Tag: munch

Not all at the same time, I hasten to add. I took a day-trip to Looe in South East Cornwall yesterday and very enjoyable it was too. Excellent food and beautiful weather.

Sadly, the same cannot be said of the journey home. When I boarded the 16:41 Virgin Trains service from Liskeard, I noticed that the seats in half the carriage I had entered were taped-off. A little later the customer service manager came and told us the reason was that on the way down to Newquay there had been some passengers who were ‘a bunch of animals’ and had been ‘sick all over the place’. He apologised for the smell (which was hardly noticeable) and said if we wanted to move to another carriage, we could (an offer not repeated later in the journey when the train was fuller). A little inspection showed that a fair amount of vomit (and other rubbish) remained. Once home, a quick look at the timetable* showed that the train had spent most of the day (five hours) sat at Newquay. Apparently not enough time to clean the carriage — what little smell there was coming from the taped-off area was definitely of vomit without a hint of disinfectant. I appreciate that facilities at Newquay station are limited, but were a mop, brush and disinfectant not available?

It has recently been announced that Virgin Trains have lost the cross-country rail franchise to Arriva. With service like this, I doubt that many of the travelling public will be disappointed.

* Links are to pdf documents.

Whilst it is clearly bad news for the 400 people that may be made redundant by Pork Farms in Trowbridge, as a long standing addict of Melton Mowbray Pork Pies I am sure that it is in the long term interest of the quality and sales of genuine Melton Pies that their production is restricted to the area around said town. Trowbridge pies just do not taste like proper Melton Mowbray pies.

I read that the Japanese are considering alternatives to tuna for sushi, owing to a shortage brought on by the worldwide popularity of the dish (and their own consumption).

At the Fukuzushi restaurant in Tokyo, Shigekazu Ozoe, said he might use red-coloured substitutes such as horse and deer if tuna supplies ran out, as he did in 1973 when a mercury poisoning scare meant customers refused to eat the fish.
“We tasted it, and horse sushi was pretty good. It was soft, easy to bite off, had no smell,” he told the New York Times.

I wouldn’t recommend it, unless you’re a vampire — the taste of blood is quite strong. I once had the privilege of trying both horse sashimi and beef sashimi in a small village in central Japan. In comparison with the beef sashimi, the horse sashimi was pleasant with a mild flavour; an acquirable taste. Beef sashimi was like chewing on an open wound.

I realise this is a little churlish, as I think the proposal to re-introduce hot school meals to all Swindon schools is sensible. It’s just that one of the reasons given is somewhat at odds with conventional wisdom.

Swindon Council wants to see all pupils in the town’s schools getting a warm nutritious lunch to give them energy throughout the day.

Err… have they not heard of ‘the afternoon nap’ as brought on by a filling midday meal? But if, as suggested it is to give them ‘energy throughout the day’, perhaps they mean breakfast… or that the anticipation of the meal to come will get the children excited during the morning.

One other thing. Since when have meals at schools been school lunches: they’re school dinners as served by staff known as dinner ladies (I suppose that would have to be changed now to dinner persons). Lunch is the toff’s meal.

The Adver reports that students from Swindon College set an impressive standard when given the run of the kitchens at the Chiseldon House Hotel. However, there’s no need to go that far. They provide a similar service at a restaurant in their North Star campus. Some colleagues of mine went there last week and were very impressed with both the quality and the price. Well worth making a booking for those working in the offices clustered north of Swindon town centre.

The Bugle Coaching Inn in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight does an excellent pie ’n’ pint. Highly recommended.

A local school has just resumed serving school dinners after a gap of two years. Apparently they can afford to provide them themselves now but could not do so when the council provided the meals.

Haydonleigh Primary School shut its kitchen in 2005 because of the spiralling costs of buying in meals through the borough council.
But, with a grant from the Government’s Jamie Oliver Fund to provide better ingredients, equipment and training for school cooks, the school decided to bring in a kitchen manager and assistant of their own….
“The school couldn’t afford to keep the kitchen going with meals from the borough council”….
Although the price of meals has gone up, from £1.65 three years ago, to £1.90, Mrs Stevens feels the price reflects the better quality meals on offer and the improvements made to the kitchen.

So let’s be clear, the price has gone up by 7% per year (I make 2005 to 2007 a gap of two years, not three) and they are getting an extra subsidy, but providing the meals is affordable now whereas is wasn’t before. I hope these people aren’t teaching economics at this school.

Seems their grasp of nutrition is not wonderful either.

“I’m trying to make it with healthier brown flour, and there’s nothing really wrong with pizza if you can do that,” she said. “And I’ve hidden vegetables in the sauce.”

There’s only ‘nothing really wrong with pizza’ if you forget about the fat that the cheese contains. A school of organically grown fat children is on the way.

A very poor offering in the work canteen at lunchtime today. Very nice battered fish, but no gravy available to put on the chips, and no ketchup available either. Fish & chips without some adulteration with gravy and ketchup is just not right!

’Tis Friday, but there was no battered fish on offer in the canteen today. Breaded fish and poached fish, but not battered. Very disappointing. So disappointing that I had to resort to the ‘vegetable and lamb pie’, the filling of which was rather thin. The canteen gravy contributed more lamb flavour than the pie. I think that is all that need be said on this poor offering. They could definitely learn from the Terra Nova in Cardiff.

The chocolate and strawberry sponge pudding was a little more satisfying. Suitably moist, but rather an all or nothing affair when it came to the strawberries — they would have been better chopped rather than whole.

All-in-all a bad day rounded off with a poor culinary offering and England losing their first match in the cricket world cup.

Had a very good pie today at Terra Nova, which is a pub at Mermaid Quay on Cardiff Bay. It was a little lacking in gravy (just a squirt of thickish gravy around the mash) and in vegetables and the placing of the pie on top of the mash was rather too nouvelle cuisine for a meal like pie ’n’ mash, but the pie was definitely a cut above the average pub pie. Well filled with succulent meat in a beer gravy. Delicious. The pint of Brains Dark was good too.