We usually take a stroll round from the hotel to see what’s around and in the evening we found Restaurant Etapes. Like many places in Barcelona this was a fairly narrow place that you would easily walk past. It was fairly long but I can’t remember how many seats it had. Anyways, this was about 730 (most locals don’t eat until gone 9pm but we were hungry!) and there were a couple of people already in there. We asked if they had a table free, which thankfully they did so we dined there. The two guys performing Front of House and Waiting were both really friendly and informative. They chatted with us about where we were from and explained the food available this week. I realise that this is stuff that all restaurant staff should do, but sometimes you get people who excel at doing this and these guys did.

We were given our amuse bouche which was a Mackerel sushimi with soy sauce and small pieces of citrus; the first taste you get is the hit of soy which then disappears and the citrus then cleans your palette. The mackerel didn’t really stand out, but it was a nice nibble.

We then had some tomato bread delivered to the table. This was new to us but it’s widely used in Barcelona.It’s bruschetta that is toasted and then rubbed with a cut tomato, then liberally doused with olive oil and seasoned – it was extremely tasty and really fresh, like biting a piece of summer.

My starter was Foie Mi-cuit salt on gingerbread, tomato jam and apple sauce.
The foie mi-cuit is the liver element, really smooth and a mild flavour which was nice as this was a starter. The apple went really well giving some acidity. This was a great looking dish so I was excited for the rest.

Mark had the beef carpaccio which was very nice, not too oily as some are plastered with the stuff. It came with some fried leeks which were a bit too crispy, but overall another good starter.

My main was Crispy suckling pig confit with herbs, rhubarb and corn husks thousand and cheese. Seriously one of the best pork dishes that I have ever tasted, one forkful and I was off at Pork Factor 9!! The pork was delivered in a stack on the plate, with a light skin topping. Amazing, seriously great flavour. The confit was a mixture of different pork cuts which gave it the depth. This was served with a hallumi and corn bread stack and pork scratchings. The rhubarb married well with the pork.

Mark had Lacquered lamb shank, wheat risotto, sour apple and pineapple caramel. Unadulterated food, pure lamb flavour and robust. The risotto was cooked perfectly and this was accompanied with the crisps. The pineapple didn’t really sit right with this, but that was the only criticism. Very honest food.

For dessert I had the Tiramisú “etapes” to coffee from Peru. Again an excellent dish. Light, smooth and a great whack of espresso flavour.

We had a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses of bubbly. The total bill was €118 (which worked out about £90) – bloody bargain. We double checked to make sure there wasn’t anything left off. Great place, very friendly staff, good atmosphere and excellent food. We chatted with our waiter and complemented them on the quality of the food and he said they are working hard to get a Michelin star so let’s hope they do but I expect this will see a hike in the prices.

Due to the aforementioned interactions we got a free glass of bubbly on arrival and all of the staff were very friendly and made us feel immediately welcomed. It’s a small dining area and one of my comments about “could be better” would be with regard to the number of tables in the dining area; there isn’t a lot of space to actually walk through if you want to go to the toilet. I understand that restaurants have lots of tables so they get lots of customers, but I and my friend both said the same – in this instance they could lose a couple of tables, or at least reconfigure them. It’s not good if you have to reverse down a path to allow a waiter to go past you.

The food was of a high standard, but it wasn’t without fault. Kicking off with some nibbles I ordered the Watlington pork crackling with home-made apple sauce and some Bread for the table; crackling was superb (we got 6 sheets each, one of which was properly puffed up). Bread was nice, had a good crust to it.

For my starter I had the British rose veal vol au vent, creamy mushroom Mornay and seasonal leaves. It came in a fairly large bowl and looked very nice. If I hadn’t known it was veal in the tart then I wouldn’t have guessed it. It was predominantly mushroom, again this didn’t detract from the enjoyment but if you say it’s a veal dish you really want to taste it. The meat was a little chewy too.

Mark had the crayfish and cabbage. Again the amount of crayfish was quite minimal, but it was still a nice dish.

For my main I went for the Rump of Oxfordshire spring lamb served pink, carrot flan, boulangère potatoes, onion compote, lamb & rosemary jus.

Cracking dish. Meat was tender, cooked well and packed with flavour. I think this was the best dish, for me, of the evening. Very innovative using the carrot like this – it was really light and tasty. I wasn’t overly keen on the potatoes, but the fact that the lamb was so nice it didn’t really matter! With this dish I ordered some of the Home made chunky King Edward’s chips – really nice. Almost a wedgey really but still great taste and texture.

