Saying hello and goodbye to Franks

Trying to convince friends to spend their Saturday night on top of a multi-storey car park in Peckham is not one of the easiest things we’ve ever had to do. But anyone who’s had the fortune of going to Franks Bar this summer will vouch that it’s possibly one of the best nights out you [...]

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Wonton soup for beginners

Anyone who follows my Twitter feed may have noticed that I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about wontons for these past few days. The reason? Well combined with the fact I’m a slight monomaniac, over the bank holiday weekend I was cooked some rather delicious wonton soup by a friend’s mum in between freezing [...]

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Gone fishing: lunch at One O One

Pascal Proyart knows his fish. You could say it’s in his genes. The grandson of a Brittany fisherman, he’s quite open about the fact he will one day retire back to the region, swap the big smoke for sun and sea, and spend his days out on his boat, fishing rod in hand.
But in the [...]

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Pass the whelks

I’ve just got back from a visit to Rungis – the world’s biggest fresh produce market just outside of Paris. I was there writing an article for Yes Chef magazine and in the company of four esteemed chefs – the legendary Pierre Koffmann, Pascal Proyart, Mark Jordan and James Dugal. Just in case you’re picturing [...]

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Special report: A New York food and drink odyssey Part 1

I’m back from my virgin voyage to New York with Gemma and I’ve got an announcement: I’ve become rather fond of cocktails. Now, I’ve always liked a little drink, but NYC seems to have converted me from an avid wine drinker to a cocktail queen, and what started off as living the SATC cliché (it [...]

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Meat packing in Clapham – a culinary crime wave

I just saw a man fill his sports jacket with sirloin steak. I only noticed him because he was making a creaking sound as he walked past. I was queuing to pay for my eggs at the Sainsbury’s Local in Clapham South, which is frankly the last place you’d expect to encounter a ‘real [...]

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Rip-off merchants and mutant mussels

In the past I’ve been spoiled when it comes to seafood. My career as a hospitality/food journalist so far has seen me treated to a three-Michelin starred seafood feast at Gerald Passedat’s restaurant in Marseilles, eat freshly caught crab and bass at Seymour Tower in Jersey and taste oysters at St Pancras Grand.
So when it [...]

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Cheap eats – six courses for six quid!

Yeah, yeah, yeah – we’re all getting pretty sick (but not as sick as those folks over at the Fat Duck) of hearing about the recession by now. As a freelance journalist living in London and working through it, I could rattle on for days about the hardship of magazines and papers cutting freelance budgets, [...]

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Happy birthday to my foodie pal

Tempted to just write about snow … (put some TwitPics up of snowy Brighton here…)
But no. Rosie. It was co-blogger Rosie’s birthday this weekend – a time when we had other things to think about than snow. She celebrated 1980s style: attendees included Bowie, a Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle (just about 80s apparently) Rainbow Brite [...]

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Black Pudding Heaven

It’s a contentious issue, but I happen to think that black pudding is blooming lovely – and not just for breakfast. I recently went to a small, independent black pudding producer in Lancashire to see how it’s made and met a man who knows more about black pudding than most (although these guys seem to [...]

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