fishy afternoon

i desperately craved oysters recently - and so the other week we decided to take a road trip down to Brighton, where i had them last summer in a charming little restaurant overlooking the sea. this time it was not to be though, as it turned out after we walked for like miles (uphill!) to finally get there. we must have looked rather disappointed by the lack of oysters on the menu, so the cute young waiter attempted to save the day by offering us some mussels instead. 'they're pretty much the same thing' - he stated confidently, thus amusing us to such extent that we decided to stay after all and enjoyed our dinner on the terrace that commanded spectacular views over the English Channel. half way through the second bottle of Pinot Grigio we were pretty sure we could see the french coast looming in the distance... all thanks to young daniel's (our waiter's that is) equally charming and entertaining silliness.

the next day, on our way back to london, we stopped for lunch at a lovely, lovely, lovely! hotel called Gravetye Manor just on the outskirts of East Grinstead (click here to see them!), which we expected to have oysters on the menu (they did not). 

the splendid Gravetye Manor

part of the fancy Relais & Chateaux club, Gravetye Manoris a stunning property with breathtaking gardens and views, excellent service (no false modesty - i know enough to hardly ever rate a restaurant service excellent!)  and a good, if a bit uninspiring menu by a former sous chef of the Michelin starred Mark Raffin - who left Gravetye in 2010 to open a gastro pub just down the road. the current menu, though appropriate enough, is a far cry from what Mark used to cook. (on a side note - i don't think i have ever heard of a sous successfully taking over from his predecessing head chef and keeping the high standard of the food. i don't mind being eventually  proved wrong on this one). to be fair though - that glorious afternoon Chef Ruppert Gleadow was accommodating enough to knock up an off-the-menu lobster and truffle salad for me, in the absence of the ever so elusive oysters. this was good, which sadly cannot be said for the rather bland, athough properly cooked garden beans risotto that Nick had. 
all in all - our visit to Gravetye Manor was well worth the detour en route from Brighton - we ended up spending the better part of the afternoon there - chilling, eating and drinking tea. the price tag for this experience was quite reasonable too, we thought.

back to oysters then. after our unsuccessful quest down south - we finally (and quite ironically) found them in a great fishmongers shop just next door. what a discovery! 'the fish paddler', run by a very nice and well rounded chap called Roger, has all you might wish for - from fresh caught wild black sea bass, scottish lobsters, atlantic cod, some farmed fish - to (often humongous!) king scallops, fresh oysters  and even marsh samphire! he's more than happy to order to your request too - I, for one, am getting some dover sole delivered on monday. (click to visit 'fishpeddlar's' web-page)

'the fish peddlar' in Wimbledon Village

this afternoon, after a lovely Wimbledon Common jog, we showed up at Rogers to get some scallops, samphire and a dozen devon portland oysters (those are close to perfect - as they first line-farm them in an eastuary and then transport to open sea farms where they get their lovely sea saltiness). the oysters, judging by how excruciatingly hard they were to open, must have been caught and delivered to next to our doorstep this very morning (hail the underappreciated bliss of nowadays' goods delivery systems). anyway - all that we bought made for a delightful, fresh and protein rich petit lunch, which we enjoyed listening to some  Saint-Saëns. we struggled a bit with the wine choice though , as in the absence of a decent Muscadet it was tricky to pick something that would go with both the fresh saltiness of the oysters and velvety sweetness of the scallops (had we gone with, say Wagner as a musical background, i would have served frozen vodka and be done with it). we ended up going for a very well chilled 2010 Mosel Riesling Auslese, which - albeit decisevly off dry - did not kill the oysters and went just beautifully with the scallops and the roasted pine nuts in the salad !

so, here goes (drumrolls...) our lunch:

our fishy petit lunch today

on the (frozen!) plate above:

- chilled carpaccio of king scallops with truffled plum chutney, black truffle oil and sea salt;

- lukewarm salad of marsh samphire + pine nuts roasted with scallops roe and chilli;

- fresh dover portland oysters

Bon appetit!