Sundridge House, Sundridge

73 Main Road,
Sundridge, Kent TN14 6EQ Map

We ended up here on a company night out. It was decided that the easiest thing to do would to be to order a set menu for the table. As the only vegetarian in the office, they ordered a veggie set menu for me to have. Actually, as the minimum order for the set menus was for two people, I had two portions of everything!

It was all pretty good. My meal started with some spring rolls and some spicy tofu. While the others had crispy duck, I was brought some pancakes and vegetables. For mains, I had spicy aubergine, sweet and sour vegetables, deep fried tofu with pak choi, spicy ginger tofu and steamed rice. It was all very good, especially the aubergine dish.

For dessert, I had the ubiquitous banana fritters.

All in all, it was pretty good, the service was friendly and we all had a good evening.

Mango Tree, London

46 Grosvenor Place,

London, SW1X 7EQ Map

http://www.mangotree.org.uk/

Mango Tree is a Thai restaurant in Belgravia, London. It's a stone's throw from Victoria Station and is nice and easy to find. In fact, I went past it on the 73 bus every time I worked in London and I often wondered what it was like.

We arrived early, and sat in the bar where my wife had one of the best margaritas she has had, and I had a JD & Coke. Shortly after, we were collected and shown to our table.

The dining area is quite a large, high ceilinged room with a row of banquets down the middle and tables set along them and along the windows. The tables are set quite close together, but not uncomfortably so.

There are quite a few vegetarian options on the a la carte menu. However, as I flicked to the back of the various menus, I discovered a vegetarian menu that had all of the dishes that were on the a la carte, plus quite a few others. Actually, that's a bit unfair. Make that, quite a lot of others.

For starters I chose to have Tow Hoo Satay which was skewers of grilled tofu, peppers and tomatoes with a satay peanut sauce. It was very nice - the sauce especially- and, for a starter, there was plenty of it.

Now, I don't know about you but I'm so used to only having a couple of choices on a menu, that when I have to choose from half a dozen or more, I have no idea what to do - I just want to try everything!

I had narrowed my choice down to two, Gaeng Kiew Wan Pak - an aubergine and vegetable green curry - and Pad Thai Jay - noodles, beansprouts, chives and peanuts. I asked the waiter which he would recommend. He said that why not have both and suggested that my wife and I had the Pad Thai instead of rice. It was an excellent solution, and he was right, both the dishes were great, but the Pad Thai had the edge.

And so to dessert. The menu mentioned a dish called Sang Ka Ya Vanilla which the menu translated as Vanilla Creme Brulee. You all know the rules by now, so it was duly ordered. It looked nice, the caramel was good, but the custard was very thick - my wife said it was pasty, which summarises it quite well. So, it comes in at a 6.5 on the chart.

My wife chose Guay Ob Ma prow Sod, which was layered banana and coconut with caramel sauce and banana ice-cream. Actually, I chose it for her so I could have a taste. It was okay, but very heavy.

Despite the desserts, it was a very enjoyable meal. The service was excellent - very attentive and very friendly. The prices aren't bad, but they are "London" prices. We were on a 50% off deal through Toptable which saved us thirty quid, which made the meal very reasonable.

The only complaint that I have, is that the large room and high ceiling make the restaurant very noisy. Its certainly not the place for a quiet romantic meal, and if you had a large party, I doubt youd be able to hear people more that a couple of places away from you unless they were shouting. That, said the food is great and it wouldn't put us off going back.

Spice Club, Tunbridge Wells

37 Mount Ephraim,
Tunbridge Wells TN4 8AA Map

http://www.spiceclubrestaurant.com/

The Spice Club in Tunbridge Wells is part of the chain of restaurants that include Alishan in Tonbridge and the Spice Club in Sevenoaks. They all offer a more contemporary kind of Indian restaurant experience, with well presented food and tidy, nicely decorated interiors.

The menu is quite varied, with most of the old favourites, with some new dishes. The main course menus don't mention any vegetarian dishes except for a vegetable biryani, but I'm sure that they could rustle something up, as the menu says that "if you would like a dish that is not on our menu, please ask our staff..."

The vegetable side dishes can be ordered in a main course size if you so wish, and some of those sound quite interesting, such as spinach dumplings in tomato and fenugreek sauce and stuffed baby aubergines in a spicy peanut sauce.

