Bapi

We had an excellent Champagne Cocktail at the Coburg bar pre lunch at Hibiscus. An excellent way to start and much better than Claridges bar.

Just have a look at this. This is a Merchant House menu circa 2000 I think, and proudly framed in our house. I could murder anyone of these dishes and in fact, the saddle of venison / foie gras dish is the one that turned me into the impoverished foodie I am today. Seriously though, it makes one think. Pitch perfect dishes without any fuss. I won't euolgise too much as I am sure it would make Shaun gag. Sauteed monkfish with ginger,garlic and tomato Pike quenelle with scallop, languostine and dill Grilled seabass with spiced beurre blanc Roast quail with parsley risotto ----------------- Roast turbot with wholegrain mustard sauce English grey partridge with braised lentil and morrel mushrooms Loin of local veal and sweetbreads with potato and olive cakes Saddle of venison with foie gras ----------------- Panettone bread and butter pudding Somloi (Hungarian trifle) Muscat creme caramel with prunes Iced passion fruit parfait He is still turning out cracking dishes at the Walnut Tree and we had a stellar lunch at Walnut Tree back in August. Steak tartare for me and then perfect duck. Clams for the missus and our little git now adores John Dory.

We tried to have a drink there pre dinner at Le Gavroche ( I will finally do that write up this week!) Sadly it looked dead as in not a sole to be seen and it appeared a little austere inside.

Peter, please don't feel the need to apologise for soundman's churlish and invidious comments. Quite frankly there is little enough traffic on this board as it is, so thank you for your posts. I'm glad you and Yoohni had a good trip. Soundman- for your information, I too buy the odd bottled beer from Tescos and even, god forbid, buy their tomatoes. No doubt you have artisan producers for both. Unusually, at the same time I quite happily spend hundreds of pounds of my son's inheritence on Michelin starred meals. The two are not mutually exclusive. Thank you for pissing me off on this beautiful Sunday morning.

I have been and I am a sorry to say it was not a good experience due to an incident of spectacular petulance on the part of one member of staff. I will write it up shortly.

F**k me ! You get around a bit don't you David?

Mr Campbell's off to pastures new.

We are back to Ludlow in early August for a few days. Not sure whether we will venture to La Becasse with the four year old in tow as the setting is rather formal and not too child friendly, although we have a potential offer of a babysitter one afternoon to do a lunch. We took the little one there when he was two in its previous guise as Hibiscus. He started playing up slightly so bless, her Claire set us a table up in the courtyard and we had one of the most pleasant lunches ever sat in the sun. Bliss. David re the Butchers- yes they are indeed excellent. We bought some veal back in February and it was delicious. One word of warning- get those pigeons breasts eaten sharpish. We froze our pack of ten, waiting for some fiends to come to see us before I cooked them and they had turned far too gamey to be enjoyable. BTW is Fishmore Hall in Ludlow on your radar? All of which reminds me- must get The Walnut Tree booked for lunch whilst we are down there.

Harters, Now you are just makng me look bad. First the Mustard and Punch and now the Olive Branch- both over in my stomping ground and I have been to neither of them. Sadly I hear similar reports about the Olive Branch in that the prices have crept up over the last few years, but the food was deemed just reasonable but nothing special. I'll PM you a couple more local suggestions where an "assiete" or a "rosette" would be an anathema. B

That's nothing, we were up at The Devonshire Arms a couple of weeks back (I will review it soon )and they brought out our pre desserts after we had finished our main puddings. Even cheekily trying to fob us off saying it was an extra gift from the kitchen to finish our meal- yeah right.

My state? A little rich coming from the oddly,swaying cross eyed chap sat opposite me in Red Chilli. On reflection you are right about parts of the service. Some of it was, as I wrote, really rather efficient, but I did notice the rather brusque chap who served us and kept trying to remove our red wine glasses was quite rude. He didn't seem to be able to comprehend we wanted to keep them. Also as he was clearing Gary's plate on a couple of occasions he, practically pushed past him to get at it without so much as an "excuse me". Sadly, he also presented us with the nadir moment of the day by curtly declining to let us have any more bread. Kitchen cock up or his manner?- either way an odd thing for an aspiring restaurant to do. At least decline politely chaps! Thom- perhaps we should have mentioned that issue to the decent MD who was on reception as we left? In any case,after mentioning what had happened to friends who want to lunch in Manchester in a couple of weeks- we have opted for Harvey Nicks instead. I also have to admit that as Gary says- I don't actually get out much, at least not into a city. So I was rather blown away by the view from the Cloud 23 Bar and I also thought the lass serving us at the table was rather charming. But no way would I ever consider queueing to get in there.

