Two reviews for the price of one this month as we review songstress Judie Tzuke live at the rural pub

 

So, our last review was of an extremely good value African restaurant down the Oxford Road. This month we go to the other extreme. 

I don't believe that we have anywhere that challenges Michelin's star rating system anywhere close to Reading any more. L'Ortolan has lost its star and given up the challenge and you then need to take an expensive cab ride to Marlow or Bray to fully indulge yourself in the best gastronomy that our country has to offer, probably spending few hundred quid for a lunch for two with wine. 

We live in a wealthy part of the world where this may be a weekly outing for some of our lucky residents. But we also live in a town with one of the biggest wealth disparities in Europe.

So, for most of our population, Wendy's or Popeye's or Nanados is an evening out.

But there is a proportion of us in Reading and its environs who are spectacularly well off.

And this month's review is all about us wealthy bastards.

Frankly, most of these millionaires no longer live in Reading (I still do). Except perhaps in The Warren or Caversham Heights or Redlands.

They have long removed themselves to the wealthy villages all around Reading, where a cottage is worth a million or two and their ISAs have lots of noughts. Some even delight in final salary pensions.

Which is probably why Reading pretty much only has fast food joints, great ethnic restaurants and chains left. If you live in a lovely five bedroom, four bathroom 'cottage' that Country Life want to feature, you're not going to say 'let's go into Reading for dinner'. Which is a self defeating cycle for the town.

Reading has plenty - too many - places to eat, but very few special places to eat.

And even if you did seek out somewhere beyond Miller & Carter (I really don't get this awful chain), you would have a choice of London Street Brasserie or Valpys or Reading Room unless you fancied a good ethnic meal.

Let's spend a moment on this. A town of a third of a million people only has two standard British restaurants apart from hotels. You know, the kind of place you would be proud to take your parents from out of town for a Sunday lunch.

This just defines our Reading.

London Street Brasserie is an institution. Nice food, great service, on the canal for teeth watering prices. If you are frugal you can get away for eighty quid a head with a glug to drink. Recent visits have been tipping £120 a head because the first bottle becomes the second bottle so easily...

And it has a gorgeous sister establishment down a narrow country lane some ten miles north of the town.

The Crooked Billet is a common name for English pubs. It resulted from an edict that required any place that served booze to differentiate themselves from homes (so they could be taxed). As a result, in the 15th century, sticking a tree branch was a cost effective way of achieving this, ie putting out a crooked billet.

It is a pub without a bar. Drinks are served from the cellar. But it has a couple of nice, aged dining rooms, a fabulous garden and a tent where they promote gigs for local music royalty.

They have hosted musicians that, in their heyday, would easily fill a stadium, but these days are footnotes on Wikipedia.

If you are under fifty you couldn't name any of them, but that's not the point.

The villages around Reading are chock-a-block full of people who have done very well, thank you very much. And are over fifty. And have ISAs to the hilt and final salary pensions. They possibly have a financial adviser and even that endangered breed - a stockbroker!

But they are bored in their Berkshire and South Oxfordshire estates. Loads of money, and apart from a cruise and a ski holiday or two a year and Tuesday babysitting the grandkids, nowhere to go and nothing to do... Netflix is Netflix whether it comes with a Sancerre and a Waitrose delivery or a Tesco Sauvignon Blanc and a Deliveroo Big Mac.

Which is where the Crooked Billet Stoke Row comes into play.

This wonderful old pub, literally in the middle of nowhere, plays host to has-been musical stars on a regular basis.

Tickets are a fraction of a Taylor Swift gig at £30 -60. You get to sit down and drink some booze and get served some great food for another hundred quid or so a head.

Go and do the math. Taylor Swift fans may not be well off, but they still spend their, or their parents' hard earned dosh on £300 tickets, £10-500 on travel, £10-50 on Nandos or Macs. It is a life changing cost, frankly, and I'm sure to many it will be an evening to remember all their lives.

Or their grandparents can sit in a tent in South Oxfordshire spending the same amount and will not blink. Being an old codger, I know where I would rather be.

Experience is what it is all about in the era of Netflix and Deliveroo, when apparently no one goes out any more and pubs and nightclubs are shutting down all over the country.

The dinner music concept at The Crooked Billet should be franchised. This country does not lack very wealthy retirees into the music of their youth and some decent food and a bottle of claret.

But, let's get down to the business in hand - a review.

This is dinner and dance, the proverbial blue plate special, or just 'cabaret'. However you see it, you arrive at 6:30, order a great three course meal and some drinks and at 8:30ish the act comes on. We will therefore review both.

Much of the menu at The Crooked Billet is similar to that found at the London Street Brasserie, which is quite extensive but probably needs more refreshes than it gets. Valpy's offer a much more varied experience from one visit to the next.

And when you translate this menu into the dinner and music concept, here comes another issue. The menu at the Crooked Billet is far too long even for this highly competent kitchen. Also, it involves few stews or dishes that can be pre-prepared.

Almost all dishes are a fish or meat chunk with sides. Even at the prices commanded here I'm not sure this makes sense.

I had a prawn cocktail with a half lobster - the accompaying avocado would have been better whole not pureed with the taste lost against the fish and adding little value, and I adore the subtle smooth taste of a good avocado.

The starter was probably over-generous and a smaller dish with a slice or two of bread might have been more balanced. We had to separately order a huge dish of bread.

