The Restaurant Would Have Loved This Revue
a couple of weeks ago, I was so impressed by what Giles Coren said about a restaurant, that I just had to visit The Quality Chop House and duly did, as I reported here.
I doubt, I’ll be going to Balthazar, as Giles has given the place, one of the worst reviews I’ve ever seen, with the same exquisite use of a hatchet, that would have done justice to the late Michael Winner. You can read it here in The Times. It is one of those reads, that are worth a visit to the dentist in a couple of months time.
Giles scores the restaurant 0 for food out of 10, but gives it 9 for the room and service. His last paragraph is a classic.
I had hoped that London was too sophisticated now to fall for this sort of thing, but the critics seem to be going wild for it. And I am in no way saying that you should not go. Just go prepared. For the best restaurant in London, and the worst food in Europe.
I shall see what Giles recommends in the next few weeks.
Holy Toast
With the election of a new Pope, my slice of toast this morning was appropriate.
Holy Toast
Unfortunately, it is gluten-free toast, and as coeliacs these days, can’t be Catholic priests, I doubt the Pope would appreciate the subtle flavours and merits of this toast.
Sad really, as one of the most influemtial Catholic priests of recent years; Derek Warlock, was a coeliac.
A Very Good Marketing Idea
The Guardian describes them in this article as a St. Patrick’s day novelty, but surely shamrock-flavoured crisps are a superb marketing idea.
I wish Tom Keogh the best of luck with the crisps. But I suspect he won’t need it, as nothing succeeds like an idea that tickles everybody’s fancy.
I can’t find out if the crisps are suitable for coeliacs.
The Giraffe Web-Site Has Crashed
Tesco have taken over the Giraffe restaurant chain, as is reported here in the Guardian. This paragraph explains their strategy.
For a retailer that accounts for more than one in every £8 spent in UK shops, with UK sales of £47.3bn, the deal is pocket change. But added to the grocer’s recent 49% investment in artisan coffee shop Harris + Hoole, the group’s Dobbies garden centre business, and a stake in the embryonic, luxury bakery Euphorium, and the beginnings of a bold strategic shift begin to emerge.
I also wanted to look something up on the restaurant’s web site and got this message.
Due to today’s Tesco announcement we are experiencing extremely high volumes of traffic to our website.
We are currently working to accommodate the extra demand and will be back online later this evening. We apologise for any inconvenience.
I wonder if the wags will come up with jokes about Tesco swapping horse-meat for giraffe-meat.
Profits Before Health In New York
It would appear from this story about banning the sale of large sizes of fizzy drinks in New York, that American lawyers are on the side of corporate profits and really can’t care about the obesity and health of the American people.
As someone, who is built like the Aldgate Sphinx, and has always been like that, I have never understood obesity and why people get that way. My father was the same and it looks like my son is too! At least we could share clothes, if we wanted!
Jamie Gets Dropped In The Salt
I am someone, who’s never liked salt in his food. I would argue with both C and her mother, as I don’t even like it when you cook or in my mother-in-law’s case stew vegetables like sprouts. I do sometimes wonder, what she would have made of my gluten-free regime, as I hadn’t been diagnosed as a coeliac before she died. She was a great one for gluten-rich puddings, which I always declined.
Perhaps, my body was telling me something? It’s a pity her husband’s body didn’t tell him to stop eating, as too much rich food probably raised his cholesterol which caused the stroke that killed him.
So it is with a wry smile that I look at reports, like this one on the BBC, that the champion of healthy eating; Jamie Oliver, has been caught by the Consensus Action on Salt and Health, putting too much salt in the food in one of his restaurants. There’s a full list of the dishes they analysed here.
Only one thing I eat regularly in Carluccio’s is on the list, but then I always cook everything I( eat without salt. Sadly, one of the things I wanted to try, which is Pizza Hut’s gluten free pizza is very high in salt.
Educating The Germans
I’ve just read this piece on the BBC’s web site called “Affection for Britain brews in Germany”. Part is about the Germans new-found love of tea and the author, Stephen Evans, says this.
The office of one of the Green MPs in the Bundestag, you see, has made a collective decision to switch from coffee to tea.
So when I was there the other day, I was relentlessly quizzed about brewing times – they seemed to want the correct answer to the very second – and which tea to use.
I was not much help, except to say, “Make sure it’s a strong, black tea, probably Indian.”
They had made a bad start, offering me a cup of insipid weak Darjeeling, which would have shamed a gnat. They had not made sure the water was boiling.
It is definitely a piece worth reading.
What everybody forgets is that the Great British Breakfast is actually the Great German Breakfast, as in the Victorian age, everywhere had their German delicatessen which introduced bacon and sausage to many in the UK. The Germans had to leave, when there was a bit of trouble with the Kaiser in 1914.
A Taxi Driver In Mumbai
I’m just watching the BBC documentary of a London cabbie trying to drive a cab in Mumbai. Fascinating.
I posted this story of my holiday in Mumbai.
Mothering Sunday At Carluccio’s
I got to Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast.
There were obviously a few parties celebrating Mothering Sunday, but surprisingly, there were several singletons of both sexes. There certainly appeared to be more than usual, but then I was half-an-hour or so earlier.
You’d have thought that on this day, where mothers and their partners and children tend to celebrate, that dining alone wouldn’t have been so common.
I know that as a widower, who has lost his mother and contact with his two daughters-in-law, I am a bit short in the mother stakes. But my family has always been like that, with no woman having given birth on my father’s side with the coeliac gene, since 1820, that I can find.
Still those genes, when linked to my mother’s Huguenot ones gave me a strong survival instinct and I like to think an active and fertile mind.
The Only Starbucks I Habitually Visit
I don’t generally go to Starbucks very often, but I will use this one in Bold Street in Liverpool.
The Only Starbucks I Habitually Visit
In the 1960s, I’m fairly certain, it used to be La Bussola, which was the coffee bar, where everybody went.
The Anonymous Widower 