Stigand

I'd like to speak up for the Burnt Chair in Richmond, on Duke Street just next to the Green and the Theatre (their website). It's a small restaurant serving food that is basically modern European but with the occasional Asian flavour and a sensitivity to texture that I would more usually associate with Chinese cuisines. The chef/owner, Weenson Oo also happens to be a Californian wine devotee and the wine list (complete with enthuiastic tasting notes) is the most interesting US list I've seen in the UK. On a personal/sentimental note, this was the restaurant that first made me interested in eating out seriously. I came here frequently in the early nineties, and was delighted to find when I visited again last year that it was, if anything, better than I remembered it.

My first reaction if a restaurant serves me coffee along with dessert is that they're trying to hurry me out the door. If it's a good restaurant, this gets on my nerves. Funnily, I'd never stopped to think that some people might actually prefer the two to come together, unless they were in a hurry - so thanks for setting out the alternative point of view.

The generic name for Crunchie is (wonderfully) Hokey Pokey. The Chocolate Society in London (sorry - can't find their website at the moment) makes an upmarket chocolate hokey pokey. And the London restaurant Petrus serves hokey pokey on its bizarre upturned chandelier petits-fours trolley. This is about as posh as Crunchie gets.

When I lived in California, I liked Alban's Viognier as a Condrieu substitute. Consider also Australian Viognier. I had a fantastic one at Nahm in London a year or so ago - I'm afraid I can't remember much about it apart from the fact that it was from South Australia. It was a great match with Nahm's (haute Thai) food, but was interesting on its own too.

This makes etymological as well as gastronomic sense. After all, in medieval Latin bread is panis, and every other sort of food is companaticum - 'that which goes with bread'. So perhaps the idea that bread should be tasty (and, specifically, savoury) in its own right is a relatively modern one.

Sorry - no luck. Couldn't find it in either Sainsbury's or Selfridges.

Mackeson was bought by Whitbread, who sold their brewing operations to Interbrew in the nineties. This beer website suggests that Interbrew still owns the brand, but Interbrew don't mention it on their website. I'm going to the supermarket later, so I'll have a look on the side of a bottle to see if I can find out for sure.

I wonder whether this is true. The rise of discount retailers offering cheap food to those who want it seems to have coincided with the resurgence of farmers' markets selling heirloom and organic ingredients, the unprecedented availability of imported cheeses, meats and other delicacies, and a burgeoning restaurant scene. I don't think this is a coincidence.

Something similar is also available from the Cool Chile stall in London's Borough Market.

For what it's worth, Pret a Manger (the ubiquitous - but very good - London sandwich chain) recently introduced a bunch of proprietary sprakling canned drinks, including Ginger Beer, 'Yoga Bunny cordial' (kind of ginseng-ish), Elderflower, lemon, orange etc. The Ginger Beer is really, really, good (haven't tried all the rest yet). Not too sweet (sweetened with grape juice not sugar, and not much of it at that) and really really strong ginger taste; so much so that it leaves your mouth tingling. That is exactly what I look for in ginger beer. Well done Pret.

In this week's New Statesman, Roger Scruton said that it was illegal, according to EU law, to label wine as 'English' - since (unlike the UK or an authorised wine region outside the UK, 'England' is not recognised as a place by the relevant authorities). He didn't source this claim, though, which makes me suspect that it's a Eurosceptic myth (along the lines of 'curved bananas are illegal', etc).

Bella Sicilia - ug. I went there once in a warm support-my-local-retailers type of mood, had a nice chat with the owner, and for my pains got sold what turned out to be possibly the oldest piece of parmesan known to man. It was positively geological. Never went back.

