Vanessa

v

No problem Wilfred, it was just your injection of a bit of culture that jogged my brain. My only experience of Brick Lane was a Sunday morning a couple of years ago, when I was trying to impress a visiting friend with the trendiness of the area, and found everything shut and the only sign of life being old tramps wanking in corners. Most embarrassing. v

Sounds like Camden in its earlier days - don't think I'll be hurrying there. No comment on A Gold I note? Thanks for the explanation about karom. v

Karom - what the heck is that? Am I revealing some kind of embarrassing ignorance? And Wilfred has just managed to remind me of when I was last in Spitalfields - 26 1/2 years ago: a memorial concert for my mother in Spitalfields Church. v

Ashamed to say that I've never been there Question: is it worth making the trip? Is there anything there that you can't get at Borough or elsewhere in London? And, I had never heard of the shop 'A Gold' until a recent Evening Standard Thursday mag. Any opinions? v

Hmmmm.... 'roast saddle of Cumbrian hare with foie gras, watercress, yoghurt, Horlicks powder, sugared cashew nuts & melon syrup' anyone? v

Quite right. The point being that automated machines used to make crap coffee. Now it appears that ain't necessarily so. Although beans of course play a pretty important part. v

I'd guess it's a bit of both. There must have been some major technical advances in fully automated machines in recent times. The best espresso I know at the moment is what I get at work. These are fully automated machines (brand 'Black & White') which, although they appear superficially to look like normal Gaggia-type espresso machines, are really only like the type of 'plastic cup under a spout' machine you are talking about. The person operating the machine has absolutely no contact with the coffee-making process other than pressing a button for 'espresso', 'capuccino', 'large black' or whatever. The other reason it is good is that they happen to use what seem to me to be the best beans available in London these days, from Union Coffee. (However some people say the capuccino is not so hot - but not being a capuccino drinker, I've never had the opportunity to be disappointed). v

Thanks - but no joy. Maybe I was hallucinating. I remember making the mental note that it wasn't on Walton St, but on a street I hadn't heard of. But early onset of Alzheimer's seems to have blocked the rest. v

No wheels, so it looks like Chiang Mai. I wish I could remember more about that restaurant in Jericho - all I can recall is that it was something totally unusual - perhaps even unique to the UK. Now I'm going to be driving myself crazy about it for the rest of the day. I already did a Google search and came up with zilch. Or maybe it was one of those 7-day wonder restaurants that appears on the horizon and disappears just as fast. v

Yes!! - I'm glad I wasn't the first to suggest it! On a slight tangent, I'm sure I read a review of a very interesting sounding restaurant in the last year or so, in somewhere like Jericho, but can't for the life of me remember either the name or the type of food, except that it was something very unusual, and sounded like a 'must visit'. I shall be up in Oxford during the day in early November and wonder if this rings any bells with you Adam? If not, what would be your recommendation for a really enjoyable, not too fancy lunch? v

Wow - now if you could just get the trains between London & Manchester to work properly.... v

OK, I know this not 'haute'-anything, but to me South Kensington is Daquise - whether for a cup of good coffee and a doughnut filled with plum jam, or for a meal of herring with sour cream followed by pierogi and accompanied by a mug of Zywiec beer. And that atmosphere, essentially unchanged for a good 40 years. Great place for weird people watching. v

what's the cream-coloured thing that looks like a mini paint palette? v

I chop off each end and the rest then usually comes off easily. I too learnt to chop onions years ago from Jacques Pepin's La Technique - just in the way Dave The Cook describes for garlic. But I don't bother with not cutting all the way through to the end with garlic - too fiddly - and I find it pretty easy to keep all the slices, then matchsticks together with my left hand as I chop. v

Does this mean you buy your garlic ready peeled? Or have I misunderstood? Could this have something to do with why your garlic doesn't taste as you would like? v

butter, alcohol. If it's an apple it has to be a Fuji - I'm so glad that someone else feels the same apart from me and my father. v

Well said Macrosan! v

Tony - what absolute rubbish! Of course a child of 6 is able to appreciate a good restaurant. The problem is with your, and other adults' perceptions and behaviour, not the child's. v

I know it's leaving it a bit late, but here are the results of the brain-picking of my colleague for the Redhill/Reigate area. Please note that these opinions are his, not mine. Redhill: no restaurants of note but a very good pub with restaurant-type fare. Small, need to book, looks like nothing on the outside but very pleasant within: The Joshua Tree. Reigate: 2 restaurants of note: La Barbe - French obviously and for high prices and excellent service: The Dining Rooms in the High St, above a restaurant called Si Bletchingley: King Charles - restaurant in an old building on the high street with 'exquisite food' Godstone: Green Rooms and on the South Godstone Road going towards East Grinstead: La Bonne Auberge, under the same ownership as La Barbe. This all comes from a guy who has the misfortune to live in the same village as Edwina Currie! v

