US Road Trip: Connecticut

With the sun blazing as we flew along the deserted US Route 1 hugging the coastline all felt well with the world. Quaint little fishing towns dotted with seasonal scarecrows and halloween decorations.

How can you not like this place? See, here's a picture of a scarecrow with his pumpkin butt cheeks a-pokin' right out:

Why it was all so puuuurrrddy it could have come straight out of a film. Oh but hang on, what's this town I see on the road ahead of me? Mystic. Don't I know that from somewhere? Yep cheesy as hell (in more ways than one) but one of those things that almost has to be done however much you hide your grimace through a smile; a visit to Mystic Pizza.

Upon walking in to the restaurant, if I hadn't known about the film I would have done immediately due, perhaps, to the fact that it is being played on a loop on a giant plasma screen tv in the lobby. The walls of the restaurant are plastered with screenshots of a toothy grinned, bouffy haired Julia Roberts staring out at diners as well as the obligatory Americana found in diners and pizza joints. 

On a week day lunchtime it was busy but still no hassle to get a table. Forgetting for a brief moment that everything is bigger in America, we ordered one small and one large pizza and regretted it pretty much instantaneously when the order arrived. Huge. Enormous. Vast. But good. The dough is not deep, deep pan but is on the doughier side of things than a thin crust. Hand tossed in house before toppings are added we went for two options. Texas chicken barbecue was nothing novel or innovative but a tasty classic. The house special consists of pepperoni, meatball, sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms and we added some gorgonzola to sate my blue cheese craving. That combined with a ton of mozzarella gave stretchy, stretchy cheeeeeeeese.......

I never fail to be impressed by the refilled-before-you-get-to-your-last-slurp bottomless sodas that you get in the States. It shouldn't be that impressive but I don't think I've ever been anywhere in the UK that offers them which is unfortunate considering a pint of Coke costs about 6p from a pump. It is inevitably about 3 quid a pint these days. H went for a Mystic Bridge IPA from the Cottrell Brewing Company, a micro brewery founded in 1996. They offer three permanent beers as well as a couple of seasonal specials.  The IPA was pretty light with a lemony fruit hint to it and a decent accompaniment to a sunny pizza lunch. You know you're on holiday, thats for sure. You can take a detour to the brewery in nearby Pawcatuck on Friday and Saturday afternoons for a free tour and tasting or to "fill your growler" (apparently a growler is a large drinks container in the US, for any Americans reading; this is another term that doesn't mean the same in the UK; get googling.....)

Its not all about pizzas though. They also offer salads, soups and grinders (some kind of sub baguette thing apparently, to me it brings to mind Grindr and sounds totally different to a UK girl). I'm not sure I would use the film's "Slice of Heaven" slogan to describe my lunch but it was jolly tasty all the same and a reasonable price.

Mystic itself is also a really pretty town for a wander and a great stop off point as you drive along the coast between more major towns. But the road is calling us if we're to make it to our overnight stop of New Haven. Home to Yale University, its about as close as the US gets to the dreaming spires of Oxbridge. Well, that was the picture that I had in my head but it seems as though New Haven pretty much IS Yale. Its not even big enough to have a branch of Gap for goodness sake. 

We arrived in New Haven late afternoon with slightly more grand ambitions of a wander round Yale, couple of cocktails then dinner at Box 63   . The online menu had me salivating and I'd fully planned out ordering truffle parmesan fries with a pulled pork sandwich and lobster mac and cheese but not everything goes to plan, even for a control freak like me. Sorry Box 63, you look fabulous but you got usurped.  A couple of minutes from our hotel (The New Haven Hotel - well located, perfectly comfortable and free cheese and wine in the early evening) we came across Owl Shop on College Street. From outside it initially looked like a cafe and then like a shop. It was only when we were on the threshold that the aroma of cigars wafted gently across the sunny evening breeze. Owl Shop transpired to be one of the oldest cigar stores in America. Opened in 1934 by Greek immigrant Joseph St John, it expanded quickly to five outlets.   By 1951 they had merged all the stores into the present day College Street store and even after the death of St John one of the original employees is still with the store now (Joe Lentine) albeit under the management of the store's second owner Glen Greenberg. The current staff are all lovely and very patient with cigar novices. 

