wgallois

Your bread basket already sounds more interesting than most places. I would always prefer to see breads in restaurants that I don't generally see in supermarkets or eat at home. How about black onion-seed rolls or some kind of rye bread, or another dark bread, for both flavour and to add to the look of the basket?

Also bad: The Agency at the Emirates Towers hotel. Basically a wine bar that serves food. The wine-list seems good, but it is expensive and the glasses are pathetically small. We shared a fondue, some olives with manchego and some mushrooms with a remoulade. The fondue was bland, until you dipped your bread in the kirsch (which for some reason was poured into a separate ramekin, rather than into the fondue) and then it was too boozy; the mushrooms were basically deep-fried fish-and-chip-shop efforts, and the remoulade a mayonnaise; the manchego was of a fairly low quality and slavered with balsamic vinegar, though the olives were good and this dish came with a whole head of roasted garlic which was a nice touch. These three dishes, with three cheapish glasses of wine and a Perrier: $65. A much better bet is the Noodle House which is opposite this restaurant.

My wife reminded me that my list of recommended places in Exeter did not include one of my favourites, the Moroccan restaurant 'Al Farid', which, like Michael Caines, is located on the Cathedral Close. The restaurant is divided between a more formal area (upstairs) and a less formal space where one sits on cushions to eat (no booking for this section). Downstairs they have a series of set-meals whereby you can pick a very large number of mezze and kebabs from the menu, and pay around thirty or forty pounds for about fifteen separate dishes which the 'table' shares. I have never eaten at the more formal restaurant upstairs. The food is tasty, the atmosphere generally pretty 'buzzy', and you can also smoke shisha there.

Yes, Paul, I think my problem with Michael Caines is that it is expensive for what it is. As well as Brazz and the Carved Angel, there is also the newish brasserie in the Hotel Barcelona which offers a similar mid-range British-Mediterranean experience. I think I'll probably go back to Brazz before the others as the space is attractive, they have Staropramen on draught and the food has fewer pretensions.

I have previously said nice things about Michael Caines ('@ the Royal Clarence' - ugh) in Exeter, so I am slightly loathe to post details of a mediocre meal there on Friday. I have a great deal of admiration for Caines because he is a great cook and he seems really committed to Devon and to improving the restaurant scene there. However, our meal on Friday got me wondering about the much-debated question of 'diffusion restaurants' and how easily standards can slip when the main man is not in attendance (Caines other job is as head chef of the two-star Gidleigh Park on Dartmoor, while his Exeter operation includes a pub, champagne bar, cafe-bar and a deli, as well as the restaurant). I should say that neither the food nor the service were crap on Friday, but they were both disappointing. We left feeling the way one does after going to see a much-hyped film that turns out to be only so-so, with that sense of ambiguity that comes from not being sure whether the film really was bad or if one's expectations were simply too high and that it could never have offered satisfaction. We arrived just before nine, to find that our table was still occupied, so we had a drink in the bar whilst looking at the menus. Waiter poured tonic over one of the party, and was slightly apologetic. Moved to our table and the first thing I registered was the din in the packed room. The menus didn't really inspire me as the vegetarian options were exactly the same as they had been 18 months earlier. It was clear that the waiting staff were struggling to cope with the numbers of diners, and while I wouldn't say the service was bad, its clipped character didn't really help one relax. Some tomato bread was plonked on the table. It was OK, if a little boring. There was an amuse of sweet potato and chilli soup which was nice, though it could have been frothed up a bit. As a starter my wife and I had the onion tartlet with spinach, wild mushrooms and a poached egg, which is a great dish, although it seemed less well constructed and exciting this time around. The others had a goat's cheese dish which looked a little boring. As a main I had polenta with ratatouille (it had a fancier name which I forget), which was a total let-down. It was well-cooked, but there was nothing special about it at all, and I sat there thinking that its taste was pretty similar to something I'd rustle up in the kitchen in fifteen minutes, though in a measlier portion than I'd award myself. My wife had morel ravioli in a cream sauce, which was tasty but 'no better than Sainsbury's ready-made pasta'. The others had chicken and sea-bass which they were pleased with. We skipped pudding on the basis that seven pounds fifty was an unreasonable flat-rate in such a restaurant, and bought a tub of Smarties ice cream on the way home, which we ate with a crushed Yorkie bar. I left the restaurant feeling rather deflated because my overriding impression of the place was that it had become rather lazy and greedy, but I also felt a bit of a mug for booking a 'turned table' on a busy Friday night, and uncertain as to whether I was now applying inappropriate standards in criticising this place. While it is certainly not fair to compare it to the graceful charm of Gidleigh Park, I think one should expect more of a place which has a relatively high score for cooking in the Good Food Guide and which charges fairly serious prices. Five better options in Exeter: 1. Fruta Bomba for decent Tex-Mex in a fairly funky setting. 2. The Dinosaur Cafe for a plate of Turkish mezze for lunch. 3. Crepes, fudge, or both, from the stalls on the High Street. 4. A picnic from Devon Country cheeses in Topsham. 5. A good pub lunch just outside the city: Jack in the Green (relatively pricey, but very competent Devon-Med option), the Beer Engine (hearty, tasty, cheap and atmospheric), or The Nobody Inn (for cheese, wine and whisky lovers). Note: Matthew Fort reviewed Michael Caines @ The Royal Clarence in June, 2001: http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,...,506808,00.html

