Review: Notting Grill

[wildeabandon]

Tonight was my monthy dinner date with borusa. Although we occasionally make a change for variety's sake, we tend towards the "plate with a big lump of meat" style of restaurant, and tonight was not one of the exceptions. We went to Notting Grill, and were not disappointed in our big lumps of meat.

This was one of those meals where, but for one exception*, everything was at least good, and there were quite a few moments of "Oh yes, this is why I love food." For a starter I had steak tartare, which was done extremely well. Robert thought they'd used a bit too much pepper which overpowered the beef, but I thought it was perfect, so we'll put that down to a personal taste thing. He had a black pudding salad to start, but I'll come to that later.

For our mains, he had a sirloin steak, which was good, but we've had better**. I made a much better choice, going for the pork taster - this was four small portions of sucking pig, belly of pork, black pudding, and pork sausage. A couple of weeks ago I had a taste of robert_jones's crocodile steak, and commented that this was what pork would be like, if pork were nice. Actually, I was wrong - the suckling pig I had tonight is what pork would be like if pork were nice. Oodles of flavour, juicy, with just enough salt, and with enough strength of texture to last, but not become a test of endurance. The belly was a tiny piece of meat, wrapped in a thick layer of fat and crackling, and that's just the way it should be. It was the crackling that really brought this dish into it's own. It was course and visceral and delicious.

Rather sadly, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to enjoy black pudding in a greasy spoon ever again. This was superb. Rich, deep, meaty flavour, and a gloriously smooth texture perfectly punctuated by the lumps, in sharp contrast to the slightly wishy-washy crumbliness you often find. The sausage was very good - again, not quite the best I've ever had flavour wise***, but very very good, and absolutely superlative in texture - light, almost fluffy. The best thing about the sausage though, which I foolishly forgot to add until I'd eaten nearly half of it, was the apple and chilli jelly. It had the texture of clear honey that's been left until it starts to form crystals, but hasn't fully set, and was sweet and sharp to start, with the heat of the chilli hiding creeping up on you just as you're about to swallow.

I had the cheese to follow, which was probably better than I had appetite for, and again, good, but not spectacular. Robert had the creme brule, which he didn't comment on, but given the speed with which it vanished after a very large meal, must have been quite something.

All in all, not one of my top ten, but definitely somewhere I'd be happy to recommend, with one caveat - have the pig, the tasty tasty pig!

*the parsnips were too soft and grainy, with no crispy coating
**Griegs, in Mayfair, and the Sloane Gaucho
***wild boar sausages at the Pembury

Comments

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

As ever, you write about food extremely well - though in this case some of it made me feel faintly ill [grin]

See you tomorrow for moar fudz and terrifying meeting-of-your-colleagues!

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Those sound great! *big grin*

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Maybe we can go there after all the other place in London I want to take you to :)

[meihua.livejournal.com]

I just checked out the menu and was amused that I would have selected exactly the dishes you went with. :D

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

Gosh. How unlike the last time we ate together. Um. See icon.

[timeplease.livejournal.com]

wild boar sausages at the Pembury

Which you can buy from Baldwins butchers of Green Lanes (Grand Parade). They do a very nice black pudding too — we always used to buy it for our (admittedly) greasy fry-up at the Oakdale.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

*giggles* We, um, had different desserts?

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Your world seems to be full of much better food than my world!

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

You and your vegetarian deviancy ;p

And my colleagues are lovely and not scary at all. And you don't have to see them the next day and face the "Oh, I didn't realise you were a filthy lesbian" conversations. Which, y'know, won't happen because they're lovely.

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I make a point of filling my life with very good food, because it's something I get a tremendous amount of joy from. If you'd like to experience my cooking at any point then look at the calendar linked in my userinfo and invite yourself to dinner.

[naath.livejournal.com]

London seems to be full of restaurants (this is a word that I can not spell, I don't know why, and it took me three goes to get the spell check to be able to guess what I meant...) so much nicer than Cambridge... or maybe I'm just eating in the wrong places.

[simont]

If I were reviewing that restaurant, it would be terribly tempting to say I'd disliked everything about it, just for the sake of titling the review "Notting Grill Hate".

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Damn you. Now I'm hungry. And worse, I live with a vegetarian.

Maybe I could eat a few of the students...that'd be one way to make the library quieter. ;)

[entscheidung.livejournal.com]

I've loved reading your recent restaurant reviews--the description of food is, for me, so much more memorable than the food itself often is.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that's very kind.

You live in London don't you?

I'll take you up on your offer at some point in the first quarter of 09 :D

Are you suggesting your cooking or your restaurants? I don't generally have a lot of money to spend on restaurants :-/

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

I do indeed live in London - near Finsbury Park, so quite easy to get to from Cambridge. I'm suggesting cooking - I'm not quite as brilliant as some of the restaurants I write about, but I'm pretty good for an amateur.