That Was The Week That Was

You better not mention Jamie’s name to His Gordoness when he’s out here in Cape Town next week for the Good Food & Wine Show – young Mr Oliver has sparked a new feud with Gordo this week after saying he prefers his wife's cookbooks. The 34-year-old Essex boy has previously been called a 'one-pot wonder' by Ramsay, 43, who claims the last time he complained about food at a restaurant was at one of Jamie’s establishments.
However, Oliver has now said: 'Men big everything up non-stop, but women tell you the truth. If I was to choose between Gordon Ramsay's cookbook or Tana Ramsay's, it would be Tana's every time. 'In my opinion, her books are a damn sight better than his.'



Gordo however had other things on his mind this week as he was being sued for ordering $41,000 of wine for his New York City restaurant and "never having any intention of paying for the bottles," according to the UK's Daily Telegraph.

Wineberry America is behind the lawsuit, claiming the 'Hell's Kitchen' and 'Kitchen Nightmares' star ordered wine to his recently sold NYC restaurant, The London, from 2007 to 2009. Over time, His Gordoness stopped paying, the case alleges. "We are in the process of working through any outstanding claims in regard to The London NYC and bills will be paid in due course," a Ramsay spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph.



Meanwhile Jason Atherton, the chef who created Maze for Gordon Ramsay before quitting last week announced plans a few days ago to open a fine-dining restaurant in London later this year.“It will be a 60-cover fine-dining restaurant in Mayfair with a twist, I’m extremely excited to be getting back into the kitchen and I can’t wait for the autumn.”
Before founding Maze in 2005, Atherton headed Verre, the Dubai restaurant of Gordon Ramsay. He has opened branches of Maze in New York, Cape Town, Melbourne and Doha. An outlet in Prague closed. Atherton declined to give details of the new restaurant except to say that while it will involve small plates and be a continuation of his style, it won’t be another Maze.

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Fast forward

I reckon the problem with most restaurants is that you're stuck in " real time " and therefore you are trapped entirely at the mercy of the staff. If the place is busy or the waitroids are chatting to each other and disinterested in your table, the chefs are larking about in the kitchen or just under a lot of pressure, no matter what the situation there's absolutely nothing you can do about it except maybe head for the door.
I'm really looking forward to the day when someone opens a virtual reality restaurant, a PVR diner if you like, where the customer can control the whole experience - if you get a lukewarm welcome on your way in then just fast forward to the food order and why bother going through the whole palaver of humming and hahing about what you're going to eat and what to drink with it with the wine waiter, just get to the point where you order the wine and fast forward to him actually pouring it into your glass. Imagine being able to skim though the menu, zap a few buttons and there your food is in front of you, steaming hot, looking appetising and none of the idle chit chat from bloody waitroids - it sounds like Utopia, in fact you can even fast forward past the bit where they present the bill.
It would be perfect I suppose except for one small detail - you can't actually eat virtual reality food. But then on reflection I suppose that wouldn't bother too many people who merely go out for the experience in fancy restaurants irregardless of what the food tastes like and anyway there's always the McDonalds drivethrough on the way home.

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Elusive butterfly of food

I’ve often toyed with the idea of compiling a personal guide of good restaurants but the stumbling block has always been how to get the list into double figures and what is that one defining element that makes a good restaurant? I suppose the starting point is usually that any restaurant which isn’t touted by critics, foodie magazines, best lists etc has the potential to be a good restaurant in my guide. That’s not to say that all wow wow establishments are automatically excluded it’s just that I’m not overly impressed by “Top Billing” style restaurants. For me it’s all about the food not the glitz and glamour of the surroundings. Anyone with enough money can build Las Vegas in a teacup but it takes great talent and more importantly great restraint(both of which are in short supply in this neck of the woods) to put up a good plate of food and it’s the food which is the clue to that elusive one defining element. So my instant barometer of a good restaurant is simply this: “ Would you willingly go back to the same restaurant the following night and order exactly the same dishes again?” If your answer to this is an enthusiastic yes then my friend you have discovered a good restaurant –keep it to yourself!

