Silverbrow on Food

Squeamishly Starbucks

I have never liked Starbucks.  It's not the global domination thing, it's the insipid coffee and the  baked goods that always seem to be stale.

Silverbrowess loves Starbucks.  She can't get enough of their tall caramel frappuccinos or skinny decaf vanilla lattes.  I like my coffee to taste of caffeine.  I want a decent kick of coffee, which for some reason Starbucks eschews.  I don't want it tasting of all that other crap they love to add-in.

If there's any truth to this video, it seems those other flavours might just be crap.

A warning to the viewer, the video is a bit grim.

The dangers of democracy

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating autocratic rule, I'm just questioning whether democracy is all it's cracked-up to be.  With the vote comes responsibility and it seems that some of those currently enfranchised are not living up to their end of the bargain.  Or, it could be that the wrong people are enfranchised.  Proof of this can be seen from a poll conducted by a website called View London.  The poll is intended to list the best and worst places in London and 3,500 dimwits were entrusted to express their opinion and vote.  Talk about irresponsible.

According to the clearly chavtastic bunch who voted, London's five best restaurants are:

1. Oxo Tower
2. Hakkasan
3. Nobu
4. Asia de Cuba
5. Maze

Squaremeal notes that although you can have a great meal at the Oxo Tower, service has occasionally been described as "unbelievably poor".  Hardens quotes one reader who describes it as "A waste of the best restaurant views in London", whilst another argues the food is "cynical rubbish".  I appreciate these are but a few views, but ones I wholly buy into it. Not all of these restaurants are dogs, Hakkasan and Maze stand out as particularly noteworthy, but they are a long way from the best restaurants in London.  They do not have the best food, the best value for money, the best service or the best ambience.  At a stretch, one might argue that Oxo Tower has the best views, Hakkasan has the best basement and Nobu has the best broom-cupboard.

To me this list does not constitute the five best restaurants in London.  Rather, it is the five restaurants which are mentioned most frequently if you ask a Heat-reading-Chantelle-aspiring-brain-dead nincompoop, where they are most likely to see some minor celebrity who they can shag and then sell the story to one of the red-tops.

This does of course raise the question of what I think are the five best London restaurants.  As yet, I haven't eaten at all of London's restaurants so would find it hard to judge.  I'm doing my best to work through them however.

UPDATE: It appears that Londonist are equally perplexed by these results.

Eating badly in the States

I've just got back from a trip to the States.  Ninety per cent of the food I ate was awful.  I'm not saying all food in the States is awful, just that which I ate.  I take a considerable amount of responsibility for that, I fed myself far too much trash because work was frantic and it was the nearest thing to hand so ended up being shoved down the gob.

I went to one or two supposedly decent restaurants and wasn't impressed, that was especially the case with Maestro at the Ritz Carlton at Tysons Corner, just outside of Washington DC.  To me it felt like the chef was trying way too hard to get noticed and it didn't really work.  My starter of mozzarella and tomato was very oddly presented on one long plate with three bowls sunk into it.  In each bowl was one part of the dish: the mozzarella, the tomato and a salsa verde.  The cheese wasn't great, the olive oil drenching it was tasteless and the tomatoes were nothing to write home about.  I can't remember anything about the salsa.  The main dish of sea bass with mushrooms served three ways was fine, but unnecessarily finicky.  The mashed potato served in a mini-copper sauce pan was good, but chef was aping Robuchon and it didn't work.  He needed to use way more butter in that mash.  My dessert of strawberries was good enough - although, strawberries in March, what was I thinking? 

One real surprise and delight was Dunkin' Donuts coffee.  I had read on Opinionated About (registration required) that Dunkin' Donuts had good coffee.  I was sceptical, but noticed an outlet at the airport yesterday and decided to try it out.  It was excellent.  The coffee was smooth, with a good kick.  Not the burned jet fuel you're often served or the insipid brown-water from Starbucks.  For the record, I had eaten so much rubbish (processed cheese, chocolate, fizzy drinks, crisps, pretzels etc etc) I couldn't face a donut.  So it was just one coffee to go.  Although those glazed donuts were tempting.

