Suzi Edwards

they do exactly the same ironing thing at claridges. the person i was eating with pointed out (rightly) that this was the closest i had come to an iron in many, many years :-)

ooh. interesting. on another note, the mexican stall at borough seems to have a fairly good supply of tomatillos now.

guy savoy is closed when i am there. i think i might cry :-(

ate here this evening and the prices seem to have gone way up. the evening was a bit of a wash out as i was waiting for a dinner companion who got stuck in traffic and was an hour and a half late and we then had to run off for a gig. i ate pigs head with prawn followed by lasagne with cep cappuchino. my very late friend had something off the vegetarian menu (i didn't like to probe) it's very convenient for the empire and i'll probably go back but given that one of us had one vegetarian course, i had two and a glass of prosecco and some water, the bill came to £56 i was kind of shocked.

i think locanda locatelli is quite romantic. and you could recreate the "the lady and the tramp" spagetti scene with the tagliatelli with kid goat ragu.

just a quickie from me before i brave times square (HOW MANY PEOPLE IN ONE PLACE????) fantasic to meet you all last night and the burger was (in my innocent eyes) delicious. we do not get burgers like that in the UK (at least, not that i have had) comepltely different texture and flavour. anyway, i'll post more when i am back in london but thank you all for your hospitality, i had a great night! suzi

i agree with comments that wareing doesn't really have his own style. i was left scratching my head after my dinner there about what he was really trying do. i think he's ramsey light at the moment, tony james to gordon's martin degville.

am v impressed with myself. i already know where that is :-) see ya later

i went to maestro on my last trip, it's very, very good and made me see the point of foie gras. in a slightly different league, but very good all the same, is nectar. the welcome was so friendly it made it a nicer experience than maestro all tolled.

i can't think of anywhere around there. i went to a restaurant on an old boat that's moored in st catherine's docks, but thought that it was pretty uninspiring for what we paid. given the cost i'd recommend just jumping into a cab and going somewhere else. st john would be about a £10 fare from there....

now that is the hottest ticket...

the funny thing about wish lists is that it clarifies your thoughts and puts you in a position to make things happen. i promised myself that i would eat at FL, el bulli and RHR. i've managed two out of three so far and probably wouldn't have gone to el bulli if i hadn't dreamt about it and worked out how to make it happen.

I've had more great food this year than ever before. Which means that 2004 has a hard act to beat. But I am already starting to think about where I *have* to go next year. And I love to hear where other people want to go. So, here's my starter for 10... 1. French Laundry 2. Fat Duck 3. Arzak 4. Waterside Inn

There were several things that pushed me towards GS and PG. Firstly, ADPA is closed the entire time we're in Paris and the NYE extravaganza is just too expensive for me, so it kind of deselected itself. Secondly, I read most of the France forum here (no joke) and figured that PG would be a more "challenging" meal (along the same vein as El Bulli and (I am hoping) WD50, while GS will be more of a traditional french 3 star (and I am thinking a good counterpoint to RHR) with all the trappings you would expect there. I also looked through the Restaurant Magazine "World's Best Resturant" feature and both make the top 10 as I recall. While I don't necessarily agree with their rankings, I think that the top 20 is a fairly good yardstick of where might be nice to eat.

you missed varmint's pig pickin off that list :-)

what fantastic information. you've now helped me decide that i have to go to both :-) let's assume that i have to have lunch at one and dinner at another. which order would you do it in? i've really put off posting about el bulli. i have lots of musings on it but nothing that's a really homogenous post. i'll do something in the next couple of days.

don't forget me and my bro :-) i spoke to blondie and she said she was in. hope this helps.

can anyone give me some detailed advice on eating in paris over NYE? to give you some background, i ate at el bulli earlier this year and found the experience frustrating in that only 3 of the courses delivered a "wow" factor for me, many were simply good or interesting and 5 were, to my palate, horrible. on the other hand i *loved* my meal at RHR and felt that it delivered a more complete experience with no misses. i want to eat at pierre gagnaire but am wondering if i should bite the bullet and have dinner or if lunch might be a better option. if i go for lunch there, which 3 star would recommend for dinner? guy savoy perhaps?

thanks for the tips guys. moby, next time you see jack, ask him about the guacamole. just make sure i'm not in earshot.

i made some pesto on saturday and was wondering how long people would keep it for in the fridge. my partner is happy to scrape mould off stuff (bleurgh) and he says it will keep until saturday. i don't believe him... any ideas?

someone take him up on that offer. the book's great (IMHO)

this place hasn't been mentioned for a while. i stopped banging on about it as i was beginning to sound like a stuck record. i used to live round the corner and it got to the stage where jack and i ate here on a weekly basis. having moved we hadn't been for a couple of months, so we went back on friday evening. it was packed as always but they managed to find us a table. we had taken to building our own sort of tasting menu when eating here as we'd started to feel that the mains were significantly less interesting and less good value than the starters. however as soon as i saw the words "mashed potato" i had to have it...so we ended up starting with fish soup and deep fried potato patties filled with lamb, followed by roast pork with mash and wild mushrooms and beef with artichoke and spinach salad. the fish soup was thinner than i'd been expecting, but it was all the better for it. more of a broth than a soup really but with a deeply fishy flavour. fab. the patties were fairly boring and slightly greasy, but perked up by a couple of pickled chilis. the pork was fantastic, enough to feed about three people, and beautifully tender but with a good layer of crackling. the mushrooms and mash were a great counterpoint to the pork and perfect food for a wet and windy friday night. the beef was slightly overshadowed by the pork, but it was still a good plateful of rare beef. i'd previously said that deserts here weren't very good, but we shared a chocolate, chestnut and almond cake with prune and oloroso ice cream. i will mostly be recreating that ice cream at home this week. it was amazing. the only lowpoint of the evenng was the table of smug marrieds next to us who managed to almost knock our bottle of water into my pork without an apology and then proceeded to drive me up the wall by discussing having fantastic it was to eat at a "traditional moroccan restaurant". still, the pork calmed me down.

i think you might be able to find that umeboshi plum vinegar in the "special selection" in sainsburies. i'll second the brindisa call, but their shop in exmouth market (ec1) is a slightly more sedate shopping experience. i also like the cool chili stall in borough, the only place i've yet found to get tomatillos :-)

Tarka - When you look up London on the Michelin web site - it also lists Waterside Inn in Bray-on-Thames - which I suspect is a suburb of London. Robyn ah, sorry. ihave my zone one blinkers on :-)

if only we did have two places with three stars...I think only RHR has this honour.