Sunday service: Blacklock

While it might be our national dish, the roast dinner is notoriously tricky to get right.  For a start, everyone knows that Mum’s make the roast, and each family has its own particular foibles and quirks. When I was growing up Sunday dinner (served at 6 o’clock) always came with cauliflower cheese and roast parsnips, and yorkies (my Dad made the best), were only ever served with beef. The Ewing’s Mum served both mash and roasties with the meat - a double carb concept I still struggle to get my head around.

Which all conspired to make going to Soho’s Blacklock on a Sunday, despite their reputation for the best roasts in town, a gamble. Not only that, during the rest of the week they specialise in chops and, despite my solidly English credentials, I think I might actually prefer gnawing a chop to a Sunday dinner. Yeah, I know.

Anyway, as it was mid-September and we were eagerly anticipating a change in the weather – before, of course, we knew a freak heatwave was bringing the hottest temperatures of the year - the Ewing managed to grab the very last table. This was a victory I feared would be pyrrhic when we saw the weather forecast and began to question the wisdom of sitting in a dark basement eating platters of red meat and potatoes swamped in rich gravy.

I may as well spoil the surprise by saying now, even if the only remaining table was in Hades and I had to cross the River Styx to get to that first bloody mary, I would make the same choice again every time. As it was, we were shown to one of the best tables in the house - positioned below the skylights in the pavement - although anywhere seemed like a good table when we saw the hordes of people that had already been turned away by five past twelve.

The heat did result in one concession, swapping a bloody mary for a gin and juice as I was craving something more refreshing - which also, I convinced myself, came under the vague guise of healthiness (yes, somebody went off piste, this was not what we agreed before hand - TE). The Ewing’s BM was exemplary, but an abundance of the most pleasingly shaped ice cubes in the glass left her wanting a bit more of the beefy (a preface of things to come) beverage.

You can order spit shanks of bone marrow covered in a snow of freshly grated horseradish, or giant wood-grilled scallops with bacon and peas – as the guys on the table next to us did, to our jealous looks – but we went straight for the ‘all in’, a platter piled up with all three roast meats, gravy and all the trimmings (something we had agreed a week before our visit after studying the menu together - TE). As it’s hard to break a habit, I also chose the cauli cheese, more for nostalgia’s sake as even I wasn’t worrying that we wouldn’t have enough food to keep us going.

This was a roast any mother would have been proud of, in fact, it was almost equal to my own mothers, right down to the cubes of not-quite-crackled crackling (one thing she was never very good at), which were completely delicious nevertheless. There was even a random pork rib on top of our mountain of food, which reminded me of being allowed to gnaw at the bones in the kitchen as a treat if I helped carve the meat.

The pork looked a little pallid against the blush red meat, but was deceptively juicy and made a fine start  to the meal (I usually follow the ‘best til last’ method, while the Ewing goes in head first -  (in case I die in the process, fancy dying before you ate your favourite thing - TE)). Round two saw the lamb, both our favourite of all the meats, with a transcendental dish of cauliflower cheese, with a four cheese sauce, and a rainbow display of carrots. Finally I moved on to the roast beef, which was good but not quite as good as the lamb, which I ate with a very fine Yorkshire pudding, perfect green beans and a lick of good horseradish sauce.

While I’m probably the only person in the world who isn’t really bothered about roasties, these were very good - although with the vast amounts I had already eaten it meant I still lived up to my nick name of ‘Amy One Potato’, which, as you can see above, did make me feel rather sad. 

Stealthily (or probably when I was probably messing around with filters on Instagram), the Ewing managed her trio of spuds plus my remaining pair, meaning we only ended up leaving the gnawed rib bone. Believe me, I did try to eat that too.

One thing neither of us wanted to do without was pudding, here you get one choice, white chocolate cheesecake with seasonal fruit, which made ordering easy. Served up at the table from a large earthenware dish, this was a wonderful cheesecake that had possibly the most rustic buttery biscuit base I have encountered - you can see the errant rubbly chunks that sprinkled over the top. The accompanying berries were both sweet and tart and I particularly enjoyed that they were served in a Shippam's potted meat dish.

Clearly, we were both in love; with the food, our waiter - who had the Ewing in stitches while dishing out our desert  (oh the staff were dreamy, such good fun - TE) - and the fact they bought toothpicks, for our chops, with the the bill - which, at £80 including tip, was not too considerable at all for all the food and drink we had consumed.

