Gary Marshall

oriental restaurant group. keeps the city in thai food! cheers gary

yes, that was my thinking! cheers gary

i've caught this again now i know its actually still running, bit i thought was odd was after serving his ice cream he said 'right now let's taste it'! on a tangent.... although all this for arguments sake fat duck inspired trickery is exciting and bringing new interest into food, in the wrong hands ie without a basic/classic training it can be a recipe for disaster, trickery over taste. what won last night? to all intents and purpose a roast chicken with dauph pots, cooked well and importantly delicious, not trying to push the boundaries and forgetting why people eat! cheers gary

if you're not as lucky as me to have a young urchin battle through the rain to deliver the papers for when i can be bothered to get up and read them, then might i suggest for the foodie with a voyeuristic slant todays telegraph? 50 top, and they are suprisingly top and world renown chefs in their home kitchens with a short recipe to. even gagnaire's dog dresses up for the gig! gary

crikey is this still going ! let me get this straight the corrs, as in the band are the latest celebrity judges? it was bad enough with only torode and wallace to contend with. gary

despite being a practically wurzel gummidge-esque country bumpkin compared to savvy metropolitans like yourselves i am puzzled.... how do you tell an eggs got a double yolk until you break it? cheers gary

sad news matt :sad from my chat with anthony d i gathered the overheads were, quite frankly, astronomical so unfortunately not a suprise. he be very welcome in yorkshire cheers gary

food geek website works for me. cheers gary

i saw the supplement in the telegraph which precised the top25 i think, however does the UK really need another guide with exactly the same restaurants in it just in a different rank? I would say not with the internet and food boards we can get much more accurate, and reliable (once you know who to trust ) updates that are far more valuable than a once a year guide. despite its flaws the only guide book i would buy is michelin, and the french one at that by the way unless i'm mistaken i'm pretty sure it was parmesan air not soya bean air i had yesterday cheers gary

I'm sure you were all worried but i can assure you that the white onion risotto and suckling pig at anthonys is still on form Friend had squab and foie to start. then turbot with oxtail, the oxtail was stuffed into squid tubes and looked very good. cheeses then pineapple and black olive tatin to follow. and a great shock, no chorey-les-beaune this time, a 99 1er cru santenay les gravieres very good indeed. Might have to change my allegiance. I note their stocks of c les beaune 1/2's have not yet recovered from our last trip, it's still out of stock cheers gary ps now just got to make room for the thai birthday meal i'm booked in for sarah's birthday

Saw the official press release yesterday. there's a new espoirs category also for restaurants on the verge of climbing a category. cheers gary

i thought it quite witty, having eaten all of the dishes mentioned it's quite a good way of getting across what they are about. gary

and so are anthony's result look a little more shall we say, 'coherent' than last years veggie restaurant /nigel slater love in. i'm sure you'll all want to rush out and buy it to read jay's excellent pieces on anthony's (and the ginger pig.) but it's online too.... http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly...1409764,00.html cheers gary

it's all about the details isn't it? bet you didn't go thirsty either 2 out of the 3 serving staff are ex-el bulli, A 3 star michelin - and it shows. denis at no3 has experience at various 1-2 stars in europe and again you can tell. cheers gary

