Tonyfinch

I haven't been but reports would seem to indicate that Rousillon in Chelsea offers a good choice for veggies.

Grandly presented with a lattice of crispy potato piled high on top? Mmmm, I wonder what wine goes best with pants.

Er.....STONE cold soba (oof, sorry) What am I missing here?? Stone cold soba.......stone cold sober?............as in not drunk?..........its a pun.........a liitle joke?..........God, I wish I hadn't..........

Er.....STONE cold soba (oof, sorry)

It seems to me that you're all Bourdain wannabees. Whether you're Bourdain everbees I leave for others to judge (not having read Bourdain-sorry Tone)

You could switch to Mon Plaisir. Similar price range to Alfred's and close by.I'd guess clients would love the whole classic French schtick and the food is actually very good-as good if not better than Alfred's I'd say.

(Quote from a now deleted post removed by Andy Lynes, UK Co-ordinator on 22 June 2003). You're moving dangerously close to slander or defamation or whatever here.How the hell would you know anything about what Ramsey does and doesn't do? In his Observer interview Ramsey calls for drug testing in the context of the anguish and pain he feels about his younger brother Ronnie-an apparently irredeemable drug addict for years, currently in prison for drugs related offences. Ramsey tells how he has funded attempts at rehab. for him several times and would do so again although he says he knows it won't work. He says watching his beloved brother turn into a junkie and a criminal before his very eyes is the most painful thing he's experienced in life and as a result he feels exremely strongly about drugs. So, my guess would be he's not using himself somehow.

That's absolutely right and it is the knee jerk reaction of most employees who have a drug/drink problem. That is why it is important that those conversations are formal and minuted. The employee might not like it but come the crunch the employer needs to be able to show that he was not negligent of the employee's welfare, and that of others he may come into contact with and that he at least tried to help. He needs to show that he did everything "reasonable" and he may need to produce evidence of this. If the employee has refused all offers of help but the employer can show that he offered it goes a long way to letting the employer off the hook in any suit brought by the employee himself for unfair dismissal or any third party who may have been "harmed" by the employee's actions as a result of drugs/drink.

There's the Quality Chop House near the corner of Roseberry Ave and Farringdon Rd Old wooden pews have character but can be hard on the bum. Eclectic, tasty Modern British menu and reasonably priced.

Half way through the meal a waiter came up and asked Simon if we would like a tour of the kitchens afterwards. Simon immediately decided that this honour was being bestowed upon us because Marcus (or someone) had recognized him, but maybe they make this offer to all the girls. Being the Savoy the kitchen was spacious and spotless. Good working conditions, I'd guess, except that on a hot night in June it was like a bloody steam bath, especially compared to the air conditioned restaurant. Is there some rule which forbids air-con in kitchens? Or is air-con there but just overpowered from the heat of the ovens and ranges? I can't believe the Savoy Group are too poor to install it. Given what we were discussing on the chefs and drugs thread, the substance you're going to need most in there is as much iced water as you can get.

I am opposed to drugs in the workplace and I am opposed to mandatory drug testing. You treat people like adults ,explain what the rules of the workplace are and expect them to accept them and maintain them. Why does anybody feel they need to shove their off duty pleasures in the faces off the boss? If you're so out of contol that you must use in the workplace and cannot wait until you're on private time then I see that as one way of defining the fact that you have a problem. Also you've got to remember that drugs are illegal. Whether they should be or not is another debate but while they are the boss CANNOT allow the premises to be used for illegal purposes without running the risk of being shut down, licences lost, business fucked etc. Why should he put up with that risk just because you've allowed yourself to get to the point where you can't get through a working day without contollong yourself?

I'd like to see those studies. Must be sponsored by FOREST. Smokers spend oodles of time doing nothing more productive than sitting around smoking. Add that up over a year in an organization and you'll find it comes to hundreds of hours that they're being absolutely unproductive compared to non-smokers.

When its not shoved up the employer's nose that people are using because its not noticeable at work then drug tests force facts on hm that he'd rather not know about (or at least pretend he doesn't know about) forcing him to "act" when he'd rather not.

