Matthew Tomkinson

Wasnt he/isnt he a consultant for Singapore Airlines?

michel guerard is far superior to either Trama or the Pourcel brothers. as for scenery, I'm not sure where you've been looking but Gascony and Aquitaine contain some beautiful rolling countryside and lovely historic towns and villages ← I thought about Guerard but can't seem to find a lunch menu price and I actually thought they only did dinner? I would like to go to an old school place like that though... ← At this time of year (out of season) they only do dinner during the week but still do lunch at weekends

Thankyou

Anyone know if this can be watched online?

Congratulations to your brother, not far from me now so will definately be in for dinner. Matt

If i had been Sam's sous chef i think i would have chinned him at the end, i am suprised that guy didnt.

I was away on holiday and missed it

Does anyone know of anywhere where this programme can be watched again online? Thanks

It was such a shock to hear that he had passed away, i only knew him through the scholarship and we had spoken a few times on the phone before and after he went to France to work. I met his new wife earlier this year and we had agreed to meet up and have dinner at Silks one day. I am sorry we never got the chance. A real loss.

I have eaten at Chang Mai several times and found the food to be superb on every occasion, the best Thai i have ever eaten. I dont think the food at The Crazy Bear is a patch on it but the place itself has to be experienced. The best food in the area (apart from us obviously!!!) is served at The Hand and Flowers in Marlow, a bit further out but worth the trip.

Was in for a later dinner last night, unfortunately the beef special had gone. Between the four of us we had :- Squid and mackeral burger Crab salad Pig' head terrine Raviolo Salmon Bouillabaisse Rabbit Cheese Floating islands Trifle Choc Soup All was good, for me the highlight was the runner beans with the rabbit, delicious with the mustard sauce. Really enjoyed the casual service and too much wine!

There is a pub not far from me (Christmas common, Oxfordshire) called the Fox and Hounds that is ghoing to be part of this programme, we were asked but the owners declined!! Will be interesting to see what happens there.

Thankyou to Moby for coming to lunch, taking some great photographs and posting a link here. We are really pleased with how they came out. We dont have a website up and running yet, it is in construction as we speak and shouldnt be too long.

Anyone know where I can watch repeats of this? maybe online?

How was the food Andy?

Ockenden Manor is a slightly longer cab ride away. Ockenden Manor

Hard to say whether they will get the deserved star before the end of the month, but I do know that they have had two visits from one inspector this year. Olga told me that he had introduced himself at the end of the second visit - apparently he told them his first visit had been on a very busy night - any comments on the significiance of two visits? Or the introduction? David ← To announce themselves and to make several visits before inspection is perfectly normal. what does matter is the name of the person who announced him/herself.

Watched Ramsay's Boiling Point this weekend (easy to download from www.torrentspy.com if anyone's interested) Ramsay kept going on about not being a celebrity chef; he was a cook and never wants to be out of his kitchen. Well, given his TV ubiquity, this now seems somewhat farcical. Hell's Kitchen is prime Celeb chef fodder and he really cannot deny this. Having said that, Ainsley Harriot is a total tool and deserves everyone's criticism. ← I cant see boiling point on there when i search. how did you find it? would love to see it again. Thanks

yes i noticed that one too this morning. it seems nowadays "head chef" is very much like the old "sous chef" role (though do you normally have two sous or one?) i assume however given bjorn is still in his young and hungry stage he'll be in the kitchen most of the time. give it a couple of years and a couple of stars and maybe that will change J ← Head Chef is Henry Vigar, he worked as sous at the Greenhouse and was promoted to chef when they moved to la Noisette.

My critque is with the book, not the restaurant. Since my dinner parties involve 7 or 8 courses, and since I have about 100 cook books, I am looking for something new and/or additional. Why every book at this level of cooking insists on devoting pages to "basics" (such as veal stock) is beyond me. I'd much rather prefer a section on amuse bouche. Hey ho, back to work. ← I get your point but i think the basic recipes in this book should be there. The stocks are very different in proportion to other cook book recipes, David says that he uses far fewer vegetables in relation to meat to obtain a purer flavour. He then sometimes uses purees to thicken the 'essences' when he requires more body in the liquid. This is quite unusual in kitchens and im sure it is very important to explain this when discussing the food there.

