Food Quiz
Posted: Sat 26 August, 2006 Filed under: Own Business, Thoughts 15 Comments »A quick question :
If you were to go to a restaurant (and think more ‘pub-restaurant’ here instead of ‘silver service specialist perfection restaurant’) what meal would you most like to see on the menu? What would make you go “Oh, I’m SO having that?” as soon as you saw it?
I realise that these things can change on a daily basis, but for now I’m just thinking about the “ideal” menu, and what you would have on it.
You can have starter, main course, dessert, or all of them – it’s “perfect meal” I’m looking for…
Guinness.
What? It IS a meal!!
*sigh* Try and be serious and this is what you get…
Oh, this is hard. There’s a lot of things that fall into that category – which is why, so often, I end up in menu-paralysis.
That said, if I saw “Chicken stuffed with black pudding wrapped in bacon with mustard sauce, in exactly the same way The Bridge in Manchester used to do it before it closed” on a menu, I would order it without a second thought.
Desert, though, is easy, because I generally don’t eat desert. So if there’s a cheeseboard, I’m there.
Definitely prawn cocktail for starters – but I’m such a gannet that I’m never that fussed after that. Although, having said that, you can’t beat a nice bit of cajun chicken as a main course… and a drop of brandy for afters!
Well, with my background, this isn’t an easy question to answer. Default choices for me would be:
Starter: Chicken Liver Paté
Main course: Fillet Steak (with mustard sauce)
Desert: Selection of cheeses
However, it all depends on what else is on the menu and what mood I’m in. Breaded & fried brie/camembert as a starter is always tempting as are most “sharer” plates (a pub near us does a fantastic selection of oriental style bits on a plate – lovely). Main course: chicken done in a variety of ways is my regular alternative to steak. I’m not a sweets person but if there’s a white chocolate and baileys cheesecake on the menu (or white chocolate anything) I might be swayed from the cheese.
Starter – King prawns with a chilli dipping sauce.
Main – Duck, with Tracy’s special red cabbage, (she cooks it in balsamic vinager and muscovado sugar)and fresh veg’.
Pudding – Rhubarb crumble and custard.
How hard to narrow down to just one choice per starter. But it would have to be something fish related for starters – prawns and sweet chilli are a favourite but then if it’s winter, a brocolli & stilton soup with warm crusty bread. For mains, lamb shank served with mash and a rich gravy followed by desert of something like chocolate parfait, topped off with a liquer coffee of course. Heaven.
Starter: – Pate on sesame toast
Main: – Rack of Lamb infused with Rosemary
Pud: – White Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake (american stylee, and my own recipe).
Starter: Goats Cheese and Beetroot on a rocket base.
Main: Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding (Beer Batter using Black Sheep Riggwelter) with baby carrots, thinly sliced savoy cabbage, roast potatos and onion gravy.
Dessert: Manchester Tart with Jersey Double cream OR Gooseberry Crumble (sorry that last one might seem lame but it is to die for!)
Starter: Stuffed Portobello mushrooms, marooned in a sweet and spicy soya sauce.
Main: Big fat egg noodles, with smoked bacon bits, spring onions and crushed peanuts.
Dessert: Chocolate souffle, with a piping hot centre.
Starter: Goats cheese and red peper tart
Main: Warm chicken salad from Café Uno
Pudding: Proper bread and butter pudding with lashings and lashings of thick double cream.
*heads straight for kitchen to fetch something to eat*
Daisy, save us a bit of ur Bread and Butter pudding!
Since you stress pubbish stuff, I’d say steak, kidney and ale pie, under a puff-pastry crust and on a suet base, served with peas, carrots, chips and extra gravy, and with a pint on the side. It’s a classic English dish (I speak as a Scot), and is easier for a limited chef to get right than most.
Having seen the category you posted this in, one of Edinburgh’s most successful pub-restaurants is the Cambridge. It languished for years (think the Winchester and a Breville out back), but was bought over, done up just a little, and now serves only burgers. Simple, brilliantly done, and packed every lunchtime for two sittings: you can’t phone up on, say, a Tuesday morning and expect to get a seat that day.
http://www.thecambridgebar.co.uk/menu.html
It’s the classic Gordon Ramsay advice: find something you do, something easily defined and strongly brandable, and do that thing well. If I see a pub menu with a lunch menu including some Mexican, some Italian, some burgers, some fish then I am sure they microwave the lot.
Starter woul dbe a deep fried camembert with cranberry sauce.
Main would be mixed seafood in whitewine sauce with rice and veg.
Pudding would be something in the creme brulee, pannacotta, crema de catalunya genre.