Product sites

A few people have asked where they can buy some of the food I mentioned in my last blog, so here's a short list of their websites -

www.coffeelate.co.uk - delicious blend of coffee, Caribbean spices & chocolate.

www.britishsausages.co.uk - I particularly recommend the Churchill and the Knebworth.

www.backyardcompany.co.uk - great jerk sauces, great for warming you up in this awful weather!

Bluewater Glow Food Festival

We went to the first Bluewater Glow food festival on the way to visit Dee's mum down in Devon. The festival was a bit disappointing but there were several highlights. The guys from Coffeelate were there again (see my previous entry on the Ideal Home Christmas Show), so I bought a few more bars...yes Mel, one is for you...The Great British Sausage Co, The Backyard Co and a few others are worthy of mention.

The Great British Sausage Co make really tasty, fairly big sausages. The signature dish is The Churchill, made with pork shoulder meat, black pepper & white pepper. They were giving out samples, freshly grilled, juicy & delicious. They also had venison & port, pork & leak and pork, apple & cider amongst others. When I say they're fairly big, I mean you only get four sausages in a one pound pack!

The Backyard Co make Jamaican jerk sauces, and to showcase them at their best they were griddling a huge stack of jerk chicken breast, offering small free tastes, or a big slab in a bun for a fiver. Guess which I went for? It was fantastic! Just hot and spicy enough to get your lips and tongue tingling but not so hot it wasn't enjoyable. Well worth a look if fruity, spicy sauces are your thing, or you love barbequeing. I didn't get to try any of the hot versions as they'd sold out, but I bet they're worth trying.

There were a few other good ideas, a lady who made biscuits and hand iced each one. She had boxes of Christmas themed ones, clothes and shoes, all sorts! (picture below). Also there was a wonderful chocolate producer that offered single plantation South American cocoa chocolate bars, blends, beautiful looking gift boxes and some really clever chocolate sculptures & figures. Apparently the high heeled shoes (pictured below) are their most popular product!

Loch Fyne update

Just a quick update to my earlier review of the Bluewater restaurant....it is absolutely unforgivable to put a slice of mouldy lemon on a seafood platter.  It wasn't just a bit manky, it was actually white with green patches.  On a slightly less foul note, it is also ridiculous to provide three slices of bread with a sharing platter for two people.  And while I'm being critical, my monkfish and chirizo risotto was so salty I couldn't taste the fish at all.  I suspect it will be a while before I come back for another visit.

The café right outside Loch Fyne didn't cover itself with glory either!  After a few hours of shopping we stopped for coffee there because the cakes looked lovely, but after several minutes of standing aimlessly at the counter, and then several more sitting at a table after being directed there by a waitress, we gave up waiting to order and went upstairs to Costa Coffee instead.  I'm glad to say that Costa did us proud.

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!