Stewie Mac - I work near the north end of Putney Bridge - so I cut to the river in Kew, follow it to the pub by the junction with White Hart Lane, through the alleyways in Barnes to the Common, across the common to the cemetary on Putney Common, then along the Lower Richmond Road (via a simple cheap bakery with jam doughnuts and croissants to die for) to Putney Bridge. Voila! A beautiful walk on mornings as we have been having for the last couple of months although a bit much to do every day. As for Monsieur Max - well the famous Renzland twins of Essex-sur-mer (before one of them copped it) used to hang out in Kew. So I learned not to be tempted by a restaurant of their's long ago. The French wife of my old Twickenham boss also found the 'Max' experience to be pretty toe-curling. v

And for my tuppennyworth - can't help with all the areas you mention: In Surbiton there used to be a very nice restaurant called Luca in Maple Road. This has been replaced by a French set up called The French Table and, although I have not been, reviews lead me to think this place well worth a visit. Richmond was covered in a recent thread and there were some useful suggestions: Richmond For my view on The Phoenix see here: Phoenix Note that the new TimeOut restaurant guide hated the pasta dish I loved - they just didn't get it. I guess one man's meat is another man's poison and all that... I work in Fulham but never eat out there - have quite enough of Fulhamites around me at work and don't want to find myself dining with them. In Putney there is Del Buongustaio - not worth a trip in my opinion, Enoteca Turi - good Italian although this time TimeOut gets it right - their coffee is crap - incomprehensible after such good food. Putney Bridge is very top end of the market and in a wonderful setting by the river, although I've been walking past a lot recently and there is an unhealthy feeling to the place. The expensive menu (c. £40?) looked completely uninteresting but the cheap one, around £20 for lunch I think, appeared well worth it. East Sheen has Redmonds on the Putney end of the main road. A good, classy restaurant I have been to a few times although there was a little tousle over the bread last time I was there about a year ago - the bread was good but the waiter was being mean with it. I guess you'd call it modern British cooking. As Andy says, The Glasshouse in Kew has had a recent refit - I walk past it every day. The paintings have gone and are replaced by a textured wall and clever lighting. Very dependable if not over exciting food. You have to be prepared to accept a sittings policy as the place is packed out every night. I have also, in the past, detected a certain anti-female attitude there which prejudices me somewhat. It was probably only certain members of staff, but those kind of impressions stick. If you are going to bother to go to Kew, then I would recommend that you go instead to the Glasshouse's sister restaurant in Chiswick, La Trompette. Similarly good food, service and decor - but all on a higher level of achievement. I used to work just round the corner from McClements in Twickenham and my old boss loved the place. I only went there once about 5 years ago and was less impressed than he and therefore refused his offers to take me subsequently. Maybe this was my loss. I found the cooking a bit old-fashioned, pretending more than it achieved. I have a memory of heavy food and over-reduced Marmite-ish brown sauces reappearing in several different dishes. However, at the time I think the restaurant was going through a lean period and seems to be doing much better now. To be added to my list of places to be visited. Riva in Barnes I have been to twice, once about 3-4 years ago and then about 2-3 years ago. The first time was a revelation - I still remember the Mozzarella starter. The second time was a complete let down. The owner spent the whole time schmoozing with that creep, Nick Foulkes, in the corner and as a result service was crap and food altogether disappointing (NF is always going on about how Riva is his favourite restaurant - not surprising judging by the amount of attention he was getting). I had a dish purporting to be sturgeon, which I have the fondest memories of eating in the past, and got served something that I swear was mackerel - cooked in a fatty sauce. Can you imagine anything more disgusting? Added to that my stomach was a little delicate from an upset I'd had a couple of weeks beforehand and the result was Vanessa wandering around Barnes and Mortlake like an idiot in total agony, unable to find a toilet. So, the temptation to return to Riva is not so great. Other places in Barnes include Sonny's, a relation of The Phoenix I believe, and the unbelievably pretentious MVH on the junction with White Hart Lane. This is on my walking route to work and astonishes me every time - no restaurant name outside or menu. Just a pair of stag's antlers! God knows what the eating experience is like. Kingston has a good Thai restaurant, Ayudhya, at the bottom of Kingston Hill. As usual, I haven't been recently but it still merits a red star in the Time Out guide. Otherwise I believe Kingston is something of a restaurant desert. I have a work colleague who has lived in the Redhill/Reigate area for many years - I'll pick his brains tomorrow and re-post. v

Terry Durack is always a good read, so what if he knows it, and I have always liked his kind of physical relationship with food. And in my book anyone who can blithely work in the public eye with a surname which means 'idiot' in Russian has to be admired. Whereas Jill Dupleix has never had anything to say to me - mostly plagiarism of current fads. I'm inspired to go out and get his Noodle book which I've been meaning to acquire for ages.

School foods that I was forced to eat and we never got at home and even now, after an unmentionable number of years, I am no nearer being able to eat: baked beans, tinned peaches, custard (the packet/tin stuff), spam, corned beef. Only relatively recently have I even been able to consider a freshly made creme anglaise. And from home: tripe. The stink of my father's tripe & onions in the house still fills me with horror and I feel much the same about chitterlings/andouillettes and such like. However, I have no such problem with brains and sweetbreads! v

I think Gavin hit the nail on the head - in both the above posts! v