[Wareing At The Savoy Grill]

So who is taking over at the Berkeley Hotel ?

[Starbuck's]

Matthew, you can adjust. Try asking for a double tall dry cap. I'm not saying the coffee's good, but the proportions are infinitely fixable.

And there lies the con! to get a decent coffee, you can't order standard, you have to pay extra to get it to have any taste! I notice that Monmouth, gives an extra shot for free if requested.

[Starbuck's]

Starbuck's product is little more than a high calorie and desperately unhealthy caffieneated milkshake.

I'm surprised at the number of people who enjoy Starbucks coffee

Although I've not tried their 'short' coffees, the Latte and Cappuccino are exactly as LML describes. Where exactly does the coffee come into it? A Latte and Cappuccino may have a large percentage of milk but that doesn't mean that they have to be so incredibly weak!

[Top Butchers In London]

I tend to use Borough now but ... Doves on Northcote Road, and (to state the obvious) Lidgate in Holland Park.

In total agrement here, although Doves is nice not fantastic. I had a rib joint at Christmas for the Ginger Pig, hung for 8 weeks, nicely gamey but not too overpowering - outstanding. All the butchers at Borough are very good, look out for Dexter Steer hung for around 6 weks, fantastic. Lidgates is a beautiful place to go, very traditional, all meat properly hung but a lot more expensive.

[Other sites for recipes?]

Raymond Blanc has a huge recipe site, I don't particularly like the search engine (or his food) but here's a 2 star chef putting 5000 recipes online! Bravo!

HERE!

[Michel Bras, Laguiole]

Michel Bras' inn is not at all awkward to get to, it just requires a car. Otherwise it's next to impossible. Having dined at both Bras and El Bulli as well as having toured the area between them many times, I can only wonder at your interest in doing both in one trip let alone eating little but nutella and bread inbetween. It's truly none of my business, but I'm curious about your previous travel in France or Spain and experience in eating in either of those countries. I suppose I'm curious about your dining habits in the UK as well. I share neither John Whiting nor John Thorne's antipathy towards haute cuisine and grand luxe restaurants. I enjoy them very much. Nevertheless I question why anyone might attempt this, and on a budget no less. How much time are you spending in Barcelona and Catalonia? Where else are you going in Spain and France? Forgive me if I'm out of line.

Not at all Bux, I work a shift pattern which allows me two weeks off by just taking 3 days holiday, after securing my reservation at El BUlli, it occurred to me that I would have to take these 3 days off leaving me with a heap of time to travel around a little. The obvious place to travel to after El Bulli was Barcelona, a place we have been to before and were keen to explore again, we are going to spend 4 nights here. Then after a bottle of wine or two we got thinking about where else we could visit, we had only just been talking about returning to Paris and thought that this would be a good idea, especailly if we simply jumped on a train (I enjoy travel on trains), however one thing led to another and looking at what was in between Barcelona and Paris I realised that there was Michel Bras, a restaurant that appeals to me both from a design and a food perspective. By this time the drink was really taking hold and the long travel times seemed quite reasonable Subsequently, With Graham and Cabrales help, I find myself booked into Michel Bras a week after eating at El Bulli. I am happy to drive for short periods of time but due to my desire to have a drink while on Holiday I prefer to only do this where necessary and for a couple of days at a time.

As for the budget, it isn't that strict and my Nutella tale should be taken with a pinch of salt (although a few years ago when we were poorly backpackers, we really did eat Nutella and bread for lunch everyday for what seemed like weeks but was proabably only a few days). The only thing we are trying to restrict is the travel and accomodation costs, the train is the cheapest option and we will stay in Pensions and small hotels (except at MB). We will fly into Girona an out of Paris.

As for our eating experience, well, we started out small and finsihed off big. I enjoy Haute Cuisine on occasions and the demise of the 3 stars (The Oak Room, Nico, La Tante Claire were all visited while 3 star restaurants) in England leaves us wanting to visit 3 stars abroad, El Bulli has interested me for a long time and after a meal and a couple of days in the kitchen at The Fat Duck I was convinced that it was worth the effort. We eat out most weekends when I am not working, otherwise the weekend will be spent cooking. We enjoy all types of cuisine.