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Not him please

So you’re lying in a hospital bed not feeling too impressed with the world and even less impressed with the institutional food they give you and then you get this bit of good news – Blumen Hestonstein and a team of scientists have decided to collaborate on a project to get your tastebuds perking up.Good news? I’m not so sure, the first thing that comes to mind is snail porridge, surely he wouldn’t subject you to that for breakfast?
Don’t be silly, that’s much too predictable! No, good old Heston and the chemical Alis have decided that the way to rejuvenate your tastebuds is to introduce strong flavours from Japanese food into British classics like Shepherd’s Pie perhaps renaming it Shepherd’s Sushi. Umami is the name of the game so they’re mincing up some seaweed to mix in with your pie mix to pump up the flavour. Once the formulation has been tweaked by the Reading scientists and chefs at Blumenthal's Fat Duck restaurant, in Bray, Berkshire, it will be trialled on an elderly care ward. Now call me a sceptic if you like but I’m not sure letting Heston loose on a ward of old folks is the right thing to do, after all this is the man who not so long ago single handedly filled several dozen hospital wards with his culinary creations.

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Risotto rebellion

When the Ice Maiden Delia Smith cooks, her adoring fans rush out and sweep ingredients straight off the supermarket shelves leaving them bare, it’s called the Delia Effect and can be quite impressive but sometimes dear old Delia shows that she is no Goddess in the kitchen and has feet of clay just like the rest of us – and I love it!
When Delia Smith appeared in the latest Waitrose promotion to wax lyrical about the delights of her seafood risotto, shoppers duly raced out to the supermarket to recreate the recipe themselves. The key to the dish’s simplicity and success was, the TV cook promised, the inclusion of an authentic carton of French fish soup which contained ‘all the flavours of the sea’. Just one slight drawback, the finished dish tasted vile and Delia is suffering the wrath of her devotees.
Angry comments about the recipe on the Waitrose website, called it ‘nauseating, offensively fishy and repugnant’. Others contacted the supermarket’s customer services department to complain. One disgruntled cook, describing herself as a full-time working mother, wrote on the website: ‘I bought the very expensive ingredients for the seafood risotto, expecting to lay on a treat for my family. We all had one mouthful and gagged. ‘It was disgusting, to say the very least. The entire meal went in the bin and we all had toast instead. ‘Even the bin bag was put at the bottom of the garden because of the revolting smell.’ Waitrose have apologised but the Ice Maiden remains aloof.

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Sunday afternoon at the bioscope

Whena man's got food on his mind it takes a lot to distract him. This poor oke just wanted a quiet sandwich and a bottle of beer in peace and then this happened. FeedBlitz subscribers should visit the site to view.

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Dilly Diner of the Week

In a past life this was the revered No 1 Courtroom in Marlborough Street Magistrates Courts in London, second only in importance to the Old Bailey, where the famous and infamous argued their cases, where Charles Dickens spent long hours on hard wooden benches reporting on crime for the Morning Chronicle, where Napoleon lll was tried and where Oscar Wilde parried jibes with the Marques of Queensberry. Today it is Dilly Diner of the Week because it has been transformed into a fine dining room called Silk.
In the swinging sixties it proved handy in rounding up those who proved a tad too swinging for the establishment to bear In 1970, John Lennon was charged for exhibiting pictures deemed too steamy for the London Art Gallery. The law did show Keith Richards some leniency in 1973 when he was fined R 2,500 for possessing marijuana, heroin, mandrax, a revolver and a shotgun.
Much of the original legal furniture has been incorporated into the design including the judge's bench, a witness stand and jury benches and the only things being handed down today are jellied oysters and caviar or braised loin of veal with roasted root vegetables. Pre dinner drinks are served in the unique bar and it's novel use of three original Ladies Cells, now private booths complete with bunk bed and ice bucket for the chilled champagne, charmingly fashioned from the original Victorian lavatory.

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