Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

Though over the years LTH has provided some exceptional global coverage, the Isle of Wight seems not to have been mentioned (I searched, but please correct me if you know of such a thread).

Carolyn and I will be there for a few weeks minding a friend's fish, random wild birds and a wild badger who prefers pasta (orecchiette, specifically).

If you've been there, would love to hear about what you did and what you ate.

David Hammond wrote:Isle of Wight

Though over the years LTH has provided some exceptional global coverage, the Isle of Wight seems not to have been mentioned (I searched, but please correct me if you know of such a thread).

Carolyn and I will be there for a few weeks minding a friend's fish, random wild birds and a wild badger who prefers pasta (orecchiette, specifically).

If you've been there, would love to hear about what you did and what you ate.

Are grandchildren Vera, Chuck, and Dave also en route? Wish I had insights here - haven't been to Wight, but had always wanted to scrimp and save for a cottage if not too dear.

Santander wrote:

David Hammond wrote:Isle of Wight

Though over the years LTH has provided some exceptional global coverage, the Isle of Wight seems not to have been mentioned (I searched, but please correct me if you know of such a thread).

Carolyn and I will be there for a few weeks minding a friend's fish, random wild birds and a wild badger who prefers pasta (orecchiette, specifically).

If you've been there, would love to hear about what you did and what you ate.

Are grandchildren Vera, Chuck, and Dave also en route? Wish I had insights here - haven't been to Wight, but had always wanted to scrimp and save for a cottage if not too dear.

Grandchildren not coming...though I am the right age for this trip.

The Union Inn at Cowes is nice, the Volunteer Inn at Ventnor is a great little pub.

Have a look at the website of the local branch of the Campaign for Real Ale:

www.wightwash.org.uk

Thanks, Roger.

We'll be in Ventnor, so we'll definitely stop in at Volunteer Inn.

Link was helpful; looks like we'll be there for Real Ale events in Cowes. Will also be there for Garlic Festival, which seems anomalous (not much garlic in British cuisine, right?), but IoW is known for it...and my pet theory is that it's a carryover from early Italian (Roman) occupation. We'll see.

If you have a chance I would recommend a trip to Scarista House In Scotland on the Isle of Harris (http://www.scaristahouse.com/). They are one of the originators of organic farm to table food. It's a great place to stay or just to visit and nosh.

bean, sounds cool, but we'll be pretty far away from Scotland. The furthest north we'll be is London, where we'll spend a few days and where I plan to seek out Mexican food (perverse, I know).

David Hammond wrote:The furthest north we'll be is London, where we'll spend a few days and where I plan to seek out Mexican food (perverse, I know).

Talk about rollin' the dice...

When I was there several years ago, I was perversely drawn to a Chicago themed restaurant for some "food from home". Man, what a mistake.

The New York TImes wrote:Authenticity is another matter; Americans have little trouble distinguishing the real from the reinterpreted. The Formica counters and the steer horns may fool the eye, but the taste buds know. With a few exceptions, American cooking has lost its zest in translation. It is a mystery how the English did it, but even the chili is bland here. Robert Payton, an expatriate from Chicago, is credited by the local food establishment with introducing London to mid-level American food. The success of his theme restaurants - including Chicago Meatpackers, the Windy City Bar and Grill and the Chicago Rib Shack - has emboldened other entrepreneurs to open Tex-Mex places with names like the Alamo, Ed's Easy Diner and Mitchell & O'Brien's New York Deli, owned by an Englishman and a former New Yorker.

Hammond--

I'm a freak about fish 'n chips, and one of the best I've ever had is Wight's, on the High Stree in Ryde, just up from the ferry landing. And the Isle of Wight Steam Railway is a hoot--or is that a toot?

You will be amazed, I suspect, as I was, by the Mediterranean climate of the Isle. I mean, Spanish broom blooming everywhere??

Have a great time, report back!

Geo

Geo wrote:You will be amazed, I suspect, as I was, by the Mediterranean climate of the Isle. I mean, Spanish broom blooming everywhere??

Geo,

Yesterday at the Ventnor Botanic Gardens, we saw lots of echium, more common to Canary Islands.

My understanding is that the microclimate created by underclff and English Channel (?) make it possible to grow plants that you'd be very surprised to see, for instance, in upper England or even nearby Northern France. Still, we're here during the warmest month of the year, when average temp climbs to around 65 or so (might have been 70 in the sun today) , and there's a lot of green life everywhere.

Thanks for recs -- plan to make it to Ryde soon (possible myth which I took as fact throughout my youth: "Ticket to Ride" was actually about a ticket to Ryde, where there was an abortion clinic; the girl "that's driving me mad," was going away to have a problem fixed -- "and she don't care").

