Friday - A Day Trip to York

After our excessive merriment at The Deer Park, I woke with a banging head-ache, and Jo woke up with a banging head-ache plus a return of the dreaded virus. But after a shower and an hour or so to get my head back together it was on to the next bank holiday plan - a few hours drinking in York with our buddies but had to leave Jo sleeping on the sofa.

So after a quick run around Cornucopia, I met the Wolf at Leeds Station to hook up with the others at the York Tap which is at York train station.

After The York Tap, we headed to The Maltings (great), Ye Olde Starre Inne (terrible but ended up here as Trembling Mad was one in one out!), Pvimi (great) then The Last Drop (good) before I headed back at 7ish to see how Jo was doing - Oh, I forgot to mention that I demolished a battered fish in York before picking up a pizza on the way home....fat b@stard!!!

The Maltings

The Wolf

Will

Mike and Terri

Work Mike and Soraya

A self portrait

Good history but crap pub

The Last Drop

My starter before pizza

Saturday - Mike's Birthday and Soraya's Cooking!

Saturday started with a long run for me and a shorter one for Jo.  I decided in the week that it would be a good idea to drive to the city and run along the canal and back and that's exactly what I did! Ok, so the drinks and curry the night before didn't help to much but I did do the the 17 miles I wanted and I wasn't too broken after! Next long run, I think I'll try and eat a bit better beforehand, although Jo's food is hard to resist.....18 miles on Friday it is.

My run time on the Garmin

After a quick turn around, we were picked up by Wolf and Gelt and headed to Mike Work's birthday drinks in Horsforth - he is 31 but looks way older that me! ;o). Soraya had laid on a great spread including chicken fajitas, potato skins, tuna pasta, garlic bread, pizza and salad - it was a really good effort and we were all very impressed....BRAVO!

The birthday spread

Soraya also managed to find the time to knock together a chocolate birthday cake for Mike, which was super rich but also light as a feather! - those who said it was really dense were just jealous!

Work Mike and his cake

Jo filling her face

After a few more drinks, we all headed into Horsforth to the Queens Arms for drinks, pool and good times....hooray! And happy birthday Mike! I didn't do a very good job of playing photographer, so I pulled some pictures of the attendees off facebook - here they are;

William of Saville

The Ahad clan

Wolf and Gelt 

 

 

 

We had a substantial lunch, but Jo and I were getting hungry as the evening wore on, so our kind cab driver stopped on the way home so we could grab and oven pizza - very good it was too!

Pizza with extra pastrami and basil

Guest Restaurant Review - The Woodside, Horsforth - 5/10

Our first guest restaurant review from Dave Bro feat. Jen. 

On Saturday I asked a few people, including my brother Joe, if they had any recommendations for good pub grub in Horsforth for a Sunday dinner. A few names cropped up (Town Street Tavern, The Woodside, Medusa Bar) and after having a quick butchers online we decided to go for The Woodside. It looked to be more of a 'proper pub', which to me means a nice atmosphere, maybe a fireplace or two, comfy seats well suited to lounging/newspaper reading and good quality, simple, homely food. Company was provided by my equally hung over and hungry buddy Jennie Chapman.
 

On arrival Jen was quick to point out that the outside could do with a spruce up, which is right as it didn't look great, but once we opened the main entrance door and the smell of a hot carvery came wafting into our faces we'd forgotten about the dodgy external paint jobs and hunted out some comfy seats. After a couple of standard Coffee's (one of which we took back - Jen's - because it's was very weak) and a peruse over yesterday's football reports, we had a linger over the menu. The Woodside has a good reputation for it's carvery and the queue for it was getting longer by the minute, but after much deliberation we both went for menu items - Jen a lamb shank with peas and rosemary mash, me a mixed grill with all the usual suspects.
Apart from the chicken breast in the mixed grill which was so tough and dry it would have made a good slipper, the rest of it was good. Gammon, steak (medium rare), Lincolnshire sausages, black pudding, home made chunky chips etc etc, all very tasty and well cooked. Jen wasn't so lucky. After a promising first few mouthfuls it became quickly apparent that her lamb was a lot more bone than meat, her mash was pretty solid and tasted a lot more butter than potato and she kept finding bits of fluff on her plate/food. Not impressed. Upon speaking to the waiter he was suitably embarrassed and quick to take 50% from the final bill. Pretty fair I thought all things considered.

Mixed grill

Lamb shank

 In conclusion.. I thought it was a shame they got one of our dishes so wrong because I liked the atmosphere, I liked the pub, the staff were friendly/attentive and my food was pretty good. Unfortunately though I am one of those that can see a hair in my gravy and that’s a wrap on the rest of the meal, I can't touch it. So with that in mind, I won't be returning to The Woodside any time soon, at least before trying other local establishments first (Town Street Tavern next I think). If I do ever return, I'll be waiting in the long carvery queue...

