Matthew Grant

Very disappointing meal on Saturday. Some dishes were under seasoned and often felt one dimensional. I felt everything was crying out for something else in the dish e.g. acidity, salt, sweet etc. Service was annoying as well, we never got offered any bread and when we asked for some cheese our American waiter told us that the liquor licence finished at midnight, looked at my watch and it was only 2245, the waiter then asked us whether we thought we would be able to finish by midnight, predictably we were paying up less than an hour later. He also presented the pheasant with the explanation "because its game season, or as you call it in the UK "bird season"..." Since when did we call it "bird season"?

Is the Gregg Wallace comment a joke?

A bit late now but during San Fermin Mcdonalds and Burger King are probably your best bet! I say that only half in jest, if you're drinking half as much as the locals you'll want something to soak it all up and trying to get any significant amount of food down your neck is difficult without resorting to fast food.

Nice report. Alona Berri closed a few years back? Unless of course it has reopened, this might account for its decline :-). It was just round the corner from Bar Bergara and looked closed earlier this year.

That's a pretty decent summary of my experience as well. It feels like a soulless restaurant, better suited to terminal 5. Waitress literally repeating the same lines for every table. Wine waiter completely thrown when I asked him to leave the bottle on the table "I'm afraid we can't do that in this standard of restaurant" (I bit my tongue and to be fair he did leave it 5 minutes later after checking with a manager) . Nothing particularly bad or memorable apart from the pigeon which has to rate as the most flavourless bird I have ever eaten.

I'm not sure why we're even debating why some 3 stars aren't on the top 50 list why some on the top 50 don't have 3 stars. The Michelin guide is ....wait for it.....a guide. The Top 50 is a PR exercise which occasionally has some correlation with some of the best restaurants in the world.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cast-Black-Steel-Baking-Stone/dp/B0001IWYFA

Yes, a more contemporary version of the old Roux Brothers series would be very welcome.

i wonder, i don't pay too much attention to scores due to the way some food inspectors interpret things like sous vide but when they start scoring zeros its definitely time to pay attention. They keep mentioning his Michelin star yet the restaurant doesn't hold one, poor form in my opinion!

http://www.scoresonthedoors.org.uk/business/hengist-restaurant-kent-186852.html Their food hygiene rating is Very Bad = Almost total non-compliance with statutory obligations! Doesn't seem such a great deal now!

Westminster are denying that they have banned rare burgers, they simply ordered Davy's wine bar to stop serving rare burgers due to the way they were prepared: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/bloody-burgers-are-being-taken-off-westminster-menus-in-chaos-over-rare-meat-8410585.html Interestingly enough for me a good burger needs to be cooked more than rare in order to get the significant amount of fat it should contain to start melting. I'm not saying they should be cooked through but rare rarely works for me with a burger.

Me too, Spanish coffee has never been great, still too much UHT milk being used

This thread is discussing the renaming of Italian style coffees. I understand you being miffed about english dishes being translated to French but you can't have it both ways!

So your advocating taking somebody elses heritage (Italian coffee) and renaming it as if it was our own?

Are they all visiting Debenhams?

Ok, but we need to expand on that translation as it isn't descriptive enough. As I said, Milky coffee could be nescafe with a lot of milk. How about "15gms ground coffee, brewed under pressure to a 50ml measurement topped with milk heated to 70 degrees"? Gives me a much better idea of what I'm getting. Alternatively, lets call it a Caffe Latte. This isn't anything to do with fine dining, it is simply to do with a commonly used term. Moving away from Caffe latte as the example, who doesn't know what a cappucino is?

Your missing the point, some may have shortened it to latte in our everyday use but the term caffe latte is a particular style of coffee, it isn't a made up coffee snob term.

For me Espresso/Cappucino/Cafe Latte etc bestow a confidence that I am going to get an italian style coffee brewed under pressure (i.e. an espresso based drink) instead of a Nescafe with a lot of milk (this doesn't necessarily mean all coffees made this way are good.). Its nothing to do with coffee snobbery. What is easier to say, "an espresso" or "a shot of really strong black coffee", what if you got 2 teaspoons of nescafe in a shot glass would you be accepting of that because thats what the description could actually be. If you want a filter coffee, ask for a fliter coffee, if you want an instant coffee, ask for an instant coffee. I struggle to believe that anybody that really enjoys coffee doesn't understand what these terms mean after so many years of them being available in this country. In the case of those who think it is snobbery I fully expect them not to use any foreign food terms when describing dishes eaten in the UK. No more Sushi on this board, that will be rice with raw fish thank you! No more after dinner espresso, no croissants, pot au feu, creme anglaise etc. etc. Where does the snobbery end!?

"Really Really milky coffee" - I agree a cafe Latte has a lot of milk but this gives the impression that it is weak, which in my mind a cafe latte shouldn't be.

I would hope that the better reataurants are buying direct from the local truffle hunters though, as you mention, there are plenty from outside Alba. However, what concerns me more is the quality of the truffle, I'd rather an excellent white truffle from outside Alba than an average one from Alba.

Another shout for Della Posta, nearly everywhere will be serving at least a simple pasta with truffle for relatively little money. If you find yourself in La Morra do try the pizza place on the outskirts of the village.

Don't forego everything Stein related, his fish and chips are a must in my opinion, good quality fish, beautiful thin batter and all cooked fresh. Travelled there from Fowey twice last week for them and the coffee at Bin Two (they use Monmouth coffee). Worth trying a battered Oyster at Steins, lovely thin batter, barely cooked oyster, fantastic.

I intend to, the dogs sound good and the chamoagne list is good and reasonable but still I pose the question, if it isn't a gimmick what champagne do you pair with bluee cheese and spicy saue, or how about pickled Jalapenos?

....or sliders..

What a fantastic idea, why didn't I think of that? Also goes someway towards my argument that champagne with hotdogs as a concept is nothing more than a gimmick