Comments on: Q&A: Reader has El Bulli reservation but needs help getting there

By: Wallace

Wallace — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 16:45:54 +0000

If you didn’t end up going how about making some good come of it and sending the associated costs of the would have been meal to oxfam or world vision so a starving family in a 3rd world country can eat for several weeks of months.

Theres advice to pop a champagne cork (or drop a bucket into a communal water supply) to.

By: james

james — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:11:55 +0000

just saw the predicament your in andrew
im afraid i cant help though
i am however flying to spain on the 9th of august!
so your reservation will be perfect
i was at a seminar today with one of the food scientists who works closely with el bulli and im dying to go
i’ll tell you all about it!
so what are the reservation details?

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:12:12 +0000

Wow, I just found your blog and was about to bookmark it until I read this. Unbelievable.

By: jake

jake — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:42:40 +0000

Love this thread… made my day…

By: Are You Kidding Me

Are You Kidding Me — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:07:33 +0000

Err,
I ordered a case of grange, but unfortunately my finances only stretched as far as to service the Porsche.

If someone doesn’t mind paying for it, I’d be happy to tell them how fantastic it was when I finally pop the cork.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I’m a professional and…oh yeah.. I’m Italian. Since the Porsche is now serviced, I can pick the case up myself so as not to overburden y’all.

Thanks

By: ada

ada — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:38:56 +0000

You guys need to get hold of a copy of “The Secret”……if you want it bad enough!

By: n

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:19:29 +0000

First or business??

By: Russ

Russ — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:51:23 +0000

Dear Andrew,
Great news! We stumbled upon your little call for help to realize the ultimate gastronomic dream by dining at El Bulli later in the year. You are no doubt deserving of such a lucky streak, after all you obviously shouldn’t settle for anything but the best. People like you, with your discerning eyes for design, fashion and culture, and your passion for food and wine, are the very thread that weave the blanket that warms us from the cold chilly reality that most will not have what they want or need in life.
How inspiring that you forged ahead beyond logic and even applied for the reservation, knowing you could not afford the flights or accomodation, but acted on your heart, tastebuds and stomachs’ belief that you were the ones.
But really, what is a meal? How good can it really be? Afterall it is eventually digested, the energy used, and excreted from the body. How good of you to see through this and wish to be immortalised in your culinary adventure by way of record. You truly are the one!
Food and culture are so obviously in you blood that I can almost smell it from your email. Your relatives, and all who know you, must feel pride and joy just knowing you are alive, somewhere, eating and drinking and elevating yourselves to an unreachable level, far from the crowds of ordinary people.
Of course you’ll foot the bill for the restaurant? Not you my friend, you are showing your ever humble side again. Your friends will be more than happy t o keep their end of the bargain and pay for you in exchange for you coming up with the flights and accomodation.
One might argue that it is people like you (perhaps even you) that have put this world of ours into the economic spiral we are currently in. By biting off more than you can chew, taking too big a slice of pie, showing greed, envy and not seeing yourselves as equal has got us to where we are today. But you forge ahead.Oh you! Believe the illusion and wait for no-one! There are kings and there are servants…which are you?! (There are also jesters, unichs, etc).
Well I think a celebration is in order! Could someone arrange a few nice bottles of Champagne- the good stuff, please- and top up the glasses of these noblemen. They are on a journey and soon on their way!
Here is my advice to help get you there:
Send your wife to work, sell your car, morgage the part of the house you have paid for, arrange to rent it out while you are away, find cheap accomodation on craigslist.com, write a voluntary article on your experience and give it to blogs and magazines, you should get the tip at the restaurant (afterall your friends are paying) and the waiters deserve it too.
Expect to be out of pocket and no one to help you. It is your dream and passion, not anyone elses. What is important to you? I personally would find it just as thrilling to look on the El Bulli website and read about someone elses experience. Or you could recreate some=2 0dishes at your own dinner party. Well, there are different people in the world.
Unfortunately.
What the hell, I give you a fiver and 50 ff points, just for being cheeky.

By: steve

steve — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:28:04 +0000

Ed are you sure someone isn’t pulling your plonker? If not & it is a real request, what chutzpah, what front & WTF!
Top Tip-Anyone soliciting this kind of sympathy ought not declare their line of work or that they have a mortgage, oh & I nearly gagged on this one, that food runs in their blood because his missus’s connection to the Veneto & his to Friuli, I mean how deluded!
I tried to picture this brazen person but all I could come up with was a chinless College Tonk, with crevat & Claret stains on his lips cadgeing drinks in a pub somewhere.

By: our man in Canberra

our man in Canberra — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 04:56:15 +0000

I’ll make this brief because it is difficult to type with blurred vision and a lump in my throat. Pay no attention to the other flint hearted posters, they can’t appreciate the grinding struggle of a young, petite bourgeoisie couple (+1) desperately trying to keep their modest, international foodie dream alive.

But not me, I want to help in any way possible. For instance, recently I received a lovely email from a very respectable widow, presently on the Ivory Coast, who made me a rather attractive business offer. Andrew, just say the word and I’ll send the email address straight to Ed to forward on to you.

Hope this helps get your cork popping.