The Hinds Head, Bray

I have been cruelly teased about the fact that I have never been to The Hinds Head – Heston’s “perfect pub”. Cowie snuck off their for a friend’s birthday last year and Oli managed to orchestrate a client lunch there recently. Worse still Ed’s family are from Maidenhead, so he regards Bray as pretty much being his feudal dominion.

Cowie, being the legend she is, decided that we deserved a treat. As an alternative to refuelling at Fleet services on the M3 she managed to book us in for a late table on Bank Holiday lunch time. Given the recent rumours that Heston may be on the brink of becoming the head chef at the Little Chef it seemed very apt that we should be dropping in to the Hinds Head coaching inn to change our horses and recharge our energy levels. A glimpse of the future, present and past in gaze through the prism.

A major incident on the M4 made our journey a little less relaxed than it might have been. It resulted in Cowie declaring that all women drivers should be banned. An exclamation I wasn’t sure I should shout “Bravo” to or point out that she’d be out of a driving job!

We arrived on time smirking at how twee and immaculate Bray looked on this sunny lunch time. A very self important man was busy clipping his topiary into the shape of a Mr Whippy ice cream helter skelter. A couple, having just eaten at The Hinds Head walked off down an alley hand in hand and then started arguing ferociously. Or at least, as ferociously as is allowed in polite middle class society.

Cowie and I ducked and goosed to get under the low oak door and were welcomed by a charming man in a blue shirt. This friendliness continued throughout our experience – it was the best service I have ever had the pleasure to be on the receiving end of. Nothing was too much trouble, dishes that had been struck off the menu made a comeback just for us and we were allowed to go for a walk between our main course and desert in order for us to work up an appetite again. It just added to what was otherwise a perfect Bank Holiday pub lunch experience.

We were lead upstairs and shown to a table next to 3 large families out to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and just being together. It set the jovial tone for the wonderful food that was to come. Our only minor gripe was that we could have done without the curtains impeding in our personal space – a tiny thing, but if you have sat at one of their upstairs tables for 2 for lunch, I am sure you will agree with.

Cowie, an expert in the Hinds Head by dint of her one previous visit, ordered us some snacks to keep us going. One of Heston’s famous scotch quail eggs each and a portion of devils on horseback per person too. Sweet Mother of God! They are amazing. How they get the yolk to be so runny whilst the outside is so crispy is beyond me. And the bacon and prune chaps were pretty special too. But we certainly didn’t need a portion each.

Cowie opted for some tea smoked salmon to start with, which came with some slightly set sour cream and brown soda bread. Very simple. But very good.

I could have had the entire menu. But it was love at first sight as soon as I saw the asparagus and hollandaise option. Rich, thick, sharp, smooth, buttery and with a hint of cayenne pepper, the hollandaise was majestic. By far the best I’ve ever had. And the asparagus was gorgeous. Beautifully cooked so that it was soft but had retained an iota of bite I could barely keep Cowie’s fork from crossing the DMZ in the middle of the table! The simplicity in terms of what you are confronted with belies the fact that some serious skill has gone into creating something so perfect.

Cowie chose the whole sea bass with fennel only to have her heart broken when she was told they had run out. Given that it was a hot day and Cowie isn’t really into seriously heavy food the alternatives of pies, steaks, chops and steak and kidney pudding were not ideal. We asked for some more time to think about things. A minute later our waitress returned saying that they had one last sea bass left! Cowie’s face beamed with delight. (What a shame the fish was sea bass rather than bream as I could have squeezed a pun in).

The bass was so well cooked it was translucent, succulent and meltingly good throughout with gloriously crispy skin. Cowie is a bit of a Philistine and isn’t much of a fan of fish skin so it was happy days for me! And the fish was so tasty it kept Cowie quiet for at least 12 minutes. For those of you who have spoken to Cowie you’ll realise that if a dish can do this to her it must be seriously good.

I fell in love again. This time with my pork chop. Normally I wouldn’t have written this in such a possessive way, but I liked it so much I can’t help myself! It was juicy, medium rare and caremilsed on the outside – classic Heston. He just loves his Maillard reaction and I love being on the receiving end of it.

My chop came plonked on top of the best mash in the world. Soft potato with mustard, capers and cornichons. The sharpness of the cornichons, saltiness of the capers, kick of the mustard and sweetness of the pork transported me into a state I can only describe as nirvana. I rambled on to Cowie, eulogising my pork chop, praising Heston’s fabulous cooking, vowing to replicate it myself. I was seriously close to doing a lap of honour!

