Review: Chantek Thai Fusion Resturant, Truro

When you eat out, do you um and ahh as you read the menu, change your mind about five times and only make up your mind what to eat when the waiter arrives? Or do you scan it efficiently and stick to your decision, the menu closed on the table when all around you dither? If you fall into the latter camp, you are either a ruthlessly efficient restaurant robot or, like me, a vegetarian.

Vegetarians seldom have the opportunity to vacillate, there being only one or two options available to them. Often, it’s veggie lasagne or starve, and don’t get me started about places that think vegetarians eat fish. So when I spotted the innumerate little ‘V’s all over the extensive menu at Chantek on Truro’s trendy New Bridge Street, I came over all a flutter. To my joy and amazement, they can cook nearly all of their main courses with tofu as an alternative to meat or fish, and boy! Can they cook them well!

Price-wise, Chantek offers good value all round, with beautifully presented starters from £5 , including soups, salads and other sundries. My dining companions opted for the mixed starter to share at £10.50, which included funky little steamed chicken parcels wrapped in banana leaves, king prawns and a range of deep fried delights they declared delicious. I had the vegetable tempura, crisp and succulent with a sweet and tangy chilli dip, all for £6.50.

In the mood for heat, we all opted for curries, mine a spicy jungle one. It wasn’t nearly as hot as I’d have liked, but contained a good range of well cooked vegetables and the sauce was sticky and delicious, as was the jasmine rice I had to accompany it. One of the people eating with us asked for "the hottest curry the chef had ever made" and it came in at a disapointing mildness.... but a great taste.

We enjoyed a bottle of chilly dry white with our meal, but opted out of dessert, having already eaten way too much. We were delighted to find the bill totalling just over £60 for the three of us

Chantek offers good value dining in a cool and atmospheric venue, with good service and an authentic range of dishes from the pacific rim which is close to representing the holy grail of vegetarian eating. It's cheaper, better more stylish and less snooty than Truro's other fusion restaurant, Snooty Lu Lus.

For chilli and choice in the heart of Truro, try Chantek.

Bettyxx

Chantek Asian Fusion Restaurant.
15 New Bridge Street
Truro
TR1 2AA
Tel: 01872 225071

Chantek is featured in The Truro Map

Review: The Taj Mahal Restaurant St Austell

The Taj Mahal, or "Taj" as it is known locally, is an Indian restaurant in Mount Charles. It has been there for nearly two decades, and in those two decades myself and many others I know have eaten there. The consensus has always been, its a good Indian. You don't really hear bad things about it, whereas over a restaurant close by you often hear bad vibes being spoken.

Its Not Cricket

We booked a table for 8.30, and accounting for the time difference we arrived at three in the afternoon. This was a mistake; Indian restaurants all use the same time zone as England. Returning at the 8.30pm GMT we were met by a real energy as we walked in. The restaurant was packed. People were leaving with takeouts. And the waiters were instantly and genuinely, friendly.

The decor of The Taj is the Anglgo-Asian kitsch that's so authentic for British Indian restaurants. The rattan screens and the hand painted murals are right off the cover of a Bollywood Mills and Boon. Class or cack, its the real deal.

Pompadom Pompido

With Kingfisher on tap at a restaurant-reasonable £3.20 a pint, the beer side of the evening was covered. My domestic assistant also joined me with the aforementioned ale. To start the ball rolling we took in some popadom and pickles. These can range from really uninspired to so tasty that they make you not want your starter. Last night the popdoms were good. And for those who don't know: the POLITE way to break the popodoms is for the woman who first sat down to do it, using the back knuckle of her right hand.

The Onion Router

The onion bhaji at the Taj stands out as kings among bhaji. They were light and golden with crispy tendrils of batter that seemed more like tempura than the normal onion stodge in batter that we were expecting. Probably the best bhaji I, or my domestic assistant, have ever had.

The Phall of Man

I make no bones about it, I will challenge anyone to a curry eating contest. If there was an Olympic event for it, I'd try for the English team. I have beaten the entire country of Sri Lanka in terms of curry challenges - they are pussies - and I have eaten the world's hottest curry. It is the only achievement I can say I am proud of (thinking about it, that might be my only achievement). So when I order a Phall in an Indian restaurant I generally feel that I will be operating merely in Bombay Bad Boy/ lower-Vindaloo territory.

I told the waiter I wanted a Phall extra hot:

"Make you sweat?"
"Make me cry."

