October 2006 Archives

awards

North West Food Lovers Festival - Liverpool Food and Drink Festival - eating out

Liverpool food and drink festival. Lunch. Anthony’s in leeds.

food awards vote now

love meat tender

Taxi drivers. Restaurant review. Friday night

Tonight's dinner was quite a strange concotion.

i started off with chicken stock, made from yesterday's free range chicken from the farmers' market, and then added pasta and matzo balls to make a traditional chicken noodle soup - food the soul.

But that just didn't quite do it, so i ended up adding spinach and mushrooms from the farmers' market again and then threw in a dach of chilli sauce and fish sauce to give it some kick.

Thai mixed with good old Jewish home remedies - hhhmmm - interesting!!!!

Today was Wirral Farmers’ Market, which I am chairman for and which is run by a fantastic group of volunteers.

It was a really successful market and everyone seemed really pleased, especially our new arrival – Little Green Men – the North West’s only chilli grower and a real star in the making. Rich Alker grows 26 varieties of chillies and makes numerous products – the chilli beer is particularly fine and the chilli cheese a must for those who love food with a kick.

It was also great to have a new producer as we got some excellent publicity in our local weekly newspapers, so thanks to both of them.

We apparently even got a mention on Radio 2, as one of the producers driving down early in the morning rang in with a record request and gave us a plug!

For more information check out www.littlegreenmen.co.uk and http://wirralfarmersmarket.iccommunities.co.uk

Rising TV chef Simon Rimmer has just opened his restaurant Earle in Hale, near Manchester. The man, who made his name with his vegetarian restaurant, is looking forward to actually cooking with other ingredients such as meat and fish.

I haven’t made it there yet, but let me know what you think?

The new Which? Good Food Guide came out recently and listed its premier league of restaurants.
The good news is that Liverpool is in the top 20, the bad news is that we are beaten by Manchester. But then again getting seven restaurants in the guide, is a huge leap forward for our culinary scene. I can remember when there was only one sad little entry.

This guide also breaks down Wirral by town or village so one of the brightest stars in our restaurant scene – Fraiche - is under Oxton and if visitors don’t know the name they won’t find it.

Maybe now is the time to start lobbying the guide to put Wirral under one entry, so we can praise all the food offerings available on Merseyside.

LONDON 333
MANCHESTER 26
EDINBURGH 22
LEEDS 14
GLASGOW 13
BIRMINGHAM 11
BRIGHTON 11
OXFORD 11
BATH 9
BELFAST 9
BRISTOL 9
EXETER 8
LIVERPOOL 7
NEWCASTLE 7
CARDIFF 6
CHELTENHAM 6
YORK 6
NOTTINGHAM 5
SWANSEA 5
SHEFFIELD 4

On another note dinner tonight was wild mushrooms (ordered through the excellent Northern Harvest) with pasta and a bit of white wine and cream.

Tonight is an early night as we have to be up for Wirral Farmers’ Market, where I am the chairman, and I am worried about how things will go as we have some new producers coming in.
http://wirralfarmersmarket.iccommunities.co.uk