Portia_Smith

and that should read .. hondori shopping street in Hiroshima - not, obviously, just Japan. It's early!!

Can anyone help me find some websites for Shabu Shabu/ Sukiyaki restaurants in Japan? Your personal recommendations would also be appreciated. There was once a brilliant one tucked away upstairs off the Hondori shopping strip in Japan. It was the first restaurant I ever visited too - I miss it and apparently it's turned into a Korean BBQ place - not bad.. but not shabu shabu! Thanks

Afternoon tea at the Lanesborough - fabulous! That's my verdict. We had reservations for a sitting at 4 pm, arrived on time and had the cab door opened by doorman in green bowler hat, doors opened by more green-jacketed staff, everyone calling us 'Madam' and directing us to the Conservatory. Ahh.. beautiful room too - very light and airy in tones of pale pink and mint green, with the glass roof showing us lot's of blue sky. Palms and bamboo in huge export-ware Japanese pots, a long low sideboard covered with Blue Willow tea caddies and pink orchids. We decided on the champagne and strawberry tea at £37 (no half measures here!) and were treated to a flute each of Taittinger non vintage (you could upgrade for about £5 extra for fancier brands). Then came the strawberries - about 12 of them are given to you in a bowl, then the waitress comes over with a jug of pouring cream and lets loose until you say 'when'. Strawberries were small and very, very sweet - which was a relief as a few minutes after ordering I thought - 'hmmmm.. not quite british strawberry season yet, is it?'. No complaints at all there, though... We were asked for our tea preferences, out of a choice of 6 teas we decided on a pot of darjeeling and the lanesborough mix, which was a blend of assam, darjeeling and rose congou. They arrived in silver teapots. Next came the three tiered cake stand - bottom tier was sandwiches, egg and cress bound in a lemony mayonnaise, cucumber and smoked salmon, cheese and pickle and also small round brioches stuffed with crabmeat. The sandwiches were beautiful - lovely bread and moist but not soggy fillings... we scoffed those and our waitress was over in a flash to offer more to us. Tempting as it was, we declined, as the scones and toasted tea cakes were next.. these hadn't appeared on the cake stand, but were brought out from the kitchen. I was very, very taken with the buttered teacake - it was fruity, fresh and the toasted surfaces sprinkled with a sugar and a very small amount of cinnamon. The scones were also almost perfect. My only complaint (and this a general english one) is why do you offer the fruit scone with jam, cream and lemon curd. Surely the fruit scone just needs butter - and the PLAIN SCONE gets all the trimmings. But what do I know.. I'm a colonial! I'll admit that my hardline scone fundamentalism didn't stop me piling up the little fruity critter with all the raspberry jam and cream it could handle and then asking for seconds so I could try the lemon curd and my guest could attempt a lemon curd, clotted cream melange on her third scone. We were fairly stuffed by this stage, but tier 2 was awaiting sampling. This plate consisted of individual loaf cakes - 3 of them, 1 gingerbread, 1 lemon and poppyseed and 1 banana walnut that we split between us. OK - cakes good - but a bit American stylee - why not some seed cake, or a tiny individual victoria sponge, or plain chocolate cake? Having queried that - I have to say the gingerbread was brilliant, dark and treacly with quite a kick. Oh - forgot to mention that we were given an amuse bouche of a tiny vanilla pannacotta served in a shotglass with a topping of toffeed apricot - post strawberries, pre sarnies. The pannacotta was excellent, unexpected and forced us into a reverential silence until we decided we couldn't wipe the sides of the shot glass with our fingers to get the last bits out. Finally - on to the top tier - fancy, schmancy french style pastries - a lovely almond macaroon sandwiched around fresh rasperries, a strawberry tartlet and two chocolate creations that were moussey things perched on a base of toffeed rice crispies and then coated with ganache. By this stage we were fit to burst - it was almost 7 pm, we'd had 6 cups of tea each and the posh cakes were just..a..bit..too..much. We managed to sample all of them, although the chocolate things left us feeling a bit sick and we left most of them behind. All in all - it's my top London tea experience, I haven't even begun to touch on the people watching, which was brilliant - especially if you live in a small, mono-cultural english market town. There were middle eastern women dripping in gold carrying handbags which were worth 6 months of my wages, who were escorted to a table in the centre of the room with some lackey forced to take care of their couture shopping bags, the 12 braying sloane twentysomething girls sitting behind us who all seemed to be only half human with a strong welsh pony gene, the japanese family inspecting the provenance of the china and then taking photos of it and the mysterious american woman with an old fashioned pram, filled with a mysterious 14 boxes of krispy kreme donuts.. why? who knows - but we had a ball speculating. Worth every penny - I took a number of photos and will attempt to upload them in a later post.

