eat great food. meet great people.
According to the ground rules of the restaurant repertoire you’re not supposed to find a dish like this…
…in a place like this…
Yet when Hugue Dufour, the French-Canadian chef-proprietor of the M. Wells Diner in Queens, New York, asked me if I’d ordered his silky-smooth parsnip soup with the sautéed foie gras topper I was surprised anyone would regard this accessory as optional. [Read more...]
When I’ve put London food obsessives in the position of defending their high praise for the rubbery salt beef at the Beigel Bake on Brick Lane they’ve invariably blamed their lapse in good taste on drunkenness. It’s open 24 hours. It’s quick. It’s cheap. It’s filling. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Likewise, discriminating young Londoners who, when within three Chardonnays of sober, wouldn’t be caught dead with a Tesco tomato in their organic jute carrier bags can be seen stuffing their reddened faces with questionable kebabs from an Upper Street shop that recycles its moulded and fully cooked meat, unrefrigerated and unprotected, for hours at a time.
At the risk of sounding like a drunken pensioner, things aren’t what they used to be, at least not for me. [Read more...]
