Category: Eating Out

Dinner With Michael And Elisabeth At The Painted Heron, 16 June 2007

I recall this was a fairly pricey but excellent Indian meal in a trendy setting on Cheyne Walk.

At the time of writing (September 2018) the place seems to be closed, but I remember looking it up quite recently with a view to eating there again and it was open then, so perhaps a temporary closure.

It was well received review-wise from the start – this link should find topical and old ones alike.

Michael and Elisabeth arranged Babysitters for the kids on this occasion and brought the start time forward from 8:30 to 8:00 to accommodate a sitter.

I do recall we all had a very enjoyable evening and thought we might eat there again – but so far Janie and I haven’t.  I cannot speak for Michael and Elisabeth.

 

Dinner At Merkato With John White, 20 March 2007

Judging by the e-mail correspondence and crossings out in the diary, the arrangements for this one were a bit messy but it all came good in the end…

…appropriate for this form of cuisine, because…

we ate at Merkato, an Ethiopian institution in Kings Cross. Quite a messy business, Ethiopian-style dining, if you do it in an authentic stylee.

This was about a year after Janie and I visited Ethiopia, so I wanted John to experience Ethiopian-style eating and my description of it had sparked John’s curiosity to try it.

Me and our guide, Dawit, dining in Ethiopia, 2006, taken by Daisy

Trip Advisor speaks of Merkato thus – click here. Clearly still doing OK at the time of writing – April 2018.

John and I had a good evening at Merkato – certainly I remember it fondly. We were in part looking forward to and plotting a gathering of the four of us (including Janie and Mandy) for a few week’s hence at John and Mandy’s place.

Some Meals With Friends Ahead Of Trip To Cuba, 20 January 2007 & 10 February 2007

Quite a few crossings-out in that early part of 2007. For example, we were due to see Kim and Micky in early January, but I think that got cancelled/postponed and became instead the gathering on 10 February.

20 January 2007

A Saturday evening out with Jamil and Souad. We started the evening at their place for drinks. Janie and I are straining to remember where we ate.

We know they like to eat at Noura in Belgravia (and have eaten there with them more than once) but Janie and I both have a feeling we ate in Mayfair that night. Perhaps they just fancied the change or perhaps Belgravia was unavailable when they chose to book.

In any case, we had a very pleasant evening as always with those two.

10 February 2007

We had Kim, Micky, DJ and his then girlfriend Julie over for dinner at Sandall Close that night.

We can’t honestly remember the menu, but with two vegetarians in the group (Kim and Julie) almost certainly one of Janie’s takes on Lebanese food (perhaps inspired by the Noura experience a few week’s before) so that four of us got a good meaty main course while the others had loads of dips, tabbouleh and the like to make up a substantial meal.

If it was anything more complex, there’d usually be some tell-tale notes in Janie’s diary, but there are none…

…except for:

collect shoes Kogee

…I don’t think Janie cooked those.

Fun evening it was, that much we do remember.

Eye Contact by Neil Monaghan, Riverside Studio 3, Then On To Thai Bistro, With Kim & Micky, 16 December 2000

This was probably Kim and Micky’s idea…

…informed by the fact that Janie and I were constantly unavailable on Saturdays because we were going to the theatre.

Why don’t we all go and see…

…I can almost hear Kim suggesting to Janie.

Why not? I can imagine all of us agreeing to this with ease. This production soon became one of the hottest tickets in town, not least because model and celebrity Kelly Brook was playing the role of a pole/table dancer. Janie sorted out the tickets – presumably ahead of the reviews and brouhaha, £16.50 x 4 according to her diary…

…plus some very specific timings to get all of us from The Riverside to the Thai Bistro for supper after the show…

…as if we would need the heat of Tom Yum after the hot totty on show at The Riverside.

But who would have possibly imagined, at that time, that Janie would, a mere 17 years later, decide to give pole dancing a go herself, with considerable (albeit, mercifully, private) success.

Images from late 2017, written up here.

Dominic Cavendish seems to have hated it…the Eye Contact play, I mean, not Janie’s pole dancing:

Eye Cavendish Telegraph Eye Cavendish Telegraph 12 Dec 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Rachel Halliburton similarly, was disparaging:

Eye Halliburton Standard Eye Halliburton Standard 7 Dec 2000 Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Irving Wardle was a bit kinder, right at the end of this three review piece:

Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph Far Away Wardle Sunday Telegraph 3 Dec 2000 Sunday Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

But did we have a good evening? Of course we did. We saw a show and had dinner with Kim and Micky. Simples.

A Trifling Family Visit & The First Ivan Shakespeare Seasonal Memorial Dinner, 9 & 14 December 2000

Me eating wonton soup

Why a picture of me eating wonton soup? Because our diary notes for Hil & Chris’s weekend visit are light on detail, other than Janie’s “menu”:

  • Wonton soup;
  • Shin of veal;
  • Triffle [sic].

Despite the trifling spelling mistake, I expect the desert was just as enticing as the other courses. The wonton soup will have been my contribution and it will have been excellent.

I have even less intelligence on the first seasonal Ivan Shakespeare Memorial Dinner. It was a Cafe Rogues [spelling mistake intentional] in Maida Vale. But the soon-to-be traditional sounding of the alarms and post mortem e-mails from John Random were not forthcoming back then…

…or if they were forthcoming, they self-destructed in five seconds or something like that.

I don’t think the tradition of quizzing and trophy awarding got started as early as that first Christmas, but I might be wrong.

I’m leaving it to Random to do whatever archaeology he can, be it excavation of ancient scrolls, old computers or his own brain, to see if any further information survives.

No pressure, John, but this one is all down to you.

National Youth Orchestra Of Great Britain, BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, 4 August 2000

Pauline, The Duchess of Castlebar, was partial to a youth orchestra concert at the Proms. We always used to book at least one of those for her per season.

