Vanessa

!!

Found it: click. But you have to be able to read Italian (or muddle along, as I do) to get the hang of it. This is a pretty light-hearted thread which forms part of a long-running joke on the site - Coquinaria - a favourite of mine, but as different as you could get from e-gullet. The truffle oil bit comes somewhere in the middle and several people affirm that they have been reliably informed that truffle oil is made with a chemical (I'm not completely sure it is the chemical mentioned in the thread). One contributor then explains that it is impossible to make proper truffle oil by macerating truffles in good quality olive oil because the aroma of the truffles is simply too volatile. I have searched on Google for something more specific, with no luck. But two things gleaned from there make me a little suspicious: 1. They have identified the chemical compound which produces the truffle aroma. 2. There is a lot of truffle business connected with China. If I find anything more, I will post. v

Except I read recently that it's a complete swizz - and the so called truffle flavouring in the oil is chemically produced - can't remember the details. If I can find where I read it - an Italian e-gullet equivalent I think - I'll post it.

Le Poussin at Brockenhurst? Haven't been there.

Italian Flours Last year I got in a right tangle with Italian flours - hard, soft, pasta etc and realised that most English-language books on the subject don't make logical sense. These are my conclusions, based on common usage in Italy now: 0 & 00 Flours: the numbers relate to the grind of the flour - nothing else. OO is the finest, then 0, then 1. 00 Flour is used for making fresh pasta. These flours are soft wheat. Farina di grano duro: here is where the confusion really sets in. This gets translated as hard/strong wheat flour when in fact it is DURUM wheat flour - a specific type of wheat which happens to be hard, and is mainly used for dry pasta manufacture. Grind tends to be quite coarse. Farina Manitoba: this is strong/bread flour - the name is self-explanatory really. Not used for making pasta.

I just did a quick Google search and came up with this: Koreans in New Malden. Answers your question quite nicely.

Thomas - have you ever tried any of the Korean restaurants around New Malden? I once had a wander around there - didn't go to a restaurant - but poked around in a couple of Korean grocers and bought some lovely pickled stuff - but never worked out what on earth it was, other than fish rather than vegetable - possibly a kind of dried, spiced squid?

Borough Market Cool Chile stall. I believe they also have a stall at Portobello market.

Thanks for the feedback Simon. But as for Harrow - well out of the range of my radar!

I note a positive review of Song Que by Fay Maschler today. Also, I have a friend staying next week who likes to eat out well in London. Looking at the '5 more Pearls from the Orient' at the end of Maschler's reviews today, the following are listed: Ecapital (the Soho Shanghai place), Hunan, Nipa Thai in the Royal Lancaster Hotel, Singapore Garden at Swiss Cottage and Han Kang in Hanway St. Does anyone have particular recommendations for any of these? - I'm most attracted by Ecapital or Hunan. Also, has anyone been to Phoenix (or some such name) on the Lower Richmond Rd. I heard a rumour that Franco Taruschio was cooking there but am not sure this is still the case.