Riddle me this

Just a couple of weeks after enjoying a boozy, seafood blowout overlooking an Essex Estuary, the Ewing was particularly delighted for the chance to enjoy a second one in quick succession - this time at Riddle and Finns in Brighton’s famed Laines.

Inside features the obligatory high-topped marble tables, cool white tiles that bought to mind Soho's Randall and Aubin and Rex and Mariano (RIP, although its successor, Zelman Meats, is also very good).

Beware that if you are in a pair you have to sit adjacent to each other, like old people in garden centre cafes, and you may also have to share your table. Probably not an issue, but even the Ewing was frustrated by the woman opposite us, and her insistence on loudly instructing her builder on the kitchen extension down the phone.

Good sourdough came with homemade mackerel pare, taramasalata, aioli and... horseradish. Clearly I had zoned out when the waitress announced this nugget of info, so it made a surprise sinus-clearer when I loaded it up on a crust of bread.

We started with half a dozen oysters - rocks, as they hadn't had their first natives of the season - a mixture of Rossmore, Carlingford and their oyster of the day, which I felt sure I wouldn't forget, then promptly did.

You can add sauces and toppings, for an extra fifty pence per bivalve, from a comprehensive list including Killpatrick - barbeque sauce and bacon lardons; Porthilly - deep fried & served with pickled vegetables and citrus mayo; and the classic Rockefeller. And while I do, sacrilege, like a cooked oyster, we ate these au naturel (don't worry, we both remained fully-clothed), although I did anoint mine with a liberal splash of red wine vinegar with finely chopped shallots.

The Ewing took advantage of the excellent value set lunch menu, two courses for £14.95, picking the mussels as her starter, with a spare spoon for me. Having eaten plenty of mussels in my life - many of the best looking out at the flat, windy beaches of de Panne on winter trips to the Belgium coast - these were, with no sense of hyperbole, some of the nicest. (oh they were so plump, silky and delicious - TE).

Big and plump and sweet, but not like the tasteless green lip behemoths, with a velvety sauce that we both clashed spoons over. I also enjoyed the late addition of baby spinach leaves and cherry tomatoes, not quite as strange as it seems.

At nearly twenty quid (it's simply listed on the menu as 'Riddle and Finns fish pie') I hoped my choice of main would be worth it. But when a bubbling dish full of chunks of smoked fish and salmon, topped with a burnished carapace of cheesy mash and crowned with a king prawn and a scallop, appeared (I asked for it to be served without the pesky half a boiled egg) I knew I had made a good decision.

A slightly less successful one was to serve the whole thing on a round of slate. Not only did it make the thought of turning the molten hot pie out a rather unappealing one, but it made it nigh on impossible to cut my veg without the shiver inducing screech of metal on rock. I'm not normally overly fussy about my choice of crockery, but this time I was firmly on the side of We Want Plates.

My unadvertised veg meant we also ordered a side of samphire; entirely superfluous, but very good. Especially when the brackish fronds were dragged through the accompanying dish of ethereal hollandaise sauce. A pairing to rival the more familiar asparagus, with the sea vegetables' season conveniently running on right behind.

The Ewing's main was a kinda re-hash of her starter, but with with the addition of squid and clams and served with pasta, and was no worse for that. A generous portion, well seasoned, with well-cooked pasta and a cold glass of vino blanco - you couldn't want for much more.

Dessert - a chocolate ganache creation with a base of tonka bean shortbread and layer of raspberry and lychee bavarois, decorated with a melange of flowers, mint and berries - looked the part, but failed to deliver. The shortbread was soft and the ganache a little chewy instead of melty. The unadvertised chocolate truffle-type things, rolled in coconut and embedded in a swirl of lemon flavoured cream, were pretty good, though.

After several glasses of prosecco and a very nice white Bordeaux, double espressos were in order, taken while chatting with the - super lovely - staff about the influx of Wycombians to the town that weekend.

