Gary Marshall

starter looked busy, i agree, and on the tv it certainly comes across that way but in reality, espcially in a tasting portion format (which is the best way to try anthony's) they aren't that fussy. Certainly when they read out what's in a dish it sounds a lot, but eats much better than it sounds!

Caught up with the fish and mains last night, think tony is hitting his stride now, especially with the suckling pig dish, excellent stuff.

i'll give it 6 months.

no, previous editions didn't sell.

not seen it yet but tony did say the production team kept trying to get him to criticise haworth's dishes but he said he wouldn't, if he liked it he'd say so.

Really? Where?! I have always found the Chinatown pretty poor. More a street than a town, and certainly no restaurants of note. Been eating there on and off for fifteen years but I must admit my latter experiences have mainly been when a night out with my Scouse mates has ended with a 3am chow mein (never the best barometer of a restaurant's quality I admit) Cheers Thom ← hence the vagueness of my response, it's been a while and i can't remember the names but will know them when i see them, helpful i know. I've lived in the pool and worked with plenty of scousers and one thing they all have in common is they absolutely love chinese food and everyone i've worked with had never had an indian until they crossed to the right side of the pennines. the last one i had of note was rather bizarrely near the pier head in what used to be i think a bernie inn, it's upstairs and overlooks the river, big place can't miss it. must be open pretty much all the time as i had lunch there begining at about 3.30pm. hardens suggests yuet ben fwiw

very active chinese restaurant scene in liverpool, a wander down chinatown might be worth it.

surely you have to believe you're the mutts nuts to open a cutting edge restaurant in leeds at the age of 23?! Think it's fair to say tony is not a 'people person' he doesn't go round his restaurant before, during or after service saying hello and he genuinely is very serious about what he does. A chef who's just interested in cooking - who knew

no he steamed it and fried his sweetbreads. I think it is very definitely a battle of traditional vs modern! I was amused by nigels ' see he still got that risotto on the menu' comment as it's the only dish that has been on since day one i'm looking forward to nigels dessert, very complex i hear

yes, it's being a bit hammed up for the telly i suspect.

and the theme for gordon's next series of the f word (and book) is ..... healthy eating from amazon.... What you are is what you eat and everyone wants to be healthy and look their best. Gordon Ramsay super-fit chef, marathon runner and high-energy television presenter is a great advertisement for eating well and staying in the peak of good health. For this third series of The F Word, he has put together over 100 dishes that are completely in tune with the way we want to eat today packed with fresh, vital ingredients cooked in the most healthy way to achieve maximum flavour. Geared around our daily lives he gives ideas and recipes for healthy breakfasts, lunches, barbecues, suppers, desserts, kids and entertaining, demonstrates healthy cooking methods that guarantee optimum flavour, and tells us which are his favourite healthy ingredients. Recipes include Mango and Smoked Chicken Salad, Griddle Squid with Roasted Peppers and Cannellini Beans, Wild Mushroom Risotto with baked Courgettes and Roasted Peaches with Vanilla and Spices. With its fresh, colourful photographs and clean modern design, this is a worthy follower to his hugely successful Fast Food and Sunday Lunch.

things catch fire

If you've wondered what all the fuss over Anthony's is about, watch tony flinn on great british menu tonight, bbc2 6.30pm. Can't remember exactly what he said he's cooking but they are ALC dishes so representative of what you'd get in the restaurant. Will be quite a contrast to nigel haworth's dishes that's for sure.

would love to dive into the debate further but i'm already running late for the gym....

don't think it was an age thing for me, more difficulty in bending down to tie shoe laces.

Is it just me or have i noticed a trend starting amongst foodies to match their calorific intake with equally intense gym/diet sessions? The rather disturbing picture of gary rhodes in the sunday times and jay's piece in the observer women's magazine are just the tip of the iceberg as i know several previously high profile foodies who have retreated from the front line until their waistline can be measured in inches rather than feet again. I got a shock post christmas when i hit nearly 16 stone and thought, i'd better have a bit of a re-think here, so i'm too on the fitness streak, though not quite cutting out the carbs yet, though i am well aware carbs=death

mmm sounds delicious, but think i'll stick to the farm shop & butchers for my ingredients

yes, there's lots of justifying why their food is 'modern british' when that was patently obvious with sat and glynn's cooking. And as angela harnett said last night 'i can't believe the winning dessert won't have foams and gels on it'

Though i've not been keeping an eagle eye on the programme this week there must surely have been a reduction in the use of sous vide, which can only be a good thing. I'm having nightmares about jenny bond's voiceover ' (insert name of chef) now pops the (insert name of protein) into a bag and cooks at precisely 50 degress for (insert minutes/hours/days), before finishing off in the pan. oh and by the way WTF is 'pan roasting' when it looked like a piece of meat cooking in a pan on a hob, , i can live with pan seared but pan roasted is surely a bridge too far when no oven is involved!

