Stigand

Another praiseworthy fish & chip place (and just about in London) is Matheou's Fish Bar in Raynes Park (SW20), just down Coombe Lane West from the station. I last went there just before Christmas in 2004, and was overjoyed (as I always am) by the freshness of the cod. Lovely chips too, and the owners are very friendly.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall also runs one-day courses on pork butchery and charcuterie in Dorset (along with Ray the butcher, who features in the River Cottage Cookbook and Meat Book). They're not super-cheap (I think £100-200 for the day), but sound fun. I sent my parents on one as an Xmas present; they had a whale of a time, learnt lots about sausage and ham making as well as more basic butchery, and took some great photos. The participants included a mixture of farmers (of both the hobby and the real variety) and - for want of a better word - foodies. The course is called 'Pig in a Day' and you can book it over the internet at the River Cottage website.

In honour of Noggin the Nog, the Viking hero of British children's television, this ought to be called a Noggroni.

Of course they should be allowed to sit with their family and friends. But I don't see why they shouldn't pay a minimum charge, if that's the restaurant's advertised policy.

As Aneurin Bevan once said about Britain, "This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organising genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time."

The White Horse in Fulham always seems to be full of large, well-behaved dogs. I liked the sausages and mash there and the beer is of course famously good.

Once more on the seared tuna theme (sorry this comes late - I've been away). Here's the excerpt I alluded to earlier: the British food writer Matthew Fort on southern Italian ways with tuna and swordfish. From Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa. A bit 'Emperor's New Clothes', and I'd question whether seared tuna was devised in the UK, but I couldn't agree more with the sentiment.

Crimes, shmimes... This is typically the reaction I get when I admit to liking cooked tuna. Please believe me - I don't like tuna that is dessicated or over-cooked; and I'd like to think I'm not a total philistine: I like rare steak and steak tartare. But I (like, it would appear, generations of Sicilians) think that tuna benefits from being cooked rather than half-hearted heated on both sides... well, shall we say medium to spare your sensibilities?

'Seared' tuna is a real pet peeve of mine. Don't get me wrong: I love raw fish. Tuna sashimi - great. But if you're going to cook tuna, then for God's sake, cook it! Restaurants seem to have collectively forgotten that tuna can be cooked through and be delicious. A tuna steak cooked through has a wonderful, smooth, fatty mouthfeel, and an umami flavour that in my opinion beats that of the same fish 'seared' (read: uncooked apart from a tiny, charcoal-flavoured layer). I think there's a comment on Matthew Fort's "Eating Up Italy" where he notes that the Sicilians don't 'sear' tuna. And neither, from my limited experience, do Andalusian cooks. Middlebrow British and American chefs would do well to note...

Chicken hearts are also dirt cheap. The only place I can reliably get them in London is Selfridge's swanky Food Hall, but I think that by weight they must be the cheapest thing in the store. I think they're something like £2 a kilo. And sooooo good, grilled with salt and chillies, and eaten as a snack.

This phenomenon goes by the wonderful name of "Carcass Imbalance". Incidentally, I think this would be a good name for a heavy metal band.

The most interesting food city in the world... hmmm. I wonder if the way we're asking the question isn't dictating the answer we're getting. Discussing how 'interesting' a city's food is seems to put the emphasis on culinary variety and diversity rather than on focused quality and entrenched foodways. This probably works in the favour of places like New York and Singapore, and to the detriment of Paris and Italian cities, where 'interestingness' may not be the first thing people look for in good food. Having said that, for 'interesting', I'd pick NYC.

I always add chopped rosemary to my Amatriciana at about the stage when I've sauteed the onions and pancetta. Then red wine, canned tomato, and simmer to thicken. Since rosemary is the only think in my garden I haven't managed to kill, I consider it an honorary storecupboard staple. I'm also fond of (shhh...) a pasta sauce of sauted onions/shallots, canned tuna and pesto from a jar. Capers optional. Squeeze lemon over when you serve. But my favourite quick sauce is puttanesca. Garlic, black olives (cheap, ready pitted, from a can), anchovies (also cheap, canned) and capers (ditto). Canned tomato and wine simmered to thicken. I've tried making puttanesca with posher ingredients (salted anchovies and capers, good olives) but I'm not convinced it was any better. What do other posters think? Does puttanesca benefit from more upscale ingredients?

Not sure it's a great choice for wine, but I've had two enjoyable meals (one dinner, one lunch) at the Phoenix Palace on Glenworth Street. I understand it's the local favourite of PRC students at London Business School (I'm told it's better than the Baker Street Royal China in terms of both price and quality).

I don't doubt that Gill is a great journalist, and I enjoy his articles even though they don't say much about food. I think what frustrates many British eGullet members is the fact that many restaurant reviews in quality British papers seem to talk much less about food than, for example, the motoring column talks about motoring or the bridge column talks about bridge. For example: I know nothing about the game of bridge, and I'd be hugely entertained if AA Gill wrote the bridge column in the Sunday Times and spent every article penning witty epigrams and gently mocking people who play bridge. But this isn't what happens - instead, the column talks unceasingly about bloody card games I don't understand. If the bridge column doesn't need to be made more accessible, why do the restaurant reviews?

