The Pointing Dog v The New Victorian

For some time the local residents of Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme have eagerly awaited the opening of their newest eatery, the latest addition to the Felicini chain. There has been an impressive redevelopment of the property where the old 'Smithy' stood and an exciting menu suggested that this could be something special. I visited the Pointing Dog during it's first week of opening. It was the first Sunday they were open and we were there at about 5pm. We rang to book. On arrival we entered into a spacious bar area. The reception area for the restaurant had someone loosely standing there. After a moment or two I informed them that we had booked and they motioned us towards a table. Not the welcome I expected from a new restaurant wanting to create a good vibe. The restaurant is large and they have created a choice of seating areas. As the restaurant was only about a quarter full, we decided on a more central area of the restaurant to sit in, so we could watch what was going on. (These things are vital in order to entertain small children!) We decided to sit where we could see the kitchen.
The menu's are printed on brown paper and folded to look like knapkins. Thankfully the waitress pointed this out. On another occassion, I arrived to join my quests a little late. I sat down and opened my menu. My guests hadn't realised that they were the menus, assuming they were knapkins as they hadn't been told otherwise. The menu offers an interesting array of dishes, possibly too many. Lots of fish and meat and some DIY salads that I found a little confusing, no vegetarian option and nothing for children. However, when we asked what they could offer to children, they did say that they could do 4 of the menu options in half portions: The shepherds pie, chicken wings, burger, and fish and chips. As it was a Sunday I enquired if the Sunday roast option could also be done in a half portion which they agreed to. It is interesting to note that CAMRA state that 'The cask ale offering is for the moment four beers - it is hoped to keep a changing Dunham Massey beer on at all times'. Great to have a local pub with quality beers.
I had the mushrooms on toast to start and my husband had the mussels. The mushrooms were delicious served with a touch of tarragon and cream. Just the ticket. The mussels were served in a rich saffron and cream sauce which was really tasty. A usual accompaniment would be to serve bread here for dunking. We had to ask for bread, which took a long time to come as it needed to be prepared, heated and served in the obligatory brown paper bag.
The children had the roast beef and fish and chips. Both were good. The roast dinner had a good variety of vegetables, and the fish and chips were eaten with gusto. The minted mushy peas were lovely with the fish and chips. My daughter didn't appreciate them, but she may do in the future. I had the burger which was ok but the fries which accompanied it were overdone. My husband had the sea bass which was good but uninteresting. Especially for the money. All accompaniments are extra. The bill including a bottle of wine and some soft drinks came to £80. We were charged extra for the bread. We left with a feeling of good, but nothing special pub food, for steep restaurant prices.
The New Victorian in Bramhall is a favourite haunt of many in Bramhall. The site as a pub has fallen in and out of favour by local residents but finally with the 'New Victorian' we have got a decent pub back in the heart of the village. Many are happy to get 'a proper pint' back. What is more of a surprise is how they have developed and are continuing to develop the menu and offer seriously good food for adults and children for a good price. The menu also changes seasonally and the manager is more than happy to talk to the customers and develop the menu with them in mind. It's also not a safe and obvious menu. They offer specials and house platters which show creativity and tempting flavours which deliver. Finally a pub with personality.
We return to this pub for many reasons. Being in the heart of Bramhall village it has acted as a meeting point for many of us with young families. The New Victorian offers a friendly welcoming atmosphere, including towards children which is a refreshing attitude in the UK. The menu reflects this with a children's menu, offering the usual favourites which are thankfully cooked in house from fresh ingredients and the children have a choice of peas or beans. Hallelujah.
The house platters to share are certainly worth a try. During the winter they had one which included a ham hock which was simply delicious. In the spring it was replaced by a more seasonal platter including home made brown shrimps, Cajun chicken, fish cakes and asparagus. Lots of boxes ticked here. The menu has it's usual burgers, offering a variety of toppings but always well made, cooked beautifully and generous. In my opinion the best burger for miles.
There are many usual suspects, fish and chips, pie etc, but also some more unusual options. We've had a beautiful sea bass dish here. Another pull towards this eatery are the prices. All the menu options are well priced anyway. However they do offer burger night and Monday to Wednesday they offer 6 meals for £6 currently including burger, chicken and bacon Caesar salad, home made pie, fish and chips. Some places may produce smaller portions in this deal. Not here though.
One final touch is that the management really value excellent service here. The staff are without fail, friendly, courteous and attentive. This is a consistent thing at any time of day, busy or quiet. Again refreshing and welcomed.

