Jon Tseng

Just a quick note on Franklins which recently opened on Kennington Lane on site for former painted heron. Random rustic French only three bus stops up from my house! Spotted the 1/5 kicking it got from Fay Maschler in the Standard last week. Partly I suspect on account of the cringeworthy pic of chef napping a grouse, partly because of Maschlers habit of reviewing restos before they've had a snowball in hell's chance of bedding in. Good for her and the Standard to get bragging rights to the first review, but a deplorable disservice to readers. C'est la vie. Anyhow the grub: - Lovely slices densely (fudgily) crumbed bread (soda bread?) came piping hot. Alas butter was a little stale. - Starter lamb shoulder with runner beans. Pile of sliced runner beans pungently dressed with garlic. Topped with a nicely sized tangle of shredded lamb - clearly slow-cooked first then sauteed off for service. Lamb not too fatty but - importantly - not too dry. Well seasoned esp. with all the garlic. Staying the right side of over-saltedness. - Main roast veal sweetbread. OK size chunk but wonderfully cooked. Brown outside and really nice and tender. Square of boulangere potatos on side. Could have done with some greens. Overall really nicely executed food. Menu reads well - think slightly toned-down st. john (e.g. menu for dulwich outpost http://www.franklinsrestaurant.com/menu.htm ). Very pleased to find a palatable Frenchy restaurant south of the river. Add on Upstairs in Brixton and Chez Bruce and that makes a grand total of three worthwhile non-Portugese or Halal places to eat in South London!!! What a shame Glas has fled to Islington... cheers J

you're welcome. for more background look at patricia wells cuisine actuelle / simply french book, although take the qualitative comments with a pinch of sale as shes a bit of a robuchon groupie ta J

Back in the '80s and '90s when Robuchon was king of the Paris three stars, he was famous for his stupendously rich, smooth and tasty mashed potato (or pommes puree). It was a sort of signature dish, one which he made his reputation on. Seen as a somewhat ironic take given that the hautest of haute chefs was building his rep on the humblest of kitchen table staples. From a broader perspective it contrasted with the parsimonious exactness of nouvelle cuisine - instead of finnicky little baby carrots here was a chef serving up rustic but rarified mashed potatos. It would not be unfair to say he singlehanded turned what was a relatively unfashionable spud preparation into an ubiquitous accompaniment in haute restaurants (think various Gordon Ramsay-alike presentations of a piece of seared protein with buttery/truffled/whatevered pomme puree on the side). Anyhow when he retired in 96-ish the pomme puree was no more (although I think his disciple Bernard ?Guichard would have been cooking a version in his homage-to-robuchon restaurants thru the 1990's; first at some random hotel I've forgotten and later at Jamin), until he started his Atelier/Table etc. revival in recent years. The secret of Robuchon's spuds has been much debated, but basically boils down to ratte potatos, carefully cooked (I've seen references to roasting then peeling them rather than boiling them), and a very high proportion of top quality butter (have also seen milk added in some recipes - notable Patricia Wells, though unsure whether it is canon). Try them and see Hope that answers your question Jonathan

For reference Pierre Gagnaire in Paris is well-known for discouraging happy snappers, although sometimes people do slip through the net. Speaking from a UK perspetive, Gordon Ramsay delivers well executed, consistent but not massively original mod-French food. Given the competition I see in NYC, my gut feel is he will have take take a step up in terms of either execution or innovation in order to make a splash. J

If you're after fine dining two points to make: a) Your best bet will be hotels. I should imagine most of the joints in the Gordon Ramsay stable will be open for business. >No wish, however, to be presented with a "festive" set menu. b) Ha. Snowballs chance in hell of that mate. Anywhere high end thats open will be offering a compulsory set tasting, at a minimum of £75 and more likely in the region of £110 before booze. Christmas, New Years, Valentines. On those days its basically a sellers market... If you do mind getting mugged by the credit card machine, however your best bet will be ethnic. I'd imagine most of the decent joints in chinatown will be open though check ahead. Good luck J

In my experience peking duck always served with pancakes, but sichuan tea-smoked duck is often served with little coin-sized mantou J

One thing that strikes me as unusual on both the tasting menus - three red meat courses (beef, mutton, pork). Strikes me as slightly unbalanced - although in reality I suppose portion size is a far bigger determinant of balance that wot the ingredient is (with the possible of exception of uber rich stuff such as foie gras) Sounds fun though. There was a write-up of their lancashire hot pot in yesterday's observer - you have to order it ahead though, apparently, as it takes six hours... J

Errr, Aberdeen Angus Steak House, mate?

