September 2008

Follow your nose to Neal’s Yard Dairy

by Ed

And you might well follow your nose to my mum’s house where you’ll sometimes find a Stinking Bishop in the corner of her garden. She’ll let it into the house when we are eating but otherwise the smelly and runny cheese from Gloucestershire isn’t welcome near the house. I actually looked for the Neal’s yard [...]

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I eat, I drink, I’m profiled

by Ed

For the next couple of months I’m one of three profiled blogs on the hospitality site I Eat! I Drink! I Work! together with Lucy from Nourish Me and Mellie and Dan from Tummy Rumbles. So yes, if you visit the site, I’m the grumpy bastard in the pic taken in my icy office with [...]

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Fishy Essex agro at The Company Shed

by Ed

If you want good cheap fish then you need to head to the coast in England. My mum living in Saffron Walden in north Essex, it is a short hours drive to the Island of Mersea in the muddy estuary of the River Colne, near Colchester. Australians don’t appreciate properly this kind of muddy coastline [...]

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Finally a decent flat white (and a young model)

by Ed

My old office used to look out over Berwick St, with its wonderful but little known fruit and veg market. “3 figs 1 pound” the sign reads. And they used to at least have some wonderfully arranged displays. The “models” are still up a staircase next to the fish and chip shop where we lusted [...]

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Legal unpasteurized cheese in Mayfair

by Ed

Ihaven’t had a chance to visit Neal’s yard Diary yet. But I was passing Paxton and Whitfield on Jermyn St the superb purveyor of all manner of cheese (and some pretty good pork pies which today I missed). If you know where to look London is studded with these sorts of places in the form [...]

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Jamon on the bone in Soho

by Ed

I‘m spending two hours a day in the Apple lecture theatre accessing the fast broadband network as we are still wind-up internet at home. It’s a stones throw from my old work stamping ground of Soho, the tiny streets bordered by Regent and Wardour Streets. My big food find is Fernandez and Wells on Beak [...]

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Simple dover sole at home

by Ed

Together with turbot, seabass and diver caught scallops, dover sole has been at the top of my culinary hit list. As a young journalist it was the thing to order in the private clubs of the industrial midlands and London clubland. At the time they cost over ten quid – the equivalent of the $50 [...]

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A decent pint of Adnams and smoked haddock at the Eight Bells

by Ed

Down to the Eight Bells in Saffron Walden for more culinary hits. This time ti’s two pints of Adnams Bitter, one of those almost flat English beers that I didn’t realise I missed so much. It’s (obviously) bitter, nearly flat and about 4.4% alcohol. It reminds me that so man of our craft beers are [...]

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Hits all the way at Midsummer House (until the bizarre chocolate box arrives)

by Ed

Just note that the spelling is Midsummer and not Midsomer. And the only nettles were crisp fried on the plate rather than in the cast. We are at Midsummer House on Midsummer Common in Cambridge, the single Michelin starred restaurant in East Anglia – or so I’m told. Despite being on the cam, in that [...]

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First night at the opera and supper at the Wolseley

by Ed

Act 1 After a five year gap our protagonists meet in the offices of a discreet hedge fund just off Berkeley Sq. We catch at taxi to the basement bar Cafe des Amis just behind the Royal Opera House enjoying a couple of Kir Royales. A woman screams as a mouse runs under her feet. [...]

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No happy ending to this shitty desert banquet

by Ed

The desert is inevitable in Dubai and it is difficult to resist a safari. While we will feast in the dessert there will be no booze or belly dancing tonight because of Ramadam. I don’t mind. We traverse the dunes in Top Gear fashion while I weakly exclaim “Oh my god!”. I don’t really mean [...]

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Low rise traditional hotel in Dubai has charm

by Ed

I‘ve never been one for hermetically sealed comfort of so-called seven or mere 5 star hotels. Instead of taking this safe and unadventurous approach to global accommodation I prefer something in the local traditional, which is also perhaps more rustic and certainly cheaper. IMy researches led me to the XVA Gallery in the Bastakiya area [...]

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Refreshing Indian food in Dubai

by Ed

I‘m in Dubai but not in your usual hotel. I’ve picked low rise a traditional building in one of heritage areas, near the textile souks. The thing you notice in Dubai is that you meet everybody but the local Arabs. This is a city that has grown incredibly fast build on the blood and sweat [...]

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Survey results and a winner

by Ed

F inally we have a winner for the food blog survey sponsored by Kitchenware Direct, picked from the 165 entries. In social media tradition I asked on twitter for a random number. I got three, added them up and divided coming up with Andrew Dean from Windsor who was chuffed to have won the Shun [...]