Decripción de restaurantes en inglés para practicar la parte de Writing paper del First exam

1. RESTAURANT REVIEWS
A super-sleek Japanese fusion restaurant.
Rendered sleek, smart and stylish to within an inch of its life, this Japanese fusion
restaurant teeters on being a bit too tasteful. With the exception of a dinky origami
chopstick rest, which appeared courtesy of a shoo-in for London’s most charming waiter, it
was just a bit characterless. Luckily, it bucked the usual restaurant trend of smarter the
place, smaller the portions; flavours were pretty on the mark too.
Filo Shrimp Tempura, wrapped in angel hair vermicelli instead of the traditional batter, was
crunchy and delicious, and came with a nicely spiced mayo. Crispy Calamari with black
olives, if a little oily, was still light – although without the dipping sauce, it would have been
bland. It was the wild card order that proved the winner: Shiromi Yuzu Tomato. The thought
of crushing delicate sashimi with tomato and truffle sounded so intriguingly awful that I had
to try it. Clean-tasting and tart, it rested on a wonderful granita flavoured with shiso (a Far
Eastern member of the mint family) and the whole dish was beautifully balanced. However,
things took a turn for the disappointing when the signature sushi arrived. An exhausting
smorgasbord of flavours, it was trying way too hard.
If Oliver Maki were to heed Coco Chanel’s advice (‘Before you leave the house, look in the
mirror and take one thing off’) and lose some unnecessary ingredients, it might just turn out
to be brilliant.
Bright little lunch spot serving wholesome hugs on a
plate.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, railway arches were the hangout of mechanics alone.
Now the fact that this one sells excellent vegan and gluten-free apple cake ain’t even
newsworthy. But a place doesn’t necessarily need a hook to be worth a visit, it just has to
be doing everything right.
London-based chefs Jun Tanaka and Mark Jankel started Street Kitchen in a shiny silver
airstream back in 2009 with the aim of making gourmet food more accessible. Now they’ve
got two airstreams and a permanent spot in the City as well as this new one in London
Fields. The menu is uncomplicated but so appealing; they’re dishing up the sort of food
Nigella might serve to her kids. Hot smoked salmon with soft, savoury crushed new
potatoes, buttery but still healthy-tasting greens and chunks of sweet, firm beetroot makes
for the sort of stomach-filler that makes you feel nourished as well as hugged. If fish is too
technically virtuous then go for the flavour-packed but impressively light lamb meatballs
with fruited couscous, or fill up on cake; Jackie Lee is Street Kitchen’s resident baker and
her sweet treats are irresistible. The aforementioned apple cake is the sort that’s stealthy-
healthy – I didn’t order it for its free-from credentials and would order it again in spite of
them.

2. This branch of Street Kitchen is currently lunch-only, but when it starts serving dinners it’ll
be an excellent upgrade for east Londoners who want the comfort of high-class home
cooking without the trip to M&S. And until then, as long as you don’t mind sharing the
bright, cosy space with a few pushchairs and a rotating queue of local workers, this is a
lunch spot that is definitely doing everything right.
BY: ASHLEIGH ARNOTT
POSTED: TUESDAY MAY 10 2016
A tapas joint on Mare Street where the drinks rule
supreme.
Au revoir to cute bistro Bouchon Fourchette and hola to Boceto Hackney, a tapas bar
taking its place on Mare Street. Although, judging from our visit, a warmer welcome should
be extended to the cocktails. This is a sister venue to Brixton’s Three Eight Fourand Seven,
both restaurants where the drinks win out. So we made easy work of a Barrel-aged
Gunpowder Negroni and an original mezcal-based creation, the Abuela, whose chilli kick
would surely knock Granny for six.
Secondary to the sterling drink offering is a limited tapas menu. The staples are all here:
chorizo, charcuteria, pan con tomate. But flavours run fairly flat, especially in a prawn dish
lacking sufficient garlicky depth. It’s comforting, though, to taste patatas bravas the way
they should be – charmingly rustic chunks of spud with a liberal dousing of rich tomato
sauce and aioli.
What’s truly authentic, though, is the Spanish style of service: we were left far too long to
mull over the menu, but there was plenty of warmth as soon as we got their attention. Sit up
at the bar to make life easier and you’ll also get Speedy Gonzales access to those drinks.
LESS
BOCETO HACKNEY SAYS
Boceto Hackney, the latest venture from Three Eight Four and Seven at Brixton, is an all-
day tapas and cocktail bar open for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. Located in east
London, Boceto is the newest addition to a thriving area, offering traditional and
contemporary tapas with ingredients sourced from both local and sustainable retailers. We
pride ourselves on our ever-changing wines and seasonal cocktails, and we certainly know
how to make a mean bloody mary. Open 8am-midnight daily (9am Sundays), join us for a
relaxing evening with friends, pop in for a coffee on your way to work, or take time to
devour one of our Spanish bocadillos at lunch. You can also book our basement for your
next party. Nearest transport: London Fields.
BY: LAURA RICHARDS
POSTED: FRIDAY APRIL 15 2016

