Steak house

Our recent visit to Cambridge concluded with a visit to an interesting establishment on Hills Road, a little to the town side of the railway bridge, called 'La Maison du Steak'.

Not a former public house, as one might have first thought, rather the house of a coal dealer or his foreman, P Beales and Co, of Coal Wharf. A quick look at a map provided by the Scottish National Library, suggests the unnamed building marked with an orange spot, providing access to what was then a collection of sidings, presumably all devoted to bulk supplies of one sort or another. Among which a local history site suggests that there were a number of coal dealers. Perhaps being consolidated by the time that I arrived on the scene.

I knew about the cattle market, but not the allotment gardens and the Station Farm on the other side of the tracks. All long gone, along with the sidings.

The steak house was busy when we arrived, but we were offered a table outside and as it happened we were dressed enough and it was warm enough for that to be OK. So instead of views of interesting goings on inside we had views of goings on outside. What appeared to be a party of travelling people or similar looking to beano and lots of interesting people walking or pedaling by. Most of the travelling people were smoking real cigarettes.

Unusually, they offered a Gewürztraminer, a wine we had a fancy for a few years back, and so we took that. Quite satisfactory. The archive does not reveal this particular brand, just a journalist called Mure earlier this year, but see references 2, 3 and 4.

We also took some brown bread, which claimed to involve walnut, but actually involved caraway seeds, which was fine as I rather like them. The only catch was that the bread was not of the freshest and, when I was paying the bill, I noticed that it came in plastic bags, so probably not cooked on the spot, probably not cooked that day.

For the second day running, I took bavette, while BH, also for the second day running, took fish. Quite a long wait, so I probably took too much dry bread (despite the copious supplies of Anchor, visible above) and did not manage much of the salad. Or perhaps the dollops of goo put me off, not having thought to worry about dressing when ordering. As I recall, the bavette was acceptable rather than good.

While we were waiting I was able to admire the building snapped above, which I thought did rather well in the fading evening light. And outdoor art aside, an interesting composition of shapes. I thought perhaps on the site of one Henry Pordage, potato merchant, whom I remember from childhood, but Google reveals nothing of the sort. On the other hand, the map above reveals a suitable building, a little below the orange spot, complete with its own railway siding, which computes.

Wound up with a spot of Calvados, Calva to Maigret and his colleagues, as was proper in a Frenchified eatery.

The refrigerator, on show beside the till. I was interested to see the sign about the beef being mature and air dried, presumably that top left rather that still in its shrink wrappings. Perhaps it is the drying out which gives some of this old beef its rather cracked appearance - not very appetising to my mind, although it has worked out well enough on the odd occasion that we have tried it. At least once anyway.

On the way back to the hotel, another snap of the building previously noticed at reference 5. Whatever it is that they do there, it clearly involves a lot of cable.

References

Reference 1: https://www.lamaisondusteak.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gew%C3%BCrztraminer.

Reference 3: https://www.mure.com/en/. 'A prodigious monopoly cultivated by the Muré family since 1935'. With white horses.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=Gew%C3%BCrztraminer. What looks like the tail end of the fancy for Gewürztraminer.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/08/an-outpost-of-empire.html.