nickloman

http://birminghamplus.com/ is a fairly good guide to Birmingham, driven by user reviews - their top 11 ranked restaurants is a pretty reasonable selection of the best available in the City and environs.

Yeah, it costs them nothing to send a friendlier reply. I would say that it's worth asking to be moved if you are shown to a table you don't think you will be comfortable at. A polite request to sit somewhere else will usually work, although some fully booked restaurants may not be able to accommodate. I often do this, particularly if I have the misfortune to be seated near a speaker in restaurants misguided enough to want to give muzak accompaniment to a meal. There is a school of thought which is that the waiting staff will often seat you in the "worst" location first if they don't know you, keeping the better tables back for regulars. Don't do what I see people do all the time though which is move then decide they preferred the original table and move back!

I believe that Fergus Henderson's two St. John restaurants are happy to entertain children although they suggest lunch would be better than dinner when going to the Smithfield site. This is according to their FAQ on the subject @ http://www.stjohnrestaurant.com/faq/

Can you tell us what went wrong exactly? Why not post the email you sent?

He's obviously just baiting the reader, knowing that many will take it. I don't think Bourdain's books taken in totality evaluate to any kind of consistently worked-out philosophy. Still fun to read though.

Haha! I'm impressed with your 180 mile round-trip! Funnily enough we went on Tuesday night and there were only 2 other diners in the restaurant. But we had a pretty decent meal, might write it up in full when I have a bit more time. David Goodfellow, before you jump in your jalopy, I don't think it warrants a really long drive - but if you are in the area it's worth a go. Especially as Warwickshire seems to be a culinary desert, the only other fine dining venue I could find a short hop from Leamington Spa was Mallory Court. Pam - keep flashing away! Live and let live I say

Opus is good. Has anyone been to Ashley James @ The Old Mill, Shipston-on-Stour yet? http://www.theoldmillshipston.com/

Agree with suggestion of Ledbury.

If I take photos in restaurants I try and do it as surruptitiously as possible. Definitely no flash and I try not to let the waiting staff spot me.

don't really agree, I think we can tell the difference between a poor photo and poor food. besides, dishes never look like how food photographers make them look. keep the photos coming david!

I have experienced the same problem. It is a bit troublesome. I try to have cash on me in the correct denominations but not always possible!

Aha! Great minds ... is the book worth getting?

I didn't mean to intentionally conflate pork pies with charcuterie but I guess they do share common elements - a pork pie is just pate in a pastry case? Anyway, well I've never knowingly tried the Sainsbury's own brand. I'll try that and you should try and get your hands on a Walter Smith - I think there are a few branches. You won't be disappointed with the pastry. I had one the other day that was even better because it was slightly burnt. Kirk seems to only sell from his shop in Wolverhampton. Leecotton: Thanks, I know Wenlock Edge Farm, I often see them at Birmingham farmers markets and they do nice ham and black pudding - but they weren't the place I was thinking of!

Bloody hell, that's a good show, yeah definitely let me know and I'll happily take some of those beauties off your hands ... In the meantime, wish I could remember the place that sold stuff at Ludlow Food Festival last time. Where are your favourite pork pies made? I like Walter Smith's effort. But I hear that Michael Kirk's efforts are worth sampling.

Hi all Any recommendations for places to get absolutely superlative charcuterie in London, or the UK? Either home-made or imported. I already know of Brindisa (Exmouth Market) for Spanish ham and I believe the Ginger Pig also do charcuterie (Borough Market / Marylebone). Outside of London I know of Trealy Farm. There's also a great producer somewhere in Shropshire but the name has eluded me. Any other suggestions? Cheers

Shit, I wondered why I was bleeding everywhere ...

I got a bit confused by your reference to healthy food. For me this brings all sorts of unsavoury images to mind! It's not particularly close to you but Alexis @ Gauthier Soho looks to be doing interesting cooking and has an emphasis on vegetable dishes and so might fit the bill. http://gauthiersoho.co.uk/ You could choose healthy options and eat extremely well at St John Bread and Wine which is pretty close to you at Spitalfields. Much more on the menu than meaty off-cuts.

Pictures from aforementioned meal!

