Menu, Liverpool Daily Post food and drink guide

MENU THE DAILY POST FOOD AND DRINK GUIDE SEPTEMBER 08

Beating the bullies

The youngest Michelin star winner

Great gastro-grub

Emma Johnson at the new-look Monro

Taste sensation Liverpool Food and Drink Festival

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

2 Advertising Feature

Tso’s

Tso’s restaurant offers excellent service and value for money, in welcoming surroundings

Beat the credit crunch – eat all you like!

C

USTOMERS of Tso’s restaurant will be delighted to hear there have been no price increases – and in these hard times, with the credit crunch in full swing, this is certainly welcome news.

So diners can enjoy the same high-quality, all-you-can-eat buffet at Tso’s for exactly the same price as before. Now there’s something you don’t hear very often.

And with Christmas around the corner once again, now is the time to start thinking about making a booking.

Diners are being advised to book early to make sure they are guaranteed a table at Tso’s ever-popular restaurant.

On the menu, there is a vast array of dishes with something to suit everyone’s taste buds. Choose from mouthwatering spring rolls, tasty crispy duck, exquisite seafood dishes, beautiful ribs,

delightful crabsticks, gorgeous chicken and pork dishes and even Tso’s famous toffee apples for dessert – to name just a few.

If you are out shopping in the city centre, then Tso’s is the ideal place to stop off for a bite to eat at lunchtime, or if you are at work and are looking for somewhere to go for a business lunch, Tso’s offers great value and choice.

Prices are hard to beat, with the all-you-can-eat buffet just

£5.95 before 6pm and £8.95 after 6pm.

And did you know that Tso’s is open 365 days of the year?

So, if you are looking for something a bit different from the traditional turkey dinner for Christmas Day, can’t be bothered cooking on Boxing Day, or are looking for a venue for a New Year’s Eve gathering, then you have come to the right place.

Call in to Tso’s on Queen Square, in the heart of

Liverpool city centre or, to make a booking, call the restaurant on 0151 709 2811.

But don’t just take their word for it – here are just a few comments from some of Tso’s satisfied customers: ■ “Great atmosphere, great food, excellent and friendly service, and very cheap. What else could you ask for?”

■ “Excellent! The food always tastes delicious. The main courses are beautiful, with as much as you can eat.”

■ “The best Chinese buffet restaurant in the UK. Recommended to all lovers of quality Chinese food.”

■ “This place is fantastic. I eat here regularly and am impressed every time. I am fussy with food, but Tso’s is spot on every time.”

■ “The choice of food is enormous and I cannot praise the service from the staff highly enough.

“All in all, it’s the best in town.”

3

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Chef’s Table

Spurred on to cook in spite of the bullies Emma Pinch talks to the chef who became the youngest person to win a Michelin star

Aiden’s book, Made in Great Britain

INGREDIENTS (Serves 4) 2 kg fresh beetroot, plus 2 large golden beetroot, 1 vanilla pod, 50ml olive oil, 300ml fresh apple juice, 500ml beetroot juice, 125ml sherry vinegar, juice of 2 lemons, 2 whole avocados, 100g caster sugar, juice and rind of 2 limes, juice of 1 lemon, 2 leaves gelatine, softened, 200 ml Belvedere vodka, salt fresh coriander to garnish METHOD 1. Wrap half the beetroot and the golden beetroot in foil, place on a tray lined with rock salt and cook at 160°C/310°F/ for 1–1½ hours. Peel the golden beetroot and cut four 1.5cm diameter pieces. Peel and cut four small pieces of the other cooked beetroot, and chop the rest.

Scrape the seeds from the vanilla pod and mix with the olive oil. Store the beetroot fondants in this oil.

2. Peel and chop remaining raw beetroot into small pieces and place them in a blender with the cooked beetroot, the apple juice and the beetroot juice. Blend until smooth and press out the juice. Put the liquid in a bowl over iced water.

3. Season the soup with salt, gradually.

Add the sherry vinegar then some sugar.

Pass again through a fine sieve and refrigerate.

