-10pm. Meal with drinks and service, from £70 a head.
The restaurant is in Chiswick, west London, and is called Hedone after the Greek word that more or less translates as "pleasure" – though the ideas summed up in that single term were complicated and much-debated in Greek philosophy. There's something sweetly serious about naming a restaurant after a difficult-to-pronounce idea in classical Greek ethics. The look of the restaurant is sweetly serious, too: bare brick, and with an open-plan kitchen that's more open-plan than usual, maybe because the counter is so low. I've no idea how chefs get used to that, since I get crotchety if people look on while I boil an egg.
Hedone is a passionately earnest enterprise whose focus and mission derive from the fact that Jonsson is an ingredient obsessive. His cooking is all about getting the very best possible ingredients – in which this country is rich, much richer than it realises – and then emphasising rather than denaturing their flavours. At its best, Hedone does this brilliantly. A starter of mackerel with little gem lettuce had subtle Japanese inflections in the super-fresh fish that were set off by an amazing dressing of sesame oil and white Banyuls vinegar. The next course was even better, an egg slow-cooked and served with pickled girolles that contained a dollop of apricot jam so subtly used that you'd never have guessed what the complex note of just-sweetness was. Grouse came with a sauce of its own offal, and a non-traditional but very interesting bramley apple accompaniment; 55-day aged beef had great flavour but was on the chewy side – that made me like it, because it showed the beef had been cooked in a pan, rather than by the boringly predictable technique of sous-vide – or, as it used to be called, "boil in a bag".
The restaurant's ingredients-first approach leaves things to speak for themselves, which is good, but there are moments when they speak a little quietly. Scallop sashimi with radish and a dollop of squid ink was exquisitely fresh – Hedone really is a masterclass in sourcing – but could have done with a kick of sharpness or acidity. Top-quality lobster and cep coexisted politely on the plate without creating any synergy, much like Lampard and Gerrard in the England midfield. Quetsch, a posh plum, made a delicious tart and came with an ice-cream made out of its pit – a lovely, witty idea, but the ice-cream's faintly almond-like flavour was so subtle, you had to concentrate hard to detect it.
These are high-level criticisms, and Hedone is only going to get better. Part of the honesty of the place is in admitting that it's a work in progress, a fact that the knowledgable and charming staff are happy to discuss. (A work in progress that at dinner charges £50 for four courses or £70 for six.) Jonsson, unlike most ambitious new restaurateurs, has not employed a PR agency and is trying for a slow start in terms of the attention he attracts; he's even restricting the number of covers while he gets Hedone the way he wants it.
At the table next to us, a young man – a chef, I'm guessing – had a quibble about something, and Jonsson came out of the kitchen to talk to him, with visibly stiff body language that suggested he was having to work at keeping his temper. I hope I'm wrong when I say that success may bring some problems of its own, as expectations of Hedone rise and it becomes as well known and perma-busy as it richly deserves to be.
{source}
Brixton Village Most Vibrant Restaurant in London
Atlantic Road, London SW9.
Open Mon-Weds 10am to 6pm; Thurs-Sat 10am to 10pm; Sun 12pm to 5pm
It was while I was eating the burger, the juices dribbling down my wrists, the scent of properly aged dead animal in my nostrils, that I realised I was being an idiot. A few months back I reviewed Kaosarn, a stonking Thai restaurant in an old covered market a short walk from my home in Brixton, south London. I hesitated before writing that review because it seemed lazy to cover somewhere so close to home. I am accused often enough of metropolitan bias, and though I do pretty well on the out-of-London stakes I could see that writing about somewhere that was practically within the back end of my own postcode would just be throwing lighter fuel on to the smouldering embers of a row.
But I have spent more and more time at Brixton Village since that review and become increasingly convinced that it is the most exciting, radical venture on the British restaurant scene right now. I spend hours every week wading through dismal press releases about the latest glossy openings, each of which has left no change from a million or more. These are places with lighting concepts and colour waves and boards full of investment bankers, which really is just rhyming slang. They are built and designed from the front door in rather than the kitchen out.
Brixton Village, formerly Granville Arcade, is entirely different. It's a dozen or more restaurants, most of which would have been opened for the price of a trip to Ikea. They don't have concepts. They have open kitchens and menus and nice young people bringing you nice stuff to eat. A bunch of them, being unlicensed, will feed you for under a tenner. None costs much more than that a head. The fact that all this is on my doorstep is a lucky coincidence. To which I can only say: hoorah for me.
