I got lost on the way to The Anchor. Actually, I didn't get lost, but I managed to convince myself of that to the extent that I had to call my partner and ask him to give me directions. I was running late anyway, and it was raining, and so eventually ended up falling through The Anchor's doorway stressed, tired, and feeling a bit stupid.
Their stylish and calming grey decor swiftly knocked that attitude out of me. This is a symphony in grey: on the walls, on the chairs, on the bar, everywhere. It's light and airy and utterly relaxing; the tables are placed quite closely together so in the evening it might be buzzier, but on a drizzly midweek January lunchtime, it was like being inside the head of a very good Buddhist. The service matched the decor: welcoming, relaxed, and present and prompt, without being at all overbearing or overly chummy.
As soon as we sat down, warm, freshly baked bread appeared on the table - none of your mass-produced baked-last-week stuff here, but a platter of three different types of loaf. An entire jug of excellent extra virgin olive oil was provided to dunk the bread into, and when us two greedy guts managed to hoover up the entire plate within a few minutes, more bread was offered automatically, with no charge placed on the menu.
The menu is small but uniformly tempting, so we spent longer than average choosing what to eat. The waitress was lovely despite our sloth, utterly unfussed every time we shooed her away from our table. In the end, I chose the smoked salmon rillettes to start. These were not, in fact, rillettes, but a very good salmon pate. That's no bad thing: this one was packed with plenty of dill and came with a good dollop of bright pickled cucumber on the side. Slightly oddly, given their earlier bread triumphs, this was served with somewhat dull wholemeal toast, but perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't consume any more carbs at this point of the meal. My companion chose the squash and coconut soup. I normally avoid soup on restaurant menus on the grounds that it's the kitchen's least inventive dish, but she assured me that it was an interesting soup, warmingly spiced but not enough to raise the heartrate. It also came in a massive portion: a bowl of this with some bread would probably constitute a lunch in itself for many people.
There's a good, reasonably priced wine list, with a wide range of them by the glass. After a perfunctory debate about whether we should have wine, given we were both due back in the office within an hour, I swiftly ordered a glass of their pinot noir. The waitress was able to make a specific recommendation for a glass to go with my companion's main course: impressive in a fine dining environment, but exceptional in a gastropub.
Having spotted on Twitter in advance that they had installed a high-temperature Josper grill in the kitchen, I had to order steak for my main course: the rib-eye was not only my favourite of the cuts on offer but also the smallest at 6 oz, so that was my choice. The Josper is doing its job: the meat and fat were caramelly crisp round the edges, but the steak was still insanely juicy and rare inside. It came with excellent frites (incidentally, if the Anchor can keep skinny chips hot, why are they cold in so many other restaurants?) and a homemade, yolk-yellow, bearnaise. A gesture of watercress attempted to steer the plate towards a balanced meal, but it wasn't necessary: this was artery clogging luxury at its best.
The other main we ordered was the chargrilled lamb with bulghar wheat, aubergine, pine nuts, and a yoghurt dressing. The waitress had promised - almost warned - that the meat would be pink, but it was almost cooked through; luckily it was tasty and moist despite that. The flavour of mint had permeated the entire hunk; the menu didn't specify but we suspected this had been sitting in a marinade for an appropriately long time. The aubergine was so melting it was almost liquid. When it arrived, the dish looked like a small portion, but the combination of elements was actually very filling: neither of us were able to even consider attempting a pudding.
The Anchor's first incarnation (at least, the first during my Oxford tenure) closed down around Easter 2013, and, like many others, I mourned its passing as one of the great foodie places in Oxford. I wasn't initially reassured when I heard that the people behind the Duke of Cambridge cocktail bar, possibly my least favourite cocktail bar in Oxford, had taken it over. I only got interested when they tweeted a picture of the Josper Grill they were installing in the kitchen, and, as I found, I was right to get excited by that, but this was far far better than I had expected. With easily the best service I've had in Oxford in a long time, I'm desperate to get back for more of their soothing care.
Friday 25 April 2014
Restaurant Review: 1855
Now, it's not as if I would decline an opportunity to subsist entirely on wine for an evening. In fact, given the calorific content of most alcoholic drinks, I sometimes wonder if my health would be better served by not eating on nights when I drink. Then I wake up the next morning in the middle of a massive sugar low, nearly faint in the shower, and resolve never to be so silly again.