4. Peel the avocados and use the same cutter to cut four shapes out. Coat in lemon juice and set aside. Add the sugar to 100 ml water and bring to boil. Blend the rest of the avocado in the blender and add the syrup. Pass through a fine sieve and add the lime juice and rind and the lemon juice. Transfer to an ice cream machine and churn until frozen.

5. Heat a couple of tablespoons of water in a small saucepan, add the gelatine and small amount of the vodka and leave gelatine to dissolve slowly.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the remaining vodka. Pass the jelly through a sieve into a small container and set in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

6. Pour soup into four chilled bowls. Add the fondants, spoon in some vodka jelly and avocado sorbet, and garnish with a few coriander leaves.

A

IDEN BYRNE’S dreams of being a top chef were shattered when kitchen bullies forced him to flee London for his Liverpool home.

But he had the last laugh when he became the youngest person to win a Michelin star and became head chef at the Dorchester’s famous Grill.

And while audiences are entertained by the explosive tempers of certain other TV chefs, Aiden, 36, says he’ll never become an ogre in the kitchen.

It was at home economics class, at Roughwood School, in Kirkby, that Aiden discovered his flair for cookery, where his apple crumbles and lamb stews would effortlessly earn him top marks each week.

Then, he laughs, it was all to impress his older cousin Alan Feeney.

“Everything he did I copied, like wearing my woolly jumpers tucked into my trousers and listening to Dire Straits. He took woodwork, I took woodwork. He took HE, I took HE.” Aiden went to catering college in Huyton and at 18 took a job at the Royal Garden Hotel in London, excited to be where the action was. But he was in for a shock.

“It was horrible,” he recalls.

“I stayed six months and hated every second of it.

“I used to get bullied because I was a Scouser. I was locked in the fridge overnight, that sort of thing. It shattered my world.

‘If this is what it’s like’, I thought, ‘I don’t want it any more’.”

Confidence destroyed, he went back home to his mum in Liverpool.

But a job at the Chester Grosvenor reignited his passion for food.

“I was like a sponge

Chilled Beetroot Gazpacho with Vodka Jelly and Avocado Sorbet

Chef Aiden Byrne has spent several years working away, but says he is planning on opening his own restaurant in Liverpool just soaking everything up. I learned that being a chef was about stamina.

“You’re working 18-20 hours a day and you can’t switch off at any point.”

The turning point for Aiden was going to work at Adlards, in Norwich. It had held a Michelin star, but lost it.

Aiden noticed that, as soon as the owner and head chef David Adlard was off, standards plummeted. The perfectionist in him was frustrated.

One day, he told his boss he needed a head chef.

“He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and marched me to the kitchen. I thought he was going to tell them I’d been snitching. But he said: ‘From now on, this is your head chef’.” At 22, Aiden regained the restaurant its Michelin star.

“I wasn’t doing anything

fancy,” he says. “It was just rack of lamb, Dauphinoise potatoes and gravy, but I was putting into practice everything I’d learned. I’d trained the classic French way, braising for six hours.”

A year and a half ago, he joined The Grill at The Dorchester.

His menu features dishes like roasted Cornish scallops with white truffle and white chocolate risotto. His signature dish is beetroot gazpacho with vodka jelly and lime and avocado sorbet. Aiden has shared his recipes in a book called Made In Great Britain.

“I’ve always worked in the British Isles and use predominantly British produce,” he explains. “It celebrates how far British food has come over the last 15 years.”

His plan is next year to return to Liverpool and open a restaurant.

“I’ve been doing this for 17 years now and I jump out of bed and run to work every day,” he says. “It gives me a real sense of belonging to something.”

Aiden also gets a buzz out of passing on his knowledge to others.

“I have 25 chefs and I watch them grow and develop,” he says. “I remember crying myself to sleep when I was bullied and saying ‘I am never going to be like that’, because a negative comment can stay with you for years.

“But a pat on the back can stay with you for years too.”