I feel sluggish and weighed down (more so than normally) by saturated fats. The combination of jet-lag, loads of work and general exhaustion is a nightmare when it comes to eating well. What I should have been having was fruit and veg, what I ended up eating was M&M's and Coke. I really need to go on a diet.

The end of the 2nd Ave Deli?

One of the dictums I try to live by, is to make the most of opportunities as they present themselves, in particular with regard to food and doubly so with regard to good kosher food.  I am thus gutted to discover the 2nd Avenue Deli has shut it's doors.  Possibly only temporarily (please let it be so) but potentially, for good.

I was standing outside the restaurant last October at about 3pm, it was drizzling.  I'd only just eaten my lunch of rather good pizza and really wasn't hungry, especially for one of their enormous sandwiches.  I turned on my heels, crossed the road and sat in a trendy cafe drinking an espresso and watching the world go by.  I couldn't escape the niggling feeling I had made a bad mistake and that I was being foolish missing out on this opportunity to sample some fine food.  It would seem that I was.

There has been a lot of musing on what the end of this institution means, but I feel we have to turn to Jackie Mason, another institution, for real, entirely un-politically correct, analysis of this latest blow to the New York culinary scene.

"It's almost like wiping out Carnegie Hall...A sandwich to a Jew is just as important as a country to a Gentile."

Goodbye Cinnamon Club?

It would seem that all is not well in Westminster.

According to reports on CatererSearch.com (the website of Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine) there is a major restructuring going on at The Cinnamon Club.  Part of this includes the dreaded "roll-out of the brand".  In other words, open up Cinammon Clubs everywhere, dilute the quality and end-up as yet another concept restaurant (think TGI Friday set in Delhi).

However CS.com misses out on one crucial fact that is reported in tonight's Evening Standard.  Iqbal Wahhab, the founder of the Cinnamon Club has left the group.  He is quoted in the Evening Standard as saying that he is still a shareholder in the Cinnamon Club but is focussed on developing Roast.  According to the article the group has run-up debts of £1m.

If the Cinnamon Club goes tits-up as a result of this restructuring, it is a sad day for decent restaurants in London.  But it does raise the question of what on earth was going on, to cause such significant problems.

Taking the edge off

I love bread and possibly the crust is the best bit - not, if you're Hovis though. 

They've come up with the truly inspired idea of making bread without crusts, or as they call it with invisible crusts.  Why do food companies need to keep tinkering with what we eat?  If there was any justice these loaves would be a commercial failure and Hovis will be yanking them from the shelves.  Unfortunately, it has all the hallmarks of a raving success and consequently the food people are willing to buy continues to sink to ever lower depths.

You cannot be serious

This from the New York Times, is probably the most depressing article I've ever read.  How the journalist can justify parents taking their kids out for dinner with the sole intention of watching TV, is beyond me.  With the exception of the family that doesn't have a TV at home I fail to see the point of paying to watch TV.  In no way can going out for dinner and watching TV be considered a social activity, nor can it be considered a good way to improve a child's social interaction. 

The article refers to the dining table as having a "sanctified aura", it seems to imply that this isn't such a good thing and what we all need are TVs next to our knives and forks.  This is barmy.

Amazon on food

Who said that Amazon only sold books?  But more importantly who said that Oscar Meyer's bologna could ever be considered gourmet?  I agree with Kraneland, it's weird.  I personally haven't eaten the stuff and from what it looks like in this photo I'm not planning on it any time soon.

Fast food, fast film

I realise this somewhat jars with the Italian flow, but this article in Kiosk Magazine (a journal dedicated to all things kiosk, hmm fascinating) amused me.  It would seem that in the US, McDonald's is beginning to offer DVD's at its outlets through a service called Redbox.  I can't quite figure out whether Redbox is part of McD's or whether it's a company that has signed a no-doubt exceptionally lucrative licensing deal with the ubiquitous Golden Arches.  Either way, the bit I loved in the article was the following quote in the first para:

"McDonald's [is] long recognized for successfully bringing together the elements of food, lifestyle and entertainment..."

You'd have thought that they'd never heard of Morgan Spurlock.

The story gets even better towards the end of the article when it reports that the burger-tossing professionals who currently serve behind the counters are being replaced with, yes you've guessed it, automated kiosks.  I'm unable to decide whether the prospect of not having McJobs is better for the human race, than having them.