Jump to content

Tonyfinch

legacy participant
  • Posts

    1,977
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Tonyfinch

  1. I don't know whether to have them for starters or garters Gavin
  2. Gavin And Macrosan,What's so funny? I don't know how we're defining "special" but you can get lots of really good meals for £26 per head,especially if you spend that on food alone. If you can only conceive of 2 & 3 star Michelin type places costing £60 per head as being "special" then I suggest you get out more and try to broaden your culinary horizons.
  3. A bad dish merely stinks but a bad restaurant may have good aspects to it- wine list,decor, service. Even within a meal good and bad may co-exist -starter-yum,dessert-blech. I suspect many restaurant reviewers,in the UK at least,secretly suspect that the job is not worth doing and is no test of their skills ("everybody eats-what's the big deal"). As a result they cannot bring the right degree of gravitas and conviction to their work and end up prattling on about their families or their holidays or whatever with "oh yeah I suppose I better tell you about this restaurant" tagged on at the end. Michael Winner can get away with it because no-one takes him seriously and when he can get his tongue out of the orifices of whichever floozie he's currently with you can see that its planted firmly in his own cheek. But the others steer an uneasy course between frivolity and vitriol (witness Coren's dad's remark on the other thread re. The Connaught's beef) and end up exposing themselves as charlatan hacks.
  4. Steve, I agree with that distinction between food and art. However there is still a long and honourable history of food writing which analyses and informs similar to the best criticism. People like Elizabeth David, Paul Levy, Jane Grigson, MRR James ,Julia Child spring to mind. True these people were not writing about restaurants but there is no reason why a restaurant reviewer could not be more of a critic and approach the job in a dedicated ,rigorous and serious (in the best sense of the word) way. In the UK I think Fay Maschler is the one who comes closest to blurring the distinction between reviewing and criticism. As for Cabrales, I find her accounts both analytical and informative but I reckon she needs a few nights on Chinese take aways and doner kebabs to re-align her critical faculties .
  5. We seem to be using the words "critic","reviewer" and "writer" interchangeably,when in fact they mean different things. Literature ,film,theatre criticism has a long and honourable history with many critics regarded as experts in their fields able to analyse trends, interptet meanings,draw out patterns and generally enlighten the audience and give them a better understanding of the 'product'. These were not regarded as people who had failed as artists themselves. Andrew Sarris, for example,while he was film critic on The Village Voice in the 60s built on some work begun in Europe and revolutionised the way we regard Hollywood films by promulgating the "auteur theory" and establishing a cinema of directors,rather than stars.Nowadays directors are household names. However he never made a film in his life (to my knowledge) but was no less respected for that. Restaurant reviewers are not critics in that sense.They go to a restaurant and tell us about it.Judging by what they say we may or may not go. Its a perfectly legitimate job and there's no reason whatsoever why anyone who does it should be able to boil an egg.If their comments are mostly negative it's because of the entrenched journalistic belief that newspapers largely sell on bad news and its believed that writing endless positive reviews is boring- a bit like writing about the planes that don't crash. But this shouldn't be confused with criticism. To say that the job of a critic is to be critical implies a misunderstanding of the term and of the critic's role.The job of the critic is to be analytical and informative. Do we have these people in the world of food and restaurants? Anybody?
  6. Then why don't more restaurant take up the idea of charging preview prices until those 'teething troubles' are ironed out.I don't think I've ever heard of it being done. As Jay says ,if they're charging full prices allowances cannot be made.
  7. Well of course it doesn't matter on one level but it matters on others.Restaurants are highly competitive businesses and good/bad publicity in the national press can make all the difference to tight profit margins,thereby affecting jobs and livelihoods etc. Also,why should restaurant reviewers be more flippant about their work than theatre,film or music reviewers? Of course you will learn something about the author through the review,but to make yourself the subject of the review and the restaurant an afterthought as practised by Gill ,Nick Foulkes and latterly (though not always) by Meades is nothing more than arrogant narcissism and implies contempt for the job and does a disservice to restautateurs and customers alike.
  8. The thing about salt beef is that its at its best the moment it comes out of its boiling liquid and is hot and moist. It goes into a slow decline from then on and if turnover isn't brisk(et) enough it eventually ends up as salty old shoe leather. Maybe I was lucky the last couple of times at Gaby's and got a fresh hunk.Its not a salt beef bar as such so maybe turnover is slower and the beef is just kept waiting around too long. No excuse for mean portions though. The general consus amongst people I've recently asked is that Selfridge's takes it in Central London. As a matter of interest,do others out there wash their hands everytime they handle money?Or expect all food servers to do so?
  9. I take a less benign view, Macrosan. Gill is being paid to write about restaurants. He is not being paid to write about how much he enjoys going to sunny exotic countries. We ALL enjoy going to sunny exotic countries. So what? Gill is a narcissistic bore who honestly believes his own life is more interesting than the restaurants he writes about.Well it may be to him and his mother but its not to me. If he really can't find anything interesting or informative to say about one restaurant a week then he should pack up reviewing and stick to the day job (whatever that is). So there!
