The Pryordurkins

Posts Tagged ‘water’

It was spring-like and after a short stroll through the grounds of RHS Harlow Carr we headed off into Harrogate to explore and find a little bistro for lunch. We eventually came across Van Zeller Restaurant on Montpellier Street, a little restaurant that we liked the look of, even though we could not clearly read the menu since the window was steamed up. As it turned out, this place had only officially been open since Fri 13th Feb 09. The owner and chef is Tom van Zeller and according to the advertising is the only chef in Harrogate to have been awarded 2AA rosettes, whilst head chef at the Hotel du Vin, Harrogate. With backing from David Moore (one of the inspectors from BBC2’s The Restaurant) Van Zeller’s is aiming to be the premier dining destination in and around Harrogate.

It had just gone 2.15pm  but the chef was still prepared to accept two more covers. The restaurant is on the small side, which makes listening to fellow diners extremely easy, but was smart and stylish. One table was screened off from the till, and when the couple seated at this table were being served one person was served and then the waiter would run around the screen and the till and then serve the other half of the table. They did make the comment that they felt hemmed in. This place is certainly bijou. We were readily seated, our coats taken, and were glad to note the linen napkins. Two menu options were available, the ‘Du Jour’ which consisted of two courses and a free glass of wine, for the bargain price of £14.95, and the A La Carte menu. We both opted for the A La Carte menu. Michael opted for the game terrine and then the lamb confit with leeks and potatoes, I opted for the salmon balotine to be followed by the lamb too.A little sliver of butter (that was sitting in a little puddle of water) was put on the table but we were half way through the starters before we eventually managed to ask whether we could have some bread to go with the butter. Additionally,  whilst we were told about the free wine, the front of house weren’t so keen in promoting the drinks that we had to pay for and we had to ask for a drinks menu. The drinks menus were given to Michael to browse and one menu promptly dropped one of the fastenings into his terrine. Instead of replacing the starter (or at least removing the fastening in the kitchen) Michael was asked to pick the fastening out of the terrine and hand it over! Michael chose a glass of Shiraz that he said was very nice but looking at the bill when we got home we were charged for 2 Erdinger beers instead (another loss in profit). Michael thought the terrine was ok but had tasted better recently, and the centre of my salmon balotine had ice crystals in it. Not the best of starts. The mains were acceptable but not overly outstanding. Being a cheesecake aficionado, Michael ordered the rhubarb and lime cheesecake but said the two flavours clashed, I opted for the apple tarte tatin but the caramel had been burnt and left a bitter aftertaste. Two double espressos were ordered but they did not come with any cantucci or the like and I could still taste the burnt caramel even after the coffee but I could not find any mint imperials.

Whilst Van Zeller’s is hoping to become the premier dining destination in and around Harrogate,  the front of house need to pull their socks up, they weren’t even half full, and more attention needs to be paid to the food being served ie not to send out frozen or burnt food. Whilst we wish a new business to succeed we don’t feel that Van Zeller’s has yet achieved the standards that they are clearly hoping to attain. The chef Tom Van Zeller did apologise for the frozen salmon though.

Pryordurkin rating: 3 stars.  (We will go back though to see if our experience was just early opening snags)

Telephone 01423 508762

It has been a couple of months since I last used this East Coast Main line to get from York to London, via Doncaster, Grantham and Peterborough. This morning however has me travelling from York on the National Express service that leaves at 8.36am.

There was an air of excitement around York station as I waited for the train. I couldn’t put my finger on what was creating this atmosphere until I noticed quite a few Events Co-ordinators (evidenced by the big bright yellow jackets which said Events Co-ordinator!). They were putting up posters that would direct people who were clearly expected to visit the station and view the new Tornado Steam Engine which was due to pass through. Watching the preparations kept me amused for a while as I waited for my service to arrive into platform 3.

I boarded the National Express East Coast train and we left York bang on 8.36am. The outside of the train looked a bit grim, with old style doors and a lot of winter dirt. However inside was very pleasant indeed. I’d decided to upgrade myself and was happy to find a double seat with a table all to myself. Who says I’m miserable?

A few improvements seem to have been made since I last travelled. The at-seat menu has been revamped and you can now enjoy full dining at any seat in first class. The prices are quite high but I suppose they do have a captive audience and when you think about the space they have to work within to prepare food, it is quite a feat that they can produce so much for so many when they are so full.

