Black Lion, Firbeck

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love to see chefs tweeting. I love to see their pictures of their work and what they've just put on the specials board. Their passion for food comes through loud and clear as does their pride for their work and although PR agencies and the like can be pretty savvy when it comes to marketing their clients, for me, personally, I like to see a tweeting chef. See a chef who tweets the odd  picture of a dish on the pass, who is keen to engage with others in the food industry and their customers will encourage me to want to try his/her food.

And it's not just me who responds well to tweeting chefs. I know a few others in my little group of followers who also go all weak at the knees when they see a juicy duck breast or a pretty scallop dish in their timeline. And once you get a few people from Twitter through the doors, they too may take a few pictures and tweet a few nice words, or even get a blog review out there.

Of course, tweeting chefs are not the be all and end all and I do not intend on casting any doubt on the benefit of employing a PR company, but the importance of getting chefs interested in social media cannot be ignored. Aside from promoting their restaurant/pub etc, each will be promoting themselves and their own skill set. It must surely also help instil some pride in each chef; you ain't gonna tweet a picture of your dish and put your name to it if it looks shit, are you?

Anyhoo, there are some chefs and restaurants in Sheffield that do this really well and I've either been to, or plan to go to, each and every one of them. Some examples that spring to mind include The Wig & Pen, The Milestone, Thyme Cafe and Devonshire Arms.

One chef that recently popped up in my timeline is Karim Maoui (or @KMaoui). Based in Firbeck, the Black Lion is somewhere so far off my radar that there was no way I would have known about it but for Karim and his tweets. The pub doesn't have a website, so I was totally in Karim's hands in terms of what to expect. Kindly, he sent me a copy of the menu, which sealed the deal and we booked ourselves in.

Although I knew what to expect food wise, I had no idea what the venue was going to be like. I had visions of a replica of the Devonshire Arms in Middle Handley, another country pub set in the 'middle of nowhere', but instead we were welcomed by a more traditional pub, or a 'proper pub' if you like. You know the type, beer mats on tables, patterned thick pile carpets, tankards for decoration and original beams. It kind of reminded me of the Samuel Fox in Bradwell, except it was busier. Locals were at the bar supping, out of towners were seated down for dinner.

We made our presence known at the bar and were shown to a table by the window; it was a great spot, perfect for surveying the whole pub. Gav was driving so he ordered a pint of something from Rotherham (yes this place was that far off my radar) and I had a large glass of shiraz for a very reasonable price of £4.10. To start we decided to share the sharing platter. Expecting it to be a selection of the starters on the menu, we were surprised to be served a large selection of some really interesting food including prosciutto  chorizo, field mushroom with blue cheese, smoked salmon, a crayfish and cucumber cannelini, chicken liver parfait, a sweet onion jelly (I think), a walnut chutney, a tomato pesto, some olives, fish crackling and bread with oil. It was all pretty amazing to be honest; I love this kind of food and there was more than enough for us to share!

Highlights were the fish crackling (honestly, this was amazing) and the crayfish canneloni which was beautifully fresh with juicy pieces of crayfish packed into a cucumber roll. The three varieties of breads, including two focaccias were pretty impressive too. It was the kind of platter that you could pick at whilst working your way through a bottle of wine with friends and this is how the menu suggests it should be served. But at just over a tenner a pop, I just didn't think it would be that big!

On to mains and I went with the venison. Perfectly pink meat was served on a bed of spinach cooked with pancetta and a fondant potato the dish was a good size... but we were in a pub... in Firbeck... and that meant that we had a side order of veg. Hardly the end of the world especially as it was well cooked, just a sign of where we were and an opportunity to help me towards those 5 a day. The dish also came with a glass of port jus and I was really pleased to be able to decide how much sauce I wanted on the plate, especially as too much sauce is one of my bugbears.

Gav fancied something lighter and went for the snapper with chorizo mash. It also came with a selection of seafood; mussels and crayfish. Again, it was another nice sized dish and Gav enjoyed it.

Time for desserts. We were feeling pretty stuffed by this point so we decided to share one between us. Lemon drizzle cake is a real favourite of mine, and probably the one cake I bake the most at home, so we gave Karim's a try. It came served with a lemon thyme syrup and an incredibly zesty lemon rind sorbet. The cake itself was perfectly formed. Light as anything, it packed a lemony punch and although we were both quite full, we cleared the plate pretty quickly.

If I remember correctly, the bill came to less than £60. Considering this included a pint and a couple of large glasses of wine, I thought this was perfectly reasonable. Service throughout had been friendly and chatty and the food had been spot on. Sadly, for me, the location is not the best and given the true pub atmosphere it's not somewhere I would travel for a romantic meal for two, but if I was out that way then I would certainly return.

