The Glamorgan pub, well known for its great selection of spirits and liqueurs, and a wide range of classic and contemporary cocktails, is launching their summer cocktail menu this Thursday June 12th, and what better way to compliment their great cocktails than with one of their tasty pizzas.
Quote the reference Food Passion, to get a great deal on your first round, buy a cocktail and get a free shooter or buy 2 cocktails and get upgraded to a 2 pint pitcher.”
Combining the editor’s two passions, we’ve been picking up some really good commissions lately taking pictures of food at places such as the Dylan Thomas Centre restaurant and The Brecon Mountain Centre to name a couple, as well as venturing further afield taking some wedding photography. You can check some of the images on www.tonykluge.co.uk!
The trendy BBC Olive magazine has featured food bloggers from around the UK, and chosen me and the FP blog as the Wales blogger. After an interview and a very enjoyable photo shoot, I recently picked up the June edition of the magazine and was over the moon with the result ( I normally can’t stand pictures of myself, but this photographer did a great job -so much so that I had a full page shot!)
Anyway, you’re probably not interested in seeing pictures of me, but you might want to read about one of my favourite restaurants throughout South Wales - The Cors in Laugharne. This is one man’s dream come to life - owner Nick puts his passion into the buidling, gardens, and food like nowhere I’ve ever been. Get yourself a copy of the June magazine (strangely out usually until the end of May) to read the lowdown on this little treasure of a place (and to check my ugly mug!)
New on the Llangennith Local Produce Market - June 28th
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Special events this month are a Welsh cider tasting with Toloja cider (based in Lampeter) and a Gower potato festival celebrating Gower potatoes.
Also featuring are Stuart’s breads, The Olive bar and a new stall selling herbs and spices called Spicethyme set up by a 12yr old boy called Tom, who has had a lot of national press!
Lots of you will have read about the online voucher scheme with Food Passion through the new 2008 magazine. Well, its now up and running -just check the Food Passion Homepage.
The homepage is chocca full of offers, and they couldn’t be easier to take advantage of. No membership cards, no vouchers to print - just quote ‘Food Passion offer’ for the relevant business and you’ll receive your discount, free food or drink or whatever the corresponding offer is. For restaurants, we advise mentioning the offer on arrival or booking. There’s Butchers, Cafes and Restaurants on there - its a great way to get the best food in Swansea Bay, Mumbles and Gower for less!
This great little deli in bohemian Bryn y Mor Rd just outside the Swansea city centre is a must stop for any real foodie. Owner Vicki simply loves her food and her experiences from around the world play an obvious theme in her approach to food. And as you would expect from a business owner who set things up as a result of their passion in life, she’s great to have a natter with about her favourite topic - delicious foods.
UKTV food obviously think the same, as they have nominated her as a local food hero for the thrid year running. You can see what other foodies have to say about the place by clicking here on this link.
You can also leave your own comments, but either way I’d get down there and check the place out. You can get all kinds of goodies, and even homemade ready meals that are healthy, delicious, and perfect for those times when you just don’t want to cook. You can read more about The Banyan Tree on the main Food Passion site.
Do you dream of running your very own restaurant?
Raymond Blanc is once again on the lookout for a couple to join him in opening and running a restaurant.
Couples will be chosen to compete for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the second series of BBC2’s The Restaurant.
If you are a married couple, in a relationship, members of a family, good friends or work colleagues and share a dream of running your own restaurant – even if you don’t think you have the right experience – we’d love you to apply. Applications available from www.bbc.co.uk/restaurant
You read it first on Food Passion - if you think you have what it takes to host the perfect dinner party - read on!
ITV are looking for new contestants in the Swansea area to take part in the new, daytime series, ‘Be Our Guest’. We are looking for couples to entertain together. They could be married, related, workmates, friends, or any other combination!
Over five days, each couple will take turns to host the perfect dinner party for their guests. The winning hosts will then go through to a finals round, and will have the opportunity to win a prize and the title of ‘Britain’s Best Host’.
We will soon be filming in your area and are looking for people with a passion for good food or who like entertaining to take part in the show.
If anyone springs to mind (even yourself!) then please do not hesitate to get in touch either by phone on 0207 261 3903 or by email. It would also be much appreciated if you could spread the word amongst your family, friends and colleagues - please feel free to forward on this email – in case any of them may like to participate.
Thank you in advance for any help you can give us and please do not hesitate to get in contact if you have any further queries.
Sam Forsdike
Known as the Welsh lover’s day apparently, here’s your chance to surprise your Valentine early!