Rather greedily we had ordered a bowl of Heston’s famous triple cooked chips. I only ate 4. Partly because I was so full. But mainly because the mash was so good it knocked the chips into a cocked hat!

At this point we both sighed, looked at each other and said nothing. We didn’t need to. We had just had the best lunch of the year. But we were also so full we needed to go or a walk. Half an hour of looking at the extortionate menus around the corner at the Fat Duck and the Waterside Inn was enough for us to muster up the courage to tackle one of Heston’s deserts. I probably made a bit of mistake railroading Cowie into sharing a treacle sponge with me. But she compromised and we had two scoops of milk and yoghurt ice cream on the side. She’s wanted to have Quaking Pudding, which is an ancient custard concoction that looked really good but sounded a bit weird. Needless to say the treacle pudding was fantastic. But the ice creams were incredible. Sheer genius.

Hats off to Heston. He’s conquered the world of molecular gastronomy, TV cooking, cookery writing and now he has perfected English pub cooking. What’s next? Little Chef perhaps?

Never eat at The Fat Duck, Bray

Whilst I was away on holiday Oli and a couple of the guys at work went to the Fat Duck. Here's Oli's review of the meal as the Paunch's first guest blogger!

Anyone who is interested in good food and enjoys going out to fine restaurants should never go to the Fat Duck. It is just so good that you will never enjoy another meal quite as much again.

With that said, I was "lucky" enough to be taken to The Fat Duck last week. I was initially quite worried about whether the place would live up to all I had read and seen about it in countless articles and TV shows. So much so that I had a string of nightmares in the month leading up to our visit, where the meal passed me by and I missed out on experiencing any of the molecular delights that Heston had prepared.

In fact, quite the opposite occurred. We (Ed and I) spent an hour and a half waiting at our table until the rest of our party arrived, so had the opportunity to take in the full atmosphere of this tiny place before we started eating. We observed the meticulous way in which the staff waited on tables around us, and polished the silver trays in search of glimmering perfection. All the while we were tucking in to the champagne trolley!

When we did come to order, the tasting menu was chosen by everyone (including a vegetarian option for one) – In fact we were told by our waitress later that 95% of people do go with the full tasting hit, reinforcing our faith in the fact that we had chosen wisely.

So, in we went.

It Started with a green tea mouse, cooked in liquid nitrogen as a palette cleanser - Standard fare really - They sprayed a lime mist into the air at the same time as you popped it into the mouth to give a whole fresh feeling before you started. It woke you up completely and got you ready for the divine onslaught of what you were about to receive.

For the second course we had an oyster, with passion fruit jelly and a spot of horse radish cream. I've never liked oysters before really, but this was amazing. It had a kind of salt sail sticking out of the top that gave it an little crunch that you are after.

Then there was a really light mustard ice cream, with a tiny bit of shallot, chopped finer than a gnats whiskers. They then poured a red cabbage soup over it which made it like a gaspacho. Very tasty and a sign of the flavour combinations to come.

Then they brought out a tray of woodland moss, and plonked it into the middle of table onto which they poured a moss flavoured tea, which I think hit some dry ice in the bottom of the tray as it filled the table with a really nice smelling cool mist, giving you the sense of being in a alpine woodland. They gave us one of those films which melts on the tongue (a bit like those breath freshener things), and then to go with it a jelly of quail, with foie gras quenelle on top of a langoustine cream - They told you to cut through the different layers with a special spoon so that you could have the flavours combining on your tongue. It was like heaven in a small bowl. Ooh and it also had a small piece of brown toast, with black truffle. All giving a feeling of earthy woodland to the course.

Next up, the world famous snail porridge. It was very nice, but I don't think it was the most amazing thing in the menu - it was delicious, but I think that what we were about to be served had more reason to be famous.

Roast Foie Gras with almond fluid gel, cherry and chamomile - My goodness me. I’ve said in the past that I wasn't a massive fan of foie gras, but that was before I’d been served something quite like this. It was the softest thing I've ever put in my mouth, and it was utterly delicious, there wasn't a hint of the bitterness that I haven't liked in the past and it went so well with the cherry and chamomile.

Next up, a conch shell is placed in front of us, out of which protruded a set of iPod headphones. Slightly odd. Then there was a glass plate suspended over a sandy bottom, with what looked like a beach with shellfish all washed up in a frothy sea spray.

It included various types of seaweed from Japan, a muscle, an oyster and a clam and apparently a baby eel. All of which was eaten with the sound of seagulls ringing in your ears. It was a complete sensory explosion.