The only thing left to decide is where to eat in Paris, it seems a shame not to visit a 3 star there as well! Recommendations for smaller/cheaper establishments also gratefully received.

[Michel Bras, Laguiole]

Mmmmmmmm Its a wonder he gets anybody going there its so awkward to get too!

Still I am (at the moment) fairly determined to go and tie it in with my El Bulli visit

Barcelona Rodez takes around 10 hours, I also want to head to Paris afterwards and that takes another 7 hours (I can see my patience wearing thin)! Cabrales, as for eating in Montpellier, we will be giving it a miss, we will be living off nutella and Baguette between 3 stars!

Can anybody advise on the rooms at Michel Bras? Whats the difference between Space of Aubrac and Garden of Aubrac?

[Michel Bras, Laguiole]

Thanks, I was just looking at this but can't work out where i can get a train to Rodez from?

[Michel Bras, Laguiole]

Can anybody that has been to Michel Bras tell me how easy it is to get there? I was hoping to go by train starting off at Barcelona and maybe stopping off on route, any suggestions or is this a non starter?

[Made in Italy]

Now I'm disappointed, I pop along to PM to taste the best pizzain London only to find retrospectively that the Pizza chef has changed

Life just isn't fair!

[Made in Italy]

We ordered a pizza described as sausage with "fraierelli" brocolli (which I hoped in my heart of hearts was going to be brocolli rabe, but was not; has anybody ever seen brocolli rabe in London? does anybody know what Fraierelli brocollis meant to be?).  It was a white pizza, so perhaps not a good representation, but the sausage turned out to be chunks of relatively flavourless and dry pork, the pizza was very greasy, the crust was very doughy and soft, the promised brocolli tasted like canned spinach, and the toppings were very sparse.  The fact that the pizza was served on what appeared to be a lunch tray certainly did us no favours in trying to keep the damn thing from cooling off too quickly.

Thomas, that was the topping we had, dry pork (sausage?) and I forgot about the overpoweringly strong spinach, definitely not Broccoli. As you mention, the toppings were sparse except the Mozzarella which was overwhelming.

Hands up all those people who thingk that PM has the best Pizza but have not eaten at Spiga?

[Made in Italy]

Popped into Pizza Metro for a quick bite at lunch yesterday.

Bread was good, nicely chewy and slightly salty. Croquettes to start, including 2 Arancini, potato an Mozzarella, all woefully underseasoned, luke warm (not sure whether they were meant to be a cold or a hot starter) and falling apart. Grilled mushrooms with garlic were served cold, with the main ingredient being oil and vinegar, little hint of garlic.

We then shared a pizza with two topping, Mozzarella, spicy sausage/ Tomato, Mozzarella, Prisciutto and rocket. huge pizzas, served in a rectangular, they spend approximately 90 seconds in the oven. Excellent base, which has gone soggy after five minutes because of the excessive amount of tomato sauce, spicy sausage is not spicy at all, way too much mozarella which has congealed before you are even half way through the pizza, making it hard work to eat. Again no noticeable seasoning which it desperately needed.

This might sound like a complete slating of the restaurant, it's not meant to be but I didn't really see it as outstanding, I think I would order 2 smaller pizzas next time, the bases started off beautifully. I left with the impression that the people in there enjoyed it because of the large portions.

I've had better pizza at Spiga where they are not afraid to serve pizzas without any cheese whatsoever and....SHOCK HORROR.....Pizza Express My Goodness two chains serving up good pizza! Pizza Express, is always fresh, the Soho is not a million miles away from the style of pizzas served at PM, but comes in a smaller portion, with just the right amount of Mozarella to keep it palatable all the way through. In my mind, good pizza should not be swapped with huge amounts of cheese.

[Lucky 7]

Popped in for a burger at Lucky 7 in Notting Hill on Friday. I like the decor which so much has been said of, however the burgers were merely OK. We both ate a green Chilli cheese burger after checking that we weren't going to get a burger with Chilli Con Carne on top of it - don't you just hate that?.

Burgers were OK, a little on the small side but cooked medium rare as requested, Green Chilli sauce appeared to have been freshly made with finely chopped green chillis. Fries were good, beer batter onion rings were average, in places the batter was too thick the thinner battered rings were very nice.

