Dinner @ Bistro DéLICAT

In case you're wondering, no I didn't accidentally hit CAPS LOCK whilst typing out Bistro DéLICAT. For some bizarre reason, that's how this Battersea bistro wants to style itself. However, the annoying mix of upper and lower case in its name is just about the only criticism I have of this fine restaurant.

Bistro DéLICAT is an Austrian restaurant and there aren't too many of those in London. That's probably because Austrian cuisine is seen as a frumpy hausfrau compared to her more glamorous Mediterranean rivals. That said she scrubs up quite well when it comes to cakes and pastries. I think I'll stop developing this metaphor any further, as I can only see it getting me into trouble!

First impressions were strong; I particularly liked the contrasting white-tiled walls at the front and black-tiled walls at the back. The hanging spherical lamps are also a nice feature and combine well with the candlelight to bathe the dining room in a warm glow. Sadly, this excellent mood lighting meant that my photos didn't come out very well.

Joining me for dinner was Mr Wine, who has holidayed widely in Austria, and has a fair bit of knowledge about its food and drink. That said his expertise was wasted on those parts of the menu that were unmistakably French. I'm not sure why there was a sprinkling of French dishes but needless to say, we ignored these Gallic interlopers in favour of the full Austrian experience.

Schupfnudeln

The Starters
I just had to order the schupfnudeln (£7), which means rolled noodle in German. This is described as Austrian gnocchi on the menu. However, as these nudeln are rolled, they're longer than the more renowned Italian version. These were pan-seared, which gave them a tasty crust, and they were well matched with the parsley pesto and crispy onions. I couldn't really fault this excellent starter although if I was being ultra-churlish, I'd have to admit that I couldn't really detect any nuttiness from the beurre noisette.

Mr Wine enjoyed his beautifully presented smoked trout salad (£7.50) that was made with homemade remoulade and topped with lamb's lettuce. He was particularly enamoured with the roasted pumpkin seeds that added a contrasting flavour and texture to this salad. A special mention should also go to the superior rye bread that was served with our starters.

Wiener schnitzel

The Mains
A bit of a clichéd choice but wiener schnitzel (£12) is one of my favourites. This was a fine rendition and the generous portion of veal was succulent and not at all greasy. It was served with a potato salad that had just the most amazing grainy mustard dressing. Best potato salad ever!

Grammelknödel

My first reaction on seeing my dining companion's grammelknödel (£11) was that they were on the small side but appearances can be deceptive, as they were quite filling. These dumplings were also very moreish, as anything made with crispy bacon tends to be. The sauerkraut was also of a superior quality.

The Dessert
We didn't have room for a dessert each so we just ended up ordering one between two (well kind of, as I ended up eating the lion's share). I wanted Sachertorte but it wasn't on the menu so I ordered the sweet nougat 'knödel' (£6) instead.

Sweet nougat knödel

This dessert epitomised all that is good about this restaurant. Traditional fare, done stylishly and with an understanding of how to combine different flavours on a single plate. Here we see chocolate nougat-filled dumplings served with vanilla ice cream and a slightly tart berry compote. Sehr gut!

The Booze
To this day, the reputation of Austrian wine is still damaged by the fall out from the antifreeze scandal. This is a shame as there is some excellent Austrian wine out there, in particular the whites. With that in mind we kicked off with a glass of the crisp and refreshing Ried Rosenberg Grüner Veltliner (2009 Anton Bauer, Wagram, Austria).

Austrian reds are less well known and we were a tad disappointed that there were only a couple on the (largely French) wine list. In the end, we opted for a bottle of Sankt Laurent (2008 Johannes Trapl, Carnuntum, Austria), a highly gluggable tipple reminiscent of Pinot Noir. This superior berry-like red confirms Mr Wine's opinion that wine from Austria demands more respect.

I don't like to drink coffee at night, as all that caffeine isn't particularly good for you. So instead, we rounded off our meal in the traditional Austrian way with some schnapps. None of that mass-market crap though, this was the good stuff and I went with apricot whilst Mr Wine plumped for raspberry.

The Details
Bistro DéLICAT is a very intimate restaurant with around 35 to 40 covers and perhaps another dozen or so seats outside. As the dining room filled, it became very buzzy but not that it was so loud that you couldn't have a conversation.

The service was amongst the best I've experienced in a long time. Our friendly but not over-familiar server was efficient and helpful. I was particularly impressed by the manner in which she let us know about the side dishes but pointed out that they might not be necessary.

The bill came to £89.70, which we rounded up to £100 or £50/head. This may seem a bit expensive but we did rather shamefully end up spending more on drinks than food. If you stripped away the booze and bottled water, the food itself cost only £43.50.

