Over to NSJ:

Redwood Boysenberry Nip is sold in 750ml bottles in the Golden Bays area of South Island, New Zealand. It is sold as Boysenberry Brandy “like” at NZD$11.50 per bottle from the local supermarket here in Takaka, New Zealand. It has a very obvious and “arty” label announcing “12% Alc. Vol”.

The humble boysenberry started off as a genetic triumph out of Nottsberry Farm California – sweet huge, hardy and suited to the Pacific weather vagrancies, this berry above all the others continues to hold my attention (but never in an alcoholic way, I must admit). So I stopped to buy it and within 20 minutes as we started unpacking, I was gasping to see just how sensible my choice in afternoon tipple was.

Colour – light Cranberry juice… and very easy to see all the way to the bottom of our tea-stained camping mugs. It lacks the thick inky purple berry colour you get from the berry itself (I should not have been able to see the bottom of my mug) making it seem more like a RTD (ready to drink) party drink.

It has no nose.

Maybe that ought to serve as warning to let the exploring drinker know that something sweet and confected awaits.

I did mention a cautionary note of sweetness, one that is carefully hidden by a sharp citrus ambush of “Acidity Regulator 330″. Made less obvious by being chilled. Quite why you would need so much acid to cover the sweetness of a very, very sweet berry is beyond me. But it slipped down a treat and left me coveting the bottle.

I found this local Boysenberry Nip lacking character right across the board at all levels.

It is sold as “suitable for cooking” amongst other things. Indeed, I would add it to a trifle – or even donate it to an underage “bring-a-bottle” pool party.

It will not keep for any significant period (but some useful advice on the bottle is to keep it refrigerated until all is used up).

Time from purchase to opening the screw-cap bottle was 20 mins.

Time until bottle finished between 2 of us was 30 mins.

This beverage lasted less than 50 mins from point of purchase.

Sweet, sunny afternoon tipple. Serve chilled. Don’t expect much in terms if complexity – just sweetness.

Alas, I won’t be buying any further bottles.

If you want to skip my rant and get down to the meal review scroll down the page or just know that, when visiting the Bangkok Brasserie, all you need to do is say to the boss Miff, “David Strange tells me it’s best to put myself in your hands and let you satisfy me. I know I’ll be immensely gratified by everything you serve.” It is, he will and you will be. But that wonderful end to the evening, and all that preceded it, illuminate a wider point and I will expand upon that first.

My first words to Editor Daniel on Friday morning were, “Shut that utter crap up!” I could hear him in the next room watching the news that was referring to the hideous woes of ‘Mad Friday’. Ambulance services would be overwhelmed, field hospitals were being set up in ‘a number’ of cities, extra booze-bus services were being drafted in to ferry the hordes of incapable to hospital. I knew from the Hampshire Chronicle that Winchester would be deploying it’s crack team of street pastors to deal with the limitless disorder; although I’d have thought a quick chat about what a nice chap Jesus was would lead to more, not less vomit splattering the streets.

In a life dedicated to excess with much time spent fun-hunting in ‘up-and-coming’ and even distinctly ‘vibrant’ localities my experience is generally that on these busy nights of Christmas parties and the like all that happens is people drink a little more than usual. I will admit on one particularly enthusiastic evening had the horrific result of a flat mate mistaking the sink for the toilet when throwing up in the early hours of the morning. Inconvenient when I had to go and brush my teeth in the kitchen the next morning, but soon afterward he cleared it up with only minimal whining.

This is why I recognised the news report as a pack of lies being spread by a supine news organisation only to happy to regurgitate the sanctimonious moralising of some unelected crap-merchant who think themselves uniquely entitled to dictate how everyone behaves by denormalising and demonising mundane and safe activities.

