origamicrane

could it be becuase the rice wasn't in an airtight container? arborio is meant to absorb more moisture then other types of rice maybe it just absorbed the odour from the surroundings??

Before 'New China' he was head chef of 'China House' which is now The Wolseley. Felix, by the way, is still around - he was promoted to General Manager. ←

its a bit of a walk but there a cash machine about 500 metre down the road at the tesco petrol station i've made that walk many times after ordering too much food and not having enough cash the service is a little on the cold side though think its cause none of the staff are fluent in english

Yes, Chris Kwan took over as head chef about 6 weeks after Dragon Castle opened. It's his photo that accompanies Fay Maschler's review, though Felix Yu was still head chef when she actually visited a week or so before. He'd previously been part of the launch team. Chris oversaw the introduction of the current menu and there are a couple of old 'New China' dishes on the list now. Before 'New China' he was head chef of 'China House' which is now The Wolseley. Felix, by the way, is still around - he was promoted to General Manager. ← arrr.. it all makes sense now, thanks for the confirmation Ian. Will definitely have to head down there asap before Chris is poached again!

Just heard from a friend that the chef in Dragon Castle is the same chef that used to work in New China (chinatown) a few months ago. Same friend said that the most amazing chinese meal he ever had was cooked by that chef he mentioned a lamb shank in a tomato sauce that looked like a mediterrain dish but tasted chinese and a lamb and taro hotpot where the fat tasting like goose liver. Intriguing... think I will definitely have to pop down and try it again but will call in advanced and ask if they can do the same dishes that the chef offered in New China.

Seafood Paella Serves 6 as Main Dish. Paella 1 l chicken stock 1 glass white wine 2 tsp paprika 1 tsp thyme 20 strands of saffron heated and crushed 1 whole small onion 3 chicken thighs chopped into bite size pieces and seasoned with salt and pepper 4 T olive oil 1 medium red onion finely chopped 4 clove garlic crushed 2 ripe tomato skined, seeded and finely chopped 225 g paella rice 10 prawns seasoned with salt and pepper 10 clams scrubbed and cleaned 10 mussels scrubbed and cleaned 150 g white fish sliced into thin bite size pieces 1 c green peas 1 red pepper roasted, skined, seeded and sliced 1 squid cut into rings 1. Set the chicken stock, white win, onion, saffron, thyme and paprika in a stock pot and leave it to simmer. 2. Heat the oil in the paella pan and fry the chicken until golden on all sides and then set the chicken aside in a warm bowl. 3. Add the chopped onion, garlic and tomatoes and on a medium high flame fry for 8-10 minutes until you get a thick sauce consistency. 4. Sprinkle the rice in and fry for 3-4 minutes until the rice starts to become translucent. 5. Go back to your stock pot and remove the small onion then pour the hot liquid into the paella pan. Be careful it will bubble! 6. Shake the pan gently to evenly distribute the rice. do not stir the rice just shake and rotate the pan every few minutes to stop the rice sticking to the base. 7. Let it boil on high for 5 minutes then reduce to a medium low heat and allow to simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the liquid has evaporated enough to reveal the top of the rice. 8. At this point add the meat. 9. Push the chicken pieces into the rice and allow to continue simmering uncovered for a further 5 minutes. 10. Then arrange the prawns, mussels, clams, fish on the rice and again push them slightly into the rice Sprinkle over the green peas and strips of roasted pepper. Cover loosely with a lid or foil and allow to steam for a further 5 minute but this time on a high heat. 11. Take the lid off and see if the seafood is cooked and if the liquid has been completely absorbed. 12. Taste the rice to see if it is done if not allow to cook a further 5 minutes on high, add water if necessary. 13. Turn heat off and allow to rest for 5 minutes and then lots of freshly ground black pepper. Serve from the pan and garnish with several lemon wedges and throw on some chopped flat leaf parsley. The base of the paella is meant to be lightly browned to form a crust which should be a crunchy base but not burnt. Keywords: Seafood, Easy, Chicken, Main Dish, Fish, Rice, Shrimp, Dinner, Spanish/Portugese ( RG1784 )

Mahdu is very good but not cheap here a pdf bus map http://www.tfl.gov.uk/buses/pdfdocs/n_west.pdf looks like you can get a number 105 bus. a black cab will probably cost about £10-£15

Hi Southall is less then 10 minutes drive from Heathrow. It is quite a safe area really Just exercise normal rules of a city don't mess with people, don't wear or display expensive gear that will attract the attention of muggers and stay on the main high street you will be fine Try mahdu's is you want a more relaxed and calm dinner and if you don't mind the noise and want somethign cheaper try gifto's

I was going to say 'tell that to Mr Blumethal' (or something equally idiotic) but thinking about the menu at the FD it seems he'd be in agreement ← that's true FD menu never changes I wonder if they ever gets bored cooking the same tasting menu day in day out? but I know what you are getting at most japanese restaurants in london are pretty conservative/boring after a few visits. hmmmm.. is there an equivalent of fat duck/ El bulli in japan?

nah... i think they are all traditional japanese with a few innovative dishes on the menu. but heck if it's not broke, don't fix it.

hmmmmmm just been to kobe jones http://kobejones.sitesuite.ws/page/london.html hmmmm nice sushi was average cocktails were good the "No. one special" was good but over the top rich. the volcano role and baked papaya were lovely the prawn thermidor was cooked well and fresh but i didn't like it. and a bottle of voss for £83 in all give ti a shot if you want somewhere new to try

