Flat Peaches - A Growing Dependence

Walking back from doing some errands in town last week I stopped in my local grocers, as I often do, for some fruit to eat on the walk home. There is always a table outside filled with what's new and in season. This time of year the table is always full of colour and like a child who has just seen Santa in the corner of a department store, I can't take my eyes off of it. A small handwritten sign reads, 'Stan's Tomatoes', and is placed above a huge basket full of them, all different shapes and sizes. Stan is a guy from a small town on the edge of The New Forest and for a few weeks each year you can spoil yourself on his exquisite, deep red tomatoes. There is a tub of yellow plums placed next to a tub of the regular variety which are from Devon. Cute little apricots are sat next to stacked punnets of local strawberries and there are bulbous globe artichokes lined up along the shelf. The best thing about my grocer is that there is almost always a local option, just like with the tomatoes. For new potatoes, there are some from a farm five miles up the road. Recent gooseberries have come from Wimborne, a neighbouring town, and an array of lettuces all come from Sopley on the outskirts of Christchurch.

What I really fancied today though, was a peach. I looked the peaches over and selected one that I felt would be sufficient for the stroll home. I was reaching across the table when I noticed the words, 'Spanish Flat Peaches', scribbled on a piece of card above a small wooden crate. I'd never had one before and so took one to eat alongside my other peach and compare them on the way home. No sooner had I reached the end of the road, I had to turn back. I was completely besotted by the flat peach. It was intense and subtle at the same time, its skin, which wasn't too fuzzy, broke under the gentlest pressure exposing the pale yellow, almost white flesh, swollen with juice. It was sweet, but not overly so, and as I worked my way around the tiny stone in its centre, my surroundings faded briefly into insignificance. The Big Issue sellers voice became a muffled bass line to the hypnotising hum of the traffic. Within moments, it was over, all that was left was a tiny stone and a few rogue droplets of peach juices dripping through my beard. I wanted more and I wanted it now. I bit into the regular peach, it came nowhere close. The Big Issue sellers gruff voice was grating on me now and I wanted to do anything just to get away from the drone of the traffic. In comparison it was sharp, tart and didn't emit as much juice. I would guess that this was because like most commercial fruits, my regular peach was picked before it was fully ripe. This means that the harvesters don't have to be as delicate with the fruit, it will take more of a beating without bruising. When picking fruit early, although the colour and texture of the fruit may continue to change, the flavour of the fruit will not. I cannot guarantee that my new favourite food drug, the flat peach, wasn't harvested in a similar way, but I very much doubt it due to the ethereal taste I had just experienced. I headed back to the grocers and filled a small bag with some more. They worked out at about 30p each, only 3p more than the regular peaches. I am sure there are many ways you can cook and prepare these flat peaches for desserts, coulis and juices, but I haven't got that far with them yet. Each time I have bought some, they are simply devoured as they are.

Fruits of the Forest
64 Seamoor Rd,
Westbourne,
01202 761646

Guilty Pleasures

Ok, so a kebab shop may not be the type of thing you would expect to read about on a food blog, but this is one of my guilty pleasures that once in a while I feel the need to indulge in, and besides, food for me is about what tastes good. I don't recomend having this kind of thing every night, but it should be up there with such great pleasures as the pork scratching. Many a drunken night has been underlined with a kebab. In the vicinity of Bournemouth and it's surrounding towns and suburbs, there are countless kebab places, most of which I have visited at some point over the years, but none come close to Kebab and Pizza Junction in Charminster. Raz, the proprietor, took on the shop just last year, then only doing pizzas, and immediately set about offering variations of kebab. It's been a long while since I have braved a donner kebab but the char-grilled chicken shish kebab wraps here get me very, very excited. Fresh made coleslaw, always crisp salad and house chilli sauce all wrapped up with the afore-mentioned chicken keeps me very quiet and occupied for all of about ten minutes. Emma turned to me on our latest visit and said, "I always know when your food is good because you don't speak." For those of you who know me you will appreciate that such reprise in my incessant verbal dihorea are moments which are few and far between, and are to be savoured. Raz's place isn't just a counter, firing off takeaways though, he has an area full of tables, it reminds me of the small street food eateries from my travels. It is always busy here, and not with drunken, dribbling louts, but with families and couples of all different nationalities. Sport is often on the big screen tv and there is even a room downstairs with a pool table. How many kebab houses can you go to eat, shoot some pool and pretend you are Tom Cruise or Paul Newman in The Colour of Money? As I mentioned earlier, this is one of my guilty pleasures, we all have them. But on those occasions when the lust for such foods arise, treat yourself, and get the best kebab in Bournemouth, Chicken Shish Wrap from Pizza, Kebab Junction.

