jayrayner
-
Posts
589 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Store
Help Articles
Posts posted by jayrayner
-
-
Early in December, during a trip to NYC, I reviewed Craft for my column in the Observer newspaper, in the company of Steven Shaw and his partner Ellen. The review is published this morning and I was going to send Fat Guy the online link, but due to gross incompetence that section of the paper appears not to be online today. So that meant sending him my original raw copy - in which case, i decided, I might as well post it here.
For background, the review is written for a British, very price-conscious readership, who are presumed to know little or nothing about restaurants in New York. The space is tight - just 700 words - which means no reference to the food poisoning I suffered earlier in the day, or the great efforts Steven made to rebook us into Craft after I had first cancelled. Or, in fact, any reference to Steven and Ellen at all. But they were there. Indeed Steven might even post the link to the photograph that was taken that evening of what landed on our table.
Anyway, enough already...
Craft, 43 East 19th Street, New York NY. Tel 001 212 780 0880. Dinner for two incl. wine and service, £140.
There are many cities in the United States where an emphasis on local produce might make a lot of sense. New York isn’t one of them. Have you heard about the verdant market gardens of Manhattan? The great acres of arable farm land between Times Square and Central Park? No, neither have I. And yet there are a fair number of eateries in the city right now who willingly declare themselves followers of the doctrine, most loudly propounded by Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, that menus should be driven by the twin demands of the locality and the seasons.
Craft on East 19th Street, founded two years ago by Tom Colicchio, the famed chef of the nearby Gramercy Tavern, is one of them. In keeping with the doctrine everything about Craft bellows ‘artisan’. The un-linened tables are hefty wooden arts and craft style platforms. The walls are either of bare brick or, on one side, panelled in slabs of over-lapping leather. And then there is the menu which uses a form of English so pared down as to make Hemingway blush. At each course there are simple headings like roasted or braised and then a list of ingredients given the treatment. So under roasted first courses it lists simply quail, sweetbreads, foie gras. With main courses (skate, monkfish, venison etc) you also choose from a very long list of side dishes. Or, as our waiter explained ‘At Craft we invite you to craft your own meal.’
This slogan is, I have to say, the only stupid thing about the place. Like we don’t ‘craft’ our meals at other restaurants. Admittedly, when it first launched two years ago, the menu was much more complicated. It demanded you choose both how you wanted each ingredient cooked and which sauces to go with each dish. New Yorkers, renowned for regarding formulated menus as merely an opening proposition to be reworked according to mood, were completely flummoxed by this outbreak of freedom. So the menu was simplified to its present state.
The result, to use a thoroughly elegant term, is stonking. Indeed, if you detected a certain cynicism in the previous three paragraphs it’s only because I felt the need to balance the dribbling enthusiasm that is to follow. The doctrine of simplicity is genuinely followed through on the plate. The very best ingredients the US has to offer - and they are now very good indeed - are cooked to their very best advantage in as unadorned and ‘unFrench’ a manner as possible. Naturally it will therefore cost you a week’s salary for, in the land of the free, nothing is - especially simplicity. Do without the hotel room to pay for it and sleep rough.
A starter of roasted Nantucket scallops, dinky and caramelised in their shiny copper pan, were the sweetest and simplest I have ever tasted. Raw Yellowfin tuna in three textures - as tartar, diced and sashimi - was acutely fresh. Ditto slices of a white fish called hamachi, marinated in sugar and salt and then left in peace. A main course of sirloin steak, alongside a chunk of melting fibrous shortrib and a piece of the marrow bone, was beef at its best. Organic roast chicken - something usually so much better cooked at home - actually tasted of the bird, had crisp moreish skin and came with a punchy golden gravy.
Then there were the side dishes, king among them a platter of roasted mushrooms - shitake, chantrelles and the exquisitely named hen of the woods looking like choir boys’ ruffles - which had been sautéed to a crispness about their extremities and salted but nothing more. Roasted Jerusalem artichokes were soft and unctuous with a sweet caramelised shell. We finished with impeccable brioche pain perdu accompanied by an outrageous caramel sauce, toffee steamed pudding and top scoops of caramel ice cream and blood orange sorbet. We drank just the one glass of wine between the three of us and the bill came to $300. Oh, stop hyperventilating. I did warn you. Just buy a sleeping bag.
ends
-
Not a bad idea. As I get all my best ideas from here anyway it's not too much of a stretch to nick this one too. Ate at the orrery 10 days ago, after Glavin had departed and I have to say it was bloody good. Pork belly and scallop dish was a particular fave. you must know how much it hurts to say this about any conran gaff but, hey, it's the truth. if you can stomach the corkage charge.
