Sunday - Disappointing Steak!

Sunday was my turn to cook - I made streak and it was disappointing! On Saturday we took a trip to Kirkgate Market and amongst other things we picked up a couple of ribeye steaks from Malcolm Michaels on Butchers Row who are usually of a high standard. These ones weren't so good - chewy and bland!! But the salad and potatoes were good! Even better was Jo's pudding that she whipped up in a flash - chocolate mouse!!

Disappointing steak

Delightful mouse!

Saturday - New Years Eve (Jo Girl)

Joe and I had a brilliant Christmas period on the Wirral and in Edinburgh, so it was a sad goodbye on New Years Eve when we headed back on the train to Leeds.  After such a busy few days, a low key night was definitely in order - a few drinks and some nice food close to home!

Me and Tom - who is clearly much more photogenic than me!

A post train snack - excellent cheese and crackers, courtesy of Cousins Rosie and Tom and Uncle John - really good cheese!

So close to home we did indeed go - to Sweet Basil in Roundhay!  Rock on!  But it was a good way to spend new year - tasty Chinese treats and some wine - great stuff.

We decided the least we could do is go a bit "off-piste" and not order our usual choices!  We also steered clear of the Thai dishes, as we have Thai food so often.  So for starters we had the lettuce wraps with minced chicken and stuffed crab claws.  The lettuce wrap was quite possibly the largest starter I have ever seen - a iceberg leaf full of chicken and mushrooms - with more leaves on the side!  It was really tasty, although challenging with the chop sticks.  The crab claws were stuffed with crab and prawn meat and deep fried.  It was a little underwhelming compared to the lettuce leaf, but still a good shout.

Pre-dinner rose bubbles

The obligatory prawn crackers

Stuffed crab claws

Lettuce wraps with chicken

For main courses, we went for sizzling fillet steak with green pepper and black bean, and peanut and chilli hot bean sauce with chicken, and some fried rice (a new year treat for Joe!).  The sizzling fillet was really good - lots of beautiful soft steak with a punchy sauce, juxtaposed with crunchy green peppers, and the chili hot bean chicken was a great match - equally hefty, packed with burning dried red chillis, fiery ginger and a sweet and savoury sauce. 

We gave the desserts a miss (sorry Hunter Pig!) - despite our intentions there was simply no room for the banana fritters we had promised ourselves.  We strolled home and settled down in front of Match of the Day, celebrating a crazy day of football with a limoncello and a whisky - starting our party-animal 2012 as we mean to go on!!

Sizzling beef with green peppers and black bean sauce

Chicken and peanut chilli hot bean sauce

limoncello and whisky - cheers to a new year!

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

Sunday - 10k Runs and Rib Eye!

If you read this you will know that I manged to rope Jo into doing a 10k run with me. We entered the Hoylake 10k which is in my home town and was  all for these guys so a very good cause....Nick Bro also joined us (much to his despair as he had a cold or something - boo hoo!). After the run at 11am, the plan was to watch the Liverpool game - it was great to see Family Hosny but the match was terrible with a 4 - 0 Spurs win..pah!!

The day started with porridge which Jo (being Scottish) is an expert at making

A pre run shot. As you can see Jo was overjoyed to be involved

I can speak for us all (including Nick Bro) that we enjoyed the run. The weather was pretty good and the wind wasn't too bad considering the seaside location. The official times are not on the website but I think I finished in around 42.40 mins and Jo in around 53 mins which is a great 1st 10k time, with Nick close behind - I don't think I have ever seen anyone so sweaty as him and he borrowed by headphones - YUCK!!!!

We got back to Leeds with a the rib eye from yesterday with us (thanks Mum), so Jo did a perfectly cooked steak with oven baked chips - just what we needed after the days exercise.

Oven baked chips

Steak

Perfect for us - rare!!!

All the good stuff

A well deserved beer

Saturday - Aubergine & House Parties

After a lazy morning, we decided to head into West Kirby for a wander around the shops; we had grander walking plans but the rain led to a re-think! Last week I used the power of twitter to inquire where the best cafe was - West Kirby has a lot of choice in this area, and although Mum thought Sweat Pea was good, I decided on Abergine via twitter recommendation. Over to Jo......

Aubergine is a little tea room/cafe just off the Crescent in West Kirby.  It was doing a roaring lunch trade when we pitched up yesterday afternoon and we snatched the last table.  The room is stocked full of original period features and quirky decorations like knitted cakes and blackboards.  The menu is mainly sandwiches, with some paninis, jacket potatoes and salads.  There are also daily deals, including a soup and sandwich of your choice plus tea or coffee for under six quid.  When we visited one of the specials of the day was a goats cheese and onion marmalade ciabatta with salad, which both Joe and his mum opted for.  I went for a jacket potato with prawn marie rose (justifying it on the basis that I needed carbs for today's 10k - tenuous!!).  We also had coffees and an earl grey tea.

