The Modern Pantry

To The Modern Pantry in a Georgian townhouse building in St John's Square (right by Bruno Loubet's Bistrot in the Zetter hotel), Clerkenwell for Sunday late brunch. A lovely day, with pre-prandial drinks high up on an urban-living terrace then on to this great little restaurant that gives 'fusion cooking' (Pacific Rim) a good name. Very New York in style (open all hours, no airs and graces, just great food and great service - at last!). 

Recognised by Michelin with a bib gourmand and the AA (2 stars), the prices reflect its popularity. However, when the food's this good then you never mind paying. Scallop sashimi with mustard seed, miso-marinated (or sugar-cured?) shrimp omelette with smoked chili sambal, tofu and sweetcorn fritters, onglet (skirt) steak cooked perfectly, casava chips with chili marmalade and creme fraiche, peach salsa, affogato made with great Caravan espresso coffee poured over Jude's hokey-pokey honeycomb 'ice-cream with soul', and much more...

Chef-owner Anna Hansen (UK New Zealander of the Year 2010) has a wealth of experience under her belt (she trained with London's originator of fusion cooking, Peter Gordon) and it clearly shows. When the food's this good it's time to push the boat out and I broke one of my main rules, by splashing out on a fine vino - but the company, location and food were too enjoyable to note the detail, just that it was a lovely, oaky 2006 Italian Barbera, worth every penny of the restaurant's mark-up. Service was excellent: friendly, generous and knowledgeable. Artwork ('A Visual Feast') from Selina Snow (see pics at bottom for a contrastingly arty take on British food). A joyful experience, bu wtf is umeboshi butter?

* Waitrose guest chef: Anna Hansen (link left to recipes, from Waitrose Food Illustrated Jan 2010 edition)

* Anna features in Coco (pub. Phaidon), a book showcasing 100 of the world's top up and coming chefs 

 

* Matthew Norman hits the nail on the head in his Guardian review:

"...Low expectations can distort the critical judgment, the relief luring you into inflating the competent into the outstanding, but by any standards the Modern Pantry is a gem."

RIP Egon Ronay

My former employer (but in name only, as he sold his famous Hotel and Restaurant Guides some years before I edited the Pubs & Inns, Ireland plus ...and Baby Comes Too guides) died today at his home in Yattendon, Berkshire. Story in Times Online here.

Jim Denevan - outsize art

The largest artwork in history, with over 1,000 circles created by sand artist Jim Denevan, in Nevada, USA, 2009. Nine miles in circumference across the desert setting. Awesome achievement - larger than the lines in Nazca, Peru. The design is based on a mathematical theorem called an Apollonian Gasket and features triples of circles at tangents to others. Jim is also the founder and organizer of a worldwide moveable feast called Outstanding in the Field. His main site is here.

Epicurean adventurousness - the whole hog

I can't say I've been to Feast, a restaurant in Houston, Texas, but I was inspired by this photo of 'Duck sausage (with Head)' to googlesearch more about them on the interweb. As it turned out, it's run by a couple of ex-pats clearly inspired by Fergus Henderson's St Jhn Restaurant in Clerkenwell, London.


Feast has been run by 40-year-old ex-pats Richard Knight and James and (American) Meagan Silk since March 2008, bringing a traditional and relaxed 'European' approach to dining to Downtown Houston, with simple, honest, (extremely) rustic cuisine in a relaxed, homey environment. The emphasis is on quality, local, seasonal ingredients prepared with passion and imagination, aiming to summon the spirit of a family meal shared around the kitchen table of an old-fashioned European family farm...

Richard and James grew up together in Bognor Regis, England and have been eating, drinking and cooking together for their entire lives. Meagan, who runs front-of-house and was born and raised in Massachusetts and Arizona, joined the group and the 'Feast Family' was born. Their work together has been described as a labour of love and it's their hearty, passionate, European-style eating that they brought to downtown Houston.