I'm enjoying it fine thanks Mr B. I think we're sort of talking at cross purposes here. I think the sue it if it moves culture is as crazy as you do and I'm not for one moment suggesting that people not be held responsible for their own drug taking or their drinking. Its not so much an issue of suing the boss because somehow he's responsible for your drinking/drugging, but suing for unfair dismissal if the boss fires you without giving you a warning and a chance. If the boss says "I'll arrange to get you some help" and you say "fuck off, I don't need any help" and the boss then subsequently fires you for coming into work high, then yes you may sue but your chances of success are slim if the boss can show that help was offered. Why big companies settle these cases out of court when they know they'll probably win is a different issue, maybe to be discussed at another time. And help SHOULD be offered IMO. The two alternatives are either fire on the spot, or turn a blind eye. Yes if you do the latter and DON'T cover your arse and said smashed chef goes beserk and pours a pan full of scalding chicken stock over the saucier you would be dead meat in court because you failed to protect the health and safety of your other employees from an intoxicated chef who you KNEW had a problem. So really all of you out there employing drunk/stoned chefs need to get yourself an employment disciplinary procedure so that you can, if necessary fire after due process and not be sued (or found guilty). Those of you turning a blind eye or just hoping it will get better or that nothing bad will happen-you need to get yourself a prayer book.

So the alternative is what? Fire him on the spot?

BTW, pardon me for spoiling your entertainent Beans by trying to take some of the issues around Dempsey's death and Ramsey's response, seriously. You ole boys go right on back to your stoned blather now, y'all hear?

A lawsuit can happen when it can be shown that an employer has been "negligent" in respect of his/her duty of care towards employees. In the case of an employee drinking/drugging voluntarily at work the duty of care resides in the employer speaking to the employee and explaining that what he is doing is unnacceptable, and in the case of drugs probably illegal. He will ask the employee to stop and then offer to direct the employee in the direction of support/counselling services so that he may IF HE WISHES avail him/herself of them. He may "strongly advise" the employee to do so and also inform him that future incidents COULD result in disciplinary action being taken against the employee which could, in turn, lead to him losing his job. The employee is at liberty to respond exactly as he/she pleases but the employer has exercised his duty of care by offering support and explaining the position. The employer also has to consider the health, safety and welfare of other employees (how unpredictable is a smashed cook in a dangerous kitchen?) and of any other parties who may be affected by the employees condition (customers). So the burden on the employer to get things right is quite heavy but he has protected himself by his actions and offered a measurable degree of support to the employee. The ball is now in the employee's court. Can anyone point out to me how "freedom" or whose freedom is contravened in any of that?

Well I didn't say I agreed with mandatory drug testing. That was Ramsey's apparent suggestion. My point is that both employees and employers have both rights and responsibilities. This is what industrial relations negotiations are all about-finding the 'right' level of balance between the two, and that is an ongoing process. The truth is that "freedom" for many employers means the freedom to treat their employees like shit, work them like slaves, fire them on the spot for the smallest misdemeanour or protest. Yes, employees now have "rights". Those rights protect them, at least up to a point. And every single one of them has been damned hard fought for. What some seem to find hard to grasp is that these rights actually PROTECT the Dempsey's and the (former ) Bourdains and the other misfits and eccentics from arbitrary firings and other forms of mistreatment from employers. An employer must offer help and support to an employee who s/he knows has addiction problems. What is WRONG with that, exactly? What about that causes some of you to sneer (and in Spencer's case snort )? Are you so hung up on your kitchen machismo that you think its preferable to stand there watching going "hey-dude, whatever you wanna do, you know? if you're gonna kill yourself, kill yourself?" Its not about employers getting sued. Its about employers taking their duty of care seriously and DOING WHAT THEY CAN. If they've done that they won't get sued. It's not about snitching. We're not in the fucking playground for Christ's sake. This is not a game. Dempsey is DEAD and Ramsey's interview made it clear that the question he's asking himself is "could I have done more, should I have done more?" Only he knows the answer to that question, but the fact that he's asking it shows that he's taking his responsibilities seriously. The more employers who do that, the better. And even if they do so only because of a fear of getting sued, then that's STILL better than them not doing so at all.

edit: see below.