Rhodes might be a good bet before it goes; I hear sodexho are pulling the plug on his opertaions.
-
What people really want to know is how the food compares to Gagnaire in Paris? That's the most important issue for the haute cuisine crowd. Everything else is more about lifestyle then food.
And now we get to the crux of it. I'm not - and never am - writing for the haute cuisine crowd, and neither are any of my colleagues.
-
I'm thinking about reviewing but I'm not sure I could take the scolding from Plotnicki.
From an interview with Mourad Mazouz (most of which hasn't gone in to a finished and upcoming piece):
a) he says the place is financed to take more than five years to break even
b) quote: 'all I need to do is find 35 people a night in London who want to eat in the restaurant. Is that so hard?'
-
This just in from koffmann's pr people :
'...Pierre Koffmann and the berkeley hotel have agreed to part company. As they came towards the end of their contract both parties made the amicable mutual decision to follow different routes. La Tante Claire will close at the end of december 2002 and Pierre Koffmann will open his new restaurant in Autumn 2003.
So over... but not out.
-
They may well mistake you for Jay Rayner if you turn up in turn ups. Apart from the fact you are much slimmer than he appeared in the OFM picture.
Obviously I was wearing a prostheses stomach for the shoot, to protect my anonymity. It's my story and I'm bloody sticking to it.
-
And, on this occasion, caterer is correct. or at leats Nov 26 was the date given to me by mourad Mazouz and I suppose he should know.
-
if you mean on the web you can go to www.observer.co.uk and search within the site - but I have to say our archive is pretty cruddy. It may be better to do a google search under my name and a keyword like restaurant, freeloader or, if you're LMH, appalling devil's spawn journalist hack monster. You should find what yr looking for
j
-
Hmm - all very intriguing. A long while back - months - I plugged the lunch deal at Foliage in my column, not for a moment thinking it didn't include vat. A reader wrote to me, clearly pissed off, that their meal had cost x more than they thought it would. I agreed and offered to reimburse the difference as shoddy journalism had misled them (is this a first for British journalism? A restaurant critic paying for his readers?) They took the cash as a gesture and I then wrote to David Nicholls executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental pointing out the problem.
He agreed it was a problem and offered in turn either to reimburse me or give me lunch. Well hey, I'm only human and it is foliage (Took the managing editor there to renegotiate my contract; a truly fabulous lunch.) But Nicholls did say he would sort the situation and make the exclusive vat and service thing more obvious.
As I said at the time it still seems a pretty damn fine deal with them included. What's more troubling is that clearly they haven't done anything about it.
-
starting paying me to post and you'll get the cleanest copy in the land; until then, it's the friday afternoon knock offs for you.
-
My question is this? Is writing about one restaurant per week regarded by newspaper editors as a full time job and paid a full time salary? It's not a facetious question. I would really like to know.
No, it isn't. I write on a whole bunch of other things, plus I do books. Matthew is the food and drink editor of the guardian, overseeing the content of those pages in the mag whgile also working on his own projects. Gill has at least two other columns. Matthew Norman has nine other columns or something like that... and so on. I suspect that Fay has the closest thing to a single job reviewing restaurnats, but then she does two or three a week. I'm also 98% certain that all of us non-staff in some form or another be it contrcat or totally freelance.
-
It sounds to me like all of his business ventures were leveraged together, and the failing of one caused the others to crash as well. So I'm not sure there is anything to blame except his being overextended financially.
Not the case. These were two separate failures and all the worse for that. He's in France at the moment trying to decide what to do. I believe he's considering going in to top end private catering which seems to me a great shame. While he may not have been that great at the economics of restaurants he is a stunning chef, among the best Britain has produced.
-
It's tough but I'm willing to make the sacrifice. Back on the exercise machine - sigh.
-
THank you to everybody. It's been excellent and Bux, I really didn't expect everyone to be on target. It has raised a huge bunch of issues - particularly on the viability of french 3 stars - and I will now try to make it look like I came up with them all by myself.
