Dinner and drinks at Fulham Wine Rooms restaurant, or Christmas wine tasting

Fulham Wine Rooms has more than one branch in London, England, but the one I go to is near Parsons Green railway station.

I enjoy a private wine tasting with a club which meets in the room at the back.


Afterwards three or more of us stay on for some food.

The menu is not cheap, with main courses at about £17, and about £7 for dessert.

Wine Options
If you are just enjoying a meal, one of the main attractions is the wide variety of wines available by the glass, either ordered from the menu to go with your meal, or drunk in small sample sizes from the Enomatic machines in the main room where you see the bar at the back left.

Main Dish Choices
I tried the duck breast with gratin dauphinoise (cheese topped shredded potatoes) and red cabbage.

 I also sampled the hand-cut chips served with my companion's onglet steak.

Potatoes

I am a lover of potatoes - so hard to find nowadays, with many restaurants offering breads and pastas, and fewer offering two kinds of potato. Although I like something unusual, on balance I preferred the generous-sized pieces of real potato chips with the skins still on.


Service was unobtrusive but friendly and instant. Water is already on the table in heavy carafes. Un-needed wine glasses are whisked away. Cocktail sticks on request are immediately passed to me.

No room for dessert, alas.

Atmosphere
The atmosphere is jolly and relaxed. Tables are in nooky corners, so you have the warmth of company, yet plenty of privacy for private conversations and concentrating on your companions. The walls of full of amusing pictures, many on a wine theme. Lots to look at.

I particularly liked the puns on the pictures on the staircase, one of fish with the caption, Joined Up Whiting. The toilets are at the back and downstairs, a steep flight, but there's a solid rail for hands to hang onto if you already have half a hangover!

Walking Past Shops
You can walk back to the station, taking a shortcut through the houses, or the longer route via the interesting little shops, one showing special hiking shoes, another featuring little animated models, and yet more restaurants, full of animated, happy diners.

The Fulham branch is a wine bar, restaurant and wine shop.

EVENTS
Three Christmas wine tastings of red and sweet wines, each session lasting about an hour and costing £30:
Fulham Saturday 18 Nov at 17 h (5 pm)
Kensington Sat 25 Nov at 14 h (2 pm)
Brackenbury (near Hammersmith) 17 hr
Must book.
Fulham tel: 0207 042 9440,

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Fab food at Fulham Wine Rooms

Problem
What to eat at Fulham Wine Rooms?

We started in a back room with a Rioja tasting organised for a private group by Trevor of Grape Deal. We had more people than expected, about 19, so we had enough money in the kitty to order plates of cold meats and cheese from the restaurant.

The food was presented with brown bread, and bowls of oil with crackers. The brown bread was absolutely wonderful, full of crunchy grains.

Super Service
We had flagons of still and sparkling water. When I went to ask for more water and more side plates, they arrived quickly.

Selecting Starters
Afterwards we ordered dinner in the restaurant, a large table for about ten of us. We had already had the cheese plate and the cold meal plates.

I was allergic to shellfish.

We chose to share a plate of asparagus and egg. Another couple also ordered a starter plate to share, so we did not feel we were the odd one out in doing so.

The photos above show: chicken; salmon; chips ; steak.
Chicken or Chips?
My main course was chicken, which came up with one vegetable. Very filling - but I would have liked potato and or a second vegetable. At over £10 I thought two vegetables and potato would have been provided at my local restaurants in Hatch End. Fortunately I was able to share potatoes, a generous portion, on somebody else's plate of pork.

I asked what the pork eater thought of their portion. They said, "Beautifully cooked with crispy outside".

Another dish came up with chips. So, chicken, or chips?

You could order a side plate of mashed potato, but I felt that should not be necessary with main dishes costing more than £15.

Nearly all of my fellow guests were happy. One person who had to catch a train home asked for the dishes to be served up when each one was ready instead of all at once, but all the dishes appeared moments later.

Nineteen of us, all very happy.

Wines By The Glass
We had plenty of food. We could have ordered wines by the glass from the E n o m a t i c machines. All in all, a great evening out for a group.