So when invited to the launch of new Oxford wine bar, 1855, I was delighted to see that they had a tempting menu of food, all designed to go well with a glass of wine (or several). The tasters they handed out were encouraging, so I made an appointment on a cold rainy January evening to go back with a friend for "dinner". I mean, dinner. Actual food. And maybe some wine.
I started off on the Lo Sang del Pais (dammit, focussing on the wine again), which was a delightfully dry and elegant red wine. It went superbly with the tapenade, ordered as part of a trio of dunking things together with some "tomato confit" (chutney) and "onion confit" (caramelised onions), alongside some excellent chewy toasted sourdough. It took me some time to realise that the wine and tapenade tasted so good together because the wine had that slightly bitter, slightly oily taste carried by really good black olives.
The dunking things swiftly got wolfed down, the bread accompanied by some really stunning extra virgin olive oil and a rounded sherry vinegar. The tomato confit was particularly good, and I speak as someone who doesn't normally like tomatoes: the cooking had highlighted the fruity notes without overemphasising either sweetness or sourness. So we ordered a couple of meaty plates: pork rillettes for me, and the celebration terrine for her.
Alongside them I had a glass of Vourla, from Turkey. Turkey! I didn't even know they made wines, and here's a place that not only sells them, but does so by the glass. This came from the "sun-drenched" section of the menu (the Lo Sang del Pais was from "mountains and slopes"), and it's a pleasure to find a wine menu that has actually useful categories. The Vourla was just the sort of red wine you'd want to drink on a warm summer evening somewhere in the Med: as the menu notes state, it's full of "really soft, ripe... fruit...with spicy notes". I'd like to do better than the menu description, but it's worth emphasising that the descriptions here are about as accurate as you can get. It perhaps wasn't the perfect match with my pork rillettes, but I probably should have chosen a white or rose with them.
The rillettes themselves weren't, in fact, rillettes, but largeish chunks of pork, both lean and fat cuts, potted with clarified butter. The size of the chunks made them more awkward to eat, especially at a small table packed with wine glasses; a smearable texture would have been much easier to deal with. However, the flavour was good, with plenty of aromatic thyme and a good amount of butter. My companion was very impressed with her celebration terrine, a mix of chicken, duck and pork meats enclosed in pancetta. It was definitely a knife and fork job, particularly with the generic mixed salad it came with. Both dishes came in generous portions: you could very easily construct yourself a full three-course dinner here from what appears, at first glance, to be a menu of snacky things.
We both finished off with a glass of the Australian "Dandelion Wonder of the Eden" Riesling. This was a little drier and less oily in the glass than we had expected, but it was so highly aromatic that it still did a good job of following on from some serious reds. A refreshing end to a very pleasant evening: hopefully the first of very many I spend ensconced here.
So when invited to the launch of new Oxford wine bar, 1855, I was delighted to see that they had a tempting menu of food, all designed to go well with a glass of wine (or several). The tasters they handed out were encouraging, so I made an appointment on a cold rainy January evening to go back with a friend for "dinner". I mean, dinner. Actual food. And maybe some wine.
I started off on the Lo Sang del Pais (dammit, focussing on the wine again), which was a delightfully dry and elegant red wine. It went superbly with the tapenade, ordered as part of a trio of dunking things together with some "tomato confit" (chutney) and "onion confit" (caramelised onions), alongside some excellent chewy toasted sourdough. It took me some time to realise that the wine and tapenade tasted so good together because the wine had that slightly bitter, slightly oily taste carried by really good black olives.
The dunking things swiftly got wolfed down, the bread accompanied by some really stunning extra virgin olive oil and a rounded sherry vinegar. The tomato confit was particularly good, and I speak as someone who doesn't normally like tomatoes: the cooking had highlighted the fruity notes without overemphasising either sweetness or sourness. So we ordered a couple of meaty plates: pork rillettes for me, and the celebration terrine for her.
Alongside them I had a glass of Vourla, from Turkey. Turkey! I didn't even know they made wines, and here's a place that not only sells them, but does so by the glass. This came from the "sun-drenched" section of the menu (the Lo Sang del Pais was from "mountains and slopes"), and it's a pleasure to find a wine menu that has actually useful categories. The Vourla was just the sort of red wine you'd want to drink on a warm summer evening somewhere in the Med: as the menu notes state, it's full of "really soft, ripe... fruit...with spicy notes". I'd like to do better than the menu description, but it's worth emphasising that the descriptions here are about as accurate as you can get. It perhaps wasn't the perfect match with my pork rillettes, but I probably should have chosen a white or rose with them.
