The end of the journey

We had breakfast at the Premier Inn hotel as the holiday drew to an end as ever this was a lovely selection of food. So we tucked in well before I get back to my normal diet tomorrow. Drew even treated himself to a post-breakfast dessert with three flapjacks after his dried breakfast. 

On leaving the hotel it was an easy drive through Birmingham along the Harbourne Road to the M5, M50 then along the A449 back into Wales on to the M4 and back to home. Having had a lovely relaxing holiday.

Summary

So here we are at the end of the holiday. As ever it is time to look back and reflect before signing off from this blog for the last time.

During the last few weeks we have travelled 2,118 miles. This is quite a small amount compared to our US holidays which are normally 3,000 to 4,000 miles. Mind you driving around narrow Scottish and Yorkshire roads are quite a different experience from driving in the USA. This is reflected in the travel time: which was 61 hours and 26 minutes compared with 67 hours on our last US trip.

Of the distance I drove 1,055 of the miles and Drew did 1,063. In time terms Drew did 27 hours 31 minutes and I did 33 hours and 55 minutes. 

With the exception of the week on Lewis and Harris when we went back and fore along the same roads (because there aren't a lot of them on the island) we only crossed over our own tracks for 11 miles in Scotland and one junction in Yorkshire. It helps to plan the route in advance.

One of the distinctive feature of this holiday has been the impact of social media on us. We re-routed ourselves five times based on messages on Facebook, Twitter or the blog. Gwyn Smith, Elaine Huntley and Robin Croft recommended we visit Glenfinnan with its famous viaduct and we found the place really eerie and emotive. Robin also advised the visit to Culloden which had its own air of mystery and memory. Sue House prompted us to one of the best meals of the holiday at Scarista House. Den McIntyre led us to some great finds on the east coast of Lewis by prompting us to visit the site of the Oil Rig that had run into Dalmore Beach. Paula Keys led us to visit Queen's View, such an impressive set of views. It is great to have people react to our trip as we do it, and even more to benefit from their experience and expertise to improve the holiday.

We have eaten a lot of lovely food. Overall I think the Northcote remains my favorite. But Frances Atkins, Andrew Fairlie, Tom Kitchin, Aktar Islam and Richard Nair all impressed a great deal. If I was to think of my favorite single dish of the holiday it would be the lobster at Scarista House. 

We have taken 2,290 photos all of which are now on Flickr, this is the 31st blog post of the holiday. We have also sung many songs about the places we passed through, most of which are reported in the blog.

So overall, a wonderful trip to a lovely country with exceptional views and wonderful food.

Our trip next year will be back to the USA - I look forward to welcoming all of you to join us again then.

Coming close to the end of the holiday - An Indian, but not as you know it

Today was a travelling day. i.e. we weren't out to see much on the way, just to get from last night's dinner in Ramsgill to tonight's in Birmingham.

We left The Yorke Arms soon after breakfast and went to the nearby town of Pateley Bridge to fill the car with petrol. This is a picturesque town, but having pictures from our 2010 visit we didn't take many today.


Today's route looks like this:

We headed out of Pateley Bridge along the road for Glasshouses and Summerbridge this led to our second cross-over of the holiday route. This time it would only be a junction where just after RAF Menwith Hill we crossed the A59 that we had first travelled along two weeks ago today. We continued to follow this route through Pool in Wharfedale and from their to Leeds where we joined the M621 and on to the M1 for our journey south.

We stopped for a coffee at the Woodhall service station and carried on the M42 and M6 into Birmingham. Checking in to the Premier Inn for our last night away just after 2.00pm.

Dinner at Lasan

The final meal of the holiday is another influenced by watching Great British Menu. This time we had opted to eat at Aktar Islam's Lasan. Aktar competed three times in Great British Menu (GBM). In 2011 his fish dish - Sea Bass with Battered Soft Shell Crab went all the way to the Banquet. In 2014 his Lamb dish won the Central region heat.
 
The restaurant is in a lovely converted industrial space, very spacious and comfortable. 

We were presented with a pre-starter which was poppadoms with spicy lentil, sweet mango and yogurt dips. This was complemented by a Pani Puri, a delicious morsel, designed to be eaten in one mouthful, filled with a warm tamarind 'water' which added a wonderful sour taste to the vegetable filling of the Puri.

For starters we shared two dishes. The first, based on the winner of the 2011 GBM completion, was called Konkan Kekada. This entailed soft shelled crab, crispy ajwain and Kashmeri chilli butter served with a crab cake, tomato chutney and mango. This was amazing, the crispy crab along with the soft crab cake both declared the wonder of the creature while the sharp flavour of the ajwain made the mouth jiggle with pleasure as the crab melded with it. 

