Stigand

Glad you like Pret. So do I. A bit of background to McDonald's partial ownership of Pret. Pret was started as an independent company in 1986, and has expanded (mostly in London) steadily since then. McDonald's bought their stake a few years back, and to their credit made a lot of public declarations about not getting involved at an operating (or at least at a food-) level. I think part of McDonald's motivation behind making the investment was the purely financial desire to diversify away from their saturated sector. I've noticed no real decline in Pret's quality since McDonald's bought their stake; on the contrary, they've continued to innovate in ways totally in keeping with their high-quality brand (e.g., switching to organic milk). Pret deserves some kind of award for their almond croissants - I really have never had anything nearly as good in London or the US, posh bakeries (e.g., Paul) notwithstanding. One of the things I missed most when I lived in the US. One major slip-up Pret has made is on their soups: these are totally substandard and bland. Blech.

I always thought the logic behind bathroom attendants was this: Once upon a time, certain restaurants and nightclubs realised they had a problem with people taking drugs in their toilets. This caused a problem for them, since they didn't want to be raided, lose their licence, etc. So they employed bathroom attendants on pitiful salaries (hence reliant on tips) to discourage this. Now the fact is that the kind of places where people do drugs in the toilets are often pretty fashionable. (But remember, kids: drugs aren't cool. ) Customers came to associate the bathroom attendants with hip venues, and so restaurateurs who really didn't have to worry about drug use in their loos decided that employing attendants was a cheap way to create buzz. Although I have absolutely no proof, this strikes me as believable (if ironic).

Rose's Lime Juice Cordial Ingredients:Water, lime juice, sugar, citric acid, preservative, flavourings, colours So I suppose there's two possible reasons it tastes different from lime juice + sugar: i) some of those "flavourings"; ii) the concentration process I can't taste an aromatic flavour in Rose's, but agree it's different from the real thing + sugar. So I suspect it's the concentration process, in the same way that concentrated OJ tastes different from Tropicana or freshly squeezed. (Off-topic: if you find yourself in a pub in England after a night of heavy drinking, a pint of lime and soda (Rose's lime cordial and soda) will set you up to hit the beers again. But perhaps I am lowering the tone.) EDIT: Hadn't realised that the US version is made with HFCS rather than sugar. So my thoughts about the UK version may not be relevant. Sorry.

Either cook it quickly in a grill pan, or, if you're making stock for gravy for the duck, boil the heart in the stock with the other giblets and eat it when it's boiled. I prefer grilled. I remember hearing that in Argentinian churrascarias (sp?) they're grilled on skewers as an appetiser (before the more serious business of eating pounds and pounds of steak). As far as supply is concerned, I can only find one place in London that sells them: the Selfridge's food hall. Even the poulterer at Borough Market laughed when I asked him if they'd sell the hearts. Given how many people buy chicken breasts or even whole chickens without giblets, I imagine there's a huge surplus of chicken hearts sitting out there somewhere (although the idea of a warehouse of chicken hearts isn't all that appealing, come to think of it ).

Looking at the ingredient list on the back, it's a mixture of: Galangal, Rosebuds, Black peppercorns, Ginger, Cardamom, Nigella, Cayenne, Allspice, Lavender, Cinnamon, Cassia, Coriander, Mace, Nutmeg and Cloves. I picked up a packet about a year ago to make a sort of Moroccan-influence lamb dish. It's got a floral/curry/spicey smell (as you can imagine with all that lot in there!)

Just had a couple of dozen chicken hearts for dinner. Marinaded in lemon juice, chilli, garlic and ras-el-hanout (because it happened to be around), then grilled quickly in a hot pan so still pink within. I can't believe how good they are, especially given that they are so cheap. (Less than £1 ($1.80) for a pound, even in the food hall of Selfridges, a posh London department store) They're succulent in the way that chicken thighs are, but have the deep flavour I'd associate more with chicken livers (without the slightly unwholesome crumbly/gooey taste that chicken livers can sometimes take on). Does anyone else have any good tips for cooking chicken hearts? Why are they so hard to find in shops (at least, in the UK - but I remember them being hard to find in the US too)?

There's a stall at Pimlico Farmers' Market that sells pretty good bread - they major in biodynamic bread featuring unusual grains, but I buy their regular wholemeal loaf from time to time and it is very good too. My favourite loaf in London, that I'd travel to obtain, is the St John's white bread. Available at St John, St John Bread & Wine, and Neal's Yard Dairy in Borough Market (not sure whether they sell it at the original Neal's Yard Dairy). It's a huge crusty behemoth of a white loaf, and costs £2.75 - afraid I'm so ignorant about baking that I can't tell you more about it, but it is wonderful and worth the money IMO. If you are on vacation, going to one of St Johns or to Borough Market to pick one up shouldn't be too much of a hardship .

Oh no - double jinx simultaneous posting catastrophe! I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often...

