Posts by Tom Johnston
Cake Making For Beginners
Lime Drizzle Cake This article started with the intention of describing three or four things lime related; however, when I started writing about the lime cake, it brought back to me the extreme trauma of my early experiences of cake baking. Never made a cake, and think you can just pick up a recipe? Pshaw!…
Read MoreA Food Day of Note Next Week
Well, food lovers, is your diary primed? What famous British food day is with us next week? Warning: the answer may not be the obvious one. And while you’re pondering, who can tell me what a collop is? I encountered it years ago in a Scottish hotel where the dinner menu featured a dish entitled…
Read MoreThings To Do With Limes
As I wrote on Wednesday, I love limes. Having said that, I don’t go along with those who opine that they are interchangeable with lemons. Sometimes (indeed quite often) you just need that sharp, dish-enhancing zap which you’ll get only from its yellow cousin. But limes can be used at any stage of one’s menu.…
Read MoreFrango da Cidade, Olhão, Algarve, Portugal
Frango da Cidade R. Teófilo Braga 51, 8700-368 Olhão, Portugal +351 911 114 577 The Bill The Menu 15€ per head (yes, really) The Score Cooking 6/10 | Service 5/5 | Flavour 4/5 Value 5/5 TOTAL 20/25 Chicken City. Doesn’t sound like a typical Tom Eats! place, does it? And to be…
Read MoreL is for … Lime
I was well into my twenties before I did it for the first time. I’d watched it, obviously. I have a recollection of seeing it done in a plate glass window in Edinburgh’s Princes Street, and being struck by how ruinously expensive the whole process was. While many things came to me early in life,…
Read MoreDuck With An Orange And Honey Glaze
Virtually everyone has their favourite Del and Rodney memory. For most it will be the scene where David Jason tries to lean nonchalantly against the bar, only to discover that the counter had been raised. Great stuff, but I’m still tickled by their French trip. Del, thinking ahead to dinner, asks, What’s French for duck…
Read MoreThe Orchard Bar & Restaurant, Edinburgh
The Orchard Bar & Restaurant 1 – 2 Howard Place, Edinburgh EH3 5JZ 0131 550 0850 www.theorchardbar.co.uk The Bill Starters £5.50 – £10.50 | Rustic Sandwiches £7.75 – £9.25 Mains £13.25 – £31.00 | Desserts – ? The Score Cooking 6/10 | Service 5/5 | Flavour 4.5/5 | Value 4.5/5 TOTAL 20/25 Fascinating…
Read MoreThe Food Producers: Steven Mitchell’s Buffalo Mozzarella
So Gordon Ramsay’s production team for The F Word phone up your buffalo farm. They want to come up so the great man can see you making your buffalo mozzarella. Sure, you say. There’s only one teeny problem – you don’t produce mozzarella. In fact you’ve never made cheese in your life. It wasn’t quite…
Read MoreCraig Wood’s Wild Mushroom Arancini With Smoked Mozzarella
I had some interesting responses to last week’s On The Side column which had some suggested resolutions for 2022. For starters, LinkedIn blocked it, as it apparently contravened some policy or other, but they declined to tell me which it was. I’ve included the link so you can judge for yourself. Secondly, a few people…
Read MoreBirnam Brasserie, Gleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder: Guest Reviewer David Dickson
Birnam Brasserie Gleneagles Hotel, Auchterarder, Perthshire PH3 1NF 01764 694270 www.https://gleneagles.com/eat-drink/the-birnam-brasserie The Bill Starters £9.00 – £17.00 | Mains £14.00 – £40.00 Desserts (from the reviewer’s memory) £5.00 – £8.00 The Score Cooking 8/10 | Service 5/5 | Flavour 4/5 Value 4/5 TOTAL 21/25 Gleneagles Hotel sits amidst the lush greenery of…
Read MoreChef Watch Featuring Stephen Harris of The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent
Chef Watch Featuring Stephen Harris of The Sportsman, Seasalter, Kent How long have you been a chef? I became a chef in 1995 – 27 years ago. Why did you become a chef? I thought I might be good at it and I knew I wanted my own restaurant. I figured the only way to…
Read MoreTwo Pheasants, Four Meals
Despite the efforts of many, including this column, the notion persists that game is just for toffs, exotic and expensive. It is neither, though most amateur cooks will have struggled from time to time to get it right. In the past, I have had particular problems with pheasant. The season closes at the end of…
Read MoreGordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen, Edinburgh