■ MADE In Great Britain, by Aidan Byrne, costs £25 and is published by New Holland. emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk

Aiden’s Gazpacho

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

4

It’s all in the best pos The Liverpool Food and Drink Festival will be an opportunity to showcase the best of what the region’s restaurants have to offer. Emma Pinch finds out what’s on the menu

W

Fine Dining & Internaional Modern British Cuisine

Matt Locke, of Spire restaurant, Wavertree, with some of his chutneys

Code: cl020908food-10

One of Wirral’s Finest • Award winning Chef / Patron • Reputation for Mouth-Watering, Innovative Cuisine • Carefully Sourced, Fresh, Local Produce

Special Weekend

• Friendly, Professional, Attentive Service • Extensive A` La Carte Menu • Table d’hote Menu - 2 Courses

Friday 12th and Saturday 13th September

7 course Fish Menu

£37.50

Early Bird Tuesday to Thursday Before 7pm-£12.50 After 7pm-£14.50 Friday £14.50 all night Saturday £17.50 all night Add a homemade desert

Awarded Taste Liverpool Highest Quality Assured Accreditation and Made in North West Accreditation

Tuesday - Friday £3.95 - cheese £4.95 • Vegetarians / Allergies Catered • Open Tuesday to Saturday Evenings from 6pm • Please call for a copy menu or reservations

0151 632 6241

per head

20 BIRKENHEAD ROAD HOYLAKE WIRRAL CH47 3BW

Chef Uthai, from Sapporo restaurant

E CAN buy the local farm produce. And we can watch celebrity chefs transform it into steaming delicacies which are pronounced delicious. And until lick screen TV comes along, we just have to take their word for it.

But next Sunday at Sefton Park we can taste what the cream of Merseyside talent can do with local meat, dairy and veg, without the cost of going to a restaurant. Chefs will cook at 30 or so mini-kitchens under one (very well ventilated) canvas roof, for up to £3 per portion.

“Food is all about taste,” enthuses Candice Fonseca, who is on the steering group of the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival and the proprietor of shop and restaurant Delifonseca, on Stanley Street. “TV is all very well and it looks nice but it could taste like anything. At a farmers’ market, sometimes people find it intimidating because they think they have to know what to do with the food.

“You’re interested but slightly embarrassed that you don’t know more. And at a restaurant it can often cost £30 to £40 to just get past the door to taste what chefs do with local foods.

This way, people graze from the biggest to the smallest restaurants involved.” Cities like Leeds, Birmingham, Bath and Edinburgh have all had A Taste Of . . . Festivals for years, and Liverpool has to some extent lagged behind. Partly, says Candice, because Liverpool’s culinary reputation was in the doldrums – the focus has been on our pubs rather than restaurants.

But, she says, this year’s Food and Drink Festival marks the change in the city’s food scene.

She’s organised taste theatres for cheese, wine and balsamic vinegar. “I

went to Chicago’s Taste of Festival a decade ago and it was fantastic. I’d always had it in the back of my mind as a way of launching the festival.

“Liverpool is different to the Wirral or Cheshire, where you are surrounded by producers. As a city, Liverpool is more geared towards dining out. Hopefully, year on year, we will increase it and we’ll be able to create a festival that is restaurantbased rather than producer-based.”

The launch kicks off a week of themed days where diners can visit local restaurants and eat for a discounted price, culminating with the Hope Street Festival. Go to www. liverpoolfoodanddrinkfestival.com for more information.

Mike McGarvey, owner of Thai restaurant Chilli Banana, on Lark Lane, is offering visitors a selection of vegetarian options. “We’ll make Alderley Edge chicken and mushroom satay skewers barbecued with homemade peanut and sweet pickle dipping sauces.

“Lancashire beef Nua Sawan Melt is stir fried beef with tamarind and coriander seeds. Our vegetarian dishes are popular with customers who live nearby, so we are offering Pad Tua Ngog which is stir fried Peover beansprouts with Cheshire tofu and holy basil – a sweet and mildy spicy dish.”

Candice Fonseca will be initiating audiences into the mysteries of balsamic vinegar. She says: “Ever gone to the supermarket, bought a bottle, and then tasted it in a restaurant and thought, ‘that’s not the same and I’ve blown £8 on it?’

“Technically, traditional balsamic vinegar is not even vinegar in terms of chemical properties, it’s fermented grape must. It can only be produced in Modena and Reggio Emila, and quality graded by a consortium and aged in barrels for a minimum of 12 years. At the other end of the scale is 35-year-old balsamic.

