Suzi Edwards

I've found that article. If anyone wants the full list (including fish to eat with a clearer conscience) please PM me and I'll find a way to scan it in. The black list is: Atlantic Cod (eat line caught Icelandic instead) Atlantic Salmon (eat wild pacific or organically farmed) Chilean Seabass (no alternative) Dogfish (no alternative) European Hake (eat South African) European Seabass (eat line caught or farmed...interesting) Grouper (no alternative) Haddock (eat line caught Icelandic) Ling (no alternative) Martlin (no alternative) Monkfish (no alternative) North Atlantic halibut (eat line caught Pacific or farmed North Atlantic) Orange Roughy (no alternative) Shark (no alternative) Skates and Rays (no alternative) Snapper (no alternative) Sturgeon (no alternative although they're starting to farm it) Swordfish (no alternative) Tuna (eat pole or line caught and stick to yellow fin or skipjack) (preferably not Princes) Warm water or tropical prawns (eat responsibly farmed prawns)

we always knew it was formal hall when everything was served with watercress (i assume the kitchen viewed this as a suitably formal garnish, unlike the baked beans served at almost every other meal)...which would invariably be recycled as soup soon after. and i still have nightmares about armenian lamb. funnily i took my (american) boyfriend to cam the other week, showed him round my collage and upon walking into hall he whispered "it's just like hogwarts" :-))

Ate here last Thursday, can't recommend it highly enough. Great place for a mid week meal. Firstly, it's aggressivly non-smoking. Hurrah hurrah. Secondly, it's in Islington so I can stagger home (and I did) Thirdly, they've really passionate about the food they are serving and take the time to really put that passion across to you. Fourthy, no large pepper mills The menu has a couple too many choices for starters and mains and perhaps is trying to cover all bases a bit too much (risotto of the day, pasta of the day, butchers cut of the day, fish of the day) but I felt spoilt for choice. We ate: Tomato and Buffalo Mozzarella with Basil dressing (fab mozzarella) Stuffed squid with a spicy sauce (slightly small portion at first sight, served with chicory leaves as a nice counterpoint.) Calfs liver with balsamic vinegar dressing and fried polenta chips (calves liver was slightly the wrong side of pink but it had good flavour) Cannelloni stuffed with squash and nutmeg with a cheese and amaretto sauce (sounded disgusting to me but it was really flavoursome) Pasta with tomato, capers, olives and breadcrumbs (simple, made with great ingredients. faultless really with the pasta perfectly cooked) and to follow: apple pie with parmesan ice cream (the parmesan could have had a more cheesy flavour, but i'm a cheese glutton so short of shaving it over the top, i was unlikely to be satisfied) neapolitan cheesecake with ricotta ice-cream (ricotta ice cream was delicious, they'd used a mix of the strong ricotta and the one you can usually get (according to my colleague paul who appears to be a ricotta fanatic. i was lucky to get a taste) we drank far too much wine (can't remember which...) and a half bottle of desert wine from the veneto. I'm a Moro addict but I've now found somewhere to tear me away...

