Jon Tseng

AFAIK (I'm sure people will correct me if I'm rong) Adria's "taglietelle carbonara" is a stock set as a jelly and then cut into strips to resemble pasta. The secret is to use agar-agar instead of gelatin. Using gelatin it would just melt when warmed up; using agar agar it can be served slightly warm, but still as a jelly cheerio J

Simon, A spaghetti of chicken stock? Could you explain?? Was this like the el bulli spag made with stock set with agar rather than gelatin (to stop it melting when hot)?

Hehe, remember size is not always = culinary greatness. Errr, Russia anyone? ;-) On the fermented rice thing I remember in Korean restaurants in Beijing they had a wonderful tea made with fermented rice; it has a slightly sweet flavour. On the McD's thing it does have some advantages... the best loos in china!!! (aircon AND with bogroll!). anyhow still think half-price big macs are a fundamentally good thing (NB I am a bit of a philistine though - probably the only person I know who was MORE eager to eat hamburgers after reading fast food nation ;-) ) The one thing I missed in china was no frozen pizza. Lamb kebabs are another thing you can't replicate back home, no matter how hard you try. The best ones I had were in a street market in Turpan, in Xinjiang. The key was that there were big, fat, crispy chunks of fat threaded between the meet which oozed meltingness inside. YUM. cheerio J

I suspect that there is a difference between homely soups and restaurant/banquet soups. I agree that at home soups can be very simple. As I have mentioned before at home we have had chicken soup which is literally "poule au pot" - a rooster boiled in a pot with water. On the other hand there is a sophisticated variety of banquet/restaurant soups - your sharks fin or your corn and crab meat - based on "superior" stocks which require as much - or even more - effort than a trad western consomee*. Plus there is the difference between different regions of cuisine. And the whole medicinal soup/root herb thing. By the way, has anyone figured out if soup comes first or last in a formal banquet? Have heard conflicting advice from various sources cheerio J PS SOUP BASE - how come it is so much more flavoursome than western packet soups? Is it just the MSG??? * Did this the other week. The clarification works a treat and it looks sparkling clear - but I fail to see the point of emasculating a soup of half its flavour in order to make it look pretty

Morning, Pan Yes, I think that wuxi pork (is this the ribs, right?) counts as salt-sweet, though I think the sweetness comes from sugar rather than fruit (could be wrong on this one) My mum does braised spare ribs with star anise and soy sauce too; think it maybe a northern recipe, although she has lived in hk too so I could be wrong on this one. I think there are shreds of spring onion in it too. It ends up slightly sweet, melting and not that salty at all (think soy sauce diluted with stock) by the by the cuisine of the whole shanghai/wuxi/anhui region is known in china for its use of sweetness with meat; the dishes tend to be slightly heavier and sweeter than other areas. Think they use a lot of shaoxing rice wine too (very nice but as only 20% no use for hard drinking ;-) ) cheerio J

I agree with fifi, this is a fascinating camp I would fall firmly into the sweet camp. "honey-roasted" or, even better "crispy honey-roasted" is one of the most beautiful combinations of words in the culinary lexicon (although "cut-price foie gras" runs its quite close ;-) ). I was quite surprised, however, how much opinions were polarised on this thread! Anyhow, more seriously I gather the sweet-meat (also called "sweet and sour/aigre-doux" by the french, although I never figured out why as there doesn't seem to be much sour!) is one of the oldest combinations in cookery. A lot of medieval dishes in europe seemed to pair fruit with meat, leading to classical combinations like duck a l'orange. Because of that it's sometimes seen as "unsophisticated" (though none the less yummy for it). I presume there is a serious explanation eg fruit cutting through the richness of meat (ie foie gras with peach/raison/grape/orange &tc &tc) The chinese have been doing the sweet-meat thing a long time. One famous old dish is a lamb with with a sweet sauce whose name literally tranlsates into "its like honey" - apparently what the first thing the empress exclaimed when she was served it. Other classical favourites - honey roast pork, sweet & sour, pork with lychees (never quite got this one) By the bye, the first haute cuisine dish i had was roast suckling pig with apricots at raymond blancs in the uk. it was on the twenty five quid cut-price lunch and was startlingly good.

Hullo mate Welcome, again. Just out of interest, how much Korean and how much Muslim/Korean influences do you get where you are? I guess from what you said there's a fair bit of korean, at least (any dog? ;-) Would be interested in know what, if anything, distinguishes "manchu" food from northern chinese. As I said have had the baozi and sopping-in-oil stir-fries to death in beijing. General Tso's chicken is also unknown in the UK. Also, incidentally, chop suey (definitely invented in the US) never really features on menus here either (ok, hardly a surprise) I noticed KFC is everywhere too. I think they were the first of the western chains to break into china (87-ish). Interesting Burger King STILL doesn't seem to have cracked it... Dumplings are GOOD. The one thing I miss about the UK is not being able to pop down to the local jiazi joint at midnight and stuff my face with cut-price dumplings? What do people normally have for breakfast out there? In Beijing there is the most fascinating range of street food for brekkie - from tofu with chilli sauce, deepfried doughnuts, baozi and egg-cakes. Yum. cheerio J