“As it evaporates it becomes thicker and sweeter and takes on the flavours of the cask wood, like cherry, apple, mulberry. Unlike the artisan product, the cheaper commercial versions often

5

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

ssible taste

Cupboard love THEY say you either love it or hate it and if you love Marmite then you are going to adore these tins. Keep anything from tea to treacle toffee in them, but maybe not Marmite itself! Priced £19.99 for three, at www.gifttogo.co.uk from the end of the month.

ENJOY a tasty start to the day with this clever combined toaster and egg poacher, by Tefal.

Not only does it do muffin-sized cooked eggs, it also has a warming tray for heating cooked meats. Priced £39.95, at John Lewis.

A toast to the Liverpool Food and Drink Festival launch, at Il Forno restaurant; and, inset, above, owner Vince Margiotta

Pictures: COLIN LANE/ cl020908food-12, left, and cl020908food-6, above

mix real vinegar and fruit juice with fermented must,” she explains.

“We drizzle the 35-year-old balsamic vinegar over parmesan,” she says.

“The sweet and tart flavour is also delicious over strawberries or icecream.”

Gary Manning, from 60 Hope Street, is cooking traditional Liverpool peawhack soup and Southport shrimp risotto.

“It’s basically split pea soup and Cumbrian ham hock simmered with carrot, celery, leeks and onion, herbs and a bit of garlic, to tart it up a little bit. You cook until the meat comes away from the hock, and take the bone out,” he explains.

“I melt the aromatic potted Southport shrimp into butter and spices and into the pre-cooked risotto rice, then add vegetable stock. I use old-fashioned spices like mace and nutmeg, nothing too spicy.

“We are going to get our suppliers to provide sausages, and give away a few foods because we want to give people insight into what you can do with local produce.”

Matt Locke, 33, former head chef at the London Carriage Works and now proprietor of Spire, on Penny Lane, is cooking fresh local fish. “I’m going to be doing a lot of fish, sea bass and red mullet, fresh from Liverpool fish market. I want to focus on a few things that people might not usually eat.

Liverpool people see red mullet on the menu and think, I’m not eating that. I was a safe eater too, my wife was, she wouldn’t eat asparagus, but now I’m not. Be brave and have a go.

“I’ll cook wild sea bass in white wine sauce on home-grown leek fondant with fennel salad. Just good fresh produce. I don’t like to be too complex because that’s what scares people away.”

For further details on both our

ONLINE & PRINT

Advertising options

Please telephone

■ THE Liverpool Food and Drink Festival runs from September 14. For more information, visit the website www.liverpoolfoodanddrink festival.co.uk emma.pinch@dailypost.co.uk

IT’S seafood fortnight from September 5-21, with promotions taking place all over the country. Enjoy your fish and chips in style in these Maxwell & Williams Chips n Dip newspaper print dishes, £7.50 (www.maxwell andwilliams.co.uk)

Pizzas being prepared at Il Forno

Code: cl020908food-5

0151 472 2294

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

6

Eating out

Great gastro-grub Emma Johnson finally manages to sample the new-look Monro

T

HERE was a time The Monro appeared destined to forever be the restaurant I almost dined at. Every time we planned to eat there, something happened.

Not to the restaurant, but to us.

We even got so far as stepping foot inside earlier this year, only to discover our chances of a table were slim to none (well, it was 6.30pm on a Friday night, and we didn’t have a reservation).

Sadly, that means I am totally under-qualified to tell you how the venue has changed following the recent refurbishment over the summer. However, I can tell you that the place, hailed as Liverpool’s first gastro-pub, is well worth seeking out.

We were there this time to celebrate my husband’s birthday and post-work on a Tuesday night had no trouble getting a table, even though, again, it hadn’t crossed my mind to actually book. That’s not to say The Monro wasn’t busy, there were a fair few people tucking into some midweek grub.

After ordering drinks at the bar and a bit of a mix-up over draught Fosters and draught Peroni, which was quickly sorted, we were offered a table for two in the room to the left of the entrance.

Decked out in the pub’s new livery of creams and browns, and accessorised with maritimethemed paintings, it was a quiet and relaxing place to dine after a mad day in the office.