The total bill just nudged a ton. Yes, a fair bit of cash to drop for lunch, but well worth it for fine quality fish and seafood served in lovely surroundings. You could, of course, get out for far less and far quicker than we did while still having a thoroughly lovely time, but probably not quite as much fun.

We emerged into the daylight to be greeted by a bright and breezy early autumn afternoon, The perfect weather for a slightly pissed (well, the non- designated driver), walk along the shingle, both buoyed by another wonderful seafood lunch and already planning our hat trick. In fact, the only thing I wouldn't want to repeat was the unplanned dunking in the North Sea. Eating all that fish hasn't metamorphosed me into a mermaid quite yet.

Now My Heart is Full

When I first met my wife she announced, just after telling me her favourite drinks were Black Russians or sweet pear cider, that she only really ate fish. As a confirmed beer-drinking carnivore, who had been living with a vegetarian for five years, I would have been less distraught to hear she was a Gooner who liked pulling the wings off butterflies in her spare time. Thankfully, pretty much five minutes later, she was drinking pints of ale while gnawing racks of ribs with her bare hands. Something I like to frequently remind her about, although she tells the story somewhat differently….

Anyway, as much as she loves most sources of protein, including a manic new ‘hummus in the Nutribullet’ phase she’s going through, fish and seafood remains a firm favourite. So it was an easy decision when it came to choosing what to eat on our recent jaunt down to Brighton.

Our Sunday night fish supper was at Bankers a popular takeaway and restaurant on the Western Road that are the only company in the UK to be awarded the Icelandic Responsible Fisheries Management Award, another ethical cause close to the Ewing's heart.

Inside is clean and bright, if a little utilitarian, while the fascinating range of clientele, with their quirky social mores, made me feel like I had stepped into a modern day Orwell novel full of day-trippers and secret trysts by the sea.

Keeping it classy, as always, we started with a bottle of the muscadet and a couple of wallies. No, not us, but the gherkins that were served as a kind of aperitivo, East Sussex style. If you’re feeling really fancy then a bottle of Monopole Blue Top is yours for £28. Not far off supermarket prices.

We shared the cold platter of stone cold classics to start – smoked salmon, mackerel pate and prawn cocktail - which, at £6.50, also proved great value. There are few things I like better than a prawn cocktail (I recently made the Ewing a giant version in a trifle bowl, for Valentine’s Day) and this one was no exception. The pate and salmon were also decent and served in generous portions, unlike the triangles of brown bread, which we squabbled over as we tried to scoop up every last bit of the smoked fish.

Grilled dover sole, while a touch over-cooked, was nevertheless a marvellous treat. It’s a sweet, buttery fish that needed nothing more than a squeeze of lemon and had the advantage of coming with both a generous side salad – including some outré beetroot chunks, not seen since the 80s - and a great bowl of perfect ‘chippy’ chips.

Large cod -  traditionally battered and deep fried, skin left on in the southern style - was also pretty good, but not up to the heady heights of the accompanying pile of chipped potatoes; especially when they were dunked into the complimentary tartare sauce. Boiled peas, however, were disappointingly watery and bland. Even the Ewing sadly forwent them after trying a spoonful.

After breakfasting on kippers at our hotel, followed by a stroll around the lanes to pick up mid-morning (fish-free) pastries, we headed to the Regency, a Brighton institution on the King's Road, for lunch. Another seaside classic that's been preserved in aspic, offering everything from fried breakfasts to Sunday lunch, it specialises in fish and seafood dishes with an Italian twist.

A ‘side’ of three scallops – although a couple of bivalves had been squeezed into two of the shells – served grilled and doused in garlic butter, were joyous. At £6.95, these were one of the priciest options on the menu, but a treat that was worth every penny. A pile of these, alongside a heap of fat Atlantic prawns, are very strong contenders for the starter in my death row meal menu - don’t worry, no crime has been committed; yet….)