From the attached article: "There are no clear cut guidelines, and recommendations need to be individualized for each triathlete. Some authorities recommend drinking less water to rebalance sodium and water intake. However, given the risk of dehydration and heat injury, this is not a practical recommendation. To reiterate, all of the hyponatremic athletes in the Hawaii Ironman were also dehydrated. Others recommend increasing salt intake, and this seems more prudent. By ingesting more sodium, hydration with water is balanced and dilution of blood sodium does not occur." Doesn't this suggest that the problem in the case of the marathon runners/triathletes wasn't over-hydration, but failure to replace salt lost through sweating? I wouldn't be surprised if some sufferers of hyponatremia had used aspirin/paracetemol too - it's certainly something I've done before in races, without being aware of the risks (I certainly won't again - thanks for posting the link!).

Well, there wasn't a refit as such - it's a totally new store. And of course there are supermarkets and there are supermarkets. The Pimlico Sainsbury's is head and shoulders above most other central London supermarkets, for all the reasons mentioned before (good selection of produce, very large considering its location, nice layout, parking, some energetic staff, open till 10pm, etc).

Andy: your whale-blubber mole isn't so far from the mark. Salt cod (AKA baccala, baccalao, morue, etc) that favourite of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Provencal cuisine, comes from Norway, and was Norway's main export up until modern times. Mark Kishlansky's book 'Cod' (not the most alluring title, I'm afraid) looks at this early example of north-south fusion in all the depth you could possibly want. Does this count?

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I think people are being a bit unfair on Sainsbury's Market. Sure, if you're looking for a bucolic farmers' market, this isn't it - and I would rather go to a farmers' market given the choice. But I think it's a darn sight better than most of the local supermarkets. (Consider the miserable Tesco on Warwick Way; the small and necessarily badly stocked Sainsbury's Centrals on Victoria Street, or the big but not terribly nice Sainsbury's in Vauxhall.) I've found that there's a reasonable selection of organic meat, fruit & veg, and produce most of the times I've been there, and I appreciate the availability of things like wild rabbit, partridge, fresh mussels and monkfish. And it has a good selection of the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range, which is good by supermarket standards (if you don't object to Jamie Oliver gurning at you from the back of the packet...). I'd agree with Spam's comments about the cheese counters, etc. They're a bit of a charade, in the sense that they offer largely the same cheeses that a reasonably upmarket Sainsbury's would, but are often manned by staff who haven't been adequately trained and so don't add much to the experience. This may be a teething problem (it seems most of the staff have been newly recruited): I think counter service can be done well at high end supermarkets - when I used to live in California, the butcher's counter at the local Andronico's was always staffed by knowledgable and pleasant people. Despite the counter gripe, I find the rest of the 'market' theme quite enjoyable. The idea of using attractive shop-fittings and selling a wider-than-usual range of produce makes supermarket shopping much more enjoyable for me. So all in all, not a real market, but a lot better than most of the alternatives.

I went to Petrus for dinner on 29th Sept (sorry for the delay in posting - I was too busy watching for the outcome of the sommelier incident...). Booked at relatively short notice, and got the late slot (c 9pm), but the quality and attentiveness of the service didn't suffer, despite our being practically the last people in the place at the end. Memory a bit blurred by the month that's passed, but my overall impression was that the food was spot on. More restrained and less virtuoso (is that an adjective?) than RHR, but as far as I could tell, flawless. I hadn't been to the old Petrus, so I'm afraid I can compare it. Starter of sweetbreads was excellent, but what really stood out was the main of hare: a super-intense 'patty' of what seemed to be braised hare. I liked this a lot. Atmosphere was everything I'd led to expect: very opulent without being offensively genetlemen's-clubby. Tables were well enough spaced that the nearby meedja-business diner who insisted on smoking Galloises throughout his dinner was no more than a passing annoyance... Two hyper-camp aspects of the dinner are worth highlighting. We had drinks before in the hotel's bar (not associated with Petrus), which I seem to remember was called the Blue Bar. This was, as promised, blue, and very dinky. A bit like a willow-pattern version of the Mark bar in New York. Odd. The other amusing thing was the petit-four trolley - I think I read a review (maybe here) saying that it looked like a chandelier full of sweeties. And it's true. (Petit four recommendation: try the hokey-pokey. If you're too embarrassed to ask for it by name, you can always point.)

