Whilst sat there having a nice bit of time to myself my mind started to wander towards food and about halfway down my follow up pint of Hooky Bitter I decided that I'd pay another visit to Jamie's Italian at The Oracle on the riverside.
I've reviewed it once or twice before on this blog and although it started out as a very impressive eatery subsequent visits have not been so great meaning that I'd virtually written it off of my dining radar. The last time I was in there I was only there to get a book signed by Gennaro Contaldo for my mum, I didn't eat at all !!
It may sound odd to some people but I really enjoy going to restaurants on my own. I find that rather than spending time chatting away I tend to get more immersed in the atmosphere and I notice what's going on around me much more. Don't get me wrong I also enjoy dining with others too but occasionally just my own company and a few checks of Facebook is enough.
So onto the venue and again I differ a bit here from the usual stuffiness of the English in that I appreciate a busy, noisy and bustling restaurant. I'm not talking about the crappy fast food eateries or other mediocre places like Nando's or Pizza Hut because I'd rate Jamie's Italian as being gastronomically far superior to these in virtually every way. What I mean is that I like the way Jamie & Gennaro have tried to create this little bit of the authentic Italian atmosphere in the UK and I do feel slightly taken back to my time in Rome when I eat there so it has nostalgia.
What they've also done with the food is of course keep to authentic Italian cuisine but where possible they use produce from the UK which to me serves to add to the influence that Jamie Oliver's personality has in the menu creation. Lets face it the vast majority of people who go there for the first time are going there because of the name so to not have that connection once you get there would be disappointing.
So the food. Feeling rather hungry I chose four courses but instead of a dessert I had a rather impressively made and wonderfully tasty Negroni cocktail.
Starter - Marinated Sardines £3.75
This course was the highlight for me and not because of the sardines, not because of it's accompanying salad and not because of the rosemary flavoured bread, although they were all very good. The best bits though were the capers, they had such excellent fresh flavour, almost floral. They linked all the other ingredients so well. I will have this over and over again on later visits.
Antipasti - Artisan Meat Board £4.45
There are three options to choose from here and I went for the English wild boar salami. You get 9 or 10 slices on a board drizzled with some oil which might not seem a great deal for the price you pay but you can tell in the eating that the effort taken to produce this salami justifies the cost. The salami itself has a slight flavour of game but the overriding taste is that of acorns which tells you right away that this came from a genuinely hunted animal free to feed itself on natural resources rather than a farmed and fed animal.
Pasta - Mushroom Panzerotti £6.55 (£10.35 for main course size portion)
Good flavour from the brown and porcini mushrooms in the filling and the tomato sauce was light and fresh tasting with a little chilli zing which only served to heighten that freshness. The pasta was a half moon shaped ravioli which was stuffed with the mushroom mix and I was a little confused by it. The filling wasn't very uniform meaning that some of the parcels were light on the filling and other more full. Personally I'd have preferred to have less parcels with more filling than the other way around but perhaps this filling randomisation was intentional to make you aware (if you weren't already) that it's handmade at the restaurant.
Main - Osso Buco (£12.75 off the specials board)
For those who don't eat veal or agree with it because the red tops tell you it's inhumane I feel for your naivety because you are really missing out here. This slow roasted shin of veal is so wonderful. Here they serve it up on a huge plate with some wet polenta and topped with some fresh gremolata (chopped lemon zest, garlic, parsley and olive oil.) Honestly the plate is so big you could use it to serve up sandwiches at a children's party!!!
Service throughout was splendid and the two glasses of red wine I had during the meal were both of decent taste and quality (Merlot & Primitivo £4.25/£4.45)
To be honest it would have been pretty hard for the cooks there to get this meal wrong as it's all pretty simple but the restaurant was very busy so well done to them and the waiting staff for making it a very enjoyable couple of hours. It's now back on my dining radar :-)
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