Foodie Friday and lunch at Charnia Kitchen in Quorn

I've just come back from walking the dogs and I'm feeling rather hungry.

That's because I'm thinking of exactly two weeks ago when three of us went to lunch at a place none of us had been to before. Charnia Kitchen in the village of Quorn is a relatively new addition in the north of Leicestershire and we were so pleased we found it. 

Laura and I always have a lovely time when we meet up, there's nearly always food and wine involved, and the only time there's silence is when we are eating. Our third member of the group was Bam Bam, she doesn't talk much and didn't order any lunch, preferring to eat snacks from a copious selection which came with her. and she made it quite clear that I wasn't going to have any of those thank you very much. 

She's Laura's adorable daughter, who has been out to lunch and more press launches than I have in the last year.

So, what was on the menu, and what did we try? 

Wine first, and as it was a rather warm day, we ordered a few glasses of Cantina di Negra from Verona which were just right -  chilled with peachy undertones and very moreish.

The menu is a mixture of light lunches for those for fancying quick bites such as jacket potatoes, avocado on toast, toasties, eggs benedict and that sort of thing. 

There's also a comprehensive list of starters, then mains such as five-spiced duck breast, roast salmon to chateaubriand steaks. 

We decided to try the set lunch menu ...eyeing up what seemed a 1970's inspired selection of dishes.

Laura's eyes lit up when she saw her starter, a prawn cocktail with a Marie Rose sauce, and the oohs of delight as she started eating confirmed that it had hit the spot.

A tomato and mozzarella salad with pesto dressing was my choice,...

So, both starters prettily presented, now it was time to test the mains. Laura loved her seared lambs liver, mashed potato, fried onion and red wine gravy. Bam Bam was being fork fed tiny morsels of everything, and relishing every bite too.

I  was busily devouring the mushroom fricassee with mashed potatoes which I'd ordered. When was the last time you ate a fricassee? I was in France back in the 1990's in Normandy at a Chambre D' Hote on a cider farm. Happy and delicious memories, but I really enjoyed these mushrooms sauteed with onions, enveloped generously in a cream and brandy sauce. 

The mashed potatoes were a perfect foil, alongside the seasonal vegetables. Even so, there was plenty of creamy goodness left, and I was reaching for my dessert spoon to taste every last drop. Yes, I may have been greedy but Martyn Pepper, the General Manager was immediately at the table with a few slices of bread to help mop every last bit of cream. Which I did.

We couldn't manage a pudding too, so decided to go out into the sunshine and finish our drinks. There's a colourful outside space behind the restaurant, full of relaxing chairs and benches and a few groups of people were drifting in for drinks and afternoon teas which have to be booked in advance. 

Such a relaxed feel, and none of the *you've had your lunch and now bugger off" attitude which some restaurants have after a long, lazy lunch. Mind you, Charnia Kitchen is open from 8am for breakfast and stays open until 11pm.

The afternoon tea does look inviting, served imaginatively with copious sandwiches, cakes and what not.  A brief look flashed between Laura and me and I knew we were both thinking the same ...perhaps, lunch, go for a walk and stay for afternoon tea next time? 

There will of course be another visit here, we both agreed on that. Charnia Kitchen serves delicious food, beautifully presented and I like the attention to detail both in the food and service. Gleaming glassware and cutlery, and Martyn Pepper, the General Manager, was friendly and attentive, without being intrusive and looked after all three of us very well. 

We paid  £12 each for our rather retro set lunch which we both thought was an absolute bargain, plus the wine. 

We drove off happily. Bam Bam, who is an absolute delight, was dozing in the back as we discussed the meal and how much we enjoyed it, The only question mark was-  did the menu need a few more summery dishes on it?  Yes, we decided, and we're both very much looking forward to tasting some on our next visit. 

Days of past, present and future at Winstanley House

If you want to go to out to eat in Leicester these days, there's so much more choice than say ten years ago. Some of the big boy chains moved in, some small independents are flourishing, some have fallen by the wayside.

 I couldn't have forecast ten years ago where the latest restaurant would open though. It's called the Black Iron at Winstanley House and is two miles away from the city centre set in one hundred and sixty acres of public parkland. Next to a housing estate.There's a hotel as well, with huge function rooms for up to four hundred people, ripe and ready for the wedding market.

It's a far cry from a number of years ago, when the building was in a sorry state. Neglected and unloved for years, no one quite knew what to do it  - a crying shame for somewhere which meant so much to many people.

The Winstanleys were local landowners who commissioned the house in 1775, and who lived here
for a hundred and fifty years. Then, thousands of local children went to school here from 1932 until 1996.

But that's in the past....years of work and £2 million later, it was the press launch. My friend Tim and I were whisked straight thorough Reception

 to the dining room, oh so tastefully done in shades of grey.

Menus were promptly presented with a flourish and our orders taken for drinks. Yes, let's mention them first because I was pleasantly surprised with the wine list. An inviting long list with interesting wines I'd not heard of before. Tim and I both loved the Zapa Oak aged  Malbec....which was far classier than the £24 price tag would lead you to believe.