The second starter was called Achari Batair and was a lovely quail marinated in pickling spices and cooked in a tandoor with green herb sheek, dressed mooli and a cucumber and coriander chutney. The chutney, unlike those last night, was not sweet, but savory and full of the rich flavours of cucumber and coriander. The leg meat (we had one each) was crisp, and the breast meat was tender and juicy. 

For our mains we chose three dishes from the menu which was about the right amount, certainly we didn't leave any. The three we had were all delicious.

The first was Sikhandari Raan, which was a slow roast shank of Lamb with cumin tempered lentils and raitha. This is inspired by the 2014 dish Aktar cooked for the GBM. 

It was amazing. The lamb, the bone of which was at the edge of the dish for decoration melted as you eat it, the fresh herbs and vegetables around it meant that the soft lamb was tempered by the crisp veg. The lentils had a long warming flavour of cumin through them and offered another flavour which matched the lamb. I could have eaten two or three more of these, well perhaps I couldn't have, but I felt I could because it was so delicious.

Our curry dish was a Hydrabadi Biryani. My own visit to Hydrabad back in the 1990s prepared me for the goat which is at the heart of this dish. All I can say is that the goat Aktar has access to is very different from the goat that used to be a common dish in Hyderabad. That goat you could keep chewing for three or four days, I exaggerate a bit! This goat was soft and tasty. The goat was cooked in cubes in the richly flavour rice in a sealed clay pot. There were yet more lentils, but these with a different spice mix from the previous dish. We ate every morsel and enjoyed the wonderful flavours. 

The third dish was a vegetable one. It was simply titled Tandoori Gobi, I could work out from the title that it would be cauliflower cooked in a tandoor, but I had no idea how this would be cooked. The cauliflower was sliced along the line of the cauli-head, making it look like a slice of meat cut from the joint. Here it is a slice of cauliflower roasted with all the tandoori flavour and beautifully spiced. I like cauliflower as a vegetable, but I had never imagined it being able to taste as nicely, or more, as a steak. Amazing. 


The cauliflower was served with a quenelle of chuna curried lentils and a nilgiri tea flavoured korma sauce. I can't think when I was last so excited about a vegetarian dish. But this was really unusual and the flavour unexpectedly good.     

While the lamb was the richest of the dishes, and the cauliflower the most surprising it was the Biryani that I will remember most, and come back for the next time I can find an excuse to go back to Birmingham  

It was time for dessert and there was a nice selection. Drew, who often complains when I use Kaffir Lime Leaves in my cooking decided that perhaps Aktar could convert him to them. So opted for a Kaffir Posset. The posset was served with a raspberry shortbread with fresh raspberries and raspberry jelly and a raspberry sorbet. Drew felt that the posset was a great success, the lime flavour was not 'in your face' as it would be if the posset had been made of lime itself. By using the lime leaf the posset had a gentle citrus flavour which was not to much to overpower the freshness of the raspberry. 

Our coffee was served with two chocolate sweets. One was strawberry in flavour and the other was mint. Drew enjoyed them both.



Indian restaurants are so ubiquitous in the UK that it might be hard for any particular one to stand out. But it is possible because Lasan manages to provide a range of flavours like nothing I, a lover of Indian food, have tasted before.

We were pleased we'd made the effort to get here and enjoyed a pleasant walk back to the town centre and were in bed by 10 pm feeling very fulfilled.

The Yorke Arms

Tuesday night sees us staying in The Yorke Arms run by the Chef Patron Frances Atkins. 

Our journey had been lovely, but the welcome at The Yorke Arms was just amazing. The Yorke Arms is set in a tiny village in the heart of Nidderdale just 4.5 miles from the town of Pateley Bridge, an amazing setting.

We were taken to our room, no that is probably not the right word, perhaps I should say maisonette, in the original french sense of that word - a small house. One of a series of small houses in the courtyard just behind the main building.


The building had a downstairs sitting area with tea making facilities and fresh milk in the fridge, a lovely touch. 

Upstairs was a desk which led into the bedroom and bathroom which were light and airy. There was a huge wardrobe and the bathroom had a full size bath and a huge shower area, with the best water flow in a shower I've had all holiday. A lovely, lovely place to stay.

This beauty was also carried out into the garden. This was a mix of a large lawn, wild flowers and cultivated flowers, plus, most important of all, a large vegetable and herb garden. There are just two pictures of them here, there are another 30 which will go up on to Flickr later.

We were invited to sit in the shaded area outside our house while reading the menu and making our decisions. This wasn't a hard choice. We already knew we would be going for the 8 course tasting menu, to explore the wonders of Frances' food.

When we had moved into the dining room we were sat at a large table that could easily have seated four. This made for plenty of eating space and meant that we were not crammed close to other diners. There were only 20 people in the dining room including ourselves giving a very personalised feel. 