I ate lunch at the Connaught last weekend (hottest day of the year so far???) It was somewhat disappointing. Firstly, we were the only people booked into the non-smoking grill room, so they moved us into the "other room" The gouty old chimneys at the table next to me supping claret were a walking advert for heart attacks. Horrible. Why can't we just ban smoking in restaurants and be done with it? The room is a gentleman's style oak panelled dream, with shades over the windows (!!!!!) to prevent any real natural light coming in. It reminded me of an old supervisor's room at college. The flowers were lovely though. Service was hit and miss with simple questions like "what is this bread and how is it made?" being answered with "we call it "carta di musica". I have never tried it" For the record it's made with lots and lots of salt. Horribly over-seasoned, like 60% of the dishes we ate. I think there's been lots of talk on the boards about the seasoning at Petrus...I think there might have been a chef-exchange to the Connaught. We ate an amuse of salami and ham (the ham i get from brindisa is nicer), starters of asparagus with fried duck egg and parmasan and carpaccio of tuna and swordfish (from the brakes brothers school of catering, i think it had been plated up some days before) Mains of roasted salmon with chilli, lettuce fondant and gnocci (since when has wilted lettuce been a fondant?) and beef filet with roasted onions (lovely onions). For desert I had the cheese, a selection of eight that almost defeated me...I ended up sharing with Jack who's cherry tart had disappeared before I got a spoon to it. Coffee was served with chocolate coated roasted almonds. For me the highlight of the meal. A post desert of tiramisu was one of the low-lights. Two glasses of champagne, a half bottle of Montrachet and a half of Northern Californian red (the price of which nearly made the North American Jack faint) took the bill to GBP180 without tip. Given saturday lunch is GBP25 per head....this turned into an expensive lunch. I'll go to Clariges next time. At least the room is more fun there...

hummm, not sure about the connaught. i went on saturday and didn't think it was very girly. it was also really quiet.... i'd suggest claridges over the connaught and would consider the ivy (don't all shout at once) i know the food isn't great, but i think it's a great place for a girly lunch/supper.

the recent Guardian food pull out put sea bass on the list of fish to not eat. their arguement was based around the idea that farming fish is bad for the environment (as i recall) and wild numbers of the fish have dropped dangerously low. i'll try and dig the arcticle out, i was sure it was on my desk... i've tried thr guardian archive and the food suppliments don't seem to be on there.

thom, you have reminded me i want to spend a weekend in ludlow. has anyone eaten anywhere else good? any hotel recommendations?

Ate at La Trouvaille on Upper Street last night. Mediocre to say the least. There were a few nice touches, radish on the table, a house aperitif of chestnut liqeur with champagne and some nice bread. We ate: Octopus with harissa - nicely fishy but could have done with more of a chilli kick Charcuterie plate - parma ham from sainsburies up the road, rillettes that were either tuna or duck. i really could not be sure. some nice terrine. Salad Nicoise with Gurnard- I never realised that sweetcorn kernals were involved in regional French cookery Ox Cheeky with mash - Slightly over braised but a nice haunting beefy flavour. Mash was FULL of butter and cream. MMMMMMMMM. They did about 8 covers all night. We had two aperitifs, two glasses of wine, bill was £70. Still haven't found anywhere to tempt me away from my weekly Moro-fix. I'll give it 5 out of 10 (one for each radish)

positive review in time out today for benares. does anyone know where they get their food critics from? i still can't get over their "championing" of song que. the results of their eating and drinking awards and the at-least-two-as-far-as-i-can-remember reviews make me wonder if they have shares in them

Andy, has this changed recently? In your review of Petrus from September last year you said: "It now actually feels like a bar rather than a collection of furniture in an entrance way in order to appease the expectations of Michelin. " (sorry, don't know how to use the quote thingy) Not being cheeky, I just happened to come across it in another thread just now ;-)

i was wondering about that too. i thought i'd read that you could only get a star if you had a separate bar? correct me if i am wrong... portions were not huge, i'd say on the generous side on london dining....

