In the meantime...sorry!

O.

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I recall Byres Road as having shops, banks, pubs but no memorable restaurants. I was therefore surprised to see The Curry Leaf between University Avenue and Hillhead Subway station. It described itself as offering "tapas" and 'modern Indian cuisine' so I was curious to see what that entailed.

Inside there is a clean appearance with a reasonably modern decoration of the victorian building. I sat at a table near the window but there is an upstairs level as well. The Anglo-Indian waitress who told me about the menu said that Indian food is often served as a series of smaller portions much like tapas. So the idea of the tapa portion is quite authentic and not copying the Spanish. However as is commonplace in Spain many dishes are offered on the menu in 'tapa' or 'main course' portions.

While I wanted to try out the 'tapa' idea I wanted to try their pakoras. Pakoras were always a feature of eating in a Glasgow curry house and are not the same as onion bhajis offered south of the border; and I enjoy making pakoras myself.

Normally I would go for plain old vegetable pakora but on this occasion tried the mixed plate for £3.95. I was served a mixture of finde vegetable pakoras, chicken pakoras and aubergine pakoras. They arrived nice and hot with a crisp batter.

Dining alone is often boring on a business trip. I appreciated being offered a newspaper to read - a courtesy often shown to me in Germany but rarely in Britain - I had not read the Glasgow Evening Times for years!

I then ordered two 'tapas' - a bhuna lamb (£4.50) and a fish curry (£4.20)  - with two chappatis (2 x £1.10). The lamb bhuna was tasty and the fish curry was subltly spiced haddock. I find curried with white fish are difficult to prepare as the spices can easily overpower the white fish. The portions were jus the right size to be eaten by hand using pieces of chapati.

By this stage I had eaten enough but was overcome with curiosity to try a vegetarian tapa.

I went for the charna masala (£3.50) as I find chickpeas more challenging to cook right than say lentils or meat. The result was very tasty but by this stage I had over-eaten - to my shame!

Overall I found the Curry Leaf a pleasant place to site, with friendly staff and tasty food. However I do not actually recall seeing curry leaves in the dishes!

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After today's conference sessions, I went to Kelvinbridge station on the "clockwork orange" underground and headed for a journey down memory lane. I started with Great Western Road where I recalled a greasy spoon cafe and a wholefood shop called "Grass Roots" opposite the end of Oakfield Avenue. Grass Roots sold things like oat, wheat and barley flakes or dried fruit out of big bins. I made my own muesli from what I bought there. I think that there is a betting shop now roughly where Grass Roots was and the cafe is now considerably upmarket from 28-30 years ago if it is in the same place.

Grass Roots created a spin-off called Roots and Fruits which was an eco-friendly fruit and veg shop. It is still there but looks a lot posher than in the past.

Gibson Street used to be regarded as the centre of South Asian eating in Glasgow (at least from my student-centric view). I was keen to report an update on the curry houses as I liked the Glasgow food which as a bit different from what you get in England. Most English Indian restaurants are run by Bangladeshis, while Gibson street seemed to be run by Punjabis from Pakistan and India.

In the past there were two major and two minor establishments. The Shish Mahal was closest to the University not far from the former church that was used for University exams. That used to be the post popular place with a queue outside at weekends. I liked the food but disliked the service/queue management which meant that your main course was thrust in front of you after you had just started on your pakoras. You did not feel welcome to stay long.

If I am not mistaken the whole tenement block which included the Shish Mahal is now gone (above). I then walked down to the bridge over the Kelvin where on the east side of the street the other big establishment - the Koh-i-noor - used to be. I recall that they were also very successful and even got their curries in frozen form into the Bejam freezer food shops around 1980.

I think that the restaurant block has also been demolished and replaced by UNITE private sector University accommodation. The only reminder of the past was this little takeaway with the Koh-i-Noor name.

Between the Shish Mahal and the Koh-i-Noor there used to be two smaller establishments - the Shalimar on the South side of the street and the Agra on the North side. The Shalimar seemed to keep going despite its small size whereas the Agra seemed to change owners from time to time.

Today there is a near eastern offering roughly where the Shalimar used to be. On the left Pars is a Persian Restaurant while on the right Falafel is Lebanese. Despite both of these looking interesting, I was firmly in a curry mood so walked further towards Byres Road.

If anyone can fill me in on what happened in the last quarter century of restaurants on Gibson Street please post a comment!

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Since healthy eating of raw fish depends on real freshness, I went across to Trelawney's at Newlyn to buy freshly landed mackerel.

I also bought a piece of salmon - which I suspect was not landed in Newlyn - and some samphire. Plan A was to make some sushi rolls with our supermarket rice, however since that was quite inappropriate and did not stick we had to go to plan B - ceviche.

Ceviche is raw fish with a citrus-based marinade. I have never been to South America but like the ideaof ceviche; but absolutely no authenticity is claimed for what I did. Citrus juices can chemically cook raw fish so the taste will depend on how long the fish has been in the marinade. Leaving the marinated for say 10 minutes gives a raw fish texture while leaving it for an hour or more gives more of a cooked texture.

The following is what we did:

Serves 3

Ingredients

4 mackerel fillets
1 small salmon steak
half red pepper
4 spring onions
50 g samphire
handful of coriander leaves
handful of parsley leaves
1 lime
half lemon
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp soya saucee
1 tsp chilli flakes (optional)
1 clove garlic

Method

1. Remove scales from mackerel fillets. Take a sharp knife and start to separate the flesh from the scales starting at the tail. After a few centimetres the scales can be pulled off. The transparent scales are not edible while the silvery skin underneath is.
2. Remove skin/scales from the salmon
3. Finely cut up the fish and put into bowl.
4. Finely chop the pepper, spring onions, samphire, coriander and parsley and add to bowl.
5. Squeeze lime and lemon and mix juice with olive oil, soya sauce and finely chopped garlic
6. Add chilli flakes if wanted. Add liquid to bowl and mix gently.
7. Leave for at least 10 minutes and longer if you want a more 'cooked' texture to the fish. We left it one hour in our camping fridge waiting for my son to return to the beach.
8. Serve with a light summery wine like Frascati or vinho verde and tiger rolls with sea salt and black pepper (Tesco's in our case)

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For lunch we also wanted something hot but did not want to have to drive through the rain to overcrowded supermarkets. There were two smoked mackerels in the fridge so I thought they could be tarted up a bit as a hot bap filling. This is what we did.

