camp_dick

I agree. I'm the cynic, not his Lordship.

Are you saying it's shit?

Isn't the point that you're trying to make that you are ready, willing and available for hire?

It's common practice to have a discounted 'soft opening' period that allows for staff training and - because all builders in London are liars, apparently - finishing off the decor. Yes, you were a guinea pig: that's why they charged you half price. This also protects operators from early reviewers. In the case of Roast (crap name, IMO: 'Toast' would have been better. Or 'Braise') Lord Wahab has already bribed the press with free meals, as seen in The Independent (which isn't) and can rely on his special relationship with The Only London Critic Who Really Matters, which was cemented by giving young Ben Maschler a paid internship in his PR agency, back in the day. Now, that's what I call far sighted

Have a word with yourself, mate. Rather than focus on the last paragraph of that article, perhaps you should look at the one that proceeds it, which explains how Iqbal got his break in journalism around the time that Salmam Rushdie received death threats and went into hiding (Aha! There's an attention-grabbing headline!!) and goes on to explain how he then went into PR (the business of telling entertaining lies). FIY, Tandoori Magazine was set up (by Iqbal, on behalf of his client, Karan Bilimoria) as a PR vehicle for Cobra Beer. He did write an article about FOH management in Indian restaurants which did say that many waiters came over as 'miserable gits' and Mr Bilimoria got quite upset about it, on the grounds that you don't woo potential customers by insulting them. So, Iqbal Wahab was sacked from Tandoori (and Karan Bilimoria may even have said, "I'll kill you", 18 times. Although I doubt it, because he is an extremely pukka gent.) What's sad about this article is that, when it was started, The Independent solemnly forbade it's journalists from taking bribes and certainly from writing puff pieces about restaurants based on free meals and whatever the charming proprietor tells them.

Funny it mentions his daughter, Emma, but omits Matthew, the designer Bhuddist and PR 'guru' turned restaurant promoter (as opposed to 'resaurateur') and Noo Labour schmoozer, who has married a Murdoch and is now, no doubt, spawning a new generation of amoral, money-making clever clogs.Gordon Burn, interviewing Damien Hirst, re: Pharmacy, 'What did Matthew Freud see in you that was marketable?' ' DH: No, no, no. What did Matthew Freud see in me that he wanted to destroy? Freedom. Choice. Understanding. Art. A reason to live. A belief in something above and beyond cash'. He then goes on, but what he says is probably too rude for these polite pages.

I do my best to keep Hoppy entertained whenver he comes up

Don't let your karma run over your dogma!

Tuk Tuk Thai Noodle Bar @ 56 Old Compton St. (next door to the Admiral Duncan) It's Busaba without the bullshit! Clean and modern, if uninspired, design with banquettes lining a long thin shop on Soho's Gay St. Nineteen noodle dishes include laksa and mee goreng, Singapore noodles and beef ho fun (and duck!), as well as phad Thai and tom kha. Otherwise, there's a dozen rice dishes; a selection of curries and soups; plus a good a range of stir fries and grills and side dishes including tempura and ribs, as well as fish cakes & satay: 102 menu items, all told. Service, from two black clad Thais was brisk with customers wishing to smoke seated nearer the door. Po-pea jay spring rolls were fat and crisp with a good 'n' tangy dipping sauce. Tom yam jay contained rather too much baby sweetcorn in its selection of stir fried veggies for my liking and not enough mushrooms, and not very interesting mushrooms, but the spicy sour soup cleared my sinuses and was good enough for me to drain the bowl. I drank carrot juice and spent less than a tenner. One wonders why a Thai joint is bothering with such a diverse menu (mixed seafood fried udon, anyone?). I bet they're going to sell lots of phad Thai and green curry. Well, they're probably going to be selling quite a lot of that stuff to me... Apparently, there's another one @ 59 Charing Cross Road. Google informs me that this one may have relocated from Chinatown.