After some poppadoms, I had spiced potatoes and garlic mushroom. This consisted of several nicely spiced potato balls and thinly sliced mushrooms and salad. It was very tasty and well presented.

Next I had the vegetable biryani (pictured above) and a side of the aforementioned aubergines in peanut sauce. The biryani was quite tasty - there was plenty of it too - and the aubergines were beautifully tender and the peanut sauce was nice, but could've been a tad more spicy for me. None the less, overall it was all pretty good.

For dessert, I had a halva with various crushed nuts and, again, it was presented very nicely and tasted good.

The service was very friendly and prompt, and the whole experience was very enjoyable. As it's quite close to us, I can see it becoming a regular choice when we fancy a curry.

Vanilla Black, London

17- 18 Tooks Court

London EC4A 1LB Map

http://www.vanillablack.co.uk/

Vanilla Black used to be in York and on my visits to the city I never managed to get a table as it was always full. It always got good reviews and the menu always looked fantastic. When they announced that they were moving down to London, I was excited.

The restaurant itself is a five minute walk from Chancery Lane tube and looks quite unassuming from the outside. Inside, it is nicely and professionally laid out with white-clothed tables all perfectly set.

We were given a very friendly welcome and were shown to our choice of table. We were given the menus and wine list. Some nice home-made rolls were brought to the table along with a couple of small pats of butter, one saffron and one salt.

Vanilla Black is totally vegetarian, but its not your "nuts and lentils" place, this is vegetarian fine dining with a very imaginative menu.

Shortly after ordering, the waitress turned up with an "amuse bouche" of some small choux-pastry rolls stuffed with olive paste and topped with yoghurt. They looked like small chocolate eclairs and tasted great.

Then came the starters. My starter was chosen for me by "The Rules". It was a Cep Creme Brulee. On the scale, due to the consistency of the custard, thickness of the sugar etc it rates a 7.5. However, I still can't quite decide if it worked or not. The Cep custard was lovely. It had a really strong mushroom flavour and was very smooth. Did it go with the caramelised sugar? Not sure. Let me know what you think if you go there and its on the menu.

For main course, I had Poached Duck Egg and Duckette Cairphilly Pudding. The pudding was like a cheese souffle and the egg, just runny enough without being too runny, was perched on top. Accompanying this was a hickory smoked potato croquette along with some pineapple pickle which, when eaten together were divine.

My fellow diner had Mushroom Duxelle Torte with Parsley Custard which I had a mouthful of. There was definitely a taste of truffle in there and it was really nice, but slightly dry. With a sauce of some sort, it would have been perfect.

For dessert I had Brandied Apple and Crumble Shortbread which was very thinly sliced apple steeped in brandy topped with shortbread and ice cream. It sounds great doesn't it? It was...

I also had a taste of Fig Roll and Black Tea Syrup which was also very nice. But the highlight of that dish was the Iced Milk that accompanied it.

It's great to see that more vegetarian restaurants are serving this kind of imaginative, well-presented fare these days. One of the nicest things about Vanilla Black though, is the price. For two courses, no matter what you have, it's £24. For three courses, it's £30, which is pretty good for food of this standard in a London restaurant.

On the way home, my fellow diner who isn't veggie like myself, mentioned that he'd quite to visit it again as some of the other dishes on the menu sounded great. That has to be a great recommendation for Vanilla Black, and I totally agree with him.

Weight Watching...

There is a certain stereotypical image of vegetarians, that of a pasty-faced and skinny person. Personally, I don't know any veggies that fit that description and I certainly don't. One of my biggest problems is that a large amount of my protein comes from dairy products, and I seem to end up piling on the pounds.

I've never been very good at diets, but some pictures I saw of me at the New Year and the scales hitting 15 stone, made me decide to lose a few pounds.

I decided on the Weight Watchers diet. My wife used to belong to a local group, and has belonged to the online community. We have plenty of their books and there are plenty of good vegetarian recipes in them.

Now, as it quite obvious from this blog, both my wife and I love our food, so I decided that I wouldn't forgo my favourite hobby, but I would follow the diet at home, cut out snacks and join a gym. Okay, so it would take a little longer to lose the weight, but I hoped that by not being quite so strict I would be able to achieve some success.

So that's what I did. And after six months I've lost two stone and am still going.

