Rhodes Across The Caribbean

Taste of the Caribbean
OK, not technically in Bath...but I'm from Bath and I went to the Caribbean with Gary Rhodes to see the filming of his new TV show, so there's the link.

Check out this article about his time there and have a look for delicious Caribbean recipes here.

Jamie's Italian

Lessons in the art of queuing
Disclaimer: This is not bite-size...it's about eight courses.

Ah, Jamie Oliver. The rubbery-faced dinner-lady botherer sneaked into town while I was off travelling the world last year amid much fanfare... and us Bathonians loved it. Queue for two hours to taste authentic Italian food from an Essex geeeeezer? We'd love to!

By the time I had arrived home from my travels the queue time was down to an hour and so I roped my faithful eating companion Jo into coming along to stand in the bitter winter wind to wait for entrance into the revered glass and wooden joy-box that is Jamie's Italian in Bath.

Do you remember the week it snowed? Well, that was the week that we stood shivering like a sodden dog outside Jamie's Italian, our faces pressed against the window glaring at the laughing couples inside. After 30 minutes we started debating going to Wagamamas across the road. We could have been seated and eated within 10 minutes.

But then the waitress braved the cold to lug out a plate of meat and bread. Meat and bread!We were freezing, but managed to form a claw with our frozen mitts to grab a piece. I can't remember thinking 'this is worth it' as I chewed into our treasure, but by god, was I glad of some food by that point.

Buoyed by the carbs, we decided to soldier on with the wait and finally broke into the inner sanctum of the 'drinks' area. A holding pen if you will. I bet you're thinking "but what about the food?" Well, so were we pal and I want you to feel our pain. It's part of the 'experience'.

Finally we were ushered upstairs to sit on a plank of wood and an 'oar-fen-tic' rustic long table, sectioned off with empty tomato cans. It's Italian, see? The people sitting horribly close to us seemed content to just order a starter to share and then a main, but we'd been waiting over an hour..we were going for the full monty. I've cut and pasted what I had from the menu just to give you an idea of how much I ordered...

OLIVES AND THINGS

1.WORLD'S BEST OLIVES ON ICE
£3.50
Large green olives with my special black olive tapenade and music bread

2.HOME ROASTED ALMONDS
£1.95
Spiced with chilli & fennel rock salt

BREAD

3.BASKET OF TOP ITALIAN BREADS FROM MY BAKERY
£3.25
Focaccia, sourdough country bread, grissini sticks 'snappy music bread' with lemon and rosemary gremolata

4.CRISPY POLENTA CHIPS WITH ROSEMARY SALT
£2.95

5.CRISPY SQUID WITH SPICY ROASTED RED PEPPER MAYO
£4.75

6.RAVIOLI CARAMELLE
£5.95/£9.85
Sweetie shaped and stuffed with pumpkin and ricotta cheese and beautiful rosemary sauce

7.JAMIES "FLASH STEAK"
£12.95
Prime British 7oz beef feather steak pounded with sage and prosciutto, flash griddled with a spicy tomato, basil and chilli salsa

8.ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE BANANA BROWNIE
£4.95
Served with bourbon vanilla ice-cream

Right, I think we've established that I like food...and spend all of my money on it, but here is what it actually tasted like (I've numbered items for ease of reference).

1. World's best olives: Now Jamie, that's quite a claim. I'd never thought about it before, but generally I enjoy my olives at room temperature as then they don't taste like a rubbery bollock of an ice cube. Tapenade always tastes a bit bleurgh to me and I think this one was a gritty, salty norm. Music bread, in case you're wondering, is one of those bread sticks that you get in Harvester restaurants. A culinary drum'n'bass DJ of a food snack, no doubt.

2. Home roasted almonds: Whose home were they roasted at? Stop this chitty-chatty, cutesy menu blurb Jamie, pur-lease. They tasted of chilli and fennel. They were almonds.

3. Bread: Carbs...I can't remember what the gremolata was: it sounds like something out of Ghostbusters. Bread was good..possibly baked in someone's 'home'...it tasted fresh and floury.