Our Amuse Boche had an amazing texture. It was a rhubarb jelly with a piece of mozzarella above it and a candied fruit and sorrel leaf. The idea was creative and the food was delicious. Who knew that the sharp, but sweetened, rhubarb would go so well with the salty firm mozzarella, the delightful perfume of the sorrel was clearly not just there for decoration but formed a key part of the flavour explosion that was this dish. A really good start. 

The more observant reader will also see the selection of breads in the photo above. This included an organic white loaf, wholemeal bread with pumpkin seeds, a treacle bread and a cheese bread. These were served with a selection of butter and olive oil. I loved the pumpkin bread, while Drew now thinks making bread with treacle is the only way things should be done. A real find for him.

One next dish was cured halibut, potted shrimp, and dill gazpacho. At least this is what we were told, but that is far too simple a description for what turned out to be a complex and tongue tingling dish. The green bean salad with a pickled flavour was underneath the fish. The shrimp had a crunchy crouton underneath giving it a lovely texture which offset the shrimp well. The halibut had a lovely light pickling and the fresh flavour was complemented not only by the gazpacho, but also by the fresh dill sprinkled across the top. 

If the first two dishes hadn't convinced us that we had been right to make the effort to get to this place in the midst of the dales, the next course absolutely clinched it. Thinking about it as I write has my mouth watering all over again. This was beautiful thin slices of smoked breast along with a lovely piece of pressed duck this was served on a bed of apple and caper jam. Yes stop and think about that flavour and realise how lovely the mix of the sweet fruit and the salty capers could possibly be, it was all of that! Alongside this was tiny, really tiny pieces of two types of melon, each acting like a little bomb of zing to complement the rest of the dish. Not only creative and clever, but wonderfully cooked.  

The next dish engaged me so much that I'm afraid it was after I had finished the plate that I remembered I had not taken a photo of it, so I'm afraid you have the empty plate picture instead. 

The dish was Onion Caramel, St. James Cheese served with a roast garden salad. The slightly charred onion gave crunch as well as a sweet onion flavour, this combined with the lively sheep cheese which had been warmed through and oozed on to the plate to make a beautiful experience on the palate. The cheese had a savoury, rich, meaty flavour with a creamy feel. Think of a baked Camembert but with a more savory flavour. The salad had a story all of its own with carrots, turnip and herbs with a slightly sweetened chutney running through it.

The next dish was new season Grouse, the, so called, Glorious Twelfth was only last week, so this seemed very timely. The grouse was served with bilberry and heather in a heather scented sauce. This idea of cooking the grouse in the products it eats is a long standing one, and I now understand why as it brought out the rich gaminess of the bird. The grouse was served with straws of game chips, broad beans, celeriac and chard. The crisp leg and the meaty breast were delightful and I am certain I have never eaten heather before, even though I have had it in a sauce. What a great idea, this was an absolute success. I'm so glad we came here to eat as my mouth now knows flavour combinations it had never thought of before, let alone tasted.

We now move on to Drew's four desserts, as the reader will know I don't eat sweets, so Drew had to sacrifice himself and eat two of each dessert. I know we could ask to flex the menu, but I wouldn't want Drew to miss out on his favorite part of the meal due to my diabetes.

The pre-dessert was lime ice-cream with pineapple foam and a dried coconut crisp served on a bed of courgette. Just as almost all the savory courses had a sweet jam or chutney through them, so the desserts seem to have a savory element. Drew loved the sharpness of the lime and thought the sweetness of the pineapple blended well with it. The courgette, he felt, was more of a texture than flavour, but the coconut crisp made the whole dish feel like a Caribbean cocktail, which was probably the intention.  

The next dessert and the one Drew was still raving about the next day was a basil mousse on top of a chocolate mousse with a tempered chocolate case with toffee popcorn and apple crisp and a caramel ice-cream which also had spheres of apple jelly and chocolate bits. Drew found the basil taste with the chocolate unusual, but once his palate got over the surprise it worked very well. Overall the dish was very sweet, which is just how Drew likes it.

Our final course was a selection of cheeses served with various flavour crackers, raisin bread, celery and grapes. The six cheeses included a semi-soft St. Oswald, a tangy blue, a local Wensleydale, a cheddar style cheese and a goats cheese. 

We finished dinner with a coffee served in the residents' lounge and were served with petit fours, Drew felt it would be rude not to eat them, so he managed to consume each of them, even though he had been complaining of being over sugared while eating his fourth dessert! He says it was worth making the effort as each of them was perfect. 

Breakfast

We slept well at The Yorke Arms and I got up at 6 and updated the blog for the day before. We went across for breakfast at 8am, when it opened.