In the interest of research I tried the freshly cooked bacon and tomato toasted sandwich (£3.75) and it was nicely prepared and tasty. Another change they have introduced is that you now find sparkling and still bottled water all ready placed on your table which is a nice touch in my view. Along with complimentary biscuits (which I avoided in the interest of my waistline) they served up fresh coffee which was passable and hot. I do wish they would invest in better beans though.

The staff were a little grumpy and barked requests to each passenger …… Coffee?……Milk?……Tickets?……. I just felt they could have been a little happier in their work.

Finally, I should mention the ticket prices. Since I last travelled the open return ticket to London seems to have gone up by £36 since early December. By my reckoning that is the equivalent to a 15% increase. This is on top of the price rises they introduced earlier in 2008. However I do recall a news story which explained National Express pay the government billions of pounds for the privilege of running this service and have to sell several thousand tickets each day before they earn a penny to cover their own running costs. Tax by another name me thinks?

Anyway we continued our journey and arrived into London Kings Cross bang on time.

Pryordurkin rating 3 stars.

This is a small drop in cafe in the middle of York City Centre open during the day for shoppers and local workers alike.  I popped into Cafe Venice over lunch on Monday for a coffee, sparkling mineral water and a sit down having walked in to the City after parking up at the University.  A mixed (plastic) menu catering for the brits as well as those wanting a more mediterranean style is on offer.  Most of the items cost between £4 and £5.  Pizza slices, baguettes, panini and pasta were all on offer as well as Bacon Butties and freshly made up sandwiches.  I’d noticed this place before and think it has been open around 12-18 months.  In that time it seems to have attracted a loyal customer following.

The service is quick, friendly and one or two of the Turkish guys who work there score reasonably well on the old eye candy scale.    Downstairs there were a number of tall tables and stools to chose from each with an ample supply of paper napkins.  I’m led to believe there is more seating upstairs.  If you like the mediterranean feel of a cafe , then this is a good place to stop off for a quick snack.

Pryordurkin rating. 3 stars.

It was time for our two cats, Sooty and Tia to pay a visit to the vets for the annual check up and vaccinations.  As I got the cat baskets ready this morning they could sense something was up.  I know this because Tia made a dash for the cat flap to escape the house when she saw me put my coat on.  Luckily I was one step ahead of her and had locked it, preventing her escape to the fields outside.

Packed up and looking none too pleased, the cats were on the back seat of the car for the short drive to Stamford Bridge.  No problems so far.

Sooty was the first out the basket and was immediately weighed by the vet.  Oh dear.  Lets just say she takes after both her owners and is now on a prescription diet.  Under orders to return in six weeks, if she hasn’t lost weight, she will be enrolled in Fat Cat Class!

Tia was next up and wasn’t too keen to leave the basket.  The force of gravity eventually got her out and again after being weighed was also put on a restricted prescription diet.  The same Fat Cat Class beckons if she too, hasn’t lost weight in six weeks.

So £200 quid lighter myself and with a car full of special food, we set of home.   Sooty was crying quite a bit, but I didn’t think much of it, until I pulled into our drive way and a strange odour filled my car.  Lifting the baskets out and opening them so Sooty and Tia could leave respectively, I noted Sootys basket was wet.  She had been caught short and peed herself in my car. …..   Thankfully the basket is waterproof and nothing escaped or I might have just turned around and made a return trip to the vets!

Wandering into the kitchen like they do, I could still smell a little something.  Approaching Sooty, I could she was wet and had clearly rolled into her own pee.   Bath time beckoned and with much crying, twisting and shaking (that was me) she was clean again.

The joy of motherhood……

After a late start to the day we headed into the City Centre for a spot of shopping and a light lunch.  On our way, we stopped off at Deans Garden Centre looking to buy a water butt so we could start to collect rain water for the garden come summer.  Unfortunately they didn’t have the 60mm connection kit so we could link it up with our guttering drain pipes, which (as is now usual with the Pryordurkin luck) are non standard.  Anyway, laughingly we thought B&Q might have it in and promised ourselves we would call on the way home (Aren’t we silly?).

Getting into the City we parked up and walked into the centre.  It was packed full of tourists and shoppers alike.  You would think it was the week before Christmas.  Restaurant, shops, cafes and the streets were buzzing with people who generally looked up beat, happy and pleased to be out.  I still can’t quite square this with the pessimistic downbeat doom and gloom messaging you get every time you switch on the BBC news.  I find myself shouting at the TV the more excited the news presenters get with every bit of bad news.  Perhaps a few of them should lose their jobs and feel the pain many others are suffering.  They then might think twice about making things even worse by creating even more worry and pessimism amongst Joe Public.  While I’m on one, I’m curious how much the BBC Downturn logo cost.  This is the second one I’ve seen so far.

