Cappuccina Café

On May 16, 2014August 22, 2017 By ediblereadingIn Reviews3 Comments

N.B. Cappuccina Café closed in June 2014. I’ve left the review up for posterity.

Cappuccina Café wins one accolade right from the off; I think it might have the ugliest view of any café or restaurant in Reading. From my seat, through the glass front window, I could make out “Sam 99p” on West Street, with its rather hyperbolic slogan Yes! Everything’s 99p or less (it’s hard to imagine anybody walking past and actually saying that). Still, Cappuccina Café isn’t unique in having a bad view. From Picnic you can see the tables outside Munchee’s which house some of Reading’s most glamorous smoking al fresco diners. From the terrace at London Street Brasserie I once made out somebody on the grassy bank opposite urinating against the bridge (stay classy, Reading). None the less, I wanted to make the visit because Cappuccina Café is a fusion of Vietnamese and Portuguese and you don’t see that every day – not in Reading, not anywhere.

First impressions were mixed. It’s a very long room with the counter at the front, the kitchen at the back and the two overstretched waiters constantly doing a long walk from one to the other and back again. Only one person was serving when I got there, and he didn’t seem to be able to make up his mind whether to take my order or attend to the large pile of dishes in plain view in the sink, a pile which made me a tad nervous about ordering anything at all. As it was, he ineffectually pottered around in the general vicinity of the sink before coming back to check what I wanted (I had half a mind to tell him to do the washing up first). Was their dishwasher broken?

It’s a pity because the interior is quite handsome – smartish tables and chairs, a nice banquette along both sides of the room and tasteful tiled walls. There were plenty of cakes visible up at the counter and all of them looked distinctly tempting. I went on a Sunday lunchtime and it was full of families, most of them Asian – presumably Vietnamese, though I couldn’t tell for sure – all tucking into bowls of what I imagine were pho. Normally I’d take this as a good sign, but after recent experiences I approached things with a note of caution. The whole place did have the air of a crèche about it with plenty of kids roaming around – which ironically means this may be the most family-friendly place I’ve reviewed so far.

The general chaos continued well after I placed my order. One of the dishes I picked was bánh mì, the famous Vietnamese baguette which has been so popular in London over the last few years. It looked to me like the staff got a baguette out of the oven behind the counter, part assembled it behind the counter (next to the sink) and then took it all the way to the back of the restaurant, past my table, to add the rest of the ingredients. As a study in time and motion it was weird to put it lightly. To make matters worse, despite being (you’d hope) the easier to prepare of the two things I’d ordered it arrived a good couple of minutes after the other dish. By this stage we’d gone well past chaotic and were cantering into haphazard with reckless abandon.

When the bánh mì arrived I had waited so long, with such mounting despair, that I was expecting it to be indifferent. It should have been, because up to that point everything else was. To my surprise and relief, it was anything but. The barbecued pork was moist but not fatty, crispy, warm and utterly delicious. The menu said it was marinated in honey, five spice and lemongrass and I got all of that but especially the lemongrass. The shredded carrot (which I think was pickled), the little strips of cucumber and the daikon added crunch and yet more freshness, although the coriander seemed to be missing in action – a shame, because it would have fitted in perfectly. It was the kind of dish where you have a big grin after the first mouthful which lasts until well after the last, the sort of food that makes you shake your head in slow joy. It made me realise how underwhelming most sandwiches in Reading are – miserable clammy things, heavy and cold and soggy with mayo.

The grilled chicken with rice (com ga nuong) was so much more than the brief description would have you expect. The main attraction was a large leg of chicken which tasted like it, too, had been marinated in spices (including Chinese five spice and lemongrass) with a delicious crispy skin. For the size of the chicken leg there wasn’t a great deal of meat but what was there was moist and tasty, if a bit hard to get off the bone. On the side was a neat hillock of plain rice topped with a little pile of fried onions and a heap of pickled red cabbage and carrot which was just lovely with a forkful of chicken. The only out of place thing on the plate was the afterthought of salad, so forlorn and unloved that it just shouldn’t have been there.

I felt it would be wrong to leave without also sampling the Portuguese section of the menu, so I went up and ordered a couple of pasteis de nata for dessert. These came warmed – again, in an oven rather than a microwave – ready to be dusted with cinnamon and wolfed down. For me, a Portuguese egg custard tart is one of the seven culinary wonders of the world, ideally fresh out of the oven, dusted with icing sugar and cinnamon and dispatched in two, maybe three mouthfuls at most. The pastry is light and flaky, the top golden brown and not quite burnt and the filling ever so slightly wobbly and flecked with vanilla. These weren’t like that – too firm, not warmed through enough, no icing sugar – but they were still pretty good, and a darned sight closer than I ever hoped to get in Reading, in a little spot on West Street with a prime view of the 99p shop. Pleasingly they were also ninety-five pence each, which makes them far better value than anything you could pick up in “Sam’s”.