Mike Robinson has been quietly serving up refined pub grub to the lucky locals of Berkshire for years now. I vaguely recall him in a TV series documenting his trials setting up the place which used to be shown on UKTV Food (or whatever its called today). It was brought to my attention as a place to check out by a couple of posts by Dos Hermanos, marking it out as a place for great local ingredients cooked in an unfussy way (and consequently my kind of place). They even offer a venison stalking course including a tutorial in field butchery! For Saturday lunch it wasn't particularly busy in the dining room and despite a midday reservation we sat outside with a drink for over half an hour before feeling like we should probably sit down and get eating. The big deal here is venison. Not just any venison, most (all?) of it is caught by Mike himself on the local estate. I don't know much about vension and helpfully the Pot Kiln website has a guide to the various breeds, all different in character and eating. The day we went there was muntjac, roe and fallow on the menu so if you like venison, or don't think you like venison but are open minded this would be a great place to come. The three of us shared a platter of crispy pig cheeks, muntjac cutlets, pork rilettes, duck egg, beetroot and piccalilli. The muntjac cutlets were tiny little morsels. The pig cheeks were breaded and deep fried and worked nicely with some piccalilli. The rilettes were served on toast and were the best tasting thing on the plate. Keen to try as much from the menu as possible we decided to order three different dishes. My mum (a venison-skeptic) chose the roe deer pave served with greens and pomme puree and my dad had the T-bone of fallow deer served with "farcement" potatoes and creamed spinach. A special of muntjac haunch was also offered but was for two people. So I ordered the Bucklebury mutton loin with a salse verde and crushed new potatoes. First, the good: the T-bone of fallow deer was sublime, wonderfully tender, meaty, full of flavour, not at all "gamey", brilliantly seasoned. This worked well with the spinach and the fatty potatoes. Nothing fancy but a very assured bit of cooking. Serving an unconventional cut like this makes you realise that venison butchery is very much a lost art in this country, one we should try and bring back. The pave of roe was also very good - again not a hint of gaminess, tender, correctly cooked. Unfortunately my mutton was a rather sad case, nearly raw on the inside and gristley as a knee operation. This was made worse by being desperately jealous of the other two plates of food so I did pluck up the courage to ask for it to be changed for the T-bone, knowing that sending food back can sometimes kill the vibe of a meal. Of course the old adage that you should judge the restaurant not on the problems but how they deal with it is true and happily they graciously replaced the dish and didn't charge for either at the end. The replacement dish was perfect. You don't come to a place like this for dessert and luckily so because the rhubarb fool served with jelly wasn't special. Cheese was fridge-cold Barkham Blue (a welcome addition to any cheese board) and Tomme de Savoie which hadn't really developed much flavour. Coffee taken outside with the rather curious and fetching rare-breed cows in the neighbouring field. Chris Tarrant and his wife popped in quickly for a beer and some peanuts. I wouldn't drive from Scotland to visit the Pot Kiln specially but if you are anywhere near Berkshire you can pretend this is your local and experience some very fine venison cooking. Can't remember what the total bill was but it was very reasonable. After lunch we popped into Vicar's Game in Ashampstead, a very fine farm shop specialising in game and even got a little tour of their sausage and bacon-making facilities!

I've posted a review of Hand and Flowers in a separate thread.