I particulalrly liked the gambling analogy. once in Las Vegas I spent 20 hours over a weekend playing poker at the Luxor. Eventually I lost the entirety of the $300 I had allowed myself but it seemed to me serious value fun at $15 an hour. Then again as I was in vegas to interview John Wayne Bobbitt maybe I was just searching for distraction.
-
Wow. Don't any of you ever sleep? THis has, I think, turned into a grand and impressive thread with as much weight and gravitas as, ooh, the Haeberlin truffle.
A couple of points. one thing that seems to have been overlooked in the discussion of the economics of the three star is the notion of the loss leader. By the time the chef gets to that point they have reached a certain notoriety that allows them to diversify in a way which produces real crash. the flagship restaurant is what gives the rest of the business credibility. In the UK, all the recent three star chefs, bar Koffman I think have worked this way. Ladenis went on to open the simply nico and incognico chains, Albert Roux is renowned for his 'other projects'; Pierre WHite has used the credibility of the original three stars to produce a larger business; Ramsay is now doing exactly the same. It is true there can be a law of diminshing returns here. Pierre WHite has undoubtedly spent the currency his three stars earned him; Ramsay is in danger of doing so. but either way, as I say, the failure of the three star restaurant to make a rpofit is neither here nor there. the same applies wiht the likes of Ducasse and the Haeberlins. they have other, entry level restaurants. they ahve cookbooks. Some of them do television and branded foods. Some of them do catering. That's how they get rich.
THanks to Andy Lynes for reminding you all that I have an article to write. I mean really: if egullet isn't my own perosnal reserahc base what are you for? And thanks to Jaybee for remarking that $100 for a vela chop would be too rich for him. All useful stuff.
-
Okay guys. We've done the theory. Let's move on to practise. Do any of YOU mind paying bug bucks for foodie experiences? and if so, what arer the thigns you don't mind paying it for? And has it been worth it - within your own moral universe?
-
as soon as you ask it, you make expensive food ethically inseparable from every other dispensible luxury. Utter extravagance for the sake of personal pleasure is a single issue, not divisible into an ethical hierarchy.
You are absolutely right, but I don't think the general populace thinks like that. (and, at the risk of rooting this in my day job, I will eventually be writing for a general readership.) THere is an understanding of why the wealthy shell out for art or cars or jewellery. but when it comes to food and wine I think a lot of poeple raise an objection.
It offends them and I think this is why: art is not seen as having a utilitarian analogue. It is ephemeral and therefore whether you decide to pay hundreds or millions for it is less relevant than whether you make the decision to spend your money on it in the first place. food however is a necessity. the starving need it to survive. therefore spending vast sums on it is seen as repugnant. I don't hold this view, but boy do a lot of my readers. I am happy to see a particular level of haute cuisine shift comfortably into the same sphere as art or classic cars or jewellery: a luxury upon which one may chose to spend one's excess income. Whether you do so with taste or not is up to you.
Does this make any sense?
-
Steve
I agree with you entirely on the wine mark ups and it's one of the reasons I'm rather less interested in the issue of buying big wines in restaurnats than shelling out for expensive dishes. Buying big ticket wine is, all too often, a case of running your finger down the list till you reach an appropriately big enough number. Anybody who was really interested in grand wines is unlikely to buy them in big ticket retsaurants because of the mark ups. (It was one of the issues raised around the bankers who paid £44,000 last year at Petrus; if they'd really given a damn they wouldn't have ordered the '46.) Bottles of wine are objects, to be traded much like any other.
but a dish is, I think, different. Sure, you can have big number ordering for the sake of it: bring me the rarest caviar you have etc.
But, for the most part, it takes rather more, well, taste to show an interest in the more expensive dishes. Or at least I suspect it does.
-
Steve - actually I don't think I am too concerned by whether there is a sense of proportion to the difference between the value of the items you buy and the charges made for them on the menu. Naturally that's of interest, but I think it has more to do with Jon and Fat Guy's point about the value of experience or the willingness to place value upon it.
in the dish I describe the truffle is obviously a big bucks item. (No idea how big bucks: what's the going price for a whole black perigord truffle anybody?) But then there a whole bunch of other things: the 25 strong brigade in the kitchen, the exclusivity of it being the haeberlin truffle dish served by a haeberlin; an experience which no one else can replicate because they are not the auberge de l'ille. Involved in the cost is the exclusivity of that place at that table over looking that river. What I'm really interested in, I suppose, is the intellectual cart wheels we will pull in an attempt to justify the experience to ourselves.