Well one of you's had a result ←

coincidentally i was going to give you a bell and head over to gato negro/millbank if we couldn't get into the fox and hounds.

i know of it and have peered at the menu but never been open when i've been through, it did come up in conversation though, apparently they're going through a bit of a molecular gastronomy phase.....

a while ago i was searching through various pub guides to look for a place to go for a night away for mrs m's birthday, even though the guides were well used somehow i had completely missed the fox and hounds at goldsborough, a little further digging revealed not much, they have no website but are in both hardens and alastair sawdays special places. Although the pub doesn't look particularly exciting from the small picture i logged it away as somewhere that might be worth a try. Fast forward to this saturday and i was thinking of somewhere to try for a birthday-ish lunch, 'why not try that pub near whitby i thought' and a quick call to them ascertained they had a table, and that their usual menu was on offer which meant around 6 starters, 6 mains a couple of puddings and a cheese, 'all local and seasonal' said the voice on the other end of the phone. Pefect, and off we set over the moors (quite literally) through the snow and hail to find a tiny pub atop the cliffs overlooking the bay. The small kitchen is the first room to left and encouragingly gastronomic smells were emanating from it, and we wandered through into the pub which is essentially two small rooms (there is also a 5 seater private dining room too), one also hosting the bar. There's probably about 7 tables in total. Think compact and bijou. The place is run by sue and jason davies she ex-oddettes and he ex- ivy, they are local and left the smoke to run the pub which is owned by one of the local landowners on his estate. They have kept it simple but that's not to say corners have been cut, there's very few places in leeds where you can find a proper aperitif/cocktail menu but here they do, everything is chalked on blackboards, winelist included and everything kept to a minimalist 3 -5 items. there's only one leffe blonde beer on tap, the rest are bottled ales/fruit beers, so i had a swift half of that to blow the dust off. Once seated, Iced water was proffered along with some fantastic homemade sourdough (st john inspired apparently) and some seriously good olive oil (first press greek it turns out) From the menu board we ordered grilled langoustines and a porcini risotto, Langoustines were superb, with sweet meat and the risotto good but needing a bit of salt (little pots of maldon on the tables btw - tick vg) to get it up to my taste but nowt wrong with the cusisson. For the mains we both had halibut with canelloni beans, chargrilled fennel and salsa verde. The fish was a 1 x 3 inch tall tranche and the skin was lovely crisp and golden, the salsa wouldn't be something i'd normally go for but this was seriously capery which is fine by me, the olive oil made a reapperance too as a lubricator and held the whole dish together. This is the sort of dish i'd expect to find in the river cafe for £30+ not £18 (i think) in a pub near whitby. We split a cheese course which was a no-nonesense chunk of lowna dairy goats with delicate apple slices and biscuits and a pudding of almond and pistachio cake that again wouldn't disgrace a top Italian restaurant. The wine list is seriously idiosyncratic, of a choice of four -ish, i was going to have either the gruner veltliner £18 or a german chardonnay (hauk i think it was for £22) on the basis that these aren't the sort of wines just stick on a list i conferred with sue as to the best choice, i like GV and drink it regularly, when pushed she said that was also her favourite but for a change i had the chardonnay and perefectly good it was too. over a very good coffee and a calva (well they'd gone to all the trouble of writing up the digestif menu so it seemed rude not to) we had a chat with the owners who are certainly dedicated foodies and running a place on all the right lines, veg from the local organic farm, lobsters from runswick bay and fish from scarborough/whitby. We were chatting about the guides and our respective pub experiences and it turns out they were listed in the Good Food Guide 2007 as the best yorkshire newcomer, then left out of the 2008 edition. On the basis of our meal that looks certainly more of an administrative oversight than a genuine demotion so it's been there 3 years it's in pretty much most of the guidebooks, is on my patch and i've never heard it mentioned by anyone, so i can claim it as my discovery! We'll be back. fox and hounds, goldborough, yo21 3rx 01947 893372 closed mon, tues, sun eve. note lunch orders need to be taken between 12 and 1pm, it's small so book!

i think he could recognise there was talent there, just not quite running in the right direction at the moment.

aa gill was less than complimentary yesterday