Alice in The Lazy Cow

http://www.thelazycowwarwick.co.uk/

Every so often, you have a perfect meal. This was not one of them, but before you think I’m about to go on a ranting whinge about bad food and worse service etc. etc. etc. I am not. The meal I am about to tell you about was not perfect, but it was wonderful in many ways...painful in others, and very weird. What made it perfect was the food (more of that later) and the company. I was with my wonderful, wonderful friend Jodie. Just look at her pretty smiling face.

And here, smashing a 4 inch tall burger in a one-er. A brave move, but unbelievably she managed it.

What made it painful was the fact that I was hanging from the night before. It is enough to say that the last thing I did before I dragged myself upstairs into my childhood bed was eat cold leftover curry out of the foil carton with my hands.

What made it weird was the fact that from the moment we crossed the threshold it felt like we had fallen deep into the rabbit hole. I really liked this place. I liked it a lot, and I will definitely be going back. The decor is lots of wood and glass and carpeted walls and leather and pretty, young, cool and trendy helpful staff in long black aprons. The menu is reassuringly small, with an emphasis on beef and various cuts and tenderising techniques and origins (I imagine this was the idea behind the name).

It all started with the drinks. We were both feeling a bit delicate, so we started with the standard double drink order (obviously). I ordered a sparkling water which arrived no problem, and then a Bloody Mary, which took quite some time to arrive, and when it did, well, it wasn’t a Bloody Mary. When the server brought it to the table and placed it in front of me, she asked whether I would like some Worcester sauce and Tabasco. Was I missing something here? Obviously I want Worcester sauce and Tabasco. Otherwise I would have ordered a vodka and tomato juice, which is what you have just put in front of me, which isn’t a Bloody Mary. So, um, yes, I would definitely like some Worcester sauce and Tabasco. This is what arrived:

My first question was, ‘am I on acid?’ My second question was, ‘Since when have Tabasco bottles of that size been available and why didn’t I know about it?’ Worcester sauce in a miniature gravy jug? What was going on here? I appreciate the novelty, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m going to pay you £6 to make me a drink, is it too much to expect that you actually make it? Also, what is with the proportions in this restaurant? Just look at the size of the knives!

I ordered beef Carpaccio to start (truffle oil, parmesan, watercress, black pepper and beef fillet how I would do it – seared on the outside, cut about 5 millimetres thick and flattened by the back of the knife) and sticky beef with noodles, coriander, cashews, spring onions and chilli. A bit beef heavy I grant you, but as I was in a pub called ‘The Lazy Cow’ and Diesel informs me that in years to come we will all be eating insects, and ‘meat’ as we know it will become a thing of the past, I thought - fuck it. My sticky beef was tremendous. Hot and spicy, sweet, crunchy vegetables, noodles, it was just ruddy bloody awesome. Perfect for a hangover, but...it arrived in an American style take out box, on a plate. That was something else about ‘The Lazy Cow’, and about a lot of places in London at the moment – gimmicks. Just serve me noodles in a bowl, I don’t want to tip out my noodles onto the plate and have to struggle to find somewhere on the table for the takeout box, four drinks, candles, postcards, enormous bottle of Tabasco and gravy jug full of Worcester sauce. Jodie had salt and pepper squid (I can’t fault how it was cooked but I would have appreciated some chilli sauce instead of the mayonnaise), and a burger, chips and an enormous gherkin. The burger looked A May Zing, and the chips (I had to try one, OK two. OK three) were the third best chips I’ve ever eaten (behind the chips at ‘The Bull and Last’ in Hampstead and the chips at Heston Blumenthal’s ‘Dinner’).

 

So the food was without a doubt - good. A few other features included a very good looking wine cellar, free sweets, a large dining room, and the final oddity, our bill brought to us in an old book (what’s wrong with a silver tray?) Still, on the whole it’s just me being picky. It was the best lunch I’ve had for a long time. Alice and the white rabbit would definitely approve.

Food, Ritual, Emotion.