Dark inside with wood panelling and acclimatised humidor cabinets containing over 400 varieties of cigar, it is a welcoming location.  A decent cocktail list invites you to stay a while and the heady scent of cigars tempts you to try the wares. As strange as it seems after years of the smoking ban in the UK, smoking cigars is quite acceptable inside in this bar.

I'm no cigar expert but I'd always worked on the basis that Cuban cigars were the best and other countries' offerings paled into insignificance. How wrong was I ?! Most of the main cigar manufacturers like Davidoff, Partagas and Cohiba all have Venezuelan or Nicaraguan outposts and they are a lot cheaper than the Cuban equivalents. I'm not enough of an afficionado to tell if the price differential is worth it for Cubans but for my level of knowledge a Venezuelan one was good for me. Coupled with an Old Fashioned and it would take a small natural disaster to move my butt.  

We did still keep meaning to go for dinner honestly but the evening started taking a wiggly winding course through the cocktail menu and before we knew it it was 9.30pm. Owl Shop offers a limited menu of paninis and charcuterie that is more prevalent during the day and sparse at best at night. No problem though, Owl Shop suddenly became the best venue in the world when the waitress actually suggested we go out and get takeaway from Shake Shack and bring it back to eat. As H returned from Shake Shack laden with burgers and wiggly fries, a Blues group with an excellent singer struck up and I don't think the evening could have been much more perfect.

Breakfast the following day before crossing the state border back up into western Massachusetts? Why cold pizza of course!

Plymouth, Massachusetts

A New England autumn road trip has been a long time in the planning. Combining the majority of my favourite things from great food and cool wildlife to beautiful landscapes (oh and tax free shopping), New England holds everything except top notch wine. You can kind of see where those pilgrims were coming from. The dark satanic mills of England versus a brave new world of whales, moose and cranberries. Or something like that. 

So where better to start than following in the pilgrim footsteps by starting the road trip in Plymouth. Although from the driving rain and stiff wind on our first day I wouldn't have blamed them if they had said "sod this we're better off in Burnley" and turned on their heel or perhaps the cold, damp breeze felt familiar, who knows.  We dutifully visited the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock whilst getting soaked to the skin and building up an appetite (the rock is pretty small but the Mayflower is interesting and the town is really lovely - I just wished I'd seen it in the sun).

Its practically against the law to come to Plymouth and not sample some clam chowder. Can't for the life of me remember its name rather unhelpfully but there is a rather downmarket looking equivalent of a fish and chip shop on the main road near the Mayflower. Don't be put off by their exterior and the offerings of fried dough, their chowder rocks. Creamy and rich, with just a hint of seafood, at around $3 a cup its a bargain. Despite the many subsequent varieties of chowder we sampled over the next fortnight this one remained in my top three. 

The rest of the morning was spent driving to a cranberry festival in Edaville, a rather disappointing event with a painfully twee train ride and a handful of fading fairground rides. You barely even saw a single cranberry. Singularly the best thing about it was a venue called Porky's barbecue which ironically, considering the name, only sold chicken. But it was excellent  moist, smoky chicken with a fantastic honeyed spicy crust served from a hut right alongside the outdoor 'cue. Served alongside it was a hulk of sweet, grainy cornbread and a buttered corn. Part of me can't believe that I'm about to publicly admit this but I had never eaten corn on the cob before. Yup, its true, I broke my corn cherry in Massachusetts. A bad experience with some tinned sweetcorn a few years back had seemingly put me off corn for life but when in Rome and all that. Well it was a taste revelation! Before you could say "corn y'all" I had butter dripping off my chin and was sucking the sweet juice from the husk of the cob. It was divine. 

On the way back into town we did finally manage to find one of the fabled cranberry bogs mid harvest having just been flooded. Look how pretty it is!

