Brambles Cafe and Bar, Holmfirth

A Friday night in Holmfirth to watch the wonderful Lau in concert at the Picturedrome and an opportunity for a bite to eat before the gig.

I went for the Brambles beer battered haddock, chunky chips, minted mushy peas and tartar (their spelling not mine) sauce at £8.95.

The fish was bland and the batter was a little oily and the oil it was cooked in may have been past its best as it gave the batter a slightly burnt taste.

The chips were not chips and they were not chunky as claimed. The wedges with bits of potato skin on them were also a little oily and had a burnt flavour like the fish batter. They were thankfully a standard sized chip.

The mushy peas were a challenge. They tasted OK but had no mint. It was only after a few dips into the bowl that they came in that I realised the mint had been added to the bottom of the bowl and my job was to mix the peas with the mint to create the advertised effect. Unfortunately I’d already eaten quite a lot of the peas before I found the mint and so I had half a portion of perfectly good mushy peas and half a portion of very minty peas.

The tartare (my spelling not theirs) had been blended to within an inch of its life and none of the flavours that went into it had any distinction. A decent lemon wedge was provided.

My main grumble was with the presentation. The meal came on a plate with two equal sections. Section one, on the left, had the fish and chips and the other side had a bowl for the mushy then minty peas, the lemon and a tiny cup for the tartare. It seemed to be trying too hard for a plate.

I went for the Brambles Best Bitter which was a house beer from a local brewery and was pretty good.

The service was great. Quick, efficient and helpful.

The Bull, Broughton near Skipton

Firstly an apology. I had the opportunity for a standard fish and chips and had my head turned by deep fried East coast Monkfish tail in breadcrumbs with a marrowfat and green pea crush and real chips, which was a bit steep at £13.50, but it was Easter and I was living dangerously. 

Purists look away now.

The monkfish tails were meaty and juicy. They were effectively big goujons which worked well as a really tasty alternative to the traditional cod or haddock. The batter had breadcrumbs added and was light and crisp and the crumbs brought extra taste and texture, which was an enjoyable break with the norm.

The chips, which came in a separate bowl, were really tasty and very very long. I shouldn’t have a problem with really long chips but they did look a little odd, but more importantly they should have had a couple of minutes extra in the fryer just to crisp them up and get more colour into them. They were good chips, if not outstanding.

The marrowfat and green pea crush was lovely as it had all the different flavours and textures in a big dollop on the side of the plate. They had a variety of colour and added something a bit cheeky to every mouthful.

The presentation of the lemon was very clever. They put the lemon in muslin, tied at the top, and you could squeeze with impunity in the knowledge that the pips were going nowhere. The tartare was OK. It had a good balance of all the essential flavours with lots of lovely bits to bite through but didn’t have enough of a zing for me.

I went for the Bull’s beer board which was three thirds of three different beers – Hetton Pale from the Dark Horse Brewery, Joshua Jane from the Ilkley Brewery and the Signal Main Line from the very new Settle Brewing Company. All were lovely.

The service let the whole experience down. Staff talked too quickly to be understood, simple requests for a glass of water or for the bill both needed to be repeated. It was a big busy pub but  and it seemed  that there was a process the staff had to follow and your request went into the system rather than the member of staff assigned to your table just getting it done. It seemed quite odd that this ‘restaurant and real ale gastro pub’, which is part of the part of the group which runs Northcote Manor, didn’t have a better way of managing the customer experience. After all, it was a £13.50 fish and chips.

 Great food, great beer, shame about the service.

Forster’s Bistro and Deli, Bradford

This city centre restaurant is run by Forster Community College which gifts all its profits back to the college and is a great addition to the City Park.

I went for the fish and chips with minted mushy peas which was very reasonably priced at £6.95.

The fish had great big chunks, was incredibly tasty. However, we were back on the skin on/skin off issue and whilst I can see that it might be tricky for a fish with such big chunks to hold together for deep frying for me it doesn’t work in terms of flavour as I can’t eat it. The batter the fish came in was light and a little too oily but was a good, no-nonsense traditional batter.

The chips were like your mam used to make them. Hand cut, with the odd tiny bit of skin on them, they were reasonably cooked but I would have given them a couple more minutes in the fryer to crisp up some more but they did have a lovely light floury flavour. They came as a side dish as yet again Forster’s had decided to move away from the traditional circular plate. This time it was a plate with a deep well in its middle which I’ve found out is called a deep plate – which is interesting. It worked OK for the fish and peas but less well when you added the chips and hence the need for these to be in a side dish. The outside edge of the well did make for a very handy circular mini-table to rest the squeezed lemon and inedible skin on but it would have looked better on a more ‘normal’ plate.

A beautiful puree of minted peas contributed enormously to the enjoyment of the meal with a subtly to the flavours which worked really well with the fish. The tartare was lemon zesty and really well balanced, the lemon was a fine size and the only problem was the vinegar. It came in a jug and needed tremendous dexterity to pour just the right amount on the chips without drowning them completely. 

To drink, I had an unremarkable bottle of Saltaire Blonde which wasn’t helped by being too cold followed by a stunning glass of Soldiers Block Shiraz.

Forster’s is a great example to other towns and cities of what colleges that have hospitality related courses can do to add to the culinary offering of a centre. The staff, many of whom are students at the college, clearly understand what high quality customer service is and delivered a quietly efficient experience even though they were rushed off their feet. A real pleasure to have visited.

Hinchliffe Arms, Cragg Vale

We were hungry on our way back from a trip to Liverpool and decided to drop into the Hinch for a bite to eat before heading home.

I’ve known Miles, the landlord, for many years and it’s always a fantastic welcome from him and his team and something to look forward to in terms of the beer and the food.

