NEWS FROM SMITHS
SMITHS RESTAURANT
1-3 Church Road Eccles Manchester M30 0DL
Tel: 0161 788 7343
FOR SOME REASON, I'M HAVING TROUBLE FORMATTING THIS PAGE SO, EVEN IF YOU FIND A LARGE SPACE AFTER THE JAZZ LISTINGS, PLEASE KEEP ON SCROLLING - THERE'S MORE TO COME !
DINNER THEATRE AT SMITHS
Thursday June 19th
' Margaret Rutherford Recalled'
Written and Performed by
Jacqueline Pilton
Dinner Bookings between 6pm and 6.30pm
Performances at 8.30pm
Early Evening Menu plus performance - £20
( or choose dishes from the Specials Board and we'll add the £8.50 ticket price to your food and drink bill )
LIMITED PLACES !!!
Ring now to book your table - 0161 788 7343
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(
picture of Smiths' Jazz Musicians by one of our younger customers
! )
This month we've two brothers - and a brother and sister duo .......... and that's after last month's father and son duo ! Keep it in the family - that's Smiths' motto !
Jeremy Sassoon( keys ), Steve Williams (bass), Eryl Roberts (drums)
DINNER THEATRE AT SMITHS
We've now run three theatre events - all of them very popular and hugely enjoyable.
'FULLY COMMITTED' by Becky Mode
Performed by Caroline Hickey.... directed by John Cunningham
One reservation clerk, one telephone and 40 VIPs anxious for a table ..........Manhattan's hottest restaurant is 'fully committed'
" A MOUTHFUL OF SNOW " written and performed by Julie Calvert
a moving, sometimes dark - but often very funny - one woman show, telling the story of Kate, a retired actress, now terminally ill, looking back on her life and looking forward to getting back to 'Planet Normal'
For more information about Julie and her work ........ click here
AND........................
'WHAT THE DICKENS' by Dawn Buchanan
Performed by Tongue in Cheek Theatre Company
The two nights were a huge success - both sold out and with a waiting list of people we couldn't get in.
We're talking to more actors right now and planning more Dinner Theatre evenings this year. Tables will be limited so, if you'd like us to keep you up to date with details of these nights, email us via the clickable email link at the bottom of this page and we'll send you information about them as soon as we have it.
For more information about Tongue in Cheek ....... click here
TRAVELS WITH A TASTING MAT........Dave Hebden
As lots of you know, Dave went on a couple of wine tasting trips last year - the first to Chile in January and the next to Chablis. He was asked by our wine merchant ( Portland Wine, who had invited him on the trips ) to write reports on these trips for their newsletter and it occurred to us that you might be interested in hearing how he got on. WARNING.....those of a nervous disposition might want to 'scroll on by' when you come to the bit about his 'typical French meal' in Chablis !!
CHILE
When a busy restaurant owner is invited to Chile by Miguel Torres, there’s only one thing he can do........pack and go ! So, before I knew it, I was on a sleepless 18 hour flight with nothing but airline food. Luckily, things perked up in Santiago, but in Don Augusto restaurant in the vibrant Fish Market ( see picture ) we discovered a problem - none of us spoke Spanish and few Chileans spoke English. So we agreed to eat whatever the waiter suggested - vast mussels topped with parmesan, strange worm-like things ( tiny baby eels ? ) in hot garlicky oil and finally a vast spider crab skilfully taken to pieces in front of us by a bored waiter ( see picture ) and served with nutty brown butter sauce....spectacular ....and a Miguel Torres Sauvignon Blanc 2003, still drinking wonderfully well. In Pucon’s luxurious Hotel del Lago one lunchtime option modestly called itself “mixed grill”. Fine pinkly cooked steak, wonderful flavoursome sausage, pureed sweetcorn and some strange plaited intestinal thing – unidentifiable but delicious ! Later, sweetcorn appeared again, mixed into crème caramel . Sounds hideous but trust me, these Chileans know what they’re doing.
It wasn’t just a week of
eating. We visited three spectacular vineyards. The most impressive was
Miguel Torres’ latest venture, the Empedrado vineyard carved out of a
scarily steep hillside ( see picture ).
It’s a project for the future - the vines are still too young to produce grapes for wine. On the way back
our bus pulled up at a roadside restaurant. In England it would be a
Little Chef but here we were served the best steaks ever: huge
chunks of rump, fillet, sirloin and ribsteak; perfectly cooked;
perfectly tender and gloriously tasty. All this
and a tasting of Miguel Torres’ wines. Little
Chef indeed!
Our meal at the restaurant at
Miguel Torres’ Winery in Curico showed that the attention they paid to
cooking the food mirrored the total commitment Miguel Torres have to
winemaking. Hidden amongst the vines, the restaurant is super cool,
chefs producing fine, delicate food with a
suggested Miguel Torres wine for each dish.
So, if a wine producer invites you to Chile, take my advice…go!
The waiter and the Spider Crab Vineyard slopes Veg Market in Santiago
CHABLIS
Ominously the trip started with a white knuckle car ride through France involving speeding fines, angry French motorists, a “minor” accident and a burnt out clutch which left the residents of the quaint town of Chablis staring in disbelief and the car’s occupants in need of a drink. Luckily the next task was to taste twelve different Chablis wines all produced by William Fevre in 2005: starting with Petit Chablis; five different premier cru wines and then the Grand crus. Each wine was excellent but most memorable was the Chablis Les Preuses - full bodied and refined.
By the end of the tasting the stink of wrecked engines had given way to the wonderful scent of wisteria and it was time for our evening meal ! It was described by our host as a true Frenchman’s meal and consisted of pig’s trotter followed by Andouilletes, a local sausage made from stomach and anal canal!
The next day brought a new hire car and a trip to Beaune to sample the wines of Bouchard Pere & Fils, a long established Burgundy producer. Recent investment from the Henriot Champagne house has enabled Bouchard to produce wines of amazing quality. We had a tour of the expensive new wine making facility at Savigny Les Beaune, including a tasting of various cask samples from 2005, a very good vintage. Surprisingly, we tasted red wines before tasting white wines, the theory being that the acidity of the whites would prevent you properly tasting the reds.
Bouchard Pere et Fils own an area of 130 hectares of vineyard, the vast majority being Premier Cru or Grand Cru status making them one of the elite of Burgundy wine producers. They produce a wide array of wines ranging from Beaujolais to top notch Grand Cru wines and attention to detail was evident at every stage of the wine making process. We were given a tour of the cellars at the beautiful Chateau de Beaune housing a collection of over five million bottles of wine. Most of these bottles are being aged before sale - the rest are a private collection dating back to the middle of the 19th century.
All too soon it was time for us to return to the 21st century but we brought back with us a lasting memory of the wonderful scents and tastes of Burgundy.
Chateau de Beaune The vineyards at Chambertin
( very exclusive and expensive vines - but completely open to the road beyond ! )
ARTWORK ON DISPLAY AT SMITHS
( All artwork is for sale and all money taken go directly to the artists )
Batiques by Helen Keightley
Paintings by Colin Johnson
Embroidered paintings by Joan Cordwell
AND FINALLY - THE THINGS THEY SAY ABOUT
US........
Get
a
copy of every new menu by email PLUS details of special events
Email us at
smithsrestaurant@yahoo.com and ask to be added to
the list
( there's also a clickable e-mail link
on the home page )