Google search results suggest that the double meaning, beyond the pun of a train ticket to Ryde, was --- as Paul McCartney says John Lennon told it to him --- a prostitute's clean bill of health in the form of a card from the Hamburg health authorities.

The bar has been set for fish n’ chips at Wights Fish and Chips in Ryde, Isle of Wight. Carolyn had the cod and I had plaice, also called “flatfish,” which our server, sturdy Wyf of Bath type – who regularly addressed all customers as “My love” – described with a laugh as “triangular” (later I saw a picture of the fish that confirmed this rather strange description). The plaice was a bit more “fishy” and soft-textured than the cod, but both were outstanding, as much for the quality of the fish as for the frying, which also influenced Carolyn’s judgment that the chips were “the best ever.” Both chips and fish were fried just before serving; the chips and the breading on the fish had a lacy, delicate crust, leaving tuber and fish flesh moist and almost fluffy. The tartar sauce seemed homemade, as did the mushy peas, a very, very satisfying lunch. Like much of the food we’ve had on Isle of Wight, it was simple stuff, containing just a handful of high-quality ingredients, well prepared, almost humble but demanding attention; nothing fancy, just basic good tastes from fundamental foods shown to good advantage.

Thanks to Geo for the rec, seconded by IoW local bloggers Matt and Cat: http://mattandcat.co.uk/

Regarding fresh fish/seafood, Stan’s has locations in Bembridge and Ryde and, like every fish place on IoW, it closes at 4:30PM everyday (I could give you the address, but my rec is to search on Google maps should you ever be on the island, where street address conventions seem highly idiosyncratic).

Last night we bought a small container of Bembridge crab (about $10), a whole Bembridge lobster (about $20) and a bunch of sea vegetables (few bucks), which I’ve seen at mk, where I think they’re called “sea beans” – on IoW, they’re referred to as Samphire.

I probably enjoyed the Samphire most, kind of crunchy and salty, refreshing and clean flavor. It grows on the cliffs here and elsewhere in Britain and probably elsewhere.

The crab and lobster were fine, but nothing out of the ordinary, over-rated and a little over-priced, I thought.
Stan’s is the most commonly recommended source on the island for fresh, take-home-and-cook-yourself fish and seafood, which, surprisingly, is not common. I asked a sausage maker on the west side of the island why more small stores don’t carry fresh stuff from the sea, and he explained it was pretty much simple economics: fish goes bad fast (compared to meat), so small stores can’t afford the wastage.

Crab on Chips is the “national dish” of the Isle of Wight. Today for lunch, Carolyn and I shared a large order of Crab on Chips at Seafood Corner in Newport, a place we visited during our first hours on the island. The chips (done right, as the sign outside says, “Hand-cut, twice-fried, chunky, made fresh”) are a perfect frame for the crab, which is sourced from Ventnor (like much of the seafood and fish here). It seems to be the custom on IoW to mix the roe in with the crab, and that’s just fine, as long as there’s a lot of crab in there, and unlike the crab we bought at Stan’s, there was a very favorable crab-to-roe ratio on these chips…and just serving it all slightly warm on chips makes a big difference. Neither Carolyn nor I detected anything besides crab in the crab (maybe just a touch of mayo?), and there was a good amount of crab on these chips. Now, no one is going to argue that this is the prettiest platter of chow on the planet, but it was excellent, though I’m glad we shared, and it’s priced right: around £7.50, which is much better than the roe-heavy and relatively small container of the same crab we bought at Stan’s for around £6.50. The place is related to Ventnor Fishery (which looks fantastic, but haven’t gotten there yet), and at lunch time Seafood Corner was very full of suits, sandals and foreigners like us

Hammond--

Very much enjoying your food explorations, keep up the good work!

"Sea beans" is salicornia, and is indeed delicious. It grows profusely along the marshy shores of lower St-Lawrence, and the Bay of St-Lawrence, where it can be harvested with wild abandon. Typically, of course, none of it reaches the basket, since it's almost always deposited first in the mouth. There is a shoppe in Marché Jean-Talon that stocks it in season, but it's never quite as crunchy and fresh as it is when PYO'd.

Geo

Geoff Blake is the man behind Ventnor Haven Fishery, a place I’ve been wanting to visit since we arrived in IoW. He and his wife also own and operate Seafood Corner in Newport. Blake’s family has been living around here for a long time, since at least early 19th century. His mackerel looked fantastic, but we’d never prepared skate wing before, so that’s what we got. Carolyn will poach it in the oven with a little water and vinegar. After we bought the fish, we wandered down the esplanade and stopped in the Longshoreman’s Museum, which is operated by another member of the Blake family. The fish store and the museum are maybe a couple hundred yards away, but the two sides of the family are not talking due, the Blake family member at the museum told me, to a family feud. There's a lot going on below the surface here, and some of it is fantastic fish.

