My Lovely Blogaki

It has been since some time that we started to have a better stats function provided by Hitslink.

I see that the overwhelming majority of my visitors come from search engines. Very interesting is to know what search strings lead to my blog.

Recently many people want to know how eels taste like. Many from America and some from the UK. How the people suddenly started to interest in the taste of eel? I can guess for the UK; it is probably a tv programme that featured eel (that I watched, too). I have no clue for the US. Is it because the Americans watching UK TV? Possibly.

Today two people wanted to know if tiramisu halal. I don't think they could find the answer in my blog, but it should be "you can make halal tiramisu", while if you buy tiramisu' from non halal shop, it is likely to contain some alcohol, thus it is not halal.

The most intriguing question of the day is "do sainsburys vegetable samosas contain poppy seeds?"

No idea.

This Thursday I went to a big supermarket called Sainsbury's near my work place. It is a good supermarkt of lots of interesting things, but I don't usually go as it is for me a detour to go there and to go home.

But that day I really needed to go to a DIY shop, near Sainsbury's, to buy hooks to repair my closet. I found ones for a reasonable price and now my closet is in function again.

Anyway, Sainsbury's. It has an in-store bakery and make nice breads. On one of the shelves I fond these:



Black bread balls !



Are they burnt!? Why are they selling burnt black bread?

When I went closer, I saw this tag.



So these were meant to be burnt?

I guess it is all white inside, but even so it looked courageous to sell them on purpose.

As the British bread tend to whitish or beige in colour, these black balls took my be surprise.

Went to Blackheath.

Blackheath is a small town in suburb of Birmingham, about 15 min bus ride from where we live. I have seen this name on many buses as their final destination, but I have never been there. Being curious, I took D to visit there.

It is a small town, but has a towncentre much bigger than I expected. In Birmingham town centre and also in the area we live, there is so much multi-ethinic population and we don't always realise that we are living in a country of Anglo-Saxons. When we go out to a bit farer to the countryside, the popuplation is overwhelmingly white.


After a stroll, I found a cafe selling hot port sandwich.

We have eaten one once in Walsall, but have never seen since. This shop had actually a roast pork, and when we ordered one, they cut a few slices and put them between two slices of white bread. I was not asked if I wanted brown bread.

By the way, here is the Walsall version : http://my.opera.com/tabatakayoko/blog/2007/04/29/hot-pork-sandwitch-walsall


We wanted to take the bus to go back, so we took it away.

This is how it looked when I opened the alminium foil.

Hardly appetising, I have to say. I don't like very much this type of white bread.


The cut of meat was not bad. When we ate in Walsall, the meat was already cut and stored in a metal container like stew. This one looked and tasted better.

The vendor asked me if I wanted stuffing and sauce and I said yes. Sauce was apple. You might be able to recognise a few diced apple. I did not recognise solid stuffing (which is not very important as it is a kind of bread paste), but the vendor did smear something that tasted sage.

I cannot say I like this, but it is always a delight to investigate local delicacies.

Last Saturday 3 friends and I went to Peak District and for lunch we stopped at this country pub, Okeover Arms.

It was quite an experience ... well in an unexpected way!



We booked a table a few days ago. When we arrived at 12 o'clock, there was no one eating in the dining area.

In the photo, it looks cosy. Yes, it was cosy, but it was quite dusty, too, as if it has not been cleaned for a while.

Also dirty were table cloth and napkins. My napkin was clearly used by some one else before.



This is one of our starters. It was named "Garlic Mushrooms en Croute" (£4.75).

En Croute means wrapped in pastry and baked, but it is clearly just "served with toast".

It tasted all right, but the description was wrong, and over-priced for what was.



This is another starter (we took only two starters, and shared), Peppered Mackerel en Croute (£4.95).

Again, the description is wrong. It is just a piece of peppered smorked mackerel served with toast.

It was odd again, and I thought that the fish was over-cooked, so too dry.

If they served these dishes with garlic toast or French baguette, they could look much better, but probably it was too much for the chef.



For main course, we ordered four types of meat, and this is one of them, Herb Crusted Seared Venison Served with a Rich Port Jus (£13.95).

This was the best of the lot. The meat was so beautifully done and tasted really good. Although one of the friends said it had too much dried herb, I liked as it was.



This is a transh of the meat. It was rare as it should be.

We ordered also wild boar, pork belly and rib eye steak.

I thought the pork was poorly done, as it was quite hard. Pork belly should be slow cooked to the degree that it becomes melting soft. I thought the chef did not know how to deal with it.



This is side dish. The quantity was poor for 4 people, as well as the freshness of the vegetable. The carrots were almost dry.

I am usually served a good quantity of veggie in British pub, so this was a real disappointment.

It was also a fatal mistake that they did not have any bread to give us, even though there were bread dishes on the table and we did booked our table days before.

Price for all was about £60, so £15/head. This includes as drink only 2 glasses of coke (the others had water); it is not expensive, but not even cheap for the quality, quantity and the service we had.

Yes, service, it was almost inexistent. The owner chef guy was welcoming, but he bearly got out of the kitchen to ask us if everything was ok so I did not even have chance to complain. The waiter was a teenager in really dirty uniform that desperately needed ironing.

The whole experience was pretty dire.


Afterwards, we went for a walk in the area, which was a magnificent beauty. We spent two hours walking around.

And when we passed in front of the pub on our return, out empty dishes and glasses were still on the table. After two hours! They must be pretty lazy people and it explains why everything was so dirty and dusty.

So, we found another face of Great Britain!

Weird stuff I saw the other in a big department store called Selfridge's in Birmingham.

Golden Chocolate Fountain.

Anyone interested?

It is yours for mere £5000.