review madness

i'm a little anal when it comes to reviews. every day i take a look at the guestbook to see if someone has written something, or google the restaurant name to check for new reviews on the web. mostly there is nothing but every so often people write and we get the feedback that we crave. we've been very lucky because mostly it's been very good, occasionally we have a middling one and once in a while something awful. it stands to reason that we cannot get it right every time but, at the time of writing, we were standing proudly atop the list of cardiff restaurants, as judged by the trip advisor crowd. that is soon to change as, i believe, a middling review of the penultimate menu will drop us back down. that review was very fair and just indicates the problems that you face if you want variety; the more you change, the more risks you take, the greater the chance that your taste and those of the diners might diverge. the dishes in question were, for the most part, very well received, but a beetroot gazpacho is probably not to everyone's tastes and tofu burgers will never be anything other than soft.

the issue of taste was highlighted again on thursday when a plate of pineapple carpaccio with sorbet returned to the kitchen with not a piece of pineapple touched. leanne knows that this is likely to turn me into a blubbering wreck but the lady in question did not like pineapple. i put this to jackie later when i went out to speak to everybody and the problem was that we had used lime to marinate the pineapple and this had not been to her taste. she would have ordered the panna cotta but was unsure of the gelling agent, so, for jackie, here is the recipe.

150ml double cream
250ml dulce de leche
300 ml milk
1 sachet vegegel

place into a jug and blitz with a hand blender. microwave on full power for 4 minutes, re-blending after 2 minutes, then each 40 seconds. if you have a probe thermometer, you're looking for a core temperature of 70+ degrees centigrade.

pour into ramekins and allow to set for 4 hours minimum.

these will have a nice wobble. for those who like it a little more risky, go an extra 25-50 ml of cream and really push the wobble.

cheers

wayne