You'll find the Black Lion at 9 New Road, Firbeck, Rotherham S81 8JY.

Jineen Cafe, Sheffield

We get a lot of junk mail; a hell of a lot. Thankfully most of it is food related; sadly most of it is cheap & nasty pizza takeaway menus, or vouchers for McDonalds. However a couple of days ago one leaflet really caught my eye...

Jineen promised mezze, Palestinian specialities & Shisha at very reasonable prices, all within a location (The Wicker) just five minutes walk from my office. I was meeting a friend for lunch the next day, and although I was initially thinking of taking him to La Perle, I knew that I had to give this place a go as soon as I saw the menu. With popular mezze dishes such as humous, falafel and stuffed vine leaves, sandwiches of chicken liver and a few things I'd never heard of (Maqluba for instance) this was a menu for me; especially as no main course is over £6.50.

Apologies - Blogger is playing up & won't let me rotate this.

Anyone who knows Sheffield will know that The Wicker is far from the most salubrious part of town, and it's a bit dodgy at night, but there's a decent array of curry houses, kebab shops and Caribbean food stores making it well worth a trip for any foodie. Jineen was pretty easy to find, being quite close to Kebabish and La Perle.

As we entered we found the cafe relatively welcoming. I say relatively because we had clearly disturbed some bloke who was taking advantage of the free wi-fi (yes there is free wi-fi). He huffed and puffed about us yapping away and when I confronted him and told him that, yes, my friend and I would be enjoying a conversation, he upped and left declaring that us 'stupid people' had 'come in and ruined it' for him. It's a good job he left as we were soon joined by a couple more groups who also intended on chatting over lunch.

Hmmm, an awkward start to any meal I'm sure you'll agree! The chap at the counter (the owner?) was clearly embarrassed and apologised on behalf of his rude customer. Awkwardness over, we perused the menu. I say peruse, but to be fair, it was more of a glance for me, and for my friend it was a series of questions as he didn't know what a lot of it was, and although I am more than happy picking something from a menu purely on the basis that I don't know what it is, I can understand why some people wouldn't! Being the 'foodie' it was my job to enquire at the counter as to what certain things were and a few minutes later we put our orders in; a chicken liver sandwich and Turkish coffee for me, a chicken shawarma sandwich and freshly squeezed orange juice for him.

I had fancied the maqluba, a traditional Palestinian dish, which is on special on Wednesdays. The internet tells me it's a dish made up of layers of aubergine, tomatoes, meat and rice cooked in a casserole dish and tipped out onto a plate; served upside down (which is what maqluba means). Anyhoo, I decided that I didn't really need a full main dish and that a sandwich would more than suffice.

I ought to tell you a little about the cafe's interior... well there's a few solid wooden tables and chairs; maybe enough for four small groups. A couple of refrigerated counters with the salad and mezze goods in one and some rather pretty cakes in the other sit in the corner and behind these lies the kitchen. Towards the front of the cafe is a small room with a few sofas in it and this is the shisha lounge. The dining area is a small and compact space but I didn't feel cramped, even as a few more customers popped in for their lunches. Jineen opens 7 days a week 10-4 and then runs as a takeaway from 5-midnight. You'll find them on Just Eat and they provide a free delivery service on all orders over £12 (within a three miles radius).

When my sandwich arrived I was glad to have gone for it rather than a main as it was actually a decent sized plate of chicken offal (there were hearts/kidneys, or both, as well as livers), a large flatbread and a selection of dips. The offal was delicious. Cooked in a range of spices it was really tasty and the meat was cooked through but good and tender. There were also some pickles on the plate and I wasn't overly bothered by these, although the sweet and mild banana chillies went down pretty well. The dips were fine; I'm not overly sure what one of them was, maybe a garlic and yoghurt mix. The chilli dip was good, but the third tasted a bit like ketchup (which isn't a bad thing, just not my kind of thing!).

I really enjoyed my selection and my friend seemed happy with his too. The chicken sandwich came as a pretty decent sized wrap, served burrito style. His OJ was served in a big ol' pint pot and it was indeed freshly squeezed (so fresh it had the odd pip floating on top). My coffee, however was the highlight of the show. Served as a traditional Turkish coffee, it was thick with ground coffee (which remain in the pot throughout the whole cooking process and is not filtered off) and although I initially thought there was little chance of my drinking it without any milk, it had a spicy taste to it which took away some of the bitterness of the coffee (I later learnt that this was probably cardamom), and it was delicious.

The bill was £10.30 and on having the options of taking £10 in hard cash or £10.30 by card the owner (?) decided to take the cash. This left me feeling pretty embarrassed as I don't think I've ever (knowingly) left a restaurant after underpaying and I generally like to tip. However the owner (?) was still apologetic about our 'welcome' and assured me that £10 was sufficient.

Nice one.

I will return.