Which is exactly what I thought as those fabulous meaty juices coated me courtesy of the marvellous Honest Burgers (Unit 12). It speaks volumes for Brixton Village that it would be impossible for me to write about everything there, but some ventures demand to be mentioned and Honest Burgers, part of a recent revolution in London burger quality, is one of them. The offering here is a serious rival for the title of best reasonably priced burger in London.
It was set up by two cooks who met at the Brighton fish restaurant Riddle and Finns. Inside it's all bare wooden tables and bare light bulbs. What matters are the patties, made from 35-day aged beef from the Ginger Pig, seasoned only top and bottom, and served on a slightly sweet, glazed brioche-like bun. The basic burger with red-onion relish is £6.50. The Honest Burger, with crisp smoked bacon, mature cheddar and crunchy pickled cucumber, tops out at £8. (Not listed on the menu, but available to those in the know, is the Federation Burger, dreamed up by the Kiwis who run Federation Coffee on the next block in the market: the same as an Honest Burger, but with two patties, yours for £12, aneurysm optional.) Chips are triple cooked, skin on, dusted with salt and rosemary and the edible equivalent of crystal meth. They can also do a wheat- and gluten-free bun from WAG Free (Unit 26), a bakery directly opposite which has become a godsend for coeliacs since it opened.
The newest arrival in Brixton Village is Mama Lan's (Unit 18), a tiny space which grew out of a British-Chinese gal's supper club and blog. The menu, executed by her formidable-looking mother with the help of her father and boyfriend, is a tiny selection of bright, blisteringly fresh Beijing street food. You can watch Mama Lan roll the casings for the beef and carrot or pork and Chinese-leaf dumplings, fried off to a crisp base, to be dipped in bowls of dark, sweet vinegar. Yours for £4 per serving of five. Under the heading "street snacks" there are plates of cold shredded chicken dressed with a chilli oil that will make you blink, or cold sliced slow-cooked beef with Chinese herbs and spices. Five-spice boiled peanuts with celery and crunchy, slippery wood-ear fungus is one of those things that makes you feel you are being good to yourself. There may be technically better dumplings in London, but these win out on pure zest.
If eating the entire menu at Mama Lan's hasn't filled you up, go round the corner to Elephant (Unit 55), a tiny Pakistani street-food café serving vivid, turmeric-bright chicken curries at £6 a plate, with soft, buttered breads. Their potato, onion, spinach and chilli pakoras – deep-fried fritters served with a slap of raita – are a little dense, but their crisp, light samosas make up for it. (Though the best samosas I ever ate were at Maumoniat International Food Store on Brudenell Grove in Leeds. In the 1980s. Ah, those greasy brown-paper bags of hot, spicy loveliness.) There are also intriguing looking thalis, both meat and vegetarian.
Around the corner from there is the Brixton Village Grill (Unit 44), a dark-painted, substantial-looking Portuguese piri-piri house serving salt-grilled sardines, spicy chicken wings and hunks of flame-grilled leg and breast for £8.50. There is a big Portuguese community in this part of south London, and this is a very solid place in which to see what they can do with meat, fire, salt and chilli. Salads are fresh, chips crisp and service lovely. Once, when we'd failed to finish a plateful, they wrapped the whole thing up in foil and told us to bring the plate back later.
What else? Breads Etc (Unit 88) serves terrific brownies and the sort of hot chocolate to make small children swoon and, better still, shut up for a while. Etta's Seafood (Unit 46) offers huge plates of Caribbean seafood and has built a devoted following. The Caribbean takeaway Take Two Grill (right at the front) is one of the market's original businesses and one of the few jerk-chicken places in Brixton to cook over coals in a kettle drum rather than in the oven. Their sticky chicken wings, when available, should not be missed – a 10-napkin job at least.
Finally, for dessert finish-off at Laboratoria Artigianale del Buon Gelato, or LAB G (Unit 6) , where Giovanni Giovinazzo makes ice creams of uncommon lightness that recall the confections I have only previously found in the gelato palaces of Florence. Apparently he started making his fabulous salt-caramel ice cream because some big-haired beardy food critic who lives nearby asked him to, and now it's his biggest seller.
