Month: December 2010

My dining companions felt like steak, so we trooped the 50 yards from the Cork & Bottle to Steak & Co.  We savoured the High Altitude malbec/syrah blend from Argentina. Then one friend ordered a stone steak, which you basically cook yourself on a hot stone!  He said it...

The Texas Embassy is a ‘cantina’ on the corner of Cockspur Street in Trafalgar Square.  Three of us who’d been to a nearby reception decided to look in.  Previously I’d tried it, only to be driven out by over-loud piped music, but tonight it was much quieter.  I took...

I found this photo among the ones I took on a recent visit to Nice.  I can’t remember where I drank it, but I do remember how very good it was.  Le Chantecler is a Michelin-starred restaurant in Nice at the Hotel Negresco.  Although it’s very highly spoken of,...

Still at the Mermaid’s Tail in Leicester Square, the one who ate that huge rack of ribs ordered a deep-fried Mars Bar for dessert.  I’ve never heard of that delicacy being served anywhere outside Scotland, but sure enough a Mar Bar fritter appeared, covered in whipped cream, and also...

I was showing a couple of teenagers around London, so I took them for lunch at the Mermaid’s Tail in Leicester Square.  I had the fish and chips, which was nice enough. What impressed me most was not the sirloin steak that one of my visitors enjoyed, but the...

Three of us went to the New China.  The licence problem is as yet unresolved, but I knew the drill and popped out for a bottle of chilled Jacob’s Creek semillon/chardonnay.  We ordered fragrant crispy duck, just a quarter between three of us.  That meant two pancakes each, enough...

Lunch at Christohers of Covent Garden, founded by Christopher Gilmour, son of one of Lady Thatcher’s ministers, and a very popular meeting place.  I began with the goat’s cheese soufflé, superbly done – soft, spongy, and covered in white foam. I went on to the salmon fish-cakes.  Superb, but...

This is a lovely deep red wine with a whiff of coffee on its nose.  Its taste is full of red fruits with a peppery hint and well-balanced tannins.  Apparently the Colchagua Valley estate it’s from is owned by the Sutil family who make some other top quality wines. ...

It was a small variation on my normal saumon en croute in that I used a fillet of Atlantic slightly smoked salmon.  I used Jus-rol puff pastry, a quarter of one of the two blocks there are in a pack of frozen.  I make my own short-crust pastry and...

I thought it might make a good combination, hot or cold.  I cored and sliced (but not peeled) two Sainsbury’s apples from their basics range – excellent value.  I halved three medium size nectarines and cut out the stones before slicing them.  I put the apples first into boiling...