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Great British Menu 3


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he must wake up every day and say  i'm so glad i don't have  a newspaper column, own tv show and central london restaurant to look after  :laugh:

Ha, those could be your dreams too of course! Winning that show is like a fairytale :smile:

Just caught tonight's GBM on iplayer and thought it was another close one. Maybe Sat shading it because Glyn's presentation was awful. Those brown eggshells and silver eggcups just looked so out of place. I'm disappointed because the desserts at his restaurant are usually superb.

I score it a dead heat this week, Sat's fish and dessert, Glyn's starter and main. Depending on whether Oliver Peyton and Pru Leith will 'get' the sense of humour in Glyn's food then he may tip it for the judges.

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I think Purnell's dishes are conceptually stronger and I can definately see the trifle being served at the big event. The only weak link is the pike. Apart from that, as long as the menu tastes as good as it looks, I reckon he's got it in the bag.

I would love to eat the trifle, but as soon as you put a spoon into it it looked like a bad traffic accident. And the pike was a total disaster presentation wise. Who want to eat brown/grey food?

Yesterday they didn't have have the program on the iPlayer! I was awake pretty late and it didn't show up. Shame on BBC...

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Edit- Whoops. Rule Number 1. Always cut and paste into the relevant thread. Now posted on the Cliveden thread.

......I actually thought Glynn's dishes have looked rather good with the possible exception of the pike dish. The trifle on the otherhand, I thought looked rather good. I had no idea he was such and inventive chef, which I suppose is the point of appearing on such programmes. To bring their food to the wider public's attention.

Excellent to see Sat and Glynn sparring (and mildly bitching :laugh: ) at each other and I look forward to watching tonights episode on iplayer later tonight, when everyone has gone to bed and left me to some peace.

Edited by Bapi (log)
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Do you know something the others don't Andy.  My moneys on the Ginger Chef................. :wink:

No - I tried to extract the information from someone I bumped into at St Pancras earlier this week but they refused to co-operate - they even went so far to accuse me of stalking them, can you imagine that!

No offence by the way chef. All the food has looked great this week and its been highly entertaining - the best double act to hit our screens since Eric and Ernie.

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call me old fashioned but i liked the egg presentation, if it's good enough for 3* arpege and l'astrance....

Glynn's story about ash in the creme brulee made me laugh, we had the same problem at the pub, naturally we used the proper vanilla pods, a very concerned customer cornered sarah to tell her 'there are ant eggs in the creme brulee!' :laugh:

you don't win friends with salad

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Robert Thompson ( ex head at Winteringham Fields) is now the chef and bloody good his food looks too.  You can see G Schwab's influence in his dishes. Small article, about him in the April 08 edition of Olive magazine.

it is etiquette to post your responses in the correct thread old bean :wink:

you don't win friends with salad

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call me old fashioned but i liked the egg presentation, if it's good enough for 3* arpege and l'astrance....

Nothing wrong with old-fashioned old chap! Just thought it looked messy with the carefree scattering of strawberries, peppered honycomb and fried tarragon on the side. It look even messier when he tipped the custard over them. Now if he'd had made those ingredients into soldiers to dip into the burnt egg custard then that would have been a knockout presentation on multiple levels.

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If anyone's struggling with the suspenseful nature of the head-to-head regional battles, the new issue of Olive magazine may offer some clues. They've interviewed one GBM chef from each region. Perhaps they selected them by tossing a coin.

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If anyone's struggling with the suspenseful nature of the head-to-head regional battles, the new issue of Olive magazine may offer some clues.

Don't ask me how I know this (and I honestly didn't know who won the Sat Bains/Glynn Purnell round in advance) but the chefs interviewed by olive (lower case "o") aren't all the winners. And it wasn't anyone at olive that told me that by the way.

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So, first round done between Hartnett and Terry. Harnett will obviously win on technical points (unless her quail ravioli tastes terribly, which I doubt.), but my gut feeling is that to win the whole competition the complexity and elegance needs to be kicked up at least another notch.

Compare to Purnell's rabbit trifle with rabbit lollipop. That is a complex dish both technically and (presumably) taste wise.

I wonder how many of the competing chefs that hasn't really grasped what the game is about this time? Grilled aspargus with goats cheese dresing simply won't cut it, regardless how local and fresh the ingredients are.

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Though i've not been keeping an eagle eye on the programme this week there must surely have been a reduction in the use of sous vide, which can only be a good thing. I'm having nightmares about jenny bond's voiceover ' (insert name of chef) now pops the (insert name of protein) into a bag and cooks at precisely 50 degress for (insert minutes/hours/days), before finishing off in the pan.

oh and by the way WTF is 'pan roasting' when it looked like a piece of meat cooking in a pan on a hob, , i can live with pan seared but pan roasted is surely a bridge too far when no oven is involved!

you don't win friends with salad

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Last week's cooking felt much more interesting. Or am I just getting bored by the format?

I agree, the cooking this week hasn't been interesting. I also think we are seeing the flaw with the format. Last week Glynn and Sat worked well as a double act with good banter flowing backwards and forwards. They were both interested in each others food and there was a good atmosphere.

This week Angela and Stephen come across as one dimensional, it's not modern British, its italian wasn't a great comment the first time, let alone the fiftieth. I also thought Sat & Glynn appreciated each others food - this week there are less positive comments. I would like to hear what worked in a dish, what is good about it, rather than simply it's not modern British, its italian .

I ate at The Hardwick last Sunday, and it is indeed a fine pub with good food, however it's not modern British, its italian.

Edited by PhilD (log)
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yes, there's lots of justifying why their food is 'modern british' when that was patently obvious with sat and glynn's cooking.

And as angela harnett said last night 'i can't believe the winning dessert won't have foams and gels on it'

you don't win friends with salad

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Definitely check out this weeks competition for some seriously interesting cooking by Anthony Flinn and Nigel Haworth. They play it like it is new (Flinn) vs traditional(Haworth) cooking, but that doesn't seem true at all. Haworth eg did his lamb sous vide without any comment at all.

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Definitely check out this weeks competition for some seriously interesting cooking by Anthony Flinn and Nigel Haworth. They play it like it is new (Flinn) vs traditional(Haworth) cooking, but that doesn't seem true at all. Haworth eg did his lamb sous vide without any comment at all.

Wasn't it steamed?

The quest for perfection will lead you to role models that will last you for life (Nico Ladenis)

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Definitely check out this weeks competition for some seriously interesting cooking by Anthony Flinn and Nigel Haworth. They play it like it is new (Flinn) vs traditional(Haworth) cooking, but that doesn't seem true at all. Haworth eg did his lamb sous vide without any comment at all.

no he steamed it and fried his sweetbreads.

I think it is very definitely a battle of traditional vs modern!

I was amused by nigels ' see he still got that risotto on the menu' comment as it's the only dish that has been on since day one :raz:

i'm looking forward to nigels dessert, very complex i hear :wink:

Edited by Gary Marshall (log)

you don't win friends with salad

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I was amused by nigels ' see he still got that risotto on the menu' comment as it's the  only dish that has been on since day one  :raz:

...and then served Flinn a 20 year old signature dish!

Flinn's rather arrogant, over serious manner is going down like a lead balloon in the Lynes household, especially as any mention of Nigel Haworth in our house is automatically followed by the phrase "the nicest man in British Hospitality". It may be all put on for the cameras and they are no doubt bezza mates in real life, but Flinn is so far doing a very, very good job of convincing me that he truly believes he's the mutts nuts. And if he happens to refer to himself in the third person at any point this week (and the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised), I'm switching off.

Edited by Andy Lynes (log)
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