The whole thing – bánh mì, chicken with rice, two tarts, a cup of tea and a soft drink – came to fourteen pounds. A comparable lunch would have cost just as much in Pret, Costa or Nero and wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good. To me, Cappuccina Café is part of something interesting happening to Reading’s lunch scene. All over the place independent cafes are springing up – from Lincoln down the King’s Road (coffee and bagels) to Arepas Caffe at the other end of West Street (Venezuelan food and churros), to Shed in Merchant’s Place (toasties and “Saucy Friday”) – not to forget the granddaddy, Picnic (salad and cakes). There’s no excuse any more for the laziness of going to the usual players on Coffee Corner. So yes, the service is iffy, the layout is a nightmare and they really need to fix their dishwasher, but with all that said I’ll still be going back to Cappuccina, and sooner rather than later. They have three other types of bánh mì and I fancy trying them all, collecting the Vietnamese equivalent of stickers in a Panini album.

Cappuccina Café – 7.0
16 West Street, RG1 1TT
0118 9572085

https://www.facebook.com/cappuccinacafe

China Palace

On May 9, 2014August 22, 2020 By ediblereadingIn Reviews9 Comments

N.B. China Palace closed in December 2019. I’ve left the review up for posterity.

One of the joys of writing this blog is when people ask me for recommendations. It means an awful lot that you (well, maybe not you specifically, but you catch my drift) trust me enough to approach me for advice. Usually I’m able to help, but I do feel like I let people down when it comes to Chinese restaurants: I’ve been asked several times to suggest a good Chinese restaurant in central Reading and I couldn’t, because I just don’t know of any. And when I’ve been asked about China Palace, which is probably the best-known Chinese restaurant in town, all I’ve really been able to say is that I wasn’t a fan, although that’s based on a visit from some time ago. So this week’s review ends the (I’m really sorry about this pun) China crisis and kills two birds with one stone: filling a gap in my repertoire and meaning I can give you better advice on restaurants in Reading.

China Palace is one big room next to the Argos, on the outskirts of the Broad Street Mall (“Reading’s favourite mall” according to, well, the Broad Street Mall). It’s undeniably handsome with beautiful black lacquered walls and lots of tables, mainly large circular numbers with proper white tablecloths. I went on a Monday lunchtime and it was more than half full, a sign of a restaurant doing something right. Another promising sign was that the other diners appeared to be pretty much all Chinese: everything was shaping up nicely for a delicious, authentic meal.

When I arrived I was disappointed to see the tables laid out with dim sum menus; I’ve nothing against dim sum per se but it wasn’t what I’d gone there to review. Fortunately China Palace also offers their a la carte menu, though I did have to ask for it and look suitably helpless. The full menu is exactly that; huge and more than a bit terrifying, offering over 200 different dishes running the gamut from fully Westernised (sweet and sour chicken, crispy chilli beef) to those with more exotic-sounding ingredients (duck web or intestines, anyone?). In the end we were helped by the manager who recommended ordering from the dim sum menu to start with so we could then decide whether or not to order anything else. This struck me as genuinely kind, not only because he could see we were floundering but also because the dim sum dishes are three to four pounds compared to six pounds for an a la carte starter.

The manager picked some relatively user-friendly dim sum for us, steering us away from the tripe and chicken claws and the cheung fun being so expertly manipulated with chopsticks at the neighbouring tables. Prawn dumplings with salad cream (yes really, salad cream) were very tasty – a mixture of chopped and minced prawns, with finely chopped carrot and spring onion in among the relentless pinkness, shaped into dollops a little like misshapen potato croquettes and fried. I liked the taste – especially dipped in the salad cream, something I haven’t had in ages and am now experiencing nostalgic cravings for – enough to overlook the slight wobbliness under the crispy surface.

Vietnamese style spring rolls were even better and a world apart from what I was used to. The rice paper was finer and less stodgy than Chinese spring rolls and the contents far more delicate – so there were mushrooms and beansprouts and prawns but also beautiful fragrant lemongrass. The sweet chilli sauce they were served with was clear, fresh and subtle rather than the gloopy sugary hit you normally get. They were so tasty that we fought over the third spring roll with the prawn dumpling as a runner up. I lost. I’m not bitter (I may be a little bitter).