Very good meal here yesterday. We felt quite smug about getting a table at the Hand & Flowers so easily. They are clearly doing fantastic business since Tom Kerridge won the finals of Great British Menu with his dish of slow-cooked Aylesbury duck. Tom seemed like a great bloke from watching the programme, and I'm sure the big man got a big boost from this programme. Contrasting with Alan Murchison who seems to have turned himself into a kind of gastronomic pantomime villain and done himself no favours whatsoever. The restaurant is a converted pub on the roadside in the centre of Marlow. There was an Aston and a Lambo in the car park which tells you a bit about the inhabitants of the surrounding area. The room was very dark, despite the bright weather. We were very happy with our corner table but you might fare worse in the middle of the restaurant as they've obviously crammed a few extra covers in to cater for demand. It was nice and quiet when we sat down at 6:30 but by 8:00 was filled with locals having loud conversations about property deals. I'd advise go early on a weekday - I suspect it could be chaotic at Sunday lunch. We had agreed to vacate the table within 2 hours but we were never hurried and the meal was paced perfectly. Our amuse of deep-fried whitebait was served poking out of a newspaper cone, accompanied by marie rose sauce. Can't go far wrong with whitebait but the way it was served was particularly charming, the cone resting on a solid wooden block with its miniature dish of sauce. Wooden blocks, and miniaturisation, we soon realised, were a theme and the wood in particular combined well with the rustic furniture and beamed ceiling. The accompanying soda bread and white roll was just-baked and were exemplary. Offering two-glass carafes of wine was a nice touch. My starter was another successful course from Great British Menu - a crayfish scotch egg with wild garlic mayonnaise. The single scotch egg was very moist and had a soft quails egg in the centre. This came on a "lawn" of sprouting seeds. The menu included an endearingly self-deprecating quote from GBM's Oliver Peyton - "more golf course than fish course". A strong crayfish flavour came through. OH had pea soup with poached egg, crispy bacon and mint oil, and a tiny bucket of cheese goujons. The soup was vibrantly coloured, with whole peas lolloping around in the bottom next to bacon bits. The mintiness was present with big sprigs of the herb on the top. Taste was fresh with a good, substantial texture but overall was rather sweet, an effect which could have been usefully toned down a bit. The bucket in which the goujons arrived provoked more glee than the goujons but they didn't seem that necessary anyway. There was no question of not having the GBM special slow-cooked duck breast with duck fat chips and gravy, something I had salivated over on the programme. In my mind I knew exactly how it would taste and happily it didn't disappoint. A fleeting concern was that the portion was a bit mean but the duck fat chips were so rich that I was well satisfied by the end. The little Le Creuset pot of peas, mint, little gem, pea tops, shallots and duck confit was absolutely delicious. The gravy was quite sweet and lacked body but helped keep things light. Loin of pork with potato dumplings, globe artichoke, cracking and lemon oil was solid cooking but unspectacular in taste. Large pieces of lean pork - perhaps cooked a minute too long was a little chewy. A bad choice for my reluctantly omniverous partner who perhaps should have gone for the tempting sounding sea bream with chorizo mayonniase and tart pissaladiere instead. Artichoke was piquant next to the pork (which was underseasoned) and the potato dumplings also slightly bland. This is not to completely denigrate the dish but didn't get anywhere near the heights of the duck dish. Tonka bean panna cotta, with poached strawberries and Pedro Ximenez jelly was served in a dish which wouldn't be out of place in your average molecular biology laboratory - a small long box in which silky pannacotta vied for attention against strawberry compote - completely rewarding in terms of getting that all important 'total strawberry taste'. There was also some honey comb and some fresh herbs (chervil and tarragon?) and this worked an absolute treat, very satisfying but again light. The little chunks of delicate dark brown PX jelly really did taste of its nameshake sherry and left a delicious dark smoky taste in the mouth long after swallowing. There was a good but to my mind conservative selection of English and French cheeses although the portions were small, served with home-made chutney and biscuits: Camembert, Isle of Mull cheddar, a chevre of some description, Barkham Blue (seek this out if you haven't had it) and a seriously evil (in a good way) French soft cheese variety trying to escape from its spoon. Service was very friendly, efficient and unfussy. Bill for 2 came was £90 before service which seemed like very good value for cooking of this skill. Go now before it gets any more popular!

Aw, come on Jay, your reviews aren't that bad

I prefer it to Ludlow in fact. Didn't go last year but went the two years before. Like Ludlow it can get very busy. One highlight is Shaun Hill offering up dishes from the Walnut Tree. There's a very good charcuterie stall selling very good locally cured chorizo. Good atmosphere, the whole town is given over to the festival. There are obviously the usual chef cooking demos that I like to miss. And you can book in for the Walnut Tree Inn and the Hardwick for eats.

I see the post has been taken down now, probably for the best!

Sounds like you shouldn't go on a Monday! http://gauthiersoho.blogspot.com/2010/06/bloody-mondays.html