Jenny

Dave Bro

Sunday Lunch at Fazenda

Back in April, our first ever blog review was of Fazenda in Granary Wharf.   We had a great time, and decided to revisit it this weekend for a bit of pre-Christmas cheer!  Admittedly Fazenda hasn't really embraced the Christmas spirit as yet, but a good lunch and some booze was fun anyway.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing about the food, save to say we really enjoyed it.  If you want a bit more info, check out the original review. As we were there for lunch, the choice of salads and meats was smaller than in the evening (and it costs about £7 less) but we all enjoyed some good food.  I wasn't a huge fan of the pork, which seemed to be cooked with cheese and was a little odd, and a bit over cooked, but the joy of Fazenda is that if you don't like it, you can have something else!  The staff were also very attentive and made sure we were properly looked after. 

Some form of meat in pastry thing - very nice though!

An Argentinian Malbec and a Modelo - perfect

The salad bar

A man with meat

Chips - the first of many portions - these were very good!

Chicken wrapped in bacon - a fave

Chicken thighs

Sausages

Joe's amaretto coffee

Petit fours

And our wonderful lunch companions - The Wolf and Gelt

With this Sunday dinner you are really spoiling me!! - Game Pie

I love anything slow cooked, and if it comes in pie form then all the better!! After a night of dancing and drinking until the early hours (sorry neighbours!) we all had pretty fuzzy heads so the day was spent lazing around the house, although we did mange to go for a stroll around Roundhay Park before Smartie headed home.

Jo and Smartie at the park

We have just finished dinner and it was top drawer (not that I would expect anything less). We had game pie with a puff pastry lid, red cabbage and roast parsnip - delicious!

Chino Latino Xmas Launch Night

This week out of the blue, Joe had a phone call from the Park Plaza hotel in Leeds inviting him to the launch of the Chino Latino Christmas menus. He was able to bring along some people so I was lucky to make the list, along with Hunter Pig, Mike Work, Soraya, James Work and some more!

Chino Latino has been open for a while, and we have been planning to visit as we've been told it does great sushi. Being honest, I've always been a bit put off by the outside which could do with some TLC, but appearances can be deceiving; if you get past the unassuming front door and up the stairs, the restaurant and bar is a pleasant surprise.

It's quite glitzy, with black furnishings, low lighting and clean lines. There is a good sized bar area with views over City Square and the area nearby. We were offered drinks on our arrival and made the most of the cocktail menu which boasts some unusual options. Joe made the brave move of letting me pick his, and so he ended up with a Mushi a Gari (gin with black pepper, chillis, mango and apple juice), I had a Raspberry Mint Margherita and Hunter Pig a Passionate Turkey (insert your own joke here: ). Consensus was that they were really very impressive, but my Raspberry Mint Margherita topped the list. We also sampled a Buena Vista and a Latino Mule - all top choices!

The cocktails

After the drinks, we moved to the restaurant area which continues the theme from the bar. We were sat next to the open kitchen which gave us a brilliant view of the chefs preparing all the food.

Us at dinner

Chino Latino specialise in flavours of China, South East Asia and Japan. The menu is quite varied, as is the Christmas menu which we sampled. They focus on sharing dishes which makes for some very impressive presentation.

The first course was based on sushi and we had lobster rolls, venison tartar, roast pear and crispy fried tofu. They were all brilliant but the surprise winner was the pear - it was smooth, smoky, and perfectly balanced with the sake cream. Yum. I have also never had tofu before, and quite liked this one too - it came with a fabulous sauce and was really different.

Pear with sake cream

The venison tartar and lobster rolls.

The open kitchen

The red wine - which they gave us a lot of - and white too!

Deep fried tofu with the yummy sauce - I would recommend giving this a go!

Following the first course we had a sneaky spicy tomato and basil shot - which tasted very much like a Bloody Mary (sans the vodka) - a worthwhile interval.

The tomato and sweet basil sauce

Next up were the main courses. We were treated to slow roasted pork belly with amazing crackling (probably the best I have ever had) and vegetables, roasted duck breast with plum sauce, miso marinaded cod and tofu in cabbage. The pork belly was lovely, as was the cod. Unfortunately our duck was over slightly cooked (although others were cooked perfectly), but still tasted nice. No one on our table was not a fan of the tofu in cabbage - it may be more of an acquired taste, but when everything else was so good, I'm not going to dwell on it!

Sticky, slow roasted pork belly with honey hoi san sauce and the fab crackling

The pork belly close up - you can tell this was Joe's favourite dish!

The roasted duck with duck leg plum sauce

Miso marinaded cod, which was probably my favourite

AND AFTER ALL THAT...we had desserts! And since it's Christmas, they put even more effort into the presentation of this course. Check out the video below for the fun!

Desserts were a large plate for more sharing, including three sorbets, a cake, a cheesecake and some sort of milk shake thing. Apparently it is meant to have chocolate fondants instead of the cake (it didn't happen due to a kitchen problem), but that didn't let anything down for me. The sorbets were really flavoursome and sharp, and Joe was quite a fan of the cheesecake.

Overall we had a lovely night, and Chino Latino were outstanding (and generous) hosts! Had it not been a Thursday night with work the next day, I am sure we could have stayed much longer and enjoyed the party. I would definitely recommend people giving it a try, and not being put off by the outside. The normal menu is quite pricy, but it is worth it for a treat!

The assiette of desserts

The winter spectacular

The Christmas menu - for smaller groups and offices