After an afternoon of listening to role playing 'pilgrims' with dubious English accents I had built up an appetite that only a gluttonous quantity of lobster could fix. 

Woods Seafood is located on the seafront where lots of the boat cruises depart from. Unsurprisingly there are multiple seafood options but this one is 100% locally owned and also has a fresh fish counter for cooking at home. Its pretty rough and ready, pine panelled walls and vinyl table tops but super cheap. Once you've found yourself a table you queue up at the hatch and order your food. A $1 dollar deposit gets you a lobster cracker to get the most out of those bony suckers. 

After a few minutes wait our number came up and it felt like winning the village fete raffle only with better prizes. In the UK crab cakes are usually at different stages along the spice scale from making your tongue tingle to blowing your taste buds away. It was pretty surprising therefore that these have no spice at all. That doesn't mean they are lacking in the flavour department, in fact they were perfect; rich flakes of seasoned crab meat encased in a delicate golden crumb completely devoid of grease. 

The lobsters were a good 1.5lb each and super juicy. So juicy in fact that they were still full of their poaching liquor. It made the dissection and eating a bit on the messy side but totally worth it. I understand that the New England tradition is to slurp that liquid right out of the carapace but I couldn't do it. Maybe next time. Oh and whilst I'm raving about lobster the lobster roll was pretty good too....

My only real regret was that at $3.75 each we didn't order a portion each of the clam chowder and the lobster bisque to keep us going whilst the lobsters cooked. Still you can't have it all. 

For a total of less than $50 we got through two lobsters, 2 crab cakes, a lobster roll, various side orders and 2 soft drinks. That can't be bad value by anyone's standards. 

There is absolutely nothing elegant or sophisticated about Woods but it hits the spot if you're looking for the freshest seafood straight off the boat at the best prices. 

Despite the crustacean overdose the notion of some award winning cupcakes couldn't be passed up. We stopped by Cupcake Charlies having heard lots of good things about it. We tried a few including a red velvet, a Twix caramel, and an M&M chocolate swirl. They weren't bad but the cake itself was not very flavoursome it was all about the topping which was just too sweet for me. This was disappointing considering the build up as was the fact that the small town little bakery image that they portray was blown out of the water by lists of their other branches and the fact they are looking for new franchisees. 

 

In summary Woods rocks and you should definitely hot foot it there pronto should you ever find yourself near Plymouth. Hell its so cheap you should drive 50 miles to get there. Cupcake Charlies? Give it a miss. Still, roll on the rest of New England, five more states to go.....

Woods Seafood            
15 Town Pier, Plymouth, MA 02360
800-626-1011 

Cupcake Charlies

6 Town Wharf  Plymouth, MA 02360 (508) 747-9225

The Hind's Head, Bray

When you mention the name Heston Blumenthal to most people they tend to think of crazy scientific gastronomic experimentation. Neither the Fat Duck nor Dinner are exactly 'normal' restaurants are they? 

So what have we here? Heston doing posh pub grub? And being awarded a Michelin star for it....

After finding out earlier this year   when we visited Waterside Inn how comparatively simple it is to get to Bray and still have a drink, we got on the Windsor train from Clapham Junction and set off. Three quarters of an hour later you arrive splat in the centre of Windsor (worth a wander in itself) and then a 10 minute cab journey out to Bray). If you're more team North London then get a train from Paddington to Maidenhead - its quicker still in terms of both train and cab. 

Grapefruit tea

Despite the enduring Roux family presence in the small village of Bray, its fair to say that Heston is doing something of a "Stein" and building up a mini empire in a very small area. The stable that started with the Fat Duck now includes not only the Hind's Head just down the road but also The Crown which was purchased in 2010 serving more down to earth pub food.  There are parallels between Dinner and The Hinds's Head in that both play greatly on the use of little known old recipes and the history of food - if anything it feels more authentic in the tudor style surroundings of the Hind's Head than the more opulent London Mandarin Oriental.



After a hair raising cab journey (crawling at 20 miles/hr in a 60 mile area than 40-50 in a 30 zone causing a snake of angry traffic behind us) we needed a drink. The cocktail list at HH is small but perfectly formed. 