This one also had a fair smattering of her favourite type of English composers (Elgar, Walton) plus some family favourites. The royal theme to the first half of the concert was because that very day was The Queen Mother’s 100th birthday.

  • Unknown – National Anthem (arr. William Walton)
  • William Walton – Coronation March ‘Crown Imperial’
  • George Frideric Handel – Music for the Royal Fireworks
  • Edward Elgar – Overture ‘Cockaigne (In London Town)’
  • Hector Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique

Roger Norrington conducting the youngsters – what’s not to like? Here’s a link to the BBC stub for this one.

Tim Ashley in the Guardian was very much taken with this concert:

Norrington Ashley Guardian

Article from 8 Aug 2000 The Guardian (London, Greater London, England)

Matthew Rye in The Telegraph was less sure about the large-scale baroque, but was otherwise seemingly very pleased with the concert:

Norrington Rye Telegraph

Article from 7 Aug 2000 The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England)

After the concert, we went to a new restaurant in Ealing named Parade, which Janie and I had wanted to try. I don’t think Pauline was as keen on this idea – I have a scribbled note in my diary “Pauline will try”. I think she preferred familiar food and guaranteed fawning waiters by that stage of her life.

I’ve even managed to find a contemporary (2000) review of Parade in the Standard – click here.

Some Dubs At Queen’s With Abe Koukou & His Pals, 24 November 1999

Same place, 20 years later

I have previously written about my inadvertent act of gamesmanship – specifically guestmanship – with Abe Koukou at The Queen’s Club earlier in 1999.

Lawn Tennis At Queen’s, In Which I Inadvertently Deployed Gamesmanship Masterfully, Yet Still Lost, 24 June 1999

This note in my diary reminds me of one of the occasions when Abe nevertheless invited me back to play doubles with him and his pals. Not on that wintery-looking grass court, of course, but indoors on the carpet.

I don’t recall what happened tennis-wise – I suspect that I partnered the best of the four and that we had a decent game on the back of that.

I remember what happened afterwards more clearly. Abe was keen to see the progress (or lack thereof) in my Clanricarde Gardens flat, which had been a conversation piece over drinks. I think we also agreed all to dine at The Park Inn, my favourite Chinese restaurant, on Wellington Terrace just a few strides from the flat. So all four of us bundled over to my part of Kensington as it were, to see the flat.

It was very much still work in progress. I remember one of the guys questioning whether it would all be done before Christmas if, as I had described, Gavin was unable to retain a member of staff even for half a day so was effectively working alone on the job.

I also remember one of the guys (perhaps the same one) suggesting that the smell of solvents inside the flat was so great that it was making his eyes stream after five minutes and was surely so strong that anyone working in there for several hours would be “high as a kite” for much of the day.

Valid points, I sense.

Eventually it was all done and lovely…much to the relief of all of the then residents.

I don’t much recall the meal either. But at The Park Inn it will have been good.

Bank Holiday & Birthday Treats: Dinner At Nobu & A Party At Lammas Park Tennis Courts, 28 & 29 August 1999

Nobu Tuna Sashimi Salad by Tzahy Lerner, CC BY-SA 3.0

Janie’s treat to me, I suppose: a slap up meal at Nobu in Mayfair, which was all the rage back in the late 1990s and priced accordingly.

We were there just a couple of months after Boris Becker’s now famous tryst in the broom cupboard, of which we were blissfully unaware when we visited.

Everyone who was anyone dined at Nobu back then…and so did we. I recall the meal being fabulous and I also realise that it was the first (but far from the last) time I tasted black cod in miso sauce. Exquisite.

Lammas – returning to the scene some years later

Back then we played tennis at Lammas Park Tennis Courts every weekend – much as we now play at Boston Manor. It was run by a chap named Larry and his belle, whose name escapes me. When things went awry between those two (not long after this party) things went rapidly downhill at Lammas Park until we had long since escaped and then the place got taken over by Will To Win (or initially one of its predecessors).

Anyway, this bank holiday party was billed as “party – bring wine”. Which we did. It was informal and fun I’m sure.

Dinner At Club Gascon With Michael & Elisabeth Mainelli, 9 April 1999

CLUB GASCON [2]  CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This was a memorable evening at Club Gascon in Smithfield. It was a new place (it had only opened a few months earlier) and all the rage when we visited it with The Mainellis in April 1999.

That was our first but certainly not our last visit.

I’m pretty sure the place became a reasonably regular haunt for Michael, at least for a while.

Janie was especially taken with their use of foie gras, which was celebrated in Club Gascon’s early incarnation. I too was taken with the food, but I am not partial to foie gras.

The restaurant gained a Michelin Star a couple of years after our first visit and still thrives at that location – here is a link to its website.

The Day We Went To the Oriental Restaurant In The Dorchester Hotel And Later Ran Out Of Monet, 1 February 1999

Did you see what I did there?

Janie and I had a day off.

We went to the Dorcheter Hotel for lunch at the Oriental Restaurant. We had been dying to try the place and had been tipped off that the lunchtime offering was a much better deal than the evening meal.

We both remember it being excellent scoff.

Jay Rayner in The guardian wrote up the notion of going to the place for lunch a few years after we worked that out. I don’t recall our lunchtime meal revolving around dim sum – I think that was a later lunchtime innovation there.

Then on to the Royal Academy to see Monet In The 20th Century, which was an excellent exhibition.

Big thumbs up from Laura Cumming in The Observer:

Monet Cumming ObserverMonet Cumming Observer 24 Jan 1999, Sun The Observer (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Sebastian Faulks in The Standard seemed less sure.

Monet Faulks StandardMonet Faulks Standard 22 Jan 1999, Fri Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com