A visit to the office in Gateshead for the start of year meetings. Anouncements on the new bonus plans and targets.
Main event though was the evening meal in Newcastle. Have to admit to feeling slightly hung-over the next day.
A visit to the office in Gateshead for the start of year meetings. Anouncements on the new bonus plans and targets.
Main event though was the evening meal in Newcastle. Have to admit to feeling slightly hung-over the next day.
I had another night in Bristol, Tuesday night, all on my Jack Tod. So off I went to the Lock Fyne restaurant and partook of the £15 meal with a glass of wine. Came to more in the end, when I added an extra wine and coffee at the end. Even so £15 for a good quality three course meal is still pretty good.
The waitresses were attentive, and when I complted the comment form I left the comment The waitresses were gorgeous. Of course I over-tipped them. Hope I will win the 12 bottles of champagne.
Back home on Wednesday night and now I am in the office. Working from home you do lose the the human contact, and it can be quite cool. Meanies that we are no heating allowed before 16.00.
Monday I set off early for Bristol. Worked all day trying to get Loadrunner work with our application. Loadrunner is as testing tool which can be used to emulate thousands of users. It is used to load an application to see if it will support the required number of users.
Well there was success, but it is not going to be very easy to set up the data. Ah well, that’s not my problem.
In the evening went to the Hole in the Wall, local Bristol gastro pub and had a Duck Leg confit on beans. A cassoulet of sorts. Was quite good, quite enterprising.
Tuesday, another day working on the kitchen. By the end of the day the place looked like total chaos. The work surfaces where laid around the kitchen while their undersides dried. The cardboard boxes were building up, will have to be going to the skip to get rid of those on Thursday. The base units where the sideboard was, were also constructed, and the fridge moved to its new location.
Ate late, went to the pub at 20:45 for a meal, Rosemary had pie of the day, while I had a side of pork spare ribs in BBQ sauce. Yummy. At least the pub was warm, and we thawed out a bit.
The kitchen is in the process of being refitted. Tonight was the third night without cooking or washing facilities, so was the third night eating out. We are trying the different eateries around our local area.
Tonight is the Crooked B????. Strange establishment. It has all the looks of a place that should do well. Old world, plenty of parking. Gardens and facilities for the kids. On a main road, so plenty of passing trade. The place though seems to go from one management company to another, and never seems to do well with anyone. Years ago, like 15-20 years ago it was thriving pub. Now it seems to go through lots of mediocre management companies and short time managers.
Unusually for a pub/restaurant there is a split personality about it. It has two restaurants and a bar. I mean two totally differently managed restaurants.
There is the bar area, serving some real ale, in this case Hook Norton, and the usual lagers. Associated with this is the ‘basic” restaurant serving steaks, liver, burgers, fried mushrooms etc. Staple non adventurous food.
The other restaurant is in the function room. This is Angelo’s, originally from Waddesdon, and lately from Springhill.
When we entered I ordered our drinks, and asked for a menu. We were taken aback, because we could not see any Italian food on the menu, and this rather basic fare. Not to worry we ordered. While we were waiting we said how nice the function room looked, at this stage we were informed that was Angelo’s. How do we order for food there we asked? You walk in and order there we were told. There was no signs advertising Angelo’s or anything else to intimate that this other restaurant existed in the building.
Our food arrived. My mushrooms were good. Not a lot to go wrong with possibly pre-prepared deep fried mushrooms. My liver and gravy was OK, not special. Rosemary’s pate looked ordinary and her risotto was the worst she has ever had. It didn’t seem to be the correct rice, it had not absorbed any flavour from the cooking and was dry! We are not going to eat there again, unless the next management change brings on an improvement. As for Angelo’s, it had the usual chicken served in five sauces. Our previous experience at Springhill for lunch had been a real dissapointment, so we would be feeling rather desparate before we tried the place again.
Thursday was a warm day, no rain, not particularly sunny though. Started off with my usual cup of coffee at Cafe Nero, and happiness they had Pain Au Raisins today. The last two days have been devoid of this delicacy. So ignoring my pension savings plan, I bought my designer coffee and my Pain Au Raisin, took them to the office and ate my breakfast at my desk.
Supper was at a Thai restaurant on Rose Street called Ruanmai. I have eaten there in the long, dim and distant past. Had a couple of Thai beers, a hot soup and a penang duck curry with sticky rice. Adequate but not nearly as good at Dusit or Mai Thai.
Afterwards had a couple of beers at Whistle Binkies before heading home.
The day remained bright and sunny all day, though a few cumulus clouds crept across the sky at midday. It’s actually quite warm in the hotel.