The Monro’s menu, as befitting its gastro-pub status, is

The recently-refurbished Monro – a relaxing place to dine unfussy. It is all traditional hearty dishes and fits onto one page (Gordon Ramsay would be pleased).

Starters range from £4.25 for soup to £6.50 for king scallops and mains between £14.75 for risotto to £18.50 for an 8oz fillet of beef.

However, the Monro also runs a number of special offers including an early doors “Taste the World” menu where main courses at lunchtime are £8.95 and early evening are £12.50 and include a free starter, while at Sunday lunch you can enjoy two courses for £12.50 (offers also seem to be regularly updated on the website).

A meat lover, and having been won over by Janet Street-Porter on the F-Word, I threw political

The Monro serves hearty fare and has several special offers Code: at030908bmunro-5

correctness to the wind and opted for the veal patties wrapped in Chinese leaves to start. My other half, meanwhile, stuck with one of his favourites and chose the duck leg with salad.

The dishes both arrived swiftly, even though the restaurant was starting to get busy.

My patties came as three small balls, drenched in a dark sauce and accompanied by shitake mushrooms and peas. The sauce was thick and sweet and the veal was perfect, tasty but not chewy. It was an unusual dish but definitely one I would order again.

The duck salad was also a winner, disappearing down my other half’s gullet in no time.

After a short interlude and the purchase of another pint of Peroni, the main courses arrived. This time, I was the one ordering the

Pictures: ANDREW TEEBAY/ at030908bmunro-2.j

duck breast while my husband had the lamb.

The lamb came as a great steak of meat atop baby vegetables and surrounded by a sticky jus, and was by all accounts a triumph. My duck wasn’t quite so fabulous.

Some of the outer slices took a bit of chewing, and I think it could have used more sauce, but the mash was delicious.

With another appointment later that evening – not to mention our waistlines – in mind, we should have stopped at this point but then the waitress uttered the words Baileys Cheesecake in front of my other half. Well, it was his birthday after all.

I wasn’t prepared to sit and watch my husband tuck in so I ordered my usual chocolate fudge cake. It more than made up for the disappointment with the duck

The Monro Venue: The Monro, 92, Duke Street, Liverpool city centre.

Tel: 0151 707 9933 Interior: Classic with a contemporary twist.

The bill: £59.29, plus a pint of Peroni and a Corona bought at the bar.

Service: Very swift and friendly.

Disabled access: Yes. Value: Very good – you get what you pay for here. while my husband was still talking about the Baileys Cheesecake at dinner four days later.

It may have taken us a while to finally sample The Monro’s fare, but I have a feeling we’ll be back. emmajohnson@dailypost.co.uk

Healthy eating can be as easy as ABC

I

Gusto, at the Albert Dock, has a new healthy menu

N THE States, they are already making it law that all restaurant menus make it clear exactly what you are eating. So, as you tuck into that banoffee pie and ice cream, you would be fully aware of the fat and calorie content.

Here in the UK, we have yet to go that far, but one restaurant is already making great strides towards helping us eat healthily when dining out.

Gusto, at the Albert Dock, has teamed up with nutritional

BY EMMA JOHNSON biochemist Jeannette Jackson and the Adidas Wellness Clinics to produce a healthy living menu which aims to debunk the myth that “if it’s good for you, it can’t be interesting”.

Each dish on the menu, devised by Chef Director John Branagan, has been coded from A to G to show the healthy characteristics it contains, making eating healthily as easy as ABC.

A shows dishes that are good for an active healthy heart, B is for food that boosts the immune system, C is food that is rich in Calcium, D represents detoxifying foods, E shows energy boosting dishes, F shows the low carbohydrate options and G dishes are low in calories.

Beef Carpaccio, for example, is coded E F G – that means the dish has energy boosting properties as it is high in B vitamins and vital minerals, it is low in carbohydrates and low in calories.

Tim Bacon, managing director of Living Ventures, explains: “We have invested a lot in developing this particular menu, all with our guests in mind.

“We want our diners to be relaxed about eating in our restaurants, and have a full understanding of what they are eating.

“Knowing that we only use the freshest of ingredients in all of our menus, we wanted to assure our customers that they can eat out and still maintain a healthy, well-balanced diet.”

