olicollett

Why would you say that there has not been a thorough investigation? For starters it was Blumenthal who closed the restaurant before the authorities even heard about it. They appear to have conducted a lot of tests yet they have been unable to determine the cause of the illness. I'm by no means an environmental health expert, but I would have thought that if they haven't been able to determine the root cause after a few days of testing then it's going to just get more and more difficult. If it was caused by a virus, I don't believe they would be able to prove it For an interesting story about a company that dealt with many people who got sick eating its food (and a few died) - look up Jack in the Box. They do in fact close restaurants here all the time when they find serious food safety violations during regular inspections (whether or not people have gotten sick) - and do not allow them to reopen until the violations have been corrected. Note that all restaurant inspections are printed in our local newspaper on a weekly basis. Is it a case of double standards here though? I haven't seen any evidence of similar cases in the UK that have been treated differently

Sorry - I see what you are saying now, but I got the impression from the website (and my friend who booked us in) that it's only tasting menus full stop now. It states that there is a smaller 5 course tasting menu available tues-thurs, a 7 course and a 10 course tasting menu.

I totally understand what you are saying - I don't know who would go for the bespoke menu but I think they would have to be pretty crazy to spend £150 when as you say the fat duck is £130. I'm not sure what I'll be going for yet - much will depend on my company, I'm going with a couple of friends and someone i don't know and i've no idea what we'll decide upon. I don't have a problem with restaurants only doing tasting menus - it might not be for everyone but i've seen it in a number of restaurants on the continent/overseas. Personally I'm not a big fan of a la carte because I can never make my mind up and I end up half way through my meal wishing i had gone for a different choice! It's worth noting that Sat changes the tasting menu regularly (unless things have changed) - it's not like he's serving the same 3 tasting menu's every day of the week.

Link to the "article" here: Mail Online I'm not sure what exactly he wanted Heston to do - carry on investigating what exactly has caused this or send flowers to everyone instead?

Hold on - the bespoke menu is a bit different from a normal tasting menu isn't it? I don't know of many other places offering such a service. The "normal" prices aren't anything like the fat duck?

sod paying that as a supplement! I saw the menu changes the other day.. hopefully it's for the better but I guess I'll see. At the end of the day, if they fill the place every night I don't blame them!

I'm with David here. I'm not really a fan of the show purely because the presenters do my head in. I do usually catch the odd episode here and there and this year I did watch the final week. Although the two other contestents seemed talented, this guy really did look like class. He seems to have that uncanny ability to just know what goes together in a dish and seemed to have an amazing ability to come up with original dishes that worked (I say that without having tasted them myself though!). I hope he does get his head down and get some experience behind him at some kitchens and then on further to make it with his own restaurant.

£16?? are you sure? When I went there nearly a year ago it was nothing like that expensive as a supplement, more like £5-10. £16 is a bit of a joke! I'm going back in a few weeks so i'll see what's going on now

Very interesting show. Looking forward to tomorrow's thats for sure. I think i'll wait until the end of the doc before commenting further - from the looks of tonight's show it looked like the director just wanted a celebrity chef to get some publicity and make some short term gains. I can't believe just how delusional he was, did he really expect nitro scrambled bacon and egg ice cream prepared with a griddle and microwave for £2.99? I was quite shocked to their reactions to the food that he presented them with as well. I think the fundamental problem Heston is facing is the consumer themselves - as he highlighted, they are not after "fancy" food, they just want something simple done well. Or done too well, so that it's grey in the middle in a lot of cases.