I think the best way to capture the experiences is with this scan of my notebook:

Goodness Gracious Proper Job


This is a romper stomping Indian that, like a good sound system, delivers at the low and high end of the frequency scale. The Phall was godly in taste and fire and we really enjoyed all else too. The buzz in the place lasted all night and we left with real smiles at the end.

We got a taxi home from a man who claimed to be called Paul. I cannot guarantee that that really was his name, but I can guarantee that he enthused with us about how good the Taj is, as do, so he claims, many of his passengers. Can we trust him on this? I'm not sure but I am sure that the Taj is a quality Indian. And its opposite my old school...

Telephone: 01726 73716

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This post has been brought to you by Holly House Bed and Breakfast St Austell, Cornwall.

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Logically Sound Thai Supermarket Sells Noodles and More

When I walked out of St Austell's new Lanna Thai Supermarket on Saturday I was given some advice by the proprietor. It is, and I quote verbatim:

"Things are more like today than they ever have been before."

If you think that's strange, wait until you hear how she gave me this advice. She... get this... printed it on a piece of paper and then baked it in a small crispy cookie shell parcel! No lie, brothers and sisters, no lie.


Sure, it was a weird thing to tell me, but her logic couldn't be faulted. I had every reason to trust her, and now I have been there three times in as many days. This is what I have found.



I don't feel like chicken tonight.

As well as 3-D Macrospectrometry, the Asians invented the food paste. They were the first, and the consensus is they still are the best. Nobody can pack more flavour, colour and aroma into a paste, powder or sauce as the Asians. One jar of paste is worth four jars of the Western version of oriental sauces you get in Asda et al. You can get various curry pastes in the Lanna Thai Supermarket, as well as non-curry dishes and soups.

We got a jar of Tom Yam paste on Saturday and some thick white wet noodles (from Japan) from the new shop. We nashed to Lidl and got some veggies. Stir fried the veggies and the noodles, added two tea spoons of paste and some water and it was delicious.

St Austell Packet Noodles

I also got some little packet noodles. These are about 40p, so, much more expensive than in Lidl or Asda. I had one for lunch on Monday, upgraded with a bit of spring onion. I eat a lot of noodles and these were really good as well - the one I had today had three separate sachets in with the noodles. If someone is will to go that extra sachet mile for me, I'm happy to pay the extra twenty pence.

Dinner for the kids tonight was Thai packet noodles, one packet of chicken flavored (40p) as recommended by Uri for kids. I added the chilli sachet by accident -the two- year-old thought it too spicy, it made her cry a little. Goal! The four year old loved it.


I can believe it's not butter

The best drink in the world is the King Coconut, or Thambili, from Sri Lanka. If that sounds really pretentious, I'm sorry, but I can't get across what a magical elixir of life and goodness this stuff is. I go to Sri Lanka a lot and its one of the things I really look forward to. The Lanna Thai Supermarket sells them, well, it sells the slightly inferior but still just divine Thai baby coconut. So nice. The babies cost two quid and are really environmentally unfreindly so snap them up before the EU whacks a supertax on foodstuffs that are 95% packaging, even if in this case it is natural.


They also sell the cans of the not quite as nice processed version which is still yummy - I bought one can and we had a family row over it, which was only solved after buying two more.

Green Thai Ruby


Uri said she had two types of green curry, one the Rolls Royce and one the BMW. I asked her what Asda sold, she thought for a bit then said "Vauxhaul," with a big smile. She also gave me the coconut cream I would need, some fresh baby aubergines, some weird stuff called something like "ong choy". I also got some green noodles, another can of cocconut drink and potted verbal instructions on how to make the green curry. It was simple and soooo nice.


One night in Bannock and the world is your oyster mushroom etc etc

I have been to Thialand a few times and it has so much to offer: the people, the temples, the ladyboys, the food....The food is especially yummy and the fact that it's so easy to cook at home, if you have the ingredients, makes it a double-whammy yummy. These supermarkets that dominate the town from its edges might be convenient but they don't have the kind of food or community contribution that Uri's, Smorger's Delicatessen or even the butcher's in Vicaridge Place has.

Good luck to Uri and Lanna Thai Supermarket.

Review: Tengo, St Austell

When Tengo opened in St Austell, it was perhaps expected to herald a new dawn of frapuccino frolics and latte laughter. The days of curling sliced egg sandwiches accompanied by weak tea were over, replaced by mexican wraps and sparkling water. Surely the rest of the town would follow in Tengo's footsteps and finally leave the dark days of the seventies behind?

