Eat Like Ushi

With a show in Victoria, I looked and managed to find a half price dinner nearby on First Table. I haven't heard about M previously but apparently they've won awards for both their meat and seafood. What are the odds?

- Crab raviolo (white chocolate, artichoke, caviar) £14.95 - the singular of ravioli is raviolo. Nice although expensive if it was full price...
- Pan fried hake (parsley, swede & celeriac gratin, seaweed butter) £20.95;
- Botswana rib-eye 400g £36.50 - look at how perfectly rare (as requested), full of flavour, not the most tender but good enough. Really good.

Good food at a good price in a nice location and restaurant. Great for pre-theatre.

Salt Yard, Dehesa, Opera Tavern - all names I knew last time in 2012-2013 but never tried. The Opera Tavern foie gras burger was one that was thrown around Hot Dinners back in those days. Finally the opportunity arose in halfprice weekend dinners. No idea why, maybe it is difficult staying new during the quieter months. I chose Ember Yard due to their having a special josper grill.

All the dishes were nice, but particularly the josper roasted duck (turnip, calcot, pork rillons) £9.5 and the iberico cuts plate £30. These were the dishes cooked on the josper so it isn't surprisingly they pleased me most.

Most interesting was the rare to medium-rare pork that only iberico could. The iberico abanico with chicken butter (left, fan that surrounds the ribs), iberico pluma with black pepper (middle, feather blade) and iberico presa with jamon butter (right, shoulder) were all phenomenal. The texture was probably the softest on the presa, the grain and flavour most powerful in the pluma (which was my favourite) and the strong saltiness from the seasoning and chicken butter was sometimes a touch too potent. But boy was it good.

Desserts were ok but nothing special. We ate way too much...

When Neil Rankin started this in 2013 I was there but not so impressed. This was better for Sunday lunch.

Huge lamb shoulder for 4 (but easily fed 5 with two boxes of leftovers).

Soft, delicate, and with flavoured blackened skin.

A decent burger opening up in King's Cross. Although I don't think as good as Meatliquor or for vegan Temple of Seitan nearby. Some of the sides looked good but didn't try them this day.

After passing long queues, queuing this time before lunchtime opening and waiting until the whole party arrived, I finally ate here.

Excellent roti, some of the best I've had. Flaky, chewy, buttery, delicious. Laksa is ok, nice taste but not many ingredients. Char kuay teow wasn't charred enough and lacked flavour.

Would definitely go back for the roti.

Bob’s Your Uncle (pork belly, fried egg, cucumber, spring onion, sriracha and tomato relish in a Cretan pitta) £10.2

After watching the sun setting around (unfortunately it isn't over) Giant's Causeway, the last dinner was tossed up between Fullerton Arms and Tartine at the Distillers Arms. Both menus sounds nice, but Fullerton won because it had local mussels, a fireplace and a local pub feel to it.

It was a quiet evening and the roaring fireplace set a lovely scenery (although maybe too hot to sit at that table). The TV above distracted a little by showing The Simpsons and then wacky YouTube video TV. But it's only minor. There's a Game of Thrones door in homage to the mother of dragons, and an Iron Throne to sit on in the next room also. An older couple from near Belfast engaged us in next-table conversation and were very friendly.

In true Irish pub meal style, the meal sizes were very large. I was disappointed they didn't have any local cider. They told me all were local, and the one I got was from Cork. Sorry, that's not local. The staff also weren't ones to give out smiles at all.

- Strangford mussels Jawbox (Jawbox Belfast gin, ginger, coconut cream) £8.95 for small - the mussels themselves weren't special. The flavour was ok but they were just too small in terms of meat. However the sauce was delectable almost curry-like and worked nicely with the surprisingly sweet wheaten bread it was served with (cooked with sugar or honey probably);
- Steak & stout casserole (puff pastry lid, french style peas) £10.95 - the puff pastry was ok, soft underneath and crisp on top, adequate without being great. But underneath the chunky steak pieces (with variable tenderness) soaked in a warming stew with the dark beer flavour coming through. Really excellent traditional cuisine I was looking for;
- Side of rocket & pine nut salad (free with the main casserole) - an excellent fresh large salad topped with generous amounts of goat's cheese.