My prawn marie rose was lovely and had big prawns rather than the usual diddy coldwater prawns, although I was a little disappointed as I'm fairly confident that the potato was microwaved, but it was good and ate much more than I should have!  Joe liked the special, although it was very big (I'm not sure you can complain about too much food for £5.95 though!) and the onion marmalade was a little too sweet.  The coffees could be tidied up too, and I don't think the flat white was as described.  Overall it was good fare, and if the service had been a little chirpier we would have been happy. 

We've since found out that two of the chefs were off on Saturday, so they were doing the best they could with smaller resources.  I'd definitely give them another chance as the atmosphere was great and everyone else has said they are great - I wouldn't write Aubergine off yet.

Coffees - a flat white (but not quite) and a cappucino

My earl grey - love the cup and my tea pot was never ending!

Goats cheese and onion marmalade on ciabatta - nice but massive!

Jacket potato and prawn marie rose - with some lovely big prawns

After lunch, we were straight into discussing dinner and decided on rib eye steaks for the 3 of us. In West Kirby there is only one place to go and that's A.I Roberts butchers! - great product and great service. As well as the meat, we bought some local jam that I am looking forward to having for breakfast tomorrow.

Butcher art

Meols strawberry jam

Jo and I then decided to go for a pint at the Plasterers Arms in Hoylake - a great local fisherman's pub with a nice atmosphere and a good selection of drinks.

                             The Plasterers

There we were joined by Shereef and Steph who are great friends of ours. They are aware of our pork pie hunt, and brought me one from a local bakery called Fahys. It was a very nice, but the pork pie wasn't up to the required standard unfortunately - the search continues!....

Shereef with pork pie

We decided that after a big lunch, steak would be too much so Mum made ham sandwiches and home made chips....yum!

Our good friends,  Al and Jess, recently moved house and got engaged so they organised a house party to celebrate (it was also Jess's birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!). We didn't hang around too long as we had the 10k on Sunday, but when we left the party was getting started and we heard that everyone had a top drawer time.

What I haven't mentioned so far is that Al (and lots of other people it seems!) reads our blog and for Al it is his 'guilty pleasure' - brilliant! When I said I wanted to take a picture of them for the blog they both got a little excited and nervous at the same time -  here they are with some of the canapes that they demanded I take pictures of (its crazy what a little fame can do to people).

AL AND JESS!!!!!

Tuesday - Restaurant Review: Cattle Grid - Leeds

Via the power of Twitter, we recently received a kind invite from Emma the CultureVulture to attend an evening of complementary food and drinks at Cattle Grid in Leeds.  We toddled along last night after work, not sure what the plan was, but happy to check out a new restaurant.

Cattle Grid is behind the Corn Exchange and opened in August this year.  It's one of a small chain owned by Steve Novak and Shaun Grey, and Leeds is their latest venture.  We had the pleasure of meeting Steve last night over a few drinks and he took the opportunity to explain the ethos behind the restaurant.

Cattle Grid, as may be clear from the name, is a steak restaurant, but with a difference.  They are looking to become the steak version of Pizza Express, serving good food at realistic prices.  Steve's message is up front with no bullshit.  This is not a restaurant focused on provenance and fine wines - they get the best meat they can at the best price, whether its from Scotland, Ireland, Yorkshire or Uruguay (incidentally all the steak currently comes from Yorkshire).  That is not to say they are not focusing on quality - the bread comes from Anthonys and they even nicked the Anthony's head chef, David Flett (who we also met last night and gave me a sneak peek of his recipe notes - lovely chap!)

The restaurant also serves burgers, salads and ribs, and the most expensive wine on the menu is about £25!  Currently they are also promoting a lunch deal where you can get a slow roast beef or hog roast sandwich and a can of pop for £6.00. 

Anyway, back to our evening....

Cattle Grid in Leeds

Cattle Grid's educational artwork - in case you weren't sure where steak comes from!

The starter portion of ribs.  They don't really go for the traditional starter-main-dessert formation here and don't have a list of starters, but this was a good size for sharing between 2.  We were advised that Cattle Grid's USP is its ribs which are cooked in a special bbq sauce.  I usually don't order ribs when I'm out because they can be so disappointing, but these were really good!  Definite recommendation.

Joe and I went for the same main (which was a poor idea for reviewing but we were both happy!) - medium rare rib eye with harissa sauce.  The rib eye was cooked as ordered and pretty tasty.  It also came with a mound of chips which were brilliant and a watercress salad.

A rack of ribs (we didn't have this as well - not that fat) but Joe would have this next time.

Our greek salad side, which was probably not necessary given how much you get with the steak, but nice all the same!

My dessert - waffle and ice cream.  The desserts were really the only slight let down of the meal and definitely play second fiddle to the main event, but who cares as Cattle Grid is about the meat!

David's recipe notes - what a legend!

The view from upstairs.  The restaurant is split level, and has the room to expand upstairs, where they are planning on opening a comedy venue soon.  Watch this space!  I really enjoyed my night at Cattle Grid.  The owners and the staff are obviously passionate and geared up to make it a success.  I'm not usually a steak fan (badly cooked steak is gutting) but I think I'd trust these guys to give me a good night.