Jon Tseng

Sounds good Was always somewhat underwhelmed by PP at dinner. IMHO Golden Palace twenty minutes up the met line is far superior. Maggie, even at your stage of advanced senility you should realise Hakksan beats PP hands down. If you're counting the pennies thing about Golden Palace. Or the place upstairs in the Wing Yip supermarket off the north circular. J

Train it out to the Fat Duck Gordon Ramsay/Tom Aikens posh franglais can be had stateside. If you have only one shot you want to try something you're not going to be able to get back home. Also, if he is interested in the cooking side you're going to see more innovative techniques out there. Plus re dress code the place is pretty laid back. J

Yes, this was a very impressive meal. Thoughts in no apparent order 1) Full up on a lunchtime (albeit on a Friday). 2) Very nice looking cheese trolley which didn't have. 3) Apparently a brigade of 12, which sounds large (around 45 covers) - although one thing would note is food/plating looks horribly labour intensive. 4) Lots of "cassonades" on the menu - amuse, starter and in various deserts. By this I think they mean barely-set eggy custards like Japanese chawan mushi (sp); this isn't a term I've come accross much in restaurants (I think Gordon Ramsay at Aubergine used to call his creme brulees "cassonades" because of the serving container). One minor fault - was served a the duck cassonade with quails egg amuse - having ordered the chestnut/foie gras cassonade with fried egg starter. They really should have subbed in something a bit less similar. 5) Starter Chestnut cassonade with foie gras mousse, fried duck egg and turnip, I think. To be honest, a big brown splodge on a plate. Cassondade/custard topped with thin escalope of sauteed foie gras (goose I think judging by side) with egg on top napped with a brown (foie gras?) sauce and a white foam. Think bits of diced turnips scattered around. Sinfully good - extremely rich - very good portion size. If I would pick up on anything foie gras escalope a little over done (which is inevitable when you have such a thing slice). Also the foam was useful in covering up all the fat which leaked out of the foie gras as you ate it - one of the presentational problems you tend to have with sauteed foie is the big slick of oil it leaves all over the plate which can mess up the best of saucing. 6) Main Plate with various bits of suckling pig. Roasted chunk of belly, what looked like a shaslik kebab ("beignet of pork and celeriac"), some more rolled bits of belly and a couple of miniature pork chops - looked a bit like lamb chops. And a deep fried breadcrumbed cube of pork/cheese. Plate was brushed with a carrot puree. Basically one of the big composed show-off dishes. Everything well executed apart from the belly meat being a bit overdone (common fault) and some completely irrelevant bits of battered squid which had also sneaked onto the plate. Oh, and the cheese thing was a bit random. Pork cordon bleu perhaps? 7) Pudding a piece of roasted pineapple with pineapple jelly (a nod to the Fat Duck perhaps?) and a really excellent pineapple sorbet. 8) Overall the best meal I have had this year - technically assured and exceptionally complex cooking. Definitely worth a second star. 9) No canapes - all the restaurant critics said they got shedloads of canapes at the table. So did Moby when he came in the evening. Maybe its only a supper thing? cheerio J

Starbucks in London also do them, or something damn similar cheerio J

those are those thin round ones with chewy sweet paste in the centre, right? devastatingly addictive! J

Ribena is luscious, but does nasty things to your sugar intake. Avoid low-sugar or blackcurrant-and-apple versions when I was in university I drank it by the pint. I can confirm Ribena and vodka makes a wonderful summer cocktail - best thing is when you throw in a handful of frozen raspberries in lieu of ice-cubes It would also, theoretically, make wonderful milkshakes but unfortunately curdles milk On a related note, I had blackcurrant cordial with lager in a polish mountain hut once. Tastes a lot better than it sounds! cheerio J

I think cooking extravagantly - with the best quality and/or special ingredients - with truffles, foie gras, the best spanish ham etc. DOES make a difference However I think microscopic attention to detail sometimes makes a difference and sometimes does not e.g. using Italian mineral water - who will taste the difference if, say, there's a big plug of charcuterie and garlic floating around in the dish? Using the finest sea salt instead of table salt in a soup where the salt will dissolve in the broth (chemically they are virtually identical - its the shape of the crystals which makes the difference), cooking vegetables with the lid off to make them greener (simply not true) One of the great benefits of the incursion of food science into the kitchen is to debunk some of the urban myths which people think make a difference to the food, but do not. Yes attention to detail sometimes matter, no it doesn't always matter. But extravagence does make a difference J

Poulet demi-deuill (poached chicken with black truffles stuffed under the skin) what did u say ur budget was again? J ps in french cooking "demi-deuil" ("half-mourning") generally denotes black-and-white dishes

In China they sometimes have cold boiled peanuts (shelled, but still in the thin skins you get inside) as an appetiser before the meal most enjoyable J

If anyone sees fuschia ask her when shes going to open her restaurant i could kill for some dan dan mian right now and don't get me started on the dumplings... J

Agreed. I suspect a lot of the secret to the "sloppy" texture is lots of fat the same is true of shanghai dumplings; you think that tasty broth all comes from adding jellied stock? Think again! cheerio J