I hate these neo-fascist meddlers who think, just because they have a view on something, everyone should not only take them seriously but be legally obliged to do as they say. I may like and suggest people buy good Grand Cru Burgundy, but I don’t demand money from the government to lobby them to enact laws obliging everyone to have the legally enforced allowance of Domaine Dujac Clos Saint Denis every night. If you think I am overstating what these people try then you’ll be as appalled as I was to read about this loathsome piece of sub-human detritus and his nauseatingly warped views.

So the day started with me being irked by the BBC’s detestable scaremongering and after a Full English it, alas, continued with another anxiety-raising appointment. It was my initial assessment appointment with the local community mental health team. From the very start the appointment was far easier than any in London and ended with, as I’m sure you can imagine, the assessment apparently being ‘I’m a really lovely chap who we should probably meet for a drink one day soon’.

However, the basic nature of the appointment was that I had to explain how I’ve been affected by paranoid schizophrenia in the past and how shoddily I’ve been treated by too many people just because they don’t think they have to be reasonable to easy targets like nutters. Understandably, this is nerve-racking and I got somewhat anxious and wound up. I saw my GP afterward for news about my gall-stone operation; he’s a lovely fellow who has soothed my nerves at every meeting in the past. He commented on my way out, as I tripped over the chair I’d been sitting in, that I seemed ‘turned up to a higher notch than usual’.

So when heading out for the evening’s larks and capers my equilibrium was a little disturbed. I was almost worried some of the ‘Mad Friday’ lies might contain an approximation of truth and I’d have to walk past as many as several drunk people who might look at me funny. Unsurprisingly, there was no mayhem on the streets and Editor Daniel arrived at our destination unmolested and quite prepared to yell “He’s behind you!” repeatedly. Before dinner we were attending the local pantomime: I can highly recommend them for children and silly people in their late 30s who like an excuse to be less uptight and shout “Oh no he isn’t!” louder than any six year old in earshot. We were in high spirits when we left it, just at a loss as to how to kill the half hour until our dinner booking.

The first pub we encountered on our quiet and relaxed amble toward the restaurant was a J D Wetherspoon establishment. For those who don’t know these boozers they are normally characterised in wholly negative terms as soulless dives filled with the uncouth getting newscasted on cheap lager with the occasional pause to be violent or sexist. At nine in the evening on Mad Friday it was pretty busy, filled with the students and junior management of Winchester behaving so badly that all looked to be quite happy to have a few drinks whilst chatting with people from work. I wasn’t intimidated in the slightest.

At the bar they had seven real ales on offer and, even on the busiest evening of the year, the barman had the time to give the chap in front of us a couple of tastes of them and suggest a good one. The bloke didn’t seem surprised to get decent service and commented what good condition the beer was in. Our cider was also in top nick, clocked in at 7.3% and cost £2.55 a pint. Wehay! We chose a quiet corner and, like it seemed everyone present was doing, we enjoyed a talk over a decent and well-priced drink. The time for our restaurant reservation galloped toward us and the walk there was once again relaxed but even quieter as there were fewer streams of excited children being taken home.

The Bangkok Brasserie’s stunning Thai banquet

The Bangkok Brasserie was full when we arrived. Miff fought his way between the crowded tables, apologised that our table was running a few minutes late and offered us a drink on the house whilst we waited. Excellent service from the very start. Miff also suggested we might try their Thai banquet for our meal as it would showcase the best food from where their chefs learned to cook. Sounded fine to us.

As we waited for our table then waited for our food we took careful note of the other diners in the restaurant. Certainly, there were a few florid visages, but the general mood was one of merry-making rather than incoherence. The restaurant wasn’t simply being used as an excuse to get drunk somewhere other than in a pub, the real pleasure people were taking from having a good meal with their friends at a festive time of year was transparently clear.

When our food arrived it was abundantly clear there would be an oil tanker-load of pleasure for us to revel in. From the very start it was clear this was extremely high quality food. In my last review I suggested that some of the dishes lacked a bit of fire – we’d simply chosen badly. Whilst lots of the dishes we ate were of global thermonuclear war intensity they never lacked harmony and balance with all their flavours. I’ve commented that really fine wines have a slightly unhinged intensity, a hint of terror in their makeup. If the same applies to food, and I feel it does, then the hint of panic that the food induced from time to time showed this was a truly great meal.