Still there's always room for a little more... and it’s at this point I would like to apologise to my wife, for a whole litany of misdemeanours, but on this occasion for making her, after our gluttonous display, walk around the corner to Gelupo in an attempt to fulfil my ice cream-in-every-blog-post-during-the-summer. 

Not only that, I also made her eat our double scoop of bonet - with chocolate and caramel - and ricotta and sour cherry pretty much single-handedly, only stepping in to help her finish the last mouthful of cone. From the couple of licks I had, the ice cream remains peerless as ever. One of the only things that my mother (whose best attempts at pudding when I was growing up mostly stretched to ‘yogurt or fruit’) can’t quite yet compete with. Still, she does buy me tubs of ‘Oh My Apple Pie’ Ben and Jerry's when I visit, which is quite alright with me.

Penny Arcades, Pint Shop and a Bun for My Trunk

Birthdays start out fun. There's parties and cake and games and hey, you can even cry if you want to. Then come the first 'milestones', where you can buy cigs (legally) and celebrate with a pint in the pub you've been drinking in for the last year (apologies to my favourite barmaid, Janet, at the White Hart, Beaconsfield). 

Thereafter the lustre of that special day tends to wane somewhat. Each advancing year brings less fun and more wrinkles, and instead of Castle Greyskull and Transformers you get socks and shower gel. That is until you reach a 'certain age'. It's hard to know exactly what that age is, as it varies from person to person, but you know you've reached it when you announce - unbidden and usually very loudly - exactly how old you are to all and sundry.

At 85 and still going strong, my Nan has reached that age. Although to be fair she still talks about all the 'elderly people' around her without the slightest bit of self awareness that she may now fall into that category herself. But they say you're only as young as you feel, and with the energy it must take to edge her perfectly manicured lawn and cut all her hedges, something she still does solo, I seem positively geriatric in comparison.

Of course, we didn't really need the excuse of a birthday to jump in the car and motor to Norfolk for the weekend, with good old Doreen being such amusing company in most circumstances, but it's nice to have a reason to celebrate. And where better than a day at the seaside and more specifically one of my favourite childhood haunts, Wells-next-the-Sea.

An afternoon playing in the penny arcade and walking along the sea front would take years off anyone's life, with a fish and chip lunch, bags of fudge from John's rock shop and a couple of bottles of strong Norfolk cider from Whin Hill to take home, adding them swiftly back on again. The perfect sort of afternoon.

After a few days of shepherd's pie, ice cream in the garden, toast and homemade marmalade washed down with a few too many of the afformaentioned ciders, we probably didn't need to visit Cambridge for Sunday lunch on our drive home. But we did anyway, ending up in the Pint Shop, a pub cum restaurant on Peas Hill boasting a wide beer selection and spit roasted meats on a Sunday. 

We chose to eat upstairs, in their shaker style stripped back dining room; a tranquil spot that was rather akin to eating in a Vermeer still life. Refreshment, chosen from a large board of rotating libations, came in the form of a Pulp Fiction grapefruit saison from the Nene Brewery; a zippy little summer number; and a pretty pedestrian Hopmen of the Apocalypse from Totally Brewed in Nottinghamshire. 

To eat we both chose the spit roast lamb shoulder with homemade mint sauce, mashed roots, greens and roasties from the Sunday set menu. A good roast is notoriously hard to get right but, as promised by the friendly barmen downstairs, this was a superlative Sunday dinner if, at 16 quid, a little stingy in its portioning. Add some cauli cheese and another slice of meat and it may have even rivalled my mother's famed 'rost' lamb. A Roscoe favourite.

A brief interlude before pud saw me sampling a pint of the staid but perfectly satisfactory Meteor bitter from the Star brewery in Lincolnshire. The Ewing's choice was the, far beefier, Something Something Darkside; a mashup between an imperial stout and an imperial IPA from West London's Weird Beard. A decadent, smoky and licorice-licked, BIPA - not one to take too lightly early on a Sunday afternoon.

Pictures of the desserts seem to have turned out in soft focus, a look that makes them look more like stills from a Euro porno than pudding. I would say it was because they were so seductively alluring, but in reality I think a blob of grease from the roasties got on my phone lens.

