Jabula - Ellesmere Port

After a hectic evening of Christmas shopping at Cheshire Oaks outlet mall, we decided to try this local South African restaurant which sits in the new development surrounding the National Waterways Museum, near the Holiday Inn Express.

The museum itself is well worth a visit as it has many of the old working ships and tugs which plied their trade on the Mersey and the Dee as well as many narrow boats of different vintages. It is connected to the Shropshire Union canal on which you can take boat trips, and sits beside the Manchester ship canal. So too, does the restaurant as was demonstrated when a large cargo ship eased past the window as we were dining. I understand the ship canal trip is also a very interesting and enlightening experience, from Liverpool to the heart of Manchester and back.

Now, back to the restaurant. Jabula is a very cosy place, run by a predominantly South African staff and the menu is reflective of their roots. While we did not sample tohe starters, they were mainly substantial soups and traditional Western style dishes with a hint of Africa added to them via the sauces or accompaniments.

The main courses were all very African and included Bobotie, which SWMBO had,  Pap en Wors and Vetkoek. They also served game including Kudu, Springbok and Crocodile. I had a Crocodile Pot which was basically a stew, and very tasty it was too.

All was washed down with a bottle of beer and it was very reasonable at less than £40. If you are in the Ellesmere Port area and want a change from the chain restaurant dominated Cheshire Oaks food court, then give this a try.

The Wheatsheaf - Cowshed restaurant

Another restaurant, with a lady chef,  and a blueprint for the last review.

Emma Wombwell has been running the Cowshed restaurant at The Wheatsheaf for a number of years, and has won the Wirral chef of the year for two consecutive years 2008 and 2009. I am sure she would have won for further years but was not selected as a participating restaurant once the target chefs were selected by public vote.

Our latest visit was an opportunity to take my ageing mother and our oldest son for a bit of tucker, on a rare opportunity to get them both together. My mother has recently moved to the Wirral from Plymouth, and our son was up North to see her new flat and enjoy a run ashore at the Matthew Street festival.

We booked an early time, which was a shrewd move as there was a 18th and 21st birthday booked in for later in the evening. All the food was excellent, and included belly  pork infused with black pudding as an interesting starter, and Gurnard and Sea Bass for main courses. The side dishes were very well presented and the onion rings were very tasty.

There was a two course set price menu which was reasonably priced at £15.95, although the portions did reflect this, in comparison to the portion size of the dishes selected from the a la carte. We had no wine on this occasion as the night was wild and driving home was going to be a challenge as it was!!

The waitresses were very attentive and tried hard to meet all the requirements of the punters, so all in all a very enjoyable evening.

So, if  Claire Lara at the Riverhill needs any template for her new venture, she could do a lot worse than have a chat with Emma.

The Riverhill Hotel - Bay Tree restaurant

The restaurant in the hotel is called The Bay Tree, and when we moved to the area we were told it was one of the best Sunday lunches in the area. Now being from a part of West London renowned for its Sunday lunches we are always on the look out, so we booked and went. it was awful. the meat was thin sliced catering pack beef, the roast potatoes were actually deep fried and the vegetables were over cooked. Add to that the fact the hotel was tired and the dining room reflected that,  we consequently had no reason ever to revisit.

All that changed some months ago when the restaurant was relaunched with BBC Masterchef , Claire Lara and her husband in charge. Michel Roux attended the opening night and everything was bigged up for another potential Michelin star for the area.

So SWMBO and I booked for our wedding anniversary on Friday, to give it a go. We arrived at the hotel to find it still tired, and we were directed into the bar to await our table. The barman was very attentive and provided a Bellini cocktail and Bloody Mary while we ordered our meal.

There was a Table d'Hote and a la Carte menu and we selected from the former, at £19.50 for two courses.
First impressions were that the menu's looked a bit tatty and did not seem to be in line with a revamp or relaunch.

We ordered a vegetable soup and mackerel to start, and a steak and a belly pork for the main course. The quality of the meat in both dishes was first class, the rest of the food was nothing special and certainly no better than that served in other local establishments.

The real problem though was the ambiance. I have been into a lot of pub's who re-invent themselves as gastropubs or trendy pubs, but still have the old roll-up smokers and Special Brew drinkers sitting in their usual places at the bar. It's their local and will always be. That is very much the feel of the Riverhill. The clientele were grey pound, who probably came there whenever there was a family party or celebration to recognise.