Richard has more than 20 years experience as a chef. Whilst in London he worked in, amongst others, Green’s and The Lindsay House, Michelin starred, high profile, establishments, before becoming Head Chef of a successful restaurant in the artist community in St. Ives, Cornwall. He's lived in the US for 13 years, first in California, working as a private chef and caterer in Laguna Hills, before moving to Texas in 1998. Prior to opening ‘Taverna’ with James and Meagan in Conroe, he was the Executive Head Chef at the Chevron Texaco Building in downtown Houston.

James has also worked in all aspects of the restaurant business for two decades. Amongst much other experience in London, he ran Charles Fontaine’s renowned Quality Chop House and then Moro. Most tellingly, he worked extensively at St John Restaurant in (recently once again named in the top twenty best restaurants in the world by the US Restaurant Magazine - and is Anthony Bourdain’s ‘favorite restaurant in the world’). There, following in his family’s tradition, he also trained as a butcher and a chef.

Big up for the supplier of the duck (as well as the rabbits, guinea fowl, oxtail, bones and livers: Sebastien Bonneau, Countryside Farms, Cedar Creek, Texas.


New York Times article on nose-to-tail cooking, naughty nomenclature and an ode to offal: British Derring-Do, Innards a Speciality

Feast, 219 Westheimer Road, Houston, Texas

‘The industrialization - and brutalization - of animals in America is a relatively new phenomenon: no other country raises and slaughters its food animals quite as intensively or as brutally as we do. No other people in history has lived at quite so great a remove from the animals they eat. Were the walls of our meat industry to become transparent we would not long continue to raise, kill and eat animals the way we do. Tail-docking and sow crates and beak-clipping would disappear overnight - for who could stand the sight? Yes, meat would get more expensive. We'd probably eat less of it too, but maybe when we did eat animals, we'd eat them with the consciousness, ceremony and respect they deserve.’ Michael Pollan, writing in The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Crabzilla

One mother of a crab!

The Japanese Spider Crab is the largest known member of the arthropod family, which includes all invertebrates with jointed limbs.
Crabzilla's front limbs are his feeding arms, each over five feet long and ending in sizeable claws. They are a Japanese delicacy and are usually salted and steamed, but eating them in the spring is banned because that's when they lay their eggs.

Read more on the Daily Mail online.

Chilliqueen

Lee Everett, then wife of DJ and Comedian Kenny, visited the USA in 1979. During this trip Lee came across a tastebud revelation, a chilli pepper jelly, and was instantly hooked. On her return to the UK, Lee began developing her own unique version of a Chilli Pepper Jelly.

Although an accomplished cook, perfection was not easy to achieve, but once there, Chilli Jelly was born. The product was a huge hit with family and friends, with demand being so big that it quickly developed into a cottage industry, with Chilli Jelly being sold locally to a variety of fine food outlets. Hand-cooked batch runs went from 10 or 20  jars up to 1,000 jars in the final batch run. So it was no wonder that Kenny Everett, with his zany sense of humour, nicknamed her 'Chilliqueen'. The name has stuck and appeared on the jars as the brand ever since. Suggestions and recipes are on their website here.

Kenny Everett, my all-time favourite DJ - a truly inspired genius, who was placed on this planet to entertain:

Eat well, drink well and live well

"Eat well, drink well and live well" - a quote from Victor Sassie, proprietor of the Gay Hussar restaurant in Greek Street. Born August 28 1915, died June 7 1999. Restaurateur who became involved in catering in the early 1930s, sent by the British Hotel and Restaurant Association to Budapest, Hungary, to work for Karoly Gundel in 1932. He was working at the Hungarian Pavilion in New York, NY, by 1939, and then moved to the Budapest restaurant in London, England. After serving in the second world war, he reopened this restaurant in 1945, changing its name to the Gay Hussar by 1954.

The Gay Hussar has been favoured by politicians for many years. In the picture you can just make out the old blue-and-white plaque reading 'Recommended by Egon Ronay's Guides' - a blast from the past when Roy Ackerman owned both the restaurant and the guides...

