LAMB & THE DAN

Hermano Primero is the elder of Dos Hermanos.

When we were younger, it would be fair to say he made the most of his seniority. There were four of us. He was the tops, I was in the middle which inevitably led to torture that would put the regime of the Khmer Rouge to shame.

I recall being locked in the bathroom for what seemed like days all because I had transgressed some unwritten law. I also recall the time he declared himself lord high ruler of the house in the absence of my parents and took upon himself the name of “The Great Salami” We were all forced to our knees to pay obeisance while incanting the mantra ‘ Oh Salami, Oh Salami” I still bear the emotional scars.

All that being said, there were some benefits. As I grew older and more interested in food, he was earning more than I was. A great deal more. He was always more than happy to spread the love and take me out for meals in restaurants for which I barely had the money to tip the coat check let alone buy food.

He also had a massive record collection which, despite his predilection for obscure 1980’s reggae had much in it to intrigue a young boy coming into musical sentience. I hold him responsible for my obsession with Frank Zappa, my acceptance of the importance of 1970’s prog rock and, most of all, my enjoyment of Steely Dan.

In the early 1980’s being a child of Punk, I thought Steely Dan was elevator music. I thought it was everything I was supposed to hate and so did. But, as I grew older and found myself listening to young folks music and saying things like “ in my day songs had decent words” ( words like “White riot, I wanna Riot” Shakespeare, right?) I began to appreciate the craft and sheer effort that went into every Steely Dan record.

So now, we both love The Dan and it forms the soundtrack to the every Sunday lunch we manage to squeeze out of our hectic schedules. With sun streaming in through the windows, a martini in hand and a large roasted something in the oven, the swirling, detailed sounds of Gaucho, Katy Lied or Can’t buy a Thrill take some beating.

Today’s menu, a shoulder of lamb from BM, blade bone removed, stuffed with lemons, garlic and oregano and baked for six hours.

Simple salads of beets, tomato & mozzarella and yoghurt with cucumber and mint. Suitably served by a well made martini, a rose from Provence and half bottle Paul Cluver Late Harvest Reisling.

And, of course, a couple of spare place settings for our favourite Sunday guests, Mr D. Fagen and Mr W. Becker.

THE GROVE: A VERY BIG HOUSE IN THE COUNTRY

I read a statistic this morning. Apparently an EXTRA 12 million pints of beer were sold during England’s first match of the world cup yesterday. I added one of them, but more of that later.

I am not sure how many extra Martini’s were ordered in the same spell, but I added a couple of those too.

A good chum had invited me to have lunch with him and his delightful family at The Grove near King’s Langley. I had never heard of it either and had not a clue how to get there. But, a simple 20 minute train ride from Euston had me at the station and being whisked in his car to this very very impressive country house.

It has only been open in its present state for a few years. Previous owners, London Transport had, like everything they own let it fall into a state of perilous dilapidation. The new owners, who also own London’s Athenaeum Club, obviously spent a fortune on the place. It now boasts a hotel, conference facilities, a championship level golf course and vast beautifully manicured grounds.

It also has three restaurants. Colette’s, its high end offering has chefs from Le Manoir and L’Ortolan and menus and pricing to match. The Stables, in effect, is the 19th Hole and offers up pretty simple food on a beautiful terrace.

We were going to eat at The Glasshouse.

Me and my chum arrived early and, while waiting for his family, we sipped on a couple of exceptionally well made cocktails. I have banged on about the search for a good martini, this was one. Made perfectly to order, cold and practically naked, in a chilled glass with a good slick of lemon oil. The Mojito my had was pretty good too though not my cup of, er rum.

When the family arrived, we decamped out on to their terrace and finished our cocktails while choosing some wine. In the end, although it was about 27o’s we went for a Rioja whose name I can’t recall, but it was delicious.

At the weekend, The Glasshouse offers up a buffet. This often fills me with dread conjouring up images of congealed roasts and wilting grey salads. Not here, I am very pleased to say. A good range of salads, meats, fish and desserts all displayed in small quantities which were replaced the moment they ran low so the food was not on display too long. Alongside the usual suspects , there were sweetbreads on fried bread, individual Caesar salads served in the natural bowl of a leaf of baby gem lettuce, duck confit with crisp skin and melting flesh and a really rather splendid passion fruit mousse. Nothing to create any fireworks but all solid, fresh and well done

After a hard week, sitting on the terrace with the sound of fountains in the background and the panoramic scenery of the stunning grounds, it was hard to believe how close to London we were.

