Tucker Bush Trial

Sipping a latte and masticating a muffin in Charlotte Court over the weekend, courtesy of the excellent Age & Sons, I couldn't help thinking the ambiance was somewhat lacking. After exerting the noodle to its max, the old 20W bulb lit up. Where had the shrubbery gone? Take a butcher's...

Oh no, wait, there it is...

Hacked off and lying all over the shop! It looks as if the Ramsgate Chopper has been at it again! Tempting as it is to blame our beloved duffers for yet another crime against nature, I gather they're only partly responsible. Apparently they gave the 'Charlotte Court Residents' Association', which seems to consist solely of the chap who rather ostentatiously bought this...

in the full the glare of the BBC's Homes Under the Hammer cameras a couple of years back, permission to prune them.

Prune them? Prune them? That's a bit like chopping off both feet to trim your toenails! Kuh!

Eddie, Steady, Go!

More plaudits for Eddie Gilbert's Ramsgate restaurant, this time from famous foodie bloggers the Dos Hermanos!

After yours truly left a mention of EG's on an item about their visit to Age & Sons last year, the Hermanos decided to hop on the high speed train to the Millionaires' Playground and were well impressed. Here's their take on the starter:

Eel Soldiers and Duck Egg is a deceptively simple dish but to get it spot-on requires technique and timing: the egg must have soft, soft yolk and a solid albumen and the fingers of Eel must be deep-fried in oil that is hot enough, then drained and served immediately. The kitchen aced it. They even managed to fashion an aesthetically pleasing crack in the eggshell. Damn they’re good, was all I could think as I crunched through crisp coating into the deeply smoky eel flesh inside.

Click here to read the entire review on Dos Hermanos

Meanwhile, our other top Eddie, the Gaddfather of Ale, appears to be making steady progress with upsizing his brewery. I've had my team of crack animators imagineering a superdupercomputer CGI conceptualisation of the finished fermentery, and here's the Avatar-like result! Is it me, or does one of the protagonists bear an uncanny resemblance to Ramsgate Firster Gerry O'Donnell?

East Of The Wantsum

Here's this week's East of the Wantsum. And before anyone moans, remember you get it for free. You don't even have to pay 60p to see it smudged all over this week's Isle of Thanet Gazunder! Er, they get it for free too.

Yep, this blog has been proudly unfunded since 2006. No products, services or political party to plug. No sponsors to please, no licence fee to cough up, no pesky ads to get in the way of your reading enjoyment. You don't deserve me!

While we're at it, congratulations to Ramsgate's very own Age & Sons for winning the Best Cafe category in the Kent Restaurant Awards on Thursday. And also to top Ramsgate butchers J C Rook, fantastic Ramsgate fishmongers Eddie Gilbert's, Minster's Chai Stop and bestest brewer Gadds' of Ramsgate for getting into the finals of the Taste of Kent Awards!

And, er, if any of you would care to sponsor this blog, do get in touch. I'm desperate.

Click here for finalists in Taste of Kent Awards
Don't bother clicking here for Kent Restaurant Awards as they haven't seen fit to publicise them on the internet.

Restaurant Praised, Ramsgate Rubbished in Independent

I see Age & Sons, Ramsgate's premier eatery, has yet again won plaudits in the national press. Restaurant reviewer Tracey MacCleod gives the joint four stars out of five for food and service in today's Independent. However, she's less than complimentary about the island's premier town. She writes:

The once-thriving royal resort of Ramsgate should, in theory, be the perfect destination for a daytrip to the seaside, thanks to the imminent high-speed rail link from St Pancras. I had it all planned: a blustery walk on the beach, fish bought straight from the boat, perhaps a little antiques shopping, before a hearty lunch eaten in sight of the sea. I was thinking, it turns out, of Whitstable. Ramsgate is not, nor could ever be mistaken for, Whitstable.

The short taxi ride from station to harbour (courtesy of a driver with 'Love' and 'Hate' tattooed on his knuckles) took us past boarded-up shops and repossessed properties. It was clear that the flood of wealth which washed over south-east England during the last decade has largely by-passed this far easterly corner. As my fellow day-tripper Harry said, taking in the blighted landscape, 'Suddenly I see the point of Brighton'.