Early supper at The Outsider. This restaurant is on the George IV Bridge and has a good view of Edinburgh Castle. It’s a recommended eating establishment in the Easyjet on-board reading material. I wonder how much it costs to get a placement in the magazine.
Started off with grilled swordfish topped with a salad of mango slices, broad beans and beetroot leaves. I had some olive oil flavoured mash potato on the side. Rosemary would be impressed, or I expect she considers it normal, the beans were all double podded. It was very nice though, the difference in temperature of the hot fish and the chilled mango slices took one by surprise.
Next I had a cheesecake. Pile of cheesecake filling on a pastry biscuit topped with a strawberry and surrounded with a raspberry coulis.
Tuesday started off with a slight precipitation and overcast skies, ended the day with the sun coming out. At the Petit Paris I managed to get a table before 7.00pm and ate their cheap Plat de Jour, there were even people sitting at the tables outside. Summer is here in Edinburgh.
What a difference several hundred miles make. Rosemary rang several times during the day with panic stories about the floods that were about to engulf our home. The water was within 10 millimeters of coming in through the front door. She was unable to get to the DFAS meeting at Westcott where the road she had to pass through had water halfway up the nearby garden walls. Those who did get through had to walk through inches of water to get into the lecture hall and had to contend with a collapsing ceiling. In her words:
I was in work this morning and then had the dentist in Winslow at lunchtime. I was staggered at the water during the slightly scary drive back along the back roads. But I was in Westcott for DFAS just gone 14:00 and it was so flooded (especially at the turnoff just after the derestricted sign) that the van driver ahead suggested I shouldn’t attempt it and we all turned around. I don’t think I’ve ever seen everywhere so flooded. I was a bit worried about our front and the sitting room cos the front garden was very flooded. I was also worried over the 10 day old lamb in our field. I couldn’t see him anywhere and feared he had fallen in a ditch and drowned. Risking the elements and suitably garbed, I went out in search of his tiny corpse. Scattering sheep to all sides and struggling against the suction of the waterlogged land on my wellies, I found him snoozing in a patch of long grass.
Meanwhile DFAS’s Lecture Secretary says she “had to get the lecturer there! It was certainly bad in Westcott but the car is reasonably high. However, the front entrance was totally flooded and everyone had to go in via the fire exit through 2-3″ water, necessitating a number of people having to take off shoes, and quite a number turned for home. The hall was flooded down one side, a piece of ceiling fallen in near the entrance and we had the lecture in the room past the kitchen! It will certainly be memorable.”
Back to reality and the Petit Paris, good starter of Cray Fish Tail salad and salad potatoes, followed by a Salad Nicoise and then the Creme Brulee all washed down with a binge of red wine.
Ed’s update on floods: The next day, all visible water has gone from around the house and the sun has shone. The local rabbits all seem to have survived and I bet the wretched ants have too.
Another early start for the flight up to Edinburgh. Not sure how long EasyJet will keep the 6.55 flight going. It cannot have been more than one third full. As I left home it was a pleasant morning with roosting pigeons on the A41. By the time I reached the Chilterns it had turned foggy. Despite this the flight got away on time and I was in work before 9.00am.
Not a lot to report, other that a nice meal in the Mussel and Steak where I ate their soup of a day, a bean and tomato soup, followed by two fillets of sea bass cooked with a coating of sesame seeds on a salad base.
Rosemary had another man in to look at the Esse. It had been causing us some serious problems, not least the cost of running it with today’s high oil price. Today he was in to cure the smoking problems, he adjusted the flows, tested the flue and lit the cooker. Alas several hours later the same problems came back, smokes and the temperature drops to nothing. The next day he rang with a quote to replace the fuel regulator and put a flue balance in. Over £800. I am afraid the cooker is going to be scrapped and we are going green (?) with a wood burning stove. But how much will it cost to remove the thing? Anyone want an oil-fired Esse – buyer collects?
Met up with Ravi and Maggie in the Oxford Bar at 7.00pm for pre dinner drink. Then onward to Dusit Edinburgh Thai restaurant where they seated us this time. Booking a retaurant is a new concept to me.
We shared two starters between us:
I especially liked the Miang salad.
We then shared three main courses. Much argument, I was going to order duck, but was persuaded to order beef, and Ravi then ordered duck!!!
The Panang was lovely, nice thick creamy sauce to it, and enough bite to know you are eating a curry. The other two dishes were beautiful as well.
This Thai restaurant has a reputation amongst my friends of being the best Thai in Edinburgh, and I think it is well deserved. The service was good, the waiters were friendly and the food arrived quickly and on time.
Afterwards we parted our ways, but will be meeting up in Essex in a couple of weeks time.