Review: Upstairs at Pippa's, Truro.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, this reviewer lived every weekend on the dark side. No matter how high my heels- and they were, as a rule, dizzyingly high- I'd spend Friday and Saturday nights shaking my stuff on nightclub dancefloors. But once the tights I was wearing got older than the majority of the other punters prancing around me, I kind of lost interest.

So imagine my surprise on stumbling (those heels!) upon an oasis for twenty- and thirty-something disco divas in Truro: Pippa's nightspot. Located above the retro/bovine themed Pippa's Steakhouse and boasting similarly seventies inspired decor, Pippa's nightspot is a real find. The tiny dancefloor grooves to everything from old-skool hip-hop to classic disco, with a party atmosphere helped along by the drinks at bar, rather than club prices. And there's not a teenager vomiting alcopops down the back of the seats in sight. Result!

Closing at two am, and costing only two pounds to get in (free if you eat downstairs), Pippa's nightspot is a great value night. I'll definitely be staggering up there again sometime soon.

Betty

Boscastle Water World and Adventure Park

The 2004 flood damaged village of Boscastle is to get a boost to its moral with the announcement that building will start on a new water park in 2007. “Boscastle Water World and Adventure Park” is touted as being “Europe’s most picturesque water park” and as well as utilising many breakthroughs in water slide design, it will also feature Jacuzzis and a “water bar”. The project is being funded entirely by money left over from the Rebuild Boscastle charity fund.

“The sadness on the town has been quite prominent since the flood,” said the Mayor of Boscastle, Dave Jolene. “We have now rebuilt the village and have about fifteen million left over from the fund raising. The committee decided that a water park would be better for the village than the other suggestions like a new Church or a TK Max.”

Most locals are delighted with the new venture and are already planning which slides to go on first. Sales of bikinis and swimming trunks from the local shop have increased five fold since the decision was made.

Even with the excitement that is the buzz of the village there is always the memory of that dreadful day in August 2004 and most villagers are sure they will never forget. "It was exactly like the Asian tsunami, only coming from inland .Luckily, no one died in ours." Said three times Boscastle May Queen, Francine Fremula, 86.

The water park is revolutionary in its design, forgoing the regular structural girders and plinth method and instead using the natural profile of the valley which is described as being “absolutely ideal” for a water slide.

But its not all good news, there are a small number of residents opposed to the Boscastle Water World and Adventure Park due to concerns over the veruca epidemics that have plagued other villages with water parks; the Normandy village of Merci du Mere was totally destroyed by a veruca epidemic in the mid sixties, for example.

Even with the small number of local objectors, the momentum for the park is now in full effect with an opening date of June 1st 2007. Cornish legend John Nettles has agreed to the honor of opening the slide. Speaking from his home in Bugle, Nettles told midcornwall.com "I once went on a water slide while filming a Christmas special of Bergerac in the Algarve. It was great. Though I still think I prefer going to the Monkey Sanctuary near Looe."

Midcornwall.com Chritsmas Message

At this time of festivity and celebration, in these days of Yuletide happiness and giving, we at midcornwall.com invite you all to spare a thought for those people on the planet who didn’t get an XBOX 360 with Gears of War for Christmas, such as myself.

Jingle Bells

Review: The King's Head, Ruan Lanihorne

Ruan Lanihorne is an ancient and picturesque village on one of the tributaries of the Fal. It’s only about ten miles from St Austell and with its wind-swept mud flats and many long and short walks it’s well worth a visit for a weekend stroll. The village, though small, is quite spread out and has some interesting old houses, a “castle” and a pre-norman church that is worth a stroll around.

The Pub

The King’s Head is an attractive pub with traditional décor and modern restaurant layout. Because the layout is focussed on dining rather than “ye old alehouse atmosphere” it does lack a certain cosiness, but it is by no means sterile. The staff were all friendly and obliging.

The Menu

The menu is heavily biased towards sea food, especially the Daily Specials. The cheapest main course is about seven pounds, the most expensive fifty new pence under thirteen pounds. As well as the fish they serve steak, pheasant , local sausages and other meats.

I had the plaice: one of the daily specials, and it was a beautiful piece of fish cooked to perfection. It came with chips (which I always think of as a bit of a cop out) and the salad, though fresh and varied was let down a tad by the vinaigrette that refused to let its self be noticed. Call me old fashioned, but a restaurant salad should be able to stand up as a dish in its own right and that didn’t happen here. Nonetheless, the meal was just shy of superb.

I also had the Moules Marinere, which was fantastic. The sauce was right and well balanced and the addition off rosemary was an unusual but interesting diversion for this classic. This is the same dish I had in the Seven Stars a few days ago. The mussels could have come from the same rock… yet the two dishes could not have been more different. The King’s Head was orders of magnitude better.