Let’s not mess around, everything was wizard weasel quality with not a single suggestion of slight disappointment. The harmony of flavours in all the dishes was perfect; painful or placid all the complex flavours one seeks in Thai food were clearly expressed. As I mentioned in my last review, they aren’t afraid of using rather a lot of ginger which, until visiting the Bangkok Brasserie, I used to hate. The skilful integration of even this powerful flavour was impressive and showed the care put into perfecting the recipes.

Every single dish deserves a rapturous write-up, but rather than drag you through the whole belly-bulging meal I’ll just tell you about four of the dishes that particularly stimulated my sensitive bits. I’ll start with crispy rice salad which does sound a little unadventurous. Not a bit of it! It was charged with chilli heat, the rice had an amazing texture: crispy (unsurprisingly) and agglomerated into little nuggets with peanuts and red onion to further enhance the complexity. I just kept repeating that rice is not supposed to be that interesting.

Prawn lemongrass salad is a type of dish that I often seek out at Thai restaurants and this one was a cracker. The lemongrass was carefully prepared so it wasn’t just lumps of woody hardness, the powerful flavour it imparted was highly delightful. Strong chilli, fish sauce and lime flavours were there as well but I really want to know where the Bangkok Brasserie get their prawns and also steal the person who cooked them to chain to my cooker. They were extremely flavoursome and yieldingly tender. This was an extremely, throbbingly good prawn salad.

Miff’s wife’s granny provided the recipe for gaeng som seabass – seabass stewed up in a gingery, stock-rich, winningly savoury sauce. This one wasn’t infused with napalm and the fish was in corking condition – with so many other thing to cook in the stew broth it would have been easy to ruin the seabass but it’s texture seemed spot on to me. Miff’s wife’s granny knew her onions and I’m terribly pleased she told Miff’s wife about them.

The spicy noodles, or pad kee mao, with prawns were mind-blowing – both in the sense of being incredibly tasty and also charged with more fresh green peppercorns than all but the supremely skilled and considerably confident would even dare to think of using. There is no denying this was painful, but it had brimstone in a different way to just chilli. The fresh peppercorns gave a vivacious, intense and lingering burn that had me swilling Singha long after the chilli flavours had subsided. It hurt, it was great, pain can be great. I will never tire of eating this but I imagine I’ll continue to sweat rather a lot when I do so. Power up!

Daniel and I got through ten dishes during our meal so you might understand that we slowed down a bit toward the end. The increasingly long pauses between more massive measures of food gave time to see what was happening as the restaurant emptied toward the end of the night. Everybody left happy, that much is sure. Most people went around thanking the waiting staff and Miff’s hand received a lot of appreciative shakes. A couple of fellows, so demonstrative they cannot have been English, gave Miff hugs whilst enthusiastically telling him of all the fun they’d had that night. And so had we. Sure, it may have been an evening of some excess, but there was nothing self-destructive about it and like everyone there we simply enjoyed an enormously good meal in the company of those we wished to be with.

It was chucking-out time at the boozers as we strolled back to Elitistreview Towers so by now I’m sure you can guess how many drunken thugs were menacing the street pastors: too bloody few! None, in fact. A few people remained sitting at tables outside pubs and some were milling around trying to score taxis but, speaking as someone who was terrified of my little cat shaking his head just as I went to bed last night, it was all very peaceful and calm with nothing to be scared of and certainly no general mayhem. Certainly, not everywhere is as peaceful as this on such evenings, but even in wilder locales most people are simply looking to have a bit of fun with their friends. The misanthropic meddlers scaremongering about what’s reasonable and normal was the only appalling behaviour I observed on Mad Friday.

