Bloated

In the absence of any replies(!) I bought Henschke Tilly's Vineyard 1999, from Handford's, Old Brompton Road. £12 down from £12.99... they pointed out that Semillon/Chardonnay was an uncommon blend outside of the big producers.

Dear eGulleteers Please recommend a Semillon/Chardonnay wine for under £15 in London. I am aiming to buy over the weekend, sorry about the short notice. Ideally available in Oddbins/Jeroboams/a supermarket. Thank you

Referring to the Giles Coren review of The Ebury- it seems to be a restaurant on a site previously occupied by a pub. Is this correct? I prefer places where you order and pay at the bar myself- more informal

Last night I went on a 'pub crawl' of three gastropubs in the Olympia/Shepherd's Bush area starters at Cumberland Arms (Olympia end of North End Rd): roast pumpkin soup with chili and yoghurt (£3.50): this was smooth, tasty and the garnishes olive oil, fresh tomato and yoghurt were improvements fettucine with capers, chili, anchovy, and olives (£5.50): the fettucine was "undercooked" and the anchovies were not "melting" the bread and dipping oil were poor mains at Havelock Tavern (Masbro' Rd): tortelloni filled with sweet potato and goat's cheese served with pinenuts, parmesan and rocket (£9): The tortelloni were very nice curried pea and potato filo pastry with tzaziki, roast tomatoes and lettuce (£6): this was basically a samosa, OK tasting bread here was excellent, with butter desserts at Anglesea Arms (Wingate Rd): poached pear with toasted gingerbread, chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream (£4.25): quite nice you had to have ice cream in every spoonful though, the other tastes were too powerful without it buttermilk pudding with citrus coulis and biscotti (£4.25): very nice panna cotta style dessert, citrus appeared to be lemon cappucino (£1.75): "not the proper foam" "burnt tasting" no bread eaten here a pleasant evening. The food was served promptly at all three pubs.

a quick mention of this newish restaurant in Liverpool Road, Islington. Morgan Meunier (Admiralty, Monsieur Max) is the chef. The coconut and rum sorbet in my dessert was 10/10 excellent. The rest of the food was nice to very nice. The service was very slow indeed. My fellow diner put it 'on a par' with Zafferano and Monsieur Max in terms of quality of cooking. I thought it was a bit below that. The decor is certainly a lot below those two. I suspect by the two bookshelves bearing only red Michelin Guides that the restaurant has ambitions in that direction... starters include snails, pumpkin soup, scallops, game terrine fish mains, sea bass or halibut meat mains include venison and pigeon

personally I didn't like the toasted coconut and rum at all, expecially with the coconut bits in it. however I did like Bittersweet Chocolate, Strong Vanilla Bean and Mango & Lime Planning to try the banana flavour soon!

I know you can get frogs legs prepared by Tom Aiken or Marcus Wareing but a friend of mine would like to sample them without having to sit down to a £50 three course meal. Please let me know of cheaper less formal options Thank you

I have had a Zizzi pizza and it was unremarkable. As far as 'chains' go Strada is better.

as their names suggest souvlaki is focused on er, souvlaki and mezedopolio has a much wider range of meze dishes. That is the food difference. Souvlaki is better decorated although that isn't saying much... Real Greek website

I went in September 2002. The twin waitresses were not in place on the night I ate there. The highlights were a passion fruit sorbet (free), a garden pea, chervil and pumpkin soup (starter) and a vegetable sushi roll (free). Overall the quality was not as good as Simon Majumdar found it but perhaps they have hit their stride since then. I may go back for 'brunch' if they still do that.

I agree about Paolo but if you are prepared more then the step up in quality to Zafferano is a big step. One of the dishes I had there last night was ricotta and aubergine ravioli with tomato sauce. I have had the same dish in Paolo which was nice but not in the same league.

I went into Jeroboams wine shop in Belgravia last week and they had single bottles of DRC La Tache 1979 (£564), 1945 d'Yqem (no label, £1000), as well as many similarly highly-priced wines on one of their shelves. I have never bought wine at those prices but I still find it difficult to believe that someone would buy a wine of that age 'off the shelf' as it were...

If you go to the Telegraph website today it is in the top middle of the home page 'Matthew Norman- Why Jamie is here to stay', complete with picture of said Jamie. They change these features daily so you will probably have to use their search engine if you try it later than today's date. Telegraph

A work colleague is having lunch at this restaurant at Friday lunch. Can anyone who has been recently recommend something from the lunch menu or even a dish/wine combination. Thank you

they are 60p each when you buy them in a bag...