If the scallops were good value then my main, seafood risotto, was a steal. Tomatoey rice, packed with plump prawns, sweet clams, mussels and squid and drizzled with the remnants of garlic butter from our scallops, this is about the best fun you can have in Brighton for under a tenner (and without breaking any indecency laws).

The Ewing chose the last of the seasonal sardines, before they rush off to spawn in the springtime, served simply with garlic, lemon and virginal boiled potatoes, sullied only with a sprinkling of fresh parsley. A dish that made me think of long hot summers in the south of Portugal, eating barbecued fish while watching the waves of the Atlantic crashing on the rocky shore. Not too dissimilar from our view at the Regency. Give or take twenty degrees.

We had chosen starters the day before, but now it was pudding time And what a time to be alive, with steamed syrup pudding, banoffee pie and profiteroles, three of my all-time faves all on the menu. As much as I was tempted, who could resist the lure spotted dick, or Richard, as it’s been coyly renamed here. Steamed sultana-studded, spiced sponge drowned in thick Bird's custard, what ever it's called, is always going to hit the spot.

The Ewing finished with one of her favourites, a deep-fried banana fritter served topped with ice cream and sugar wafers. A speciality her Dad spent much time perfecting when she was young, (served with toffee cream made by mixing double cream with a can of condensed milk that had been boiled for 3 hours - TE) this was a syrup covered trip down memory lane.

In an age of bland homogenisation, both restaurants are proper seaside gems that are well worth a visit - offering forgotten classics with old-fashioned prices to match. Whether you're after a takeaway tray of cod chips or a slap up lobster thermidor, despite the Ewing's very best efforts there's still plenty more fish in the sea.

Crispy Duck

Every time I see my Leeds-based Aunt and Uncle they seem to have a story about their most recent visit to London - a story which usually includes going to ‘Crispy Duck’ on Gerard Street, their favourite dim sum spot for more years than my aunt would care for me to tell you. And every time I hear about it I think I need to get to Chinatown to try it out for myself. Before completely failing to do so.

Of course food and failure are not compatible concepts in my mind - especially when it involves missing out on copious amounts of saturated animal fat with a side order of those puffy little pork buns that have become the Ewing's must order - so when we recently found ourselves tired and hungry somewhere around Shaftesbury Avenue, there was only one place we were going to end up.

Auspiciously, our visit wasn't long after my Uncle’s 70th birthday celebrations - where we had all walked from the Southbank to Piccadilly and I had asked my Uncle to point out the restaurant to me when our route took us up Wardour Street. 

Not that it would have hard to miss, with the big yellow letters and the hooks of roasted poultry hanging up in the window. Although, from the larger, more discrete, sign above the door, it appears the official name is the more prosaic 'Oversea Chinese Restaurant'.

Set on three floors, we were led down to the basement dining area, where the clientele was comprised of fifty per cent Chinese couples, studiously eating dumplings; and fifty per cent couples on first dates, eating the set banquet for two while making nervous conversation. With a raucous family reunion thrown in for good measure. 

All of which provided a lively atmosphere and the perfect mix for people watching - although the distractions made attempting to fill in our choice of dumplings on the carbon paper slip with the little Argos ball point pen more difficult than usual. Luckily the pictures and corresponding numbers on the menu made things a little easier.

The Ewing, who was sporting one less tooth than the week before, was mainly sticking to a liquid diet (something that’s very easy with my Aunt and Uncle around…) and so started with a small bowl of wonton soup.  While I didn’t sample the soup – 'good and gingery' was the verdict – the wonton I managed to snaffle was plump and tight and stuffed with bouncy prawns and minced pork.

From the roast meat and rice menu I paired the eponymous flying avian with a helping of roast pork belly. The duck, as its name suggests, had a crisp, lacquered carapace which gave way to the soft and sticky meat underneath. The pork belly was even better; wobbling chunks of meat striped with thick ribbons of fat and edged with crispy skin.

