Suzi Edwards

apologies. work has sort of exploded. so i have been neglecting this diary. i promise that by the end of the week i will have written my thoughts on adobo grill (i have been three times now so i think i can comment quite fairly) moto (and why omar isn't like willy wonka) tru (hurrah hurrah am going tonight) avenues and pluton (which must forever be called plutron as it's a much more 21st century name) but for now, i must put on some lipstick and go eat. I AM STARVING.

here's a link (i had to check....) link to buy everything tastes better with bacon

don't forget "a paeon to peas" and "a eulogy to eggs"

he's a tv reviewer and general agent provocateur as far as i can see. i don't think i've ever read a restaurant review by him before. now, i'm not suggesting that you have to know anything about food to be a restaurant critic (see aa gill) but do you think they could have made a better choice? i can see writing about art and music would prepare you for writing about food...but slightly surreal reviews of tv programmes...maybe he'll be brilliant and i'll have to eat my words. but i wonder how well eaten he is and if he really was the best choice. am sure he'll write great copy but i don't know if i'd trust him right off the bat. bit like tobey smith in the standard. i just don't think he knows *anything* about food, but he's a great social commentator.

is saying "the chef at bray" the egullet equivalent of saying "the scottish play" when you're around actors? i've now booked for my second attempt at eating at anthony's. i have made a specific request for the tarte tatin and they were very accomodating. which is nice. am eating at l'enclume the night before so it should be a very inventive couple of days.

i love, in order of how much i love them 1. "Appetite" by Nigel Slater. It's basically how I learned to not need to use recipes. Obviously hasn't worked 100% well though as I still love... 2. Anything by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall because he makes me want to jack it all in and buy a small holding in Devon. In about 10 years time he'll be responsible for all these 21st century "Good Lifers" 3. "The Moro Cookbook" because it's my favourite local restaurant but for every five times we call we don't get in at least twice so I can just look at the pictures at home. 4. "How to Eat" by Nigella Lawson because even though not all of the reciepes need updating or tweaking the way she does, I always get the feeling of having knowledge handed down from one person to another and I don't get that in a culinary sense from my mum or my friends, so she's a surrogate for me.

do you mean for news/gossip about chefs and restaurants or for receipes?

i'm really enjoying this. thanks for sharing!

make sure one of you has "chef roland's garden" and i look forward to hearing about how you found it.

Ahem. I got carded buying a beer yesterday. *applies thin layer of that "better than botox" cream they're all raving about over here* Moro is an idea of such stupendous greatness I fear you may have killed the thread. But everyone, please chime in with other suggestions. Don't let the greatness of Moby's idea put you off.

that's it. i had the suckling pig. i think i need to go and lie down in a darkened room for a while. it's all just come flooding back.... Waiter: "Was everything ok?" (peering at hardly touched plate) Suzi: "Erm. No. This really wasn't very good. Each of these four different preparations is uniquly ghastly in its own special way. Look at this crackling. It's like toast that has been wrapped in a serviette before it was allowed to cool. Cracking isn't supposed to bounce. And this roasted pork? It's completely dry. No juice. It's not supposed to shatter when you slice it." Waiter "How was the venison sir?" Jack: "Well, it's fair to say it wasn't as bad as the pork but the dauphinoise potatoes are hard" In fairness, they took the critisism on the chin (and I didn't really use the word ghastly) and let me totter off into the balmy summer evening. Tavern sounds like a better bet...do they share a kitchen?

*turns green* do we think the restautant might be suffering the "big party/tasting menu" effect we experienced at the square? can anyone recommend places that can step up to the plate (tee hee) when it comes to serving great food to a larger (say 10+) group? I'm starting to think about my 30th birthday meal. Perhaps we can talk about it here

Fi's post about Lyndsay House and our experience at the Square makes me wonder which "good" restaurants can deliver really, seriously tasty food to a larger group. Any ideas? Maybe private rooms you've eaten in that really did a good job?

this is so true. i actually had a call from my credit card company on the monday morning after my visit to the manoir "to check some abnormal spending patterns on my account"

I'm going to join the chorus of "erms" about this place. We went on a Friday night and it was almost completely empty. There were two other people in there when we arrived and they soon left. Jack and I have that effect on people. The cheese room is such a brilliant idea I want one at home. But I think they are starting to suffer from lack of turnover. Several of the cheese I would have like to eat were dried up sad little specimins. The waiteress (actually, I think she might be part of the management team) steered me away from those and she did build us a plate of really good stuff, but there's something about seeing such bounty and not being to have everything that rankled a bit with me. Why not throw the stuff that was past its best away? I don't think I'd go back. It feels a bit strange to me. I think their location isn't helping them at all...

