Super-Twat

[Feanor]

I have to say, most people on this thread are coming across as a bunch of hard to please curmudgeonly old fucks.

Has anyone got anything *positive* to say about their eating-out experiences?
At ordinary places?

The "I never eat in chain restaurants" is just the "I never watch TV, well perhaps just the occasional documentary on channel 4, but we then write a 2000 word essay on what we've learned" thing all over again.

I'm going to defend Dishoom as pretty good.

[Beardy]

We usually get a fair to good pizza at pizza express.

[TheLurker]

I have to say, most people on this thread forum are coming across as a bunch of hard to please curmudgeonly old fucks.

You've only just noticed? 

[Polar Bear]

I enjoy the "xxxxxxxx Lounge" chain.  The food is consistently very acceptable and I can get a pint of half decent IPA to sup with my veggie burger and sweet potato fries.  It's good enough that I keep on returning.

I discovered the chain when on a trip associated to my Deputyship role for a vulnerable adult and have visited a number of their outlets now.

[ian]

Come on, I said I didn't mind Wagamama and Côte. But I am hard to please. Had a very enjoyable curry at an ordinary looking suburban curry house with a vista of South Croydon bus garage the other week and life doesn't get much better than that. I had a perfectly good steak in a non-gastro pub the other day.

I do generally try to avoid chain places though, not because I'm a snob, I just reckon small restaurant deserve my custom rather than the shareholders of whatever chain.

I didn't dislike Dishoom, which mostly ploughs the same field as Masala Zone has been doing for years (and I've always had a soft spot for their thali), it was just a bit ordinary and I didn't really get the buzz. I wouldn't queue for it, though I might use it as a venue to meet friends for lunch.

I think there's space in the market of a Monroe-esque poverty themed restaurant though, you pay £15 for spaghetti hoops and a fish finger. It'll be peak Shoreditch.

[citoyen]

I'm going to defend Dishoom as pretty good.

I like Dishoom.

We did actually have a very memorable visit to Dishoom a few years ago. The boy was at Manchester uni and we called in to pick him up on the way up north for a family gathering for his 21st. We took him to Dishoom for breakfast and it was splendid.

Sure, it was perhaps more about the occasion than the venue, but I’ve had special occasions ruined by supposedly good restaurants before, and Dishoom Manchester get a lot of credit for contributing a good start to a memorable day.

During lockdown, we relived the experience by ordering one of their at home kits for him and his girlfriend as a birthday treat - the vegan sausage naan (she’s a veggie or it would have been the bacon naan). Absolutely brilliant - I highly recommend it. The vegan sausages are amazing (all the better for not pretending to be meat).

The Guardian had their recipe for kejriwal a while ago. That’s also excellent - I make it occasionally for an indulgent Sunday brunch treat.

[Feanor]

I'm going to defend Dishoom as pretty good.

I like Dishoom.

We did actually have a very memorable visit to Dishoom a few years ago. The boy was at Manchester uni and we called in to pick him up on the way up north for a family gathering for his 21st. We took him to Dishoom for breakfast and it was splendid.

Sure, it was perhaps more about the occasion than the venue, but I’ve had special occasions ruined by supposedly good restaurants before, and Dishoom Manchester get a lot of credit for contributing a good start to a memorable day.

During lockdown, we relived the experience by ordering one of their at home kits for him and his girlfriend as a birthday treat - the vegan sausage naan (she’s a veggie or it would have been the bacon naan). Absolutely brilliant - I highly recommend it. The vegan sausages are amazing (all the better for not pretending to be meat).

The Guardian had their recipe for kejriwal a while ago. That’s also excellent - I make it occasionally for an indulgent Sunday brunch treat.

Your post here linking to the Grauniad article was the first time I'd heard of Dishoom, and I made the kejriwal based on that.

I've only been at the actual restaurant (Edinburgh) once, on a breakfast occasion because my Eldest Junior was coming off night shifts as a FY1 Junior Doctor, and Dishoom Breakfasts were A Thing on that day.

I've subsequently bought the book, and done a bunch of stuffs from it, and although the recipes are Ottolengi level fiddly, they do work and are worth the effort.

[chrisbainbridge]

We were very impressed with the Wagamama gluten free service.  Only the manager can take your order and deliver your food, only the head cook can cook your meal.  Very reassuring.  The food was excellent for a chain restaurant, well flavoured and served quickly.  We have a superb group of Indian restaurants nearby called Anoki.  Home deliveries, a fridge to collect from as well as eating.  All gluten free and gluten free chapatis as well.  Brilliant.
We were in Chester last weekend and ate at Upstairs at the grill and Sticky walnut.  Both superb, real atmosphere and good food.

If I want a steak locally then I will put on my old clothes and go to a local restaurant Emily's.  Half a dozen tables, superb steak and to die for onion rings.

I am not anti chain restaurants but if I am going out I want to eat good food well cooked. 