Agli Alboretti Accademia 884 Tel: 523 0058 Fax: 521 0158 Great idea Craig. I recommended this restaurant in an earlier Venice thread, having eaten there in 2001. Had a wonderful white truffle risotto and some good cheese. It is a member of a group of restaurants devoted to the promotion of local ingredients and recipes, but I'm afraid I can't recall the name of the group. Very good service and prices not much higher than some of the 'photos of the food outside' brigade mentioned earlier.

I like to imagine that they were royally rewarded with some free cheesy garlic bread or a platter of Mini Mars petits fours after we left, and that their motivation lay in in the possible acquisition of such choice house favours.

Three or four years ago, went to a place called 'On the Waterfront' in Exeter which was famous for two things: big 'dustbin lid' pizzas and a deal whereby you got two for one if you ordered before six or seven. We went as a group of three, with one person planning to join us a bit later, but unfortunately he was not able to make it, so we didn't even get started on the second pizza. We asked the waitress to pack it up for us to take away, paid the bill, hung around for a bit, and then asked what had happened to the second pizza. "What pizza?" was, of course, the reply, and you can imagine the kind of rather heated conversation which followed. So far, so unoriginal, I'm sure egulleters will agree, since this seems to be a common theme in 'doggy bag' stories, but the next part of the tale takes us into more original territory. The manager was called over, and things were starting to look up, because he seemed minded to simply make another pizza and to accept the fact that a mistake may have been made. But then an adjoining table appproached the waitress and the manager to 'confirm' that we had in fact certainly not asked for the second pizza to be packed up (as if...), and this really swung things back the way of the house. This table had had nothing to say to each other all evening, and I had had some pity for them, but what kind of person decides to get involved in someone else's 'doggy bag' dispute in a crappy pizzeria? I won't bore you with the rest of the details; suffice it to say that things were 'taken outside' (screaming and shouting, no fists), and the eventual outcome was us getting vouchers for another restaurant in the chain. Coming soon (relevant thread permitting): How we spent those vouchers in an Old Orleans in a Plymouth shopping mall...

Thanks a lot for all of the helpful information.

I was in Aix last summer and I must say that you are right to do your homework. It is a seller's market in which too many restaurants serve mediocre food at elevated prices, with dire service. That said, there were some things I really enjoyed: La Table Marocaine (there are two branches, and I think we went to the one in Rue Lieutaud: great food and a very romantic outdoor setting); the markets in Aix (Place des Precheurs, Place de la Madeleine) are great and one of my favourite meals involved buying bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives, marinated artichokes and some rose and having a picnic; eating outside at the Chateau de la Pioline was also a very romantic setting: the food wasn't really wonderful, but I remember the bread and the cheese trolley as being excellent. Hope you have a great time. Take some Zola novels, which may enhance your enjoyment of the place.

Has there ever been a discussion of Indian juice bars on the board? I have a question relating to so-called 'special juices' which are sometimes on offer in such places. In Indian-run juice bars in the Emirates these often have great names, but there is often no clue as to what kind of fruit cocktail they consist of, and I am curious as to whether there exists a set of names that Indians across the world would recognise. I know that a 'Lexus' consists of mango and avocado juice with ice cream, but what about a 'Disco', a 'Titanic', a 'www', a 'Valentine Day' or a 'Computer'? I would guess that mixes such as 'Mumtaz' and 'Wastha' are specific to this part of the world, but perhaps I am wrong? I have a lot of affection for such juice bars as I think they provide drinks which are both tasty and nutritious.

