This blog comes out of semi-retirement to bring a full scale assault on the credit crunch - in the form of a dinner for two of the tasting menu at the two Michelin starred Midsummer House with one flight of wines.
I’ve been living in Cambridge for 10 years or so and I am so happy that I have finally made it to Midsummer House. I’ve been geeking over food for longer than that and I can finally say that I have eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant.
As I think I’ve said before, I have eaten in very few good restaurants in my lifetime. So, when we plunged, both feet first, into a three and a half hour meal at Midsummer House I had little to compare it to. It was always going to be one of the best meals I have eaten.
Here is an over long run through the menu. Those with (a) a life or (b) some perspective or (c) wanting a proper restaurant review may want to leave now…..
Prior to the 11/12 course tasting menu we were presented with some home made crisps with a balsamic ‘foam’ (more like a balsamic cream). Wonderful with the crisps - giving them a super posh salt n vinegar flavour. Also, a small pan of cheese scones. Lovely, but would have worked much better next door at the Fort St George with a pint.
Then………
Grapefruit and Champagne Foam
A small pedestal was placed next to our table and one of the multitude of French waiting staff placed two empty glasses on it. Foam wassquirted from a soda syphon into each glass. We were given small silver spoons to eat it with. My glass, I think, was too warm and the foam ‘melted’ quite quickly. But as a palate cleanser it was a good start.
We all know foams are old hat but we had people squirting great fluid for us. The game had begun.
Tiger Prawn, Cucumber and Cauliflower
According to the menu, this was the actual first course and was simply delicious. Again a glass, with shredded lettuce, cubes of cucumber, cubes of langoustine jelly (I couldn’t taste what they were but Dr B could), and tiny florets of pickled cauliflower all covered with a cauliflower veloute - the tiger prawns swimming somewhere in the middle.
Truly stupendous. Shades of prawn cocktail. Deconstrucing things I noted: Langoustine jelly nodded towards:
Langoustine and King Crab
One langoustine coated in sesame seeds. A rectangle of black sesame paste on the plate. With a king crab tortelloni on a swede puree and julienned (almost vermicilli-like) swede on top. Bits of this were fantastic. Visually spectacular.
The langoustine was perfectly cooked though I think the sesame seeds were a little oily and not crunchy enough. The swede puree was too strong with a sharp balsamic(?) tang to it. The swede julienne and the tortelloni were wonderful. The king crab was almost egg-like in its softness.
Piquillo Pepper Cannelloni
The first cannelloni tonight and the first of three times they used what I’ll describe as ‘crispy shell’.
Visually this also was a real treat. A rectangular stone plate with a groove cut down one side in which lay a red cylindrical lollipop with a wooden lollipop stick. A small pond in the middle of the plate contained a vivid red dipping sauce with tiny pieces of green chilli and two small cubes of Jamaican pepper jelly.
The thin, sweet, pepper-red crispy shell of the lollipop gave way to a rich chicken liver mousse. Dipped in the sauce added another layer of sweetness. Gorgeous.
We were firmly ensconsed in gastro heaven at this point.
Sauteed scallop, Bay Leaf, Pigs Trotter
The last of a wonderful opening salvo of dishes. Any of these first four are contenders for best dish of the evening.
A huge super salty/caramelised crusty scallop; sweet with the savoury flavour of the bay leaf. The best scallop I have ever eaten. Set on a plate with a stroke of sweet shallot puree, tiny onion rings, a dot of apple caramel and small crunchy trotter croquettes. The trotter, I thought, was a little too dry. But that’s like complaining about the sound of the hi-hat on Black Cow. Isn’t it?
English Asparagus, Spring Truffle
Looks pretty - tastes ok. Overall, not a great dish we agree. An asparagus puree (too salty) with asparagus cannelloni (crispy potato shell, asparagus filling) with two small asparagus tips on top. A slice of truffle on top of it all.
If I can’t taste something there is no guarantee that it doesn’t taste of anything. My sense of taste is not great. But Dr B agreed the spring truffle didn’t really taste of much. And isn’t the English asparagus season over?
Never mind. The wine is good. The service is good. Everything is good. I feel better than James Brown.
Roast Zander, Red Wine and Nettles
Beautifully cooked with with a very salty crunchy skin and soft white fish underneath. Almost cod like in texture but a different flavour. Never had Zander before.