After lunch, while my friend’s family headed home, we popped over to a local pub in a village called Chipperfield to watch the football in a marquee set up in the garden. Lousy performance but a good result so that’s all that matters.

An hour later, I was home, or actually in The Wenlock Arms, so in my second home.

So, that was it, nothing groudbreaking or earth shattering to report. Just a pleasant day with lovely people in a beautiful environment with decent food. Can't ask for too much more than that for a Saturday except perhaps a decent performance from England.

THE MARQUESS TAVERN & GORGEOUS GEORGE

There are some restaurants that get everything right. The food, the atmosphere and the service. They are few and far between. There are others that get one bit right but fall down on the others. An amazing room with food that truly sucks and service out of the Eve Braun Charm School or great food with service that comes with a sneer or charming service with food that should be served in a trough.

It seems almost impossible for places to achieve any sort of balance. Tonight was a perfect example.

It had been a very long day. A conference for our UK sales group had seen us offer up not only a great BBQ prepared by our “ house” chef, Tony but also a presentation by “gorgeous” George himself. Mr Galloway was in full effect. Presenting to our reps his Autumn release of THE FIDEL CASTRO HANDBOOK, he won over a difficult crowd with his with considerable charm and charisma before heading down to do battle on Question Time.

By the end of the day, I was redy for a pint and a simple meal.

Hermano Primero had sent me a note that a pub about 30 seconds from my office had just been taken over by the good people from Green & Red and might be worth a try. So, about 6.15pm, I headed to THE MARQUESS TAVERN and found HP sitting at the bar sipping on a pint of Young’s Ordinary and perusing the beer menu. I soon joined him with a pint of Waggledance and we spent a perfectly happy hour drinking beer and waiting for the restaurant to open at 7pm. They have a vast range by the bottle, a regular guest ale ( tonight Everard's from Leicester ) and a draught Perry and proper cider.

A few of the old locals wandered in, looked around a bit bemused and then left again. I am not surprised, the prices have had to be hiked to pay for it all and a pint of Waggledance was a whopping £3.30 a pop.

When they did open, we went to the back of the bar where the room had been turned into an identikit gastropub ( whitewashed walls, blackboard menu etc ) and had a perfectly acceptable table for two.

Initially, the service was very good as we were the only people in the restaurant area. That was soon to change, but stay with me.

The printed menu was a direct lift in design from St John and so were many of the dishes on it. Further interrogation revealed that there are two chefs. Paul Hayes who was the butcher at St John and Jamie Weber who cooked at The Ivy. So, good provenance there then.

And so the food proved. We chose three starters.

A Rabbit terrine was chunky and full of flavour. HP placed it just below that at Vinoteca but felt that it would have benefited from the presence of some toast

Deep fried whitebait made with beautiful fish from Steve Hatt and were huge examples of the type, perfectly fried and crunchy but I thought some tartar sauce would have been a good accompaniment.

Wood pigeon salad with a salad of peas & Sorrel. The bird was suitably pink but the peas were shrivelled and the sorrel horribly over salted. We pointed this out to the young Polish waitress who gave a kind of “ oh well” kind of shrug. The first sign of the service to come.

Not bad so far and enough to make us think that this may just be a place worth revisiting. A thought reinforced by the main courses

Rare Roast Sirloin with Chips and Beetroot Puree was one of the better pieces of beef I have tried recently. Bought from James Elliott on Essex Rd, it was aged for 28 days and tasted of beef. Not always the case. The chips were crunchy even if the puree added very little to the dish

A plate of rabbit with garlic was very good indeed. A leg and saddle had been marinaded in red wine and was slow braised and served with roasted garlic and some unannounced Jersey royals which were demolished by HP as I wasn’t going to eat them as CARBS =DEATH.

They have a limited wine list and which offers a range of English wines. More fool us we made the mistake of ordering one of them. A Chapel Down Epoch 1 2004 which was truly vile and even more so when we tried to chill it down to take the edge off. You can say it was our fault for ordering it but, if the wine is on the list, it needs to be any good. We talked to the restaurant manager about it. Not complaining, we ordered it after all, just telling him that we did not think it much cop. He did not seem that interested.

