Can it be soup?

If you haven’t been for lunch with an old friend in the sunshine recently you probably should. I first met Martin in 1982 with the awkward handshake reserved for 10-year-olds who can’t understand why they’ve been forced to leave home to live with strangers. It’s fair to say our friendship has been through many of the tribulations you would expect of 30 years but the fact we’re still meeting for lunch would seem to indicate it’s still intact. The last time we met was at Rowley Leigh’s estimable (and sadly now closed) Café Anglais in West London – a thoroughly delightful restaurant in a curiously characterless room. It was also in Whiteley’s shopping centre, which would have given me plenty of room to sneer, (always good for a blog,) but I didn’t write about it – perhaps because the food was excellent and I didn’t pay.

Quail

I was working in Bath, our old stomping ground (where Martin still works,) and we’d arranged to meet; the only problem was where. Bath was never that good for restaurants – having claimed to have invented eating out when the legendary ‘Hole in the Wall’ opened in 1952 (and run by an old boy from our school,) it pretty much rested on its laurels for the next fifty years. You can spend a lot of money if you choose (I’m looking at you Royal Crescent,) and there are many of the usual options available to the generic shopping experience diner. I’m probably being slightly unfair – I’m very out of the loop in Bath terms, and it is 2015, where every dive you used to stagger out of in the early nineties now has a cider sommelier and its own range of bespoke Scotch Eggs. I have heard amazing things about Menu Gordon Jones, but could almost feel its answerphone laughing at me when I called hopefully the morning before. However, another friend had suggested Casanis, approximately thirty yards from Martin’s office, which, as these things tend to, had completely slipped his mind. Luckily, he was in full approval, and was waiting for me in the tight little suntrap of a courtyard at the back when I arrived fresh from the joys of parking half a mile away for the fun of it.

Gurnard and bream fillets

There was a pleasing bustle about the place that would probably have dissipated if we’d actually spread ourselves throughout the restaurant, and we got on with the serious business of chatting. It took us a while to get round to looking at the menus, indeed long enough that certain London eateries would probably have tried to reset the table by the time our very patient waiter took our order. Luckily this didn’t take long as it was a smart and confidently short selection of French classics with a couple of specials, all hovering around the reasonable side of pricey.

Iced nougat

My asparagus and pea soup was green. Very green. Indeed I’d go as far as to say purest green, and see which of you knew which 80s comedy I was quoting to see whether or not we could be friends. It was also somewhat insipid. There were certainly a few peas floating around and I could definitely taste asparagus, but it was easily the most unremarkable thing we ate, which, considering it was perfectly ok and mopped up with some rather nice bread, is the closest to praise it’s likely to get. Martin’s soupe de poissons was much more like it, dark, serious and tasty – a proper classic with all the classic bits arranged classically – and a much better indication of what Casanis is all about. Annoyingly for Martin, I’d also manoeuvred him into ordering the gurnard and sea bream fillets with basil and tomato gnocchi and crab sauce, as I wanted to try it. This was another fine example of what happens when you put good things that work together, er…together, but was also not a million miles away from his starter in taste terms. I did this mainly so I could order the quite fantastic ballotine of quail, stuffed with julienned vegetables and served with one of those shinily reduced sauces that can be called a jus without anyone needing to be punched. Placed alongside this was a square of pommes dauphinoise so French it would have slept with the kitchen sink if it had put on a tutu, and reminded me exactly why this is my favourite way to eat potatoes.

Dessert was a prettily arranged iced nougat, saved from terrible over-sweetness by a sharp red berry coulis, and a proper cheeseboard with comté, stilton, reblochon, camembert and a fine chèvre. This was the sort of food that forced British people in the seventies to admit that France was not all bad, and when done properly, as here, it’s simply very hard to beat. An expertly arranged wine list had led me to an excellent dry white, which I enjoyed so much I’ve completely forgotten what it was, but the bill reliably informs me was a Perrins white at £26.50. All I can say is that the Perrins family know what they’re doing, even if I don’t.

A cafetière and a bill of £100 left us feeling utterly replete, which is not a word I use lightly, but if eating out was invented on George Street sixty years ago, the tradition is alive and very well five minutes up the road. I just wish it had been there thirty years ago as it would have saved my parents any number of mediocre pub meals where they tried to buy my forgiveness for essentially outsourcing me for my entire adolescence. Not that I’d change a thing – for a start, I’d have been eating this meal on my own. Good company in a good restaurant in good weather is where you’ll find me at my happiest, and Casanis more than held up their end of that particular trinity, while Martin and I took care of the company. Of course the sun was shining. It would have been rude not to.