Sadly they couldn't live up to their fuzzy glow; my buttermilk pudding with saffron gooseberries and 'rough snap' (a not very snappy, oat biscuit) paled against the magisterial example at the Wheatsheaf Inn a few weeks before. Full praise though for the glowing golden gooseberries which were spot on and reminded me of why I fell in love with this quintessentially British sweet and sour fruit. The Ewing's pear and frangipane tart passed muster, but felt like a bit of a lacklustre finale.

Not wanting to depart without having that sweet spot thoroughly scratched, we managed to fit in a quick visit to Fitzbillies Cafe on Trumpington Street - Cambridge is certainly up there when it comes to great road names. Purveyors of traditional cream teas, puffy choux pastries and flaky sausage rolls, Fitzbillies remain renowned for their gooey chelsea buns which became a firm favourite on our last visit to Cambridge.

With the mercury nudging upwards, I was pleased to see a cooler incarnation of their famed yeasted bread product was available in the form of chelsea bun ice cream; a fragrant and rich lemon-scented and currant flecked joy that I would happily eat all year round.

Of course I couldn't pass up the chance to get my hands on some of their neatly coiled curls of syrup-soaked dough and we also bought a brace to take home for tea the following day. Quite as delicious as they look and rounding off a perfect weekend of simple things; sun, sea, smiles and sugar. Here's to the next one, Nan, and many more to come.

The Wheatsheaf Inn, Northleach

Ever since I was a child I've always been fascinated by Midsummer. From trips to Scandinavia to try and glimpse that mysterious midnight sun (alongside plenty of drunken singing around the bonfire, schnapps in hand), to a late night picnic on the Thames with an ex, complete with amusing commentary from the adolescent boys boating on the river who kept contriving to sail past.

This year the Ewing agreed to indulge my love of the longest day (after all, it's all downhill until December) by spending it under canvas in the Cotswolds. If it wasn't going to be restful - during the midst of an English summer, when it's getting light at four in the morning and every bird in the sky breaks into full and throaty song not long after, sleep is something most of us dream of - it would certainly be an adventure. Or, with the prospect of erecting our new tent  for the first time looming, potential grounds for divorce (or death- TE).

As it was, it was pretty perfect. We, argued over guy ropes and groundsheets, drank lots of beer (a jug of Breakspear's Henley Gold, picked up at the Wychwood Brewery in Witney on route), blew hopelessly at a disposable barbecue until our eyes stung and our dinner was incinerated, and sat around the fire until every item of clothing (including the ones we weren't wearing) were impregnated with smoke. We even managed to wake and see the sunrise (and pick the slugs off the side of the porch that had arrived with the late night rain) before falling back to sleep.

While re-hydrating with white wine spritzers and breakfasting on cups of tea and a packet of Digestives is all well and good we were soon in need of some real sustenance. to the ivy clad Wheatsheaf Inn, in the nearby village of Northleach.

It's a picturesque spot, with a winding, shaded garden, a warren of dining rooms and a bar of dark wood and leather that was quickly filling up with pearls and corduroy as we arrived for Sunday lunch. I hoped the straw in our hair and aroma of barbecue briquette accompanying us would give a rustic air to our presence, but the effect was probably more like a knock-off Wurzel Gummidge and Aunt Sally.

I started with a Bobby's Beer, a local lager brewed in nearby Bourton-on-the-Water. I haven't sunk pints of the pale stuff since my uni days, and while it was certainly better than the watery fizz of yore, it didn't quite beat the joy of an English beer - such as the pint of Barnsey, a dark beer from Bath Ales that the Ewing chose - especially in this quintessentially English setting.

Bread here is courtesy of Hobbs the Bakers, home of the Baker Bros, and has a pleasingly chewy crumb  and tangy flavour. The butter, from nearby Netherend Farm, is one of my favourites. In fact we had already stopped that morning in the village so I could buy two packs of the salted variety which were cunningly stowed in the camping coolbox.

I eschewed the roast for the calves liver, served on a bed of spinach with a tomato sauce, fried sage and capers, and a peerless side order of crisp french fries. This was a hulking slab of offal, served rare as requested, that was nicely charred on the outside and creamy and ferrous within. Although as I moved towards the thicker, bloodier end I did begin feel somewhat like Anthony Hopkins in his star turn, less the pulses and red wine. Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. 

The Ewing went down the traditional route with generous slices of slow roasted pork, a less generous shard of crackling bathed in a light cream and wholegrain mustard sauce that made a summery change from your standard Bisto. 

