dallardice

I seem to remember them saying the same thing when West Street first moved into the site several years ago...

M&S Islington has a fairly decent food selection and I'm pretty sure you'll get your grapefruit marmalade there. Regarding clothing, it's recently been extended and has a reasonable range of staples but nothing compared to the West End stores. I don't know about Camden but the Islington store is much better than the Holloway branch.

If you're talking about Bu San, go soon. The block it's in is up for redevelopment to become a Tesco Metro with flats above, although planning permission has not yet been granted...

Perfection The book isn't out until June, so I'd expect the TV show in Spring

I visit Avignon a couple of times a year and there really aren't wine stores in the heart of town. There's a branch of Nicolas which is decidedly average (far less interesting than most UK off-licences) and that's the only one I can think of. Locals tend to buy either at the huge out-of-town superstores (Auchan at Le Pontet outside Avignon has a huge range), from specialist wine warehouses or from the producer. We've been to a wine warehouse called Decouvertes des Vins which has a good range of Rhone wines but, again, you'd really need a car to get there as it's in Avignon suburbs. If you don't want to visit individual producers - which is fun but very timeconsuming - I suggest you get a cab to take you to Auchan at Le Pontet. I can't speak for further North, but I expect most of the Rhone valley would be the same.

More interesting I'd have thought to go back to places that had great reviews on opening - when the spotlight has moved on did they keep up the quality? Which will be the better restaurant in five years time - The Ledbury or Maze?

Not to be. Fishworks plc have a planning application in for new signs and a new shopfront at 134 Upper St, which means that probably the Rotisserie, and possibly also Casale Franco, will be the site for the new branch. I'm looking forward to Fishworks coming to town since the Fish Shop on St John St has never quite done it for me since the Upper St Fish Shop closed, although I will be sorry to lose the Rotisserie - never fabulous, but a good staple for a quick steak on those nights when only a hunk of meat will do. In other news, the owners of the ghastly convenience store opposite Sainsburys Local have applied for planning permission to convert to a restaurant, and the site that is currently Santa Fe may be becoming a shop - for Millets.

Almeida has more than one sommelier and the one we're friendly with is great and not overbearing - very French and over a number of visits he's got to know that we know (a bit) about wine. Last time we were there I asked for the best dessert wine match for one dessert and he served Pedro Ximenez cut with some Fino just to take the sweetness off it - worked perfectly but not on the wine list. As it's our closest restaurant we go here quite a lot... I still like Ottolenghi but remain unconvinced about the small plates menu. We have not had a bad meal there but organising a coherent meal can be a bit tricky. Not a great 'special occasion' meal though. Had our second visit to Isarn tonight - first was great, tonight was OK. Fantastic jasmine brown rice and dumplings but wish I'd read about the fishcakes 4 hours ago. First meal had mains with good meat, sensitively spiced and tasty. Tonight had fatty duck, watery green eggplant and just a lack of attention of detail.

The obvious place for Fishworks would be the new retail/restaurant development across the road from Lola's. Agreed (up to a point) on Isarn.

New Mexican restaurant going into the Granita site in Islington - don't hold out any hopes for it, being the third restaurant there in as many months (following hard on the heels of 'New Granita' Italian and 'San Miguel' Spanish)

According to today's Sun (I just glance at it online, promise) it will be Gary Rhodes vs Jean-Christophe Novelli.

Those deprived of the comments of Fay Maschler because they won't buy the Evening Daily Mail, and who tragically miss out on Ms O'Loughlin's comments because they don't sully themselves on public transport in London, may like to know that This is London's Insider's Guide is now no longer a pay site. Still requires registration, but no charge any more. And, rather nicely, they refunded £3 of my unused subscription.

If anyone's got a booking for this Saturday night, would they mind cancelling? We're booked for lunch, but are first on the waitlist for dinner, which would be preferable...