Fulham Wine Rooms
871-873 Fulham Rd, Fulham, London SW6 5HP
England
UK

Hours: Open 12pm–12am
Phone: (+44) (0)20 7042 9440.
Nearest railway station: Parsons Green.
http://winerooms.london/fulham/

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share posts.

Fabulous dinner at Fulham Wine Rooms

Fulham Wine Rooms entrance.
The beautifully decorated back room.
All photos by Angela Lansbury.Copyright.2016.

Problems
We went there, a group of just under twenty for a wine group's annual Christmas dinner. The decor was delightful. The only problems with this place were the timing of the potatoes, and the pudding which could have improved, but everything else was so wonderful that I will remember my meal for years to come. It was that good? Yes. But! You have to choose the right menu, or share food with somebody else who orders different dishes to be sure to get the top notch tasty nosh. So what do I recommend? I've tell you the whole story in complete detail.

Answer
We had the back room because we were a private party which seats up to about twenty for a Christmas party, birthday or other celebration. Very convivial.

If you are a small group of, say, four, in the main restaurant I think you might like the alcove at the back of the room on the right, though if the left hand room is busier and you like a crowd go for that area where you can catch the eye of the staff at the bar and wander over to the drink machines and choose a glass of wine from the dispensers.



Starters
I can't comment on the scallops which I didn't try because I am allergic to shellfish. I had the artichoke soup. Highly recommended.

Soup
I and my dining companion were ecstatic about it. I shall look for recipes on line. The soup was flavoursome. But what really made it was the slivers of wafer thin brown almost crispy intense flavour artichoke. How did they do that? Exquisite. Just right. Flavour of the year. But that wasn't the only one.

Bread
We don't like to fill up on bread and the group organiser hadn't ordered any but one person asked for bread. Up it came, with butter, fruit bread. I love fruit bread. Not quite as good as the multi-seed loaf with is six stars, but a top of the ratings five star bread.

Next, main courses. Here's the blip. The venison is perfectly presented. It arrives with sprouts, a carrot, a parsnip, and a spread of mash.

Story
My companion on my other side says his venison tastes like steak. He tells me a story about his father-in-law who was a butcher. In a restaurant they are served what is described on the menu as chicken and looks like chicken. You can fool some of the people, some of the time, but you can't fall all of the people all of the time. His father-in-law knows immediately that the texture is wrong. He calls over the waiter and says, "This is not chicken. This is rabbit!"

Tips
1 Order the artichoke soup. Or, if it's not offered, request it.

2 Make sure you get all your vegetables, notably the potatoes. If potatoes don't appear with your main course, ask for them immediately.

My delicious turkey roulade was slices from a rolled up meat with an intensely flavoured wrap of wafer thin smokey bacon, contrasting with some kind of stuffing, a mixture of three flavours. Wonderful. What looks like a puree of pretty orange parsnip is interesting - but where's the second vegetable, the potato?

The person diagonally across from me immediately asks the waiter for potato. Not to be outdone, I do the same. The waiter nods and hardly any delay, up come two large portions of new potatoes in butter, half sliced, fried, very tasty, a big bowl for each of us, enough to share with others. I have just finished my food when up come more bowls of potatoes for everybody else. The timing of the potatoes was all wrong. What happened?

3 Order the creme brûlée for dessert.
Creme brûlée was the last brilliant course, the dessert. My dining companion and have made a point of ordering different food. We always do. Especially if you are having two or more Christmas dinners in successive nights or even the same week. We have ordered one Christmas pudding, my choice, and one creme brûlée, his choice.

We had already had what we thought was the world's most wonderful dessert in Umbria, Italy, at the truffle producers. (See my other posts on Umbria.) But here's another, and one which anybody can try, much more easily, creme brûlée, the thickened cream served not in a small deep bowl but a large flat dish, with a scattering of embedded contrasting colour dark black berries.

The only problem is, looking back at TripAdvisor and comparing last year's dinner with this year's it's a different menu. This is a second dish I shall try to emulate.

If you can't get this dish, try to make it yourself. If you go to a restaurant where you can ask for a dish, ask them to make this. If you go to Fulham Wine rooms, check their menu.

Christmas Pudding
Christmas pudding is traditional for Christmas dinners in England. The Americans call it plum pudding, although as far as I know it's made with dried fruits nowadays, currants and sultanas and chopped candied peel. Check the ingredients on packaging.

