nimzo

Still waiting, asked for August or any Saturday, getting more and more pessimistic by the minute as I hear of the failures.Anybody got any good news?

I wasn't suggesting for a minute that Jordi is as accomplished a chef as the Roca's, simply that we all enjoyed our meals at 5C more. I have been up all night wondering why there are those restaurants with technically excellent food and lots of stars which i enjoy in my mind and mouth and others which just go straight to the heart. Jordi's is certainly one of the latter for me.

My wife had the lamb and loved it although from where I was sitting it was less pink than I had imagined. It didn't stop her picking up the bones and gnawing them which is always the sign of a decent piece of meat. What I enjoy about 5 Sentits is the comfort- food aspect. The maple syrup shot sets the tone and none of the courses or dishes set out to shock which is the perfect thing for an autumn evening. I loved the intellectual ideas in the food at Can Roca, admire the technical skill at Can Fabes and am always blown away and shocked by Bulli but Jordi does comfort food of the highest degree which always does what it says on the tin, no false beignets of octopus testicles with butifarra ice cream( the Spanish equivalent of liver and lager?) and the prices of the food and wines seem outrageously low for those of us in rip-off Britain.

I too dined at Cinc Sentits last week, just missing the fisherman's strike on the first occasion.Omakase on the first night, the one difference being the slow cooked veal cheek instead of the lamb.A really superb dish to be eaten with a spoon .It reminded me perfectly of the beef of my childhood.The second amuse was the foie gras torchon with violet jam, a classic and then a new addition with a sweet potato veloute with some brown butter which really set it off. Two nights later we were back for the a la carte dishes missed on the first night. Amongst the highlights have to be the foie gras coca which was right up there with Mr. Blumenthal's crab biscuit and foie. The suckling pig and the duck were terrific, I had a half portion of cheese and fineshed with a trio of chocolates which demonstrated the differences between the cocoa beans superbly. Both wondeful, faultless evenings and Jordi's cooking seems to be going from strength to strength. The vote around the table was unanimous in preferring Cinc Sentits to Can Roca, not solely on the food but also the ambience, Jordi, Amelia's service and great wine pairing skill.I didn't notice any americains but there was a table of canadians and us Brits.

Finally made it and am now kicking myself for not having gone before.Three of us went for lunch, we decided on a la carte as the degustacion was a little heavy on liver and I am supposed to be avoiding it at the moment ( lacked willpower when it came to the stunning foie coca at 5 Sentits however).I started with the cold apple soup, a perfect lunch dish on a surprisingly warm day, my mother had the carpaccio of trotter and adored the sweet onion tuile and my wife went with the Comte soup, well documented already but still wonderful. All mains were wonderful, lobster with trompettes de mort, duck terrine with pear and fideu of prawns without the noodles, a great range of cooking styles and all perfect. The desserts were the high point of the meal for us, Viaje a la Habana for me which was the essence of my fathers ashtray the morning after a good Monte Cristo, my mum had the Zen Garden, essence of jasmine in green brushed sugar and y wife had the Poison which mirrored the perfume perfectly. Excellent coffee and petit fours, a bottle of Condrieu Depocins and a glass of Roda 2000 ( turned into several after the sommelier offered a vertical tasting), three glasses of cava and a 15 year old rum with a total bill of 275 euros. With Ryanair flying to Girona for £40 I am seriously considering giving up my local restaurants and heading south instead.Had a long chat with Josep and Jordi which rounded it off a treat. Well worth the 2 stars and a much more enjoyable meal than at Santi Santamaria in every way.

I am a big fan of Vinos y Restaurantes and have had some great results from their recommendations.

It was a long one on the night in question, I seem to remember around 2 hours as we missed Holby and the second part of a good thriller. Perhaps heston could come up with a combination of ingredients which, when mixed, created a thermo-nuclear reaction and powered not only the Duck but the rest of the village. Full marks to Heston for all those summer nights when the air-con in the kitchen has packed up and they have carried on regardless.

Red mullet?

Success. I got answer to the phone tonight and am booked in on 26th October, taking my 71 year old mother for a birthday treat after she munched her way through the Fat Duck tasting menu last year. Many thanks to Silly and Pedro for your offers of help, it is what makes egullet so great , only hope I can do the same should you need anything in Bray.