Gordon Ramsay’s Bread Street Kitchen 4 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, EH2 2BD 0131 252 5200 www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com The Bill Starters £7.50 – £14.50 | Mains £16.50 – £48.00 Desserts £5.00 – £7.00 The Score Cooking 7.5/10 | Service 5/5 | Flavour 4/5 Value – Beef 2/5, The rest 4/5: Average 3/5 TOTAL 19.5/25 It ain’t…
Read MoreTom’s Food! New Year Resolutions for 2022
Happy New Year! As you are probably aware, this column doesn’t make new year resolutions. Well, not for me, but I thought you lot could use a few. Avoid Vegans Part 1 Lift up any packet of ready made, allegedly plant based food and shudder. For starters, if you are eschewing meat (as opposed to…
Read MoreReview of the Year 2021 Part 2: 1 – 14
Dean Banks It’s been a long year. This is article 139. Trust me on two things. Firstly, this is definitely the last in 2021; and secondly there won’t be nearly so many next year. I really really do plan to get out more. It must be said, however, that we ate out to very good…
Read MoreReview of the Year 2021 Part 1: 15 – 27
Tom Eats! in 2021 Another tumultuous year. You may remember that places were shut down on Christmas Eve 2020 (sound familiar?) They were closed for a good few months. Having reopened, with many of them desperate for a decent Christmas trade to get some cash in, they were hammered by Government “advice” to cancel…
Read MoreWhen Restaurant Reviewers Go Bad: Chitra Ramaswamy, J’Accuse
It’s usually quite easy to tell when food has gone off. When restaurant reviewers are downright bad, it’s sometimes harder to notice. Last week was intended to be the last On The Side column of the year; however, a food review appeared on Saturday, which I felt I couldn’t let pass. In the last Tom…
Read MoreWhere Will Tom Eats! Pop Up in 2022? – Part Two: Edinburgh
I had expected to be slagged for last week’s column of non-reviews. Instead some of you were kind enough to praise the resourcefulness. This week should have seen me basking in the Algarve. Not so, alas, though it was fear of the unknown – a possible eight day quarantine just before Christmas – which…
Read MoreChristmas Day Veg
I have bemoaned on many occasions the fact that we Brits are so unimaginative in our veg cookery. Unadorned, often unseasoned, boiled vegetables are not only depressing, they scream of a cook who, quite frankly my dear, doesn’t give a damn. While Christmas Day requires tradition, there’s no reason why old favourites can’t be given…
Read MoreTom’s 3 Fs of Christmas
Those who know me will be aware that much of my life is centred round three Fs. Food, Football and Books. (Ah, you noticed the flaw in the last part of my tricorn rhetoric. Never mind.) I write a fair bit about food books in this column, so perhaps I can justify that as the…
Read MoreWhere Will Tom Eats! Pop Up in 2022? – Part One: London
SARS-CoV-2 (that’s COVID 19 to you) has played havoc for nearly two years now. One of its most insignificant consequences is the impact it’s had on Tom Eats! Writing restaurant reviews avoiding takeaways has been a challenge, though it did give me the opportunity to revive some golden oldies, and it did introduce you…
Read MoreChristopher Trotter Cooking With Kale
Continuing the kale theme from Wednesday’s On The Side column, I’m indebted to the Trotters. To Christopher, without whom I would probably have continued to body swerve its mineral rich loveliness, and who has kindly allowed me to reproduce some of his recipes: and to Caroline, for almost all of the photos. (Observant readers will…
Read MoreThe Food Alphabet: K is for Kale
I know that some friends will be recoiling in horror at the thought of this stuff. Truth be told, cooked without care its coarse bitter leaves are pretty unpalatable, and its reputation as Scottish peasant food hasn’t helped. The original spelling in Scots was kail. It was an important staple, largely because it would grow…
Read MoreMichael Greenlaw’s Portuguese Delights: Pork and Clams, and more
I asked readers for some other Christmas recipes. My good friend, celebrated artist Michael Greenlaw, answered the call. The only problem is that as he is wintering in the Algarve, hearty stews and steamed puddings aren’t on his mind. Still these sound like crackers, so that’s Christmassy enough for me. Coincidentally I was thinking about…
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