Then, it all began to crash & burn. We ordered a couple of puddings. Both excellent.

An Elderflower Jelly with a very good Vanilla Ice cream

Apple Pie with custard.

With this, we ordered a glass of Mead to share. It took us three reminders to actually get it to the table. By this time, the restaurant area was filling up and the service seemed to be failing in direct proportion to the number of people in the place.

When we ordered coffee and tea, service seemed to be in freefall. HP’s coffee was declared the worst in living memory, even after he complained and had it changed. It took another three requests to get our small glass of Somerset Apple Brandy with our coffee and at least another four requests to get our bill.

Around us tables were all getting agitated and the people next to us claimed to have waited some 40 minutes for their starters ( for the record Potted Salmon which just needed to be taken out to the fridge )

The manager seemed to spend most of his time hunkering down at the table behind us with people he obviously knew, but, even though he was superficially apologetic when we told him what we thought of the service, i am not sure he really took the comments on board. He made some noise about breaking in two new waitresses. Perhaps, I should have said I was breaking in a new bank card and only offered to pay half.

The bill for two came to £90. Hardly a small amount even given the fact we ordered a few extra drinks.

The food here is very good. Well sourced and well cooked and with real flavour. Unfortunately, the service with even a little bit of pressure applied falls to pieces and makes it unlikely that either of us would rush back to return. A great shame.

AT YOUR CEVICHE

I can’t remember the last time I prepared a meal at home. It seems like months.

Much as I like paying people to fawn over me like they were auditioning for the role of Uriah Heep, every now and again, the need to stand in my own kitchen with a nice cold one and hack away at something becomes too strong and I have to give in.

Tonight, some more tuna from the blessed Steve Hatt.

Given that the weather has taken a turn for the better/worse ( depending on your view of heat ) I decided not to flash grill as normal but to make a ceviche.

I sliced the tuna as thinly as the combination of my splendid Global knife and my ham hands would allow and then left to rest in a marinade of minced red and yellow Thai chillies, garlic, ginger, lemon and lime zest, lemon and lime juice, a drop of sesame oil and salt & Pepper for about an hour.

Quite a nice result which I served with avocado and a salsa made with some of the marinade that I reserved mixed with tomatoes, chopped spring onions and mint leaves.

A half bottle of Gustav Lorenz 2001 Gewurtztraminner made the perfect accompaniment.

I must do this cooking thing more often

ARBUTUS: WHAT’S THE FUSS ?

An old girlfriend of mine once gave me the heave ho because I described her as Reubenesque. I could never understand why she was so upset. She was certainly of the curvy persuasion and I thought it was rather becoming. Apparently, however, it was not something that she wanted to hear and that was indeed that.

I thought about her again tonight because Arbutus has a wide selection of pictures of nude curvy women in the gent’s toilets. As a friend would put it "bush n’ all” Most off putting.

Few restaurants in recent memories have had quite the immediate plaudits that have been bestowed upon Anthony Demetre’s new place. That normally makes me want to avoid a place like a bubo victim offering me a deep French kiss. However, when I arranged my supper date for tonight it did at least offer the benefit of a mutually acceptable location.

The site at the top of Frith St has seen God knows how many incarnations over the years. I never ate at L’hippocampe. HP did and still recalls it as the first place he spent over £100 for two ( and this was back in the late 1980’s I think ) I first ate there when it was Bruno Soho offering ersatz Moroccan food to a mid 90’s crowd that was wowed by that kind of stuff but soon got over it. He too soon got over that schtick and went back to what he did best offering robust dishes at the renamed Bistro Bruno. Then he was lured away and it became Bistro Soho before, finally becoming Il Forno. Quite a history and one that could lead one to believe that this is just one of those sites that cannot support a decent restaurant for any period of time.

After a quick solo pint at The Blue Posts, I headed off to meet my dear chum and arrived on the button for our 7pm table. It was, bar one other diner, empty although, by the time we left an hour and a half later, every table was full leaving only the optimistically set places at the bar empty and forlorn.