Be aware that almost all of these restaurants only take cash and few take bookings, so you may have to queue. Then again there are also lots of grocery and fabric shops where you can browse. Eventually, of course, the bitching will start – it always does with London food ventures. Some will complain that the soul of the market has gone, others that it has become closed off to locals. There may be rows between landlords and tenants. But for now it's thrilling and bringing lots of people to Brixton who might otherwise not think of coming here. That has to be a good thing.
{source}
Open Mon-Weds 10am to 6pm; Thurs-Sat 10am to 10pm; Sun 12pm to 5pm
It was while I was eating the burger, the juices dribbling down my wrists, the scent of properly aged dead animal in my nostrils, that I realised I was being an idiot. A few months back I reviewed Kaosarn, a stonking Thai restaurant in an old covered market a short walk from my home in Brixton, south London. I hesitated before writing that review because it seemed lazy to cover somewhere so close to home. I am accused often enough of metropolitan bias, and though I do pretty well on the out-of-London stakes I could see that writing about somewhere that was practically within the back end of my own postcode would just be throwing lighter fuel on to the smouldering embers of a row.
But I have spent more and more time at Brixton Village since that review and become increasingly convinced that it is the most exciting, radical venture on the British restaurant scene right now. I spend hours every week wading through dismal press releases about the latest glossy openings, each of which has left no change from a million or more. These are places with lighting concepts and colour waves and boards full of investment bankers, which really is just rhyming slang. They are built and designed from the front door in rather than the kitchen out.
Brixton Village, formerly Granville Arcade, is entirely different. It's a dozen or more restaurants, most of which would have been opened for the price of a trip to Ikea. They don't have concepts. They have open kitchens and menus and nice young people bringing you nice stuff to eat. A bunch of them, being unlicensed, will feed you for under a tenner. None costs much more than that a head. The fact that all this is on my doorstep is a lucky coincidence. To which I can only say: hoorah for me.
Which is exactly what I thought as those fabulous meaty juices coated me courtesy of the marvellous Honest Burgers (Unit 12). It speaks volumes for Brixton Village that it would be impossible for me to write about everything there, but some ventures demand to be mentioned and Honest Burgers, part of a recent revolution in London burger quality, is one of them. The offering here is a serious rival for the title of best reasonably priced burger in London.
It was set up by two cooks who met at the Brighton fish restaurant Riddle and Finns. Inside it's all bare wooden tables and bare light bulbs. What matters are the patties, made from 35-day aged beef from the Ginger Pig, seasoned only top and bottom, and served on a slightly sweet, glazed brioche-like bun. The basic burger with red-onion relish is £6.50. The Honest Burger, with crisp smoked bacon, mature cheddar and crunchy pickled cucumber, tops out at £8. (Not listed on the menu, but available to those in the know, is the Federation Burger, dreamed up by the Kiwis who run Federation Coffee on the next block in the market: the same as an Honest Burger, but with two patties, yours for £12, aneurysm optional.) Chips are triple cooked, skin on, dusted with salt and rosemary and the edible equivalent of crystal meth. They can also do a wheat- and gluten-free bun from WAG Free (Unit 26), a bakery directly opposite which has become a godsend for coeliacs since it opened.
The newest arrival in Brixton Village is Mama Lan's (Unit 18), a tiny space which grew out of a British-Chinese gal's supper club and blog. The menu, executed by her formidable-looking mother with the help of her father and boyfriend, is a tiny selection of bright, blisteringly fresh Beijing street food. You can watch Mama Lan roll the casings for the beef and carrot or pork and Chinese-leaf dumplings, fried off to a crisp base, to be dipped in bowls of dark, sweet vinegar. Yours for £4 per serving of five. Under the heading "street snacks" there are plates of cold shredded chicken dressed with a chilli oil that will make you blink, or cold sliced slow-cooked beef with Chinese herbs and spices. Five-spice boiled peanuts with celery and crunchy, slippery wood-ear fungus is one of those things that makes you feel you are being good to yourself. There may be technically better dumplings in London, but these win out on pure zest.
If eating the entire menu at Mama Lan's hasn't filled you up, go round the corner to Elephant (Unit 55), a tiny Pakistani street-food café serving vivid, turmeric-bright chicken curries at £6 a plate, with soft, buttered breads. Their potato, onion, spinach and chilli pakoras – deep-fried fritters served with a slap of raita – are a little dense, but their crisp, light samosas make up for it. (Though the best samosas I ever ate were at Maumoniat International Food Store on Brudenell Grove in Leeds. In the 1980s. Ah, those greasy brown-paper bags of hot, spicy loveliness.) There are also intriguing looking thalis, both meat and vegetarian.
