Imaginative, fun, interesting food at last! Mu Mu's in Maidstone

At last! Really fun, really tasty food - and it was right on my doorstep all the time! Last weekend I went out to help a couple of friends celebrate their birthdays. When they told me they were holding it at Mu Mu's nightclub and bar in Maidstone I thought twice about going, I'm not really a nightclub person, but a few people told me the food was really good and how can you say no to a birthday bash, eh?

At first I thought £35 for three courses was a bit on the steep side, but actually it turned out to be an absolute bargain. We had a couple of drinks in the bar while we waited for everyone to arrive, draught Japanese lager seemed the best bet from a fairly limited choice, then we were shown to the restaurant in what was once a pub next door. The birthday girls were seated in gilded thrones in the middle of our long table, in a room decorated in a gothic style - could have been a bit tacky, but it wasn't and I loved it.

We had chosen our food in advance, so things started to come to the table fairly quickly. First of all we were given a tall glass of rum and fruit punch each (included in the price of the meal) and then a waiter came along with a massive teapot. He poured us all cups of cucumber water to refresh our pallets during dinner. A bit odd....and we did wonder if it was for cleaning our fingers with rather than drinking, but as it was served in an eclectic mix of bone china teacups on mismatched saucers we eventually plumped for drinking it.

I had chosen fish cakes on wilted spinach as my starter, which arrived very quickly. It was nicely presented, and very tasty indeed. As soon as the smoked chicken wings starters began coming to the table I knew I'd chosen the wrong thing. They were on a wooden base with a long metal frame attached, from which hung a skewer of wings. On the base was a little jar of barbecue sauce and a large lidded jar full of smoke. Yes, you read that right, smoke! The idea being that you tip the smoke onto your wings to make them as strongly smoked as you like. Great fun!

And the fun didn't end at the starters, either. My burger came on a large wooden board covered in interesting stuff. The burger itself was big and juicy and came on a brioche style bun with a heap of coleslaw, some salad, cheese, crispy bacon, a tub of sliced pickles, a dish of ketchup and a little bottle of burger sauce - allowing you to build the burger just how you like it. There were a a couple of crispy onion rings and a mini frying basket of absolutely delicious chips on the side. The basket looked just like the ones they get cooked in, but a fraction of the size! Paul said his burger was a bit dry, and it did look like it was a bit more well done than mine, which was just about medium and tasted lovely. I would order the burger again without a moments hesitation.

Desert was also a fun take on a classic dish. I had a selection of three mini cornettos, served in a little lacquered wooden rack, with a selection of toppings to roll them in. There were little piles of hundreds and thousands, chocolate vermicelli and finally (and best of all!) popping candy. The three chocolate waffle cones each had a little scoop of a different flavour ice cream inside. Don't ask me what flavours, I don't know, and it doesn't really matter because they were all very tasty.

The staff were friendly, the food turned up in a timely fashion and was both interesting and tasty, and the meal finished with an ice cold glass of limoncello liqueur. We weren't exactly rushed from our seats, but we were aware that there was another party booked in after us so we didn't linger at the table. The £35 per head covered the rum punch, three courses chosen from a fairly short but interesting menu, the glass of limoncello and entry to the nightclub afterwards with use of a private booth big enough for all of us.

The birthday girls had a great evening, everyone enjoyed their food, and one or two of us had a glass or two too many in the process. It's a long time since I enjoyed a meal this much. I've eaten fancier food, but nothing as interesting or as much fun as this. Go and have a look for yourself, order the wings and the burger, enjoy yourself and see if you laugh as much as we did.

A day out in Hastings - including Webbe's Rock-a-nore

Webbe's at the Fish Café in Rye came very close to impressing us but somehow fell short. This is particularly galling because, as previously mentioned, their ethos really appeals to me. When we found out that Webbe's have a restaurant right next to the net drying huts at Hastings, one that specialises in fish landed from boats not 50 yards away, we had to give it a try. So at the first sign of a bit of sunshine on a rare mid-week day off together we jumped into the car and ambled off down to the coast through the back lanes to check it out.

It really is in the perfect location, right opposite the new Jerwood Gallery and the fantastic old fisherman's huts and net drying sheds on the front near Hastings Old Town. We walked around the huts and saw a lot of fresh plaice, lemon sole, Dover sole, and lots of fish I didn't recognise for sale from little kiosks right next to the boats that caught them. It's a great part of Hastings and well worth the journey on its own. There is a fishing museum, what used to be a Sea Life Centre but is now an independent aquarium, the East Lift funicular railway and a smugglers museum all within a five minute walk of a large car park. And after lunch I recommend taking a stroll along the old High Street and a rummage through the antique and junk shops found there.

