Off Topic The Review Thread

I’ve been fortunate enough to have tried a number of Michelin starred restaurants and unfortunate enough to have picked up the tab for most of the outings.

I think the best I have experienced is Midsommer House in Cambridge. Daniel Clifford is the chef. I think it has two stars. I’ve been four times in the last six years or so and it’s been consistently rememberable.

it’s not cheap but not as crazy as you might expect.

 

I've been to a number of Little Chefs over the years, and unfortunate enough to report they're all ****, and entirely un-rememberable

 

A slight improvement on The Happy Vomiter restaurants, though.

 

A nice Sunday afternoon movie! We just sat and watched it - really enjoyed it, Stephen Graham superb yet again (is there another British actor in his league at the moment?). However, **** that for a career - keep me stuck out in the mud and rain all day rather than that high pressure stuff. Don't think my ticker would last very long in that environment (or my temper either)

 

My lad has worked in and around kitchens relatively recently. He watched and enjoyed Boiling Point (I’ve not got round to it yet) last week, but reckoned that a real kitchen is way too busy for all the other stuff, whatever that is, to have happened to him in real time.

 

You have to give the directors some leeway - you could imagine all that **** happening throughout a shift, just not condensed into a 90 minute film. I'd imagine a 6 hour long film wouldn't have quite the same impact...

 

Trust me…..most chefs are on coke

 

I know that pal....jnr spent some time in kitchens up until his latest job, plenty of stories....didn't want to let him know I already knew most of what went on though!

 

Tonight’s Storyville on BBC4 is a beautiful film called The Truffle Hunters about elderly (in some cases ancient) men and their dogs who search for truffles in the Alba Valley of Piemonte in Italy. Really enjoying it.

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...wqsBegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw2JN8MfsHKdtab15RSP5RPz
This superb scene was also done in one long shot

 

I really enjoy some of the Storyville films. Been watching the Putin documentaries that are on before it - interesting one last night about how he interferef in the 2004 elections in Ukraine....

Have you seen the Storyville film The Distant Barking of Dogs? Follows a child and his grandmother in Donbas region of Ukraine after the Russian annexation of Crimea - quite sad. Over 150 children had been killed by Ukrainian shelling in that area prior to latest conflict....

 

I know it’s a bit of daytime, morning tv but finding the series “Scam Interceptors” on BBC1 really interesting.
Each episode shows where the team listen in and try to stop scam calls taking place, usually from an Indian call centre and often on an older or vulnerable person.
I get many of these calls and like to play the ****s along as long as possible by giving my name as “Hugh Jardon” or “Ivor Biggun” and start talking about wearing womens underwear or having a captive locked up in my special dungeon…..however others aren’t so fortunate and get taken in for thousands.

If you have an old or vulnerable relative it might be worth getting them to take a look.

 

I'm not letting my mother look in your dungeon, weirdo

 

Have you spoken to her today ? Bet you can’t get hold of her…..

 

Double review:
Pearl Liang Restaurant, Sheldon Square, Paddington Basin. Met some old work colleagues from Hong Kong there for lunch yesterday. Cantonese food, they all wanted dim sum. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure I have had some fantastic Chinese meals but not frequently and never in this country. And very rarely Cantonese which is apparently the most delicate and sophisticated of the Chinese cuisines, for which I read ‘bland’. I was surrounded by experts, a couple of whom had been in Hong Kong for well over 30 years, and they pronounced the food as ‘pretty good’ and the price (about £35 a head including beers and more than enough food) as ‘very good for the U.K.’. Staff were not as surly as in many Chinese restaurants, but were hardly welcoming. So I suppose this is an endorsement if you fancy dim sum. And the company was great.

Paddington Basin: they started this redevelopment around the end of the Grand Union canal decades ago, when I was still living in London. It still isn’t finished by the look of it. What a soulless, pointless mess. It has no identity at all, could be anywhere in the world, completely undistinguished architecture and unimaginative design. Boxy high rises with lots of glass and mostly chain eateries at ground level. As far as I remember this area was a bit of a wasteland before redevelopment. I’d prefer it if it had been left to re wild. Opportunity wasted.

 

I was working in Maida Vale a few years ago and would sometimes walk down to Little Venice at lunchtime. One day I decided to follow the canal path past the station tube exit and found myself in this little high-rise world that I didn't know existed. I wondered at the time why the canal took this path into a cul-de-sac ending on Edgware Road, and whether this was a new cosmetic extension for the Basin development. I suppose, though, that it was there originally to allow barges to bring loads as far as Paddington station. The development itself felt rather alien, like some kind of new town in the US. There was quite a good lunchtime vibe in the summer, with lots going on, but I couldn't imagine wanting to spend an evening/night there.

 

Took a stroll along the canal later and again was quite disappointed, there’s a long stretch between Little Venice and Regents Park where it’s pretty devoid of interest. We were just aiming for a waterside pint but either missed opportunities which weren’t visible from the towpath or there weren’t any, ended up wandering into St John’s Wood and having a few at the Duke of York. Which might want to consider a name change, and at least the option of a hand pulled pint. Guinness was fine though.

 

I’m still watching Killing Eve as it’s the last series and, for some inexplicable reason, I’ve seen the others. I haven’t the foggiest what’s going on, though. Make it stop, somebody!

 

All stops tomorrow night....**** knows how, but I hope there's a lot of blood!