The Garden Gate Pub Restaurant For A Great Sunday Roast In Hampstead

 

Garden Gate restaurant, garden. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Why is it called The Garden Gate? A garden is at the back. Probably very pleasant on a fine summer's day. Inside, this traditional British pub has stained glass windows.

Our extended family who live in the area told us their children loved the Sunday roast. You can order a beef or chicken roast. A large Yorkshire pudding is on top. The restaurant also does pork.

The Sunday Roast with Yorkshire pudding. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

The apple crumble dessert. You can have custard or vanilla ice cream, or both, with your crumble.

I had taken the precaution of reading their menu online the night  before our visit.

Top Temptations Over all, 4.5/5

1 Sunday roast 5/5

2 Crumble Dessert 5/5

3 Prosecco by the glass 4/5

4 Drawing sheet to keep and jar of crayons to borrow for children 5/5

Toilets 4/5

Would I go back. Resounding yes. A family favourite. The children love it.

Obliging service. Ambience, even when crowded, not too loud.

We reserved a table for six.

The location is near the Hampstead Heath railway station.

Address

14 South End Road, Greater, London NW3 2Q

Useful Website

https://www.thegardengatehampstead.co.uk

Filling Food And English Apple Crumble at the Civil Service Club - and postage stamp UK artwork of a red phone box

Civil Service Club entrance. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

How To Go There

The Civil Service club has 12.000 members and a great location within walking distance of Trafalgar Square and near central London underground train stations. If you know anybody who is a member, and the chances are that you do, you can get an invitation. 

We went to the club for a food and wine dinner organized by Central London Wine Society. We were in the main dining room at a T shaped table. The reasonably priced menu offered large portions, we already knew. The wine group meets there regularly. I know the venue well because I have also been there several times over a decade. I went there for events such as an annual Christmas dinner organized by a member who belongs to a writers' circle. He is also a member of a Toastmasters International group which meets in outer London. 

You sign in at the reception which has a sanitizer dispenser, and an orchid. Before ticking my name on the guest list, I took a photo of it on my mobile phone. That way I could check on the names of fellow guests. 

Before the meal started, we were each served a hot white roll covered with poppy seeds. The butter melted into it. Delicious. We went without ordering starters because we wanted to leave room for desserts.

I recommend the steak pie. Big portion of juicy steak. Three of us liked it.

My husband ordered it and I tried it. We always order different food and swap. The steak pie came with more vegetables, carrots, cauliflower, green beans, broccoli. He chose mashed potatoes, included in the price. My salmon came with a bed of spinach. I asked for chips, included in the price. 

BBQ sauce and a white cuff stain

I usually take the precaution of wearing brown or black when I go out to dinner. This time my outfit had a black bodice - but white cuffs. Big mistake. My lovely white silk cuffs have a brown mark. 

I tried washing, soap, cold water, hot water. No luck. Silk is too delicate for me to risk bleach.

I could cut out the stained part and sew up the hole. No. I could just sew around the stain. Maybe. I could sew on a sequin.

Grilled Salmon - Not again

I saw the word salmon and thought, what could go wrong. I missed the word grilled. That is what went wrong. Part of the joy of salmon is that it is a juicy fish. Hard and tasteless when grilled or over grilled. I won't have that again. I wrote it up on Tripadvisor to be able to locate my last visit in a hurry, next time, and check what to avoid ordering. If you are happy with a cold main course, have the cheese platter, which includes grapes. Eat the grapes second for dessert. Or indulge in a hot dessert.

Apple crumble. With custard. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Dessert - Apple Crumble - Yes, definitely

I like a hot dessert, not ice cream. I chose apple crumble. I also chose custard rather than ice cream to go with my apple crumble. The French call custard creme anglaise. Yes, it is not something you see a lot in France.

Yes, good apple crumble. Not the tops. But good enough. One of the joys of the UK. I can't say I have ever had apple crumble in the USA or Singapore or elsewhere. 

Toilets - Your choice

The toilets are upstairs from the main restaurant. (On the same level as some of the private rooms.) A steep staircase. With a wooden tubular hand rail. If you are ultra careful about Covid you might consider when to wash your hands, or wear gloves, or take a disposable wipe, or not drink so much that you feel unsteady on steep stairs.

Two cubicles. The good thing about the toilet was the moisturizer.

If you don't want to use the stairs, on the ground floor by the bar are more toilets, a larger area.

Make sure to see the downstairs bar indoors, not just the outside seating, because of the pictures, created from what look like tiny postage stamps from close-up. From a distance you see three classic views, the circle symbol of the London undergrounds, a red classic telephone box.

