18 March 2010
A hard swiss cheese, bought from Kaseswiss
We have a slice of this pale yellow cheese. It’s got a dark brown rind, and is pitted with large holes; it looks like a classic comicbook wedge of cheese.
It has a crumbly, almost bready, texture. Initially, it’s very sweet, but turns fizzy and sour after a couple of moments, with a hint of green bitterness. It tastes nutty and rich, and there are sweet fudge notes underlying the sharp sour taste. The rind’s not so interesting; I think it’s chewy and tasteless. (Sidney the dog disagrees and scoffs the scraps, but she happily eats plastic and I think her judgement is suspect.)
The huge holes are fuzzed with little crunchy white grains, and are (I’m struggling to find a polite way to say this, I’m afraid) just the right size for me to stick my tongue inside them and lick them out. I’m rewarded with bright fruity pineapple flavours.
Co-cheese-scoffers P and K both think that tangy sour lemon is the dominant flavour in this cheese. I think it’s something sweeter – apples and pineapples.
marna in FT / Pumpkin Publog • 2 Comments
10 March 2010
Tymsboro
A raw-milk goats cheese from Somerset, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This is a little pyramid of goaty goodness, covered in a fuzzy white mould and with a layer of dark grey-green ash peeking out from underneath it. Inside the cheese is soft, and white, turning liquid underneath the rind. This is fresh new-season SPRING goat cheese and this means BABY GOATS as well as delicious fresh goats cheese.
It’s a smooth cheese, very soft and fluffy and mousse-like. The rind has a bit of chewy, solid texture to it. It reminds me of banana skin (in texture, not taste!), and it contrasts with the softness of the curd inside. The curdy paste tastes fresh and salty. It’s got a pale nuttiness – macadamia and almond – and a sweet creamy flavour. There are lots of bright fresh fruity tastes; green apples, lemon, a hint of gooseberry. The rind’s a little more bitter and astringent, tasting slightly of straw and slightly of splinters. more »
marna in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
9 March 2010
Kat graciously offered to come and lend her tastebuds to science. She is not a fan of blue cheese, and I wanted to test some tasty, friendly and approachable blues on some blue-hater. We got some sqidgy creamy dolcelatte and some spicy cashel blue, as well as an emergency backup goat cheese, and armed with knives and bread, we sat down to do some serious tasting.
Gorgonzola dolce
A blue cow’s cheese, made in Italy, and bought from The Tasting Room
We have a slice of this milky, melty, sparsely blue-smattered cheese. It’s pale and creamy, with a slightly darker rind. It’s got an almost jelly-like soft texture, smooth and silky, and very melt-in-the-mouth-ish.
This is very exciting! Kat smears a wedge of this soft cheese onto her piece of baguette, and chomps down on it. It ‘tastes of blue cheese’, unsurprisingly. It’s tangier than she anticipated, and soggy. She gamely eats the rest of the piece – it can’t be terrible – but declines to try another piece.
The taste – and this is not meant as a complaint, at all – reminds me a little of the toilets at Glastonbury. I’m not sure that I want to examine this thought any further. As well as a whiff of long-drop, this is a very sweet and milky blue cheese. The blue taste is quite mild, and the caramelly fudgey milk taste is like milkshake. This cheese is smooth, sweet and gentle. It’s possibly a little too unassuming but gorgeously gloopy.
Cashel Blue
This was written about in more detail here.
Next up is this soft and spicy blue; it’s been a favourite of mine for years. Kat tries it and declares that it ‘doesn’t taste of blue cheese’ (I dispute this assertion) and proceeds to munch her way through this with relish. SUCCESS!
Next up, in the Kat Cheese Challenge, will be some Roquefort.
marna in Pumpkin Publog • 1 Comment
19 February 2010
Yesterday’s long overdue unveiling of the Pumpkin Publog’s favoured list of friends – friends who unfailingly keep our fettles fine on these February nights – let’s not speak of the mornings – prompted a bit of “who dat?” and “wha??” – at least from this corner – so if you too, dear one, find yourself in need of some architecural certainty, a solid platform from which to launch yourself towards certain bin death, look no further. Courtesy of Flickr user John Bullas, this CAD-rendered chart has pretty much everything you need to know if you want to make classic American cocktails with the precision of a construction foreman. You can click on it to go through to a gigantic version, suitable for framing.
