Loch Fyne at Bluewater

The choice of places to eat at Bluewater shopping centre are close to infinite.  As well as all the usual fast-food rubbish and mall food-court suspects there is a Yo-Sushi, a brasserie, a Leon and a Loch Fyne restaurant that stand out as being better than the rest.  Yesterday we opted for Loch Fyne, being in the mood for some good seafood, and it turned out to be quite a good decision!

We went in past the fresh wet-fish counter, where you can buy lobster, dressed crab, crayfish, langoustine, sole, trout fillets, salmon....the list goes on.  It was all well presented and gave the restaurant area a market feel.  The fairly short menu features a wide variety of seafood dishes, from the traditional cod and chips to the ever present fish pie, mostly between around £10 and £17 with a few exceptions at either end of the scale.  There are a couple of non fish dishes too, including sausage and mash (which looked pretty good, actually!), a veggie dish and an informative wine list.  The specials board had a couple of starters and three main courses, all fresh fish caught that morning in Scotland.

We got off to a fairly slow start, given plenty of time to choose from the menu.  That said, once we had ordered, the drinks and food arrived pretty quickly and the service was friendly and relaxed.

We both decided to go for some slightly off-beat dishes (what a surprise, I hear you shout!) rather than one of the fillet or fish steak staples.  Dee had a delicious monkfish and prawn thai green curry with sticky rice and a handful of prawn crackers.  The green curry was zingy and tasty, with a good chilli kick at the end, using monkfish was a good choice because it is meaty enough to stand up to the big thai flavours that come to the fore.

I opted for prawns and scallops (scallops are my favourite thing!) on a bed of sautéed mushrooms and spinach with chilli jam and sticky rice.  The scallops were cooked perfectly, the prawns were delicious, the rice was certainly sticky!  The chilli jam?  Well, it could have been great, but it reminded me of burnt hoisin sauce more than anything else.  It was tasty, and it worked with the prawns and rice etc, but it overpowered the scallops.  Shame, because as just a prawn dish it probably would have worked.

We both managed to stick to our guns on this occasion and skip the deserts.  First time for everything, eh?  So next time you're at Bluewater and starting to get peckish, keep on walking past all the stuff you see in every high street and try some nice fresh Scottish fish for a change!

Chapter One, Locks Bottom part II

When you already know the place you're going for lunch has a Michelin star you go in with certain expectations.  You know the food will be superb, the service will be attentive and the wine list extensive.  But there are lots of restaurants around that will give you all these things, so what sets a "starred" establishment apart?

Well, in the case of Chapter One the answer is simple.  Everything.  From the relaxed atmosphere to the knowledgable staff, the contemporary decor to the unusual options on the menu, it was all just right.  The restaurant itself is just on the outskirts of Bromley, right on the A21.  It offers a lunchtime menu du jour at just £18.95 for three courses, and the a la carte lunch menu offers half a dozen starters all at £4.50 each, a dozen main courses all at £14.50 each and a selection of deserts at £4.50 each, so it needn't break the bank.

Dee managed to stick to her plan of missing out the starter to ensure room for desert this time, I was not as strong.  As soon as I saw "Compression of pigs head, piccalilli, warm pork bonbon & pickled grelot onion" on the starter list I had to try it!  It arrived in a lovely square dish with a generous dollop of home made mayonnaise, which was as light as a feather.  The compression of pigs head was smooth and tasty, but the warm pork bonbons were the star of the dish.

We both opted for the loin of rabbit wrapped in pancetta, with carrot and parsnip puree, pickled shitake mushrooms and a rabbit cottage pie as our main courses.  As we hoped and expected, the plates looked fantastic when they arrived!  I was a little concerned when I opened my rabbit loin up and found it to be a little pink, like undercooked chicken inside.  I asked a passing waiter if this was usual, as I haven't eaten pink rabbit before, and he was able to explain the entire cooking process for the dish to me.  The loin is rolled around a core of mousse and wrapped in the pancetta, then cooked slowly in a steam bath before going into a hot pan to be finished, and yes indeed rabbit can be eaten very pink indeed.  So I ate it.  And it was delicious!  Moist and rich, with a salty bacon twang from the pancetta offsetting the sweetness of the purees perfectly.  The little saucepan of rabbit cottage pie was also spot on, Dee's favourite bit but a little salty for my taste, but that is such a personal thing I hesitate to mention it here.

We finished off our half bottle of Bordeaux and just sat a while, soaking up the lively atmosphere and people watching.  The other diners ranged from elderly couples to gatherings of twenty-something year olds, a few large family groups and several other couples.  A wide range of diners, clearly enjoying themselves in the large, relaxed feeling dining room.  Having let our rabbit go down a bit, we decided we'd better have a look at the desert menu.  (It would be rude not to, right?)  How do you choose between such fantastic sounding dishes?  The most unusual by far was cream cheese mousse with a strawberry curried chutney and black pepper meringue.  Who thought of that???  To my delight, I did not have to choose.  I went for the assiette of deserts....a little sample of each.  Where do you start?  The chocolate fondant was warm and gooey, the raspberry mousse was sharp and smooth, they were all individual little masterpieces in their own right.  Dee had the lemon tart, which came with a passion fruit millefeuille and a creme-fraiche sorbet that cleaned the pallet beautifully.