The Fish Man, Bournemouth Beach

I'm going to share a secret here, it may not be very heavily guarded but it has been one of my favourite finds for a couple of years now. Anyone who lives in the Poole / Bournemouth region will know that, surprisingly, though living on the water, we have hardly any fishmongers, in fact I think the nearest one would be Christchurch or Ringwood, some ten miles away.

I had always seen the cluster of rowing boats on Durley Chine beach, not far from the pier, but it wasn't until just a few years ago, when my wife Emma and I first moved into our flat, that during early morning walks to work along the beach we discovered a man hauling small nets onto one of the boats. I assumed this was merely a one off, but as the week drew on I noticed him further and further out each morning, sometimes I wondered how he rowed out so far, sat out a good few miles off the coast. I imagined how nice it would be to have fish, caught off my local beach, just a mile from my home and eat for lunch just hours after being landed. After a week or so I managed to arrive at the same time as the fisherman was bringing his boat ashore, laying down tied pairs of buoys acting as rollers to lift the boat off of the sand and bring the vessel back up a few metres away from the ebbing tide. I wanted to see what had been caught and as I started towards the sand I noticed that the few idling people on the promenade came together near a bench and started to form an orderly queue. The fisherman carried a big fish crate up to a small plastic table, washed his hands in a bucket of water and greeted his first customer. It seemed to be first come first serve but the box was full of beautifully patterned mackerel, a few pollock, some spotted grey mullet and a few red gurnard. I stood in line and bought a nice big pollock for £2. That walk home I must have had the biggest grin on my face, I was so incredibly chuffed and I knew I had found something special. The early bird definitely catches the proverbial worm. Over the seasons I tried lots of fish, all extremely reasonable prices and caught on my doorstep, you couldn't possibly get more local. I had Dover sole, plaice, mackerel, grey mullet, gurnard, I never had a set plan of what fish I would buy, I just wandered down to see what was caught. Some days he doesn't go out, but the added gamble of whether or not he is there, has gone out or even caught anything all adds to the anticipation. Dave the fish man has been fishing off the beach since 1959, "Back then there were loads of fishing boats being launched off the beach." he informed me, but if you walk along the beach early in the morning now, you will see that he is the only one. I am too polite to ask the age of Dave the fish man, but rowing a boat for over fifty years has served him well I am sure, he looks very young. I wondered why he always rowed though. "Magna Carta" he replied. The Magna Carta gives fishermen the right to fish the foreshore under rowing or sail and also the right for fishermen to sell their catch on the beach. On my latest visit I picked up a handsome pair of mackerel, the pattern on their backs mesmerise me. As I am sure many of you know, you can tell how fresh a fish is by looking at its eyes. They should be clear and slightly bulbous, not cloudy or sunken back. These two specimen caught half an hour demonstrated this perfectly. It seemed a shame to take a knife to them, but I was hungry and approaching an early brunch. I took the fillets off and pan fried them gently with some oil and chopped shallots, layed them on top of some boiled and crushed new potatoes and some griddled asparagus, before soft poaching an egg to sit atop the lot.

The Print Room, Bournemouth

In 1987 the Daily Echo produced its first completely computer designed and written newspaper, thus beginning the slow redundancy of machines and space in the printing halls of the newspaper's building on Richmond Hill. In 2007 a £2million renovation saw the empty hall transform into the French, brasserie style restaurant that is The Print Room. My birthday is approaching and my Dad took me out to lunch to celebrate. The booths that break up the vast space offer a very private setting for your meal which is brilliant when you want to catch up and have a chat without straining to hear or having to whisper. Due to the high ceiling and booth layout the Print Room takes on a hum of activity. The muffled sound of conversation, knife against crockery and the chink of glasses all blend into the constant murmur that creates a relaxed atmosphere to the grand old room.



Dad chose the wine; we had a 2007 Malbec which was exceptionally plummy and full bodied. We shared the chicken liver and foie gras mouse with black truffle butter and a carpaccio of Cornish beef with parmesan cream. The foie and chicken liver mousse was smooth and strong picked up by the truffle butter which I didn't want to end. The beef was so tender and there seemed to be quite a lot of the cream but the slight salty bite from the parmesan complimented the meat beautifully.