Possibly even better than the spring rolls were the steamed pork buns. I’m sure I’ve had these elsewhere and really not enjoyed them but my guest really fancied them so I was prepared (or forced) to give it a go. These were three fluffy dumplings, sweet and thick – rather like bread made with candyfloss, if that makes sense – filled with chopped char siu style pork in a rich red sauce. We picked them out of the steamer by hand and burned our fingers on the hot dough and our tongues on the filling because we didn’t want to wait. All of the dim sum came served in threes – the curse of the odd numbers, again – but after failing to win the prized third spring roll I made sure we split the last bun fifty-fifty. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again (see? not bitter).

All told those dishes cost us about ten pounds. I wish I’d stopped there, or flagged down the manager again before ordering the mains. I’m sure I’d have had a better meal if he’d picked our dishes. To be honest, I’d probably have had a better meal if he’d cooked them, too. I can’t even rule out the possibility that I’d have had a better meal if I’d gone into the kitchen and done it myself.

The sizzling lamb with ginger and spring onion wasn’t sizzling, literally or metaphorically. I was expecting it to arrive with a bit more theatre and be drier, rather than the rather slimy looking dish which turned up (my friends tell me they’ve had very similar experiences on match.com). The sauce itself was shiny and bland. All the ginger came from huge slabs of the stuff scattered throughout the dish which made the taste a rather binary affair: either it tasted of ginger and nothing else, or it tasted of nothing at all. The lamb was floppy slices of oddly textureless meat which didn’t taste of lamb and easily could have been lamb, beef or something created in a particularly unpleasant laboratory. I didn’t finish it and I didn’t regret it, and minutes later I couldn’t really remember anything about it except how unmemorable it was.

The beef with golden mushrooms in satay sauce (from the “chef’s favourites” section of the menu, “favourites” appearing to translate to “a couple of pounds more expensive”) was better without being good. The beef was as grey as the lamb (if you had told me they were the same meat I would have believed you) but the dish was almost redeemed by everything else. The golden mushrooms turned out to be enoki, the skinny little pinhead mushrooms which grow in clumps. There were also, rather randomly, little pieces of pineapple which turned out to be a pleasant surprise. This was all generously distributed in a sauce which I suppose you could just about have described as satay if you were otherwise lost for words. It was inoffensive verging on pleasant but had no salt, no kick and no real oomph. For thirteen pounds fifty, I was expecting something considerably better. The dish was padded out with what I think were glass noodles, rendering the steamed rice a bit redundant. Except by then it was all redundant because the dim sum was quite nice, this was desperately average and I was already wondering how much I could leave without causing offence when I asked for the bill.

Getting the bill proved difficult (I had to ask twice). Getting served, except by the manager, proved difficult. Getting any kind of suggestions proved difficult. Getting a smile proved difficult. Getting a second glass of cabernet sauvignon (which was quite nice but felt, from the moment I ordered the first one, like a rookie mistake) proved difficult. Perhaps this is a sign of a very busy restaurant which was used to serving fast turnaround dim sum to the legion of diners there at that time of day. Or maybe this is a restaurant that is so successful that it doesn’t need to look after its diners. Either way I felt a little neglected. The bill for two, for three dim sum, two main courses and four glasses of house wine, came to £60. This included a compulsory ten per cent service charge. Seeing this as value for money proved difficult.

I’ve been thinking a lot about authenticity since I ate at China Palace. You can’t deny that it’s a very successful restaurant: the room seats 120 according to their website and was very busy when I was there. You also can’t deny that it would appear authentic: it was very popular with Chinese diners and I’m told that’s par for the course. But authenticity doesn’t automatically mean good – taste is all that really matters and for me, that’s where China Palace was a let down. Maybe my palate is too Westernised, maybe not, but I like to think I can tell the different between subtle and bland and for me there was way too much of the latter and nowhere near enough of the former. So next time someone asks me if I can recommend a Chinese restaurant in the centre of town I’ll say: No, not really. I suppose there’s China Palace at lunchtime if you pick dim sum carefully but otherwise, probably not. On the other hand, if authenticity is all that matters to you, by all means go there – and all power to you if you can convince yourself that you’re enjoying it.

China Palace – 6.3
43-45 Oxford Road, RG1 7QG
0118 9572323

http://www.chinapalacereading.com/

Bhoj

On May 2, 2014July 22, 2022 By ediblereadingIn Reviews2 Comments

Bhoj relocated in July 2016 to Queens Walk at the back of the Broad Street Mall, and in February 2018 they closed. I’ve left the review up for posterity.