June 2015

Like everyone, comedians have a tendency to complain about their job. Bad gigs, chasing payments, terrible journeys, the crowd that didn’t get you or the TV opportunity someone else did. You cannot blame us for this – moaning about work is so central to the human condition there are cave paintings of people bad-mouthing the boss by the water cooler. With comedians, the ones you should really feel sorry for are the partners who care not one jot that the new Leeds Jongleurs is in a Tiger Tiger, or that Channel 4 have decided topical comedy doesn’t work simply because they made an unholy pig’s ear of The Ten O’Clock Show.

Beetroot meringues

However, in a phrase that I have repeated far too many times on my travels, it still beats working for a living, and there are moments when you really need to thank your lucky stars above you have the best job on the planet below. Sometimes even your partner has reason to be grateful.

I have just returned from a thoroughly delightful trip to Athens to perform at three fundraisers for UNICEF organized by my good friend and fellow comedian Giorgos Xatzipavlou. Frankly, if that’s what it takes to help the children you can count me in. Holidays are a frivolous waste of time, and if you’re prepared to fly me and the wife to Greece to put us in a hotel just for the pleasure of hearing me address a very understanding audience in their second language I’m your man. The shows were fantastic, as was the hospitality, and while Grexit remains a very serious possibility, we boldly ignored it for the week and may well have contributed to a serious upturn in the local economy. Lovely people, wonderful weather, breathtaking surroundings, excellent food, a socialist government and the show was on TV. I was a Europhile before the trip. Now I want to move there.

Cheese pillow

Knowing about this blog, George (as he shall henceforth be known as Giorgos sounds a bit over formal and Giorg looks wrong,) was very keen to show us a little of the local restaurant culture, or, to put it another way, he completely spoiled us rotten. After three nights of shows we had a weekend off (I know – where is that timesheet?) before heading to Thessaloniki for the final performance and George took us to Botrini’s. We were joined by his girlfriend Katerina and his friend Steve, who was kindly driving us around and who isn’t really called Steve but whose real name is so Greek not even Facebook can cope with it.

A dreadful picture of a shrimp Frazzle

I think I’ve been to enough restaurants by now to recognize that slightly tingly feeling you get when you realize you’re about to have an experience rather than just a meal. That sensation was heightened by the arrival of beetroot meringues and was in no way dampened by a light drizzle that took us from our slightly oversized table to a perfectly cosy one under an awning across the courtyard. We had opted for the tasting menu and I always find these rather hard to write about as it inevitably becomes just a list of dishes. Which is a shame because I have just discovered that thanks to the awning, the photos I took of them are truly appalling. Perhaps I would do the meal more service by simply listing the noises we made with each course although that would run the risk of making this blog somewhat pornographic, and there’s quite enough of that on the internet already.

There was some fiendishly clever cookery at work here. You know things are going to get interesting when the waitress comes over to apologise that tonight,

“There will be no octopus in its natural environment.”

Tzatsik-ish

There was a lot of deconstruction going on, but what was also very clear apart from the superb technique on display was there was a great deal of fun being had, both in the kitchen, on the plate and around the table. After a lighter than air cheese pillow (one of four amuse bouches,) highlights kept coming thick and fast. My notes are a scribbled selection of ingredients that perhaps don’t do the dishes justice, but are probably worth repeating here as the best way to give you a sense of them:

Yoghurt sorbet, goat’s cheese snow.

Lardo wrapped prawn with hazelnuts. Oh my. Like a shrimp Frazzle.

Squid sea urchin truffle carbonara (truly amazing this one, with the squid replacing the pasta)

Veal tongue carpaccio tuna mayo tomato water.

False doughnut

And so on. Many of these were re-imaginings of Greek classics – an octopus stifado arrived on a bed of perfect risotto with a herb snow, (almost definitely not its natural environment,) one of my absolute favourites was a deconstructed tsatziki with a cucumber granita and garlic cream hidden in a white chocolate clove. A small piece of perfectly cooked bream wrapped in a vine leaf. I lost count to be honest, and I ran out of superlatives about a paragraph ago. When you’re finishing off ‘submarine of my childhood’ – a riff on Mastika, a sap that the Greeks use for gum and a rather nice digestif, spherified in a rosewater soup, just before the false ice cream doughnut appears, you realize that when you try to write about food like this, you are essentially talking bollocks. If you want to know what this food is like, you really must go to Athens and try it. After, by my calculations, fifteen courses, my mind was well and truly blown.

