Duck, sausage and lots of potato
Sat 04 Feb 2006
Nice early start this morning (like 0430) in order to get up to Leeds ... so by mid afternoon I was easily in the mood for some food ... after wandering around the market for a while (visiting Todd's, buying wild boar sausages) hunger pangs got the better of us ... somewhere in aisle C you can find an excellent Indian take away type place ... two big meat samosas for £1.70 and a pile of chilli pakora ... absolutely delicious ... probably how life in Leeds should really be ... sitting outside the market, in the cold, eating a hot samosa and dodging the oil running off it ... mmm ...
By about 1630 it was beer o'clock so we headed to the North Bar - it was really busy! I guess I'm normally in there a lot earlier (um, that sounds quite bad but it's not really ...) so I had to do a bit of tactical loitering and table grabbing, which worked out OK. A lot of people (well, my mates) tell me that it has quite a high table turnover so you never have to really worry ... I'm sceptical ...
Since my New Year's resolution was to drink every beer on North's beer list I had to press on. I'm doing a dismal job so far - Brugs Tarwebier (good), De Koninck (OK). Next on the list is a 9% Chimay which is hardly how you want to start off your evening ... so I opted for a Palm which smelt great but was pretty watery and tasteless. After that my experimentation was over and I reverted to drinking Coopers Sparkling ... mmm ... Suggested the Little Creatures Pale Ale to a couple of people who seemed to like it as they kept on drinking it. Must make note to be stronger next time and try to stick to the beer list ...
Eventually we got hungry and wandered off to find some food. Since half of the party was some form of vegetarian Hansa's was our first stop - but it was full to bursting so we kind of fell next door into the Reliance.
It was also pretty rammed but we put our names down for a table, found some people some of us knew and chatted to them and had more beers while we waited. I really enjoyed my pint of Flintlock (obviously, my taste buds were in fine form by this point) and it managed to last me the whole meal ...
I've tried to eat at the Reliance once before - at lunchtime when the menu struck me as being pretty uninspiring. However, sitting upstairs in the restaurant at dinner was completely different. I think I changed my mind a few times before setting on confit duck leg with black pudding mash, which was on the specials board. It was lovely! I think it would have been even better sober, with wine and if they'd flipped the leg over and crisped up its skin in a hot pan before serving it. The black pudding, which I was informed was supplied by Ackroyd's of York, was really delicious.
Other people ate ... ham hock with this, that and mash, a fish dish and a bean pie. Everyone polished off their food and there were no complaints ... so I'll be going back (sober, for a 'proper' meal). To be honest - it was probably a bit of a waste going there after having already been drinking ...
Sun 05 Feb 2006
No eating out today. Built up an appetite by going for a walk along the river - all the way down to the Morrisons in Kirkstall. Despite being very close to the Mill Race we ended up catching a bus back into town and sorting ourselves out for our dinner.
Dinner was sausages with onion gravy and mash (potatoes being rather a theme of the weekend). We had a Rick Stein recipe to massacre. We'd bought a bottle (from Oddbins, on Albion Street - it was about £1.30) of Williams Black Ale which was going to help us out on the gravy front. So, into the wok went some vege oil and some butter. Once that was melted and hot we added a massive, finely sliced onion and sprinkled over a bit of sugar. The idea was to cook this slowly for ages to get it good and caramelised. Of course, impatience always kicks in - we tried leaving it alone and ignoring it, we tried upping the temperature ... and then we gave up (the onion had started to take on some colour by this point, and it was nice and soft) so in went a teaspoon of flour that we cooked off before adding about half a star anise and a couple of cloves and a couple of bayleaves, most of the Black Ale and some beef stock. The temperature went up again to reduce this all down and we paid attention to things like making mashed potato (no words of wisdom on this ... I personally think the best mashed potato is made with a potato ricer and I also think you're supposed to cook the potatoes with their skins on to prevent them soaking up water ... but I wasn't in charge of this bit) and grilling up the sausages.
The general consensus was that the dish was a success - although I think that we might have made a bit of a mistake in our choice of beer. Although the ale was great to drink (rich, dark, chocolatey) I'm not sure it was the right thing for the gravy - it seemed to have a bit of a slightly bitter after taste. I think next time I'll try a different beer (maybe Guinness?) and see what happens. We weren't sure if it were the beer or the star anise or the cloves ...
Oh ... and it was washed down with a De Bortoli Cab Merlot 2004 - which was a good match.
Stumble It!