The room does not seem a great deal different from any of its previous incarnations. A lick of paint here and there and a few raffia mats but otherwise, identical. I trust they did not pay the interior designer through the nose for the refit.

While I waited for my friend, they gave me both the menu and the wine list to look at and, by the time she arrived, I had pretty much made up my mind what to eat.

The menu reads like a dream with plenty of offally bits, uncommon fish and even chicken oysters. I also heartily approve of the wine list which offers a wide selection by the caraf ( 250ml ) an example which all restaurants would do well to copy.

However, my overriding impression is of a meal which was, on the whole, better in the description than in the execution.

I wanted to begin with the Lamb’s Hearts but was told they had just sold the last portion. To whom?! When we ordered, there was one other diner, an elderly Japanese woman who did not seem to be eating lamb’s hearts or to have any intention of doing so. This is one of my greatest bugbears. A restaurant running out of dishes at the beginning of evening service. I overheard them telling a number of other tables that dishes were off during the evening. Shameful.

So, while my friend ordered The Chicken Sot-l’y- Laisse, I went for my very much second choice of Squid and Mackerel burger with BBQ Sauce.

The name of the chicken dish means, I am told “ only a fool would leave” as it refers to the best bit of the bird, the oyster. They should rename this “ only a fool would leave to cook for so long” The chicken had been left to cook until it was tough as old boots. The accompanying broad beans, macaroni and hazelnuts did not really do a lot for me, but my friend professed to like all of it but the chicken.

My dish was a total misfire. Excellent fresh ingredients which lost all semblance of individuality by being shoehorned into something clever. It looked pretty enough but the BBQ sauce overpowered every other possible flavour. This is the sort of dish that would win first prize if TGI Friday held a “ create your own appetizer” competition and it was won by someone from Nebraska.

One of the main courses saw a bit of a comeback. My friend ordered rump of lamb with tomato, artichoke and fennel. The lamb was really rather spectacular if cooked a little more pink than she had asked for. Fine for me though and it tasted, well, lamby which is a rarity in itself these days. The accompaniments worked too. A well thought out dish.

Much better than my own which was the much vaunted Pied Et Paquets ( tripe parcels with pig’s trotters ) This should have been THE dish. It has everything. It should have screamed of meatiness, intestinally goodness and porky death. It did not. It tasted of, well, nothing but too much salt. A huge let down and I mean huge. It was as massive a disappointment to me as I am sure I was to my wife when I switched on the radio in the middle of our wedding night to listen to Frank Bruno Vs Mike Tyson.

Puddings were equally hit and miss. My friend, being preternaturally girly chose both the desserts she wanted. For me, a Vanilla Cheesecake with strawberries and raspberries. Excellent. It had just the right amount of wobble ( which made me think of the ladies in the photographs in the loos) and a silken texture which set off beautifully against the macerated berries.

Less successful was the Raspberry trifle. “ it’s got jelly in it” squealed my friend in the sort of voice usually reserved for finding a pubic hair in your food. She is very specific about trifle and they should not, she assures me, include jelly. Who am I to argue? I tasted a little and, jelly or no jelly, it was not worth the effort.

As I said, I really approve of the way the wine list is done and we ordered three carafes. An Albarino, A Cahor and a Mushk ( Greek dessert wine) which all seemed to fit both the bill and the pocket admirably.

Service started off very amenable and efficient. By the time we left and it was more busy, it had become harried and patently less on the ball.

The bill for two came to £103 including a 12.5% service charge.

I can see why this place has received good crit’ First of all, the chefs are well known and therefore part of the clique that will get decent notices whether they deserve it or not ( take a bow, The Ambassador ) Secondly, while the room is definingly identikit, the menu is far from it and offers dishes that are seldom seen on on London menus and deserve to be seen a whole lot more.

However, they also deserve to be prepared with more attention to detail than this. There is real ability in the kitchen quite obviously, but it does not shine through in the dishes we tried. There is nothing here to inspire or excite. Just adequacy and I am not sure that is enough to keep a restaurant going in this location.

I asked my friend to sum up our meal in one word. “ Insipid” she said and I have learnt over the years, that there is little to be gained by disagreeing with a woman.

So, insipid it is.