Some things in life are sacred. Today is Sunday, and we have enjoyed a cooked breakfast, and will later eat a full roast dinner (Beef rump, mmm). Sunday for me, is a two meal day. It has been for as long as I can remember. You get up later than usual, eat an enormous breakfast at about 10.30, and then start to feel hungry again at about six. It used to be that I’d spend my afternoons doing homework and enjoy having a roast dinner cooked for me by my mum, but then I started making better gravy than her, and then I left home, and now I think if I suggested to Diesel that he make a roast dinner, I’d get laughed out the house and into a carvery. Whilst on paper eating the same meals week in week out (obviously there are variations) sounds pretty boring, but actually it’s incredibly comforting. Also, you can’t eat muesli on a Sunday (what would be the point of Sunday?) So, this in mind I thought I’d share some of my thoughts on cooking Roast beef and English breakfast.

English breakfast

Try and avoid as much as possible frying things. This may go against received wisdom (it’s not called a fry-up for nothing), but an English breakfast including fried eggs, fried bread, fried bacon, fried sausage etc. is a sure-fire way to give yourself crippling indigestion. Also, having a plate full of food coated in fat is just not very appetising. My favourite eggs on an English breakfast plate are scrambled, but that’s probably because my favourite eggs in the world are scrambled. Other than scrambled eggs, poached eggs work very well (dried properly, obviously. There are few things more disheartening at 10.30 on a Sunday morning than being served poached eggs on wet toast). It goes without saying that your eggs should be fresh, free range, produced by hens that sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets and get read a story before bedtime. 

Bacon should be dry cure, smoked. Buying cheap bacon (and sausages) is a false economy, because the extra weight will be made up with water and preservatives. That’s why cheap bacon is slimy, emits a disturbing amount of white matter when cooked and ends up 1/3 of its original size. Decent bacon will not feel wet to the touch, and when cooked remains roughly the same size as it did when it was raw. I love my George Forman grill for sausages and bacon, but a standard grill with a tray beneath to collect the fat is just as good. As far as fried bread is concerned, I just don’t know how anyone can eat it – brown toast/toasted soda bread/toasted breakfast muffins with a liberal application of quality butter all the way. Heinz baked beans (obviously), cooked for a long time over a low heat so they get a bit smashed up and sticky (cowboy beans my mum calls them). Fried mushrooms are my one major exception, my favourites being button mushrooms fried whole in butter, salt and pepper and a splash of Worcester sauce. 

I’m not a massive fan of tomatoes with breakfast, but if you must, avoid at all costs tinned tomatoes (why, WHY would anyone do this?), and a tomato cut in half and bunged under the grill as an afterthought is no one’s idea of fun. Your best bet is to roast some cherry tomatoes whole in the oven on a low heat, seasoned properly with a bit of olive oil and a splash of red wine vinegar. Weddings/birthdays/serious hangovers, some grilled quality black/white pudding takes it up a notch. For a really special treat, dip a piece of brown bread in a bit of the bacon fat and toast under the grill. Controversial I know, but never add hash browns, and serve where possible with freshly squeezed orange juice and a bottle of Lanson Black Label.

 

Roast Dinner (beef)

I know someone who when asked at a job interview ‘what would you say is your biggest weakness?’ responded with ‘um, probably roast potatoes’. This is a sentiment I 100% echo, so, when cooking roast dinner, always do more roast potatoes than you think you will need. One of my favourite après roast moments is finding a few potatoes left in the roasting dish about two hours after we’ve eaten and been sprawled on the sofa groaning unable to move. Diesel doesn’t know they’re there which means they’ve got my name written all over them. There’s still some gravy. It’s all cold but that doesn’t matter, even cold roast potatoes with cold gravy are delicious.

When making roast beef always plan to eat earlier than you really want to, because you will always eat later (by at least an hour) than you plan. Lay the table. Eating soup in front of The Simpsons on a Tuesday night is understandable, but if you’ve made the effort to cook one of our most important national dishes, you owe it to yourself to eat it at the table and bask in the complements that should be showered upon you. Drink red wine, it’s the law on a Sunday. Roast your potatoes in goose/duck fat if you can. Never in good olive oil, and season your potatoes well during roasting. Also, after the pre boil (take it as far as you dare. The longer they boil for the better really, but obviously they’re far more prone to disintegration as a result), shake the pan around in a frenzy. The more fluffy and smashed up they are, the crispier they’ll be. 