Talking of lunch.....Webbe's presents itself very well. It has the look of a Spanish Taverna on the outside, but don't be fooled because it's a good mixture of classic and contemporary inside. All the tables are ranged across the front of he building, so half are in the windows. If you prefer, you can perch yourself on a stool at the bar and eat oysters and drink champagne, whatever takes your fancy. We were shown to a little table in the window at the right hand end of the dining room. Rather like the Rye Webbe's, the pass and some of the food prep areas are on full view and diners are encouraged to watch their dishes being assembled.

The menu held very few surprises, given the location. A fairly short list of main courses speaks to me of fresh produce and minimal use of the freezer, there were a handful of meat dishes, a couple of salads and ten-ish fish dishes on offer. The refreshing surprise on the carte was a selection of taster dishes on the list of starters, an imaginative idea that we were keen to try. Our waitress explained that each dish was two mouthfuls, or two fillets, and is designed to give you a taste of something without you having to order a whole dish. We chose five different tasters to share as our starter, picking a few slightly unusual things (for us, anyway!) to try. We had salt and pepper squid with chilli jam, potted brown shrimp and toast, sardine fillets with gazpacho dip, soused herring in honey mustard sauce, and tempura cod with sweet and sour sauce. It all looked very good indeed, and we were generally very pleased with our choices. The squid and the sardines were certainly the high points, both perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious. The shrimp and the herring were pretty good, but the cod was very disappointing indeed. It was tasteless and obviously unseasoned, not what I expected from a specialist seafood kitchen.

I'll come back to the selection of starters, or tasters, or whatever you want to call them later. For the main event I went for a seriously local speciality, plaice fillets with brown shrimps cooked in butter, and Dee chose smoked haddock fish cakes on creamed leeks. The waitress advised us that although the fish cakes could be considered a dish in its own right, my plaice came on its own and that I should probably order some side dishes to accompany it. I chose triple cooked chips and a plum tomato salad (at an extra £2.50 and £2.00 respectively) and sat back to wait. As with our starters, the food arrived quite quickly and was nicely presented. My fish was tasty and perfectly cooked, and there was plenty of it. The chips were really good, crunchy on the outside and fluffy inside, I almost wished I'd ordered the classic fish & chips, but not quite. The plum tomato salad, on the other hand, turned out to be a sliced tomato with olive oil drizzled on it. More of that later as well.

Dee's fish cakes were so overpoweringly smokey that neither of us were very keen on them when we tried them in isolation, but when eaten with the creamed leaks the dish as a whole made sense as the flavours worked very well together. The portion was enormous and even with our combined appetites we couldn't finish it all, each cake was the size of a pool ball.

We shared an absolutely delicious chocolate mousse with espresso cream and caramelised banana for desert, along with a very good cappuccino for me and a good quality pot of tea for Dee. Again, desert was nicely presented and each element was perfectly executed. The tiny ball of pistachio ice cream linked the textures really well.

Over all then, a really good meal, you'd think, right? Well.....yes....and no. This is our second visit to a Webbe's restaurant and it is the second time we have left feeling a little disappointed but without really being able to put our fingers on exactly why this should be. Having thought about it for a couple of days, though, I think I'm groping towards the answer.

When I pay this much for a meal I want the chef to have done more than just cook what I order. I want him to put a dish of food together that features elements that compliment each other. The customer should not have to do this part of the process himself! For example, a good chef knows that balance is necessary, and that each dish requires sharp notes to offset rich flavours, saltiness to balance sweetness and so on. So if I have to choose my own vegetables and so on, how do I know what will best compliment the main component? This strikes me not only as simply another way to charge each customer an extra fiver, but extremely lazy on the part of the chef and the establishment! So to return to the taster dishes, how do I know what is likely to go well together, and also compliment my choice of main course? By all means, offer the tasters like tapas, as a stand alone thing perhaps, but if you have pretensions of fine dining I'm afraid you must work harder before the customer walks in the door. Sorry, Webbe's, it was an excellent effort but I don't think we'll be back. There are just too many really good places in Hastings doing really good fish & chips for a lot less money. True, the surroundings might not be as classy, but the fish probably came off the same boat.

