Stigand

There's a threefold paradox at the heart of the English Breakfast that makes it tough to find a good one. The trilemma is as follows. 1. A good fry-up is simple food, un-mucked about with. So it relies on decent ingredients. The cheap sausages and bacon you often get in a greasy spoon fry-up really show up. 2. A good fry-up is hearty, unpretentious food. Dinky, elegantly served portions look silly and miss the point of the dish. This means the otherwise tasty breakfast in a place like Bank (in Aldwych) or posh hotel breakfasts miss the mark too. 3. A good fry-up is indulgent, indolent food. Which means it's nicest when you don't have to make it yourself. Indeed, when I'm hungover and most want a FEB, I'm not in much of a state to make it myself. It's very hard to get a fry-up that combines these three vital ingredients (unpretentious, quality ingredients, made by someone else). The best fry-ups I've had have generally been eaten in people's houses. But I'd like to think a good country pub could deliver too.

I know quite a few people who were once vegetarian (usually in their teenage years for semi-ethical, semi-food-issues reasons), and who now eat meat, but who won't eat large or obviously meaty-tasting pieces of meat. I find this pretty odd, but I suppose it's not inherently much odder than people who won't eat bugs or whole fish - they've conditioned themselves to be repulsed by eating meat, but don't mind as long as they don't think about it.

I went there a couple of years ago on a night when no restaurant would be at its best - I can't remember the date but it was one of those days between Xmas and NYE when public holidays and bank holidays must have made it a nightmare to get fresh ingredients, and when I imagine many of the staff would rather have been at home. Despite that, we had a great meal, felt very warmly welcomed and liked the fact the menu majored on sensible food (a lot of hearty dishes, with many relying on storecupboard or preserved stuff that would have survived the Xmas hiatus well, rather than trying to do fresh food with inferior ingredients and failing). Jon is right - it is very romantic, and would probably be a good choice for a birthday too. I haven't been back but only because whenever I've tried to drop by it's been fully booked: deservedly I guess.

I was given a Tefal rice cooker a while ago. It worked OK (not as well as my pre-rice-cooker method), but gave up the ghost inexplicably after a few weeks of moderate usage. It's now sitting on a high shelf waiting for the day when I have the time and energy to take it down and work out what's wrong with it (possibly just a blown fuse or something). In the mean time, I've gone back to my tried-and-tested method. Which, I'm ashamed to say, is using [hushed whisper] ...the microwave. I don't rinse, saute or mess around with the rice in any way. I generally use Tilda basmati or a supermarket imitation (if I add wild rice or red rice it takes about 10 minutes more). I put (say) a mug-and-a-half of rice into a glass bowl, and add a slug of anonymous vegetable oil. Then in go the seasoning (which could be cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, salt, fried shallots, coconut milk, or whatever, depending on the type of thing I'm going for), and two cups of boiling water (or stock, or saffron-water - again, depending on what the rice is meant to be going with). Then I stick a plate on top nuke it on high for 7 minutes and low for 15 minutes. As far as I can tell, this works as well or better than many of the more labour-intensive stovetop methods I've tried. The rice is fluffy but the grains are separate, and the flavour of any seasonings permeates the rice evenly. And you never need to give it a second look.

As part of a sorbet? Well, I suppose this isn't all that far removed from Heston Blumenthal's sardines-on-toast ice cream, which is very good. Gentlemen, start your Pacojets... I love those cans of green Spanish olives stuffed with anchovies. Anchovies are also pretty good mixed with olives, capers, garlic and oil, blitzed into tapenade, and served with thick curly pasta (I'm sure this is totally inauthentic but I used to love it as a student). Marinated, butterflied and deep fried anchovies at a Spanish cerveceria are also great. I love the white anchovies fillets marinaded in oil and garlic. I could eat them by the dozen (and in weaker moments have done). But like some of the other posters I've never really understood the point of salted anchovies. I soak them, debone and then find that for most of the things I use them for I may as well have opened a tin.

Campari, soda, and a slice of orange. Every time I take my first sip of a well made Campari & soda, I'm pleasantly surprised by just how good it is. The trick is, I think, to add enough soda and then to stir it well - this brings out the full range of flavours in the Campari rather than just the bitterness.

I would have thought that service was included in the charge in the UK, as in France, Italy, etc. Not so? It depends: some places do and some don't. The situation is complicated in the UK both by the practice I described above (service not included but no space to write it in on the CC slip) and by its much more sinister counterpart - including service at 12 or 15% and then leaving a 'gratuity' space on the CC slip in the hope that inattentive diners will tip twice.

I've only been to the Ivy once (at the very unglamorous time of 5:30pm for a pre-theatre bite), but I can't say I like the steak tartare - I thought the seasonings (especially the ketchup) over-powered the meat a bit. I thought the same about the steak tartare at the Caprice (maybe they use the same recipe?). Mysteriously, I liked the tartare at the Wolseley.