Served with a Pinot Noir and a red wine sauce, this dish had an almost Autumnal feel to it. Large pieces of shallot (or silverskin onions) and a small mound of spinach (not nettles) under which lurked…….
BINGO! BANGO!
Smoked Eel from River Farm Smokery!
So here I was spending a large chunk of the kids’ inheritance in a 2 starred Michelin restaurant eating my smoked eel! Like wowsa man. This is like, just so… I mean. Like - wow!
That said, they were tiny wee pieces and tasted quite different to how it normally tastes. But it tasted good. Lord knows what thay had done to it.
Anyway, quite a heavy complicated dish. Too much going on for me. Not sure nettles are very seasonal at the moment. Beginning to feel a little full. This was big enough to be a main course.
Just a little
Pousse cafe
next. A variation on egg-nog. A super sweet maple syrup with a raw egg on top and a creamy/foam on top of that. With a grating of nutmeg and some spring onion. The maple syrup completely swamped the flavour of the rest. And despite it being in the bottom of the glass you ended up with more of that than anything else.
Still, I managed to squeeze two of them down.
Bourbon Smoked Pigeon, Iceberg Lettuce, Sweet Potato
Slow Roast Saddle of Lamb, Broccoli Puree, Artichokes, Tomato, Lovage
We were informed that they had run out of pigeon and that it would be replaced by the lamb. I regret this slightly as the lamb dish was, like the Zander, a large unwieldy thing that didn’t really work well for me.
The saddle was lovely though: pink, juicy, succulent. There was a confit shoulder - pressed and fried to gain another lovely salty crust. But, like the trotter, it was too dry. The confit tomato was good but the butter(?) beans, artichokes, and brocolli puree all had that slightly mealy dry texture to them.
I begin to pespire and remove my jacket. I finish off my 7th glass of wine of the evening.
At least the heavy stuff is over and we’re on to desert now. There is a slight pause whilst we wait for our puddings and I tremble as I see the size of deserts going to the next table.
To be honest, I was half expecting to be hungry when I left. I assumed that we would be presented with ‘tastes’ of dishes for a tasting menu but the last two dishes were pretty well full-size portions. And now we’re going in for three deserts and they don’t look small. Oh lordy.
A sip of water. Another lengthening of the belt in time for:
Camomile, Lemon and Ginger
This was great. Three layers in a glass. Refreshing, zingy lemon foamy/syllabub on top, a thin ginger jelly in the middle and a camomile….erm….cream(?) at the bottom. Almost like a selection of herbal teas made into a luxurious creamy desert. But better.
But wayyy too small. I mean this was tasting size. What we want is BIG puddings. Something like:
Coffee Chocolate and Passion Fruit
Which could have been a drop of coffee, a piece of chocolate and a few passion fruit seeds but was in fact:
A scoop of passion fruit ice cream on some freeze-dried cocoa (or was it coffee?), a chocolate mousse with some freeze dried passion fruit in a coffee flavoured ‘crunchy shell’. An egg white kind of like an uncooked meringue (I’ve had this before in Lisbon - no idea what it is called) dusted with coffee/cocoa and with more freeze dried passion fruit.
Phew. We’re struggling here. We’re looking to rent some spare intestinal storage.
Luckily there’s only one course to go.
At a place like this, there is no point finishing on half measures. So,
Marinated Strawberries, Basil Bavarois
appears like some kind of scale model set from Lost in Space. Basil and strawberry scented dry-ice rises up and around a basil bavarois tetrahedron faced with strawberry ‘cruchy shell’, a scoop of strawberry ice cream rests on gravel-like freeze dried strawberry, the marinated strawberries draped with basil leaves, and a basil madeleine hunts for room on the plate.
Truly “vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory”.
It could have been a great finish. It almost was. But the strawberries weren’t all that and the freeze dried ones were superfluous. Great bavarois though. And great presentation.
And so, as we sat back and waited until the food had moved far enough into to us to allow us to speak, we marvelled at the evening: the food, the wine, the 3 and a half hours that had passed, the chef who had been carried past the window and thrown into the Cam. Truly a great great meal.
I of course thought a little coffee would be good. A little espresso. To top me up. But coffee doesn’t come alone. Oh no. Why would you want to have your coffee without
