Matthew Grant

Having tasted Hestons pomme puree straight from the saucepan in which the maestro himself finished it, I feel qualified to speak on this matter The potato is good however, I don't know that it i any better than pomme puree made in the 'normal' manner using a potato ricer. As stated in the article, the main advantage is being able to cook them in advance and leave them in the fridge until you need to finish them.

I think that is probably to to do with quality issues. Frozen purees come into restaurants every week tasting exactly the same, then dishes can be made reliably day after day. Obviously making fresh puree is a bit more haphazard and will depend more on the quality of the peaches that day and this could also limit the season during which you could make the dish/cocktail significantly.

Right here!

Presumably the company that sells this is also the French company that sells the frozen Mango puree that I am trying to find!

I'll second a creamy morel sauce, also good with chicken.

Fergus, has there ever been an unusual ingredient that you just couldn't bring yourself to serve or after taste tests could not be put on the menu?

I tend to prefer my steak to stand alone but recently I added some Foie Gras Butter that I had left over - Sublime if a little rich I'd probably recommend this more for fillet or another cut with a little less flavour.

Agree (With Steve that is). GR@RHR is a superb kitchen, I can't comment on 3 stars in France (not for anoher couple of months at least) but in my opinion, Petrus has never reached the heights that GR has at either Aubergine or RHR.

I thinkthe real question is why did you buy so much of the stuff?

I've already printed it off ready for my trip in May! I'm going to try and attempt to replicate Bux's "one two culinary punches"

We thought LL was great meal but in a simple way, the cooking was uncomplicaetd adn relied heavily on great ingredients (nothing wrong in that), I would find it very hard to compare this style of cooking with the Haute Cuisine of Le Manoir or Waterside

I ate at Dover Street last night. Music excellent, food dreadful. No beer, wine and spirits only. You have been warned

Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road Waterside Inn - Bray Fat Duck - Bray. All guranteed to leave a lasting impression and a lighter wallet

Visited Nobu for the first time o Saturday, horrible dining room - way too cramped. Without going into too much detail about the food, Sashimi of Beef and yellow fin Tuna were fantastic, prawn tempura OK, Black Cod was very good and pefectly cooked, another prawn dish was good (excellent according to my GF who is more of a Prawn fan than me).This is the first time we have eaten Japanese so we may be a little misguided. Unfortunately service was appaling. Arrived on the dot for a 21:30 table, ordered cocktails at the bar and 10 minutes later were seated and given a menu, so far so good. 25 minutes later still no sign of the waiter, also noticed that dishes on the tables for 2 and 4 were very slow coming out. Took the decision to leave if we finished our cocktails before the waiter arrived, he duly did as we finished the last sip. Then asked for some guidance as we hadn't eaten at Nobu or Japanese before. Received a very hurried explanation of Sushi and Sashimi dishes and he then pointed us to wards the mains (we already knew they were mains as it was written at the top of the page) Waiter returns 5 minutes later to take our order. A couple of Sashimi dishes, "2 soups please", "The soup is normally served at the end of the meal", "Why is it at the beginning of the menu after the starters then?" Ordered a small portion of Wagyu beef as well as tempura and 2 mains. 30 - 40 minutes later the beef Sashimi arrives, no sign of the Tuna, 30 minutes after that along comes the Tempura, at which point the waiter discvers that we haven't had the Tuna Sashimi, he disappears and 30 seconds later comes back with the Tuna as well. Before we have finished these two dishes the cod arrives, a waitress quite literally tried to take one of the starters away while Rachel had her chopsticks in the bowl! After we finish the Cod, the Waiter returns to advise that the Wagyu beef is unavailable today (over an hour after our order was taken), no alternative suggestion, just "sorry". Prawns then arrived and duly eaten. Massive delays in service at the beginning of the meal and then everything arriving at once towards the end. About halfway through we realised that we hadn't ordered enough despite asking for guidance. Once we had finished everything, the waiter returned and asked if we need any more food as the kitchen was closing! Whilst the food was good, the sevice had left a sour taste so despite not being particularly full, decided against extra food. Knocked the 15% service charge of the bill, waiter said he understood but needed authorisation form a manager who duly arrived with a new bill minus the service charge and an apology but not a single question as to why! On the whole very poor, I noticed this happening to a lot of the smaller tables while the larger tables were being looked after very well. We hadn't seena manager at all dutring our meal and not once were we asked how our food was.

I've not been but they have a band at Dover Street called Payback who are quite outstanding. Fantastic Jazz/Funk/Soul covers from a 10 piece band. They have a website but the recotrdings on there are so bad that they would put you off. They used to play in Croydon for free but the bar they played in was taken over by new management and they didn't think that the 300 people they pulled in on a Wednesday was very good. Now the bar is empty 7 nights a week - great business move Anyway, I digress, don't miss this band!

Paid my first visit today. Popped into the bar, Welsh Rarebit as described by Andy - very good and an excellent rhubarb crumble with custard. Agree on the service though, difficult to attract a waiters attention in the bar area. Good value I will now return at some point for dinner.

I changed my signature to my favourite quote from the show a couple of weeks ago!

Jon, I can see you in "cooking", just thought I'd bring this to the top of the page again!

Back to the House of Commons, the report I read said that it was likely to open to the public but it was still undecided on the charging and whether to leave prices subsidised as they are now - could make for some interesting drinking! On another note, I remember some time ago reading a restaurant review of an old art gallery restaurant, food nothing to write home about but the wine list was meant to be amazing and very cheap due to them cellaring the wine themselves over the years ahving bought them very cheap (sorry if this is off topic) anybody know where it is?

http://forums.egullet.org

Is Lucas Carton still worth a visit. The wine pairings by the glass has always interested me but I wondered whether the food still measures up?

I'm already booked into a 'Space of Aubrac' room ! Gavin, how long did it tak to drive form the Costa Brava? My current plan is to take the train from Barcelona to Montpellier or Beziers and drive form there.

Jon, did you try this?

This makes sense, I thought I read that GR was taking over at the Savoy, Marcus is probably going to be a front man for Gordon as he attempts to keep himself out of the media spotlight