I've seen plum pudding in American supermarkets all year, including summer. In England Christmas pudding is seasonal like everything else with the word Christmas. Christmas Pudding appears in British supermarkets around November. The leftover stocks are half price after Christmas in January. Then it disappears. Any supermarket can sell you a delicious Christmas pudding which takes a minute or two or three (depending on portion size) to reheat in a microwave.

4 Avoid the Christmas pudding at Fulham Wine Rooms. This was the last blip. I hate to criticise. I worry that I may be ruining the day for some trainee chef who has tried really hard. I hate to say this. But I and three other people thought the Christmas pudding was lacking. It was too pale, lacking the rich fruit, no great flavour, 'dry as dust' said one person, not relieved by the moistening of the custard. The custard looks ample in the photo but by the time I was half way throuth the pudding I had run out of the white custard.

I'm British. I was brought up on yellow custard. Yellow custard is yummy. Yellow custard is to the English what pasta is to the Italians. I expect yellow custard. It's absurd, you may think. I concede that it's unreasonable of me. Yes, yellow custard looks like school dinners. The yellow colour is not necessary. It's probably a nasty colour additive. Fresh or dried custard powder or imitation egg may upset people who are allergic to egg yolks. But I want thick yellow custard on my Christmas pudding - and lots of it!

To sum up, try artichoke soup, venison and creme brûlée at Fulham Wine Rooms. Just thinking about it makes me smile.

We didn't want to leave. We were so happy. But the last train was going. Luckily you can now get all night buses in London. But we didn't want to risk missing the last train. Why spoil a perfect evening?

Fulham Wine Rooms
871 – 873 Fulham Road,
London
SW6 5HP
Telephone:
+44 207 042 9440
www.winerooms.london/fulham
Hours
2.30pm – midnight, Monday to Friday.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g186338-d2142592-Reviews-The_Fulham_Wine_Rooms-London_England

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
You can read more by and about Angela Lansbury, the author, on other blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Books by Angela Lansbury are on Amazon and Lulu.com
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French words of the day: fondant; fondue; sucre roux

French words of the day are sucre roux, brown or raw sugar.
Fondant means melting.

Fondue is popular in restaurants in Switzerland, the home of cheese and chocolate. Fondue is melting cheese or chocolate, served in a bowl over a small tea light, candle light or burner, usually with two or more people using skewers or pincers to pick up and dunk cubes of bread or vegetables in the cheese; or cake, or marshmallows or fruit such as strawberries in the chocolate.

Fondue sets are sold in supermarkets and department stores in the crockery departments, packaged as gifts at Christmas time. I bought what I thought was a fondue set. It is an oriental stir-fry set.

This set was sold in Tesco as an oriental gift set, with a stir-fry sauce.

English - French
Sugar-sucre
brown sugar-sucre roux

French - English
brun - brown
fondant - melting
rouge - red
roux - raw
sucre roux - brown sugar / raw sugar

Brown and white sugar served with coffee at Fulham Wine Rooms in London, England.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, speaker, author.

Fulham road Wine Bar and Funky Food Shops

Fulham Wine Rooms bar
The wines are the thing. Food very expensive, £8 for a starter to feed a rabbit. Tapas - all small. We ended up paying about £40, then had a drinks evening with teeny plates of cheese and meat to share, then finally more food - again small portions. If you have unlimited cash it's great because of the huge choice of wines and people with upper class accents.

You can smoke outside.

Wines by the glass from the machine are good value.

www.greatwinesbythe glass.com

See my later post on the Parsons Nose shop selling free range poultry and meat

Wine tastings? Who? What? When? Where? Why?

Where can you taste wines? Where can you taste free wine? Who gets invited? Why should I pay to taste a wine? How can you remember what you drank? Any discounts? Who are the 'experts' and why?

Knowledge and Exams
What is my knowledge? I just read an article in the Daily Mail. I'm only a beginner, I just passed Level 1 of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) exams, which is a one day fun course including learning to taste, (although most people have spent up to 20 hours reading the material.

Tasting at UK vineyards
I have been on four tours of vineyards and wine bottling plants in the UK. I had previously written a book on factory tours. I visited whisky distilleries in Scotland.

