venta: (Default)
venta ([personal profile] venta) wrote2004-06-02 09:57 am

You think they're cuddly, but I think they're sinister

Last night, [livejournal.com profile] leathellin and I pottered out to The Fox on Boars Hill for tea.

On the menu, we found:

Goats cheese and duck confit flaky pastry omelette

which I claimed was just a list of words, rather than an actual dish. Leathellin, braver than I, ordered it.

Or rather, she decided to have it, I went to the bar to place the order. At which point part of the mystery was cleared up - the person taking my order gently pointed out that it actually said galette, not omelette.

However, my main gripe with it wasn't the flaky-pastry-omelette aspect, it was the simultaneous duck and goats' cheese aspect. Individually, they're both lovely. But together ? It's just not right. Having stolen part of Leathellin's starter, I'm still not convinced it's right.


[Poll #302254]


And just no one mention doorkeys, OK ?

[identity profile] mr-tom.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:13 am (UTC)(link)
It's not a particularly appetising-sounding combination. Lots of salt and fat. If it had some cherries or the like in there, that could be OK...

[identity profile] nalsa.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:21 am (UTC)(link)
Yep. Sour cherries, though. Not maraschinos.

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
Well, despite duck being quite a strong flavour, it was pretty much overpowered by the cheese. So maybe a lot less cheese might have helped, too.

[identity profile] beckyc.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
If I wasn't vegetarian, I'd try it. In fact, I'd probably feel obliged to try it - I'm a bit like that with wierd combinations (which led me to having an orange milkshake from the coffee stand in Kings Cross when really I was queueing for a decaff coffee. Or, more recently, the garlic and vanilla ice cream last weekend.)

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
Aye, I'll mostly try anything culinary once. I wouldn't say the duck and goats cheese was nasty, it was just rather less nice than either of them separately.

I've never tried the orange milkshakes (on account of being allergic to oranges) - I don't understand how come they don't curdle, though. I'm still disappointed that only one place in the world (Java, in Whitby) seems to sell mint milkshakes. They rock.

[identity profile] beckyc.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
I've just got myself a mint plant. Mint milkshakes sounds like a good plan to me. Though I think it might be a bit of a faff to make mint ice cream as an intermediary. (vanilla ice cream might detract from the experience)

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
The ones I've had are just made with a sort of syrupy stuff, like the syrups they use to flavour coffee. I'm not sure if just mint leaves would work; I should try it, we have a mint plant.

Or twenty. Having for some years had the only garden in which mint refuses to grow - it kept pining and dying - it's now suddenly exploded, and I can't cook potatoes fast enough to keep up with it.

[identity profile] nalsa.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:39 am (UTC)(link)
Try making them with creme de menthe; making them with mint leaves isn't a lot of fun, unless you make a mint syrup and strain it.

[identity profile] cardinalsin.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:38 am (UTC)(link)
garlic and vanilla ice cream last weekend

Quoi?

That sounds like the sort of thing that makes the G&D's reject list to me. Along with english breakfast flavour.

[identity profile] al-fruitbat.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
There's loads of ways of making sweet garlic things. Some of 'em don't taste half bad, either.

[identity profile] broadmeadow.livejournal.com 2004-06-04 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Try the annual garlic festival on the Isle Of Wight. You can get all things garlicky, including garlic ice cream and garlic beer. I couldn't face trying either.

[identity profile] verlaine.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 02:50 am (UTC)(link)
So was it "flaky pastry" or "flaky pasty"? Your post contains both permutations, and is thus ambiguous.

I'm liking the sound of "flaky pasty" myself.

[identity profile] venta.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry to disappoint, but it was pastry.

Typo now corrected.

Weird cooking = good !

[identity profile] bateleur.livejournal.com 2004-06-02 07:43 am (UTC)(link)
Y'see you saying it didn't really work now just makes me want to cook it and get it right !