Pub Review - The Foresters

Living in Kingston I am lucky to be at the door of many restaurants and cafes. While most are the typical chain based ones, there are a few hidden gems.

Located just over the bridge and in the heart of Hampton Wick is our favourite pub – The Foresters.

A small and quaint pub (which probably describes most British pubs) it's a place where you know you can get good food, wine and service. 

For entree we tried both the pea, broad bean and asparagus risotto with mascarpone and the pickled beetroot with goats cheese, toasted pine nuts and chardonnay dressing. Yum!

The main journey included seared scallops with roasted ceps (had to google ceps), sweetcorn puree and confit chicken. And rib eye steak with portobello mushrooms, cherry-vine tomatoes, caramelised onion, rocket salad and the signature... king edward thick cut chips (which I sneaked a taste on my plate). They do have the best chips!

Now for wine. I typically have an affiliation with Aussie wines only but because the only Aussie wines in Blighty are cheap and nasty, we decided to go with the recommendation by the waitress, which was a lovely light sangiovese red from Italy.

You would think we'd probably had enough food by now but seeing as we were enjoying the atmosphere, company and wine.... dessert had to be included. A lovely creme brulee and apple crumble with custard.

If you want to read more about The Foresters or perhaps book a meal, their website is http://www.the-foresters.com. They do have entertainment each Saturday so you have to book in early for those!

Japanese

I've never been partial to sushi, the thought of putting something raw and fishy in my mouth coated in seaweed does nothing to excite the palate. It's a bit like pork, the smell of which leaves me feeling nauseous. Who could subject themselves to a flesh that apparently is the closest to human flesh? yuk!

You will then be surprised that I agreed to try Japanese on Friday. 

To ease my way into it, we started out at a bar called Mahiki. Apparently this is a location where Prince Harry has been seen a few times. We didn't see him and instead were entertained by the waiter who served us in his finest pirate voice...ahoy me hearties!  I tried the Monkey Brains cocktail which was delicious...

Monkey Brains

The Japanese restaurant that we went to was called Sake No Hana located just near Green Park.  I did attempt the raw fish, but found the cooked version of black cod to be the highlight. Some Saki and a wonderful chocolate desert topped off the evening. And yes I will go out for Japanese again, this time though a little less Saki.

The yummiest desert!

Date Night

This week we decided to go to a new little Bavarian bar and restaurant called Steins.

It's a quaint spot, not overly large but you escape to another world when you walk inside. It's adorned with floor to ceiling wood paneling, wooden tables, animal furs (not real for those of you that love animals) and old style black and white photographs showing off some lederhosens. It also has a great outdoor area overlooking the Thames which we've enjoyed before when the sun was shining.

Unfortunately there was no sun this evening, replaced by plenty of rain, so we sat inside.

Being Bavarian there is lots of sausage to eat... and pork. Not my most favourite of foods considering I was watching a program one day and it said that pork is a flesh most like human. In any case there are other options and I went for the chicken. 

The main course was average. We've been there before and the tasting platters are the way to go. However we'd never tried any deserts until now. Look what we had;

Yes a big platter of pancake and it just melted in your mouth. Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy in the middle and served with an apple mousse.  I would hate to think how many calories I consumed, but hell it tasted good. 

We did have a few issues with service which was kindly acknowledged by the team there who offered us some complementary schnapps to finish up with.

We'll definately go back again.