review

What I like about Minneapolis

Posted on by vlatsou

Well, this is going to be a hard one. My initial idea for this title was the offensive but accurate “Minneapolis is rubbish” but to be honest I didn’t have such a bad time, even if it was because I was with fun people and I was quite busy with maths. So, I decided to stop moaning, and write about the good things. I will number them as well, because then it will feel more of an achievement every time I manage to come up with one extra thing. There it goes:

1) Sky walks: It’s 6.30 in the morning and you are on your way to the conference centre, for 10 hours of talks. It’s cold and you’re tired (jet lags only happen when you go East as far as I’m concerned) and the last thing you want to do is get out of the hotel. Worry not:

You don’t have to.

2) Hell’s Kitchen: They make something called sausage bread with the texture of a really moist cake and the taste of heaven (oh, the irony). And they serve it with something that I can only hope is whipped butter rather than whipped cream. If someone can confirm that it is actually butter, my respect for Minneapolis will increase by about 450%.

And, if you order a sandwich, you can expect your bread to have been buttered to death and then fried. Don’t get me started on the portions. This one is a big hit apparently, with loads of cheese, ham and poached pears. It was yummy.

Finally, they claim that they make the best peanut butter in the world. They might be right.

3) Joe’s Garage: Yes, more food, but this is a food blog and I am starting to struggle for ideas. Joe’s garage looked pretty terrifying from the outside but, once on the inside, we were served juicy and tasty burgers by someone (presumably called Joe) who seemed friendly and competent. He memorised our order (although we all had different toppings and sides on our burgers) and only made one mistake.

4) The twin city of St Paul: Ok, not strictly in Minneapolis but if you’re looking for some type of sightseeing, you can have a look at the only two interesting buildings we managed to spot in the two cities:

The Cathedral

and The Capitol

It is advisable that you avoid looking at the ceiling or wall paintings if you have a sensitive stomach or any sense of style.

5) Hard-working people: The lady that gave us an amusing tour of The Capitol – highlight was her using the word sophisticated to describe the decoration of this:

also turned out to be working at the cloakroom in the conference hall. Coincidence? Maybe there are actually only 3 people living in Minneapolis after all, which could well explain the empty streets.

All in all, you wouldn’t go to Minneapolis out of choice, but if you find yourself having to, pick a good restaurant. They do exist, but they might be hiding away in a basement.

The St. John’s Chop House

Posted on by vlatsou

If you are a foreigner in England and quite snobbish about the food (it’s always better back home), you should visit a Chop House. Great British food and local ales, served in a very nice environment by helpful, friendly and polite staff. Kind of the opposite of your average curry place.

This is the second Cambridge branch but for some reason I haven’t visited the first one yet. We went there last night with my boyfriend to celebrate our anniversary. It was actually on Sunday, but he was too hangover to talk, let alone go out for dinner.

I hope you appreciate the increasing quality of the pictures, going all the way up to boring mediocrity.

Starting from no picture at all, our starter was Potted Venison. I haven’t had anything like it before and, although I always think that meat isn’t anywhere near as flavoursome as it should be when it is served cold, this one was very good. It wouldn’t have worked hot anyway because there was a layer of solid fat on the top, to preserve it I guess. It was served with some toast and some kind of sweet chutney that I can’t remember the details about, but it went really well with the venison.

My main was an Oxtail and Wild Mushroom Faggot with Parsnip puree, which was brilliant, with really nice tasty meat wrapped in some kind of salty membrane (stomach lining?). The parsnip puree was a great alternative to normal potato puree and I’m definitely going to try making it myself.

Alex had a Steak and Kidney Suet Pudding. I hate kidneys and this didn’t really change my feelings towards it, but the rest was very nice and the sauce went so well with it, being some kind of sweet syrupy gravy.

We somehow found space for pudding, and I found the correct white balance setting on my camera, so the pictures are slightly more presentable. We shared a Sticky Toffee Pudding with Vanilla ice cream which was sweet and sticky and spongy (quite predictably really) but the right amount of each one making a great dessert.

The other one was a Baked Apple Cheesecake which tasted great but was a bit too stodgy for my liking.

All in all, a great meal for under £50 for two. I will certainly be going back.

8/10

Oxford

Posted on by vlatsou

I visited Oxford last weekend, for the first time ever! It was awesome; sunny and hot, we watched some rowing (I hate rowing but the atmosphere was great, I got a tan and there was Pimm’s), had a barbecue and saw lots of colleges. Oxford really is very pretty. We found (with some help!) a hidden pub that apparently lots of famous people have visited. We had to walk down a little alleyway to get to it. Disappointingly, it was another Greene King pub, but it still had lots of atmosphere and the extra element of mystery to it. We had a drink there and on the way out we saw this little Hotel entrance, which I found very pretty and ever so slightly french looking.

Oxford feels more like a city than Cambridge does but without looking industrial or dirty. Also, it doesn’t have a phallic-looking University Library, which is always a bonus.

Anyway, food! On the way back, we stopped at this pub just out of Oxford. First impressions were great. It has a huge garden (and a playground!) and you can have your little picnic there which you can pick up in a pretty picnic box from the pub. You can’t have any hot food though and we were keen for some Sunday lunch.
Although it looked pretty busy, we were lucky enough to find a table to fit all 8 of us on the balcony. By that point, I was trying to avoid the sun because I could really feel my shoulders burning. I wasn’t very successful. Shouldn’t complain though, or the sun will never come back.

We had the choice of, well, all the standard ones really: beef, pork, chicken and lamb. Only beef came in a individual portion so we had a pork for 4 (on the other half of the table) a pork for 2 and a lamb for 2 for the 4 of us to share. It was good. The pork was a bit dry, but came with good crackling and some roast apples which I loved. The lamb was tasty and most of us preferred it. They also looked cool on those big boards. I would have liked some more exciting vegetables than boiled carrots and cauliflower but it seems to be acceptable to serve boring boiled vegetables with roasts. Whatever.

For pudding, I wanted to have the Summer Berry Crumble, being a crumble addict, but Alex had his eye on the Special Cheececake for two, and no one to share it with so I offered. It was served on a wooden board, the two individual cheesecakes looked properly homemade, with loads of vanilla in the cream. There were also 3 pots of different toppings: the first one was some chocolate sauce which, although tasty, didn’t seem to compliment the cheesecake that much. That’s what I thought at least, Alex loved it! There was also some wild berry compote which was great, tangy enough to counteract the sweetness of the cheesecake. The last one was supposed to be granola and it was nice for texture since the base wasn’t very thick. As we were eating, the waiter came up to us, apologised and gave us the £10 pudding for free. Apparently, the granola wasn’t granola but biscuit. Oh no.

All in all, the meal ended being a bargain, and pretty tasty too. I would happily go to The Fishes again if I didn’t live two hours away.