Eating Out – Page 13 – Ian Louis Harris

Dinner With John White At Bam Bou, 29 March 2010

No wonder I sounded a bit stressy in communications earlier that month – not only was I running some gargantuan projects at that time I was also up against The Price of Fish draft deadline ahead of sloping off to China.

Earlier on the afternoon we were due to meet…John to me:

I have booked Bam Bou a Vietnamese restaurant for 7 through top table – and am still awaiting confirmation. When and if I do I will confirm to you.

Me to John:

John

Thanks. Been there several times. It is excellent.

Assuming that is confirmed can we please meet there – I am up against deadlines this week as you might well imagine, not least the book to finish today and tomorrow!!

Best

Ian

John to me:

Booked for 7 pm. See you there. Bring the book!

I’m not sure I did that, but I might have taken a small chunk or two with me.

Bam Bou was an excellent restaurant then and I recall having a fine meal with John on that occasion.

John might remember what we ate.

Sadly, departed. Bam Bou I mean. Not John. Nor the book, The Price of Fish – that is still available at Amazon and all good book outlets:

Drinking and Eating, With The Mainelli Family, Hawksmoor Spitalfields, 13 March and with Mum, Perfect Blend Streatham 14 March 2010

No idea where Michael and I had a drink on 10 March, but my diary simply says:

MRM fm 17:00

I’m guessing we wanted to get all the business chat out of the way ahead of the social gathering a few days later – probably on pain of nagging from both Elisabeth and Janie.

MRM to me later that evening (10 March):

Good to chat tonight over a bottle of wine. Should do it more often.

Asked about our China travel guides, apparently given away…

…Behind the scenes for Saturday – Elisabeth has NOT booked a sitter and thinks Xenia and Maxine are coming. You might want to chat with Janie. (1) If that’s fine, then we might as well meet at Hawksmoor. (2) If that’s not fine, i.e. the girls are in total female communication mode, then I’m happy to put the paternal foot down for a sitter.

Me to Michael fewer than 15 minutes later. I sound a bit stressy. Perhaps just tired and emotional:

Thanks.

Re Saturday, I strongly suggest you get Elisabeth to speak with Janie on this. The whole point of meeting at yours, as far as Janie is concerned, is that otherwise we won’t see the children. If I raise this matter, Janie might well go off on one!! We should either meet at the restaurant at 19:30 six strong or at your house 18:00 with sitter on the way. Leave it to the girls to decide. I’m easy either way.

Another boat worth not rocking is the itinerary for the holiday. There won’t be any holiday unless we simply close on this very soon (5^th or is it 6^th iteration); and believe me on this occasion I am totally cool about it, other than imploring not to pack the itinerary with so much that we don’t get any rest!! Stone Forest was inked in on first iteration and won’t budge, I’m sure.

The itinerary in question was the forthcoming trip to Yunnan and Sanya, which all came good in the end.

Janie and I recall that the Saturday event ended up being deferred to 19:30 at Hawksmoor Spitalfields with the Mainelli family complete.

Hawksmoor Spitalfields was (quite probably still is) a cracking good restaurant – absolutely top notch. Janie reckoned it even topped Smith and Wollensky in New York for quality – praise indeed. The Mainelli girls were (quite possibly still are) very well behaved to the point of being good company on a grown up meal out – at that time they were 12 and 10 ish.

The Hawksmoor thing was great for family eating, as you can choose your size of steak/chunk of beef and then share.

Anyway, Saturday 13 March was an excellent evening out.

Probably the last thing Janie and I needed was a big lunch the next day but…

…14 March 2010 was mothering Sunday.

Mum was really into Perfect Blend at that time – a local eatery run by a really nice and friendly family – the son ran the restaurant/cafe, which was across the road from his father’s greengrocer shop, which had been there since the very dawn of time.

Perfect Blend is sill there at the time of writing (October 2017) – well done – but here is a scrape for just in case the above eponymous link doesn’t work.

We liked the place because the staff were all very nice with mum and she felt she was supporting nice local people whom she had sort-of known for a very long time. I vaguely recall the service being a bit below the normal superb standards that day, as most places are on mothering Sunday, as the plethora of demanding mothers needing above average levels of attention spread the service capability a bit thin in even the best places.

Between all these eating and drinking activities, I would have been following the test match from Chittagong – click here. I’ll guess that we timed lunch and our arrival at the house to ensure that the cricket was over and mum therefore will have noticed no distraction on my part. Mum might have noticed a slightly hungover version of me, though, from the Hawksmoor evening – great wines.

