Modest Mango

Location: Trinity Square, Axminster, Devon

Food: I don’t know why the River Cottage Canteen in Axminster is called a ‘canteen’. Maybe because canteen evokes some kind of sentimental feeling in people. Whether genuine or sleight-of-hand it does seem to imply a rustic feel, with real food, and real people, eating together; a bit gritty perhaps; sitting at long tables elbows touching, plates scraping, like Hogwarts or some shit. I think that ‘foodies’ and middle-class people who are interested in food have become really obsessed with this idea of authenticity, whatever that word means. And canteen seems to insinuate something ‘real’, no frills etc. Then again maybe it’s just a name and is as random as calling an abhorrent nightclub in Belfast ‘Milk’.

Whatever depiction was intended with the name, the River Cottage Canteen is a pretty damn good restaurant serving pretty damn good lunchtime scran. Freshly made chorizo sausages and roasted half rabbit on a bed of kale and gooey carrots: LIKE. One of only five choices on the menu; a menu that changes daily depending on what fresh produce is available: LIKE. The Devon ginger beer I ordered: LIKE. The fact that Hugh was actually wandering around in the restaurant, sitting down to have cups of tea and generally shooting the shit: LIKE.

So, if you find yourself down in the southwest of England I definitely recommend popping into the River Cottage for lunch, having some cid’r and maybe grabbing a bit of Yarg from their deli counter.

Price: Starters around £6; Mains around £11; Desserts £6

Website: http://www.rivercottage.net/canteens/axminster/

Burr: 4

Location: 133 Lisburn Road, Belfast

Food: ‘Long shadows on county cricket grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers, and old maids bicycling through the morning mist.’ – John Major’s England.

More like wet pavements, spilt lager, Rusholme ruffians, and leggy tarts stumbling home from Tiger Tiger. That is my England. The reason people still live here? Well, I can only assume it is the same as that sole reason more than a million people still reside in the Birmingham or Wolverhampton areas – the great English curry house.

Whether it is Bangladeshi, Indian or cheeky spicy Nepalese, the English curry house is champion. The musty carpets, the stained, faded curtains, the dicky-bowed waiters, the battered crockery, they’re all part of the charm.  So why is it that this doesn’t exist in Northern Ireland? Why do people in Northern Ireland go to Indian ‘restaurants’, not ‘curry houses’? Maybe they don’t exist. I’ll probably never know. But until I do, I’ll keep going back to The Jharna on the Lisburn Road. After all, what honorary Englishman is going to say no to a bit of fizzy lager, tender tandoori and gooey moreish sag aloo all at a decent price and excellent standard? Not to mention the complementary free shot of Sambuka. (And Burr is never going to decline a free Sambuka!)

Price: Starters around £7; Lamb karahi £12 / Jharna mixed tandoori platter £15

Website: http://www.thejharna.com/

Burr: 2

V.

There are so many reasons why this series is awful but most of it can be summed up by one screen capture. Here is some context. In this episode the alien commander ordered the mothership floating above Shanghai to take off and so what would any self respecting TV show do? Obviously, cut to a ten second scene of "Shanghai", i.e. this:

Yes. It’s a small Chinese boy in a school uniform, sitting in an imperial-era Chinese building, eating plain rice with chopsticks and a bowl, with his schoolbag and homework open beside him.

The only reason I’m pissed off, of course, is at the inauthenticity of the scenario. Where is the violin? Why is he not practising kung-fu? Let’s not even get to how he’s not wearing glasses.

Disgraceful.