Grapeshots, 15 Mar 2007

We had a choice between Bedales (in the run of shops down the side of our building), and Grapeshots, which is in Artillery Passage (the lanes to the south of Bishops Square). We decided to go to Grapeshots, which seemed to have some character - Bedales looked a bit antiseptic by comparison.

Grapeshots is a Davy's wine Lodge http://www.davy.co.uk/grapeshots, which disappointed me slightly - I was hoping for something independent, say like the Wine Library. My dining companion chose the wine - a very fine Chablis, that went down very smoothly......

For food (as this is a food blog, not a drinking one, despite the criticisms of American beer yesterday!), I had herring on a potato salad, followed by bangers and mash (you may be unsurprised given my salivating over S&M). Herring was smooth with not too much of a vinegar flavour, with small chunks of potato. Sausages were passable - not up to the quality of S&M - the mash was ok, gravy rich, but the onions had no flavour at all. My companion had mushroom soup, which was the one of the day, followed by a plate of cold ham with potato salad and piccalilli. I am told the ham is as good as you can get anywhere and the soup was good too.

As mentioned, the Chablis was good, but this was a medium priced wine (£24 a bottle); the cheaper wine is of a much lesser quality, so if you are going, it would be worth spending a bit more to get quality. If I want a wine lunch I would probably go again, but not for the bangers and mash - sandwiches, perhaps?