In summary.
The Pointing Dog offers much, but for the money, it falls short. On my second visit, they had a set lunch menu which thankfully offered much better value than the a la carte menu ( at £12.95) for 2 courses. The fish and chips is a steep £14.95 so as one of the 4 options on the set lunch menu, it was a good deal. I had mushrooms ( a smaller dish than you get normally) and the mussels. Everyone else had a designer salad to start and there was a goats cheese and beetroot salad for main. All the food was good. My friends said the starter salads were excellent We shared a bottle of wine and some soft drinks and paid £20 each. The service generally is ok, however the waitress seem stressed at being a quarter full. It is something which should improve with time. There is a lovely area at the back with lots of tables and space. Great for a summers day. The overall impression is overpriced and mean, pub grub.

The New Victorian has very little outdoor space and is right next to a car park and busy main road. This is not ideal with small children. However it wins hands down in all other areas. Delicious, interesting and personal food, good value for money, vegetarian choices and great kids food. The service is excellent and welcoming.
Everyone loves the new thing but don't forget what you may have overlooked. The New Victorian produces better quality food, has great service and is cheaper than the Pointing Dog.
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Mexican slow roast pork fajitas

Delicious slow roasted pork. Easy, bang in the oven food that will please all.Ingredients
800 g boned rolled pork shoulder
4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 red onion sliced
1 red pepper sliced
Garlic oil
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon oregano
Squeeze of lime juicep
2 large tomatoes chopped
10 basil leaves
1 avocado mashed, pinch of salt and squeeze of lime (or shop bought guacamole)
1 tin of sweetcorn
Grated cheddar
Sour cream or creme fraiche
Shredded crisp lettuce
Chilli sauce (optional)
Soft flour tortillas


Heat oven to 230 degrees Celsius
Put the bay leaves in a roasting tin and put the pork skin side up on it.
Season the meat with fennel seeds, oregano and salt and pepper.
Put the pork in the oven for 20 mins then turn the heat down to 140 degrees Celsius for anything between 3 and 5 hours.
If the crackling needs it, whack the heat up to maximum at the end to crisp it up. Keep an eye on it though.

The pork can sit and rest until it is needed.

When ready to eat. Heat a tablespoon of garlic oil in a large pan. Gently sauté the onion and peeper until soft with some seasoning. Add the spices and continue to cook for a few more minutes. Shred the pork and add to the onions and peppers. Add a squeeze of lime juice.
Chop the tomatoes and add the torn basil and some seasoning.
All of the accompaniments are to be put in bowls for people to help themselves.
Warm the tortillas in the microwave or oven as per packet instructions.

Everyone can then assemble their own tortilla at the table.
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A cracking egg...omelette

In honour of my clever husband who does on occasion listen to me, I have included one of his finest omelettes. Omelettes have become a great addition to our family mealtimes, probably in part due to the inclusion of a low carb diet in our house. Even better is the added bonus that we can both cook them (easily) and all 4 of us like them. In fact my son actually requested that I should 'blog' about them, so here goes.
Omelettes as we all know are a brilliant fast food. I consider myself to be extremely lucky in that I have a few friends who keep chickens and one in particular who kindly brings me boxes of Heidi and Hilda's produce. You really can't beat fresh eggs. However most of us have eggs in, and we can add to them, whatever else happens to be lurking around. Rarely have I shopped for an ingredient for an omelette, but rather taken it as a good opportunity to use up whatever needs using up.
My favourite recipe currently consists of the following. However if one or more ingredients are not present, I do continue to live and always still end up with a good meal.

Ingredients (2-4 people)

• tablesoon olive oil


• knob of butter


• half a red onion, sliced


• 3 mushrooms, sliced


• tablespoon sweetcorn


• 6 eggs, whisked and seasoned


• few slices of cheese (e.g. cheddar, gruyere, any good melter)


• about 3 peppadew peppers, chopped (sweet, slightly hot and bought from supermarket in jars)


• few slices of ham, torn

Start off in a large frying pan. Slowly saute the onion with a pinch of salt until it is gently caramelised. Add the mushrooms and a small knob of butter. When cooked add the sweetcorn and the eggs. Turn to a low to medium heat and cook the omelette until not quite set on top. (Keep disturbing the omelette so that uncooked egg can run throught o the bottom of the pan and cook. Be careful not to scramble though!) You want the omelette to be not quite set and only just starting to go golden underneath. Add the cheese, ham and peppers to the top and let the omelette finish cooking gently. Turn the omelette out onto a plate and serve with salad.

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Piccolino's Bramhall

As a Bramhall resident, we have become spoilt in the last few years with an ever growing number of eateries on our doorstep. Some are better than others obviously and everyone has their favourites (sometimes there's no accounting for taste though).

Piccolino's opened here in 2006, serving modern Italian food. During that time it has remained a constant favourite with the locals, praised for its quality of food and service. The doubters in the community complain about the cost at the end of the meal and the noisy surroundings. Its one of the few restaurants in the area which doesn't do cheap weekday offers, early birds or vouchers. It does however do a fixed price lunch which is very good value, and seasonal.