Mark had the Hampshire beef fillet, cauliflower purée, potato & pancetta, onions, seasonal mushrooms & parsley, red wine jus. He ordered it blue and the chef cooked it exactly that – you rarely get a chef brave enough to cook steak blue or at least be able to! The beef had a great texture and good “beefy” taste. The veggies were cooked well and completed the dish.

For dessert I ordered the trio of desserts, which on this day were a panna cotta, sponge with jam and a chocolate mousse with a coffee foam. I didn’t see the point of the sponge as it was quite plain and a little heavy. The panna cotta was well set but could have done with a little more vanilla. The star of the show was the chocolate mousse and coffee foam, chocolate was smooth and thick, and the coffee added another dimension to the overall taste. My dessert came on a rectangular plate and 2 of the others came in the bowl that I had my starter in; these bowls were just too big for the dessert and it seemed dwarfed. I know it’s only a small thing but getting the right plate/bowl for the dish is important.

During the meal we ordered a bottle of wine, 2 Peroni beers, an apple juice, some coffees and a couple of dessert wines. The total bill came to £214.25 (of which £57 was drink). We left a 10% tip so overall it was £224.25 (£55 each). Not overly expensive for 3 courses and a shared “nibble” but I must admit that I didn’t feel full after finishing my meal. I don’t want to have to be rolled away from a table but I also want to feel that I’ve eaten enough to keep me going through the night – in this instance I didn’t feel like that (not like the night before at the Hinds Head where I felt nicely full).

With a couple of tweaks (sort the tables out to make a bit more room, work on a couple of the dishes, swap some plates around) and this would be an even better place.

Food – 6/10

Service – 8/10

Value – 6.5/10

So, Barcelona. The capital of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, after Madrid. Approximately 2 hours flying time from Heathrow airport. We booked 5 nights there at the end of April. One of the reasons for visiting Barcelona was the lure of the food but also the architecture, so a good all round place to visit in our opinion.

As with most of our holidays we do a bit of planning. I could never just rock up to a city without having some idea of what was there, though saying that you could easily find so much stuff to do in this city without the prep work so you don’t have to. We tend to use, as part of our arsenal of information, the Time Out books. They are written by locals of the area so you should be getting the good places to sniff out, and not necessarily the touristy bits. Personally we try to avoid the tourist areas as they are usually more costly than the local areas and full of tourists!! If you do use any printed publication it’s good to double-check, if you can, on the Internet to make sure place are valid. We came across a couple of places that didn’t exist or had changed – not overly annoying but one bar that we walked a good 20 minute walk too had changed their opening times, not a wasted walk as it was lovely weather!

Talking about the weather we had pretty much daily sunshine, apart from 1 afternoon and the following day. It was very overcast and had a bit of rain, but on the whole we had ideal walking weather. Getting around the city is quite easy; the roads consist of blocks that are intersected by long avenues and smaller roads, so once you know which part you on it’s easy to navigate; it’s fairly flat (which is good for me) but there were some steep parts (the walk to the Gaudi Park was very steep); the metro is cheap, air-conditioned and about 50% larger than the trains in London – they also have much better information within each carriage of where you are etc. something the London Tube could benefit from. We found the city very tidy and most areas had a good feel about them. This is the Capital of Pick Pockets in Europe but we didn’t see anything like this happening, although friends of ours had informed us of their friends who had been targeted – one trick is to squirt something like ketchup on your back, they then “help” you and help themselves. This can happen in most cities and I suppose it’s just lucky if you don’t but also to be a bit more “with it” when walking around, there was a good Police presence in the main tourist areas, but even in the smaller places you would normally see a policeman nearby.

I think that’s enough for an intro to begin with. Coming up will be a food based blog and a touristy one – can you wait that long? If you can’t then you may just need to get a life……

Earlier in the week I had my usual 1:1 with my boss, in which we discussed the upcoming annual appraisals that would be held in June this year. My boss is based in the US so when we spoke it was 830AM his time (this does mean something, as you will see in a bit). As with most corporates they believe in using feedback from colleagues, and peers, to help assess your merit increase and/or promotion. We ran out of time during our allotted 1 hour and my boss said I should set-up another meeting later that week if I wanted to. I didn’t as I was a bit annoyed at some of the feedback bearing in mind the amount of blood, sweat and tears I have expended during these past 12 months since my last appraisal, in ensuring I was doing the most I could within my role.

