olicollett

I was thinking about giving Roka a go as I've yet to sample any of the high-end Japanese restaurants in London - is it the best bet? Umu seems to get mixed reviews (I know the food is somewhat different there) and the other option seems to be Zuma, but I understand that's even more expensive

I do (see sig) Most of my twitter posts are about food that i'm eating/cooking, some general stuff and the rest sport.

£20! Hope there's a good portion of it! It was a bit of a surprise given how much I remember getting in San Sebastian for about €5, although that was joselito which I think is a little bit less expensive, and obviously there's another level of service at José. See for yourself about the fillet - possibly not that rare, it was bang on though

I can't find a thread for José itself, but I was also in the area yesterday and got the chance to sample some of his food. It didn't disappoint - The atmosphere felt pretty authentic and the food was superb. The iberico pork fillet - served rare - was a delight as were the prawns with chilli and garlic. I could probably have spent all day just eating the thinly sliced iberico ham (Maldonado, probably the finest I've eaten) but for the cost! A reasonably priced bottle of tempranillo washed it all down and there was room for a chocolate pot dessert too, and given it's reputation I thought it would be rude not to try a glass of sherry. Great food, great wine and a nice relaxed atmosphere. You could eat here for £30-35/head but you might struggle given the temptations on the menu. The maldonado iberico is £9 for a small plate and dishes are roughly £6-9.50 - but for the quality you can't complain really.

Bit of a thread ressurection here! Ended up here after some drinks for a friend's leaving do. First up, our performance as a party was terrible - we were late, and there were a small number of no shows (it wasn't that they didn't show, they actually ended up on the wrong floor and ate there). That said, the staff were understanding and did a good job of putting up with us! The food on the other hand was not so good. I went with the "lucky squid" for starter (yep it's still on the menu!) but the squid was rather tough - probably as a consequence of cooking a little too long. The real disappointment however was the beef. We ordered 3 cote de boeuf between 6 people, each medium-rare, but when they turned up they were anything but. The one I was sharing was v rare in the middle, but overcooked on the outside, possibly as a consequence of not enough turning. The strange thing was though, it wasn't like a small patch was medium-rare, it just went medium/well straight to v rare. They did offer to cook it a bit longer but it was late, we were hungry and if it did go back on I imagine too much of it would have been overcooked! Sadly the steak was v much underseasoned and even with a generous helping of salt it was quite bland. It also seemed like it hadn't had enough resting - juices were still flowing after it had arrived at the table which isn't really a good sign. Even worse, one of the other cote de boeuf was so rare it was barely blue - I'm not sure how they had even achieved it as it looked cooked on the outside but bright, glossy red on the inside. That one was sent back and it did return in better shape - but it did suffer from the same issues as the other steaks. It was rather frustrating in the end really, it's not difficult to do good steak - you just need to source good quality, well aged beef, season it properly and grill it to order. Smithfield bar and grill on the other side of the market seems to get things right when I've been there and would be a much safer bet if you're in the area

Good to hear Marcus. I'm certainly going to give it another go, as I say that lunch I had in October was good food wise - I still feel the venue is a bit like a case of having all the right components but not quite working out how to get them working well together. I'd really like to return and do some kind of tasting menu to get a better sample of the different dishes there

I would have thought a decent non-stick pan would be OK? All Teflon coated pans will become dangerous if they exceed 500F which can quite easily happen with a dry pan. With a dry pan, yes, but in a pan with a good layer of oil as per in the TV show I'm not sure it would be an issue?

Cheers Holly, hope that it works!

Right, I've got on their facebook, but looks like I have another hurdle... the credit card system! It doesn't seem to want to accept my credit card as I don't have a valid Zip code. I don't, because obviously I'm over in the UK! I've tried googling this but is it a problem buying from overseas? I thought it might not be worth the effort trying and just try going to Alinea but now I realised I'm planning to be there in April during the El Bulli season (a restaurant I never got to visit) I figured I HAVE to go!

To be fair, when I visited the menu had changed a fair bit from around 3 years previously - nearly half the dishes were different and those I had eaten before had certainly been changed. Looking at the menu now, the venison and tafferty tart are different to the lamb and strawberry dishes I had in August - I wonder whether they are looking at changing 2-3 dishes seasonally?

I was actually thinking about doing EMP for lunch in addition, $70 for 4 courses seemed like good value

I would have thought a decent non-stick pan would be OK?

One thing I do find with a lot of Heston's recipes is that he does often call for a lot more butter/oil than you can get away with. It's usually beaten in towards the end though, so I usually cut down on it a bit.

