Bingham Eateries

However, I’d had the call from an old work colleague who was inviting me to a wake to "celebrate the life" of an even older work colleague, who had recently died. Not the best background for a meal, you might be forgiven to think! So I met up with colleagues who I hadn’t seen for almost a decade and soon we were chatting away in the comfortable chairs in the bar area of the restaurant. Being the only male I lapped up the attention and suffered the fond hugs that went with the greetings.

The beer was nothing special, but the meal choice was extensive and I must have changed my mind several times before finally deciding on a black lamb dish with egg fried rice. We opted for a house red and at just over £10 for a litre bottle this represented extremely good value. It was a fruity red and fairly full-bodied but I have to say after the third bottle we were unable to discern whether or not it was quality.

The service was typical of a Chinese restaurant in England - a little off-handed with very few pleasantries - but the meal was delivered efficiently and it was piping hot when it arrived on the table. A large lazy Susan in the centre of the table, classic for a Chinese Restaurant, was spun round with great joviality (guess we’d consumed a little more alcohol than we intended) and the empty chair (one of my ex-colleagues had failed to show) became known as Connie’s Chair. Yeung Sing had been her favourite restaurant and as we ploughed through the meal I realised why. The food was superb.

Not only was it all extremely tasty but there was plenty of it and at the end of two courses I was unsure whether or not to try a pudding. Sweets are notoriously not the speciality of a Chinese restaurant and Yeung Sing did not break this rule. However, banana fritters did prove to be too tempting and I rounded off my evening with a plateful of almost sickly (I mean that as a compliment) sweet fritters. Very tasty and I my appetite was totally satisfied.

We commandeered a large table and the eight of us studied the menu chatting through the choices and expressing our uncertainties about our preferred options. I’d immediately fixed on pigeon as a starter and I didn’t waiver. I’ve never eaten it before so it was a "must try". All the starters were price around the £6 mark and I took advice from the waitress on how best to have the pigeon. When it arrived at the table it was a little more than seared and I did wonder if I’d been fool hardy in accepting her advice, but it was superb, cutting it was as easy as cutting through butter and it was just so tender and flavoursome. I can’t think that it will be last time that I choose pigeon.

All the food served at the Red Lion is purchased locally and a map on the back of the menu detailed where the different items were bought. My main course was a particularly fine and well-prepared piece of steak and although I had a choice of starters it was too tasty to spoil by "enhancing" with a prepared sauce. Friends had a Blue Stilton and a pepper sauce with theirs and they were cooing with satisfaction through the meal. We enjoyed a few bottles of an Australian Shiraz, which for a restaurant was not too badly priced. Indeed a limited but varied wine list afforded good quality wines at a decent cost – I recall that the most expensive was champagne at £25 a bottle, whereas the rest averaged out at £15.

The restaurant area is compact, probably accommodating no more than 30 people, and it was certainly a challenge for the waitresses to pick their way around the servings. What was impressive was that they new exactly who had ordered what and only sought confirmation before placing it on the table in front of us. They were polite and unobtrusive and extremely responsive to the requests of all diners. Exactly what you expect from good waiters.

Of course no meal is complete without a pudding and I had a treacle tart with clotted cream and blackberries. I was beautifully presented, rich and sufficient to compliment the meal that I’d just enjoyed. I’d go back here.

We’d been invited to a friend’s 60th and it’s a good sign if a restaurant can dish out 80 odd quality meals with some degree of synchronicity. Admittedly the three tables were not served at exactly the same time but tables were served in sequence and considering that we had a choice of main course they did remarkably well. The restaurant is compact and because of that it has a real buzz to it (helped of course because we were all friends together) and at times we had to assist the waiting staff by passing loaded plates to those who were just out of reach of the waitresses’ reach.

The meal was served as a typical English Sunday lunch with roasted meat (a choice of lamb, beef or chicken) and a good selection of fresh vegetables, potatoes (both boiled and roasted), traditional stuffings all fully plated. Somehow Sunday roast dinners are better served in this way, and soon the room fell into virtual silence as we tucked into our "roast and two veg" Sunday dinner. Appreciative murmurings could be heard as friends enjoyed Gerry’s 60th celebration.