I would have to note that the frosty service we received at The Fat Duck in 2008 left a worst taste in my mouth than the boring food at RGR at RHR, which didn't leave a bad taste at all (it left no taste). ← Interesting - i had an excellent service when i went in August, the staff were engaging and really good to us

Personally i'd go with Heston's method as mentioned earlier - it's what i always use when cooking beef, i just wish i had access to such extroadinary beef! The results however are always perfect - the beef will be uniformly pink throughout and the texture is amazing Coat each end of the meat with some sea salt, leave for 30-40mins, wash off salt, blowtorch the outside until browned and then into the oven for 24hrs+ at 55C! You could skip the salting part if you like. This is obviously a problem if your oven can't go low enough though If you're not using this method, i'd echo some of the earlier comments and invest in a probe - you don't want to ruin a piece of beef like this!

There's some interesting thoughts on salting steak here: http://steamykitchen.com/blog/2007/08/28/h...i-prime-steaks/ I used this technique recently and although i started with a very good piece of beef to start with the result was the best steak i've ever eaten. It basically seems to work like a dry brine - but they do emphasise in the article that if you salt the meat for too short a time - which seems to be common practise for chefs - you just end up drying the outside of the meat. This method not only seems to season the steak very effectively, it also seems to tenderise it due to the interactions between the salt and the protein cells.

During a recent trip to Europe i noticed several restaurants selling Krug Grand Cuvee NV at nearly twice the price as some vintages? (i can't recall exact vintages but i can't imagine they were bad!) Any idea what this might be about? It wasn't Clos De Mensil either. I understand Grand Cuvee is a blend of previous vintages but i can't recall ever seeing vintage Krug being sold at a similar price as Grand Cuvee in a shop!

Strange - i can't say i had the best of time with service (although it doesn't help that my french is very poor!). Agreed with the portions though - a little too generous. It's never good when you start to struggle with the deserts!

Sat Bains is a great idea - but it'll be a bit of a trip from Liverpool unless you're driving!

Exactly - which is exactly what i told them. For example - the tasting menu at Sat Bains in Nottingham can have some dishes which are hit and miss, but for the price it's not a problem. Tupac - thanks for the links, the meals were pretty much identical, although i notice in the review with the photos they had an extra dessert. One thing i forgot to mention was something at the end of the meal - I thought that I had come to the end of the meal but they brought out another plate. 20mins later, the plate was still empty. I asked for the bill and after 10mins i had to prompt them again - the waiter looked confused and apologised and along came the bill. It was all rather odd - almost like they had forgotten something?

I personally enjoy reading pieces by critics - but it rarely influences my decision on whether to eat at an establishment or not. If i want advice on where to eat - i'd rather come here or look at one of the guides. You're always going to get the odd bad meal because thats the way things are. I know one pub that i used to eat at at least once a week because it was pretty good - sometimes they would produce a plate of food that matched some of the best meals i've had but other times it would be poor. Without such experiences i think life would be a little dull. On another note, are we all now agreed that pizza express should be restaurant magazines no. 1 for the UK?

What complete and utter bobbins. The fat duck 12? Arbutus 18?? what is the world coming to.