Thanks a lot Andy.

I would be very grateful if any egulleters have thoughts on The Horn of Plenty in Gulworthy or The Castle in Taunton as possible lunch venues. Thanks a lot.

Ferdlisky, I hope you have a great trip. I have a definite Aberdeen recommendation which is to try some Aberdeen butteries. Think flattened croissant with a much higher butter and fat content and you have a rough idea what these beauties are like. I once lived with a family from Aberdeen and relatives used to bring us them to have with our breakfasts. Delicious.

Steve, your last post on Egypt completely drastically underestimates the importance of Egypt as a hub of trade and ideas in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean worlds: 1. The fact that you don't see why people would have travelled through Egypt is immaterial and irrelevant, because the fact is that people did, and for the following reasons: a. Cairo and Alexandria have always been two of the largest cities in the Middle East; sites people travelled to in themselves, and not simply as way-stations on longer routes. What is more these places displayed precisely the kind of multi-culturalism that you would have expected to find in such cities. b. Why don't you in fact look at a map of the Mediterranean and contemplate the fact that Cairo and Alexandria lie on the trade route from the Maghreb to the Levant and the Arabian peninsula (and vice versa), and that much trade from the Far East was routed through the Arabian peninsula and thence to Egypt for wider distribution. c. The siting of Al Azhar in Cairo cannot be underestimated in terms of that city acting as a focus for higher learning across the centuries. d. Cairo traditionally served as an important starting point for pilgrimages to Mecca. 2. Why do you assume that east-west movement would have necessarily moved from the 'east' westwards to states north of the Mediterranean? You might like to reflect on the much greater political and cultural unity that had existed in the southern Mediterranean (eg c.711-1492 until the fall of al-Andalus, and later under the Ottomans), and the fact that Egypt would thus have played a fairly central role in trade and other movement in that polity (as indeed it did with east-west trade to the northern Mediterranean too). 3. I am not quite sure how to interpret your assertion that people would have only needed to have gone through Egypt to reach 'the Saudi [sic] Arabian peninsula or central Africa'. It is after all, precisely Egypt's strategic location with regard to those places, as well as the Maghreb and the Levant, which supports the argument that Egypt is in fact at the crossroads of 'Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean'. Some quotations in support of the above assertions: "In the thirteenth century, Islam's preeminent city was Cairo, which boasted a diverse population of 500,000. [...] It was ruled by foreign-born dynasts, known as Mamluks, many of whom had entered the Islamic world during the Turkish population movements into western Asia at an earlier date and had gone to Egypt to serve the ruling elite as military and bureaucratic slaves. From 1250 to 1517, they were able to dominate the Nile river basin as a privileged, Turkish-speaking military elite that lived apart from the Arabic-speaking commoners. Cosmopolitan Cairo also included separate Christian, Jewish and Greek quarters. [...] As befit a commercial centre, Cairo had an abundance of markets each specialising in a particular commodity. Here were spices; there incense; further along, textiles, copperware and foodstuffs." Robert Tignor et al, World Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the Modern World from the Mongol Empire to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 2002), p.18. [on trade in the medieval Middle East] "The staples of this trade, during this period, were textiles, glass, porcelain from China and - perhaps most important of all - spices; these were brought from south and south-east Asia, in earlier Islamic times to the ports of the Gulf, Siraf and Basra, and later on up the Red Sea to one of the Egyptian ports and thence to Cairo, from where they were distributed all over the Mediterranean world, by land-routes or else by sea from the ports of Damietta, Rosetta and Alexandria. Gold was brought from Ethiopia down the Nile and by caravan to Cairo, and from the regions of the river Niger across the Sahara to the Maghreb..." Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (London: Faber and Faber, 1991), p.111. "By the Mamluk period it was the pilgrimages from Cairo and Damascus which were the most important. Those from the Maghrib woukd go by sea or land to Cairo, meet the Egyptian pilgrims there, and travel by land across Sinai and down through western Arabia to the holy cities..." Hourani, pp.149-50. "Britain's presence in the Middle East helped to maintain her presence as a Mediterranean power and as a world power. The sea-route to India and the Far East ran through the Suez Canal. Air-routes across the Middle East were also being developed in the 1920s and 1930s: one went by way of Egypt to Iraq and India, and another through Egypt southwards into Africa." Hourani, p.320.

