Bar de Nada, Nottingham （英国）

Bar de Nada, located in Nottingham’s waning Hockley area (just down the road from the Broadway cinema), provides probably the closest thing to the izakaya dining experience I’ve yet to find in the UK, allowing for leisurely dining throughout the course of an extended drinking session.

A small yet surprisingly spacious “world and Spanish tapas bar,” Bar de Nada is inviting, yet intimate, lively and relaxed. A “dazzling” array of draught and bottled world beers serve as lubricant for the quite excellent, well proportioned and appropriately priced tapas dishes. 

Being regular visitors, my dining partners took care of the orders, none of which disappointed.

Pan y Tomate – delicious, although a lot more garlic should have been thrown into the mix. 

Tortilla Espanola.

Cordeno en Salsa Moruno – tender morsels of moist lamb in a rich, spice and herb casserole. I forget just how many times we re-ordered this dish.

Gambas Pil Pil – succulent prawns fried in olive oil, made sexy with red chilies.

Cazuela de Berenjenas – aubergines casseroled in tomato and herb sauce, topped with (not quite enough) melted cheese.

Albondigas – Robust meatballs in a delicately spiced tomato sauce – again, several orders were made.

Boquerones en Vinagare – pickled white anchovies, good but not as good as “the real thing." 

Pescade al Ajillo – Spanish Mackerel pan fried in garlic.

Great food, better company and decent prices made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Probably one of Nottingham’s better casual dining experiences.

0115 9881199

http://www.bardenada.co.uk/

The Long Itch Diner, Long Itchington （英国）

British cuisine gets short shift from many. Especially here in Japan, sneers of derision are most often encountered – if you are lucky.

Who cares? Forget miso soup and grilled fish. Cast aside bacon, pancakes and syrup. Thumb your nose at muesli and yoghurt. Croissant and hot chocolate? Please...

The king of breakfasts is the Full English. No better cure for hangover, heartbreak or hunger has been invented. Posh folk do it with porridge and kippers, working class types do it with mugs of watery tea at roach infested greasy spoon cafes. As one of my erstwhile colleagues once put it in a moment of profundity, “you can’t beat a bit of good spoonage.”

What better mix of foodstuffs could there be? Eggs – fried, scrambled, poached – baked beans, bacon, sausages, tomatoes – plum or grilled – mushrooms, waffles, toast, bread – fried or otherwise – fried potatoes, black pudding… The list goes on.

The Long Itch Diner, located on a B-road not far from the village of Long Itchington serves up awesome cooked breakfasts in various configurations to suit differing appetites and purses. 

The word “diner” brings to mind aproned, buxom blondes, apple pie and tipping – none of which make an appearance at this roadside eatery. Popular with bikers, truckers, car enthusiasts and local families, The Long Itch Diner is all about serving up satisfyingly voluminous fry-ups at budget prices. Delicious!  

My only complaint? I do not want my HP sauce from a sachet. Give me the bottle, dirty or otherwise.

01926 819096

http://www.rigsville.org.uk/breakfast/cat.asp?iCat=171

The Buck & Bell, Long Itchington （英国）

Long Itchington, a picturesque Warwickshire village complete with village green and ducks waddling freely about the local pond, boasts not only a genteel calm, an abundance of charmingly appointed timbered buildings and lush foliage, but also three excellent pubs serving decent food.

One of the trios, The Buck & Bell, has welcomed visitors since the mid-17^th century. Despite having rung time once and for all in the 1980s, it has since been restored and thrives once more.

A spacious well appointed interior, gleaming wood and polished bar pumps, and neatly dressed attentive staff provide a comfortable dining experience. The food, all sourced from local suppliers, made for a pleasing menu of pub grub classics – each well presented and cooked with care – without resorting to the pretention and over-priced, minuscule servings that so often mar gastro-pub offerings.

The starter of note was the field mushroom topped with smoked bacon and blue cheese rarebit – the bacon and cheese worked perfectly, as might be expected, while managing not to overpower the flavour of the mushroom. The mushroom could have been more substantial, a little more “meaty,” but was delicious all the same.

A double baked soufflé with mature cheddar cheese served with apple and celery salad went down well, too, as did a manly portion of crispy whitebait. The bread accompanying these crispy fish was quite uninspiring – something more rustic, grainier, would have suited the fish better.

The mains were a success, too. I had my eye on one of my dining companions’ wild mushroom risotto for the longest time. She thankfully struggled to finish the dish. The beer battered cod with crushy peas, chunky homemade chips and tartare sauce held it’s ground, yet failed to live up to the standards of cod I’ve come to expect from a certain Warwickshire fish and chip shop. The batter, however, was crisp and flavoursome.  

Perhaps the most enviable of my companions’ meals was the Lighthorne lamb kebabs with feta salad, sunblazed tomatoes and sauté potatoes. This was certainly the most appetizing plate to be served, and appeared to be the most substantial. Should I ever return (I’d happily do so) this is what I’d have.

Finally, for the mains, sea bass fillets with smoked bacon polenta cake, chargrilled Mediterranean vegetables and tomato compot. Good, but the fish was not all it could have been. Certainly something else was needed to fill out the plate.