I went for the small fish and chips at £10 and a cracking pint of Edge Pale Ale from the Raw Brewing Company.

The fish was very fresh moist and tasted fantastic with excellent chunks of meaty fish which had been cooked perfectly. The batter was light and crispy with a strong solid flavour that had been well seasoned.

Proper bloody chips! All sides of the chip had been peeled and they were just the right size, golden brown in colour, crisp on the outside and light and fluffy on the inside. And not a wedge in sight.

Although the peas had a good deep flavour they were a little too dry for me but they had a good colour and were a good balance between fully mushed and whole peas.

There was no lemon, which was a shame as I quite like the little acid zing it adds that’s far more refreshing than adding too much vinegar, which I inevitably do in the absence of the lemon. The only let down the meal had was the tartare sauce.  I think a good tartae starts with a very good mayonnaise; some quite roughly chopped gherkins and capers with some lemon juice and seasoning and then whatever you fancy to make it your own. This tartare tasted very good and had a good balance of flavours but it has the problem of being runny as it had been blended and I didn’t like the fact that I wandered around the plate trying to find the fish rather than the other way round.

All in all an excellent meal with great service from the team at the Hinch and I can’t wait to go back. If you’ve never been go, and go especially in the daytime because if the sun is shining and you can sit outside with a pint and admire the scenery it is truly one of life’s pleasures. 

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Ricci’s Place, Halifax

We like Ricci’s Place. It has a good atmosphere, great music and the food is usually very good.

It was Diwrnod Santes Dwynwen and we agreed to have a meal after work to celebrate the Welsh patron saint of friendship and love.

The evening didn’t start well with some confusion over our booking but we were given a table and I considered my options. I went for the tempura of hake with hand-cut chunky chips, tartare sauce, watercress and lemon. Not cheap at £13.25 but it was a special day so I was allowed to treat myself.

I had an inkling of what would happen next but I was still disappointed when it did. My meal arrived on a small cheese board with a piece of greaseproof paper holding the fish, watercress ,tartare sauce with the chips were ‘on-the-side’ in a little metal bucket with more greaseproof paper. I am a fan of cheeseboards used correctly and I’m sure I can find a good use for small metal buckets and the bucket did bring to mind summers making sandcastles on Treaddur Bay beach, but it didn’t work as a fried chip receptacle.  As the cheeseboard was very small, and would have been a genuine challenge to eat from, I asked for my meal to be plated, which was fine, but for the fact that it came back with everything apart from the greaseproof paper on the plate which meant that I had to put my little shiny silver bucket to the side and added small portions of chips to my plate as I went along.

The fish wasn’t great – the hake lacked flavour and although the shape and texture was perfectly fine it just didn’t excite the palate. The worst element was that one of the cardinal sins of fish and chippery had been committed, which was the skin on/off rule had been broken and some of the fish skin with batter on had to be left as it just didn’t taste very nice.

The tempura batter didn’t work at all. The idea of the batter is to be light in texture, taste and appearance and this was none of the above as it seemed to have been cooked for too long and was actually darker than a traditional fish batter and had taken on quite a lot of the frying fat which made it unpleasant after a few mouthfuls.

The chips were OK. They, like the batter, had been cooked a little too long and tasted too much of the fat but had some good potato flavour. They were however inconsistent with some being perfectly cooked and others overcooked. They had been advertised as hand-cut chunky chips but the size was absolutely fine and not really chunky at all. I’ve had much, much chunkier chips.

The lemon had been cut so that it sat proudly on the cheeseboard/plate and was a good size. The tartare sauce was delightful with chunky vinegary gherkins cutting through the other flavours. The watercress was perfectly pleasant but didn’t bring anything to the meal.

We will be back to Ricci’s but I’ll go for a Mediterranean classic next time.

Holdsworth House Hotel, Halifax

It was always going to be a good day when the amount of time, on public transport, to get from Hebden Bridge to Illingworth was 40 minutes and it included interaction with the charming staff of the T.J. Walsh bus company. I simply said where we were going to, paid my £1.40, and the driver stopped at where we needed to get off and pointed us in the right direction and during the journey he had quietly engaged with every person who got on the bus.

The Holdsworth House Hotel had been on the radar for a very long time and the January food and wine discount deal was the ideal catalyst to get us to book.

We did walk into a wedding when we arrived but eventually took our table in one of the grand rooms of this 17th century Jacobean manor.

The meal was advertised as Little Valley beer battered deep fried line caught haddock and was simply stunning. The fish was incredibly fresh and flavoursome and held together beautifully. The Little Valley beer and brilliant cooking were brought together to deliver a wonderful light, crisp and consistent batter which had to be separated from the fish to truly appreciate its excellent flavour.

The chips were wedges once again but I’ll have to let it pass this time as they were beautifully crisp, light chips with a fantastic taste.

Wow! The mushy peas were the stars of the meal. They had an intense pea flavour with great depth and a perfectly balanced texture of truly mushy but some still fully formed peas now and again and was a tribute to the glory of the mushy pea accompaniment.

No lemon – that was a surprise. The tartare was too creamy for my tastes and didn’t have the kick it should have had until right at the end. I had expected to be amazed as the rest of the meal was so good but it was the only part that could do with re-assessing.

The venue, the attention to detail in the dining experience and the £11.95 price tag is effectively posh fish and chips. But this meal had no pretentions as it was simply a beautifully crafted meal in charming surroundings with efficient, understated staff. The meal was washed down with a lovely South African white which was the perfect accompaniment.

One of the best fish and chips meals I’ve ever had and I don’t think it’ll be too long before we return.