Month: December 2007

Bank is the top restaurant of the St James Court Hotel in Westminster. It is tastefully laid out overlooking a courtyard complete with fountain and ‘baroque’ architecture, and with cool lighting inside. We met for a quick dry sherry at the Zander Bar, claimed to be London’s longest. Given...

Well, there was no turkey, but there were nine physicists – and to make the calculations easier, a lot of them probably considered it spherical… It was the second year running that I’d cooked our little group a christmas dinner: 4 courses, again, and a lot of fun. I...

My last day in Cambridge before Christmas approached, and I needed lunch. Into a bowl went what was left in the fridge: lettuce, which I chopped, and half a tomato. I diced up some stale bread, and grilled, adding this to the mix. I threw in a chunk of...

The North Sea Fish Restaurant has been a London institution for decades. Situated in Leigh Street, south of the King’s Cross area and just east of Russell Square, its large, good value plates of fish have been sufficiently popular to lead people across London to eat there. It used...

I was a little unnerved when five of us sat down for tapas-style food at Depot recently, having just seen someone unplug the microphone-enabled CCTV camera, but when the bin-end South African red started flowing, I soon stopped caring. We ordered 10 dishes between us: pigeon breast with chorizo,...

The evening was the wrong way round. Someone had given us an Italian Pannetoni cake and a bottle of port. We consumed this between six of us at 5.30 pm. Two of us met up later for a glass of Blackridge shiraz at the bar Just St James, which...

Sports Page Originally uploaded by dynamist. Does anyone use it anymore? Perhaps I have been spoilt by the wide availability of freshly ground black pepper, but I cannot abide the dusty stuff that comes pre-ground. Before the smoking ban – in the UK and in the state of Ohio...

Adnams Tally Ho, this year claiming a moderate 6.6% ABV (approx.) is their rare barley wine. I drank it at – where else – the Castle. It doesn’t taste like I remember it: less chocolately, and more like madeira. Maybe I remember it incorrectly, maybe I’m biased now… still,...

I was in Cologne last week, and had a bit of spare time to look round the city. The Christmas market near to the huge cathedral was in full swing, and I couldn’t resist buying a few things from the stalls. I almost never buy sweets, but on this...

I didn’t know what I wanted for supper, but I was quite sure that I did not want to do any real cooking. So I ate a couple of bites of cottage cheese and a few green olives (let’s call that a “starter”) while I thought about it. Broccoli...