Serves 2-3

2 smoked mackerel filets
4 wholemeal baps
margarine
1 tsp vegetable oil
half a medium onion
2 tsp whole grained mustard
two small dollups tomato ketchup

Method

1. Finely chop the half onion
2. Heat the oil in a frying pan on the camping stove with a medium heat and add the onion
3. Meanwhile finely chop the mackerel and add to the frying pan
4. Toast the baps and apply the margarine or butter
5. Add the wholegrain mustard and ketchup to the mackerel and onion mix
6. Ensure the ingredients are well mixed and heated then serve into the baps

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After seven months without work and finding virtually no permanent jobs in my sphere, I have taken the plunge and started a little company. This is completely absorbing me at present and likely to be so for the coming months. Hopefully if I am getting a steady income again I will return to blogging.

O.

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Wild garlic can be confused with two poisonous varieties:
a) Early in the season when the leaves just come up there is a slight similarity with 'lords and ladies' or wild arum. However once the leaves are developed they are easy to tell apart. Wild arum has irregular shaped leaves with deep veins. While wild garlic leaves have smooth convex shapes with a single vein and a slight striping of the surface. The second photo in an earlier post shows wild arum growing among wild garlic.

b) Later in the season there is a similarity with lily of the valley. The leaves of wild garlic are green while lily of the valley leaves grow from a purple stem. The wild garlic flowers generally have a star shape with 6 petals. Lily of the valley has bell shaped flowers. Wild garlic leaves smell garlicky while those of lily of the valley do not.

The photo above shows that the wild garlic leaves have parallel stripes on their surface.

The photo above gives a closer view of some flowers. Note also that the leaves of some younger plants are narrower than more mature ones.

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Mrs O duly spoilt me with chicken breast stuffed with chorizo and wild garlic leaves, wrapped in black forest ham and baked. This all served with farfalle and a tomato sauce.

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There is also a restaurant and bar boasting "the best view in Kampala".  Part of the restaurant has open windows with the view (below) while next to the bar there is a platform for truly alfresco dining.

Having been on my first trip to Kampala I have no idea whether the claim of "best view" has merit; but the view from the Lodge is definitely outstanding.

Food seems very much geared to western tastes with a variety of steaks, kebabs and fish dishes on the menu. While there was nothing wrong with the food, there was nothing particularly remarkable about it either. Typical Ugandan fare such as matooke (starchy bananas), goat or posho (maize mash) were not on offer when I visited; the main concession to Uganda was the "East African mixed grill". Dishes were priced from about 15,000 Ugandan shillings for a sandwich (large portion with salad and chips) to about 22,0000 shillings for a steak or fish dish. This means about £5-7 for a main course so hardly burning a hole in the pocked if you have a British salary. The staff were courteous and friendly, the restaurant was pleasantly furnished.

While the food was not the most interesting I tried in Kampala - for example I enjoyed the food at the Fasika Ethiopian restaurant on Gaba Road more - the view is worth the trip. The equatorial sun sets very rapidly and so the views to the Kampala suburbs and to Lake Victoria change rapidly.

As the sun sets the shadows and colours change rapidly.

Also it is possible to see a fair amount of wildlife. While sitting on the platform - the same evening as shown above - I saw a harrier hawk, rollers, brown parrots, falcons and some strange insects of roughly dragonfly size.

Once it gets dark the view of Kampala by night is good - sorry my camera is not good for night photos - there is not the dull sodium glow that you see in British cities due to streetlights so although you see some lights on the hills you can see the night sky too. Being close to the equator you see both Northern and Southern Hemisphere stars. So after seeing Orion 'sideways' I was able to make out the Southern Cross well to the south. We also saw a lot of lightning very far to the East.

So I would not recommend going out of the way to Cassia just for the food, the view is definitely worth the trip. A very enjoyable evening was had seeing the light fade and the night views.

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The little wooden kiosks such as those above are quite common in the suburbs. The lady on the right is kneading dough for chapatis. The chapatis are then fried on a hot plate.

On the left there is a sign saying "rolex" which is shorthand for "rolled eggs". Basically eggs are beaten with some vegetables and fried a bit like an omelette and then rolled up in a chapati.

It is quite noticeable that the big US fast food chains such as Burger King, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds were not visible in Uganda. The market is still in the hands of local busineses.

One such business is Chicken Tonight which seemed to have a number of outlets. I never went in but the takeaway packages were reminiscent of KFC. Come to think of it one business in the district of Kasanga advertised itself as "KFC" but it was "Kasanga Fried Chicken".

In town I saw a number of places selling burgers, fried chicken and samosas. One outside the Shoprite supermarket was run by Asians. Many places sell samosas with beef and vegetable being the most popular. The beef samosas seemed to be purely of spiced minced beef, the vegetable ones seemed less spicey than those I have bought in the UK.

However I never worked out what "Soya Fast Food" was. The red was taken from the Coca-Cola ad on the side of the building. However the building was shut when I took the photo.

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One of the most interesting was buugga (pronounced "boohgah") which I have eaten steamed.

When I first tried it I immediately thought that it was like a cross between spinach and beetroot leaves (obviously NOT the case!). The leaves are thinner than those of spinach but they wilt in a similar way. The stems are very much like those on a beetroot and the juice coming from the stems has a similar colour to beetroot.

The taste does remind me of both spinach and beetroot.

The local vegetable kiosk sells a bunch of buuga for about the same price of one carrot - 100 Uganda shillings.

