Grilling & Chilling

 The Riverside Grill, 19 Castle Lane, Bedford, Beds, MK40 3NT

 It had been a long old day and Mrs Belly and I were really looking forward to the evening. We’d arranged another meet up with some friends (something we can’t do too often these days) and had booked a table at The Riverside Grill, 8pm sunshine. Don’t be late!

The Riverside Grill is set in a great little location which has been regenerated over the last few years. It used to be a very large scabby car park but has since been turned in to a little food court with a high rise residential complex for the rich & stupid, I’m being a bit harsh there. They’re not all rich.

The restaurant was pretty busy when we arrived although there was a lot of seats sitting empty however this didn’t seem to matter as we were told that they were running behind and would we mind going over to The Lanes (a bar owned by the same guys) for a drink, we were given a 10%b discount card and told that someone would come over to collect us when they had “caught up”.

10% discount isn’t to be sniffed at really but The Lanes is quite a pricey bar and even with a 10% discount you’re still paying above standard bar prices. Obviously you might as well make the most of it so we all ordered a different cocktail, I must say the Purple Rain seemed to be the best of the bunch.

After a little catch up and a 2^nd drink we were finally called next door to our table… one that had been empty when we first arrived. Also it didn’t appear that the place was any emptier than when we’d first arrived. Were we sent over to the bar as some sort of ruse to get us to spend more money than we would have or was it all very genuine? We’ll never know but can only ponder what’s, if’s and buts… not those butts!

I’m not sure what it is about the location but there must be something in the air that causes bad service. All of the places I have eaten at down here seem to have some of the worst waiting staff in all of Bedford. I won’t say they’re not friendly as they are, really friendly it’s just that they seem to take their damn sweet time over everything

The first thing we ordered were drinks which took a little time to come then it took a little while longer for them to take our order. The starters came out pretty quickly but were cold and then the gap between that and the main course was massive!

Since I’d had the shredded duck salad I wasn’t too annoyed that it was cold, in fact I had kind of a preconceived notion that the salad would be served cold since historically salads tend to be cold, therefore my disappointment of a cold starter was instantly diminished due to the fact that I felt no disappointment whatsoever. However, the rest of my table were quite disappointed that their “hot” starters were in fact cold, especially Mr Nose who had ordered the Skewered King Prawns.

When we finally received our main course they were a bit better, I mean nothing was hot but it was still warm and edible. It just felt as if everything had been sat out for 10mins before being served.

As for the actual quality of the food, it was fantastic. There wasn’t a single complaint about taste or the quality of the food at all. My duck salad starter was beautiful, it came served with this amazing dressing which appears to be soy& sesame oil but had more of a Dijon mustard kick to it. I also ordered the Hot Habanero Burger for mains (I think it’s called the triple smoked burger now), a thick and juicy “225g Ground Angus beef, topped with our fiery but fragrant chilli, coriander & red onion relish. Served with Cajun spiced chips”. My only issue with the burger was that it’s served in a wholegrain bap, no burger should be served in a wholegrain bap. It’s just not right.

This is the 2^nd time I’ve visited The Riverside Grill, the first time being when it had not long been open and to be honest this visit was practically a carbon copy of that first visit. Sadly this means that what I initially thought were teething issues are obviously not and just the way the place is run. If they ever get the service sorted and the food is served hot then great stuff, get yourself down there. However, while there are still these issues and you do visit then I would ask for a discount on the meal since you’re paying for what you get and if you’re getting cold\tepid food then you really don’t want to be paying full whack.

MRs Belly went for the Pesto Burger, I’m not a massive fan of pesto but even I thought it tasted great.

My only other bone of contention is the actual room itself, it’s quite a big room and beautifully decked out in a modern style with solid chairs & tables and solid furnishings and that is the problem. Because of how solid everything is it turns the room in to one of those “chatter zones” where the noise of everyone talking can become somewhat overwhelming. You’re trying to hold a conversation with the person sat opposite but can hear more coming from the person sat on the other side of the room than you can of your fellow converse because of eth way the sound bounces around the room. Even the waitress struggled to hear what we were ordering. They either need a few soft furnishings or a couple of acoustic tiles fitted in the right place to dampen the sound.

 

 

Everything In Its Right Plaice

Boundary Plaice, 147 Harrowden Road, Bedford

 Once again the chip shop play on words name game comes in to er…. Play. Place, Plaice. Get it!

It’s lunchtime and after my potato cake breakfast I’m in something of a potato mood. A hankering would probably be the best way to describe my potato fondness this cold, drizzly afternoon. Where should I go? I could go to somewhere familiar but then what would I have to write about? It might be crap and then you’ve wasted your belly space on a bad lunch. It might be great in which case ”hooray” all round and a big pat on the back for a decision well made. It all comes down to you dear chums, I bit the bullet for you and chose somewhere new… for you (and don’t you ever forget it).

Today was about sauntering (and potato’s) and so I did, I sauntered in to the chip shop with determination in my heart (might have been heartburn) and a steely will to match (all of this is entirely irrelevant). I would like some chips please, large chips (as in portion size, I don’t want a 6ft x 4ft chip)… and a large sausage in batter (my weapon of choice. Ok, not so much a weapon but most definitely a choice).