'Blighted landscape'? 'Boarded-up shops'? The knuckle-tattooed taxi driver didn't take you gullible DFLs via Margate, did he? And as for a 'blustery walk on the beach', 'fish straight from the boat' and 'antiques shopping', you could have done all those things here if you'd bothered to toddle a few yards, love. Not only that, but our beautiful Blue Flag beaches are sandy, not rocks/mud like those other places you mention.

As for Whitsta-bloody-bubble, I should jolly well hope Ramsgate could never be mistaken for the place, which these days is so crammed with middle class escapees from the smoke it resembles nothing more or less than an ethnically cleansed Islington-on-Sea. And last time I looked, Whitstable didn't have almost 1,000 listed buildings. Just a few tatty wooden shacks! Kuh!

Click here to read review of Age & Sons in the Independent

And click here to watch a repeat of Homes Under the Hammer on BBC iPlayer, in which the old Ramsgate police station, next door to Age & Sons, is given the makeover treatment by an accountant (Series 12, Episode 20)

Everyone Loves Ramsgate!

One of the things I'm missing here in France is the English papers. But earlier today I managed to catch sight of yesterday's London Evening Standard et voila! A huge item about Ramsgate!

Headlined 'Kent Gets Closer To London', the paper swoons on about fast train links, Ramsgate becoming a 'super commuter hub', and top notch restaurants like Harveys Fish Market and Age & Sons, all tipped 'to transform sleepy, left behind Ramsgate into the next Brighton.' Hmmm, not sure I quite believe that particular hype, or endorse the description of our town as a 'left behind' (does that make Margate the right?) But a nice little puff for the Ms' P nonetheless.

And speaking of Thanet's premier restaurant in Thanet's premier town, I notice the aforementioned Age & Sons is up for a gong in the Kent Restaurant Awards. It's nominated in both the Best English Restaurant category and the Best Cafe category, where it's currently in poll position ahead of Boredstares' Oscar Road Cafe. So why not scuttle along now and place your 'X' for Age in both categories? Go on, you know it makes sense. As somebody once said in some advertising thing. Er, was it Jimmy Savile?

Click here to vote for Age & Sons in Best Cafe category
Click here to vote for Age & Sons in Best English Restaurant category

Restaurant News

Hurrah! It looks as if the Millionaires' Playground is to get yet another fine dining experience! Not only is the Cannes of Kent home to one of the best eateries in the south east, Age & Sons (dubbed 'the finest restaurant in Thanet' in today's Observer), but now top chef John Burton Race is re-opening Harveys, on Ramsgate's rip-roaring royal harbour, as a fantastic fish restaurant.

According to the excellent yourfannitinnit, JBR has coughed up 250 big ones to transform this formerly hideous boozer, which has been boarded up for the last year, into the dogfish's bollocks of piscine cuisine. The celebrity chef already has Michelin-rated nosheries under his belt. Shame, though, that Thanet College alumnus Gary Rhodes, who was once rumoured to have been in the frame to open up here, seems to have got cold feet. His puddings are yum! Of course, we already have one fish restaurant on the Croisette - Atlantis. But being a Thorley establishment I have to say from experience that that's more like Captain Digby Deluxe.

So, Ramsgate now has two top restaurants to Margate's one (the superb Indian Princess). And as reported exclusively by yours truly, Eddie Gilbert the fishmonger on Ramsgate's 'King Street will soon be serving fish and chips fit for a, er, king. But what about the poor old Dickensians? Surely the betweeded grannies, second homers and perma-tanned builders' wives in Boredstares deserve something a bit better than scampi in a basket? The deliciously delightful Oscar Road Cafe is all well and good for the best crab sandwiches in Kent during the day, but what about sophisticated dining once the sun's gone down? Well, step forward this joint:

Restaurant 54, the new gaff at the top of Harbour Street, opposite the Dolphin meat market. It's had umpteen different guises in the past few years, prompting the double glazing and conservatory millionaires who were leaving as I passed by last night to ponder whether the name referred to the number of owners it's had since the turn of the century.