If you had to name the best restaurant in Reading, which would you nominate? Mya Lacarte? Forbury’s, perhaps? Or would you go further afield and opt for l’Ortolan, still our only Michelin-starred restaurant? Well, TripAdvisor would say that you’re wrong. According to them Bhoj, a relatively little-known restaurant down the Oxford Road, is currently Reading’s best restaurant (Forbury’s and l’Ortolan don’t even scrape into the Top 20). Is that proof that TripAdvisor can’t be trusted when it comes to restaurants, or a heartwarming tribute to democracy in action? I felt I owed it to myself to find out.

The parade of shops on the Oxford Road where Bhoj sits, after Reading West station but before the mosque, isn’t the most inviting location for a restaurant. With a sex shop and the euphemistically named “Skunkworks” (apparently a “one stop shop for lifestyle choices” – which I’m sure it is, provided you’re Afroman) within 100 yards it’s a very different experience to the little enclave next to Forbury Gardens or the more polished surroundings of the Oracle Riverside. Bhoj is only about ten minutes away from town on the number 17 bus and the mix of shops en route makes for an interesting journey (how do all those barbers survive?) even if I was cursing my bad luck that somebody was already at the front of the top deck, stopping me from driving the bus.

The restaurant itself is fairly small – less than 30 covers – and whilst basic in terms of decor it’s spotlessly clean and neatly laid out (the fairy lights were a particularly nice touch). On the night I went, there were only a couple of other tables occupied although it’s clear that a lot of customers use Bhoj for takeaway as I saw one of the waiters leaving with bags full of goodies several times throughout the evening. Service, though, was excellent from the moment I arrived to the moment I left: our waiter – friendly and cheery in an orange polo shirt – wasn’t just knowledgeable about the dishes but (and you forget how rare this is in Reading until you experience it) enthusiastic too, happy to explain everything in a way that meant I didn’t feel stupid asking.

If anything, the menu is a tad spartan – smaller than many Indian restaurants I’ve been to and particularly strong for vegetarians (I showed it to a vegetarian friend after and she said “you should have taken me along to do this menu justice”, with a tone of genuine envy). As so often in restaurants I go to nowadays, I found this reassuring; it made me feel like each of the dishes might be distinctive rather than another permutation of the same orange liquid with different chunks of protein bobbing around in it.

Both starters arrived on those sizzling platters which inevitably induce envy in neighbouring tables: who doesn’t like a dish that audibly announces its arrival? This was great in theory, although by the end the paper tablecloth was so spattered that it looked like we’d been out for dinner with Roy Hattersley. Saffron paneer tikka was served in large flattish squares, gently spiced with chunks of peppers mixed in. I liked it, although it didn’t blow me away and the spices didn’t come through strongly enough. Ironically, I think I was hoping for a little more sizzle and a bit more caramelisation.

Murgh hariyali tikka – recommended by my waiter as a good contrast – was, well, green. Not pastel green. Not pale pistachio green. I am talking Kermit The Frog green; worryingly green, if I’m honest. It was a huge relief when my knife sliced through to reveal the familiar white flesh beneath. The flavour and colour come from the fresh herb paste that the chicken is marinaded in; I was expecting the mint and coriander (and I think I got a bit of ginger), but there was definitely more than a little garlic in there too. The taste was lovely, but stopping by the newsagent the next day and buying a packet of Extra Strong Mints before heading to work is probably advisable. I did find the chicken a little on the firm side, not as soft and tender as I was expecting from something marinaded before cooking, but even so there was a pitched battle for the fifth piece (do restaurants dish up an odd number just to watch people bicker? I’ve always wondered that.)

There was more of a pitched battle, mind you, for the onions underneath the chicken. Isn’t that silly? Onions are as cheap as can be, so how could they possibly be one of the tastiest things I ate all evening? But it’s true, I promise: sizzling, continuing to cook at the table, soft and sweet, spicy and caramelised, coated in all those juices. They were incredible, and we pounced on them like yummy mummies hitting the Boden website come sale time. It wasn’t dignified, but it was delicious.

You may be wondering why I didn’t mention the poppadoms. There’s a reason for that: I totally forgot to order any. Perhaps that’s the trick to leaving an Indian restaurant without being stuffed to bursting: traditionally I always have poppadoms and by the time the mains arrive dinner is as much a food marathon as it is a treat (I guess your fellow diners are the equivalent of running mates on the other side of the finishing line, cheering you on). I’m glad I forgot on this occasion because the mains were dishes to be enjoyed, not endured.