3. A cycle café offering brunches and pizzas, with a
workshop coming soon.
You know you’re in for a bumpy ride when your waiter asks, ‘What can I get you?’ and you
go, ‘Er, menus?’ At this cycle café, we were mentally willing the guy serving us to
remember his lines. It’s a shame he didn’t, because everything else was spot-on.
The café’s basement workshop will serve refreshments with your repairs when it opens
later in the spring, but for now, the cycling theme is purely cosmetic: bike hooks in the
spacious entrance, framed Tour de France jerseys and dishes referencing legendary
cycling routes. There’s takeaway Allpress coffee at the colour-blocked counter, a three-
sided bar, and leather booths for sit-down meals.
The kitchen does thoughtfully enhanced versions of brunch faves: creamy, sticky ‘100-mile’
porridge packed with mashed banana, date syrup, crunchy seeds and a vanilla hit of cocoa
nibs; avo and poached eggs on sourdough toast, lifted with a sprinkling of citrussy dukkah.
Pizzas, too, are made with obvious care: my stelvio had a crisp, chewy, evenly browned
base and high-quality toppings – smoked scamorza and sprigs of gloriously scented fresh
oregano alongside courgette and mascarpone.
So the kitchen is a winner, and the space is smart – only diffident staff put a spoke in the
wheel. Perhaps they can book a service at the workshop.
LESS
THE DYNAMO SAYS
A hub for pizza, coffee and cycles.
The Dynamo is a café, pizza restaurant and a home for locals and cyclists in Putney. In the
mornings you’ll find great coffee and awesome breakfasts, then in the evening and at lunch
we serve wonderful wood-fired, sourdough pizzas.
BY: NICOLA ARENCIBIA
POSTED: WEDNESDAY APRIL 27 2016
Corkage, 132a Walcot Street, Bath BA1 5BG (01225 422 577).
Meal for two, including service and wine (lots of it): £60-
£100
Halfway through our meal at Corkage in Bath, Marty Grant, the man
who handles the wine side of the business, sat down next to us and
presented a bottle. He’s a bright-eyed chap with a shaggy explosion of
red hair and a neat line in patter. He had first tasted this red wine, a
Château de la Tuilerie, when he was in his early 20s, he said. He was