Another vegetable I have come across and which I cannot find out much about online is doodo (pronounced dohdo) which also seemed like a sort of spinach. However I have not yet found it in a shop or kiosk.

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We arrived for a late lunch having travelled via Mbarara from the west and were fairly hungry after driving through the park seeing zebras, impalas, etc.

The lodge is built on a series of grey rock outcrops, the restaurant being a thatched structure on one of them with the bar to the right.  We were offered a cold avacado and garlic soup as the starter. I am a fan of cold soups for refreshment in hot weather generally but this was one of the best soups I have ever eaten!

There was a main course cold buffet of quiche, roast pork, roast potatoes and coleslaw. A dressing with finely chopped chillies was offered as an option. I am not normally a fan of quiche but this was a great one. The coleslaw was based on red rather than white cabbage but had a delightfully light dressing which had yogurt but not to much mayo.

I almost forgot that the restaurant had an amazing view. Below the swimming pool there was a watering hole where we saw both antelopes and warthog pottering around.

The lunch was rounded off with a fruit salad - water melon, banana and pineapple - with a little ice cream.

The evening meal was even better. Before we even sat down we were shown bushbabies near the bar - illuminated by a red light. They have a curious ape-like face and looked very sweet. One was the normal sandy colour but two were an unusual melanistic variant.

There was a starter of leek and potato soup - not normally one of my favourites - but after the evening safari drive it was most welcome. The buffet consisted of spicy chicken in a peanut sauce, rice and baked aubergine. Thoroughly scrumptious.

The breakfast buffet was also excellent with high quality sausage (very meaty and nicely seasoned) and bacon along with fresh fruit and pancakes (if you could find room!). It was so filling, I could hardly eat lunch when we stoped at the Equator on the way back to Kampala.

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Mrs O and my 3rd son came with me and we joined my 1st son for a trip to the west of Uganda. On the main road from Kampala to Mbarara we stopped for a lunch break at Lukaya. There are numerous roadside stands grilling goat, chicken and gonja (a sort of banana) and each stand has a bunch of sellers who sell food directly to vehicles.

As can be seen with the bus above there is no shortage of sellers who press travellers hard to buy their wares. Our minibus was surrounded in a similar way.

One of the first things I learned in Uganda is that the banana varieties are different from those we import at home from the Carribean. Matooke is a savoury banana used as a starch accompaniment to meat dishes. Gonja shown above is a short, slightly sweet variety that is very tasty grilled. Its flesh is more yellow than bananas at home. Kabalaga is a sweet but short variety that looks similar inside to bananas.

A more pricey snack is a chicken kebab - though it is not expensive in European terms! - which I recall could be haggled for about 2,000/-. Goat however is cheaper at about 500/-

Selling techniques are very hard as is the haggling!

I had never eaten goat before but I liked it. It has a slightly greasy taste like lamb but a strong and pleasant taste.

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I took a good handful of wild garlic leaves and washed and dried them, then put them in a wet and dry spice grinder with 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp mirin and 2 tsp sugar. I ground them to a sort of paste that I added to 250 g of sushi rice when the rice was still hot.

My family thought it tasted really strongly of wild garlic though I barely tasted it with the wasabi and soya dip. However I certainly have a wild garlic taste in my mouth this morning!

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...just one quick posting to follow

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We had linguini with wild garlic, chilli and olive oil; a sort of springtime version of spaghetti con alio e olio.

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I stopped in on Drummond Street but for some reason did not feel like vegetarian food. So I did not make a bee line to Diwani or Ravi Shankar, but ventured to the western end of the street and tried Shah Tandoori Restaurant (159 Drummond Street, London, NW1 2PB ). It had a menu with meat and fish so was quite different from some of the other restaurants in the area.

I was in the mood for fish so tried the tandoori salmon starter

This was a generous portion of salmon fillet served with salad and coriander. It was - as expected - piping hot and was very tasty. I then decided to stay with fish and went for a dish whose name I noted - but I lost my notes

So all I can offer is a photo... However I was also pleased with this dish. I had plenty of time to spare before my train so wandered around a bit.

I duly got on the Caledonian Sleeper which left punctually. I do not know whether it was boredom or greed but some hours later I felt peckish and wandered off to the lounge car. The lounge car is important because you can sit properly and read a book, whereas sitting comfortably in the sleeper cabin is challenging.

Sad to say, the offering reminded me a bit of Little Chef with a surprising number of cooked choices as well as things like peanuts, crisps and fruit cake. I ordered a bacon ciabatta and was astonished when the steward came back within minutes. I just could not believe how quick the service was.

I realised that it must have been microwaved and later glimpsed the galley area where the only means of cooking were a row of microwave ovens. However the bacon was a rather odd grey colour.

I do not want to moan about the sleeper generally which was excellent value for money and the staff were polite and helpful. However it is a shame that they do not do better than blasting food with the microwave. 30 years ago there were even proper griddles on the trains between Waterloo and Portsmouth. I think people would pay more money for something better. Last time I went to the Channel Tunnel we had not eaten before we were left so my passengers were hungry. In the queue for boarding there was a caravan selling hot rolls and although the bacon had been pre-cooked the woman griddled it for a few minutes and it tasted meaty... not like the microwaved grey stuff.

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For reference the photo above shows white pudding, black pudding and red pudding in their uncooked states. White or black pudding in these cases were sliced off a large sausage while they are often sold in much smaller skins. The red pudding needed more time to cook than the other two.

I thought the end result was attractive and tasty...though I think I will stay away from pork for a few days!

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While at university I made a few trips to the East coast and discovered that not only did the chip shops offer black pudding and white pudding suppers but they also offered red pudding suppers. I believe that I tried a red pudding but was never quite sure what it was.

In mid February I visited my father in East Sutherland and found that red pudding was on sale in the local butchers so duly took a couple back home to S. England along with some white pudding.

Red pudding comes in an inedible red coloured skin (at least with this supplier) and according to the butcher contained ham, bacon, pork and spices. He recommended either deep frying them or baking them in the oven for about 30 minutes at 180 Celsius.