The rillettes themselves weren't, in fact, rillettes, but largeish chunks of pork, both lean and fat cuts, potted with clarified butter. The size of the chunks made them more awkward to eat, especially at a small table packed with wine glasses; a smearable texture would have been much easier to deal with. However, the flavour was good, with plenty of aromatic thyme and a good amount of butter. My companion was very impressed with her celebration terrine, a mix of chicken, duck and pork meats enclosed in pancetta. It was definitely a knife and fork job, particularly with the generic mixed salad it came with. Both dishes came in generous portions: you could very easily construct yourself a full three-course dinner here from what appears, at first glance, to be a menu of snacky things.
We both finished off with a glass of the Australian "Dandelion Wonder of the Eden" Riesling. This was a little drier and less oily in the glass than we had expected, but it was so highly aromatic that it still did a good job of following on from some serious reds. A refreshing end to a very pleasant evening: hopefully the first of very many I spend ensconced here.
Wednesday 16 April 2014
Restaurant review: Al-Shami
Despite being an absolute shoo-in for the Bitten Top 10, somehow I haven't written a proper review of Al-Shami. I've been here on romantic dates for two, and with groups of 20 carnivores, but on this visit I was there with threeother vegetarians. So I need to take the opportunity of this introduction to mention a few of the dishes I've tried on previous occasions but not this time: the jawaneh dajaj mashwiya, chicken wings marinated in garlic and lemon juice then slowly roasted until crispy outside but soft and tender within; kibbeh nayah, delicate raw minced lamb, gentle in texture but with a bite of raw onion and parsley; and sujuk, spicy mini lamb sausages with paprika, something like chorizo but more intense, and with the type of animal fat that coats your lips. But enough about those things. This time we were here for VEGETABLES. Oh yes.
You are always brought a dish of salads and pickles for the table to share at Al-Shami, as soon as you've sat down. I was confused the first few times when the salad ingredients arrived whole (entire pepper, two entire tomatoes, a whole head of lettuce...), until a Lebanese friend explained to me that the aim of serving the vegetables whole was to get people serving others around the table, making the experience infinitely more communal than just sharing from the same bowl. We were disappointed this time that there was no red pepper, but it was replaced with masses of the home-pickled red cabbage. Do beware of the chillis: they're not especially hot, but because they're pickled, they are filled with vinegar, which can stylishly dribble all over you when you bite in, if you're not careful.
We order a selection of dishes to share between the table. Hummus, and bread, were the first to arrive. The hummus here is always incredibly light and smooth, with plenty of tahini. The flatbreads cooled a little too quickly, toughening up, but were fine with the dip. Two salads came next: a tabbouleh, which was slightly lacking compared to previous visits, with a large proportion of the bowl occupied by little gem lettuce, rather than a chopped parsley salad, and an excellent fattoush, sharp with sumak and laden with uber-crisp pitta croutons.
My partner's favourite dish is the batata harra, so that had to be ordered. This fried potato dish never excites me terribly, but others adored it. The zahra maqlia was my absolute stand-out dish of this visit: caramelised roast cauliflower, served at room temperature, with a nutty and rich-but-sharp tahini sauce. I am, admittedly, something of a cauliflower fiend, but I could happily have eaten a couple of plates of this on my own.
We had to order a double portion of the falafel, as I knew that a single croquette apiece wouldn't suffice. They're normally great here, crumbly on the inside and crunchy outside, but they were even more sublime than usual, the exteriors shattering when bitten. They came with a drizzle of tahini sauce. Al-Shami don't do a grilled halloumi dish, a source of perpetual sadness for me, but they do serve a kellage halloum, cheese grilled inside flatbreads. It lacks the lovely charred bits of cheese, but the flatbread is flaky and slightly darkened, so the flavours are still good. Finally, we had a plate of fetayer sebanikh. These are billed as spinach pastries, but the rich and flaky pastry is actually balanced by a very tart, lemony filling, making these a refreshing little nibble.
We could have ordered (and eaten) more, but space needed to be left for the baklawa. The waiter kindly steered us away from the whipped-cream-filled versions, and advised us to focus on the tiny squares of pastry, butter, and syrup instead. He didn't tell us that we hadn't ordered enough, though: despite their richness, we couldn't help requesting a second helping.We accompanied them with a round of muddied, thick, and aromatic Lebanese coffees (as dark as the night, as strong as a man, and as bitter as a women, as my favourite Bedouin saying goes).