Laverbread - actually a concoction of seaweed - would be the obvious thing to look out for. Otherwise I concur that it is difficult to think of uniquely welsh foods or dishes to speak of - a good Cawl (broth/stew) maybe or griddle cakes. Otherwise enjoy the scenery and the castles! I always find Dolbadarn in the Llanberis pass particularly wistful. J

Nono, not the noodle dish Literally ants on a stick! Basically variations on insects fried or cooked in bamboo sticks... A bit touristy to be honest (try the daijiacun restaurant in beijing) and /definitely/ an acquired taste! J

Note that I did not say Hunan was a variation on Sichuanese. And I am aware its very different from Sichuanese - less use of sichuan pepper and sugar than Sichuanese, an aversion to mixing sweet and savoury yaddayaddayadda. As I said, I would view western cooking as one of the four major branches of Chinese cuisine. Sichuanese and Hunanese would be subsets of this. As I also said, once you start folding in regional subsets of each of the major branches - Hunanese vs. Sichuanese, Imperial vs. Shandong vs. Beijing, Shanghai vs. Anhui vs. Jiangsi, Fujian vs. HK vs. Guangdong. Plus of course the pot-pourri that is Taiwan. And don't forget the 55 Chinese ethnic minority groups - the Hui (great beef noodle), the Uyghur (lovely kebabs), the Dai (ants on a stick, if that's your sort of thing), the mongols (roast dead sheep) etc etc - of course you get to eight, or ten, or a hundred different more cuisines. But as I said, most authorities would peg the major schools at four - northern, southern, western and eastern, with numerous variations thereof. ----------- As regards which cuisine is prevalent in US, UK etc note this is - obviously - a product of the chinese diaspora. Overwhelmingly this reflects the coastal provinces rather than inland. In the UK because of historic links with Hong Kong southern cuisine is prevelant. In the US the original wave of C19 Chinese migration was mainly from the coastal provinces to the West Coast so you had a lot of Fujian, Guangdong food as the archetypal Canto-American. After 1949 there was more migration from Nationalist China/Taiwan particularly to the LA area so there was greater prevelance of Taiwanese food. In the years before and after 1997 there has been another wave of Hong Kong immigration to both San Fran and Canada (particularly Vancouver) which has brought another wave of classical Hong Kong cuisine. For these reasons you generally find inland provinces - Xinjiang, Sichuan, Hunan - and their cuisine are less well represented amongst the Chinese diaspora in the west. Of course there are exceptionals - I know very good Xinjiang joints in San Fran, and there are a number of Sichuan places in NYC - notably Grand Sichuan. Nonetheless in my experience Chinese cuisine in the tends to reflect coastal (ie southern or eastern) schools rather than the north or the west. J

What are they? Most authorities accept a minimum of 8. eight cuisines sounds a bit strange. I normally take the four main branches according to the points of a compass as a given: 1) Southern/guangdong/hong kong 2) Western/sichuanese 3) Eastern/shanghainese/jiangsu etc. 4) Northern/beijing (you could probably split Northern into Imperial cuisine vs. Northern cuisine in general which would get you to five.) Of course there are regional variations ad infinitum e.g. Hunan vs. Sichuan, Shandong vs. Beijing, Muslim, Yunan etc. which would probably get you north of eight. However I would not regard these as major branches of classical Chinese cuisine. ? ← xiao liu, I would assume hao pengyou is referring to hong kong cuisine and either sichuanese or taiwanese, which I understand are the two schools of cooking most common in the US. In the UK the choice is even more restricted to just one - Hong Kong - for historical reasons. regards J

Haven't been for a bit, but there were some positive notices from former board members writing on other boards a few months back. Well worth checking out IMHO, one of the better hotel-bound-modern-haute joints in the city (and one of the few of note which haven't been swallowed up by the Gordon Ramsay empire as yet. Jun Tanaka is one of the most underrated haute chefs in London, IMHO (along with that bloke at Aubergine who is so underrated that no one can even remember his name... William Drabble, that's it! ) ta J

Also try Fine & Rare Wines for the mouthwatering, but the eye-wateringly priced www.frw.co.uk J

Mr Kong for specials, Chinese Experience for general + soup dumplings, Bar Shu for (pricy) unusual Sichuanese J

Hinds Head, Bray?

