genuineness

lol or for that matter... crying every time 5 mins on TV. The guy still has a long way to go - watching him fillet fish was painful.

Visited MW for dinner last Friday. Here is an abstract: Coming into this meal, I feared the worse. Confusing flavours? Too many elements? My meal at Marcus Wareing was not as bad as I had feared. In fact I found some of the cooking to be interesting and highly enjoyable in parts. It is just that some of the dishes were distinctly average and lacking in flavour - the beef in particular springs to mind. Desserts themselves were distinctly unremarkable especially when you bear in mind that Wareing previously trained as a pastry chef. Where art thou custard tart when I crave thee. My biggest grievance has to be the price and relative value for money factor. We were charged a whopping £70 supplement for 2 extra main courses (ie £35 per main course) which was rather OTT. This is even more annoying when you take into consideration that 3 course ALC is £75. To put this into perspective, at both Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester and the Capital, they charged us £15 per additional main course. In summary, I did have a good time at Marcus Wareing and yes I did enjoy my meal. However, I personally think that there is still a lot of work to be done for them to secure the status of best 2* restaurant in London before they even think about 3*s. You can read my take on it on my website http://genuiness.wordpress.com.

at least one of the previous masterchef winners (steven) had the common sense to seek a job in a professional kitchen to build up his repertoire. I remember seeing him on Great British Menu where he was the sous chef for Sat Bains

Your right about the Foliage lunch,absolute top quality for the price £28? ←

Hi Kian how was your midland food jaunt, are we to read it on your blog? We will all be able to see Tristan's food first hand,be interesting to see what he comes up with. ← I'm going this weekend - went to Marcus Wareing last weekend and in the midst of writing the review up.

dave you summed up my experience at Launceston place. The food was good but never outstanding - certainly nothing I couldn't achieve at home if I could get my lazy ass off the couch. I suppose this is in response to the critiscm Welch received early on when the restaurant opened where many critics questioned his ' El bulli' methods. The main problem seems to be the price, especially the dinner menu which at £44 for 3 courses is rather pricey. The service was attentive and friendly with huge emphasis placed on customer satisfaction.

Personally, I am only marginally bothered by what the prize is - after all, it is not as if I am eligable! I agree though that it is getting obscure, but as long as it is enough to attract quality chefs or as long as they want to take part regardless of what they win, then I am happy. And to be fair, I am sure that bragging rights plus potential pecuniary benefits (God only knows just how fat a cash cow that BLT sandwich has proven for Jason Atherton/Maze/Rambo) will be sufficient to keep the standard suitably high. I am really looking forward to the show actually. ← The chef's probably don't care about the prize anyhow... its all about getting publicity. I doubt many people in the general public who doesn't frequent this board would have heard of someone like say Tristan Welch.