Andy Lynes

Sat - overall I thought pretty much everything about Harts was spot on - great bar, lovely rooms, great location (once I'd found the bloody place of course. But a good nights sleep in a city centre hotel is a rare and wonderful thing). The restaurant seems to me perfectly pitched for the very wide audience it attracts. There's enough to keep foodies like me interested but its not so full on as to scare away the more casual punters and business people. I had a couple of issues about the starter and the dessert, but nothing serious and that turbot was just great. I think some of the service in the restaruant could afford to be a bit warmer, but I think that's to do with confidence rather than any whiff of snootiness. They struck me as mostly quite a young team and just a little hesitant to engage with the customers, but that was just my impression.

That maybe isn't the most advisable expression for a resident of Nottingham.

They used to grow in Soho square apparently. I'm not sure about it as a name for a restaurant though, bit obscure isn't it?

What a lovely gesture, I'm welling up!

I visited Windermere for the first time last week (stunning scenery) and didn't make it to L'Enclume this time. However, I plan to be back there as soon as I can manage it and "The L'Enc" (as I believe the locals don't call it) will definately be on my hit list. But I have to say that I was more than satisfied with my scone, jam and pot of tea at Lakeland Limited's 1st Floor Cafe. That's a great set up and well worth a visit.

Oh, I don't go to those - they've been infiltrated by Londoners.

I can't stand it when those provincial scum "infiltrate" restaurants meant for Londoners, Andy from Brighton

I think Roka would be right up your street - great food, "hip" design and the Shochu Lounge downstairs.

I was in Nottingham on Thursday. As I was driving into the city in slow moving traffic at around 7.00pm, a group of three youths walked into the road in front of the car ahead of me (a Hillman Imp in case your interested). When the driver sounded his horn in order to avoid a collision, the group "surrounded" the car (well, as there was only three of them they didn't actually surround the car but you know what I mean) and one of them attempted to open the passenger door. Nice. In stark contrast, after driving around the ciy's infuriating and bewildering one way system for a very long time, I pulled into a side street to try and get my bearings. A couple of students happened to be loading up a van with some equipment so I asked them for directions to Hart's Hotel where I was staying and dining that night. Rather than try and explain the complicated route, one of them jumped on his moped and led me to the hotel. What a wonderfully kind thing to do. I was impressed with Hart's, especially a dish of turbot with salsify and red wine sauce - it could have been ripped from the pages of Marco Pierre White's White Heat, but it was a faultless plate of food and totally delicious. The wine list is very well priced, a bottle of 2003 Picpoul de Pinet was a bargain at £16.

Hopefully Anthony and William are gonna take this site and make it evergreen (a small joke for all the gardening fans of Will Young out there - yes, I mean you madam).

Apart from Matthew that is. The fact that the rest of us keep torturing ourselves doesn't make the programme any better.

All this talk of Fawlty Towers is completely unjustified. The fact that when I arrived at the restaurant Simon was outside shouting at his car and beating it with the branch of a tree, the receptionist was overheard saying "Pretentious, Moi?" and a member of staff was seen scurrying up the stairs with an inflated plastic doll under his arm is completely irrelevant. And the less said about that table of Germans the better.

You can read my eGullet interview with him here.

Not exactly a coincidence. The book's just been published here. Which is why I've reviewed it. ← Damn! I thought that was why - thanks for finaling sorting that one out for me, its been troubling me all day.

By coincidence Jay rayner reviewed it in this week's Observer.

My problem with the biography/autobiography of very driven people is that they tend to be extremely repetitve. In order to be the best in your field you have to work really hard and that makes for very dull reading. John McEnroe is a good case in point. I bought his book because, although I'm not really interested in sport, I thought with his sort of temperament and big personality he would have had an interesting life. Wrong. Its just one tennis tournement after another and how he despereately wanted to win them all. Marco and Gordon's story would make a fantastic article (especially if you could get them in the same room together) but two seperate volumes of 16 hour days and a sucession of restaurant openings? I'm not so sure.

I like and use Harden's a lot and have sent in my 20 or so reviews to it for the last few years. However, I do think there is still room for a detailed guide like GFG that is more geared towards "serious" diners, although its puritanical emphasis on the cooking (it's called the "Good Food Guide" and not the "Good Restaurant Guide" after all) in its reports at the expense of service, atmosphere and wine is a serious flaw.

As the competition moves into the semi final stage this week, we can exclusively reveal that this year's tasks are set to be even more challenging than last year: prepare a three course meal while being punched repeatedly in the face by a tap dancing dwarf on a bar stool return a banquet for 190 people to its raw state by invoking the power of Satan cook a delicious feast for the masked terrorists who are holding your family at gunpoint at a secret location unicycle blindfolded across Niagara while peeling an apple with an axe stand for 48 hours with a bag on your head until you confess that you can't really cook Only by successfully completing all the tasks will the contestants prove they are willing to do anything to be on TV and are therefore worthy of the title Masterchef 2006.

It's possible that by complaining the staff might have been able to calm down the table, but it would probably have only been a temporary respite and no doubt the noise levels would have risen as quickly as the reprimand had faded into the recesses of their booze addled brains. It's a bit like being on a train and a horde of boisterous school kids get on - you've had it and nothing you say or do is going to make any difference for more than about a minute. It's why the better restaurants limit table sizes to 8 or even 6 because larger groups can have a significant impact on the atmosphere of a dining room that can be very difficult to control.

Plumbers behaving badly?

I used to think it was the two-blokes-in-a-pub-gobbing-off style of off-the-cuff judging that was the worst thing about this programme, but in fact its the portentous voice over that completely oversells the significance of the show that is its real undoing: "Veg chef Steve's mushroom risotto saw him successfuly annexe the Sudetenland, but will his meat free dishes be enough to topple the rest of mainland Europe?" Cue doomy background music and Greg and John staring out poor bloody Steve as he stuffs a courgette.

Seems a bit harsh to judge a man's entire character on 5 minutes in a fishmongers and besides, purchasing seafood is no laughing matter. Perhaps he was just thinking hard.

The piece does seem to be apropos of absolutely nothing doesn't it? I can exclusively reveal that the April edition of olive has the first ever picture of Marina to be published in a national magazine as part of its "Critics off duty" feature. I don't know why she hasn't been spotted before because, as a completely featureless black shilloutte, she must stand out a mile in a restaurant.

I don't imagine that the networks are going to think beyond the word "salmon" and it will be up to the chefs and other interested parties to make the most of the TV spots available to get the true message about the city's cuisine across. A very tough job I would guess.

I was a lone diner, a journalist on assignment and they knew I was coming. They offered the menus but said that the chef had something in mind for me. I got 17 courses plus gourgeres and salmon cornets to start and the flurry of mignardises at the end.