A Liverpudlian Hotel
I’ve just come back from Liverpool, where I stayed in the Hope Street Hotel. It is one of my favourite city hotels and I would rate it as the best city hotel, I’ve stayed in, in the UK. It certainly magnitudes better than one famous London hotel, C and I stayed in, where we were constantly interrupted all night by the reception wanting someone, with the same name as myself.
What I like most about it, is that it is a real Liverpudlian hotel, where the staff reflect the true nature of the city, where they have a joke and a tale for everyone. So many luxurious city hotels, as the Hope Street Hotel is, are very anonymous and could be anywhere. In some, I’ve stayed in, you find no local staff at all.
It is also an excellent gluten-free hotel, that actually bakes all of its own bread, including the gluten free. How many hotels do that? On Thursday night, I ate in the restaurant and they’d also made their own ice cream. Also, as befits a coastal city, there is always plenty of fish on the menu.
C liked her baths and the bathroom in the room I had was spectacular.
A Spectacular Bathroom
She would have loved it, although despite several tries she never managed to book the hotel.
I have feeling that I got a room upgrade because I booked with a Platinum Amex card. It’s happened to me quite a few times in 4 and 5-star hotels, as often a lot more guests want the cheaper rooms, so those they know or have a decent card get the upgrade.
Every time I go, the hotel seems to get better. This time, they had fitted new televisions which gave access to all the Freeview channels and Sky Sports. So often C and I stayed in a hotel, where her favourite Radio 4 wasn’t available and most don’t have my favourite Radio 5 either. But Hope Street has both and also all of the odd ones like BBC3 and ITV4.
Full Freview Television
Note that the Hope Street Hotel scores 4.5 on Trip Advisor, as opposed to the Lowry in Manchester, which scores 4. Remember too, that the Hope Street Hotel is at the heart of the University and many attractions in the city. Most of the other places you want to go are just a walk down the hill and if you need one a taxi back.
A New Food Source To Develop
As someone, who has planted more than a few trees in his time, I’ve had the odd runs-in with deer, who feel that the new shoots of saplings are tasty for breakfast, lunch and dinner. C also hit a deer in my car, which to say the least didn’t do it much good.
So although they are nice to see in the countryside, when the University of East Anglia says we have too many deer, as reported here, I tend to agree. The researcher, Dr. Dolman is quoted as follows.
We are not killing something and then incinerating the carcass – what we are talking about is harvesting a wild animal to supply wild free-ranging venison for or tables – for farm shops, for gastro pubs.
“What we are advocating isn’t removing deer from the countryside – what we are advocating is trying to get on top of the deer population explosion and try to control the problems that are being caused.
“And in a way, [venison] provides a sustainable food source where you know where it comes from, you know it is ethically sourced, you know it is safe to eat, and that puts food on people’s tables. As much as I love deer, to be a meat eater but then to object to the culling and harvesting of deer seems to be inconsistent.
That sounds all very sensible, but I suspect that the RSPCA and others will be against the large scale cull, that he suggests. The RSPCA’s view is in this part of the article.
In a statement, the RSPCA said it was “opposed in principle to the killing or taking of all wild animals unless there is strong science to support it, or evidence that alternatives are not appropriate.
“Even if a cull is supported by science, it is very important that it is carried out in a humane and controlled way.
“Any decision to carry out a cull must be taken on a case by case basis based on the specific issues which impact a specific area. We don’t believe this should be rolled out in a uniform way across the whole country. It is certainly not a case of one size fits all.
If we don’t cull the deer to reasonable levels, we will get a double destruction of the countryside. By the deer on the one hand and on the other by farmers and householders putting up more and more secure fences to keep the pests off their land.
With all the trouble over horsemeat, it does strike me, that we ought to develop our taste for venison and support those like Marks and Spencer, who are using it in high-quality ready meals.
After all, venison is supposed to be good for you and certainly doesn’t have the health problems that are being reported today for processed meat.
Mincepiration
What a lovely name for a cookery book featured in The Times yesterday. The recipes they showed were all gluten-free or could be made so by using gluten-free flour.
I may not buy the book, but I think I’ll try and find a copy and have a browse.
A year ago, I’d have just bought it on Amazon. But their tax antics and the offensive tee-shirts, they have sold recently, have put me off buying from them.