I’m not going into which vegetables you should choose or how to cook them, other than to say that for my money it’s worth keeping it simple. Steamed until just cooked and dotted with butter and salt and pepper are all the decoration roast dinner vegetables need. The beef, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings and gravy are the stars of this show. Gravy is essential. Put the roasting pan you cooked the beef in (leaving the beef to rest for at least half an hour) onto the hob, add a tablespoon or two of flour and cook out for a few minutes. Add a good glass of red wine and wait until it’s cooked out, and then add hot beef stock (good quality shop bought stuff is good enough) about a ladleful at a time. Always do more than you think you’ll need. Beef gravy is my favourite soft drink, and running out of it when eating a roast makes me want to cry. Add a decent tablespoon of horseradish sauce, season, taste, adjust, taste, adjust, taste, add another stock pot/cube if it’s not intense enough. When you’re happy, strain and keep warm.

 

Don’t cut the beef too thin – you’re not running a budget restaurant; this is Sunday dinner in your own home. Keep the slices at least 1, preferably 2 cm thick. Anyone can make batter, and anyone can heat oil in the oven in a roasting tin until it is screaming hot, ergo anyone can make decent Yorkshire puddings. Any Yorkshire pudding left over? Eat it covered in golden syrup if you have any space left. 

When you serve a roast dinner, don’t plate it up; put your plates and bowls of potatoes, vegetables and meat on the table for everyone to help themselves. It feels like more of a feast that way, and also means that you get to decide exactly how many roast potatoes you get. I hate having my roast potato quota dictated to me. Lastly, never make roast dinner just for yourself. It isn’t worth it, and frankly I can’t think of anything more depressing (who would you raise a toast with?)

France (part one)

Is there anywhere as simultaneously sexy and uncomfortable as a beach? Lots of hot bodies, all within touching distance, everyone wearing at the most a onesie. Brown skin oiling up brown skin with hot hands and wandering eyes. Just as you drift off into a happy daydream involving you (but a stone lighter sporting an all over tan), the two topless Swedish beauties to your right, and Mr ‘can you tell why I’m wearing these budgie smugglers with such confidence’, you have to swat another fly off your face. In so doing manage to cover yourself in a shower of sand which sticks to your freshly applied sun lotion, and knock your can of sprite over onto the book you’ve just started reading. You didn’t bring another book, you didn’t bring another towel, and you now look like a fish finger. Not sexy (Don’t even get me started on the sand-in-sandwich issue).

Every year, about a week after returning from holiday these memories have pretty much faded and you start to crave the beaches again. You forget the stones, the cold sea, the impossibly irritating flies, and can only remember the Swedish. That’s how memory works. Still, I can say with utter confidence that on my recent holiday to Nice in the South of France, the first for two years, I have no unpleasant memories I hope to forget. Well, nearly. The ten (ten!) mosquito bites I received on day one caused me no small amount of grief. However I ate, as they say, like a King. The choice to come to France for me was based in no small part on its gastronomic potential. It’s France for goodness sake. Undisputed home of the foodie world. The nation that gave us croissants, foie gras, the Roux brothers and to no lesser degree, frites. Our last overseas trip other than a few trips back to Blighty and a week in Croatia (pizza and pickled salad mainly) was a week spent in Taba, Egypt. Great snorkelling, awful food poisoning. Everyone I know who has been to Egypt contracted the same horrendous stomach bug. So with this in mind, I was desperate to go somewhere the food would be brilliant and the potential for food poisoning wouldn’t be 100%.

I suggested Nice, and Diesel agreed. The weather was beautiful and the daily highlight of eating pretty much everything on offer made it all the more perfect.

I had a few ‘If I had to die right now, that would be OK’ moments, and nearly had Diesel stolen off me by a beautiful, stacked French waiter in Monaco*. I kept a record of everything we ate at every meal (It makes terrifying reading, probably equivalent to six months in the gym), but to avoid boring you to death, I’d like to give you the highlights. However, there were so many highlights I’m splitting it into two parts. Part two to follow at a later date. Enjoy.

