olicollett

That Louis XV dessert looks ace! Hoping to go here some time in the next few weeks, bit far out of reach for lunch but the evening menu seems very reasonable anyway

Corrina - Fishers looks ideal, thanks!

Hi all, I'm going to be in Edinburgh for an overnight stay and was looking for somewhere nice but not too pricey (<£35/head for food) for a saturday night meal, or as an alternative somewhere for a sunday lunch? Basically looking for somewhere nice to go out to with some friends that's fairly casual

Noooooo! I tried booking Noma last night but it was closed for the date I wanted, the next weekend that will be available is my birthday weekend which would be perfect, but I imagine it's going to be near on impossible to get a table now! I'll be gutted if I don't get one especially after missing out on the FD last year. Fingers crossed I guess. Anyway, back to the list.. The French Laundry and Tetsuyas have big drops - have things really changed that much?

Didn't realise this was coming up so soon! was looking at booking Noma for a weekend trip this summer so i better get on to it before this comes out!

Well I finally got around to visiting the Hind's Head this week, and I have to say it was a fantastic meal. I started off with potted shrimp and watercress salad which was spot on, followed by the shepherds pie with sweetbreads, which must have been by far the best shepherds pie I have ever eaten in my life. I finished with the chocolate and wine slush for desert accompanied by millionaire shortbread which was also good. One of my friends had the venison burger and treacle tart, another the fish pie and eton mess, both of whom were impressed. We also opted for the triple cooked chips which were cooked to perfection I hadn't set particularly high expectations, but from start to finish the friendly bar staff, excellent service and great food made for a great meal. The only downside was the price - once you've added on side dishes and 2-3 drinks, you are looking at £40+/head which does seem a bit steep, but the food was that good I wasn't going to complain.

Interesting - I went here a few days ago. Found it to be hit and miss. Had a simple scallops dish to start with which was nice, scallops presented in there shells and perfectly cooked. Then there was a black truffle risotto which was also good. The main course of salt marsh lamb was a real let down though, over seasoned and the dish seemed to be swimming in far too much fat which was a shame. The warm chocolate and almond dessert was good, although i'm not sure why it was presented in a scallop shell! The other point to note was that the portions were very small - the kind of size you'd expect if you were having 20 courses not 4 and despite having a couple of slices of bread I came out of there thinking I was hungry, and I'm not the type to be so greedy!

If any of you saw the ads for tonight's show "Restaurant in your home" you might be wondering how a restaurant in someone's home got a 6/10 in the good food guide. Well, I don't know how many people have visited the restaurant itself, but I happened to visit around 2 1/2 years ago. My Dad had seen a review in a paper about it and it sounded interesting so we made the journey up there. It's quite unlike any other restaurant experience I've ever had - it's run by a couple in their own home and there are only about a dozen covers in the place. It's certainly a cosy setting and you do feel like you're around someone's house for a dinner party rather than in a restaurant. As for the food - well, it wasn't bad. My memory isn't great after 2 1/2 years but I do remember a very nice beetroot and cumin soup to start. The next two courses were both pan-asian style, I believe one was tuna and another monkfish. It was nice, but nothing amazing, and I remember the desserts being disappointing. The hosts were very nice, but overall it seemed a bit odd, I think if you went regularly it would probably be good fun, but it was a bit of a strange experience on a first visit. It wasn't cheap either £45/head for 4 courses, although the wine was reasonable. What I cannot understand is how it has a 6/10 rating in the good food guide. That's up there with midsummer house and I believe Sat Bains - no offence to the couple but the food simply isn't anywhere near that standard. Anyway, I'll try and watch it tonight, should make interesting viewing. I'd be interested to see if anyone else had eaten here

Has anyone been here of late? I'm working in a "lovely" (you can probably guess) location not far from bray and was tempted to pop over to check it out over the next few weeks. Is it the kind of place you can just get in a walk in table midweek?

I'll certainly be there next time I get the chance! Ended up going to Hart's on sunday. I had a nice terrine for starter, but the venison main course was rather disappointing. It was cooked perfectly, but sadly the rest of the dish didn't really work - it seemed like technique over taste. My Crème brûlée dessert was excellent though. It was a shame, because all the ingredients are there for a really good restaurant but it just falls short. I always think they try too hard, Harts is basically a Brasserie and should be serving solid Brasserie dishes but always try to creep up to fine dining level and find themselves out of depth.. Very frustrating. Yep - I think Harts/World Service/Merchants all suffer from the same thing. As much as it's such a cliché in food now, "keep it simple" really is the way forward for places like this.

I'll certainly be there next time I get the chance! Ended up going to Hart's on sunday. I had a nice terrine for starter, but the venison main course was rather disappointing. It was cooked perfectly, but sadly the rest of the dish didn't really work - it seemed like technique over taste. My Crème brûlée dessert was excellent though. It was a shame, because all the ingredients are there for a really good restaurant but it just falls short.

Another visit to Leeds - Spring onion bread and Stir fried french beans with minced pork were both excellent as expected! The heat on the beans was perfect, not too hot and it complemented the flavours of the beans and pork without drowning them out

And I'm sure Mr Zipprick has, in his diatribe, carefully referenced peer-reviewed studies, preferably systematic reviews, showing the ill-effects of these nasty "chemicals"? No?