Around the corner from there is the Brixton Village Grill (Unit 44), a dark-painted, substantial-looking Portuguese piri-piri house serving salt-grilled sardines, spicy chicken wings and hunks of flame-grilled leg and breast for £8.50. There is a big Portuguese community in this part of south London, and this is a very solid place in which to see what they can do with meat, fire, salt and chilli. Salads are fresh, chips crisp and service lovely. Once, when we'd failed to finish a plateful, they wrapped the whole thing up in foil and told us to bring the plate back later.
What else? Breads Etc (Unit 88) serves terrific brownies and the sort of hot chocolate to make small children swoon and, better still, shut up for a while. Etta's Seafood (Unit 46) offers huge plates of Caribbean seafood and has built a devoted following. The Caribbean takeaway Take Two Grill (right at the front) is one of the market's original businesses and one of the few jerk-chicken places in Brixton to cook over coals in a kettle drum rather than in the oven. Their sticky chicken wings, when available, should not be missed – a 10-napkin job at least.
Finally, for dessert finish-off at Laboratoria Artigianale del Buon Gelato, or LAB G (Unit 6) , where Giovanni Giovinazzo makes ice creams of uncommon lightness that recall the confections I have only previously found in the gelato palaces of Florence. Apparently he started making his fabulous salt-caramel ice cream because some big-haired beardy food critic who lives nearby asked him to, and now it's his biggest seller.
Be aware that almost all of these restaurants only take cash and few take bookings, so you may have to queue. Then again there are also lots of grocery and fabric shops where you can browse. Eventually, of course, the bitching will start – it always does with London food ventures. Some will complain that the soul of the market has gone, others that it has become closed off to locals. There may be rows between landlords and tenants. But for now it's thrilling and bringing lots of people to Brixton who might otherwise not think of coming here. That has to be a good thing.
{source}
La Favorita Restaurant
La Favorita is a modern pizzeria, with black-topped tables and whitewashed walls. In recent years, owner Tony Crolla has expanded his brand to include a takeaway fleet of Mini Coopers and a mobile van, complete with a log-fired pizza oven. Yet it is the original restaurant on Leith Walk that continues to offer what is surely Edinburgh's best pizza, with their thin crispy bases and superb quality ingredients. That said, overlooking La Favorita's pasta and regularly changing specials would be unfair; their saltimbocca is superb.
• 325-331 Leith Walk, 0131-554 2430 (restaurant), 0131 555 5564 (takeaway), la-favorita.com. Restaurant and takeaway open noon-11pm every day, pizza from £10
• 325-331 Leith Walk, 0131-554 2430 (restaurant), 0131 555 5564 (takeaway), la-favorita.com. Restaurant and takeaway open noon-11pm every day, pizza from £10
The Grain Store Restaurant
When eating out in Edinburgh it's not unreasonable to expect the very best Scottish meat and fish. The Grain Store consistently delivers, with its venison, beef and lamb never failing to impress. The upstairs setting sums up all that is great about Edinburgh: an intimate dining room, moody lighting, bare-brick walls and views of picture-perfect Victoria Street. The three-course lunch for £15 has been running for a long time and offers superb value.
• 30 Victoria Street, 0131-225 7635, grainstore-restaurant.co.uk. Mon-Fri noon-2pm, 6pm-10pm, Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun 6pm-10pm (closed on Sundays in October), average main £24
• 30 Victoria Street, 0131-225 7635, grainstore-restaurant.co.uk. Mon-Fri noon-2pm, 6pm-10pm, Sat noon-3pm, 6pm-11pm, Sun 6pm-10pm (closed on Sundays in October), average main £24
Ondine Restaurant
Ondine has been a breath of fresh air for Edinburgh's seafood scene. After opening in late 2009, it soon picked up a host of awards for the near-perfect manner in which the locally sourced seafood is prepared. Work your way through the oysters, feast on the sea bream curry or push the boat out and try the roast shellfish platter. Huge glass windows provide views of Edinburgh's old town, while the silver-topped horseshoe bar provides an impressive internal focal point. Post meal, go for a nightcap in the stylish bar of the Missoni Hotel next door.