Contact details:
Bangkok Brasserie, 33 Jewry Street, Winchester SO23 8RY
01962 869966

A good food market can be wonderful. In London we were pretty much limited to Borough Market and that certainly had some serious stuff. It also had countless tourists shambling around at a snail’s pace, stopping only to gawp like fools at every single item for sale in the market with the occasional extended pause to take multiple pictures of their friends blocking a walkway whilst standing in front of something mundane. There were also hordes of parents pushing around baby buggies the size of armoured personnel carriers whilst loudly sighing, groaning and looking incredibly put-upon every time someone had the temerity to get hit and severely wounded by their ludicrously outsized pushchairs. If you went there with the outlandish notion of procuring some food, rather than the more usual aim of inconveniencing everyone, it wasn’t the best of experiences. Now that I’ve been to the Hampshire farmer’s market here in Winchester, Borough market also seems ludicrously expensive and full of pretentious crap for the neurotic.

The Winchester market is quite large, with an impressive array of produce on offer of which everything we tried was excellent. Considering this uniformly high quality we were chuffed as punch to see that almost nothing was over-priced – we procured a decent quantity of food and drink and were surprised by how little it all cost.

I have very high standards when it comes to meat, even with burgers where basically only Hawksmoor’s efforts pleasure me. Consequently I was flabbergasted by the brilliance of the water buffalo burger from Broughton Water Buffalo. Perhaps a less masterful, involved creation than at Hawksmoor, but it redefined the pleasure possibilities of the basic ‘bit of minced, grilled animal in a bun’-experience. The meat itself was fascinating. It had clearly been given a bit of age to enhance its flavour and it wasn’t quite beef; perhaps more like slightly beef-tasting venison that was uncommonly lacking in terms of venison’s generally dry, tough nature. Ask for yours medium rare.

After over a decade of living somewhere where it was only the cheese shops that impressed me, it is great to be back in a city where the local cheese makes me proud. As soon as I nibbled a sliver Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers 16 month old ‘Old Winchester’ (pictured above) a large chunk had to be mine. It has very mature, powerful flavours coupled with a rich creaminess and complex set of fruity flavours not dissimilar to those of ripe pears. It’s freaking scrummy, yeah! On our return to Elitistreview towers we had a comparison with the cat’s favourite cheddar, also a personal favourite, and despite their obvious differences neither of us could honestly say which was best. Old Winchester costs a little over half the price of Bakers Ploughmans Vintage Cheddar from Mr Waitrose’s shops.

We’d scored a couple of pints of Itchin Valley real ale to have with our lunch, but we needed a drink to battle the cold wind. A bumper of Mr Whitehead’s Hampshire strong cider and medium cider worked a treat. These were ‘real’ ciders of the type I have previously described as often having a slightly nasty character. The root of this character is that most real ciders are drank more than half an hour’s drive away from there they have been made, and so the cider is not fresh and in poor condition. These came from just down the road and were bursting with fresh fruit and a lively acid/astringency balance. And enough alcohol too. The Boxing Dog strong cider keeps banging me on the back of my head to ask if it really is the best real cider I’ve ever tried.

After buying some meat at Greenfield Pork Products, Hampshire’s supreme sausage champion, plus old English chipolatas and dry-cure streaky bacon from Beechcroft Editor Daniel was eager to get a bit of English pork inside him (as the sign and his visage in the picture below demonstrate).

He had to wait until we got home to have a mouthful of sausage when we fried up the Beechcroft chipolatas and made them into sandwiches with Old Winchester cheese inside some rather tasty bread flavoured with chillies and another local cheese. By arse, that was good noshing!

The sausage and leek rolls at Mud Foods looked delicious but there was only so much we could carry. We limited ourselves to the yummy-sounding sausage and black pudding pie that, as you can see in the picture below, is adorned with an adorable pastry piggy.