Alongside were the standard roast potatoes and roots and a selection of steamed veg, including the undersung celariac and swede. Yorkies, a quid extra unless you had the beef, came puffed up majestically in their own cast iron dish and were, to coin a cliche, worth every penny.

Deserts were a blinder. The Ewing picked the Marathon pudding, as recommended by Jay Rayner in his Guardian Review, in which he memorably describes eating it thus: 'slip your spoon through the tumescent dome and you find below not just a liquid chocolate centre but also a mother lode of soft caramel with crushed peanuts. There is a scoop of their own vanilla ice cream on top to lubricate and cool things down.'

Even more outrageously the Ewing (at my suggestion) chose the almond ice cream to anoint the molten-centered cake, creating something reminiscent of the Almond Snickers, a spin-off bar that may be even better than the original. This was seriously sticky, sickly stuff, although a sweet-toothed pro like the Ewing gave it no chance.

My pudding, a virginal fromage blanc panna cotta with just the requisite amount of wobble, was a little more restrained but no less spectacular and was set off perfectly by locally picked Primrose Vale strawberries.

As delicious as supper of carbonised skewers of mystery meat and plastic glasses of warm beer is, it's also good to have metal cutlery, and a chair to sit on, and scented hand cream in the loos (especially good after battling with all those guy ropes) And, most importantly, a comfy bed to go home to for a well deserved afternoon siesta. Because if camping's good for one thing, it's reminding you how wonderful the pleasures of a (non inflatable) mattress are when you get home.

Sussex Charmers

After the veritable bun feast that was Louis' christening, Stealth, the Ewing and I carried on the adventures with our own version of Three Have Fun in a Caravan, by spending a few days in the lovely surrounds of Rye Harbour (minus Dick and the dog. Not a euphemism).

Trying to prove that we could accomplish more than the self perpetuating drink, sleep, suffer repeat spiral (that wasn't helped with a spot of Bank Holiday wine tasting at Chapel Down on the way to Rye), I decreed we should get a dose of sea air and a measure of culture with a visit to Bexhill to see the Ladybird by Design exhibition, celebrating 100 years of Ladybird books, at the De La Warr Pavilion.

The exhibition was a fascinating, and rather dangerous, slice of nostalgia (I'm ancient enough to say that now). Taking us back to the innocent times when blonde-haired blue-eyed children went shopping with mother, learnt about public services such as gas and electricity and got to play with knives, batteries, matches and boiling water. 

For me the best bit was seeing the classic fairy stories such as the Elves and the Shoemaker, Rumplestiltskin and the Runaway Pancake; perennial favourites that my Dad used to read to me each night as a young child. And whilst the run is finished in Bexhill, you can catch it in London  from 10 July – 27 September 2015. 

Even without the healthy dose of reminiscence, the building itself is well worth a visit being a Modernist gem, especially of a blued-skied spring day such as that of our trip. On hearing of it's opening George Bernard Shaw exclaimed; 'Delighted to hear that Bexhill has emerged from barbarism at last, but I shall not give it a clean bill of civilisation until all my plays are performed there once a year at least.'

Another sign of the town's continued emergence from its faded dog days (it's an ongoing process) was our lunch at Bistro45, an unassuming little Belgian spot set just back from the sea front. While incongruous from the outside, it turned out to be one of those gems that even prompted Stealth to chide me for not taking pictures of her lunch so I could write about it later. 

From a strong beer selection (both in scope and ABV), we sampled the Affligem - served in it's own special rack, complete with a separate glass for the sediment, to add or drink separately as you wish - as well as pints of Vedett and, one of my favourites, the classic Trappist ale, Orval. 

Mains were moules, obviously. Most of us have some sort of mollusc horror story, but the allure of a well cooked bowl of mussels keeps us coming back for more. My perfect Pastis version, with Pernod, fennel, dill and cream, was a case in point. Rustling bowls of skinny fries and crisp baguette with butter were provided for mopping the creamy, aniseed infused juices at the bottom of the pot.

Stealth went all fancy dan with a mixed seafood pot with extra squid, cockles and prawns. She also, obviously, veered off piste and requested it extra spicy - or in her words 'with loads of Tabasco' - without even a raised eyebrow from the kitchen (I still didn't get any pictures, though).

