Tonyfinch

I also had an excellent steak at Smollensky's in Wapping and the person I was with pronounced the burger as being "well above average". There was also a very fairly(for London) priced '96 Chianti on the otherwise dull list which went so well we had to order another bottle. The best restaurant in Wapping (my abode) is a Thai called Wharf,which is pricier than your average high st. Thai but where everything I've had on several visits has been excellent.

You know the neighbourhood's going downhill when those bloody golfers move in.

To those who reccd. the Florabama Bar on the border of Florida and Alabama (FLORA BAMA, GEDDIT?????) it was a great place but rough? Don't make me laugh. If you want rough I'll take you to a couple of Irish pubs down the Kilburn High Rd at closing time on a Saturday night next time you're in London.Or to a couple of downtown pubs in Newport, South Wales,where you can cheerfully stroll by a fight on every street corner. The Florabama lounge-full of pussies-although I admit I didn't say so in a particularly audible voice at the time.

Thanks Scott. Yeah. Always pleased to get home. But have got to spend another holiday eating New Orleans.

Forgot to add. Thanks to everyone for all the recommendations and suggestions. They were most helpful and contributed towards us having a great trip through this fascinating part of America.

Mangos on the Island unfortunately did not stand up to a second visit,and the meat dishes were inferior to the fish. Meals were sloppily plated and presented.Everything was so SWEET-duck breast with sherry and ginger sauce,and tenderloin of pork with a pepper glaze were like desserts. Actually we noticed that southern food was consistently sweeter than what we're used to in the UK. That BBQ sauce that smothers the meat for example. So much sugar. NEW ORLEANS-one night only due to re-scheduling. Madness. Would like to have stayed for a year (although I'm not sure I'd last a year eating and drinking in that city.What excess!) Where to choose? Eventually plumped for Bayona and had a fine meal which included Rabbit "Remoulade" which was the best rabbit dish I've eaten by some margin, a succulent tenderloin of veal in a wild mushroom sauce,juicy sweetbreads as a starter and a heavenly fig and apricot tart. GREENVILLE,MISSISSIPPI-Doe's Eat Place-the most...er....memorable restaurant I've ever visited.Well dodgy area. We were told by our hotel receptionist on no account to try to walk there even though it was only about 15 mins. walk away. "But you'll be safe once you're inside"she added. I think this was supposed to be reassuring.What a place! Ramshackle,rambling old shack,roaring kitchens in the middle of the entrance and main room old uneven furniture,no menu, the SMALLEST steak was a 2lb T-Bone at $33. Sirloins weighed in at 3lbs. We shared the T-bone which was a perfect piece of meat,superbly cooked. Accompanying were chips(homemade-what a rarity,what a treat) and a salad.Advertized bread never arrived but was really not required. We were stuffed and could only gaze in awe and wonder as the guy next to us finished his T-bone and proceeded to order and consume a plateful of spagetti and meatballs as a follow up. And I liked to think I was a trencherman. CLARKSDALE,MISSISSIPPI- Madidi-a cool,sleek restaurant,exposed brickwork and art on the walls. Kind of out of context in Claksdale. Food similar "fine dining" style to Bayona but less sophisticated.Tuna and crab starters were uneventful. Rack of lamb with very moreish garlic mash worked well but pork tenderloin was on the dry side although the accompanying sweet potato swirls were wickedly buttery.Standout was a featherlight cheesecake on a pistachio biscuit base with a sumptuous toffee sauce. At the Ground Zero Blues Club (so named before Sept 11th) the Saturday night act was a singalong 80s pop band,requested by a wedding party. When I expressed disgruntlement I was told "the people here dont want to listen to the Blues ALL the time yaknow" Suitably chastened we retired for an early night. MEMPHIS,TENNESSEE-We were there Sunday and Monday nights and Rendezvous, Cosy Corner and Cielos were all closed both nights.Hueys menu asserts that their burgers have been voted "the best in Memphis since 1984". I'm not sure who constitutes the electorate for this contest but the burgers were damn fine due to the very high quality of the beef used- a proper burger,succulent,cooked medium rare,they actually tasted of meat in a world where most production line burgers taste of nothing but all the condiments slopped on to them. Best EVER I'd say.And great thick chips and heart stopping onion rings. Automatic Slim's Tonga Club has the same ownership as Cielos.This was the most disappointing meal of our trip. The restaurant claims to be serving South American/Caribbean food. We ordered jerk duck with blackcurrants and a special of jerked beef tenderloin with mash. There was certainly plenty of it-the duck came buried deep in a bottomless pile of onion rings-but there is more to jerked food then just rubbing it with a "jerk" spice mix. It implies a marination and a slow cooking method as well. The beef was,well,just a steak that had had some dry spices rubbed on just before cooking, also the fruit was too sweet for the duck and overpowered any "jerk" flavour. Not good enough for what is an expensive restaurant. The wine was ropey too,and served too warm,and overpriced. In case anyone was wondering, Automatic Slim is a character in the Willie Dixon song "Wang Dang Doodle" and the Tonga Club is,or was, a well known Memphis juke joint. CHATANOOGA,TENNESSEE-Sticky Fingers. Two perfectly pleasant and acceptable slabs of ribs.Very nice beer at the big downtown brewhouse. RUTLEDGE,GEORGIA-the best meal of all courtesy of Mr and Mrs. Stellabella who welcomed us into their lovely home and served up a sumptuous southern dinner of fried green tomatoes, shrimp with grits,various roasted vegetables dressed with oil and herbs,lovely cheeses with fresh picked figs,lashings of wine. They even provided a free bed for the night so I'd queue up to get into this place folks. It was a wonderful evening only made possible,of course by egullet. Thanks a million also to Molly and Ed who run the wonderful caboose cafe in a converted railway carriage in downtown Rutledge and who most generously provided us with best ever BBQ sandwiches and homemade fudge to eat on our journey back to grey old London. They were much appreciated.