I was there with a couple of reprobates from here last Friday. Nothing on the cheaper Amazing Graze menu ticked any of our boxes and it was noticeable that the more luxurious ingredients had made way for Broccoli soup and ham hock terrine follwed by Lamb liver and plaice with pomme puree. Nothing wrong with this obviously- as I couldn't see how they could continue to use foie gras and red mullet at those prices. We opted for the Grazing menu in the end choosing 4 dishes each. Suprise, suprise -Gary and Thom went for exactly the same dishes again. I started with Cod cheeks and crispy pork belly which was a hit for me served with a ginger and apple puree and a fennel cream sauce. A nicely balanced dish. Ravioli of crab with lemon grass and pink graprefuit came next for me, nice rich buttery sauce, but this was a little over salted and the unannounced slivers of ginger completely overpowered the grapefruit and sadly the moreish crab. I was really looking forward to my slow poached halibut with watercress puree salsify and chicken jus. This could have a been a great dish but was again over salted, or rather the jus was, we were told, to compensate for the fish being rather delicate. A real shame. My last savoury course was Roast Goosnargh duckling orange brasied chicory and black olive paint. Seasoning, execution and presentation were are spot on for this course and this is the dish were I deviated away from the other chaps choices. Very glad I did as it delivered. Note to self- never start talking when the cheese was delivered. By the time I came round to helping myself Thom had left me three parsimonious slivers. Pud was a peanut butter parafit for Gary and myself and that was followed by some lovely salted caramels. Service was rather good I thought, and they coped well with Gary's wine choices, even whisking away the Red wine Riedel's to replace them with ones for our Pinot Noir. Then it was off into the rain and to the Hilton Bar high up Beetham Tower amongst a blur of other places. And of course we ended up at Red Chilli later, just for a change.......

Glad you enjoyed it Adam. My friend had the duck dish last Wednesday and said it was sensational. I had a sneaky lunch in Manchester yesterday with a couple of reprobates at Abode, which I will write up- and it was remiss of me not to invite you along, so sorry. But it sounds as if you had a better meal than us.

What about Ithaca- is it any good Thom?

Bastard. Report back please.

Alex, I would concur with ameiden. Hambleton Hall is a beautiful place and in July one hopes you would be able sit outside on the terrace for an aperitif. We have a had a few stays there, but sadly not for a few years now. Had the first proper night of our honeymoon here and what a perfect choice it was to relax and unwind. It's certainly doable by cab, but probably best to get a price for the journey from a local cab firm. Unless of course you used to be in Blur and are loaded.

Very much looking forward to returning here for dinner in August. The one thing I am not looking forward to is wearing a jacket throughout dinner, especially if it's a sweltering hot day. But then there's always champagne to be had to cool oneself down.

I too have found them to be very pleasant in Manchester, especially if you go off piste for some of the more outlandish dishes. One sweet lass even tried to warn us off the Spicy Hot Poached Lamb- by waving here hand over her mouth and saying " No, No- too hot". Obviously, we thanked her and the told her not to worry.

Isn't that a tad rich coming from you? Just remind me who was attempting to get me to pay for the champagne this weekend? Having said that- the cocktails were superb in that VIP Bar - but er, a little strong.

We had a very quick lunch at Wings yesterday inbetween attending Thom's restaurant show at Gmex. I forgave the dreadful interior as the food was rather good. Fairly decent steamed dim sum, to start. My char siu and roast duck dish was very simple, but the meat was full of flavour and beautifully cooked. We also had a generic fillet steak with green pepper and black bean sauce, which again was very tender. It's not cheap though, but you do get good quality for the extra expense. Obviously a big favourite of the footballers around Manchester, as they have numerous signed plates of the wall; which rather adds to the cheese value of the decor. Then it was back to Gmex to lig mercilessly at the VIP bar and watch a few demos. Nigel Haworth was doing one followed by Tony Flinn soon after. Great to see his missus Olga again after too long, though thankfully we are back at Anthony's this weekend. Thom- well done Sir. You and your team put on a good event, which must have been hard in what are difficult times.

Bloody hell David, you are commited to the cause. Glad you enjoyed it I am back there in a couple of weeks and the review will be in tomorrows Observer.

Good man Harters, your post is very timely. My missus has been bleating on about going up to that neck of the woods for a while now- though she has mooted staying nearer to Alnwick. I too have drawn a bit of a blank re eating out , so I will be interested to know what others may suggest. The one place I did read about in a broadsheet a while back is The Treehouse at Alnwick Gardens. I can not vouch for the food, but I thought it may entertain our little one (and indeed me).

Oh crap- what date is this again? Think I have promised to go to Suffolk.

And you say I am a creature of habit!

Bimey- a rather passable lunch at Abode last week. My friend and I were thinking of a quick cheap and cheerful curry at Mahabara, but I was quickly swayed by two other foodie friends to give it a try over a beer. I had been told by two of our party that the service had been woeful the last time they had lunched there. Not so this time, we were ushered in and given a rather nice table overlooking the rest of the basement restaurant. The grazing menu named, ahem - "Amazing Graze" - was a ridiculously cheap £12 for three courses. Leaping to a whopping £18/ £21 with matched wines. Some excellent bread was offered straight away as we decided what we wanted. I can only comment on my dishes, which were a foie gras parfait with pickled beetroot to start. Very pleasant to eat and a bargain on a menu of that price. My main was a small fillet of hake with salsify; paired with an excellent sauce. Very good indeed. To finish a home made Arctic roll with ice cream- which did exactly what it said on the tin. A bit of retro heaven. I did get to try a bit of my friends lime souffle which though light, was a tiny bit sharp for me. Had three of us not plumped for two bottles of Savigny Le Beaune our bill would have been considerably less, but it was nevertheless very enjoyable. I will point out again that the portions are tapas style, and therefore not huge, especially the main course. But for a quick light lunch it was nigh on perfect. Especially as we were aiming to get to Red Chilli later that evening, prior to a gig. I think the chef is soon to be on Great British Menu- (Ian Maftin (sp Thom)?), so I will be intrigued to see how he fairs.