olicollett

Hopefully this should be of help http://www.cookingissues.com/primers/transglutaminase-aka-meat-glue/

I've had celeriac like that a couple of times at the ledbury! I wonder who was first?

Thanks Kathryn, we'll be in town for around 5 days so hopefully we'll pop in a few times and they might take pity on us and let us downstairs

Excellent. Don't forget to try a molecular cocktail or two at the Aviary, then you can hit the trifecta. Will do! I expect we might end up at the Aviary a few times! Best not go too crazy on the alcohol intake though, coupled with the food I might not be able to get on the flight home

Wow, I did it. Got tickets for the night before I go to Alinea Can't believe it

Rick - The capcha really annoyed me, I took an extra 5secs or so on it!

Well, tickets are on sale... And i'm currently waiting in a queue. I should be able to get some in theory, but I doubt I'll be able to get any on the dates i'm currently planning to go over, so I may end up re-scheduling my trip and re-booking Alinea to fit in! Fingers crossed, I logged in a few seconds after they opened and was #803 in the wait list out of ~950 packages. A few seconds later the line was back to 2500!

Another vote for Sat Bains' book, if it finally comes out this year! The bad news is my ugly mug may feature somewhere in it (I was there the night they were taking some pics for the book)

It's amazing how much of this kitchen lore is passed around without question. I spent ages trying to demonstrate to someone why the steak flipping method (as advocated by Heston, McGee et al.) is superior to get a more even cooking and he just said "well that's your opinion". A lot of taste is of course subjective, and we don't have to be completely reductionist, but we can at least demonstrate, using science, that certain methods are going to produce more consistent results that will work

Yes She's wrong, but there is a caveat - see the link to cooking issues i posted 2 posts ago. Oh and if that, along with Heston's approval is not enough - they advocate using pressure cookers in Modernist Cuisine

I've tried: Hawksmoor Burger & Lobster (think it's the same as Goodman's) Meat Liquor Bar Boulud They're all great, but I think on balance Meat Liquor wins because of the selection and value. It's not fine dining but it's good fun!

Oh that's a good point! I thought I had mentioned what happened in the bar in an earlier post about one of my visits but it appears I didn't. In brief, whilst in one of the booth areas 3 of us were having a few drinks next to a table of 5-6 people. As a waitress was serving our table, one of the men from the next table got up, almost knocked our waitress onto the floor, just looked at her and didn't say a thing and carried on as if nothing had happened, none of his group seeemed to care or even try to apologise either. It was just vile.

To be honest I didn't have a great time in the bar beforehand, it was basically full of tossers!

The menu is on the website David...

Ah, good point about the category. I couldn't find any record of a star here: http://www.michelinonline.co.uk/travelshop/star-history/2011/rg-lon.htm It does strike me as a bit of an anomaly amoungst the other top London hotels

I've always found it interesting that the Ritz doesn't have a star - if that food tastes half as good as it looks it seems a bit odd, I've had a fair few "starred" meals which were pretty medicore

Marco appears on TV ads for Knorr stock - not sure he's much of an authority on the subject! Well yeah, but stock powders have their uses. Still, you'd think a three star chef who was obsessed with perfection could tell the difference. I enjoyed tonights episode though, the cheese sauce recipe is definitely one I'll be adding to my repertoire. This could be a more reasonable explanation as to why: http://www.cookingissues.com/2009/11/22/pressure-cooked-stocks-we-got-schooled/ Wrong pressure cooker perhaps? Anyway, yeah it was interesting with the info about different melting points of different cheeses and the effect on texture

[Moderator note: The original [CHI] Alinea – Grant Achatz – Reviews & Discussion topic became too large for our servers to handle efficiently, so we've divided it up; the preceding part of this discussion is here: [CHI] Alinea – Grant Achatz – Reviews & Discussion (Part 3)] Just booked for April, looking forward to it Just need Next El Bulli to come through now...

Marco appears on TV ads for Knorr stock - not sure he's much of an authority on the subject!

Is anyone booked in to the Singapore night with Sat, Claude and Jason on 26th Feb? I'll be going http://www.pollenstreetsocial.com/blog/

Thanks for the reminder, I have indeed got the date in my calendar

The el bulli season is going to be tough to get tickets for. They're only doing one seating, so tickets will be scarce. A majority of them will go to season ticket buyers - I assume that's not an option for you. They're holding back one reservstion per evening to auction off for charity, so if cost is no object... Yeah i've been following the updates on Facebook. To be honest it's been terribly confusing, it looks like there will be a new booking system as well. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, hopefully I can get a table at Alinea for that weekend anyway, if not otherwise I'll be really upset Advance notice, and to get in first - if anyone ends up with 2 spare Next tickets around Easter time, and you're feeling generous, let me know...!!!!!

Yeah it's something like $400 for the food isn't it? Nuts! I think I'd rather save a bit and do Yasuda Beware, Yasuda can add up pretty quickly, too, if you're a big eater. It's not uncommon to spend $250-$300 per person for the food alone there. Yeah I figured Yasuda could get expensive, but we're only planning on a light-ish lunch there so hoping to get away without too much damage!

Well, we're booked in for next friday so I'm looking forward to it I've still not tried Atari-Ya in Ealing for Sushi which is criminal given it's just down the road from me during the week!

Would be a bit of a trek...