Fast forward to Wednesday and I get a calendar invite, “1:1″, and a team meeting cancellation request, these two were tied in but I didn’t realise at the actual time. I called my boss at the requested time and during the conversation the immortal words “your role has been deemed redundant” were uttered. You could have knocked me over, picked me up, knocked me over again and I would still not have felt a thing. In fact it felt just like when I received the phone call from my sobbing father when he told me my brother, Michael, had been taken ill, which quickly lead to his death. This was a Wednesday too – maybe this is my “lucky” day???? To be fair I could tell by his tone that this was a total shock to him as well, but it didn’t make me feel much better. After putting the phone down I then got a call from HR, no time-wasting here, to see them the following day to start my consultation period.

At this point I was stunned. I just didn’t see this coming, and to be honest, foolishly maybe, I thought I would be at my workplace for many years. I then told a couple of close colleagues who were equally shocked and then left to go home. The drive home never felt longer than it did that evening. I am normally a very calm and calculating person, but at this point I started to catastrophize. What’s going to happen with me getting another job, what about the bills, what about the mortgage, what about the holidays?? Like most nights Mark and I ask how our day has been. I said “Yeh not bad, I’ve had better. I got made redundant” at which point I started to cry – due to shock, frustration and anger at the news. This is where Mark was super cool and said “Ok, no worries, it’s just a job, this can be fixed” and that was it. No panic, fear or anything. Thank God I had someone like this to speak with.

I didn’t sleep much that night, what with thoughts flying round and to top it all a bloody painful tooth (that I had looked at today by the dentist and they put some magic cream on the gum, apparently there’s a little gap between the tooth and the gum and it may have had some food in it. A quick clean and buzz and it’s feeling better). When I woke in the morning I attended my consultancy with a colleague who had also been made redundant a few years before, in the same company, as support and guidance. This was my first real redundancy in all the 25 years I’ve been working (man I’m old!) so it was all quite new. I’m not going to go into details but it basically means that I have 4 weeks for my company to try and get me another role internally, for me to look for roles inside or out. After that, and if the role is deemed redundant (this is about 99.9% sure as there were 20 of us globally and others have been chopped) I will have proper notice given. My final day will be July 31st so I am now on gardening leave for 3 months.

I’ve started a To Do list, which I will keep on top of. For the next 2 weeks I am going to basically do nothing with regard to this part of my life. We are off on holiday to Barcelona soon so I am looking forward to that.

At the end of the period I am not sure where I will be. Part of me wants to stay with my current company, and in a role that is similar. Another part is thinking that this could be a point in my life (with the severance payment) that I could look and do something that I really want to, rather than chasing the £££. Ultimately I will have to get a job that pays a decent amount as we have plans for the future, but this may just let me try some things out, like contracting and stuff like that. What it does allow me is time to do some volunteering, more photography, more work in writing, and meeting friends!!!

Thanks for reading this blog, it’s nice to know that some people out there do actually read it. I will be writing more about this in the near future.

First off, Slow cooked Texas style brisket. Not cheap at £15/kg (the pack I got was .5kg) but I reckon it’s worth every hard earned penny. I know this is cheating and I would love to have the time, and apparatus, to do my own smoking. I’m not going to beat myself up over this shortcut as the end result is amazingly good. Just getting it out of the oven you get an immediate whack of spice and deep smoke aromas. Slicing a thin piece off you can see it’s moist, with just enough fat on the top and smoking done to it – you can see the slight smoke line within the meat.

Popping it into your mouth and letting the flavours release (I am licking my lips as I type this after just having some leftovers, yes I know leftovers, as my lunch) and they are seriously concentrated and developed. If you’ve wanted to try something like this at home then get yourself down to your local Waitrose and splash out, honestly you won’t be disappointed (I take this opportunity to say that I am not responsible for any disappointments!)

Then there are the sausages. Pork with cherry wood smoked bacon. FANTASTIC. Totally the texture I really like, not too processed, different textures within the skin, and the skin itself went crispy (cooked for 25 mins at 200′C in a fan oven). Very nice flavour too. True that it’s not a punch in the face, but I just really enjoyed eating them, and they are on offer at the moment (2 6 packs for £5) so I think I may be filling my freezer up with them!

I could not be a vegetarian!

The ambience of the restaurant is bubbly and conducive to discussions, sometimes when everyone is talking at the same time it can get a bit hard to fully hear people on the same table – this is probably due to the tiled floor and walls which will efficiently bounce off any audio. It’s not a stuffy place to eat at, which is good. You can wear jeans with a shirt which I like.