Thanks Steve and Stone for pushing closer to an answer to the question of the ubiquity of Lebanese cuisine. I think this focus you have introduced on the Levant as a multicultural juncture between continents and cultures is a very helpful one. With regard to your question, Stone, on whether Lebanese food was as ubiquitous before the Civil War, most of my colleagues (who come from across the Arab world) suggest that it was not. Suggestions as to why its popularity increased (in addition to the reasons outlined by you and others in this thread) were the relative 'lightness' of Lebanese food as compared, for example, to Gulf Arab cuisine, in more health-conscious times (which goes back to Explorer's point); the 'prestige' value that has come to be associated with Lebanese food through its popularity amongst mobile and prosperous groups across the Arab world; the early emigration of Lebanese migrants to the US (and perhaps the establishment of a canon of dishes which can then be replayed in 'Lebanese-style' restaurants across the world); and the popular belief that to eat Lebanese food is to eat a great synthesis of other Arab/Ottoman/Middle Eastern styles.

I agree that a concept of the Middle East that incorporates such a broad geographic zone is tenuous, so let's split the difference and include Iran and Turkey, but exclude the Maghrebin states. This would follow the CIA's picture of the 'Middle East': http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo...iddle_east.html or the Lonely Planet who include Iran, Turkey and Egypt in their Middle East guide. You're right that this includes places like Turkey and Iran whose cuisines incorporate elements from other places, but it seems to me that one of the points of this discussion is to ask why it is that it is not the cuisine of Egypt, Iran or Turkey which is ubiquitous in the Middle East, in spite of their collectively having held geopolitical dominance over the region for much of history, but that of the Levant, whose political history would not suggest such a wide spread of its cuisine.

No, I certainly didn't think that you were shooting down any other cuisines. Yes, our catering operation could do with some diversification (though recent moves in that direction have included the opening of a Pizza Hut, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and a KFC!).

Thanks to all of those who have contributed so interestingly on this thread. Suvir: Indian restaurants here only tend to have a limited range of mezze such as houmous and tabbouleh, but even other restaurants with what one would consider as distinctive Middle Eastern cuisines (such as Iranian restaurants) also tend now to include a number of Lebanese dishes on their menus. Tony: My claim was that Lebanese is the most ubiquitous of all cuisines in the Arab world. It is true that a city like Dubai has a lot of European restaurants (mainly Italian/pan-Mediterranean), but I would guess that places serving Levantine food represent the second-largest in terms of numbers of restaurants (Indian/Pakistani would win hands down here as c.70% of the population are from the subcontinent). Explorer: Thanks for such a knowledgeable post. Your points about the agricultural potential and climate of Lebanon seem to be very strong ones. I find you point about Lebanese cuisine having a wider range of 'nutritional structure' much more debatable, especially with regard to, say, Sudanese or Tunisian cuisine. I have tried some of the 'plats du jour' you mention, and it is true that I may have unfairly characterised Lebanese cuisine as rather narrow (I should say that one of the reasons I have so much of it is that I work in an instution where much of our catering consists of Lebanese food). Steve P: I agree with you on the wines (Chateau Musar and Hochar are amongst my favourite wines), but not on the question of Lebanese food being the 'superior [Middle Eastern] cuisine'. My feeling is that Moroccan, Tunisian, Turkish and Iranian cuisines, amongst others, might have interesting claims to be just as good as Lebanese food, though they are not now as widely dispersed as they used to be.

Why is it that Lebanese/Levantine food appears to have almost become a kind of ‘default cuisine’ across much of the Arab world? Its ubiquity is quite striking in that while it is difficult to find, for example, a Sudanese, Moroccan, or even Egyptian, restaurant in some Arab cities, there are always scores of Lebanese restaurants. I am intrigued as to why this is the case. Is it because of the entrepreneurial spirit of Lebanese restaurateurs? Is it because of some inherently more satisfying structure of the Lebanese meal as compared with other Arab cuisines? Is it because a modern ‘Lebanese cuisine’ is actually a synthesis of other Arab culinary traditions? Does it have anything to do with the French colonial experience in Lebanon and Syria? I like Lebanese food a great deal, but I must admit that living in the Gulf I am pretty bored by its ubiquity. In a city like Dubai there are perhaps two or three places where one can eat couscous and tagines, a small number of specifically-Egyptian places, and, as far as I can see, almost no restaurants or cafes devoted to the varied cuisines of places such as Sudan, the Gulf Arab states and the western Maghreb. By contrast, there are scores of Lebanese restaurants, and even Indian restaurants here will include various mezze on their menus.