What a drag. I went maybe half a dozen times, but there was rarely anybody else in the joint. I had an amusing experience @ Samurai, following an expedition to the record shop in Piccadilly Circus, where I acquired the double CD of Jimi Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys Live At The Fillmore East on New Year's, 1970. It's maybe 1pm and I am the only customer in the place. I order and, while waiting for the food to arrive, I tear the packaging off my CD to access the insert booklet, which I am perusing when the guy from behind the sushi counter comes up and engages me in conversation. He's like, Aha! Jimi Hendlix! Velly good! He suggests that we put it on. I'm like, I don't know that you're going to like it, dude, but he insists upon turning off whatever bland MOR music is softly playing in the background and out of the speakers comes a voice introducing, on bass, Mr Billy Cox... Of course, it's an old live recording and the levels are low and so he turns up the stereo just as Jimmy tears into Stone Free Must say, it sounded a bit flat over their system, but nonetheless I relished the incongruity of raw, wailing electric guitar music in such sedate surroundings. This version of Stone Free - opening the last show @ the Fillmore - is a showcase for Jimi's most outrageous histrionics, which include but are not limited to sustained soloing and squealing excursions into feedback as well as flat out guitar boogie by the best trio Hendrix played with (Buddy Miles on drums). It's nearly thirteen minutes long! Before it was half done, the manager had appeared and had words with the sushi guy that didn't need subtitles. The noise was turned down and the track played out at a subdued volume before the CD was smilingly returned. Now I suppose I'm obliged to return to wagamama as the West End's sole remaining supplier of salmon miso ramen. It's all wrong. I mean, like they're going to offer to play Hendrix while I slurp, is it not? OK, you might say they're not that desperate...

Ouch! My point was that these dumpling were barely cooked at all and fell apart befeore I could stuff 'em in my mouth. There was a note on the menu, saying you could request them to be deep fried.

I tried the new wagamama @ South Bank. It looks good: a smaller unit than their optimum, but nicely done out. Things started well with promptly delivered spicy carrot juice. Mmm. Then, quickly, came veg gyoza which were flaccid, only seared on one side, and fell apart upon contact with the dipping sauce. They didn't taste of much, but I was hungry so I scarfed them down. Then, quite a long wait. Why? I thought the idea @ wagamama is to cook items as soon as the order is received and to dispatch them as soon as they're cooked, so why am I gazing around the room, wondering where my noodles are? I've ordered Yasai Itameru (v) (you might detect a theme emerging here ) which is flat white rice noodles in a coconut based soup with stir-fried pak choi, tofu, red onion, beansprouts, sweet potato and coriander. Again, it's not very good. It is as described on the menu, but completely uninspired. The soup lacks that lip-smacking slurpability imparted by the judicious use of lemongrass. The stir-fried veg were poorly chopped, so that I encountered big fat slices of red onion were I would have preferred slivers. It wasn't bad, but it was dull. I noticed that there were no Oriental faces in the kitchen. In fact, no Orientals were visible in the entire unit, among staff and customers. The waitress advised me on the pronounciation of 'itameru' but I bet she's been no nearer Nippon than I. Which is not even close! I ignored the dessert menu - an innovation since my last visit to wagamama in 1998! - and called for the bill, paid it, and then waited bloody ages for my change. Eventually it was delivered to the people sitting immediately next to me. An appropriately clumsy end to a totally so-so experience. So what? Well, the reason I'm telling you all this is because, according to Zagat, wagamama is the most popular restaurant in London! I mean, I know Zagat sucks and nobody really bothers with it, but how can a place so mediocre be so acclaimed? Terry Durack has his own 'lowest common denominator' theory and it is true that I may yet return to the very same waga unit to try their salmon miso ramen, since it is handy. I was struck by how close the experience Durack describes mirrors my own. So at least wagamama is consistent

Testament to the power of the hand written letter in an age of e-mail! I bet every restaurant PR in the city choked on her latte when she read that!

Isn't this the former premises of Anda? Very tricky location, IMO

Winsome Dim Sum? ← I suggest: Sum Dim GuyThe best Chinese restaurant names (this is not my personal theory) have three syllables. A simple rule that this name generator doesn't take into account. Who remembers Ho Lee Fook, in the Kings Road, ?

I *assumed* they'd bought F&W to exploit the brand. Wrong! Isn't there some trade association of independent whole food retailers who can prevent them adopting a generic term as a trade marked brand in the UK? Bring back Biba, I say. And shoplifting.

Kim, you could benefit from some assimilation lessons to familiarise yourself with the language and mores. Cilantro and zucchini are perfectly OK, quite charming, but you can't say things like, 'Of course, he gave her one...' without inviting a lot of sniggering from vulgarians. As for the drunk woman in the French, she was evidently miming the idea of 'tasty' which, in the vernacular, may refer to more than one appetite. Either she was being tactful by not propositioning your husband directly or, more likely, she was too drunk to speak.

You're not familiar with Fresh & Wild?Standard practise among American corporations entering the UK market is to identify the main players ('benchmarking') and to position themselves in direct competition. The strategy is to divert existing customers by offering a superior product/service, cheaper, and thereby to undermine the established rival business (which may be complacent or unprepared for a direct commercial challenge). An example of this practise is the strategy adopted by Blockbuster video, which opened its first UK store in Walworth Road, a dozen doors down from Star Video, which was one of, if not the very first video lending library in the UK. Star responded with hand lettered signs saying "we've got more movies and we're cheaper than that big shop down the road" and has survived the onslaught, whereas most independently owned video rental operations in the UK have not.