In China they have garlic shoots, which are long, green stems with a wonderfully "meaty" texture. I rarely see them in western supermarkets (at least in UK) I presume they are from some sort of garlic, but think it may be different from normal western bulb garlic (they certainly don't taste that oniony) anyhow, worth a look for if you're in chinatown. they're called suan cai (lit. garlic veg) cheerio J

welcome, vamp. Where are you based? The big difference I found between chinese food in the UK (ie mainly HK food) and the grub in beijing was the real stuff was REALLY heavy, stodgy, braised aubergines with half an inch of oil sitting on top &tc. Very different from the "light, healthy stir-fry" image of traditional HK food we get in the west. brits aren't the only nation who can do stodge! cheerio J

Following on from the theme of encapsulation, the sensation of something "bursting" in the mouth. Think Meneau foie gras cromsequis (ok, not exactly pasta) or shanghai soup dumplings. J

I think it would actually quite fun to sit on the chefs table to watch the kitchen in action. Often you go to restaurants with an "open plan" kitchen barely visible through a stainless steel slit and you're squinting to see what's going on. Having said that, I agree that this is NOT the reason most people would go. Maybe I'm just wierd J

A variation is oeur miroir where you put them in a little bowl and blast 'em in the hottest oven til they turn shiny ("mirrored) on top. Very nice with mushrooms and ketchup, but a bit of a pain cleaning out the crockery afterwards... J

Yes, I think I've run across bits of the stuff lurking at the bottom of soup. Most unpalatable (the bits of chicken, I mean - the soup is invariably lovely) Chuck in ginseng, moo'er or various other funny fungi things. This talk of chicken soup (sort of) leads onto chinese chicken broth; having spent a great deal of time faffing around with bones, brunoise, browning, bouquet garni and the other paraphenalia which go into a fancy french fond, I went back home the other weekend and had chicken soup. Mum had simply taken a chicken (frozen - apparently they're bigger, cheaper and have more flavour) and boiled it with water for an hour and a bit. It made a wonderfully clear, meaty broth (surprising how clear it was - I was always under the impression this demanded much messing about with egg whites, gravy strainers or bits of kitchen towel. Anyhow, I was struck by how pure a simply a broth could be prepared with such simply ingredients. Chicken soup for the soul, indeed... J

aioli (proper pronoun: Luscious)

I'm sure Arnold Bennett is an MPW job Mirabelle?

Is that the first time she's done that since Lolas?

I do something fairly similar, but use my ice-cream machine for half an hour (not chilled, of course!) It tastes wonderfully creamy, but the texture is a little brittle rather than smooth. I believe this is down to the temperature conditions during the churning process, but am not au fait on specifics Unsalted butter rules! Beurre d'Echire (thinks its an isigny butter) is used in a number of excellent restaurants here in London. They also stock a wonderfully creamy bavarian unsalted butter in sainsburys supermarkets (I think I've said this all before, so apologies for those experiencing groundhog day.) cheerio J

The price is lower, the style is similar but the quality is not quite as good. The food is actually very similar to RHR (some dishes appear pretty much identical on the menu, at least) and the pre and post-meal amuses and dibdabs &tc are pretty much the same. Only thing is the execution standards are slightly below RHR (not surprising given its a *** and Claridges is *). If you want the "Gordon Ramsay experience" (with all the twiddly bits and bobs, penguin suits, silver trays &tc) give it a go, but if you want the best quality food try Square or Capital. Having said that I last went to Claridges over a year ago, so they may well have pulled their socks up since then cheerio J

Oh, Gordon Ramsay at Claridges does Sundays too cheerio J

That's correct; most "destination" restaurants in London tend to close Sunday (and Sat lunch). As a rule of thumb the ones which stay open are in hotels (presumably cos they have to stay open to provide victims - sorry, guests - with chow at weekends. Plus hotels have more staff/resources. Off the top of my head Capital and Foliage open Sun. I think the Square does too. Chez Bruce does Sunday lunch, note sure about dinner. Trompette the same. Gordon Ramsay does not open weekends at all. St John does not open Sundays I'm sure people can fill you in on the rest J

Appellenzer - nutty sweet St Marcellin Vacherin - pure cream!

I guess the view from 30,000 feet is that food service is a very mature industry (low barriers to entry, cutthroat competition &tc &tc). Normally I guess you'd see consolidation here. However consolidation tends to lead to generic chains (McDonalds, Pizza Express &tc). i.e. if normal market forces applied & consolidation occured traditional individual restaurants would tend to get wiped out. i.e. restaurants exist in contradiction to free market forces; this helps explain all the factors outlined previously which make the standalone restaurant such a sh*t business model i.e. low barriers to entry, high capital intensity, zero scalability, highly exposed to the cycle &tc &tc. cheerio J

I think Cognac is in relatively close proximity :-) J

what's the price point? j

EVERYTHING Don't hold back And welcome J