Woodlouse in the pasta. Alive. Le Petit Blanc, Oxford J

Ooops, yeah quail - kale - caille - all the same once you take out the feathers and add lots of garlic

Stuck my observations in the wrong thread cheerio J

Went for supper Fri with Maggie and Moby. Good food and concept; particularly given tis south of the river Dining room opens up at six and was filled in about twenty minutes. Most people from the first sitting seemed to be kicking out nine-ish, so that might be a good time to come if you're angling to get a table in the reprecharge. Don't know if they were taking names or not. Basically its the same system as used for dim sum - provided there's enough demand it means all tables will be in use all night, with obvious positive benfits for the profit and loss account... Accordingly myself and moby used the usual dim sum excuse "yes the others have arrived; they're just parking the car" (ten minutes later maggie rings and says she's just got to waterloo...) Starters: - Deep fried calves brain, sauce gribiche. Creamy inside, crunchy outside. Perhaps the coating a little to thick; perhaps the sauce a little to strong for something as delicate as brain. Nice though - posh chicken mcnuggets - Duck gizzard salad. Gizzards nice, tasty, warm; basically taking the place of lardons - Terrine - very nice. Laced with prunes (I think) whose sweetness added a great deal - Smoked sprats with horseradish. - Snail risotto; a hint of garlic, but not as much as the fat duck porridgy version Main: - Whole slow-roast duck to share. Great dish in concept for sharing round the table, although the mean itself was overdone and undersalted. Skin very nice and crispy. Basically the whole duck turned up in a big deep giant cocotte-type dish in a bath of soup/stock with spuds in. Stuffed with two wonderfully livery faggots - On the side some nice garlicy quail, a slightly overcooked duck-fat potato rosti, and another veg which escapes me Pud: - Caramel ice cream; really nice; right mix of bitterness and creaminess - Rhubarb jelly went very well with shortbread - Lemon (polenta?) cake - So-so. Moby liked this. - Chocolate tart - ok; texture not perfectly smooth - more like a ganache than a cream inside. But good chocolate flavour - and a really great wafer-thin pastry Bill thirty five quid each including a bottle of red. We stuffed ourselves. Overall a good nick and good value. Honest food and the menu selection a little more interesting than the Mothership, St John - although I would say technically the quality of the cooking (eg the duck) a touch below StJ. Although would hasten to say that is up against some of the highest quality cooking in the Captial Cheerio J

Sichuan also has its riffs on street food/snacks/dumpling joints. Sort of like dim sum, but much less known There are places in Chengdu where you go in and order a set menu of 15-20 little dishes. very well worth it J

Bodeans perhaps? Gay Hussar? Chinatown? But yes, agree in terms of ratio of decent places to vast tide of crappy no-name joints cheerio J

Also think about Gary Rhodes new place in Tower 42 in the City great views, mutton steaming pudding and other goodies http://www.rhodes24.co.uk/ cheerio J

No. Yes, I agree, it is FLIPPING annoying. Market opportunity anyone??? (especially given how much english like spicy food) some cantonese places might do so sichuanese dishes. Have had mapo tofu and strange-flavour (or fish flavour, can't remember) pork in this country - done proper with tingly sichuan peppers etc. cheerio J

Yes, do it medium or rare won't kill you i think J

Hullo Cheng What is the food at the Courtyard like? As I said I've heard about it but never been there And Jing? Also is Uygherville still around (if so where is it nowadays?) - it always seemed to be in the process of getting knocked down and relocated by the constant building works; would be interesting to know it its still around cheerio J

Hey Gary On those photos of xiaolongbao what were the Beijing ones? (apart from, yeah, blatantly not xiaolongbao!) - haven't seen them before; what was inside them? They actually looked spookily like the shanghai version of shao mai they sell on the streets - stuffed with steamed rice and chinese sausage cheerio J

Couple of thoughts on poaching then having cold - Obviously lets you prepare ahead - very useful if entertaining - 40c is the magic temp in middle for just-cooked fish (although maybe take it out a little lower as it will continue to cook as it cooks). digital thermometer very useful - If your pot isn't big enough you can cut the salmon up and poach the bits - cut it with a zig zag so the piece fit together after like a jigsaw - you can cover the gaps with a thin layer of homemade mayo or sauce vert (basically mayo with herbs zapped in it) and then cucumber scales. the mayo also covers up any dryness if you overdo it ;-) cheerio J

Did this many years ago - yes it takes time - clear a couple of hours, put on your favourite music and take a seat! inevitably you get quicker as you go along, though Start taking out the wishbone and work down the carcass peeling it away like a little bag. Try not to tear the skin, though you inevitable do Didn't bother to debone the legs (for obvious reasons!) though this can be done with poussins and chickens If I recall I stuffed them with apples and sausagement and roasted them. Quite cool when you bring them out and people find out you can cut right through the middle cheerio J

Unsalted butter tastes like butter, salted butter tastes of salt. Definitely in the unsalted camp! J