Brilliant Bar Picture

Accommodation

Yes, there is accommodation, and very conveniently placed.

Useful Website

https://www.civilserviceclub.org.uk/Membership/Ordinary_Member_Form/accomodation_2021_screen.aspx

How to cook eggs for breakfast and drink fresh coffee in a hotel room

I read about a woman who returned to Australia and was quarantined in a five star hotel but without a microwave oven.

An Iron As Hotplate
She made herself apple crumble and other foods heated up on an upturned iron, which acted as a hotplate, secured between two heavy books.

She chopped up an apple with a penknife. (Any hotel can send you a knife. A five star hotel has 24 hour room service.)

Her cooking utensil was an aluminium tray you get with takeway food. I presume the crumble was a ready mix. But you can mix flour and water with fat such as butter to make crumble. the advantage is crumble is it is just flour rolled up into balls, no need for a rolling pin to roll it out into pastry. A hotel usually has sugar sachets.If you have flown overseas or on a long flight within a country, you might have meal service inclding a sachet of salt.

Most fast food places have condiments which seem unnecessary at the time but can be just the ticket later. For example, most take away piza comes with extra sachets of cheese and pepper or spicy sprinkles.

You can also buy packets of individual portions of cheese. If you save bread from your brakfast, ideally with a butter or margarine sachet,  you can add a cheese portion, or the cheese sachet and sprinkles left over from the pizza, and you have a mid-morning snack.

I was wondering whether she could have demanded a microwave, or bought herself one (if she was getting free food for a fortnight, she could afford a cheap microwave.

Some hotels don't like you cooking in the room. Why? consdier their point of view. It uses their electricity. It is a fire risk. You are making crumbs which attract rats and cockroaches and flies. You are deprivin them of sales of over-priced food from their kitchen.

On the other hand, they might be short-staffed and keen to keep you happy or just flexible.

Do a health and safety assessment first. What could go wrong? How can you prevent it going wrong?

Can you leave the room as you found it?



Simple solution - Suites
A simpler solution was one we adoped as a family of three in the USA. If you are staying longer than a week, go to an all suites hotel. There you have a larger living room, often a bigger dining table where you can eat or work, and a microwave.

You need to buy in food to bring with, or have it delivered.


UK flag

Eggs
Years ago we were in a UK hotel room which had nothing but a kettle and we needed breakfast. I said, What I would like is an egg.

The corner shop across the road had eggs.

No chance of making scrambled eggs. But what about boiled eggs? We had hot , boiled water, from the kettle. Just pour the water over the egg in a cup.

We did consider putting the egg inside the kettle. If the egg breaks, you get an awful mess.

Coddled Egg
You could bring your own kettle from home, a small one, ideally one with a flat base inside and not an exposed element, so it is easier to clean and empty.

My husband used to do this as a student at Aberdeen university in Scotland. He had an egg pricker to make a hole in the egg so it would not burst. He added vinegar to the water to coagulate whites if the egg splits or leaks through the hole.

Coffee Pods
One year we were on holiday in Wales and my husband was not happy with the quality of the coffee. he drove to the nearest city and bought the cheapest coffee pod machine which came with a set of coffee pods. We were on holiday for a long weekend. He had his breakfast coffee and mid monring coffee and lnch time coffee and mid afternoon coffee and after dinner coffee for 2 days.  Some for me too.

He drinks black coffee. A pint of milk was available from the nearby Tesco supermarket and stayed cold on the windowsill.  He reckoned the price was not much more than the cost of bying all those coffees in the restaurant or bar.

With planning and ingenuity, or asking what is available, you can often find a solution.

Interesting Websites
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8356091/Woman-makes-apple-crumble-homemade-TimTam-IRON-hotel-quarantine.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ico=taboola_feed

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker.
Please share links to your favourite posts.

Wetherspoon Pub, and Pubs Around Britain: a meal for two, £20 including drinks

The flower-bedecked front of Wetherspoon Pub, Hatch End. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
Where to get two meals and drinks for under £20?
What to eat and drink in a pub?

Answer
You can eat two main courses and a drink and share one dessert, or maybe two, for twenty pounds in a Wetherspoons pub.  That's good for budgeting if you are short of cash, counting the pounds, or the drinks, and don't want to run up a big bill. It's also great for counting calories. They don't add twelve and a half per cent service to the bill, or even ten per cent like some restaurants.

You don't even have to go to the bar to order, nor leave your drinks with strangers when you go to pay. Instead you can order and pay in advance by phone from your table!