Well, it didn't, so Tengo remains the very pinnacle of modernity in the mess of charity shops and pasty emporia that is Fore Street. The menu is fresh and contemporary, eschewing sausage rolls and iced buns in favour of salads, pizza, sandwiches and soups, as well as a range of cakes and cookies. Price-wise, it's incredibly good value, averaging only around £2.50 for a sandwich and £1.50 for a coffee.

When we ate there last Saturday, things got off to a poor start with service so slow we almost walked out. The door was propped open despite the lowest temperatures this winter, and I noticed that the interior's modern crispness has lost a bit of its shine. But the food, when it arrived, was good, if nothing special. I had a wrap and a salad (I was very hungry), both of which were fresh and very filling but a little bland. My partner had spicy chicken salad and a prawn wrap, both of which were "nothing special" but the salad itself was good.


Tengo does have a dedicated restaurant hidden away upstairs, which might well be superb for all I know. As for the cafe itself, it's essentially a sandwich bar with tables. And that's no bad thing: it's neither twee nor tatty, and it sells the kind of food that young people prefer to toasted teacakes. The food itself is perfectly adequate, the coffee is fantastic and the opportunities for people-watching are good.


Scores: (As a sandwich bar, not a restaurant or cafe etc)

Food:6/10
Service: 6/10
Ambiance: 5/10
Overall: 6/10

Betty

Western Inn In Al Quaida Paella Scandal

We were going to go out for dinner with my mum and dad and the kids tonight to a gastro-pub in Newquay, thanks to The Times' 'Eat out For A Tenner for Two Courses' promotion. Unfortunately, my domestic assistant lost the vouchers so we were at a loss. Where to go? The thought process went a little something like this: "Its the Wezzer, Seven Stars or White Hart?" "Wezzer?" "Yeah." Now we feel a bit on edge because we reviewed them as part of the GRRR and they got a good score and we don't want to be seen as in any way biased. It's hard, don't ya know. But I think it's fair to say that collectively we were all very impartial for the review. Let's not focus to much... instead let's just give the lowdown:

• Half of us had the special from the main dinner menu. The special menu was just under a tenner for starter, side dish and main. There was a good selection of Spanish food but.... see below.
  

• The fish and chips, eaten by my mum, was described initially as a 9 out of 10. I had to batter her down. "What, are you crazy, woman!!! Are you saying it's up there with the best ever fish and chips ever? That's what a ten is, don't ya hear me!!!" After some thought it was given an 8/10. I'd like to add that my mum, aka The Angemeister, thought the fish was as good in quality and cooking as Rick Stein's fish and chip shop restaurant/haberdashery.
• The mussels - we had two types. The marinere and the Spanish. The standard marinere was far better in flavour than the themed version. Great quality Fowey river Mussels.
• The Vegetarian - The vegetarian with us was pretty blown away by her starter, a patatas bravas/ alli oli combo (8.5/10).
  
• The Paella - This was Spanish night and there was no Paella. Thats like having an Indian night and not having curry. They did have a vegetarian paella but as this lacked saffron it cannot be classed as paella under new EU directive 200/13/EC. However, my domestic assistant did rate this mockery of a Spanish main course an above average 7/10, even with the missing crocus jizz.

The Western Inn isn't a restaurant. It isn't a gastro-pub. It is an unassuming local that has recently started doing some unexpectedly impressive food. For me the best assessment of it is that my folks, who are pretty critical of things (such as me, and everything I have ever done or not not done. Why can't you just let me be me?!) were pleasantly surprised at the quality, service and atmosphere (apart from the smoke).

Viva La Wezzer!

Review: One Eyed Cat Restaurant, Truro.

As far as I'm concerned, the name 'One Eyed Cat' ranks alongside 'Pink Taco' in its cringeworthy tawdriness. Thus I hadn't been tempted by the bar/restaurant in Truro of the same name until yesterday, when I went there to meet a friend for lunch. And I can now reveal that the smutty monicker is in no way representative of the quality of the eaterie itself.

The venue is fantastic: a tiny gothic church conversion with a trendy red and rococo interior. The chilled out sounds that accompanied my lunch are replaced in the evening, I'm told, by something more upbeat, and more in keeping with the extensive cocktail list, from £4. The bistro style food menu is dominated by fresh fish and pizza, with starters from £3.95 and mains from around £6, with a good range of specials on the board with a similar vibe. Which is why I was taken aback to note that the most expensive item on the menu was a staggering £13.50 for a pizza, would you believe (Thai king prawn, since you ask, but still- a pizza).