My wife had the duck, which came as a whole quarter, ready to shred, accompanies with some nice ginger slices that seemed to have been 'infused' with beetroot, and then noodles - a rather strange starter addition. A wonton or something crunchy would have made more sense. Some cucumber might have added freshness or spring onion adding zest. Or just add pancakes and hoi sin sauce - sometimes it's difficult to improve on a classic.

As we waited for our main course, a tray carrying guinness and a pot of tea made its way to another part of the tent. It seemed to sum up the clientele.

A visit to the loos was very unpleasant. If you are charging this much money, you have to have fragrant and plentiful loos, especially for the incontinent generation.

The wine list is just fab and is reasonably priced at £30-40 a bottle. We had an Albariniho and a nice soft Cotes du Rhone (as Judy Tzuke would sing 'These Are The Days..'). Both were lovely..

Then came our main course of Chicken Milanese and Cheese Flio and the pressure on the kitchen started to show.



The parmentier potatoes accompanying the Milanese were not seasoned nor fried. They literally had not seen a grain of salt in boiling or a pan in frying. And I'm not sure they selected their potatoes with any discretion - I pushed them to one side of the plate and left them uneaten.

The breaded chicken and tempuraish courgette wedge were delicious. The tomato sauce was just amateur and horrid, thin and lacking garlic and a herby tone, with no depth at all.

My wife really fancied the cheese parcel - and it sounded delicious - but arrived undercooked and soggy in a valley of lovely green veg - green beans, mange tout and early season asparagus drowned in butter and mint. She ate the cheesy innards, which were a bit dull, left the uncooked pastry and quite enjoyed the veggies. But I felt sorry for her.

Now let me say that at £20 a plate these would have been forgivable faults, but at £30 you really can't justify these mis-steps. They did comp a main course and a side after we complained. But honestly, do less, well.

And to be fair, the food is nowhere near this slapdash on a non event evening and the actual pub toilets are fragrant and spotless.

And then there is the redemption that is their builders tea creme brulee with their home made hob nobs. My wife, given the opportunity, would hand them a Michelin star for these alone. The last time we were here she used all of her feminine guile to get the recipe. I seem to recall they involve an awful lot of butter. There is no bad foodstuff involving a lot of butter in my view. But I am somewhat overweight.

They once took them off the menu and all of a sudden the wealthy burghers of South Oxfordshire and Berkshire found a cause. Forget Ukraine or Gaza or homelessness or sewage in our rivers. No, the causes our ultra wealthy fight for are home made chocolate hob nobs on demand and 10mph zones outside their front driveway gates.

Until you taste these morsels of delight you will never understand why.



And so to the music...

The evening began with Tzuke's very talented younger daughter singing some of her own compositions with her keyboard playing husbands under the Tigy moniker.

Songs about monsters and winter and having a nap with your newborn were delightful.

The Tigy name apparently comes from the aspirational 'Thougts I Give You', a family meme.

She has a soft very redolent voice and the songwriting shines through. You can tell that talent runs through this family like a gold vein in a rock.

And so to the main act, or 'mum' as Tigy might call her. The veritable national treasure that is Judie Tzuke.

To me, she is the British Stevie Nicks, which is the highest praise I could bestow. Sometimes as interesting if never as esoteric as Kate Bush, she defined much of my growing up years.

But those are memories that lie in LPs somewhere in my brother's attic in Wales now. None of her songs currently feature on any of my 179 Spotify playlists until this this gig at The Crooked Billet was brought to my attention, but given past memories, there was no hesitation in making a booking.

Perhaps one day in the future someone will do the same for a dinner dance in a town in Northern Texas for a couple of hundred people featuring Taylor Swift. The world of rock n roll is fickle in this way.

If you remember Judie Tzuke at all you will remember her for 'Stay With Me 'Til Dawn' or 'Sportscar' or 'Ladies' Night' or 'Bring The Rain'.

She is a beautiful songwriter whose voice has matured magnificently.

She has never released a 'best of' but her live compilation 'Road Noise' as well as her first few, defining albums have her struggling with her vocals. Strained and often dropping off at the end of a refrain, they were probably the reason she never became a truly international star as she deserved.

But the years and some changes of key have matured, mellowed and immeasurably improved her distinctive singing voice.

More recently she has had some great collaborations, with Morcheeba and Beverly Craven and Julia Fordham.

Her canon is rich and deep and no one can doubt her gifted musicianship.

Her set included Judie Invincible, Shoot From Your Heart, Ladies Night, Bring The Rain, Evergreen, Ballad of Davy Graham and, best of all, a cover of the wonderful John Martyn song May You Never.

Food, wine and song. The world needs more of this. Since moving from London, I do miss Ronnie Scott's and the 100 Club and even the Pizza Express in Dean Street, but we are lucky to have a venue like this an expensive cab ride away (and yes, you will need to give directions after Google Maps loses reception..). An eighty quid return cab ride on top of sixty quid tickets and three hundred quid for food and wine is a special night out and, for those of us lucky enough to be able to afford it, was worth every penny.

After all, £500 is what you would end up paying to see Taylor Swift with a coke and hot dog for sustenance and a tube line home.

For some people in our area, this is the daily interest from their ISA or income from their pension. For some, the budget for a week's holiday. For others it is a week's drug or drink habit and for some it is all they have to keep their family warm and fed.

We all earn and pay our money and make our choices. What I do know is that dinner and music is a lovely night out and I wish I could experience more of it in Reading.

A review of food and music plus investment advice thrown in for good measure! We hold nothing back at inReading...