But service charge or no service charge, the sandwich cost me as a customer $9 anyway - just because the tax and tip isn't on the menu doesn't mean it somehow doesn't exist. On the other hand, I do sympathise with your position as an owner - you don't want to be the only person on the block apparently increasing your prices, for fear of customers getting sticker shock. I guess a lot depends on whether you can communicate to customers that your prices include service. Here in the UK, where some restaurants include service and some don't, people are pretty familiar with the concept. If you're operating in an area where everyone else employs a tip system and the customers expect it, it'll be a much harder sell.

This could be a fascinating paper. One thing that might be interesting to look at is the emerging relationship between food/diet/recipes and English national identity in the period. Looking back to the fourteenth century, you can find commentators horrified to hear that poor people were eating roasted and boiled meat regularly (after the Black Death and early C14th famines there were fewer people, and more livestock). But by the early eighteenth century, eating meat (and especially beef) is strongly associated with England, and in particular with what were seen as its ancient liberties and its constitutional monarchy (the Roast Beef of Old England and all that) - it's seen as Very Good Thing to do. It would be interesting to look at how these views of what English people should eat changed, to trace the change in recipe books, and to draw out the connections with England's economic and agrarian history in the period. Not sure you were looking for suggestions, but in any case that was one!

Jaymes: I think us Europeans are violently agreeing with you. As far as I can see, there are three positions one can take on this subject: 1. Tipping is a great system that incentivises the waiter/tress, empowers the customer, and makes the system work better 2. Tipping is a useless system that provides few additional incentives and makes some people feel awkward, BUT since it's the system in use, we'll pay our tips and lump it. 3. Tipping is a useless system that provides few additional incentives and makes some people feel awkward, so we'll stiff US waitstaff. I think the people who've posted against tipping are choosing option 2, NOT option 3 - which as you point out is pretty ethically suspect.

I can't think of any gastropubs that serve (good) Indian food, but I can think of lots of generic Indian restaurants that - sadly - turn into de facto pubs after closing time, and where the customers' consumption of chicken vindaloo is wholly incidental to their desire to have 3 more pints after closing time.

What's Cool Whip?

One place to find the strict rules laid out is an article in Jeffrey Steingarten's The Man Who Ate Everything. Adam is right about it having to be made outside; there are also arcane hierarchies of what ingredients are allowed and what aren't. Having seen lots of paellas in Spain that clearly weren't cooked over a wood fire, stirred anticlockwise with a cedar wand by the light of moon etc., I assumed these rules were being exaggerated for the benefit of gullible foreigners. But no. A Spanish friend of mine laughed at the thought that I might try to cook Paella inside, in England - even with the proper paella pan, the right rice, and the correct ingredients. And proceeded to explain to me The Rules, which sounded very much like Steingarten's.

No one's replied, so I thought I'd at least start the ball rolling so you wouldn't think we're rude or anything. If you are on holiday, and want well executed food in stylish surroundings but at a sensible price, consider the set lunch at Orrery on Marylebone High Street. I had this yesterday and it was wonderful - a very classy game terrine (better than St John's terrine, I thought) followed by wonderful, sticky pig's cheeks and a cheeseboard that I think would stand up favourably anywhere (there was a fab Vacherin). And all for £25, with some good affordable French country wines on the list. The space is great - a first-floor room with huge windows looking out over Marylebone Churchyard. I'd be tempted to book late (say 2pm) and spend an hour or so wandering through Marylebone, ogling the cheese in La Fromagerie, the gore in the Ginger Pig, and the cookware in Divertimenti... but I'm getting carried away. I had a wonderful lunch of small plates in St John Bread and Wine today as well, which would be a shame to miss - especially if you can combine it with a wander round Spitalfields/Brick Lane. There was an awesome slab of runny goat's cheese beginning with a W that was great; the duck's neck with salad was good too. I'm conscious that I: a) Haven't mentioned any gastropubs or Indian places (but do a search for New Tayyab - I think the thread may call it Tayyeb - which seems popular but I haven't been to); b) Done anything except tell you about the things I ate this weekend. Sorry for this...still, I hope it's a good start.

It's interesting to note the meteoric rise of tapas-sized portions in the UK over the last 10 years, not just in Spanish restaurants, but "modern British" places too. If the three-course mentality impeded the progress of Spanish cuisine in England, is this something that's now changing?

Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. A cold pie made of ground, herb-y pork surrounded by jelly in a pastry crust. The best part of all this is that I have one in my fridge now. More generally, I've never really thought of fish and chips as traditional pub food - sure, it's often served in pubs, but it's generally best appreciated in a proper chippie that can rely on a decent supply of fresh fish.

I'd rather have a Speck pizza at Strada than a kick in the teeth.