Speaking of chocolate, there's a wonderful high-end chocolate shop a stone's throw away from you - but I can't for the life of me remember the name. It's between Sloane Square and the Pimlico Road, either on Holbein Place, Passmore Street or Bourne Street I think, and it's the one that supplies the gorgeous salted caramel truffles to Gordon Ramsay's places. But - d'oh - I can't remember the name, or find it on Google. Can anyone help out? [EDIT:] As if by magic, magnolia's post correctly identfying Artisan du Chocolat and getting its address right appeared just as I was posting my ill-informed scribblings! [suitably ashamed face] I like the Ebury Wine Bar a lot. It's not amazing food, but it's competent, very friendly, and full of locals.

Agree. Although I've got a reasonable tolerance for chilli heat, horseradish and English mustard (two ingredients which I never really grew up eating, and which I find exotic) totally kill me.

On Saturday mornings, there's a farmers' market in Orange Square, on the corner of Pimlico Road and Ebury Street. Here's the URL. It isn't huge, nor is it a fine foods market like Borough with lots to snack on, but it is a genuine farmers' market, with organic local food (the fish is good, there's interesting meat in season, including all sorts of game, kid goat and mutton, and there is some good cheese) and quite a lot of organic fruit and veg (a wonderful organic apple stall). I don't go here anything like as much as I should given that I live nearby, but it would be very convenient for you if you're near Sloane Square. Just next to it, there's a pub called the Orange Brewery, which although not super-amazing, is a nice place for a pint and which I think I remember that it brews its own beers. It's also near the Ebury, a restaurant that's been reviewed elsewhere on this board, favourably I think (I've never been). Of course, you're also not far from Harrod's Food Hall, which is a joy - obviously a huge selection of very high quality stuff (I had some amazing aged beef from there recently - but v expensive). As far as other restaurants go, there's Racine, a French cuisine bourgoise restaurant which other posters have really enjoyed (again, never been). Posters on CH speak highly of the Lebanese food at Ishbilia (9 William St, Knightsbridge).

Please no more: Rare tuna steak Why is this Nineties throwback still plaguing us? Look, I love tuna sashimi, but when I want raw tuna then that's what I'll order! If I'm cooking tuna at all, it's because I want to taste the oozing fat and feel the individual flakes of tuna flesh sliding over one another as I bite into it. With crunchy sea salt, maybe a squeeze of lemon. Instead, double helpings of: Salt cod The original fusion food - northern European ingredients, served in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Provincial French style. Theoretically penitential, in fact wonderful. Bone marrow In osso bucco, roasted and on toast, stirred into risotto, eaten from the bone after a roast.

I seem to remember that Moet is actually pronounced with the 'T' (_pace_ Freddie Mercury ). 'Haliboo' is pretty unforgivable though...

As has been said before on this board, the purpose of journalists isn't to gratify the subjects of their articles, but to write prose that amuses or entertains their readers. It's true that AA Gill and Michael Winner don't do much to advance the state of British gastronomy. But AA Gill is a very good writer, and Winner at least entertains people with his semi-affected awfulness. This doesn't just happen in the field of food. I wince at the glib ignorance of some journalists when they happen to be talking about something I know about. And I'm as guilty of being a dumb reader as the next person: I know nothing about cars, but love Jeremy Clarkson's Sunday Times motoring columns just for the jokes.

Fair enough - sorry to be such a curmudgeon.

If Gordon Ramsay is back on the list, I'd say go there (ignore my jibes about the tacky glass sculptures - it's worth it for the food). I can't think of anything to say about Gordon Ramsay that hasn't already been said more eloquently on this board by someone else, but I think it's just great!

My first thought was: not Gordon Ramsay? Or the Capital? I went to Le Gavroche just before Christmas for my birthday and loved it. It certainly scored well for faultless, unobtrusive but charming service. I'd never had classical French cuisine cooked at such a grand scale, to such high level before and was totally wowed (particularly by the Artichokes Lucullus, which I had based on their recommendation here). (The decor is a bit opulent-80s though: sort of chintzy/tart's-boudoir. But then good London restaurants often seem to have surprisingly tasteless interior design. I remember Gordon Ramsay RHR having a bunch of gaudy glass ornaments that looked like they'd been bought from the Franklin Mint.)

Couldn't agree more. I dimly remember a Nigella Lawson recipe (in a newspaper rather than one of books) for a summer drink based on - if I remember right - Asti Spumante and lemons, chilled. Never got round to trying it, but it's not too far removed from a C18th/C19th negus, another drink I like the thought of. And as well as the sangria Britcook mentions, there's kir, and of course the various champagne cocktails. I agree that artificially fruit-flavoured wine from a factory is unlikely to be good, but there's certainly no reason to despise cheap, off-dry wine mixed with fruit juice or spices.

Yeah - makes me wonder which is greater: the British obsession with class or the Guardian's obsession about talking about the British obsession with class. We shouldn't be too harsh on 'posh' supermarkets: Waitrose has done more than most to supply interesting, wholesome food on a sustainable basis (they know that their customers will pay for it). It's not all about snob value...