Friday was a beautiful, weirdly sunny (for March), day and my husband, again unusually, was off work. It would have been a crime to not make use of this opportunity of kid free time to go out for lunch. We decided on Piccolino's being so close and reliably good. Being such a beautiful day we opted to sit outside.

I noticed the lunch menu looked interesting on the board outside and chose a sausage, fennel and tarragon risotto to start and a pizza with prawns, courgettes and chilli to follow. My other half chose the carpaccio followed by sea bass en papillote which was on their daily specials menu.

The risotto was exceptional. I would usually be wary of ordering a risotto for a starter, however the starter portion was just right and had so much flavour. Slowly braised fennel and sausage flavours that packed a real punch. The pizza that came next although good, was not as stunning as the starter. The chilli and tomato gave a real kick to the excellent prawns. However, although I like my pizzas cooked freshly, thin and crisp, this was a little over crisp, and just a little boring. Perhaps it may have been just in comparison to the exceptional risotto though.

My husbands carpaccio was good, presented nicely and just how it should be. His sea bass was the star of his meal. Served en papillote, it was flavoured with wine, olives, and lemon and had been cooked in the paper with potatoes. All the flavours had combined beautifully, and the fish was cooked perfectly.

By this time, we had decided to have a glass of wine each and it certainly helped to feel like we had been transported to a sunnier climate. Along with the great food, and service we felt suitably relaxed and well fed. This is one of the few places I know which greets guests properly and professionally and they have a number of obviously well experienced waiting staff. The whole experience is always pleasurable. We and many of our friends find it great to bring kids here also. It is a busy, bustly restaurant and your children will not get glared at.

Overall, a slightly pricier than usual lunch, but fantastic seasonal food, served professionally in very pleasant surroundings.

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A thai soup with serious attitude

Tuesdays help start the week off well for me. This is the day where I begin with a back to back class of core stability and body combat. Whilst I am exercising I quite often (weirdly) plan food ideas as my mind is wandering. Today during the slow torture of core stability I planned this soup. It did change, however, by the time it was made. In fact it started off by being just a normal veg soup. I hate throwing food away so quite often I'll make soups with leftovers, using up all the remnants that are left in the fridge. Knowing that we had a fair amount of vegetables lurking in there, and bearing in mind the 'healthy' eating lifestyle we are currently enduring, I concocted the notion of a wholesome vegetable soup for lunch.

As I began making it, sweating onions, chopping celery and carrots I had an urge to create a bit of heat and decided to veer towards the asian soups I've made before, but with a thicker vegetable background. Thank the Lord, it worked. After all that excercise I was so hungry and this bad boy filled the hole nicely. A thai soup that kicks butt...nice.

I would suggest that you could use any veg you like for this. The joy of making soups is that you can use what you have. If you decide to make this soup, which I really hope you do, then please go with stuff you have in. It will work.

Ingredients

I onion, chopped

Assortment of vegetables. I used (1/3 head of brocolli, 3 pak choi, 2 carrots, 3 sticks celery, 1/6 white cabbage) chopped

1 garlic clove chopped

4cm piece of ginger peeled and chopped

1 thai red chilli deseeded and chopped

1 litre of chicken stock

200ml coconut milk

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon tamarind paste

1 teaspoon sugar (palm if you have it)

1 tablespoon lime juice

handful of spinach, beansprouts, chopped pak choi

chopped coriander

Start the soup off as you normally might, sweating the onion in a little oil with a pinch of salt to stop it browning too quickly. Add the rest of the chopped vegetables and sweat for another 5 mins stirring regularly. Add the stock and cook for about 20 minutes or until all the vegetables are tender.

Blitz until smooth.

Add the cocunut milk (fill the can with hot water, if using the last half, to get every bit out), fish sauce, turmeric, tamarind, sugar, lime juice and a handful of spinach. Blitz again. Check for seasoning and add more sugar or lime or fish sauce if you think it needs it.

Add the handful of beansprouts or pak choi. You could use other vegetables here. The idea is that they should be things that need little cooking, if any, and will add a little crunch and texture to the soup. You could use sugar snaps or spring onions. Whatever you fancy.

Put the soup back on the hob to reheat and let the vegetables begin to wilt. Add the chopped coriander and serve.

