Andy Lynes

La Becasse, the new restaurant that will take the place of Hibiscus in Ludlow will open 11 July. According to the person who took my reservation today, the restaurant is still a building site. As they've been closed for refurbishment for a while now I imagine it will look quite different when its finished. The restaurant's website (click), is just a holding page at the moment so there's no indication of menus or price. They've got a very tough act indeed to follow but I'm looking forward to seeing if they can pull it off. eGulleters far cleverer than I (that'll be, um, just about everyone then) won't have needed to google La Becasse to discover that it means woodcock, and will have immeadiately clocked the connection to L'Ortolan, chef Alan Murchison's other restaurant.

Sat Bains is Square Meal's Uk restaurant of the year 2007 click here.

I would strongly recommend that you get a weeks worth of experience before you make any life changing decisions. Its the only way to really understand what kitchen life is really like. You'll know then if you can hack the repetition and the physical demands. After a day you'll be buzzing like mad and think "this is the life"; at the end of the week you'll proabably be very knackered indeed and possibly even a bit bored and frustrated. Expect to be chopping tomato concasse, cleaning spinach, prepping veg and running to the walk in every five minutes for whoever you're working with. Once your allowed to assist with service, then things get much more interesting and exciting and that could happen very early on depending on your ability and where you end up working. I'd also try a few different types of establishements - Michelin, big brasserie, small neighbourhood restaurant. They're all very different experiences and you may find yourself more at home in one style than another.

As Herderson ran the French House in Soho with his wife Margot from 1992 to 1994 and Ramsay didn't open Aubergine until late 93, Henderson was "on the scene" in terms of being a head chef and being able to "do" his own dishes before Ramsay was. Given his prediliction for offal and extremities, I would say its not beyond the realms of possibility that Henderson served trotters at the French House before Ramsay had a chance to serve them at Aubergine. That said, I would indeed imagine that Ramsay first came across the idea of pigs trotter served in a haute cuisine fashion while he was working at La Tante Claire (where I'm told he used to bone a trotter in 35 seconds, partly by using his teeth).

Its just that they were getting very excitied about the slow poached egg which is a dish that has already travelled around the world from Paris to Spain to California.

"Umami hit in the mouth". You always have to say "in the mouth" when talking about Molecular Gastronomy - it's the goddamn culinary law, 'kay?

Using Knorr to season his sauces instead of salt? In the interview MPW says he's like a child, when he wakes up he wants to play. Well, I think he's playing with us all on this one. Fascinating interview though, despite the interviewer's obsession with educating the younger generation or whatever he was going on about. Couldn't help but think of Jimmy Saville during some of MPW's proclamations however. Well, they're both from Leeds aren't they?

Well, I think someone's had word with Gregg. No "soft"; no listing of ingredients; no "the crunchiness of" or "the sweetness of". The only saving grace was when he nearly fainted over Emma Forbes banana tart. I'll give him one more chance to deliver tonight, otherwise I'll have to initiate "John Torode Watch".

Perhaps they should change the title to: Mostly TV Presenters and Soap Stars With a Couple of People You Might Have Heard of If You're Over 40 Thrown in for Good Measure Masterchef Although Its Not Really Masterchef As Most of Them Won't Be Able To Cook For Toffee But Will Be On A Really Interesting Journey That They've Started And Want To See Where It Takes Them

I'm looking forward to 7.00pm this evening when the family will gather together to watch the new series of Celebrity Masterchef. How many times will Gregg use the word "soft" to indicate the height of culinary achievement? Judge a dish by shouting a list of its ingredients into the face of the chef that cooked it? Say that the somethingness of something cuts through the otherness of another thing? Go into a blissful state at the mere sight of food with a high sugar content? It's a rollercoaster ride of unexpected twists and turns and I can't wait to get on it.