This is about as happy as I get

Which is what made the next day even more special. My wife and I took the forty minute boat trip out to Aegina, known as The Pistachio Island, because, well, they’re big on pistachios. All along the seafront were the usual suspects – everything from shiny ice cream parlours with plastic seats to bars straining at hipness to family run bistros. I bet you could have a terrible meal here. At times like these you are heavily reliant on luck, and in keeping with the trip as a whole, we rode ours rather well. Having walked through the small but nicely stone slabbed and authentic fish market, we resisted the temptations of the restaurant adjoining it, mainly because it was adjoining it. Instead, we ambled into Ouzeri Tsias, (Ouzeri being the generic name for a place serving traditional Greek cuisine.) Slightly tatty, with just the right touch of homely – we settled ourselves under another awning, and proceeded to have one of the simplest and best meals I can remember. As far as I can tell, the son served us, and when I asked if the lobster was on, his mum showed me a couple and asked me if I’d like mine grilled or boiled. I asked what she would have and so we settled upon grilled, although not until we’d had a very good plate of plain asparagus. I had a couple of cold beers and could have practically wept for joy.

Bream

My wife had a perfectly cooked bream with some of those greens they’re rather keener on around the Aegean than we are over here, and we shared a classic Greek salads where they just plonk the block of feta on top with some oregano. Every time I have Greek salad I am amazed all over again at the simple alchemy of olives, tomatoes, feta, cucumber and red onion and this was no exception. This was essentially peasant food, for very, very lucky peasants and we got change from £50. Some people want Michelin starred technique and ferocious complexity as was supplied in droves at Botrini’s, some want the simplicity of Tsias. Personally, I see no reason why you can’t have both.

Awards, anyone?

Interestingly, the next night, we kind of did. George took us down to the harbour to Varoulko Seaside – the first Greek restaurant to ever gain a Michelin star. Did I mention that I like George very much? This was another fascinating and exquisite meal, marrying wonderful seafood to cooking that, while slightly less whizz-bang than Botrini’s, was still technically superb and utterly delicious. We ordered an extra starter as we wanted to try cauliflower soup with smoked salmon, which gave us a tantalizing insight into what was to come – deep, smooth and soothing cauliflower seasoned with the saltiness of the salmon and just a note of espresso at the back of the palate.

Seabass carpaccio

Dorade, purees

From then on, we got what we were given and what we were given was goood. Seabass carpaccio with a little pickled seaweed, dorade with a tiny crisp bread coat and pea puree, smoked aubergine mousse and carrot and tomato jam that looked so pretty on the plate until we were told to tszuj them up a bit and taste them all together. Tender cuttlefish with a fava bean puree that might have distracted Hannibal Lecter and perfectly grilled prawns of a size you only seem to get on holiday – sorry, on business trips.

We ordered all the desserts. It just seemed easier and there were enough of us. There can’t be many things more fun than picking at a number of Michelin starred desserts with a group of friends sat by a big glass window next to some yachts. There was possibly a little too much chocolate in the desserts, but you’re right, that is a ridiculous sentence. There was a lemon cube if you wanted palate cleansing, and ice cream to cool you down too. There was everything really – I won’t go into too much detail as I’m starting to feel slightly ashamed of myself just writing this down.

All the desserts and some very lovely people

The trip to Thessaloniki saw another packed out theatre and a restaurant which I want to call Ntore, but I think that may be another generic term. Anyway, it looks fabulous – like somewhere Tarantino or Scorcese might hold a gunfight – but don’t order the sausage platter. There was nothing wrong with them, except the number. I stopped at three I think, and still don’t want to look at another sausage for a while. But we had really had our gastronomic adventures in Athens.

Overdoing it on the sausages

I had no idea I would come back from austerity-ravaged Greece having put on almost as much weight as I did in artery ravaging New York. I thank George, Katerina and Steve from the bottom of both our hearts, and I cannot wait to go back in November to perform some more theatre shows where it appears they’re actually going to pay me too. Seriously, I would do it for free. Again. Unless you’re reading George, in which case I won’t, but you must let me pay for dinner – I know a little place in Aegina…

May 2015