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jayrayner

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Everything posted by jayrayner

  1. Judging from his appearance on Cooking It last night Jay really has been "Marcoed" to the point of trying to look like him. I haven't seen you for a while, I didn't recognise you, it makes you look a lot younger! ← Yes. I'm 23 now.
  2. Such suspicious folk. To take the various points raised here in no particular order, her soup really was spankingly good: intense, rich but without being overwhelming or simply too salty. It was a strong piece of cooking. Yes, they cooked in real time, and no we had no way of knowing who was who. And indeed my two colleagues didn't have any idea there was a faking it element to the show (though, for various reasons too complicated to explain, I did. Nevertheless I didn't have a clue who was who and, not knowing, voted on execution alone.) The two other chefs do each have five year's experience, but not perhaps in the most illustrious of places: both, as I recall, out of town or grand airport hotels. Nevertheless one of them prepared a very good gezpacho. But it was not as good as the winner's fish soup. None of the meat dishes were as impressive as any of the soups but again, hers did the job (though the description was a little confusing. Both Paul Merret and I wondered why you would bother putting any flavouiring in a salt crust, as salt crusts seal meat and any traffic would, osmotically be out rather than in; the salt pastry nature of it made more sense.) And yes, all of us like venison. A final point. In the after match interview I did say it was very good cooking but were those the only two dishes she could do? The answer I now see is yes. Still and all, I think it made for fun food television. As for the outcome of each show it ain't predictable. I suggest you carry on watching.
  3. I think that was mine: I spent the best part of a day with him trying to find out what he owns. Came up with a blank. Eventually we published this (and forgive the longish quite; I think it's illuminating to the discussion):
  4. If I was you I would replace the section headings with those old stalwarts starters, main courses, puddings before some smart arse restaurant critic comes in and whips yours arse for it. Entirely unreasonably of course.
  5. It's easy to run up a bill for one like that - if you have five starters, two main courses, a £33 bottle fine, aperitif and digestif. My price estimate is based on a (reasonably sized) meal for two, plus a bottle from the lower reaches of the list and a bottle of water. Take off Gary's champagne and calvados, drop the price of the wine and you are well within my £150 top out. All of which means I think Matthew's six to ten plates each is completely excessive. And I don't think I coudl ever be accused of having a bird like appetitie.
  6. I do recognise and accept the point and have indeed written about it; a little like members of the royal family, we assume all restaurants smell of wet paint because the pones we visit do. That said, I hold to my feelings about Simpsons and, more generally, if I were going to Birmingham or knew anyone who was I would tip Jessica's over Simpsons any day.
  7. Jessica's every time. but don't take my word for it. Read this and this. Oh, hang on. Those are my words... Oh well.
  8. I agree with the ever correct poppyseedbagel. Hay Fever is set around a country house party. Therefore you can be a rather less intricate: think kedgeree, devilled kidneys and boiled ham with parsley sauce and you won't go far wrong. If you want to be a little exotic go for peach melba, invented by escoffier for dame nellie well before the 20s but still very popular then. And to the contributors in the US, no, British food in the 20s was not the same as that in North America.
  9. You know this is almost enough to get me to return to the burb of my birth. But, er, not quite.
  10. ← Hmm. Not much arguing with that is there. As I am my own researcher I will just have to punish myself.
  11. Not as I understand it. The first Hell's Kitchen was shot in Los Angeles in October of 2004 (lucky me: I got to eat there on its second night). The deal with Fox to do it predated the shoot by a good few months. Indeed I believe it was only a few weeks after broadcast of the first british one, in May of that year, that the Network contracted him.. And at that point, according to the Ramsay organisation, they had no plans to do anything in the US. And I would challenge you to find anything in the cuts that proves otherwise. ← I'd hazard a guess that if they announced a deal in March 2005 they were probably looking a good long time before that, as I say I remember Ramsay talking about the states a long time ago (I'm from London inceidentally), my only surprise is the amount of time it took him. ← Just telling you what I know from the research I did for the gastronomy goes global piece in OFM which involved talking to all the people involved. But you're welcome to contradict me. I don't honestly care that much. And Matthew, I do know you're from London.