For main, we ordered the pork belly with pumpkin puree and parsnip and the roasted loin of venison with confit of lamb, potato gratin and red cabbage which sounds like a lot to take in from just one plate. The venison was perfectly seasoned and cooked, bright pink centre but still warm, something which few restaurants manage to do well, the lamb confit was full of such deep and intense flavours that neither one of us spoke whilst we polished it off and continued to devour the venison and potato gratin. Pork belly, another meat that can so often under whelm was spot on, not one tiny bit of chewy fat throughout the meat. Soft, juicy and collapsed under little pressure from the side of a fork. Before we finished off our second glass of Malbec I managed to eat more than my share of the pork, potato and red cabbage.

It has been a long long time since I went for lunch just me and my dad and to have the more intimate confines of a booth whilst still feeling very much part of the room we talked long into the afternoon and running over our car park time. I walked back to the car for a lift to mine and Dad handed me a carrier bag. "One more present," he said holding it out for me to take. In it was a fresh pigeon he had shot that morning (in his garden that backs onto the forest before you ask, don't worry, no city pigeon here)He'd got it especially for me as he knows it's my favourite. So from one fantastic meal to the beginnings of another. Great day and I think The Print Room could be one of the most underrated restaurants on the south coast. Definitely deserves more attention, so check it out.

Basilica, Westbourne.

I like Westbourne a lot. That may be a slightly biased view of the area seeing as I live there, but I think it has everything you need and is still in close vicinity to Bournemouth, without being too busy. I like to use my local, independent business' because without them there wouldn't be that charming character Westbourne owns. One thing had been troubling me lately though. The arrival of the new Pizza Express may have given a new lease of life and a fresh lick of paint to the empty old bank by the zebra crossing, but I notice that while the pizza chain's latest outpost is full every night, some of the local restaurants sit very quiet and empty. This year when we had a long overdue get together with friends, the wife and I had made a point of going to one of the indpendents in town and chose Basilica. Walking past that morning we noticed the second letter 'i' from their sign had fallen off and watched as two men struggled with a ladder and some brown parcel tape. Yes you heard correctly, they had decided that rather than have their sign spelt wrong they would sooner have fat, brown tape plastered over their very smart looking sign. Had they not thought of clear sellotape? Surely a tube of superglue wasn't too much of an ask. I know times are hard but this is the christmas season, the time for restaurants and the catering industry to stuff their stockings with cash, or was that the gentlemen's clubs? Perhaps they didn't get the memo.
We had to pre order our meals the day before, and before you ask, no this wasn't a get together on the scale of a Liverpool Victoria christmas party. No, there were just seven of us. Starter and Main.
I had bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar for an appetiser, it was gorgeous, followed by the fish special which was pan-fried fillets of sea bass and squid rings on spinach mash with a tomato, wine and caper sauce. It was really well presented and the flavours were perfectly balanced. The fish was soft and tender with the skin slightly crispy. The wife had Byrek which was like a filo pastry pie containing goats cheese, leek, spinach and pine nuts which was as delicious as it sounds. I don't think anybody was disappointed with the quality of the food, but there was a query on the quantity of a certain dish. A friend who ordered a £7.50 starter of prawns was agog upon delivery of only two, very normal looking prawns with a smattering of salad leaves. Well the money they saved on the superglue for the sign obviously wasn't going towards respectable sized portions. After eating our main courses and a bit of chatting it was time for desserts. The wife noticed on the way in that the restaurant had big chocolate brownies in a glass fronted chiller cabinet. When the dessert menu arrived the brownies were not featured and so she went upstairs to ask the lady behind the counter if she could have one. Certainly is what you would usually be told. which one in particular do you like the look of, perhaps. Not, "Erm... well I don't know if you can. I suppose if thats what you REALLY want." My wife doesn't stutter. She doesn't trail off mid sentence staring into oblivion. Of course it is what she wanted, that's why she had walked up the stairs and asked you for it. What part of, Please may I have one of those Brownies for dessert, could possibly have made you think that she wanted something different. Begrudgingly she handed one over as if it were her child into the custody of the taliban.
As I mentioned before the food was really good and service for the most part was pleasant. The prawns, or lack of, were a let down. They did not drop the charge for that starter, nor reduce the price of it. In fact upon leaving, I had one foot out the door when a waiter came running up to me and said, "You pre-ordered right. Well you knew how much the prawn starter was then." Yes but did we know it would be only two sorry little stripped prawns with some baby spinach? They must either be struggling or just trying to cash in, but either way at this time of year and in these economic times keeping customers happy would go a long way. It was just a shame that by eating a brownie, the wife completely ruined the feng shui of their chiller cabinet.