Actually not as bad as it sounds, it didnt need the pinapple (i hate it anyway) and it didint need the sweetcorn ice cream (not listed on the menu). As the raviolo had been cooked and then sliced it went cold very quickly and obviously the ice cream really helped make it all taste cold. The raviolo itself was had a nice flavour, just badly concieved in my opinion.

Dinner at Midsummer House on Friday night, four of us from work finally went as we have been trying to go for a long time. The restaurant backs on to the River Cam in a really lovely setting, it is a converted house that has been added on to with two conservatories, an extended kitchen and an upstairs bar. We arrived and were taken upstairs to the bar, we ordered a bottle of pink champagne and were given some nice green olives to share. After ordering we were taken downstairs to our table in one of the conservatories and offered some very nice bread, white or brown sourdough with a good chewy dark crust. We ordered the rabbit, the eel, the raviolo and the cannelloni to start and the bass, the lamb, the pigeon and the turbot for main course. I had the eel and the turbot. The first amuse arrived, a small glass of pink grapefruit and champagne foam which i thought was ok. I guess it was there as a palate cleanser but i would have preferred it later on in the meal. The next amuse was much better for me, a warm pea veloute with langoustine jelly, pea shoots and king prawns within it. The soup itself was very average and had a strong taste of potato but with the sweetness of the various garnishes inside it it was absolutely delicious (particularly the warm squares of jelly) Next came the starter, i had the eel which was a collection of nice ingedients that for me competed against each other rather enhanced each other. There were five small rectangles of pig's trotter that had been breaded and fried, five curls of cured foie gras, apple puree, leaves, and seared smoked eel. The eel and the trotter were far too strong for each other, these two ingredients eaten seperately with the rest of the garnish were lovely but were too much together and made the foie gras taste underseasoned and dull. In order to curl the marinated liver it had to be served very cold and so had little flavour until it warmed up anyway. We all tried each others dishes and agreed that all of them had some fantastic ingredients, flavours or techniques on the plate but in all cases just too much together. They were like a collection of items rather than a complete 'dish' with everything working together. Particularly average was the poached rabbit being served fridge cold and particularly delicious was the foie gras mousse on the cannelloni dish. Next up was the main course, i had the turbot which was perfectly cooked if a little bland and had a lovely flavour of toasted nuts that slightly overpowered the rest of the dish. The vanilla was not to be seen, apparently it is served at the table and they must have forgot, the squash puree was excellent but the asparagus beignets tasted of a dirty fryer and very little of asparagus. The seared scallops were excellent and the tiny amount of braised lettuce lovely too. The best main coure in terms of flavour was easily the lamb and by the same measure the bass was by far the worst. Pre dessert was a fantastic strawberry cheesecake, in my opinion the pink grapefruit foam would have served better here but in terms of taste the cheesecake was perfect. It was actually biscuit crumbs topped with strawberry sorbet and a cheesecake foam served along side strawberry sauce and strawberry jelly. Very nice indeed. Desserts ranged from very good to very poor, i took the fondant which was excellent. A perfect chocolate fondant, the lovely flavour of walnuts and coffee and the sweet flavour of the amaretto jelly. It didnt need the dates, they were not poached and didnt have a great flavour. The rest of the desserts were ok but the delice was particularly bad. The delice being very rubbery and the mint ice cream being far too strong and