Nice to see Glencoe getting a mention here - what an amazing place. I can't say that I have happy memories of the quality of the food in the Clachaig Inn or the other pub in the Glen, but any food and drink tastes good in such sensational surroundings. That said, is there any town in Britain with worse food than Fort William? I guess that I wasn't looking for great food when I went there, but I have memories of grim walks down the main street and struggling to choose between the unappealing looking cafes and restaurants.

The key, I think, to tabbouleh, is to refuse the temptation to stuff it full of bulgar wheat or some other grain (many recipes encourage this as, I think, a means of bulking out the dish, which is not the point). Really great tabbouleh is, as you say, primarily about the parsley and the way in which it mixes with the tomato, lemon juice, seasoning, olive oil and mint.

Priscilla, I'm not sure what the Turkish carrot dish is, but I wonder if it's related to the Tunisian dish Ommouk Houria (a carrot dip/salad with made with garlic and either coriander and harissa or mint and capers, or some combination), which definitely takes carrots 'to a new level' for me. The carrots are boiled, crushed and added to the dressing and, if my Tunisian friends are anything to go by, plenty of garlic and olive is added.

I am a big fan of fondues in general, and the following fondue in particular. A key to serving fondues, I think, is to have very simple side-dishes such as bowls of cherry tomatoes and chopped cucumbers. Oh, and lots of wine, as was alluded to by earlier posters. This is a vague recipe for a pumpkin/squash fondue. The key thing about this dish is that some of the flesh needs to be reserved from the pumpkin, but not too much, as the fondue is later added to the baked pumpkin, and the best thing about the dish comes when one is scraping baked pumpkin flesh away at the end of the 'fondue'. The first time I made this I was following a recipe from BBC Vegetarian Magazine, but I then managed to misplace this and made the misremembered version below. Soon after I discovered that Hugh F-W's 'River Cottage Cookbook' has a similar recipe, though his has nutmeg and neither thyme, nor wine. 1. Scoop a good proportion of the flesh from the pumpkin/squash (making sure that you leave some still attached to the 'walls'), chop this and then place in a baking tray in a medium-heat oven, seasoning well before it goes in. 2. Season the whole pumpkin and rub a small amount of butter into the flesh, before placing it too in the oven. 3. Slowly cook some onions and garlic in butter with a little white wine. 4. Grate plenty of gruyere and emmenthal, and prepare some fresh thyme. 5. When the tray of pumpkin pieces has cooked, remove them from the oven and allow them to cool slightly. Reduce the heat of the oven, leaving the whole pumpkin inside. 4. Whiz up the pumpkin pieces with the onions and garlic, cheese, and thyme, and season, adding a little extra wine according to your tastes (one might also add some cream). Aim for a reasonaly thick consistency which is more cheesy than pumpkiny. 5. Add the mix to the whole pumpkin and cook for a few minutes, and serve with lots of baguette for dipping.

Fresh_a, I really agree with you about the architecture of the Burj, and I think I had the same apprehensions as you before going there. Other good architecture/food combinations in the region include: 1. The Royal Mirage (just down the road from the Burj), which is designed as an Arabian palace/Alhambralike. I have never eaten in the 'signature' restaurant, but the Mediterranean place there is good value and they do a nice goat's cheese and chilli pizza. They have amazing gardens to walk in before and after a meal. 2. Vu's Bar on the 51st floor of the Emirates Tower Hotel - very swanky, good drinks and super views (and a very exciting lift ride to get there). 3. The Al Bustan Palace Hotel in Muscat, Oman. In some ways I found the interior of this building even more amazing than the Burj. The lobby is the most colossal dome you have ever seen in a hotel and the air is thick with frankinscence. The food there is not so great, though there is a French restaurant which was not open when we went there in the cheaper season.