The Beardmore Hotel

I don't get to the west quite as much as I once did, but today my travels took me all the way to in Clydebank.

The Beardmore is owned by the NHS, attached to the Golden Jubilee Hospital, and offers excellent conference facilities. Indeed, it's Scotland's current 'Conference Hotel of the Year.'

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the lunch, but was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a very cheery woman who ushered in the prospect of a plate of hot food in the hotel's main, simply appointed, dining room.

From a curious array of hot buffet selections, I chose coley with half a baked potato and vegetables.


I had a pretty bad experience when I last ate coley, at Spoon. On that occasion, the fish was way too salty. This time, the two pieces of fish could used some more liberal seasoning and a few extra chives and a good twist of pepper to give the chive cream sauce a little more oomph wouldn't have gone amiss.

The fish was pretty good, though, and wasn't as horribly overcooked as fish can be sometimes when served this way. The potato and veg were decent enough, with the veg retaining a good crunch.

Overall, this was a pretty good conference lunch. A bit more attention to seasoning, particularly with the sauce, would have elevated this, but it was a very acceptable plate of food.

Scores

Out of 20, Blythe scores The Beardmore
3/5 for food
2/5 for presentation
3/5 for service
3/5 for setting
giving an overall 11/20

Today's Lunch Quester was: Blythe.

I ate: coley in a chive sauce, baked potato and vegetables.

I wore: a charcoal suit befitting an ashen-faced Tuesday.

Beardmore Hotel and Conference Centre
Beardmore Street
Clydebank
Glasgow
G81 4SA
www.thebeardmore.com

KLM and Schipol

In the times I've flown with KLM, I've usually had pretty good experiences. Flights have generally run to time, food has been totally passable, and as a transit hub I've always really enjoyed Schipol.

Today, I had an early flight from Istanbul's excellent Ataturk Airport, leaving at the ungodly 5.50am. This meant that KLM were going to feed me more of a Breakfast Quest, but let's apply a little in-flight poetic licence.

The coffee beat the shit out of Air France, almost resembling something you might be comfortable drinking on terra firma. Their breakfast was a little more problematic.

First off, the attendant handed me the cellophane-wrapped item with no indication that was what contained therein was hot. Not a good move, particularly given my sensitive, girlish paws.


Next up, the item was a real mystery meal. As I bit in, I was pretty sure it was some sort of sweet pastry, perhaps an apricot croissant. By halfway, I would have said perhaps simply a "fruit" croissant. Then the next bite had a little stringyness to it. Cheese? Indeed it was. An inspection of the label revealed it was a cheese and tomato croissant.

Given that I was flying back from Turkey, where kunefi (which I tend to refer to as cheesy bird's nest) is a popular dessert item, perhaps this was some curious attempt at satisfying a multi-cultural audience with something that could be perceived as both a savoury or sweet breakfast item, depending on the training of your tastebuds. But then a piece of carrot cake arrived afterwards to undermine my generous interpretation.

So, basically KLM have managed to give cheese and tomato the taste of jam. Well done them, but I'd really rather they'd kept this remarkable breakthrough to themselves ;-)

The carrot cake, one of Cake Quest's "Big Three" was very moist, but had a rather disturbing sugary crunch to it, that felt like rawness. I suppose I should admit that this is the first piece of carrot cake I've ever eaten (I don't really do dessert, as you may have heard), so I don't have a frame of reference, but it was pretty good aside from the curious crunch, although way too sweet for anything beyond occasional consumption.


On this first part of the journey, KLM provided me with a couple of memorably weird items. I was wide awake with the intense sugariness, so that might be considered a positive for anyone who might want to be awake at this hour. For me, I could have lived without it.

Onwards to Schipol, where I initially stuck to my initial routine: head for Murphy's, drink beer and phone home. But four hours in the boozer from 8 until 12 is pushing it even for my liberal tastes, so I decided to venture off in to previously unexplored regions of the airport.