The most pleasant surprise is how good some of the recipes are. One of my favourites is Thai Green Pumpkin Curry, pictured above. One of the difficulties with doing anything Thai for a vegetarian is the fish sauce or shrimp paste that appears in just about all the "Thai" sauces and pastes on the market. Normally, I use an Indian paste instead, which tastes just as good. Occasionally, if I've got the ingredients I'll make my own.

However, I discovered that Blue Dragon do a Thai Green Curry Paste that is suitable for vegetarians, but be careful though as they also do one that isn't. They do a Red Curry Paste in the same range that is fish free too. Boy, is it spicy - and I ended up having one of the hottest curries I've had for quite a while!

Cantina del Ponte, London

Butlers Wharf, 36c Shad Thames,
London SE1 2YE Map

http://www.danddlondon.com/restaurants/cantina/home

I joined Toptable a while back, and its really good. It makes booking really easy – no hanging on the telephone for hours only to be told that the day you want is fully booked – you just book online and wait for an email to tell you whether the booking is confirmed or not. In addition to that, you get told of special offers that the restaurants are doing, and some of them are really good. That, in itself, is worth joining for (and why wouldn’t you anyway – it’s free) but in addition, for every meal you book and review through the website, you earn points, and when you have reached a certain amount, you can have a free meal from a list of selected restaurants.

So it was, that having gorged ourselves at enough restaurants to earn a free meal for two, my wife and I decided to have a day out in London spending the afternoon at the theatre watching Dirty Dancing and taking advantage of a free lunch on the way.

The restaurant we chose was Cantina del Ponte, which is set on the bank of the Thames, just down from Tower Bridge. As it was a rare sunny summer day, we had a table outside with a nice view of the bridge and the river.

The free meal deal was from a set menu, from which we had the choice of two courses. Of course you could decide to pay for a third course if you so wished, however as we were also planning to go out in the evening - just to finish the day off - we decided to limit ourselves to starters and mains.

To start, I had a fairly basic parmesan salad that was well presented, very fresh and crispy.

For mains, I had an aubergine and smoked cheese ravioli in a pesto sauce. The smokeyness of the cheese really came through and complemented the pesto sauce really well. The aubergine seemed to be there more for texture rather than taste. It was very good. My wife, who has very rarely found a fish dish in the UK that she likes, went for the swordfish, but didn’t enjoy it at all. To accompany it, she ordered some rosemary potatoes, of which I had a taste, and they were very nice – and perfect for mopping up the last of my basil sauce!

The service was very friendly and efficient, and the setting was lovely. We paid for coffee, the potatoes and a couple of glasses of nice wine which came to about a tenner each. Okay, so not a completely free meal, but that’s not bad for a two course lunch in London!

As for Dirty Dancing, well the less said about that the better – it really wasn’t my thing at all…

Soprano, Tunbridge Wells

Old High Street,
Tunbridge Wells TN1 1XF Map

http://sopranowinebar.com/

Despite its name, Soprano is a Tapas restaurant, a stone's throw from the Pantiles in Tunbridge Wells. It's a very popular restaurant and is always full.

We were lucky enough, one Friday night, to arrive when they had a spare table. We were told when we arrived that they had two sittings and that we would have to leave by nine. As far as I'm concerned, it is down to the restaurant staff to make sure that happens by making sure the the food is delivered with enough time to eat it. If they do their job, then they'll be able to turn the table around.

The menu at Soprano is pretty good, with a host of vegetarian options. One surprise was that there was a vegetable paella, but not a seafood one which we both though was a bit strange. We chose a selection of dishes between us which included Patatas Bravos (potatoes in a spicy sauce), Vegetable Paella, Artichokes and Berengena Gratinata (Aubergine with cheese gratin) all washed down with a rather nice Sangria.

It was all very tasty, especially the artichoke, but some of the the portions were quite small and when we left we were still a bit hungry. Each of the main dishes was around £3 - £4 which can make the meal quite expensive if you have three or four dishes for your main course - which we did - especially so, if it doesn't fill you up. That aside, the service was friendly and the restaurant, although small, is quite well set out making it quite cosy.

The big test is whether we would go back or not and, providing we weren't really hungry, we probably would do, as the food was very tasty.