4. recuperating in Nîmes from a back injury incurred while trying to earn
a living as a self-taught acrobat.
OK. Carry on.
“The moment I tasted it,” he said, “I announcedthat one day I would
import this wine. And to this day I have imported over 130,000 bottles.
It is Carla Bruni’s favourite wine, and was the only red served at
Nicolas Sarkozy’s inauguration.” He slit the foil, poured a couple of
glasses for my friends and wandered off. He could have banged on one
about the syrah-grenache blend. Instead it was all acrobats and
Sarkozy. My friends said it was jolly nice.
Frustrating, isn’t it? For once I’m focusing on the wine, and I’m light on
detail. I would neverjust tell you a lamb dish was nice and leave it at
that. I’d hunt down adjectives. I’d craft a simile and throw in a knob
gag if it would advance the cause of turning a flavour into words. But
with wine? It was nice.
What can I tell you? Despite the years in this job I’ve never quite
managed to engage with the subject in the way that, as an adult, I
suspect I should. My time is limited. The number of bottles is vast. My
glass is empty. Let me drink and hush now with your homilies on
varietal and sulphur. Over the years numerous places have come and
gone claiming they were going to revolutionise the approach to wine; to
make it accessible and democratic and fun. But it doesn’t seem to
happen. They always end up telling you some story about the direction
the wind was blowing on a wet Wednesday in the Rhône valley. Which,
compared to tales of acrobatics and Carla Bruni, is no story at all.
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Belly of the beast: pork belly with giant couscous, cider-soaked golden raisins, beetroot
and pomegranate. Photograph: Sam Frost for the Observer
In truth, I don’t think most genuine wineheads really want the subject
to be accessible. It’s bloody complicated, they’ve invested significant
time and effort in learning their stuff, and they like perving over the

5. esoteric details. Why the hell shouldthey open it up to a bunch of
people who, when pushed, would admit they don’t really care?
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My late mother was once asked what it was that made someone sexy. It
wasn’t looks, she said. It was enthusiasm, andI’ll extend that to wine
enthusiasts. To my mind the only thing that really makes any impact at
all on the uninitiated like me is enthusiasm; a genuine desire to share,
rather than show off. Happily it’s there right now in the jaunty features
published by the wine fanzine Noble Rot. And it’s obvious in this Bath
wine bar. It is rackety and chaotic. The food is deeply uneven. But on
balance the place wins, through sheerforce of personality.
The notion of a restaurant where all the bottles are available to buy to
take home and also to drink in with just a modest mark-up is not new.
The Vinoteca chain in London has done well off the back of it. The
difference here is that the choice feels extremely personal and
eccentric. Plus there are between 50 and 60 wines available by the
glass. I ask whether they have one of those snazzy Enomaticwine-
dispensing machines to keep openedbottles alive. No, Grant says, they
have a fridge. Nothing hangs around long enough. I ask if there’s a list I
can look at. No, he says. “There’s a chat. We discuss what sort of thing
you might like.” The most expensive bottles bought in the restaurant
top out at around £75, with much else half that or less and glass prices
worked out according to simple formulas.
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All at sea: octopus with confit chorizo and smoked humus. Photograph: Sam Frost for
the Observer
A classically light, bright Vinho Verde, made by a Welsh couple living
in Portugal, is £20 a bottle. With its light fizz and low alcohol it’s the
perfect kick-off. That Château de la Tuilerie is £4.50 a glass. Carla’s a
cheap date. There’s a Catalan red at £6.50 and a Chilean pinot at £7. I
ask if he has anything in the style of Chablis. He shrugs. “How about a
Chablis?” It’s £7.50 a glass for something classically bright and crisp
and just the right side of dry. This, I think, is how to experiment with

