Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
A sharing platter all to myself. Smoked duck was involved. Archetypal middle-class pub food. Actually pretty good. Luka would've found it hilarious. There was no coleslaw, but there were croquettes. The Mrs had some Indian-ish veggie stuff, which apparently was a bit lacking till we asked for some mango chutney and got served some concoction that the chef had obviously just whipped up, involving fresh mango. Unorthodox but it went down well.

Cider, then rioja.

Uuuuuurrrrp.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Today we had a potato/courgette au gratin with some rice and a chickpea/cucumber salad. Food here is always healthy and tasty. The chef is mexican
 

version

Well-known member
I had a Cornish pasty which tasted like Ribena with chips and beans followed by a mango yoghurt and a chocolate bar.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I had a Cornish pasty which tasted like Ribena

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IdleRich

IdleRich
Posh restaurant newly opened across road from my friend's place. They have some competition. But my friend's place has something they don't - a former cage fighter turned trainee lawyer turned drug dealer turned right wing politician who also sells drugs and who is the reason we are back there right now.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Just some reheated cheese/spinach pie this evening but yesterday he had our main meal at lunchtime in Wood's, which is Dulverton's premier dining establishment.

The food was pretty good. We both had a starter of smoked salmon, smoked eel, quail's egg and caviar for starters - you're not meant to eat caviar while pregnant, so I got Anna's portion as well. She had fillets of John Dory with small shrimps, salad and new potatoes for the main, while I did pretty well with a big mound of mussels in a sort of Chinese-y sauce of ginger, black bean and sweet red peppers, with proper needle-thin frites on the side. Finally, chocolate pudding for her, lemon posset for me. Cheddar Valley cider and cava to drink. All in all, very tasty, but what made it an experience was the venue. I kind of wish luka could have been there to see it - he'd have had a field day. It's loosely a 'pub', with a bar area with stools and another section with small tables for dining; the building, I would imagine, is probably a couple of hundred years old, although it's hard to tell in villages like this, where I think rough-finished stone continued to be used a long time after brick became the default material in towns and cities.

As is the case with many businesses around here, the visual theme is Exmoor itself, which is represented first and foremost by the stag. (There's a second-hand bookshop here with whole sections, covering several shelves each, on fishing, hunting, dogs, guns, gun-dogs and dog-guns.) The interior of the restaurant is a sort of temple to animal cruelty; quite apart from the stuffed heads of stags, badgers and foxes, paintings of racehorses and stuffed fish on the wall, there are parts of skulls with antlers projecting from them, as well as all the pieces of hardware associated with the lifestyle: fishing rods, riding crops, whips and spurs, and what I'm fairly sure were a couple of gin traps. The only thing missing was guns, really.

But the best exhibit of all was one of our fellow diners. Clearly a regular, this old chap of about 80 was in there by himself for Saturday lunch. His hair and eyebrows were Hesselteinian, his shirt was Daz Ultra white; plum-purple velvet jacket, bright red trousers, shiny brown leather shoes, and a polychromatic (but I think mainly indigo) paisley tie, the lower half of which was tucked into his shirt, presumably to keep it out of soup range. As he left, I saw him don a bright yellow hat (either a homburg or a fedora, I think) with a green band around it.

You could tell by looking at him that he'd probably have been quite interesting to talk to, but would also have considered Oswald Mosley a bit of a wet softy liberal woofter.
 
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luka

Well-known member
Different England isn't it. All virulent nazis according to baboon bless him. Last night I made a sort of stew soup thing with onion carrot celery potato tomato borlotti beans pasta cavalo Nero and I'll have the rest tonight possibly bulked up with something we shall see
 

luka

Well-known member
I like all pulses. India uses all pulses except soy beans China uses no pulses except soy beans.
 

Leo

Well-known member
Out at a local Cuban restaurant last night, had a great Paella Mariniera with Arborio saffron rice, seafood broth, jumbo shrimp, calamari, mussels, clams. They make it with an abundance of tasty broth, so almost borders on being a thick soup with rice and seafood. washed down with some craft IPA that I can't recall.
 

Leo

Well-known member
I should add we went out with three friends of friends visiting from Argentina. by the end of the dinner, I wanted to visit to Buenos Aires. should I visit Buenos Aires?
 
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