Part 47. I Like Driving In My Car
Smoked olive oil, a bop on the nose and hidden espresso.
Putting a Like on the end of this makes us easier for others to find, plus, the summer lasts longer. That’s the truth.
Hiya. Righto, no chattering, let’s get on with it.
Donna and I were excited because we realised that we could afford a restaurant property in London, possibly even in Notting Hill.
But first of all we needed to get our head around it, we couldn’t just walk out of our Swinegate property and open a restaurant in London. There were a lot of hurdles to jump over. Or stumble into.
Ok, you may remember that when we first opened the local newspaper did a nice little review on us. It was good, and we were both surprised and pleased.
However, this meant that we were on the radar of other publications. From memory, Square Meal called us avant garde, but not sure how they got to that, we don’t remember them eating at the restaurant.
And, we were also reviewed by the Yorkshire Post. But this time it wasn’t quite as good.
The guy who reviewed us was a stand in, like a supply teacher, normally he reviewed cars. This may seem insignificant now, but in later years, this happened a couple of times. Maybe vegetation restaurants weren’t real restaurants.
Anyway, to be fair, and probably because we ran a different menu at lunchtime to evening, he visited twice. Lunchtime and evening. But, this was the first time we had received some negative comments, probably because Tripadvisor hadn’t hit off yet.
The bad bits. Apparently, lunchtime was a better time to visit because the quality was the same as evening service but the prices were cheaper.
Errr, but it was a different style of menu altogether, hence the price difference.
Also, he didn't like the fact that the same tomatoes which were used in the salad were also used in the main course. Yea, shocking eh?
Also, and this put us in a fight huff, he said that some of the dishes were lacking something. Now, we had a couple of vegan options on our vegetarian menu, just a couple. And this reviewer chose both of them. He didn’t say that they were bad, just missing something.
Well, as a meat eater, if he chose the vegetarian options, those with cheese, eggs or cream, maybe his opinion would have been different. But he chose the options which contained no meat or cheese or eggs or cream or milk. So yea, they were missing something, to him.
We wondered, if he reviewed a meat restaurant, would he judge them solely on the vegetarian dishes. Probably not.
Actually, and we still get this today, does anyone know the difference between vegetarian and vegan?
Donna and I are vegetarian, but people still get confused.
“Are you ok with cheese?”
“Yes, we’re vegetarian, not vegan.”
“What about milk?”
“Well, not sure if you know about this little secret, but cheese comes from milk. So yes we do.”
“Eggs?”
“Yes, we’re vegetarian, not vegan.”
“What about gluten? Are you ok with that?”
“What about a bop on the nose? Are YOU ok with one of them?”
Vegetarians don’t eat meat or fish, but everything else is dandy. Vegans don’t eat meat, fish, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt.
And gluten comes from wheat flour, you know, Be-Ro. And that’s not a fish or an animal and it doesn’t come from a dairy.
As you may have guessed, the reviewer pissed us off a bit.
However, he did say some good things. He said there was a lot of flavour in most of the dishes and it was refreshing to have something different in a vegetarian restaurant. He was obviously expecting a sawdust sandwich and waiting staff wearing fireside rugs.
But you know what, even though he said we were expensive on the evening, it made no difference, we were a little busier for a week or so, then back to normal.
Many restaurants insist that a good review can guarantee them a packed restaurant day and night, never made any difference to us.
I wonder, if that guys comments were 100% positive, would that last rant have happened.
To be honest with you, it knocked our confidence a little. The positive comments disappear, but the negatives stay with you. For a long time.
Maybe he was right, maybe we needed to improve. Maybe we needed more inspiration.
That inspiration came to us from Leeds.
We had heard about a restaurant in Leeds which was doing something different. Now, by different, we mean, this guy was doing macaroons which were savoury, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate and soya sauce dressing and smoked Brie with coconut.
Challenging stuff, and this was in 2005, twenty years ago.
Anthony Flinn of Leeds.
This guy had worked in a restaurant called El Bulli in Spain, and he was heavily influenced by their style. Their food was possibly influenced by Willy Wonka.
We wanted to go. We checked and they had a vegetarian option, that means it would probably contain dairy, and wheat flour, just in case you haven’t clicked yet.
We planned to go on our day off, well, no choice really, we couldn’t go when we were open.
We asked Lozza if she wanted to come with us also, it would be a good experience for her. She said yes.
Now, we won’t rabbit on too much about this restaurant experience, this isn’t a restaurant review after all, we normally review cars.
One funny thing though. We told a member of the waiting team that two of us were vegetarian, but we didn't say which two. She returned with menus, gave me the meat menu and the vegetarian version to Donna and Lozza.
But the highlights were this. Lozza had a main course of lamb with white chocolate. We had a warm goats cheese gel with pickled mushrooms. Probably sounds unusual even now.
But the best dish, the one we still remember, the one we still talk about even now, all these days on, is this…..
White Onion Risotto, Parmesan Air and Espresso.
It was plated in a clever way. It was served in a small, deep bowl, the espresso coffee in the bottom, just a bit, then the risotto, then a cloud of Parmesan cheese on top.
As you ate the cloud, or air, it was like a light texture in your mouth but with an intense cheese flavour, and it disappeared very quickly. Then the risotto, quite creamy.
But the crazy bit was the coffee, we couldn’t understand why it was at the bottom of a risotto. It was almost hidden. Donna hit it first, then she looked at me and Lozza and said, “Wait.”
The first spoonfuls were like a cheesy onion risotto, but when you added some of the coffee to it, all of a sudden, due to the deep roasty flavour of the coffee, a switch was triggered in your brain, and you were suddenly eating roasted onion risotto.
It was clever, intense and tasty.
If you think we deserve a three quid espresso for writing this, that button sorts it.
As a chef, I was intrigued, how did that warm goats cheese gel, not melt all over the plate. If you warmed up your strawberry jelly from a triple, it would break down. And that Parmesan air, it was intense, but light. It was cheese, but in a different texture. How?
How was he making smoked brie? How did he take a vegetable purée and make it into a tube?
The answer came in a magazine a few weeks later, luckily. Anthony Flinn was being interviewed in this magazine, and he mentioned the company he was using.
So there we go, we could use this company, brilliant. No other vegetarian restaurant would be using this them. If we could use the same products, we could take vegetarian food even further, miles away from the pasta bake and cauliflower balti world.
We asked them for a brochure, no trawling through the internet for hours, and when it arrived, wow. So many specialist ingredients. Intense flavour drops, a choice of vegetarian setting agents, pens with edible ink, sheets of edible glitter which you could paste onto chocolates. And some natural flavourings but in weird weird flavours, such as bubblegum or apple pie. And, some smoked olive oil.
This would allow us to create some amazing new dishes. We would be moving even further away from those vegetarian stereotypes.
Anyway, back to searching for a new restaurant. But first, we needed to sell our little place on Swinegate. Time to speak to a property agent. Oh great.
OK, we’re off now. Thanks for reading and catch you next week.
+Anthony Flinn and his family created a restaurant empire in Leeds, they expanded into a chocolate shop, a casual restaurant and a pizza restaurant. Sadly it all came to an end in the summer of 2013.
Thank you
Thanks Mark.