Btw - nobody has chimed in yet with any of their big bucks dining experiences and their feelings about them
-
That sound you can hear is my jaw hitting the ground. That bottle was on the list at 330 euros. Gosh. thank god I wasn't paying.
I'll look at the arpege thread. just out of interest was the veal chop 212 for two or 106 for two?
-
This is a post in two parts. The first is an account of a meal I ate recently at L'auberge de L'Ill in Illhaeursen as part of the research for an article I have written for the newspaper which has the good taste to employ me, the Observer. It leads in turn to a request for help with another article that the experience has intiated. So forgive me if this post is over long.
First the background. The Observer publishes a supplement, so adored and respected by so many on egullet, called Observer Food Monthly or OFM. I write a regular feature called the Observer classic: a piece about a restaurant which is, of its type a classic. THey are not always gastronomic restaurants. But they do have something about them which makes them worthy of note. I try not to make them hagiographies. Many of the places that fit the brief can have clear absurdities, be they price, an overly developed sense of self-importance, or food and service which is more in thrall to its own history than is strictly healthy. Among the ones I have wirtten about so far are: Harry's Bar in Venice, The Algonquin in New York, Bofinger in Paris and The Palace Hotel Gstaad.
I have always intended to get to the Auberge de L'Ill because, well, it represents the gold standard for gastornomic restaurants with so many miles on the clock: a restaurant on that site has been in the Haeberlin family since 1878. It won its first Michelin star in 1954, its second in 1962 and its third in 1967. Only Bocuse has held three for longer, by one year. THe current chef, Marc Haeberlin - son of paul who first won the stars - was happy to co-operate and invited me to be their guest. I happily agreed. It wasn't a review and better, I thought, to let them serve me the essence of the place. Frankly my paper would never have swallowed the bill (which we will come to later); certainly not on top of the air fare, car hire, hotel... enough justification already.
First the basics: the Auebrge is a chunky handsome buidling, modelled on an old Alsatian Farm house, though built after WWII when the first one was bombed to the ground. It now stretches back through a set of glossy extensions along lawns and gardens that look out over the fast flowing river. The place has heft. It is also a truly family affair: Marc's sister and uncle do front of house, his mother was doing the flowers in the dining room, his brother in law runs the newish hotel and Paul, now 79, is still in the kitchen every day kibbitzing over the sauces (though i doubt he speaks yiddish). At one point I found myself sitting in chef's office, at the back of the kitchen complex - and it really is a complex - surrounded by half a dozen Haeberlins discussing the service to come.
And so, to dinner. I was dinning alone but it is a mark of the service that I never felt odd or uncomfortable with it. I did take notes and then... left my notebook back in the office so forgive me if I'm a little rusty on certain points. I had asked chef to decide my menu and said only that it might be helpful if it included a couple of classic Auberge dishes, which it did. I also left the wine in the hands of the Sommelier Serge Dubs, a terrific man with a terrific list.
An aperatif of a muscat was followed by a first amuse of a square of red mullet on a salad of shelled broad beans with the occasional slick of reduced balsamic. It was, I think the lightest dish of the meal and those sweet crunchy beans were possibly the only concession to modernity. The fish had a ripe, fishy end that is not common to mullet. With this came a local 2000 Riesling from one of the smaller houses, which was light with only a hint of the floral end the grape can produce. Next, a second amuse of seared foie gras: not the best piece of searing, I will admit. It was just a little over cooked inside for my liking. The piece that turned up with the next course, the tripe salad with croutons and a fried quails egg, was much better. Apparently the foie gras is not normally there but chef just wanted me to try it that way. The tripe was soft without being flacid, and was dressed with a quite accidic pommery mustard dressing which presented the young riesling with a challenge.
the sommelier then insisted that I try a glass or two of a 1988 Riesling from the greta Hugel et Fils, just so I could see what the grape could do. I'm afraid it was unfair competition: it was huge and dense, sticky with glycerine and the colour of amber. Truly fabulous.