Thanks for that. The most interesting restaurant I've found in the Orange Beach area is called Mangos on the Island, which is out at the Orange Beach Marina. It describes itself as "casual fine dining"and is definitely more ambitious than the majority of seafood and steak houses which abound round here. Dishes such as Tilapia encrusted with nuts and served with a sweet glaze,and jerked shrimp with mango salsa and garlic mash worked well and two fish cakes-one of crawfish and one of crab made a for a rich starter. I may go back to sample some meat dishes before we leave the area on Thursday. If so I'll report back.

My wife had the lunch special of shrimp in a sauce on rice.The supposedly incuded side of cole slaw never arrived and had to be demanded. The sauce tasted factory produced and was way OTT on dried oregano. The apple pie dessert was nice. I had a dozen oysters on the shell which were fine,but hard to get wrong. It was more the atmosphere that was odd. Maybe they were all having a bad day. And was that solitary black family made to wait longer for their menus and for service than anyone else, or was that just my imagination?

Have to disagree with Fat Guy about King Neptune's Seafood in Gulf Shores. Production line food and incredibly surly service. In fact there must have been dissension in the ranks because at one point a waitress chose to inform us that "some of the people who work here are most inconsiderate". Why this remark was made to us I have no idea. All the staff looked miserable. I have to say it was cheap though. Thanks for the recc. for Wintzell's Oyster House in Mobile. Eccentric and over the top place with hundreds of cliches,proverbs and homilies plastering the walls.But in this Southern land of chain restaurants it was highly individual and the Oyster Po'Boy was delicious.

I just remembered The Loft,the restaurant in the Mecure Hotel on Southwark St just behind the Tate Modern. I had a very pleasant modern Frenchish meal there last year. They do a special wine choice with selected bottles marked up by only a fiver. Was there for dinner. Don't know about lunch. Must agree with Simon about Meson Don Felipe. Lively atmosphere but mediocre food.

You could walk over the now non-wobbly Millennium Bridge into the City and go to Sweetings,an authentic "Fish Ordinary" out of Victorian times for a slap up fish lunch-not plush or comfortable but tremendously atmospheric. Or you could try Conran's Le Coq D'Argent, near Bank, or The Don in St. Swithin's Lane where there's both a "Bistrot" and a "Fine Dining Restaurant" or 1, Lombard St., where there's also both.

I would have thought the staff at St. John would have welcomed some pretension and frills after slaving for hours at their gaffe.

Coq au Vin with stuffed macaroni? Hmmmm And what? No vegetarian main? Matters not a jot to me but surprising nontheless.

Totally opposite problem at Caravaggio in Leadenhall St. last night. By no means the worst meal was spoiled by ridiculously fast service. Maybe they're attuned to a City lunchtime mode but by 8pm they appeared to want everyone up and out. There was scarcely time to settle in before pre starters,starters and mains came whizzing up in rapid succession. Wine glasses were topped up by every passing waiter.As we sat finishing our wine we were asked FOUR times whether we'd chosen from the dessert menu yet. We ordered a plate of "mountain cheese" (£8) which skiid down the mountain and on to our table 10 seconds after being requested-a sure bet for gold at the cheese olympics. The food was OK but this is not a cheap restaurant and it shouldn't be beyond the wit of the management to explain to the staff that people might enjoy a more leisurely pace at dinner. Worst service of the year so far.