• 2 George IV Bridge, 0131-226 1888, ondinerestaurant.co.uk. Open 7 days noon-3pm, 5.30pm-10pm, average main £22
• 2 George IV Bridge, 0131-226 1888, ondinerestaurant.co.uk. Open 7 days noon-3pm, 5.30pm-10pm, average main £22
Castle Terrace Restaurant
This is the sister restaurant to Edinburgh's Michelin-starred The Kitchin. Enjoy a drink in the bar or, even better, wait to be invited down to the chef's table, which overlooks Dominic Jack's kitchen – although seeing the preparation of the beautiful food makes choosing a dish even harder. Perhaps put your faith in the Surprise Tasting Menu (£60), from which the pistachio souffle lingers long in the memory. Inside the dining room patches of purple puncture calming neutral tones – this is a place where whole evenings pass with ease.
• 33/35 Castle Terrace, 0131-229 1222, castleterracerestaurant.com. Tues-Sat noon-2pm, 6.30pm-10pm, average main £24
• 33/35 Castle Terrace, 0131-229 1222, castleterracerestaurant.com. Tues-Sat noon-2pm, 6.30pm-10pm, average main £24
The Ship on the Shore Restaurants
Many tourists head to Leith to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia but many neglect to stop at The Shore. That's a shame as this area by the water is home to some of Edinburgh's most welcoming and best quality restaurants. The Ship on the Shore focuses on seafood, with the catch of the day joined by a host of regulars, including a mean seafood chowder. If the sight of water isn't enough to perk up the seafarer inside you then surely the nautical maps along the wall will. Try a bowl of steamed Shetland mussels – they'll provide you with an enduring memory of this fine City.
• 24-26 Shore, Leith, 0131-555 0409, theshipontheshore.co.uk. Open 7 days noon-10pm (ship's breakfast served 9am-11am), average main £18
• 24-26 Shore, Leith, 0131-555 0409, theshipontheshore.co.uk. Open 7 days noon-10pm (ship's breakfast served 9am-11am), average main £18
Best Burgers in San Diego
When you go out to eat a burger you don't always want to eat at the same place. It gets very predictable and borders on absolutely boring! Instead why not eat at a restaurant that is constantly coming up with new and creative burger ideas? You can do just this if you live anywhere in the San Diego area.
You want to do a quick search online by typing in Boll Weevil Restaurant and finding the location nearest you. Why? Because their burgers are famous and each location has different burgers on their menu so you won't get tired eating the same old burger!
You may even have heard of the Steerburger, well this belongs to the Boll Weevil restaurant chain. This burger is known as their classic and sometimes world famous burger. What the chef's do is simply take the basic burger and add multiple variations. This creates some wonderful burgers such as their Peanut Butter Bacon Burger.
Mind you they do offer more than just burgers, they have chicken specials along with fish, chilli and more. The majority of customers love to order a burger and they enjoy revisiting just to see what new creations they have come up with.
Here's an example from one of the menus a Teriyaki Burger. This burger consists of a Steerburger patty topped with Swiss Cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato served on a toasted sesame seed bun. They serve their own special Teriyaki sauce as a side dish. This way you can dip or spread the sauce onto your burger as you wish.
If you love mushrooms then order the Mushroom Burger. This is a great selling burger that consists of the basic Steerburger layered with lots of savoury mushrooms. The burger is served with lettuce, tomato and your choice of American, Jack or Swiss Cheese. All of this is placed inside a warm and toasty sesame bun.
For those of you who want a smaller burger then the Mini Burger and Mini Cheese Burgers are perfect. These patties are a quarter pound of quality beef with lettuce and tomato on the regular toasted sesame seed bun.
The Boll Weevil Restaurants likes to cook their burgers until medium done. If you would like your burger prepared differently just tell them and they are happy to oblige. After all customer service is what makes any restaurant great.
You want to do a quick search online by typing in Boll Weevil Restaurant and finding the location nearest you. Why? Because their burgers are famous and each location has different burgers on their menu so you won't get tired eating the same old burger!
You may even have heard of the Steerburger, well this belongs to the Boll Weevil restaurant chain. This burger is known as their classic and sometimes world famous burger. What the chef's do is simply take the basic burger and add multiple variations. This creates some wonderful burgers such as their Peanut Butter Bacon Burger.