TO HALE & BACK: DAY TWO

I woke up feeling a little groggy on Saturday. I am convinced that it was the result of the clean air up in the North West and not at all related to the six ( or was it seven?) pints of beer that had passed my lips the day before.

It took me a fair old while to drag my weary carcass out of bed. Paul, charitably, had brought me a nice cup of tea to have in bed before I dragged myself into the shower and made my ablutions before we headed out to breakfast.

The plan was a short walk to Hale, a bit o’ brekkie, a train journey to Stockport, another walk to the football ground for the Beer & Cider Festival and then, after watching the football, to Nawab ( arguably the largest Indian restaurant in the UK) As plans go, it had very little going against it.

The walk to from Paul’s house to Hale is very pleasant if a little mind boggling as one gets glimpses of the enormous houses (hidden behind large hedges) which all belong to famous footballers, Coronation St stars and men involved in businesses that will have them spending a good deal of their lives ‘ on the lamb”

Hale is small and “well to do” The people walking the streets all had complexions that spoke of decent diet, good medical care and never experiencing the harder side of life. It also has any number of restaurants which are all, Paul assured me ‘ pretty miserable”

We crossed over the train lines at the end of the street and found the Hale Gallery & Café in search of breakfast. Very agreeable indeed. Lovely service from three nubile eighteen year olds to whom, of course, Paul and me were entirely invisible apart from being blobs in front of who they had to place food. The breakfast was as good as it gets. Organic eggs, thick smokey bacon, dense meaty sausages and black pudding and some organic tomatoes to make sure all the food groups are covered. £15 for two with some tea and juice had our stomachs nicely lined for the assault course ahead.

After picking up a paper, we sat on the platform of the attractive little station and waited the ten minutes for our train to Stockport. Soon after we squeezed ourselves aboard. Squeezed that is, not because of the amount we had eaten but because the trains were all full of people heading to Old Trafford to see England play the Reggae Boys.

Fifteen minutes later we were in Stockport and walking to the ground of Stockport County Football Club, the location of the beer festival.

This was the first beer festival I had been to outside of The Great British Beer Festival in London. However, it felt exactly the same only in minature. The same beardie bonhomie. The specially prepared pint glasses and the same large bellied, gap toothed, balding men volunteering behind the bars. Great, great fun. Pints at £2, half pints for 90p, what’s not to like?

We stuck to half pints as we wanted to try quite a few and spent the next three hours wandering from bar to bar trying different beers ( primarily milds and stouts ) My favourites were the Rutland Panther Mild and the Copper Dragon Creamy Stout. I think, in all, we had about eight half pints. Just enough to get a nice buzz without falling over.

We were pondering if we should head off to a pub to see the football but did not want to leave. Fortunately, the decision was made for us as an announcement came over the tannoy saying that the entertainment for the day was about to begin. One of those faux Irish folk bands who sing about " leaving Liverpool never to return" while never having been further West than Notting Hill. We practically left scorch marks in the carpet in our rush to get clear before they started.

So, we rushed as fast as our beer filled bellies would allow to the nearest pub, a grim, grimey bar called The Grapes where we found the pool room had been darkened with thick drawn curtains and the big screen was showing the warm up to the game. We sat with the locals, drinking some more pints of mild while England went 4:0 up. At half time, the landlady came in with trays of food which were plonked on the covered pool table. We, both being good northern lads, knew not to help ourselves but wait until the landlord looked at us and said “ sandwich lads?” which was the sign for us to fill our boots. A couple of bits of pork pie with some chicken wings and an egg sandwich helped soak up some of the beer we had downed during the day and set us up for the second half.

At the end of the game, we moved on to another pub, The Armoury, where we sat in the beer garden for another couple of pints of mild. We were joined at our bench by a coach party from a pub in Oldham who had come down for the beer festival. Hardier souls than me and Paul, they had been there for four hours, drunk a good deal more and survived the folk band. We chatted animatedly about football for a couple of hours before heading off to catch a cab to Levenshulme and supper at Nawab.

NAWAB
One of the largest Indian restaurants in the UK, Nawab seats over four hundred people in its dining area converted from an old cinema. It has, since its opening some three years ago, become an institution in the Manchester area and queues line the street in the late evening as people throng to get into the £10 a head buffet offering about 80 dishes. At 6.30pm, it was busy but we did not have to wait for a table at all.