  12. Not as I understand it. The first Hell's Kitchen was shot in Los Angeles in October of 2004 (lucky me: I got to eat there on its second night). The deal with Fox to do it predated the shoot by a good few months. Indeed I believe it was only a few weeks after broadcast of the first british one, in May of that year, that the Network contracted him.. And at that point, according to the Ramsay organisation, they had no plans to do anything in the US. And I would challenge you to find anything in the cuts that proves otherwise.
  13. Bit closer in to london is the Charles Napier at Chinnor. Truly fantastic setting, and v good food the last time I ate there.
  14. First class? I should be so bloody lucky. I have to go with the bikes. I should point out, for the benefit of the pedant of a reader who wrote to tell em that trains do not run to wells (and that therefore my review was incorrect), it did also require £52 in round trip cab fares from castle carey. I'm intrepid me.
  15. Glad to hear it. they were still unitemised when I went for dim sum two weeks ago yours Gerald
  16. Aw, come on. those stairs are so narrow they'd be a challenge for a nurse trying to fit a catheter up them.
  17. ...and a certain Ms Maschler. ← YYeh well fatty rayner (doesn't he look more and more like his mum!) lives in south london, which is unusual for a journalist so he's well-placed to find a gem. Elephant & Castle though, what a teribble, terrible **** hole and I say that as a sarf lundoner born and bred. S ← Dear boy, I can always lose weight, but you will forever be cursed with that filthy mouth of yours. You're right about Elephant and Castle, though. And I was wrong about nobody writing to defend the place. Couldn't move for emails from embittered E&Cers. Love, as they say, is blind.
  18. Question: what is there, in real terms, to separate us from those men in their anoraks at the end of Platform 3 at Crewe?
  19. Number one does indeed sound like atherton, though mostly because of the snails and garlic mash reference which, in another form, is on the menu at Maze. No idea on menu two but I'd want to punch any chef who marbled any sauce with a veloute of anything else. Menu 3 sounds like Burton-Race in Landmark incarnation. But that really is just a guess. No help at all am I.
  20. My understanding is that they ask you pre-order it because they only have ten of them. Seems pretty reasonable to me - and I think the reviewing fraternity have done a pretty good job of publicising the fact.
  21. Oh, I think it might make a little more in the press than that. Let's not forget the headline on his piece: 31 dishes, nine wines, a $4000 cheque. And what those wines were: the 1918 Chateau Latour, the 1969 Montrachet Baron Thenard, the 1928 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, the 1947 Chateau Lafite, the 1961 Petrus, the 1929 Romanee Conti, and the 1928 d'Yquem. Oh, and the 1835 Madeira. Would I want to write up a meal like that? Er, yes, I think I might. But then I'm just a grubby hack. (You happen to have mentioned one of my favourite restaurant write-ups of all time; it took me a while but I now have a copy on pdf so that, every now and then, I can pull it up and marvel.)
  22. I wouldn't say it was hacked to bits. I lost 400 words out of a piece that was orginally 3500, and I was the one who did the cutting. The reference to Matsuhisa aside, I lost nothing important. A modest tightening can only improve a piece like that; I'm a big believer in editing, something old media (when it's doing the job correctly) still has over the new. So no. I'll stick by the one that's online on the Observer site.
  23. Thanks for that. At the last minute I had to lose 400 words. The reference to Matsuhisa was a few of those words. Do I think they can maintain standards? Yes I do, but it's whether they are standards we - any of us - would find appealing. Multiple operations demandmassive concistency and eventually that can lead to something faultless but bland. I also loved l'atelier de Joel Robuchon in Paris. But I think it takes something away from the experience that it will soon be available in eight other cities, even though it will be exactly the same. Then again, I do find it hard to begrudge the big names their success. Being a chef is a tough business. I couldn't work the hours, and I'm sure most people couldn't either. Rare (read stupid) is the guy or gal who goes into it thinking they'll become rich. Investment banking it ain't. That some of them eventually manage to make big money seems fine to me. (Have you noticed how it's often the people with enough money to eat in their restaurants, the big earners, who most begrudge the star chefs their riches?) Personally I found Mark Edwards' comment, that these jumbo high end restaurants might kill off the smaller ones, most intriguing, though I doubt its the case. I suspect the big players only arrive in town when a restaurant sector has recahed a certain maturity. J
  24. Nice line. Wish I'd put it in the piece. In case anybody notices and wonders, some curious coding problems have turned up in the on-line version. I have no idea why Robuchon's first name has the apostrophe in it but it's not there on the old-fashioned printed page.
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