London Food Detective

Fish & Grill: Recovers Well After a Dodgy Start...

Now I'm settled in sunny South Croydon, I've had time to check out a number of local restaurants.  The jewel in the crown is Malcolm John's Le Cassoulet, which has received numerous accolades.  However, my first trip out in the local area was to it's sister restaurant Fish & Grill.

Things got off to a bad start.  It was a bit of last minute decision and we just wandered in off the street and asked if they had a table for two. We were met with a scowl and an icy greeting that was straight out the Eastern Europe school of customer service - an incredulous "You haven't booked?  I'll have to check..." This was despite it being after 9.00p.m. and the main room only being two thirds full.  However, after a short wait we were shown to a table.

When we sat down Grace said she almost felt like walking out and I completely agreed.  However, we decided to give them a second chance and sat down to study the menu.

As the name suggests, the menu consists of a variety of fish and meat dishes with the emphasis on sourcing top quality ingredients.

As it was late, we went straight to the main course and after being served some decent, warm, brown bread I went for the burger and Grace for the club steak.

In all honesty the burger was a bit disappointing.  They used a mature cheddar cheese, that was way too thick, hadn't melted properly and overpowered the burger.  I ended up scraping most of it off.

They also used smoked back bacon (which was perfectly fine), though my personal preference would've been for some crispy streaky bacon.

The meat in the burger whilst tasty was a bit dry and overall it was distinctly average burger.

Fortunately, the accompanying fries and the side order of sea lettuce and samphire were both pretty good.

The fries were crunchy, nicely salted and had a fluffy middle and I scoffed the lot quickly. The were served Caprice Holdings style in a little bucket.

Sea lettuce and samphire were beautifully cooked in butter and were full of flavour.

Grace's steak was also good.  It was cooked a perfect medium rare, had a nice crust on it and was a succulent, tasty piece of steak.  It was a generous size as well and I was only too happy to help Grace finish it off.

The waiter informed us it was 28-day aged Aberdeen Angus and was sourced from a butchers at Smithfield Market. It was certainly a good piece of meat, that had been well handled by the chef.

We decided to take a chance with dessert and were glad that we did.

I went for the Knickerbocker Glory and for such a simple dish, this was fun, fabulous and a real surprise.

The sundae contained a couple of generous scoops of deliciously dark chocolate ice-cream and smooth, creamy vanilla, a sharp raspberry coulis and was topped with whipped cream and what can only be described as 'posh' kinder egg chocolate shards.

However, it was the little extras hidden in the sundae that really made me enjoy the dish.  A soft chocolate caramel, marshmallow and slices of banana all added to the enjoyment.

Grace also loved her cherry bakewell and cherry yoghurt ice-cream and declared that she'd come back just for this.  She was raving about the pastry, which was buttery, crisp, light - absolutely perfect in her mind. The cherries were juicy and cooked into the bakewell and the contrast of warm bakewell and ice-cream was a fab combination. The cherry on top (pardon the pun) was the brandy snap basket, which is always one of her fav's.

Overall, after a bad start Fish & Grill recovered well. The desserts in particular were of a very high standard and it definitely deserves a second chance.  The service (welcome aside) was very good.  Our waiter was attentive, chatty and up for a joke or two and made up for the icy intro. 

Fish & Grill has an informal feel to the place and is the sort of place you'd go with friends/family for a celebration.  If I do re-visit, I'll let you know how i get on...

Tilda Stir Fry Rices: Rice & Easy Does It

I was invited along to a special bloggers event to launch Tilda's new range of stir fry rices.  These sort of events are always fun to go to and it's always lovely to meet other bloggers, try something new and give an honest opinion on the product.

It is fair to say the majority of the bloggers weren't likely to be Tilda's target audience, as people like Anne, Gary and Manuika (amongst others) are already accomplished cooks in their own right and probably don't need to take shortcuts in the kitchen.

However, I am an altogether different proposition and need all the help I can get!

The reason I like eating out so much is that my skills in the kitchen leave a lot to be desired and so I was interested to see how these new stir fry rices measured up.

 

We gathered in the kitchen of the beautiful Food at 52 and were treated to a demonstration by chef and author Jo Pratt.

Jo started the evening by making a spicy Thai Green Rice soup with prawns. This was delicious and so simple to make. The soup was full of flavour with the spices from the rice infusing with the chili and coriander to make a very tasty starter.

Undoubtedly my favourite dish of the evening and one I'll definitely be trying at home. 

After the deliciousness of the soup the lamb was a bit bland in comparison. 

The lamb itself was very good - tender and full of flavour. However, the Thai Red rice by itself wasn't enough and the lamb probably needed a bit of a marinade and some veg to jazz it up a bit. 

One blogger suggested a bit of lemon and lime would have gone well with it and I thought this was a great idea. Onwards and upwards though!

Next up were some good crispy duck pancakes.  The rice definitely added something extra and I enjoyed these a lot and did my best to grab a couple, as they were popular with everyone else.

After Jo had run us through dishes it was our turn and I teamed up with Cathy and Helly to whip up a storm.  We were treated to some top produce for ingredients and decided to use some of the jumbo prawns that were in the soup earlier.

We also grabbed various veg, some ginger, oyster and soy sauce and the Peking Rice and five minutes later this was the result:

A simple, tasty, healthy dish that anyone (even me) could cook.  I added a few chopped chillies and went out into the garden to enjoy our creation.

Overall I was impressed with the flavour of the rice. The range is a high quality convenience food and great to have in the cupboard when you've had a long day at work and want something quick and easy.

I've already thrown some veg, pork, soy sauce and ginger in a pan with the Peking rice and cooked up a perfectly good meal for two in about 10 minutes - well 20 when you add in how long it takes me to chop veg!  Certainly quicker, cheaper and healthier than popping to the takeaway...