Ask for their (super hot) homemade chilli oil, which, along with the soy sauce served with the rice, provides a foil to cut through the richness. This isn't food for the faint-hearted.

When I first got together with the Ewing my two favourite things (apart from her of course) were burritos and turnip cake; two of the only things she didn't really like. Subsequently I've had a Mexican wrap and Chinese snack-shaped hole in my life for the past eight years. 

Because of the recent dental work, my wife had already announced she 'wasn't going to eat much', so I took this as the perfect opportunity to order the stir fried turnip cake with chilli sauce, beansprouts, spring onion and finely shredded omelette. Unfortunately, not only did she decide she was quite peckish after all, but she also liked this dish as much as I did. Fortunately it was a huge portion and, well, sharing is caring.

Scallop cheung fun were fine, although retrospectively I wish I'd chosen the barbecued pork version as the bivalve/rice noodle combo was a little too slippery and slithery. More successful were the XO prawn and scallop dumplings with truffle and better still the delicate beef and ginger wontons.

We also ordered char siu buns, which have been the Ewing's favourite ever since we went to Hong Kong a few years ago. These were decent, if unspectacular. Although after years of ordering them every time we go out for dim sum, I think I can safely say I've reached peak pork bun. (Surely not possible - TE)

I've been on my aunt's team at the pub quiz and she doesn't often get things wrong, and her recommendation here is no exception. Good value, central location and, food-wise and it does exactly what it says on the tin - Crispy Duck looks like remaining a family favourite for a few more years to come.

Keep Portland Weird - All the pubs pt.1

Listening to other peoples’ relationship advice is about as helpful as following centenarians tips on making it to a hundred; ‘have different interests’, 'be passionate', 'drink two bottles of Miller and a glass of whisky before bed’ etc. I’ll leave you to decide which answers match which question.

While I don’t have any invaluable tips (although I wouldn’t recommend squeezing your wedding ring with a pair of pliers in an attempt to resize it), if I had to distil the reason I’m still (mostly) happily married, it would probably come down to the Ewing’s reaction to my proposal of spending a few days visiting all the pubs on the Isle of Portland. When I saw her unbridled enthusiasm for an idea that even I thought was a bit ridiculous, I knew I had a keeper.

Which is how we came about traipsing around the limestone-tied ‘island’ - which is actually attached to the mainland at the eastern end of Chesil Beach, the impressive shingle tombolo that stretches 18 miles down the Jurassic Coast - while sampling the wares of the 15 hostelries on the Isle. These pubs being defined by the map on the West Dorset CAMRA page, minus the British Legion, as it’s really a club (mmm...attention to detail - TE), and with the addition of the Punchbowl, which I assume was omitted for not serving ‘real ale’).

Alongside a short write up of each visit, in case anyone should want to follow in our footsteps, I have also invented my own ‘sticky carpet’ rating - devised to celebrate all the wonderful quirks and eccentricities of a proper British pub. 

For a low rating think gastro pub with stripped back floorboards, scented hand cream in the loos, and a seasonal menu involving game and seafood. A high rating is reserved for a boozer with cigarette burns on the loo cistern, a resident dog curled up by the fruit machine and a menu of dry roasted peanuts and scotch eggs. There’s probably some metaphor for modern marriage in there somewhere, but I’ll just leave it as them both being perfect in their own way.

Before our first evening spent getting battered, we stopped for batter of a different sort at the island's most recently opened fish bar, Chesil Chippie - chosen as I was curious to try their more outré offerings of Lyme Bay Scallops, smoked cod goujons and battered samphire, as well as getting my fix of Southern chip shop favourite, the pea fritter. With our food freshly fried to order, and the friendly staff making our short wait much more entertaining, I was looking forward to our al fresco fish supper.