I'm bloody glad I did, as the place was extremely impressive. First priority was to see whether my comprehensive failure to find some quality items of Istanbulian tat for MJ's delectation could be addressed with the acquisition of some clog/tulip/windmill-based Dutchness. Aside from a brief dalliance with mugs in the Rijksmuseum shop (I know - in the frickin' airport!) that had two big handles that had something to do with your grandparents' ears, it soon became clear that the answer was no, sadly. My failure to engage with Old City tourist tat is something I will seek to rectify on the next visit to my favourite city.

I digress. My wanderings led me to 'The Brasserie', which was a fairly standard looking place, but I had a feeling it would suit my needs pretty nicely. Their 'intercontinental breakfast' was a poorly concealed Full English. I opted to augment the offering with a side of scrambled eggs and a glass of cava (why should't baked beans be served with sparkling wine?!). The real joy here was the proper cripsy bacon, which is something you rarely see in The Netherlands. The rest was good stodge which I was grateful to devour.



Further wanderings led me to a cafe which served me a cappuccino that did the job. This rounded out a really good stopover, which flew past in a couple of hours of wandering, appreciation, and enjoyment.

It firmly reinforced my view of Schipol as an enjoyable airport, far in advance of the shitstorm that is CdG, where you can happily spend a couple of hours with minimum fuss and maximum relaxation.

For the short hop home to Edinburgh, we were once more thrust back in to decided mediocrity. How difficult is it to get people on-board the plane?! The staff didn't have clue one. The service was as poor as you could possibly imagine.

Given that this was a lunchtime flight, we were in coffee and pretzels territory. The coffee was the same quality as the previous flight, so pretty decent, and the little salted corn chips were really very good.


So, overall KLM have some weaknesses, but they're so well served by their hub at Schipol that you can forgive them some of their whimsical forays in to the land of culinary weirdness.

I ate: hot cheese and tomato croissant, carrot cake, intercontinental breakfast, corn chips.

I drank: coffees, sparkling water, cava.

I wore: linen travelling suit.

Air France, International Airspace

Why shouldn't we review airplane food, as well?!

From Edinburgh to Istanbul, I had to negotiate two short , with a little stop in Charles de Gaulle.

The initial hop to Paris takes around 90 minutes, and allows only time for a little light snack. This took the form of this little array of goodies:


I have to say that the rose wine was very acceptable. Its light crispness coupled with a real sense of pink grapefruit gave this a really refreshing quality. If I were to be so bold, I might suggest that it would make an ideal breakfast wine, if you were ever looking for such a daring item. The pretzelly things were standard saltiness. The 'coffee drink' was so appalling that Air France should be ashamed on themselves for even bothering, particularly given that they seemed more than capable of producing a much better approximation of an acceptable beverage on my next flight. I decided to forego the biscuits.

Upon landing in the horror dimension that is Charles de Gaulle, I had the obligatory bus ride to the woefully poor terminal 2F. Here, you are given two culinary choices: bad sandwiches in the brightness; or bad sandwiches in the less bright. Having spotted a couple of friendly-faced fellow travellers testing merlot on comfy sofas, I turned to the dark side ;-)

I saved myself the agony of the woeful food, sticking to leisurely drained pints of adequate Heineken.

Basically, CdG is to be avoided, unless you're planning to bump in to people who will ensure your time there is enjoyably spent in easy banter and light boozing, or if economic conditions make your trip there pleasingly pecuniarily prudent.

The flight to Istanbul is around three hours, meaning you have a chance to play with an airplane food tray. My great guilty pleasure in this regard is the sense in which I feel compelled to eat dessert, a course with which I have an uneasy relationship, and with Air France this usually means something rich and chocolatey. Imagine my horror on being confronted with this:


Where's my blinkin' cakey treat?

Oh well, on with the game of identify the mystery attempts at food. The starter veggie thing, like a little caponata, I guess, was pretty good. The courgettes retained a little crunch, and there was flavour in evidence. The cous cous main had that flavour, too, although it probably shouldn't have bothered. The roll was bad, the cheese was good, but no butter, not even upon request! Sacre bleu! ;-)

The red wine was pretty ordinary, but they did get the coffee much better, and they finally produced a piece of fruitcake to ease my lack-of-dessert torment.