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Chantra Thai red curry kit

Always being up to test anything, I was asked to try out this thai red curry kit. As many of you know I am a keen advocate for making from scratch and dislike much processed foods, however I am not blinkered in this view. There is a time and a place for everything. Saying that, on 1st inspection these kits are great. They are more of an assemblage of ingredients. The herbs and spices are clear to see, simply dried. The coconut cream included is a powder, rehyrdrated when added to the liquid. The curry paste is ready made but again when you look at the ingredients list for it is an authentic list of ingredients with no added rubbish chemicals or flavour enhancers. Simply the usual suspects of chiili, lemongrass, garlic, shallots, shrimp paste, kaffir lime, and cumin. Immpressive. Not many companies would stick with authenicity and flavour over cost and ease.

I decided to make this one night where we came in late, after the usual after school demands, fed the kids quickly, and realised that left us! Looking at what we had in we had some leftover chicken some king prawns, pak choi, and sugar snaps. Perefct ingredients to test this kit!

I've made thai currys before and although not difficult, you do need a lot of ingredients. Some of these are store cupboard ingredients. As I make sporadic trips to a chinese supermarket I am normally well stocked with shrimp paste, fish sauce etc, but the desire to make a curry sauce at 7 oclock at night doesn't happen often.

Therefore kits like this do have appeal. The paste is made for you. This a good paste too.

So the actual cooking time looks short and indeed it was. The instructions were good but I did make a couple of adjustments and 'tweaks'. That is the beauty of these things though. Even though there are instructions to follow, don't be afraid to trust your own palate and cravings and add, delete or adjust whatever you think.

You fry the paste for 1 minute in a tablespoon of oil. It suggestes you use varying degrees of the paste depending on the the heat you like. We used it all.

Our chicken was precooked so I didn't add that as suggested (for raw chicken). Next I added the coconut cream powder and water to create a sauce. This needs whisking in to get a smooth sauce. Then I added the cooked chicken, and the packet of herbs and spices and simmered for 5 minutes.

The vegetables I used needed a minute or so, so they were added next, but if you used green beans as suggested, they would be added earlier (as per instructions).

A teaspoon of sugar is suggested ( I only added half, but that would be preference). It says fish sauce to taste ( I used just over half of the given sachet). I also added for my own taste about a teaspoon of lime juice.

The finished curry was excellent and finished in less that 10 minutes. Brilliant. It had a really good background heat that was pretty hot but not fiery. Good flavour, and tasted fresh. We did think it should be suggested to remove the spices and herbs (dried chillis, basil, lime leaves, and chilli) before you serve. However if you don't mind pushing them to the side of the plate as you eat then don't worry.

All in all this is a great buy. A delicious curry made from your store cupboard, in inder 10 minutes. Brilliant.

You can order a range of products via their website http://www.thaicurrycompany.com/ or from http://www.amazon.co.uk/

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Pancakes!!!

It would be a crime to not address today correctly, so here goes.

We decided (last night at my daughters swimming lesson) that we would 'aim' to do pancakes for breakfast. So a quick stop on the way home to buy eggs and milk, and we were set. The pancake batter was made as soon as we got home. There are so many recipes for pancake batter but please believe me, it is seriously hard to make bad pancake batter. The recipe I use is,

150g plain flour

325ml milk

1 egg

(This makes about 6 pancakes)

Whizz in food processor. Done.

You can of course by packets or containers of ready made batter, but seriously, why?

I made triple this quantity, just in case we needed it. I have an impulsive desire to always make too much food. I'm weirdly happy doing that, but cannot stand not having enough. Perhaps because I love messing with leftovers, or I'm greedy...anyway I've sidetracked.

So, batter made, the kids went excitedly up to bed and were told as long as we were up early enough we would do pancakes for breakfast. I needn't have worried. They rose to the challenge, and were promptly up at 6 a.m.

Pancake cooking commenced at about 7 a.m. I like to brush my frying pan, or crepe pan with a little butter. I have one of each on the go to speed up proceedings. The fillings on offer this morning were

• lemon and sugar
• Nutella and banana
• maple syrup

The children managed a fair number each and after various combinations, my daughter's favourite was Nutella and sugar and my son's maple syrup and sugar. I'm guessing sugar was the favourite. I love the traditional lemon and sugar but have to admit to loving the Nutella/banana combo. After asking a few friends their top pancake fills included the ones we had but also honey and golden syrup.

On a savoury note, a ragu filling, rolled and baked in an oven with tomatoes and cheese on top, is lovely. Cheese and ham is always a favourite, and based on this, for my lunch I had cheese, ham a little spring onion for crunch and a chopped 'Peppadew' pepper. These are my new favourite ingredient. I love the slight heat from them and they have a fantastic flavour. Great on quesadillas too.

This is by no means an exclusive list. We tend to use pancakes once a year in this country, whereas in other countries particularly Italy and France, they are used much more widely. The Italians use them really beautifully in some savoury recipes. There are some fantastic seafood ones I've come across too.

Have fun today and it would be great if you could let me know of any 'inventions' you or yours discover.

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