Roy Ackerman quotes Victor Sassie on his Coolcucumber.tv food and drink online tv/video website here: www.coolcucumber.tv 

* Read the Grauniad obituary
* The Gay Hussar's webite is here.

Trick or treat, sick and sweet?

Halloween, schmalloween. Trick or treat, my arse.

Nice pumpkin soup, though. Thanks, Frances.

IWOOT #8 - Planet Waves

(left) Visions of J, inspired by Visions of Johanna (100% montepulciano grape), and (right) the round, fruity Planet Waves (75% montepulciano, 25% merlot), named after the 1974 Dylan album. (Below) Antonio Terni.

Inspired by Bob Dylan's autobiography and a CD of his Theme Time Radio Hour (a great showcase for Dylan's droll observations and little-heard, often off-the-wall early pop), I came across wine inspired by the great songsmith.

Dylan has an association with Fattoria Le Terrazze, the excellent producer in Le Marche (home of the ubiquitous Verdicchio wine), an undersung but rising region on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Le Terrazze is run by Dylan fanatic Antonio Terni, a yachtsman and former nuclear scientist who was profiled in Lawrence Osborne’s snarky chronicle, “The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World.’’


However, at 39 squid a bottle from Berry Bros & Rudd, it will have to remain in the IWOOT league...


View partial source: New York Times, Dining & Wine & Telegraph.co.uk: The vines they are a-changin''

Keith Floyd, flamboyant chef, dies

Pic: Tony Bartholomew Photography (lovely site, lovely pics)

In timely fashion, flamboyant, foul-mouthed Keith Floyd has died. Timely, because Channel 4 broadcast an interview with him by Keith Allen last night. The programme was captivating, as Floyd, clearly a 'recovering' alcoholic, necked beer, pastis and wine throughout the recording. However, Floyd, a maverick hero of mine (who really stirred up my interest in food, cooking and restaurants with his 1984 series, Floyd on Fish) looked more like 75 than his real age of 65 and was very shaky on his pins, requiring a stick to steady his walk. Sad, but Floyd sounded a man who was now angry with life and his current lot. Four-times divorced, Floyd was truly a TV cooking presenter pioneer and legend.

Partial source: Guardian - Why we love Keith Floyd (reproduced below), Independent - Floyd uncorked

Matthew Fort's piece from the Guardian Word of Mouth blog in August of this year is so good that I've copied it here:

Why we love Keith Floyd


Before him food television was humdrum, beige and fustian. His panache and flair changed it forever.


The news that Keith Floyd is fighting cancer is bad enough. The fact that it is bowel cancer has a certain – what shall we say? – ghastly resonance, because if any man can truly be said to have influenced the way we think about about food, see food, react to food, delight in food, it is Keith Floyd - the Floyd of Floyd on Food, Floyd on Fish, Floyd on France and any other country you care to name, Floyd Uncorked and any of the other 16 series the great man has presented since 1984. Delia, Nigella, Jamie, Gordon, Hugh and the host of others have simply trailed in his wake.


Floyd was – is; it would be a rash person who wrote off Keith Floyd at this stage of the game – the first, true, original rock 'n roll television cook. Before him all was staid, orderly, scripted and largely confined to the studio. It was fustian, beige, humdrum. With Floyd, food on television went Technicolor. It had life. Anything was possible – exotic locations, unscripted howlers, wild adventures, humour, drink, and casual nonchalance in the cooking department.


All this was a world away from the sensible Delia Smith, the studied care of Anton Mosimann or the Roux brothers, or even the theatrical campery of Graham Kerr. Floyd has given us personality, flair, colour and pleasure. He's made cooking accessible and fun, and a glass or three of wine should never be far from a cook's right hand. He has style. He has panache. Above all, he's a bloke. Women may have adored him too, but essentially Floyd is a bloke's bloke and he made it all right for blokes to be interested in food, even to cook.


