Posts Tagged ‘restaurants’

We recently had dinner at Bannatyne Hotel in Darlington. Thankfully, I do not write the Darlington Restaurant Guide, as they would not have scored too well in it.

The menu was tediously short and unimaginative. If you did not fancy a steak, then you had four options, one of which was also beef. There was one vegetarian option and that was risotto, so vegans may have been completely out of luck.

The terrine starter was tasty and came with an excellent chutney but the accompanying leaves were so bitter that found them inedible. My medium steak arrived medium-well and came with more of the same leaves. Elina described her beef as thin and over-cooked. Finally the cheesecake was so airy and flavourless you could have probably called it a meringue.

The meal was not without its redeeming features. The steak was good, despite being over-cooked and the terrine was good too. However, for the price you pay, which is substantial, it is not somewhere I would recommend dining at.

Oh, where did it all go wrong?

Last week Elina took me out to Everyman Pizzeria where we were scheduled to have our usual: duck pizza for me, pepperoni pizza for Elina, and then sharing a boozy sundae. I’m nearly 30, I have simple needs but am too old to change now.

However, Everyman Pizzeria have rolled out a whole new menu. And it’s not as good.

They have replaced the pizzas with ones that look fancier, but that does not necessarily make them taste any better. My pulled pork pizza was good, but not great. Elina had to get the veggie burger instead which despite listing what we thought was all the ingredients on the menu, came covered in onions.

Finally, when we got to dessert, we found out they had scrapped their menu and now only had a make-your-own sundae. This did not have enough options to re-create their previous range, so we decided to leave it.

The staff were friendly and attentive as always, so no problems there. However, I have written to Everyman Cinema management to request that they send all future changes to me to be approved in writing.

Earlier this month, Norman was kind enough to host us for the weekend at his new flat in Cardiff. It’s a nice place and just round the corner from Cardiff city centre.

On the Friday evening we ended up having a meal at Chapel 1877, which was very good. On Saturday we went to St Fagans National History Museum which was an outdoor museum with some traditional buildings and a large manor house and gardens.

There was also a bird hide where we saw some mice. I should have brought my telephoto lens!

We had lunch at a pub just round the corner from St Fagans. It was a Vintage Inn, and lived up to expectations. Despite it being Cardiff, we actually had lots of glorious sunshine on the Saturday and it didn’t really rain (much) until we got back. In the evening we drove to Cardiff Bay had had dinner at a Turkish restaurant on the peer that I didn’t think much of.

On Sunday we spent the morning looking round Cardiff Castle in very heavy rain before heading to the fish and chip shop. I was very pleased to get fish and chips because I had tried to get them on Friday lunch time (they had run out), Saturday lunch time (their fryer was broken) and Saturday evening (we went to a Turkish restaurant instead) but you can’t go to the seaside and not have a fish and chips, even if it is a highly industrialised port.

Since August last year, we have lost 18 restaurants in Leeds. That would not be so bad if it was the rubbish restaurants that had closed. But it never is. Quality has basically nothing to do with the success of a restaurant and marketing has everything to do with it.

Recently we have lost Curry Leaf (my favourite Indian), La Grillade (my favourite French), Cafe Italia (my favourite Italian) as well as many other great kitchens including Saengarun and Norman’s.

Meanwhile so many low quality chain restaurants continue to churn out their mush. It makes me sad.

With Fonze getting another year older earlier this month, we planned a three part celebration.

First, I made him to go flag football training. What more could you ask for on your birthday? Actually, he wanted to come, but it all worked out for everyone 😀 . For lunch, we went to his parents. His mum does a good Sunday lunch.

Finally, we finished up going to Chaophraya for dinner. I had wanted to go to Saengarun but unfortunately it had closed down. The advantage of Chaophraya though is that you can order the birthday cake where they come with the drums and all the staff sing happy birthday. Despite his accusatory and threatening tone, I think that was his favourite part of the day.

Ray Kroc is founder of McDonald’s Corporation. I found out he had written an autobiography, entitled Grinding it out: the making of McDonald’s, when I was listening to one of Mark Knopfler’s songs. “Boom, Like That” was obviously about McDonald’s, so I did a little reading up on it and sure enough, it was inspired by Kroc’s story, this book being cited.

The book itself is short and simple. At under 200 pages it only took me a week to get through it without much perseverance. In some ways this was a little disappointing as the book never really goes into much detail. You do not feel like you are gleaming so many secrets to success as you might feel you were if you were reading Duncan Bannatyne’s or James Khan’s autobiographies. But there is valuable content in there and given the length, comes at an easy price. Kroc did always place an emphasis on value as well as quality after all.

It has somewhat dated. It was written in 1977, Kroc having died in 1984, and the ages shows. He finishes up by talking about how he now has 4,000 restaurants and is dreaming of 5,000, maybe even 10,000. McDonald’s now has over 34,000 restaurants worldwide. Similarly, at the time it only had 21 restaurants outside of the United States, now I would be very surprised if the majority are not elsewhere in the world. Not that this detracts from the reading much.

The real take-away message from the book though is that Kroc only founded McDonald’s when he was 55! Too often we hear about the success of irritating people like Sebastian Vettel who is now a four-times Formula One world champion, despite being younger than me. I haven’t even won one yet. Kroc however, spent his whole life grinding out a living, and it was only after many would consider you are past your prime (especially in 1954) that he built a multi-billion dollar business empire in less than two decades. It is comforting to know that there is a possibility, however slim, that I could spend the next 30 years of my life messing around and still have the chance to make it big.

Google is now displaying the star ratings of reviews from the Leeds Restaurant Guide.

Before we disappeared down to London, I went for food and drink at Chaophraya to celebrate my birthday. Myself and Elina ordered one of the banquet menus, of which we ate about half and took the rest home in a carrier bag full of food.

Today, I’m proud to announce the launch of the Leeds Restaurant Guide. It is, in our opinion, the finest guide to restaurants in Leeds city centre that has ever been created. Years of relentless eating, reviewing and indexing have come together to provide a complete guide to where to eat in Leeds.

• 188 restaurants and food pubs reviewed
• Covers every restaurant we could find in Leeds city centre
• Five star rating system
• Unbiased, independent, consistent

The book will be made available in e-book format through all major retailers – Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Kobo, Google Play, OverDrive (Waterstones), Sony, WH Smith and Gardner’s (Tesco). It is also available online at LeedsRestaurantGuide.com. At a later date, it will be made available in print also.

It will be priced at a very reasonable £3.99. The exact time listings will appear on each retailer can’t be determined, so follow me on Twitter for updates.

I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who helped with the book, especially Elina for her eating and proof reading, Gijsbert for his feedback and advice, and James, Norm and Michelle for their proof reading.

Given Elina’s hate of onions, I’ve occasionally joked I wanted to go to an onion restaurant that has a giant onion for a logo. Turns out there is one in Helsinki.