4. Polenta chips: Weird ones these were. Polenta is grainy, er grain that was traditionaly eaten by Italian peasants more out of choice than necessity. I think that Jo was fairly repulsed by them and something about the crispy shell and chewy centre was wrong...but oh so right. I think they had a light dusting of crack because I couldn't get enough of them.

5.Squid: Jo is the calamari queen and she gave a thumbs up to these crispy critters, so who am I to argue? Red pepper mayo had enough of a kick to give it an edge and keep up with the squid.

6.Ravioli: Sweetie-shaped? Sweetie? Urgh. A bit too al dente for me, but the sweet and squidgy pumpkin filling was delicious. Possibly a bit too sugary all around.

7. Steak: The poor piece of British beef had indeed been pounded to within an inch of its' life, but was tender and pink enough to remain juicy. Salsa was fresh and feisty.

8.Brownie: Frankly the flakes of banana languishing on my brownie were unnecessary, but I'll eat anything that has chocolate in it and double-whammy with the bourbon ice-cream.

Just read from here if you can't be bothered with the long bits:

So, was it worth the wait? Yes. The food was fresh, simple and tasty. But the menu needs rewriting so it doesn't put people off their dinner.

Bite-size blogs

Easy to digest opinions

Now that I'm a freelancer my days of eating out are looking numbered, so I'm going to re-live the glory days of the last few months and have a retrospective of bite-size reviews from 2009 so far, including:

Bath:
Jamie's Italian
Same Same But Different
Wagamamas
Pret a Manger
Walrus & Carpenter
River Cottage
Vito's
Mini Bar
Zen Sushi
Strada
Adventure Cafe
Boston Tea Party

Near Bath
Thai Barn - Bradford on Avon
Lock Inn - Bradford on Avon
Gumstool Inn -Tetbury

Outside the UK
Nobu - Cape Town
Maze by Gordon Ramsay - Cape Town

Hopefully after all that lot I'll be able to eat out again and will even have pictures. Woo and indeed hoo. I would love to hear about other people's favourite restaurants in Bath. Email me at amycwatkins@gmail.com.

Credit crunch cupboard corner: the 4Cs

Egg-based lunch Vol.1

Working from home means that I often don't have much to eat ... because I've forgotten to go shopping. I get up at 7am and sit typing away over a bowl of cereal and then suddenly, bam, it's lunchtime and I want some food.

I've found that in these tough time scavaging for food is the only answer. This often results in a happy mess called Cupboard Food. CF is rather hit and miss, but I thought that I would share my recipes to help anyone else who may be facing a food crisis.

Today's recipe:

Pea and mint frittata ( aka cheesy omelette and frozen veg)

Take one egg of undetermined date that has arrived in the house via my mum's pilates teacher.

Crack into a bowl and add frozen peas or vegetable of your choice. On this occasion chips do not fall under the vegetable category, even though I sometimes try and include them as one of my five a day.

Add salt and pepper and a splash of milk (sniff first). Whisk at a half-arsed speed.

Be alert for lucky finds. It turns out that the overgrown plant on the kitchen windowsill is in fact a mint plant, at least it smells minty (pictured above). Dried herbs in the cupboard can equally be a source of previously undiscovered joy. Check the use-by-date; then ignore it. I had some sage from 1992 the other day and I'm fine.

Sprinkle, or chuck, herbs into eggy mixture.

You need some fat now: butter or strange low-fat spread will do. I found some rice bran oil. No idea who would have bought that, but it seemed to do the trick. Or you can buy a non-stick pan.

Pour egg mixture into pan and cook like an omlette on one side until it looks about done. Now you need some cheese: have a look in the fridge... that's it, right at the back, and grate that onto the top.

I lucked out and found a pot of ready-grated 'Italian cheese', which looked like it was stolen from a Little Chef circa 1983, but it worked a treat.

Pop your cheese on and stick that baby under the grill...watch out if your pan has a plastic handle. I didn't.

If you have any lucky herb finds, garnish your frittata with a sprig. Now eat and enjoy your CCC meal.