The price is great for a date, no risk of running up a huge bill. And ladies, if you are in any trouble on a date, you can go into the ladies toilet and read the advice and then inform the staff.

Plus a large choice of drinks. I could order a Prosecco, a zinfandel, red or white wine by the glass, beers, teas and coffees and soft drinks, much bigger choice than many.

The branch we tried was one I knew well in Hatch End Broadway on the Uxbridge Road, a long linking road around the north like the M25 and the North Circular road. Three generations of my family have lived nearby in different eras and we and other Londoners often pass through on the way to Edgware, Harrow, Hendon, Kenton, Northwood, Northwood Hills, Harrow and Wealdstone, Pinner, Stanmore or Uxbridge.

The Hatch End branch has a garden at the back. We opted for the garden. However, first we saw smokers, so we moved further into the garden, then it started to rain so we went back inside.

The pub is called the Moon and Sixpence. The menu explains that several pubs use the name moon inspired by the fictional place, The Moon Under Water described by George Orwell in the Evening Standard newspaper as the perfect pub.

Food We Ordered
My dining companion (son, aged over 21) wanted coke (with no ice) because he was driving.  The coke offered was Pepsi. I was delighted to find a rose wine, Zinfandel, included in the drinks included deal.

The menu was so long it took us ten minutes to read it all. I ordered chicken with jacket potato.

Chicken with jacket potato, peas. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Sunday brunch at Wetherspoons pub. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Our other order was the Sunday brunch. It was just like the picture, a hearty British breakfast, two eggs, sausage, tomato.  What made it a brunch rather than a breakfast? The late time, I suppose. Plus the addition of chips.

I was disappointed not to see the traditional Sunday lunch of turkey and roast potatoes. On the other hand, we managed to order 'lunch' at gone 4 pm!

Tips
Water was help yourself at the bar. Grab it on your way to the table, so you don't need to stand up again nor send anybody else to get it.

You might want to order at the bar to pay cash.  While there you can check on the menu choices, or have a quick chat. Make sure you know your table number because when the food is ready they will bring it to your table.

I asked for apple crumble, then saw carrot cake at fewer calories and changed my order. The person taking my order asked me if I wanted the dessert with the main courses or afterwards as a dessert, and I said afterwards.

The carrot cake was a little dry but still very good. I supposed the thick creamy icing helps keep cake moist and protected from the air and offsets any dryness. The best part was the nuts. From a health point of view, I do like some vegetable and nuts. Carrots are sweet.

Carrot cake. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Accommodations and Pubs All Over Britain
The Weatherspoon pub magazine is worth a read. I learned that some of the pubs have accommodation at very reasonable prices. Plus of course you can buy good breakfasts, coffee and snacks all day, lunches, and dinners until late.

Quirky Pubs
Weatherspoon pubs are individual and feature people and places of local interest.

ZULU
For example, have you seen the film Zulu, and the other film from the same period, featuring the battle of Rorke's Drift in South Africa? The film features Michael Caine, in the first major role which made him famous. The film was made in 1964.

When was it set? January 1879, at the time of declining and ageing PM Benjamin Disraeli back in Britain. The blame for the loss killed him. He died in April 1881.

Anyway, a Wetherspoon pub is named after another person who got the blame for that military disaster; his descendants are fighting to have him exonerated.

More information from:
www.jdwetherspoon.com

Getting there:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/ (for driving, walking, landmarks etc)
http://www.londonbusroutes.net (buses, tourist routes etc)
https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/ (train routes, times, ticket prices, weekly cards, discounts etc)
http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/sightseeing/sightseeing-tours/top-london-tours
https://www.visitbritainshop.com/world/ (trips, tours, offers: London; England, Scotland, Wales)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have other posts on Hatch End, and restaurants worldwide. Please bookmark your favourite posts and share links to my posts with your family and friends.

Getting your Ten Vegetables and Fruits At Home and Overseas

Tea time fruit and yogurt. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
How do you achieve five vegetables a day, seven or ten, at home or travelling?

Answer
At home this is easy:
Ten pieces of fruit and vegetables, not difficult if you are vegetarian and cutting out sugar. Even if you aren't:

Breakfast:
Three pieces of fruit mixed into yogurt or muesli including apple and sultanas and one more fruit in season. If no fruit is in season, add tinned prunes. Plus freshly made orange juice, that's four for breakfast.

Some people prefer to make up a mixed fruit or mixed votable juice. You can make it up in bulk and eat or drink a little every day.

You could also have a banana milkshake for breakfast or your eleven o'clock break. Or mix yogurt and milk with mango to make a mango lassi.