No condiments appeared on the table but otherwise the service was good and the server most presentable.

My dining companion had the Thai fishcakes for lunch, and I the roasted vegetable ciabatta, accompanied by nothing stronger than a sparkling water. The ciabatta, at £6.95, was piping hot and stuffed with good fresh vegetables and goats' cheese: a little oily, bland, but enjoyable. It was served with a salad which wasn't exactly in Prada but was, at least, dressed. My dining companion's creme fraiche and chili sauce were in short supply but otherwise her fishcakes were good.

Verdict: great to look at and filling if not exactly thrilling to eat.


Food: 7/10
Decor: 8/10
Service: 7/10
Value: 7/10

Overall:

7/10 Betty

Review: La Scala Wine Bar and Resturant, Truro

After lusting over the handbags in the window of Via Appia, it’s all too easy to walk straight past the discreet glass door leading to La Scala. There’s nothing much there to suggest that behind it, nestled behind the cathedral on Cathedral Lane, is a rather smart Italian themed wine bar that’s the perfect place to meet your girlfriends after a hard day at work or just vexing your visa card.

La Scala comprises several elegant rooms including a bar, a lounge, a conservatory and a garden over two floors. The décor is classy and understated, as is the menu. There are only seven dishes to choose from, all at a very reasonable £7.95, and all authentically Italian. My dining companion and I both plumped for the melanzane, an aubergine and courgette pasta dish. Aubergines are often underdone and woody, but La Scala’s melanzane was done to perfection, and accompanied by fresh baguette and a leaf salad- sadly undressed, my only complaint about the meal. The food was of an extremely high quality and the service excellent. I enjoyed two good, fresh tasting coffees with my lunch, but soon wished I’d left the car at home when my friend ordered a Pinot Grigio from the extensive wine list and declared it crisp and chilled to perfection.

The meal, including three coffees, one glass of wine and two main courses, came to £24, which in my view represents pretty good value for the overall dining experience. If Carrie Bradshaw ever felt like exploring Sex In This City, she’d take the weight off her Manolo’s in La Scala. And I’d join her.

Food 9/10

Ambiance 9/10

Service 10/10

Value 9/10

La Scala

15 St. Marys Street , Truro

01872 275 600

Review: Pulse 8 Night Club, St Austell

I like writing these reviews. I generally spend a few days writing them in my head before laying them down in zeroes and ones. This period of inner review reflection, I think, gives better quality reviews at the end of the day.

But to review St Austell’s only club, Pulse 8, which last night I went to again, I don’t feel a pause for reflection is required.

Pulse 8 is a rubbish club. It is a soulless, spiritless wasteland of recreation that the Gods of Funk and the Angels of Pop never bless. I think the name is actually a reference to how exciting it is in terms of heart beats per minute.

I won’t even sit here and hurl creatively carved insults at it. I won’t lay down my clubbing credentials as some kind of justification for how bad I know this club to be. This wastes my time and, my dear reader, it wastes your time.

It’s not all negative….

Actually, it is I am afraid. Hang the DJ. Get some promoters to run the nights rather than just open the doors… yawn. This town must be full of cool bright young things who would love the opportunity to put on some club nights in what is a really super venue in a town that is desperate for some pulse.



Postscript: I have heard that there is a new night just started in town inside Grant’s Snooker club. We will be reviewing it soon.

Great Restormel Roast Review: The Western In, St Austell GRRR#1

The Western Inn, or "wezzer" is my local pub, so what better way to start The GRRR Project than with Sunday lunch there. But before I talk about the review I do need to say as a caveat that one of the worst meals I have eaten in Cornwall was at The Western Inn. This was three or four years ago and it was just a vile kind of scampi and chips meets Frankenstein combo. Dreadful and only trumped in badness by the "cafe" at the Lappa Valley Steam Railway, which you should never grace with your presence.

The Pub

The Western Inn is at the Western side of St Austell, straddled by the COOP and the Riverside Chinese take away. It doesn't get many points for its location that's for sure, but if you are interested in ancient river crossings there is a very old bridge next to it that is mentioned in some very old texts and, more importantly, the Mid Cornwall Blog. Unlike other St Austell town centre pubs, parking isn't a problem as the pub has its own car park, or you can use the COOP's.