Microwaveable Bread
For lunch today, before I took the train to Ipswich to watch the football, I went into Carluccio’s in Spitalfields and had a cup of tea and Eggs Benedict.
The eggs were delicious, but they would be so much better with some toast.
It struck me at the time, that a food scientist should be able to come up with a bread in a packet, that after a couple of minutes in the microwave was perfectly acceptable to soak up the egg yolk and the Hollandaise sauce.
After all, there are some very good meals you just cook in the microwave. As I often do after the football, I’ve just had a delicious Marks and Spencer’s curry and rice.
Surely a method of making a couple of slices of decent bread must be possible?
Silvertown Sugar Refinery
Dominating the space between the new railway line and the River Thames is the massive Tate and Lyle sugar refinery, although it is now owned by American Sugar Refining.
As the pictures show it also dominates the view from the south bank of the Thames.
Who’d Have Thought It?
This article, entitled “Australia’s new non-drinking puritans” caught my eye on the BBC web site!
Who’d have thought it?
What A Surprise!
This story from the BBC web site doesn’t affect me, as I only drink the odd bottle of what is best described as a properly made gluten-free beer like Celia. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs.
Beer drinkers in the US have filed a $5m (£3.3m) lawsuit accusing Anheuser-Busch of watering down its beer.
The lawsuits, filed in Pennsylvania, California and other states, claim consumers have been cheated out of the alcohol content stated on beer labels.
The suit involves 10 Anheuser-Busch beers including Budweiser and Michelob.
It certainly reminds me of that joke about that terrible beer of the 1960s, Watney’s Red Barrel.
Why is drinking Watney’s Red Barrel, like having sex in a punt? They’re both f**king close to water.
Although, I suspect the joke has been updated several times since.
The Minestone Soup Is Back!
Carluccio’s amazing minestrone soup has returned as a special for this week. It used to be on the menu and I think the last time I had it, was the day Ipswich played at Brighton.
So there are no prizes for guessing, what I will be eating for lunch this week.
There are rumours that it might go back on the main menu. So let’s do a bit of research.
Feel free to vote.
Otters Will Be Otters
This story from the Metro, shows how we should co-operate a bit more, where wildlife are concerned. Here’s the first few paragraphs.
When Brian Dodson set up a carp fishery from scratch he had no idea the business would be quickly ruined – by otters.
The 60-year-old discovered the carnivores had eaten his entire £250,000 stock after a river haven for the animals was built nearby.
He is now seeking £2.5million from the Environment Agency, which he claims failed to tell him about the scheme and prevented him building protective fencing.
Surely there should have been a middle way.
But then as the story says otters are carnivores and will get their food no matter what. There was a story a couple of years ago, where otters were taking koi carp out of a pond in a suburban garden in Birmingham. No-one knew that there were otters in the nearby canal.
I’m reminded of the tale I heard when I shared the driver’s cab in a High Speed Diesel Train from Edinburgh to Inverness.
The owner of an hotel close to the line, built a lake, which he stocked with fish for his guests. But just down the road was Loch Garten, where ospreys have made a home. And as ospreys are wont to do, they found the hotel lake and decided it was a good place for dinner.
The hotel owner cut back on his fishing, but apparently, he now promotes the lake as a place to watch ospreys feed.
Chains Of Indian Restaurants
As a coeliac, one of the safer places to eat is an Indian restaurant. Especially, if they are one that uses gram or chickpea flour, like most good ones do!
But what is surprising, is that we’ve had lots of restaurant chains with an Italian theme, but I’ve never really come across a nationwide chain of traditional Indian restaurants.
Years ago, I ate with C and a couple of friends at a restaurant in Doncaster, which was part of a small chain. I wasn’t sure of the name, but it was something like Aargh.
Yesterday, when thinking about eating in Manchester, I thought how easy it would be, if there was a well-known Indian chain, that could be searched. Using such things as Trip Advisor is always a bit hit-and-miss, but if you’ve eaten in one of the chain and know the standards are acceptable to you, you know you’re probably safe with another. It’s probably one of the reasons, I eat in Carluccio’s so much!
I did find the restaurant and it’s called Aagrah and according to their web site, they have twelve restaurants.
The Anonymous Widower 