Pam Brunning

Thank you for that - I am glad that you found out what I suspected. They have told us in the past when we have booked that they are nearly full and never are. I love this venue but mourn the fact that they don't seem to be able to get the staff - I am afraid we were not impressed with Campbell. We took guests there when he was there and it was an embarrassment. When are they going to find a good chef?

I have been following this post with interest. We had a similar experiance a few years ago at Le Manoir, it was a Sunday evening, Blanc was away and a lot of things were wrong. I was there to review the restaurant for a magazine. When I told my editor of the experiance he said write it as it was. I did, when he received my copy he decided to send it to the restaurant before publication, for comment. They thanked him for his consideration - agreed with most of the comments, said it was alright to publish, and invited me back for a complimentry evening. We had a superb meal, the Sommelier - who I had complained of had gone and I put a rider to my original article. The whole incident was handled in a business like manner. Some of these celeb. chefs need to grow up, they have been feted and have much too high an opinion of their own importance. Of course he was a footballer like Ramsay!

What's wrong with Zucca David we are going their for lunch Tuesday on your recommendation and now you are not even rating it. I hope it is still good. I will let you know how it goes.

I will be interested to hear your report. He couldn't pull the punters at Cliveden and The Forbury Hotel went bankrupt for the same reason - good luck.

You took the words out of my mouth, John!

Good report John. Just about summed the place up - on the whole we were disappointed and as it is about 200 miles from us I can't see us going back. If the waitress ever reads this let us hope she never utters 'no problem' again!

One of my main reasons for eating out is to get inspiration but I am afraid these days it is sadly lacking in restaurant dishes. It is ths same right through the price range up to 3 Michelin star, in fact the more expensive the worse it gets. Where are all those delicious sauces we used to get using unusal combinations of ingredients. All you get these days is a smear of some unidentifiably coloured goo with a bit of 'pan roasted' sea bass.

Thank you andiesenji, that is interesting, I will try that when I get more sour plums.

The best steak?? You must be joking - 16 year old?? Did it die of old age?

Piracer I like your expression ‘big ass party’ was that their physique or their bank balances?!!

Can anybody tell me why when making a plum crumble with very acidic plums no matter how much sugar I use the fruit is still unpleasantly acidic?

David, a few years ago we used to eat in London regularly but these days it is just a rip off. The restaurants are catering for city bankers and the tourists’ one off experience; it is not good value any more. Three times recently we have had much better meals outside London at much less cost. When I eat out the main thing I seek is inspiration - I want experiments with different textures and flavours. I want to eat something that I can say, ‘Wow that was good, I am going to try that at home.’ My experience of London recently has been uninspired dishes that are getting smaller and smaller for more and more money. The one restaurant that was good when it was in Ludlow can’t seem to get its act together in London.

As the weather forecasters said it was going to be the last day of summer today we went for lunch on the Thames at Boulters Inn at Maidenhead. Lovely day, super lunch and guess what for main course - pork cheek. Lovely starter (I forgot to get a picture) of tarragon panacotta with black tomato salad. This was followed by pork cheek with champ, and bacon sauce, it was delicious. I would think it was sous vide and could have come from 3663. Pud was chocolate mousse and malted ice cream - all excellent.

Kim those peaches look great - really ripe - we don't get them like that in the UK very often. The pear tart has a thin pastry layer then I brush with plenty of water and sprinkle over dem sugar before I put it in the oven.

That fig tart looks great. I love the inspiration I get on this site. Here is last nights dinner - just fried chicken thighs but we have some great fungi around at the moment so I did a mushroom sauce with ordinary mushrooms, princes and ink caps all from the garden. And for pud I made a pear tart with cinnamon and walnut crust.

I wish supermarkets would start putting red labels on all farmed fish. The majority of it is rubbish. I brought a hake fillet the other day at Waitrose, we love hake but this wasn’t worth eating. It was soft and flabby with no texture whatsoever. The poor things are confined in cages and don’t get enough exercise to firm the flesh even if they were left to mature properly into decent size fish. I would rather not eat fish if that is all that is available.

We did look at Goodmans, over the road, when we came out but decided £50 for a steak was a bit much!

