sunbeam

September is the cruellest month for openings. So many. S

That he's a glutton for punishment? I'd have thought he'd have been better off going back into tutelage for a bit. Catch up on all those lessons he bunked off the first time round. S

Is the noise inside more of a problem than the jet airplanes brushing the chimneys? S

I'd complain if a chippy opened next door to me, and my house is in south london! Aitken's posh neighbours had a fair point I think. S

Chavot - yes Lunch not pricey - £30 or there abouts. dinner more expensive but wine is ridiculous ← Lunch at all the big names is nearly always a good deal, you do have to watch the wine clawback tho! S

I second that, Boxwood seemed underpowered when I went. Its Eric Chavot at Capital as I recall isnt it? Pricey but worth it S

Do you? Perhaps you'd like to explain why you're so down on PRs with some concrete examples. You've made some fairly sweeping statements. I'm guessing you once hired some PR and when it couldn't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse you threw your toys out the pram. S

Well I had the a la carte lunch there Suoerb, quite superb Anyone who tells you different has a tin tongue. I don't care about the decor and as for the price, you can pay twice as much at ducasse and it's not even half as good. If you don't have the money, well too bad. That's life. Or go for the £30 de jour lunch menu. You can afford that, surely? May I add the 'ambassador you are spoiling us' gag now? S

sorry, but that's silly. you're assuming that if you hire a good PR company then you get a good service. which is completely at odds with the general industry feeling. many people are very dissatisfied with the service they're getting - but there isn't much choice in the matter. it's a necessary evil, hell it's probably not evil, but you seem to be suggesting that everything is rosy and everyone believes they're getting good value. which ain't true virginia. Santa Claus does not work in restaurant PR. ← I'm assuming if you hire a good anybody, PR, car mechanic, rent boy, etc you get good service. I think one has to work on that assumption until proven wrong. Many people seem dissatisfied you say, well I don't know how many people you have talked to. Perhaps so, I don't know. Like any other service PR has happy and unhappy clients. I am not sure what Santa Claus has done to be dragged into this but as a small boy I was often dissatisified with his service but I kept on believing in him all the same. The alternative was too awful to contemplate. S

Always sad when a place closes. When I went there a while back I felt chef was trying to run before he could walk or, as the French say, fart higher than his arse. Plenty of people in London are prepared to pay for style over substance but the location was not ideal to get them in any numbers. I expect both chef and owner have learned an awful lot from the experience and will come back the stronger for it. S

How do you know? Is it your fantasy brothel perhaps! I'm not sure anywhere can be 'resplendent in tones' btw S

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey Quite funny, and I've been there myself with the subs, but on this occasion I can't help wondering whether Alan's lad's rant may be based on a false premise. The missing 'a' wasn't a bad sub decision but an unfortunate typo? It was a very feeble joke that got spoiled, but he's right to say it was spoiled. I would have thought in this PC age such abuse of colleagues would normally have got him sacked. His roots via his father are probably embedded too deep though. Anyway subs are a lower class of writer and no editor is going to lose a columnist just to satisfy a sub's wounded pride, even if the Sunday Times seems to have more restaurant critics than seems strictly necessary for one paper that comes out on one day.If the boy had been racist, (I don't think the Irish comment will count) or sexist it would have been a different matter perhaps. What I would really like to know is who released an internal email to the public? And why? S

i cant recall being gassed in a chinese restaurant recently. treated with breathtaking Hong Kong rudeness yes, but there's no health and safety rule about that. Lucky im going japanese this lunchtime in soho s

Must have been removed or changed between my refresh. Shame cos i wanted that Tupperware! S

I liked the way the Restaurant Mag link above took me to diabetic cookbooks on Amazon while another link, since disappeared, went to a Tupperware boxed set. Then a refresh of the page made it all work normally again Something not quite right in the bulletin board's engine room I suspect No I havent been to l'Ambasade yet S