There is not a great deal of information on red pudding on the internet. Wikipedia suggests that the taste is similar to a saveloy. I must admit I was not convinced. I have very rarely tried 'saveloy and chips' at shops in London or Reading and I did not like the texture. The filling seemed very soft and the taste disappointed; it is not my favourite sort of sausage. I thought I would put the comparison to the test in my home town. Of course you cannot buy a saveloy in a supermarket so I acquired one at a local fish and chip shop.

The red pudding was 15 cm long and 3.5 cm in diameter, the saveloy was 20 cm long and less than 3 cm thick. When baked the red pudding as expected kept its strong pink colour; much like a pork pie. To my surprise this saveloy had a browner colour much like a conventional sausage; those I have eaten in London or Reading definitely were pink! The red pudding was firmer than the saveloys I recall from the past - but maybe that was due to the length of baking - but definitely coarser.

Another difference was that the reddish skin of the saveloy is edible while the red pudding in my case was definitely not. However having tried them so infrequently I have no idea if this sort of skin is standard. Maybe more research is necessary but it is probably quite a long time before I am at a butcher in Scotland again.

Anyway my red pudding was tasty with bacon and spices clearly there. Better than a cheapo sausage any day!

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Episode 2 - like all penultimate episodes - in a drama ended up looking like a disaster would strike. The relationship between Heston Blumenthal and Ian Pegler had hit rock bottom with an apparent impasse about the rollout of Heston's ideas beyond Popham. However since Episode 3 was in our TV guides it was clear that this was not the end of the story...

Episode 3 began with Heston admitting that it was vital for him to make a success of the Little Chef assignment

Little Chef is an iconic brand...it is part of the national fabric Heston

 However tellingly the Popham manager Michael expressed his concerns about the limitations of Little Chef staff.

We have never been taught to work like that - we're not chefs Michael, Popham manager

 What I had not previously realised was that Heston was not going to convert  Little Chef to working from just fresh ingredients but was going to keep a fairly large menu but with newly specified tastes for the mass suppliers. I was amused when the Fat Duck chefs were checking out the chicken and and said that they had asked for it to be browned but it tasted like Hawaiian tropic sun lotion. I must admit I have not ever eaten sun lotion but I imagine there was a coconut overload.

Clearly the world of mass food is quite different from the world of the Fat Duck. It must have been frustrating that some suppliers were only prepared to offer pictures of the food. Well, judging by so many food photos on packets a professionally photographed ready food looks so much more appetising than the real thing! Ironically, a Little Chef customer in episode 2 had complained about the lack of photos on the experimental menu. The much vaunted new way of cooking scrambled eggs did not translate to the factory with the initial samples very rubbery.

As well as make progress with the menu they needed to re-equip the restaurant. It exhibited much of what is the worst of this country: ripped furniture, curtains that were decorative but unusable (a bit like louvre shutters on many homes!), ancient uniforms with rips and old kitchen and bathrooms. Unfortunately this is the sort of impression that many visitors get of this country based on our airports, hotels and going out to eat without knowing the local good spots.

This is the thinnest piece of cutlery I have seen in my life  Heston

 As an aside, I recall my embarassment after starting work with the Munich office of a US company in the late 1980s when the European VP would invite us to a staff meeting in a hotel in the Heathrow area. The rooms looked run down, the food was boring & bland and served by demotivated, surly staff. So many British companies (especially in the 1980s and 1990s) sought to be profitable by cutting costs and quality to the bone. This is probably because so many businesses have been dominated by "beancounters"...but I have digressed onto one of my hobby horses again!

It is hard for staff to be motivated and to serve well if they are in a rundown environment.

At this stage the menu was not complete; however things began to look up. The steak and ale pie was not far off the mark - needing more ale and bay. The chilli con carne was described by Heston as the 'first tailor-made Little Chef dish'. However the next challenge was to train the staff to serve better. This is something that can still be improved a lot in the UK. So often waiters cannot answer simple questions on dishes, I have been surprised how many people cannot tell me the size of a wine glass when wine is sold by the glass. This is something that is consistently done well in the US where they invest more in training the staff on their menu.

The staff were duly taken off to Bray for training using the Fat Duck menu. The Popham staff clearly enjoyed sampling the food though with the exception of a waiter who did not want to try the smoked salmon.

Just the thought of it makes me feel sicky Popham waiter describing smoked salmon

 It was clear that the samping was enjoyed so much that the staff were not picking up the detail from Heston. However, it was a tall order to expect a detailed set of descriptions to be learned first time. I am hopeless at learning a lot of details off by heart.

However, encouragingly, the staff sat up that evening in their hotel to learn the menu. It was not clear to me whether they were actually working from the menu itself or from a more detailed cribsheet. Clearly you might get questions going beyond the menu description. However Michael did a good job in motivating his team to succeed.

He (Michael) is behaving like a restaurant manager Heston

 The next stage was a tasting session with Ian who clearly sees himself as a bit of a conneiseur. At a previous meal he had said "the aromatics of the mint dissipated very quickly" which sounds to me rather pretentious. However despite not liking mustard in his fish pie, he was impressed by the chilli.

The next thing was the hard discussion on price with Ian indicating a price ceiling of £9.99. This is where I think there was a lack of vision by Little Chef. Their solid (but slowly declining) faithful customers will probably want to pay the same price for a smaller but higher quality 'Olympic breakfast', however to be successful they need to fill their restaurants with customers who would previously never have bothered. I think business travellers or more up market leisure travellers would pay what they would pay in a good pub for an up market main course such as ox cheek in red wine sauce. Also we have some inflation...if £9.99 is an attempt to avoid double figure pound amounts that will not be sustainable for long. Last but not least the food quality should be much better than the M&S shop across the car park, the burger vans on the A303 and KFC.

Some of the recipes are 10 or 15% lower than the norm Ian The pricing process is key to the whole operation Heston

 The refurbished restaurant was duly completed with a more modern diner look and a 'blue sky ceiling' dedicated to Ian. Heston's touch was the piped music and coffee smells in the toilet. I must admit I am not sure of the value of that. If you walk past good food and coffee smells on the way to the toilet that is surely enough.