Yeah it's something like $400 for the food isn't it? Nuts! I think I'd rather save a bit and do Yasuda

No Hakkasan, Yauatcha are still top dog for getting dim sum, certainly for the non traditional sort. I haven't been to Yauatcha for a while but in the past I've never seen that much difference in standard between it and Hakkasan (although if I was splitting hairs the dollop of tobiko on the shumai looks a little more miserly than its been in the past). Nowadays I tend to prefer the Mayfair Hakkasan, if only because you can eat in the daylight rather than being shunted into a dingy basement. The menu is slightly more westernised (e.g. TCR has a lovely beef tendon dish you don't see in Mayfair) but on the dim sum section its much of a muchness. To be honest though the level of places immediately below Hak/Yau it much more interesting. I mean the level of more modernish dim sum places which don't quite have the Hakkasan quality or attitude, but are a touch better than your bog standard Royal Chinas (the fact the RC is now sort of bog standard actually says a lot about the excellent quality of London dim sum). For example I am very fond of Shanghai Blues in Holborn. The dim sum, while not quite as good as Hakkasan is excellent. However the real plus is they just don't have the arsey attitude you get at Hakkasan (viz comments about service above!). Nowadays I just can't be bothered to deal with snotty staff, prebooking credit card details, being forced onto set menus for groups more than eight, fumbling around in trendy but essentially unlit toilets and generally getting treated like a piece of livestock. Its much easier just to stroll into Shanghai Blues, grab a hassle free table and hit the dim sum. As a bonus they also have a particularly good range of choice for veggies, if you decide to consort with such people. For another shot at modish dim sum also try Grand Imperial in the big hotel bolted onto Victoria station. For a place of its size it has surprisingly slipped completely under the radar. Their beef and foie gras guotie are ridiculously delicious. Slightly more on the level of Royal China you then have Pearl Liang and perhaps Princess Garden of Mayfair. PG is quite traditional but the standard is good, the location is great and - unlike RC - they let you book on weekends. J Thanks Jon, very helpful. My only real dim sum experience was at Pearl Liang - didn't have a lot, but I wasn't particularly impressed. Might try it again as it's a v convenient location for me. It's ridiculous that I've yet to visit the likes of Yautcha or Hakkasan yet though, for some reason I've always been happy enough lumping a fair sum on a tasting menu at one of the other high end restaurants in London but less so when it comes to cuisines i'm less familiar with but should prboably make an effort to get to know better!

Bit of a bump here - has anyone had any experience getting tickets here? I signed up on the website around October/November time as I'm looking at making a trip to Chicago sometime early this year but I've never received an e-mail saying that tickets are on sale

Thanks Eric, that's great. I'm glad that several of you have warned of the price hike at the Chef's Table @ Brooklyn Fare, I'm sure it's still worth it but when it puts it up towards the Per Se mark it makes it a much more difficult choice!

oakapple - funny you should say that, I've just come back because I'm reconsidering Per Se. Am I right in thinking it's roughly $300 for the food, but that includes a default service? I'm just thinking, by the time you add wine and service to places like eleven madison park and Brooklyn Fare, it's going to be a close run thing. I'm guessing with Per Se you'd probably leave a bit more than the standard tip, but even with that and a reasonable amount of wine I should be OK for around ~$500 no?

Thanks all Kajitsu looks excellent! I usually run a mile from vegetarian food but that looks amazing Sho also looks good - very reasonable prix fixe lunch should do nicely. I think those two, with some sushi, visits to momofuku, WD-50 and either Brooklyn Fare or possibly 11 madison park should just about fill us up May have to be a bit longer than a long weekend!

I think in the show, when he was cooking his steak, he said 45/rare, 50/medium rare, 55/med, 60/well-done, but that's by memory (and also pre-rest, so if you allow 5C of carryover, it maps pretty well). But the hamburger recipe says to pull it at 45C for medium-rare (the steak recipe has no temp listed). No biggie--it just caught my eye when I was looking at the text. Maybe someone misheard him. Ah - yes pre rest that sounds right

I think you miss-heard, medium rare should be 55C. His book has the scale as: 45C - bleu 50C - rare 55C - medium-rare 60C - medium That should really be an international scale of sorts, I know I always have problems going to Europe though!

Hi all, I'm planning a trip to NYC & Chicago for around 10 days probably towards the end of March and I'm currently a little unsure of which top-notch places to visit I've pretty much ruled out Per Se, myself and my friend just see it as a bit too expensive, but I like the look of the chef's table at Brooklyn Fare - although writeups seem a little thin on the ground? I'm also wondering about visiting one of the top Japanese places, possibly sushi Yasuda - I didn't try any Sushi last time in NYC, is this still the place to go (bar Masa!)? Soto also looks interesting

Still never been - I've never really had any decent dim sum. Are there better places in London for this kind of food?

That'd be very useful... but extremely time consuming!!!

As the link explains, we tend to refer to an uncooked ham as a gammon joint in the UK