Interesting... I see they got a Bib Gourmand in the new Michelin guide. Probably time to try it again (strange how one bad meal counts more than any number of recommendations)

Ottolenghi goes small plates Popped into Ottolenghi this week and they have changed their menu and moved away from a fixed starters/mains configuration to a list of about 20 small plates, which can be ordered in any combination to make whatever size of meal you want. Intention is to make the meals more flexible for pre/post theater dining or light meals. They recommend 3-4 dishes for a 'full meal'. The food was reliably good but it did seem to me that the new menu might increase the cost of a full meal a bit - the plates were between £5-£7 each so a meal could really mount up. In other Islington news, both San Miguel tapas bar and Cafe Olé have closed, and Seraphin is under new management but haven't looked at how the menu has changed.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Most people would be more impressed by Ainsley Harriot than Ferran Adria, by Anthony Worrall-Thompson than Anthony Flinn. The number of people who eat in fine dining restaurants is tiny compared to the number of people who watch cooking TV. I ate in City Rhodes and Rhodes in the Square, and I've eaten in Rhodes 24. I liked all of them, but (particularly the last) I thought was more 'essence of Rhodes' than the man himself - he is only consultant there so judging Rhodes from that is like judging Gordon Ramsay from Claridge's. (Might still be a fine restaurant, but it's not "Gordon Ramsay"). I'm eagerly looking forward to his fine dining place at the Cumberland Hotel, which I think will be where he's doing some serious star-searching.

Also kills your chance of an upgrade - people with special meals requests are not normally upgraded since the meal won't be upgraded with you and the person who gets your seat probably won't want a vegan meal. For more information and a bunch of people as obsessed with flying as eGulleters are to food, I direct you to Flyertalk ... Haven't flown Virgin for a while but BA Club catering isn't up to much. Best thing are the overnight services back from NYC where you eat from a fairly decent restaurant in JFK before getting on board when it's lights-out straight away. It's a pain if you get to the airport late since there's only sandwiches on board but a few glasses of fizz and a decent meal on the ground sets me up nicely to sleep across the Atlantic. On my few upgrades to BA First I've been quite impressed by the food (warm nuts there too, and decent champers, although they no longer serve Krug). I have the pasta quite a lot which is freshly cooked with a decent sauce - not haute cuisine of any description, but comforting and a million times better than the turgid pasta "bakes" I gather they serve at the back of the plane

Oh, not a good week. Tiger Lil's Upper St (office party) Masala Zone Upper St Bank Aldwych (pre-theatre)

OQO Bar is opening on Islington Green, next to Browns, next Tuesday. "Chinese tapas, Shanghai cold plates, Cantonese dim sum, Contemporary cocktails, fresh fruits, live herbs.." www.oqobar.co.uk

Gill Wing's chocolate shop might, just might, replace the demise of Dugan's, a wonderful old-fashioned sweet shop which has been replaced by "Soi 5", a trendy sweet shop "dedicated to the best sweets of the world" which looks dismal (and half empty). 'The Green' is described wincingly as a 'gaystropub' for gay people and their friends (hence the ironic faggots on the menu). I think it's a better use of space than Nick's used to be but haven't eaten there yet. Can't weep at the demise of Tuk Tuk but was disappointed in our one visit to date to the Fine Burger Company which replaced it - we went there one Sunday evening about 9.30 and the staff were desperate to get home. Burgers were greasy and tasteless and definitely didn't deserve the definition Fine. Ottolenghi seems to be going from strength to strength and both communal tables are now availbable for booking but they have added bar seating for drop-ins. Our current tips for next closures in Upper St are the San Miguel tapas bar, latest incumbent of the Granita site, and Mao's Diner, the revamped Chinese two doors down from local favourite Young's. There are now three tapas bars in Islington and they're all rubbish.. worst was La Tasca (before we realised it was a chain) where we ordered Pollo al Ajillo and complained about the lack of garlic. We were told most of their customers didn't like garlic so they tended not to include it...