There is a kind of person that is not very welcome at the King’s Head: that is one of those folk who have taken it upon themselves to only eat plants and nuts. Right or wrong, this cult is here to stay and most of its disciples are not going to be happy with a ploughman’s or its unimaginative relations. As a meat-eater this menu undersight didn’t bother me in the slightest but as two of my dining companions were “friends of Linda” it was a bit of a downer to put up with their glum faces and “why can’t people see we are just like everyone else deep down” protestations.

Lucky for the rest of us, the chef came to the rescue with two hastily prepared vegetarian risottos that were described by the two hippies as “not great” and “tasty” respectively, averaging 6.5 out of 10. I seem to remember reading somewhere that vegetarians have different taste buds to normal people so that would probably put the score for the risotto at a normalised 5 out of ten.

Menu Update: A blog reader called Auntie Rita has this to say:

Just an update on the Kings Arms - when we visited it on 3rd Jan., it had included an excellent cauliflower risotto to its menu that was highly rated by two of our party. The starter of garlic tiger prawns is superb. 7 of us had a lovely evening with everyone delighted with the food, service and ambiance of the whole place. Highly recommended.

Conclusion

It’s a lovely gastro-pub in a lovely location. Pretty easy to get to with excellent food, unless you’re a veggie, in which case you should probably stay in the car with some cress.

	Seven Stars	Kings Head
Food	6	9
Service	7	6
Ambiance	6	7
Setting	4	8
Value	5	7
Overall	6	8

R. A. Hawke & Co. Coal Merchants.

There are a fair few places you can get coal in Mid Cornwall. At various times we have used Griggs farm shop, Tresillian garage and Hawkes Coal in Polgooth. I have just come back from the latter with four bags of “blue”. I also took my camera and my dictaphone.

R. A. Hawke’s was started in 1876 by Mrs Thomas (nee Hawke’s) great grandfather. Back then the coal would come in to the harbour at Pentewean, three hundred tons to a schooner, and be transported by train up the Pentewean valley to St Austell. The sidings where it was offloaded can still be seen behind the Co-op, and Mr and Mrs Thomas also remember a gasworks at the same site.

Once in St Austell the coal would be taken by donkey cart to and around Polgooth. A twelve year old boy, a donkey and half a hundred weight would supply coal to the entire village. Back then every house used coal.

The business was passed down from great grandfather to grandfather to father and then to daughter and husband, who are the simply charming current proprietors. They have been running the shop since the fifties and though the world of coal and Cornwall have changed, inside the shop a nostalgic stasis persists in a way that can’t help but make you smile.

The shop is unlike anything else in the area. A tiny space, the floor is packed with various colour bags of coal and kindling. Everywhere above the coal sacks is packed tight with a bewildering collection of vases and trinkets and bits and bobs. All for sale, but seldom sold, except perhaps in the summer when tourists inadvertently find the place.

Mr Thomas, now a very old man who can't lift much, is delightfully proud of his past physical prowess. He rolls out little tales and observations and seems to enjoy curious customers… “The long handled shovel, you've seen one of those, the number eight, the “banjo” we used to call it…fourteen ton trucks… shovel one of them by hand… ‘handrolics’ we used to call it!” he recalls with pride.

Mrs Thomas, the doyenne of the Polgooth coal set, was born 300 yards from the shop. She loves to chatter and always passes on little morsels of local history that don’t really need any context to be interesting; like the story of when the mines stopped production, the locals in Polgooth couldn’t sleep because they weren’t used to the quiet.

If you ever need coal and you would like to have a glimpse into a fading past, then take the trip to Polgooth, and buy the best value coal in the area. The warmth of the anthracite is nothing compared to the warm feeling I have when I leave the shop after a banter with two of the loveliest old locals you could meet. One day I may even buy a vase.

Newsflash: Cornish Lesbians Could Drown

A renowned Cornish scientists yesterday issued a warning that if global warming persists and sea levels rise lesbians throughout the country could drown. Speaking on BBC Radio Cornwall’s Lesbian County show, Professor Brian Shermish, stated:

“It isn’t looking good. A 10% rise in sea levels around the county could be catastrophic for the Cornish Lesbian population. Especially if it happened very quickly and in the summer when many lesbians are known to frequent beaches and/or estuaries.”

This morning, in a phone interview, Bridget Faulkner, the spokeswoman for Cornish Lesbians Against Drowning informed midcornwall.com that they are adopting a county-wide free swimming lesson program for all lesbians. “Some lesbians are naturally good swimmers, others are not. Its up to CLAD to make sure that those who are not are kept well away from coastal regions just in case,” she said.

A CLAD protest.