Is the food any good? Nah. In fact it is pretty grim and all the dishes looked like sludge just varying in shade rather than taste. Still, after about eight pints, it filled a gap although I felt rather unwell after eating various unidentifiable slurrys and was happy to slump into the back of a cab and head back to Paul’s place. I flopped in front of the TV and watched the movie Domino on pay per view. A film remarkable only in that it managed to be boring even though it starred the exquisite Keira Knightley in various states of undress. A feat I would have considered nigh on impossible

Still, I am hard pressed to think of too many better days

TO HALE & BACK: DAY ONE

I have mentioned my friend Paul a number of times on the blog. A good mate. One of the very best in fact.

A few years ago, he gave up on life and upped sticks from London and dragged his family kicking and screaming up to Cheshire and the millionaire’s playground that is Hale ( home to most of the Manchester United team )

He has, ever since his move, been trying to persuade me to visit him. I kept telling him “ it’s not going to happen” I hate trains, I hate leaving London and I hate Manchester ( and places near it ) particularly. But, as with a small child, if someone hassles you enough, sometimes it is easier just to give in. So I did.

Friday saw me on a Virgin train to Stockport. A first class ticket one way £28. Quite a pleasant surprise. I expected something akin to a gulag. In fact, not an all together unpleasant experience. I was the only one in my carriage served by five members of staff who came by every five minutes to see if I wanted anything. So attentive were they that, at one point, when I began to drift off, I half expected all of them to appear and sing me off to sleep with a lullaby babershop style. Not a bad experience at all and, with a perfectly acceptable bacon butty included in the price of my tickets, I did indeed let the train take the strain.

Stockport station is two hours and fifty years from London. I arrived to find Paul waiting for me in his car. I use this term very very loosely. It is a Hyundai. Eleven years old and I am surprised that the well heeled folk of Hale would allow such a hooptie to be seen on the streets. Still it was at least one Christmas tree shaped air freshener better than a cab, so I was grateful for the ride.

After dumping my bags at his rather nice house, we headed out for lunch at

THE CHESHIRE SMOKEHOUSE
As the name suggests this is a working smokehouse with a shop and café. The car park gave testament to the wealth of the area with SUV’s, Jag’s, Merc’s scattered on the grounds. Paul parked his car near a dumpster. If it wasn’t for the fact that one had wheels, it would be difficult to tell the two apart.

The shop is really very impressive. Lots of their own smoked meats and fish sitting alongside an impressive selection of wines,an astonishing range of cakes and pies and even a selection of vac packed meats from Brindisa

The café was rammed full of ‘ladies who lunch” and I was really wanting to be sneery and hateful about it. But, you know what? I couldn’t. The food was fine if lacking any hint of skill. But it was friendly, unfussy and perfect for lunch. I had a salad that came with a cranberry dressing which just about failed to swamp the fabulous flavour of their own smoked chicken. Paul’s dish was much better with selection of their smoked fish ( salmon, trout etc) very nice indeed. Followed by a slice of home baked cheesecake, it was a very pleasant way to begin the weekend. Mind you, there are things that make you realise how far you are from London. When asking what white wines they had, the cheery waitress announced “ Sweet, medium or dry” Ahem. She did make amends by telling me that I had “ dead sexy arms” so she is obviously a woman of impeccable taste in all things but wine.

By now, it was past 1pm and the main activity of the day was well past due to start. “aleing it” is something that Paul and I make the centre point of any period of time we spend together. This activity has informed most of our time together in the 14 years we have known each other and Paul had, quite rightly predicated our weekend along similar lines with The Stockport Beer & Cider Festival on the Saturday being the main reason for my trip.

It seemed sensible to get our livers into gear, so we decamped to Paul’s local The Bull’s Head purveyor’s of Robinson’s Beers ( the local Stockport brew) where we spent the next four or so hours sitting in the beer garden happily sipping on successive pints of Young Tom a beautifully hoppy young ( as the name would suggest ) ale. Almost too perfect a way to spend a day.

After a final pint at another entirely nasty pub called The George, we headed back home for the pre requisite Chinese takeaway and to watch a video of Elvis’ 1968 comeback special.