I am off to afternoon tea at the Lanesborough this afternoon to treat a friend whose recent birthday bash I missed. I completely forgot about the booking I'd made til she phoned last night and then had an hour long panic about what I would wear. Now that a suitable frock has been sorted, I'm quite looking forward to it. It's a very big deal for her - as her poncy afternoon tea in London memories are tarnished by the fact that her former husband promised her tea at the Ritz on the occasion of her 30th and then wasn't let in by the door staff as he wasn't dressed appropriately! The pressure! I will report back - with photos if possible. I've had tea at Fortnum and Masons and the Orangerie and wasn't overly impressed by either to be honest. I think my £3.50 pot of darjeeling with scones, jam and cream in the garden of the Farmhouse B&B in Morthoe, Devon last June - with the sun shining and legs aching from scrambing around the south west coastal path was much, much, much better....

Charles and Camilla's wedding day yesterday and this post had me scuttling off to my photo albums to enjoy an afternoon of reminiscence. I'd like to share some of the star attractions of the weekend. Mr Porky was doing his thing on the lawn of the beautiful Penzion Jelen which terrified the vegetarians (pussies!). And here is Mr. Smrcka aka crazy wine cellar guy - people disappeared into the cellar for a tasting and came up completely inebriated. Paul and I were too exhausted by that stage to take part in any drinking, so we missed out. By the way - news just to hand indicates that the Royal Couple had egg and cress sandwiches, mini cornish pasties and scones with jam and cream at the reception.

Glad the link was of help! I'd like to heartily second the earlier recommendation about taking your US measuring cups/spoons and also purchasing Australian ones on arrival. I moved from Melbourne to Atlanta back in 1997 and couldn't understand why all my baked goods were suddenly miserable failures until someone explained to me that Australian Standard Metric measurements were verrrry different to what they used stateside. I also wanted to comment on the dried fruit / pumpkin pie situation. I've not seen the new re-vamped David Jones foodhall in Melbourne, but I recall that the old foodhall did sell a small selection of american foodstuffs, including canned pumpkin and (weirdly) tins of Duncan Hines frosting. I would swear that with the size of the dried fruit industry in the country that you would be able to get dried strawberries and blueberries easily, although probably not the cranberries. I'm not at all familiar with Clayton apart from 1 visit to Monash University a looong time ago - but I believe that there is a fairly sizeable Chinese-Australian community nearby and it's a great place for higher end authentic Chinese dining. My baby bro is in Caulfield, not a million miles away - I'll see if he has any recommendations for shopping/eating. P

Hello Kathryn, Firstly - lucky you! 7 years in one of the most liveable cities on the planet. Do you have any idea what area of Melbourne you are moving to? I can't imagine that you will want for many foodstuffs as Melbourne is famous for the quality and diversity of both its restuarants and foodie shops. I'd recommend you check the link below for information about what you can and cannot bring into the country. Notice that fines are severe! Australian Quarantine Inspection Service Website I have bought chocolate into the country before with ease. Books will be more expensive than you are used to - as will white goods. But I would still recommend purchasing them on arrival. Things I ship from country to country always seem to suffer in transit. Good Luck!

Our wedding feast took place in a tiny wine cellar in Satov, in the Southern Moravian region of the Czech Republic. We managed to convince 60 of our friends to travel to what is essentially the middle of nowhere. The wedding itself took place at the nearby chateau in Vranov nad Dyji, which was heavenly and we bussed everyone to the vinny sklep (wine cellar) for an afternoon of partying and three meals. Not three courses - but three actual meals over 10 hours. The food was prepared by the wife of the cellar master - started with noodle soup which Paul and I fed to eachother and then a livery, porkish pate with a currant jelly, pork schnitzel with the most fabulous potato salad i've ever had. Kolace (poppy seed, lemon or cheese) was the dessert - neither of us wanted a cake. As much wine as anyone could drink, kegs of Hostan beer (brewed in nearby Znojmo) and minerals. Most of our guests were horribly hung over from the pre-wedding party the evening before - in which a whole pig was roasted and the police were called (the two events not necessarily connected). Shots of merunkovice (local apricot schnapps) were passed around on arrival and I thought we were almost going to lose a few guests right there. But it's amazing what the hair of the dogski can do to speed recuperation. The cellar master started taking small groups off to inspect his cellars and conduct what was later referred to as 'the crazy czech dude's speed wine tasting'. His famous comment was 'you are not here to remember, you are here to DRINK'. People started getting merrier and merrier - then were fed marinated beef in a sour cream sauce with lemon and cranberries with bread dumplings (Svickova in Czech, I think) and wait - More kolace. Lastly, we were all given plates of charcuterie and the local pickled gherkins. The gherkins are quite possibly the most fabulous thing in the world, synonymous with the Znojmo region. Oh - and more kolace. I managed to polish off quite a bit of food - but found drink a real struggle, as I'd over indulged the evening before. Both bride and groom were exhausted on the day, I know Paul didn't eat anything at all. Nothing would be changed (it was only 6 months ago, admittedly) - the food and surroundings were great, the hosts brilliant. They hadn't met any Australians before and their parting comment was ' We like the Australians, they drink like horses'. Oh yeah - I might add that this is my second marriage. The first time around I eloped to Yuma, Az and we ended up at an Applebee's. Looking back, that should have been a harbinger for things to come.