Dhaba chicken – again, recommended by the waiter – was so gorgeous that I could overlook it being fundamentally meat in an orange sauce. I was expecting it to be hotter than it was, and maybe a little less sweet, but the heat was that clever kind which builds up gradually. Bhoj’s menu, rather unhelpfully, just describes it as a “tangy sauce” so I can’t even bluff and pretend I picked out all the things in there. As always, Indian food shows up how much I struggle with describing such a complex combination of flavours – I got cumin, I got coriander, but beyond that we reach the limits of my powers of description. I can tell you, though, that the chicken wasn’t the star of the show: it was that glorious sauce, mixed in with the jeera rice (speckled with cumin seeds) or heaped onto a scoop of torn, buttery paratha.

Even better was the karahi lamb. This was a drier, hotter curry than the dhaba chicken and easily one of the best things I’ve eaten so far this year. The lamb, in what looked like firm chunks, gave in to the slightest pressure from a fork. The sauce was sticky, rich, intensely savoury: heavenly. I would say that my idea of restaurant hell might well be eating a chicken korma while sitting opposite somebody having Bhoj’s karahi lamb and not being able to try any. Even the bit where I accidentally crunched on a cardamom pod couldn’t dampen my ardour for this dish: I want to have it again, and soon (did I mention that they do takeaway?)

When Bhoj first opened it didn’t have a license so was a BYOB establishment. This has now changed, but the drinks list still feels very much like an afterthought. Generally we stuck to mango lassis and these too were streets ahead of other ones I’ve tried in Reading – fresh and recognisably packed with mango rather than the more generic sweet versions I’ve had elsewhere in Reading. Wine drinkers, though, are faced with a real Hobson’s choice: Blossom Hill by the glass or Jacob’s Creek by the bottle.

I was torn – the snob in me would rather not have gone there, but I really fancied wine with my main. What to do? I might get excommunicated from the Guild Of Food Snobs for saying this, but who cares: reader, I had the Blossom Hill and it wasn’t bad. Easy to drink, uncomplicated, went okay with the curries, nothing to dislike (and who’d have a Burgundy with a biryani anyway?) Perhaps, like restaurants people rate on TripAdvisor, it’s popular for a reason; judge away by all means, but I might well have it again next time.

The bill, for two starters, two mains with rice and paratha, three lassis and that rogue glass of Blossom Hill came to £45. I’m not sure how much £45 buys you at l’Ortolan but it’s not a lot. And I would say that it’s worth coming here even though they do takeaway, because the service is brilliant and without it I probably would have ordered what I always have and not discovered some of the great dishes on Bhoj’s reassuringly compact menu.

So, is Bhoj Reading’s best restaurant? Objectively probably not: the room is basic, the drinks offering is limited, my starters weren’t perfect. But personally, I think the best answer to “what is Reading’s best restaurant?” is probably “who cares?” Bhoj’s chef is never going to appear on Great British Menu or be gushed over by critics. They’re never going to do a tasting menu. But that’s the elitist tip of the iceberg, and the rest of the iceberg is what food should really be about – eating something tasty. Sounds oversimplistic, but it’s true. There are times you want three fiddly, fancy courses, and times when you just want to sit down and eat something you know you’ll adore. There are nights when you want to see a wine list the size of a novella and watch a flunky decant your vintage claret into a carafe shaped like a lab flask. But there are also times when you want to sit in a restaurant two doors down from “Skunkworks”, lit by fairy lights, over a fat spattered paper tablecloth and eat delicious, dark, sticky, flavourful lamb, hoping nobody will come in and spot the miniature bottle of Blossom Hill in front of you. God bless Bhoj.

Bhoj – 8.2
314 Oxford Road, RG30 1AD
0118 9581717

http://www.bhoj.co.uk/

Bel And The Dragon

On April 25, 2014April 1, 2024 By ediblereadingIn Reviews8 Comments

Bel And The Dragon announced in August 2023 that it was closing and reopening as The Narrowboat, a Fuller’s pub not part of the Bel group. The Narrowboat closed in March 2024. I’ve left the review up for posterity.

I changed my mind about whether to review Bel And The Dragon several times. Initially I was all for going, and then I looked at the website: the menu looked suspiciously similar to the one I’d ordered from the last time I went there, well over a year ago. And that, in fact, was almost identical to the menu when the local paper reviewed it nearly two years ago. Bel’s website boasted a passion for seasonal, local, sustainable food – but the evidence suggested otherwise, so I decided not to bother. But then I was told that I might be being a bit harsh, and that the menu had changed only recently, so I decided to give them a chance.