Strawberry concoction

Grapefruit tea was beyond beautiful. A delicate earl grey flavour was infused throughout by virtue of both earl grey syrup and gin.  My starter for ten was a strawberry confection which was nice but not mindblowing. Rhubarb fizz was a delicate aperitif with beautiful candied rhubarb soaked in the bottom of a glass of champagne.

It must be virtually obligatory to begin any meal at HH with a scotch egg (or three). A perfectly soft boiled quail's egg is encased in slightly peppery, soft pork sausage and a dark orange salty crumb crust. Heston very publicly spent a lot of time perfecting the scotch egg which has been copied from here to eternity since but this one rocks. 

Having already eaten a scotch egg I decided to stay away from meat for the starter and fixed on the jasmine smoked salmon with dill cream and pickled beets. The jasmine flavour was subtle but undoubtedly present and the beets gently pickled and soft. The salmon wasn't particularly smoky (and I do love a good dose of smoke) but had it been then the jasmine would have been overpowered I fear. 

It was good smoked salmon without any doubt but it was no competition for the chicken liver brûlée which was out of this world. I rarely suffer from dish envy but today was unfortunately to be one of those days. I become an irritant to all around me when this happens as I will just end up inadvertently mooning with puppy dog eyes at the better looking plate until a dollop of whatever has attracted me is handed over. Thank goodness then for the decent sized portions at HH. The lightest fluffiest liver parfait was concealed under the caramel crack of a sugar topping.  My only complaint would be that the sourdough bread was a little overcharred and the burnt flavour did permeate through the dish. A was also clearly taken with this dish as the following day a link to the recipe landed in my inbox and will be made very soon. You can find it on Red Magazine's website here. 

A opted for the Ham hock and foie gras terrine which was very prettily presented and tasted good but wasn't exceptional. The piccalilli was very zingy and rather too overpowering if you had it with the terrine (as is clearly intended). Nice but no rosette.

On the wine front, the list is reasonably extensive and varied if slightly on the high side (its definitely London prices). At £71 a bottle a Frank Phelan second wine from Saint Estephe estate Phelan Segur was a good claret, still young and purple on the eye but reasonably balanced in acidity and tannin for a non-optimal vintage. That said, it was far from cheap and I  found out later that it retails at around £20 making it well over a 200% increase. El Pajaro Rojo at £34 for a £10- £12 retail wine is slightly better value (and not vastly different to the £32 it is sold for at Tom's Kitchen) and a Chateauneuf du Pape, Domaine de Beaurenard, Rhone Valley 2007 is £37 at Sipp but £82 on the wine list (121% increase) so maybe I just got unlucky on the mark up. 

With bellies already rotund from scotch eggs and starters we moved towards main courses. I plumped for the veal sirloin on the bone with sauce 'reform' and soused cabbage and onion. I confess to not having been entirely sure that "Reform" sauce was but it had a quite sweet but piquant taste and viscous texture with a citrus lilt. Subsequent Googling confirmed that the recipe takes its name from the Reform Club in London where Victorian celebrity chef of the day, Alexis Soyer, created the recipe to accompany lamb cutlets as one of the club's signature dishes.  We all agreed that were we in a Masterchef-style palate test there was a significant chance that we would have mistaken the veal chop for gammon. It had the same sinuous texture and was smoky from its chargrill but still utterly delicious. Topped with strips of boiled egg white and sausage as well as a salty crumb it provided interesting textures to an otherwise standard chop. It was beautifully cooked and I came within a hair's breadth of picking up the bone and chewing but the surroundings ensured that I had some sense of decorum left (had I been in Soho I would doubtless have been a chewin').  

A ordered the Hereford rib eye with bone marrow sauce, cooked medium rare so the fat had melted beautifully into the pink flesh. The sauce was as rich as rich can be with blobs of bone marrow adding an extra gloss. Really good.