Sankey's, Tunbridge Wells

39 Mount Ephraim
Tunbridge Wells TN4 8AA Map

http://www.sankeys.co.uk/

My wife is from Australia and, for the past seven years, she has been searching for some really good seafood that can match that of her native country. Until now, the best she has had has been at San Bas in Westerham. For Saturday lunch she and a friend went to Sankey's after it was recommended on Eating Out in Tunbridge Wells.

She came home raving about the halibut she had and said that the veggie option sounded good, so we ended up there for Sunday lunch.

The restaurant/brasserie is reached by taking the steps next to the main pub entrance and this leads down into a fairly large room that opens out onto an umbrella-protected terrace. It was a lovely day so we sat on the terrace.

There is only one veggie option, which is fine as this is a fish restaurant (there was only a single meat option too...) and it was a Samphire Risotto, which quite excited me as, in my experience, it is quite rare to see this on the menu and it is something that I enjoy.

After asking the waitresses opinion - and it was nice that she seemed very knowledgeable about all the dishes - my wife decided upon the tuna with nicoise salad.

While we were waiting for our orders to arrive we were watching the dishes being delivered to other diners and they all looked very well presented with large portions. The table next to us received a mixed platter for two and it was enormous.

The risotto I had was no different. The samphire was perfectly cooked, the rice had just the right amount of bite and mixed into the dish was the odd basil leaf which gave a nice extra pocket of flavour every so often.

My wife was extremely pleased with her tuna dish which she said was nice, but given the choice she would have the halibut, which she described as "perfect".

Dessert was a no brainer as there was a creme brulee on the menu. My wife had ginger pear with mango sorbet. I had a taste of this and it was lovely.

Oh yeah, the creme brulee. Well, the eagle eyed among you will have noticed that the chart has a new number one. Yes, it was really good. The caramelised sugar was perfect and the custard was excellent. I think that a few more vanilla seeds would have made it a perfect 10.

Although occasionally there was a slight delay in service, the staff were really friendly and would pop over to the table to explain the delay and apologise, which goes a long way to alleviating any frustration.

This was a great improvement on Thackeray's, which I visited the night before which, although the food was exceptional, still haven't improved on their service since the last time I visited.

Sankey's has been firmly added to our list and I'm sure we'll be back there in the not too distant future.

Raj Mahal, Tiptree

Station Road
Tiptree, CO5 0AZ Map

The Raj Mahal was my local Indian restaurant when I lived in Essex. It's been through a few names over the years - "Tiptree Tandoori" and "Balti Raj" are a couple that I remember. At the moment it's calling itself the Raj Mahal. Every so often, when I visit friends and family over that way I pop in for a take-away or a meal.

They do a great Vegetarian Set menu that includes Aloo Puri, Vegetable Balti, Vegetable Mossala, Vegetable Samosas, Bombay Aloo, Pilau Rice and a Naan. This is a meal for two, but there is so much there, that with an extra rice it is easily enough for three or even four if you're not overly hungry. It all tastes great, especially the balti and the mossala and at about £20, it's a bargain!

Dedham Art & Craft Centre, Dedham

High Street,
Dedham CO7 6AD Map

http://www.dedhamartandcraftcentre.co.uk/

The Dedham Art and Craft Centre is a converted church in the middle of Constable country. It has three floors of furniture, crafts and pictures and tucked away in the corner of the ground floor is the tearoom.

It claims to be totally vegetarian, however when we popped in for lunch the blackboard advertised a dish with tuna in it. Aside from that however, the rest of the menu was meat and fish free.

I started with a broccoli and stilton soup which was very nice. Not too strong, it had a nice cheesy taste. It was served with a couple of slices of sliced bread and would've been much nicer with a fresh roll, or a chunk of unsliced bread.

Following the soup, I chose one of the quiches that was on the menu. There were quite a few of them and I had one with Brie and Cranberry. I'm not a big fan of quiche, but this one was really nice. It came with the choice of salad or jacket potato, and I had the potato.

I was there with my parents and they had a vegetable and herb crumble which I tried a mouthful or two of. Again, it was very nice. Oh, and the portions are very good.

The service was very friendly and the prices are reasonable. If you're in Essex and want a tasty, filling lunch then pop along to the Dedham Craft Centre.

Brasserie Blanc, Tunbridge Wells

Five Ways,
Lime Hill Road,
Tunbridge Wells TN1 1LJ map

http://www.brasserieblanc.com

I'm quite a big fan of Raymond Blanc, having eaten and cooked at Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, and received a signed copy of Blanc Vite, which has some great veggie recipes in it, for my birthday.

