Andy Lynes

My God she must have been busy that day. Thats great news. I can't wait to see a copy. (Not that I'm getting at anything here of course. But my home address is.....) I see this is available from Amazon.ca, any idea if .com or .co.uk will also stock it?

Just checking! This is a purely subjective comment (and one which I've made before on other threads) but of all the guides, the AA is the one I seem to find myself disagreeing with the most. Makes me want to go back to Le Gav to see if they are right or not.

Insane as in "why did they dock the rosette" or insane as in "3 rosettes is too much"?

Although the AA guide is not one that I would rush to refer to, and I've only eaten at Le Gav once, I can't help but feel a little sad at the news. It will be interesting to see on Oct 7 what mark they get in the Good Food Guide and then of course if they keep hold of their 2 stars in January's Michelin Guide.

Le Gavroche is now rates 3 rosettes, down from 4 in the new AA Guide. Petrus has been re-instated to 5 rosettes after being omitted from last years edition due to it's relocation to Knightsbridge. Raymond Blanc is the new Chef's Chef of the Year. Full details at Cater-Online.co.uk.

Restaurant Services are offering 50% off (food only) at this restaurant until 30 September.

I don't have any information on that competition I'm afraid. I saw a little bit of it, but the problem with these events is that, for the audience, they are a bit like watching paint dry. As far as I am aware, the winners are not actually announced at the event on the day, so if you can find out for us that would be great.

Marcus Eaves formerly of Pied a Terre and now at Hibiscus is the new Ramsay Scholar. The finals of the competition were held before a live audience yesterday at The Restaurant Show in Olympia and prizes were awarded at a gala ceremony at Claridges in the evening. Judges included Heston Blumenthal, Richard Corrigan, Marcus Wareing Angela Hartnett, Steven Doherty and Ramsay himself. I spoke to Eaves after the 3 hour cook off where the 10 contestants had to prepare an amuse using mackerel, a main course of chicken garnished with artichoke and a mushroom risotto, and a creme caramel. I asked him if he felt nervous cooking in front of an audience and the heavyweight judging panel and he said the only problem he had was being limited to a 6 ring stove to cook on as he was used to the flat top at work. He said that he had cut it fine on timing, using all of the allocated three hours, but had presented the dishes in time. I do not have full details of Eaves dishes, but can tell you that they looked technically a cut above the other contestant's food, which was unsurprising given that on paper he was one of the most highly trained chefs there. The dishes were very cleanly and attractively plated and the creme caramel looked to have been perfectly cooked. In a public Q&A session I asked Corrigan what judging criteria was being used, where they looking mainly for technical ability, or would creativity be taken into account. Paraphrasing the chef's response, Corrigan explained that the expectations of the competition were very clear, there were set tasks that had to be completed and they would be judged on technical merit, but that he personally would like to see some originality in the dishes. Ramsay added that the judges had been chosen from a broad background; Blumenthal, he said, was one of the most creative chefs working in the UK at the moment while Steven Doherty had run Le Gavroche for 10 years. He emphasized that above all else, the judges would be looking for flavour "a month, two months, three months down the line, that's what holds the memory." The audience included many industry professionals, including Mark Askew, head chef at Gordon Ramsay Royal Hospital Road and Jason Atherton, due to open Ramsay's next London venture early next year (more of which later).

Jamsie, please do give us a full report on your day at Le Gavroche on a new thread. AS someone who has just started working one day a week in a local hotel kitchen I'll be very interested in reading about your experiences.

The Hawksworth event will be held in the theatre kitchen at Divertimenti in the Marylebone High Street in London and is being organised by the Canadian Tourist Commission. There are still details to be ironed out, but my understanding is that there will be around 20 food and travel journalists (and me!) and David will demonstrate a few dishes, and prepare a full meal for the audience. BC wines are being shipped over for the event by Vincorp. When I met up with Jamie in the summer, from my point of view it was simply for a beer and a bite to eat and a chance to put a face to a name that had been responsible for some posts that had made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. It turned out to be a very productive meeting and Jamie has continued to be enourmously helpful and generous with his time, both while I was in Vancouver and while I have been trying to wrestle the mountain of information I aquired on my trip into something people might want to read. Cheers Jamie, I'm raising a cleansing ale to you as I type (damn, now I've spilled froth on my keyboard.....)