A proposal to ban crisps,chocolate and other "junk" foods from children's school lunch boxes was animatedly discussed in the British media yesterday. Apart from the practicalities of imposing such a ban, all the experts appeared to agree that it would have no effect on children's eating habits and would make these "forbidden" foods more attractive to them. The general consensus was that children are NOT eating any more sweets,chocolate etc. than they ever have,but they are getting far less exercise.British parents are,apparently,far more frightened for their children than they used to be-refusing to let them play out in the streets, not allowing them to walk to school, fearful that physical activity might result in injury etc. etc. Have we become over protective to the point of paranoia?

I'm surprised the above list omits leaving your wine bottle out of reach.

I find that Halal/Kosher chickens in the UK are definitely NOT of the best quality. They sometimes have that faint odour of the fish meal they've been fed on,which is very unpleasant. Also,because they are mass produced battery birds they disintegrate to a pulp after very little cooking and if you're not careful your curry turns out to be a shattered mess. Here it is best to use free range chickens which taste much nicer and which can stand up much better to the curry cooking process.

Pakistani restaurants in London differ from "Indian" restaurants (the majority of which are ,ironically,run by Bangladeshis). The former place the emphasis more heavily on marinated and grilled meats,thick lush dahls and breads as opposed to rice.The spicing tends to be more authentic and less concessions are made to timid western palates. Around the Wembley area are restaurants run by East African Asians,originally from the Punjab region. These are similar to Pakistani restaurants but will sometimes incorporate African influences(eg cassava) onto the menus. In the East End some Bangladeshis are gaining the confidence to open up restaurants featuring Bangladeshi,as opposed to "Indian" food,but these are still few and far between and often run alongside a "traditional" Indian menu. In Southall the large Sikh population dominates the restaurant scene. As they also originate from the Punjab the cuisine is similar to the Pakistani and East African places. All these people are big meat eaters and although a vegetarian can eat perfectly well in these restaurants to go to them and eat no meat at all is to miss some of their best dishes. The best Indian vegetarian food is to be found either at those places which specialise in Bombay streetfoods(Bhel Pooris,Dosas etc.) or at the Rasa chain of Keralan restaurants. Places like Kastoori in Tooting (mentioned above) and Sabras in Willesden are also both excellent vegetarian restaurants.

Jaymes-I agree completely Steve.The daughter's anorexia may have been something to do with her parents'relationship,but not neccesarily or specifically to do with their attitude towards food. Their disagreement over food may be a manifestation of deeper conflicts in the relationship. I tell you what. Give me their number and I'll offer family therapy services direct.

The majority view on eating disorders is that they are not about food per se.They are about self image, control, power, family dynamics etc. The disorders manifest themselves around food but are not neccessarily linked directly to food experiences. Trying to mould a child's eating habits is unlikely in itself to lead to food disorders. We are,however,storing up a lot of health problems for our children as they eat more junk and exercise less.Maybe trying to control what they eat is a thankless task but we can certainly try to ensure that they maintain a higher level of activity than sitting in front of the computer or TV screen.

Er,Oliva. There is no "perhaps" about it. It is true

I've not been to Zaika but some of us are sceptical about the whole issue of what it and similar restaurants are trying to do. See Nouvelle Indian in London thread.

Re-visited last night for the first time. Mixed results.Belly pork is no longer on the menu "we had to change it sometime". Poilane bread was just a tad stale. The atmosphere was warm and the service very Gallic but very sweet.It was only about half full on a Saturday night-maybe its busier during the week. Poached tongue starter had had the flavour poached out of it and a lot of seasoning was required. My wife's starter of fish soup (a special) was stunning-dark,shimmering,steaming,intense-hard to imagine a better example. My main of oxtail with a large crevette was curious. I've never got the combination of meat and seafood and this took me no further. The oxtail was fine-three large, meaty chunks on an intense sauce,but apart from pushing the price of the dish up to £17.50,the mini lobster served no purpose as far as I could see and was a bloody faff to acess for a lot of mess and very little gastro return. The accompanying bowl of mash was yummy though. My wife's bavette was tough even by bavette standards and the tapenade topping was misconceived. Swede mash was good. Dessert of feuilette of strawberries was all right but no more. No aperitif but two bottles of wine,coffee,a single house cognac and service-the bill came to £108. Fair enough given the ambience and location. I would return but would probably order more carefully. As for portions-no fannying about here. We were stuffed.

Steve,I,ve not been to Veerswamy recently but apparently it re-invented itself a couple of years ago when it was taken over by the owners of Chutney Mary and a new "innovative" menu introduced.

Infamous in more ways than one. The place was shut down twice in June by environmental health inspectors,the second time for having mice in the freezer unit (tandoori mouse anyone?). It has had problems of this nature through the years. If you want Pakistani Lahori food, New Tayyab is close by and infinitely superior,not to say cleaner.