6. wine. If I lived in Bath I would be here a lot, amid the babble and
clatter, scanning the makeshift shelves – the bar seems to have been
engineered using scaffolding polls – looking for gems that I could claim
were my own private wine fetish.
Certainly this is a wine bar which happens to serve food, not a
restaurant. All the dishes are there in service of it; not in some intense
food-pairing manner, but to keep you from getting sloshed. The price
of these small sharing plates, at no more than £7 or £8 a pop, is keen,
but I do wish some of it had been a little more accomplished.
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Toast of the town: Cornish crab on toast with celeriac remoulade. Photograph: Sam
Frost for the Observer
On the plus side there are substantial slices of toast piled with big
blousy heaps of lightly dressed white crabmeat. There are whole cherry
tomatoes, warmed through until just about to burst in an Asian-spiced
broth, with more toast to eat them off. Chunks of pork belly have
perfect crackling. A piece of sea bream is crisp-skinned, but sensitively
cooked; ditto a piece of cod, the pearly flakes shrugging each other off,
with shards of pancetta.
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The ‘very dark’ chocolate brownie with chocolate sauce. Photograph: Sam Frost for the
Observer
Other things work less well. Too much is served at room temperature:
the beads of Israeli couscous underthe pork belly for example, or the
rice-like orzo pasta under the bream. Cavolo nero, the colour of an
ancient book binding, is mixed with blue cheese and pears, and might
have been pleasant warm. It’s less so chilly. And a dish described as a
spiced purée of roasted butternut squash sounds fun until it arrives,
and those of us who have weaned a baby immediately have flashbacks.
I am baffled as to how the one dessert, a very dark brownie served with

7. a darker chocolate sauce, didn’t bellow its needfor cream at the
kitchen.
Hey ho. These things can be fixed. In any case if you came to Corkage
for the food, you would be missing the point entirely.
Jay’s news bites
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■ Sager and Wilde in Hackney has a nice line in bar snacks, including
scallop with XO sauce and asparagus with whitebait. But the food is a
support act to the wine, the extensive list of carefully chosen bottles at
reasonable mark-ups and by the glass. For a fee you can also bring your
own bottles to drink (sagerandwilde.com).
■ And while we’re on the subject, Hedonism Wines in London’s
Mayfair is a newish venture guaranteed to thrill anyone with even a
mild booze habit. The work of a Russian businessman with deep
pockets, it stocks 5,500 wines and 3,000 spirits, has bottles of 19th
century Chateau D’Yquem costing six figures, but also has bottles
starting in the low teens. Go just to gawp (hedonism.co.uk).
■ A five-year survey by AlixPartners and CGA Peach has foundhigher
restaurant growth outside London than in. Food-ledbusinesses in the
capital rose 13.4% over the period, as against 22.4% outside. However
there are still more restaurants in London than in all the other cities
surveyedput together.
Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on
Twitter @jayrayner1
Besides having a notorious eye for the ladies (and occasionally the
men), Romantic poet Lord Byron was, apparently, rather partial to a
good public hanging. He would book a room above the County Tavern,
opposite the old courthouse in central Nottingham, for a prime view of
the action – and would no doubt have enjoyed a few tankards of ale at
the bar.

8. The pub still exists as the Cock & Hoop, although the court is now the
Galleries of Justice museum andthe entertainment the night I arrive is
a rather less macabre quiz night.
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Lace Market Hotel, which includes the Cock & Hoop pub.
The pub is part of the Lace Market Hotel, in a striking Grade II-listed
Georgian townhouse on the cobbled High Pavement, in the prettiest
part of town. Closed for 18 months, the 42-room property reopened
late last year after a £300,000 refurb by new owner Compass
Hospitality – the rapidly expanding Thai management company that
now has six hotels aroundthe UK.
There’s an art deco feel as soon as you step inside: a beautiful curved
wooden reception desk and lots of mirroring. Our immaculate third-
floor room is as opulent as befits a hotel in what was the centre of the
world’s lace industry in the 19th century, with striking artwork, a
mountain of pillows on the comfy beds (both goose and natural fibres),
more mirrored table-tops and Orla Kiely toiletries. My one niggle, that
the windows are sealed shut, is something they’re working to rectify,
I’m told (starting from the ground floor).
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Photograph: Neil Hoyle
“It feels much more glam than it did,” says my sister, who’d visited pre
make-over, as we browse the impressive cocktail menu at Saint Bar.
Barman Jack shakes up two of his favourites – a Disaroono sour
(amaretto, egg white, lemon and sugar, £8.95) and Eat, Gin, Sleep (gin
with cranberry and apple juice, £7.95), which has a more enlivening
effect than the name suggests. We argue over which is more delicious.
Next door, the hotel’s Merchants restaurant is a beautiful space. With a
vast antique Venetian mirror hanging at one end, metal-panelled
ceilings, sparkling chandeliers, huge windows (which do open) and