All this time, we had been drinking a bottle of Mersault premiere cru, which was a delicious white burgundy, and on top of the couple of glasses of tattinger I was starting to feel ever so slightly dizzy.

Onward with the final fish course. Salmon poached in liquorice with flecks of red grapefruit aged balsamic and olive oil. Then it had a miniature artichoke with it and a streak of vanilla mayonnaise, which was really nice. This is the one that I think was the best visually on the plate and I keep picturing it when I close my eyes now. I looked like a small square of leather in the corner of a massive plate with multi coloured flecked polka dots. When you cut into it, the leather was actually like a black liquid coating over the softest and most delicate salmon I've ever tasted - I guess cooked sous vide.

Moving into the main meat course, it was a ballotine of Anjou pigeon with a black pudding sauce that was just like melted chocolate, and probably the second smoothest thing I've ever had in my mouth (after the foie gras). It came with a little pickled onion and another foamy sauce made with the pickling brine. It was fabulously tender and tasty.

We were now strongly onto the reds, and we had a delicious bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, a Rioja and a Portuguese wine (to try something different), at which point it wasn’t just the tiny onions that were a little pickled.

Just when you are thinking that you have tasted it all they brought out a small mug of tea. Which seemed a little plain. The name should have given it away, it was called Hot and Iced tea. When you sipped on it, half of the cup was hot tea, and half was iced tea, and it mixed in your mouth amazingly. It was like some kind of magic trick. Somehow it stayed unmixed all the way to the bottom, I couldn't quite explain it, but it just made you want more.

Starting off the deserts a little booklet was brought out all about Mrs Marshall's ice cream maker, who apparently was the Mr whippy of her day. This accompanied a tiny cornet of ice-cream with ginger and apple ice cream, which really took you back to seaside childhoods, which I think was the intention – to evoke nostalgia.

Once this had disappeared, they brought out a "Pine sherbet fountain" It was a miniature sherbet fountain, flavoured with pine and instead of a liquorice stick, it was a vanilla pod - very tasty and completely different - I think that he has a thing about pine forests and harking back to the nostalgia of your youth.

Into desert proper and there was a Mango and Douglas fir puree, served with a barois of lychee and mango - not sure what that actually means, but it tasted good and came with a delicious blackcurrant sorbet. At which point the pudding wine was flowing - It was a Tokai that the sommelier explained had 200g of sugar per litre, as opposed to 7g per litre in champagne. Sweet.

What on earth could come next?

The waitress strolled over and greeted us with "Good Morning!" - It was about 4 in the afternoon. She then produced a cereal packet and a jug of milk. Inside the cereal packet was a bag of parsnip corn flakes, and the milk, was parsnip infused to go with them. It was a bit weird, but somehow really woke you up when you were feeling just a little bit snoozy after course number 13.

This was followed by another "good morning" as she came over and appeared with a box of eggs. She opened the eggs, cracked one into a bowl and then poured liquid nitrogen over it, instantly turning it into egg flavoured ice cream, This was then served up with a freeze dried slice of the thinnest bacon on top of a bit of eggy bread. It also had tea flavoured jelly with it, which really freshened up the mouth as we were nearing the end of the meal.

You know at the end of a long meal when you just fancy a whisky, but you aren't sure what to go for, well the next course really nailed that for you. It was delivered in a picture frame showing a map of Scotland and a bit of Tennessee, onto which were stuck 5 different jelly whisky bottles made with malts from around the country. It was amazing - the Glenfidich tasted just like it does from a glass, as did the Laphroaig, the Oban and the Highland Park, it was finished off with Jack Daniels, which was a pleasant surprise with a sweetness that the others didn't have so much. It was such a nice way to have all of the whiskey that you might otherwise not have been able to have.

We finished off the meal with a selection from the Chinese tea menu, which was served as an individual tea ceremony, exactly as we had done it in China, which beats a cuppa with some milk hands down. This was served with Petits fours - A carrot and orange lolly, mandarin aerated chocolate - a bit like an orange aero - a violet tartlet, which was bright purple and tasted exactly like a Palma violets that I had in Madrid a few weeks ago and finally an apple pie caramel, it was served in a wrapper that dissolved in your mouth so you didn't have to unwrap it.

So that was it. Just imagine the best meal you have ever had - I'm pretty sure that it was really really good, but no matter how good it was, I'm going to put my cock on the block here and say it won't come close to this. I really think that I'm never going to eat anything as good again, which makes it amazing, but it does mean that it's down hill from here!

So as I say, never eat at The Fat Duck, please. Unless you’re terminally ill, in which case, eat there, lots.