Any chance your visit will coincide with our "Big NIght" event at Neil's place? We'd love to have you join us! Arne ←

The main purpose of my visit to Vancouver and the Valley was to research a number of articles. I'm delighted to say that these are now begining to appear in the UK press. The first item to appear was my contribution to Restaurant Magazine's regular "Dictionary of a Gastronerd" feature. Great Britian now understands the meaning of the term "Tapatiser". The same magazine publishes my interview with David Hawksworth on October 13 and will be printing "Big in Vancouver - Salmon Candy" at some point in the near future. "Overseas Viewpoint Vancouver" will also be published mid-October, this time in Square Meal Trade Brief - an industry only publication. My feature for Olive Magazine "20 Things to do in Vancouver" has been put back from the December 2004 issue to the June 2005 edition. In addition, I have two pieces about the Okanagan under consideration by several magazines. I still have every intention of writing up my time in the Okanagan and will set about it very soon indeed, so stay tuned. There is a slight possibility that I may be returning to Vancouver in early November, which I am very excitied about. What is certain is that Chef Hawsworth will be cooking for an invitied media audience in London in late November and I have been fortunate enough to be invitied along. I will certainly report on what should be a great night, and very probably a bit of an eye opener for UK food journalists.

Magnolia - thats a hell of a line up of contributors. Hope this goes well for you.

Its on the site of the former Christies restaurant in Linenhall Street . I have a feeling that even if his cafes are suffering a little from neglect as your recent experience could indicate, Rankin and his team will be focusing very hard on getting Roscoff right. I don't think he would revive the name for a half-hearted venture.

Reading down the menu headings on the website from "Almost Raw", "Barely Touched" and "Lightly Cooked", I was disappointed not to see a final section titled "Really messed about with in a highly intrusive manner."

Its this sort of incisive, thoughtful and knowledgeable culinary discourse that eGullet is renowned for worldwide.

Having recently visited the Okanagan Valley and been generally inpressed by the quality of the wines there, I was interested to read that Mission Hill's 2001 Oculus, its Bordeaux style blend, was rated 99/100 by Natalie MacLean in a survey for Wine International magazine. Full details are available at the winery's website. I tasted many wines whilst I was in the Valley and Vancouver, but this wasn't one of them unfortunately. Has anyone had an opportunity to taste the stuff? What are your feelings about BC wines in general?

I attended the launch party of Drakes hotel in Brighton last night. The town's celebrities were out in force: Kevin Rowland, David Van Day (teeny tiny David Van Day) and the bloke off Corry that used to be a teacher in Grange Hill - yes, they were all there. The hotel will no doubt be terrific when its finished. Apparently it was a bit of rush even to get it to the 80% completed state that we saw it in last night. The dining room is a low ceiling basement and a rather claustrophobic space, although it was packed with champage swilling freeloaders (that'll be me then) so I'm reserving judgement until I see it properly set up for service with people sitting at the tables instead of leaning against them. Restaurant report will be forthcoming as soon as the Labour party leaves town and we can get a table.

I can confirm, that barring a major disaster, Roscoff Brasserie will have its soft opening on 27 September. I'm going to give them a couple of weeks to get settled and will pay them a visit on 14 October. I hope to be able to check out a few other restaurants and possibly a bar or 2 during during my stay. BTW - flights are ridiculously inexpensive to Belfast at the moment. By travelling at slightly inconvienient times, I have managed to get a return ticket on Easy Jet from Gatwick for 35.98. A centrally located guest house is going to set me back £64.00 for two nights. The first Belfast restaurant week takes place between 10 and 17 October, so it could be the ideal time to visit the city.

There's a small picture of the new interior at the restaurant's website. I'm resesrving judgement until I've actually been , which should be in the next couple of weeks.

It does this.

Use the "reply" button, it works like the old quote used to do.

According to Via Michelin it has.

BLH - I do hope you realise that you are slagging off the food of a chef who "ranks among the greatest of British culinary geniuses." According to the hotel's website at least.

Apart from those that post and lurk on this board of course, and who also I imagine read the critics.