7

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Sommelier – Mathew Sloane

T

HE North. A terrifying place frequented by stag parties, hen parties, Viking marauders, rabid dogs, drunken Wags and other nightmare-inducing characters that would sooner eat you alive and pimp out your grandmother than share a nice glass of wine over a decent dinner – or so I’m told by herbal teadrinking types busy worrying about the rainforests while holding on to the monstrous Saturday edition of their favourite newspaper.

These cowardly types would rather we all attended an outdoor workshop building yurts out of discarded raincoats to raise money for socially maladjusted koalas than actually venture out into the city for a jolly good night out. If these fun-vacuums were restricted to those painfully dull counties south of Stoke, we wouldn’t have a problem, but there are a number of them seeping into our fair and enlightened city, spreading words of discouragement on our debauchery.

These foul naysayers have focused their wayward words on the very north of our city, upon the bustling mayhem surrounding those glorious streets – Dale, Victoria and Mathew.

I must admit, due to my slightly southern aspect and complete laziness, I don’t get up to our northern marches as often as I should and that being such a shameful state of affairs I recently embarked on a tour of some of the finer establishments in this most elegant of neighbourhoods. There are some great restaurants and tons of great bars in the area, far too many to mention all of the little blighters, so I’ll just do a quick run through of my favourites.

The legendary Ged Hogan has sharpened his knives and is turning out some amazing food at The Haymarket, on Victoria Street. Ged worked at the mythical Bechers Brook before trotting

around a few venues honing his considerable skills. The venue has recently recruited fellow wine boffin Jamie George to chat up the boys and girls front of house and give you a hand selecting a quality tipple to support Ged’s breathtaking menu.

A short jaunt down the road will take you to my old sparring partner, Stuart St John’s gaff, nestling on the ground floor of the Sir Thomas Hotel. Negotiate your way through some local sporting legends and secure yourself a table in the most underrated restaurant in the city. Stuart and his band of talented lunatics are the masters of satisfying, honest food. The wine list is comprehensive and uncomplicated, try one of Stuey’s blinding steaks with a bottle of Amarone, absolute perfection.

The last venue on my tour of the soon to be frozen north is Ziba, at the Racquet Club, stashed away in the Hargreaves Buildings, on Chapel Street.

James Morgan has recently taken over shouting duties from Neil Dempsey in this very successful kitchen. This is definitely the venue to take the other woman/ man. A blindingly suave dining room that’s really hard to find, no chance of bumping into the family in this cheeky place. Mr Morgan’s menu has an old school, colonial dining room feel, but is definitely proud of its northern roots, plenty of local produce on offer. For a man in my filthy occupation, it’s the wine list that has me frothing at the wallet. There’s a real love affair going on here, some truly stunning wines. The list is arranged in styles as opposed to regions, which should help the less sophisticated among you to choose a suitably decadent bottle of jumping water to accompany your fine tucker.

Best bar none

Bar Azure YOU get two for the price of one at Bar Azure, on Slater Street – and great drink offers, too.

Bar Azure is known among the student fraternity for its eyewatering cheap drink offers – just £1 per drink on Thursday and Friday, and it becomes packed out.

But Azure has more to offer than cut-price alcopops.

The upstairs bar, open from 9.30pm, offers leather couches, black tables and a relaxed atmosphere, while downstairs those in the mood can carry on dancing in its cavernous basement club until 5am, with doors opening at 11pm.

The owners of Bar Azure have clearly taken a lot of trouble in creating its chic and spotless decor and upmarket ambiance.

During the week, the promotions turn to cocktails, the wine list and Champagnes, and as it is open until the early hours most nights.

It’s known as a place for a latenight drink in classy, laid-back surroundings.

The two floors host different music styles: upstairs, there’s R&B; downstairs is livelier, home to a varied mix including dance, chart, pop, funky house and indie.

The management is attentive – no endless queuing for drinks – and the dress code is strict but simple: no effort – no entry.

There’s a hard-line attitude to antisocial behaviour, so it’s a safe night out.

■ BAR Azure, 6-10 Slater Street, L1. Tel 0151 7030618

8

DAILY POST Tuesday, September 9, 2008