European Vineyards
In Europe the best organised tours were around the Champagne region.
When I visited the Champagne region in France I wrote a double page spread on Rheims for Take a Break magazine.

My favourite visit for learning something new was the Kir factory in France. A kir, named after Canon Kir, is the local dry Aligote white wine mixed with sweet cassis, or blackcurrant. Kir royal is mixed with bubbly - should be Champagne.

The vineyards in Germany had memorable names. But most visual was the big barrel tourist can climb on for a photo at Heildelberg.

The Great USA
Tourists would probably most enjoy the several in California driving north of San Francisco. Shops the size of supermarkets selling everything from label makers and label removers and books recording wine, books about wine, wine diaries, aprons, bottle openers. battle stoppers, walking tours, train tours.

In Rioja vineyards have shops and tours. For example, Muga.

Tasting Events in the UK
My family buy wine and do tasting several times a week having passed the WSET exams levels three and four, written a thesis on wines in China for the two year next level diploma. I have been to countless wine tastings run by Berry Brothers & Rudd, Antique Wine Company, the Wine Society in Stevenage (my family are members), the Vintners hall, linley hall at the royal Horticulutral, more at West London Wine school, I have helped organise wine dinners, done the blind wine tastings for my family in preparation for their exams (exams at level 3 ). I have also been to tastings on regions, such as ) I spent a week touring Rioja doing tours and tastings every day with the owners or managers of vineyards.

I have sampled lots of wines from Enoteca machines.

So what can I tell you, if you know nothing about it but want to know more?

Free tastings - freeloaders?
Sometimes a free tasting is given to the big spenders or regular customers as a thank you, with special offers. When you are feeling happy you are more likely to spend.

Are you under an obligation to buy. You might take the attitude that you will buy something, either a bottle, or a case, which might be more or less than the cost of the wine you have drunk, or even a book or tee-shirt. If it's a huge crowd, with a crush around the till to pay, half the items already sold out, probably the number of buyers makes up for a few who don't buy but add to the success of the occasion, 'the more the merrier'.

Drink or Sip and Spit?
To the novice it seems you would only spit out wine you didn't like. However, faced with 30 wines you have to spit if you want to try them all.

Who would want to try them all? If you just want something to buy and know that you don't like dry or don't like sweet, then you might well try only 5-10 wines. But if you are buying for a company, reporting to a magazine, feel under an obligation to sellers, studying for an exam, or want to learn, then you may wish to try all the wines in turn.

Generally, you start with one and work your way around the room to be sure you do not miss out any table or wine. If there's a crowd at the start you could go in reverse order.

An alternative is to pick your favourites in case you run out of time. Or select all the dry first and end on the sweet. Or the cheap first and end on the expensive, those you know first, ending with those you don't, or vice versa. Or light wines, then sparkling, then red, then fortified.

Those who drink a lot can often be recognised by their barrel shape, portly figures. A typical trade tasting has twenty or more wines to taste. You are given a page listing the wines and columns in which you can rate each wine by its colour, aroma, body or texture, initial flavour, and aftertaste.

A vertical tasting is the same wine from different years. If you have a garden you know that some years your roses and fruit trees receive the right amount or sun and rain, whilst other years are a disaster. The care of the gardener, and whether your plot or fence is facing the sun or not, also makes a big difference. You can't keep a dead rose except by drying it out. But you can keep good wines in bottles, gradually developing more flavour. The cost of storing wine is high, so you tend to keep only the better wines.

Who are the experts? Some people are experts in their own region. The grower or seller may be an expert in his vineyard and which years were best, or which wine would suit you.

How do you get to taste wines? Many vineyards charge for the tours. Free tastings are more common in wine shops. They tend to put out a smaller number of wines. Or they charge, and deduct the cost of the tasting if you buy wine.

Isn't it all subjective?

Yes, but you can guess what some people will like or they will tell you. For example, sweet wines have less alcohol, and will be more popular with women and novice drinkers. Fortified wines are more popular with heavy drinkers.

So pick somebody with similar tastes and experience and lifestyle to yourself for guidance, or a sommelier who will pick out what you are likely to prefer, rather than pushing wine of the week, or the more expensive wine which the shop or restaurant wants to sell.