One frustrating situation you encounter from time to time in the UK is the restaurant that takes credit cards, but doesn't allow you to add a tip when you sign the credit card receipt (you have to specify when you present the card that you want to tip, or tip in cash - I assume it has something to do with the way the card machine is set up). It's fine if you happen to have cash handy for a tip, or if there's a slip provided to tell you to add service before you hand over the card. But too often neither of these is the case. Which means, if I'm in a desperate hurry, not tipping - which I agree is not fair on the waiter. I imagine wait-staff really lose out if a restaurant uses this system for processing credit card payments.

I think the Capital is open on Sunday, isn't it (the website doesn't seem to say)? If so, I think that's a good bet. I've only been there once, but had a great time. The food describes itself as 'French influenced', i.e., modern European. It also seems to be a favourite of other eGullet members (there's a couple of threads I think, although I can't find them at the moment).

I went to Cafe des Amis a while ago and liked it, especially by Covent Garden standards. He wouldn't be too far from Gordons by Embankment station, so could pop in and have cheeses there - especially nice on either a very nice day so you can sit outside or a very bleak one where you can skulk Dickensianly in the vaults. Has anyone tried the Iranian place (called Simurgh I think) opposite Hamburger Union (which would have been my first recommendation had it not been for veggie thing)on Garrick Street? And (not a lunch option but worth putting in a list of Covent Garden recs) there's the BYO Indian restaurant upstairs in the Strand Palace hotel. Delicious and very cheap - and I'm sure they do veggie stuff. For cheap Chinese in Chinatown I like Hing Loon, although I've never had the vegetarian stuff there. But this is a bit of a walk from CG.

I wish I liked hard-boiled eggs. For some reason they make me retch, even mixed into things. Every once in a while I buy a beautiful free range egg, boil it till the yolk just sets and try it. And it still tastes awful. I did once manage a Portuguese dish of bacalao mixed with hard boiled egg, but that says more about the pungency of bacalao than my egg phobia. If anyone has any suggestion for how I might wean myself onto eggs, I'd be very grateful - they seem like such a silly thing to dislike.

I seem to remember reading an article a few months ago describing a piece of "research" done by some wine collectors in, I think, Sweden. If I recall correctly, they stored bottles of decent red wine in a number of usual and unusual locations, and got together after a period of time to do a blind tasting. The ones exposed to heat (e.g, those stored in centrally heated houses) obviously came off badly. But the surprise of the story was that the bottles stored in car boots (i.e., trunks) and driven around tasted great - as good or better than the ones that were cellared. Now the trouble is, I can't for the life of me remember where I read this. Could it have been on eGullet? Or possibly in the UK's Financial Times. I can't find anything on Google, nor would I want to actually try this with my own wine (especially not in the US in summer - where I imagine it's somewhat hotter than in Sweden). Still, a fun story.

Tizer, a venerable bright red soft drink from the UK, makes great floats with plain vanilla ice cream - I used to love them as a child, even though I didn't really drink Tizer on its own. Tizer is red, sweet and lemonade-y. Raspberry Ripple ice cream (perhaps also a UK thing - it's basically cheap vanilla with seams of goopy raspberry jam) is also good in a soda with lemonade.

Ancient Olympians wore olive wreaths. The laurel wreaths that we now associate with the classical world in general and the Olympics in particular come from a different event, the Pythian games, which were associated with Apollo, who in turn was associated with the laurel. Here's a random web-link:

I'm ashamed to say I didn't even realise that sweetbreads disappeared as animals got older - but of course now you mention it I've never eaten ox or sheep sweetbreads, only those from calves and lambs. What happens to them? Do older animals not have thymus glands and pancreases?

I've never been a fan of adding sweet ingredients to my peanut butter. But I agree that you do need something to cut the intensity of the peanut butter. I'll occasionally have the following sandwich for lunch: - toasted wholemeal bread (sliced supermarket bread is fine) - peanut butter (I use an organic one with no added sugar) - thinly sliced cucumbers - little bit of salt - another slice of toast. Arguably, this isn't a peanut butter sandwich, but rather a very robust cucumber sandwich. It is very salty and savoury, but the cold crisp wateryness of the cucumbers stops it from cloying. Good with a cup of tea. I'm also a fan of the Atkins peanut butter sandwich: straight from the jar with a spoon.

My favourite fruit. They make good sorbet, although I'm afraid I don't have a recipe. They are very good in porridge (in fact, I had redcurrants wwith porridge for breakfast this morning). But best of all - mash them in in a bowl with milk and eat with a spoon. The sourness of the redcurrants curdles the milk (warning: this doesn't look very pretty, so perhaps is only for hardened redcurrant addicts ). You can turn them into sauces for roast meat etc, but I think this is a bit of a waste. But then I am a very big redcurrant fan...