Only one desert was sampled; a rich chocolate brownie with ice cream and peanuts smothered in caramel, I believe. Excellent, the peanuts in particular.

The Buck & Bell does what it sets out to, well. If only this kind of place would stretch to baskets of fresh bread, butter and olive oil to soak up the beer and fill the corners for male diners.

01926 811 177

http://www.buckandbellpub.co.uk/index.htm

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem （英国）

It’s “the oldest inn in England.” Archeological evidence supports the claim; at least in as far as Nottingham Castle’s Brewhouse was on the site, nestled close beneath the Castle Rock and connected to the bastion via labyrinthine tunnels, from around 1189 AD.

In days of old, weary pilgrims and crusading English gentleman would take their ease and get blasted at this inn before going on their way to give the Saracens a thrashing in the Holy Land. Records show that Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem was indeed once named The Pilgrim. 

Either way, it’s a Nottingham institution. World famous, often visited and now sanitized to the point of having none of the shabby charm that once endeared it to drinkers from far and wide.

In the mid-1990s, many an extended liquid lunch was enjoyed in the snug room, or sun-bathed courtyard. From what I remember, my 17^th birthday was celebrated (and ended with a close encounter with cool, white porcelain) at The Trip.

In those days, it remained a favourite haunt of leather clad, hairy bikers – their metallic steeds crowding outside – and all manner of snaggle-toothed alternative types garbed in whatever ethnic tat was in vogue at the time.

The interior was worn and cozy, frayed around the edges. The cursed galleon suspended from the Ward Room’s cave-like ceiling was shrouded in centuries’ worth of cobwebs and dust; none dared touch the lofty vessel. The wooden beams and walls around the bar were plastered with fading currency, the bank notes left as mementos to the ghosts of drinkers past by travellers from all corners of the globe. Even the tidiest of its rooms was decorated with a plethora of black and white photos, signed by visiting stars and robber barons.

Sadly, The Trip is now bereft of bikers, goths, hippies and even right on real ale types these days. The currency, once scrubbed away, is returning. But even that is now an orderly return, plastic coated so as to provide a wipe-clean surface. The galleon’s curse must have been broken; its dusty shroud is gone.

What remains? Some lagers, resident ales – Olde Trip, Greene King IPA, Old Speckled Hen, Abbot Ale and Extra Pale Ale – as well as the usual tawdry collection of alcopops. The menu looks well enough, but despite the range of bar food favourites and hearty seasonal fare turned out to be mediocre. 

My dining partners’ Beef and Abbot Ale Pie was tasty inside, although the pastry lid was both dry and bland. The chive mash, braised red cabbage and gravy by which it was accompanied did little to make amends. My pie was much the same. Perhaps it was venison, I don't remember, swimming in a rich gravy sauce laced with carrots. Again, despite tasting okay, something was missing.

Both pies were not nearly rugged enough. Chunkier morsels of meat, rough-hewn vegetables and thicker gravy would have improved the meal immensely. Rather than mash and cabbage my plate came with new potatoes, broccoli, beans and carrots, of which there is nothing to say. We didn’t bother rating our experience on the card provided.

Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem remains a piece of living history; despite sterling efforts to scrub any last trace of its character away. The inn itself, no doubt much like long-time patrons, must be yearning for the past.

0115 947 3171 

http://www.triptojerusalem.com/

Zizzi, Sheffield (英国)

To take the Tokyo dining scene for granted is indeed a privilege. Quality, price competiveness, levels of service and peripheral scenic attributes that others can only dream of are so usual that their absence would be the subject of incredulous outrage.

So it was with trepidation that I ventured back into the post-industrial gloom and steel-addled nostalgia of Sheffield’s admittedly recently more becoming attractions such as the Leopold Square development in which Zizzi, a faux-Italian restaurant cum bar, is situated just a short vomit and a casual beating away from the city’s main thoroughfare. 

My dining partners and I, admittedly, arrived late into the afternoon, and no doubt the lunch staff were already weary and hoping for some down-time, which might explain the neglectful service – starting with the inability to accommodate a baby buggy and finishing with forgotten drink orders and difficulties serving our meals at the same time. It might also explain the dearth of customers.

Despite my worst fears – based upon memories of similar establishments in days gone by – and the claim that one should consider the experience akin to “Robert De Niro with a regional accent,” (Sean Bean?) the food was actually surprisingly good.

The boys went for pizza. Well-sized, decidedly large actually, and oh so authentically thin in the crust department. The Sophia provided a moist feast of spicy chicken, pepperoni and roasted sausage, mozzarella tomatoes and chili. The rosemary was an annoyance; I wanted basil. Yet when all was said and done this went down a treat, even if the over-priced Peroni, or what ever it was, left a bad taste. The Primavera – “a vegetarian feast” – was satisfying thanks to the goats cheese, artichokes and aubergine. 

The ladies had salad, which looked fine, if a little boring.

Poor service, surprisingly decent portions and tasty pizza, made all the more enjoyable when combined with the smug satisfaction derived from the strong yen when visiting faded imperial powers (as apposed to the failed imperial power we usually enjoy). 

0114 2787718

http://zizzi.co.uk/