The real test was when 80 invited guests turned up. They were expected to arrive in phases but they all arrived at once with the food critics all sitting together. There were a number of real mistakes when serving for example a portion of chips got spilt over Heston's wife. The mentioned a "new way of serving chips", I could not make out what it was, but was it over-complicated? The journalists were clearly not going to be easily impressed.

It's fair to say that Little Chef is a British institution...but then so is Broadmoor Jay Rayner, journalist

 Anyway like many dramas there was a happy end with positive comments from the food writers

The steak and ale pie is ressonably priced Fay Maschler

 Even Heston's wife was proud of him - despite the chip spill. The one person to miss the re-opening was Anne England the pioneer of the new breakfast. When she visited later she was impressed too.

However the financials still left worries, but Ian ended up reassuring Heston

My worst fear...is that he will buy cheaper ingredients...the whole model falls apart Heston If there is any change, I will consult you first...is that fair? Ian

 So the Popham model is due to run for 3 months though I do not know when the period started. I hope that the new menu will be a success and that using better ingredients will pay off for Little Chef. I thnk both Heston and Ian have learned something in the process. I am still a little worried that they have not researched their motoring clientele or roadside competition enough but doubtless the programme does not show everything. It will probably be the best-speced ready food in Britain.

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When last night's episode started, I wondered when they would get down to some proper market research and how the culture clash would unfold.

Heston came down to earth by focusing on the breakfast which is still Little Chef's mainstay. However it was clear that to improve it the staff would have to cook more than they are used to. When Heston tested some Little Chef staff to see if they could cook a seabream it was quite shocking. It was obvious that they have virtually no experience with cooking from fresh ingredients as all the fish ended up raw. Even if you were not used to cooking sea bream, it is obvious that you would test to see if the fish is cooked. The Fat Duck chef correctly summed it up as "they work in an environment that has been totally deskilled"...and yet the Little Chef manual prescribes how each element of the mixed grill is to be placed.

It was brave of Heston to chose Anne England, the veteran Little Chef employee, who was "truly the worst of the bunch". However if he can change her, he can change anybody! Given the lack of previous skill I thought she did not do too badly. I wonder what the Little Chef management said to the Popham staff about Anne's role. Did they tell their staff that her role was important and that it was essential that they support her, or was she simply introduced by an outsider (Heston)? Staff can be set up for failure if they are supposed to be instruments of change and those affected by change are not properly briefed.

When it came to the new breakfast in Popham it was certainly more promising than the previous attempt. Brushing thyme oil onto the tomatoes I thought was within the skills of the staff. However I simply did not understand how adding more flavour with a pipette made any sense in a fast food environment - far too time consuming and fiddly. A device to spray on the oil would have been more sensible.

They finally got off to do some market research well into the programme. They were filmed at what I thought was St Pancras station but they must have travelled from Kings Cross with their big coolboxes. While they were able to gauge public opinion I did wonder how their tests would relate to people halfway through a long drive on an A-road. The second phase of the market research at the rugby game was more sensible.

It was amusing how one guy who was queuing for a breakfast said "my wife's not here so I can eat it!". Many people I know who like Little Chef are those would would not dare eat a "heart attack on a plate" at home but would not hesitate to indulge when away. Of course the big result was that the rugby fans preferred the caravan that offered baked beans. However the result was good for Heston because clearly the use of better ingredients and cooking methods were noticed by the customers. One said "the bacon is good...the eggs are really good". That indicated that if the menu were used, there would probably be a fair bit of repeat business; though it would apparently be unwise to ignore baked beans completely.

However, I wonder if the market research would have been better done by putting the caravan in a Little Chef car park. The travelling public might react differently to those going to a rugby game.

The next interviews with Little Chef senior management were interesting. Ian Pegley said that Heston had "captured the essence of what this is about". To me that was a different signal than he gave when he was talking about "blue skies thinking" or was that just a throwaway buzzword?

The dynamics in the meeting room were very interesting. I had not twigged in the first episode that there was an "executive chef" in the room. Obviously somebody was responsible for the previous menus which were so slated in the first episode. Did Ian Pegley go over this guy's head (and thus humiliate him) to bring in Heston? Or was this guy the advocate of change but who left most of the communication to his boss? I was surprised at his comment that he was "disappointed with the wow factor". Was there a "wow factor" in the existing menu? Did he expect something really bizarre from a Little Chef kitchen? Heston rightly posed the question "are they really prepared to improve the quality of their cooking?" after the meeting.

Towards the end of the programme the relationship between Heston and Ian became strained almost to breaking point. I think the feeling that Little Chef wanted to steal Heston's ideas like liver & bacon or lamb shanks and then present it as their menu was justified. I would not trust that management team if I were contracted as a consultant and they put together an alternative plan without proper discussion. Heston was right to be aggrieved.

He was also right to request that the new breakfast could be rolled out beyond Popham. By using better ingredients and using mainly existing staff and equipment Heston had demonstrated that the better breakfast would satisfy the taste of the customers at Popham. The next stage would be to demonstrate that the ideas could be transported further afield.

However, given Little Chef's difficult finances I understood that there was a reluctance to try chain wide change until more of the menu was updated and put to a pilot test. Little Chef needs to revamp its kitchens and introduce more cooking skills. That would require a major capital investment.

As a good TV drama the penultimate episode ended in drama. However since there is a third episode and Mrs O tells me that the Popham Little Chef is being rebuilt, I can only conclude that the relationship between the protagonists was patched up...

Comments

Mrs O and I were fascinated by the first episode of this programme last night not just because of the challenge, but because the "flagship restaurant" is at Popham on the A303. We have often refueled there but have never tried the Little Chef.