The Verdict
This is a neighbourhood restaurant that any neighbourhood would be happy to have. Good quality food, wine, and service in a buzzy setting – it's what eating out is all about.

Other Stuff
Before I left, I had to find out whether they serve Sachertorte and the answer is sometimes. I'll have to make sure it's on the next time I come here.



Bistro DéLICAT, 124 Northcote Rd, Battersea, London SW11 6QU
(Tel 020-7924-3566) Nearest rail: Clapham Junction

Dinner @ Neumarkt (Swiss), Zürich

I know I'm going to come across as whiny and spoilt but eating out on business trips can be hard work. Dinner alone with a book is something I can cope with as a one-off but really it isn't much fun. Sometimes, the local office take you out for dinner but even if your host is uber-convivial, there's a fair amount of shop talk and you can't quite escape the feeling that you’re still at work.

Anyway, I'm very lucky that my mate, Soft Aussie calls Zürich home so at least on one of the nights, I could relax. Joining us was Mr X, Soft Aussie’s mate who's also based out in Switzerland. Over a quick snifter, we mulled over the dinner options. Having briefly considered Chinese, we decided to search for spätzli, the German noodle that is also hugely popular in Switzerland.

We started our search in the Old Town and we searched and we searched but the weather was crap. So in the end, we decided to dive into Neumarkt on the basis that it looked like the kind of place that might serve spätzli. Sadly they didn't but they did have a mix of traditional and modern Swiss dishes on offer.

The Swiss love their bread and it seems every restaurant you go to, it's pretty good and Neumarkt was no exception. For our starters, the guys boringly went for salads (another Swiss fave, especially with lambs lettuce), whilst I had the chicken liver mousse (photo at top). Just what is it with pâté type things; you just never get enough toast. It was decent but what else can I say.

Onto the mains and being a Swiss restaurant, I couldn't get overly excited about these. I ordered roast shoulder of veal w/mash & carrots. The veal was very tender and whilst the dish was a bit rich and heavy, it suited the mood I was in. Swiss Aussie went for a lamb burger w/chips and Mr X, sliced veal w/potato gratiné & carrots. All the dishes were tasty but none set the pulse racing.

However, for all the ordinariness of the food, we all enjoyed dining here. Not least, due to the elegant dining room and in my opinion the star of the evening, a rather fine bottle of red. I don't usually write about wine but I thought the Dôle La Liaudisaz (2008) was a real star; this blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay was fresh, fruity, fragrant, and given how well it went down, silky smooth. So it was a bit of a shame, the wine glasses provided were sub-standard (I'm learning a thing or two from Mr. Wine).

The puzzle was where did this wine originate? Initially, I thought it might be France until I remembered that the French never mix Pinot Noir with Gamay. {Correction - that last sentence is incorrect. the French do mix these two kinds of grape in Bourgogne Passe-Tout-Grains. Big thanks to Londonchinese - I guess I really ought to stick to writing about noodles!}. The label was a bit trendy but it gave no clues as to the origins and nor did the wine list. I didn't think to ask at the time and it's only when I returned home that I had a yearning to find out more about this wine.

Then it dawned on me, could it be Swiss? My research reveals that both Pinot Noir and Gamay, are grown in Switzerland. I did some more research and I found the website of the producer, Marie-Thérèse Chappaz. I felt a bit of a fool when I discovered that Dôle in the name Dôle La Liaudisaz refers to a type of Swiss wine consisting of a blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. Our bottle was a 60% Pinot Noir/40% Gamay blend – the high Gamay content may have explained why it seemed a bit lighter than Burgundy. I'm looking to track down a bottle of this stuff in blighty!

The only minor blemish on the evening was the service as our waiter was a bit crap. Every other table seemed to be served by someone efficient and charming but we ended up with a slightly slow inelegant chap. He particularly hacked me off with his nonchalant attitude towards wine drips. To avoid further conflict, I assumed wine pouring duty.

Zürich isn't a cheap city but being a bit off the main Old Town drag, Neumarkt isn't a tourist trap. Two courses here cost roughly SFr50 or £30/head, which is reasonable for Zürich although I wouldn't pay more than £20 for the equivalent standard of food in London. The wine was actually one of the cheaper bottles and cost SFr54 (£34), which I thought was reasonable until I found out that it retails for around SFr19 (£12).

Off The Blog

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been lucky enough to eat out a lot (and I mean a lot) - in theory this means loads of posts. However with Christmas looming, I have precious little time to actually write them. So with the exception of my review of Red 'N' Hot, you'll have to wait until the New Year for tales of my festive dining.

