Matthew Grant

Now Scott, if you had bothered to write at the time I wouldn't have had to endure the pain!

This place is small, I'm not sure how they would be able to produce too many wines by the glass. The wine list is good value though, mostly around the £20 - £25 mark with plenty below that.

In all seriousness i do think it depends on which KFC you go to, some are pretty poor, others pretty good. No smell of rancid fat from my local!

Tongue firmly in cheek

So he did, was he just teasing? Say it ain't so....

Much excitement before Christmas when I found the Addiscombe High Street was to get its very own proper Fast Food Restaurant. KFC was coming to town baby! Woo Hoo! You can take you crappy Morley's chicken and stuff it up your… Ah the thrill of waking up on a Sunday morning with a sore head and being able to wander down the road, pick up the paper and then pop next door to grab a 3 piece variety meal to soak up the excess alcohol, fantastic. Last night needing a little sustenance after lunch I chose a Zinger Tower burger which was surprisingly spicy for once, the Chicken fillet topped with cheese, salsa, lettuce and a hash brown all comig together in a lovely gooey mess. Chips have never been a strong point at KFC and this was no exception Coleslaw was gloriously cheap, vinegary and lovely. Don't give me any of this nice expensive coleslaw I want the cheap crap. Is that wrong? Hot wings were Fresh out the fryer, crispy and juicy withing. Corn plump and artifically coloured. Fantastic. A quick word about the service which came with a pleasant smile and happily swapped my drink for a side. KFC you rule!

Tim, as an aside, where do you get your Gauloise Blanc? Myself and Moby might be interested in some of those!

Me too. It was a 'Special Reserve' as well. Label Anglais' site talks about healthy feeding, allowing outside grazing, permitting full growth without hormones and uses the term 'Fully Free Range' but makes no mention of barns, sheds or deep litter. As far as I've been able to find out (and this is by no means easy) a bird can be barn-raised - predominantly indoors in what most civilians would consider quite intensive conditions - and yet still be marketed as free-range if it has access to outdoor space. Hock burns would tend to back this up. Wrenching the wheel back to the original thread, WH are our best suppliers of fantastic chicken. I have to imagine they represent an example of best practice across the industry. With that in mind I wonder how much difference an avian lockdown would actually make. ← The special Reserve is the second bird, not as good as the other chicken, it has more fat on it and is maybe better suited to traditional roasting but the flavour is not as good

This is a very attractive pub that doesn't feel like a pub at all, nicely furnished with large tables. Unfortunately the location is pretty terrible, Battersea High Street must be in the running for the smallest High Street in the country. Although busy the atmosphere in the pub (I use the term loosely) was a little muted. I was disappointed to see that the menu was drastically pared down for Sunday Lunch and instead of the modern food I had been expecting found myself ordering a Caesar Salad to start. I requested it without the advertised egg but it arrived with what appeared to be pieces of hard boiled egg chopped up and running through the bacon. The bacon in question was supposedly pancetta, the rind had been left on it which made quite a lot of it inedible. According to Time Out the chef used to work with Eric Chavot, not much rubbed off because if there is one thing Chavot knows how to cook it is bacon, in this instance it looked like it had been boiled, not a hint of browning, pale unattractive to look at and devoid of flavour the fat still unpleasantly firm. The dressing lacked parmesan and anchovy. Overall an appalling salad, I cannot stress that strongly enough. Another starter of French Onion soup was almost white, very sweet (I think they had used white onion) and topped with two small piece of bread with a small amount of cheese. When I say small, they were difficult to spot in the middle of the large wide bowl. If your going to do these things do them properly, piping hot, with crusty bread covering the top, slightly burnt around the edges with bubbling cheese. Another crappy effort at something that is alarming simple to do. Main courses were more successful. Braised Ox cheek with cabbage and Ratte potatoes came as it read. A large piece of ox cheek sliced into 5 pieces, very tender, sat atop a bed of very strong Savoy cabbage with ratte potatoes sliced in half . The cabbage was strong enough to become quite dominant and the braising liquid it was served with didn't benefit from a heavy hit of Rosemary. Another dish of roast leg of Label Rouge chicken with Pommes Puree was pleasant if a little unexciting, the beans served alongside weren't hot enough when they arrived.. A flourless Coconut and pineapple cake was very nice for dessert and the star of the show was a Pistachio pannacotta which had just the right amount of wobble, good depth of flavour and was served alongside a Mocha ice cream and Kumquats poached in syrup which were too bitter. Overall a disappointing visit but I think this probably isn't representative of the cooking normally available here, unfortunately I probably won't return to find out.