A couple of fun animal products were worth reporting. All farmers’ markets are contractually obliged to have a hog roast and if you buy one from one you are normally treated to a bread roll full of fat which if it has any meat attached will be dried out and flavourless. As we approached Greenfield Pork Products hog roast, pictured above, my nasal receptors screamed with ecstasy at being treated to some truly lovely pork aroma molecules. It looked and smelled far beyond the standard offerings.

As you can read on the sign in the picture below this lady from Kings Somborne Free Range Eggs was selling eggs judged as the best in a BBC Radio Solent contest. Audio-only doesn’t strike me as the best format for a comparative egg tasting. I suppose local radio cannot always have top-drawer content.

There were countless other bits of drool-inducing bits of animal that will keep us attending and buying from the market regularly, but just to be slightly unusual I’ll share some pictures of plant material that look surprisingly appetising.

The Fruitwise Heritage Apple stand pictured above (manned by a fellow who is a perfect match for my mental image of a committed orchard owner) had an impressive array of rare apple varieties. We got one of each which we shall taste and report upon soon – assuming Kisu doesn’t eat them first.

My final two pictures are of some amusing carrots and the most attractive living things I’ve seen from the Isle of Wight, a heap of ripe tomatoes.

As we walked home we discussed, between my heel pain-caused whimpering, the myriad of marvels we revelled in whilst at the farmers’ market. On passing Winchester’s reasonably impressive cathedral Dani annouced, “No, Winchester is not just so nice it could be abroad. It is as lovely as England should be, but so rarely is.” I suppose that is a compliment…

The local Marks and Spencer here in Winchester has some hilariously childish drinks (pictured left). I could hardly turn down an offer of fizzy pop with silly flavours in real glass bottles, something I haven’t seen since the milkman used to deliver them to my grandparent’s place when I was a much younger elitist and generally drank ginger cordial (10 degrees proof^[2]) mixed with my pop.

First up I tried the cream soda. It is not amazingly sweet but very strongly flavoured with vanilla. Quite tasty! If you want to get your little ones started early on Harvey Wallbangers then a decent slug of this mixed with fresh orange juice would be a perfect junior cocktail.

Rhubarb and Custard tastes so remarkably like the boiled sweets of the same name I keep expecting the roof of my mouth to be lacerated by countless tiny cuts if I keep the stuff in my mouth for too long. Again it is not so very sweet but rather scrummy.

For those who don’t know the sweets they are torpedo-shaped lumps of solid sugar, coloured yellow on one side and red on the other. The red side has an acidic, artificial fruit flavour and the yellow side is sweet. The idea is to suck them (if you chew you risk shattering molars) until all the little bubbles that get incorporated in the sweet as it is made become revealed and yield razor-sharp edges that slash your mouth up. Eating more than 4 makes one’s mouth sore for days.

Alas, I felt these drinks were lacking a touch of complexity and could do with more acidity, so I went to the freezer and liberated my Tanqueray Rangpur gin.

I only discovered this gem a few days ago and, whilst it is a bit tame at a mere 41.3%, it has a powerful, interesting flavour enhanced by essence of the rare Rangpur limes – so rare that no one I’ve asked has heard of them.

The booze and acidity this added to the Rhubard and Custard worked a treat, you can go for quite a decent shot mixed in without it dominating. A lovely drink for anyone childish in spirit (not chronologically – see above).

Cream Soda needed a very careful hand with the gin, too much and the vanilla flavour got hidden. If I had any to hand I’d test this, but I think Absolut Vanilla vodka might be a better improver for this pop. Still, it perked up my lunchtime’s silliness.

They have a few other childish drinks in M&S; if any merit it then I shall report when they’ve been sampled.

1. ^[1] Have I ever mentioned I’m 190cm tall and studied four degrees, including a doctorate, at Oxford University? ↩
2. ^[2] The old English system of alcohol measurement is one of my favourite bizarrely contrived scales, very different to the US proof scale. 100 degrees English proof being enough alcohol in solution to ignite gunpowder. Brilliant! ↩