Elevenses
Add an apple for elevenses, five. You are half way there, and two meals and a snack to go.

Lunch
For lunch: two or three vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots and lettuce for lunch; that's three, plus apple tart or pear tart, or fruit fool or puree, that easily another four so you have reached nine.

Tea
If you had either an apple or fruit juice for tea that's ten.

Dinner
However, if you have not had four of those items, have vegetable soup, meat or quiche or pizza and two vegetables with dinner, such as broccoli and peas. For dessert, follow by strawberries and cream.

Fruit and vegetables are not so expensive if you have a garden and grow apple trees. We should all go back to growing apples in gardens, allotments for those in flats, tomatoes in window boxes, mushrooms in dark cupboards.

Stories
I started serving fruit salad for dessert when my late father was suffering from late onset diabetes.

Later, another close family member had cancer treatment and we read health articles all day every day for weeks. We looked at the cancer websites, the World Health websites, the NHS guidelines. We went back to their sources: respectable sites with academic studies of large numbers of people, over years, and shorter studies, with control groups. I read about comparisons of migrating populations such as Japanese women going from Japan to the USA and getting different diseases showing that it was not inherited but to do with lifestyle or diet.

Prunes
At first we were not keen on prunes but needed them for some reason. (Was it that chemo made you constipated?) Within a few weeks, we had found that they provided interesting contrast in colour and a touch of sweetness.

(We also cheated on the 'fresh' idea by adding ginger in syrup or maple syrup.

In Singapore we have not managed to find tinned prunes. We have added a carton of apple juice to dried prunes but it comes out at three times the price.

Travelling
The simplest way to stick to your edit is to carry a Tupperware or similar box containing two pieces of fruit for a snack or to add to lunch. I find an apple and a banana are the most convenient. I sometimes cut the apple in half and remove the core and slice it into segments like an orange. Other good fruits for travelling are seedless grapes, and red and green grapes. You can have them all at once, or sneak the odd one or two into your mouth as a pick me up.

Speaking of citrus fruit, oranges are heavy and messy, but tangerines have easy peel skin, weigh less, and make less mess.

Hotel and Restaurant Breakfasts
Opt for half a grapefruit. Add prunes. Orange juice.

Hotel or Restaurant Lunch
Lunch time, again look for a fruit starter such as melon, melon and ham, avocado pear, tricolore (Italian for three colours) which is the three colours of the Italian flag, white cheese, red tomatoes, green avocado. Try meal and two vegetables, a vegetarian option. Two of you can share one meat and vegetable dish and one vegetarian dish. Pizza? Try a pizza with tomatoes and / or pineapple (often called Hawaiian).

Ask for a fruit dessert. If none, pop out to the local supermarket.

Cakes and biscuits
If you must have tarts and cakes, the French apple tart (tarte Tatin) with an apricot marmalade glaze; pancakes with jam and fresh fruit, apple tart, apple crumble, durian cake, "Jaffa" cake with orange spread. You can simply take any three fruits or vegetables and look at recipe websites for ideas from around the world. Other favourites are carrot cake and blueberry muffins.

Cakes, Biscuits and Tarts List
Apple Crumble
Apple and Blackberry crumble
Apple pie
blueberry muffin
Carrot Cake
Fruit fool
Fruit Pavlova
Mincemeat pies / tart
Plum pudding (Christmas pudding)
Stuffed Dates
Summer Pudding
Tarte Tatin

Fruit
Fresh pineapple is cheap in the UK. In the UK in summer you can often find summer pudding in supermarkets or on restaurant menus. Summer pudding contains two or more red fruits, such as red currants.

Another British favourite is apple crumble, or apple and blackberry crumble. For a change, you might like apricot crumble.

Here's a list of fruit you might find in your nearest shop, either fresh or tinned, or frozen.

FRUIT
apples
apricots
bananas
blackberries
black currants
blueberry
cherries
dates
durian
figs
gooseberry
grapefruit
grapes
greengages
guava
kiwi fruit
lemon
lime
mango
melon
orange
passion fruit
peach
pears
plums
prunes
pumpkin
quince
raspberries
red currants
satsumas
star fruit
tangerine
watermelon

Also add herbs such as mint.

Drinks:
Banana Milkshake, mint tea, black currant cordial, lemon tea, mixed juice (two to four fruits such as apple, orange, pineapple, star fruit watermelon) watermelon.