Salt Yard last night, I really liked the feel of the place, sure the tables are close to gether but this isn't refined eating, its tapas so who cares. Service was efficient if lacking a little knowlege. e.g "Is the Iberico Jabugo Joselito?" "Er..No I think its from Iberico, its a place in Spain" Started with a chopping board of the Iberico Jabugo which was excellent, thinly sliced by hand although I would have liked a few longer strips. Spanish selection was Chorizo, Lomo, Salcichon and another I can't remember, all very good. Confit sholder of lamb was served with Farro - great lamb, the Farro had mint running through it. Courgette flowers were crispy, stuffed with goats cheese and drizzled with honey. Prawns with Rosemary and Chilli could have done with more chilli (and rosemary for that matter) but were good examples and nicely cooked. Chorizo cooked in Arturian(sp?) cider finished our order. Then we ordered some excellent Prosciutto San Danielle......Then we thought about it a bit more and for dessert ordered another portion of the Jabugo ham. Great night, smashing little place!

I'm not sure what the name of the Italian place is called. I won't be able to sleep tonight unless you mail me the details of what product is so good that you are spending the child allowance on it! Moby you understood my post just fine. I was talking about mid to high-end restaurants but my initial post was bemoaining the lack of reviews of any kind.

Nothing annoys me more than being offered Champagne by the glass and the waiter not knwoing how much it is (or feigning not knowing). In this instance I asked 3 times and each time was answered with the year before finally getting "Its around £20 a glass". I wonder how much "around" really was.

We went to Capital last night. I found it a frustrating meal in many respects. The cooking is good technically, everything cooked perfectly but I find Chavot's obsession with bacon distracting. It appear everywhere, completely unannounced. Scallop veloute was a good amuse, good depth of flavour with a nice smokiness provided by the bacon. We both chose a White Onion veloute with Langoustine, and what I think was a Mushroom & Truffle Tortellini. The Veloute could have done with perhaps being a little thicker but the flavour was beautiful, distinctly white onion the sweetness complementing the Langoustines very well indeed. The Tortellini were rich, smooth with a nice hint of truffle, they sat on top of comfit (?) onions which were meltingly soft. Within the veloute were crispy piece of what I believe were bacon and perhaps some crispy shallot. An excellent dish. A main course of veal (Dutch, I did tell her not to bother but she ignored me) was disappointing, great texture but flavourless veal with a balsamic sauce, mushrooms etc. etc. an underwhelming dish. Rabbit stuffed with Olives served with Grilled Squid, Tomato Risotto, Coco beans, was again well prepared and cooked,. The Risotto was in a package of some sort and was intense with tomato and a little smokiness that gave it a slight chorizo flavour. Of course the smokiness probably came from the bacon. Coco beans were served in a tomato sauce again smoky with bacon. Squid and rabbit perfectly cooked and all the Bunny Offal served alongside on a skewer. An OK dish, the individual elements worked well but I never felt it really came together as a whole. Bernard Anthony Cheese was a treat and a half, the Comte was "around 3 years old", apparently they had recently finished a 2001 Comte. The Comte was superb, The Eppoise good. The Roquefort was a little salty but the texture was like whipped cream, incredibly light, it disappeared within seconds of hitting your mouth. My selection of cheese was huge, I forget/was unfamiliar with the remaining cheese but in total I had around 7 generous serving of cheese which didn't appear as a supplement on the bill which was nice. Rachel chose a chocolate dessert, a fondant, Millefeuille but was disappointed. Overall solid cooking but it's not 2 star cooking in my mind, a solid one star no doubt at all. The room is still awful, Rachel commented that it looks like the room in the hotel where you take your breakfast, it wouldn't surprise me if that is what it is used for in the mornings A quick word for the couple on the table next to us, just because we asked how much the glass of Bollinger '97 that we were offered as an aperitif was doesn't mean that we shouldn't be eating here. If you do want to talk about us please try to be a little more discreet next time.