I think Matthew Fort made a mistake in marking Mark Broadbent's mutton dish so low that it missed the public vote. Nothing wrong with Mark Hix's "vermin pie" of course but I think the mutton was the better dish. If it was me, I'd have chosen ham egg and peas (although the originality of that dish was grossly overstated); Atul's fish dish, the mutton and the perry jelly which was the best dish of the whole competiton.

Here's the website: Tea Palace. I've passed it a couple of times on the way to The Ledbury and I always think it looks splendid but wonder who actually goes there.

You could try Tea Smith in the city but not sure if they serve food as well. Afternoon tea at Sketch is like tea at the Ritz as directed by Tim Burton. They have a very posh list of teas selected, apparently, by Pierre Gagnaire himself.

They drilled into my skull. Now I can cook again". From the Observer Food Monthly 26 Feb 2006.

Although years seperated my meals at River Cafe and Theo Randall (well, I'm not made of bloody money), I would agree that the cooking at TR is in no way inferior to RC, perhaps because Randall cooked both meals!

Whatever became of the space that was Teatro in Leeds? Is that still a restaurant?

I understand that Nigel Haworth of Northcote Manor fame is intending to put goat on the menu at his new pub the Highwayman and at Northcote Manor in the near future, so you won't be entirely alone.

A Sweeney Todd style dessert?

Adam Byatt is ex-sous chef at The Square, ex-head chef of Origin (formerly Thyme) at the Hospital in Covent Garden (which I wrote about on egullet here: click), ex-head chef/owner of Thyme in Clapham. He can cook but there wasn't much evidence of those skills when I ate at Trinity soon after it opened. I was present for the meal that's reviewed here: click. We were the only table for most of the lunchtime, Adam Byatt was in the kitchen, yet there were long waits for food, my John Dory was over cooked and served without sauce (a service error I think) and a fig dessert was just poor. The room is nice enough but there was nothing about the experience that made me want to give it a second chance. Trinity website

Jenny Bond perches kittenishly on a counter top and leans in towards the chef as she tastes his dish. I shudder.

My money's on Mark Hix for this round. I would very happily eat all four of his dishes which meet the remit of actually being British better than any of the chefs so far this series. I don't know what's happened to Michael Caines this time around. He seems particularly uninspired - his duck and cabbage dish was very ordinary and (supposedly) using Jus-rol for the apple tart is surely not on for a 2 star chef. I wondered how Hix's "so-laid-back-I'm hardly-there-look-in-the-dictionary-under-laconic-and-you'll-find-a-picture-of-me" demenour would come across on screen but I think he's been very entertaining and for the most part refreshingly unwilling to enter into Jenny Bond-prompted bitching matches.

I rather liked the conceit of the piece, even though it was a rather obvious one, and found it a real hoot. I'd like to read more restaurant reviews by Mr Sewell.

"My next port of call was Oxford University and Nicholas Kurti. Nicholas was the head of Physics at the University and the person who coined the phrase “Molecular Gastronomy”, some 35 years ago." Heston Blumenthal, The Fat Duck website: click here

Who inspired you most in your decision to write of food? On a sunny day in 2003, I was standing on a New York sidewalk with Steven Shaw. He told me that I owed it to myself to write more and for some reason I believed him. What is it particularly that you write of within the wide-varied subject? I write of chefs and restaurants and food related travel and a little bit about wine. When did you take up the pen? Towards the end of the last century, but professionally in April 2004. Where do you wish to publish your writings? Do you have any specific magazines/journals or publishers that you have an urge to present your work to for acceptance? I have a strange urge to present my work to anyone foolish enough to pay me for it. Why do you wish to submit your work to these particular outlets? I refer you to my last answer How do you hope to have your writings affect the world of food and people? I would like them to laugh, but not for the wrong reasons.

He always looks like that. I happened to walk past him in the street the other day. He was chatting to someone in front of Incognico at around 1.00pm and he looked like he'd been in the kitchen all night even then. Missed out on Gagnaire's canapes? Tsk tsk!