Review of the Unnamed Gastro-Pub

It is 18:25 on a cold Tuesday night in St Austell and we are going out to a pub for dinner. We don't know where it will be but it will be within the legendary Polgooth/Brit midcornwall pub quadrant. Wherever we go, I will be reviewing later tonight. Its this kind of real time reporting that pushes midcornwall.com up there with CNN, BBC and Pirate FM. Check back shortly for what is going to be the best blog based review of a Pub with Grub in the history of the internet...


We are back!

It is 20:00. We are 40 pounds less in money and we are full... find out what happened in the exciting last 90 minutes...

After a small amount of debate we chose a pub that we had been to many times before. But this time, with two kids (one four today) and a critical bent we went in midcornwall.com review mode.

The pub in question has no name. Within the town is known simply by its prestigious amount of Michelin stars, of which it has seven.

Décor wise its pretty good. The only drinking area is the bar area. It has a nice - not too smokey - atmosphere and tonight had a very welcome real fire in the hearth. The staff are always friendly as are the punters - an important point in pubs that serve as restaurants.

The Menu

The bottom line main course is about six quid, the most expensive is Peppered T Bone Steak which is a whopping nineteen pounds. Nnn nnn nnn nnninteneen pounds for a steak, in Cornwall, with chips.. and peas?!!!! Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God that’s expensive! The price of the steak is the most remarkable thing about the menu, really. I am sure it was a bit more adventurous two or three years ago but today it wasn’t.

I ordered Mussels and Steak and my domestic assistant/wife went for the vegetarian chillie. I also ordered Carlsberg Export which had the grainy piquancy of an autumn morning and the fortifying effect of pure ambrosia. A remarkable pint.

The Muscles were OK, they were all fresh and all opened with only about two "I have mollusk cancer" patients in the bowl. The sauce was the sally army version of some kind of white wine sauce. It was watery and lacked any real flavor. Good muscles bad sauce.

The steak main course wasn’t the nnnn nnn nninteen version but the more modest rump. It wasn’t bad at all but there was no real effort in the preparation. Of special note, the boiled potatoes were shameful vegetable carcasses that had been bathed in microwaves on more than one occasion, I suspect.

My domestic assistant felt her veggie curry was pretty good. Six out of ten, good veggies and good selection but taste wise unexciting.

Conclusion

St Austell has so few nice places to go out that we are often scratching in fallow fields of choice the summer after the very same megadrought that killed off the plague of locusts the winter before. Or, to use a less ridiculous metaphor, we are clutching at straws. And so places like "The Michelin Severn Stars" we have to keep going back to. Its that or pot noodles.

The pub, as a Gastro-Pub/restaurant gets 6 out of ten in my book and my domestic assistant concurs with this. The food could probably get a 7 out of ten if they went a bit further afield in their culinary meanderings. The place itself could get a higher rating if they steam cleaned the seats, which were black with the rancid sweat of a legion diners and drunkards.

The Final word:

These Ancient Aisles

St Austell Historic Market Town,
Unjustified and Ancient.
Let's bring her down.

Shatter her bones across the bay,
From the Gribben's feet
To the heart of Clay.

And in her place ,
From moor to shore,
Build me the biggest,
Brightest
Super
Store.

Crazy Cactus Changes Menu after Midcornwall.com review!

Just two days after posting my review of the Crazy Cactus I have been told that they have changed their menu! It is now no longer a Mexican but an “American Diner”. I just spoke to someone there and they were unable to comment on if the menu change was the result of my review or not – suspiciously, she pretended to have not read my review and feigned disinterest at the existence of this www.midcornwall.com blog.

The nice lady was however able to confirm that the waitresses are still wearing the bottle green chemise de merde and the interior furnishings are still Harvesteresque.

Progress takes time good people, progress takes time.

Review: Crazy Cactus Resturant, St Austell

I love chilli, I love Mexican and I love beer, so when I heard a couple of years ago that Snozzle was going “down Mexico way” in the Mount Charles vicinity I was delighted. It just so happens that my earliest food memory is from Mount Charles; a little white wiggly-worm in the pallid pink meat of a school dinner sausage roll.

I had eaten in Mount Charles since 1976, for example at the Indian across the road, which isn’t a bad Indian at all. But this was the first time, ever, in Cornwall that I was going to be eating Mexican. I put on not one but TWO imaginary ponchos and with my Senorita in tow, we went to the Crazy Cactus (I was going to go on a 16 hour Peyote odyssey but mum wanted us to pick up the kids by 11).

Walking into the establishment one could literally be walking into a restaurant in Mexico, assuming they have Harvesters there. I mean the décor is OK, don’t get me wrong, it just doesn’t have anything authentic. I would rather eat in a normal restaurant than a theme restaurant that falls short of the theme.