The french fries served as a side order were just that; fries. I had been looking forward to a portion of triple cooked chips a la Heston but was reliably informed by the waitress that they can't be served at the height of summer because the potatoes are too sweet for it to work (its a chemical thing apparently. Heston is good at the molecular stuff so we will just have to trust him on that one). Nonetheless I did feel a bit cheated out of my big fat chips despite the scientific reasoning. Annoyingly however, in referring back to their website to write this up I see they are back on the menu only a few days later. Hey ho, just means I have to go back I s'pose.

The oxtail and kidney pudding did look fabulous with the filling all glossy and soft encased in a lardy rich pastry. H adored it. I temporarily forgot that I really hate kidney which unfortunately I still do even after tasting it. If offal is your kind of thing though then the pudding comes highly recommended. 

Sides of green beans with shallot and coriander carrots were both tasty and naughtily buttery but you don't exactly come here expecting a waistline friendly meal.

Sitting in the Tudor surroundings and shovelling down the meaty dishes gives you a little bit of a feeling of what it must have been like to be Henry the VIIIth (less the murdered wives of course).

Cherry bakewell with yoghurt ice cream was light and crumbly with a lovely frangipane filling (the cherries were a particular triumph and not a million miles away from the gorgeous Luxardo Italian maraschinos) 

Chocolate wine slush with millionaire's shortbread was perhaps the most atypical dessert on the list. Two waitresses made clear that the two are best eaten together which proved to be true; the slush was not particularly inspiring or remarkable 

Lemon scented quaking pudding was not what I was expecting at all. The general consensus of people that I asked seemed to think it was a lemony flavoured pannacotta style dish which was accurate except for the fairly significant fact that its a hot dessert. Very hot. I liked it (especially playing with it making it wobble) but A & H were not sold at all. The sorbet was quite clearly frozen (a prerequisite for sorbet one would imagine) and had a very very tart flavour. I held my tongue until H had tried it but we both agreed the pervading flavour was one of cleaning product such as Vim or Flash. That makes it sound horrid which isn't my intention but it probably wasn't the best lemon sorbet I have ever tasted. There is an argument with various of these "forgotten recipes" that they may have died out for a reason. I'm sure noone in Tudor times turned round and announced a fatwa on warm blancmanges (if fatwas indeed existed) so perhaps, just maybe, people realised it wasn't so great and chose not to make it any more. 

Triple Rum Old Fashioned

We retired to the bar for a small post prandial, in my case making a bee line for the Triple Rum Old Fashioned. Consisting of three rums (spiced, white and Skipper demerera rums) it also promised theatrics in the form of "raisin scented rum smoke". Theatrical it was indeed served in a brandy glass with the raisin syrup dry ice smoke being poured at the table and inhaled (small tip, don't inhale too quickly it makes you look like a reverse dragon).  Much sweeter than a standard Old Fashioned, it was nonetheless very smooth indeed. At this point, however, the 'small post prandial' plan fell into disarray. 

Rum Punch

We had keen plans to return to London and find a good cocktail bar in which to languish until the early hours but at the risk of sounding lazy (ok, so we were lazy) we knew that once we had sat through the 45 minute train back we would have lost the edge and would probably slope home to the first episode of X Factor and a snooze. A decision was therefore taken to stay in the bar area and gradually work our way through the cocktail menu. 

The stand outs from the list were the Rum Punch which had a beautiful caramel buttery flavour to it and the grapefruit tea.

Chocolate Espresso Martini

The Chocolate Espresso Martini was good but perhaps little different from those served elsewhere. Combining sweet with the bitter edge of the freshly brewed coffee it fulfilled its purpose of giving me a second wind to carry on with the cocktail quest.

Nearing the end of the cocktail list (but in that obstinate slightly irrational mindset that it makes no sense to quit now when we are so close) we ordered the final four on the list; a Viola, a Manhattan, a Martini and a Pineapple champagne thing. 

The Martini (named '1891' after the year that the recipe was apparently written down) was a stonker. Made with crazily potent Plymouth Navy Gin - at 53% proof- it was enough to blow your socks off. The Grand Marnier and orange bitters flavour was so subtle as to be absent but that may well be because my taste buds had, by this point, been burnt away. 