Oh well.

Three Evenings Of Nets At Lord’s, 18 February, 26 February and 12 March 2010

Having ascertained that Escamillo (Lavender’s beau) was keen on cricket, it only seemed polite to have a few nets with him at Lord’s that winter.

The diary is a bit sparse on what we actually did:

18 February Lord’s @18:00;

26 February Nets & Dinner 6:00;

12 March (Nets) 7:00 to 8:00.

The e-mail is not much additional help – me to E 14 March:

Very much enjoyed Friday evening nets and supper at Harry’s. Many thanks for treating us to the latter.

In the nets, I have a feeling we worked with Moses (Hallam Mosely) on most of those sessions. He taught me how to pivot to get a bit more umph on my deliveries.

I’m pretty sure Chas was still injured at that time, which is why he didn’t join us for nets that winter. My correspondence with him around that time is prely business related.

I’m pretty sure the girls joined us for the last two – i.e. both of the Friday evenings. Daisy recalls a restaurant in Marylebone on 26 February – we might dig out her diary or trawl Lavender’s memory for the details, but I think we treated the youngsters that night and then they treated us to Harry’s 12 March.

Further details might follow, if Daisy’s diary or the youngsters’ memories bear more fruit.

Postscript:

Not Marylebone 26 February, but The Cow on Westbourne Park Road – well remembered Escamillo & Lavender. Yes, we all agree, Harry’s for the second evening together.

Dinner at E&O, Without John and Mandy, 9 January 2010, With John and Mandy, 6 February 2010

My dairy reads:

9 January, John & Mandy?

…then…

6 February, John & Mandy? 8:30

The e-mails disambiguate. John to me on 11 January:

Sorry we didn’t make it on Saturday, probably the sensible thing not to travel but I was a bit miffed when the 6 inches of snow never turned up. Anyway 6th of Feb is fine by us. Same arrangements?

Me to John, same day:

Great. Janie and I decided to go to E&O anyway and enjoyed the meal so much we’d be very happy to go there again 6 Feb if it took your fancy. Otherwise we could go somewhere else if you two have a special request. Let me know asap so I can get a booking sorted.

E&O is a superb Asian-fusion restaurant – still around at the time of writing (2017) – click here.

I first came across E&O a few years earlier than 2010; I recall having a lunchtime businessy meal there with Michael and Jeremy. This seemed a good location for a little lunchtime over-indulgence, as my doctor’s surgery is just a short crawl across the road. Not so useful location-wise on a Saturday evening. But I digress.

I remember both of those early 2010 evening meals reasonably well, although to some extent they merge into one in my mind.

I recall bumping into the then ubiquitous Richard Russell and his family at a nearby table, but I think that was the January visit when I was with Janie only, but perhaps it was the gang of four February evening.

I can’t remember exactly what we ate – perhaps John can. It is an especially good place to go with a small group (e.g. four) so you can share and taste lots of different dishes – I remember thinking that when Janie and I went as just a pair.

I’m pretty sure John and Mandy didn’t stay that time – I’m guessing the kids were being baby-sat but perhaps the girls were staying with aunts or grandparents.

I’m hoping John will chime in with some more recollections about the evening, if he has them.

Dinner With John White At Ba Shan, 2 November 2009

An e-mail from me to John earlier that day:

I’ve booked us a table at Ba Shan – 24 Romilly Street – for 19:30. Probably a good idea to get there early if anything. I’ll come over your way c18:30 and call you on your mobile once I emerge from TCR tube station – if we walk towards each other I suspect we’ll meet each other!

Ba Shan. Aka Bashan. Hunanese food. Here is the Bashan website.

I seem to recall really liking the food, although not to the extent that I would prefer it to its sibling Barshu.

It is well-regarded on TripAdvisor – click here.

A selection of small dishes I seem to recall. Perhaps we over-ordered. Me to John the next day:

Just a quick thank you message for last night – great to see you and a very good meal, for which I am suffering as expected this morning. Thank goodness no clients until lunchtime!

John might recall more details.

A Few Days in Burgundy With Tony and Phillie, 1 to 5 September 2009

I had to do some serious detective and memory work on this short trip to Burgundy, as I didn’t keep a journal.

Here is an extract from an e-mail from “Auntie Janet” at Ultimate Travel:

I think you are best to fly to Lyon, which is about 2 hours/86 miles from the hotel.