There’s no attractive way to approach Bel And The Dragon, especially on foot. You can go down the canal next to some rather forbidding-looking blocks of flats, or down Kenavon Drive, past the questionable delights of the Toys R Us. Even the address, Gas Works Road, sounds grim. It’s a pity, because the building itself is handsome (I’m not sure what it used to be: Bel’s own website says it’s an ex biscuit factory which I don’t think is correct) and the inside is gorgeous too, with lots of banquettes and booths round the edges of a big bright high-ceilinged room.

Looking at the menu induced déjà vu because, as feared, the majority of it had indeed remained unchanged for two years, the mention of English asparagus the only concession to seasonality. The drinks we had while making up our mind did nothing to calm the sinking feeling. The “Bloody Caesar” – a Bloody Mary variant featuring clamato juice, lime, horseradish and sherry – was all citrus and no tomato, thinner, sharper and more joyless than Gillian McKeith. The house wine was even odder – the menu claims that they bring a magnum over, you drink as much as you want and are charged by the 125ml. In reality, what happened is that they brought 125ml and charged me, at the end, for 175ml (by which point I was too exhausted even to complain).

Service at Bel is the triumph of quantity over quality. At times the dining room had over half a dozen aproned types wafting around but they spent most of their time talking to one another and trying their hardest to avoid interacting with diners. They seemed to be having a lovely time, but I did wish they’d been more interested in making sure that I was, too. One was either a trainee or on work experience because her sole job seemed to be to stand there deferring to someone else: at one point I made eye contact and smiled (because I wanted to see the wine list) and she smiled back and then went back to staring off into space, seemingly her main skill. Perhaps she just thought that I really enjoyed being ignored: I suppose it’s possible.

So, I’ve bitched about the menu, I’ve bitched about the service, time to bitch about the food, right? If only it were that simple: some of it wasn’t bad, which makes this review harder to write than I was expecting. A starter of scallops, cauliflower puree and sherry caramel, for instance, was very good: four nicely cooked scallops, a generous helping of sweet puree and little crispy miniature florets around the side (and a scattering of micro herbs, because chefs still think we give a toss about micro herbs: I have no idea why). To put this in perspective, it was twelve pounds – as much as some of the mains – so it should have been pretty good but even so it wasn’t disappointing. I was so geared up, by that stage, for disappointment that not being able to be disappointed was almost disappointing in itself. I’m not sure if that’s a win-win or lose-lose situation.

The burrata, on the other hand had been treated so badly that I fear the chef had never seen one before. It looked as if had been torn to pieces by an angry mob before being studded with slightly chewy thyme leaves and strewn on a plate with far too much beetroot. Sure, there were four types of beetroot and a few toasted pine nuts, but what should have been the centrepiece of the dish really wasn’t. Where I expect a burrata to be a soft, yielding pouch of rich, creamy delight this was a tough, abused poor relation. I don’t know what had been done to it prior to it reaching my plate but it had grown a thick skin to make up for it.

Of the mains, roast suckling pig was a delight and easily the best dish of the visit. A healthy (or rather, unhealthy) portion of pork, cooked just the right side of dryness, came on a board with a little jug of rich, savoury gravy and some spiced apple chutney which added a bit of sweetness and moisture. The crackling – light, salty and sinful – was how I imagine Quavers would taste in heaven. But, inevitably, there were still disappointments. Bel’s menu says that they are very proud of their duck fat and thyme roasted potatoes, but on this evidence I can’t see why; there was no evidence of thyme and none of the gorgeous, rough, crispy exterior you get from a potato well-roasted in duck fat.

The side dish, ostensibly “cauliflower, smashed garlic and pecorino” was cauliflower cheese. No more, no less. If they’d used pecorino, and I’m not convinced, it was a waste of pecorino. The garlic just didn’t turn up at all (maybe because it was smashed). At eighteen pounds – with an extra three for the cauliflower cheese – it wasn’t quite good enough to justify the price: eating the dish felt a bit like watching the meter running in a taxi heading somewhere you don’t even particularly want to go.

The haddock, chorizo and white bean stew looked appealing when it came and the flavours didn’t disappoint but, after digging around for a moment, I realised that there was an absence of beans. I couldn’t find any. None. I asked one of the flotilla of waitresses about this and she said that perhaps they had been pureed into the sauce but she would check with the kitchen. Then she returned with another explanation… apparently the stew is cooked in a large pot and the beans all sink to the bottom so, on this occasion, when they served it up it just turned out that none made it into my bowl! Not one solitary bean. (No, I didn’t believe it either.) To make up for this the kitchen dished me up a generous side portion of beans, which just happened to be exactly as many as you would find in a tin. These seemed to be in a different sauce to the stew but I didn’t want to ask any more questions and was just grateful they turned up at all.

