tsg20

Brilliant - thanks. That looks fantastic. I've been meaning to go to O'Shea's for ages, so this should make me finally get round to it.

With Jack O'Shea's closed, where is the best place to get Iberico pork in London?

I do have a small closet, but I also have a vegetarian wife. We'll see! I'll probably just give it a go by grabbing some cheeks next time I'm in GP. In any case I bit the bullet and ordered from Natoora, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed - found 10 quid off at quidco and free delivery, and tonight I got 1.5kg of guanciale and some other stuff. Made a great carbonara just now (I'd forgotten how much of a difference it makes versus bacon), and the lardo is fantastic, too.

That sounds like a great idea, except I'm not sure our tiny flat has anywhere at the right temperature for the part where you have to hang it up for a month or two (I'm imagining a cellar is what you want here?).

I'd never seen it in the Ginger Pig, and just phoned to be told they didn't even know what it was (slightly surprisingly, but...).

Thanks! Minimum of 40 quid order plus delivery on top, though...

Does anyone know of anywhere in (preferably central) London selling decent guanciale?

After a week in Pohang, I'm going to be passing through Seoul station with a couple of hours to spare for lunch on my way home. Does anyone have any lunch suggestions close to the station?

I'm surprised you recall this. He offers a solely vegetarian a la carte, and has on several occasions put together a veg tasting menu that's kept my missus entertained for several hours (which is more than I've ever managed). Otherwise, I can fully endorse your sentiments regarding high-end places. Mildred's is not for vegetarians, incidentally. It's for people who hate food. Morgan M, meanwhile, tends to be enjoyed by vegetarians and reviewed by people who hate food. Our experience of Tom Aikens was a long time ago (the first year it was open, maybe?) so I can well believe it's not like that now. Given how good Roussillon was for vegetarians, this seems extremely plausible.

My wife is a vegetarian, so we have considerable experience of this. Most of the higher-end restaurants do a very good job for vegetarians - Pied A Terre springs to mind, as does Roussillon, and the Ledbury too - but I'd be surprised if anywhere did a bad job, and all of these places do far, far better vegetarian food than any vegetarian restaurant I've ever been to, unsurprisingly. Occasionally you find places that opt to pretty much leave the meat off and give the side vegetables to the vegetarians (Tom Aikens did this, as I recall), but most places make rather more effort than that.

Thanks for the suggestions - some great-looking stuff to check out. I'm not wedded to 3* at all - I just know that I wouldn't be able to afford them at all without a deal.

In London there are a lot of good deals to be had at lunch - often half the price of dinner, even in 2*/3* restaurants. Is this the case in Paris? Are there any particularly good deals? I'd love to go to some of the 3*s, but can't really afford much over 100euros/head.

Just made one of these - very good. Reminded me a bit of the Trilogy cocktail (4:2:1 Carpano Antica:Cynar:Fernet Branca), which I believe is also one of Mr Sidle's.

I've had a couple of Bobbie Burns in bars in recent weeks, and I'd like to make some at home. Any suggestions of a cheapish Scotch for mixing?

Astor and Union Square Wines carry it. ← Sorry for the late response on this one - didn't make it to NYC that time, but have done now and this advice was invaluable. Thanks!

Just wanted to report back that we had a fantastic time on our two visits to Death and Company over the weekend. We managed to sit at the bar on Friday night and had a very enjoyable journey through the menu, as well as my first Fresa Brava since Joaquin visited the Violet Hour last year. We then had a couple of more relaxed drinks before getting the bus back to Boston last night. Every single drink was fantastic, as was the bar itself. Definitely right up there with the Violet Hour in my estimation, I guess, and better than anywhere else I've been.

cool - sounds good. thanks. are there bar seats at all? or just not very many?

This is probably a stupid question, but in case anyone knows anything: is there any reason to suppose TVH will be anything other than open on Memorial Day weekend? We're planning a trip from out of town, but TVH would be a big part of the weekend, so it would be pretty disappointing if it happened to be closed/private parties/anything like that.

How early would it be sensible for a party of 4 to show up on a Friday to get bar seats? 5pm?

Does anyone know of anywhere in NYC (preferably Manhattan) selling Carpano Antica? I'm going to be there next weekend and would love to pick some up (as far as I know it's not distributed in MA).

Yes, I feared that would be the case - but will the resulting damage be less than repeatedly opening a large bottle, rather than this procedure of opening once and then resealing? Is using a vacuvin or similar a possibility, or is that pointless, too?

Has anyone ever tried rebottling vermouth in smaller bottles to keep it fresh for longer? I've heard people suggest this for Carpano Antica, but I don't think I've ever spoken to anyone who's tried it. Realistically it'll probably take me a couple of months to get through each bottle, and it would be nice if I could avoid completely losing the flavour in that time.

I've just moved to Cambridge from Chicago, and I think I was rather spoilt for choice with liquor stores there. We had to slim the liquor cabinet down a bit to move, so I'm looking to pick up a variety of somewhat obscure things - what's my best bet? For example, going into random stores in Cambridge hasn't yielded a single bottle of maraschino yet, and I'm sure there must be much better places that I haven't stumbled onto.

This was on the door on Saturday night: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2361/252451...7e045ab.jpg?v=0

We're clearly in the habit - last night was our first "late" visit, "late" being 10pm. We put our names down, went away, and had seats at the bar before 10:30. 3 more excellent drinks - a Rangoon Fizz, 20th Century, and a Dos Hermanos - yet another excellent riff on the Old Fashioned, this time with rum and a lot more orange. It was a lot busier than it tends to be earlier in the evening, unsurprisingly, so we didn't have much time chatting to our bartender, but we had no problem getting drinks when we wanted them.