Clearly he wasn't always the easiest man in the world to work with, as Shooting the Cook, the highly amusing memoir of his long-time producer and director, David Pritchard, makes clear (Pritchard has worked the same magic with Rick Stein since the heady Floyd days), but he's always had style. He introduced enthusiasm, individuality and panache to the screen, dominating with an insouciance and charm none have managed since. He has cooked real dishes in real time in real places. He was the first missionary for British produce and producers, and in the earliest shows he showed an innate ability to make these shy and reticent men and women relax in front of the cameras, the better to draw natural responses from them.


But after a couple of series of sharing the screen with others, it became all about Floyd. It didn't matter where he was - France, America, Italy, Australia, America - his rakish, slightly louche boyish energy filled the frame to the exclusion of anyone else. He was just too colourful, too substantial, too commanding, too egocentric. There he was, in cream trousers, blazer, cravat (wearing a cravat on screen! Now that takes real courage), as English as English can be, from the crown of his Panama hat to the soles of his brogues, unfazed by any situation in which he might find himself, cheery, chatty, ebullient, glass in hand.


Glass in hand. It became Floyd's trademark, part of the brand. He slurped and swigged, quaffed and gulped in a way that is unimaginable in today's sanitised, mustn't-set-a-bad-example, health and safety conscious world. His failures, of pubs, restaurants, marriages, fascinated us almost as much as his triumphs on television. Clearly he could be an absolute bastard, but it says much of the affection in which Floyd is held that his various acts of public foolishness have never been held against him, in the same way that those of, say, Gordon Ramsay have been used to chastise him.


We love Floyd, warts, booze and all because, in truth, blokes wanted to be like him, having a whale of a time, master of any situation and not giving a toss what anybody else thinks. And if there was a bit of collateral damage, well, sod it, that's what happens. Just top up my glass if you don't mind.

Bombed on B-52s

How to achieve a fine hangover: first, savour a couple of thirst-quenching beers (it's been a hard day, after all); then enhance the flavours of your exotic Asian meal starter with a glass of red and a couple of glasses of white with the main course. Finally, to ensure the long-lasting pleasure of a throbbing head for the best part of the following day, slip down three or four B-52s, allowing the lingering sensation of the magical mix of Kahlua, Baileys and Grand Marnier to sink deep into the pleasuredome and to ensure that the last molecules of alcohol enter your bloodstream. Catch the last tube home, making sure that it's all shaken up inside you. 5hrs of stir-less sleep and bingo, you've achieved the perfect headache. The real pleasure, of course, comes from knowing

a) that you are not alone in your heavenly cerebral state,

b) that you shared the path of enjoyment with some good friends and

c) that all libations were paid for by a generous benefactor.

Thank you, TRP - you know who you are...

I Love Virgin

all photos are here: Telegraph.co.uk 26 Jan 09

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit. Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it: [see image above].

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation.

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on.

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel.

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations.

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard…. What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincerely,

Oliver Beale

• Paul Charles, Virgin’s Director of Corporate Communications, confirmed that Sir Richard Branson had telephoned the author of the letter and had thanked him for his “constructive if tongue-in-cheek” email. Mr Charles said that Virgin was sorry the passenger had not liked the in-flight meals which he said was “award-winning food which is very popular on our Indian routes.”

Source: Telegraph.co.uk 26 Jan 09, 28 Jan 09 & 29 Jan 09

Paul Bocuse - chef with wisdom

Legendary French chef Paul Bocuse (b 1926):
*  "Everybody knows that God exists, but the preacher still rings the bell."
* “Life is too short for cuisine minceur and for diets. Dietetic meals are like an opera without the orchestra.”
* “The so-called nouvelle cuisine (ed - c1972) usually means not enough on your plate and too much on your bill.”
* "Without butter, without eggs, there is no reason to come to France."