The Buck Inn in Pontlliw is holding a special evening dinner on Friday 25th January - a 3 course dinner with music is £12.95 per head. Here’s the menu:
Starters
Prawn and Crayfish Terrine
Leek and Stilton Soup
Smoked Chicken and Walnut Salad
Mains
Salmon en Croute with Champagne and Dill Sauce
Half Roast Duck with Kumquat Sauce
Beef Stroganoff with Chive Risotto
Tagiatelle Mediterranean
Dessert
Orange and Cointreau Cheesecake
Cherry, Sultana and Banana Pudding
Bombe Alaska
Check the Buck Inn page on the main Food Passion website for more info about the restaurant.
OK, now I’m going to annoy a few people by doing this, however it does need saying. As many of you know, I love Swansea to bits - it’s people, its laughter and sense of fun, and its beautiful location. But there is one thing that I can not abide in Swansea
SERVICE!!
Not everyone is bad at it, or I wouldn’t be in business. And in fact, I have received some lovely, genuine, personable service, not least of all from supermarket checkout operators who, despite the potential monotony of their job, rise to the occassion to make the otherwise mindless experience of shopping not so bad. As an outsider I see that the people of Swansea have lots of gas to let out, and they are charmingly hilarious when they do get talking to you. And that is meant with the best possible sense of goodwill.
But if there is anything less than appealing, it is a business owner who gives you grief if you have the gumption to complain about the paucity of service. I’ve encountered this on a number of occasions, and sadly, most frequently in the restaurant trade, in both my roles as Jo Public and as editor of Food Passion. As editor, I have incurred the rudeness and sometime blatant lies of some business owners/staff, who are too lazy to remember their manners and say ‘no thank you’, and instead, concoct a plethora of stories which usually contradict themselves. On that brief note, if you are not interested in featuring in a top quality magazine, no problem, just say so. Just remember that every person you talk to, especially when you are in the restaurant business, is a potential customer. As the old saying goes, if you dissappoint one person they will tell 10 friends. Good god, what must happen if you provide rude service to a person whose job it is to tell others?
As Jo Public, I have found the disdain for even the slightest unusual query almost vehemently put to use. I recall once in a well known Swansea restaurant, Mumbles actually (to give you at least a reasonable chance to guess the culprit, though I am not going to mention their name), asking why my Bailey’s cheesecake (which the waitress had been promoting all night, and which I finally accepted, having been lobotomised by her incessant droning) was able to, in its entirety, be attached to the end of my fork and swung around, upside down, left to right, with no movement, no cracking, not even a crumb misplaced.
The ‘manager’ insisted there was nothing wrong, though I pointed out that gelatine levels in my Bailey’s cheesecake were probably approaching levels which would concern Health and Safety. I asked to see the owner (in a very reasonable fashion you understand), who also happened to be the chef (that should narrow your guesswork down just a tad further). When the manager returned, I was somewhat perplexed to hear that the owner/chef was too busy to see me. Somewhat startled, he had gained the upper hand here as I was only prepared to argue the gelatine levels with the man (oops, does that make it even easier to guess?) who had put them in the cake in the first place. So, unusually for me, I left it at that, and told him to take his cheesecake and…..oh if only I had said that. But I did ask for the bill, and guess what - it had a cheescake on there for £4 something. Truly flabergasted, I told the manager that if he wanted me to pay for that he would have to get the police to remove the pound notes from between the cheeks of my backside. OK, so I did mention police but maybe not the backside bit, as I don’t like to equally match rudeness.
I guess this was a battle of wills, one temporarily won by the said restaurant, until now anyway. For the manager proceeded to loudly announce that if £5 was too much for me to afford for a dessert, he would refund my money. In this then canteen-like set up, his every word bounced around the room like a ping pong ball in a bath tub. I shrivelled into my seat, but not before yelping that he could consider that £5 would have been a tip had they dealt with the problem properly. A lot of people must have made similar complaints and had similar responses, for the interior has since been renovated, at least saving some custom for future abuse by staff and management.
Suffice to say I won’t be entering the doors of this establishment any time soon. I also endeavour to provide some level of quality control within Food Passion, so you won’t be finding them in there either ( I can almost hear many of my featured restaurants breathe a sigh of relief here) - poor food is one thing, but a kick up the ass on the way out is truly too much.
I guess the moral of the story to the restauranteur is, at least try to employ good service and pleasant manners, whether it is to a food writer and advertiser, or Jo Public -because you never know who that person is ,or who that person is going to tell about their experience, and it could really backfire on you if you don’t. Here I would like to say a big thank you to all those who do possess manners and goodwill to customers and advertisers alike.
As for moralising (is that a verb?) to Jo public, you’ve figured out the moral already I guess, and if you are any good at puzzled, probably the place that I visited, but really I just need to say that if you smell something fishy, leave well alone.
If you have had similar experiences -post your notes here!