Mind you they do offer more than just burgers, they have chicken specials along with fish, chilli and more. The majority of customers love to order a burger and they enjoy revisiting just to see what new creations they have come up with.
Here's an example from one of the menus a Teriyaki Burger. This burger consists of a Steerburger patty topped with Swiss Cheese, pineapple, lettuce, tomato served on a toasted sesame seed bun. They serve their own special Teriyaki sauce as a side dish. This way you can dip or spread the sauce onto your burger as you wish.
If you love mushrooms then order the Mushroom Burger. This is a great selling burger that consists of the basic Steerburger layered with lots of savoury mushrooms. The burger is served with lettuce, tomato and your choice of American, Jack or Swiss Cheese. All of this is placed inside a warm and toasty sesame bun.
For those of you who want a smaller burger then the Mini Burger and Mini Cheese Burgers are perfect. These patties are a quarter pound of quality beef with lettuce and tomato on the regular toasted sesame seed bun.
The Boll Weevil Restaurants likes to cook their burgers until medium done. If you would like your burger prepared differently just tell them and they are happy to oblige. After all customer service is what makes any restaurant great.
Phoenix restaurant coupons: a discount life in Phoenix
The Phoenix Suns are one of the 30 NBA teams. They are one of the league's oldest franchises and yet they have also not yet won an NBA championship. The Phoenix Suns is a team that has seen a lot of great players are wearing their orange proud. Players such as Kevin Johnson, Paul Westphal, Charles Barkley and of the most recent era Steve Nash have played for this proud franchise and have each done their share to put the Phoenix Suns in to great prominence. Their efforts however have fallen short as that elusive championship continues to be that way. The absence of a world title however does little to diminish the love affair that the locals have with the franchise.
The Phoenix Suns are still firmly integrated in to the culture of the city and their games are still well attended by the hometown faithful. The fans of this proud franchise take great joy in rooting for their players and do what they can to help raise the level of their performance. The Phoenix Suns are closely associated with the city itself and it is not a stretch to say that the city would not be the same without them nor would the team be worth anything without its fans. The arena of the Phoenix Suns has some good restaurants as well as the area around it and Phoenix restaurant coupons help make the fan experience even better.
Fine restaurants usually require a significant amount of money from its customers for them to be able to fully enjoy the dining experience. This is however no longer a universal truth. The presences of Phoenix restaurant coupons help make these quality establishments more affordable and as such make it more accessible to more people. One example of these restaurants is Macayo's Mexican Restaurant Central.
Taking its cue from the city's significant Hispanic population, this restaurant offers quality Mexican cuisine and thanks to the coupons they are at an even better price. There is also the La Fontenella Italian Restaurant. This restaurant provides quality Italian food fare and does so at the same value. The Phoenix zoo is another great place to visit in the city. Coupons for Phoenix zoo are also available and they can make the trip there both educational as well as affordable. The Phoenix zoo is well worth the visit and to be able to do so at a significantly reduced cost thanks to the coupons for Phoenix zoo is a real treat.
The Phoenix Suns are still firmly integrated in to the culture of the city and their games are still well attended by the hometown faithful. The fans of this proud franchise take great joy in rooting for their players and do what they can to help raise the level of their performance. The Phoenix Suns are closely associated with the city itself and it is not a stretch to say that the city would not be the same without them nor would the team be worth anything without its fans. The arena of the Phoenix Suns has some good restaurants as well as the area around it and Phoenix restaurant coupons help make the fan experience even better.
Fine restaurants usually require a significant amount of money from its customers for them to be able to fully enjoy the dining experience. This is however no longer a universal truth. The presences of Phoenix restaurant coupons help make these quality establishments more affordable and as such make it more accessible to more people. One example of these restaurants is Macayo's Mexican Restaurant Central.
Taking its cue from the city's significant Hispanic population, this restaurant offers quality Mexican cuisine and thanks to the coupons they are at an even better price. There is also the La Fontenella Italian Restaurant. This restaurant provides quality Italian food fare and does so at the same value. The Phoenix zoo is another great place to visit in the city. Coupons for Phoenix zoo are also available and they can make the trip there both educational as well as affordable. The Phoenix zoo is well worth the visit and to be able to do so at a significantly reduced cost thanks to the coupons for Phoenix zoo is a real treat.
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