We have fond memories of visits to Hibiscus in Ludlow. Popping in for lunch on the way back from Wales or enjoying an excellent dinner after a day at the Ludlow Food Festival organised by our esteemed IWFS Chairman. Ah, those were the days, a restaurant with flair and imagination at a reasonable price. Three years after Claude & Claire Bosi move to London we decided to look them up. For a few hours we saw how the other half live. We didn’t stray on to the a la carte at £75 for three courses, we settled for the set lunch with a glass of wine and coffee at £38 a head. Mind you if we had chosen chicken - sorry ‘Label Anglaise Chicken’ - there would have been a £10 supplement. I asked what was so special about the chicken that it could warrant such a supplement. ‘Ah, you see madam it is a very special chicken, slowly grown to full maturity and fed on organic corn for extra flavour and it is stuffed with foie gras.’ I nearly asked if it sported a Little Red Tractor but felt such flippancy would have been looked down upon in such hallowed surroundings. A pot of excellent olives and our two slices per head of sour dough arrived. My husband is a little deaf these days so when he commented that he had read in a review that you only got two slices of bread each, the rest of the restaurant were made aware of this phenomenon. At least our basket was refilled as soon as it was empty. A starter of tureen of rabbit with foie gras was prettily presented and of good texture but very bland, the small portion was not memorable. A half a crown size pâté, a 1/4 inch thick, of blue ewes milk cheese was served, forlornly lost in a large soup bowl, then a small jug of hot broccoli velouté was reverently poured around it. It did look attractive and was pronounced good but was soon gone! We had an excellent soup course when we were at Ludlow but they used to fill the bowls up in those days. Much of the time we found people watching more interesting that the food. The four young men opposite could have stepped out of one of the more bizarre fashion magazines. The highlight of the quartet was sporting black designer pants visible above very low slung jeans that were in danger of falling down each time he left the table to go down stairs to the gents. A bottle of champagne had disappeared by the time they started on their £75 a head a la carte menu. There was much hilarity when a scallop arrived accompanied by a pork pie sauce. The waitress explained that a large pork pie was made then when completely cold it was cut into sections and blitzed in the blender to make a tasty sauce. My piece of silver mullet was from a large fish so had a good firm flakes and was cooked perfectly but, in my opinion, it could have been fresher. Served with a few crumbs on top for texture it was singularly uninspired, accompanied by a few pieces of red, yellow and white beetroot. Himself’s thin slice of mutton moussaka was treated with the contempt it deserved - the sauce was tasty. Meanwhile the next table had demolished a bottle of white burgundy and were on to the red Burgundy (which was £80 a bottle plus) with their grouse (£10 supplement). From the portions size that we could see I should think one bird served the four easily. Desserts were possibly the best course. My very creamy vanilla ice cream with blueberries was served with two delicious hot blueberry Madeline’s - crunchy on the outside and meltingly delicious inside. White peach parfait was served with poached peaches and pronounced ‘not bad’. We had glasses of a red Loire each which were included in the price and a glass of Alsace Riesling/Pinot Gris at £11 a glass. Cappuccino coffee was hot but not very strong but the accompanying petit fours were very good. As we paid our bill of £99.36 the young men on the next table were deciding on digestives. Let us hope there are plenty of their ilk to keep the upmarket Hibiscus in business even with their vastly reduced ingredient costs. Bosi had two Michelin stars when he came to London three years ago and one can see why a third has not come his way, despite his prestigious location. Photos all taken with a flash with no annoyance to other diners and the waiter even offered to take some of us!

I have tried everything - salt - vinegar - swirling and nothing was very good, then someone said put the eggs into the pan first and it works for me. Get the water to just under boiling, take the eggs out of the fridge (don’t anyone tell me not to keep eggs in the fridge - it is the only proper way to keep eggs if you want to keep them fresh for more than a day or two) put them into the hot water for a few seconds - don’t leave them long enough to crack - take them out then break them into the simmering water. They will stay together perfectly - I do two every morning to go with my smoked haddock.

Oh dear Nick I am not sure you want to know this. The reason USAD beef has more intramuscular fat is because they are still allowed to feed hormones that are banned in the EU.

Sorry John we never did get to a Lebanese. We looked at lots of menus but the other half is rather conservative and he can't stand couscous! A Lebanese cookery writer did an article for me instead.

David - When we were first married we were pig farming and raising 3 daughters, we would have up to 2,000 pigs of all ages on the farm. Pigs are like some humans nasty and savage to each other they would frequently beat up either the strongest or weakest in a pen. if we were not around you could often find a pig at deaths door with its heart still pumping. The only thing to do was 'to save its life by cutting its throat'! It would have been dead and condemned if taken to the abattoir. We became expert at skinning and butchering a carcase, consequently the surfeit of pork.

The place sounds interesting David. We did The River Cafe once - never again! Zucca prices sound good, unfortunatly it is the wrong side of London for us, a nightmare underground trek. I am surprised at your comments on vitello tonnato John, I have been making the dish for years with pork, our kids were brought up on it! When you have a few thousand pig about the place you are always looking for different ways to serve cold roast pork. It is always popular as a buffet dish. Tuna liquidised with homemade mayo then lots of finely chopped capers and anchovies and the pork juices folded in - yum

No, our injection is not pure water it is a flavour enhancer and water retaining chemicals usualy. Do you have to state % quantities of flavour enhancer? - a flavour enhancer can be a liquid, hence adding to wetness of flesh. Our regs. say that if a product is soaked in a solution (brine or whatever) it will naturally take up a limited quantity this is why they say it must be stated if wetness is over 10%. This is how they get away with injecting without declaring up to the 10% level. The thing is if a product says 10% it can have up to 20% because they disreguard the first 10% - it's nuts! Sorry Shel-b we are not solving your problem - have you tried with better quality chicken?

What is in a name - water or flavour enhancer- we are obviously more honest in the UK!