bil

Duck and lamb, both the same. Either they should be pink or crispy. Anything inbetween is never so nice.

JLFS

Does anyone remember Gordon Ramsy doing a series about failing restaurants?

There was one guy on the CDS who was in debt up to his eyeballs, and had a huge menu, with some wierd things like prawns in chocolate sauce.

He also did a kebab thingy on a stand, which GR called a donkeys dick.

He pared his menu down to a nice selection of dishes, and the place was managing to do it and improving the taking, if I remember rightly.

But I think he drifted back to his old ways over the following months.

I just wondered if he was still going.

jimenato

The reason we don't do anything Spanish is because the other 27 bar/restaurants in our pueblo all do. There would be just no point in us doing it. Some are noticeably better than others but they all offer basically similar food.

As to the British being conservative in their tastes, I think that on the contrary British tastes are fairly cosmopolitan - it's a result if Britain being such a diverse society. A chap came in the other day and looked at our menu board and said that it was just like a typical British pub menu.

This is our menu:

Starters
Soup of the day with roll and butter
Chicken liver pate with red onion marmalade
Prawn cocktail
Vegetable samosas with cucumber raita
Sheek kebab with cucumber raita
Deep fried Brie wedges

Main Courses
Pork fillet or Chicken breast 'Oba' - in cream and mushroom
sauce with fresh vegetables and saute potatoes
Chicken curry served with basmati rice, Bombay aloo and dhal
Moussaka with salad
Lasagne with salad
Aubergine and potato moussaka with salad
Butternut squash and goats cheese lasagne with salad
Chilli con carne served with rice
Vegetarian chilli served with rice
Beef Burger with fries, salad and coleslaw
Thai tuna fishcakes with fries and salad or couscous salad

Extras
Fries, fresh vegetables, mixed salad, garlic bread, paratha

To my eye that's fairly international and as he said it's what you might find in any reasonable British pub. It's quite small because what JFLS said is true - any bigger becomes unmanageable. I have been to restaurants which try to do everything and they tend to fail for me - mass produced burgers, pies and fish and chips are just not the same as home made and that's the only way it can be done with a huge menu choice.

ETA Everything is prepared in house from fresh ingredients

ETA2 I hope that isn't seen as advertising - I'm just trying to illustrate a point

jojojojojo

Whats British cuisine anyway??? Apart from full english breakfast and roast dinners, most things that we eat in the UK are the same as or a corruption of other countries dishes?!

Jo xxx

agoreira

Passed there 2 days ago, it was empty!
http://www.thegordonramsayblog.com/y...gordon-ramsay/

JLFS

That is like the typical pub menu, and a good selection, a lot of the dishes have to be made befor hand, like the lasagne mousaka soup etc.

The number of starters is enough to cover all tastes, and 10-12 mains, with some that have had all the hard work done beforehand like mousaka, lasagne etc, is very manageble for the chefs without the customer having to wait for ages.

There is a selection from lots of different countries, which have been classed as typical pub food for a number of years now, without going overboard and expanding too much into each countries cuisine.

Curry is a must, really on every menu, but without going into every combination.

Something for the veggies is a must, a great selection is not needed, because if all thepeoplein the party want an authentic veggie/Indian/Greek meal they will go to a specialised resaturant, where they have a wider selection of the native food.

The trick is, do what is right for your pricing, know your customer base, keep the menu small, the service efficient, waste to a minimum.

With a group of people who dont all want to eat Indian or Greek, I would eat in a place with a menu like that.

Rosemary

Cannot see how that menu was labelled as typically English, agree with you that it is international. Congratulations on not having a boring, stagnent list, like the differences and the fact that it is all fresh and cooked on the premises.

Rosemary

JLFS

I would say that Jimenatos menu is a good example of Brit cuisine.


It is what you would find in the large pub chains in the UK, curry chilli, spag bol are no longer classed as foreighn food in the UK, and these dishes are cooked by British women on a regualr basis at home.

JLFS

I would disagree, it is typically English.

The only meals most youngish men know how to cook for themselves are the spag bol, and chillie, and chicken curry, and Greek salad, is no longer seen a a Greek dish.

It is what the British eat, and prepare at home, so they have moved out of the "foreign food" category and into the homes of the British population, so it is now typical.

jimenato

Thanks for your kind comments. Just to add we ring the changes for our regulars by having daily specials.

Also, many younger Spanish eat our food.

HBG

If the meals are mass produced by a master chef like Ramsay, then surely an efficient freezer/microwave operation is better than that produced on the premises by a chef not up to three-star standard?

Fresh ingredients? Of course they're fresh when they were frozen.

Home made, cooked on the premises, made from local ingredients? I believe Ramsay's mass production unit is based at Wandsworth, in south London - the only thing grown locally is skunk.

HBG

Sorry, Jimenato, my reply wasn't aimed at you.

JLFS

When meals are mass produced even by a "master Chef" the quality is always compromised, because the food is brought dow nto still use the cheapest ingreidents for the job, and the most cost effective way of producing.

All the master chef basiclly does is devise the recipie, a bit like a lot of the celebs designing clother underwar etc.

Also the idea of eating in a restaurant is not to listen to the piging and dinging of the mocrowave, but to sample the skill of different dishes.

The idea of of going to a restaurant and eating mass produced frozen food, even if it is prepared by a master, is a bit like going to a concert and having a CD playing of the artists music with a cardboard cut out of him or her on the stage.

HBG

Once the pings have been silenced, a suitably attired chef would circulate among the diners to chat to them, while a kitchen assistant would have a couple of frying pans on the go, full of fresh onions and garlic to create the ambience. Lidl do some decent sauces in packets or tins, and if space is a problem you can get quite a few boil-in-the-bags in a tall saucepan.

I suppose a Susan Boyle CD in the background would help too, but without the cardboard cut-out of the lady on show - that would be too much for even the most hardened diners.

bil

I remember the Ramsey prog when a frighteningly incompetent chef served him prawns that after the first mouthful turned out to be half raw.

The ****ometer hit the red zone so hard the needle wrapped round the stop, and he was off into the alley behind the kitchen hawking his guts up.