The staff were good and very attentive, but they can't make up for the surroundings.

I know Claire looked to set up a restaurant in a hotel in Hoylake but that presumably fell through, I do think that she would have been better though trying for her own unit and developing a style and feel which reflected her personality. I also think her menu needs to be more imaginative to compete, even on the Wirral.

Sadly we will not be going back, the hotel environment is just not our cup of tea, and there is no culinary wow factor to over ride that.

The Courtyard

Cor, you may think, they don't go out much do they. Well, yes we do, but not too much on the wirral at the moment.

So when the opportunity came up to eat Sunday lunch at the Courtyard in Oxton village  we thought we should go for it.

The Courtyard is sited in the units which used to be Villa Jazz and it has probably been open about 18 months. During that time it must have re-invented itself two or three times. Initally it had a sofa area and a very visible 'courtyard' out back for smokers, now the sofa's have given way to additional tables and some of the courtyard has done so too. That means the smokers now go out front which is never a good look.

The current design has limited seating for drinkers on high stools and tables, an area to stand near the bar and then an eating area which does about 40 covers. The bar is a modern lager dominated stainless steel contraption, and really its not the place I would visit  in Oxton out of choice. There is no draught beer and the clientele is varied and 'interesting'

Anyway, i have heard good reports about the food, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so when the opportunity to try it came up off I went. Now normally in a no beer bar i would drink Guinness but just lately I have developed a pre-dinner passion for Bloody Mary's.  In the Courtyard i really should have stuck with the black stuff. My BM was served in a pint glass with two bottles of tomato juice which drowned out the vodka, and there was absolutely no spice to it at all. in fact I don't think the barman knew that Tabasco should have been used and wacked something else into it. It was very poor.

The Sunday dinner on the other hand was excellent. The two course meal was £13.95 and the three course £17.95. We had soup andduck spring rolls which were fine. then there was a variety of roasts of which we chose beef and lamb. All came with roasties and Yorkshire puds, and ample other vegetables. desert choices included a creme brulee which was far too runny but got eaten, and sticky toffee pudding which was fine.

All was washed down with a very pleasant Sauvignon Blanc or three all the way from Chile.

So I think we would go again, but I would make my own Bloody Mary. what of the waitresses? well i think they were onto a loser as the female clientele tends to turn heads with some very revealing outfits on display, but they were attentive and helpful so all in all a good craic..

The Caernarvon Castle

The Caernarvon has long been our regular pub for a Friday night sherb prior to the Indian takeaway. It has a transient clientele on a Friday, the after work brigade, the pre-hit the town crew, the early doors brigade and the regulars. We spend a couple of hours putting the world to rights and doing a bit of people watching, and then wander home.

They do have a large restaurant and occasionally we will eat there. The pub is part of the Greene King empire so the menu is made up of staple pub grub like ham egg and chips, steaks, burgers and fish and chips. There are specials occasionally like lamb shank and salmon. The waiting on staff are always miserable and you wonder why they bother coming in to work, but at least they are consistent.

It must be a pre-requisite for working here because the bar staff all used to be miserable as well, but they have definitely become happier under the new landlord. They still fail to spot the order in which people come to the bar though. I have commented previously about how annoying I find that.

On Tuesday I decided to save SWMBO from the kitchen, and we ventured up to the pub for a taste of their cuisine. We ordered a jumbo burger for number two son, two chicken burgers and a cheese burger for the rest of us. You pay at the bar and then go and sit at your table patiently waiting for the gastronomic feast to arrive.

Eventually it did. It all looked fine. There were, however, little plastic containers full of side sauces. Well actually they weren't full, they were half full. So we asked for top ups of bbq sauce and guacamole, which arrived a bit later. We also compared portion control as it applied to the chips. There were anomalies with one meal having a 'normal' portion and the other three having 'small' portions. Certainly things had been cut back since we were last here for a meal.

Anyway all the food was fine and got eaten, but I did feel the need to point out that we were disappointed by the portions of chips.

'It's all regulated by the brewery' came the reply to my comments.' We are a Greene King pub you know'. Well I indicated again my disappointment and pointed out that the independent pubs close by were more generous in their helpings, and I got a very offish response. Why do English catering staff ask if everything is alright, and then get the right hump when you say that it isn't and point out their failings?

