Andy Lynes

And I thought David at Le Champignon had scaled down on the amount of food he was giving his customers.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to check out Kiasu, the recently opened Malaysian restaurant in Bayswater. I was so impressed that I returned yesterday to celebrate my wife's birthday with the kids and my brother and his wife. It turned out to be his third visit that week. A former resident of Kuala Lumpur and Penang, he was quite impressed by the authenticity of the grub. We had an excellent lunch of satay, otak otak, nasi lemak, nasi goreng and much else. If you fancy paying the place a visit however a couple of things you should bear in mind. Avoid the table directly in front of the serving hatch. They serve huge, and I mean huge bowls of laksa that are filled nearly to the brim. We were amazed that only one got spilt down the back of an unfortunate diner. Another was delivered safely to a nearby table only for the the diner to move the bowl on the table and trigger a minor Tsunami of spicy soup. Communication can be a problem. Our waiter failed to understand that we wanted three plates of satay despite being told on five seperate occasions. We eventually got two but could easily have polished off the other expected plate. I was really looking forward to the roti pratha but this had sold out by the time we ordered just before 1.00pm and there were no ice creams available. On the plus side, gado gado, which is not currently listed on the menu is actually on offer and is absolutely delicious. Still definately my favourite new casual restaurant in London, but be prepared for some minor frustrations if you go. Our bill for 6 people including starters, mains, 4 desserts and two rounds of soft drinks came to under £100 including 10% service charge.

Gives you something to Knorr on doesn't it?

No doubt this is true, but they have an awful lot to work with. Imagine the poor old food hacks dilema - "What in hell's name am I going to write about today," they ask themselves. "Your restaurant serves local and seasonal dishes you say? Gosh how um, interes......sorry must have passed into a coma lasting two weeks there. Must dash, I've got a call coming through on the other line. A dish that looks like the sea shore and you get an I Pod with it? When can you send over a picture? Can we schedule a phone interview? Yes, 500 words in tomorrow's edition no problem."

Some lovely looking plates of food. The restaurant got its first review recently in the Oxford Times. A positive write up, despite the reviewer spending the first six paragraphs demonstrating how dead clever he is.

Hardens report that the new restaurant will be called Wild Honey.

Good old Egon Ronay, nearly as clever at generating publicity for himself and his brand as Restaurant magazine.

I'd be delighted to attend next year's ceremony and I take your point about honouring the chefs and restaurateurs properly. I think the format you used at the Delfina Cafe for UK Best Dishes would work very well for World's 50 Best.

Dear Joe, I fully understand the need for sponsorship in order to mount such an event as the World's Fifty Best. All I would say is that there is a balance to be struck so that people don't feel they have been corralled into a room to be put in front of logos for an hour and a half. I personally preferred the more free wheeling nature of the earlier events at Hush and the Royal Exchange where things seemed to zip along nicely, you were free to continue to mingle and you could absorb the sponsor's messages more "organically" as it were, yours, Just Another Jaded Hack (the Laurent Perrier was lovely by the way, thank you)

I preferred the earlier, funnier lists. Last night ceremony was, um, long. Highlights were Sally Clarke's affectionate tribute to lifetime achievement award winner Alice Waters (who looks about 20 years younger than her actual age of 59) and Ferran Adria calling the Spanish culinary mafia including Andoni Aduriz and Juan Mari Arzak to join him on stage as he accepted the award for best restaurant in the world. Only "special" award winners got invited to the stage which meant that Pierre Gagnaire was the only chef in the top 5 who didn't get his moment in the spotlight -all the others received gongs for being best restaurant in their region or in The Fat Duck's case "Chef's Choice" award. Compare Mark Durden-Smith did his best to jolly things along but was unfortunately saddled with the job of reading out the 120 word long restaurant descriptions as printed in the current issue of Restaurant magazine for every one of the 50 best, which meant he'd read out the equivilent of a 6,000 word essay by the end of the evening. Thrilling stuff. The usual suspects were in attendance including Thomas Keller, Neil Perry from Rockpool and Tetsuya Wakuda but Ducasse, Bras, Robuchon, Vongerichten, Boulud, Trotter and Restaurant magazine editor Joe Warwick's chum Mr Ramsay were conspicuous by their absence. I tottered along to the after show party at Bouji and arrived just in time to see some European food journalists being treated with utter contempt by a clipboard witch and her gorillas who claimed to know nothing whatsoever about the awards. I enjoyed being ignored for five minutes as Ms Clipboard air kissed some trust fund scum then got the message and went home with my goodie bag full of shallots (I kid you not) and bottles of delicious, refreshing San Pellegrino (I wasn't paid to say that - I'm just brainwashed after 90 minutes of relentless product placement).

Extracts from the new Wareing book are on Caterersearch.com click

Abode in Canterbury actually click. I had a very different experience from Jay and had some really terrific food there (although the service was very, very slow) so don't abondon all hope just yet.

I'm planning on popping in for breakfast at Fifteen Cornwall (no reservations taken) in the summer, mainly to get a look at the place and the view. Don't forget the Michelin starred Ripley's in St Merryn which is about 2 miles from Padstow. What was Nathan Outlaw's Black Pig is now L'Estuaire which is run by an ex-Raymond Blanc/Michael Caines chef. Routes from theaa.com are pretty reliable and you can figure out journey times from door to door using postcodes.

Or D & D as we must now learn to call them.

I've really enjoyed this week so far -highly entertaining stuff. I'd definately use that crab cake recipe and I thought Jeremy Lee's beef dish looked awesome. I think Nairn won the fish course simply on the basis of it being edible in the context of a four course meal.

I always thought there was an amuse bouche lurking somewhere in that "recipe" - maybe chef Nuno at Bacchus is the man to unearth it?

Fish finger and Branston Pickle sandwiches made with cheap supermarket white bread. I haven't had one of those in about 20 years. Now could be the time.

I've had a proper dinner there and it was bloody lovely - sounds like they're still figuring out Saturday brunch. Try early evening, early in the week - might help.

I had an utterly dismal lunch at The Cotton House a couple of years ago. The food was a disgrace and the design is ridiculous. Anywhere that has deep fried Camembert as a starter - even if they are being post modern about it - should be viewed with deep suspicion. www.thecottonhouse.net

Definition of a shill from Wikipedia: "A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services who pretends no association to the seller and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer." So no, Gordon Ramsay is definately not shillin'.

Did you get to Nathan Outlaw in the end?

The Kitchin in Leith was fully booked last night, although they started clearing down at about 9.30pm (there's a picture window in the dining room into the main kitchen) so not many tables were turned.

How was the food Andy? ← i assume you mean at the d duck mathew?! FWIW i thought it disappointing when i went late last year, not at all pubby too to slick and had no terroir (to be poncy) you could have eaten the restaurant menu in london easily, however the related punch bowl was significantly better, rustic but sylish. ← There's a new chef Neil McCue (no idea where he's come from) who's doing some nice, simple dishes like braised shoulder of lamb with mash and spring greens and some rather more poncy affairs with foams and fancy presentations. He's sorting out his suppliers at the moment according to the menu blurb but we asked where the meat came from and were told Cornwall and Scotland which was a bit diappointing, especially as we'd seen Herdwick lamb and belted Galloway on a nearby farm. Service was quite slick although our waiter said he needed a drink after taking our order - we'd only asked him a couple of questions!

Last night I was at the Drunken Duck in the Lake District (full address - middle of bleeding nowhere) and it was so busy they could only do us a table at 8.45pm. Not bad for a Monday night. I'm just about to eat out in Leith so I'll report back on business later.

Stuart Gillies is head chef of Ramsay's Boxwood Cafe.