Hammond--

It's a good idea to soak the skate in milk first, better than vinegar (IMHO) for the ammonia disipation.

Geo

Geo wrote:Hammond--

It's a good idea to soak the skate in milk first, better than vinegar (IMHO) for the ammonia disipation.

Geo

Carolyn said she's on it right now...but there shouldn't be much ammonia, should there? I just gave it a sniff and couldn't detect any. It was pulled out of the water this morning. Still, it will go into the milk, which is shocking cheap on IoW: 4 pints for a pound, 39 pence. The dairymen are up in arms throughout England, and in some locations, stores are collecting a voluntary 10 pence contribution from shoppers that will allegedly go to dairymen.

There's a grocery chain price war going on in England right now; milk prices are ridiculously low by US standards, though I'm a little surprised to hear that that extends to more remote places like the Isle of Wight. Dairy farmers are being driven out of business. It seems odd to me because I am accustomed to thinking of both grocery prices and dining-out costs to be consistently higher in the UK than here.

Katie wrote:There's a grocery chain price war going on in England right now; milk prices are ridiculously low by US standards, though I'm a little surprised to hear that that extends to more remote places like the Isle of Wight. Dairy farmers are being driven out of business. It seems odd to me because I am accustomed to thinking of both grocery prices and dining-out costs to be consistently higher in the UK than here.

In my subjective assessment, dining out prices in UK may be a touch higher, but grocery store (and fresh fish store) prices seem generally lower.

Spent the day at Carisbrooke Castle, on the site of old Norman fortifications, with historian John Medland, probably the best person on IoW to lead us around and explain how Charles I slept here for a few nights --- under the “protection” of Governor by the name of Hammond – before Roundheads caught up with him and relieved him of his head. In the keep is a fun game for kids: a small catapult from which you launch a coin to “knock King Charles from his window.” Regicide + 4 centuries = Amusement. At lunch in the castle cafe, I ordered a Bacon Roll, which I imagined would be like a Bridgeport Bacon Bun, but it was pretty much just a few big slices of bacon on a bun, as advertised. The portions we’re served at English restaurants continue to surprise me: so small…but really just fine though challenging for Americans who feel the need to eat too much all the time. Which is why I got a side of Flapjack.

Colin Boswell was born on Isle of Wight; still a teenager, he went to Detroit and ran an ice cream truck in underserved neighborhoods; he was robbed at gun point on his last day but escaped with his earnings, several thousand, a princely sum for a teen in the 70s. Then he went NYC and finally to Texas to sell encyclopedias door-to-door (the British accent helped) before coming home to his father’s maize farm and starting his own garlic business. Now the Garlic Farm, his empire of the stinking rose, has expanded to become a very large retail outlet with dozens of garlic varieties and products, a café, restaurant, garlic education center and an archaeological exhibit (early Italians settled all over the island, and were maybe actually the first to bring garlic to IoW – Boswell has uncovered many artifacts on his property from the Roman occupation). Though garlic is not common in traditional British cuisine, the locals have taken to garlic with much enthusiasm (there’s a huge Garlic Festival tomorrow; we'll be there). Prince Phillip (whose grandfather Dickie Mountbatten was once IoW Governor and Lord Lieutenant) averred that the Queen does not take well to “the stuff”…not exactly the shocker of the year. Boswell had mentioned to me, NOT in reference to Her Majesty, that he believed those who cannot biologically process garlic are destined, in a Darwinian sense, to be selected out of the gene pool: a funny, articulate man whose resonant voice I plan to feature on Rivet Radio when I return.

Sticky Toffee Pudding was our dessert tonight at Chequer’s Inn, a place down the road from us where we’ve stopped for beers/ales a few times (will someday get a post all its own: been around since 1799, and has a warm inviting feel, enhanced by the presence of well-behaved dogs under every other table: we were there for the Friday Curry Club). STP was available with custard, crème or ice cream and we went with custard, as we did on the Spotted Dick we had in London: warm, viscous, lightly sweet. I liked this dessert -- spongy, sweet, with pleasing "burnt" notes -- though it seems it may be more Canadian than British (according to a 2008 article in The Guardian). We’d seen STP in a local grocery (the ubiquitous The Co-operative Food), and almost bought it just to try it, but I’m glad we waited for a proper version in a pub. To pair, Famous Grouse, a very suitable accompaniment