In the meantime, here's another one I made earlier – a round-up of three great restaurants that I enjoyed 'off the blog'. I don't post about every restaurant I visit as blogging can be hard work and sometimes I just want to relax. Then there are those meals when it isn't really appropriate to blog ! Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I really liked these places even though I didn't give them the full blog treatment.

Like English footballers with natural flair, high-end contemporary Portuguese restaurants in London aren't all that common. To stretch this painful analogy further, Portal on St John St is the 'Joe Cole' of Portuguese restaurants and it certainly deserves more acclaim. This classy and understated Clerkenwell restaurant really shines with a beautiful conservatory and warm efficient service.

The food is excellent too and I enjoyed my three courses of fish soup, suckling pig with pumpkin galette and the poshest pasteis de nata ever. Around the table, others enjoyed the grilled venison with chestnut & mushroom ravioli and the braised bisaro with sweet potato mash.

grilled quail, photo courtesy of The Catty Life

If Portal is one of London's hidden gems, the same can't be said about Roka on Charlotte St. No one seems to have a bad word to say about this modern Japanese restaurant and it largely lives up to the hype. The restaurant sells itself on dishes from its open robata grill but the sushi and sashimi are also exceptional.

If you can, go for one of the tasting menus – highlights include wagyu sushi, grilled scallop skewers, grilled quail (pictured – thanks Catty) and their giant dessert platter. It's not cheap but I struggle to find much wrong with this buzzy restaurant and I'm usually very suspicious of over-stylised Asian places. In short, one of the best places I've eaten at since I started blogging.



In contrast to Roka and Portal, Camino is an everyday kind of place which won't break the bank. It's easily the best bar in the King's Cross area (not hard I know) and its location in the Regent Quarter development will take you far away from the grimy streets of the Cross.

The food is above par too - you can either order tapas at the bar or dine in the restaurant where they serve an excellent value set lunch (£15 for 3 courses). But what I really like about this place is its cracking selection of affordable Spanish wine (especially the red). Oh and they have 'proper' table footy where you can re-enact Barcelona v Real Madrid.

Shanghai: The Best of the Rest

Now you may be mistaken in thinking that all I did in Shanghai was stuff my face with xiao long bao and sheng jian bao. You wouldn’t be far wrong but here’s a round-up of the rest of the places in Shanghai that I’d return to. They're all in the French Concession near where I stayed.

Cantonese food is very popular in Shanghai and there are loads of casual places as well as posher restaurants if you need a fix. Bifengtang is a chain restaurant not dissimilar to the cha chaan teng or caffs that you see in Hong Kong. There’s a bilingual menu with a wide selection of Cantonese one-plate dishes, congee, soup noodles, fried noodles and dim sum with some Shanghainese faves. It’s pretty unremarkable except for their dim sum dish of prawn spring roll wrapped in cheung fun (RMB 16). The contrast between the different textures of springy prawn filling, crispy spring roll pastry and soft rice noodle roll exterior were a joy. I went to the Changle Lu branch which is open 24 hours a day.

Even better Cantonese fare is available in the café inside the Cathay Theatre on the corner of Maoming Nan Lu and Huaihai Zhong Lu. It doesn’t have an English name but you can see the Chinese name from the name card on the left hand of the below photo - just follow the signs and go upstairs. They have an extensive bilingual menu and there’s also a Cantonese BBQ counter (extra marks for authenticity). The stand out dish here was Three Treasures Congee (RMB 28) served in a claypot. The three treasures in question were fish slices, crab legs and prawns with the added bonus of a fourth treasure of clams ! This was the best congee I’ve had in a long time and was better than the stuff I had in Hong Kong and Guangzhou earlier this year.

A very un-Chinese place was the Epicvre which I discovered whilst strolling along Xinle Lu. It’s a fine food and wine shop with a French bent. There’s a few tables for punters to snack and drink. I didn’t eat here but they do serve quiche type things and salads. The reason to come here is to enjoy their fine wines and my nicely chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc (RMB 60) really hit the spot after walking around in humid 30C heat.

Now Shanghai is an expensive city to drink with beers costing up to the equivalent of £6 - £7 which is double the going rate in Beijing (or London for that matter). So I was pleased to track down the Boxing Cat Brewery on the Fuxing Xi Lu, a relatively quiet corner of the French Concession. This microbrewery sells pints at around RMB 45 (RMB 35 during Happy Hour) and it‘s a great place to drink outdoors. I didn’t eat here but they do American food including weekend brunch.