A very enjoyable lunch on Saturday in the company of scott, sam, robin majumdar and our resident 'super taster'-let's call him 'Mr X' who was fresh from giving heston a critical overview and lesson in cooking foie gras the day before! we were all eagerly anticipating the first real blow out of the year from Tony & co. A swift livener in All Bar One, with as predicted by scott a bloody mary for me, the non-drinking coming to an abrupt stop the evening before! Anthony’s was looking quite busy and mr x had a flight back to france to continue his culinary oddessey so we got stuck in straight away. Given the 3 star background of many of the staff, they have brought some nice touches to bear, such the menu we had was selected by checking old menus to see what we’d had previously so as not to duplicate dishes we had already tried, hence some are ALC, some are works in progress, some made up on the day and there were some that never made it out of the kitchen. First up Carrot & Coconut Mojito – this was a 2am the night before thought from tony. A tall carrot and ginger juice shot topped with a coconut head. Smelt of hawaian tropic to me which wasn’t a bad associative smell. Was fine but not the best we’ve had. Think that accolade goes to the upside down guiness. Cod Scratchings – a plate of fish skins, treated a la pub snack of pork scratchings. Sam was initially reticent but we assured her that despite where they had come from, the skins provided texture but not much fishiness which was fine by us. There was also a dip with these as well from memory. Think we had bread at this point –with caramelized, parmesana and salted butter. Cauliflower Truffle - quickly becoming a big favourite. A shot glass filled with cauliflowery trifle with a layer of apple in the bottom. Turbot Liver Parfait, Biscotti – Pierre koffman had been in for lunch earlier in the week so tony had devised this as a take on his famous foie parfaits. A little dish of fine parfait with a slivers of biscotti. Having had an unfortunate incident with monkfish liver I was a bit suspicious of this but one mouthful dispelled those doubts. Smooth, livery, sublte very good. Maybe a few salt crystals on the side would have added an extra dimension? Baby Squid,Garlic Veloute – a stunner. Looked like a mini donner kebab on a stick. 10-15 tiny baby squids (with their eyes & mouths individually removed in prep) skewered, griddled on the plancha I assume to a caramelized perfection. Laid across the bowl with a garlic sauce poured over at the table. To me a great dish, Mr X I think was even heard to mutter an ‘mmm’ at this point but quickly composed himself and pronounced the garlic finish a bit too long, his thought was to blanch and cool the garlic several times to remove the after taste but keep the initial impact. Must try this at home. Rabbit, Coffee Panacotta – Another off the cuff thought from Tony 5 discs of perfectly cooked rabbit loin laid on top of the pannacotta which was set in the bottom of a bowl, about 1cm deep. Turns out tony has just got a low temp oven and wanted a play. The rabbit had been cooked for 2 hours, it was beautifully tender and the pannacotta a subtle partner, mr x mentioned he would have preferred the pannacotta warm, I’m ambivalent on that score for me the rabbit was centre stage and enough to make the dish a winner. Black Pudding with Smoked Spratts – this was the black pudding usually served with mango and salmon cheeks but this time with 3/ 4 dinky spratt fillets cut neatly into rectangles. Black pudding as good as home made black pud gets and the sprats well, smoky. Mullet,Langoustine, Almond Creme Caramel – this is an a la carte dish, a rectangle of mullet a very fresh langoustine (from whitby it transpires) and the crème caramel in a shot. After a lesson in langoustine freshness from Mr X (who pronounced it almost as good as his famed San Remo gambas!) we quickly scoffed the lot. Unfortunately the Chorey-les-Beaune had been flowing for some time so I’ll need to see scott’s piccies to add more detail. Suckling Pig, Quinoa, Rhubarb – this dish looked a treat, a loin of suckling pig –think canon of lamb encased in perfect golden crackling. Scott reckons the quinoa was in a sorbet which rings a bell but see above for my excuse. The pig was a highlight though. Poached Rhubarb, Iced Parship Powder, Lychee Another, ALC dish think this was a pastiche of rhubarb and custard. Journey of Chocolate (ALC) certainly one for the chocoholics from mild to strong, a mini feast ice cream to start, a fondant, and I think a ferrero rocher type, there was one other too. Paying the price here for enjoying myself too much and not taking photos/notes ! On the wine front we had a bottle of testulat house NV, a bottle of sancerre before deciding to stick with the red, the old favourite tollot-beaut chorey –les-beaune which we drank all the bottles of, and most of their stock of halves! We took coffee and chocs/calvados and raspberry beers upstairs, and said hello to bertie wooster who sam had found on a fag break, unfortunately Mr X had to catch his flight and just missed Tony who ventured out for a chat but we stayed until train time about 7-ish. A very enjoyable lunch both company and foodwise, roll-on the next biggie - the scott and gary joint birthday celebration !