Whilst it may seem incongruous to have a slice of Flanders on the South Coast - we found out that the dad of the lovely chap that served us was Belgian, and his son had now taken over the running of the place - everything was perfect. They even, on hearing it was her birthday, put a candle in the Ewing's creme brulee and served up Black Jacks and Fruit Salads with the bill.

The nearest pub to our caravan in Rye Harbour was the Inkerman Arms, a resolutely old fashioned  -in a fascinating 70/80s style, rather than olde worlde - sort of place. There was also the bonus of meeting a wonderfully eccentric and friendly bunch of locals, who even tried to persuade us to join them in an evening of drinking discounted Southern Comfort and lemonade at the Social Club followed by a night of karaoke classics.  

As tempting as it sounded, we stuck with the far more staid option of sitting in front of the fire supping pints of Old Dairy bitter, brewed up the road in Tenterden. The best place to be as the springtime showers battered at the windows.

They also serve a menu of home cooked pub staples, with the locals recommending the fresh fish straight off the boats in Hastings. As it was Friday, we chose to have ours beer battered. A tranche of huss for me (not one of my favourites, but a southern classic that remind me of the fish suppers of my youth) and the legendary Rye Bay scallops for the Ewing. All served with the obligatory chips, peas (mushy for me) and homemade tartare sauce. 

Mere words, and not even when accompanied by this strangely day-glo photo, cannot express quite how good these sweet bivalves actually were; so I shan't bother other than to say they blew the deep fried Tasmanian scallops we ate in the harbour in Hobart out the water, and were even better than the Mancunian battered potato slices that also bear the same name. 

A highlight in an remarkably sugar free week was a Saturday morning trip to Knopps, famed hot chocolate purveyors run by the eponymous Dutchman whose name, rather aptly, translates as 'buttons'. Here you can match your poison - from a creamy 34% white chocolate right through to a bitter 100% cocoa with no added sugar, -with all manner of herbs, spices and fruits. Think orange zest, fresh ginger, pink peppercorns or dried lavender, amongst others.

I'm not normally a big hot chocolate fan, but my 64% single origin dark chocolate complete with homemade vanilla marshmallows had me, not very, surreptitiously licking the bowl. The coffee and homemade salted caramel shortbread looked pretty ace, too.

A day spent in Rye itself meant a visit to the Ypres Castle monument, with the Ewing supporting the old adage 'sun's out gun's out', in between the showers. Tucked away next door we found the Ypres Castle Inn, a little gem known locally as the 'Wiper's', with its stunning beer garden looking out across the salt flats to the sea, live music, comfy armchairs (where we resided most of Saturday afternoon, reading our books) and a great selection of local ales. 

The Harveys Sussex best bitter, brewed in Lewes, was one of the best kept pints I have had for a long time. While I do have a fondness for palette wrecking hop forward beers, with all their skunky tropical fruit and stickiness, this is the perfect example of a deliciously well balanced session beer, hopped with British stalwarts, Fuggles, Goldings, Progress and Bramling Cross.

After liking things here so much, we booked ourselves in for the Sunday lunch the following day. And, after waking to blue skies the following morning, decided a walk along the beach and back through the nature reserve would sharpen our perfectly appetites beforehand. 

Three and a half  hot and sweaty hours later - a large part of it lost in a field full of sheep somewhere between Winchelsea and Rye Harbour, although we did get to walk past the magnificent Camber Castle, built by Henry VIII - we finally arrived. Any crossness was quickly dissipated by another pint of Harveys and a huge basket of warm baguette served with a delicious and ridiculously garlicky (although not quite so good when you're staying in a confined space) houmous.

A crispy rolled shoulder of roast lamb was equally fine, as were the accompanying al dente veg, raisin flecked red cabbage and generous amounts of crunchy spuds. The gravy drenched and rather soggy yorkie may have seemed somewhat superfluous, but, after so much unwarranted exercise, I ate it anyway.

Pudding provided yet more delicious carbohydrates with my absolute favourite of all favourite things, spotted dick. While slightly incongruous in the unseasonably warm weather, it was still absolutely, impossibly wondrous, with that lovely springy texture you only get from a proper steamed suet pudding and served with lashings of hot yellow custard.

What better parting shot than a visit to the picture perfect St Thomas' Church in Winchelsea, often disputed as the smallest town in Britain. It's also the last resting place of Spike Milligan, whose tongue-in-cheek gravestone inscription reads, in Gaelic, Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite. Or, I told you I was ill.