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Great British Menu 2012

david goodfellow
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Soundman

Soundman

Posted
Posted

Must not forget John Mountain who has suffered deep depression through being publically humiliated on national television. His gut wrenching fall into the dark cavernous pit of despair can be read below.

http://chefhermes.com/

He has publically stated thankfully that he is better now.

What a mammoth prick! (Mountain, not Goodfellow....) He always comes across as self obsessed with more mouth than talent. I haven't seen the episodes with him in it yet, but am looking forward to it now. I'm chuckling thinking of him as a drunken scrapper rather than the boring little prick he actually is :)

antdad

antdad

Posted
Posted

What a mammoth prick! (Mountain, not Goodfellow....) He always comes across as self obsessed with more mouth than talent. I haven't seen the episodes with him in it yet, but am looking forward to it now. I'm chuckling thinking of him as a drunken scrapper rather than the boring little prick he actually is :)

+1. Total prick, even his so called depressive episode was a molecular disappointment.

david goodfellow

david goodfellow

Posted
  • Topic Starter
Posted

Its the Welsh this week. Richard Davies, James Summerin, and Stephen Terry.

There will be no stropping about with these guys. Just heads down winning mentality.

Having spoken to James Summerin personally a couple of years ago. I know just how determined he will be to win it. He's quite a tough cookie.

"So many places, so little time"

http://londoncalling...blogspot.co.uk/

@d_goodfellow1

KaffirLime

KaffirLime

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So we can count on the chefs. Can we count on the judges?

It seems this year's brief to push boundaries has been all too much for them because when faced with genuinely innovative food they invariably reject it in favour of a nice plate of meat and two veg :laugh:

KaffirLime

KaffirLime

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Posted

nice to see the back of all that spherification though. Today we had pearls instead

Oh, hang on.................................................

Carlovski

Carlovski

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Posted

I think the problem is that they are trying to shoehorn the sort of food that is usually produced as part of a tasting menu in a traditional 4 course meal (because they can't mess with the original format, presumably driven by the fact that the Queen likes a fish course?). Weird and wacky can work in small doses, as part of a progression of dishes. Also means you can be fairly purist about each dish as you don't need all the elements of a 'course' on each plate. using things like spherification, foams etc are supposed to be about getting the pure flavour out of an ingredient. the effect is somewhat diluted when you have to plonk them on top of some meat, potatoes and gravy...

Thought that Simon Rogan did really well with the limitations - each of his dishes probably had more elements on the same plate than he would do on one of his menus (The 'clamped' vegetables probably would be a dish in their own right for example) but they did seem to make sense.

I love animals.

They are delicious.

thampik

thampik

Posted
Posted

I agree - of all the chefs, Simon's dishes seemed the most interesting and complete.

I remember thinking that perhaps he had been through the whole "moelcular" journey and emerged with a fully digested and adapted individual style. Some of the others clearly are very much on the discovery trail :hmmm:

olicollett

olicollett

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Posted

Missed last night's and probably won't have time to watch this week - but it seems a bit daft people experimenting with a lot of spherification as if it's groundbreaking!

Going back a bit, I'm rather uncomfortable with what has been said of Johnnie Mountain on here. As far as I'm aware he is genuinely suffering from depression, which isn't something to be mocked.

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JudyB

JudyB

Posted
Posted

Missed last night's and probably won't have time to watch this week - but it seems a bit daft people experimenting with a lot of spherification as if it's groundbreaking!

From what has been said on TV, the chefs have been asked to "push the boundaries" and at least some seem to have interpreted this as meaning using "novel" techniques. Unfortunately for many of them this has been translated into using "molecular gastronomy" for the first time.

What I would like to know is what exactly the brief said - rather than how any of the chefs (and the judges) have interpreted it. My guess is that the intention was never that they should all try to copy chefs like Heston...

RedRum

RedRum

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Posted

I am really struggling to understand the brief, it seems the chefs stuggle as well. My understanding was that the dishes had to show "excellence", in a way that Olympic athletes are the best in their chosen sport. That should mean that a dish has to be "perfect", be it using modern techiques or not. Somehow this has turned into the MG cuisine competition, and anyone who does not have a jelly, sphere or caviar is being downgraded. There are other cooking techniques that do not involve using some sort of powder to do something that can be innovative. I think Clifford's chicken main showed that. But the mentors and judges seem to want something with MG technique in every dish. Otherwise it is not called "out-there" or "innovative" or "strectchin your boundaries". Didn't they do an GBM with chef's competing on MG cuisine a couple of series ago?

I like some of the cooking, but I think the unclear brief has confused the chef's.

That said, whatever the brief is that dessert from last week with asparagus and olives looked awful...

thampik

thampik

Posted
Posted

I was intrigued by the asparagus dish...sorry RedRum :-)

Having said that, Marcus (and the other chefs) seemed to think serving asparagus for dessert was radical - if I am not mistaken, David Everitt-Mathias had an Asparagus-based dessert in his book.

KaffirLime

KaffirLime

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Posted (edited)

If it is going to return please cut out all the waffle as well. What on earth are all those fillers with the chef's meeting athletes all about apart from being laughable. Yesterdays' was typical with Richard meeting some hurdler who I've never heard of.

How did the conversation go?

Well Mr Hurdler (you know f*ck all about cooking probably but) how do you think I should prepare for this competition (OK I admit i've added the stuff in brackets)

Well Richard, our motto has always been 'Train hard and win easy'

'Ooh, Ooh Ooh' fawns Richard, "That's absolutely brilliant, If I can apply that to my cooking I'm bound to win"

Cut to embarrassing shots of Richard attempting to jump over a two foot hurdle

Edited by KaffirLime (log)
Toufas

Toufas

Posted
Posted

I am pretty sure that this year's brief has confused the chefs. What if someone was using modernist techniques before? Should they go back to classical cooking because that's outside their comfort zone now?

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