Different companions require different restaurants. You have to choose your restaurant carefully, based on whom you’re taking. Dinner with friends, is, oddly, one of the hardest. You have to choose somewhere not too romantic, lest they think you about to make a pass, and not too businesslike less they die of boredom. But Oxford has a few suitable places.
I went to four. In one evening. I’m just that dedicated. Actually, it was partly a mistake – I meant to book three, but after ringing round a few, couldn’t remember which ones I’d actually booked, meaning that I accidentally scheduled two for the same time and got a plaintive call at ten past eight from the second one asking where I was, and had to quickly rebook for the end of the evening, when I’d been planning to be back at college with a mug of tea and an old West Wing DVD.
When I announced this slight hiccup to the girl I was with she called me the worst restaurant critic in the world, which is probably true. She also threatened to sue me if I named her in this column, so I’ll restrict myself to noting that she’s called Beth and does History at Lincoln. Also that she doesn’t like spicy foods, which was a bit of a problem at the first restaurant we went to, Sojo on Hythe Bridge Street, which is a Chinese with a fondness for Szechuan cooking; the hottest and fieriest kind of Chinese. Hot and fiery and excellent, though, and they can also do some pretty decent Shanghainese stuff, which is sweeter and milder. The pork belly we had was, said Beth, too fatty, but of course that’s the whole point of pork belly. Pretty wonderful salt and pepper squid, too, even if it’s hasn’t been fashionable in London for two years now. This is probably the best Chinese in Oxford, so go.
Next we struggled up the road to The Big Bang on Walton Street, Jericho, which wasn’t big at all, but tiny. It’s a bangers and mash place, so a bit of a one trick pony, but it’s an excellent trick: sausages and potato just like your mum used to make (or not, in my case). Watch out for the Venison sausages though, which are too far too dense, tasting a bit like Bambi accidentally got caught in a car crusher.
Then on to Al-Shami Lebanese over the road in Walton Crescent. You get a big plate of fruit and vegetables to play with while you’re waiting, and then almost certainly the best Lebanese food you’ve ever had, partly because you’ve almost certainly never had Lebanese food before. It was good though, vine leaves stuffed with rice, herbs and spices, being a particular highlight, the sweet leaves hiding an intense, spicy filling. But the real reason to go is the Arak, a white, aniseedy spirit tasting like the strongest Sambuca you’ve ever drunk, which you dilute with iced water and sip while eating. Split a bottle between a few people, order a few plates of the excellent food and you can’t fail to have a good time.
And finally, three hours and probably five thousand calories after we started, we staggered over to Little Clarendon Street, which has more gastronomic gems per square foot than anywhere else in Oxford, and fell in to Al-Andalus, the Spanish tapas place next to Pierre Victoire. Beth, who had been before, started bouncing up and down in her seat as soon as I told her we were going, and (for once) she was absolutely right, for Al-Andalus is quite possibly the most perfect little restaurant you could ever imagine. We had fiery Pollo Chorizo, dates wrapped in bacon, the salty covering giving way as you bite to a sweet, gooey centre, goat’s cheese and honey cakes, and half a dozen other things that, after the sherry and white Rioja from the short but decent wine list, I was far too drunk to remember.
Go. Take all your friends. It’s hard to imagine a better evening.