West 10 Wine Bar & Bistro, Sheffield

It was pay day, I'd had a blah day at work and I felt the need for a bit of pampering... and I don't know about you... but going out for dinner is exactly what I need when I'm feeling both flush and pained. As it was a Thursday night, I knew I had to act quickly as some restaurants book up quickly (including our first choice - the new Brooklyn Steak restaurant down Kelham Island). After that knock back I was tempted to go for an old favourite; The Wig & Pen, but I wanted to try somewhere new, or at least somewhere that I hadn't been to for a long while.

So our next choice was a restaurant we'd visited a while back and although we hadn't had too good an experience back then, I was keen to give it another go as I'd been hearing that things had improved. Gav called to book a table at 8 only to be told that the restaurant wasn't busy and the chefs didn't want to 'hang around'; could we make it earlier? Gav, being Gav, compromised and agreed to 7.30, but neither of us were happy. The prospect of a quiet restaurant with itchy chefs rushing us through our meal simply did not appeal and I was pleased when Gav cancelled it and booked option number three... West 10 Wine Bar & Bistro.

Trippets Wine Bar was a firm favourite of mine. Yes the toilet floors were squelchy with damp, yes it could feel a little pretentious at times, but by GOD, that wine list was amazing! We could get a decent bottle for under £15 and even the fizz was relatively reasonably priced. When it shut down, to become DADA, I didn't think much of going all the way to Ranmoor (I live in town; making a trip outside the S1 postcode takes some real effort & planning), until I saw a review in the Sheffield Telegraph.

We arrived at 8 (dinner time, yeah?) and decided to sit in the downstairs bar area. We had been offered a table upstairs but we'd never been up there and we decided that the grass might not always be greener. It was a good choice, for us. Informal & bistro style, it was perfect for a relaxing meal, although upstairs would probably be better for groups or more formal affairs.

We decided to take full advantage of that wine list and go for a few glasses of different wines, rather than a bottle, and we kicked off with a rather stunning Sauvignon Blanc. Sadly I've forgotten the name (I think it was third on the list and began with a 'B' if you want to hunt it down!), but it was so good that I drank it a bit too quickly and my glass was empty by the time the starters arrived (of course, I just ordered another).

Before out first course however, we were treated to a couple of amuse bouche; some pate on small pieces of bread and a shot of mushroom soup with truffle oil. An amuse bouche will always amuse me. How can they not? They're free nibbles and often a sign of things to come... Here our freebies were simple, but well prepared.

For starters I went for the scallops. At a tenner a go, they were the most expensive option, but with three fat and perfectly cooked samples of the shellfish along with (very) crispy bacon it was worth the price tag. But, although I enjoyed the dish, I was a little jealous of Gav's (of course I denied it at the time). As a lover of the soufflé he was happy to find a Yorkshire Blue version here (£7). I'm not a huge soufflé lover myself, but there was a good amount of blue cheese running through.

For mains I went for the lamb dish (£25). Two, pink as you like lamb cutlets were served up with a 'side' of braised lamb, a fondant potato and some crushed peas. The lamb was delicious and the fondant potato was the best I'd ever had; it was a very satisfying dish and one I would happily have again (and again).

Gav had been craving some steak and was glad to find it on the menu. An 8oz fillet (£26) was served with chips, roasted tomatoes and the most enormous onion rings I've seen in a long time. The steak was good;  rare and tasty, which, I think, is sometimes a bit of a bonus with a fillet.

Normally by this stage I would have been feeling quite full, but as service had been pretty slow (quite annoyingly slow to be honest) my waistband was still quite comfortable and it could handle a dessert. The chocolate tart (£7) caught my eye. It was rich and thick with chocolate; similar to a torte and although a side of chilli popcorn was an unnecessary extra, the little sugar spun basket it was served in was a perfect excuse for the chef to show off some skills. For me, the dish really worked thanks to some dollops of passion fruit coulis. I'm not normally a fan of this tart fruit, but it cut through the rich chocolate nicely and the combination is one that I still crave now (remarkable for me as we are just talking dessert here).

Gav had the chocolate tasting option (£10) and I'm gonna have to be honest with you... I have no idea what any of it was like. I'd had a few vinos, I was happily enjoying my own dish and I didn't give two hoots about his! He says it was 'nice' though (which I'm sure it was, I just wish I could offer a little more than that).

All in all I was pleasantly surprised by West 10. The food was spot on, as were the wines. The atmosphere was perfect bistro stylee and the service was easy and friendly (if slow). It wasn't cheap mind, and the total bill (including four glasses of wine each) was about £130. Whether this is down to West 10 being located in Ranmoor (one of the smarter ends of town) I'm not too sure, but it was a lovely treat and I will return.

P.s. sorry for the lack of pictures; it was too dark.