Al-Shami have a fantastic range of Lebanese wines which is well worth exploring, including two house wines served by the glass. We went for a bottle of one of those house wines, the Chateau Musar "Musar Jeune White", which was strongly aromatic and stood up well to the range of flavours and acidity in the food. Service was friendly, and although it was sometimes slightly scatty, the food arrived quickly. I'll be back - lots.
You are always brought a dish of salads and pickles for the table to share at Al-Shami, as soon as you've sat down. I was confused the first few times when the salad ingredients arrived whole (entire pepper, two entire tomatoes, a whole head of lettuce...), until a Lebanese friend explained to me that the aim of serving the vegetables whole was to get people serving others around the table, making the experience infinitely more communal than just sharing from the same bowl. We were disappointed this time that there was no red pepper, but it was replaced with masses of the home-pickled red cabbage. Do beware of the chillis: they're not especially hot, but because they're pickled, they are filled with vinegar, which can stylishly dribble all over you when you bite in, if you're not careful.
We order a selection of dishes to share between the table. Hummus, and bread, were the first to arrive. The hummus here is always incredibly light and smooth, with plenty of tahini. The flatbreads cooled a little too quickly, toughening up, but were fine with the dip. Two salads came next: a tabbouleh, which was slightly lacking compared to previous visits, with a large proportion of the bowl occupied by little gem lettuce, rather than a chopped parsley salad, and an excellent fattoush, sharp with sumak and laden with uber-crisp pitta croutons.
My partner's favourite dish is the batata harra, so that had to be ordered. This fried potato dish never excites me terribly, but others adored it. The zahra maqlia was my absolute stand-out dish of this visit: caramelised roast cauliflower, served at room temperature, with a nutty and rich-but-sharp tahini sauce. I am, admittedly, something of a cauliflower fiend, but I could happily have eaten a couple of plates of this on my own.
We had to order a double portion of the falafel, as I knew that a single croquette apiece wouldn't suffice. They're normally great here, crumbly on the inside and crunchy outside, but they were even more sublime than usual, the exteriors shattering when bitten. They came with a drizzle of tahini sauce. Al-Shami don't do a grilled halloumi dish, a source of perpetual sadness for me, but they do serve a kellage halloum, cheese grilled inside flatbreads. It lacks the lovely charred bits of cheese, but the flatbread is flaky and slightly darkened, so the flavours are still good. Finally, we had a plate of fetayer sebanikh. These are billed as spinach pastries, but the rich and flaky pastry is actually balanced by a very tart, lemony filling, making these a refreshing little nibble.
We could have ordered (and eaten) more, but space needed to be left for the baklawa. The waiter kindly steered us away from the whipped-cream-filled versions, and advised us to focus on the tiny squares of pastry, butter, and syrup instead. He didn't tell us that we hadn't ordered enough, though: despite their richness, we couldn't help requesting a second helping.We accompanied them with a round of muddied, thick, and aromatic Lebanese coffees (as dark as the night, as strong as a man, and as bitter as a women, as my favourite Bedouin saying goes).
Al-Shami have a fantastic range of Lebanese wines which is well worth exploring, including two house wines served by the glass. We went for a bottle of one of those house wines, the Chateau Musar "Musar Jeune White", which was strongly aromatic and stood up well to the range of flavours and acidity in the food. Service was friendly, and although it was sometimes slightly scatty, the food arrived quickly. I'll be back - lots.
Restaurant review: The Pink Giraffe
How is it that, despite Chinese or Thai being my go-to vegetarian or vegan cuisine when cooking at home, it's so difficult to track down a good vegetarian meal at one of the many Chinese or Thai restaurants in Oxford? My favourites - My Sichuan, Chiang Mai, Sojo - all have a serious meat focus, with a few fish dishes thrown in. Even the vegetable side dishes are cooked with meat.
So, when I needed to entertain some veggie friends for a few days, I put out a call on Twitter for suggestions. One of the ideas that came back was the Pink Giraffe - a venue which I had always avoided on the grounds of its pale pink exterior and impossible-to-use website. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so off we went on Saturday night.
The restaurant is much smaller on the inside than I had expected, with tables placed very close together and little space for waiting staff to move between. Combined with the attractiveness of their all-you-can-eat-for-£15 deal to those falling out of the many local pubs, it was absolutely packed; this is one place you'd definitely need to book in advance to get into.
