endless autumn

I'm no agricultural expert, but I should think that lamb is unattractive to large-scale producers of meat in America because sheep are resistant to intensive farming. If there's not much lamb around, not many people can eat it. Sheep need to be outdoors, eating grass or whatever plants are growing in the ground (not too much clover, though if I'm up on my Hardy). They can't be coralled and corn-fed, or kept in a barn/factory. The harder lamb is to get hold of, the less likely it is to become a staple source of protein. People then reflect their prejudices about the product, never having tasted it - as Brits do about (to name the most obvious examples) snails or frogs. Any argument about its taste (too strong, too gamey, too animal) or fluffy concerns for the little gambolling lambs is depressing in the extreme.l

oops - sorry, should have bothered to read your post properly... OK then: two pre-theatre deals I know of in the area - West Street, between 5.30 and 7.15 two courses cost £13, and three £15.50 Mon Plaisir, two courses of trad Gallic fare £13.95, three for £15.95, including a glass of house wine and a coffee not enormously interesting, granted, but at least appropriate

Incognico: 117, Shaftesbury Avenue London WC2H 8AD Tel: 020 7836 8866 It's just east of Cambridge Circus.

Have just posted something here about Incognico - Shaftesbury Avenue, on the east side of Cambridge Circus. I think they also do the same deal early evening - or you could just go for lunch and see if you can make it last until the play opens.

Being young and poor, I can't tell you about the restaurants above, but have had pretty good meals at lunchtime at Incognico for a ridiculously small amount: £12.50 for three courses. What you order will be exactly what you receive - no vegetables, no carbohydrate, no garnish - but it's a gorgeous restaurant (sort of clubby, dark wood etc.), they don't rush you and you can order a couple of pitchers of wine and drink away the afternoon. Last time I went, I left at 5.30pm. I only spent about £60 for me and my girlfriend. (I think, but I might be wrong, that there's a similar deal at Deca on Conduit Street - never been there but I've heard good things.)

If you look on the guardian website, you may be able to find some hilarious recommendations by Anthony Jones who has reviewed every medicore restaurant in oxford for G2, glorifying each and every one. Don't listen to him: he is wrong. Oxford's restaurants are dominated by two men: Jeremy Mogford and Clinton Pugh. Mogford founded Brown's and sold it a while back. (Don't go to Brown's: the food is below poor.) He now owns Quod, The Old Parsonage and Gee's. Of these, Gee's is the gem - beautiful conservatory on the Banbury Road which was a Victorian florists (I think): it serves decent if overpriced food (veal chop for £20 - not stratospheric, but the cooking is hardly exceptional). Be that as it may, it is a lovely place to spend a couple of hours. The Old Parsonage is a great hit with American tourists - it's a lovely old building but the dining room is staid and the food unambitious. Quod is plain boring, and they don't season their food. Pugh's restaurants are provinical-flashy and quite fun though the food is rather poor. They are: Kazbar (unremarkable pseudo tapas with ridiculously uncomfortable seats), Cafe Coco (pizza restaurant with pretensions), the Grand Cafe (overpriced, glorified coffee shop), and (has it re-opened yet?) the Lemon Tree which was reputed to be the best restaurant in Oxford a few years back but still served plenty of food reheated in the microwave (my friend's sister used to work there). I quite like Branca, a very sensibly run place on Walton street which has a limited and simple menu of things they know the kitchen can get right: pork belly, steak, lamb with white beans and pesto (+salads and pizzas)... It is quite a brassy, noisy place, vaguely metropolitan and excellent value. Not really worth travelling for, though. Otherwise, the Cherwell Boathouse might be worth a visit if it is a nice day - it is by the river (no surprise there) and has an incredible wine list (I think it's owned by one of Morris & Verdin). The problem is the food, which my dad says is much improved, but was distinctly middling last time I was there (a year ago today). Other places: Al Shami - a lebanese restaurant in Jericho which is always mentioned in lazy round-ups of 'the best lebanese restaurants'. (If fakherldine (totally misspelt) has a few reviews it will probably turn up in the accompanying side-column); Petit Blanc - dull, dull, dull; some poncey Italian by the water on folly bridge: reports have not been good; Chiang Mai - above average Thai just off High Street; The Elizabeth - hilariouly retro, clubby place opposite Christchurch - famous for partridge (apparently), buy crayfish from boys who fish for them on Port Meadow, lots of ceremony, starched napery etc., cooks school food for grown ups which isn't as bad as you'd think.

What do people think of the modern (non-Italian) restaurant preparations of risotto? Both Nico Ladenis (now sadly retired) and Gordon Ramsay make risotto by blanching carnaroli/arborio until almost done, making a separate heavily creamed/buttered sauce, and stirring it through the rice, thus completing the cooking and giving the illusion that the creaminess is a property of of the rice. I've never had a risotto cooked by either of the above, but have made a cep risotto, guiltily following Ladenis' advice. It was better than any other I have made. (On another note: Ladenis objects to the boiled wine taste which seeps into the kernels of rice if you make a risotto by (one of) the Italian method(s). Does anyone else object to this or do they think it a intrinsic (and good) quality of a risotto?)

in english it's 'petroose': we don't use french vowel sounds. (paris is 'paris', not 'parrhee'.)

I was only let out of my institution one year ago. Even at high table, at various feasts and special smaller-scale dinners the food was embarrassingly poor. My favourite was venison with cherries. Once every year, upon the slaughter of the college's excess deer (I think they were killed according to colour so that the herd remained as aesthetically pleasing as possible) scholars would be afforded the privilege of eating a stewed shin of deer with raw tinned cherries. Served with watercress, hilarious potato croquettes, and vegetables twice-cooked under hot-lights and over steam-baths - an ancient recipe which is quoted in various culinary history books. So the college claims. At school, pupils designed the week's menu with the kitchen staff and the housemaster's wife. A merry game played by the snotty upstarts was to see how many 'amusing' recipe names they could sneak into the week's bill o' fare. 'Rideaux de boeuf' somehow escaped detection even though the housemaster's wife was French.