Still, from what I overheard they appeared to have enjoyed their meal, and of course it was only a short waddle for them down the hill to Harpers wine bar, where they no doubt rounded off the evening by larging it with the WAGS (of other double glazing and conservatory millionaires) before belling the missus to come and chauffeur them back to Kingsgate in the old V8 Range Rover.

Harveys in yourfannitinnit
The Observer raves about Thanet - and Age & Sons
Er, John Burton Race declares himself bankrupt

Ramsgate Restaurant Robbed

News just in! A substantial amount of cash was taken from a till at top Ramsgate restaurant Age & Sons yesterday - while the mayor and other civic dignitaries were handing over a cheque for the 2010 Ramsgate Arts Festival. The rotter or rotters took advantage of the ceremony in the upstairs restaurant to empty the till in the downstairs café.

It's not the first time thieves have struck at Age & Sons, which is on course to become the island's first Michelin star restaurant. Lovely co-owner Harriet tells me several tables and chairs have also legged it recently from outside the eatery. She adds: 'I went outside on one occasion and saw an elderly woman sitting at one of our tables. She wasn't a customer, so I assumed she was just having a rest. She was at least 70. Next thing I knew, she was scuttling off with a couple of our chairs.' Needless to say the dauntless Harriet dashed after the wizened old crone and, er, repossessed her property.

It makes you wonder whether the local pit bull tuggers really deserve to have their town improved by the influx of incomers who have fallen in love with the place, and are putting their hard-earned cash to work at making it all lovely. And, of course, most times Kent's finest are about as much use as tits on a bull when it comes to tracking down the offenders.

Still, word has it that the excellent Eddie Gilberts fishmongers on King Street are about to open a restaurant upstairs. EG, whose vehicles carry the hilarious warning: 'No scallops kept in van overnight', will be offering the finest fish and chips, along with more adventurous stuff like mussels and crabs. Yum!

Update: The police now have a man in custody and will hopefully be feeding him to his own dogs in the very near future.

Rave review in the Independent on Sunday: This Sunday's IoS (17 May) gave Age & Sons 17 out 20. Hurrah! The paper said: 'With the help of local fishmonger Eddie Gilbert's, (Toby) Leigh is putting on some of the best fish I have seen in years. A moist, fleshy tranche of wild turbot (£15), gently braised on the bone with brown shrimps, lemon and white wine – like potted shrimps as a sauce – is as thrilling as British fish gets.' Another triumph for Ramsgate! Click here to read full review.

Age & Sons
Ramsgate Arts Festival

The Jewel In The Turd

Reader Dennis writes:

Last Tuesday lunchtime my wife, daughter and myself donned the old fire proof vests and with much trepidation left the Birchington bunker bound for the Indian Princess in Chargate. But for your recommendation we would not have been so brave.

What a gem this turned out to be. But in many ways surreal.

Inside the food was magnificent, the service impeccable and the décor wonderful. Outside a constant parade of knuckledraggers in regulation baseball caps with slavering pit bulls straining at the leash passed before our eyes. Across the road a dumped mattress propped up against a wall jostled for position with a pile of rubbish. I wondered if I should contact former denizen Tracy Emin to see if she might like to claim it for her own in the 'unmade bed' style of modern art.

But back to the restaurant though. It's streets ahead of most of the opposition – a bit like your blog – I'm sure this won't give you a big head as you probably already have one. But there, you have a lot to be big headed about. Bugger – I've done it again.

Kind words indeed, Dennis, kind words indeed. It just so happens I'm off to the IP myself ce soir, so I'll keep an eye out for the mattress. According to their latest mail-out, they've been visited by the Michelin people, so I guess it's a race between them and Ramsgate's own Age & Sons as to who gets the island's first coveted Michelin star.

Would the revelation that the IP is Our Sandy's favourite restaurant help swing it in favour of A&S? I do hope so!