We started with a dish we'd been hugely looking forward to, the mock crispy duck. My partner is normally a crispy duck fiend, so this was going to have to be good. The tofu was actually crispy on the outside (I'm still bewildered as to how they achieved this), and although slightly lacking in "duck" flavour, once smothered in hoisin sauce, wrapped in pancakes and topped with spring onions and cucumber, it was barely discernible from the real thing. We also had some mock prawn crackers which were delicious and utterly indistinguishable from those you'd get anywhere else, and some crispy seaweed, which was somewhat underseasoned.
I stole a taste of the mock crispy beef in Sichuan sauce from someone elses plate, and was immediately jealous: it was better than any time I've had the real version. Instead of chewy overcooked strings of elastic in the middle of the crisp coating, there were just crunchy morsels, smothered in a hot sweet sauce.
Two of us ordered dishes "Pink Giraffe" style, which meant traditional Thai stir-fry style. They had a well-balanced mix of hot, sour, salty, and sweet flavours, together with with green beans and basil. The latter was a little lacking, compared to the excellent version at Angrid Thai, but was otherwise fantastic, both in the original bean curd and the mock pork versions. It's worth saying, though, that one of these dishes originally arrived as real beef, despite the waitress checking the order with us twice. It was replaced very quickly with the correct version, but it's definitely worth checking when dishes arrive that they are what you ordered: the kitchen are clearly capable of making mistakes.
The only non-vegetarian in the group ordered the squid in black pepper sauce, and noted that the squid was cooked perfectly, and came in a spicy and slightly smoky sauce, so they clearly know what they're doing with the "normal" menu, too. We drank a respectable bottle of rose wine(or maybe two of them); the rest of the wine list looked unexceptional, but suitable for a venue where the food is going to obliterate the taste of most wine. Service throughout was friendly, although a little inefficient towards the end, taking quite some time to bring us a bill.
So, when I needed to entertain some veggie friends for a few days, I put out a call on Twitter for suggestions. One of the ideas that came back was the Pink Giraffe - a venue which I had always avoided on the grounds of its pale pink exterior and impossible-to-use website. But desperate times call for desperate measures, so off we went on Saturday night.
The restaurant is much smaller on the inside than I had expected, with tables placed very close together and little space for waiting staff to move between. Combined with the attractiveness of their all-you-can-eat-for-£15 deal to those falling out of the many local pubs, it was absolutely packed; this is one place you'd definitely need to book in advance to get into.
We started with a dish we'd been hugely looking forward to, the mock crispy duck. My partner is normally a crispy duck fiend, so this was going to have to be good. The tofu was actually crispy on the outside (I'm still bewildered as to how they achieved this), and although slightly lacking in "duck" flavour, once smothered in hoisin sauce, wrapped in pancakes and topped with spring onions and cucumber, it was barely discernible from the real thing. We also had some mock prawn crackers which were delicious and utterly indistinguishable from those you'd get anywhere else, and some crispy seaweed, which was somewhat underseasoned.
I stole a taste of the mock crispy beef in Sichuan sauce from someone elses plate, and was immediately jealous: it was better than any time I've had the real version. Instead of chewy overcooked strings of elastic in the middle of the crisp coating, there were just crunchy morsels, smothered in a hot sweet sauce.
Two of us ordered dishes "Pink Giraffe" style, which meant traditional Thai stir-fry style. They had a well-balanced mix of hot, sour, salty, and sweet flavours, together with with green beans and basil. The latter was a little lacking, compared to the excellent version at Angrid Thai, but was otherwise fantastic, both in the original bean curd and the mock pork versions. It's worth saying, though, that one of these dishes originally arrived as real beef, despite the waitress checking the order with us twice. It was replaced very quickly with the correct version, but it's definitely worth checking when dishes arrive that they are what you ordered: the kitchen are clearly capable of making mistakes.
The only non-vegetarian in the group ordered the squid in black pepper sauce, and noted that the squid was cooked perfectly, and came in a spicy and slightly smoky sauce, so they clearly know what they're doing with the "normal" menu, too. We drank a respectable bottle of rose wine(or maybe two of them); the rest of the wine list looked unexceptional, but suitable for a venue where the food is going to obliterate the taste of most wine. Service throughout was friendly, although a little inefficient towards the end, taking quite some time to bring us a bill.
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