Onwards and the first of the great auberge de l'ill dishes: the salmon souffle. I can see why it is such a classic. The soft souffle casing, the flaky fish, the creamy riesling sauce. It pretty much sums up post war french haute cuisine. And it was at this point that I understood what cabarales meant about the food here lacking modernity. Well yes, it does but I think that's the point. Sure, a lot of it is has been updated (the serving of the souffle is smaller these days) but the essentials are still there. And it is executed wiht such precision thta one can't really object to it being 'old fashioned'. To go with this I was served a big round Mersault (domaine lies in my notebook) which also stood up well to the next course, lobster with sauteed ceps. A truly terrific dish, full of big sweet honeyed, caramelised tones.
Next - and I knew it was coming - the truffle. THis is a truly outragous dish (described to me by one of my foodie friends as the gastronomic equivalent of the deep fried mars bar and I know what she means.) A whole perigord black truffle, wrapped in foie gras, wrapped in pastry and deep fried, and served on a deep meaty sauce, thick with more black truffle. yours for 125 euros a pop. To go with this Serge dubs came up with a Cos D'estournel saint estephe 1994, a huge bordeaux, with big fists (330 euros). It took me ten minutes to consume and the combination was truly sublime, one of those vast sensory experiences that makes you feel both smug and guilty at the same time. THe truffle is truly outragous; not just the distilled flavour of the earth but also the textures of truffle and liver and crumbly pastry. Oy vey. (And i will return to this point in a second).
I believe chef wanted to move me on to a meat course at that point, but I declined. After that there was nowhere else for the meal to go. I asked for the cheese to go with what was left of the wine - and there was a terrific epoisses that turned it into a mellow giant - and then a selection of deserts which were, good but not particularly memorable. perhaps nothing could be after that truffle.
And so to the second part of this post. If I had paid for it, the truffle/cos d'estournel combo would have cost 450euros or £300. That's £30 a minute, 50p a second. Can I justifiy it morally? It's an awful lot of cash for very little time. I am a die hard restaurant goer but even I feel a little repulsed by this. But... but... In this case the thing which makes me less morally repugnant (to myself) is the fact that I was freeloading. My ligging almost redeems me. Or does it? And am I over reacting?
It's an issue we - by which I mean I - am going to be investigating for a piece in the food mag. I want to look at the issue of how much is too much for food and wine. or is it simply that some people prefer to spend their excess income on art and others on food? My parameters for the piece are clear. I'm not really interested in those prepared to spend £100 a head for dinner. there are a relatively large number of people who can do that. It's about the next level. The £300 truffle experience. It's the 260euro poulet de bresse at bernard loiseau, the 94 euro truffle and potato starter at gerard boyer.
SO, is anybody willing to talk about serious high cost meals? ABout the experience and justification, if they felt any was needed. the qualms and the pleasures. And any other examples of hyper expenisve dishes would be appreciated (I'm a little less itnerested in high cost wines, because that is rather more accepted as a fact of the table). Natually I'm looking for people I can quote, either directly by name or anonymously. But I won't do so before firts contacting anybody who ha smade a point here via the message system. If thsi just turns into an interesting discussion from which I can not quote, then that's fine. I can look elsewhere.
That's the pitch and I hope no one is irritated by me making it. People here are so well informed it would be foolish not to try and tap into that resource.
-
Well Maison Kammerzel it is then. thanks to you all. (And also for the fabulous Auberge de L'ille thread where I am eating tonight. have printed it out in its entirety for background. Gosh egiullet's useful.)
-
I have discovered I have a free lunchtime in Strasbourg on friday. can anybody point me in the direction of the echt Alsatian brasserie?
Jay
-
Ah, Spoon+ I remember it well, much as I recall my first dental extraction. Clearly it must be congratulated for possessing one quality: consistency. here, from a couple of years ago when it first opened, is my review which I share with you because I don't think I'd express it any better now (and LML feel free to throw one of your pthy repsonses at me.)
Whenever a critic writes a review of a restaurant in one of the achingly hip hotels owned by Ian Schrager - the man behind the Royalton in New York, St Martin’s Lane in London and now the Sanderson on a site just North of Oxford Street - a hand-written card arrives, as if from the man himself. The one I received after I expressed my complete disdain for Asia de Cuba at St Martin’s Lane said something like ‘Please do try us again’ which was, and remains, a victory of hope over expectation.