The Western Inn has been renovated inside and out quite recently since acquiring new management. Last year the pub won a prestigious pub trade award and this year is in the running for a second.


The Meal

There were lots of us eating today: eight adults and a countless bunch of children, some of which were even my own, allegedly. We booked at 10am and were told that we could have the top area for ourselves which would also be no smoking. A good start. The big fire in the open stove was on and the St Austell ales were flowing nicely.



I think in these GRRR Project reviews we will drop the normal highly entertaining and hilarious postmodern prose and instead jump in with pros and cons as bullet points about the meal itself, based upon all reviewers comments.


Pros

• The beef - This was just about as good a bit of beef as I have had and most of us agreed. It melted in the mouth, was tender with a crispy edge and was well portioned. One of us preferred it more rare but admits he didn’t ask for that.


• The veggies - These were fresh from the farm in the morning and were of a very high quality. Its not often you go out to a pub roast and think, “Mmm.. ya me like de carrots,” but that’s what happened with these little fellas.


• Portions – Again, good. Some places give you way too much and you end up spending most of Sunday in a condition doctors called PRB or post-roast bloat. Here the portions were just right in our opinion.



• Sundries – The horseradish was great, not sure if it was home made or not but it had a good kick. The yorkshire puds were definitely home made and, again, really nice.


• The vegetarian option – Readers of this blog will be starting to learn about the dire state of veggie food in local restaurants. The one veggie in our party (my domestic assistant) had the same roast as us but with veggie sausages and she thought it was easily one of the best veggie meals (not just roasts) she has had out in Cornwall for a long while. She gave her meal 8 out of 10.


• Desserts - The desserts were nothing super special in terms of choice: just pancakes, local ice cream etc., but those who had them all thought they were fab.


• The price – It was only when paying I asked how much the roasts were. At £5.95 I was pretty shocked. That’s astounding value for the quality of the food, especially when other local pubs charge 50% more.

Cons

• The gravy – This wasn’t exactly bad but it wasn’t on the same level as the rest of the meal. It was a tad not thick enough and one of the reviewers complained, rightly so I think, that it lacked noticeable seasoning.


• The roast potatoes - Again, these weren’t bad at all, but they could have done with that super crispy chunky yummy exterior that the best roast roasites always have. (I have since discovered that the manageress makes expert roast potatoes normally but on this day she was preparing questions for the pub quiz. Our taste buds' loss was someone’s brain cells gain.)

Score and Conclusions

In these reviews we will list the marks out of ten from all adults in the party and then give a final "offical" score for use in comparison with other pub roasts reviews in future. Children's marks won't be recorded. None of them can really count. Also these scores are just for the food and not for the location, value for money, service etc.

Individual Reviewer Scores: 7.5/10, 8/10, 7.5/10, 7/10, 6/10, 8/10 8/10(v)

Considering this is the first review in the Great Restormel Roast Review I think its going to be a hard act to follow. In terms of location the Western Inn is probably at the bottom of the league for Mid Cornwall pubs, but in terms of the food and general homeliness of the Sunday Roast it is well worth a Sunday visit. Bravo!

Official GRRR Project score, 8/10

The Western Inn, St Austell, 01726 72797

The Great Restormal Roast Review... Grrr

One of the Rose and Crowning glories of living in Mid Cornwall is the location and quality of its public houses - we are far more spoilt for choice in pubs than we are for clubs and restaurants. Our pubs are often very old, often set in beautiful locations and many are set at one end or the other of a delightful countryside or coastal walk. What better way to spend a chunk of Sunday?

In three years of regular Sunday roasting across the area, I can honestly say I have never had a bad one. Asking around, it seems the consensus is shared: Restormel pub roasts are of great quality. By no means are all pub roasts can make the same boast. I have had a fair few that couldn't. The worst was in a pub on London's Holloway Road, consisting of dry scraggly meat, nuked 'fresh' vegetables, tinned carrots and a gravy three OXO cubes short of a watery broth. In my mind, from this roast, the only way is up.

The GRRR Project

As a service to our ever growing readership we are starting the Great Restormel Roast Review. It is a long term project that will span the area in search of great Sunday roasts. Sadly the GRRR Project is having to be privately funded. We did try to get funding from the local RDA but Tesco's blocked it on the grounds that it might cause a drop in sales of their new organic sprout range. Nonetheless, we push onwards.