The stew itself was very pleasant with some decent sized pieces of haddock, quite a few diced bits of chorizo (though this was on the rubbery side, which suggested it was either poor quality or hadn’t been cooked for long enough) and an awful lot of celery. The advertised “smoked tomatoes” were instead three unsmoked cherry tomatoes which had been grilled for just long enough for their skins to split. Overall it was a decent dish, once the beans were in, but I wouldn’t say more than that.

Pricing at Bel is all over the place. The starters are an expensive bunch – most around the eight or nine pound mark – and the mains vary widely from the reasonable (my stew was twelve pounds, as is the fish pie) to the punitive (the idea that two people would really fork out sixty-six pounds to share a rib of beef on the bone is either hopeless optimism or exploitation, not sure which). But the desserts are all a consistent six pounds. The Valrhona chocolate mousse with honeycomb and popping candy was indifferent stuff. I got a lot of sweetness and no cocoa, which meant this either wasn’t Valrhona or was Valrhona hopelessly maltreated. The honeycomb just added to the relentless sugariness, as did the popping candy, and the three meagre raspberries didn’t have enough sharpness to put up a fight against it.

Eton mess was exactly as you would expect an Eton mess to be – a big dollop of strawberries (in April: so much for seasonal there, too), smashed meringue and cream. The only thing slightly elevating this above the sum of its parts were the tiny pieces of fresh mint that had been mixed in. The gigantic knickerbocker glory glass it came in took my opinion back down a notch, mind – I’d have preferred something more elegant and (I can’t quite believe I am saying this) smaller. Wanting a smaller dessert: hardly glowing praise, is it?

Three courses for two, with a Bloody Mary, a missold glass of house rosé and two glasses of red wine which aren’t interesting enough to merit any mention other than this, came to ninety-eight pounds. This includes an optional ten per cent service charge of the kind which is actually close to compulsory, as you’d have to make a scene and ask them to take it off (I was tempted to, but by the end they had worn me down to the extent where I just wanted to go: it turns out that indifference is contagious).

The best way of summing this up is that if you went to Bel you wouldn’t have a bad meal but you wouldn’t have a great meal either. I didn’t eat anything actively bad, and nothing made my heart sing. But – and this might be the clincher – you’re unlikely to have a cheap meal. I’m afraid, despite some tasty dishes, I still don’t see what Bel’s USP is, or why anybody would choose it for dinner. It’s not seasonal, it’s not particularly imaginative, it’s not good value and the inconvenient location and indifferent service wipe out any of the advantages of that lovely room. Perhaps I’ll go again when they overhaul their menu, in which case they should pencil me in for some time in 2018.

Bel And The Dragon – 6.6
Blakes Lock, Gas Works Road, RG1 3EQ
0118 9515790

http://www.belandthedragon-reading.co.uk/

The Abbot Cook

On April 18, 2014April 1, 2024 By ediblereadingIn Reviews4 Comments

The Abbot Cook closed in April 2018 and is reopening later in the month as a new pub called the Hope & Bear. I’ve kept this review up for posterity.

The Abbot Cook is another of those pubs that falls into my “lovely old boozer” category. Since the end of its days as a tired student pub it’s been stripped back and refreshed to capture that shabby chic look that so many places have these days. At the Abbot Cook, though, it really works with the parquet wooden floors, fireplaces and sash windows. On a midweek night it’s busy enough to be buzzy but the music is still muted enough that you can have a conversation without yelling (yes, I know I sound old: I’m okay with that). The long bar offers plenty of decent draught beers plus just enough wines by the glass to make the choice a challenge. So the stage is set for a good performance. Right?

The first act didn’t come off too well. We picked a couple of conventional-sounding starters and shared because we couldn’t decide. The “roast chicken Caesar salad with croutons, anchovies and house Caesar dressing” was decent enough, if small, but crucially the anchovies were missing. I know a lot of people don’t love an anchovy but I think they’re an essential part of a Caesar salad, that salty tang that balances out the creamy dressing and makes ordering a salad worthwhile rather than just worthy. The rest of it was going through the motions, really, a handful of croutons, some decent roast chicken (cold, sadly, but you can’t have everything) and generous amounts of parmesan. But, in truth, all I really noticed was the anchovies that weren’t there.