VEGETABLES / Herbs for flavouring
artichoke
avocado
beans
bean sprouts
cabbage
carrot
cauliflower
chives
courgettes
green beans
lettuce
Mange tout
mint
mustard and cress
olives
onions
parsley
peas
peppers (green, red, yellow)
pickled cucumber (gherkin)
snow peas
spinach
spring onions
squash
string beans
tomato
watercress

Fancy fruits
You might also try fancy fruits, exotic fruits, when travelling. Mangoes. Durians. Guava. Passion fruit.

Decoration
Use mint, individual small fruits such as sliced strawberries, mint, edible flowers such as rose petals.

Tips
Look at the reduced price sections of supermarkets in the UK and Singapore for bargains, sometimes all day, sometimes evenings.
Look for the cheapest fruits. For example, in Singapore bananas are very cheap.

The Chinese in Singapore eat green vegetables such as Pak Choy. Fruit and vegetables are likely to be cheaper and more unusual varieties will be available in Little India or the wet markets on the edge of the island near the HDB (state housing). Fair price supermarket is cheaper than HillV2 and Jasons.

Tinned prunes can be bought cheaply in supermarkets in London and carried to Singapore.
More information from:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit

Angela Lansbury, travel writer.

Water's Edge Restaurant, Ruislip, for the Swans, Great Views, Service and Dessert

Why We Chose This Place
The location was what drew us to this carvery. (Two other carveries are in Watford). We'd looked at other places friends recommended, such as The Hare, but we weren't that hungry having had a late Sunday lunch and tea, so we didn't want to spend £15 or £20 on a main course, then coffees, drinks, service, it soon mounts up.

The car park is huge, no trouble parking. The art deco outside is a delight. In summer you can arrive for dinner after 8 pm and still see the white swans on the lido, which looks like a lake, and green trees.

We paid for our order and took the tickets. The carver offered a choice of four meats, chicken, lamb, pork, gammon. I have to admit the carver meats were dry, the greens, a bit limp, the potatoes so-so.

The high point was the view. So delightful to sit looking out at the Lido. It reminded me of a river through the Rhine.

The service was a delight. The man on the carver told us amusing tales of his life in the army. Whilst we were collecting our food, our drinks disappeared from our table, but they were willingly and immediately replaced.

We were too full for the desserts we had ordered. They did not have tubs, only paper bags. So we changed an order from chocolate Sundae to chocolate cake.

When I got home I found my apple crumble was a delight. Very pleased with the choice, I must admit the food was disappointing. Next winter when it's too dark to see the view, I'll try another carvery.

Price
Pricewise, it's not as cheap as you might expect on a Sunday night. No special deals, which you get mid-day mid-week.
If you are watching your budget, the small carver is quite big enough. The bigger size and price gives you a sausage and a second piece of Yorkshire pudding, neither of which we needed.

Munching T-bone steak at Miller and Carter Steakhouse, Ruislip - also Harrow in London, England and Wales

Driving into Ruislip we saw this place with an adjacent car park and pulled in for a quick meal.
The decor is inviting, modern and chic. This steakhouse has class. The atmosphere is informal but the place is pristine and smartly decorated, with amusing cartoons on the theme of cows and bulls holding conversations.

Drinks
Lots of choice. Lots of drinks by the glass, conveniently divided by styles on one large page. Could not see a sweet muscat for dessert, but two kinds of zinfandel, red and white.

If you've no room for dessert, coffee with a chocolate pot.

Starters
Chicken wings, four pieces, to start were good. Although billed as spicy with specks of red pimento, not too spicy, just tasty. Came with a finger bowl containing lemon and paper napkins.

Main courses.
Steaks offered included T-bone and our English speaking local London waiter was able to explain clearly the different types and sizes of steak. The steak was served with a choice of three kinds of potato, including the healthy option of baked in its jacket. Chips came in a container. The piece of cooked tomato was well received.

If you have more time than money, get in and out before 6.30 pm when you can have two courses, or add a dessert for £3, at less than £20. Options on the lunch menu include chicken main course and apple crumble dessert, which is not on the evening menu.

The evening desserts are all highly calorific and mostly sugar and toffee and ice cream and chocolate.

This chain has 35 locations including Bath, Cardiff in Wales, Harrow in North London, Lakeside shopping centre, Leeds, Manchester, and Poole.

You can find them using satnav. Follow them on Facebook. Sign up to their newsletter and get a free starter or dessert.

I have reviewed the Ruislip branch on Tripadvisor in November 2014.
More information from
www.millerandcarter.co.uk


Photos copyright Angela Lansbury.
For more information on Angela Lansbury travel writer, author, comic poetry, table etiquette, see YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Lulu.com