Far away from the class and the bestestness of Dinings, we found a place where we’ll be eating at often. Although it’s in Cirencester, 30 mins drive from us, but the drive is a stunning one, so we don’t mind.

Soushi serves lovely fresh sashimi, I was looking forward to it for the whole day today and then I had it, with some warm sake. The taste of raw salmon dipped in soy sauce is one of my most favourite ones ever.  I  had it to start with and then instead of a dessert. Loved the unagi as well, it tasted as if the chef put it on the grill for just a second, it had this lovely char-grilled taste. And our second salmon avo roll had an extra of a chopped shiso, that we asked for and we got, therefore the chef had an Asahi on his way from us promptly. Lovely place.

We’re still enjoying discovering different places around Winchcombe. Today we set off to Broadway, been on the Tower, been to a nuclear bunker and drove down to Gretton, to The Royal Oak pub, recommended to Florek by someone at work. Behind the bar there was Ian, one of Lion’s customers and among guests Martin, Lion’s new head chef. It felt nearly cosy!

We both had roast, mine was lovely soft, succulent pork, with perfectly cooked parsnips and carrots and crispy spuds. Gravy not as sensational as in Prestbury,  but on the whole, with a nice half pint of Peroni, very, very nice.

When one works 5 days a week serving food, one waits for Sunday and wants to go out,eat out and get some service. Which is what Oluta and Florek did today, they went to Cheltenham and re-visited Raymond Blanc’s place. His brasserie in London we remembered very fondly, so I booked us a table and off we went.

First impression- crap. We sat without drinks or attention for something like 15 minutes and then the guy caught my “what the fuck, mate?” look , apologised and showered us with attention from then onwards.

Food wise we both went for the steak tartare, we loved it first time, today we had a main course portion each. Fantastically seasoned, with lovely French bread to go with it, some French fries and a nice, fresh salad of avo, tomatoes, lettuce and creme fraiche. A glass of Medoc  completed the picture.

Definitely going back to Raymond’s at some point, the boy who overlooked us at the start though only got 3 quid tip. Too bad.

I can’t remember when I had the traditional bread and butter pud, the simple one, last time. I had the brioche and apricot one, yum, the one with chocolate chips, yum, this evening Alice made for us the real deal. I was genuinely surprised at how good it was, as Alice strikes me as   generally anti-all-food. Yet she produced a great end to the meal, made with white bread, sultanas, milk, egg and spices. It was moist and delicious.

I’m going to upload a few photos that will surely annoy me big time if a few months, when this phenomenal sushi will not be available to me any more.

Alex got a Sushi Roll Masterclass from The Chief today, he was supposed to make around 50  rolls to practise his skill and get rid of any bad habits. The result of this marathon was our staff meal, and what a staff meal it was! We had spicy tuna, spicy salmon, spider, shrimp tempura and veggie rolls to devour. Some photos…

Only one more take away for me and then sayonara lovely rolls. It will be painful.

There is a place in Szczawno Zdroj, a nice restaurant with lovely atmoshpere, decent service and lovely food. Where they serve pierogi nearly as good as home made. We went back there today after a night in the mountains with Zatrybki, where we enjoyed simple food, spartan conditions,  lovely fresh air and great company. And in the reception this morning the hosts played Metallica’s “S&M”album. I very much approve.

In the restaurant, Gosciniec Solicki, we ordered 5 portions of pierozki, some with potato and cheese filling- ruskie- my favourite, some with spinach and cheese. And while we waited, they served some home made smalec with pickled cucumbers, fresh red onion and bread. Smalec is an insanely unhealthy pig’s lard with fried bits of meat and onion and well seasoned, all cooked to death and left to set, then served as a spread on bread. In winter, as tasty as only great Polish food can be. Yum.

This place will be visited again.

For this day we were waiting for a long time. We booked the tickets to Royal Festival Hall back in May to hear Beethoven’s 9th Symphony live, so there had to be a nice dinner before that.

Raymond’s place got picked shortly after he popped in to Dinings a while ago, the fact that his restaurant is a walking distance from the RFH mattered too.

Very, very pleasant place. Florek picked a bottle of Pinot Noir, for a starter we shared a steak tartare, very bravely seasoned, lots of mustard and capers, have to try it at Mum’s! With a baguette it was great. For the mains Florek had a hake, I went for the grilled scallops on a truffle mash.There was some baked fennel as well, not my thing though, it tasted like a bottle of perfume. Scallops though- fantastic. Maybe even second most awesome scallops dish ever, after those that Goemon made for us in Dinings last time, when we went with Moka. Goemon’s scallops sat in the truffle soy sauce and had some crispy parma ham on top, the only problem with them was the amount- 3 scallops for the 3 of us.Anyway, those today were spot on.