Anyway where was I?   Oh yes, we bought a few items from around town, stopped for lunch at Harlequin (which was packed, even at 2.30pm) and then made our way home.  On our way, as mentioned earlier, we called into B&Q to see if they had the connection kit we needed for the water butt.    Guess what?…….

With the house we moved into last year, came a fully fitted kitchen.  In that kitchen, we had the joy of owning a Cooker Hood whose claim to fame was blowing a circuit board every time a bulb needed replacing.  So having scrimped and saved we ordered up a new cooker hood from Comet.  We went for the NEFF D97G5 because of the Which Best Buy recommendation for quality and build.

The cooker hood was delivered bang on time by Comet and we were set for a simple installation job……  Paul was keen to do it this evening, despite my protestations that it is a full days job……Regardless of this, he started……You know it is coming don’t you……. This is where it all went wrong.

To dismantle the old cooker hood, which had been fitted tightly by Walter, we had to bend a bit of metal to get it off the wall.  The result was we rendered it useless.  This was not a problem at the time, given we planned to send it to the recycling centre.   Hold that thought….. We unpacked the nice new shiny cooker hood which having cost well over half a grand looks stylish, contemporary and in keeping with the trendy modern fashionable people we are.

The instructions were very clear and simple to follow and it was all going well until we placed the paper template against the wall in readiness for a bit of power drilling…..  There were a number of problems that suddenly hit home.

The power socket and current ventilation hole were bang in the middle of the paper template where we needed to drill.  Drilling into an electric socket and a vacuous hole was therefore not going to work.  Much scratching, huffing, puffing and swearing (under breath) followed.  In the end the only thing is the electric socket will need to move and the hole will need to move.

Going into the garage to check where the hole could realistically move up too was when the second blow hit home….. Directly above the current hole are three main hot and cold water pipes running from the boiler across the top of the wall up to our first floor.  This now makes the moving of the hole impossible without re-routing all the hot and cold water pipes running upstairs.  Brilliant… Not!

In the end the only option is to call in a builder, to a) move the electric socket, b) fill in the current hole (keeping in mind whatever is used to fill it in with will have to carry the weight of the new cooker hood) and c) open up a new hole on the outside wall and install some additional trunking to connect it to the cooker hood.   All in all its turning into a major expensive job.

With our minds finally settled on this as being the only option we momentarily thought about putting the old cooker hood back up for now, until of course we surveyed the bent twisted wreck that lay on the floor.

Hey Ho, another Pryordurkin day comes to an end.

Not believing the mother in law when she said most shops barring Debenhams would be closed today we went into York City Centre for a little browse.  Like many other people trooping through the streets of York we discovered there was nothing to do, other than eat.  So we decided, unlikely as it sounds, to stop for lunch.  We chose the new Pizza Express outlet serving Italian food, that has recently opened on Sampson’ Square.  One of the smaller outlets in the Pizza Express chain, it was housed over two floors and as we arrived at around 1.30pm the place was reasonably busy with parents and lots of kids.  Thinking it was going to be hell, we went ahead anyway and took a table near the front window.

As it turned out the kids were fine, well behaved and importantly quiet.  What annoyed us this time was the loud women opposite who clearly didn’t spend too much time with her kids throughout the year because she was over compensating by trying too hard this time in a loud gratingly posh voice. Apparently the kids, when they get home, mustn’t eat chocolate on the new white sofa.  Here’s hoping! 

Anyway, to the food.  We ordered up a couple of pizzas.  I went for the Romana Diavolo at £9.70 and Paul opted for the Pollo Pesto pasta at £8.30.  A bottle of water costing £3.45 (why we didn’t ask for tap water is a mystery come to thinks of it) and a side salad costing £3.10 completed our meal.  The food, apart from the bland salad, was good.  My pizza, nicely prepared thin and crispy (like me) was very nice and went down a treat.  Paul left a little of his pasta, but only because he was full.  Other than that he enjoyed it.

All in all, a reasonable place to stop off.  Smaller than the usual Pizza Express outlets, where with size, you get the option of saying you don’t want to sit near kids (or at least that’s the option we always ask for), but quick friendly efficient service.

