3:36pm Wednesday 21st July 2010
By Christopher Gray
We arrive in Abingdon by bus, 30 minutes early for dinner at the Camino Restaurant. This is deliberate. A colleague had advised that we might enjoy a drink at the nearby Brewery Tap. We certainly do. Though it’s a shame there is no longer a brewery for the place to be the ‘tap’ to, there is still an excellent range of real ales here. There are world beers, too, including Rosemarie’s favourite Mythos lager — the first time we’ve encountered it outside Greece. Others clearly like it as well. It is rubbed from the blackboard as we approach the bar. So white wine instead.
Fortified by the Chilean sauvignon blanc, we set off for Bath Street, noting en route what varied tastes are now catered for by the restaurants in the town. World food as well as world beers. Well, sort of. We see Indian, Lebanese and Chinese as well as a good old British chippy. Italian food is being offered by both Limoncello and Bella Napoli, So it is at the Camino, though the atmosphere is distinctly less Italian than it was when I first (also I think last) visited 20 years ago.
In those days its boss was called Antonio, and his waistcoated, bow-tie-wearing waiters were Lamberto, Nello, Giuseppe and Giorgio. Now the service — tonight at least — is supplied by two English women. It is efficient and polite, if not especially warm. On this Friday night all the tables in our section of the restaurant are full, with jugs of sangria a popular drinks choice with their occupants. The ‘bar end’ of the room is deserted. The look is lighter and brighter than it used to be. Our table, hard by the fireplace, is the least appealing, but we’ll put up with it . . .
I printed the menu off the website earlier in the day, so I know what there is in terms of hot and cold starters, pasta, risottos, pizzas and meat dishes. Of the fish specials on the blackboard, the one starter (rollmops) is sold out and the three main courses aren’t to my taste. Coley — strictly for cats, for someone my age, I’m afraid. Salmon — just a bit boring. Sea bass — perhaps, but not as here with honey and almonds.
During this decision time, we are drinking the zesty house white and (in my case) nibbling green and black olives. They are on the menu at £2, but I am told when I order some that they are complimentary. A nice touch. The little dish also contains peanuts.
I begin my meal in a most un-Italian way with a pair of smoked haddock fishcakes with a sweet chilli sauce, which — since it is in a separate pot — can be pushed aside. It is. The fishcakes are fine just with the well-dressed salad, even if they’re a bit gooey.
Rosemarie is delighted with her starter of prawn gratinato. This is a hot dish of chunks of ripe avocado, peeled prawns and pieces of smoked haddock, in a runny cheese sauce. Ideal for a trencherperson, it is of main course dimension. Having finished it, she is therefore able to eat only about half of the lasagne that follows. This, again, is much enjoyed, with the pasta sheets of an ideal consistency and plenty of the rich Bolognese sauce.
A vegetarian lasagne is also available, along with eight other pasta dishes, including a fusilli Camino, with chicken, blue cheese, spinach, parmesan and cream.
My choice from the meat dishes is also a house speciality, a juicy rib-eye steak Camino, cooked medium rare as requested, with parmesan, gorgonzola and brandy sauce. The accompanying green beans and carrots are both overcooked, school-dinner affairs, but the cauliflower and broccoli are OK, if yawn-making.
The only home-made pudding, Dutch apple tart, features two Rosemarie no-nos — sultanas and cinammon — so it’s a bought-in “chocolate flavour” (?) ice cream with hard dark chocolate shell. I passed altogether.
Travelling home on the X13 bus after this good-value but rather dull meal, we were surrounded on the initial stages of the journey by further evidence of Abingdon’s new international status — dozens and dozens of foreign language students.
And I suppose you thought they were all in Oxford . . .
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