Can I suggest, Mr Schrager, that when you come to sending me a card after this review of Spoon at The Sanderson it says: ‘I apologise for running such a nasty money-grabbing operation.’ For Spoon is, without doubt, the most outrageous exercise in separating punters from their cash currently at work in the capital. Not that the punters appear to mind; it took me three weeks to get a table. Spoon is what they call hot.
The night I went the bar, a grand rectangular affair of onyx and shimmering lights, was packed with the sort of people who prefer mirrors on the horizontal rather than the vertical, the better to powder their noses. Perhaps they are also the kind of people who don’t notice prices, for it is here that the outrages begin. While I waited for my companion I ordered a glass of South African Sauvignon Blanc. I was told it was £7.50 and, swallowing hard, handed over a tenner. I got back £1.40. I looked at the receipt. Apparently a 15% discretionary service charge had been added to my bill. For the serving of a glass of wine at the bar. This is one way to guarantee that a fine glass of white wine will leave a nasty taste in the mouth.
Thus fleeced we were lead to the dining room which, again, is a clever space of pale shades in which everybody can look at everybody else. The menus, like the prices, are of staggering proportions. If you were caught in a forest on a rainy night one of these could easily serve as a bivouac. But then the menu needs to be big to contain the silliness within. I had always thought that one of the reasons for going to a restaurant is so that clever people, who know how to cook, can come up with lots of interesting ways to combine interesting ingredients. Not at Spoon.
The great Alain Ducasse, who has sired not one but two restaurants in France boasting three Michelin stars each, is here the consultant. His big idea is to break dishes up into their ingredients and then let you mix and match. Or, as the illiterate menu puts it, ‘If you are like switching and changing we invite you to zig zag through the different columns and think the unthinkable.’
For our starters we were not yet brave enough to really go for it so we chose two of the non-fragmented dishes. I had pork and shrimp ravioli with a piquant tomato sauce which were fine, the kind of thing you could find in china town for £3.50, and certainly not fine enough for a price tag of £14. My companion’s ceviche of seabass - the fish ‘cooked’ in a citrus marinade - was rather good: delicate, fresh, succulent. As it should be for £16.
For my main course I decided to try and think the unthinkable by combining the grilled saddle of lamb at £20 with the truffle sauce that was meant to go with the veal and the macaroni cheese which, after tasting it, I concluded should not have gone with anything. I was intrigued to see how the kitchen would bring these ad-libbed set of ingredients together. The answer is they don’t. The lamb and the solid gummy strip of macaroni cheese were situated half a foot away from each other on the plate like a dysfunctional married couple on the verge of divorce. As to the sauce, that came in a little bowl on the side, complete with a congealed skin, which was attractive. My companion’s grilled squid (a mere £17) came with the same tomato sauce as with my starter and a little splodge of truly nasty mango gunk.
The wine list has nothing below £20. We chose the second cheapest, a bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at £23. Spoon clearly didn’t think this was enough. It appeared on the bill as £45, bringing the total including that ‘discretionary’ service charge to around £165. I complained. The bill went down to £136. I gave them my credit card. Back came the receipt with the service charge box left open. I knocked the tip down to 10%. When they saw what I had done all hell let loose. What had happened, they asked? What had they done? I explained. Oh, they said. After a five minute pause they announced they would denote my table ‘non-service.’ Hence a bill of £119.
Many of you could be forgiven for becoming rather tired of the recent run of reviews: new London restaurants each worse than the last, throwing up bills well north of £100. For what it’s worth I see this and the previous two as a kind of trilogy, a description of what happens when the economics of restaurants becomes so perverse that the last thing to matter is the food. It’s tiresome and it’s depressing and I too have had enough of it. Normal service will now resume. Promise.
Spoon+ at Sanderson, 50 Berners Street, London W1. Tel 020 7300 1400. Price of dinner for two including wine and service, whatever the management thinks it can get away with.
Craft
in New York: Dining
Posted
Andy
First question: when I said 'a British, price-conscious readership' I was specifically referring to the Observer. As this review is followed, over the next two weeks, by lunch at Sketch and then Winteringham Field they are going to go ballastic. Believe me, by week three it will have to be a fiver a head or I'll be lynched.
Second question: it eats very well. you take what you want or what those that ordered each dish will allow you to have. THe presentation lies in its arrival on the table rather than your placing on the plate.
Finally, thanks Fat Guy, for posting the pic. Do you never sleep?