The original idea was to arrive to the last blazes of autumnal sunshine before picking up our supper and scrambling over the pebbles to watch the sunset somewhere over Lyme Regis, but clearly the British climate had other ideas. While the rain held off, the wind (as my Mother had been repeatedly warning me prior to our trip) was whipping particularly ferociously, even for the notoriously gusty Isle of Portland.

Luckily, unlike pesky sand, the pebbles here are far too big to be shifted by a stiff sea breeze and we managed to eat our first dinner on the beach - even if the Ewing ended up as cold as her leftover chips. All the food was well worth windburn, with my favourite being the scallops and the Ewing’s the cod, while we fought over crispy scraps of salty samphire dragged through their impressive homemade tartare sauce. The pea fritter was also particularly brilliant example of the genre and, luckily for me, I got it all to myself.

As we started to fear a side of frostbite with our fish, I was glad there wasn’t far to go to reach our first pub, the The Little Ship, situated almost opposite the chippy. While the temperature didn’t feel much warmer than being outside, the greeting was friendly enough and I was pleased to see a dart board, pool table and fruit machine, which I took as a hopeful portent of the sticky carpet standard of pubs to come. There was even a traditional wooden skittle alley, although it seemed to be being used to store old tables and chairs on our visit.

In what would become a depressingly constant theme to our trip, the cask ale was limited to one choice; Wadworth’s 6X – although we were told there were another couple of casks ‘settling’ behind the bar. Despite the restricted selection it was served in fine condition and made a pleasing first pint. The Ewing, after deciding moments before that she would never eat again, also picked up some lurid blue fizzy sweets that were purportedly helping support cancer charities – offset, no doubt, by the cost of the rise of type two diabetes (supporting charities really is a double edged sword sometimes - TE).

The Little Ship: 2x pints Wadworth 6X £7.00

Sticky carpet rating: 7. Higher than average thanks to the pool table, darts, fruit machine and skittle alley - not in use (oh what could have been...TE). Loos are SC standard, although at least they boasted both soap and loo roll.

Overall score: 5. All the attributes of a good old British boozer, but in a strangely disjointed setting, probably not helped by it being fairly quiet on our visit. My pint was well kept though, and an extra mark for a great soundtrack of Dylan, the Stones and the Doors.

The Cove House Inn - an atmospheric 18th century hostelry built of Portland stone, just two minutes’ walk from our first stop - was much livelier. Being there just for the beer, we were restricted to the bar, as all the tables in the restaurant areas were booked for dinner. No matter, we perched up on our stools and were entertained by our enthusiastic barman as he pulled our Pints of Adnams Broadside.

Despite not being a local beer – the other cask ale offered was Doombar – it was a decent enough pint, but I was more tempted by the food menu, with seasonal offerings such as crab tagliatelle and haddock chowder to compliment the sweeping views of Chesil Cove (had it not already been pitch black by this point). The Ewing wanted a slice of banoffee pie to go with a second pint but, with two stops still to go I checked out the loos (in the name of research - clean but no lights in the cubicles?) and dragged her back into the hoolie raging outside (SO unfair, that banoffee would have been good - TE).

Cove House Inn: 2x  pints Adnams Broadside £7.60

Sticky carpet rating: 5 - with its uneven floors, low-beamed ceilings (mind out if you’ve had a couple) and prime spot on the sea front, the Cove Inn is the sort of charmer that would happily woo your mother. No darts or pool here, but they do serve scratchings and welcome dogs into the bar (and the barman LOVED  my woolly hat, that makes it an 8 for me -  TE).

Overall score: 6.5 - based on our fleeting visit, although the score would have undoubtedly been higher if we had returned for food.

Our next stop was to Castletown, to the far north east of the island, where we hit the The Royal Breakwater; a good looking building that, as its name cunningly suggests, is also a hotel. Inside had a funny kind of atmosphere, somewhere between a holiday club – with parents trying to finish their meals while the children, threatened with bedtime, ran merrily amok – and a proper boozer. The guy we met at the bar was certainly already very well lubricated as he attempted a hilariously disjointed conversation with the, far too accommodating, Ewing.