Dear Fatty

Books recently read (titles have direct links to Amazon.co.uk):

• Graham Greene - The Quiet American - a carefully crafted, vintage classic, circular novel that starts with the dénouement and works back round to it:

Into the intrigue and violence of 1950s' colonial Indo-China comes a young, idealistic, quiet American (Pyle) sent to promote democracy through a mysterious 'Third Force'. As his naive optimism starts to cause bloodshed, his friend Thomas Fowler (the narrator), a cynical foreign correspondent, finds it hard to stand aside and watch. But even as he intervenes he wonders why: for the sake of politics, or for love?

• Michael Ochs - 1000 Record Covers - 1000 classic LP album covers: 60s-90s musical history as art.

• Stuart Maconie - Adventures on the High Teas: In Search of Middle England - a time capsule of England as it is now; in its quirky, offbeat way, a celebration of this country's extraordinary capacity to accommodate change while remaining essentially the same. Also a few good titters along the way. "The English Bill Bryson"? He writes well, for a Northerner.

A celebration of the workaday pleasures of living in Britain and the characters along the way, from trainspotters to tea-room ladies and hoodies to binge-drinkers. Stuart Maconie is perhaps best known as a radio presenter, co-hosting the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 every Mon-Thu evening.

• Andrew Rimas and Evan D.G. Fraser - Beef (How Milk, Meat and Muscle Shaped the World) -

Not exactly a riveting read (it's patchy and somewhat random in content), but well-research and the more interesting for it, nonetheless. More for food historians than meat-eaters.

Cattle have always been central to our human existence, not only as a source of food and labour but also as an inspiration for art, warfare and religion. This panoramic view of the cow's rich history covers breeding to braising, hunting to worshipping, from ancient Mediterranean bullfighting rings to the rugged pastures of 18th-century England. Seasoned with anecdotes and recipes from around the world, it's also an indictment of the perilous state of beef production in Europe and the US - a situation possibly closer to a health and economic emergency than most might believe.

• Dawn French - Dear Fatty - a lovely autobiography, written in the style of individual letters to people who have meant most to actress and comedienne Dawn French across her 50-odd years.

She's a national treasure, of course, and naturally funny, which comes out clearly in her writing. But there's more than the odd stream of emotion for the loss of her father (who committed suicide) and the love of her life, comedian Lenny Henry. There's little real detail of her showbiz life (Comedy Club - Fabulous Five, Vicar of Dibley et al), but it raises a few laughs along the way.

Efes Dark Brown beer - world's worst beer

Surely the world's worst beer? Coffee-flavoured ('kahve aromali'), Dark Brown Efes - from Turkey. Avoid at all costs. Probably the only beer I've never been able to finish. Sad, but true.

In contrast, here is the world's finest bar pump, seen at Dalaman Airport, Turkey, dispensing the real thing (Efes Pilsen), albeit at outrageous prices (probably to pay for the pump).

Waldo in the woods

"The torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by virtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine" Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), the transcendentalist preacher, philosopher and poet. Quote courtesy of my lunchtime smoked salmon bagel from Daily Bread ('By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen, Maker of Quality Sandwiches'), supplier of sandwiches to The Times (and other fine papers, I'm sure).

Moral of the story: never look too closely at your sandwich wrapper (or you'll end up looking at Linda McCartney's vegetarian food website, interrogating Dictionary.com and generally wasting your lunch hour), nor take a rain-sodden walk through woods (like Waldo did) or you'll end up dying of pneumonia (like Waldo did...).

Dictionary.com: Torpid - inactive, sluggish, slow, dull, apathetic or lethargic.

Ralph Waldo Emerson: biography

Daily Bread: http://www.hain-celestial.co.uk/

Lemon or lime in your G&T?

From the Daily Telegraph: Breathing in the aroma of the citrus fruit reduces stress because it contains a chemical compound that can physically calm and relax people, scientists have found ... Tests using linalool, a compound found in the smell of plants and fruits like lemon, showed it reversed the effects of stress on 109 different genes in the human body and also had a beneficial on the blood chemistry. When a person gets stressed, nervous or afraid, related genes go 'into overdrive’ and white blood cell count goes up ... The findings, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, believes the scent of lemons as well as lavender, mango and other fragrant plants, could make a real difference.