I'd come back to try the Guiness pork belly ribs and the seafood chowder. They use a lot of local produce. They also gave me 20% off the food for no good reason - "just because we are nice" they said. Just wonderful overall.

Harry's Shack is located along the beach in Portstewart. It's a drive away from town which means I suppose it is quieter (although I'm sure in summer it is rammed). Cars drive onto and park along the beach. The winter winds were blowing sand across the ground, but the blue skies, sun shining and cloud formations made up for it.

It wasn't warm enough to eat outside and the inside had a lovely strong smell of fish & chips, a nice looking and obviously popular dish.

- Seafood chowder (smoked cod, hake, haddock, mussels, new potato) £11 - chunks of fish with a smoky and creamy sauce. I don't think there were any mussels. Unfortunately I hoped for much more liquid and even some bread to mop up with, but not so. It was nice, but the fish & chips would probably have been better value, if you don't want liquid and something slightly soupy;
- Local sole on the bone (pickled cucumber, cornichon, caper, cockle, almond butter, pink fir potatoes) £15 - the local cod drew me in to at least something domestic and it was a real winner. The fish was cooked perfectly with soft succulent meat sliding off the bones. Did they give me two fish? I think so. The topping was a flavoursome blend of salty capers, tiny salty cockles, rich butter, crunchy tangy bits of pickles and was so very good. The potatoes were a side addition and fine.

A lovely location, a sunny beach and very good tasting local seafood. What more do you need to go?

Winter seems to mean a lot of food places are closed. Finding lunch along the Causeway Coastal route was actually unexpectedly difficult (and because I'm picky and want select places only). Mary McBride's bar wasn't open for lunch and being renovated, Morton's fish & chips wasn't open until 3pm, and so hopefully a simple bakery would be open.

Luckily it was and it had a cafe area for sitting down, reading their books on food, healthy living and photography or history, and just enjoying being alive.

The coffee was apparently bitter, which was disappointing.

- Lime leaf & miso noodle broth £5 - a warming bowl of noodles with quite a bit of tangyness, but less miso flavour. The noodles were too soft and way overcooked unfortunately. It's odd to have bread served with noodle soup, but I happily ate it;
- Roasted winter tomatoes, Irish cheddar, coconut bacon, with sorrel oil on toasted sourdough £6 - a wonderful open sandwich bursting with flavour from the strong cheddar, the sweet and remarkably (first encounter) with coconut bacon, and the lovely rich tomatoes and green oil. All on top of a crispy piece of sourdough. Definitely great. I could have had another.

The light rye sourdough to takeaway (they sliced it for me too) is a truly outstanding loaf. The bread has excellent chewy texture and a strong amount of sourness. I was glad it was available. I wonder if this is probably the cheapest healthy meal in a cafe anywhere in the UK.

We were recommended Maud's icecream by a girl at Sixt and I had also read about it. However all the Maud's we came across along the Causeway Coastal route (Portstewart, Larne, Ballycastle) were all closed for winter. What a disappointment.

A waiter at Harry's Shack asked why we wanted to go there when Morelli's is better? A fair question. They even had Guinness flavour.

After discovering Maud's in Portstewart was definitely closed, we wandered to Morelli's. It was a cold sunny day, glorious for eating icecream and watching the ocean.

Morelli's didn't have Guiness flavour and just looking at the fluoro colours, I would usually be turned off. But there weren't many other options (there was another icecream place a few doors away, but we didn't look there).

Coconut and chocolate were both ok. Not bad by any means, but neither were very strongly flavoured. They were very very creamy in texture.

I'd try for Maud's next time.