This one isn't directly food related, but it does crop up on the International boards... Native speakers of English describing foreign cities by their non-English names. 'Milano'. 'Venezia'. 'Roma'. To me it always looks like a misguided attempt to appear either a) sophisticated or b) culturally sensitive. Why use the Italian names for these cities in English? Three exceptions are OK: i) if you're not a native speaker of English; ii) if the English version of the name is out-of-date or has been superseded (Constantinople, perhaps Leghorn); and iii) if the inhabitants of that place have specifically changed the name of their city because for (legitimate) political reasons (I'm thinking of Chennai, Kolkata, etc). (Just to show I'm not a hypocrite: the word for my city - London - is different in most major languages, and I've got no problem with that.)

It sounds like the rooms have got better since 1987. I've stayed at Le Manoir a couple of times in the last few years and I've always been very impressed by the rooms (both inside the house itself and in the outbuildings) - both luxurious and extremely characterful. On the subject of the prices (of both rooms and food): I'd agree with everyone else that the Manoir is expensive compared to other posh restaurants with rooms/hotels in the UK countryside. But I wonder if it's really fair to compare the Manoir's prices with, say, those of somewhere in Devon or Scotland. Londoners can leave their offices on a Friday evening and, after a leisurely crawl through the traffic on the M40, make it to Le Manoir in time for Friday dinner. This isn't really the case for Gidleigh Park or Inverlochie Castle, which I assume are more reliant on a combination of local trade and tourists visiting the area or making a longer stay at the restaurant. So Le Manoir can charge more simply because lots of Londoners are willing to pay for a micro-break country house experience but don't have time to go further afield.

A few weeks ago in London there was a performance called Patatboem that I posted about which might come close to this sort of thing. Although obviously it's not a permanent fixture.

I'm neither a cocktail expert nor a historian of the C19th Royal Navy, so forgive my idle speculation. If we're debating whether the original Gimlet was made with Roses or equivalent or real lime juice, it might be worth asking at what point gin (or vodka) and fresh limes became commonly available in the same place. My impression is that gin was first and foremost the cheap firewater of England (and, in a different version, the Netherlands) - consider Hogarth's Gin Lane. And it's pretty tough to grow limes in England. But when they were stationed in lime-growing areas (such as the West Indies), HM ships would have been carrying rum. So while fresh lime juice probably found its way into plenty of proto-rum-punches, it seems less obvious that it would have been mixed with gin - at least not until more recent times when gin became a branded, exported product rather than just our local English firewater. Despite all that, I do prefer fresh lime juice in cocktails, even though it may be inauthentic.

Victoria is lunchtime hell. I tried most of the little sandwich shops round there when I worked there a couple of years ago but eventually got tired of congealed mayonnaise and reverted to Pret and Marks & Sparks. A few possibilities: go to Noura and get a chicken schwarma to take away. Bizarrely, for such a posh restaurant, they sell kebabs for about £4 IIRC. Which isn't cheap, but they are pretty good. There's a little Wagamama clone on (I think) Buckingham Palace Road called (I think) Noodle Noodle. I had a good bowl of pork noodles there.

I had a similar experience when trying to book at RHR for a very popular Friday night. Called from 08:30 onwards; got past answering machine at 09:00:01; then on hold till about 10:00, but unfortunately I'd missed the last table. I didn't really mind since a) they were very nice about it; and b) that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. But I did make me marvel for a minute as I thought of all the punters sat around their phones like me at 9am. On the subject of telephone booking lines, I remember a discussion long ago about 'VIP' reservation lines for certain grand restaurants. I'm not privy to any of these, sadly, but I'm curious as to how they work from a logistic point of view. Do they just route a caller to the same receptionist but jump the phone queue, or is the point that they mark the caller out as eligible for tables that have been held back for regulars, stars etc.?

Depressing, isn't it. Blythman's book also gives lots of these shocking examples of predatory practice on the part of supermarkets. On this point I totally agree with her (and with you). As far as I can see, this is a problem that has less to do with the existence of supermarkets per se than with the extremely limited degree of competition among UK supermarkets. The reason they can get away with treating suppliers so badly is because each supermarket represents such a huge source of business for even a large-scale farm that they enjoy huge market power. At the risk of using long words I don't understand, it's an oligopsony - which is often an economically inefficient state of affairs. This is precisely the kind of area where the Government ought to act. The present Govt set up the Competition Commission to deal with just these kind of potentially anti-competitive industry structures. And as Blythman points out, the CC conducted an investigation in 2000 on supermarkets' treatment of their suppliers; unfortunately the follow-up on this by the Office of Fair Trading seems to leave a lot to be desired: a code of conduct that - at least judging by the examples in Shopped - is toothless. Arguably this is a case where better regulation could mitigate some of the problems of the food we eat in the UK. (In light of this, it's, er, "presentationally awkward" that one of the largest shareholders in one of the UK's largest supermarket chains is both a minister and a major donor to the party of government. )