It was at this point when, after looking at the uninspiring beer selection, I made my move on to the rum and coke. I’m not normally a big spirit drinker, but being as we were in the right neck of the woods, rum seemed as good a choice as any and I eased myself in with a Mountgay Eclipse. A beverage chosen as Bond orders it with soda in QoS, just before he wins the Aston Martin DB5 in a game of poker. The Ewing tried to get her Malibu with pineapple, but the high winds had obviously felled all the palm trees on the island, so she ended up with Coke too.

Royal Breakwater Hotel – 1x Mountgay eclipse and Coke; 1x Malibu and Coke £5.20

Sticky carpet rating: 6.5. Pool table, dart board and fruit machines, plus a trail of ketchup across our table from abandoned sachet, set the scene, while the Malibu added nicely to the retro feel. The loos are accessed by walking across a strange kind of indoor alleyway, but were commendably clean.

Overall rating: 5.5. A friendly place, and I would have been happy to stay for another, but a slightly odd layout and didn’t feel quite ‘pubby’ enough for me.

Moving almost directly next door to our final stop of the evening, (ooo, our fave - TE) The Green Shutters was the pub I had most been looking forward to visiting; attracted by both the reviews and the name - sounding, as it does, like a ‘proper’ boozer, amidst a sea of forgettable generic monikers. Walking in I felt cheered that this was going to be a good stop, reinforced by the ale which, although small in stature, included the local DBC Pilsner, interestingly served on cask.

The Ewing sampled a pint of the above, while I stuck with the Mountgay and coke. Both solid choices, but the real excitement came with the snack we chose to accompany them – Shakey’s Black Country scratchings. I had seen bags of this strange looking snack, with its little yellow cartoon pig on the front, behind all the previous bars we had visited; and now, my hunger slowly returning, decided it was finally time to sample them.

Despite the midlands moniker, these are proud Portland pig bits, and very good they were too, despite the ominous health warning ‘only recommended for people with strong, healthy teeth’ on the back of the bag (now I don't remember seeing any piggies on the isle...suspicious - TE). They also must have had some magical effect on our inebriation levels, as we had suddenly perked up enough to start considering the range of top shelf whiskys as a nightcap, helped no doubt by Europe slowly beginning to claw back their second day deficit at the Masters, which I was following on the TV in the corner.

I picked the Auchentoschan American Wood, an easy-going lowland whisky I first tried on the overnight sleeper to Edinburgh, which knocked me out ‘til well past Carlisle. The Ewing was very excited to see Black Cow vodka - the world’s only vodka made from milk – which is also made just down the road in West Dorset. Not only did her choice, a double on the rocks, cause a stir amongst the regulars, but the barman also gave it to her at the bargain price of £2.50 as ‘it isn’t really that popular’ (sheer madness - TE). Which pretty much made up for the golf, and the fact we still had the windy walk back to the mainland to contemplate....

Green Shutters - 1x Mountgay Eclipse and Coke, 1x pint DBC pilsner; I x Shakey’s scratchings; 1x double Auchentoshan American Oak; 1x double Black Cow Vodka £14.30 (I mean, Oh. My. God. - TE)
Sticky carpet rating: 8.5 A solid score thanks to pool, darts, fruit machines, and a decent collection of charity tins - including 80s favourite Sooty, which the Ewing was particularly excited to see (collecting for the RNIB no less, well done Sooty - TE). In fact, we probably spent more money donating to these than on our beverages.
Overall rating: 9. Great pub with great staff and a lively atmosphere and somewhere I’d like to go back for a quiet daytime pint (the Ewing would like to go back to finish the vodka). I’m taking a point off for the beer selection being a little lacking, but the cheap top shelf spirits goes someway to make up for it.