Menu Testing at the Ashmolean Dining Room

TonyOX3

Yesterday’s test-drive of the new autumn and winter menu at the Ashmolean Dining Room wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The good news is it was much better! A free glass of something bubbly on arrival – yes, that was on the invitation. A full sit-down multi-course meal served at your table, that was not what I’d anticipated. I’d been thinking more along the lines of a crowd of people standing around while waiting staff brought round trays of bite-sized tasters. So well done to manager Andrew Cashin and his team for exceeding expectations and taking the risk of asking Oxford’s twitterati (and some others) what they thought of the new dishes.

@OxSox, @RuthWilk and I met beforehand and walked along to the restaurant together to meet @kalicer. The four of us were given a table together. Others have described how the event was managed (links below) so I’ll just briefly say we were brought a series of plate-size portions of nearly every starter, main course and dessert to sample between us. A bottle of white and a bottle of red (not part of the freebie) helped us enjoy the tasting and keep the discussion flowing.

My mobile phone (now officially achieving ‘classic’ status) is not great at photos so if you want pictures of the food follow the links to other reviews. My contribution is to bring you the menu. I should say that this is not the defintitive final version to be offered – some dishes may change or disappear, and prices may change too when it goes live in September.

Starters

And so to the food. My favorite from the starters was the Serrano ham and figs, with the slightly sweet and sticky dressing complementing the ham nicely. The seafood platter was also good, especially the cured herring, although I agree with others’ comments about the disappointing prawns. The cauliflower & truffle oil soup was creamy and had a good flavour but was maybe a bit rich as a starter. The crab panacotta was again a good flavour but could have done with more crab meat. To me the gravadlax couldn’t be distinguished from straight smoked salmon but as a smoked/cured salmon starter it was fine. I don’t really do seafood so can’t comment on the squid. Although some of my companions thought the cauliflower and pine nuts a bit bland I liked it, but I wonder whether having cauliflower as the basis for both vegetarian starters is a good idea.

Mains

Beetroot is never served in the OX3 household, though I personally don’t have a problem with it. As one of the vegetarian main courses the candied beetroot and goat’s cheese fritter was novel and successful. The pearl barley, wild mushrooms, leek and spinach topped it though, having us playing pass-the-parcel taking smaller and smaller portions from the plate as no-one wanted to seem rude by finishing it off.

There were three fish dishes. The whole bream was nicely grilled with firm flesh, and the monkfish saltimbocca with salsa verde worked well. The lemon sole meunière was a bit dull, but maybe that’s not a surprise. Which leaves the meat courses. The lamb, a standard choice for anyone wanting something plain, was just that. You’d get what you expected, though the meat itself was a little chewy. But the rabbit would be high on my list to order again. Not too highly-flavoured but definitely rabbit, spiced up with the mustard and tarragon sauce and served with unfussy vegetables. There was steak on the menu but it either wasn’t served or it by-passed us.

Desserts

Only three made it to our table. The pannacotta and poached pear was good, light, and wouldn’t leave you feeling over-full. The chocolate and amaretti sponge on the other hand certainly would. It was an interesting combination: the almond flavour of the amaretti took a little while to come through, but when it did it took the edge off the chocolatey sweetness of the sponge. Paris Brest? What’s that? Isn’t it a bike race? In this case it was a saucer-sized round of flaky pastry, topped with roasted almonds and with a soft filling which I think was chestnut (marron). Whatever it was it was a hit!

And so, the overall conclusion. I think the new menu will be popular, especially after a little tweaking, and I think that was the consensus on our table. I’m not completely sure what the Ashmolean Restaurant’s target market is, but with this menu it’s aiming for people who want good food nicely prepared and presented, nothing too extreme or fashionable and not in any one particular style. It’s a something-for-everyone menu, and none the worse for that. There’s surely a market for that in Oxford, and I hope they do well with it over the winter season.

Other Reviews

By @alisonhogarth | By @OxfordCityGuide | By @GirlEatsOxford

Headington Headlines #26

TonyOX3

Here is my round-up of local news for the week 15 – 21 August —

A freedom of information enquiry reported on the H&M e-dem forum has revealed that the owners of Café Bonjour have been invited to submit a new planning application for café/restaurant use after the limits on the proportion of such premises in Headington were waived for Jacobs & Field.

At a meeting in Barton on Monday an action group was set up to fight plans to fill in Woodeaton Quarry.
In unrelated news, about 75 people have signed a petition asking the County Council to remove the speed bumps on Bayswater Road, and it was announced that the new Barton Pavilion will officially open on 28 August.

The second Headington Ward focus meeting, organized by ward councillors David Rundle and Ruth Wilkinson (@RuthWilk), was held in the Music Centre at Headington School on Tuesday. Notes of the meeting are on David and Ruth’s blog.

Congratulations to Headington A (Osler Road), champions of Oxford & District Bowls League for 2nd successive year.

The forces repatriation tribute outside the church of St Anthony of Padua in Headley Way was briefly covered in an ITV programme “Farewell Wootton Bassett” on Thursday evening.

Delia Sinclair, Labour City Councillor for Quarry & Risinghurst, was reprimanded by the Standards Committee for failing to declare a ‘prejudicial interest’ in a planning application that came before a Committee of which she was a member.

@TVP_Oxford appealed for witnesses to a suspected arson (bin fire) in Westlands Drive last Thursday.

My favorite Headington-related tweet this week:

A quiet week on the Headington & Marston e-democracy forum – only three active topics:

  • Subway under Green road roundabout
  • Dogs and Smoking in the childrens play area
  • Cafe Bonjour – Enforcement Action

I try to cover news from the OX3 postcode in Headington and out as far as Barton, Sandhills and Risinghurst (see map). To feed into next week’s summary you can comment on  this article, or tweet either with the hashtag #ox3 or @mentioning @TonyOX3.

Car park development

TonyOX3

I’ve just signed the petition being organised by LibDem Councillors Ruth Wilkinson and David Rundle asking the City Council to change its preferred option for Headington car park from ‘build over’ to ‘no development’.

I don’t often sign petitions, not least because I don’t think they ever do much good, but like many other people I believe the loss of parking spaces, and possibly the whole car park during construction, would cause irreparable damage to the economy of the Headington shopping centre.

I am, though, not automatically opposed to new development. I’m amused when I read in the paper statements like ‘such-and-such a development will change the nature of [some road or area] for ever’. Without quibbling over ‘for ever’, that’s what happens when you build something new. The change may be for the worse or the better. It all depends, and nimbyism isn’t an attractive personality attribute.

Regarding Headington car park, I accept that the City needs more affordable housing. My challenge is this: if the Council can

  1. show us an example (or preferably a few) where residential accommodation built over public ‘undercroft’ parking has been done in a way which is attractive, safe, energy efficient, and inexpensive to operate in terms of lighting, security, cleaning, etc.;
  2. produce usage data on the current car park which shows that the reduced number of spaces will not have an adverse impact on the numbers able to park; and
  3. find alternative parking within an easy and short walking distance from the shops for the construction period

then I would support the development. I made these points at a consultation meeting a couple of months ago, but so far nothing’s emerged to persuade me.