The staff were all very friendly but, thankfully, not too over friendly and asking how things are every 5 minutes. Glass refills were in a good timely fashion and table brush downs happened a couple of times. A couple of points that I picked up on were; leaving the bread basket (which was empty) on an already crowded table, and when dessert wine was ordered the waiter had to be called back for others to order theirs – ideally he would have asked if anyone else would like to order. These aren’t anything major mind, but this is a review (of sorts) and I wanted to note it.

Onto the food!!!!! As 6 of us were dining, and not everyone liked the tasting menu, we opted for the a la carte. Oddly enough the majority of the tasting menu was made up of the a la carte menu anyway, which is the first I’ve seen as most restaurants have a much smaller choice with a la carte compared to the 8+ courses with a tasting menu. We started with the obligatory bread; if memory serves me right there was soda, olive tapenade and a garlic & rosemary selection. All freshly made and really tasty, with good textures (decent crusts!). The olive selections were like small pastries in shape and the first basket got wolfed down quickly. We ordered a second and this came with freshly cooked olive bread, which was a nice touch as it literally steamed as you opened it.

We were then given the first amuse bouche; chickpeas with a cauliflower soup. Very refreshing and the cauliflower was perfect in texture and flavour. Chickpeas gave a nice change of texture.

My starter was the Crispy Duck Egg – served with white beans, chorizo, tomato and espelette. The egg was the yolk covered in, I believe, panko crumbs, which was deep fried. Once cut into the golden yolk oozed out and mixed with the accompanying elements. A very tasty looking, and tasting, dish. I initially thought the egg would be quite strong in flavour, but it was just right. Thankfully I had reserved a slice of bread and used that to mop up all the lovely leftovers.

I then had the Beef which consisted of slow cooked cheek, bavette à la plancha, celeriac, parsley and truffle sauce. I had to ask when ordering what the bavette à la plancha was and was informed this was basically a cut of beef. My French is very basic and I appreciate it looks good on a menu, but if I don’t know what it is then I may not order it. When the plate arrived it looked wonderful. A slice of beef, cooked med-rare, laying over the thick disc of celeriac, with the beef cheeks nestled to the side and draped with the sauce. This was my first try of beef cheeks and I am a big fan now. It was similar, to me, to corned beef (kind of) in its texture – two small balls which fell apart when you cut them and literally dissolved in your mouth, packed with flavour though. The celeriac gave some nice texture to the dish but I didn’t really pick up the truffle in the sauce. Not saying that it was a poor sauce but if you advertise as truffle then it should stand out. With the mains we also ordered some sides of sauteed potatoes and chips – regular readers of my blog will know my crusade to find good chips and these were very good. Crisp, fluffy and tasty – almost perfect (nothing is perfect).

We then had the pre-dessert which was a small glass of Pink grapefruit, yoghurt jelly and granola. A lovely little palette cleanser and good combinations of sharp and sour. The granola was a small sprinkling on top which added a different texture to the jelly and grapefruit – very enjoyable.

Finally the dessert. I opted for the Mascarpone Cream with cardamon, marshmallow, blood orange granite and baked meringue. Such a pretty dish that I had to take a picture and tweet it! Here’s the pic. It looked too good to eat, but I am glad I did. I love the idea of edible flowers with anything, as it’s not very often you get to eat them. They add colour and interest to a dish with their own small flavour. The stand out of the dish was the meringue – covered in sesame seeds and, I think, nigella seeds. The little nuggets gave a toasty flavour and crunch to the dish. The granite mixing with the marshmallow and cream gave a nice chilled mouthful (but note to self here; after having a new filling don’t eat granite on that side of the mouth as it HURTS!).

As for drinks we had a glass of bubbly on arrival and then an Alsace Gewurztraminer Les Folastries: Domaine Josmeyer with the starter, Lebanon Château Musar: Gaston Hochar, Bekaa Valley (amazing flavour) and I had a glass of dessert wine which I believe was Gewurztraminer Vdges Tardives.

I left suitably full and thoroughly enjoyed the evening and second experience of Simpsons.

Cost – £102 each

Food – 8/10

Service – 7.5/10

Value – 9/10

Some days it seems to quiet down a bit, and then others it flares up just for the hell of it. I have it on the back and palms of my hands, in between some of my fingers; on my elbows; on my upper arms; a little on my throat; patches on my chest and stomach; the backs of my legs; my bum and the soles of my feet.