My first recollection of Little Chef in the 1970s was that it was a cut above some of its competition. People ate out far less then, money was tight and a large element of the food sector was the high street greasy cafe where you could get fried food, tea and coffee. I recall stopping at a Little Chef in Surrey and finding that it seemed cleaner and tidier than the average "caff" and that the coffee tasted better - indeed my first black coffee was in that Little Chef and I have stayed with black coffee ever since.

My last two visits to Little Chefs were in late December 1998 & 1999 when my office had a "Christmas breakfast" complete with champagne bottles hidden under the tables (I must stress that the illicit alcohol came from colleagues and not from Little Chef!). I must admit I was not very impressed. I like a cooked breakfast occasionally but do not like one with fried eggs and baked beans; however it seemed then to be impossible to get anything other than the full breakfast. These days I think that is a problem - two of my sons don't eat mushrooms but like black pudding, Mrs O does not like black pudding or baked beans but loves mushrooms. The place seemed chaotic and run down; it was demolished a few years ago. I have not visited a Little Chef since.

A Clash of Cultures

I found the interactions between Ian Pegler and Heston Blumenthal very interesting. Ian showed a positive attitude to begin with but set Heston an almost impossible task. How could he reasonably update the menu without understanding the costs? I totally understand that you would not want to make public your target margins on Channel 4 but isn't that the sort of thing you sort out with a non-disclosure agreement before agreeing to let filming go ahead?

Similarly, Ian seemed to think that Heston could wave a "magic wand" and create an "explosion of taste" that would have hordes of people coming back to eat. This seemed rather naive given presumably limited budget constraints and limitations in the kitchens and staff. How could he possibly come up with a practical solution without understanding the constraints he had to work with?

Not surprisingly there was a huge difference between the world of fast, roadside food and the world of a 3 Star restaurant. Heston immediately spotted some of the problems that Little Chef seems to have:
a) A huge menu
b) No real theme to the menu
c) No pots and pans
d) Huge portions with low quality ingredients e.g. the mixed grill
e) Some wierd dishes e.g. the hamburger with pineapple.
f) Dreadful coffee probably unchanged for decades.

However, I was really surprised at the ideas that Heston came up with. People visiting roadside food outlets generally have a limited time and will not wait forever if they are trying to drive a few more hours down to Devon or Cornwall. If they want to stop for an hour for some really good food surely they would turn off the A303 and find a good pub or even gastro-pub? Food such as hotpot with oysters and sweetbreads belongs in a gastropub not in a Little Chef. I know a few people who are hard core Little Chef customers; without being patronising they like fairly plain, bland grub. To survive one element has to be to retain these customers, though since they are a shrinking breed this must be complemented with something for a new type of customer.

He also totally failed to grasp who the target customer is - something that the Little Chef Popham manager clearly understood - it is motorists whose main goal is to go from A to B rather than to eat for its own sake. Heston's chef's certainly did not understand their customers when they looked down on the Popham staff while failing to attact business.

Competition and Market

One thing that surprised me about both Ian and Heston was that they never seemed to discuss their market and competition. So who would stop at Popham? The A303 runs from the M3 West of Basingstoke to the A30 East of Honiton. So likely customers are either people whose work brings them to North Hampshire or people travelling from the London area to the South West. Let's take a look at the Popham site...with the help of Google.

The Little Chef is on the right of the service area (set at 45 degrees to the road) and only covers westbound traffic. To the left of it there is a BP filling station which attracts a lot of traffic especially on Friday evenings and in the Summer. There is little parking for lorries so the target market for Little Chef has to be car and van drivers.

For people travelling to the South West you probably do not want to spend more than 30-45 minutes at Popham; after all it is a good two more hours to Exeter. Families going on holiday to Devon and Cornwall will want reasonably priced comfort food. Business people travelling around N Hampshire will probably want a similar length stop to rest and refresh. However, how many of these people really need huge portions? Most are doing something sedentary or driving rather than heavy manual work.

So what is the competition? Firstly if you are driving out from the M25 you can stop at Farnborough services on the M3 and get yourself either a Kentucky Fried Chicken or Burger King (or maybe it's McDonalds). Further down the A303 near Amesbury you have Solstice Park with another KFC, a Pizza Hut and a Harvester outlet. In laybys on the A303 there are the odd roadside caravans selling burgers and cups of tea.

However, a newish competitor for Popham's Little Chef is the BP garage next door. If you are running low on fuel you have a compelling reason to stop at the garage but not necessarily at the Little Chef. About 5 years ago BP added a "Wild Bean Cafe" which I bet sells better tasting coffee than Little Chef. More recently a Marks and Spencers convenience store was added and has been very busy - I have been fed up waiting to pay for my petrol with a large queue of people with shopping baskets ahead of me! However if you fancy an M & S sandwich or wrap that means Little Chef loses the potential business.

Oregano's Gut Feel

Little Chef had little competition in the 1970s and 1980s and faces lots of fast food competitors both multinationals and independent caravan operators. If I fancied a bacon roll I would try a caravan if it was clean and reasonably priced. However if a roadside place could offer a nice soup & wholemeal bread or really earthy sausages, mash and onion gravy - like a cafe near here - I would definitely want to sit down and eat.

I still am a little surprised that a top chef like Heston was given the task to review the menus. I would have recommended looking abroad to see how roadside food is served there. Other European countries have the big US-based multinationals like McDonalds and KFC but their own chains seem to have fared better competitively than British ones. The best roadside food I can recall was from France or Italy. For example a steak hache in France is - like Little Chef's burgers - done on a griddle and served with frites. However the steak hache usually tastes as if it has been made from scratch and not using some fatty patty from the freezer. In Italy in the 1990s I recall visiting AutoGrill a fairly large roadside chain there. I recall really delicious sandwiches with lovely cheese or salami served in rustic bread. They also grilled very good food but like Little Chef it was turned around quickly.

However, Little Chef has some strengths. Their staff are incredibly proud of their jobs and motivated; a bit of retraining ought to be able to tap into that. There is also the "hard core" customer who likes their sort of food; though they are probably declining in number. The trick would seem to be to differentiate from the US multinationals with some well prepared fast British food.