Pryordurkin rating. 3 stars.

Telephone 01904 630 930

Since moving to York early in 2007 we have become regular customers of Dean’s Garden Centre on Stockton Lane in Stockton-on-the-Forest near York.  It is a family run business with a second branch in Scarborough and is celebrating it’s 40th anniversary this year.  We have bought quite a few things from here over the couple of years since, including garden furniture, wood fencing, a large water fountain and of course lots of planting.  Having tried a number of other nurseries and garden centres around the area, including Homebase and BBQ, Paul always seems to think the plants from Deans are just that much better for quality.  Although they may be just a little more expensive, they in the end, prove to be better value by far.   Paul was particularly pleased to discover that in December 08, all Hardy plants are for sale with a straight 40% off the price and to celebrate their anniversary you also walk out with a free Ruby Rose.

The service over the time we have shopped here has always been friendly and professional.  When looking for advice or information they are happy to spend time talking to you.   The old guy who seems to work in the portacabin is an especially interesting character.  Worldly wise and canny with it.  A really nice man.

While Paul meanders around the outdoor planting area, I can usually be found trying to persuade him to join me in the on site ‘Brothy’ for tea and cake.  A cafe that serves up hot and cold snacks and fine looking cream cakes, which are clearly popular with the old dears of York.   Although not the best Cafe I have attended at a Garden Centre, it is certainly not one of the worst either and is worth a visit.  Be aware though it gets very busy.

Finally, as was the case over the last couple of days, if you need to return anything or have a query on a product, they go out of their way to help.  Many who know me will know, I am not a gardener, but if I quite like this garden centre, then it must have something special going for it.

Pryordurkin rating. 4 Stars.

Tel 01904 400 141
Fax 01904 400 157

While out in North Yorkshire we stopped off at the Picture Place on Market Place in Pickering.  What caught our eye was the fact that from the window, you could immediately see this shop only sold originals.  No prints!  We went inside to browse the collection and for our second observation noted that the prices charged for these originals was very good value indeed. There is nothing pretentious about this Art Shop, only it seems a genuine interest in selling good quality Art to people who know better than to pay over the odds for it.  We chose a watercolour in the end.  It was of peebles, a strange and funny looking cat.  We now only need to work out where to put it when we get home.  They wrapped our purchase carefully and we were soon on our way.  We will certainly be back to buy other original pieces at what we think were very reasonable prices.

Pryordurkin rating 4 stars.     Telephone. 01751 475660

To celebrate a piece of good news with many a colleague I found myself at the Fire Station on Waterloo Road in London last night.  As the name suggests this place is or should I now say, was a Fire Station before being turned into this popular pub and eatery.  I arrived at little after 6.30pm.  I was supposed to be there a little earlier but I got completely lost having left the underground at Waterloo itself.  Following my colleagues directions did not help!  Anyway, as I arrived the pub was very busy indeed.  Mostly with suits who like me had just left their offices after a hard days work   With a free bar being laid on by the company I did not get a chance to see what the cost of drinks were but the quality was certainly good.  As many a regular reader will know, I much prefer a fruit based drink (for the lady – according to Al Murray, the pub landlord) so I ordered up a large Red Malbec which was served in a crisp clean glass.  The waiter was pleasant enough and once we had worked out each others accent, even offered up a smile.  There wasn’t a lot of standing room available and for the next hour or so, trying to catch up on conversations with colleagues while being pushed and shoved was a challenge, but to be fair quite good fun as the local talent kept touching my shoulder asking to ’squeeze’ past.  The wooden floors and high ceilings allowed for many a voice to echo around the place though so as I write this post my voice is a little coarse.

At around 8pm we were shown thru to our table near the kitchens which looked spotless.  Fairly slow service then took place, but again to be fair, the pace was fine as it offered my group the chance to continue chatting and swapping stories.  The food itself when it did come was actually very good.  I went for a Courgette Soup starter (£5 approx) and a Beef Fillet main (£18 approx).  Both of which were well seasoned; my beef being cooked as requested – medium rare.  With the Zinfadel flowing (£23 a bottle) the evening quickly went past.  The service continued to be friendly throughout and as the time moved past 10pm, the place was starting to empty.  As we left around 11.30, we were pretty much the last people to leave the dining area.

Pryordurkin rating 3 Stars.  Tel: 020 7620 2226  Fax: 020 7633 9161