Gary Marshall

thanks, unfortunately it seems that the combination of a decent place and open on a sunday night is too big an ask for calais so i think i'm going to hot foot it from calais to honfleur and eat twice at sa.qa.na instead

well tony makes the plans for the piazza sound relatively straight forward, but they are in no doubt it's a very big make or break project. On the plus side it's essentially making standalone units of skills they already have in bakery & pattiserie plus sandwiches / deli /shop which shouldn't be beyond them, neither should running the restaurant! They've got the entire ground floor (not the basement bar) it's such a good site i'm sure they would have liked to get 'anthony's' moved in there too but not the space to do it properly, but it will be real wow factor place when it's completed, 6 months is the timescale......

i'm not well placed to speak seeing i don't think i've set foot in the place since it was last re-vamped in the early 90's. From memory there's a big ground floor with a mezzanine level up above, i would assume that anthony's have the ground floor and the mezzanine level will be split up into units. I would suspect as the big name in leeds they have been approached by the developers to act as the cornerstone tenant of the site. Might have some more info later.....

the corn exchange is a great building that has been crying out for re-development, sounds very exciting, tony did say he had a new project that was just about to be signed but this is a little bit bigger than anything else they've ever talked about! http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news...eeds.4148083.jp

that's so unlike you thanks for the recs, will check them out. cheers gary

I'm vaguely plotting a trip to france post a weekend in brighton, was thinking of getting the eurotunnel over to calais on sunday aft/evening spending the night there then heading to honfleur and sa qa na on monday, then back the next day. looking for 'somewhere' in the calais area, a decent brasserie for some steak frites would be perfect as would somewhere with rooms out of the way (within reason) all considered any thoughts? thanks

costco

on the basis he was one of the youngest (if not 'the') to gain 2* and then blow it all by branding a colleague with a palette knife (alledgedly?) his comeback in 04 was one of the most anticipated of the year , not quite undiscovered !

It certainly has its fans the wine crowd on wine pages certainly like it, i didn't dislike it but found the tasting menu a fairly standard 'give us a star' menu lacking personality it could have been anywhere, ALC might be the way to go.

it's no fun i lost count of the weeks we were kitchenless i think it was 6 or more, cooked on a 2 electric ring 'stove' and washed up upstairs in the bath. not fun, though you'll survive, a baby belling would have been positive luxury!

Is that a euphemism one wonders. We're not good enough for your mates anymore, huh? ← I did think that being the cynical type, isn't the kitchen virtually brand new? I did tell him to go to the modern told him all about the view & the seasonal cooking etc but he said he wanted comfort food, i then mentioned michael caines and that changed his mind again.

just sent my mate to abode unfortunately it is shut for 'kitchen maintenance'. he's currently tucking into a corn beef hash at sams by the looks of the pic he's just sent.

congratulations

it has certainly become noticable the price inflation at the higher level especially in paris/france, when i first started dining there (and the 10 franc £ was a wonderful thing) i'd be going some to spend £100 a head but now it's really getting out of hand, even arpege aside, the 3* are all falling into 'that's not a meal out, that's a week on a beach' type expense. Of course as you get older and fatter the meals go from just the tasting menu and a bottle of wine to aperitifs, 2 bottles of wine, extra cheese, digestifs which all do their own damage both physically and fiscally. As i think matt said upthread the ones you remember are the ones that you feel the gouge and don't have a great time, which for me were £300+ plus meals at fat duck & le gavroche (and that was 5 years ago) and most recently a fairly frightening amount at roellinger 170e tasting menus and i think 3 100e-ish wines (between 4) though i called an end to the expensive wine for puds and had i think a 30e - odd riesling that was fine . I was quite relieved not to be going back the next day for ALC unlike my friends who did. on the fat duck point, a friend of mine had pretty much the same meal i had 5 years ago ie tasting plus wine flight, spent £600+ for 2 . Didn't enjoy it much either

fat fingers

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jhtml.../edready123.xml jasper gerrard got very excited about the porthminster cafe. roasts for sunday lunch unfortunately are a fact of life for english pubs, it's what the punters want and although you can serve plenty of them there's a ceiling price that you can charge and it's actually a busy day for not a lot of return, you'd far rather everyone was eating ALC but roasts are what they want.

where's the fun in that ? it probably will succeed on the basis of being full of hotel guests, i doubt it will succeed on a 'being of interest to the internet food geek market' . One of those though is ultimately significantly more worthwhile than the other.

i absolutely agree, if i want fine dining in london i'd much rather give my money to claire and claude bosi rather than a part-timer no doubt on a cracking no-lose financial deal. although as you say that floppy hat could change everything

doesn't sound like it's changed much from my visit then. i find these multicourse affairs are becoming a rod for restaurants back, they can't possibly make 25 stellar dishes and when you get say 3 in a row that aren't up to scratch it colours your view, when you could have 5 and think it's the best thing since sliced bread.

for a restaurant that recieves so little praise they look big numbers, i had a stunning meal in the old petrus but not tried the 'new'

how was l'enclume bertie? i hear so many mixed reports.

i though this was going to be the place in henley or has that been scrapped?

I rate Fort as a judge but the other two are appalling for this competition. I've given up with it. ← i like routine, it's been on for so long it's become part of my life

i've not watched this series before so i don't know to what extent the public vote matches the judges. I'd expect the housewives favourites (well my wife's) such as jason, tom & glynn to do better and for chris horridge in true eurovision stylee to get 'nul points'

Aye ...... it's all about concept and presentation with you isn't it Marshall, driving ya posh car round our village whilst we wait for the only bus of the day. IIRC Jason scored 12 out of twenty.... accused of lacking substance Hey if only Tony had made it to this stage he would have done much better than Nigel David ← which underlines the pointlessness of the public voting for dishes they can't taste, jason dish looked great and had a british theme (unlike stephen's pannacotta or the semi-freddo that tom did) obviously tasted bollocks though! interesting thing is that the judges voted through a lot of traditional cooking in the earlier rounds such as nigel over tony and then are now saying the cooking is not modern enough for the gherkin