The salt and pepper squid with lime mayonnaise also disappointed. It was hard to tell if the squid was fresh because it had been cooked to the point of brittle crunchiness. The lime in the mayonnaise was presumably in the same place as the anchovies, and the mayonnaise itself was suspiciously white and thin and tasted of not much. The little pile of pub salad on the end of the plate wasn’t dressed and seemed a little sad, as if it were just trying to make the plate look fuller. I’m not sure that this was any better than the sad excuse for calamari that was served up by the ill-fated Lobster Room; at least that was identifiably squid.

We picked mains from the specials board just because they sounded a bit more exciting than the meals on their normal menu (which is the usual array: lots of different kinds of burgers, fish and chips, fishcakes).

The “pan fried Atlantic cod supreme with bacon, spinach and puy lentils” was a good example of how to ruin a lovely piece of fish. The cod itself was fantastic – cooked just right and falling into big, thick flakes (I would have liked a crispier skin, but it was a minor detail). The rest of the dish let it down terribly: there was bacon, but not the small crispy smoky pieces which would have worked well. Instead, you got huge undercooked floppy slabs of the stuff. There were lentils and spinach, yes, but what the specials board neglected to say was that there was cream – a lot of cream. Not a cream sauce, just cream. A lake of unseasoned cream, in fact: my mouth felt coated with the stuff for hours afterwards.

The “chicken breast and Cornish brie in bacon, baby potatoes and red wine mustard sauce” was at least evidence that someone in the kitchen could cook. The stuffed chicken breast had a layer of sun dried tomatoes tucked into the brie through the middle and the bacon, this time, was cooked just right so that there were no rubbery strings. The potatoes had been pan-fried so that some of them were a little browned then a layer of steamed kale added before the whole lot was doused in a rich, creamy wholegrain mustard sauce. I didn’t get much in the way of red wine in there but it would have been overwhelmed by the mustard anyway. This is the sort of dish I would never cook at home because of the overwhelming calorie count: as a pub dish it was enjoyable, even if I was facing potato-geddon by attempting to finish it (I didn’t, but it was a close call).

We took advantage of the wide range of drinks and tried lots of different things, reinforcing my view that the Abbot Cook was a much better pub than it was a restaurant. A pint of Blue Moon was spot on – subtle and refreshing with a suitably metrosexual slice of orange sticking out of the rim. The Sangiovese (is it me, or is this a wine that has fallen out of fashion? I haven’t noticed it on a menu for a while) was nice for starters but was bettered by the much cheaper South African Chenin Blanc I followed it up with; crisp and fresh but not too dry (I prefer my whites on the off-dry side, although I like to think I stop well short of Blue Nun).

I didn’t have high hopes for dessert after all that, so we hedged our bets and shared a salted caramel and chocolate tart. Again, the menu was being a bit economical with the truth: the base was crushed biscuit rather than pastry so I’d say it was a cheesecake rather than a tart. The caramel taste wasn’t particularly strong but the top was scattered with coarse salt crystals which worked really well with the dark chocolate ganache. The website for the Abbot Cook doesn’t say if the desserts are home-made or not. I’d love to be wrong, but I suspect it’s the latter and the plate is just dressed with that irritating zig zag of out-of-a-squeezy-bottle chocolate sauce to make it look otherwise. It’s a shame that one of the nicest things I had that evening probably had the least to do with the kitchen.

The service doesn’t quite compare to other restaurants because there is no table service. Staff at the bar were always really friendly and clearly happy to chat to customers, but service at the table was a bit more lackadaisical with the waiter, if you’d call him that, checking up on us quite late into each dish while calling us “guys” or, even worse, “friend”. I wonder if he thought he was in Hoxton or Brick Lane rather than Cemetery Junction: still, he was very smiley.

In all the bill came to sixty pounds for two starters, two mains, one dessert and four drinks; indifferent food representing indifferent value for money.

The Abbot Cook is another example of that sad genre I see an awful lot of: an attractive pub doing unremarkable food. It’s such a handsome place, in an area which is short of nice places to drink, but I struggle to think of it as a destination for food in its own right. I guess the food is good enough to eat there if pressed by a friend, but no more than that. It’s a real shame: the interior deserves better, and I remember when it first opened that it really seemed to have some culinary aspirations (although, in fairness, they are currently running monthly events matching food with beer which suggest a bit more ambition). These days the menu seems to be more about burgers and fried chicken which is aimed more at the student clientele of their previous incarnation. As one of the few pubs in Reading that has a decent garden (albeit on the sometimes very busy London Road) I know I’ll be back there for a summertime drink, but I’m no hurry to eat there again. Not until they sort their act out.

The Abbot Cook – 6.0
153 London Road, RG1 5DE
0118 9354095

http://www.theabbotcookreading.co.uk/

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