For dessert we went for Baked Alaska, something I’ve seen on Masterchef plenty of times, but never tried. It was nice, I love grand marnier and our waiter presented it in a nice way. He was so cool, that we invited him to share it with us, which he enthusiastically did.

Good thing is, that there is Brasserie Blanc in Cheltenham as well. 🙂

Over a month ago The Chief promised us a treat, a lunch in La Petite Maison. Kris has been there before, for Grace, Dovile and myself it was a first.

The place is cosy, overstaffed, but we were looking forward so much to it, that lots of things, like our grumpy waiter who didn’t smile once, I decide to overlook. Lovely food. Llllllllovely food. We’ve had quite a few plates of different things, the 2 most memorable ones are scallop carpaccio, simple, sweet, with dried cranberries and flaked almonds, stunning.

And the creme brulee, that I was waiting for ever since The Chief said it was the best one he ever had. Errm, yeah. It was like silk. A tonne of vanilla, huge portion, that I approved of, thin layer of caramel on top. Fantastic. Mine is never that smooth, kurwa.

There are perks of working in Dinings. Once we realised  we’re all off this evening, Gracelett, Kris and I, we decided to hit Nobu Berkeley. Fuku san was kind enough to ring Oba san, who got us 3 seats at the counter and off we went.

Berkeley, all posh, 2 chicks downstairs with long legs, blokes opening doors for us, orchids in the reception, all posh, pretty, expensive, nice toilet paper and all. We kicked off with some mojitos, which were lovely, just as sweet as I like them and not a stingy size at all.

Oba san prepared a couple of starters for us, I loved the first one, a trio of salmon tartar with wasabi soya, toro hagashi- that rocked- and some sea bass sashimi that was ok.

Then we requested a portion of yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno and yuzu soy, which was just as delicious as I remembered from Ubon, but the presentation  messy and looking like someone couldn’t be bothered…

The star of the show for me was a mixed plate of  new style sashimi, the scallop and king crab still warm from the hot oil they were seared with, melting in the mouth.

Next we’ve had lobster salad with spicy lemon dressing, very nice, but the garlic chips on top were to be looked for with a magnifying glass.

Rock shrimp tempura nice, but not amazing, maybe on the pass for too long? The shitake, zucchini and eggplant tempura nice, but not not as nice as in Dinings ( our tempura section is probably the size of their rice container altogether, but it’s crispy and flavoursome, this one was hardly memorable).

We’ve also had a rib eye with anticucho sauce, which was not as good as I remembered, we all agreed that our Korean spicy miso tops it by far.

But the biggest disappointment, and no offence to a lovely man Oba san is, was the sushi. I only had a piece of salmon nigiri and ama ebi, which Oba san called jokingly ” Dinings style”, but when he presented them in front of me I thought he was taking the piss. It didn’t look like much and the rice had no flavour- a crime! The sushi rice in Dinings is at times more flavoursome than the topping itself, it is lovely to eat by itself, to me it even smells appealing. We also had a soft shell crab roll, it looked miserable in comparison with our beautiful, round, fat, full to the brim perfect rolls.

The desserts were nice, but not mind blowing, Suntory whisky cappuccino probably the nicest of them, the texture especially, but nowhere near our black sesame creme caramel.

We tried a selection of cocktails, from which only mojitos were up to scratch, the lime and lychee martini I had smelled of….bathroom cleaning products to me. Not good. The flower floating on top didn’t help…;-)

All in all we had a great night out, the best thing about it was the fact, that it left us all proud of our own bunker, with shitty, basic decor, a tiny cocktail list, claustrophobic toilets and noisy sushi chefs. Our food though, the stuff that comes from under  Fuku’s hands is a Champions League in comparison with what they serve in Berkeley. Our seabass carpaccio when delivered to the table with fresh truffle aroma stops all conversations, it’s so pretty, none of Nobu’s dishes had that effect on us. Our unagi and foie gras signature roll is to die for, theirs are basic and lack excitement.

Dinings über alles!!

We’ve spent a great day in Florence today. Such a different experience to the previous visit 2 years ago in summer, when the heat chased us out after 2 hours. Today we’ve been everywhere we wanted to be and went for lunch to a random trattoria on our way back from Ponte Vecchio.

I ordered tortelloni stuffed with potato and cheese with black truffle sauce and thin shavings of parmesan, it was so good, that half way through the first portion I called the waiter and asked for the second one. It was outstanding.  Sipping my wine afterwards I rated in at 9, 5 in the scale of 10, it only gives way to Marco’s ravioli with pumpkin and walnut sauce in Bagni di Lucca, which, by the way is still on the menu and I did go back this time for more.

Photo a bit crappy, taken by iPhone. Memorable meal tough.