I'd heard and read some very mixed reviews of Blanc Brasserie, but I was keen to try it out for myself so, on a bright and sunny Saturday lunchtime, we popped along to give it a go. As it was such a nice day we decided to sit outside on the shaded patio.

They offer a set lunch menu called "Dine with Wine" which I decided to try. This offers two courses for £11.50 or three courses for £14 each with a glass of wine. My wife decided that she didn't fancy anything from there and decided to order from the a la carte.

For the first course I had Smoked Potato Croquettes with Cranberry Dip. The croquettes were very nice and had a deep smoky flavour. They didn't, however, go with the dip at all. My wife had Maman Blanc’s Miscellany of Salads which was a selection of different salads dotted around a plate.

It looked really pretty and some of the salads were very tasty, especially the tomato one, which had a dressing that was made to be soaked up with the remaining bread on the table.

For my main course I had a Goats' Cheese and Almond Risotto. It tasted fine, but the rice was overcooked giving it a "rice pudding" texture rather than the al-dente crunch that risotto should have. It also appeared that the chef had left the skin on the goats' cheese as I found two strips of something that I hope was the cheese skin. I dread to think what else it might have been. I pointed it out to the waiter and he looked as mystified as me, but I heard nothing more about it.

My wife had Salmon Fillet and Chips which she said was really nice.

The service was friendly, but a bit slow between the courses. After about a fifteen minute wait after the starters we had to enquire as to the whereabouts of our mains, but apart from that it was fine.

Overall, the lunchtime offer was reasonably good value for money, even with the overcooked risotto. The a la carte is a bit on the pricy side - starters are around £6 and mains average out around £13 -£15, although the only vegetarian main was a bargain at £7.50!

Brasserie Blanc wasn't as bad as some of the reviews I've read have suggested, but it could be better. If the a la carte menu was more reasonable, we might be tempted to go back one evening, but as it is, the quality of the menu, in my opinion, just doesn't justify the cost.

Palio, Tunbridge Wells

84 - 86 Grosvenor Road,

Tunbridge Wells, TN1 2AS map

http://www.palio-restaurant.com/

We walk past Palio just about every time we go into Tunbridge Wells, yet it's taken us about a year to actually walk through the door.

The restaurant itself is very bright and airy and we got a friendly welcome as we entered and were shown to a table.

The menu is pretty good, with quite a few veggie options on the starters and pasta menus. They also have a pizza menu available at certain times. For starters, I had Vegetali al Forno, described as oven roasted vegetables drizzled with mint flavoured extra virgin olive oil. The dish consisted of peppers, fennel, courgette, globe artichoke, aubergine and provolone cheese. It was very nice. The artichokes, especially, had a lovely flavour and, for me, an antipasti like this is a perfect start to an Italian meal.

My wife chose a starter of Melanzane Parmagiana of which I had a taste. Now, this is one of my favourite dishes - the best I've had was at Trattoria Bagutta in Milan, so I'm a bit fussy when it comes to this dish. Palio's version was okay, but nothing special. It was obviously cut from a larger dish and tasted a bit bland.

For main course my wife had Pollo Alla Griglia, which was grilled chicken breast served on a large musgroom. The menu noted that the chicken was free-range, which was good to see. My wife said that, again, it was okay. The sauteed potatoes that were served with the chicken were very nice, tasting quite strongly of garlic.

My main course was Crespolini, spinach, ricotta and parmesan pancakes in a tomato and bechamel sauce. It arrived a the table impossibly hot, but once it cooled down, it was a quite pleasant dish, and the aforementioned potatoes did a very good job of mopping up the last of the sauce.

The portions at Palio are very generous - the vegetables I had to start could easily serve two wih some accompanying bread - and the prices are fairly reasonable. The service we had was very friendly and professional, which made a fairly regular meal that little bit better. We were discussing on the way home how much difference good or bad service can make to a meal, and we both agreed that the service at Palio made the difference for us to add it to our "one to go back to" list.

National Vegetarian Week - Friday

Today is the last day of my Vegetarian Week at work. With apologies to Carol Blymire, this is Gaz Cooks Keller as I decided to do a dish from the French Laundry Cookbook - Parmesan Crisps with Goats' Cheese Mousse.