The Staff were all really lovely and friendly and helpful but they had a fault which, frankly, almost ruined the entire evening. My wife knows her fashion and style and its very rare we agree on an issue about either, but on this we did, unequivocally. The staff were forced to wear these really minging bottle green Fred Perry type shirts. OMG they are so bad. They make you think of all that is bad about sportswear, when really you should be thinking about tequila sunsets and pangender mustaches.

Let them wear aprons!

The food was good. It wasn’t great, but it was good Tex Mex, good ingredients and all that; apart from the frozen chips. Like the staff’s attire, the food had one major falling and that is that it just wasn’t hot enough. Not even slightly. Its disappointing. When you go to a Mexican there should, I feel, be a little sense of excitement about the food. What made it worse was that when I asked for more chilli sauce they bought some bland oil didn’t sand blast my tongue but rather coated it in grease. Not good, not good at all.

It got quite lively at the end of the evening, getting what for St Austell was a nice restaurant buzz. We left feeling not disappointed, we had a great evening but we both agree the whole experience was a bit bland.

Contact Crazy Cactus on 01726 871333

C K Chesterton

Review: The St Austell Voice “Newspaper”

If you're in St Austell, walking through Fore Street and you feel a bit down because everyone looks so sad-keeping-a-brave-face then don’t worry. Simply stroll down West Hill to the open plan offices of St Austell Voice and the glumness of the dudes in there will really cheer you up. The staff of the St Austell Voice make a Russian heroin clinic look like the opening of the Sydney Olympics.

Here they are at the launch of the paper in May 2006:









Here they are today, a few months after publication:






Key facts about the St Austell Voice:

• It is a very bad newspaper.
• It tries to sensationalize things about St Austell when we all know that there is nothing sensational about it at the moment.
  
• The St Austell Voice sells for 40 new pence, which is, as the paper proudly boasts “less than half the price of its 85p rival Cornish Guardian”. They are correct in their calculations, but they overlook the fact that the Cornish Guardian is more than twice as good - In fact, current analytics rank the Cornish Guardian as being over twelve thousand times better than the St Austell Voice.
  

If you are in the doctors and the queue is 3 hours long and you have read that copy of Good Housekeeping from 1988 and someone else is still reading the NHS pamphlet on penicillin allergies then maybe, just maybe, you could have a read of the St Austell Voice. But under any other circumstances do not read this paper. Ever.


C K Chesterton

Review: O’Callaghan’s, St Austell, on a Thursday Night

O’Callaghan’s is one of those pubs that on the outside you think might be a rough one. When its busy there are bouncers and after going there many times, there has never been trouble.

If your under 60, its the best pub in St Austell, by a long shot – unless your under 20 in which case “The Station” might be more your bag.

Thursday night is a good night. Its open mic which means that the same people (Notably Patrick "The Friendly Busker" and some local bands get up and do there stuff. Occasionally there may be the odd troubadour who has managed hitch hike from the cultural hub of Grampound, but for the main, its the same people. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a good thing.

It is a nice friendly atmosphere that, for brief moments just before closing, can have the air of a place where something great is happening. Like CBGEEBIES in '78 or Ronnie Scotts . Moments when music and culture are entangling actively and astoundingly. Of course this isn’t really happening at O’Callaghan’s on a Thursday Night, but it is a nice illusion.

I am in no way associated with the pub. In fact, I was banned from there a couple of years ago and I think the landlord is surly. But its a great pub for Snozzle.

O’Callaghan’s, 01726 72758

C K Chesterton

Before St Austell’s face Lift, lets all have a face lift.

As a proud St Austell resident I am as despondent as the next regarding the status, current – and future – of our town center. What was once a drab and dismal excuse for a municipal core has now descended into a monstrous excuse for a bomb site. We all know this, and we all know that until the council, the cinema fetishists and Tescos sort out their act, this is the way it will stay.

However, just because our town is in such a sorry state does it really mean that the residents have to follow suit. Please, I implore you, my fellow Snozzelians, do try to make an effort with your appearance.

Go to Truro, London or New York and you will notice that the citizens of these places spend some time on their appearance. Women might use conditioner, men might wear something other than track suit bottoms that have gone all “bubbly”. Many shops in the town center sell clothes and products aimed specifically at making people look and feel better. A dash of lipstick. A smattering of gel. The radiance of a well shaved face.

I don’t expect Fore Street to become a cat-walk but wouldn’t it be nice if we could all muck in and try to brighten up each others days by not looking like escapees from a dress-down boot camp.

The next couple of years could be our towns darkest hours, lets not let them grind us down. All it takes is a little zing.

C K Chesterton

Moreland Road

St Austell

(This was originally published as a letter in the Cornish Guardian in July 2004)