In the UK's annual Budget today, a tax exemption on small breweries was extended. This will help small breweries (which generally make interesting beer) against larger ones (which often don't). I think this is the kind of tax cut we can all agree on. Here's is the response from the Campaign for Real Ale.

I certainly agree that it's a tragedy that British apple varieties are being buried in a deluge of Braeburns and Golden Delicious. But I'm suspicious of Monbiot's argument that having more small shops (and fewer supermarkets) will stop the rot. If I look at the selection of produce in the small corner shops and greengrocers near where I live in London, I see exactly the same dismal monoculture as I see in Sainsbury's. Indeed if anything things are worse, as Sainsbury's does at least try to stock Coxes and Egremont Russets (at high prices, natch). I fear that simply regulating supermarkets isn't going to solve the problem. The solution needs to focus on the demand side as much as on the supply side (as Adam B suggests).

Breakfast is as much a state of mind as a meal. The way my breakfast makes me feel is almost as important as the way it tastes. Before people slam this (and I remember a post recently suggesting that people whose favourite meal is breakfast are sinister puritans), consider the important psychological virtues of mashed potatoes, coffee, macaroni & cheese... I can think of a few breakfasts that make me feel good: 1. "Warm feeling inside breakfast" Porridge (AKA oatmeal), made with salt, water, spoon of maple syrup, and berries (frozen or freeze-dried out of season, fresh redcurrants in season); grapefruit; tea (obviously English breakfast, with milk). I make this for myself almost every weekday. The grapefruit wakes me up. The porridge gives me a glow of warmth - both physical and moral: you feel like a better person after a bowl of porridge, which as it tastes so good seems like a total bonus. 2. "Smoked fish on toast" Grilled kipper (preferably a Manx kipper) on lots of good wholemeal bread, or failing that smoked salmon (organic farmed - wild seems a waste in the morning with thick toast). Tea as well - a pot if it's the weekend. Just thinking abut kippers makes me want one. Smoked fish rock. And with wholemeal toast it all just goes. 3. "Nordic/Teutonic blowout" A kind of extreme version of the smoked fish breakfast idea. A smoked fish, cheese and smoked meat extravaganza, with really good northern European bread. A breakfast smorgasbord. I remember the enormous breakfast buffets many years ago at hotel Kohlmayer in Obertauern in Austria (not northern I know, but very much in the same spirit). 4. "Hangover breakfast" Bacon sandwich, brown sauce, on brown bread. Bought from greasy spoon. Almost worth being hungover for. Of course, this is discussed at length here. PS Adding black pudding to any breakfast improves it. PPS I wasn't able to read the NYT article (can't be bothered to subscribe), but I hope the columnist gives the great British fry-up another try. The trick (like a lot of food) to eat it at someone's house, or, failing that, to carefully select a reliable place for one. Avoid the average UK hotel breakfasts like the plague (they're usually overpriced anyway). The poshest incarnation of the fry-up is the breakfast at Simpson's in the Strand, which is great if expensive.

Daddies is definitely the sauce to go for. And the vinegary taste is absolutely key. I remember once making a bacon sandwich (brown bread, bacon, Daddies) using some Suffolk sweet-cure bacon. Talk about a revelation - the sweetness of the bacon with the sourness of the sauce was amazing. It reminded me of a superior pork bun. Now if only I could find that Suffolk sweet-cure bacon again - I can't for the life of me remember where I got it.

Apropos of all this talk of improving the quality of the food we eat in the UK, I came across the website of an interesting UK organisation called Sustain, that appears to lobby for better food production in the UK. It seems to be in favour of growing seasonal produce, of reviving traditional crop varieties, and of artisanal production, which most eGullet members seem to agree with. (Disclaimer: It also seems to be in favour of banning junk food ads targeted at kids, which I think has been the subject of controversial debate on this site before.) Worth a look if you haven't seen it before.

I think the food of the Mediterranean has had an interesting effect on UK food over the last few decades. On the one hand, the way British people eat has been improved by exposure to the attitude to food associated with the Mediterranean, with Elizabeth David being the giant on whose shoulders everyone else (up to and including the River Cafe and Jamie Oliver) stands. The example of Mediterranean food arguably helped interest British people in freshly prepared food, good ingredients and all that praiseworthy stuff. (I think one important part of this has been the medical establishment's lionisation of the Mediterranean diet, whatever we interpret that as meaning.) On the other hand, the massive rise in popularity of this sort of food seems to be linked to prevalence of air-freighted, mediocre supermarket produce that e-gullet members generally deplore. Because no matter how much pasta we eat, England is not Tuscany. Tomatoes don't grow here all year round (or at least, they're not very tasty for much of the year), etc etc. On balance, I think the popularity of Mediterranean food can only be a good thing - it's tasty in its own right, and the values of, say, Italian cooking have had a huge influence on good modern British food. But I'm curious about the degree to which people's desire for, say, pasta has undermined the market for, say, pie.