True Can be tough for big fish/small pond transitioning to London. David Thompson sort of managed it with Nahm. Christine Mansfield did not with East/West. The only other one I can think of is William Drabble who did it admirably at short notice at Aubergine (although I would note that it was an established establishment rather than a new opening). Hmmm. J

Yes, but does London need them? I think I'm right in saying that London already have four M2* places, along with a dozen aiming at a similar level. If Hibiscus moved to the smoke, that would mean Britain's two-stars would be spread equally, five each, between the capital and the provinces. While I'd like to have Hibiscus within Tube distance, I can probably survive knowing that my Zone 2 travel card will still reach Capital, The Square, Pied a Terre, Aikens, Greenhouse, Ledbury, Petrus, Connaught, Noisette, etc. etc. (Even if my wallet can't with any regularity.) ← Think would be a very good thing. With the exception of Tom Aikens (whos still * I think) and Bjorn and van der whathisface (although from early reports he may have de-hauted a bit at noisette) London's lacked real excitement at the aspiring ** level probaby since GR ascended. The rest of the **s - Capital, Square, PAT, Gavroche (and Petrus, thoughh its still *) are all there technically but basically do standard-mod-french (or for gavroche comfort-haute-french) which is lovely but not about to set the world alight. I have a nagging feeling in the back of my head this is partly down to the impact of the Gordon Ramsay stable, which brings consistency, stability and secure financial backing to what is a good porfolio of metropolitan *+ restaurants. But however much the restaurants bear the stamp of the individual chefs I always feel they're missing a bit of the individual verge you get at TA. Maze may the the honourable exception but thats not quite operating at the haute end. Possibly all I'm saying is that GR restaurants are too "corporate". I never was much good at precis. ??? J

course they have tongues! how else is you self-respecting cod supposed to eat an ice-cream cone? its not as if they have fingers they can use or anything... J

Only thing I've seen is the Amazon blurb: i.e. not the definitive account of his haute cuisine we've been looking for. On a related topic, the Crimbo pipeline for UK cheffy books is looking quite good this year. In addition to Heston we've got Tom Aikens, Mark Edwards (Nobu) and David Everitt-Matthias in print for what I think is the first time. Plus Fuchsia Dunlop's take on Hunan cuisine. Plus Heston. Makes a change from Gordon Ramsays: Tele Vision Tie-In In Your Kitchen, vol. VIII (IMHO his books have never been the same since he stopped collaborating with Roz Denny). Should be fun... Amazon linx below ta J ----------- Heston Fuchsia Dunlop's "Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook" Nobu and Mark Edwards' "Nobu West" Tom Aikens David Everitt-Mathias' "Essence: Recipes from Le Champignon Sauvage"

No idea, but chuck double cream into an ice-cream maker and it churns lovely creamy butter in a jiffy. ta J

in the same way that oriental city colindale is an authentic slice of far-east-style-mall (complete with nasty spot-lights and bubble tea), so the infanta is an authentic slice of eastern europe retail development. No, really, sometimes it does feel just - like - bucharest having said that though, i did find an absolutely spiffing second hand bookshop in there on saturday which had a copy of the elusive Masterpieces Of French Cuisine - a real piece of retro 70s haute chic (cf Great Chefs of France). Plus the Met Tab is opposite, which is always a reassurance for those of us a religious persuasion sojourning in the darkness of sarf london l8tr J

Received opinion is touristy I think. Pleasantly close to Borough Mkt, though...

Bar at Nobus non-booking right? You sit at the bar at Sheekey, Caprice and Arbutus, all of which are highly recommended (for food, atmosphere and value respectively). As for Sweary Gogs, I think Maze, Boxwood Cafe and The Savoy all do settings at the bar, while Petrus has informal bar-side tables. You may want to phone ahead to check though -- it's a while since I've been to the latter three. As for whether Ramsay's worth the trouble ... well, in New York terms, probably not: Maze is an anaemic version of WD-50, Boxwood would disappear in the streets around Union Square, and Savoy-like dining can be found quite easily in mid-town. Petrus is okay, but tends to be arse-clenchingly formal on a school night. One final caution: remember that while NYC has joined the 20th century, almost all London restaurants still allow smoking in their bars. You therefore run the risk of finding yourself next to a cohiba. ←

Knock off four quid the mineral water would have cost and twelve quid the half bottle of wine would have gone for and you're at thirty quid (which is ballpark for a cheapo london haute prix fixe)... Plus I have a sneaking suspicion Gavroche is one of the few restaurants in the UK where service is compris (Manoir's the only other one I can think of. Waterside?) which if so would make it even cheaper So not that bad a deal after all... J