I ate at Midsummer House on Friday night. Given I was doing a parachute jump on Saturday I wanted my (potentially) last meal to be memorable (not something that Cambridge food is especially famous for) I think the positive reviews on here are spot on; this is a restaurant cooking some seriously good food that would be packed to the rafters were it in London. I think they've made a few changes since the last review, so I'll concentrate on those first.... Upstairs bar has been turned into a second dining room. Looks like bookings are on the up, but we were still able to get a table at 7:30 on that Friday (our original emailed request had gone missing... we were planning to eat at the newly opened Graffiti but I thought I'd try for a cancellation) The drawback of the upstairs room is that it's small, with four tables so you do end up feeling like your sharing the meal with the people next to you. This was nice though as the table next to us had never eaten in such a resturant before so it was good to remember how thrilled I was by my first "posh" experiences ;-) Sadly they can't get the cheeseboard upstairs but this didn't stop us tramping down to choose before having desert as well. They've just changed the menu to a more minimalist style. Having eaten in Jaan earlier this week there were obvious parallels between the semantics of the menu (but luckily not the food) The photos of the food have gone and eat choice is now "suggested" by a couple of words (my starter was Quail, Roasted Grapes, Savoy Cabbage) I think this might be happening on menus across the land... I'm not sure I think it's such a great idea, although at least it means we may see less "pan-fried" descriptions appearing on menus. And onto the food...(forgive me, but I didn't get a menu so this is slightly vague) There was the (it would seem) ubiquitous green tea and lime sour. I haven't eaten at the Fat Duck, but I was reminded of a foam that I had at El Bulli. Maybe I just don't like green tea or foams, but I thought this was disgusting. More successful was a second amuse of a "contraste" of ceps and coffee. This was fab with a really earthy warm cep veloute (natch) with a coffee jelly at the bottom. I think I realised at this point that this was going to be a serious meal. My starter above was very accomplished with the savoy cabbage served as a puree flavoured with truffle. Jack's scallops with truffles was a great example of very simple ingredients perfectly cooked. Mains were even better. I went for Pigeon which I usually avoid having been dive bombed once too many times at Farringdon station. The legs had been been roasted to sticky deliciousness and I was annoyed when Jack stole my second one. Reparations were made by a large mouthful of filet with a cep ragout. Then followed one of the best cheese courses I've had in a long time. There was possibly the most delicious ever Brillat-Savarin, a not-quite-as-good-as-the-one-i-had-at-christmas Flower Marie and a lovely ripe Banon. Dessert was my low point. My Valrona chocolate cake seemed to exude an odd clear fat when i broke into it and there was just a bit too much chocolate going on on the plate for its own good. Very little flavour differentiation between the ice cream and the cake, but maybe I'm just nitpicking. Jack's mille feuille of apricot with verbena panna cotta was much better (and a lighter end the meal) Coffee followed (none of the petit fours I'd spied coming in) but there was a sweet plate of individual cakes as a pre-dessert (the lemon tart being the best) All in all...fantastic. I'm going to steal Simon's marking format and give them 8/10 (it would have been 9 but they didn't actually describe the cep thing as a veloute)

there's a place called bocca (italian) that's supposed to be good. i'm going later this year and was planning to book. has anyone been?

perhaps they have links to the okra industry as there was a tempura of okra with one of the dishes last night too.

well, sean was busy so i took my boyfriend.... we arrived. we were shown the menu for the top table two for one "offer". it consisted of a salad or two and a sandwich. i felt rather cheated. we decided to go for the tasting menu...5 courses for £45, £75 plus wine. the a la carte is short and we felt that the tasting menu had everything that we wanted to eat on it! the menu was as follows: carpaccio of tuna with wasabi ice cream and lump caviar foie gras with glazed lotus route, kumquat and caramel praline sauce monkfish with a langoustine crust, asparagus salad and a shellfish coconut emulsion grilled scottish fillet with braised veal tongue, tempura of okra and pepper vinegar sauce iced soup of earl grey tea or cheese (£3 suppliment) despite requests they couldn't give me a list of the wines, but they weren't anything special (two crozes hermitage (viognier and i can't remember the red) a young margaux with my cheese, icewein with the foie and a sauvignon blanc....) they do have a great selection of wine by the glass and the menu suggests a different glass for each choice across the whole menu. the fillet was great, nice to see tongue on a menu for a change. the monkfish was also perfectly cooked, but the langoustine "crust" was more of a topping. can't really complain, but i was looking forward to a crunch. the wasabi ice-cream was really, really good, but the portion was way too small. cheeses were nicely kept and came with some unusual jellies. i think the kitchen tries to be too clever though; foie gras doesn't need a caramel praline sauce and try as i might i couldn't find the shellfish coconut emulsion. the restaurant's aim is to bring "the subtle flavours of cambodia to traditional french cooking"...but i guess i don't really see the point. it is at its best when it forgets the cambodian stuff and delivers basic french cooking.. i'm assuming they're going for michelin stars as there are lots of amuses, pre-deserts etc and they passed the napkin test with flying colours (!) the chairs are terrible though, they have these weird "skirts" on them that make everyone who isn't sitting up poker straight look like they're in a nursing home. total bill was £200 (including two "perfect" manhattans and a "mediocre" kir royale) service was ok generally, but the wine service was the low point of the meal...food was consitently placed in front of us and we waited several minutes each time for the right wine to be brought to us. i can think of many, many ways to spend £200. going back to jaan isn't one of them. there are just too many better resturants around that do the same thing.