Nice early start this morning (like 0430) in order to get up to Leeds ... so by mid afternoon I was easily in the mood for some food ... after wandering around the market for a while (visiting Todd's, buying wild boar sausages) hunger pangs got the better of us ... somewhere in aisle C you can find an excellent Indian take away type place ... two big meat samosas for £1.70 and a pile of chilli pakora ... absolutely delicious ... probably how life in Leeds should really be ... sitting outside the market, in the cold, eating a hot samosa and dodging the oil running off it ... mmm ...
By about 1630 it was beer o'clock so we headed to the North Bar - it was really busy! I guess I'm normally in there a lot earlier (um, that sounds quite bad but it's not really ...) so I had to do a bit of tactical loitering and table grabbing, which worked out OK. A lot of people (well, my mates) tell me that it has quite a high table turnover so you never have to really worry ... I'm sceptical ...
Since my New Year's resolution was to drink every beer on North's beer list I had to press on. I'm doing a dismal job so far - Brugs Tarwebier (good), De Koninck (OK). Next on the list is a 9% Chimay which is hardly how you want to start off your evening ... so I opted for a Palm which smelt great but was pretty watery and tasteless. After that my experimentation was over and I reverted to drinking Coopers Sparkling ... mmm ... Suggested the Little Creatures Pale Ale to a couple of people who seemed to like it as they kept on drinking it. Must make note to be stronger next time and try to stick to the beer list ...
Eventually we got hungry and wandered off to find some food. Since half of the party was some form of vegetarian Hansa's was our first stop - but it was full to bursting so we kind of fell next door into the Reliance.
It was also pretty rammed but we put our names down for a table, found some people some of us knew and chatted to them and had more beers while we waited. I really enjoyed my pint of Flintlock (obviously, my taste buds were in fine form by this point) and it managed to last me the whole meal ...
I've tried to eat at the Reliance once before - at lunchtime when the menu struck me as being pretty uninspiring. However, sitting upstairs in the restaurant at dinner was completely different. I think I changed my mind a few times before setting on confit duck leg with black pudding mash, which was on the specials board. It was lovely! I think it would have been even better sober, with wine and if they'd flipped the leg over and crisped up its skin in a hot pan before serving it. The black pudding, which I was informed was supplied by Ackroyd's of York, was really delicious.
Other people ate ... ham hock with this, that and mash, a fish dish and a bean pie. Everyone polished off their food and there were no complaints ... so I'll be going back (sober, for a 'proper' meal). To be honest - it was probably a bit of a waste going there after having already been drinking ...
Sun 05 Feb 2006
No eating out today. Built up an appetite by going for a walk along the river - all the way down to the Morrisons in Kirkstall. Despite being very close to the Mill Race we ended up catching a bus back into town and sorting ourselves out for our dinner.
Dinner was sausages with onion gravy and mash (potatoes being rather a theme of the weekend). We had a Rick Stein recipe to massacre. We'd bought a bottle (from Oddbins, on Albion Street - it was about £1.30) of Williams Black Ale which was going to help us out on the gravy front. So, into the wok went some vege oil and some butter. Once that was melted and hot we added a massive, finely sliced onion and sprinkled over a bit of sugar. The idea was to cook this slowly for ages to get it good and caramelised. Of course, impatience always kicks in - we tried leaving it alone and ignoring it, we tried upping the temperature ... and then we gave up (the onion had started to take on some colour by this point, and it was nice and soft) so in went a teaspoon of flour that we cooked off before adding about half a star anise and a couple of cloves and a couple of bayleaves, most of the Black Ale and some beef stock. The temperature went up again to reduce this all down and we paid attention to things like making mashed potato (no words of wisdom on this ... I personally think the best mashed potato is made with a potato ricer and I also think you're supposed to cook the potatoes with their skins on to prevent them soaking up water ... but I wasn't in charge of this bit) and grilling up the sausages.
The general consensus was that the dish was a success - although I think that we might have made a bit of a mistake in our choice of beer. Although the ale was great to drink (rich, dark, chocolatey) I'm not sure it was the right thing for the gravy - it seemed to have a bit of a slightly bitter after taste. I think next time I'll try a different beer (maybe Guinness?) and see what happens. We weren't sure if it were the beer or the star anise or the cloves ...
Oh ... and it was washed down with a De Bortoli Cab Merlot 2004 - which was a good match.
Stumble It!
posted by Alex at 8:31 am
Stumble It!
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