I like Benares food, but probably prefer Tamarind's interior. Not sure either are anything like as good as they think they are though, at least not as good as they used to be. S

You can always tell, they are the ones taking pictures of each dish with a flash and thus seriously trying the patience of everybody else Grrrrrrr S

Or fanfare either, but I don't think PR money is wasted unless you hire a bad PR. There are good and bad PR companies just as there are good and bad everything. Ramsay part owns a PR company doesn't he? A PR cant turn a sow's ear into a silk purse but can at least get the place trialled. Of course if you go to St John's you may well be eating the sow's ear while paying out of a silk purse. As to being first in to a new restaurant that's trainspottery with a knife and fork. Dress code for restaurants should be 'No anoraks'. S

It also disproved those people like me who said you couldn't even give a new Radiohead album away. You actually can, although it might be quicker to take them straight down the dump. Pay what you feel for a meal might work as an amusing gimmick and with nice, gentle, middle-class Londoners, but I would imagine that before long the chancers would make it impossible to sustain. If enough people have the brass neck to pay a penny then walk out, the restaurant would of course die S

Theres an opening party I'm going to on July 7 although I assume it is already soft open. I think no fanfare is a good idea these days, it's best not to overexcite expectation. S

I dont know about 'plenty' of free stuff, although props to the Welsh stand for their contribution to the poor of the parish. It's true, if you aren't with BA you're pretty much nothing at this event. All we can do is press our faces up against the window and let them toss us the odd bone S

Not far from Bosa is a trattoria called Riccardo where I had the best lobster of my life. I can't remember the name of the town, but we found it in the SlowFood guide, Osterie d'Italia. Bosa is not terribly far from Alghero also. ← Now I have been I can recommend the Trattoria de Riccardo in Magomadas unreservedly. Even better is Desugo in Cugliari (not Cagiliari, this is a tiny village near Bosa) . Very hard to find as it is a small doorway in a cobbled alley. Run by three sisters it has no menu, just sit down and start eating. Fantastic antipasti - chick peas in fennel, hams, etc, then we had ravioli stuffed with fresh peccorino, then wild boar stew with local olives, then wild hare, and so it went on. All doused in the local olive oil which is superb and can be bought just down the road from the maker. We went twice, I recommend lunch though as it is full of locals eating naturally, it may be different in the evenings S

It would help visitors afford to be able to eat it. S

That burger was a joke! Tasteless and smothered in something akin to Lidl's BBQ sauce too. Launceston Place's risotto was crunchy, clearly undercooked. The pig's head at Arbutus wasn't too bad but I've had far better but Pascal Proyart's dishes were fine. I can't think of anything else particularly, although I did eat at quite a few stands. After a while it all becomes a bit of a blur of paper plates and expensive dishes gone in two bites. If the majority of dishes served aren't up to much it does rather call into question the validity and point of the whole exercise. I think it's all a jolly day out for sponsors and their clients, I don't think Joe Public gets a very good deal. S

You got in free and so did I on the Thursday which is as well as this is seriously expensive. A £20 ticket only gets you in - no extras at all, not even a credit for one free dish. You can't do a whole day, only afternoon or evening, and the dishes are very pricey. I would say two people might spend £100 in total for a few hrs in there including entrance. The restaurants could charge less for the dishes IMO as this is, after all, a marketing exercise for them. An opportunity to attract potential diners by handing out samples at cost. Unfortunately they seem to see it as an ego trip for the chefs and the public are asked to pay through the nose whilst genuflecting (which is not as easy as it sounds). When the weather turns wet, the site turns into gourmet glastonbury. At this point those without passes to the luxury world of the corporate marquees have to huddle disconsolately under the awnings of the concession stands with water dripping down into their collars and into their already very weak and overpriced Pimms. I have been two years running on a freebie but I certainly wouldn't pay to go. The event seems to me to be an example of greed of the worst sort, financial. S