Sorry but again I just don't buy it. Surely the effort involved in translating these dishes into a lingua that makes sense to Westerners is miniscule.Many Chinese who work in the restaurant trade are fluent English speakers, grew up here went to school here. Indian and Thai restaurants don't seem to have any trouble. And are London Chinese restaurateurs so out of touch that they don't realise there are thousands of potential punters like me interested in cuisine who would enjoy giving these dishes a whirl if we were given access to them? I find it hard to believe. Maybe its because they only want to cook small amounts of these dishes because it distracts the punters away from sweet and sour pork. In other words they're not really interested in marketing them beyond an small coterie because they don't want to risk moving punters away from what is their core business which has proven such a goldmine over all these years. Start getting us interested in fish lips and we may never want another deepfried spring roll again.

Jonathan, that was a joke. I should have used an emoticon. I certainly do not buy the discomfort with English argument. I'm unclear as to why they don't translate the specials but if they wanted to they surely could without any trouble. After all if you do ask what they are then they have to translate on the spot anyway, so why not do it properly on the menu? Jon says its part of the fun. I can't agree. I just find it patronising and frustrating and I actually think its holding back the development of the cuisine.

Jon logic dictates that if you listed out all the specials in English and priced them there is a greater chance of your average punter ordering one of them than if you DON'T list them out in English and price them. Is that not so?

Really? Blimey Jonathan are you really such a WASP? I mean I know some people don't like yo make a fuss but £19.50!!?? . I'd have gone potty. Actually I'd have first asked the price. Why did you not? I thought they were duty bound to display menu prices anyway. (we had this discussion on the Mr. Silver meets Locatelli thread, but I can't remember the outcome. I hate all these Chinese restaurant antics with specials at the back untranslated and without prices and offering you dishes and then ripping you off for them, or deciding whether to offer you this or that according to the cut of your jib and so on. Why can't they just give you a proper menu with everything on it listed and priced and then leave it to you to decide what you want and what you want to pay?

Bourdain. I was not talking about unionised and corporate kitchens in the UK. I was talking about other fields. I have no idea about working in a kitchen (although before you all jump I have now said twice that I know it must be a high stress job). Dempsey died outside the kitchen, and obviously what people do in their own time is up to them. But during the enquiries into his death Ramsey will be asked if he knew about Dempsey's "problems" (whatever they were). Part of the tone of that questioning will be that IF he knew had he, (as an employer, not a friend) "done anything" about it. Now the tone I've picked up from some of the above(and I may be wrong) is that that is a question that somehow shouldn't be asked ("hey its, not my business.....yeah but what could I do?........it was up to him.....I tried to raise it but he didn't want to know..........it was his responsibility to raise it not mine..........dude's gotta do what a dudes gotta do..............as long as he was cutting it in the kitchen............etc. etc.) My point is that in the UK it is well established and accepted that an employer's "duty of care" to an employee goes beyond these answers. There may well be nothing whatsoever Ramsey could have done to have helped prevent what Dempsey did. But the PRINCIPLE that employers should have a responsibility towards their employees, in some cases regardless of whether the latter asks for it, is well established and has been fought for for years by unions and othere workers organizations as an ongoing development away from slave labour and is now well accepted by all. The idea that this is "paternalistic" is only held by backwoods Tories and deep reactionaries who would take us back to the dark ages of industrial relations if they could, all the while under the guise of so-called "freedom". Its no accident that some of the most right wing organizations in Europe call themselves "The Freedom Party", or "The Association for Freedom", or some such. Its the argument they always put up and always have any time there is any advance in the rights of employees and duties of employers (and I speak as one of the latter). Kitchens may still well be a last bastion of that dark old world but I would hazard a guess that whatever else Ramsey is thinking/feeling about Dempsey's death, one thing he won't be is "well, its a shame but its got nothing to do with me", indeed he made that clear in the Observer article last week, and he was speaking as an employer as well as a friend.

Basically you kitchen outlaws are just a bunch of redknecks. Shouting and screaming at people because of the "pressure", sneering at human weakness, macho posturing, despising people's employment rights, contemptous of the idea of helping and supporting those in trouble. Like a lot of the so called American freedom lovers you're reactionary to the core, defending loudmouthed boorish behaviour as heroic and misunderstanding bullying as strength. Malachi and Spenser you wouldn't last five minutes in the UK in any job which required you to manage with any degree of skill and in any field where labour relations had become codified and agreed. Stop giving it all the posturing mouth and start thinking about the issues outside of your own egos for five minutes. There's a lot of literature out there on leadership amd management. i suggest you avail yourselves of some of it.