The problem is that with a good butcher I can have a piece of fillet each on a Sunday evening with a half bottle of wine cooked to perfection for less than a badly cooked rump for one in most restaurants.

[ian]

We might have elevated Wagamama but no updates on whether Hitler Liked Curry though. I do eat in Wagamama a reasonable number of times, mostly because they're willing to squeeze us after concert or cinema (there's one next to the Everyman in Reigate, and opposite Fairfield Halls in Croydon, and yes, I go to all the best places).

Probably went too far with the poverty-theme Shoreditch hipster restaurant, but trust me, in a year, you'll see me as a visionary.

[jsabine]

Also used to eat at the original Wagamama in Lexington Street, when it was a one-off.

Streatham St, I fancy.

House of Tides in Gateshead (starred the day after I visited as luck would have it).

Newcastle, surely? Other side of the river from Baltic, and upstream a bit. (Was in Newcastle with a friend three or four years ago. Late afternoon wandering around Baltic, a couple of points in the sun outside the Wetherspoons on the quayside, contemplated eating there but decided that HoT looked interesting. Went in on spec, got a table as walk-ins. Very much the right decision, even if it was a tad more than 'Spoons.)

[ElyDave]

I have to say, most people on this thread are coming across as a bunch of hard to please curmudgeonly old fucks.

Has anyone got anything *positive* to say about their eating-out experiences?
At ordinary places?

The "I never eat in chain restaurants" is just the "I never watch TV, well perhaps just the occasional documentary on channel 4, but we then write a 2000 word essay on what we've learned" thing all over again.

I'm going to defend Dishoom as pretty good.

Ahem,

Never going to get a memorable meal in a chain restaurant. Last time I tried Wagamama the steak was inedibly tough. At least the till operator deducted it from the bill after I responded negatively to her question as to whether I had enjoyed my meal.

Whereas my experience at a great little bistro in Aberdeen, they kind of forgot our mains, we gently prompted them. The bill came without drinks on it
"you've forgotten the drinks"
"no, we took those off because the mains were late, sorry about that"

I left a decent tip.

I also like Muriel's, both the Kings Cross and theatreland branches, but don't take that as a recommendation

[Polar Bear]

Steve Brine, fascist low ranker and scum of the earth MP complaining about Gary Lineker having the audacity to tweet about water quality.  Apparently voters don't pay Lineker's huge BBC salary for him to tweet about sewage.

Hmmm...

Firstly Mr Brine, you voted to allow the water companies to pump sewage into our rivers in ever increasing amounts. 

Secondly, the BBC do not employ or compensate Gary Lineker to tweet in his own time. 

Thirdly, you yourself have tweeted about football.  Do we pay you to tweet about something you know even less about than your job, apparently? 

Fourthly, we do pay your salary for you to act in the best interests of the nation, not your corporate backers.  You shouldn't be voting for shit in the rivers and for people to be knee deep in the Bexhill on Sewage Mr. Brine.

And lastly, what about freedom of expression?  Don't you fascists claim to seek to cancel "cancel culture" whilst in reality you are the ones pushing cancel culture and the culture wars.

He is also the ST who got his Feldgrau Langhosen in a twist about Joe Lycett iirc.

Welcome to the ranks of Super Twatishness Mr. Salty, er I mean Brine.

[citoyen]

Also used to eat at the original Wagamama in Lexington Street, when it was a one-off.

Streatham St, I fancy.

I’m sure you’re right. It’s quite plausible that I’ve misremembered which came first.

[jsabine]

Also used to eat at the original Wagamama in Lexington Street, when it was a one-off.

Streatham St, I fancy.

I’m sure you’re right. It’s quite plausible that I’ve misremembered which came first.

Apologies - pedantry has always been a vice.

Funnily enough, I can distinctly remember going to Streatham St two or three times in 1993 (can probably pinpoint the date of one visit) but although the photos I've found look familiar, I have no unprompted recollection of the Lexington St one at all, despite working round the corner from 1996-99, with a group of colleagues with whom I would certainly have gone there.

[phantasmagoriana]

Today I nominate the man sitting across the aisle of the bus playing the news out loud on his phone. I can't hear radio 3 even with my headphones up high,  because of the incessant tinny prattling.

[Jurek]

I would rather eat at a proper chain restaurant than a faux named chain.  Yo sushi rather than Carluccios any day.

I wouldn't eat in either through choice, but if forced to choose, I would go for Carluccio's - faux named or not, the food is better than at Yo Sushi IME. And at least it was started by someone who actually knows and cares about food. I remember when Yo Sushi was launched by Simon Woodroffe in the late 90s, a a time when kaiten was a brief fad in London, and it was always a purely commercial venture. Which, to be fair, is probably why it has been so successful (although iirc it has nearly gone under a few times). But it was always inferior to the decent kaiten places, like the excellent Moshi Moshi Sushi - which, apparently, is still going in its original Liverpool St site, though I've not been for many years.