Overall, Air France aren't great. As a national carrier for a nation of gastronomes, they're a complete disgrace. People must sit in CdG scratching their heads thinking 'this is supposed to be France, non?' Their airplane food is OK, with their wine generally decent, but nothing can make up for the woeful airport experience.

I fly KLM on my return journey, so look forward to another slab of Dutch butter cake with my rubbish coffee, next week.

I drank: red and rose wine, lager, coffee, "coffee drink" approximation.

I ate: pretzels, caponata, cous cous, bread and cheese, fruit cake.

I wore: linen travelling suit.

Il Forno, Roerkade, Roermond, The Netherlands

Fresh off the heels of my trip to Vice Versa, I sampled another of Roermond’s wonderful restaurants, Il Forno, just a few doors down. Now, I like Italian food. A lot. And I like fish. Even more. In this restaurant I had fish cooked in an Italian style. Winner.

For me the quintessential Italian restaurant should have several qualities - free flowing, cheap but wonderful wine, an atmosphere where you are at home laughing your ass off with friends or family round the table not worrying if the waiter will tell you off, and above all absolutely no menu. Just give me what you have that is fresh. Il Forno does all of these things and much, much more.

From the outside, Il Forno doesn’t really give the impression of being a good restaurant or a bad restaurant, just somewhere you might get some grub. Inside, there are maybe 20 tables catering for parties of two or ten with a small bar on the right had side and kitchens through the back. The first thing I like about this restaurant is that it is run by a bona fide Italian chap called Leo who loves his football (as testified by the Inter Milan shirt proudly hanging in the back), and his wonderful Dutch wife Frances. There is nothing worse than going into an Italian and having some ned moaning “boanjoorno” at you - I demand authenticity!

After being seated, my Dad, my wife and I ordered drinks (a beer for me, and wine for them) and waited for our waitress. We were asked only one question - would we like meat, fish or a combination? Fantastic! We all plumped for the fish. About ten minutes later appeared three small dishes on which sat a huge mussel generously smothered in a tangy tomato and basil sauce and covered in parmesan, grilled in the oven. Seriously, a little bite of heaven. As an amuse bouche (wait, think Italian....amusio bouchio) it was unrivaled. Next up came a seafood bisque. I am yet to find out what was in it as every mouthful was different but equally scrumptious. There was definitely calamari, tuna, some form of white fish (haddock maybe), mussels, clams and an array of herbs all mixed in with fresh tomatoes. I was truly sad to finish this dish and would have been happy to finish my meal with another bowl of the same! For main course came two pieces of expertly grilled fish - we reckon they were sea bass and sea bream, served plain with a wedge of lemon and a drizzle of garlic and parsley sauce and a side dish of pasta with jumbo prawns for us to share. It was wonderful in both its simplicity and tastiness.

We followed it up with a cappuccino for me and espresso for Dad and the wife. It was proper Italian stuff - rich and with an aroma which reminded me of a wonderful afternoon spent in Roman cafe’s with the wife last year. After a cheeky complimentary limoncello (Dad went straight for the grappa) we headed for home, suitably full and ready for an afternoon snooze.

I should add that I have been to this restaurant many times, probably thirty, and every time I have had the fish, every time it has been completely different and every time it has been wonderfully tasty. You can phone ahead to request something special, a whole lobster or a dozen oysters, and Leo and Frances will do their utmost to find them for you. I can’t vouch for the meat as the fish is so good I have never gotten around to trying it, but the diners around us did and they looked suitably impressed.

I love this place, and so should you. If you like fresh fish, expertly cooked it an authentic Italian atmosphere then this is your place. The only problem is that it is in the south of Holland. If it was in Istanbul, I would be there every week.

Food 5/5 - fishy goodness
Presentation 4/5 - simple rustic Italian
Service 4/5 - no hassle, very relaxed
Setting 4/5 - damn you for being in Holland!

Overall 17/20