A true test is a blind tasting, not influenced by the bottle colour and shape or wine label or name.

Consensus
Second, a good test is to have a panel of several tasters. At some club wine evenings and wine dinners everybody present (usually 6-40 people) will vote on the best value wine and the wine of the night (the one you would most like if price were no object).

If you simply want to try several wines and compare them at lower cost than buying a whole bottle, you can use the Enoteca machines. Those dispense a tiny measure of alcohol.

The Real Experts
The real experts are usually compilers of books. They do nothing but travel around wine regions. Jancis Robinson. They are often Masters of wine. This is a qualification requiring years of study - in fact its now harder to obtain than it was in the early days.

Berry Brothers & Rudd, 3 St James' Street, London (near Green Park tube station), wine shop,  tutored tastings and gourmet dinners (mostly upmarket, expensive, suitable for birthday presents).

Fulham - see my recent post.

Photos and descriptions of events of most of the places below are in previous posts.

The Wine Society, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, co-op with annual membership about £40, tastings and dinners.

Enoteca machines  and/or tastings and/or wine dinners at:
Fulham Wine Rooms, Fulham Road (Near Parsons Green tube station), London
Hedonism Upmarket wine shop with Enoteca and tutored tastings  (half way between Bond Street station and Green Park), grand staircase to basement.
Nicolas (pronounced Nicola) - French wine shop in Marylebone High Street near Baker Street station.
Ristorante Gusto - I have yet to try this, just found it on the internet: http://www.ristorantegustoso.co.uk  restaurant with Enoteca.
Vivat Bacchus: two branches, huge and expensive, rustic but gourmet and upmarket, very jolly for lunch or dinner, with cheese shop and events.

Around Wine (near Baker Street station, London. Wine shop selling bottles, decanters and Enoteca machines you can buy for homes and restaurants.

WSET website
Wine schools near Fulham and Hampstead by Jimmy Smith and elsewhere worldwide
WSET runs government approved courses for the public and trade. (Those taking the exams include wine shop staff, wine waiters, head sommeliers, chefs, restaurant owners, wholesalers, estate managers, vineyard owners and staff, tourist guides, wine buyers, drinkers, collectors, investors and enthusiasts).
http://www.westlondonwineschool.com/

Wines By the Glass and Wine Events at The Fulham Wine Rooms

Enomatic machines serving two dozen wines by the glass, six machines serving about 30 different wines. Lively bar scene.

This is the main entrance seen from the back.

On the left is a restaurant.

At the back is a private dining room seating about 20, seen here set up for a Christmas party.

Our Christmas dinner started with dark brown bread and dipping oil. 

Our starters were pumpkin soup served with melba toast. Soup was soho. 

Main courses: two of my companions had venison which was excellent, flavourful, best when served rare. 

My turkey was tasty, presented in circles, like three islands, surrounded by a sea mashed potato like a puree, in a moat of red sauce which I took to be cranberry, sweet sauce. I suppose it was meat and two items, but no green vegetables. Lip-smacking good. Wonderful. 

This is the cod on yellow rice. It looked lovely. And filling. You would not starve.

Desserts - my crumble was a disappointment. Cooked to a crisp. Gritty. Not buttery and melt in the mouth which it should have been. Not just overcooked, completely ruined. I should have sent it back. 

On the other hand, the chocolate pudding was delightfully moist and more-ish. So, dreadful crumble, delightful chocolate pudding. 

The fruit salad was so-so, but made up for the lack of vegetables in the main course. Since I managed to share somebody else's chocolate pudding, I was happy. 

Toilets are downstairs and you can peep into the kitchen window. Toilets are just about OK, soap dispenser, no lotion. Basins missing the plug which made me nervous about dropping my rings. 

Overall verdict, excellent. 

The walk back to Parsons Green station takes you past an amusing shop for children and adults, Aspace.

www.aspace.co.uk

871-873 Fulham Road

London SW6 5HP

Tube Parsons' Green or Putney Bridge.

Tel: 0207 042 9440.

The same company has the Kensington Wine rooms.

www.greatwinesbytheglass.com

I have also posted a revue on Tripadvisor.

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