I do wish that Can Roca would bother to reply to reservation requests though. I have been phoning, e-mailing, faxing over the past 3 weeks with no response. From what I have read in the guides they are not closed in August but the impression is that nobody is at home. I will try for one more week but am wondering if it really is worth all the hassle,This may be a reason why people don't visit.

I assume.perhaps wrongly, that most bass on the menu is farmed and that the damage to the species is more from the by-products of the fish farming industry. The one fish that does upset me is marlin, increasingly endangered and yet still sold in English supermarkets.

Train to Figueres and then taxi to Roses, easy but the taxi will cost you about 45 euros.

Castro is just up the coast from Santurtzi, sardine capital of the Basque country and worth a visit if you like the oily little critters.

Fish conservation in Spain is a very strange area. I once spent a year writing a report on the effects of the EEC on the Spanish fleet. After spending a month on the boats in La Coruna, logging catches, attending auctions etc I went to the ministry in Madrid to get the official figures. Imagine my surprise when they bore no relation whatsoever to the catches landed.I guess that until the Government is happy to take action little will change Certainly in Andalucia I have seen campaigns run against the catching of juvenile fish but these have usually been alongside a few plates of boquerones. What bothers me more is the huge by-catch and the catching of billfish, next time you see marlin on sale in Waitrose please stop to think how many have been left by the longliners.

Did Mr Clifford also go to ElBulli in 2001 for the prawn sashimi and forget to bring the kellogs paella home. Is he calling in at Cinc Sentits next week for the maple syrup chupito perhaps?. It is one thing to have an influence or two as I am sure most top chefs will agree but I am at a loss to explain why a chef would simply copy a dish he has eaten Perhaps the braised beef was his idea. I've not eaten at Midsummer so difficult to comment on whether the execution is better than the originals but if he does have the technique I hope he discovers the imagination to match.

Certainly is in berkshire and Bucks though you will have to wait for the winter.

After the scallop surely a dish containing pointy birds may have been more appropriate. Anybody else fed up with pointless verbs and past participles sprinkled and dusted onto menus?.

Samantha, if you had bothered to eat there on a regular basis you might notice that although the menu may not change much the dishes certainly do. At least Heston manages to refine things without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There is cetainly no need to eat the same dish twice and if you must have the tasting menu just ask to swap some things, they always seem happy to do so.

Hard to get more seasonal or local than the Bray allotments, all of 500 metres from the FD.

If you are around Besalu/Olot don't forget to give Mas Pau a try, not traditional but with what I would say was a far from modernist approach given the Bulli connection. A nice place to stay and great cheeses and wines. I have never been disappointed.

I remember a dessert from 2 or 3 years ago being described as Tierra and it looked more like a moonscape with craters of chocolate and cocoa with nuts and caramel in there somewhere. maybe its a savoury version on textures of the earth??.

Not because we were still hungry but because it was our last night in town and we wanted a happy memory to finish. I should add that when we went was close to their summer closure and I am guessing that the front of house staff had their mind on their holidays more than the meal. The food was very good even with the substitutions and if you hit it when the staff are on form you will be in for a treat.

I found Can Fabes quite disappointing around 18 months ago but 2 dishes that do stick in my mind were the ravioli of langoustines with the casing made from wafer thin langoustine and a fine lobster in a curry emulsion. Petit fours were great but again they brought the bill without being asked and we were dining fairly early. i found the sommelier extremely stiff and unforgiving.

There is an English menu but the translation is awful."Coconut Scum" still sticks in my mind. I last ate there in September and unfortuately found it lacking. The food in no way matched the menu description, substituting cockles for prawns and apricots for peachesamongst other things, with no price reduction for the cockles..The explanation was "They are old menus, not our fault."I found the staff very unwelcoming and we spent quite a while at the entrance before anyone even bothered to seat us.The same when leaving, no goodbyes, no best wishes, nobody could be bothered to move Overall view was good food prepared with imagination but badly let down by front of house.We ended up going for an extra dessert at 5 Sentits , the one unmissable restaurant in Barcelona at the moment in my opinion.

Give the Reidel cognac glasses a try, you will never go back and the cost isn't too bad when spread over the number of bottles you are likely to use them for.