The flights are as follows:

01 Sept. BA 360 Depart Heathrow 08.40 Arrive Lyon 11.15

05 Sept. BA 363 Depart Lyon 19.25 Arrive Heathrow 20.00

…small automatic hire car, Citroen C3 or similar…will be on request if you want to go ahead and they can be quite scarce.

Darn right about scarcity – we ended up needing to reacquaint ourselves with a stick shift for that trip.

We ended up booking this hotel, Moulin d’Hauterive. It boasted a pool and a tennis court. The tennis court was an interesting wreck, I remember, variable bounce, varying between “in yer face” and non-existent, like playing real tennis except without walls, galleries and roofs. I have written a short aside on the tennis – here.

Tony and Phillie were going to be on a driving all the way to South of France holiday late August. The idea was for us to join them in a nice spot mid-France as they wended their way back to Blighty. Once we’d booked, I wrote:

We fly in to Lyon late morning on the Tuesday, so should arrive at the hotel some time mid afternoon if all goes to plan. Suspect we might get there before you unless you leave early and put your foot down.

The hotel restaurant does not open on Wednesdays and the nearest alternative is some 15 kms away from the hotel. We might want to try that alternative place or we might want to arrange a picnic for the Wednesday! We can decide all that when we are there, but thought you ought to know this vital fact.

We did indeed arrive some time before them on the Tuesday, 1 September. Janie got busy making sure that we (and Tony/Phillie) had the best available rooms, which got us off to an interesting start with the son of the proprietor, whose name escapes me and is absent from the website. Sonny took pains to tell us that he had worked in advertising in Paris for many years, before reluctantly agreeing to retreat and help run the family business when it got a bit harder for his parents. The parents were noticeably absent throughout our stay.

I recall that we did indeed eat in the hotel with Tony and Phillie on the Tuesday and the Thursday evening. The food was very good there. The wine pricey but that’s Burgundy for you. I also recall us going into Beaune on the Wednesday evening and having a very pleasant meal in the town. Tony decided to drive in the end, after we toyed with the idea of getting taxis too and fro.

We mostly just all relaxed together for two-and-a-half to three days. Tony and Phillie set off for home Friday morning; we’d booked the extra night.

Tony and Phillie both looked at us quizzically before they headed off when the answer to their question, “what are you going to do after we leave today?” was, “we’re going to the Bresse service station for lunch”. Our culinary service station quest was largely a result of reading this article by aptronym extraordinaire Heston Blumenthal.

We did also want to see Beaune…

…and Bourg-en-Bresse, but the most important bit was to eat lunch at the Bresse service station, where they serve poulet-de-Bresse and yes indeed it was wonderful food.

After lunch, we strolled around and found a nice music shop (I think in Bourg, not Beaune) where I bought some very good CDs, not least Jean-Guihen Queyras’s Complete Bach Cello Suites (we have subsequently seen him perform at the Wigmore Hall – click here). We also bought some well-cool Paris Jazz CDs, which Janie still plays when she is feeling in a suitably continental mood.

When we got back, the weather had perked up, so we played tennis and relaxed around the pool. I was reading Life Beyond the Airing Cupboard by John Barclay – a seriously good book btw.

King Cricket published my book review of Life Beyond The Airing Cupboard in October 2017 – click here or the above photo.

If anything were ever to happen to the King Cricket site, a scrape of that review can be found here.

We didn’t take many photos on that trip; indeed I think none until after Tony and Phillie had gone. In truth, Phillie was not very well by then (it turned out to be Phillie’s last holiday) and I don’t think she much fancied being photographed. The few pictures we did take are of Beaune and of me and Janie relaxing when we got back from our poulet-de-Bresse quest – on this small album going forward from the starting point.

A Birthday Treat For… Someone, Vito’s Restaurant, 29 August 2009

We visited mum on that Saturday afternoon and then took her to one of her favourite Italian restaurants, Vito’s, on Northcote Road.

This will have been, in theory, mum’s birthday treat to me.

In practice, Janie will have driven to Streatham, done mum’s feet (there are copious notes about that in Janie’s diary) and then we’d have chauffeured mum to Vito’s.

There, the waiters will have fawned over mum in their classic style (Janie deliberately malapropises that description to “fornicating waiters”) while mum will no doubt have proudly told the waiters that she was treating us to an evening out for my birthday.

We’re somehow getting by without treats like this now that mum has gone.