I used to go to the original Harry Ramsden's in the early 90s. Given that the original Harry Ramsden died in 1963 and apparently sold the business in 1957, he wouldn't have had much day to day involvement when I was visiting. It had already been taken over by Barnes & Richardson by then and was starting to expand, but only had a few branches, and the original still felt like a proper fish and chip shop - and was very good indeed.

It would take a lot of persuading to get me to eat in a branch of Harry Ramsden's now.

Also used to eat at the original Wagamama in Lexington Street, when it was a one-off. I remember the kerfuffle when they opened their second branch. Surprisingly, though, Wagamama still seems to be fundamentally the same as it always was - though it's certainly possible that my memory of the original has been dulled over time and maybe the current incarnations are a pale imitation of the original. I would still eat in Wagamama though.

My bold.
I note with interest that there is a Harry Ramsden franchise in my local branch of Sainos.
Which probably tells you everything you need to know.....

[Beardy]

The irony is that the owners of the Harry Ramsden’s trade mark sold the original Harry Ramsdens restaurant a good few years ago because it didn’t make enough money. One of my cycle routes to work went past the place, and my brother-in-law worked there during his summer university breaks.

There was always a queueueue outside the restaurant, though strangely, not outside the takeaway counter. Growing up close by, I’ve been taken there a couple or three times, and the experience was somewhat surreal, even to the younger me. Fish and chips with a cup of tea, served by waitresses in black and white waitress uniforms, and tables with white linen. The decor was opulent Edwardian and the place was lit by glass chandeliers. I don’t remember the cod’n’nerks being anything special though.

[TheLurker]

They opened a Harry Ramsden's at Cribbs Causeway (nr Brizzle) a loong time ago.  We went there not long after it opened to see if it was all it was cracked up to be.  Never went back.

The reason I dropped by.  The Haunted Pencil for blatently trying to skew a survey on what we should use to measure stuff in favour of Imperial units.  In brief and to save you the bother of looking it up.  Two options (and I paraphrase)...

a)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units.
b)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units and (if we really must) metric (Spit! Nasty! Foreign!) units?

Observent readers will have noticed the missing option c).

[rafletcher]

The irony is that the owners of the Harry Ramsden’s trade mark sold the original Harry Ramsdens restaurant a good few years ago because it didn’t make enough money.

How can anyone not make money from a fish & chip shop?!

[Beardy]

The irony is that the owners of the Harry Ramsden’s trade mark sold the original Harry Ramsdens restaurant a good few years ago because it didn’t make enough money.

How can anyone not make money from a fish & chip shop?!

Ah I draw my learned friends attention to,the emboldened word. Running a posh restaurant requires many people and people cost money. Running a brand mark via franchise requires collection of money.

[TheLurker]

How can anyone not make money from a fish & chip shop?!

In normal times that would seem to be a reasonable question, but with the cost of fuel now making it ruinously expensive to run deep fat fryers, the drought leading to the prospect of a very poor potato harvest together with inflation driving up the cost of the ingredients past a point were people can no longer afford to buy fish and chips because their incomes are shrinking I fear the answer to that question is now; far, far too easily.

[drgannet]

The reason I dropped by.  The Haunted Pencil for blatently trying to skew a survey on what we should use to measure stuff in favour of Imperial units.  In brief and to save you the bother of looking it up.  Two options (and I paraphrase)...

a)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units.
b)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units and (if we really must) metric (Spit! Nasty! Foreign!) units?

Observent readers will have noticed the missing option c).

I sent in a response to the consultation in June. Then I sent the link to as many scientist colleagues as I could find. There should be a good few suitably scathing responses to the BEIS survey.

[chrisbainbridge]

How can anyone not make money from a fish & chip shop?!

In normal times that would seem to be a reasonable question, but with the cost of fuel now making it ruinously expensive to run deep fat fryers, the drought leading to the prospect of a very poor potato harvest together with inflation driving up the cost of the ingredients past a point were people can no longer afford to buy fish and chips because their incomes are shrinking I fear the answer to that question is now; far, far too easily.

Also the price of oil.  Sunflower comes from Ukraine (among others).  Indonesia had at one point banned the export of palm oil.  Prices of oil I believe at one point had gone up four-fold!

[rafletcher]

Yebbut the Harry Ramsden sale was years ago.

[quixoticgeek]

The reason I dropped by.  The Haunted Pencil for blatently trying to skew a survey on what we should use to measure stuff in favour of Imperial units.  In brief and to save you the bother of looking it up.  Two options (and I paraphrase)...

a)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units.
b)  Should everything be in Imperial (God Fearing and Proper!) units and (if we really must) metric (Spit! Nasty! Foreign!) units?

Observent readers will have noticed the missing option c).

It got covered by BBC Radio 4's More or Less program. They were very scathing.

J

I sent in a response to the consultation in June. Then I sent the link to as many scientist colleagues as I could find. There should be a good few suitably scathing responses to the BEIS survey.