  10. I have made bookings at several restaurants as a direct result of favourable reviews,normally by Meades or Maschler. Five that spring to mind recently are Club Gascon,Tentazione, Foliage, Neat and Embassy. Of those I thought the only real wrong'un was Neat,now no more of course.
  11. errrm......sorry about that cappers. You can come free to the great salt beef tasting (if it ever happens). My 79 year old Jewish dad rates Selfridges as the best place in Central London,although Gaby's was great when I was last there. One question though. Why do you have to wash your hands after handling money?
  12. You're only partly right Jeremysco. Many of the Asians who came to the UK from East Africa were business people and qualified professionals.Some opened restaurants but not in large numbers. The overwhelming number of "Indian" restaurants in the UK are owned and run by Bangladeshis.
  13. I think you're barfing in the wrong street here Suvir. I don't think a study of the differences will be a particularly rewarding,let alone exciting,endeavour. There are no features of Indian food that are particular to Scotland and I would imagine( correct me if I'm wrong) that most 'Indian' restaurants serve up bog standard curry house slop for the post pub 10 pints of lager brigade.
  14. Judging by the state of the pavements in Glasgow on Saturday and Sunday mornings, Scottish curries all have diced carrots in them
  15. While I don't claim to "like" Coren I do find it hard to work up any passion about restaurant reviewers (not "critics",Circeplum) one way or the other. Having been a reviewer myself on a London listings magazine in the 70s, I can assure Cabrales that the job is an absolute piece of p..s.requiring no skills or knowledge whatsoever apart from a willingness to down a lot of mediocre meals (at that time at least). Its also great for pulling-"would you like to come to XXXX with me tomorrow night-I'm reviewing it" being one of the world's most successful chat up lines,so the job should be reserved for single people only in order to avoid upping the adultery and divorce rate. The reviewers I prefer are those who do not pretend to have any arcane knowledge(I always thought Meades a tad snobbish and arrogant)and who don't allow their personal foibles to intrude too much into their reviews(Maschlers hatred of tomatoes colours her reviews-she either forgets or doesn't care that the rest of the world may not loathe them as much as she does) That of course leaves----why our very own Jay Rayner of course.
  16. Its an East African (Swahili?) word for cassava
  17. Simon,I would guess that Suvir is probably talking about the Lahore Kebab House in Whitechapel ,which serves terrific Lahori food but is not as good as New Tayyab a couple of hundred yards away in Fieldgate St which serves similar food. I actually think Simon is underrating Indian restaurants in London.Although I've eaten marvellous Indian meals in other parts of the world,including Pakistan and India,I don't know of anywhere else with such a concentration of good Indian restaurants. Also,at some of the top end places there is some cutting edge stuff going on,which might not be to everyone's taste,but which is keeping interest and custom alive. There are,of course ,lots of medicre bog standard curry houses,but the Time Out guide to eating and drinking has done an excellent job in its sub-continent section-rooting out all the best places across the spectrum and omitting most of the dross.
  18. Adam,salt beef MUST be brisket. It need not be rolled. It CANNOT be silverside.It must be eaten either hot or at room temperature,preferably on the day it was boiled. Jewish dietry laws forbid the mixing of meat and dairy products so a salt beef sandwich needs a proportion of fat to lubricate it. What the Brits call Corned Beef is a product containing meat which has been processed with other ingredients into a sludge and can be bought from blocks in a deli or in tins. The Quality Chop House on Farringdon Rd serve it up with eggs as a hash at Sunday brunch
  19. Dear Gavin .Your fear and confusion are perfectly normal and more common than you think. Set aside your concerns. Pork products on a beigel are perfectly OK as long as they come from Jewish pigs. Trust that's helped Auntie Tony
  20. Steve.You're on. We'll omit Gefilte Fish (thank God) and do a comparative Salt Beef tasting. Have to time it right to get samples in otherwise it'll all taste like salty shoe leather. Let's pick a date and people can bring wine and I'll provide chips(or potatoes in some form) Anybody else out there interested?
  21. I believe there is a(limited) choice at lunch but not at dinner,which was certainly the case when I went.
  22. The most underrated Italian in London WAS Tentazione,behind Shad Thames in Mill St SEI. Jonathan Meades raved about it and I had several superb meals there around 1999/2000. I haven't been recently but a friend sang its praises a few months ago.
  23. I ate at Clarke's about 5 years ago. I have no idea how she compares to Alice Walters but I wouldn't return. Because the food was poor? No,on the contrary the meal was delicious. It's because,at dinner at least,there is NO CHOICE. I don't know about anyone else but one of the great pleasures of dining out for me is sitting there,menu in hand,in an agony of indecision umming and ahhing, changing your mind,negotiating with your partner,trying each other's,bemoaning what you might(should) have had etc. etc. Of course I knew there was no choice at Clarke's when I went,but I didn't realise how much I'd resent being denied one until actually put in that situation.It literally takes a whole dimension away from the restaurant experience and the fact that what we were served was lovely just didn't compensate me for that loss.
  24. Yeah. Its called home.
  25. How much did you pay for the privelge of joining such a club?
×
×
  • Create New...