So onto dinner....a set meal with three courses....

I decided to go for the vegetarian option and began with the beetroot salad. Pretty on the plate, four very finely sliced heritage varieties of beetroot were dressed with honey and hazelnuts. Crunchy, light and tasty.

The mains was a courgette flan with perfectly roasted vegetables, but the flan needed something  added. Not enough flavour for me, and it was a fairly dry plate...a puddle of a sauce would have been welcome. I improvised and swiped some of the delicious peppercorn sauce which was served with Tim's " fantastic" - his words -rib eye steak. To be fair I also quality control tested a few of the dripping fries on his plate too. It's a wonder I didn't steal the whole lot.

As for the dessert, well here I have to apologise here as this photo doesn't do this rich, moist, tangy toffee pudding justice. This did everything a sticky thing like this should do, but without making me feel as if I needed a lie down afterwards.

 

 

 

So, an enjoyable meal, followed by a fleeting trip to the bar with lots of animated chat about the food , the décor etc.

 

I couldn't help but admire the lights before being whisked off for a sneaky peek  at what the accommodation in the hotel is like.

I can sum this up in a few words.

Sleek, stylish and as fresh as paint. Literally so fresh as paint we could still smell it.

There's so much attention to detail here, even in the ladies loos....somewhere I always check out whenever I'm on a press trip or visit. These are impeccable.



 

 

There endeth my initial visit, but a couple of weeks later I was back, together with four hundred visitors who were all at school here in the dim, distant and less glossy past. I was there to record a radio feature,  they were all there to see what had been done to their old school and to reminisce. The noise levels were off the Richter scale as they laughed and gossiped and everyone I spoke to was blown away by the transformation of this building.

 

 

The acid test of reviewing anywhere is to ask yourself the question "Would I go back and would I take my friends?" Well yes, and I fancy trying the bar menu one lunchtime. I even know what I want to eat.

There again, I've also got my eye on the bottomless brunch. Cooked breakfast ( full English or steak and eggs anyone?) plus unlimited Prosecco, beer or soft drinks for an hour, all for £20. That would do me, but not on a school day obviously - the ghosts of previous headmasters might not approve.....



Foodie Friday

There were six of us around the table today for lunch.Snowy white tablecloth, crisp linen napkins, delicious food and lots of noise.We giggled through the starter , mains, pudding and coffee .

The other diners (three tables of two) were probably slightly stunned by our rising voices, but what a lovely lunch.

The girls as I think of them (we'd all be prosecuted under the trades descriptions act if we were being advertised as such and I'm the youngest!)and I meet up once every few months or so. We're a disparate group, but Gill, Jill, Alanda, Kim, Lorna and I all got together years as ago through being on a fund raising committee for the British Red Cross. There's usually ten of us , so we may have been a smaller group today but we certainly weren't any quieter.

We were at Paul Leary, The Woodhouse in Woodhouse Eaves. A stylish restaurant decked out in shades of grey. Kim decided that she would only have two courses, I agreed ,but the others weren't so sure.

But when we saw the menu , we all pretty much decided there and then that three courses would be necessary. Having the will power of a gnat myself, I wasn't surprised.

Alanda and I had the mushroom risotto.I love risotto but am sometimes wary of ordering it as like Forest Gump says in the film about a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.
What we did get was ....cue heavy breathing..rich flavours, great texture and a saucy richness which made me sigh.

I chose chicory tarte tatin,with polenta chips.choux farci and cointreau and orange reduction.

A pretty looking plate, perhaps the tarte tatin was a little too well done,but the polenta chips packed a punch and the orange and cointreau reduction added a welcome sweetness.I wish there had been more of it though.It may have been a reduction, but I just wished they hadn't reduced it by so much. Less may be more but for me, when it comes to sauces and gravy, more is more .


Then came the pudding.Alanda and I had both chosen the mango and passionfruit mousse with the coconut .It came in a glass.We looked at each other, tried a teaspoonful and then looked at each other and grinned.Like Monica does with Gregg Wallace on Masterchef on BBC 2,and then you know the chef is doing ok.

Ok, imagine intense fruit flavours...mangoes and passionfruit...clean, zingy flavours that make you wake you up plus the unctous coconutty richness... with a hint of coriander.That's the sort of flavour that says Hello! I'm here...

At that point I was prepared to kidnap the chef. Abduct him and order him at gunpoint to bring all the ingredients for the risotto and pudding into my car and I would drive off into the sunset.Then make him cook for me...in private.


Unfortunately that wasn't an option, so I settled for a coffee,with accompanying chocolate and hazenuts pralines and turkish delight, said goodbye to the girls and drove off .

The track for today is what I listened to on the way home to darkening skies at just before 4pm. Angus and Julia Stone...who I saw live in Freo ,Western Australia two years ago.The title..."Mango tree" Damn, I knew I should have kidnapped the chef.....