At one point I thought I was the born again Messiah as I had symmetrical patches on both palms, the soles of both feet and a patch by my ribs – as though I had been nailed and speared. I tried making 2 fish fingers and a loaf of bread feed 5,000 but I failed – bugger.

Some days I get down with it, as it seems to just do what it wants and I normally leave a little piece of me wherever I go, so apologies if I moult at your house!

When I am at work, and I always wear short arms shirts as I can’t stand long arms, I sometimes know that people are looking at my blotchy arms and probably thinking “What the f*ck is that” – I sometimes tell them.

I moisturise when I can be bothered – I know I should do this every day but sometimes I feel like “fuck it”, this invariably means that the scaling will get itchy and I then scratch. Soothing scratches, not too bad here and there but REALLY painful when you scratch your soles, and the cracked skin then bleeds it’s painful to walk.

Then there’s the snakeskin in bed – try as hard as I can but invariably leave a %ge of myself in my bed. I feel “dirty” when this happens and I shower regularly. The worst time was on holiday in Gran Canaria and the bedding was black! Oh my days – it looked like I had the parmesan grater in bed with me…

Who knows if it will sort itself out, I don’t think it will. I’ve definitely inherited my mum’s “healthy” genes I think!!!!

Rather than have you read through every line below I thought it would be best to say who I believed were the best chocolates. The “Daddy’s Award for Best Artisan Chocolates” goes to….*drumroll*…. Damian Allsop!! Howcome? Well I felt that pretty much each chocolate had good flavours, in that the chocolate AND the fillings. I guess this is in part to them using a water based ganache, which allows the chocolate flavour to stand out more. I will also say that some of these chocolates were a bit mediocre too, I’ve had equally good chocolates from Thorntons but these were the minority.

And now the chocolate breakdowns;

Damian Allsop

Classic collection flavours: (two of each):

- Raspberry
– Orange
– Hazelnut
– Mint
– Caramel
– Coffee

All of these were divine. The chocolate had a good, bold flavour and the fillings were as fresh as you could find.

Red Fruits and Vanilla CLOUDS wrapped in dark chocolate
Banana and Passion Fruit CLOUDS wrapped in milk chocolate

I’m not a fan of milk chocolate, just don’t think it compares with dark. These were just “ok”

The LAHLOO Tea and Herbal infusion Collection:
- Jasmin
– Earl grey
– Lapsang souchong
– Mint
– Basil
– Thyme

Stand outs for me, from the whole collection. The best one was the Basil. An INTENSE hit of basil comes through after the chocolate shell melts. Really, really flavoursome.

Compact Bar – Raspberry and Tonka bean
Compact Bar – Ginger and Banana

Nice idea of having these as Compact Discs shapes (so inside a CD plastic wallet). Unfortunately not the best for transport as you end up with shards! Me thinks Mr Allsop needs to look at a better way of shipping these. Flavour wise these were quite weak.

Muscovado Salted Caramels

Well you can’t really go wrong with salted caramels. These didn’t last too long!

Plain 70% Dark Water-Based Truffles

Perfect balance of flavour and texture. Really shows how the water base allows the chocolate to shine through.

Caramelised Pistachios in White chocolate coated in Yoghurt Powder

These were an interesting combination. The yoghurt gives you a slight tangy hit, which then opens your taste buds to allow the sugary pistachios and white chocolate to hit. Very enjoyable!

Paul A Young

We chose a number of these from the vast selection in the shop.
Hazelnut praline. Intense, chunks of hazelnut. Mellow chocolate.

Roquefort, honey and walnut. Just wrong for me! The idea sounded good, but cheese n choccie not good.

Marzipan. Deep dark chocolate and light marzipan. One of the best ones.

Butterscotch with milk chocolate. Very strong flavour even before breaking the chocolate shell. Chunks of butterscotch inside. Very yummy. My personal favourite of them all.

Champagne truffle. Great mouthful of wet filling. Both the filling and chocolate were very light in flavour.

Hazelnut truffle. Another mild flavour.

Caramel. Rich and sugary. Chocolate was again mild.

Cognac. Perfect amount of filling. Good burst of alcohol flavour.

Maldone dark chocolate with salt. Served as thin wafer slices, about 3mm thick and 6cm square. Very good flavour. Nice crunch of salt here and there.

I’ve not tried of any them yet, so thought I would just start this 2 part blog off by announcing the purchase. Once consumed I will do a 2nd part outlining some of the highlights!

And here’s Part II!!