Key things I think they can do are:
i) Significantly reduce the menu
ii) Use better quality ingredients e.g. sausages with a high percentage of meat and serve smaller portions
iii) Buy decent coffee machines - UK customers are more sophisticated than they have ever been in the past
iv) Buy some pots and produce some simple comfort food like good vegetable soups (e.g. carrot & corriander or spicy parsnip) with some good bread or a nice chilli con carne. Similarly offering two well-prepared curries on the menu (not the flour-thickened gloop you get at motorway service stations but with an onion/tomato base) would probably resonate well.
v) Ensure that the place was a good place to freshen up on a long journey (good toilets and washing facilities)
vi) Offer free WiFi for the business traveller.

Anyway I look forward to hearing how the next steps go...I plan to watch Episode 2 tonight.

However, I wish I had known that the experiment was taking place. I would certainly have stopped to try a Heston Blumenthal hotpot!

Comments

Serves 20

Ingredients

800 g fish (we used roughly 200 g each of cod, salmon, haddock and one with a similar size fillet to haddock but with pink flesh; but I do not see why any reasonable selection of white and oily fish could not work)
200 g prawns
1 fennel bulb
2 chillies (large supermarket ones)
4 pieces lemon grass
4 cloves garlic
3 cm piece ginger
2 limes
3 fish stock cubes
3.5 litres water
8 large spring onions
handful coriander leaves
salt & pepper
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Finely chop the chillies, garlic and ginger
2. Scrape zest from limes and squeeze out the juice
3. Finely vertically slice the fennel retaining any leaves separately
4. Chop spring onions into thin slices including undamaged leaves; separate white slices from green leaves
5. Gently fry the lemon grass and ginger in oil for 15 minutes (this is to soften lemon grass)
5. Meanwhile chop the fish into bite-size pieces
6. Add white parts of spring onions, fennel, garlic and chillies and fry slowly for 5 minutes
7. Meanwhile chop the coriander roughly
8. Meanwhile make 3.5 litres of fish stock from the water and stock cubes and add to the vegetables
9. Add salt, pepper, lime juice and zest
10. Add fish and prawns and simmer for 3 minutes
11. Add chopped coriander, spring onion leaves and any fennel leaves then serve

Comments

[I am hopelessly behind with blogging so sorry this contribution is two weeks late!]

We started off with a fish soup - more of that later. Then attacked the buffet which was mainly fish and cheese.

The cheese platter was a mixture of Dutch and English cheeses accompanied with a few "dips" including quince cheese, sweet chilli sauce and sweet mustard. I cannot remember all the Dutch cheeses but we took two sorts of smoked cheddar, stilton and mexicana. The bread on the right is flatbread from a Turkish bakery.

For the fish platter we had a variety of fresh and smoked fish. We did spicy tuna roll and salmon roll sushi style - both conventional and inside-out rolls; had smoked salmon with cream cheese on toast and a variety of smoked fish. The smoked fish are eel (behind celery sticks), mackerel (left), Mallaig sprats (middle), trout and salmon (right).

It's only 16 days ago, but it seems like a long time ago now!

Comments

I was particularly pleased to see an independent fishmonger with an excellent choice of fresh and smoked fish along with knowledgeable staff. The photo above shows the smoked fish section with smoked trout, salmon & eel (left) and mackerel (back). The silvery one on the right is "spekbokking" but I have no idea what that is in English. In my town you can mainly get vacuum-packed smoked fish. I was particularly pleased to see whole smoked mackerel which tasted very good.

There was a wide choice of fresh fish - some of which ended up in our New Year's fish soup...more of that later! - and seafood.

Nearby there was an impressive cheese shop.

This shows the whole cheeses stacked behind the counter. Being near Gouda quite a few of the cheeses were Gouda ones of varying ages, but there were many cheeses that you simply do not hear about in the UK. We found a very good goats cheese which had a texture more like a Gouda than goat cheeses from France or the UK. Like here, there were plenty of cheeses with "bits" in them; I can particularly recommend nettle cheese and carraway cheese.

At the other end of the cheese shop there was a cold meat counter. In the UK I often find that there is a relatively poor choice compared with France, Germany or the Netherlands; we tend to have some boring-looking hams and a few salamis. There was a very good choice of cold cuts.

It was very pleasing to see these independent traders doing well and offering a better choice than the big supermarkets nearby.

Comments

For many years Mrs O has done a simple, cost effective and tasty braised beef. I had a go at this recently and found relatively cheap stewing steak at Sainsburys.

As would be expected with a cheaper cut it had plenty of connective tissue - it would have been very tough to eat if say fried or grilled. Compared with other beef on offer in the same supermarket it was cheaper at £4.98/kg compared with:
- £7.93/kg for braising steak
- £8.99/kg for silverside
- £9.18/kg for stir fry beef
- £11.48/kg for rump steak
- £15.47/kg for sirloin steak.

We ended up with a cost effective meal.

Serves 4

Ingredients

50 g butter
600g stewing steak (or other cheap cut)
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
1 dsp corn flour
a few dollups of tomato ketchup
salt & pepper

Method

1. Take a frying pan (with a lid) and melt the butter
2. Meanwhile season the stewing steak with salt, pepper and paprika
3. Lightly coat the beef with tomato ketchup

4. Turn up the heat on the frying pan and brown the beef on both sides
5. After browning turn down the heat to a simmer and add boiling water at least halfway up the meat and cover with lid
6. Every 45 minutes turn the meat and top up the liquid with more boiling water if it is running low

7.  After about 3 hours the meat should be very tender and has probably broken up somewhat. The meat should be sitting in a reddish sauce.
8. Remove the meat from the frying pan and leave to rest
9. Mix the cornflour with a little boiling water and add to the sauce. Add more water to thin the sauce to taste.
10. Serve meat and sauce.