Basically if there is a large chinese community then the chinese food will be good like in London but if there isn't, then it won't. I am generalising here but chinese food in mainland europe is pretty bad. Tried chinese food in France and it wa pretty poor but Vietnamese on the other hand was very good. In Italy I was taken by a chinese family friend to a "good" chinese restaurant I wasn't impressed at all. My parent went to barcelona and the majority of the dishes they tried were average.

try superstar it has very good seafood and some of the best pei pa duck. they also have a interesting new chinese menu with homecooking type dishes

I went for an evening meal there about a month ago and the stuff I wanted wasn't available no pa pei duck and no eel. The steamed razor clam was fresh and very well done but £5.50 each? seemed a little steep given the location, Superstar in chinatown is doing them for £4. The garlic chilli chicken dish was nice but portion sizes was small I ordered one more dish but couldn't remember what it was but my general impression was pretty good stuff. The only bad marks I would give them are that the rice wasn't very good, no aroma and it was quite dry and prices, 3 dishes, rice and two drinks came to £60. Will go back next time to try the dim sum

yeah i had one of those too it worked really well for a few weeks but then it broke down. but that might have been to do with my mother making 2 weeks worth of soya milk in the space of a day. They work but i think you have to go easy on them they not for making industrial size quantities.

yeah i liked it too. yep definitely not cheap when compared to chinatown, but then again they are probably the only proper Sichuan place in London at the moment. And that's the only problem I see with bar shu, I don't think it be long before other restaurants in Chinatown start nicking dishes from Bar Shu and slashing the prices.

I'm going to open a can of worms here. If we are talking about humane methods of slaughter what are your opinons on Halal and kosher meat? To me slitting the throat of an animal and letting it bleed to death seem no less humane then boiling and skinning an animal alive. and which of these two methods is more humane for killing unwanted baby male chicks? mechanical shredder or gassing? mehcanical shredder the chicks die in seconds, gassing the chicks take 20 minutes to die?

last year's one was actually a very calm affair not packed at all really. but this year they've been advertising on TV got a feeling it will have a much higher attendance this year. If you want to go, go today or tomorrow as you can bet that Saturday will be packed.

apart from buying books and going on courses have a dig around your friends and relatives bookshelf. If they have a lot of cook books it be a pretty safe bet that they know how to cook, get them to teach you

makes sense.... they could have just said that.... god knows why they told me it was due to the stock taking time to prep.

yeah went on satruday for hotpot with 13 others. quite scary walking into the restuarant as i could feel my eyes tingling from the amount of chilli that was in the air!!! we had the double hotpot and loads of wine. Food was ok can't really complain as there no other place in london that does sichuan hot pot and the soup base was hot and numbing and thermonuclear red although surprisingly not as hot as i'm used to. The bill came to about £30/head. Not bad actually but there was a few niggles. First when we said we wanted the hotpot they said that we had to preorder it?? then he said something about it taking a few hours to get the soup base ready?? but when we pressed him he went off and got us the hotpot ordering sheets. not sure what that was about might have been trying to force us to order ala carte??? as sichuan hotpot doesn't take hours to prep the stock?? Service was typically chinatown abrupt and coldly efficient. also we were on the third floor and their wireless pdq machine couldn't work on the top floor the bluetooth was out of range so 4 of us had to walkdown stairs and wait for the only pdq handset they had to pay our share of the bill. but the place is quite nice they spent a pretty penny on the decor and the rest of the menu did look promising should be going back this week to order off teh ala carte. braised abalone £68/person ouch!!!

Personally I would say try Tay-do it's opposite viet hoa and has a much more buzzy atmosphere. bring your own booze, cheap prices and very tasty. I recommeded the beef in hot leaves, deep fried prawns, the lamb cutlets, the special spring rolls, papaya salad and the special tay do bun. if you need the strippers Browns is only a short stagger down the road A mixed stag and hen night is called a Hag night I assume the party will be descending to hoxton square?

Dear all I'm planning a road trip to Reims for some champagne tasting and food over the easter weekend. Been digging around the forums and looks like everyone is saying to eat at Les Crayeres so already booked that for the saturday that I am there. But we planning to spend 3 days in the area and would like to hear of any suggestion that you might have. I'm considering Le Briqueterie and Aux Armes de Champagne too. Anyone got any other suggestions? Btw how bad does it get over the Easter weekend in France in terms of traffic and attraction being closed? As I would like to vist a few champagne houses and am worried that a lot of them will be closed on the easter sunday and monday. If they are closed can anyone suggest any alternative attractions? I will be grateful of any suggestions.

New branch of Noto has opened opposite of Monument station. Went there on saturday night for dinner and was very very impressed. This branch is much classier then the Moorgate branch and has a dinning area and a kaiten sushi area. They have several very nice fusion dishes on the menu the black cod and miso was a very reasonable £12.80. The sushi was all excellent the uni sushi was so fresh and so good they served it as a single whole piece nigiri without the usual nori wrapper. The toro was so fresh and the highlight was the live langoustine sushi! The chef bought over a plate of live moving langoustines and asked if we wanted to try them? Doh! of course we do!!! a few minutes later he came back and presented the bugs dismembered and the sweet succulent flesh draped over the rice ball. As we ate the heads and claws of the bugs were still moving around on the platter so its not for the squeamish but if you want the freshest sushi make a bee line to Noto!!! just wished i had a camera with me that day!! the food would make you drool! __

looks yummy langoustine with curry and sesame, that I definitely haven't tried. Now this is what I'm talking about, restaurants have to cater for the masses because if they didn't they wouldn't survive. But there is a growing group that yearns for new, fun and more adventurous stuff that isn't the run of the mill restuarant food. Maybe home kitchen restaurants could be the next big thing? Possibly something that egullet could encourage?