We went to Vito’s quite a lot with mum in those days. She had her favourite places and it was a lot easier to take her to one of those. We went again 1 November, I can see in the diary.

Still, the food at Vito’s was always satisfactory and that style of service certainly pleased people like my mum. Unfortunately, that generation of customer has been dying out for some years and Vito’s itself has bitten the dust, at some point in the second half of the teeny decade, I presume.

Oh well.

Dartmouth With the Worms, 17 to 20 April 2009

It seemed like a lovely idea for Janie, her sisters and the husbands/significant other to gather for a long weekend somewhere nice. We settled on The Dart Marina in Dartmouth. Very nice.

We gathered on the Friday as the afternoon went on. I think Janie and I got there first, obviously, as we had by far the furthest to travel. We all agreed/decided that the pub adjoining (part of, really) the hotel would be our best bet that first night. It was old-fashioned fish and chips type food, done very well.

On the Saturday, Phillie, Tony, Hils and Chris had planned a pootle around town while Janie and I went off to meet our friends Nigel and Viv (who then lived in Totnes) for lunch – more pub grub.

This time we took it easy a bit, though, as we knew we had a big meal planned for the evening in the hotel’s posh restaurant:

If it looks as though we spent most of the weekend eating and drinking…well you’re not entirely wrong. But that was about to change.

The Sunday plan was for Phillie and Tony to do a bit of gentle shopping while Chris, Hils, me and Janie did a proper walk. Chris and I planned the walk and off we set up the hill. Hils (no aptronym here) started protesting vigorously that we must be going the wrong way as we were walking far too much up hill. Now despite my spatial and directional challenges, I am quite good at plotting routes on maps. Moreover, Chris works for Ordnance Survey and is a specialist map guy.

In short, I think we were going in precisely the right direction, while Hils was barking up the wrong tree.

Still, once we explained the plan to her, which included descending to a lovely sounding village with a pub, she calmed down and cheered up.

By the time we got to the pub, Hils was a convert to this walking thing and has undertaken many walking holidays since. Must be to do with the pubs…I mean the exercise.

In the above photo, I’m sporting a West Indies ground staff tee-shirt from Nigel and Viv’s recent sortie to the Caribbean (was it Antigua or Barbados, I forget?) with Charlie and Dot. When I sported the tee-short again in front of Charlie later that summer, it had the desired effect (intense and voluble envy).

That evening we ate in the third of the Dart Marina’s restaurants – the bistro -style one, which we decided was possibly the nicest of the three for our purposes, not least because the weather smiled on us enough to enable us to eat outside under the patio heaters. There was some debate about meal timing and whether or not Chris and I could choose the wines we wanted to pay for rather than the house wine that Hils insists is always adequate. The photographic evidence (below) suggests that, for once, Hils didn’t get her way:

There are other photographs from that trip – click here for the Flickr set, but in truth they are for completists/connoisseurs – the ones that tell the tale are included in this posting.

Dinner At Hereford Road Restaurant With Souad & Jamil, 9 January 2009

I had been really impressed with Hereford Road when I visited it with John a few months earlier…

Dinner With John White at Hereford Road, Preceded and Followed by a spot of cricket at Lord’s, 3 September 2008, plus a snippet on 4 September 2008

…so Janie and I arranged to take Souad and Jamil there – an opportunity to reciprocate for their warm hospitality in (mostly Lebanese) restaurants.

I don’t recall much about the evening – nor does Janie. I think they liked it but I also think Souad and Jamil’s European food preference is for Italian.

What A Megillah…An MTWD Dinner, 4 December 2008

There is a long, almost self-explanatory thread on MTWD planning this dinner – between October and the event itself on 4 December:

Here is a link to page one of two of the thread.

Here is a link to page two of two of the thread.

Just in case anything ever happens to Sportnetwork, here is a scrape of Page One…

…and here is a scrape of Page Two.

The subplot to the planning was a whole load of nonsense which got one site user banned and had several others incensed.

At one point in the e-mail trail Barmy Kev and I talked about boycotting the evening, which would have made it very interesting indeed as I get the impression that, in the end, it was just the two of us who turned up and dined.

Sometimes I wonder whether we should have renamed the site MTWLTWTL (Middlesex Till We Lose The Will To Live).

We went to the O2 Centre on Finchley Road.

We plotted lots of interesting stuff for the MTWD website that evening by all accounts.

Strangely, I don’t think anyone ever attempted one of those MTWD Xmas dinners again. I cannot imagine why not.

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