9. bold modern art on the walls, it is rather more grand than I had
expected.
The food from head chef and Nottingham boy Ben Chaplin, lives up to
the setting. We forgo the new five-course tasting menu (£45, wine
pairings £24.50) and opt for crab ravioli and langoustine with morels
and broad beans (£14), followed by sea trout with samphire and a lamb
rack and breast with pistachio and arancini (£23). It’s all beautifully
presented and hard to fault.
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Head chef Ben Chaplin. Photograph: Neil Hoyle
Ben pops out to say hello, phone in hand. His wife is about to give birth
to their third child and he’s on stand-by. He’s just 26. “I want to get it
all out the way early,” he says.After dinner we headback to the pub – a
characterful space with wood panelling, brick walls and candlelit
alcoves downstairs. Ben’s in charge of the proper pub grub served here,
too (fish and chips, £11; homemade pies, £12). Several local chefs come
here to eat and bar manager John organises lots of fun events, such as
monthly brewery takeovers, regular live music evenings and a
Wednesday wine club (a fiver off all bottles).
Breakfast the next morning – served in Merchants (£10pp extra) – is a
spread of cereals and pastries, plus freshly cookedmains, which sets us
up for exploring. The location, in the creative district, is perfect
– Nottingham Contemporary arts centre is on the same street, and it’s
close to the best shopping in town: Paul Smith’s flagship store and
several independent boutiques are around the corner. The Motorpoint
Arena’s just a stroll away too (Ellie Goulding stayed here when she was
in town).
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Sea trout at Merchants Restaurant

10. All in all, the Lace Market is a great option if you’re in town, but one
thing puzzles me. Though the hotel is almost full, on a Thursday
evening the bar and restaurant are very quiet – the only other diners
are a table of six. Maybe it’s because word isn’t out yet, or maybe it’s
because so many new restaurants have opened in Nottingham recently
(restaurant manager Kieron says bookings vary wildly from night to
night), but more diners would have added to the ambience.
Perhaps the enticing deals the hotel is currently running will rectify
this. If you spend £80 in the restaurant on a Friday evening, for
example, you can bag a room for just £25 (until November), or a two-
course meal for two people with wine costs just £29.95 most evenings
in June.
I hope so. Because with its friendly staff, lovely decor and a chef with
talent and ambition to match, the Lace Market Hotel deserves to be
busy.
• Accommodation was provided by Lace Market Hotel (0115 948
4414,lacemarkethotel.co.uk). Doubles from £135 room only, see
website for offers
Ask a local
Ade Andrews of Ezekial Bone Nottingham Tours
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Hockley Village. Photograph: Alamy
• Walking
The Lace Market is worth a stroll for its stunning buildings: the old
County Gaol, Broadway and the Adam’s Building are some of the finest
Victorian industrial architecture in the country. Plus The 21st-century
Nottingham Contemporary art gallery.
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• Visit
The medieval St Mary’s Church was, so minstrels sang, a haunt of
Robin Hood. Views from the churchyard evoke Nottingham’s garden

11. town era, and also tell the story of the age of steam and an empire in
lace. Friendly volunteers are happy to give guided tours of this
beautiful building and unveil its hidden gems.
• Drink
A fine, airy, European-style bar, Kean’s Head has great local and
craft ales. Further along is The Pelican Club, a cool, shady place with
blues and jazz bands.
• Culture
Next to the Lace Market is Hockley Village, the creative quarter of
Nottingham. Small shops, independent boutiques, cool bars and
diverse restaurants abound. Also worth checking out is the National
Video Game Arcade and the independentBroadway cinema,
cultural institutions both.