He was Food and Drink Writer at the British Press Awards in 2003. Inexplicably, in my view. Norman celebrated, in January 2004, by describing Richard Shepherd's restaurant in Westminster, as "the eighth circle of hell", "among the very worst restaurants in Christendom" serving "meals of crescendoing monstrosity." Shepherd threatened to sue The Sunday Telegraph for libel, but as the newspaper retorted: "It is almost unheard of to sue over a bad restaurant review, and no British restaurateur has ever successfully sued a food critic for libel." Matthew Norman is a renowned hypochondriac and Spurs fan who used to write a moderately amusing diary in the Grauniad and may well still write a column about football (on which subject, as a Spurs fan, he hardly sees eye to eye with most Londoners;-). He's also married to the appalling Rebecca Tyrell (a product of the Tyrell corporation, TM, designed to provoke a visceral response) who gave him the job at the Torygraph. Basically, the bloke is a hack who can churn reasonably entertaining copy. There's no real reason to hate him, but why not? PS: My spell checker says there's no such word as 'crescendoing' so I take it all back. Matthew Norman is a profoundly innovative writer, whose restaurant reviews are liable to rock British society to its foundations.

I guess you're right, that kind of thing is beneath him. Or he leaves it to the subs ('a dim view': way-hey!) It's not in the same class as magnolia (above) though

Mr Rayner gave Ping Pong short shrift. Disappointing absence of puns on the word 'pong', though.

I encountered an old acquaintance who now works @ Neal's Yard. He told me that the Borough Market authorities are clamping down on people selling cooked food that they've bought from someone else (rather than produced themselves), which he cites as one reason for the market's decline. He also told me that Paul Smith is opening a boutique up the street from the cheese shop, which indicates another factor: gentrification. We agreed that the market is basically a victim of its own success, but we prefer it that way to the former dilapidation. Then the conversation turned to the extraordinary price of property in Bermondsey;-)

Isn't there a contradiction here? You say that Fay's relationship with chefs who come round to cook for her is too cosy; Tseng says she's too hostile (except to her favourites and, presumably, clients of her pal, Elizabeth Crompton Batt). To clarify, I never said Fay was the most accurate or reliable critic, just the most important. She does make a point of getting in early because she's in the newspaper business and, therefore, is of the opinion that she should be chiefly concerned with what's new. There are ways of ameliorating this. Many restaurateurs will have a 'soft opening' period during which they charge a discounted price while they're getting their act together and, while Fay may well review the place during that time, she is obliged to mention the special circumstances. One way of avoiding an early review from Fay is by cosying up to a rival (does she have any?) and getting them to review your place first. Of course this can backfire, if Fay decides to contradict a favourable early review or, more calamitously, ignore it all together.

I like Urban Path, principally because it has links to reviews published in the newspapers. On which subject, maybe it seemed to obvious to mention, but Fay Maschler of the Evening Standard is the doyenne of London restaurant critcs, having been at it for 30+ years, and is still the only one that matters for many.I'm not suprised to hear about Time Out. It's axiomatic that guide books are out of date before they're published and, nowadays, printed guides are surely obsolete?

There might be a Turkish market closer to the Hithe of Rother - Bermondsey, maybe? - but I suspect that you'll have to travel as far afield as Walworth Road and Seyhans (quite far down on the right, past Iceland) and, also, East Lane aka East Street market, which has a number of traditional fruit and veg stalls among the African DVD merchants. If you've time and enthusiasm, my tip would be to buy a second hand delivery bike with a spacious basket from Re:Cycling @ the Elephant and make extensive use of the River Walk route, which (almost) connects Borough and the Gastrodrome. Thus you can save on transport costs, so you can afford Borough/Conran prices, and get some crucial exercise while picking up fattening food. I note what you say about supermarkets, but South London has a choice selection of the kind of shops you don't find in more affluent areas: Lidl (Macadamia nuts, £1.79) and Aldi (Batemans Spring Breeze seasonal pale ale, £1.09) on the Old Kent Road; another Lidl and a Netto in Peckham. PS: South London's finest Indian delivery service: Simply Indian, 020 7407 5005. It's in Tabard Street, almost opposite the Royal Oak, which is the prestigious sole London outlet of a brewery in Lewes called Harveys. The restaurant has a few tables and is unlicensed, but they'll let you ferry pitchers of beer across the street. I hope you like curry and real ale