Chez Michelizza

We were warmly welcomed into the home of Madame Michelizza, the mother of a good friend of ours here in Guernsey, originally from Nice. In the 24 hours we were there, we enjoyed two of the most epic meals I have ever been lucky enough to be invited to. Not only was the food beautiful, it is always such a joy to be cooked for by someone's mum. And despite the fact that we spoke virtually no French and they spoke virtually no English, we all got along just fine. I know I said I didn’t just want to list things I’ve eaten, but I don’t know how else to do these meals justice. On our first evening with them we were treated to: 

Saturday evening (deep breath)

Six types of cured sausage (including duck sausage and wild boar and pistachio sausage).

Nice olives

Fresh French bread

Pissiladiere (Essentially a pizza topped with slow cooked onions and olives. Home made dough and everything. It was every bit as good as I had been promised)

Lamb skewers (brought from Italy. Seasoned only with salt and pepper. Awesome).

Ratatouille (my first ratatouille in France. I know I sound like a twat but this actually meant quite a lot to me)

Cheese (One of the ooziest, stinkiest Camenberts I’ve ever eaten, kick you in the teeth Roquefort, local goat cheese)

Homemade almond cakes and coffee

Sunday Lunch

Sausage, nuts, olives and bread again

Oysters

Foie Gras and homemade fig jam

Homemade beef lasagne (nothing at all like lasagne I’ve eaten before. Brought to the table by a family friend, over the border from Italy, made by two Italian mammas (his sisters), layers and layers of the lightest most delicate handmade egg pasta, bite sized beef meat balls, light tomato sauce, mozzarella and pecorino cheese, and not a drop of béchamel sauce in sight. A revelation)

Roasted duck breast (cooked to perfection, absolutely perfectly seasoned with salt and a locally grown type of chilli pepper)

Cheese (as before)

Homemade almond cakes and coffee

Champagne, Italian white and red wine (including a sparkling red which went extremely well with the sausage and olives and such).

The best bit however was Laurent’s Nephew. I don’t normally go crazy over kids but he was gorgeous. He also thought Diesel was hilarious. And was the subject of my favourite photo of the whole holiday. Yep, we were definitely in France.

Petit déjeuner tous les jours

One of the best things about being on holiday in France/Spain for me has got to be fresh bread every morning for breakfast. What made it even better was Diesel going out to purchase it every morning. French bread with soft boiled eggs and parma ham, french butter and apricot jam, or even on its own with a coffee. One of the most affordable gastronomic luxuries there is.

Our first lunch

Our first venture into Nice, the sun was shining, we were feeling relaxed and happy, and as we wandered past a small Bistro that had tables of French people in suits having business lunches eating delicious smelling food, we decided to stop, try out our French and get something to eat. It was the best decision we made all day. I had the best steak tartare I have ever eaten with a well dressed salad and hot crispy frites followed by a delicious selection of small desserts. The best of which was a mini choux pastry bun filled with soft chocolate ice cream, covered in dark chocolate and chopped roasted hazelnuts. The coffee was strong and the wine lent a rosy tint to the rest of the day. Only problem is, I can’t remember what the restaurant was called (One very good reason why I am not writing a travel blog).

Pressed foie gras

Dinner on day two. The foie gras was only the starter, one part of a much bigger meal that included truffle risotto (with shaved truffle, darling), fillet steak Rossini, a beautiful bottle of Beaujolais, etc. However the stand out memory for me was my starter because it was just brilliant. I only got a thin slice, but as with all great foods, only a small amount was more than enough. Let’s have the foie gras debate another time, but for now just believe me when I say that eating the first mouthful of that foie gras with the caramelised  figs made my eyes involuntarily close and my mind wander. Nothing else mattered. It is moments like those that I live for.

(Part two to follow).

*I thought the amount of attention, constant stream of free nibbles, smiles and compliments on our French were a bit unwarranted (esp. as I was sporting some pretty awful mosquito bites on my Tesco value no-tan legs), but then when Diesel told me with a smug grin that the waiter had given him a ‘cheeky wink’ on our way out, and I clocked Diesel’s tight white T-shirt, I put two and two together – my boyfriend looks like gay bait.