Andy Lynes

Tom, who would you say has had the most influence over the way you cook?

I really enjoyed the food at SOS, I had the squid, some venison with spiced squash (for £9.50!) and a dessert I can't recall. Service was dismall and the place is loud no doubt at all. But I'd chance a second visit, maybe a lunchtime.

I had the OS chop with rosemary and anchovy butter at lunch at Bibendum 2 months ago and it was truely lovely, better than a veal chop with masala I had recently at Sartoria

I have seen several adverts for staff in the papers for Sketch and Gagnaires name is very prominant.

This may help http://www.fatduck.co.uk/low_temperature_cooking.html .

This is an eGullet announcement : a possible circular arguement has been identified on this board which may suck users into it's vortex, never to be seen or heard of again. Would you please therefore evacuate this thread immeadiately via the exits and make your way to the "Culinary Rock Groups" or "A Balic" threads or any other safe haven within the eGullet site. Thank you.

To paraphrase Meat Loaf : I'll swallow just about anything, (as long as it's free of course), but I won't swallow that.

I agree that it's very good news that the chap from the George got to go to The French Laundary and that he was inspired enough to try and reproduce what he saw and ate there. It was certainly not meant as an indictment of Jay Rayner. I mentioned this review partly because I enjoyed reading it. Several of jay's recent reviews have made me laugh out loud, whilst still telling me all I need to know about the restaurant in question. I think he's the best reviewer in the UK press at the moment, bar Fay Maschler of course! There really was no side to this posting at all, I simply felt that it was worth remarking on. Perhaps I should tell you that I was brought up in Portsmouth, which is where you get the Ferry or Hovercraft over to the Isle of Wight. I'm afraid the general feeling about IOWers was that they were rather a rum lot to say the least. In addition, the Isle's main source of revenue is as a holiday destination and as you may know, the UK seaside holiday is virtually extinct. As a consequence, the poor old Isle does not have the most booming economy in the world. Therefore the suprise. It would be a bit like Reg's cafe in Southend on Sea running a "Tribute to Robuchon" promotion. Well, not that bad but you get my drift.

Steven - the reason I remarked upon this particular case is that the Isle of Wight is not exactly a culinary destination. It is a very insular and really the last place I would have expected a dish inspired by Keller to turn up. The mystery as I said has been solved by the fact that the chef got a free trip to California with the British industry rag Caterer. I wasn't intending to spin this out into any sort of wider meditation on modern restaurant practices,but if anyone else fancies it feel free. I'll be posting on the A Balic or Rock Groups threads.

Jay - Well that solves that little mystery then. Also, sorry about the mis-quote. Cabrales - it's usually chefs that go on the Caterer junkets and always catering professionals of some sort.

The time is drawing near, I am booked in with my better half for this coming Tuesday. Anyone been recently and can recommend either the menu gourmand or the al a carte?

I was very interested to read Jay Rayners review in the Observer today of The George hotel in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight http://www.observer.co.uk/life/story/0,6903,668701,00.html and was suprised to read that his amuse bouche was a version of Thomas Kellers Oysters and Pearls. It sounds like a dumbed down version with an oyster sitting in a salty broth with grains of tapioca. The original is a sort of custard made with sabayon, tapioca, creme fraiche and whipped cream with the oysters placed on top in a butter sauce of vermouth, oyster juices shallots and vinegar with some caviar on top. This must be the first instance of a Californian chefs signature dish turning up in an Isle of Wight kitchen isn't it? As you will read Jay didn't like the dish and likened it to snot! Has anyone had the original, did that taste like snot?

John - excuse my ignorance but what do Eurochefs do. I also didn't know that Annie Schwab was a writer.

John - I assume you are referring to my comments earlier in the thread. I don't expect tall food, or glass plates or foams, but at least some thought and effort to make it pleasing to the eye which I found lacking in my main course. I think I have said before that I find St John's studied casualness as affected as any number of Michelin wannabies.

Somehow, at some point, I am going to have to use the phrase "The meat fell off the bone and danced between my cheeks".