The new Sainsbury's Market in Pimlico seems to sell 'wild' rabbit (tastes quite gamey, no shot yet though), wild duck, partridge and quail every day. Also fresh mussels in what I can only describe as the seafood equivalent of a gumball-vending machine. It opened a couple of weeks ago and I've fallen in love with the place already. OK, it ain't a real market, but for a supermarket - especially a central London one - it's awesome without being awesomely priced. S

I was shocked by the price of lamb when I first moved to US from the UK. I imagine it's got a lot to do with the relatively low demand - which is obviously something of a vicious circle. Lamb is pretty cheap in the UK. The other thing that I found very interesting was how difficult it was to get non-chi-chi cuts of lamb in many US supermarkets. There'd be very expensive rack of lamb, expensive chops, sometimes leg and that would be it. What I never found was neck fillet, which is a wonderful cut with lots of fat. A succulent and easy dinner can be made by throwing a sliced aubergine (eggplant), a red pepper, a tomato, a chile and a few large cubes of neck fillet of lamb into a baking tray with seasoning and olive oil and cooking for 45 mins at 180-200 C. The lamb fat lends an incredible richness to the roasted vegetables. Can I also put in an endorsement for deep-fried lambs' sweetbreads? (Never found these at the supermarket either, but I guess that's less surprising...)

Very interesting - thanks for this wealth of information. For what it's worth, the bastardised gambas al pil-pil (or perhaps I should say 'al piri-piri') was very tasty, although admittedly lower-brow than the genuine article. It was eaten (at least by me) by putting pieces of bread in the boiling oil, doing something else for a while, then eating the gambas and then eating the bread, which by this time had turned into chilli-garlic-fried-bread - mmmm. I promise that I won't try this should I run into the real thing.

They were always described as 'al pil-pil' by the staff at the restaurant, but I'm not an expert on Andalusian cuisine. If it's any help, I'll describe the dish: a small, shallow earthware bowl filled with boiling oil, chilli flakes, garlic, some other seasonings (perhaps including some paprika, although I can't be sure) and three or four large-ish peeled prawns (about the size of tiger prawns). A (far, far worse) version of this dish is served at the Spanish restaurant down the road from me in London - I think they call it pil-pil as well.

- Nigella Lawson, "How to Eat" (fair use)I like the idea of 'vast and daily platefuls of ham and pork'... On a related note, I certainly know a few people who are happy to eat meat so long as it's concealed: so chicken stock is fine, but chicken thighs aren't. Often these are former ethical vegetarians who've changed their ethical stance but are now aesthetically repulsed by the texture of meat. While it's not a position I subscribe to, I don't see it as any less acceptable than, say, religious or ethical objections to meat.

I don't have anything nice to say Puerto Banus, but one other thought for a Marbella restaurant is El Timonel on Calle Finlandia. This is a rather different kettle of fish to Zozoi - it's an unprepossessing cerveceria, with plastic tables on the pavement and football on in the inside. It is usually packed from 9:30pm onwards with large Spanish family groups. The food is fish - fresh from the market and prepared a la plancha or fried, which you select from the counter - and a few other things, like gambas pil-pil and mixed salads. What makes this place for me - apart from the congenial service - is the fact that it does what it sets out to do very well; the fish is generally fresher and the grilling more accurate than other similar places I've been to. It's closed on Wednesdays.

I've just returned from a long weekend in Rome. The tips offered on previous threads on this board were extremely useful - thanks to everyone. I did want to share one delicious experience I had that I don't think has been mentioned here before, namely the animelle fritti (sp?) at La Matricianella on Via del Leone just off the Via del Corso. These were delicious little balls of lambs' sweetbreads, deep-fried in an excellent batter that reminded me of tempura. The deep-frying made the offal melt in the mouth, like deep-fried cheese or roe, but with the rich flavour of sweetbreads. These were wonderful - even better than the grilled lambs' sweetbreads at the Angel Mangal in London (see London Board passim) - high praise indeed...