1891 Dry Martini

The Viola was the one that noone had felt very inspired by but it turned out to be one the triumphs. A blend of cachaca, grenadine, lemon, egg yolk, lime, orange juice, and mint; it doesn't sound like a match made in heaven but it fell the perfect side of too sweet or too sour with a silky texture.

Viola

At this point the kitchen had reopened so it seemed churlish not to order a couple more scotch eggs and some devils on horseback for the road. 

Somewhere half way through the cocktail marathon Anna Friel and Rhys Ifans turned up providing Bray's celebrity spot of the day. Even the staff seemed quite excited at that one. 

At 7pm we finally threw the towel in and got a cab back to Windsor station. Boring but practical tip -  if you are coming from Windsor get the restaurant to book a cab to pick you up in advance, Surprisingly its cheaper than the rank outside the station and much better cars and drivers. One boozy train back to London, an accidental cheese purchase on the way home then snoring in front of Xfactor by 9pm. Excellent. 

Let's end on a gratuitous oozing yolk scotch egg photo shall we? Tummy rumbling?

Will I go back? I very much hope so.
8/10

The Hind's Head
High St, Bray, West Berkshire SL6 2AB
01628 626151

Nancy Lam's Enak Enak, Battersea

Back in the mists of the 1990s, in the days when TV cookery shows were not as prolific in their abundance as they are now, when Ready, Steady, Cook was new and Loyd Grossman confused us all with his Masterchef transatlantic drawl, Nancy Lam exploded onto our screens as the larger than life and eccentric Indonesian chef. 

Her restaurant 'Enak Enak' (or "Yum Yum")  actually came before Nancy's tv career rather than being a spin off from it and underlines the reasons that she was plucked from obscurity to become a tv chef to begin with; it is all founded on excellent cooking skills and genuine passion for food. In its current location since 1988 it is at the slightier less gentrified end of Lavender Hill, it involves a bus or a 10 minute walk from Clapham Junction or from Battersea Park/ Queenstown Road but its worth a trip I promise....

Entering at 7.30 on a Tuesday night, the restaurant was eerily empty as in completely empty. Settling in with a beer and some prawn crackers with a home made dip I was treated to a soundtrack of unmistakeably nineties tunes with a smattering of eighties for good measure but nothing that has seen the charts this side of the millennium. The decor is similarly stuck in time with wicker chairs and vases of dried things. That said I see from her Twitter account that the restaurant is being decorated this week. There is a massive portrait of Nancy brightening up the walls and on the opposite side a plethora of photos of the various guests on her tv show and celebrities who have visited over the years, some yellowing a little but nonetheless quite endearing. I know that makes me a complete hypocrite since I criticised it only a few weeks ago about Mango Tree but here it just added to the family feel of the restaurant. The other thing that added to this sentiment was the number of regulars who appeared over the course of the evening who were all greeted warmly and who made a point of talking to us and telling us which dishes they love and how long they have been coming. Nancy's family must be doing something right to engender this level of enthusiasm. I hear that the photos also aren't just from one off visits. Apparently a trip to Nancy's is a must for the England cricket team when they are down the road at the Oval. 

The menu is a blend of various Asian specialities, something I'm usually quite hesitant of (after all if a restaurant claimed to specialise in "French, Spanish and Italian" cuisine this would seem very odd so why any different for Thai/Chinese/Indonesian etc?) As Nancy is known for Indonesian food I tried to steer more in that direction.

P found the menu a little limiting for a vegetarian so I think its fair to say that meat is what Nancy does best. I wanted to get a decent overview of the starters so went for the mixed satay. Consisting of chicken satay, spare ribs, barbecue prawns and achar-achar (indonesian pickles), I can honestly say that every element was utterly delicious. Described as "marinated pork ribs cooked over charcoal with sweet and spicy chilli sauce", I had been worried whether the sweet chilli sauce would be that of the ubqiuitous orange bottled variety and in many other locations that would have been a valid concern but not here. Slipping off the bone, they were tender but moist and the tangy sauce complemented the rich smoky meat rather than smothering it. The chicken was vying with the pork in the tenderness stakes and the peanut sauce "from scratch" was rich and gloopy with a little Malaysian tang. The prawns had springy, sweet flesh without having gone tough on the charcoal which is a tricky business as those little suckers must take no time at all to cook. The pickles were a great contrast to the meat and rich sauces.