Went to Pierre Gagnaire thursday night for a meal. I have to say i felt very much like Lenski about the meal - although the food was good, and a couple of dishes amazing, i was overall left dissapointed by the whole affair. I went for the Autumn tasting menu - it was either that or the a la carte which would have probably come to more and i usually like to try the tasting menu when visiting restaurants for the first time. To start with i had an aperetif - a glass of some nice champagne (i can't remember the producer but i had not heard of them before) and some interesting nibbles - all of which were covered in tupac17616's post further down and they were all very good. The first course was a tiger prawn in some kind of sweet/sour sauce along with a "prawn juice" sauce/dip. I have to say i really didn't think much of the dish at all - it seemed to lack any flavour and the accompanying sauce only seemed to make it worse. The next course was pollock served with aubergines, black olives and tomatoes. This was much better than the first and enjoyable, but there was nothing that made me think "wow". Next up was salmon poached "mi-cuit" along with some green veg and frogs legs. This was by far the best dish in my opinion and definately had the wow factor that i was expecting. The fourth course was red mullet, tete de veau, a red mullet jelly, some clams (i think) and a piece of local grilled cheese. It was all good, although the slice of tete de veau was meant to be "crispy" but it didn't seem like it to me! Up next was a jelly of chicken with squid, squid ink bread and artichoke ice cream. This again was nice but didn't blow me away - and i'm not sure what the purpose of the bread was. Next was a dish of warm oyster served with various ingredients that i cannot remember and can't seem to translate back from the french menu! It was a good dish though and very interesting. Afterwards there was the duck with sweet pepper and date - this was probably the best dish along with the salmon. After the duck there was the cheese course - 3 different dishes based around 3 local cheeses. They were all interesting although one, a chantilly of Pont L'eveque with an apple and calvados sorbet was a bit much for me - i think it's one of those dishes you only really want a bite of rather than several spoonfulls. Lastly there were the desserts. Sadly my memory is a little hazy of these and they are not mentioned in the menu. They were all very good but again, lacking that little bit extra that i had expected. On another note - the wine was a bit of a dissapointment - they had no kind of matched wines to go with the menu so the waiter chose a selection for me, but they were not particularly well matched in my opinion. I know this is always going to be a problem with a seasonal tasting menu but it was still a shame. Also, i thought the wine list was a little.. small? I wasn't that bothered about it, just a little surprised by the number of wines on offer. Afterwards the staff asked me what i thought and i commented that i was a little dissapointed and felt it did not live up to my expectations. 2 months ago i had been blown away at the fat duck, even after setting high expectations it truely delivered from start to finish. I had expected a similar experience at Pierre Gagnaire - after all it's regarded by many as being up there with the best, but apart from 2 courses i felt nothing came close to matching that experience. I explained this to the staff, who pointed out that it was a seasonal menu and that it changes every month, and that i probably should have tried some of the dishes on the a la carte instead. I got the impression that the a la carte menu is more of a constant menu that is regularly tweaked, but if that was the case, why was i not offered a tasting menu of the a la carte? Seasonal menus are great for regulars at such restaurants but for someone like me who won't even make it once a year, i just want to experience the best the chef has to offer. So in summary, I don't think i'll be in a hurry to go back again. Food was 8/10, service was 6/10 (nothing to write home about) and bread was 10/10 (forgot to mention that, but the selection of bread was fantastic!). It is also very expensive (255 euro for the tasting menu and the a la carte would cost even more) but i'm assuming most Parisien 3*'s are. Also - after writing all this i've been reading through Tupac17616's Lunch and i can't help but think he seemed to get a much better deal than i did. I got half as many aperetif's and i can only count 6 dishes for dessert??

I'm off to the fat duck tonight Been waiting to go for ages and since it was my bday yesterday i figured the timing was right! I'll write up a report when i get the chance - i'm not sure whether to bring my camera or not though.. To say i'm looking forward to tonight is an understatement...

Taipan in MK is very good if you like chinese food

Would anyone be able to recommend a supplier of quality water stones (e.g. Shapton) that could deliver to the UK? I've been struggling to find anything online, it seems odd that sites sell high quality Japanese knives that should be sharpened with a whetstone but don't sell anything appropriate!

I've seen it at a few places recently, Arbutus being one, but i didn't mind because we finished well before they needed the table back and at a restaurant like that i guess you have to expect it. But not being able to have the degustation menu? That's very annoying!! What was the restaurant?

It's something you encounter a lot isn't it... the darkly caramelised black olives they're doing at Midsummer House at the moment are the best thing about the desserts on the tasting menu, matched in this case with fennel and pear. I'm pretty sure I had something similar at Bacchus not long ago too, again with caramel (as with the pineapple tarte tatin at Anthony's)... in fact their website currently lists black olives with mango, sounds rather reminiscent! Agreed with regards to the black olive, fennell and pear@Midsummer house, a very interesting and enjoyable desert.

They sell to a deli near me but you have to order stuff in which kinda puts me off, might give it a go sometime though