UK Media Round Up

[camp_dick]

Gareth McLean reviewed La Potiniere in Gullane, East Lothian, this week in the Guardian.  General findings are that the food is good but the ambience leaves a lot to be desired, not least the hooray henrys and henriettas he finds himself dining amongst. 

←

I do think that reviewing the conversation on neighbouring tables is the last resort of an impudent half wit, which is what I would call Gareth McLean, were I to recognise myself from his precis of what sounds like rather an entertaining overheard.

A restaurant can hardly be held responsible for boorish customers, nor lazy writers.

And has fat head McLean not noticed that his wittier colleague, Michael Holden, has made eavesdropping his own speciality?

[jayrayner]

If you can't guess by the sound of my head whacking against the desk (I'll post an mp3 of that shortly), AA Gill writes about..  No, I can't even bring myself to tell you.  Go here and find out.  Let's just say it's not a resoundingly positive review of a place that everyone else (and I do mean the majority of the english-speaking world, it seems) is in a frenzy of adulation over.

←

everyone else apart from little ol' me....

x

←

And me.

[culinary bear]

This week:

JoJo's in Whitstable comes in for the Rayner treatment this week. I need not remind readers of Escoffier's famous dictum, oft repeated (rightly) by the likes of Alastair Little. JoJo's seems to hit the right buttons. Paul, any plans to go and visit?

A lovely "review" of Bluu in Glasgow's Merchant City, from the Scotsman on Sunday. Having briefly worked for Bluu in Liverpool, I can assure reviewer Richard Bath that the likelihood of his bearnaise having being made with free range eggs is akin to finding Lord Lucan waiting on your table.

Gillan Glover finds good yet overpriced food at Le Cafe st Honore in Edinburgh. Edinburgh hasn't quite got the hang of the whole 'Grand Cafe' experience, she mantains, but then where does?

Now, I may be wrong here (it has been known, ask Wylie Dufresne) but I was under the impression that adding milk to tea was, apart from certain varieties, a matter of personal taste. I find Darjeeling and Earl Grey teas better without milk, but Assam I can't stand unless it has milk added. Jan Moir went to The Tea Palace in Notting Hill, and finds that there's but one tea, condescendingly called "builder's blend", which is "designed to be enjoyed with milk". The rest, as far as I can make out, are meant to be enjoyed milkless unless you wish to appear like a Visigoth.

Thomas Sutcliffe evades the midges for a few brief hours at the Old Pines, in Spean Bridge. That's in Scotland, for the uninitiated, near one of the most poignant war memorials I've yet encountered. Thumbs up for the food, and well-done to the AA for awarding them their first rosette.

Maze Maze Maze Maze Coren Maze Maze Maze. Maize. Corny?

Guess where AA "Maureen Lipman hates me and told me so, but I hate her more, the old ham" Gill reviews? Ah, bugger it, you won't struggle to guess.

Marina O'Loughlin loves

Wizzy, and has a bit of a mixed bag (should that be scrotum?) at Ping Pong. The first incidence I've read of the adjective 'testicular' being used to describe something not on the menu at St John's.

Wilton's in London's Jermyn Street is offering understated, well-cooked food, according to Chris Blakchurst. At 243 quid for two, with a bottle and two glasses of nothing fancy, they'd bloody well better be.

Charles Campion went to Santorini's, and doesn't care to repeat the experience.

Sejal Sukhadwala portrays The Hand and Flowers in Marlow as a "traditional pub with a smart Anglo-French menu" rather than a gastropub.

This is my main question for this week - when does a pub with good food become a gastropub? What features do you associate with a gastropub, and once you can apply say, six of them to an establishment, is it forever to be branded thus?

Edited June 24, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[adt]

these...