Can't complain too much, burgers were on £4.95, fries and Onion rings were £2.50. Much better burgers at GBK.

[A drink near Hunan?]

There didn't appear to be any special dishes for new Year, but this was my first visit so am not really sure. I specifically asked for the hot duck dish that Tony described in another thread and got the reply "I'll see what i can do". Can't remember all of the dishes (approximately 12 - 14) but they included the fried beans (v. good) "Mountain Chicken" which was immediately picked out as frog by my other half much to the delight of Mr Peng who held her arm aloft in celebration. A wonderful beef dish with the beef served rare. The pigeon soup (full of flavour but a little unappetising to look at), Paper wrapped pork, we also got the spicy duck with pancakes, it was sweet, sour and spicy, a good dish, the duck must have been added to the sauce at the end as it was still very crispy.

I really enjoyed the meal, it lasted a good two hours of eating and I liked the surprise element not having eaten here before. I shall return and ask for Lobster next time. I enjoyed Mr Peng, I felt like he took some notice of us, the food was very spicy as requested and he delivered the duck dish. One criticism I would have is the order it was served in, the milder dishes might have been better served earlier in the meal.

Total price inculding service, an £18 bottle of wine, I don't remember what, a couple of beers, a bottle of water and tea to finish, £97. I though this was pretty reasonable, the food came in at under £30 a head and there was a lot of it.

One thing that was very strange was that we had no rice or noodle dishes - is this normal? A Larger table behind us did have a bowl of rice but didn't seem to get the succession of dishes that we had. I will return but can see that it might get a little boring if we were to get the same dishes everytime.

[A drink near Hunan?]

I loved him from the moment he walked up to our table and said "What you Like?"

[A drink near Hunan?]

Is there any where decent to have a drink near Hunan? Urgent replies please, we're visiting tonight.

[Michelin Red Guide / Star System (merged topic)]

Plannig a brief trip to France, I was looking at some retaurants I might visit and wiped a couple off the list as they had lost stars (Roger Verge and Ducasse Monaco). It set me wondering whether any restaurant has lost stars and regained them under the guidance of the same chef?

[Dinner! 2003]

Last Saturday, continued with my experimentation with truffles and Label Anglais chicken:

Asparagus fried in butter with grated truffle and served on top of some lightly toasted bread with a sprinkling of chervil (courtesy of Heston Blumenthal on kitchen chemistry)

Roasted Chicken , Albufera sauce with truffles, fondant potatoes.

Orange Tart w/raspberry sorbet.

Albufera sauce was made with equal quantities of dark chicken stock and double cream with some Foie Gras butter whisked in, it occured to me that this dish had a particularly high fat content. Superb, even if I do say so myself

[London Indian Restaurants]

To the list of Indian/Pakistani restaurants I would add Mirch Masala in Norbury (I think there may now be a 2nd in Tooting) Superb food, although the cafe setting is no longer so cafe'ish since they put laminated wooden flooring down

[El Bulli Reservations Topic]

They are working around the clock to get those confirmations out! I got my preferred reservation thorugh yesterday sent at 02:07am! I guess that they are going sequentially, my reservation was for May.

[El Bulli Reservations Topic]

Sorry Tarka, I shouldn't have suggested that, it was maenat to be tongue in cheek. Jordyn, this information was in the public domain. If they really wanted to go to El Bulli, they would have found out the date easily enough.

[El Bulli Reservations Topic]

My requests were for May and I'm still waiting

[El Bulli Reservations Topic]

Just Phoned El Bulli, they advised that they couldn't tell me now about my request but I should hear in the next few days. They obviously have a lot of faxes to send.

[El Bulli Reservations Topic]

I'm guessing that nobody trying to secure a reservation has heard back yet? Another website had a post indicating that they had sent in a reservation request by E-Mail on 16th January and received a reply on 20th advising that all the tables for the season were now fully booked! On a more positive note, nobody who had applied on 15th January had received this message.

[Carlton Restaurant Awards]

Fay Maschler (I think) reviewed this a few weeks back, it got a very nic review. Apparently, it is a fine dining room above the main L'escargot restaurant. Somebody else maybe able to enlighten us further.