That's odd, before I read your post I just called TFC Express - they can indeed help me! Also able to supply Limousin Veal. I'll try next week if possible and report back.

Pyrenean Milk-fed lamb - the younger/paler the better I think Selfridges or Harvey Nicks may do it, can anybody confirm this or suggest anywhere else?

Are you Michael Winner? Anyway, why not write about PDT or Garcia, I personally don't really give a toss if the meal cost less than an arm and a leg or more than my house. I don't even think that the argument about "highfalutin tastes" holds true, theres not even many reviews about those restaurants either. What's happened to the days when we got half a dozen different restaurants (not necessarily new) each day?

May I ask why it hasn't been so good? All the best, -- Ian ← It's been missing a few restaurants and the reviews don't seem as knwledgeable or recent. A few years ago I know that it used to be the case that a restaurant only got reviewed if it was recommended by members of the public, however when they visited they weren't shy of saying that something was appalling and giving a generally poor review. Nowadays everythings is either great or fine, nothing gets slated completely which in my mind means that somebody is holding back (either that or I'm too picky when I eat out. The star system is awful as well now. Read few reviews without stars and then read a few with, they just don't stand up to comparison, lots of the non-starred retaurants get far better reviews

Time out has the best coverage but in recent years it hasn't been as good, I also use Harden's but I don't particularly pay much attention to either of them any more, guides increasingly are at odds with each other with there opinions on certain restaurants so its difficult ot know who to believe. I was mainly paying attention to EG or other food sites but the dearth of current reviews is making that increasingly difficult.

For £70 a head you can have 5 courses and coffee. Take your pick

If you give me a 70 quid a head I'm happy to cook for you.

I think there is an element of this but in general the UK board and in particular London has been very quiet for some time now, not just the post Christmas period. Agree that L'Atelier could be a kick up the arse but it has to be said that the food is hardly cutting edge, it is really about the concept which Maze pinched of him (or Tapas or Sushi bars depending on how you want to interpret it). I can't see that it will hugely excite the non-foodies, it will probably be hard to sell the Robuchon brand to a general public that just won't have heard of him, I hope I'm wrong. Besides that again is a new opening, aren't people revisiting restaurants or going to old favourites, this board isn't purely about new openings

You obviously have time to read though? Some of us work for a living and don't have the time? ← Excused, you don't live in London. I think it really is down to boredom, although that article concentrated on fashionable restaurants Peyton was astute in his comment: A long time ago we had a discussion on this bored about needing the gneral public (i.e. non foodies) to catch up food wise. We're all food savvy but the majority of punters don't analyse or expect as much from there dining experiences as we might, subsequently food is stuck in a quagmire, chefs/owners are unwilling to take a risk (understandably so) and move on. Contemporary food and talented chefs are plentiful, what is missing is a dining public demanding enough to make a worthwhile but new venture. Maybe ten years down the line the public will all catch up and be demanding something new and then we will have dozens of new openings that we want to try. In the meantime it seems like I'll have to stick to the occasional meal out and blow my budget on cooking for myself at home.

It's not even down to the new openings (I've got another thread on the lack of those elsewhere), I'm just curious to know why there are very few postings about any London restaurants at the moment.

I'm already shaving my head to disuise the thinning growth, don't think I can get enough together for a Mohican

When exactly did everybody move up North? What prompted everybody to stop eating in London Restaurants? I appreciate that some of us don't eat out as regularly as we might wish but I can't believe the lack of London posts lately.