If you make it out to Buckhead, and you really should, you must, absolutely must go to the Buckhead Diner. Nava in Buckhead does some great South Western cuisine. Also out that way is Seegers the number 1 fine dining restaurant (www.seegers.com) which I have not eaten in my collegues have and said it was the meal of their lives. Joel Antunes has always been a hot ticket where ever he has cooked in the world and now he is at Joel (http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2001-12-19/cuisine_feature.html) . The Abbey restaurant may be recommended to you but I would say avoid it, it will be an expensive mistake. Also Pano And Pauls. Hope this is of some help.

I have had similar experiences in other restaurants, as I'm sure many others have. I am fairly sure on occasions when I book a restaurant a couple of weeks in advance and get the "we can manage 7.30 but we must have the table back by 9.30" that the receptionist is staring at a blank book. This annoys me, as I feel that as I have gone to the trouble of booking ahead, I should get the slot I want and be able to keep the table all evening. They can mess people around that book on the day if they want when, hopefully for them, their reservations book is more full. I think it's just PR on the part of the restaurant, ensuring they appear to be busy at all times.

Thats three times I've used the word "Imperialism" (make that four times) in this thread already. I need to get a thesaurus in order to be more creative in my mud slinging.

Tony - You are correct, I am not taking this too seriously but also that I have had a momentary sense of humour failure in the face of relentless American imperialism, which is also apparently humourless.

The reason for that is not what you are arguing, but the manner in which you argue it. It would appear that you are simply taking pleasure in winding people up, which is quite acceptable if all involved are having fun, but that is evidently not the case here.

Steve - although you have posed this question in an attempt to prove you are right and everyone else is wrong, which is an utterly contemptuous, patronising and manically egotistical thing to do, you have in fact raised a very interesting question. To find the answer, I think we need to ask the question "Why aren't there any restaurants in Britian serving British food". Yes, there are chip shops and in the East End of London, pie and mash shops, but the majority of restaurants in this country are Indian, Chinese and Italian. French comes way down the list in terms of volumes, and British hardly registers. We simply have no solid base of restaurant culture of our own to export to anyone. But that doesn't prove that British Food is shit. All it shows is that the immigrant population of this country show a great deal more initiative, are better businessmen and have enough pride in the food of their native country to believe that others will like it, which is quite obvioulsy true. BTW the way, all Italian food is shit, and not a patch on the great dishes of British food. The only reason there are so many restaurants doing it is that is a piece of piss to cook, requires little or no skill to prepare, basic food costs are low and you can make a mint off it. This is not true of British food, which requires a significant amount of time and skill to prepare and is therfore not so attractive a propostition to prospective restauranteurs (see, you can argue anything if you reduce it down far enough and ignore lots of things. Doesn't actually get us anywhere though does it?).

Steve - when I said that your arguement was reductionist, I meant that you had reduced the entire spectrum of British cooking to a few items and then branded them all as awful. You can't really say that there is a material difference in saying something is awful in comparison to something else and saying that it is awful. It either is or it isn't. The smell of shit is not awful compared to roses, it's just awful. You think that British food is awful and you would have us believe that when you make that statement ,you speak for the entire Western world. It's that sort of arrogance that really gets peoples back up and what I meant when I referred to Culinary Imperialism.

That wasn't your proposition, it was that "The entire Western world outside of England thinks they taste awful." and the reason you would like to kill this thread is that it is a completely idiotic and unsupportable statement. But thats OK, we'll just pop along to the new thread and wait for the next one to arrive. Gee, this is fun (what, no smilie?).

Steve, your entire original post is on the same page for all to see, and what I quoted doesn't change the meaning one little bit. What you said is what you said. This is a reductionist view to say the very least.

Oh for fucks sake Steve, what complete and utter Bullshit. I think it's time the US contingent stopped espousing this sort of culinery imperialism on these boards. You are even wrong in the context of eGullet alone : http://www.egullet.com/ib3....d+chips http://www.egullet.com/ib3....d+chips