So, it's the lemon in the end-of-day gin and tonic that's good for the body and soul - but I prefer a nice lime to soothe the nerves after a stressful day at the office.

* The Perfect Cocktail from The Guardian

Marmite v Vegemite: Poms v Aussies

Following Pakistan's well-deserved victory over Sri lanka in the bish-bash 20-20 Cricket World Cup and the England women team's glorious victory over New Zealand, our cricketing attentions turn to the more serious matter of The Ashes (of which, of course, our women's team are currently the holders and our men's team are, ingloriously, not).

To celebrate this summer's primary cricketing attraction (and in the footsteps of Lover's Marmite, which included champagne, and Guinness Marmite), Marston's Pedigree Marmite is the newest limited edition of love-it-or-hate-it Marmite.

Marston's Pedigree, being the 'official beer of the England cricket team', suitably provides the yeast for this new Marmite. Vegemite doesn't stand a chance against it, just like the Aussies don't stand a chance against our English boys, who are all on top form (apart from bish-bashing, of course).

What value a Michelin star?

There are currently six Indian restaurants in London with Michelin stars: 

Amaya, Benares, Quilon, Rasoi Vineet Bhatia and Tamarind. 

At Tamarind, in Queen Street, Mayfair, typical current prices are: murgh mahni £17.50 (chicken tikka in creamed fresh tomatoes flavoured with ginger, green chillies and crushed fenugreek leaves - a 'signature dish' of chef Alfred Prasad or is it of Executive of Operations, Rajesh Suri?), tarkahir handi £8.95 (broccoli, shiitake mushroom, asparagus, red pepper and baby corn tossed wih cumin, red onions and crushed pepper), pulao rice £3.95 (braised rice wih browned onions, cumin and saffron). That's one of the cheapest options and adds up to £30.40 for a main dish, served Western-style (ie in portions barely sufficient for sharing). If you add in an appetiser (£6.95 to £11.50), poppadom (£3.95), raita (£3.95), plain naan (£3.95) and a dessert (£6.95-£7.95) you're heading for a very, very tasty bill.

However, if you're pushing the boat out in a big way, say with jhinga ajwaini (four giant, kebabed tiger prawns marinated with ginger, yoghurt, paprika, ground spices and ajwain @ £22.50), tender lamb cutlets marinated wih garlic, raw papaya, fennel, sta-anise, paprika and cream @ £24.75), methi paneer (batons of paneer cheese tossed with fresh fenugreek leaves, garlic, red chilli and tomato @ £9.50 or gajjar halwa (carrot fudge with melon seeds and rasins toppend with silver leaf and pistachio @ £7.50) - then you'll pay an astronomic sum for your gastronomic indulgence (not forgetting the 12.5% service added to your bill and a limit of 2 hours for your table). 

So - you pays your money and makes your choice. Service is slickish, the atmosphere is basement Mayfair with fresh flowers, the wine list is expensive, the loos are 5-star and the food is priced at Michelin-star heights. Is it worth it? That's for you to decide. The food's undoubtedly good, but does it justify such high prices? You can't blame all the high prices on sky-high Mayfair rents. It's the way that we traditionally eat Indian food that will push the bill sky-high. Isn't the fun of indulging in shared, familiar dishes with rice, naan and side dishes (not forgetting the lovley gulab jamun for pudding) at a reasonable price the point of Indian food? Scallops, monkfish, shiitake mushrooms, Elwy valley Welsh lamb cutlets are not the normal fare of your local Indian ... but this is hardly in that league - after all, it has a Michelin star.

By the way, you could also nip over the road beforehand to the Curzon Cinema and pay twelve squid to see the latest movie in more Mayfair cinema comfort. Try telling the residents of Mayfair that there's a credit crunch on....