toptable have a two for one offer on there at the moment. hopefully it will be on the proper menu and not some "special" one. circeplum, thanks for the comments, was it quite dressy? sounds like i should be going for the bond girl look from your post. :-)

I have a vague recollection of reading some good reviews when this place opened. I am going there tonight, was wondering if anyone had been. Can't see any mention of it on here. Cheers.

if i start this by saying that i eat there at least once a fortnight, you might guess what i am going to say next... i think the food is great, although some dishes can be a little bland and need more aggressive seasoning. the starters are always better than the mains (we've taken to having lots of starters) don't bother with pudding and the cheese selection wasn't great last time we were there) good wine selection and some interesting sherry too (i'm just learning about sherry)

I still dream of Ramsey's tart tatin. It is the most delicious thing i have ever put in my mouth. BTW, El Bulli FAILS the napkin test. They just leave it where you put it. Shocking, really.

Hi Bux, Went to Can Majo last Thursday and it was really, really good. We started with a sort of mini lobster dish (waiter didn't know the translation and I don't have the piece of paper with the spanish word on it. They were something con rio which i'm assuming makes them freshwater crustacea) in a great spicy sauce that was dotted with pancetta and followed it with a paella. Simple and great. Interestingly, and I think this goes for a lot of places in Spain, they have translated their menu into English, but not the specials menu. So if you want the really good stuff it's well worth knowing some Spanish. Or check out what the locals have and just point. Another highlight of Barcelona for me was Espai Sucre, the world's only desert restaurant, which I think is quite new and delivered a meal way beyond the novelty value I was expecting. I have a full report that I want to post (From KFC to El Bulli) Perhaps a regular can suggest if I should include it as a reply to this thread, the El Bulli one that's active at the moment, or start a new one? Etiqutte advice much appreciated. :-)

brindisa have taken to adding a cold roasted pepper to the chorizo bun. *avoid at all costs* it's very slimy.

Euston. Urgh. Can anyone suggest a decent pub near here? I've been tasked with organising a company get together there.... Yes, I know....

went this evening, ate almost everything on the menu and can hardly type as i am so stuffed. i love this resturant. i noticed they have NO vegetarian choices. this rocks.

in my defence jordyn, there was an immediate response to my mail that suggested i remove the information. i took a judgement and removed the info. i'm new here. i got my information (the actual date when reservations opened) from a number of sources including "another leading food site" so i was working on the assumption that it anyone was serious about getting a table at el bulli they would have done what i did and scoured the internet for information. i then posted the info on here with a request for help. interstingly, until i posted there was no mention on here of when reservations opened....but people obviously knew... this was one of the most viewed (but interestingly) not most posted to threads for a while. more importantly to me, the person who personal messaged me asking for the info was given it... so please, chill out and don't berate me for doing what it was suggested i do. :-)

hi joe, my reservation is for easter sunday (april 20th) and it's for two people so i guess they've gone sequentially. as i remember that's the first month they're open... thanks for the suggestions on hotels everyone. much appreciated.