Accompanying Veg

This dish goes well with boiled or mashed potatoes and most boiled vegetables. We had basic white boiled potatoes at 30p/kg and a jar or Lidl pickled red cabbage at 69 p. Meat cost £2.99 so the whole meal came to a princely fiver!

Comments

However one of my main inspirations for frugal cookings comes from asian students I lived with in the late 1970s. I thought I had a small budget to live with but they tended to have even less. However the chinese and indian students seemed to knock together really tasty but frugal fare.

One area where they spent less than most UK students was meat. They would tend to use much smaller quantities of it and make it go a long way. For example, I recall a Malaysian student taking a single pork chop and cutting it into small pieces and stir frying it with a pile of vegetables. Many Indian students were either vegetarian or bought meat rarely. They would make extensive use of pulses such as lentils and chickpeas.

At the end of my student time, my research grant had run out but I needed to continue working for a few months. For much of this time I lived on dhal and pita bread. The dhal with lentils, onions, tinned tomatoes and spices was very cheap to produce. The diet was a little boring but the varieties of lentils and spicing could be changed around.

Another thing which many people have forgotten about is cheaper cuts of meat, which leads to my next recipe...

Comments

In this case the potatoes were served with Nürnberger Bratwürste. On my first afternoon I wandered around the Viktualienmarkt then wandered north to Sparkassenstraße to have a look at Haxnbauer in the historic Scholastikahaus.

The local word for a hock is Haxe so it is unsurprising that the restaurant is famous for Schweinshaxe or grilled pork hocks. I have not been there since my first year in Munich back in 1987, but I see that the grills are still visible from the street.

On the menu it is possible to ordered sliced hock or half a hock. However for those with a huge appetite you can order a whole hock for €3.20/100 g of pork or €3.90/100 g of veal.

I did not go in but wandered further down Neuhauserstraße which was the main shopping street as far as Karlsplatz. Although McDonalds and Burger King are in evidence it is clear that local fast food still dominates - a refreshing change from the UK!

In the shopping centre under Karlsplatz there are many food outlets such as this one offering sausage, meat and pasta dishes. There are also asian and Turkish outlets too. Returning along Neuhauserstraße I passed the Augustiner Restaurant.

For reasons I cannot fathom, most English-speaking tourists gravitate to the Hofbräuhaus. I much prefer the Augustiner establishment which has superior beer and good food.

This cafe had a counter directly on the street selling coffee and pizza.

At the tradeshow there were Bavarian snack and lunch items for sale as well as a few full-blown restaurants. One lunchtime I could not resist renewing my acquintance with Weißwürste. As usual it was served with a Breze (not a "pretzel"!) and sweet mustard (Hausmachersenf).

On returning to the airport I had to change from the U-Bahn to S-Bahn at the Ostbahnhof.

I was pleased to see that the bakeries are still popular offering a huge variety of filled rolls, cakes and bread. Many people get their breakfast or lunch at a bakery.

Comments

'Dicke Sophie' is a very pleasant place to go out. The restaurant has three main areas: one close to the bar, and two roughly equal sized areas on either side of the bar.

My interior photos were out of focus so I picked up the photo above on the internet. The decor is conservative without being outdated and generally uses dark wood. When Mrs O saw my pictures she immediately noted some of the small touches that she finds typical of Bavaria. For example the table decoration shown below:

The candle decoration makes seasonal use of conkers and berries.

I went their last week to meet my ex-colleagues from our Munich office for the last time. We had some beers and dinner together. It was a thoroughly enjoyable but sad occasion as I had worked in that office from 1993-1998 and remained their boss until my redundancy.

The beer was from the Ayinger brewery which I would rate as one of the best in the Munich area alongside Erdinger, Schweiger and Unertl.

The food was very good Bavarian style dishes and over the years I have tried quite a few without being disappointed. Last week I went for the Wiener Schnitzel. You do not have to go to Austria to get a good Wiener Schitzel - they are equally good in Bayern! Mine was huge, completely covering the fried potatoes but was very tender and fried just how I like it. It was served with Preiselbeeren (strictly translated as cowberries but often inaccurately translated as "wild cranberries") and with horseradish cream.

Ex-colleagues ordered some very good looking dishes such as Käsespätzle which are a southern German noodle served with melted cheese, fried onions and chopped parsley. Another ordered courgette fritters (Zucchinipuffer) and turkey salad. I dared to photograph my own dish but did not want to disrupt my leaving do with manic food photos...

Service was extremely helpful and friendly; at least if you speak German. Anyway, I can thoroughly recommend "Dicke Sophie" to anybody visiting the north side of Munich - the food is traditional and good with good value for money.

Comments

It is centrally located a bit to the south of Marienplatz and Sankt Peters Dom (this is the cathederal and not the twin towered Frauenkirche). The photo above shows the altes Rathaus (old city hall) in the distance with its distinctive tower.

The market consists of both permanent structures with roofs and glass windows as well as more conventional market stalls. Some of the permanent structures have been in place for a very long time such as a row of butchers on the north side of the market.

When we lived in Bavaria we found that there were excellent choices of some things in supermarkets - e.g. different salad leaves - but some things like fresh coriander were almost never sold. Less common items could always be found at the Viktualienmarkt.

There are a large number of vegetable stands with a wide choice of both locally produced and more exotic imported items.

This stand specialised in mediterranean products such as olives, olive oil blanched garlic, chillies, etc.

Close to the altes Rathaus at the north end of the market there is a row of butchers. All but one seemed to be family businesses such as the two shown here. All seemed to be doing a good trade and it was refreshing to see that shoppers were not simply loading up a the supermarket.

A number of stands focused on sausages and cold cuts such as this permanent stand.

There were some excellent cheese stands such as this one which had a big variety of local alpine and rural cheeses as well as imports.

The only weak area of the market is fresh sea fish. This is perhaps not surprising when Munich is one of Europe's cities that is most remote from the sea. I did not check out the whole market but the only fish seller that I found was the permanent stand from NordSee which is a large fishmonger chain.

Having no means to store food on my trip, I was unfortunately just "window shopping"....

Comments