The best bit of all though was the beef rendang. I always forget that a proper rendang should not have a great deal of sauce having cooked down over hours. Aromatic cinnamon and cardamom push through whilst competing with all the other Asian spices and the beef is just fall-aparty on your fork (yes 'full-aparty' is a word...) Spicy without sending me over my chilli limit is was beyond delicious. I think it is worth sticking to Nancy's specialities since whilst the vegetableThai green curry was nice, it wasn't blow me away nice and probably needed a little more spice.

Upon first sight the portions can seem rather small, that said I did leave very full  and couldn't manage dessert which was a shame as there were things that looked nice.

Nancy's seemingly long suffering but genial Ghanaian husband Ben was running the kitchen on the night that we visited. I say long suffering because he was roundly berated for coming to talk to one of the regulars and duly sent back down to the kitchen. Nancy's daughter works as a waitress and behind the bar so it is a truly family business. I can't write up my meal without a paragraph devoted to Nancy herself. There all sorts of cliches littering the internet; "force of nature" seems to be a consensus and she is very in your face. I can imagine if tourists wandered by they may get a bit of a surprise (unlikely given the location) but if her reputation precedes her then the very loud, chirpy borderline abrupt service is endearing. That said I can't imagine what would happen if anyone complained about a dish!

The wine list is quite limited and not the most exciting (but as a rule I tend to find this to be the case in many Asian restaurants. I stuck to Singha beer but P ordered the house sauvignon blanc which turned out to be a really pleasant surprise. Not too dry, it was fruity and complemented the dishes better than I would have thought possible. The cocktail list is worth a mention. We reeeally are going back in time here and I was tempted to order just to see if it came with a sparkler and an umbrella. With names like "Luscious Luke" and "Gorgeous Gregory", they are tropical in content and quite sweet sounding. For example the "Passionate Paulo" consists of "a seductively sweet tart fragrance that oozes passion fruit".

Although there is a certain air of wistful nostalgia around the restaurant and the tv cameras may have gone away, what is left is a lovely family run, neighbourhood restaurant with a warm welcome and some excellent food with some clearly very dedicated and effusive regulars. Oh and just to top off the 80's/90's theme the bill came with After Eights, excellent stuff!

6.5/10

Nancy Lam's Enak Enak
56 Lavender Hill, Battersea, London. SW11 5RQ
0207 9243148

Can you Trade Mark a Dish? Or When Can You Not Call a Pho a Pho or a Dirty Burger a Dirty Burger?

The two major elements of my life seem to be fusing rather publicly on Twitter at the moment. When I’m not wittering on about food and drink here on my blog I spend my days earning a crust as a trade mark lawyer*. There have been a few instances over the last few months of companies applying to register trade marks for things that a lot of us would assume are rather descriptive so I thought it might be an idea to clear up some of the misconceptions about what you can and can’t do in relation to IP and food.

The most recent incident involves Pho Holdings Limited who started their restaurant branded as “Pho” in Clerkenwell in 2005. They appear to have contacted “Mo Pho” who are based in South East London with a legal threat based on trade mark infringement and passing off. Apparently they are demanding that Mo Pho change their name which I think is a big old shame as a) Mo Pho’s name is a really cool play on words and b) I think that Pho’s name is rather boring; its like calling a Dim Sum restaurant “Dumpling” or “Har Gau”. On the face of it “pho” is a dish that all us foodies (and any Vietnamese) know and love as a classic, iconic dish of Vietnam so why or how could someone acquire a monopoly right to prevent others from using the name?  In fact there are essentially two questions to be answered here 1) Are Mo Pho infringing Pho’s trade mark? and 2) Should Pho’s trade mark even be registered at all?