Putting on a show for us was Ryan Vardy, a young magician, whose speciality is close-up magic. He amazed and bewildered us with card tricks, disappearing rings, and the blowing of soap bubbles, which then transformed into floating glass globes. I sat right next to him and tried to follow the deception but it was so cleverly done not one of us could spot the trickery. That’s magic for you!

This was a leisurely meal and it took the best part of the afternoon with us all enjoying some of the excellent and medium-priced wines and rounding the meal off with puds. I decided to stick with tradition and had a bread and butter pudding with lashings of custard and the merest hint of fresh cream drizzled over the centre. It did nothing for my diet but what the heck it was real tasty.

A group of us went out mid-week and although the place wasn’t packed there were a number of other diners in the restaurant and a select group of people using the bar facilities. There was a set menu of three courses for a remarkable £8.95 and plenty of choice within this set framework. I’d opted for an asparagus risotto was proved to be a great choice. Served with a couple of toasted fingers of bread roll the rice was of perfect risotto consistency – moist, not soggy; sticky not stuck. A great starter and prior to its arrival we’d enjoyed home made bread rolls, pate and olives.

I’d opted for the rib-eyed steak topped with mozzarella cheese, which came, as ordered, medium rare. It was beautifully tender and was accompanied with a plentiful supply of fresh vegetables and small boiled potatoes (a pleasant change to the normal accompaniment of chips).

This is an open restaurant working on a number of different floor levels with niches being used for discreet tables of two. The lighting is subdued which for a group of guys out with a share investment club isn’t necessarily ideal. Indeed at one point as the main share proposal was being presented I though the whole place would be going up in flames as one of our group waved a candle in front of the financial times to check on the current share price of the main proposal. The piped music is a wee bit ‘aggressive’ but 15 guys can raise their game quite easily to over-talk the loud speakers. For a quite night out perhaps the music is a little intrusive.

Having made what we thought were shrewd investment decisions the meal seemed to confirm our wisdom. A pleasant house red complimented the meal, which was rounded off with an extremely chocolaty chocolate pudding with a great dollop of strategically place double cream and additional lashings of single cream. Extremely naughty, but diets are always there to be broken. Aren’t they?

There is always a friendly welcome at the Coach and Horses – not effusive or sycophantic but polite with a strong message that they are happy to see you and pleased that you’ve called in for a meal or a pint. The table service is unhurried and I was pleased to see that they managed to serve us all at the same time despite the fact that 15 of us all had different food combinations. As an aside they do a great cheese board and as a mate couldn’t eat all his cheese I also enjoyed a piece of locally made Stilton.

History lesson over. The Marquis of Granby I ate in is a small pub in the equally small village of Hoveringham, which lies on the northern bank of the river Trent and off the main road heading out from Nottingham towards Southwell. It has a population of only 350 people and at one point in time the village had three pubs. In recent years the Elm Tree Hotel has been developed into apartments and the two survivors have changed into small restaurants with a room for occasional drinkers – dining pubs as the advertisers like to call them.

A strong recommendation had been made to our "diners club" and so we decided to give the place a whirl. It’s a strange feel to the place as it’s clear that the original pub has been "converted" to cope with the new job of feeding folk. The old bar has been "kind of" modernised, but it has a strange barn like feel to it. The bar lacked in ambience and although "regulars" were enjoying a pint it is clear that diners were viewed as strangers. The staff were welcoming but the place did not come with a genuine "warmth" and there was no real character to the lounge area.

Things were no different in the dining area, which has only succeeded with implanting a memory of a cavernous and bland area. Mind you were were very few diners present so it had a moonlike feel to it (lacking in atmosphere!).

Our meal was delivered promptly with absolute efficiently and I’m sad to report that I have no lasting memories about the food. It was alright – certainly not of bad quality but fairly uninspiring. The kind of meal that we might expect at a pub serving pre-produced food. No finesse just plain ordinary.

We left somewhat disappointed having enjoyed each others company, but not been inspired in anyway by the meal. It was just ordinary - an unspecial room, an above average meal but lacking in style. What a shame - we won't be trying it again.