Unlike the restaurant reviews written by maverick individuals on midcorwnall.com, the GRRR Project will utilise an army of gluttonous volunteers to accompany us on our expeditions. Training for these missions is extensive. We are all experienced Sunday pub roast consumers, we all know how a good home roast can be and we now have our Bible, Heston Blumenthal's "In Search of Perfection", specifically its chapter on the perfect roast. The clarion call for this monumental endeavor will be a simple "Hi such and such fancy going for a roast at...?"

So...much like Darwin's taxonomy of the Galapogos Islands or, more recently, the Human Genome Project, we are going to survey, describe and ultimately review the Sunday roasts in Restormel. A good Sunday roast isn't just about the food, the service, the pub or even the location, it is also about the nostalgia and the homeliness that the experience creates.

"From small sprouts do great Sundays grow." Unknown, Circa 2007.

Review: The Walter Hicks Resturant in The White Hart, St Austell

Many moons ago myself and about 15 other people went to eat at the White Hart in St Austell. The food was pretty good but the service was so bad we complained. The hotel, via the St Austell Brewery, could not have been more apologetic; the girl whose birthday party it was got a bottle of bubbly and substantial dining vouchers. Respect to the brewery.

Since then we have been back a few times, last night being the most recent.

The White Hart is one of St Austell’s most famous hotels, shadowed only by the Travel Lodge next to the Mevagissey roundabout. Built over 150 years ago it was the town residence of Charles Rashleigh, who built Charlestown. The Hotel bar has recently started getting pretty lively at the weekends which is great for St Austell but probably not too hot if you're staying there, unless you are on a UK Karaoke Tour. In may 2005 the hotel’s restaurant was rebranded as The Walter Hicks Restaurant. For those who are not up with the big boys of Cornwall’s past, Hicks was the man who mortgaged up his farm in the 1860’s and decided that his future lay in beer. He started off with the Seven Stars and over a short time turned his skills into what is now a world renowned brewery and collection of hostelries.

Last Nights Meal

Since myself and my domestic assistant have started these reviews, going out has changed: we pack notepads and cameras and dictaphones and that a critical eye for aspects of places we never really thought of before. The first smile when you walk in, the décor, the business. Last night, save for two elderly diners, the restaurant was empty. We certainly didn’t need to book and were shown to the table and offered drinks right away.

The restaurant does lack a certain ambiance due to the brightness of the lights, but it’s a pleasant place to sit and eat.

The Menu

The menu didn’t pack much of a wow but nonetheless it was wide ranging. Price wise it was in the same range as the Seven Stars (review) and the King's Head (review), the highest priced meal being an 8oz steak at £10.95.

We skipped starters and went straight for the culinary jugular. I ordered “Cornish Fish Trio” with lemon sole, haddock and monkfish (£8.25). There was a generous portion of the fish and it was well presented. How was it? Well, unfortunately, although the fish seemed fresh it had been overcooked so that it was dry and each of the varieties seemed to meld into one taste and texture. A bit of a shame since these fish should all stand on their own fins in terms of taste, and definitely texture. This didn’t happen here.

The salad was fresh and nice but, as so often happens in local restaurants, totally undressed. How does this happen? At what point in the process from idea to plate does someone think a salad without dressing is anything other than leaves and onions? Salads need dressings! Start the revolution! I asked the super nice waitress for some dressing, and she obliged, but I could see her vinaigrette strokes as she shook the big squeezy bottle into a little bowl. The dressing wasn’t fresh and wasn’t that nice.

Overall my meal gets a 5.5 out of 10. It could have been a 7 with a good fresh dressing and without the roasting of the fish.

My domestic assistant ordered a “Mixed Bean Bourguignon” with wild rice and garlic bread (£6.50). It looked pretty good, had a wide variety of beans and the wild rice was a good addition. Don’t forget this is veggie so it’s not really relevant to the rest of us, but her meal got a 6.5 out of 10 and she noted that it was a pretty good effort for an otherwise carnivorous eaterie.

Conclusion

The whole meal, with drinks, came to twenty two pounds, which is very reasonable.

Based on last night and other nights and people's opinions, The Walter Hicks Restaurant is never really as full as it should or could be. The experience is a couple of points better than the food, the service can’t be faulted and for a “what shall we do tonight” option it is worth trying out, for sure.

We will return. We will review.

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

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

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

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:

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