i can easily see how you could come to that conclusion and that being pompous/ arrogant/ opinionated/cynical are just 4 of the character traits required to post here. but i can also add that i have dined with many people from food websites such as this/foodies in general and found everyone on the whole to be lively and entertaining company despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. at such dinners i can say i never discussed my job, (indeed i have no idea what many of my london dining companions do to this day!) how much my house is worth or where i am going on holiday (unless food related). and whilst i might get upset that my glass is not sparkling, the wine is not at my thought of correct temperature, the seasoning is not quite right, i can assure you by the end of my lunch/dinner i will have consumed enough of the former to not really give a toss whilst conscious of detail and etiquette it didn't stop my lunch on saturday finishing at 7pm after clearing out the restaurants supply of chorey-les-beaune and making significant dents in the raspberry beer stocks cheers gary

buffalos have wings? who knew? © jessica simpson. probably. gary

this has happened to me too. very annoying. edit in le gavroche back in 03 ....." wrestling the wine off the sommelier who kept doing the classic not watching glasses so go to fill your own and then half way through they go for the bottle to finish the job, irritating at best." gary

I think Jay has made his point, and is justified in bringing this to your attention but seeing as i was there too my tenpennorth is.... i as a rule have no problem with the waiter pouring my wine or me pouring my own, but if the restaurant does remove the wine and pour then i would like a smallish amount that enables a good swirl to be developed and even more importantly that i am not left with a dry glass. if this is accomplished then i am quite happy, however i can count restaurants that can do that on the fingers of less than one hand- number 3 and winteringham fields spring to mind, i stick to places that i like, and don't weekly offer myself up to the 'altar of the waiter' like Jay does every week. in this instance, jay had already said to me that wine being poured was a pet peeve, in his view mainly designed to sell more wine which is fair enough. We tasted it and said we'd pour our own. The waiter was fine with that, we shouldn't have had to tell every waiter that we were pouring our own. The waiter should have told his colleagues that was the situation, simple as that. After the third (i think) time it went beyond a joke and became an irritation. As the review said, all of this has to be viewed in the context of the charging, at £90 a head in leeds it's got to be more than just ok, attention to detail is what moves a restaurant from merely good to great, I like simon and rena and want the box tree to succeed but this was the weakest meal i have had there out of my 3 visits, it is frustrating as a customer when you know they can do it better. cheers gary

thanks they look just the thing! cheers gary

yes, we'll be the quiet table in the corner gary

i was wondering about the wine after suzi's post and tried to check the list out on line but its not on. sounds much like anthony's where its hard to match the food and wine so i just tend to stick to what i like chardonnay/riesling and red burgundy. Given l'enclume's 20 courses i doubt even scott and i can work our way through a bottle to match each course . Learned that lesson the hard and expensive way - 6 different wines to match a tasting menu at winteringham fields- between 3 of us. i was a big fan of ch. musar too but didn't like the '97 vintage at all, i understand the '98 is out soon, if not already. and will everyone stop going on about eggs benedict! mates ended up at the savoy the other night, guess what they had for breakfast and haven't stopped going on about? cheers gary

i haven't been, friend used to go quite regularly for weekend breaks pre-kids. speaks highly of it but don't know what the food it like nowadays. cheers gary

i'll be there then, table of 5, come and say hello! cheers gary

I've often mentioned this, and although they've come a long way in a short time, it is still a very young restaurant, it's not a year old, it is tony's first head chef postion, holly's first restaurant job and tony snr's first restaurant. Only recently has the kitchen got its full complement of chefs -still only 3, and front of house dining room is essentially only olga and some new staff that are learning the ropes. although now often compared to the likes of the fat duck, at the same point in his career heston was knocking out lemon tarts and steak and bearnaise (probably -the fat duck was a frenchy bistro styley when it opened) going saturday looking forward to it cheers gary