Market House: a disappointing meal, but a nice place for a pint

I started coming to Broadway Market in the summer of 2009.  At that time I was still living in Scotland, visiting the Fashionista on the weekend in Camberwell.  I had overfilled on Borough market and Broadway was a refreshing change.  Yes there were heritage tomatoes and Comte by the bucket load but it had more of a local feel (in fact I loved it so much so that when I eventually got round to moving down, I decided this was the place for me).  The ratio of tourists to local was in London's favour.  Broadway market is still like that, although the Londoners are more Rupert and Rodger than Dave and Darren these days.

And so, with this gentrification, restaurants have been popping up all over the place.  Outlets which are just not up to scratch fall by the wayside very quickly to be replaced with more accomplished offerings.  Take, for example, La Vie en Rose.  At the end the food they were serving up was so below bar and overpriced I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.  But from the ashes came Market Cafe.  A great little place serving Italian influenced, reasonbaly priced, delicious food in a retro seventies vibe, formica and print wallpaper heaven. 

Market House (which is half way along Broadway Market) has been threatening to open for some months now.  Renowned as the "roughest pub on Broadway" in the good ol' days, it had been spruced up, painted white, ready for Rupert to arrive.

I had the pork belly which came with a disc of black pudding, glazed apples and a "mustard gravy".  The belly had been shorn of its crackling before cooking, a small amout of which (I suppose the chef must have had the rest) came seperate, satisfyingly crunchy. The problem with removing the crackling is, though, that you are left faced with a rectangle of meat topped with soggy fat.  Not even the stuff that is melt-in-the mouth-I-know-I-shouldn't-be-eating-this-but-it-is-too-darned-good-not-to fat, just fat. Not nice. The apples were okay, the black pudding dry, the gravy was more Bisto than Maille. 

The Fashionista had the fish and chips.  The cod was fresh, the batter was okay.  The chips were soggy, really not up to much at all.

All of this would not have been so galling if the prices had not been so high.  That belly, fourteen quid.  The fish and chips, twevle.  Elsewhere on Broadway you can eat exceptionally well for these prices.  The Market House is flanked on one end of Broadway by the Michelin recommended Cat and Mutton, and the aforementioned excellent Market Cafe on the other, both of which serve great, simple food in the ten to fifteen pound range.  Market House is going to have to go through the gears quick snap if it is going to remain a place people chose to eat on Broadway. 

In fairness I should mention that they do serve a great pint of London Pride.  My advice, go there to drink, not to eat.  Good pub, bad gastro pub.  But in the days when everywhere has to be about both food and drink, perhaps that is not such a bad thing. Maybe Market House will end up being a slice of original Broadway in amongst the boutiques, a place for a pint (without the pie).

The Ship: not quite ship shape

The Ship in Wandsworth Town continually gets rave reviews from bloggers and punters alike, all of which should mean that the food is very good indeed. So when I was tasked with choosing a place to go for dinner with a couple of my bosses from work and their wives, one of whom lives in Battersea, the other in Richmond, The Ship seemed like the obvious choice.

Situated on the edge of the Thames, this place is normally rockin' with well-to-do youngsters - their BBQs in summer are legendary.  As we went on a Thursday evening in March, it was a more downbeat vibe.

To start I had the pigeon breast, lentils and pancetta crisp.  This was delicious, melt in the mouth.  However a few of the others had salt and pepper squid - so overdone it was almost painful to eat - the batter like shards!  The Fashionista had the scallops with fennel puree and crisped fennel.  This looked impressive and tasted quite nice.

Piegon and lentils - tasted a lot better than it looks!

Scallops and fennel

On to the mains, I had pork belly, sage dumpling and fondant potato.  The meat was tender, the fondant well executed, the sage dumpling was not.  It was heavy, gooey, and, as can happen when too much sage is used, it tasted chemically.  Others had the fishcake with poached egg, quite tasty.

Pork Belly  with "that" dumpling

Fishcake with poached egg.

On the side we shared some chips, okay nothing special, and one of their scotch eggs - runny yolk, well seasoned- just like it should be!

A great Scotch egg.

The portions had been huge so there was probably no need for us to delve into the dessert menu, but dive in we did.  A portion of sticky toffee pudding was rich and sweet, it could have fed four easily.  The rhubarb and apple crumble was less successful. It must be said there was no scrimping on the crumble, it fell down on the fruit - there just wasn't enough of it.

I really wanted to love The Ship, it has a reputation for being one of the best places to eat in London.  Sadly, other than the pigeon, most of what we ate was not much above your average pub grub.  Bearing in mind that the prices are the same as somewhere like Quo Vadis which is receiving plaudits all round at the moment, that is a little disappointing.  And that sage dumpling, well the less said about that the better...

The Tiger- good pub grub!

The Tiger in Camberwell is one of my favourite pubs in London. An oasis of warmth, good beers and friendly people. I have been many times, but mostly just use it as a watering hole before heading out. Last night, however, we decided to go along for some dinner - it was pub grub we were after and the Tiger's menu has always looked interesting.

The menu is a step up from the usual pub fayre, but thankfully has not strayed so far from this as to think it is something it is not. We started with a duck liver pate, cornichons, red onion chutney and some toast. The pate was smooth, the chutney sweet and delicious, but the slices of toast too few. All it needed was a few more pieces of bread to mop up the chutney and pate and this would have been very good indeed.

The Fashionista went for the sausages and beetroot mash. The sausages were okay, nothing special, the gigantic mound of beetroot mash was as it should be.

I had a cheese burger, tempted by the fact that what was once a lowly staple has been taken to a higher level by places like The Lucky Chip, Honest Burgers and Meat Liquor! Unfortunately the Tiger did not quite hit those highs. Homemade it was, but the meat was just a little overcooked, dry and underseasoned. The chips were great, however.

For the price you pay, the food at the Tiger is very good and certainly a step up from the general standard of pub food you get in London.  Weatherspoons this is not, I would definitely go back!