Tracer Hand in Proven By Science / Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
18 February 2010
- Ms Bomba Dear
- Linda N. Pride
- Sadie R. Madillo
- Ruby Port
- Gwen Ness
- Milla K. Stout
- Jean Ann Tonick
- Moll D. Wain
- P!nk Clove
- Stella R. Twah
- Graeme de Menthe
- Rick Card
- Pierre Noe
Yes I’m afraid there is more »
Tracer Hand in FT / Pumpkin Publog • 6 Comments
17 February 2010
Golden Cross
A raw-milk goat’s cheese, made in East Sussex and bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy
This is a white log, covered in a soft and fuzzy white mould. Slicing through, underneath the thin furry covering is an even thinner line of dark ash, and then the cheese itself – slightly translucent at the edges, opaque, bright white and with a slightly crumbly texture inside.
It’s got the putty-like, melt-in-the-mouth texture common in goat cheeses, and a good whomph of salt. (I love salt. I love salty cheeses. I might have mentioned this before.) There’s a grassiness, almost a seediness*, to the rind, which develops into a nutty sweetness in the centre. There’s a subtle goaty taste and bright citrus flavours; the usual lemon, but also something more fragrant and floral. It’s smooth and milky, sweet and salty.
* When I say seediness, I mean sort of seed you put in the ground to make a plant, not the dark alleyway, neon signs, shady character sort of seediness. This is not that sort of cheese. Now I’m trying to think of seedy cheeses, though. Grubby? Aged? Boozy? more »
marna in FT / Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
12 February 2010
This is the only pub on our list to have changed hands, its name and still retained a degree of quality. We came into the new millennium with this odd station pub being called the Head Of Steam, and left with the much grander name of the Doric Arch. Internally the changes were merely cosmetic, a new brewery had all its ales on all the time, but maintained a rotating batch of guest ales. The Railway tat was toned down a bit, but only a bit. And the code on the toilet, that remained. Head Of Steam? Doric Arch? Just call it the HASDA and its appeal becomes clear. There are some days when it just HASDA be this pub.
Under all the rules of the game, the HASDA is a station pub, though the bounds and catchment area of Euston Station means that there is a far nastier station pub directly inside the frame of Euston (the Britannia – handily twinned with the walk-in Medi+Care Centre). But then Euston is a funny place, a new build carved out of the old, all black and concrete. The old name conjured up athe glorious age of rail travel, steamy engines which had long gone. The new name conjured up the old Euston Station, with its Doric Arches, rather than all new Euston’s Dullish Arses. But even in ten years this has changed; the slightly overgrown concourse of what may well be Euston Square has become slowly inhabited by swish looking portakabined Nandos and the like. It is like the Harlequin centre in Watford had sent its food court on holiday, with Krispy Kreme and Banger Bros missing the return train. Sometimes I look out of the windows in the Doric Arch and remember when it was all distressed concrete and weeds around here.
Actually the HASDA is that even rarer of breeds. A successful, brutalist pub in an office block adjoined to a BUS STATION. A pub which is on the first floor, with its toilets locked away two floors below, locked for fear of vagrants living in them. I once went to a Izikaya on the ninth floor of a tower block in Nigata in Japan, and it had a similar feel of locked in grimness, which vanished as soon as the first beer was drunk. And luckily the beer in the HASDA has always been good. This gives the HASDA its edge, and makes it much more than a quick commuter turnaround pub. It is perfectly set out for a quick drink. But we have had quite slow, long and protracted drinks here too. The Top 100 Films of All Time In 2003 was worked out in the Head Of Steam around a nice big central table, and other short drinks have lasted until closing time. Indeed this very list of pubs was supposed to have been worked out in the Doric – except it was too full.