At its most basic you can’t register a trade mark which is either a) descriptive or b) non distinctive.  This is what has got people hopping up and down about the Pho case. “Pho” feels descriptive. Also where would this end? Will Pho be chasing down every London restaurant that dares to have "pho" on its menu? The system is designed to prevent this. 

Pho Holdings Limited appear to be claiming on Twitter that they aren’t actually claiming a monopoly over the dish name but to the right to use the name for restaurant services. When you file a trade mark application you have to choose from a list of goods and services to which your trade mark will apply. For example class 29 is meat and processed foods, class 33 wines and spirits whereas class 43 is for restaurant services.  From a quick check of the trade mark register, Pho Holdings Ltd have registrations in the UK and EU for a whole host of classes some of which actually include food (thereby arguably covering the dish itself) They even have a registration for "Phocafe" which covers "noodle dishes".  Naughty, naughty!

Is this similar to Mo Pho?

One way of getting a difficult trade mark registered is to include a logo (making it more distinctive) and this is what Pho seem to have done. They  have a variety of registrations for the logo mark (see above). They only have one word mark for "Pho" but its arguable you could challenge this as a) not having been used in a trade mark sense (a cursory glance indicates they only seem to use the logo mark on their website and use "pho" generically on the menu) and b) descriptive (see below re cancellation). This means the legal comparison could potentially be between the entirety of each mark i.e. “MO PHO” versus the "logo+Pho".   Even more different now eh?!

To decide whether something is an infringement you need to compare the marks and if it can be shown that either a similar or identical mark is being used for similar or identical goods then, in essence this could be the grounds for an infringement claim. One defence to infringement is to show that the claiming mark should never have been registered at all and if not then to file a cancellation action. If I was Mo Pho this is the route that I would be exploring with some specialist lawyers right about now. The challenge will be to show that “pho” was recognisable to consumers at the time of filing (2005) in a wide area (i.e. not just London or even a Vietnamese populated part of London).

Mo Pho have also apparently been accused of “passing off”. Passing off occurs when someone (in this case Pho Holdings) have good will and reputation in a brand which they can show has been misrepresented by a third party (in this case Mo Pho) and is in danger of leading to damage to their brand. Or in essence, would consumers be likely to be confused into thinking that Mo Pho is in some way linked to Pho and as such, money is spent at Mo Pho which would have been spent at Pho?  It is very hard to prove in the UK (and expensive) so let’s hope Pho have got their cheque books ready and that Mo Pho get the support they deserve to fight this.

On this I wish Mo Pho all the luck in the world as I would like to see them able to continue trading under their current fab and imaginative name. That said, let the Twitter storm and the PR continue – the case deserves it!

Other Examples

Soho House Group have applied for a whole host of trade marks in the past year including “Duck Shop”, “Meat Shop”, “Fish Shop” and “Steak Shop” covering (amongst other related services) “Services for providing food and drink” all of which have successfully reached registration.

They have also registered “Dirty Burger”, which I’ve used for years to describe a multitude of burgers (especially ones outside football grounds), meaning that the next time you’ve had a skin full and say to a mate “I could murder a dirty burger” you should in theory say “I could murder a Soho House Dirty Burger™”

I’d be interested to hear if there are any other examples out there. Okay so taking the work hat off now, boring law lecture over and back to the usual antics of eating and drinking. Cheers!

UPDATE: After an afternoon of Twitter doing what it does best at a frenetic pace, Pho Holdings posted the following tweets this evening:

I'm glad that what could have been a nasty protracted legal battle for all parties has been resolved without the need for litigation. Hard as it is to believe, lots of lawyers don't like litigation and do what we do to try and avoid it!

*Important disclaimer: none of this is legal advice, its my own personal thoughts from a decade of experience. If you’re in any doubt or have got yourself in a pickle then consult a paid lawyer.  You can also find lots of useful IP advice at the UK government Intellectual Property Office website www.ipo.gov.uk  They also have a helpline which, although they can’t give legal advice is nonetheless very helpful!