I am hard pressed to think of any way in which the day could have been improved. Apart that is, of course, not having been seen in a Hyundai.

DRAGON CASTLE: SURPRISINGLY GOOD SOUTH OF THE RIVER

After last night’s disasters, I was determined to have a decent supper tonight. Or, at least, to give myself a fighting chance.

HP had mentioned Dragon Castle on the Walworth Rd just past The Elephant & Castle. It had been reviewed by the estimable blousy Scot, Marina in Metro and by someone who is not Guy Dimmond ( always a good thing ) in Time Out. Both had ranked it amongst the best Cantonese places they had ever tried in London.

A good chum was all on his lonesome tonight so asked if I had any interesting dining plans and quickly agreed to join me for supper when he heard where I was going.

We arranged to meet at The Anchor & Hope for a quick pre-dinner drink. I can’t help it. I am pre-disposed to just not like this place. I know how good the food is supposed to be and I can see how popular it is. However, the risible no booking policy just gets on my gonads and, after a couple of pints, I was very happy to head out of there.

A short cab ride had us outside Dragon Castle. It is huge. A cavernous room that can easily sit 150 people. It was pretty much packed when we arrived and a quick glance showed that, only two months after opening, it is a popular place with the local Chinese community, local Walworthian’s and is already becoming a destination for the review reading crowd ( hence our good selves )

First presented with the standard menu, we mentioned that we had read about the “ other” menu and were quickly handed an expanded version that had all the good stuff on it.

While we pondered, a plate of fiery chilli peanuts were plopped in front of us. Normally pretty perfunctory, these gave testament to the fact that there is someone here who gives a damn. We devoured two plates full before they finally dragged an order out of us.

There are some seriously interesting things to choose from on the menu alongside the more standard dishes and we began with two seafood choices and one meat choice

Sliced Pork Hock with chillied soy

Palourdes Clams with Sichuan pepper and chilli (£5.50 )– I found them a little salty, but that was overcome by the sheer meatiness of the clams and the fiery sauce which had enough chilli to give that typical Sichuan numbing of the tongue.

Razor Clam with Golden crushed garlic ( £5.50 each ) – a lot to pay and I found it a little tough. Still, nice to see it on the menu. Now they need to learn how to cook them.

I was thrilled to see the number of hot pots on the menu including one with frog’s legs. But, my chum was not to be turned away from the first one that caught his eye and we ordered

Hot Pot of braised eel and pork belly with Garlic – A stunner. Slices of braised eel which gave up the flesh from the bone with the slightest suck. A dense meaty sauce and good chunks of soft fatty pork belly. As good a hot pot as I have ever tried.

By this time, we were both looking at each other and saying “ how the hell did a place this good get to be here?” Some investigation with the manager shed little light as it appears that the owner has never run a restaurant before…. Who knows? But something good is happening South of the River and I never thought I would ever find myself saying that.

Our next three dishes arrived,

Double Cooked Lamb Shank with Chilli – you had me at double cooked. A beautifully gelatinous hunk of lamb ripped from the bone ( slightly too dramatically ) by the waiter when it looked like it would melt off with the slightest breeze. My favourite course of the night.

King Prawns with dry scallops and deep fried garlic shoots – The most standard dish of the night but still prepared with more dexterity than I would have expected.

Ho Fun noodles with Chinese chive and beansprouts – again a very standard dish, but not lumpen and heavy as is so often the case.

Suffice to say that my chum, who is a man whose eating capacity can change the balance of a country’s trade deficit, was beaten and it was left to me to clear up. I live to serve.

The bill came with some slightly dried up fruit slices and some bad chocolate ( which, surprise, surprise, my friend suddenly found room for ) It was £77 for two including three beers and some Pu Ehr tea. Service was also included but, of course, the indecipherable bill did not show that and we had to ask. This always leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I cannot see why Chinese restaurants should be allowed to get away with this nonsense when no one else is.

Still, a small point, if one that has to change soon. This was a hugely decent meal. A far cry from the MSG laden stodge that forms the basis of most Chinatown menus and enough to get me coming at least this far South of the River on a fairly regular basis.

The serve Dim Sum on Sunday from 11.30am. After the horrors of Harbour city. I suspect it is well worth a try. In any case, there are all those other hot pots to try