Which does bring us to the HASDA’s downfall (for this list at least). It is a commuter, station pub and therefore can get unfeasibly rammed at times. There are not that many tables (and you can never get the train carriage table these days), so for a big group it is sometimes suicide in there. Bearing in mind its proximity to a number of other great pubs, losses are often cut and the party moves on. Leaving a bitter taste about this otherwise wonderful pub.
It is also one of the few pubs where the landlord, or chief barman, or whatever his sarcastic but perfect job title is, has stayed the same for a long period of time. I cannot help but think that this is the main reason it still offers so many interesting other beers after Fullers bought the place. Its also why the sport is never too loud, why the beer is kept well and the food is adequate. I know there are others who want to declare a sort of seedy love for the HASDA, so I will leave it to them too. All I have to say is “CX4321” and it all comes flooding back.
Pete Baran in FT / Pumpkin Publog • 6 Comments
11 February 2010
Garrotxa
A semi-hard raw-milk goat cheese, from Catalonia, Spain, and bought from Brindisa.
We have a wedge from a small wheel of this cheese. It’s crumbly and a clean white in the centre, and covered outside in a distinctive mushroomy grey mould. My colleague Janos, one of today’s co-eaters of cheese, chooses this one because it looks rotten.
It tastes goaty, certainly, but not overwhelmingly so. There’s a fruity tang to this cheese, and an acidic sharpness that’s tempered with a yoghurty creamyness. I can detect a nutty undertone – hazelnuts and walnuts, particularly – as well as a fresh green herbal grassiness.
The rind is hard, and the outside of it feels slightly fuzzy in my mouth. It tastes subtly of blue cheese, is slightly astringent, and surprisingly sweet and nutty, mellow and smooth.
The right proportions of rind and cheese, eaten together, create a smooth, sweet creamy thing of WONDER, with the spicy mellow of the rind and the sharp salt of the paste balancing each other perfectly. Janos refuses to eat the rind and misses this magic. more »
marna in FT / Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
10 February 2010
This was a favourite after-work pub for years, being within easy walking distance of the office but seemingly off the radar of anyone else working there. Despite being in a busy tourist area, it maintains its hidden gem status by sitting, tucked away, in an alley under Charing Cross station.
A large sign outside declares the pub’s USP: “The Only London Pub in Two Halves,” the place being housed in two buildings either side of the alleyway. more »
Rob Brennan in Pumpkin Publog • 3 Comments
6 February 2010
The OSP on Fulham Palace Road has had a chequered past. In its glory days it was a boxer-owned pub “The Golden Gloves” but I first knew it as The Old Suffolk Punch and there was a great, if scuffed, geezer feel to the place — my favourite work boozer. Then it went through a refurb and a phase as the (initials only) OSP just when this review in 2003 [fancyapint.com] was written. The OSP at that time was an awful, soul-destroying place. There were light-box murals of grinning early 20-somethings having a GREAT TIME, looking like low-rent Tony Stone stock photos. It was enough to make the gods of the public house weep into their ports and lemons. A wretched attempt to create a terrible West End bar in the terrible West of Hammersmith.
Thankfully that passed — if a little too slowly — and it became The Old Suffolk Punch once again. A reliable if unremarkable Greene King pub. Well I do have one remark, though I imagine it’s about Greene King food menus chain-wide: The Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding wrap with gravy (and chips). Behold:
Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pud ... in a wrap
From the menu my colleagues and I were imagining a bread wrap around slices of beef and some tiny Yorkshire puds, but it was probably the IPA getting in the way of the obvious interpretation. A flat Yorkshire pud-style batter pancake was the wrap. Brilliant. You pick it up by the batter wrap with the beef and horseradish sauce trapped inside and dip it in the bowl of gravy. NOM, NOM, and three times NOM.
Well it was new to me. This update on a classic, I can get behind. And in to my tum.
Alan in Pumpkin Publog • No Comments
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We have a wedge from a small wheel of this cheese. It’s crumbly and a clean white in the centre, and covered outside in a distinctive mushroomy grey mould. My colleague Janos, one of today’s co-eaters of cheese, chooses this one because it looks rotten.