On our post-lunch stroll round the old town we stumbled across a little bakery that over-delivered on just about every level. Judges Bakery, as it turns out, is a bit of an institution in Hastings. Fantastic little fruit pies, big fat flapjacks, crusty bread, huge Italian meringues, a fat boy's heaven indeed! Having chosen a couple of little apple pies to have for supper later, we turned to look at the rest of the little shop and found it packed with unusual and interesting produce. Fresh fruit and vegetables, local organic meat and sausages, big slabs of cake, it all looked delicious. Not the place to do your weekly shop, perhaps, but certainly somewhere to visit for ingredients if you're planning something a bit special or simply fancy a treat. Probably not worth the effort of going all the way to Hastings just to visit this shop, but if you're here anyway, walk up the Old London Road and find it. Pick something nice for later, eh?

The Landgate Bistro, Rye Scallop Festival Weekend

Oh no! Surely not more scallops? I'm afraid so, folks! Last ones for a while, I should think, I'm pretty much scalloped-out!

Our second visit to Rye this Festival, this time to a little bistro we know quite well already on The Landgate. If you only visit one place during the festival week, make it this one. As well as their usual a la carte and set lunch menus they offer a special choice of scallop dishes available as starters or main courses. There were eight of us in the party for lunch, which must have been a bit of a challenge on the last weekend of the festival as the little dining room was full, and indeed our meal was not a swift one, but that was fine with us. The food came out hot and everyone got theirs at the same time.

The Landgate Bistro is a delightful little place on the very edge of Rye, essentially made out of two small cottages. The set lunch menu is excellent value at £12.95 for two or £15.95 for three courses. I recommend the potted rabbit with homemade piccalilli and sour dough toast, it is tasty, light, and different enough from the norm to be worth a try even if you're not keen on rabbit. It is pretty to look at and absolutely delicious!

The jewel in the crown here during the festival is the trio of scallops starter with fortified wines to accompany them. This includes a scallop in red & green pepper sauces with a glass of Madeira, scallop tartar with lime juice and tomato with a glass of oak chipped white port, and a bacon wrapped scallop on caramelised onion with a glass of pale sherry. Our waiter made sure we all understood which glass went with which scallop, this turned out to be important because each was chosen very carefully to match and enhance the various flavours of the dish (which were quite distinct, but came together very nicely). You could order three of any of these as a starter in its own right, or six with a selection of seasonal vegetables as a main course.

We thought we'd be a bit unconventional in our ordering, which can't have helped the kitchen but they took it entirely in their stride. Some of us ordered the trio, then a starter, then a main course, but some ordered just a single dish from the light-bites section of the menu. Can you guess which group I was part of?

We liked the sound of the potted rabbit, so we slotted it neatly between the trio and our mains, and this proved to be an excellent decision. Now, I like piccalilli, I like rabbit, I like toast, so I was clearly onto a winner here. It was as light as a feather, creamy but meaty, and topped with a sweet sauce a lot like hoi-sin. Lovely!

Between us we ordered an awful lot of scallops on Saturday. Several of us (me included) chose the main course versions of the scallop starters, but my Mum went for Romney Marsh lamb done in a Moroccan style with couscous, Anthony had fish cakes, and Bex went for fillet of sea bass so there was quite a variety of flavours, colours and textures on the table at once. Needless to say, the scallops were perfect, the bass had crispy skin and lovely white flesh and the lamb was just pink enough to be really moist.

I'm sure there were lots of different deserts on the menu, but I declined the chance to look as I decided I was quite full. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to hear myself about a minute later agreeing to share a chocolate brownie with pouring cream! The waiter told us that the brownies were made to order so there would be about a twelve minute wait for them, which suited me just fine. Let me tell you, I'd wait an awful lot longer again for a chocolate brownie as good as that. It was supposed to come with brandy soaked plums, but they had run out of plums and were serving it with kirsch soaked black cherries instead. I don't think it's over stating it to say that this was the best brownie I've ever tasted. Gooey in the middle, a light crust on the outside, rich, light, tasty....mmmmm! Wish I'd ordered my own, to be honest.

Still my favourite place to eat in Rye then, The Landgate Bistro looked after us very well indeed. We weren't rushed at all, despite being the last table to leave. Not the most formal restaurant, but very welcoming, very friendly, and well known for serving excellent local produce. We'll be back soon, I'm sure.