Shocking result tonight Fair enough though, Ludovic had been consistently good but he never really upped his game

I agree with what you're saying - I can't imagine seeing a 3* restaurant serving the trotters like that nowadays, but I could be wrong.

Sat Bains with a Michelin star for one. Then Matias Carlsson at La Toque in Beeston. Then there's some excellent modern Indians , such as Memsaab, and some excellent fusion such as Geisha and Chino Latino. I realised Nottingham hasn't really been mentioned on here of late, other than to talk about Sat Bains which is always very good. First of all, it's interesting to note some of the changes in the Nottingham restaurant scene. La Toque in Beeston, after having a difficult period after a prolonged closure, re-invented itself as The Library Bar Kitchen, a very reasonably priced tapas style restaurant. It's not the kind of place to make a trip for, but it makes a nice local eatery and it's much more accessible price wise than La Toque was to most locals. Ben Bowers restaurant has changed hands, been refurbished and is now known as Restaurant 1877. I've had 2 good lunches here, although both times it was strangely quiet, which seemed odd considering how competitive the pricing is. It's a bit out of the town centre but it's not exactly out of the way and it deserves better really. I hope that their dinner service is busier because from what I've tasted it's up there with the other top city-centre restaurants. Geisha has now closed - which is a shame. I thought it was a bit of an odd format having a bar/club attached to the restaurant, and from what I understand the cooking never kept the standards it set when it opened. Iberico opened a few years ago in the lace market which can provide some decent tapas. I believe it's run by the same folk as World Service but I could be wrong. I haven't been for a while but the food was certainly good when it opened. Harts and World Service are still around, along with Merchants at the lace market hotel. Jay Rayner recently reviewed world service here and was far from complementary. Trying too hard seemed to be the main problem there. I've only eaten lunch at the 3 of them but I've never been blown away by a meal at any of them which makes choosing a place for fine dining in Nottingham at times difficult when Sat Bains is taken out of the equation. There are still many decent Indian restaurants going strong - Memsaab, Curry Lounge (post a Ramsay Kitchen Nightmare's revamp) and Kayal is often mentioned as being up there with the best with it's southern Indian cuisine but I've not yet been there. I don't know of any decent Chinese or Japanese restaurants however - it would be nice to have a red chilli to visit! I'm actually looking for somewhere to go to take my folks to this Sunday evening and although there's a lot of choice out there, there's nothing that seems to stand out above any other establishment as an obvious "go to" type place, which is making my decision difficult. Do we need another destination restaurant in the city, or am I just being greedy?

Right, my story, not too dissimilar to cheekymunkey in some ways Amuse Bouche was good, and I went for the lobster cocktail to start. This was really good, I'm not normally a big fan of lobster, I often find myself let down by it, but this was a really nice, light starter. One of my friends went for the snails with bone marrow which was nice (I did sneak a bite) and the other went for the foie gras which he really enjoyed. For mains we all went for the pigs trotter. Yes, it was as expected rich, and if someone had presented me with a plateful of it this morning I would have probably felt slightly sick and ran away, but I'd certainly eat it again if I had the opportunity after recovering! Didn't try any other mains as my companions all insisted on copying me, the selfish gits. For desserts, as above I went for the apple tart and the others went with Pistachio Souffle. I thought the tart was fantastic and after doing some swaps we all ended up believing we made the right choice. Interestingly, my friends who went with slightly heavier starters were by this point feeling rather stuffed. Whether it was my lighter starter, or simply the fact that we were eating late, I could quite happily have polished off another course by this point! I ordered an espresso so that I could sample the petit fours which were superb. With regards to the wine - the Riesling I had with my lobster was fine temperature wise, although I felt it was probably a bit too sweet and I would have preferred something drier. The red we had with the trotters was excellent, can't recall the producer but it was from the Rhone valley and really hit the spot. The service was a bit hit and miss at times, our starters took a fair while to arrive, but it didn't spoil what was an excellent meal in all. I wouldn't say it was one of the meals of my life, but it was certainly memorable. My only regret was not having a phantom eater on the table so we could have sampled some extra dishes!

If anyone get's in the way of my trotters tonight there will be serious consequences!

Strange, I'd swear a couple of people posted blogs reviewing the food. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to tonight - We're eating late though, 9.30, I think I'll be hungry when I arrive!

Thanks Jay, I didn't want you to spoil anything anyway! I forgot about Marianne, she looked very promising in the first heat. I really want to try that pear and roquefort souffle - looked to me an ideal pre-dessert course, reminded me of the composed cheese course/pre-dessert thing I had at Pierre Gagnaire.

LOL - Yeah it would be interesting to see what GW would say if he was going first!

Surprised this hasn't had a mention on here yet, but has anyone else been following this so far? The standard seems really hit and miss. Some shows they seem to get 4 chef's who look no better than the contestants on the standard masterchef, but on another they get 4 people who look superb and they end up knocking some people out who had clear potential! It seems to me that they've made it far too long as well. It's on for over 3hrs each week and I've already forgotten half of the contenders! Ludovic seems to be very creative, although he seems very laid back at times I'm hoping Jay Rayner will pop in and give us his thoughts (without spoiling anything ) given his first hand experience of the food itself.

flip! Oh well, i'm sure it'll be worth it!

I'm going on the 12th too, can't wait

Why on earth did it take so long for that to come out?