Hungry Heart // Bruce Springsteen

The Dessert Bar has opened at William Curley!! Well, it opened a little while back but monetary constraints meant we were forced to wait.
Then it was my birthday and it was the only thing I could think of that I actually wanted was a trip for some pudding action.
Turns out it was a complete treat day for me - we started off at the London Transport Museum! They have busses and tube trains and so much information about the transport! Serious swoon.

Libby loved driving the bus.

We arrived at William Curley to a lovely welcome after a little trip on a routemaster! Yay!! It was busy so we went and chilled out in the pretty square over the road. Then when it was time we headed in.


So when you go for the a la carte menu you get three courses of dessert! And it all gets made by a chef right in front of you, so you can see exactly what you're getting, and the work and skill that goes into it.
The first course is pre-dessert. The first was a moelleux-au-chocolat, with chocolate sauce, kinako bean ice cream and crystalised pistachios.
The ice cream is never something I would have picked out for myself, but it was lush. I loved it. I'll definately have it next time I go. The moelleux was beautiful - warm and gooey. It definately whet my appetite.


The next pre-dessert was the Pomme Granita. It consisted of a jelly made with agar agar. The texture was completely different to a gelatine jelly. It was melt-in-the-mouth and moreish. The next layer up was creme fraiche, followed by apple spaghetti and topped with the granita part.
It was so fresh and tangy. Jonny and I loved it and I could have eaten two. Or three.


Then the main part. There is a small back story behind my choice. When I worked in the Richmond store I was confronted every day by a picture in the shop of the Mille-Feuille. It wasn't being sold while I worked there, but a tiny version was included on the petit-four. Which I loved. And it was never enough. I have been longing for a full-sized one for almost two years. When we were asked what we'd like for the main there was no hesitation. I didn't even look at the other choices.
The mille feuille consists of layers of hazelnut and chocolate sponges, chocolate mousse, and a layer of praline biscuit and it came with muscavado ice cream and orange segments and orange sauce. Jonny had a bit more of a puzzle but opted for the Foret Noire.


There are no words for how happy I was with my mille feuille. The Foret Noir had white chocolate mousse, dark chocolate mousse, sponge and a kirsch syrup. It came with griottine cherries in a sauce and crystalised pistachios. He obviously has an unmanly and weak stomach and filled up and started finding his a bit rich. Wimp. His was boozy and incredible looking. It came in a cylinder of chocolate. I can't even fathom how it's made.


Then we had the petit fours. These were adorable mini pistachio macarons sandwiched together with a very dark chocolate ganache, and another adorable mini chocolate and yuzu financier, which is my favourite William Curley cake.


All this was washed down with hot chocolate and then home-made lemonade, which was just what you needed to balance out the sweetness.


I can't wait to go back. I suggested to Jonny that we should make it a weekly habit, but he wasn't so keen. Maybe once a month would be reasonable. It costs £15.00 per person. Which also leaves me a bit lost for words as the amount you get and the quality of the experience is just incredible.

Chocolate Pope // Electric Six

I went to Longparish in Hampshire as part of an extended photography project. It’s a lovely place. A string of houses set along a very long road. Beyond the houses there are fields. Beyond the fields there are woods. It is in fact a beautiful place. The town follows the wiered and forded way of the river Test that splits hither and thither, flows along the sides of roads and under countless bridges and when you look closely trout keep pace with the water, facing upstream.

Just the place if you work in draw-bridge sales.

It’s an affluent area, the place to live if you can afford a car luxurious enough to take you comfortably and daily into and out of one of the nearby cities or even all the way into London. The two inns, the Cricketers and the Plough, are the only two down the long Longparish road and they compete for the pockets of the local residents who don’t want to cook of an evening at home and both insist proudly “weekend booking is essential”. They are sublime examples of the Gastro-Pub.

As my extended project is self funded I travel on rather a strict budget and on night one, had a strict supper of Pot-noodle, cup-a-soup, tea and digestive biscuits. Mmmmm.
Chicken and mushroom pot noodle was all that the little local Londis had. There was more selection in the cup-a-soups however they’ve recently rebranded themselves as “some annoying yet familiar and common, stressful -but not too stressful- event – a – soup” I eyed up tasty options but their slogans were just too annoying in the end I settled for “I Accidentally Taped Over The Wedding Video – a – soup” which is cup-a-soup for chicken and mushroom. When I had breakfast I could still taste the mushroominess of dinner the night before.

On night two, knowing that I had another pot noodle and more moron-a-soup sachets waiting next to the kettle in my B&B I went into the Cricketers Inn. I had had a good day and I had a sunburnt nose. The sun had shone bright on the trouted tributaries of the Test and in the cool of the evening, roe deer stepped out of the woodland to fill their bellies on the spring grass growing by the stubbly fields of wheat, barley and corn.


The Cricketers was busy and I had not reserved a table. There was high chatter and the bar was propped by the well fed and the well watered. It seemed no-one in Longparish wanted to cook on that Saturday. The food was expensive, the cheapest, a pub favourite, was cod and chips so I had that. With a pint. Came to £15 or thereabouts. That’s much more expensive than my local and very good fish and chip shop fish or my local bar’s beer. The fillet had bones in, the peas were tough and I had to ask for tartar sauce. I thought I would remedy this initial bad impression with an attempt at their homemade deserts menu.


I had the chocolate and amaretto pot topped with toasted flaked almonds. The top was covered with almonds at least two flakes thick and I resisted the temptation to stir them in and treat the whole thing like a crunch corner. The chocolate was smooth and sweet but had a Cadbury like ordinariness about it, there was a hint of amaretto masked by the whack of crunchy almonds on top. Why add amaretto? It makes the whole thing sound swankier. A trick also used in the considerably higher quality William Curley, ooh you say, sponge soaked in Kirsch, how swanky! It’s an unnecessary addition.


You could eat and eat and eat a thousand portions of the chocolate pot, but only because it lacked any real richness or sumptuousness. No exciting tang of raspberry hidden underneath, no strong sweet coffee to compliment the almond and chocolate, it was in fact little more than a crunch corner.

I had no chance to try The Plough Inn although I did have one sandwich there for lunch. It had the similar unsatisfactory ratio of cost to quality. They had napkins rolled and decoratively peaked in the wine glasses on one laid table. I expect it’s much the same.