It's a fairly easy dish to do, just a bit time consuming as you can't do too many crisps at a time or they will go crispy before you get time to shape them. The mousse is straightforward as well and is very tasty.

I also took in some Mango and Chilli Sorbet that I had made a while back. The chilli in it gives a really good "kick" after the sorbet has melted in your mouth, and it was quite fun watching the surprise and delight on my colleagues' faces when they tried it.

It's been a fun week. I've enjoyed cooking the dishes and my workmates seemed to have enjoyed eating them. If nothing else hopefully it's shown that veggie food can be tasty and exciting and is not just lentils, tofu and salad!

National Vegetarian Week - Thursday

Last week I got a new cook book, The Vegeterranean, and I thought I'd try something new for today's offering.

The book calls it Torri di Zucchine Ripiene con Crema di Piselli, which translates to Courgette Towers Stuffed with Pea Cream.

There's a fair bit of prep with this, preparing the courgettes and making the puree, but once it's put together, it looks great and tastes pretty good too. The almonds that finish the dish off are toasted and then have icing sugar sprinkled over them. Their sweetness really goes well with the pea cream and offsets the slight bitterness of the courgette.

The courgettes and the cream both benefitted from spending some time in the 'fridge and they were well received in the office.

National Vegetarian Week - Wednesday

Vegetable Sushi is something I did for the first time during my Cordon Vert Foundation course. Since then, I've made it several times and it always goes down well. And today was no different. In fact, it disappeared the quickest of all the food this week.

I made two sets of Nori rolls, each with different fillings. The first had carrot, red and yellow peppers, umboshi paste and wasabi, and the other had shitake mushrooms marinated in sherry and roasted red pepper. I served them with a dipping sauce made from shoyu, ginger juice and sesame oil.

National Vegetarian Week - Tuesday

Today is an East-Meets-West dish. It's something I came across in Rose Elliot's Veggie Chic and it sounded really interesting. As it's asparagus season the dish, Sesame Roasted Asparagus with Wasabi Vinaigrette, seemed the perfect thing to try.

It's fairly quick to do. You toss the asparagus in toasted sesame oil, sprinkle with salt and pop into the oven. Then you make the vinaigrette, which is a combination of wasabi, rice vinegar and sesame oil. The book says that the sauce is better if made up to a day in advance.

I made the sauce yesterday evening and roasted the asparagus this morning before going into work. After a quick taste, I decided that sesame oil and wasabi goes extremely well with asparagus.

When I arrived at the office, there were only a half-dozen or so people in and I wondered if I'd made too much as I put out the two plates with a pile of asparagus on each.

I needn't have worried. By lunchtime, there were only a few stalks left and everyone said how much they enjoyed it.

National Vegetarian Week - Monday

National Vegetarian Week is organised by the Vegetarian Society to raise the profile of vegetarianism. This year, I decided to make a different dish every day to take into work, to show them the variety of veggie food that I eat, as I'm sure some of them think I survive on salads.

It's difficult to create a dish that would be suitable for an office and be practical for me to create, so I decided to stick to buffet-type food.

For today's dish, I decided to do something that was a bit of a favourite on the Creative Cookery Cordon Vert course that I did as part of my diploma, Leek and Courgette Mini Muffins.

The recipe is fairly easy - you finely slice some leeks and saute them with some garlic, grate some courgettes and add them to the pan, then mix all of that with some flour, curry power, paprika, onion seeds, eggs, milk and olive oil. Once it's all mixed you pop it into a mini-muffin tray and stick it in the oven for 25 minutes.

I only have a single mini-muffin tray and it only has twelve holes. As the recipe I have makes about 40 it took me a while before all forty were cooked.

Although they are quite tasty on their own, they're best eaten with a filling of cream cheese, guacamole or some kind of "dip" and I took some cheese into work to serve them with.

They seemed go down pretty well, and although there weren't tha many people in the office today, there were only two left on the plate by the end of the day, which yours truly finished off.

Tuscan Reunion

About a year ago I went to Italy to do a course at Organic Tuscany. It was great fun and we've all kept in touch since. This weekend we all met up for a meal at which I volunteered to cook.

I decided to start with a mixed antipasti, followed by an asparagus risotto for main course and finally a tiramisu for dessert.