palate numbing (like chewing gum). Petit fours were a selection of homemade chocolates, the highlights being mint and cherry the low light being white chocolate and curry. Coffee was fantastic and served with the deep fried Botreaux, apricot coulis and vanilla anglais (to dip in to) With 1 bottle of champagne, 2 bottles of red wine and 2 glasses of dessert wine the total bill for four was £456. Service was good (our friend is a chef de rang) but the food was just a let down. We had built our expectations up a bit but it is a 2* restaurant and i think expectations should be high. It is undoubtedly the worst 2* meal i have had and i have had many 1* or lower meals that were much better. It didnt even come close to The Square, Pied a Terre, Gavroche or Champignon Sauvage. As i have said elements were really good, but overall the food seemed showy and arrogant, as my mum would say "fur coat and no knickers" Menu Rabbit Poached Rabbit, Sauteed Langoustine, Purple Carrots Tarragon Jelly, Nasturtium Leaves Smoked Eel Salad of Smoked Eel, Crispy Pigs Trotter, Cured Foie Gras, Braeburn Puree, Wild Cress, Pissenlit Ravioli Ravioli of Pork Belly and Ham Hock, Sweet Corn Puree, Sun Dried Tomatoes, Sauteed Pineapple Native Lobster Roast English Lobster, Wild Leaf Salad, Mango Puree, Orange, Basil, Liquorice Scallop Seared Hand Dived Scallop, Celeriac and Truffle Puree, Granny Smiths, Apple Caramel Fennel Gazpacho Fennel Soup, Yogurt Sorbet, Baby Cucumber, Yogurt Mousse, Fennel Salad, Green Tea Cannelloni Cannelloni of Red Pepper, Foie Gras Mousse, Marinated Green Beans, Jamaican Pepper -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Main Courses from the Sea Turbot Braised Turbot with Peanuts and Pistachios, Wilted Cos Lettuce, Fresh Asparagus, Squash Puree, Essence of Vanilla Sea Bass Sea Bass Poached in Chilli, Sea Lettuce, Red Pepper Puree, Sauteed Apple, Lime Gel John Dory Fennel Roasted John Dory, Tomato Risotto, Crispy Bacon, Sauteed Squid, Sauce Nero Main Courses from the Land Best End of Lamb Best End of Suffolk Lamb, Confit Shoulder, Broccoli Puree, Sauteed Girolles, Confit Tomatoes, Jus d'Agneau Veal Kidney Kidney cooked in is own Fat, Parsley Snails, Soubise of Onions, Young Spinach, Garlic Puree, Essence of Veal Beef Slow-Roast Fillet of Beef, Shallot Marmalade, Celeriac Puree, Bonbon of Foie Gras, Essence of Port (£7 Supplement) Pigeon Poached and Grilled Anjou Squab Pigeon, Pastilla of Cherries, Sweet Potato Puree, Spinach and Pistachios, Chocolate Jelly, Sauce Valrhona -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheese Farm House Cheeses British and French Unpasteurised Artisanal Cheeses (Also available as an extra course, £17.50) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Desserts, Cold Delice Passion Fruit and Mango Delice, Spearmint Ice Cream, Mint Tea Jelly, Lavender Honey, Crystallised Mint Lemon and Ginger Lemon and Ginger Parfait, White Chocolate, Lemon Panacotta, Crystallised Ginger, Lemon Sorbet Peanut Biscuit Glacé of Caramelised Peanut, Banana Sorbet, Chocolate Sauce, Banana Marshmallows Coconut Coconut Mousse, Kalamansi Lime Jelly, Dark Chocolate, Coconut Sorbet Apple Garden Apple Parfait, Vanilla Mousse, Green Apple Sorbet, Cinnamon Ice Cream Desserts, Hot Pear Pear Tart Tatin, Garlic and Bay Leaf Foam, Vanilla Ice Cream (For two Persons) Fondant Coffee and Chocolate Fondant, Walnut Puree, Walnut Ice Cream, Poached Dates, Amaretto Jelly Coffee Coffee, Hot Chocolate, Tea & Infusions Botreaux, Homemade Chocolates £5

We took delivery of four wild boar saddles yesterday to replace the Gacony pork we have had on the menu. The boar is from Normandy and looks exactly like a venison saddle, it has a slightly more porky flavour than venison and a gamier smell. We are serving it with spinach, roasted butternut squash, parsnip puree and parsnip crisps. We will also be using a jus flavoured with the roasted rib bones.

Mr Wooster, would you mind telling us more of the food you ate on both nights and the differences you found?

In my experience they usually do forget