All I can say is that I really hope that *someone* replaces whoever is cooking at the Bleeding Heart at the moment. Jack and I went 3-4 weeks ago. I just found the receipt and all the horror came flooding back. As I staggered into the restaurant (cobbles play havock with stiletto heels dahlings) I was really excited to be eating here. Jack and I were pointing excitedly at the outdoor area and hatching plans to come back on sunny summer evenings. I was slightly nauseated by the heart motif that runs through the restaurant itself and wondered for a second if they hadn't just left the decorations up from a spectacularly OTT Valentine's day celebration. They hadn't. Starters were a fabulously watery pea veloute served with a piece of (I think) Sainburies filo that had been left out for too long before baking. I recognised the flavour as I once made the mistake myself. It was served with a "caviar cream" that was too light on the caviar to really merit the name. I was stunned that given the time of year they would serve such an insipid pea preparation. Jack's scallops were a little better, seared and served with a garlic butter. Mains were venison for Jack and I can't remember what I ordered. I can't check my reciept as it was taken off the bill with no complaint from the waiter at all. I do remember that whatever it was it came with a small side order of macaroni cheese that would make Little Chef proud. The cheese sauce had separated leaving a vile oily slick to rise above the pasta which was both too crispy from being left in the oven for too long and on the point of distintigrating beneath from being boiled for too long before being coated in the sauce. We declined dessert. And instead went to Vivat Bacchus for some cheese.

Hi Alex, Here's a link to a thread about Midsummer House I had a good meal there, but it was 12 months ago. I wouldn't recommend anywhere else in Cambridge, but it's certainly well above any other places in the area. It's a nice mix of the innovative and the traditional, although I didn't have the tasting menu, I get the impression it's more innovative that the carte. We had an eGullet meal at the Square not too long ago and there's a thread about it here I don't think I ever posted my thoughts about it. I do still think about the beignet they served us, but with hindsight it didn't hit the heights i was hoping for. I don't think I'd want to celebrate my 30th there (which reminds me, I really must think about what I want to do for mine. It's starting to loom) I disagree with Matthew about Morgan M I have eaten there twice now and I think it's a lovely room with a good menu. I think it could be more upfront with the flavours, it can all feel a bit restrained. Best tasting menu for me is at the F*t D*ck so you'll be fully appraised of all opinions if you read that. But I cannot think of a better place to celebrate.

i'm going to read willy wonka this weekend so i can finally work out why people keep saying that any innovative food is like willy wonka.

I think she negates some of her critisism when she says; " The menu, however, is described as featuring "French dishes with and without Vietnamese influences, as well as Vietnamese dishes with and without French influences." Which is confusing when you're eating them." I think she misses the tension between the two different cuisines. She completely misses that the dressing on the salad starter isn't the same as you'd get in the local vietnamese diner, it's more nuanced, less abrasive...more french. Also, if anyone can tell me a low-cost vietnamese diner that puts veal in their spring rolls, i'll eat my kittens. I just get a bit concerned when I think that people are comparing apples with oranges and their main complaint is that "this apple doesn't taste like an orange"

so i made it back to le lan i am a lady of my word

I made a return visit to Le Lan last night. It just gets better. They kindly gave us a couple of extra canapes, you should be very excited if you're ever offered the squid ink ravioli with cauliflower puree. I think I understand what they're doing here a bit better after this visit. I'd call it Vietnamese with classical French restraint. My raw tuna appetiser epitomised this; a tangle of rice noodles, salad, exceptional grade tuna with a beautifully nuanced fish sauce dressing. None of the raspy harshness you can get if you just overdo the lime or fish sauce a bit. The proportions were perfect. I do think it was more Thai than Vietnamese, but I guess I need to finally do my tour of south east Asia to really test this assumption... The entrees are more classically French than the appetisers but Terry, the General Mananger explained that they're looking to go slightly more Vietnamese here over time. That said I had no complaints about my curry roasted Monkfish with coconut and horesradish emulsions. It came with the thinnest pommes maxim I've ever had that were a beautiful extra texture to the dish and so thin they couldn't possibly have any carbs in them at all. There's a really innovative heart beating beneath the French-Vietnamese exterior. Moto and Trio watch out...

i think you have to be *much* more careful about causing racial offence in the US than anywhere else. i've worked with lots of australians and think there is a real don't give a damn attitude about casuing offence...whereas affrimative action is so much more a part of the landscape in the us... i'm british and as soon as i saw the word moolatte i thought mulatto and was really, really deeply shocked that it was being used. then i read steve's "decafro" post and snorted water through my nose.

hummmm. gastropub as starter restaurant. interesting. anything that makes more people eat out the better as far as i am concerned. then my colleagues might stop thinking i am some sort of food obsessed fetishist "suzi, stop being so french with all this food stuff."

what's the food like in the v&a?

careful moby. the owners of shumi might be reading. we don't want to give them any more ideas.