The antipasti I based on the veggie antipasti that they do at Carluccio's. It consists roasted peppers with pesto - I used a selection of green, sundried tomato and aubergine pesto, green beans with mint and garlic, mozzarella and caponata. The caponata recipe is in Antonio Carluccio's Vegetables if you want to try it. It's the best caponata recipe I've tried, and everyone seems to enjoy it whenever I make it. If you make it, then make it the day before, as it tastes much better after the flavours have had a chance to mingle. Also, make a lot of it, as it is great stirred into pasta, as well as part of an antipasti plate.

For the main course, I did an asparagus risotto. This was one of the dishes that we made in Tuscany and, as asparagus is in season at the moment, it seemed the perfect choice. I like to drizzle a little lemon-infused olive oil around the outside of the risotto after it is plated, just to give it a little extra "something".

Finally, it was time for the tiramisu. This was a favourite on the course and this was the first time that I had got around to making it. I've always been put off of tiramisu as I always feel that it had that '70's "Abigail's Party" kind of feel to it, but I have to admit that it is a really nice dessert. I decided to go a bit "posh" and serve it in a cocktail glass, which worked quite well.

It was a great afternoon, and I hope that everyone enjoyed the food. The plates were all empty at the end of each course, so I guess that means that they did!

A Dessert to Delight!

Last week I made another trip to Benares, on yet another TopTable deal. The food and service was as good as my last visit, but I have to make a special mention of the dessert as it was something else.

The picture doesn't do it justice at all, I'm afraid.

It was described as Tandoori Banana Crumble and the plate consisted of a baked banana, topped with nuts and various crumbs accompanied by chocolate amaretti biscuits and, what I can only describe as a "pistachio milkshake," complete with straw.

On its own, the banana would have made quite a pleasant pud. However, when a scoop of the banana was eaten along with a slurp of the bright green "milkshake" the flavour was superb!

Well done to Atul Kotcher for making one of the very best desserts I have ever had.

Tunbridge Wells Bar and Grill, Tunbridge Wells

84 High Street,
Tunbridge Wells TN1 1YB Map

http://www.therestaurantbarandgrill.co.uk/tunbridge.html

I've never been tempted to visit the Bar and Grill, always suspecting it to be a steak and burger joint that would give you "chips with everything".

When a colleague of mine recommended it, my wife and I decided to pop along one sunny Sunday evening.

From the moment we entered and were greeted by one of the waiters and shown to our table, I knew that my previous impression was completely wrong.

As it was a nice evening, we decided to sit in the courtyard at the back. The tables are nicely spaced to allow a good amount of privacy and the area is covered by shades making it an extremely pleasant place to eat.

There isn't an extensive menu for vegetarians, but compared to a lot of other places, it's not bad. There was a risotto, a lasagne and a Thai green curry. There are also a couple of suitable salads, and a selection on the starters menu.

We started by sharing a mezze selection that included falafels, hummus, tzatziki, pitta bread, baba ganoush, olives and filo samosas stuffed with spinach and cheese. The portion was a nice size for the two of us and it was extremely tasty, especially the samosas.

My wife had the fish and chips, with mushy peas for her main. It was all presented separately with the fish on the main plate and the chips and peas in side bowls, which gave me the chance to have a taste of them. The chips were great, although the peas were a little on the runny side for my liking.

For my main course, I chose the vegetable Thai Green Curry. It was pretty good, well presented, with sweet potato, peppers, mangetout and bok choi in a bright green, spicy sauce. It wasn't too spicy, although it did have a slight bitter taste to it and the vegetables were nice and crispy.

And so to dessert. The dessert menu had a vanilla creme brulee, however the specials menu was boasting a passionfruit version, so I had to try it.

Oh dear, oh dear... I'm not sure how they did it, but the whole dish appeared to be covered in a thin oily film and the caramelised topping was like a thin, sticky, rubber layer over the top of the custard. The custard itself tasted okay, but it was thick and gloopy rather than the nice firm custard that I like. So, I'm afraid that it only managed to scrape a two on the chart.

Apart from the creme brulee, it was great. The service was really good, from start to finish and I'm certain we'll go back. When we do, I'll try the brulee from the main dessert menu and see if they can redeem themselves.

If you decide to go, and I recommend you do, then I've been old to avoid the tables right at the back of the restaurant as they are quite dark, making it quite hard to see what you are eating.