I was served quickly, very quickly. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever been served so quickly in all my life. It was literally walk in to chippy, order, get handed food, pay, leave. I would say I was in there no more than 90 seconds. Please do not get your hopes up at a speedy service when you visit as there was only one other person in the chip shop and she was waiting for her order (not so swift there methinks). I don’t want any of you to be disappointed because you expect to strut in there and get your order in seconds especially when you see dozens of bodies lining up outside the door. I think on that kind of occasion you should be prepared to wait and then wait a bit more and then most likely decide that you don’t actually want chips after all so swiftly shuffle off in to the night, or to the park whichever takes your fancy really. You might even decide to start an impromptu barbershop quartet right there and then. If you do, more power to ya!

Portion: Not bad for a large bag of chips. I’m quite stocky fellow and although I did polish off everything I didn’t feel overly full. You know that kind of fullness where there is initial satisfaction but then it drops in to this kind of heavy feeling, a sweeping food depression if you will? Well that didn’t happen.

Chips: Good chips, this could just have been a lucky batch as I did frequent this Plaice (see, puns!) a few years ago but didn’t think much of it. I found the chips tasted like proper home cooked chips that your mum used to make (this goes for 70’s 7 80’s kids only, I cannot comment on 90’s kids tastes as I was too busy being drunk). A nice rich golden brown colour, crisp edges while not being stiff and brittle. Good fluff on the inside and a proper chip smell to them (I was going to clarify this comment but I thought I would leave it open to ones own particular memory of chip smell).

Sausage in Batter: 50/50. A nice even coating of a especially tasty batter, not to heavy either. Rich colour and great crunch to it. Not too much fat soaked in either. The sausage on the other hand was not great. While not being luminous pink there was a pinky tinge too it as if it was under cooked (it wasn’t but the colour would betray it) and it was a little bit slimey, not oozing with slime but there was smooth slipperiness to it. There was a certain phalicness to it  once the batter was peeled back and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a tribe of unic donkey’s or cattle somewhere out there in the wilderness.

All in all it wasn’t that bad, a 75/100 scoring establishment. A nice little chippy let down the todger like sausages. Obviously there are other things to try if you don’t want to feel like you’re the star of some batter based gay porn movie and I think it’s worth another visit (the chippy not the porn movie… not that I’m saying that I’ve starred in gay porn, I could star in gay porn I guess. I don’t think the wife would be too pleased).

I’m not sure how to wrap this up. Erm… Give it a go, it’s clean, it’s friendly, they have chips. What more could you ask for?

Nothing To Pork About

Jane’s Snack & Sandwich Bar, 243 Bedford Road, Kempston, Beds, MK42 8BP

 
My mother always told me that if you don’t have anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say anything at all. I never did listen to my mother.

It’s a cold October lunchtime, I’m just heading towards the bank when I catch a whiff in the air, a meaty whiff, a bacony whiff. Mmmmm bacon. So in an instant it was decided, I would first go to the bank, make my deposit then slink (as much as a fatty can slink) my over to Jane’s Snack & Sandwich Bar and purchase a sausage & bacon French stick with brown sauce & mustard… it’s a classic!

The café itself is pretty smart, the staff seem friendly enough and the food is cooked to order. Now this is where my mothers advice should kick in. Just to reiterate, I never did listen to my mother.

The lady handed me my order “to go” and I trotted along back to my motor car (“poop poop” – That’s a Wind in the Willows reference for all you Mr Toad fans out there, I am not saying my car is shit!).

I unwrapped the little bag and took a bite, well thank god for brown sauce & mustard is all I can say. The bacon was thick but flavourless and large bits of soggy fat were hanging from its sides. I get that most people love bacon fat but not like this, bacon fat needs to be crispy this was as if someone had stuck the dregs of a liposuction operation to the sides of some very poor meat. It was almost as if this wasn’t real bacon at all and that perhaps it had been made in a warehouse somewhere in Kempston Hardwick by some grubby little ham monkey force to work in some kind of fake meat sweatshop. Honestly, I cannot understand how something that had an aroma that good lacked any taste whatsoever and was just plain disgusting.

Hey, that was just the bacon, at least there’s the sausage to… *blurgh!*, what the hell is that!?! It was what you could technically call a sausage but I’ll bet you a fiver that there is more meat in Pinocchio’s pants that there was in this sausage. As a hobby I make sausages and this thing was more rusk than meat, yes there had to be some meat in there but it was pretty hard to find. It was more like a skin filled with mushy grains of who knows what, again flavourless and just bloody odd all round.

But hey, there’s always the bread right?

Yes, there was bread but again there was something odd about it. The outside was crispy (good stuff) a bit like fried bread (love fried bread) but the inside was just doughy as if it hadn’t been baked properly (Paul Hollywood would have thrown all sorts of insult at it). It reminded me of one of those half baked French sticks you get in the supermarket, you know the ones where you have to go home and finish baking it yourself for double the cost of a fully baked loaf from the bakery.

Something good, something good… As previously mentioned, thank god for brown sauce and mustard. If you like brown sauce and mustard and are passing this café then why not pop in and squeeze a few drops in to your mouth before you toddle off on your merry way…. Keep going… keep going… RUN!