We ate at Thyme last night. We'd always meant to visit it in Clapham but never quite made it down there, so this is a "new review" rather than a "how it's changed" The restaurant is on the top floor of the Hospital arts complex, and to get there you go through the main reception which is a bit like a trendy ad agency, before you go upstairs to the reception of Thyme itself on the first floor. The room is not very attractive, 80 covers in total but well-spaced tables, but the room is very bare and has small, oddly-placed windows and a view over the ad agency reception area. There's one nice wall sculpture but otherwise the place is really quite unappealing. Amuses were OK; great crab/apple sticks, good calamari fritters, average olives. OK bread; good butter. A sample menu is on the website so I'm not going to go into detail about that. For starters I had the "truffle" (£5 supplement): Risotto of Truffles, soft poached egg, oxtail beignet, truffles from Alba. SO had the "foie gras": pressed terrine of marinated foie gras, confit cod, trompettes, lemon reduction. The truffles starter was very good, deep rich truffle flavour, nice mixture of textures; the oxtail beignet was very tasty but a bit overwhelming next to the more subtle truffle flavours. Alex was unconvinced by the cod/foie pairing, although he reported that the constituent parts were fine. A word about the wine list: surprisingly reasonable for a restaurant with aspirations like this one: mean price is probably about £40; a fair few bottles under £30 and not much into three figures. Not being a wine expert I can't comment on the markup. Sommelier and his team were enthusiastic but didn't come across as being terribly knowledgeable - may just have been getting to grips with a new list - we ordered a £60 Chabils which they didn't have, and their suggested Puligny-Montrachet replacement at £55 was fine if not very exciting. For mains I had the "halibut": baked fillet of line-caught halibut, parmesan gnocchi, roast white onions, trompettes. Most enticing part of this dish was the great upmarket cheese & onion flavour from eating the gnocchi with the onions. Neither related that well to the halibut, which was tasty and perfectly cooked but not well integrated with the rest of the dish. Alex had "mullet": crisp fillet of red mullet, caper vinaigrette, crushed ratte potatoes, anchovy beignet. He liked this, with the caveat that the anchovy beignet overwhelmed the mullet. There was a pre-dessert which I'm ashamed to say I don't remember at all. Desserts were very interesting and I had a chilled blackcurrant soup with ratafia ice cream which was delicious. Alex had a take on the figs/honey/yoghurt dessert but with goats cheese ice cream instead of the yoghurt which he liked. Our overall bill came to £238 which seemed quite steep but included champagne as an aperitif, a glass of wine with our starters and a sweet wine (from a good list of 10 by the glass) with dessert. Service was pleasant but not especially polished, I gather most of the front-of-house staff are new (only a couple from Clapham) whereas virtually all the kitchen staff have moved. Overall we felt the cooking was very accomplished but the combined dishes might need some tweaking. I felt £45 was a bit ambitious for where it is at the moment - at £35 or even £40 this would seem good value - £45 just takes it a level above where it should be at the moment. I would really like it to succeed because on the whole I was impressed; it's clearly going for Michelin status (all the crockery is made for thyme, and says so on the base) and I think it has a good chance of making it, but it just needs a bit of settling in. But they do need to perk up the room - at the moment it doesn't feel sufficiently like a "special occasion" restaurant.

Tried Gufaa (the new Indian) last week. Was a bit disappointed in that the food wasn't as interesting when it arrived as it sounded on the menu. Having said that, it was a clear step up from the Parveen/Rajmoni quality, and will probably become our Indian of choice for those "fancy a curry" nights. Same owners as the "Bengal" chain eg Bengal Lancer etc. A busy time for Islington restaurants - Tuk Tuk has gone (never found it that impressive, I expect Thai Square did for it, although I prefer the Rabieng up opposite Ottolenghi, although it's still not great) and is going to be replaced by a Fine Burger Company. Our sole eat-in experience at Ottolenghi so far we found very impressive, although the long communal tables are something of a mixed blessing, given the long and graphic descriptions of how the three next door lost their virginities.

Personally I'm amazed that the Evening Standard reported that Harden's is "the world's most respected dining guide".

If you like rosé, there's a co-operative in the middle of Tavel (the village) which has all the Tavels available to taste. The staff there have always been very enthusiastic and helpful about guiding us to try different Tavels and it's great to see people with a real passion for their village's wine. I'd love it if they did the same thing in Chateauneuf-du-Pape!

Oh sorry, I meant to post about Seraphin to warn people off. I think I was trying to blot it from my mind as soon as possible after leaving the restaurant. Must give La Trouvaille another try. Had a pretty dreadful meal there just after it opened and haven't been back. I did post about that here somewhere.