Well I am sure we will be in there again as a last resort, however if you find yourself in there don't expect loads of chips, and try to avoid the Hunters Chicken, its a horror fest.

The Wro

Last friday it was off to West Kirby for a stag night, a quiet affair with six of us, the groom, best man, two ushers a friend and me, father of the bride. Now I had never had a run ashore in West Kirby, nor have I watched the television programme Cougar Town, however, I get the impression that on a Friday night, that is just what West Kirby transforms itself into.

We met first at the Wro bar, and had a pint of Boddingtons, the beer people stock when they can't be bothered to install a hand pump, and then we moved over the road to the Wro lounge to have something to eat. There is a third Wro, the loft, but that is for special evenings and major sporting events.

The menu in the bar and lounge is the same, but the lounge is more geared up to eating than the bar which can get a bit crowded . So we were shown to our tale, and ordered some more drinks while we ordered. We passed on starters and went straight in to mains, one steak, medium rare, two hot pizza's, and two chillies for the guests, a burger for the groom and away we go.

The young Irish waitress who took our order was a bit miserable, but the other staff were cheery enough. The older lady ( the owner?) who is normally in there was not evident on Friday, and given she can be a bit 'strange', that may have been why the mood of the place was lighter than normal. We did have to wait an hour or so for our food which might have been a problem if you were a cosy twosome, but the reason was evident when we walked in, there were two large groups already seated so we were a bit behind in the pecking order.

Still, the food when it came was fine, although the burger was a bit heavy on bread and light on burger. The chilli was hot and not at all cooked to suit the middle of the road gang, and the steak was cooked as ordered. It could have been a bit pinker, so rare would be my call next time i am in there.

Only mild irritation was the cutlery and condiments arriving in a small metal bucket which you would expect in a family oriented diner, not an adult eating establishment.

The clientele made for great people watching, with loads of  mixed age couples being the subject of our rather basic lines in conversation. The Wirral's answer to Alderley Edge is right on our doorstep!!

The Manor

Now I think first impressions are vital when deciding whether or not to select a particular outlet for Sunday lunch, so it was lucky that we had been to The Manor, in Greasby, before. I rang up to make a reservation a few days before hand and found that they had introduced a selective telephone service. I duly went through the options , arriving at the future reservations menu, only to be informed that this option  only functioned until 18:00, would I ring back later? Bit of a nuisance, but I rang back on the day to book. The maitre d' was fairly brusk on the telephone which made me a bit suspicious that the restaurant may have changed hands, but I booked anyway and we turned up as planned at 4pm.

We had already been informed that we could have the table for two hours and we had no problem with this, and given it was barbecue weather we had not anticipated it would be rammed. We had a drink as we scanned the menu and then were approached by the maitre d' for our orders.

Now they had two on during the afternoon, and the grumpy one looked like Greg Wallace from MasterChef ,  iIt was he who took the order.  SWMBO selected the roast beef, and luckily we knew it came rare, but 'Greg' failed to ask how we wanted it, we mentioned it to the waiter when we sat down and it was presented medium no problem.

We are also regular enough to know the service can be a bit brisk, so we asked 'Greg' if we could have a good 15-20 minute break between courses. This was greeted with a ' I'll ask the chef' ' in a manner that suggested eating a three course meal in half an hour was one of the attractions of the establishment.

So caveat emptor, if you are going to the manor for the first time.

Now onto the food and service. All of it was very enjoyable. We had the black pudding as one starter, and the terrine of ham hock as the other. The bread was a bit doughy with the pate, but other than that it was fine. The mains were aforesaid Sunday roast beef and trimmings, and I had a shank of lamb which was very pleasant. We had two bottles of Viognier through the meal, and without the break between courses we may have only had one, so there is a good reason to allow people to pace their eating, you can sell more wine!

The waiting on staff are mostly young people dressed impeccably in French style white shirt and black apron, and the other maitre d' was very pleasant and polite. we even found out they have just opened a new restaurant in West Kirby, called Milan, on the site of the previously named Green Room. we will give that a try.

The meal was £13.95 for two courses, we passed on the desert, and jumped on the bus home!!