After a pot of tea for Dee and an americano coffee for me (which came with a couple of slabs of home made raspberry jelly and some chocolate petit-fours) we resolved to come back soon, perhaps during the evening next time, to enjoy this most hospitable place again.

Chapter One, Locks Bottom

A real treat for us today!  We're celebrating what I think was a good interview yesterday to be a marshal at the shooting events at the London 2012 Olympics by going out for lunch to a Michelin starred restaurant in the very north-west corner of Kent.  I can't wait to try the fabulous looking food (check out their website!) and write it all up on here when we get home!

Lime Tree Pantry

While not exactly a "foodie place", I think the pie we had for dinner rates a mention here!  Dee cooked us a medium sized Lime Tree Pantry game in red wine pie, which was absolutely delicious.  The game was rich and tasty, the gravy was thick and kept the whole thing moist.  And as for the shortcrust pastry....it just melted in my mouth!

Lime Tree Pantry are often to be seen at the Country Fairs and the larger craft fairs in Kent and the south east of England.  They also have an outlet at Notcutts Garden Centre on the outskirts of Maidstone, amongst many others.  They make a wide variety of sweet and savoury pies in several sizes.  The medium pie we had today would have been plenty for three, but as it turns out it wasn't quite enough for four so we'll probably go for the large size next time.

Their pies start from about £3.00 and are available on-line too, believe it or not!  Check them out at www.limetreepantryfoods.com and see what you think.

The Farmhouse, West Malling (general info)

The restaurant is clean and well presented, the staff are attentive but not in your face. We sat upstairs, there was a member of staff around all the time, usually behind the small bar keeping busy, so although not in the main dining area we didn't feel forgotten.

The menu is fresh and varied, featuring about 8 starters and a dozen main courses.

Starters range from about £5 to £9.50 (bit of a one-off, this was for a scallop dish. Most starters between £6 and £7) and main courses from £9 to £16. There are a couple of steaks, a couple of fish dishes and a few other things...all worth trying.

The wine list is quite good, the house red is perfectly drinkable and the Mersault very good indeed. The real ales are well kept and the choice changes regularly.

The Farmhouse, West Malling

My first review!  It's kind of fitting that it should be about the first gastro-pub that Dee and I ever really liked.  The Farmhouse is a traditional pub in what used to be the public bar and a semi-fancy dining room in what was the lounge bar.  There's a lively atmosphere in the bar, a couple of nice real ales on tap (Harvey's Sussex and a guest beer called Sun Top IPA) and a warm welcome from the French staff.

The Farmhouse

The menu has evolved a bit since we were last here, the manager we came to know, Edith, has long since returned to Paris but the place still feels welcoming and friendly and is still staffed by young French waitresses and barmaids.

We decided to skip the starters so we'd have room for deserts.  That decision lasted right up to the moment the waitress asked if we'd like some fresh garlic bread while we wait for our main courses!  It was delicious.  Hot, but only barely toasted, and with plenty of garlic butter but without being greasy.

Dee went for Dublin Pie with fresh veg, I opted for crab and crayfish linguini.  Dee's pie was the sort that is really a bowl of stew with a flakey pastry lid on that passes for pie these days in pubs.  That said, it was pretty good!  The gravy was rich and had the slightest hint of Guinness, the meat was tender and tasty and wasn't outnumbered by the mushrooms.

My linguini was cooked beautifully, just the soft side of al-dente.  There was plenty of crab meat and a fair few crayfish tails mixed in to a lovely sauce that spoke of lemon grass, ginger and a little red chilli.   I would cheerfully order it again on a future visit.

Cafe gourmand

The desert choice was pretty much a foregone conclusion, really.  When we're in France I always choose a cafe gourmand for desert.  This usually means a short, strong coffee with a small selection of deserts.  Sometimes a little shot-glass of fruit salad and a little mouthful of cake, sometimes a little mousse....you get the idea.  As soon as I saw it on the specials board I knew I would be ordering it.  Well....it didn't disappoint!  A lovely strong, dark coffee with a selection of three little tasters.  A tiny creme brulee, a little cube of chocolate moelleux and four thin strands of candied orange dipped in dark chocolate.  To be hyper-critical, the moelleux was a little over done.  It's meant to be soft and gooey, this was like soft sponge cake, but tasted good for all that.

As soon as Dee heard me say there was a crumble on the menu she stopped looking.  As it turns out, it was an apple and red berry crumble with that runny French custard they call creme anglais.  It was delicious!

So all in all, the Farmhouse is a charming country village pub on one side, and a high quality gastro-pub on the other.  Good value, friendly service, excellent food.  Worth a run out to West Malling High Street if you want that little bit more than pub food without the formal restaurant feel.

My first attempt at blogging!

Hello everyone!  As many of you that know us will already know, Dee and I like to visit restaurants, gastro-pubs and nice places to eat whenever we get the chance.  I hope this blog will become a review type site, as we are often asked where we've been recently or what we thought of such-and-such a place.

Every time we visit a place to eat or end up in a nice country pub somewhere I'll try to post a few thoughts on it here, as much to remind myself as to inform others.  I might ramble on a bit about other food and drink related topics too!