Breakfast included lovely freshly squeezed orange juice and freshly baked bread. The main dish was bacon, sausage, black pudding, tomato, mushroom and fried egg. The plate looks a bit empty compared to some of the other breakfasts we have had this holiday. But I guess that this is probably good for my weight. I certainly wasn't hungry when I finished. I suspect I was still a bit full from the delightful meal last night.

Leaving Scotland and on to Yorkshire

So the time had to come when we left this fair land <<Co-pilot's note: Dear reader, you need to imagine a clàrsach (Scottish harp) playing flower of Scotland as you read that sentence.>> Yes we still have two nights away before getting home, but as we leave Scotland the main focus of the holiday comes to an end and I can reflect on what has been a wonderful experience, with so many images and memories to draw on in the years ahead. 

Our route today was from Glasgow to Ramsgill in Yorkshire, so it looked like this:

Farewell to Scotland

Our route out of Glasgow took us past the medieval Glasgow Cathedral and on to the M8 which led us quickly out of Glasgow on to the M73 and which merges with the M74 heading South.

Most noticeable of all was the quantity of wind farms around this part of Scotland. It was amazing to see how many wind farms were on every hill. We had noticed this throughout Scotland, but today it struck us very prominently as we knew we would see so many fewer once we returned to England and Wales. During our time in Scotland on one day Scotland produced more wind energy than its total energy needs. This kind of planning for the future is an example of where the Scottish Government is way ahead of other parts of the UK.

Gretna Green 

  

To mark our departure from Scotland we decided we would stop on the border and the only place on the border on our route was Gretna, so we pulled off the motorway and into Gretna Green.

One reflection on Scotland is that many of the most amazing places: e.g. Queen's View; Callanish Stones; Dun Carloway; are very understated and tourists, while welcome, aren't overpowered, in the way they would be the case for similar, or even less important places, in the USA. This is not the case for the Blacksmiths Shop, Gretna Green, which has been developed into a tourist spectacle. Though quite fun.

Having passed the last house in Scotland, we say goodbye to Scotland and welcome to England as we travel into Cumbria.

North Pennines and North Yorkshire

From the border we rejoined the M6 and travelled down to Penrith before taking a more rural route for the rest of the journey. 

As tonight's check-in isn't until 4pm, and the direct route would get us there far to early, we decided to take a more rural and picturesque route to the Yorke Arms. We took the risk of putting the satnav on to shortest rather than fastest route and began the fun of the journey. 

This part of the journey took a lot of twisting turns that wouldn't show up on the map above, so I include two detailed maps of the journey. 

First here is a more detailed picture of the route through the North Pennines area of national beauty from the motorway to Hawes in Wensleydale.

Kirkby Stephen

Eden Valley

This took us through the fertile Eden Valley  including Kirkby Stephen and Nateby

Aisgill

River Eden

then we were on to Aisgill and further along the River Eden.

                          

We then climbed higher into the hills and across the border into Yorkshire and on into the Yorkshire Dales National Park and on into the Nidderdale area of national beauty. This bit of the route goes from Hawes to Ramsgill:

The route was lovely and the day was warm. I'm not often jealous of my brother-in-law's open topped car, particularly given my bald head, but today was exactly the day for the speed of the car to cool those in it. Just as I was enjoying the view a bomber appeared in the sky, as you can see in the photo. Sorry there is so much car in the photo, another reason why a roof-less car would help.  

Yorkshire Dales

The views across the dales, on such a lovely day were really amazing. I hope my photos do some justice to them.

We passed an amazing selection of old-fashioned pubs along the way with many people sitting outside enjoying a cool cider in the heat of this wonderful day.

We then drove past the lovely views in the place called The Forbidden Corner and then a route across the river with a distinctive fortified bridge. There is something very 'Game of Thrones' about this, though I'm not sure I had actually seen an image of this before. So I was very impressed. 

As soon as the road went over the river it got narrower and narrower. Soon we were on a one track road when a stone carrying lorry came by. Getting out to let him thorough I thought this would make a great picture, giving a flavour of the drive.

We went on into Nidderdale which is another amazingly beautiful place with wonderful countryside, lovely rivers, old farm houses and more and more spectacular views.

We finally came to The Yorke Arms in Ramsgill just before 4pm, a perfect time to check in. 

The second person we met as we went into the Yorke Arms was the chef patron Frances Atkins who greeted us enthusiastically. I just thought she was being welcoming, Drew's view was that she had mistaken us for someone else. <<Co-pilot's note: But how she could have imagined this is beyond me as both of us are quite distinctive! We don't fit discretely into our surroundings do we!!>> 

More about this lovely venue and Frances' excellent food in my post tomorrow.